A crazier graph this week – check out CAR->ARI basically splitting the graph in two. Pittsburgh beats Denver and sheds their Cincinnati beatloss. Denver will still be ranked highly this week, but if Pittsburgh wins when they host Cincinnati next week, expect to see them with a beatpath to Denver.
Beatpaths was 10-3 this week, leading all variants. ITB was 9-4, and Isaacson-Tarbell was 7-6, putting in a relatively poor showing. I missed my personal pick, putting me only one ahead of ITB for the season. The BeatPicks were 3-0, making them 23-8 for the season.
This week’s rankings considers the following games flukey, meaning the rankings contradict them.
JAC->TEN->SF
NYG->OAK->PHI (yes, Oakland is ranked ahead of the NY Giants)
ARI->HOU->BUF
NYJ->HOU
NYG->DAL
WAS->STL->DET
CHI->PIT->DEN
PIT->MIN
BAL->DEN
NYJ->NE
TB->GB
CLE->BUF
SEA->JAC->HOU->CIN
And now, the NFL Week 9 Beatpath Graph:
Full list of splits/loops after the jump.
TEN->JAC->TEN
OAK=>PHI=>NYG=>OAK
ARI=>HOU=>SF=>ARI
HOU=>BUF=>NYJ=>HOU
NYG=>DAL=>PHI=>NYG
WAS=>STL=>DET=>WAS
DEN=>CIN=>PIT=>DEN
BAL=>DEN=>CIN=>BAL
BAL=>DEN=>NE=>BAL
BUF=>NYJ=>NE=>BUF
NE=>MIA=>NYJ=>NE
TB=>GB=>CLE=>BUF=>TB
CHI=>PIT=>MIN=>GB=>CHI
JAC=>HOU=>TEN=>SF=>SEA=>JAC
JAC=>HOU=>CIN=>CHI=>SEA=>JAC
This is the first week where there’s really a dramatic difference between iterative and standard. Iterative preserves the HOU->CIN->PIT->DEN->NE beatpath. Therefore those teams are ranked 2 through 6, respectively, behind only Indy. This is a shuffle for CIN, PIT, DEN, and NE, and obviously it means a big boost for Houston, which is sort of floating off on its own (no beatpath relationship to 26 teams) in the standard graph.
This structure will collapse this week unless both Cincy and Indy win, but it’s pretty interesting none the less.