Week 1 Recap / Week 2 Preview

Alex Smith, unsung hero in the Niners' impressive 30-22 Week 1 victory over Green Bay

WEEK 1 RECAP

Our season preview ruffled some feathers last week, especially in Massachusetts.  Let's take a quick look at where we hit and where we missed base on week 1's results.

Where we were right: Niners, Jets, Cardinals, Bears

Niners: Our projections had San Francisco winning a whopping 14 games this year and winning the Super Bowl, and beating the Packers at Lambeau went a long way toward cementing them as one of the NFL's elite teams.  Most of the hype was about the defense -- the Packers had only 7 points in the first 3 quarters -- and the Niners' 186 yards on the ground.  Not enough is being said about QB Alex Smith who had an incredibly efficient line of 20/26, 211 yards, 2 TDs, no picks, and a passer rating of 125.6.  Smith's ESPN QBR was 8th in the league last week.  Last year, he was 22nd and the Niners were a fumble away from the NFC Title Game.  If he can remain a top 10 quarterback in the league, watch out.  Look for San Fran to continue their dominance against Detroit, who looked rather pedestrian in a home win against St. Louis last week.

Jets: Remember the preseason when the Jets scored one offensive touchdown?  So much for that.  The offense looked pristine against an admittedly-overmatched Bills defense in putting up 48 points, the most by a Jets team since week 4 of the 2008 season, when Brett Favre put up a 56 spot on an Arizona defense that ended up going to the Super Bowl.  (That was a weird sentence to write.)  Much was written this offseason about the Jets lack of offensive weapons -- specifically a #2 WR.  Through a week, rookie Stephen Hill and journeyman Jeremy Kerley seem more than up to the task.  They face a tougher challenge in Pittsburgh on Sunday.

Cardinals: It was ugly, and it barely involved John Skelton, but Arizona got a win they had to have if they're going to compete this year.  As expected, the Cards defense was solid, holding Seattle and rookie QB Russell Wilson to a single touchdown.  New QB Kevin Kolb is probably the more talented QB than Skelton, and for now, we're not budging from our 10-win prediction from the Cardinals.

Bears: If Brandon Marshall could catch, the Bears' 41-21 might have been even more lopsided.  As expected, the Bears took care of business against #1 overall pick Andrew Luck and the Colts.  As expected, the reuniting of Jay Cutler and Marshall proved potent, with the two hooking up 9 times for 119 yards and a TD, even with all the drops.  Huge game tonight for Chicago -- if they can get a win, they'll open up a 2 game lead on Green Bay with the tiebreak, and will be in good position to cruise into the bye week (next 3 games: home for St. Louis, at Dallas, at Jacksonville, then the bye).

Where we were wrong: Patriots, Saints, Steelers, Broncos

Patriots: The Pats' 3-touchdown win over Tennessee was even more lopsided than the score indicates.  New England's tight ends create matchup problems our model doesn't adequately capture, and if Stevan Ridley is going to be as good as he looked in week 1, New England could be as good as the rest of the public thinks they'll be.  I also have to note that the Pats draft picks -- we ranked their draft worst in the NFL -- came through in a big way on Sunday.  Even "worst pick in the draft" Tavon Wilson had an interception.  Maybe Bill Belichick & Co. are just that good as talent evaluators.

Saints: So much for Bountygate rallying the Saints, who stumbled to their first loss at the Superdome since 2010 in the stunner of the week.  RG3's debut was the big story here, but the porous Saints' D looked as bad as ever, and mental mistakes plagued New Orleans all day (not a shocker given that they had their interim interim head coach at the helm).  Big divisional road game for New Orleans at Carolina this week.

Steelers / Broncos: This game was tighter than the 31-19 final score indicated, but you really can't say enough about Peyton Manning.  Every other writer / blogger has gushed about Manning so we won't do so here, except to note the success he had in Indianapolis with an otherwise-average team: from 2002 to 2010, the Colts won 10 games every year and qualified for the playoffs every year.  Denver's D is better than Indy's ever was.  If Denver can keep Manning upright, they might be more of a force than we thought in a weak AFC West.

As for Pittsburgh, our other Conference runner up (along with the Saints), the defense looked like it was missing 3 starters from last year (James Farrior, William Gay, and Ryan Clark).  We'll see if they're able to have any success against the Sanchez/Tebow combo in what suddenly becomes a big home game this week.

UPDATED PLAYOFF PROJECTIONS

Every week, we'll update our playoff projections by revamping our expected wins calculation each week:

1. Project the rest of the season: Use our preseason rankings (85% weight) and a team's Pythagorean expectation from this season (15% weight) -- we'll amend those weightings as the season goes on (skewing away from preseason rankings) to get expected wins for the next 15 games

2. Add number of wins so far (in this case, 1 if the team won last week, 0 if they lost)

Using the Jets as an example:

Initial rating: 10.9
Pythagorean expectation based on 48-28 win: 48^2 / (48^2 + 28^2) = 0.75*16 = 11.9
New expected wins (16 games): 11.1 (10.9 x 85% + 11.9 x 15%)
New expected wins (15 games, since 1 is already played): 10.4 (11.1 x 15 / 16)
Wins so far: 1
New expected wins: 10.4 + 1 = 11.4

AFC Division Champs (in order of seed): Jets (11.4 wins), Ravens (11.2), Chargers (10.0), Texans (8.5)
AFC Wild Card: Steelers (9.0), Patriots (8.4)
Added: Texans, Patriots  Dropped out: Bengals (8.1), Titans (6.9)

NFC Division Champs: Niners (13.9), Saints (12.0), Bears (12.0), Eagles (11.7)
NFC Wild Card: Falcons (10.9), Cardinals (10.8)
Added: Falcons  Dropped out: Packers (10.6)

WEEK 2 PREVIEW

We live in a world of instant reaction (or, if you prefer, instant overreaction), and with 5 20+ victories in week 1, followers of the NFL are no different.  In recent years, however, we've seen a big reversion to the mean in week 2 with blowout winners in week 1.  In fact, teams that won their opening game by 20 points or more are just 1-6 against the spread in week 2 since 2009 and just 2-5 outright.  This implies that spreads move big time based on the first week's results -- maybe too much.

The 5 big winners last week were the Jets, Patriots, Texans, Bears, and Ravens.  Just 2 are favorites (Patriots and Texans) in week 2.  Our picks project that trend to largely continue; of the 5 big winners last week, we only have the Jets covering the spread.

Maybe the Pats will get points if Gronk successfully completes a spike this week.  They might need
them to cover the 2 touchdown spread against Arizona.

WEEK 2 PICKS, in order of confidence:
Cardinals + 13.5 over PATRIOTS
Bucs + 7 over GIANTS
BENGALS -7 over Browns
FALCONS -3 over Broncos
NINERS -7 over Lions
EAGLES -1 over Ravens
Saints -3 over PANTHERS
BILLS -3 over Chiefs
COLTS +1.5 over Vikings
DOLPHINS +1 over Raiders
Redskins -3 over RAMS
JAGUARS +7 over Texans
CHARGERS -6 over Titans
Jets + 5.5 over STEELERS
SEAHAWKS +3 over Cowboys
PACKERS -4.5 over Bears

Last week: 9-7

Enjoy Week 2.  See you next week.

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