Tonight: Browns - 3.5

...

The Bills are just too inconsistent for me to get behind them.  Sure, they had an impressive win against the Ravens, but just the previous week couldn't beat a Jets team that gave up a mile in penalty yards.  Cleveland, on the other hand, was so impressive in shutting down Cincinnati last week that you barely saw the game on RedZone.  The Browns have become a popular sleeper to win a weak AFC North.  Tonight, they take a half a game lead, with division co-leaders Cincinnati and Baltimore facing the best of the AFC East (New England and Miami).

THE PICK: Browns 23, Bills 17

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Grading The Mock Drafts: Mel Kiper is Your Champ!

Mel Kiper, your 2013 BQB Mock Draft Champ!

Thursday, we posted 6 experts' most recent mock drafts.  Last year, Peter King beat the field of 6 to take down the title.  This year, Mel Kiper of ESPN takes the title.  Final scores were as follows (see Thursday's post for scoring):

2013 BQB Mock Draft Challenge

We're back with a preview of the 2013 NFL Draft, which starts tonight at New York's Radio City Music Hall.  Last year, we graded 7 mock drafts and our friend Peter King came out on top.  This year, we'll look at the same set of mock drafts from last year, with two changes -- Mike Mayock replaces Charley Casserly (who, as of this writing, hasn't updated a mock draft in a few days), and Kash Money, last year's last place finisher, drops out, as he (she?) doesn't appear to have published a mock draft this year.

Let's meet the mock drafters:

Week 6 Preview and Picks

"No, Coach Haley, I can't believe the BQB has us in the playoffs either . . ."

Pittsburgh looked like garbage last night in their 26-23 loss to lowly Tennessee.  Yesterday, we predicted the Steelers win but not cover the 6-point spread, which might have been true had Mike Tomlin not turned into Strom Thurmond with his conservative play-calling during the Steelers’ two-minute drill.  Pittsburgh kicker Shaun Suisham (nicknamed “Po Sweezy” by his teammates) had hit a career-long 52-yarder earlier in the fourth quarter.  So Tomlin trotted him out there for a 54-yarder with 50 seconds on the clock and Tennessee having used none of its timeouts.  Shockingly, Suisham’s kick came up short, and Tennessee took advantage of terrific field position to waltz down the field for Rob Bironas’ game-winner.

Steeler Nation can’t be happy about last night’s result, but there can be happy about how weak the competition looks for the AFC Wild Card especially the second one.  Entering this weekend, exactly 5 of the AFC’s 16 teams are over .500.  Which means that, barring a resurgence from one of the teams at the very bottom of the conference, (at least) one of these teams is making the playoffs:

2-2 or 2-3 Teams in the AFC

Team (record)	Best win	Road record	Point Differential
Colts (2-2)	GB	0-1	-29
Steelers (2-3)	PHI	0-3	+1
Jets (2-3)	At MIA	1-1	-34
Bills (2-3)	KC	1-2	-58
Dolphins (2-3)	At CIN	1-2	0
Broncos (2-3)	PIT	0-2	+21
TOTAL		3-11	-99

Ugh.  This list doesn’t even include Cincinnati, who, at 3-2, isn’t exactly striking fear into opponents but to has a stranglehold on the other wild card at this point.

We listed road record because it seems relevant given that one of these teams is likely to be a wild card and will likely be heading into San Diego / New England / Baltimore in round 1.  Think the Chargers, Pats, and Ravens won’t be licking their chops (not to mention gamblers looking to bet on them?).

As the last few years have proven, all you have to do is get in to make some noise (*cue Giants fans nodding*), so there’s hope for fans of all 6 of these teams.  But if this were college basketball and it were March, all you’d hear is Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas yapping about how weak the bubble was in the AFC this year and how wrong it is that Minnesota can’t get into the playoffs just because it’s in the wrong conference.

Dickie V would probably think the Vikings are getting a
RAW DEAL if one of the 2-win AFC makes the playoffs

Updated Playoff Projections

Our projections are now weighted 65/35, with preseason ratings making up 65% of our rating and Pythagorean Expectation making up the remaining 35%.

AFC

Division Champs: Texans (11.2 expected wins), Ravens (11.2), Chargers (9.5),  Patriots (8.7)

Wild Cards: Bengals (9.3), Steelers (8.6)

Out: Jets (8.2), Broncos (7.1); In: Patriots, Steelers

NFC

Division Champs: Niners (13.6), Falcons (12.4), Bears (12.3), Eagles (9.8)

Wild Cards: Cardinals (11.0), Packers (9.4)

No changes from last week

WEEK 6 PICKS

Nothing new this week in terms of analyses.  We do need to do a refresh for injuries, as teams like the Jets, who have lost Darrelle Revis and Santonio Holmes for the season, should have their ratings discounted as a result.  But in the interest of getting this out by press time, we haven’t included those effects yet.  As in the past two weeks, we are giving 1.5 points’ of credit to the four teams coming off a bye (Cowboys, Raiders, Bucs, and Lions) and another 1.2 points to the two teams playing at home in primetime (Chargers and Texans).

For some reason, we like a lot of home teams this week.  That seems to be just a coincidence, home advantage is just as strong as it always is (2.6 points).

LAST WEEK: 6-8 against the spread, 8-6 outright

THIS WEEK: 1-0 against the spread, 0-1 outright

SEASON: 40-34-4 against the spread (.541), 51-27 overall (.654)

(picks in order of confidence, outright winner in parentheses)

SEAHAWKS +3.5 over Patriots (Seahawks)

JETS -3 over Colts (Jets)

CHARGERS -1 over Broncos (Chargers)

NINERS -6.5 over Giants (Niners)

REDSKINS -1.5 over Vikings (Redskins)

BUCS -4 over Chiefs (Bucs)

CARDINALS -4.5 over Bills (Cardinals)

Packers +3 over TEXANS (Texans)

RAVENS -3.5 over Cowboys (Ravens)

Bengals -2 over BROWNS (Bengals)

DOLPHINS -4 over Rams (Dolphins)

Lions +3 over EAGLES (Eagles)

Raiders +9 over FALCONS (Falcons)

Note: Shout-out to Brady Quinn, who will relinquish his backup duties and get the start on Sunday.  If he keeps the job, we might have to change our avatar . . .

Think we’re crazy?  Think we’re brilliant?  Tell us in the comments!

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Week 5 Preview and Picks

Vikings fans have come a long way from the dog days of Moss and Culpepper

First things first: we couldn't have been more wrong about last night's pick.  Here's hoping Kevin Kolb still has all of his limbs attached after getting sacked nine times last night.

Onward to the rest of the week, where we pause to look at a surprise juggernaut in Minneapolis.  The Vikings quietly sit tied with the Bears atop the NFC North standings with a 3-1 record.  Among those chiefly responsible for their ascent?  QB Christian Ponder, who ranks 10th in ESPN's Total QBR ratings, ahead of Philip Rivers, Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, Cam Newton, Michael Vick, Drew Brees, and Tony Romo, among others.  Ponder was 29th in last year's rankings and is a big reason for Minnesota's turnaround.

Our preseason model didn't think much of Minnesota, projecting only 1.7 wins, a total they nearly doubled in September alone, and we had them worst in the NFC in free agency.  But those rankings only took into account performance to date, not potential, and we knew the Vikings would be going with a youth movement this year.  We called out their young / inexperienced starting guards, Brandon Fusco and Charlie Johnson, calling the guard position a "potential nightmare" this year.  The 2 have performed admirably; Minnesota has the #6-ranked offensive line in the league on the run and is in the middle of the pack in the rare instances they throw the ball.  Sometimes your young players perform, sometimes they don't.  The former appears true so far in Minnesota, with Fusco, Johnson, and Ponder leading the way.

How long might the fun continue in the great white north?  While no one (ourselves included) is picking Minnesota to outlast Green Bay or Chicago, the schedule appears friendly in the near term:

Week 5: TITANS (1-3)
Week 6: at Redskins (2-2)
Week 7: CARDINALS (4-1)
Week 8: BUCS (3-1)
Week 9: at Seahawks (2-2)
Week 10: LIONS (1-3)

Minnesota could have trouble with any of the 5, but none stand out as a clear loss.  Is it so crazy to think the Vikes will go 4-2 over this stretch and be sitting at 7-3 with 6 games to play?

The bye follows week 10 and, with it, the Vikings may well fall back to earth -- their 6-game stretch run includes 2 games apiece against Chicago and Green Bay as well as road games in St. Louis and Houston.  So enjoy it while it lasts, Vikings fans.

UPDATED PLAYOFF PROJECTIONS
For those scoring at home, we're weighting our preseason projections at 73%, and season-to-date Pythagorean performance at 27% (note: we're debating bringing down the preseason weighting at a faster clip going forward).  As always, expected wins are in parentheses.

AFC Division Champs: Ravens (10.4), Texans (10.4), Chargers (9.9), Jets (9.0)
AFC Wild Cards: Bengals (9.7), Broncos (8.8)
New to the field: Broncos; Dropped out: Bills (7.9)

NFC Division Champs: Niners (13.1), Falcons (11.9), Bears (11.3), Eagles (9.8)
NFC Wild Cards: Cardinals (11.0), Packers (10.3)
No changes since last week

DO TEAMS PLAY BETTER AFTER THE BYE?
A few of the lines looked a bit off this week -- particularly the 1-2 Steelers, who are 3 point favorites at home against 3-1 Philadelphia.  A lot of the pundits assessing this game cite that the Steelers are coming off a bye and will likely be with the services of Troy Polamalu, James Harrison, and Rashard Mendenhall, none of whom have suited up this year.

Isn't great that we've got a bye this week?  ISN'T IT!?

In this instance, it's clear the bye week helps the Steelers.  Conventional wisdom holds that in general, regardless of a team's injury situation, it does better after a bye.  We sought to set that theory, along with the corollary -- if it does, has Vegas caught on?

We looked at every game played since 2008 where one team was coming off a bye and the other was not.  There were 111 such games.  58 times the team coming off the bye played at home, 53 on the road.  Teams win games by an average of 2.5 points, so we would have expected teams coming off the bye to win by a very small amount -- it turns out to be 0.1 points.  In reality, teams coming off a bye won by an average of 1.6 points, implying a 1.5 point benefit from coming off a bye.

So, has Vegas caught on yet?  Somewhat.  In the same set of games, the team coming off the bye was favored by an average of 0.6 points.  So Vegas gave them an extra half point, when in reality they should be giving them an extra 1.5 points.

The result?  Teams coming off a bye are 59-47-5 against the spread since 2008, good for 55.7%.  It's not a slam-dunk by any stretch, but there does appear to be some value, all things equal, in picking teams after a bye.  Good news for the Colts and Steelers this week, both of whom got a 1.5-point bump when we crunched the numbers for our picks this week.

WEEK 5 PICKS
Our model still doesn't think all that much of the Texans, Vikings, and Patriots, and that's reflected in our picks below.  The Jets, despite all their injuries, may represent Houston's toughest test to date.  A resounding win at MetLife Stadium will go a long way toward convincing us that the Texans are a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

LAST WEEK: 7-8 against the spread, 11-4 outright
SEASON: 33-26-4 against the spread (.559), 43-20 overall (.717)
THIS WEEK: 0-1 against the spread, 0-1 outright

(in order of confidence, outright winner in parentheses):

JETS +9 over Texans (Jets)
Titans +5.5 over VIKINGS (Titans)
Broncos +6.5 over PATRIOTS (Patriots)
SAINTS -3.5 over Chargers (Saints)
CHIEFS +6 over Ravens (Ravens)
Browns + 8.5 over GIANTS (Giants)
BENGALS -3 over Dolphins (Bengals)
COLTS +7 over Packers (Packers)
PANTHERS -3 over Seahawks (Panthers)
STEELERS -3 over Eagles (Steelers)
REDSKINS +3 over Falcons (Falcons)
NINERS -9.5 over Bills (Niners)
Bears -4.5 over JAGUARS (Bears)

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Assessing Ron Jaworski's QB Rankings

Jaws released his ranking of the NFL's top 30 quarterbacks last month

ESPN analyst and former Eagles QB Ron Jaworski completed his much-hyped list of the NFL's top 30 quarterbacks last month when he named Aaron Rodgers the top QB in football.

Jaws based his a lot of his opinion on the "eye test," or what he saw in a player from watching film.  This is totally appropraite given Jaws' background as an NFL QB, as he's well-positioned to assess a player's technique or prowess in a particular aspect of football (playing against the rush, checking down, throwing the deep ball, etc.).  Nonetheless, we thought it might be interesting to compare his rankings to the weighted AV ratings we've been using in our team previews.  As a reminder, those ratings are based on on the yearly AV metric from our friends at Pro Football Reference, using the following formula:

2009 AV + 2 x 2010 AV + 3 x 2011 AV

You can see the two rankings side-by-side after the jump.

Recasting Any Given Sunday

"Ya find out life's this game of inches . . . so's football . . ."

We at the Backup Quarterback Blog had a few friends over for July 4th.  Prior to the evening's fireworks display, we were flipping between the various patriotic concerts and -- one of my favorite things of any July 4th -- old-school patriotic movies.  I happened to walk 2 guests into the living room during Bill Pullman's epic (?) speech in the 1996 movie Independence Day.  After we ceased all conversation and immediately fixated upon Pullman (portraying U.S. President Thomas J. Whitmore), conversation turned to the Twitter feed of Grantland's Bill Barnwell.  In Tweets throughout the day, Barnwell and his followers discussed the prospect of re-casting Independence Day using today's stars.  Among the highlights: LeBron James or Russell Westbrook as Will Smith's character, Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell on Mad Men) as Jeff Goldblum, Will Farrell as Goldblum's character's father, and Bill Pullman's President Whitmore played by . . . Bill Pullman.

A few days later, we found ourselves flipping channels and stumbled upon Oliver Stone's 1999 football drama, Any Given Sunday.  Arguably our favorite football movie of all time ("The Program," "Little Giants," "Rudy," "Necessary Roughness," and "Varsity Blues" also merit consideration, with 'The Replacements" finishing in roughly 1,775th place), we thought we'd try the same exercise here -- recasting Any Given Sunday, except with current players, coaches, and other NFL-related personnel.  Mr. Stone, if you're looking to produce a remake, you can find our cast list after the jump . . .

The Bills' Offseason Moves: Losing More Than They Gained

Stevie Johnson wonders if we should take the Bills offseason moves so seriously . . .

Welcome to the first in a series of posts where we look at individual teams and what they did in free agency this season.  This, along with previous posts focused on expected wins, and the draft, as well as a future look at how teams were impacted by injuries, will aid the BQB in its ultimate goal of coming up with its 2012 season predictions.

First up, the Buffalo Bills.  The Bills dominated some headlines in the offseason, most notably with their acquisition of Texans DE Mario Williams.  But did their additions offset their losses?  Find out after the jump . . .

Obscure NFL Gambling Theory #1: Betting Against Blow-out Winners in Week 1 (who don't cover in Week 2)

Sammy wants YOU to make money on the NFL this season

We at The Backup Quarterback Blog have been crunching away at a database of all 2,560 regular season games played in the NFL since 2002.  Our aim is to come up with a few interesting results / theories applicable to your various football pools -- survivor pools, pick'em pools, etc.

It's harder than it might seem.  When it comes to betting on games (you know, if gambling were legal), the "vig" makes it a lot harder to make money.  For those uninitiated, the vig (or vigorish as it was known in the days of the original Ocean's 11) is the "house edge" on any wager.  The standard vig is -110, meaning that a bettor has to wager $110 to win $100.  So if you assume a wager is a 50/50 proposition and win once and lose once, when you win you'll win $100 but when you lose you'll lose $110, for a net loss of $10.

If you run the math on this, it basically means that a betting strategy has to be correct 52.4% of the time to be profitable.  Turns out, a lot of "blanket" bets -- e.g. "always take the underdog," "always take the road team because home field advantage is overrated," etc. -- are right more than 50% of the time but less than 52.4% of the time, meaning they'll lose money in the long run.

We at BQB, however, strive to find at least a few betting tidbits that should make money in the long-run.  Keep in mind that our sample size may be minimal here, but our first strategy would have only lost money once in the last 10 years and would yield an average return on investment of 7.5% . . .