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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The Official Backup Quarterback Blog 2012 Season Predictions

Patrick Willis: the most important player on the BQB's Super Bowl pick

At long last, football starts on Sunday.  We at the BQB are psyched, not the least of which because we just switched to DirecTV and will feast on 9 -- 9! -- 1 o'clock games on Sunday via their NFL Sunday Ticket package.

Also at long last, the culmination of our offseason work: our 2012 season predictions.  We took all the relevant info we looked at during the season, put it together, and voila -- projected records for our 32 teams.  Here's how we did it:

1. Expected wins: We started with a team's expected wins from 2011, as determined by Pythagorean expectation.
2. New coaches get a bump: Since teams with new coaches typically see a bump of 1.5 wins the following year, we added 1.5 wins to the 7 teams who changed coaches this year.
3. Draft: We rated every team's draft, normalized those rankings to a 0 to 100 scale, and added or subtracted wins based on how they drafted (up to a cap of +/- 2, so the best team gained 2 wins and the worst team lost 2 wins).
4. Offseason: We assessed offseason movement (non-rookies) for each team (AFC and NFC), normalized those, and added or subtracted wins based on where they fell (the cap here was +/- 4)
5. Preseason: The preseason barely matters, but it seems to matter a little when teams go undefeated or winless; if a team went undefeated, we added a win, if it went winless, we subtracted one.
6. Schedule: We took the result of the first 5 steps, used it to run teams head-to-head (home advantage = 1 game), then took the weighted average of:
     - The original projected wins # (75%) and
     - Number of wins when you run the schedule (25%)

We then normalized the records so that, in total, teams would go 256-256 (since every game must be won or lost).

Disclaimer: We realize this isn't the be-all and end-all of projections, and that they're fairly quantitative and not at all subjective.  Having said that, we got some reasonable results in spots and, perhaps most notably, have 6 repeat playoff teams and 6 new playoff teams, about the average over the past 10 years.

After the jump, our ratings, predictions, and week 1 picks!

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 . . .