Week 15 picks

Abbreviated post, just picks:

Against the spread: Bengals (ask anyone in a picks pool with me), and all underdogs.  Predicting a WILD week 15.

Straight up: CIN, NYG, GB, CLE, STL, TB, JAX, BAL, IND, SEA, DET, SD, KC, PIT, SF, NYJ

Enjoy the games...

Week 14 Preview and Picks

Sunday was a big day for 2 frequent targets here at the BQB, Brady Quinn (left) and Romeo Crennel

Today, we start with a word today about the 2 men who adorn our logo up-top, 2 career backups who had huge days on Sunday.

First, what can you say about Brady Quinn?  Quinn, a journeyman in every sense of the word and a legitimate bust as an early round pick for the Cleveland Browns, delivered the fourth-best performance of any quarterback in the league this year (according to ESPN’s Total QBR) in a 27-21 win over Carolina.  On its own, that feat is remarkable.  Given the context, the pain, suffering, and other unknowable emotions felt by everyone on the Chiefs’ sideline on Sunday, it’s downright unbelievable.  And the icing on the cake?  In his postgame press conference, Quinn had the best and most eloquent sound bite I’ve heard yet about the tragedy in Kansas City:

“The one thing people can hopefully try to take away, I guess, is the relationships they have with people.  I know when it happened, I was sitting and, in my head, thinking what I could have done differently.  When you ask someone how they are doing, do you really mean it?  When you answer someone back how you are doing, are you really telling the truth?

We live in a society of social networks, with Twitter pages and Facebook, and that’s fine, but we have contact with our work associates, our family, and our friends, and it seems like half the time we are more preoccupied with our phone and other things going on instead of the actual relationships that we have right in front of us.  Hopefully, people can learn from this and try to actually help if someone is battling something deeper on the inside than what they are revealing on a day-to-day basis.”

Sunday was a very sad day, but it was Brady Quinn’s finest hour.  Kudos from the BQB.

Second, a shout-out to Charlie Batch.  As good as Quinn was on Sunday, Batch was nearly as bad the previous weekend: 3 second-half interceptions, no real scoring drives (the only offensive score for Pittsburgh was set up by a long pass interference), and a quarterback rating of 38.7.  Accordingly, few expected the Steelers to be competitive Sunday at Baltimore with Batch at the helm.  So what happens?  Batch comes out, puts up relatively pedestrian numbers (QBR of 53.1) but wills Pittsburgh to a 6-minute, game-ending, game-winning drive to beat the Ravens.  The best moment for Batch?  As the clock wound to the 2 minute warning, CBS cameras caught up delivering a legit peptalk to the Steelers’ huddle.  I can’t find a picture of it, but it seemed all eyes were on Charlie.  And if this is his swansong after an unusual career – this is his 11^th season with Pittsburgh, all as the second- or third-string QB – it was a great way to go out.

UPDATED PLAYOFF PROJECTIONS

Playoff projection methodology was amended slightly for this week.  Specifically, with only 4 games to go, we can begin to take schedules into account with a little more precision.  So the “expected wins” metric you see this week is a blended average of the team’s Pythagorean expected wins (weighting the past 4 games double) and a game-by-game assessment.  Taking  New England as an example, Pythagorean expectation suggests they should win 2.9 of their last 4 games, but if the model projects all four games against all four opponents, it spits out 4 Patriots victories.  We took the average of 2.9 and 4, which comes out to 3.4, and with 9 wins already, the Pats are at 12.4 (9+3.4) expected wins for the season.

AFC Projections

Seed	This Week	Last Week	Start of Season	If Playoffs Started Today
1	Texans (13.8 expected wins)	Texans (13.0)	Jets (10.9)	Texans (11-1)
2	Patriots (12.4)	Ravens (12.4)	Steelers (10.5)	Patriots (9-3)
3	Broncos (11.8)	Patriots (11.5)	Chargers (9.3)	Ravens (9-3)
4	Ravens (11.3)	Broncos (11.1)	Titans (8.3)	Broncos (9-3)
5	Bengals (10.4)	Bengals (9.2)	Ravens (10.2)	Colts (8-4)
6	Colts (9.3)	Colts (8.8)	Bengals (10.0)	Steelers (7-5)

No changes to the field, but Baltimore’s loss to Pittsburgh drops it from the ranks of the bye week teams and down to the 4 spot.  The Ravens have a huge game coming up next week against Denver that may serve as a de-facto elimination game for a bye.

The first team out – and the only one with any real chance of making it – is Pittsburgh at 8.5 wins.  The game-by-game projections actually have them finishing only 1-3, with a win this week against San Diego but road losses to Dallas and plucky Cleveland, and a loss at home to upstart Cincinnati, whose +71 point differential over their last 4 games is second in the league (New England is #1 at +78).  Pittsburgh currently holds the head-to-head tiebreak with the Bengals, so that Week 16 matchup will be key to deciding one of the AFC Wild Cards.  Meanwhile, Indianapolis, with a game lead on the Steelers and Bengals and a 2-game lead in the loss column for conference record, appears to be in very good shape.  They could likely split their last 4 games and still make the field.

NFC Projections

Seed	This Week	Last Week	Start of Season	If Playoffs Started Today
1	Falcons (14.2)	Falcons (13.0)	Niners (14.3)	Falcons (11-1)
2	Niners (11.0)	Niners (12.6)	Saints (14.0)	Niners (8-3-1)
3	Packers (10.60)	Bears (11.4)	Packers (12.3)	Packers (8-4)
4	Giants (9.1)	Giants (9.8)	Eagles (9.3)	Giants (7-5)
5	Bears (10.56)	Packers (9.9)	Bears (11.6)	Bears (8-4)
6	Seahawks (10.2)	Bucs (8.9)	Cardinals (10.6)	Seahawks (7-5)

Seattle’s win over Chicago was big for 2 reasons – first, combined with Tampa Bay’s loss, it put the Seahawks firmly in the driver’s seat of the NFC’s last playoff spot.   And second, it flipped the Bears and Packers for the NFC North crown and our projection #3 seed.  Again, those 2 teams meet next week at Soldier Field – the winner will have a firm grasp on the division and, with some luck, a first-round playoff bye.

As for the NFC East, the Giants are currently in the lead by the slimmest of margins.  The model projects 9.13 wins for New York, and 9.12 wins for the upstart Washington Redskins.  We’ll begin to see if Washington is for real this week, when they host 9-3 Baltimore (the Skins are 2.5 point favorites).

WEEK 14 PICKS

LAST WEEK: 6-10 against the spread, 9-7 outright

SEASON: 92-93-1 against the spread (.497), 117-74-1 outright (.613)

First time under .500 all season!

(picks in order of confidence against the spread; outright winner in parentheses):

JAGUARS +3 over Jets (Jaguars)

RAIDERS +10 over Broncos (Broncos)

Ravens +2.5 over REDSKINS (Ravens)

Cardinals +10 over SEAHAWKS (Seahawks)

Titans +5 over COLTS (Colts)

PANTHERS +3.5 over Falcons (Falcons)

NINERS -10 over Dolphins (Niners)

BENGALS -3 over Cowboys (Bengals)

Chargers +7 over STEELERS (Chargers)

VIKINGS +3 over Bears (Bears)

CHIEFS +6.5 over BROWNS (Browns)

Saints +4.5 over GIANTS (Giants)

PATRIOTS -3 over Texans (Patriots)

Rams +3 over BILLS (Bills)

Lions +6.5 over PACKERS (Packers)

BUCS  -7.5 over Eagles (Bucs)

Think we’re crazy?  Think we’re brilliant?  Speak up in the comments!

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Week 14: Thursday night pick

Weekly post to come, but tonight's Thursday night pick is (gulp) the Raiders +10 over the Broncos, with the Broncos to cover.  On a neutral field, our model only has Denver as a 9.3 point favorite, and with this game being played on the road, on a Thursday night, believe it or not, the fair line comes all the way down to 5.5.  Not the most popular pick in the world, for sure, but we're taking the Raiders and the points.

Week 13 Preview and Picks

Bill Cowher waited 14 years for his franchise QB

As November turns to December, quarterback play becomes increasingly important.  Bill Cowher needed 14 seasons to get the Steelers a Lombardi trophy.  Throughout those 14 seasons, his teams consistently had superior defenses and running games, but they had nothing approaching a franchise quarterback.  The Steelers starters in that era?  Neil O’Donnell, Jim Miller, Mike Tomczak, Kordell Stewart, Kent Graham, and Tommy Maddox.   Cowher was later quoted as saying that if the experience taught him anything, it was that you needed a franchise QB to win a title in the NFL.  Ben Roethlisberger was that QB for Cowher and the Steelers; he didn’t play great in Super Bowl XLV, but without his play down the stretch and in the playoffs, the Steelers never make it to the Super Bowl that year.

ESPN’s Total QBR rating does a fair job of ranking the league’s quarterbacks.  As you might expect, most of the teams expected to make the playoffs have QBs in the top half of these ratings (or better).  However, a few playoff contenders' QBs stick out like Waldo.  Those QBs – and their potentially-doomed teams – after the jump.

Thanksgiving Post / Week 12 Playoff Projections and Picks

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our lovely readers.  We at the BQB are very thankful for your readership, occasional comments, and support.

Abbreviated post this week – just the updated playoff projections and the weekly picks.  Let’s jump right in . . .

Week 11 Preview and Picks

Cheer up, Raiders fan.  A win over the lowly Raiders mean more to a team than a win over a contender.

With the calendar turning to mid-November and most of the playoff field largely-decided, we turn for a moment this week to the NFL’s grand prize, the Lombardi trophy.  A decade ago, one could correctly point to a playoff bye as a key step to a Super Bowl title.  A team who only needed to win two games to make the Super Bowl (at least one of which would be at home) would only be helped, the thinking went, by the extra week of rest.  But the importance of getting a bye has proven less and less important since 2005, as 5 of the last 7 Super Bowl champs (and 4 of the last 5) were playing during Wild Card Weekend.

The most important factor, experts say?  How a team plays down the stretch.  Since we’re not “down the stretch,” yet, we obviously can’t assess that for 2012, so we’ll table it for six weeks.  Instead, we’ll look at another piece of conventional wisdom: that Super Bowl-contending teams typically blow out crappy teams, something that has absolutely held true in the past 10 years.  Some facts after the jump:

Week 10 Preview and Picks

Andrew Luck's 1st Half of 2012 is nothing short of remarkable

Following last week’s emotional 23-20 victory over the Dolphins, we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the Colts.  Consider that the Colts:

·         Went 2-14 last year

·         Parted ways with Peyton Manning, maybe the greatest quarterback of this generation

·         They had the second-worst offseason in the AFC according to our metrics

·         We had them at 2.8 expected wins for the year, good for third-worst in the league.  And we weren’t alone.

·         They went 2-3 in their first five games and had a point differential of -45.

·         They’re starting a rookie quarterback.

·         They announced their coach was diagnosed with leukemia and was leaving the team indefinitely.

·         His interim replacement, Bruce Arians, prompted a Facebook group asking for his firing while offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh (Steelers fans got Todd Haley – hmmm . . .)

So it’s really nothing short of remarkable that the Colts sit at 5-3 and would make the playoffs if they started today.  What’s particularly surprising is that the Colts are doing all this with the #1 overall pick starting at QB from opening day.  We’ve seen recent examples of rookie QBs carrying their teams to success (Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez both guided their teams to conference title games in ’08 and ’09), but those guys were either later draft picks (Flacco) or were picked by teams who were at least decent the year before (both). Because a team has to have the worst record in the previous year to get the number 1 pick (translation: they stunk then, they’ll probably stink again), it’s far more rare for a team at the top of the draft to even smell the playoffs.  In fact, it’s only happened once since the merger.

Performance of QBs Drafted Number 1 Overall Since 1970

	Player	Year Drafted	Team	Record Through First 8 Starts	Team Record in First Year	Playoffs?
1	Andrew Luck	2012	IND	5-3	?	?
2	Michael Vick	2001	ATL	4-4	7-9	No
3	John Elway	1983	DEN	3-5	9-7	Yes
4	Carson Palmer	2003	CIN	3-5	8-8	No
5	Jeff George	1990	IND	3-5	7-9	No
6	Jim Plunkett	1971	NE	3-5	6-8	No
7	Terry Bradshaw	1970	PIT	3-5	5-9	No
8	S. Bartkowski	1975	ATL	3-5	4-10	No
9	Eli Manning	2004	NYG	2-6	6-10	No
10	David Carr	2002	HOU	2-6	4-12	No
11	Alex Smith	2005	SF	2-6	4-12	No
12	Jamarcus Russell	2007	OAK	2-6	4-12	No
13	Drew Bledsoe	1993	NE	1-7	5-11	No
14	V. Testaverde	1987	TB	1-7	4-11	No
15	Peyton Manning	1998	IND	1-7	3-13	No
16	Tim Couch	1999	CLE	1-7	2-14	No
17	Troy Aikman	1989	DAL	0-8	1-15	No

We tried to project Luck against this group back in April when he was drafted.  Through 8 games his performance – at least as reflected by the team’s record – is outpacing everyone in a fairly distinguished group.  Only Elway’s ’83 Broncos made the playoffs, and they were bounced by Seattle in the first round (back when Seattle was in the AFC) and really had a platoon play at QB with Elway and Steve DeBerg.  And only Michael Vick won even half of his first 8 games – and many of those were in his second season.

In short, especially in a weak AFC, Andrew Luck and the Colts could well make history this year.

UPDATED PLAYOFF PROJECTIONS

Despite all the accolades we just bestowed upon Andrew Luck, we’re not quite ready to put Indy into the playoffs.  San Diego has snatched the 6 seed in the AFC from Miami on the strength of their convincing (at least via score) win over Kansas City.  Our 2 projected 6 seeds – San Diego and Tampa – square off on Sunday, and it’s likely that the loser will drop from the projected playoff field.

(Projections are 60% weighted Pythagorean expectation and 40% preseason ranking.)

AFC Projections

Seed	This Week	Last Week	Start of Season	If Playoffs Started Today
1	Texans (11.6 wins)	Texans (11.1)	Jets (10.9)	Texans (7-1)
2	Ravens (10.3)	Ravens (9.9)	Steelers (10.5)	Ravens (6-2)
3	Patriots (9.9)	Patriots (9.8)	Chargers (9.3)	Patriots (5-3)
4	Broncos (9.4)	Broncos (8.9)	Titans (8.3)	Broncos (5-3)
5	Steelers (9.9)	Steelers (9.6)	Ravens (10.2)	Colts (5-3)
6	Chargers (8.6)	Dolphins (8.6)	Bengals (10.0)	Steelers (5-3)

NFC Projections

Seed	This Week	Last Week	Start of Season	If Playoffs Started Today
1	Falcons (13.34)	Bears (13.0)	Niners (14.3)	Falcons (8-0)
2	Bears (13.33)	Niners (13.0)	Saints (14.0)	Bears (7-1)
3	Niners (12.9)	Falcons (13.0)	Packers (12.3)	Niners (6-2)
4	Giants (9.9)	Giants (10.5)	Eagles (9.3)	Giants (6-3)
5	Packers (10.9)	Packers (10.4)	Bears (11.6)	Packers (6-3)
6	Bucs (8.7)	Bucs (8.1)	Cardinals (10.6)	Seahawks (5-4)

Last week, we saw a gaggle of six teams within a half a game of the 6 spot.  This week, that total has been cut to three, with the Seahawks (8.7), Lions (8.5), and Saints (8.3) all remaining in the hunt. 

Also, San Francisco becomes the odd-team out in the race for an NFC bye.  Atlanta – stuck at #3 in our projections despite their undefeated season --  leapfrogged the Niners and Falcons, which is less a function of their win over Dallas (which was unconvincing) as it is of their relatively weak preseason projection (10.4 wins, vs. 11.6 for Chicago and 14.3 for San Fran).  That figure becomes less and less important over the course of the year in our projections, which is good for the Falcons and bad for San Francisco.  This week, we reached the tipping point.

"The BQB didn't even give us a bye before this week?"  "I dunno, he said something about only
scoring 2 points in the playoffs or something . . ."

YOU SHOULD READ THIS

Justin Halpern may have flopped with his TV show, but his “hacked” segments on Grantland are fantastic.  If you missed it, here’s a look at Tim Tebow’s inbox.  Belichick is probably my favorite.

WEEK 10 PICKS

Missed our top 3 picks last week, went 9-2 otherwise.  Weird.

LAST WEEK: 9-5 against the spread, 10-4 outright

SEASON: 68-60-5 against the spread (.531), 82-51 outright (.617)

(picks in order of confidence against the spread, outright winner in parentheses)

BEARS -1 over Texans (Bears)

JAGUARS +3 over Colts (Jaguars)

SAINTS +2.5 over Falcons (Falcons)

PANTHERS +3.5 over Broncos (Panthers)

NINERS -11 over Rams (Niners)

BENGALS +4 over Giants (Bengals)

EAGLES +1 over Cowboys (Eagles)

Jets +6.5 over SEAHAWKS (Seahawks)

Bills +11 over PATRIOTS (Patriots)

Raiders +7.5 over RAVENS (Ravens)

Titans +6 over DOLPHINS (Dolphins)

Chiefs +11.5 over STEELERS (Steelers)

Chargers +3 over BUCS (Bucs)

Lions -2 over VIKINGS (Lions)

Think we’re crazy?  Think we’re brilliant?  Speak up in the comments!

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