The AFC Playoff Picture (formerly Ranking the AFC)
- Thread starter tims4wins
- Start date
Currently the second seed. If Pittsburgh beats the Colts it will be a matchup of the top 2 teams in the AFC next week battling for the #1 Seed.
maufman said:
Yup...They were on regular rest as opposed to NE who played the Jets on a short week in a division game.
The Pats needed a blocked FG on the final play to beat the Jets on their home field. How can they be ranked that high?RedOctober3829 said:
Denver is obviously #1. After that, I don't see a huge difference between the next 3-4 teams. I've got the Colts a hair ahead of the Pats, but reasonable opinion can certainly differ.
Short week, rivalry game, division game. It happens. Patriots with healthy Gronk, now LaFell and Wright emerging with Edelman and a healthy OL gives this offense great options. Defensively the secondary is so far and away better than Indy's.maufman said:
Big game by an elite QB in a road game. It happens.RedOctober3829 said:
The Pats are better than Indy on D, but Indy is better on offense. I'd probably still take Brady over Luck, but it's a close call, and Luck has a lot more weapons. Pretty much every offensive player besides Gronk would be an afterthought in Indy -- Edelman would be the 3rd WR, Vereen would be the 3rd down back, no one else would see the field.
I agree with you 100 percent but a very minor nitpick. The Indy defense only gave up 41 points. There was a pick six of Luck, plus the safety accounted for nine points.RedOctober3829 said:
Very defensible.maufman said:
I think those teams are reasonably close. NE/Indy probably a tier and then SD/Balt/Cin in some order and then a whole slew of teams right after that, going to be a wild playoff race in the AFC.
I probably will have Denver 1st next week even if the Pats win barring Bronco injuries for the same reason I don't have Miami or KC ahead of NE
The good thing is they play each other in a couple weeks and I can be proven right soon.maufman said:
Not sure I agree that Luck has "a lot more weapons" than Brady. Gronk makes up for most of Wayne and Hilton by himself. LaFell has really come into his own, then there's Edelman and Wright. Pats also have a better D and better Special Teams.
Geez, can't forget Vereen over that bum Richardson.
Geez, can't forget Vereen over that bum Richardson.
Ed Hillel said:
Bradshaw's injury-prone, but he's a talented dude when healthy. He's been a great add for the Colts.
the only worry about NE is can they go 13-3 and beat Denver for Homefield
let say NE wins next Sun
Well Denver would have 3 tough games Left 1 @ KC 2 @ SD 3 @ Ciny if its cold
While Ne Has 4 tough games @ NYJ DET @ GB @ SD
indy should be easy but u could lose to DET GB
let say NE wins next Sun
Well Denver would have 3 tough games Left 1 @ KC 2 @ SD 3 @ Ciny if its cold
While Ne Has 4 tough games @ NYJ DET @ GB @ SD
indy should be easy but u could lose to DET GB
j-man said:
Indy is more than a threat than the Jets. I'd be stunned if they played us tough the second time. Usually one game a year is a blowout and one is tight. They already had the tight game.
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MentalDisabldLst
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MentalDisabldLst said:
Saying anything is better than the (1-7 and basically QB-less) Jets is closer to existentialism than boosterism.
M
MentalDisabldLst
Guest
Edit: I suck at reading.pdaj said:
On the other hand, Dwayne Allen is a very good player, and Dante Moncrief is coming into his own. I'd say the talent level overall is pretty similar to the Pats, especially with the Colts o-line improving this season, and the Pats moving a notch down (although obviously improving).
It's going to be a very tough game in Indy. I've had it as a loss all season and I haven't changed my mind yet.
pdaj said:
I agree with you, but Richardson is still getting 15-20 handoffs a game when healthy, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that is from Irsay's pressure of not wanting to bench a guy he wasted a first round pick on.
If I was football outsiders I would be more concerned that the 2,3,5,6 teams in your model lost , than talking about how much better Denver is.JerBear said:
Silverdude2167 said:
FWIW, all four of those losses were on the road to teams ranked 13,14,15, and 21 (New Orleans, who have probably under-performed their talent level this season so far), and two of the losses were by 3 and 4 points. "Good team loses close road game to decent opposition" is a "dog bites man" story if I ever heard one.
More importantly, though, you obviously don't understand the point of a statistical model. They should junk the whole model because it didn't accurately predict four games' worth of results? That's just silly.
I won't get into it in detail here. But Baltimore and Indy are over rated by their numbers in my opinion and they have MIA above NE (11). DVOA gets better as the season goes along, I know that. I'm just saying he shouldn't be using those numbers to point to how good Denver is when everyone else lost to teams more than 20% worse in DVOA by their numbers. Especially when Denver could have lost if two questionable calls by the officials go the other way.coremiller said:
Silverdude2167 said:
"Because my subjective impression of team quality is different from the model and there were a couple of SSS results the model didn't not accurately forecast, the model's owner shouldn't use his model to make observations about team quality."
Sorry, this is not a good argument. Again, you clearly don't understand how statistical models work.
Sorry let me rephrase this. When your model says 6 teams are a lot better than 6 other teams and then 4 teams lose and one team barely wins, you should not point to your model and go see we got this one team right.coremiller said:
I work with statistical models, his conclusion from the model is what is incorrect. He should not be pointing out how much better Den is, he should be pointing out that maybe the model did not properly evaluate these other teams.
Silverdude2167 said:
The rule of thumb is that 6 % pts of DVOA = 1 pt worth of pt spread. So HFA is worth ~18% of DVOA. It doesn't perfectly translate, but it's close enough for our purposes.
Week 7 DVOA differences and the point spreads they suggest:
BAL-CIN: 28.5 - 2.7 -18 = 7.8 -> BAL -1.
GB-NO: 26.1 - -4.6 - 18 = 12.7 -> GB +2
IND-PIT: 19.4 - 2.2 -18 = -.8 -> pick 'em.
PHI-AZ: 14.5 - .6. -18 = -4.1 -> AZ +.5,
DVOA suggested that all four games would be close, and two of them were. So basically your complaint is that the model incorrectly predicted two games.
But much more fundamentally, for forecasting purposes all DVOA can do is give you a probabilistic projection. When the model suggests the odds are 50/50 or only slightly in one team's favor, the model's "failure" to accurately predict the outcome of a tiny sample in no way discredits the whole model.
Your argument is that the outcome of the two games, cherry-picked specifically as the ones the model did not predict, should be given more weight than the entire rest of the season''s worth of data. That's ridiculous.
Actually, when you put forward a model, the onus is on your model to be precise and accurate. Whether critics have a viable alternative is irrelevant, and I say this as someone who generally appreciates the DVOA model, but takes it with a significant grain of salt.
Devizier said:
I agree, there are plenty of problems with DVOA. However, that it can't accurately forecast the winner of every single game is not one of them.
My argument is not about the model. My argument is that Schatz should not be pointing to these results as proof that Denver is better than everyone one else. Also I did not "cherry-pick" the games. I used the games that he picked to make his point.coremiller said:
This is not about the model, this is about the conclusion drawn by Schatz.
A distinction without a difference. Schatz' conclusion is based entirely on the model's output. So your beef with Schatz is really a beef with the model, as the model does indeed suggest that Denver is much better than any other team so far.Silverdude2167 said:
Schatz conclusion includes comments on how Den and Sea won, so he is beyond the model. DVOA gets much better as the season goes on, which he has stated in the past. So you are right we are always talking about the model, but his conclusion should take the point of the season into account and the fact that they are still using "Dave" values. I am arguing his conclusion should be less trusting of the model at this point.
Sorry for derailing this thread.
Sorry for derailing this thread.
Bedard had an analysis of Luck that squares with what I see - great physical talent, makes some amazing plays, makes a handful of boneheaded decisions every week.Ed Hillel said:
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/10/27/andrew-luck-struggles-to-be-great/
DrewDawg said:
Yeah, I found that strange too. He has a good arm, but it's nothing really special. I've never been wowed by his throwing the way I've been with Rodgers or even Flacco at times.
Luck is a gunslinger, he takes a shit ton of risks, but because he's accurate, smart and has good arm strength, it ends up paying off for him most of the time. Whenever he gets into a shootout with an upper tier QB, he'll be hard pressed to come up on top, though, because eventually he'll force the dumb throw that will end up blowing in his face, the one Brady or Manning would just throw away.
DrewDawg said:
I might take it to mean that he can make accurate throws down the field with a guy draped around his legs— stuff like that— that the other 3 QBs referenced there aren't strong enough to make. Throws that are a test of size, strength and overall athleticism, not arm strength per se.
But, yes, hard to say, as the phrasing is ambiguous / hackneyed.
m0ckduck said:
Luck didn't fair well in the playoffs last year, but he only threw 9 picks last season. For some reason, I thought it was closer to 15-16 -- but that isn't the case. He's already got 9 on the season thus far, but he's also throwing a much greater rate; and according to the traditional QB rating, as well as QBR, he's made quite a leap this season.
I'm not sure I've seen Luck make all the throws, but I always come away impressed with how much contact he can take throughout the game. When most QBs would be sacked, he's able to complete a fair number of throws, and at the very least, throw the ball away. I think he's the toughest QB in the league.
No he isn't. DVOA is a per-play metric, so how Team XYZ won is an inherent part of their DVOA for the week. That you were apparently not aware of that is a pretty good indication that you should not have been commenting on this in the first place.Silverdude2167 said:
And Schatz's point (which could really only have been missed by a disingenuous or thoroughly obtuse reader) is that Denver, who already led the NFL in DVOA by a sizable margin, was going to see that lead increase based on this week's results. They would, therefore, end up "far ahead of everyone else" in DVOA, which is, after all, the standard that Schatz's regular readers would probably expect him to use. And even if you want to insist (for whatever reason) that he should have been talking about the likelihood of a team winning from week to week, his point still stands: it is well established that DVOA is better than unadjusted yardage-based statistics at predicting results. Your only objection here is the ridiculous SSS observation that four games this week did not play out as expected. Finding this to be worthy of particular surprise shows a complete ignorance of the NFL, let alone DVOA or any other statistical approach to the game.
m0ckduck said:
He did that for 2 TD against the Pats last year in the playoffs. No other QB in the league could make those throws. He was hitting 2 foot windows 30 yards downfield as he was being tackled. The issue is that he still has a bit of Favre in him.
Bellhorn said:
A ridiculous observation because you don't agree with it. DVOA is a statistical model, it can be criticized when making assumed comparisons between teams. I would question any results of a model that sees 4 of the top 6 teams lose. I like DVOA, but it is early in the year and right now I think its rankings are off.
Sorry for taking a tweet posted in a thread about AFC rankings as him saying Denver is far and away better than everyone in the league, when he makes no mention of DVOA.
I did not search out the tweet to post it, so I should be allowed to comment on it even if I am not a "regular reader". To an "uninformed reader" it appears as if he is making a comment on their standing in the league and not his model. You are right, without counting characters if he posted "Den far ahead of everyone else in DVOA" I would not have said anything.
Super Nomario said:
The most recent version of the Football Outsiders Almanac states the following correlation coefficients:
Correlation of various stats to wins, 2000-2011 (test of explanatory power):
Points Scored/allowed: .917
DVOA: .856
Yards gained/allowed: .694
Yards gained/allowed per play: .728
Correlation of various stats to wins following year, 2000-2011 (test of predictive power):
DVOA: .379
Point differential: .329
Pythagorean wins: .324
Yards per play differential: .313
Wins: .290
Yardage differential: .286