SoSH Survivor Pool - Week 2 Discussion

j44thor · Sep 13, 2015

Vegas likes:

NO -10.5
Colts - 7
PIT -6.5
MIA - 6

all the rest are 3.5 or less except for BAL which is currently off

I think that IND line is a bit juicy since NYJ can clearly run the ball and have a comparable D to BUF plus IND is likely playing without TY Hilton next week.

NO and PIT are my early favs next week. Almost unfair SF plays late monday night at home and has to fly cross country to play a team that has been off since Thursday.

chief1 · Sep 13, 2015

GMen at home vs Atl with Beckham back might be a good pick too. But I love desperate teams, especially at home which is why I love Pitt and Indy. Seahawks are too, but at GB! Ouch. Could be an 0-2 start and 3 losses in a row for Peteys boys. If they had internal turmoil after the SB as reported, watch out.

chief1 · Sep 13, 2015

chief1 said:
GMen at home vs Atl with Beckham back might be a good pick too. But I love desperate teams, especially at home which is why I love Pitt and Indy. Seahawks are too, but at GB! Ouch. Could be an 0-2 start and 3 losses in a row for Peteys boys. If they had internal turmoil after the SB as reported, watch out.

My bad. With Cruz returning. Sorry

glennhoffmania · Sep 13, 2015

On paper I would've said Indy looks like a good pick. But did you guys watch them at all today? They looked awful.

bostonbeerbelly · Sep 13, 2015

glennhoffmania said:
On paper I would've said Indy looks like a good pick. But did you guys watch them at all today? They looked awful.

I had been holding off on writing almost the same thing. I really don't like that game. Also OAK and TB looked absolutely awful today.

tonyandpals · Sep 13, 2015

tims4wins said:
Should we take the same approach of voting for our preferred distribution, and then translate that into 5 or so scenarios, and then vote - same as this week?

I think that's a good way to get the chatter going. How about we vote through Thursday midnight, then hash scenarios out from Fri-Sat?

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 13, 2015

The first question is whether we want to play the TH night game. I assume not (even though I think KC is going to win this).

Assuming we don't play TH's game, the worst teams in the league (not all districts reporting) appear to be TB, OAK, CHI, JAC, and WAS.

As for the NO-TB game, one thing we need to look for is whether Mike Evans is going to play. The other thing is that although I didn't see the NO game, given that Ingram was their leading receiver, I am wondering if NO might be on the list of worst teams in the NFL.

As for OAK, BAL lost Suggs and Monroe and don't have a lot of depth at those positions.

Based on the bad team theory, we should also consider AZ @ CHI and STL @ WAS. I'm particularly bullish n STL since WAS seems really really bad.

Finally, I'm pretty confused about the IND support. Sure they are desperate but it's one thing to be desperate and good and another to be desperate and bad, and are we really sure we know which side IND is going to fall on?

I think this could a really good week to make hay if we can be smart about our picks.

j44thor · Sep 13, 2015

I would be careful about taking a dome team on the road coming off an emotional division win. STL just seems like a team poised for a let down. WAS is not a great football team but they gave MIA all they could handle.

CHI still has Matt Forte and Jeffrey will likely be close to 100% next week. They were very competitive against a heavily favored GB. AZ also lost Ellington for at least a few weeks.

Purely trying to pick on bad teams this early in the season could be a fools errand because we don't have enough data to truly understand who the worst teams are. That said JAC and TB seem to be a special kind of bad, at least for now. MIA will basically be playing a home game when they visit JAC and should roll them after a scare in WAS. Drew Brees threw for 350+ yds against a very good AZ defense in AZ, safe to say TB does not have a Patrick Peterson in their secondary. Some home cooking should lead to a relatively easy victory regardless of who lines up at WR for TB.

Stitch01 · Sep 13, 2015

I'm relatively sure Indy is good.

JoePoulson · Sep 13, 2015

Not a fan of taking road teams unless it's a necessity. AZ and STL this week I'd stay away from for sure.

mauidano · Sep 14, 2015

Poulsonator said:
Not a fan of taking road teams unless it's a necessity. AZ and STL this week I'd stay away from for sure.

Play anyone against TB at Tampa. Haven't won a home game in two years.

Stitch01 · Sep 14, 2015

NO seems like the chalk by far this week. This should be the best spot to use them in all year and they aren't good enough to really ever use but in a perfect matchup. I'll probably have them in something like 80 percent of my personal pool, maybe more.

Buffalo Head · Sep 14, 2015

It sounds pretty likely that TY Hilton will not play this week. Keep that in mind.

Stitch01 · Sep 14, 2015

I'm not sure Jacksonville ends up being terrible rather than just below average

Want no part of the NYG against Atlanta. Hate their defense vs the Atlanta passing game. Would rather take Chicago than Arizona gun to head.

j44thor · Sep 14, 2015

Wait, you want to risk shares on the GMen? Did you watch any of the game last night or just see the box score and assume since they kept it close vs. DAL they must be OK? I wouldn't take NYG against anyone except for perhaps TB at this point in the season. They were beyond awful last night, DAL gave them the game on a silver platter and they still found a way to completely fuck it up. They look like a 6 win team this season.

Unlike week 1 it appears there are some relatively strong plays in week 2. I think diversify too much may be the wrong play this week. Don't get too cute if you don't have to.

chief1 · Sep 14, 2015

As much as I hate Indy and want them to lose every game, I think they will be posting a double digit win season and will not lose many games in their dome. Buffalo may be the most underrated team in the NFL right now. The Colts walked into a Rex Ryan testosterone fest yesterday.

The NYJ beat one of the NFL's worst teams who had to play with their backup QB who is a turnover machine, and only after the starter made a bonehead play going airborne trying to score a TD that would have given them the lead and forced the Jets to play catch up which they are not built to do.

I am not worried about this game.

chief1 · Sep 14, 2015

If Ty Hilton is out for this game it would temper my enthusiasm a bit. Would negate the potential to take advantage of the loss of Crommartie.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 14, 2015

j44thor said:
I would be careful about taking a dome team on the road coming off an emotional division win. STL just seems like a team poised for a let down. WAS is not a great football team but they gave MIA all they could handle.

CHI still has Matt Forte and Jeffrey will likely be close to 100% next week. They were very competitive against a heavily favored GB. AZ also lost Ellington for at least a few weeks.

Purely trying to pick on bad teams this early in the season could be a fools errand because we don't have enough data to truly understand who the worst teams are. That said JAC and TB seem to be a special kind of bad, at least for now. MIA will basically be playing a home game when they visit JAC and should roll them after a scare in WAS. Drew Brees threw for 350+ yds against a very good AZ defense in AZ, safe to say TB does not have a Patrick Peterson in their secondary. Some home cooking should lead to a relatively easy victory regardless of who lines up at WR for TB.

You're right about the bolded being a fools errand but I'll submit to you that the best way to win this is to figure out the really bad teams before anyone else does. Because most people are going to be picking based on point spreads, and at this point in the season, the point spreads could be way off precisely because there's not enough data.

As for WAS in particular, from what I heard on the radio (2nd and 4th quarters), I wouldn't agree with WAS giving MIA all they could handle. MIA didn't play well and WAS still managed to lose the game.

At any rate, from a preliminary POV, it looks like pick percentages (this one from USAfootball, which runs a survivor pool) has the five top choices as NO / IND / PIT / MIA / BAL. http://www.usafootballpools.com/pool_format/survivor/picks/website_weekly_top_survivor_picks.php?year=2015&top_pick_week=2

It will be interesting to see how well (or not well) SF and ATL play.

glennhoffmania · Sep 14, 2015

j44thor said:
I would be careful about taking a dome team on the road coming off an emotional division win. STL just seems like a team poised for a let down. WAS is not a great football team but they gave MIA all they could handle.

CHI still has Matt Forte and Jeffrey will likely be close to 100% next week. They were very competitive against a heavily favored GB. AZ also lost Ellington for at least a few weeks.

Purely trying to pick on bad teams this early in the season could be a fools errand because we don't have enough data to truly understand who the worst teams are. That said JAC and TB seem to be a special kind of bad, at least for now. MIA will basically be playing a home game when they visit JAC and should roll them after a scare in WAS. Drew Brees threw for 350+ yds against a very good AZ defense in AZ, safe to say TB does not have a Patrick Peterson in their secondary. Some home cooking should lead to a relatively easy victory regardless of who lines up at WR for TB.

This basically sums up my views on a few teams. We were all so sure that Miami and GB were locks and they each won by one score. And in Miami's case it took a punt return for a TD. I'm a Miami fan so maybe I'm overly pessimistic but they don't give me much comfort. However they have a really tough schedule and week 2 may be the best week to take them for the rest of the season even though I don't think Jax is as terrible as some of you guys.

I like NO this week a lot. I think they'll be decent and Tampa may be horrible. I agree with J44 that you can't underestimate the Peterson impact yesterday. Cooks should go off next week.

I think Indy is a scary game right now. They'll probably still be a decent team but this is hardly a lock. Fitz, Marshall and Decker are at least as good as Taylor, Harvin and Watkins. If Hilton is out and Johnson looks like he's 40 again, they could give Luck a really hard time.

Teams flying from the east coast to the west coast always scare me too so Baltimore is an interesting pick but I don't think it's a lock.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 14, 2015

glennhoffmania said:
Teams flying west always scare me too so Baltimore is an interesting pick but I don't think it's a lock.

I'm pretty sure that Baltimore isn't flying west - they are staying in San Jose for the week. http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Ravens-Staying-West-After-Two-Road-Games/d0247845-7de3-4003-976a-f098a6e9a3e4

Not sure how this impacts the game but I think John Harbaugh thinks it does.

With respect to the Ravens, I am more worried about their lack of speed at WR and the injury to Suggs and Monroe (particularly Monroe as Hurst has a ton of problems with pass blocking at times).

glennhoffmania · Sep 14, 2015

Interesting. Does that make a difference? I saw a little bit of Baltimore yesterday but I saw none of Oakland. Based on what I've read I could see a few picks going to Baltimore though.

I think we should keep it fairly simple and hammer NO this week. The only week they'd be a better play as of now is week 16 against Jax at home.

And Miami should be the pick for some of the non-Miami week 1 entries.

Stitch01 · Sep 14, 2015

Statistically, no, its a fallacy. Not to say that coaches dont have to deal with it in terms of preparation, but in terms of betting/picking games and performance with no special information from the outside its a non factor.

But yeah, agree with the heavy New Orleans bent this week for sure and if we're diversifying we should have a small amount of Miami

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 14, 2015

I was rather surprised to see us hit on so many games, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, the books in Vegas were a bit less happy with the way the week went: http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/13653044/las-vegas-sportsbooks-lose-big-opening-nfl-sunday

The opening Sunday of the NFL season is almost always a boon for the books. Last year in Week 1, underdogs covered the spread in 10 of 13 games and produced what Kornegay called the best Sunday of his career. This year, opening Sunday was completely different.

Favorites went 9-4 against the spread Sunday and delivered a beating that had some shops just hoping to "avoid disaster of epic proportions" heading into the Sunday night game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.

Fascinating stuff.

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

I like Carolina @ home against the Texans for a spattering of picks. Houston is playing QB musical chairs and think they'll lose this one.

I'd go something like:
NO (Large # picks)
PIT (Medium # picks)
CAR (Small # picks)
MIA (Small # picks)
BAL (Small # picks)
STL (Small # picks)

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

Is it spattering or smattering? Neither?

glennhoffmania · Sep 14, 2015

I think it's non-plethora.

I'd flip Miami and Pit for a couple of reasons. Miami isn't a great team but this is a great week for them so why not take advantage. Pit has a few really good weeks later in the season- 9 v. Oakland, 10 v. Cleveland, 17 @ Cleveland. I like the idea of stashing them on a lot of entries. Other than that I like your distribution.

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

I'm ok with that logic, just not sure I trust Miami after the game they just put together.

j44thor · Sep 14, 2015

Hate Carolina, a weak OL going against JJ Watt has Den/BAL redux written all over it. Won't be surprised at all if more scoring is done on the defensive side of the ball than offensive in that one. Not to mention Kuechly is still in concussion protocol.

JoePoulson · Sep 14, 2015

I'm down for loading up on NO and some PIT this week. As others have said, this is probably the only week I'd take them until week 16 (at home against Jax), so let's load up. Looking over PIT's schedule, they still have home games against CLE and OAK, but we don't want to look too far ahead.

Edited to add: I hate picking road teams, (I think we got a bit lucky last week with Miami, and they're on the road yet again this week), but this is probably the last time we can consider picking the Dolphins this year.

glennhoffmania · Sep 14, 2015

FL4WL3SS said:
I'm ok with that logic, just not sure I trust Miami after the game they just put together.

They're definitely not a lock but this is as close to a lock as they'll be the rest of the year. My view is more about saving Pit than it is about using Miami though.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 14, 2015

j44thor said:
Hate Carolina, a weak OL going against JJ Watt has Den/BAL redux written all over it. Won't be surprised at all if more scoring is done on the defensive side of the ball than offensive in that one. Not to mention Kuechly is still in concussion protocol.

I have no idea who is going to win CAR v HOU and aren't these the type of games we should stay away from? If we are going to get cute, I'd probably rank KC-DEN higher than CAR (DEN on short rest, traveling, against a good defense).

Plus, CAR still has to play TB, WAS, ATL, NYG (away), and TEN (away).

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

wade boggs chicken dinner said:
I have no idea who is going to win CAR v HOU and aren't these the type of games we should stay away from? If we are going to get cute, I'd probably rank KC-DEN higher than CAR (DEN on short rest, traveling, against a good defense).

Plus, CAR still has to play TB, WAS, ATL, NYG (away), and TEN (away).

Good point about CAR remaining schedule, I admit to not looking at that information before making the suggestion.

mauf · Sep 14, 2015

I'm not in the pool, but here goes:

After Week 2, you're probably going not going to want to play NO again until Week 16, when they host Jacksonville. There's a lot to be said for avoiding the consensus pick, but there's also a good reason why the Saints are likely to be next week's consensus pick.

By contrast, Indy has 4 or 5 soft home games on their schedule. I'd let someone else gamble on them bouncing back next week against the Jets (even though I recognize they'll probably win that game).

Stitch01 · Sep 14, 2015

Yeah, usually biggest favorite and very low future value don't line up quite this cleanly. Its the NFL and the Saints arent great, so we should have some shares off of NO so that we have some swings if NO loses and knocks out like half the pool, but probably will get some overthinking a one week sample size and end up on what looks like some really weird picks come year end.

chief1 · Sep 14, 2015

looks like Oakland will be without their starting QB, and two starting safeties (Nate Allen and Charles Woodson) Just sayin.

Papelbon's Poutine · Sep 14, 2015

So we have all the picks through with two on Vikings tonight?

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

That's a pretty easy thing to fact check, isn't it?

Papelbon's Poutine · Sep 14, 2015

Also a pretty easy thing to say "yes" or "no" to. But you can also continue being a prick, it seems that comes easy to you as well.

Papelbon's Poutine · Sep 14, 2015

Thanks tims.

DanoooME · Sep 14, 2015

glennhoffmania said:
They're definitely not a lock but this is as close to a lock as they'll be the rest of the year. My view is more about saving Pit than it is about using Miami though.

I don't think Pittsburgh is worth saving myself. Their defense isn't very good and is really thin, particularly in the secondary. They are going to have to try and win shootouts. We should use them when we can.

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

Papelbon's Poutine said:
Also a pretty easy thing to say "yes" or "no" to. But you can also continue being a prick, it seems that comes easy to you as well.

It definitely does.

Definitely.

j44thor · Sep 14, 2015

DanoooME said:
I don't think Pittsburgh is worth saving myself. Their defense isn't very good and is really thin, particularly in the secondary. They are going to have to try and win shootouts. We should use them when we can.

True but their offense is going to get exponentially better when Bell and to a lesser extent Bryant are back in a few weeks.
They aren't going to have too much struggle winning most shootouts.

SoSH Survivor Pool - Week 2 Discussion

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