Week 11 NFL Playoff Probabilities
So, big moves in the NFC- Carolina’s win was huge, as they’re in the driver’s seat now. The NFC East and North are where the races are in the Senior Circuit (that’s a thing in football, right?)
In the NFC North, the Lions and Packers took a page right out of the AFC second WC spot chasers by losing to terrible teams (the Steelers and Giants respectively.) The Lions still have the easiest schedule of the Bears/Packers/Lions group, as they only play two more wining teams (Packers and Eagles), whereas the Packers have the Lions, Cowboys and Bears and the Bears have the Cowboys, Eagles and Packers. Of course, this analysis requires the you to ignore the fact that the Eagles and Cowboys are the Eagles and Cowboys.
The Niners seem to have decided to suck, as they have a less than .5 probability now as do the Cowboys. The Niners have a rougher road ahead, since they won’t win their division whereas the Cowboys can still win (ed.- The Niners are still the current 5 seed in the NFC playoff race but because of the division race being out of reach, the Cowboys have a slightly rosier outlook according to the formula we use.) But that means those team need to stop being losers. Good luck, guys!
Over in the race to be the crappiest team in the playoffs, aka the second AFC Wild Card team, the Dolphins decided they’d win, while literally every other team that has any kind of shot at taking the spot losing. So… um… I can’t wait to see which team gets to lose to either the Chiefs or Broncos the three seed (right now the Pats- h/t crcalpha) in round one.
Posted on November 20, 2013, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Stats in the Wild 
the wild card teams both play away in the first round at a division winner, so the chiefs/broncos wild card team wouldn’t play the dolphins (or whatever team stops losing long enough) but will likely visit the worst division winner (the bengals?)
Oh crap! You’re right. The Pats would play the second WC team right now. In my brain, the NFL reseeds their playoff rounds, since the most equitable playoffs would have the best record play the worst record. But since when is the NFL most equitable. Thanks!
the wild card winners don’t play each other, but are hosted by the division winners. so the the last place afc team that manages to stop losing long enough to make the playoffs won’t have to face the chiefs/broncos but will go on the road to face the bengals/colts/pats.