Victory Weighting: Liveblogging NFL Week 17

If it's the last week of the NFL regular season, then it's time to look at how Victory Weighting would affect the playoff races.

13:03 CST:  Here are the deviations going into today's action.  Early games launched an hour ago; late games start in the 15:25 window.  Dallas and Washington meet in the season finale, which kicks off at 19:30.

1. The biggest change impacts the NFC East and wild-card races.  Officially, they're messily linked, as two NFC East teams can qualify for the playoffs.  With Victory Weighting, though, the two races are separate:
• Only one team will qualify from the NFC East.  While the New York Giants (31 Strength) and Dallas (30 Strength) can each win the division, neither can catch Chicago (37 Strength) for the last wild-card slot.  Washington (35 Strength) can, but doing so would first earn the NFC East title.  Tonight's Dallas-Washington game will still determine the NFC East champion, but if the Giants win today, then Dallas becomes their proxy tonight.
• Consequently, the second wild-card race is between just Chicago and Minnesota (35 Strength).  The Bears would clinch with a win, rendering the later Minnesota-Detroit game academic.
2. Houston (Strength 46) can secure one of the AFC first-round byes with a win in the early stage, but in Victory Weighting, that wouldn't be enough to clinch the top seed.  For that to happen, Denver (Strength 48) would have to lose in the late state.  [The official standings give Houston the inside track.]
3. New England (Strength 43) can't win the AFC top seed (as is officially possible), but can still secure the #2 seed and its associated first-round bye.
4. The San Francisco-Seattle race in the NFC West race is the same, with one wrinkle:  Victory Weighting would lock Seattle into a first-round game.  The Seahawks (Strength 39) would then be fighting just to stay at home next week.
5. Finally, Victory Weighting would leave Indianapolis (Strength 39) and Cincinnati (Strength 36) fighting for wild-card position.  [Officially, the Colts are locked into the #5 position, and the Bengals are locked at #6.]

14:56:  (New York Giants 42-7 Philadelphia) The Giants' regulation win eliminates Dallas from the Victory Weighted playoffs.  If Dallas wins tonight in regulation, the Giants would win the NFC East title (and its sole playoff spot).

15:02:  (Indianapolis 28-26 Houston) The plummeting Texans' loss hands Denver the AFC high seed, and puts New England in position to steal a first-round bye with a win.  Meanwhile, Indianapolis cements the #5 seed.  [Officially, the Broncos would still have to win to secure the high seed, as New England remains eligible for that honor.]

15:07:  (Detroit 24-26 Chicago) It's almost all over in the NFC, as the Bears wrap up the second NFC Victory Weighted wild card.  The Vikings-Packers game would have meaning for only Green Bay, as Minnesota would be out of the playoffs.  [Officially, this eliminates the Giants, while the Bears remain on the bubble.]

15:24:  (Cincinnati 23-17 Baltimore) This result locks both teams' Victory Weighted playoff positions.  Because the Ravens and Bengals (both Strength 40) own the #4 and #6 seeds, respectively, they wouldn't meet next week in the first round.  Instead, the Ravens will host Indianapolis in the first round, while the Bengals wait to see where their punched tickets will lead them.

18:14:  (Denver 38-3 Kansas City) The Broncos clinch the AFC high seed... .

18:22:  (San Francisco 27-13 Arizona) The 49ers wrap up the NFC second seed, forcing Seattle into a road date next week.  Meanwhile, Green Bay will host a first-round game as the NFC's #3 seed.


18:31:  (New England 28-0 Miami) ... and the Patriots grab the other AFC bye.  Houston is stuck with the #3 seed and a home game next week against Cincinnati.  [At this point, the standard and Victory Weighted AFC playoff scenarios are identical.]

18:44:  (Minnesota 37-34 Green Bay)  Under Victory Weighting, this wouldn't affect the NFC playoffs, as Chicago would have already clinched the last playoff bid.  In the real world, though, these two teams meet again next week in Wisconsin, the Vikings having eliminated the Bears.  [Jon Gruden to Chicago, maybe?]

18:48:  (Seattle 20-13 St. Louis)  The Seahawks, as NFC fifth seeds are headed to the East Coast for the first round, but they don't know exactly where, yet.

Final update, 00:17, 31 December 2012:  (Washington 28-18 Dallas)  A Dallas win would have created a second Victory Weighted deviation in the playoff schedule (the officially eliminated Giants would have won the division).  But Washington won instead, so there's only one change in either the lineup or the seedings.

Here, then, are the playoffs.  The sole officially-sanctioned deviation is scratched out.

NFC
Byes: (1)Atlanta, (2)San Francisco
First round: (5)Seattle at (4)Washington; (6)Minnesota Chicago at (3)Green Bay

AFC

Byes: (1)Denver, (2)New England
First round: (5)Indianapolis at (4)Baltimore; (6)Cincinnati at (3)Houston

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Late Tuesday Football: Well, I had to post sometime

Bored.  Busy.  Or maybe just outrage fatigued.
Via reallycuteanimals.co.uk.

There isn't a really good reason why I haven't posted for a while.  Yes, family matters are keeping me busy, but even those should have allowed time for posting.  I just haven't felt like saying anything -- at least not anything that someone else hasn't expressed more eloquently.

So it's football to the rescue again.  Whichever form you watch, it's all going in full swing.  This week, gridiron gets the blog love.

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Signs point to Gig'em:  I don't plan on discussing much college football this year¹, but Texas A&M's² move to the SEC has generated lots of smack in my family.  In particular, my oldest sister and I have spent all summer chanting "S-E-C!" at our Longhorn-loving relations.  It feels great, actually.  Now I know why Republicans feel compelled to shout "9-11" whenever they start losing arguments.

Yep, it's been every bit as clean as Jackie Sherill.

Alas, a fellow Aggie has taken the mocking to another level -- and for once, a university other than Texas-Austin is the target.  I think this sign is very funny, but my alma mater itself doesn't agree.  Hopefully, the Florida offense will be as inept this weekend as it was last week against mighty, mighty Bowling Green.

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To be explained later this week:

• Another NFL season, another year of the standings the way they should be tabulated.  I've refreshed the Victory Weighting tab for the new season.
• Both my fantasy-football teams are back in action.  The Fluttering Horde is still in my family league, and still on Yahoo!, but the league is now a 16-team joint.  Despite their move to nfl.com, the Ghost-Grey Cats have stayed amazingly intact from last year.

1.  Don't blame Penn State.  I was losing patience with the college game long before that school's scandal broke out.
2.  You suck, Blogger.  Thanks for not letting me use "A&M" as a label.  Dolts.

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Tuesday Football: Victory Weighting housekeeping

It's time for the 32 NFL teams to decide which collegiate stars they want for their team.  Accordingly, it's also time to post the draft order as though Victory Weighting were in effect.  Except for Denver and San Diego, no one changed its position by more than two spots.

Details are on the 2012 draft page, marked on the page bar at the top.  Enjoy.

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Tuesday Football: Well, it's a start

It's been interesting to see which NFL clubs have been issuing pink slips this week.

Some gridiron pundits have expressed surprise at the Indianapolis Colts' firing of the Polian lads, but evidently, they stopped paying attention when the Colts won the Super Bowl five years ago.  Peyton Manning had covered up so many of the Colts' problems by himself, a disaster like their 8-Strength (2-14) season this year was inevitable.  All it took was an injury through which even Manning couldn't possibly play.

Here's an interesting, little noted aspect of Monday's management purges in Tampa Bay (16 Strength, 4-12) and Saint Louis (9 Strength, 2-14)  the Buccaneers, Rams are related by ownership to English soccer teams.  By that, I don't mean little third-division outfits -- I mean Manchester United and Arsenal.  The Cleveland Browns (17 Strength, 4-12) are similarly tied to a third Premier League side, Aston Villa.  It's probably a nasty coincidence, but all three NFL teams just finished horrible seasons.

As for the Chicago Bears, whose collapse lef them to fire general manager go and lose vaunted OC Mike Martz, Yahoo!'s "Shutdown Corner" column pretty well encapsulated their problem:

Maybe Martz wanted capable, productive wide receivers, while the Bears organization wanted Roy Williams. [Or Sam Hurd, who turned out to be as incompetent at dealing drugs as catching Jay Cutler passes.]

Trust me, Chicago and its environs are celebrating.  I'm celebrating, too, as evidenced by the haiku now gracing this blog's title bar.

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Victory Weighting update: With two big exceptions, this year's Victory Weighting tracked the official standings exceptionally well.  11 of the 12 playoff teams showed up in the correct order, as did the top six draft picks.  Overall, Victory Weighting needed only five tiebreakers, including three for draft order.  The exceptions are two teams I've already covered at length:

• Denver would miss the playoffs.  San Diego would host the Steelers in their place.  It's too bad, really; I'd like to have seen a stake put through Tebowmania™ a year early.
• Despite a better winning percentage than Seattle, Arizona would finish third in the NFC West behind the Seahawks, because the Cardinals have a lower Strength.

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Tuesday Football: Victory Weighting in Action, Week 17

The AFC West scenario generated by Victory Weighting this season got even more dramatic, thanks to the, um, re-humanization of Tim Tebow last Saturday in Buffalo. The most obvious evidence is reflected in the standings:

Official AFC West W-L Denver 8-7 Oakland 8-7 San Diego 7-8 Kansas City 6-9

Victory Weighted AFC West Strength W-L Oakland 31 8-7 San Diego 30 7-8 Denver 29 8-7 Kansas City 24 6-9

In the official playoff scenario:

• Oakland can still qualify as an AFC wild card (but Denver cannot).
• San Diego is eliminated, because the Chargers would lose any tiebreaker with Oakland or Denver.
• Denver wins the division with a win or tie, or an Oakland loss or tie.

Under Victory Weighting, though, the situation is far different, in large part because everyone in the NFL is engaged in divisional play this week.

• Oakland could not qualify as a wild card, because it cannot match sixth-seeded Cincinnati's 36 Strength.
• The San Diego-Oakland game would essentially function as a play-in game, with the winner capturing the AFC West. A tie favors the Raiders unless Denver wins in regulation.
• Denver would qualify only with a regulation win and a Charger-Raider tie. Any other combination would eliminate the Broncos.

With Oakland removed from it, the Victory Weighted AFC wild-card race would also simplify. Cincinnati qualifies outright with even an overtime loss to Baltimore.

If the Bengals do lose in regulation, then Tennessee and the New York Jets become eligible with regulation wins.

• Neither the Titans or Jets wins in regulation: Cincinnati advances outright.
• Only the Titans win in regulation: The Bengals defeated the Titans, 24-17, in Week 9. Cincinnati advances.
• Only the Jets win in regulation: The Bengals and Jets did not meet, but the Jets would have 28 Strength over AFC games, while the Bengals would have only 24. New York Jets advance.
• Both the Titans and Jets win in regulation: The Bengals are eliminated with the lowest Strength over AFC games (24). The Titans and Jets, who did not meet this season, would each have 28 Strength (7-5) over AFC games. Then, the Titans win the common-opponent tiebreaker over the Jets. Tennessee advances.

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Tuesday Football: Victory Weighting in action. Plus: All-Gigli!

I know that not many people have been viewing my Victory Weighting posts, but this is the best time of year for one.  This year is pretty quiet, with only four teams directly affected, but my little standings system would wreak the most havoc about right now.

To quickly review:  Victory Weighting assigns up to four points per game to each team, depending on whether

1. the team won, lost or tied and 
2. the game required overtime (indeed, it's overtime that the system weights.)

Teams are then ranked by total Strength over the season, with winning percentage providing the first tiebreaker.  A full explanation of the system appears on the Victory Weighting page.

Who's being affected the most?

Denver (Strength 29, 8-6) and San Diego (Strength 30, 7-7)

Officially, the Broncos lead the AFC West with the division's best winning percentage.  Most 8-win teams have Strength 32, but three of the Broncos's wins -- all under the new Tim Tebow regime -- came in overtime. That reduces the Broncos' Strength score to 29.

By contrast, San Diego stands at 7-7, officially second in the AFC West. Two Charger losses, including one to Denver, also came in overtime, so the Chargers's Strength score has increased from 28 to 30. Since Victory Weighting ranks teams by Strength, the Broncos would actually be trailing the Chargers. Maybe Tebow wouldn't be getting so much worship over on ESPN. This may seem wrong, but remember: it's the four overtime games involved here that are being "weighted."  Tebow-Fascist Zombie Brigade™ protests notwithstanding, Victory Weighting is working as I intended it.

Arizona (Strength 25, 7-7)

Like the Broncos, the Cardinals are 3-0 in overtime games. That reduces their Strength from 28 (the standard for 7-win teams) to 25. Unfortunately, it also means that the Cardinals can end the season with (at best) Strength 33, two less than current sixth-seed Detroit. Victory Weighting would thus eliminate the Cardinals, who are still officially in contention for a wild-card bid, from the playoffs.

Atlanta (Strength 37, 9-5)

Officially, the Falcons haven't secured a playoff bid. Victory Weighting wouldn't qualify them right now, but it would make their life much easier. Right now, Chicago, Seattle, the New York Giants and Arizona -- all 7-7 -- all threaten the Falcons' playoff position. Under Victory Weighting, Arizona is eliminated, and neither Seattle nor the Giants (both Strength 28) can overtake the Falcons. That would leave the fading Bears (Strength 29) as the only team that can still eliminate the Falcons. Even another overtime result in New Orleans this weekend would clinch a playoff bid. Merry Christmas, Atlanta.

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Introducing the All-Gigli Team!  Believe it or not, there are fantasy-football leagues where the object is to create the worst team possible.  Unfortunately, I didn't play in such a league, so where could I put players who absolutely, positively failed my teams at critical times?  Why, in a team named after one of the worst box-office flops ever.  My tight ends and defenses all did a great job when called to duty, so two extra spots opened for more players who hurt the Fluttering Horde and/or the Ghost-Grey Cats.  The more detailed excuses appear in the newly added All-Gigli page (click on the tab at the top of this page), but here's the quick list.  Decide for yourself which of these suspects requires as much maintenance as Jennifer Lopez.

• Quarterbacks:  Curtis Painter (Ind)
• Wide receivers:  Pierre Garçon (Ind), Greg Little (Cle), James Jones (GB)
• Running backs:  Marion Barber (Chi), Ryan Grant (GB)
• Tight ends:  None; WR Julio Jones (Atl) awarded empty spot
• Kicker:  Shaun Suisham (Pit).
• Defense/special teams:  None; QB Mark Sanchez (NYJ) awarded empty spot

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Tuesday Football: The buh-byes of Texas

Like most extended families in Texas, mine has divided its collegiate sporting loyalties between Texas and Texas A&M.  I grew up a Longhorn fan, but then became a student at A&M, so now I'm an Aggie.  I'm also what my fellow Ags like to call a "two-percenter," a liberal (or even a moderate) in a student body that's been historically conservative.  It probably won't be a surprise to learn that I've never had any real animus towards UT-Austin.

Then again, no one at UT had ever signed of on an idea as stupid and destructive as the Longhorn Network.  Many mid-tier cable and satellite packages include the wildly successful Big Ten Network, so it's not hard to see how Texas, or any other Big 12 school, might want to have its own network.  Other conferences have implemented their own solutions, but somehow, the Big 12 allowed UT to strike out on its own.

What an incredibly stupid, shortsighted idea.

If a member of a conference creates a network for its own sports teams, and keeps all the proceeds to itself, doesn't that defeat the entire point of belonging to a conference?  Answer:  apparently, the other members are now to be mere props to serve the Longhorns, the way the Washington Generals serve as props to the Harlem Globetrotters.  Small wonder that Nebraska, Colorado and now Texas A&M left.  They saw their Big 12 futures in their crystal balls, and they didn't like it any better than Missouri does.

Since A&M left for the SEC, we've seen the defection of two Big East universities to the ACC, talk of the same at a third, and an SEC run at Missouri.  Only the Pacific 12's refusal to take on new members is holding the Big 12 together.  As the price for staying, Oklahoma has extracted the dismissal of commissioner Dan Beebe, but the Big 12 is still UT's plaything.

Unless the State of Texas itself intends to annex Oklahoma, Kansas and parts of Missouri, it's hard to see how this new situation is any more stable than the one that Nebraska and Colorado escaped.  Maybe Kansas and Kansas State keep some independence as basketball powers, but which athletes are going to commit to schools like Iowa State and Texas Tech, whose dreams of nationwide status have just been reduced from slim to none?  The Big XII X IX may replace its departed members, but those replacements will probably be schools for which life as a vassal for UT Athletics would be an improvement.

Even that assumes that the Longhorn Network succeeds.  If it fails, well, it's going to really, really suck to be the University of Texas come 2020.

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Victory Weighting administrivia:  Once again, I'm keeping Victory Weighted standings for the NFL.  Also, I've given my little system a logo, which appears on both the Victory Weighting main page and the standings page.  Click on the buttons on the purple bar at the top.

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Let's get lolcatty:  Speaking of suck, life has turned nasty for the Ghost-Grey Cats, who have devolved into a fantasy veterinary ward.  Let's review the team's top picks.  [Thanks, Yahoo!]

1. Arian Foster:  Bad hammy.  Might lose his starting spot when he heals.
2. Michael Vick:  Bad hand.  Concussed two weeks ago.
3. Matt Forte:  Healthy, but now he's the whole of the Bears' offense.
4. Antonio Gates:  Bad foot.  Out for weeks now.
5. Nate Kaeding:  Bum knee.  Gave out on the first play of the season.
6. Receivers:  What receivers?

This team has turned into mush -- the kind of mush that turned in one of my worst fantasy performances ever this week.  They lost 79-57 to a team called Let's Smoke Crack.  It gets worse this week, as the Cats face the league-leading Gridiron Heroes.  Frequent, the begging and meowing for ball-carrying treats will be.

The Fluttering Horde, on the other hand, delivered lots of Africanized bee stings to the Purple Dragons, romping to a 117-56 win.  I just love, love, love me some Darren Sproles.  Next up:  one of my winless nephews, Svelte & Vexatious.

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Tuesday Football: Administrivia edition #1

Just going all over the place on football matters.

Playoffs, playoffs everywhere:  It sucks to be Schalke 04 tonight.  Die Knappen lost 2-0 at home in the first leg of its UEFA Champions League semifinal round.  Now they have to win by two goals at Old Trafford next week.  Manchester United can wrap this up with just one goal at home.  Ouch.

In the other semifinal, Real Madrid and Barcelona meet yet again.  Coaches Pep Guardiola (Barça) and Jose Mourinho (Real) have resorted to trash talking, probably because they're both getting bored with playing each other so many times in the same month.

As if I'll ever play Madden 12:  I voted for Cleveland RB Peyton Hillis over Philadelphia QB Michael Vick, all right, but I waited until the last day of voting to do it.  I stopped playing video games shortly after Marble Madness, so I'm unlikely to ever play Madden 2012.  Still, the choice, determined in a single-elimination tournament whose winners were decided by Internet polling, doesn't speak so well of the NFL fan base.  What we have here is a contest between a star player with a troubled past and a promising rusher who has yet to prove himself over a full season.  It's an odd choice.

Administrivia:  I've posted the 2011 NFL draft order, as Victory Weighting would have determined it.  It's the rightmost button on the the bar at the top of the blog.  Also, it's out with the yellow links and in with the softer blues and grays, plus some orange.  I finally got a chance to look at this blog on someone else's monitor, and the old scheme was just too harsh.

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Tuesday Football: New Victory Weighting definitions

Yes, the last third of April is an odd time to bring up my Victory Weighting scheme, but there's the little matter of the NFL Draft, which, for 2011, starts next Thursday.  That event provides the perfect pretext to introduce definitions for a couple of terms that occasionally occur in tiebreaking contexts.  [If you haven't done so already, please click on the Victory Weighting line in the top bar for an overview of the system.]

Strength of Victory

This figure provides an estimate of the quality of the opponents a team has defeated.  As a tiebreaker, it applied only when all comparisions of sub-records (e.g. records vs. common opponents) have failed.

The NFL calculates strength of victory as the combined won-lost-tied percentages of those opponents a team has beaten.  For Victory Weighting, it has a more formal definition.

For a given season, a team's strength of victory is the sum of the weighted current Strengths of its opponents, taken over all completed games.   For each game the team has played, the Strength it earned from that game weights the opponent's current Strength.  At the beginning of the season, strength of victory is 0 for all teams.

Written as a formula,

where

• W_i is the Strength the team earned from game i.  It ranges from 0 to 4, per the standard Victory Weighting rules.  Once established, it never changes.
• S_i(N) is the current strength of opponent i; that is, its Strength as of week N during the season.  This value usually increases over the course of the season.

For example, consider two teams who meet in the first week of the season.  While the game was in progress, N=0, and, by definition, both teams have zero strength of victory.  Upon completion of the game, N increments to 1.  If the game ended in overtime, the winner's strength of victory increases by 0.750 (W_i = 3, S_i(1) = 1, 3*1/4 = 0.75).   After eight weeks (N = 8), if the loser has earned 16 Strength, that contribution increases from 0.75 to 3*16/4=12.00.

Only completed games count toward strength of victory.  Games remaining on the schedule do not count, since their game weights cannot be determined until they have been played.

A few easy colloraries follow:

• After the first week, every team's strength of victory is either 0, 3 or 4.
• A team that has not managed even an overtime loss has a strength of victory of zero.  The  Detroit Lions accomplished this dubious feat in 2008.
• If a team has not played any overtime games, its strength of victory is equal to the combined Strength of all the teams it has defeated.  If, that team also finishes undefeated, its strength of victory is also equal to its strength of schedule.  The 2007 New England Patriots are the only team to achieve this distinction since the NFL adopted overtime.^*

Strength of Schedule

For the 32-team NFL, this statistic isn't as crititcal as it is for the NCAA, which has to evaluate 120 to 350 teams at once for its tournaments.  Accordingly, the NFL can use a less rigorous formula for each team: the combined won-loss-tied percentage of all its opponents.  Typically, strength of schedule is evaluated only at the end of a season, after all games have been played.

Victory Weighting provides a more rigorous definition:

For a given season, a team's strength of schedule is the sum of all its opponents' current Strengths, taken over the entire season.

Its formula is

where

• N_max is the length of the season in games, currently 16.
• S_i(N) is the current strength of opponent i; that is, its Strength as of week N during the season.  This value usually increases over the course of the season.

At any point in the season, the strength-of-schedule calculation includes games yet to be played, as well as games already played.

In both the official and VW schemes, strength of schedule is the first tiebreaker used to determine draft order.  If that fails, then any division and conference tiebreakers that were used for playoff seeding apply.

With both terms defined for Victory Weighting, two more corollaries emerge:

• After the first week, all winners have a strength of schedule equal to 0 or 1; all losers, 3 or 4.  If the first game ends in a tie, both teams have a strength of schedule equal to 2.
• If a team has not played any overtime games, the ratio between its strength of victory and its strength of schedule is equal to its won-loss-tied percentage.

Some examples follow the fold.

Victory Weighting: Live playoff blogging

Happy New Year! Today, I'm updating the playoff races as games end, using my Victory Weighting system.

14:53 CST:  The Jets defeat Buffalo, 38-7.  They finish at Strength 42 and 11-5, so they can still hope for a #5 seed.  For that to happen, Pittsburgh would have to lose in regulation.

15:03 CST:  While I'm waiting on another relevant game to go final, I should note that, under Victory Weighting, the St. Louis Rams would already be NFC West champions and a #4 seed.  Their 29 Strength is guaranteed to be the best in their division.  [Second-place Seattle could achieve, at best, Strength 28.]

Also, New England has had the AFC East and the AFC high seed locked up for a couple of weeks.

15:07 CST:  Chiefs 10-31 Raiders.  Kansas City finishes at Strength 40 and 10-6.  They would fall to a #4 seed if Indianapolis wins.

15:09 CST:  Baltimore and Pittsburgh both win in regulation.  Both teams finish at 12-4, but Baltimore would win the AFC North and the first-round bye with Strength 47.  Pittsburgh would get the #5 wild-card seed at Strength 46, leaving the New York Jets with the #6 spot.

Officially, Pittsburgh gets the division title and the bye.  Barring some odd results in New Orleans, Green Bay and Washington, D.C., this will be the only instance this year where the Victory Weighted playoff seeds deviate from the actual ones.  Oddly enough, this seems to happen every year with the Steelers and Ravens.

15:26 CST:  One of the only two questions left in the NFC gets two answers, but needed only one.  Atlanta beat Carolina, 31-10, clinching the NFC South title and the NFC high seed.  As a result, Chicago locks up the #2 seed (and the other first-round bye), while New Orleans wraps up the #5 seed (and a first-round trip to St. Louis).

15:35 CST:  Tampa Bay's 23-13 win at New Orleans leaves them at Strength 41 and 10-6, still alive for the last NFC playoff spot.  It also closes out the New York Giants, who could finish with, at best, Strength 40.

Consequently, Green Bay (currently Strength 38 and 9-6) must beat Chicago in regulation to reach the playoffs.  Even an overtime win would send Tampa Bay through instead.

18:06 CST:  Green Bay wins, 10-3.  With Strength 42, the 10-6 Packers take the last NFC playoff spot from Tampa Bay.  They open the playoffs at Philadelphia.

18:08 CST:  Jacksonville loses 34-14 at Houston.  The Jaguars bow out of playoff contention, handing the AFC South title to Indianapolis.

18:10 CST:  The Colts beat Tennessee, 23-20, on a last-second field goal.  Indianapolis takes the #3 AFC seed, and will host the Jets next week.  Kansas City slips to the #4 seed, to host Pittsburgh.

18:30 CST:  That's it.  Tonight's Rams-Seahawks game will decide the official NFC West champion, but has no bearing on the Victory Weighted playoff picture:

NFC First Round:  (6) Green Bay at (3) Philadelphia; (5) New Orleans at (4) St. Louis
AFC First Round:  (6) New York Jets at (3) Indianapolis; (5) Pittsburgh at (4) Kansas City
NFC Byes:  (1) Atlanta, (2) Chicago
AFC Byes:  (1) New England, (2) Baltimore

23:24 CST:  Whoops.  Seattle won the actual Sunday night game, and with it the NFC Oceania West title.  St. Louis goes home, so Victory Weighting would have made another correction.

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Tuesday Football: More Victory Weighting

If it's the fourth week of November, then Thanksgiving must be near. In the NFL, that means it's time for the playoff races to start taking form.  Here's where Victory Weighting begins to matter.

[Press the "Victory Weighting" button to see how my system works.  The "VW Standings" button takes you to the standings with the Victory Weighting rules in effect.]

Officially, the playoff projections look like this:

• NFC byes:  Atlanta (8-2, South leader), Philadelphia (7-3, East leader)
• NFC first-round hosts: Chicago (7-3, North leader), Seattle (5-5, West leader)
• NFC wild cards: Green Bay (7-3), New Orleans (7-3)
• Just outside the NFC picture:  Tampa Bay (7-3)

• AFC byes:  New York Jets (8-2, East leader), Baltimore (7-3, North leader)
• AFC first-round hosts: Kansas City (6-4, West leader), Jacksonville (6-4, South leader)
• AFC wild cards: New England (8-2), Pittsburgh (7-3)
• Just outside the AFC picture:  Indianapolis (6-4)

The official projection requires 9 tiebreakers:

1. Divisional tiebreakers in the NFC Norh, AFC North, AFC South and AFC East (4)
2. Qualfying tiebreakers:  Green Bay vs. New Orleans vs. Tampa Bay, Jacksonville vs. Indianapolis (2)
3. Seeding tiebreakers:  Philadelphia vs. Chicago, Kansas City vs. Jacksonville, Green Bay vs. New Orleans (3)

By contrast, Victory Weighting yields an alternative playoff picture:

• NFC byes:  Atlanta (Strength 32, South leader), Green Bay (Strength 30, North leader)
• NFC first-round hosts:  Philadelphia (Strength 28, East leader), Seattle (Strength 20, West leader)
• NFC wild cards:  New Orleans (Strength 29), Tampa Bay (Strength 28)
• Just outside the NFC picture:  Chicago (Strength 28)
  

• AFC byes:  New England (Strength 31, East leader), Baltimore (Strength 28, North leader)
• AFC first-round hosts: Kansas City (Strength 24, West leader), Jacksonville (Strength 24, South leader)
• AFC wild cards: New York Jets (Strength 30), Pittsburgh (Strength 27)
• Just outside the AFC picture:  Indianapolis (Strength 24)

The applicable Victory Weighting tiebreakers are:

1. Divisional tiebreaker:  Jacksonville vs. Indianapolis
2. Wild-card tiebreaker:  Tampa Bay vs. Chicago
3. Seeding tiebreaker:  Kansas City vs. Jacksonville

That's right:  under VW, there are only three ties to break.  That's much easier, ¿no?

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Fantasy update:  Boy, did my teams suck this week.

I didn't expect much from The Fluttering Horde (6-4), because Peyton Manning and the Patriot defense were supposed to cancel each other out.  Manning's three interceptions cost the Horde nothing, as the points simply moved from Manning to the Patriot defense.  Manning's three touchdowns were also worth less, since they transferred points from the Patriots' row to his.  Unfortunately, my running backs and tight ends -- including those riding my bench -- also canceled themselves.  Despite its sad 104-78 loss, the Horde is still in good shape to make the playoffs.

The Middlemen (6-5) now face a new problem:  they're too talented.  Yahoo! considers literally half the Middlemen roster so valuable that I can't cut them.  Without the flexibility to replace injured and/or struggling stars, I'm stuck with a team that's fading faster than Miles Austin.  After taking a 96-82 loss to The SDPackers, the Middlemen are barely hanging onto their playoff position.  I really, really need Antonio Gates to get healthy again.

Administrivia alert #1

I've been playing around at the edges of the blog design, adding and dropping widgets, and enjoying the new Pages feature.  A purplish button bar now separates the title from the posts; and right now, it has a button marked, "Victory Weighting."  Press it, and you'll find a page explaining what Victory Weighting is (an alternative standings scheme for NFL games) and why I think the NFL should adopt it.  Last year, I put the Victory Weighted standings in a widget at the bottom of the page.  This year, they'll live on a semi-permanent page of their own, and you'll be able to get to it via the purple button bar.

I love, love, love this new feature, and the toolbar widget Google provided to go with it.  Thanks, Google!  (But no thanks for trying to cut a side deal with Verizon!  Bad business, there.)

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Tuesday Football: By about a field goal

By a 28-4 rule, the NFL has modified its playoff tiebreaking rules.  A field goal scored on the fist possession in overtime no longer wins the game.  If that first field goal does happen, or the first possession ends with no score, the old sudden-death rules return into force.

This is a little like giving people ordinary flu shots, then telling them that they've been vaccinated against H1N1.  The treatment won't work, because either the underlying diagnosis is wrong, or the doctor is just lying about it.  The trouble with NFL overtime periods isn't that too many of them end with field goals; it's that too many end after only one possession.  Even if it did fix the problem, the new rule currently applies only to playoff games.  In May, the owners may extend the revision to regular-season games, which would be a small improvement.  Either way, this won't make the NFL overtime rules fair; it will just render them less unfair.

By about a field goal.

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Tuesday Gridiron: The 2010 Victory Weighted Playoffs

In every year I've tracked it, Victory Weighting produces a playoff field that's different from the one that actually plays in the wild-card round.  This year, though, the results are almost a match.  The four byes are the same, and so are seven of the remaining eight playoff qualifiers.  Victory Weighting produced only two deviations:

1. Pittsburgh, not Baltimore, would travel to New England.
2. The Cowboys and Eagles would still meet, but in Philadelphia instead of Dallas.
   

Here's the final Victory Weighted playoff field:
Byes

Indianapolis (Strength 56, 14-2), AFC South champion
New Orleans (52, 13-3), NFC South champion
San Diego (52, 13-3), AFC West champion
Minnesota (49, 12-4), NFC North champion

Other division champions

Philadelphia (44, 11-5), NFC East champion
New England (41, 10-6), AFC East champion
Arizona (40, 10-6), NFC West champion
Cincinnati (Strength 39, 10-6), AFC North champion

Wild cards

Green Bay (Strength 44, 11-5):  opens at Arizona
Dallas (43, 11-5):  opens at Philadelphia
New York Jets (37, 9-7):  open at Cincinnati
Pittsburgh (37, 9-7):  opens at New England

One interesting thing Victory Weighting would have done is to resolve that tangled AFC wild card picture much more quickly.  When the Houston Texans defeated New England, they locked Baltimore, Denver and Miami out of the playoffs.  None of those three teams had completed play, but once the Texans won in regulation, none could hope to match Houston's 36 Strength, either.  The Steelers' regulation win a few minutes later would then leave Houston and the Jets to contend for the last AFC playoff spot.

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Victory Weighted NFL playoff scenarios (2/2)

First things first: Officially, there are seven contenders for the two AFC wild-card spots. Victory Weighting, however, eliminates Jacksonville. With a Strength of only 27, the Jaguars cannot hope to reach the minimum Strength (33) required to clinch a wild-card spot.

Two other factors make figuring out the Victory Weighting scenarios even easier.

• Pittsburgh plays at Miami. Since any result for one team implies one (and only one) corresponding result for the other, we can act as though there are only five contenders.
• Four other teams have already secured the division championship, so no one can be eliminated "upward" as a division champion.

Officially, the Jets and Baltimore control their playoff destinies. Under Victory Weighting, though, it's the Jets and Steelers who are in control. With only 31 Strength, the Ravens actually face a grim outlook. Here are all the AFC wild-card contenders, with their Victory Weighted chances to advance:

	New York Jets (Strength 33, 8-7) Probability of qualifying: 67.2% Final game: vs. Cincinnati, 2020 EST Advance with: a win, or losses by Houston, Baltimore and Denver Because they play the last game of the day, the Jets and Bengals may be deciding other teams' fates.
	Pittsburgh (Strength 33, 8-7) Probability of qualifying: 65.4% Final game: at Miami, 1300 EST Advances with: a regulation win at Miami Eliminated by: a regulation loss Victory Weighting gives the Steelers lots of advantages. Unfortunately, they lose all tiebreakers, so an overtime win may not be enough. Combined with a Jets win and a Houston regulation win, an overtime win would actually eliminate the Steelers.
	Houston (Strength 32, 8-7) Probability of qualifying: 13.5% Final game: vs. New England, 1300 EST Advances with: a win over New England and a Pittsburgh loss or tie Eliminated by: a regulation loss, or a Jets win and a Steelers regulation win The Texans can also advance if Pittsburgh needs overtime to beat Miami. In that case, a regulation win leaves them tied with the Steelers, and Houston then wins the tiebreaker. Unfortunately, they have to beat the Patriots to have a chance.
	Baltimore (Strength 31, 8-7) Probability of qualifying: 2.90% Final game: at Oakland, 1615 EST Eliminated by: a loss, a tie, or wins by the Jets and Steelers If Houston manages a regulation win, then a win by either the Jets or Steelers would eliminate Baltimore. The Ravens' chances are poor because so many of their qualifying scenarios involve ties, only 16 of which have occurred in the last 35 years.
	Denver (Strength 31, 8-7) Probability of qualifying: 2.07% Final game: vs. Kansas City, 1615 EST Eliminated by: a loss, a tie, or wins by the Jets and Steelers Apart from the fact that they lose the head-to-head tiebreaker to Baltimore, the Broncos' situation is almost exactly the same as the Ravens'.
	Miami (Strength 29, 7-8) Probability of qualifying: 2.00% Final game: vs. Pittsburgh, 1300 EST Eliminated by: any result other than a regulation win Even if the Dolphins win in regulation, Baltimore, Denver and Houston must all lose, and the Jets must lose in regulation. Any other combination sends the Dolphins home.

To make the percentages below a little easier to understand, note how specific tiebreakers play out.

1. The Steelers lose all tiebreakers.
2. The Jets win any tiebreaker with the Steelers with a better Strength within the AFC.
3. The Jets owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with Houston.
4. Houston wins any tiebreaker with the Steelers. The Texans would have either a better overall won-loss record or, more likely, a better Strength against the teams that both they and the Steelers have played.
5. Baltimore wins any tie with the Jets or Steelers with a better overall won-loss record.
6. Baltimore wins ties with Houston with either a better overall record or a better AFC strength.
7. Baltimore owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with Denver.
8. Denver wins tiebreakers with the Jets and Steelers for the same reasons Baltimore does. See points 5 and 6.
9. Miami owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Jets. Because these two teams are AFC East rivals, the Jets cannot advance until Miami does.
10. Miami wins any tiebreaker with Houston with a better AFC Strength.
11. With a win, Miami would own the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Steelers.

How Victory Weighting could screw the Steelers

Pittsburgh won at Denver, so they would win a head-to-head tiebreaker with the Broncos. The Steelers also own the divisional head-to-head tiebreaker with Baltimore. Although each team beat the other once, the Ravens' win required overtime, so the Steelers have the better two-game Strength (5-3).

But Pittsburgh's lead over both teams is 2 Strength points, or, essentially, half a game. If the Steelers end up with the same Strength as either the Broncos or Ravens, they are guaranteed to lose, because they would have an inferior won-loss record. The head-to-head tiebreakers can never come into play.

Calculating the percentages

(¡Cuidado! Medium-low-level math appears below.)

While there are six contenders, two of them play each other, reducing the number of scenarios from 7,776 (6^5) to 3,125 (5^5), which further reduce to 475 distinct scenarios. Each possibility has a tiny probablility of actually occurring. The chance that any team earns a wild card is just the sum of the tiny probablilities from the distinct scenarios in which it qualifies.

The easier way to compute the probablities is to assume that each contender has the same chance to win in regulation, win in overtime, tie, lose in overtime and lose in regulation. In that case, the tiny probablity for each distinct scenario is just the number of times out of 3,125 that it occurs, divided by 3,125. All the number crunching leads to the following unweighted chance that each team advances to the playoffs.

New York Jets	59.0%
Pittsburgh	53.8%
Houston	37.7%
Baltimore	26.1%
Denver	21.6%
Miami	1.92%

These numbers don't quite reflect reality, because since the NFL adopted overtime in 1974, less than 5% of all regular season games have required an overtime. The 16 ties represent only 0.19% of all games played since then. It would be more accurate to assume, based on past results, that regulation wins and losses each occur 47.34% of the time; overtime wins and losses, 2.57%; and ties, 0.19%. The percentages in the main table result from recalculating the tiny probabilities using these weights.

Not surprisingly, the odds for the Texans, Ravens and Broncos suffer, since they depend so strongly on overtime results and ties.  The other three teams' qualifying scenarios don't involve as many ties, so their chances improve.  That goes especially for the Dolphins, for whom ties are absolutely deadly.

One last thing

The calculations ignore the odds of any contender actually winning or losing its game this week. For examples, Baltimore and Denver have weak opponents, so their chances may be better than the 2-3% cited in the main table. Similarly, since they host New England, the Texans' 13.5% chance may be an overestimate. The Victory Weighting scheme would make no attempt to account for the odds for individual games, whose calculations reside in the province of, well, professional odds makers.

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Victory Weighted NFL playoff scenarios (1/2)

   Happy New Year!   

Yep, I'm typing when I should be getting plastered with too many alcoholic beverages.  The drinking can wait until my friends and family in the West actually reach 2010.  But on to what I had hoped to have finished posting today.

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No matter which scheme you use, this NFL season has sorted itself out neatly.  Every playoff spot but two has been decided.  Tonight, I'll survey the ten teams that are already through to the playoffs.  Tomorrow, I'll detail the scenarios involved in the open AFC wild-card race.

Getting a week off

For Indianapolis, New Orleans and San Diego, the official NFL standings and Victory Weighting both mean the same thing.

• The Colts (AFC South champions) and Saints (NFC South champions) have their conferences' respective top seeds.  Both teams get a first-round bye, and each will host any playoff game its plays until the Super Bowl.
• The Chargers (AFC West champions) are locked into the AFC's second seed, so they also get a week off.  Like the Colts, will host an AFC wild-card winner on the weekend of 16-17 January.
  

More division champs

Cincinnati, New England, Arizona and Minnesota have also secured division titles in both the official and Victory Weighting schemes.

• The Bengals (AFC North champions) and Patriots (AFC East) champions will split the #3 and #4 seeds in the AFC.
• The Cardinals (NFC West champions) will host a first-round game, as either the #3 or #4 NFC seed.
• The Vikings (NFC North champions) still have a shot at a first-round bye.

Also in

At this point, Victory Weighting matters; but the Eagles, Cowboys and Packers are all through to the playoffs in some form.

• Green Bay (NFC North runner-up) is a wild card qualifier.  The Packers will travel to Minnesota, Philadelphia or Arizona for the first round.
• Were Victory Weighting in effect, Philadelphia would already be NFC East champion, and Dallas would be the other wild-card entry.
• Officially, the NFC East title will be decided when the Cowboys and Eagles meet in Texas this Sunday.  The winner takes the divisional title (and possibly a bye week), while the loser takes the other NFC wild card.  (A tie favors Philadelphia.)
  

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Tuesday Gridiron: A Very Special Wednesday Edition

Another week, another fantasy-football game where every player on both teams struggle but two or three.  I made it into the playoffs partly because two of those exceptions were always some combination of Brett Favre, Justin Forsett and the Minnesota defense.  This week, they were running backs Thomas Jones and Jamaal Charles.  Unfortunately, those two men were playing for the other team.

Desperate for the two or three touchdowns that would've saved me, I sat reliable return man Danny Amendola (223 return yards) in favor of Dallas wideout Roy Williams.  It was a gamble, as lately, Williams has had almost as many touchdowns as receiving yards.  Williams didn't score, so Team Venture ended up on the low end of an 86-65 grinder.  The six-game winning streak that saw me this far is by the boards, and I'm now 7-7.

The first round confirmed what the league had suspected:  my division was the weaker one, sending only three teams into the playoffs.  My division mates also fell, by worse margins than mine, so it's on to the consolation bracket for all three of us.  Those teams meet in one game, while I draw a rematch with Anything But Last, whom I beat 69-43 in early November.  Both of have improved since then, so it's a tossup.

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The Victory Weighted NFL standings at the bottom of this page show a couple of deviations from the official NFL playoff race:

1. In the VW system, New Orleans has clinched its division title, and Arizona's loss at San Francisco secured the Saints' first-round bye.  The Saints haven't quite secured home-field advantage, because their overtime win at Washington cost them a Strength point.
2. Victory Weighting sends the Jets through to the #6 seed ahead of the Jaguars.  Both New York and Jacksonville own 7-6 records, as do Baltimore and Miami.  As the only team with a Strength as high as 29, the Jets advance without a tiebreaker.
   

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Tuesday Gridiron (11/2009): Rusty tomato cans

Brian Westbrook did me a favor even as I dropped him from my roster.  I replaced him with Giants wideout Mario Manningham.  In the photo at the lower right, Manningham doesn't even have his pads on, which reflects the way I used him.  With AFC North WRs Santonio Homes, Mike Wallace and Laverneus Coles all facing tomato-can opposition, I felt comfortable leaving Manningham on the bench.

Some tomato cans Kansas City and Oakland turned out to be.

Leaving Manningham's 126 receiving yards on the bench was a mistake, but not as big as the one my opponent, Crown My Ass, made.  Playing Houston's Steve Slaton at running back would've given CMA an extra 37 yards -- the exact amount needed for a 0.04-point victory.  Instead, CMA benched Slaton for Buffalo's Fred Jackson, and Team Venture escaped with its fourth straight win, a 104.42-100.76 triumph.

At 5-6, I'm still just outside the playoff zone.  But with my league's longest winning streak and my strongest lineup all year, Team Venture could make a deep playoff run.

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The Victory Weighted NFL standings (at the bottom of the page) now show playoff positions. Teams that would advance to the postseason appear with their projected seeds in parentheses. Officially, Cincinnati would get the AFC's second seed; New Engalnd, its fourth. Victory Weighting reverses that, since one New England loss and one Cincinnati win each came in overtime.

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Tuesday Gridiron (2/2009)

Last year, I made a new post after every week of NFL games.  Each post showed only the standings with my Victory Weighting system, with a few comments here and there.  This year, since Blogger allows HTML-based gadgets, the current Victory Weighted standings will appear at the bottom of the blog.  Actual Victory Weighting related posts will appear most Tuesdays until the Pro Bowl in February, but they'll consist of comments on the standings.

To recap what's been posted here at the Cat: In Victory Weighting, each team has a Strength rating.  At the end of each game that ends in regulation, the winning team adds 4 points to its Strength.  For games that end in overtime, the winner adds 3 points to its Strength, and the loser adds 1 point.  In the rare case of a tie, each team adds 2 points to its Strength.

Teams are then ranked by Strength.  If two teams have the same Strength, the one with the better winning percentage gets the higher rank. Victory Weighting also modifies some NFL tie-breaking procedures:

1. For tiebreakers that compare sub-records, Strength precedes winning percentage. For example, if two teams have the same Strength from division games, then the team with the better winning percentage in its division advances.
2. For head-to-head tiebreakers, Strength from the relevant game(s) replaces winning percentage.
3. A team's strength of schedule, most commonly used as the final draft-order tiebreaker, is redefined as the sum of all of its opponents' Strength ratings. Division opponents count twice in this calculation, since every team plays its division rivals (but no one else) twice.
   
4. Likewise, the definition of the rarely used strength of victory becomes the VP-weighted sum of opponents' Strength ratings. Each game played contributes a "game strength," which is the product of (a) the number of Strength points the team earned from that game and (b) the opponent's overall Strength. The strength of victory, then, is the sum of all the game strengths.
   

Besides mitigating the inherent unfairness of sudden-death overtime, Victory Weighting offers additional advantages:

• Fairer playoff seeding:  Since victory-point totals better reflect the quality of teams' victories, they also better reflect the quality of the teams themselves.
  
• Faster tiebreakers:  Because Victory Weighting changes the standings every time an overtime period is played, it spreads teams out. Rivals who share a common won-loss record can nevertheless have different Strengths. If the rivals are competing for playoff spots, no tiebreakers need apply, since the different Strengths sort them out.
  
• Quicker playoff scenario resolution:  One team's performance in its last regular-season game can affect not only its own playoff status but also those of several rivals. Under traditional rules, the rivals have to wait until the whole of this central game is completed, even it it requires overtime. Under Victory Weighting, however, overtime itself can either provide or take away the single Strength point required to determine everyone's fate. The waiting ends when regulation time does.
  

Victory Weighting does expand the number of playoff scenarios. Instead of three potential outcomes (win, loss, draw), each game now has five (win, OT win, loss, OT loss, draw).  For a two-team race, the total number of scenarios increases from 9 to 25; for three teams, from 27 to 125. On the other hand, the resulting tiebreakers work faster, resolving the additional scenarios almost as quickly as they are added.

Finally, Victory Weighting exerts an impact that is neither positive or negative. At the end of the season, it does affect draft order, especially for those teams whose final Strength falls between 26 and 38. These are the teams in the middle of the overall table, with 7-9, 8-8 and 9-7 records.  Even when Victory Weighting jumbles their draft positions, such teams can usually work their way around the changes – just as they do now.

How To Improve NFL Overtime

Baseball resolves ties by playing full extra innings. In basketball, tied teams play extra time in 5-minute parcels. Even in soccer and hockey, they get it partly right, with fixed overtime periods preceding those dreaded shootouts. In none of these sports does the game stop at the first score. But in the NFL, overtime consists of a sudden-death period that ends the first time somebody scores. Sometimes, the result of an NFL overtime has some fairness. When both teams are allowed to possess the ball at least once, they can reasonably claim that the OT period tested all of one team against all of the other. (That's why OT works in those other sports.) Unfortunately, many NFL overtimes end after only one possession. When that happens, overtime tests only one of half of the winning team against half the losing team. Yet, the winning team still gets full credit for the win. That's wrong. College football teams use a different scheme, giving each team in a tie game an additional possession at the same place (usually the near 25-yard line). The team that scores more points in its possession wins the game. In case of tie, the teams get another possession and try again. That's more fair than sudden-death, but each team gets more than a couple of chances, it can occasionally take a while. Let's review: NFL overtime doesn't work fairly, but the best fix, the college OT scheme, takes too long for the NFL to implement. The good news is, I have a solution. Enter Victory Weighting. The basic idea is this:

The winner of an NFL game should get more credit if they do it in regulation.

If overtime is required, the winners shouldn't get full credit for the win. On the other hand, the loser of an overtime should get a little credit for forcing overtime in the first place. To enforce this principle, we just add another column to the standings. In addition to a won-loss record, each team receives a Strength score. Every game played adds up to four points to a team's Strength, based on how the team fared:

• Regulation win: +4 Strength
• Overtime win: +3 Strength
• Tie: +2 Strength
• Overtime loss: +1 Strength
• Regulation win: 0 Strength

For example, as a result of last night's game, the Steelers now have a Strength of 3, while the Titans have Strength 1. Both team's Strengths have been weighted by the fact that their game required overtime. (Hence, the term Victory Weighting.) In most cases, the standings using Victory Weighting will be the same, but there will be deviations, especially during midseason, when some teams have taken their byes while others are still waiting for their weeks off. As we'll see next time, when we review the 2008-9 season, Victory Weighting can also impact playoff bids.