I'm not even a Dalton guy (although he's certainly been very good so far this year), but he's never had the supporting cast he does now. They started Mohamed Sanu, Rex Burkhead and Kevin Brock in the playoffs last year. If everyone stays healthy, those guys will be replaced by A.J. Green, Marvin Jones and Tyler Eifert. That's kind of significant.
Just like you can win a championship with Eli or Flacco or Rich Gannon, you can do so with a guy like Andy Dalton with a good enough supporting cast. But you'll have to forgive me if I'm not willing to put my money at risk backing the guy. But hey, let's have some fun and play together!
I think it's true that Cincy is a good QB away from being an elite team, but the Playoff Dalton thing rest on the fallacious notion that the plural of "anecdote" is "data." The team that wins the SB is usually elite, but the Bengals are one of the better candidates to catch lightning in a bottle, the way the Ravens did a couple years ago or the Steelers did in 2005.
2005 playoffs: 10-18 113 0 3
2006 playoffs: 16-27 161 2 1 - admittedly not a terrible game, but not a great one.
2007 season: 56.1%, 6.3 YPA, league-worst 20 INT
That's Eli Manning. He proceeded to put up a 95.7 rating in the 2007 playoffs and then 103.3 in 2011 for good measure. Adding to MMS' Flacco example, guys do struggle before breaking the doors down - and Dalton has a much better supporting cast than those guys.
I bet if BbtL was around then, Peyton was incapable of playing well in the playoffs. There's obviously a massive talent difference, but the idea that a relatively young QB can't succeed in the playoffs because they've failed a few times is absurd.
I still don't know who is good. The problem is that no one good has played anyone good.
I've explained this metric before but since most probably haven't read it I'll re-explain, but spoiler.
I rank teams 1-32 by winning %. Then I take teams one at a time, and give them points according to whom they beat or lost. +32 for beating the #1-ranked team, +31 for beating the #2 team... +1 for beating the #32 team; -1 for losing to the #1 team, -2 for losing to the #2 team... -32 for losing to the #32 team. Once each team has has their points calculated, I re-rank based on points. I then erase the points, and re-calculate points based on the new rankings. I iterate until convergence; usually after a half-dozen or so iterations it either converges or reaches a back-and-forth between two states - in the latter case I average the points between the two states (hence, some teams wind up with non-integer points).
Obviously things like margin of victory, injuries, home-field advantage, etc., don't factor in. It's simply an impartial tool that might or might not give some insight, and should always been interpreted as such. Anyhow.
Those rankings look so right for 31 of the 32 teams, it makes me wonder how the Falcons are all the way up there at no. 2. (Although for Seattle, you have them at 1-4 instead of 2-4...is that just a mistake in the listings, or also in the underlying calculations?)
I, for one, did not give them enough credit. I think it remains to be seen if they belong in the 3 or 4 top NFC teams but, this morning, it certainly looks as though they do.
Agreed. All week long my dad wanted to pick Pittsburgh to win that game and I was like you're crazy, they can't score to keep up with Arizona, this is a total mismatch. Rarely am I shocked by the NFL but I was shocked at yesterday's game
I thought Arizona would win but I'm hardly shocked at the result. They blew out three below-average to awful teams but were in a one-score game with the Saints at home with a minute and a half left and lost to the Rams at home - they're not that good. Throw in a second straight road game outdoors with an early start on the east coast and the result isn't totally surprising.
Those rankings look so right for 31 of the 32 teams, it makes me wonder how the Falcons are all the way up there at no. 2. (Although for Seattle, you have them at 1-4 instead of 2-4...is that just a mistake in the listings, or also in the underlying calculations?)
I have not changed my mind on Carolina - still not a believer. They have beaten Jacksonville, Houston, New Orleans, Tampa Bay and Seattle. Congrats on beating Seattle and a win is a win but those are some bad teams.
It'll be interesting to see how they handle the Philly defense on Sunday. I think Philly's got a pretty good chance of beating them.
Reading this made me realize that the W-L distribution is quite asymmetric so far: 18 teams under .500, 10 teams over. Of the 10 teams over, 7 are 3 or more games over and have a winning % of .800 or higher. In other words, a lot of mediocrity or outright suckiness, a handful of really good teams, and hardly any that are merely above average. Since 12 teams make it into the playoffs, there's a decent chance we get one or two teams without winning records making it.
There is a huge luck quotient with Denver as well. They only beat Baltimore because Steve Smith dropped a pass in the endzone. Oakland had them dead to rights until two rookie receivers misread a sight adjustment, running right by a pass and handing Chris Harris a pick six, Jamal Charles uncharacteristically fumbled away a victory to them in week two, and the Browns somehow found a way to have the ball at the Denver 40 in overtime in a score to win scenario and not even attempt a field goal. Denver's defense has been great and is the best unit in the league, but teams are beating themselves against the Broncos, who are, to their credit, maximizing every opportunity they get. That won't last.
They are not a paper tiger, but I would not be surprised if they only won 9 or 10 games (even with 6 Ws in the books) and they are going to get beat badly in the early part of the playoffs.
Reading this made me realize that the W-L distribution is quite asymmetric so far: 18 teams under .500, 10 teams over. Of the 10 teams over, 7 are 3 or more games over and have a winning % of .800 or higher. In other words, a lot of mediocrity or outright suckiness, a handful of really good teams, and hardly any that are merely above average. Since 12 teams make it into the playoffs, there's a decent chance we get one or two teams without winning records making it.
I;ve noticed that as well. I don't know if it's a real thing or an artifact of the best teams not having played each other much yet. Will be interesting to watch going forward.
Weird year for division races. My quick breakdown:
Already Over:
NFC North - Green Bay is 6-0. While they still have to play currently second-place MIN (3-2) twice, none of MIN, CHI, or DET are catching them.
AFC West - Denver is 6-0. Sure, they are offensively flawed, but they have a four game lead and the rest of the division is terrible.
Could get interesting:
AFC East - I know, I know, the Patriots are almost certainly going to win the division, but they, in principle, could be in second place come Sunday afternoon.
AFC North - the Steelers have hung around without Ben, and still play the Bengals twice. The Bengals only have a two game lead. Could get very interesting.
Already interesting:
NFC West - the Cardinals are in first, 1.5 games ahead of the Rams and 2 games ahead of the Seahawks. I think most aren't yet convinced either of the Cardinals being for real or of the Seahawks not being for real.
NFC South - the Panthers and Falcons don't play each other until weeks 14 and 16. I hope they stay close in the standings as it will make for a fun race to follow.
AFC South - the Colts have to pull away at some point, right? I mean, is Hoyer really going to win a division title?
Nobody knows nothin':
NFC East - Dallas has hung around without Romo, the Eagles are an enigma, as are the Giants. The Washingtons aren't good enough to win the division, but good enough to be a monkey in the wrench.
I disagree on the AFC South as being interesting. It currently is not interesting since all 3 other teams suck, and all 3 teams lost to Indy despite either having late leads or Luck not playing. Indy has won like 15 straight division games, that division isn't close to up for grabs IMO.
I saw based on FPI that if the Pats win on Sunday, their chances of winning the AFC East are like 91%, but if they lose it falls to 61%. Currently at 82%. So yeah a big swing game this week.
Weird year for division races. My quick breakdown:
Already Over:
NFC North - Green Bay is 6-0. While they still have to play currently second-place MIN (3-2) twice, none of MIN, CHI, or DET are catching them.
AFC West - Denver is 6-0. Sure, they are offensively flawed, but they have a four game lead and the rest of the division is terrible.
Could get interesting: AFC East - I know, I know, the Patriots are almost certainly going to win the division, but they, in principle, could be in second place come Sunday afternoon.
AFC North - the Steelers have hung around without Ben, and still play the Bengals twice. The Bengals only have a two game lead. Could get very interesting.
Already interesting:
NFC West - the Cardinals are in first, 1.5 games ahead of the Rams and 2 games ahead of the Seahawks. I think most aren't yet convinced either of the Cardinals being for real or of the Seahawks not being for real.
NFC South - the Panthers and Falcons don't play each other until weeks 14 and 16. I hope they stay close in the standings as it will make for a fun race to follow.
AFC South - the Colts have to pull away at some point, right? I mean, is Hoyer really going to win a division title?
Nobody knows nothin':
NFC East - Dallas has hung around without Romo, the Eagles are an enigma, as are the Giants. The Washingtons aren't good enough to win the division, but good enough to be a monkey in the wrench.
If the Jets beat NE this Sunday, as you point out, the Pats would be in second place. It would have to be one of the later dates in a season the Pats haven't been in first place in many, many years, right?
There were a few posts in a thread that I can't find now about how the distribution of team records seems weird right now, which inspired me to make the following plot.
For those of you not used to looking at cumulative plots, it's really quite simple. Each point represents the number of teams that have a winning percentage equal to or less than the abscissa value. So for example, there are no teams with 0 wins right now, so the blue point at x=0 has a value of y=0; there is one team with w%=0.143, so the next point is at (x,y) = (0.143,1); there are three teams with w%=0.167 so the third point is at (x,y)=(0.167,4), etc. The steeper parts of the curve are where the teams bunch, the flatter where they spread.
Last season the week 7 distribution isn't much different than the final distribution. This year there are more perfect teams and mediocre teams, with fewer 2nd-tier teams. Of course this isn't statistically significant, I just like plots.
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