SoSH Survivor Pool - Week 2 Discussion

JoePoulson · Sep 14, 2015

One thing I love about PIT this week is that the 49ers have to travel from the West Coast to the East, on a short week, to play a 1 PM game. Typically WC teams play like shite in these scenarios, and it's one of my favorite NFL bets. Anxious to see how SF looks tonight, but I have fairly high confidence in PIT for sure.

I, too, am surprised by the relative ease of week 1. The major upsets are coming for certain.

Edited to add: tims, I meant to answer you the other day. I will be happy to help with this pool in any way needed.

Papelbon's Poutine · Sep 14, 2015

FL4WL3SS said:
It definitely does.

Definitely.

.

Yup, valuable as most of your posts outside video golf tips. Keep on contributing to the community, you're a soldier.

chief1 · Sep 14, 2015

SF or Oakland? What is the difference? The choice should be based on what the other options are at the time. I also am leery of "saving" a team. Injuries can change the complexion of a team in 1 game. If Pitt is the best choice this week, we take them now.

tonyandpals · Sep 14, 2015

Poulsonator said:
Edited to add: tims, I meant to answer you the other day. I will be happy to help with this pool in any way needed.

I think you meant me, but that's all good. I did have a volunteer. I passed on the credentials to wade boggs chicken dinner, so if need be he can back me up and enter picks. He may need the help of someone who has used epigskin before, if it comes to that. I don't expect it to, but there's too much $ here to not have a backup.

tonyandpals · Sep 14, 2015

Feel free to start bolding picks tomorrow (Tuesday).

edit: As usual base on the # of entries we have left (21 or 22) and how you'd pick them if they were your own.

FL4WL3SS · Sep 14, 2015

Papelbon's Poutine said:
.

Yup, valuable as most of your posts outside video golf tips. Keep on contributing to the community, you're a soldier.

I think you need to learn to take a joke, brah.

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 14, 2015

Anyone pushing for Pitt next week should be forced to watch the 49ers game tonight first. There are way too many question marks for the Steelers - offensive line, Leveon Bell, a bottom 5 defense - to just base their pick on "west coast team going east, bad preseason for the 49ers".

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 14, 2015

Btw, I'm not saying don't pick pitt. It's just crazy to me that people want to throw the bulk of our picks on a game where one team hasn't even played a game yet.

JoePoulson · Sep 14, 2015

tonyandpals said:
I think you meant me, but that's all good. I did have a volunteer. I passed on the credentials to wade boggs chicken dinner, so if need be he can back me up and enter picks. He may need the help of someone who has used epigskin before, if it comes to that. I don't expect it to, but there's too much $ here to not have a backup.

Hah, I certainly did mean you, tony. My apologies! Anyway, I'm glad to hear we've got backup.

JoePoulson · Sep 14, 2015

Kenny F'ing Powers said:
Btw, I'm not saying don't pick pitt. It's just crazy to me that people want to throw the bulk of our picks on a game where one team hasn't even played a game yet.

I think we all were waiting to watch before officially making the selection. We were mostly going with the fact that the 49ers have lost so much talent, and they sucked last year. Anything can happen of course, but they certainly have looked the part of a shit team thus far at least.

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 14, 2015

Poulsonator said:
I think we all were waiting to watch before officially making the selection. We were mostly going with the fact that the 49ers have lost so much talent, and they sucked last year. Anything can happen of course, but they certainly have looked the part of a shit team thus far at least.

They were a borderline top 5 defense last year, even with a rash of injuries. The Steelers have one of the more porous D's in the league. I like the Saints game infinitely more then the Steelers game.

JoePoulson · Sep 15, 2015

Again, I think we're all in agreement with that as well (NO far and above PIT).

SF may have had a top 5 D last year, but how many players are gone from that D? They look decent against MIN I guess, but is that their D or MIN's inability to play competent football? No question PIT has a turrible D, but they had a shot at the end of the NE game. Lastly, PIT will be on 10 days of rest, and at home. SF will be on short rest, traveling coast to almost coast, for a 1 PM game. There's a lot to like about PIT in that game, in my opinion. Not saying we should dump all of our picks there, but I think it's a decent game to use.

But yes, go heavy on NO as they can't be used again this year.

mauf · Sep 15, 2015

Kenny F said:
They were a borderline top 5 defense last year, even with a rash of injuries. The Steelers have one of the more porous D's in the league. I like the Saints game infinitely more then the Steelers game.

This post illustrates why this thread is primarily a discussion of Survivor Pool strategy, and only secondarily a discussion of this week's matchups.

Is New Orleans the safest pick in Week 2? Absolutely. And with a schedule that doesn't feature another cream-puff at home until Week 16, there's no reason to save the Saints for later.

The key question, then, is how much to stake on the big favorite, and how much to diversify risk by picking teams like PIT/IND/MIA. How the non-NO picks get split among those other options is a secondary issue.

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 15, 2015

Poulsonator said:
Again, I think we're all in agreement with that as well (NO far and above PIT).

SF may have had a top 5 D last year, but how many players are gone from that D? They look decent against MIN I guess, but is that their D or MIN's inability to play competent football? No question PIT has a turrible D, but they had a shot at the end of the NE game. Lastly, PIT will be on 10 days of rest, and at home. SF will be on short rest, traveling coast to almost coast, for a 1 PM game. There's a lot to like about PIT in that game, in my opinion. Not saying we should dump all of our picks there, but I think it's a decent game to use.

But yes, go heavy on NO as they can't be used again this year.

Other then Justin Smith, they return pretty much the same defense as last year due to injuries. In fact, I'd argue they may be better off because of the return of Bowman.

Many of the Vikings wounds were self inflicted last night, but the 49ers defense was still very, very good.

Furthermore, I think the Steelers run D is going to stink and Hyde proved as good last night as many thought he'd be. A solid defense and good running attack to keep the Steelers O off the field is exactly the recipe to beat the Steelers.

Everyone is supposed to voice their opinion here, yeah? Mine is that the Steelers are a more iffy pick then people think, and I'm just pointing out why.

maufman said:
This post illustrates why this thread is primarily a discussion of Survivor Pool strategy, and only secondarily a discussion of this week's matchups.

Is New Orleans the safest pick in Week 2? Absolutely. And with a schedule that doesn't feature another cream-puff at home until Week 16, there's no reason to save the Saints for later.

The key question, then, is how much to stake on the big favorite, and how much to diversify risk by picking teams like PIT/IND/MIA. How the non-NO picks get split among those other options is a secondary issue.

I agree with this. I'd also like to voice my opinion again that picking 4-5 teams every week seems kind of dumb. I agree that we want to hedge our bets with 2-3 picks. But there's just about no way we'll pick 4-5 games correct every week, and theres a similarly good chance we'll pick at least one team right if we have 3 picks.

Yes, picking 4-5 games surely prevents disaster, but it also creates a slow bleed where we'll burn through half our picks by week 7. I know I'm kind of the only man on this island, but just wanted to voice that opinion again.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 15, 2015

I agree with this. I'd also like to voice my opinion again that picking 4-5 teams every week seems kind of dumb. I agree that we want to hedge our bets with 2-3 picks. But there's just about no way we'll pick 4-5 games correct every week, and theres a similarly good chance we'll pick at least one team right if we have 3 picks.

Yes, picking 4-5 games surely prevents disaster, but it also creates a slow bleed where we'll burn through half our picks by week 7. I know I'm kind of the only man on this island, but just wanted to voice that opinion again.

Leaving aside the actual games, you're not the only man on this island. At this moment, it seems like the highest reward strategy for this week is to put all 21 pick against TB - and I'm not even a fan of New Orleans.

But to get to your point (and tangentially to T4Ws point above), last week was a real anomaly in the NFL and I agree that we're likely not going to pick 5 winners again. So the strategy (and also entertainment) question is whether we want to pick smattering of other picks (3 or 4) on second tier games or whether we just want to concentrate them on first tier games.

I think first tier games are: NO-TB, MIA @ JAC, and BAL @ OAK (although I would have liked it better if OAK didn't have Carr). As for the last one, Harbaugh has been really good against poor teams - according to this post (I've not verified), Harbaugh is 52-10 lifetime against teams with losing records (http://www.footballsfuture.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60&t=567743).

I will be interested in seeing how much the PIT line moves this week.

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 15, 2015

I think you meant me, but that's all good. I did have a volunteer. I passed on the credentials to wade boggs chicken dinner, so if need be he can back me up and enter picks. He may need the help of someone who has used epigskin before, if it comes to that. I don't expect it to, but there's too much $ here to not have a backup.

Yeah, hopefully it won't be necessary but I'm happy to help as I can. If anyone's used EPigskin before, can you please PM me? Just in case we need it.

TIA

wade boggs chicken dinner · Sep 15, 2015

Just on small point on the Saints: last year, at home against an awful Tampa team, they had to come from behind 31-20 in the 4th quarter to force OT, where they eventually won. I am not sure that either team is better or worse than last year. It is just one data point, and generally speaking the Saints are pretty good at home, and the chances of them struggling at home against an awful team two years in a row is small... but we almost lost a pick or multiple picks on the exact same game last year. Take that FWIW.

It was week 5 - one of the few weeks we went unscathed (though my pick would have been a big fail). Here's the discussion if anyone is interested: http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/85876-sosh-survivor-525k-week-5/.

BTW, I don't think we ever used SEA last year, did we?

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

Kenny F'ing Powers said:
I agree with this. I'd also like to voice my opinion again that picking 4-5 teams every week seems kind of dumb. I agree that we want to hedge our bets with 2-3 picks. But there's just about no way we'll pick 4-5 games correct every week, and theres a similarly good chance we'll pick at least one team right if we have 3 picks.

Yes, picking 4-5 games surely prevents disaster, but it also creates a slow bleed where we'll burn through half our picks by week 7. I know I'm kind of the only man on this island, but just wanted to voice that opinion again.

I generally agree but I think it depends on the week. If there are 2-3 pretty solid picks in a week then we go with those. If there's another week like week 1 I don't think it's dumb to diversify a little more.

As the season goes on is there a centralized place to see the teams used by each of our entries? As we start mixing and matching I'm guessing that it's going to be tough to keep track of which teams are available for each slot.

If I have time today I'm going to try to map out the whole season by noting which games look like good picks each week based on who would still be available. If I can figure out how to make a table I'll post it here.

Stitch01 · Sep 15, 2015

There are also benefits to unique trees as we get later. We need to beat like a billion people to win this thing and we don't really know who is going to be good, who is going to be bad, there's value having teams left that others don't as we approach the end game. The goal isn't to get the maximum number of aggregate picks right for our entries, all that matters is having a team survive at the end.

My initial lean this week is to go heavy New Orleans, but mostly we just keep up with the herd by doing that and New Orleans isn't a juggernaut or anything, so all ears to alternate approaches.

j44thor · Sep 15, 2015

Thus far the SF/PITT line hasn't budged. BTW this link is good for updated lines across quite a few major books.
http://www.vegasinsider.com/nfl/odds/las-vegas/?s=284

I'm going to be in Vegas starting Thursday so my input to this thread will be pretty close to zilch as the games come closer.

Here is my take for this week:

updated in later post

I'm staying away from the Colts, without Hilton that becomes a much easier offense to defend and Ivory is going to run it down IND throat.

DennyDoyle'sBoil · Sep 15, 2015

I don't want much of the Steelers game. I think they should win, but they have some seemingly easy games at home versus the Browns and Raiders later in the season. Bell should be playing those games but not this week and last night makes me question what I think I know about SF.

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

Stitch01 said:
My initial lean this week is to go heavy New Orleans, but mostly we just keep up with the herd by doing that and New Orleans isn't a juggernaut or anything, so all ears to alternate approaches.

I agree but since this may be the only time NO is usable until week 16 I still think they're the top pick. If by some miracle TB wins we'll still have a few entries left and a huge chunk of the pool will be eliminated. If NO wins I'm sure there will be plenty of people who tried to get cute and will lose. Same with Miami though given their schedule the rest of the way. So my picks are:

Superceded
NO- 9
MIA- 8
BAL- 2
PIT-2

While I like Baltimore a lot too they have two great games coming up at home vs. Cleveland and Jax. Same with Pit against Oakland and Cleveland.

Is there any strategy in allocating repeated picks to certain entries? For example, for the non-Miami week 1 entries how do we allocate the week 2 Miami entries?

Stitch01 · Sep 15, 2015

There is strategy based on future schedule, but its hard to do at this point. Basically you want to avoid having a week where you've blocked out too many decent to good matchups.

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you or my question was stupid, but that could be the case regardless of whether a Miami week 2 pick entry was allocated to a GB week 1 pick entry or a Dallas week 1 pick entry, no? I guess what I'm asking is, does it matter if entry X goes GB-MIA instead of DAL-MIA. Miami is the only relevant example here since they seem to be the only team under consideration for both weeks, but this will happen again when GB, DAL, or NE are good options.

Edit: One thought is that since NO is the top pick this week and those entries are most likely to survive, they should be matched with the week 1 Miami entries since Miami becomes useless after week 2. So it would seem to make sense to allocate the NO week 2 picks to the MIA week 1 entries. Otherwise we could have an entry move on that was NE-NO, and having NE available down the road is more valuable than having Miami still available. Does that make sense?

Cumberland Blues · Sep 15, 2015

Thinking about how to spread stuff around in week2 - there seems to be more to it than week 1. Meaning - last week we just said x number of picks on team y - but this week we should also think about which tickets those picks go to. Say we're putting 5 on NO - I think we probably want to spread them around depending on which tickets had which team last week. Opens up more thread combinations for later in the pool than if, say, we put all the NO picks on Dolphins tickets and all the PIT picks on Pats tickets, etc....mix them around so we get as many combinations available later as possible. There's probably a logical way to spread them around to maximize our options later, I'll think on that a bit while you all hash out which teams we go with.

Week 1 - the pool lost 11.8% of tickets, we lost 4.5% - so we're ahead of the masses by a bit - good job on the picks everyone. Our odds improved from 447.5-1 to 413.3-1.

DennyDoyle'sBoil · Sep 15, 2015

Stitch01 said:
There is strategy based on future schedule, but its hard to do at this point. Basically you want to avoid having a week where you've blocked out too many decent to good matchups.

Seems to me where it gets crazy is trying to figure out which sheets to use for which picks. Eventually I guess it sorts itself out. But say we put 10 sheets on NOS this week. Which ones? I don't have any opinions and am not smart enough to figure it out but it seems to me that this is one way in which it might make sense to be looking at future schedules now. Seems to me that generally speaking, the way these things are won is by avoiding the upset that nails everyone else and by having right teams left at the right time.

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

tims4wins said:
I think the best approach would be to split them up a bit. We had 2 on the Jets, 2 on Dallas, 6 on Miami, 6 on GB, and 5 on the Pats, right? So I would say we split our New Orleans picks in roughly the same fashion on each of last week's winning entries. And we would split Miami's entries the same way but on non-Miami week 1 entries.

Read my edit. I tried to explain my strategy a little better but I may still be failing.

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

Yes, exactly. That's what I was trying to say but did so poorly. I think week 2 gives us a good opportunity to do this since NO is the clear top pick.

Stitch01 · Sep 15, 2015

DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Seems to me where it gets crazy is trying to figure out which sheets to use for which picks. Eventually I guess it sorts itself out. But say we put 10 sheets on NOS this week. Which ones? I don't have any opinions and am not smart enough to figure it out but it seems to me that this is one way in which it might make sense to be looking at future schedules now. Seems to me that generally speaking, the way these things are won is by avoiding the upset that nails everyone else and by having right teams left at the right time.

It certainly makes sense to look at future schedules, I use survivorgrid.com. Just hard to figure out at this point because there are so many weeks and combinations left and how matchuips look can change dramatically

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

I'll take it. Will PM you my email.

Cumberland Blues · Sep 15, 2015

Yeah, I pm'ed my e-mail as well.

glennhoffmania · Sep 15, 2015

Thanks

JoePoulson · Sep 15, 2015

I'm all for saving PIT for another week, as I'm anxious to see SF on the road against a semi-competent team, and PIT has better options later. I still think SF will finish last in their division, but they certainly looked better last night than I thought they would. PLUS, could that game be upset that knocks out a ton of folks?

I like glennhoff's breakdown above, but I'd move the two PIT picks to NO:

~~NO - 11~~
~~MIA - 8~~
~~BAL - 2~~

bagwell1 · Sep 15, 2015

Long Time suffering Jags season ticket holder here. Not sure you how much better you think Miami is than Carolina (especially after that Washington game), but the Jags offense was actually pretty good against a good Carolina defense in the first half. A red zone fumble and some horrific drops (and missed extra point) was the reason that game was not much different then the 10-9 halftime score.

The Jags offense changed dramatically once Joeckel(left tackle) was hurt as the protection was brutal after that. Even with that, it took an ugly pick 6 to still not make it anyone's game.

I would watch the injury report on Joeckel. If he is out, feel free to load up on Miami. If not, I would lighten up a little. Just my .02

FL4WL3SS · Sep 15, 2015

Folks that want to 'save' Pitt for another week realize that we're not using all of our picks on Pitt this week right? We will still be able to use them for different picks down the road.

Stitch01 · Sep 15, 2015

Yes, I think people understand that.

I do want to use some Pittsburgh. They're going to be underpicked for a 7 point spread and I think Id rather fade the road favorites.

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 15, 2015

Full Week 2 Schedule

Sept. 17 (Thursday Night)

Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs 8:25

Sept. 20 (Sunday)

New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills 1

Houston Texans at Carolina Panthers 1

Arizona Cardinals at Chicago Bears 1

San Diego Chargers at Cincinnati Bengals 1

Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns 1

Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings 1

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints 1

Atlanta Falcons at New York Giants 1

San Francisco 49ers at Pittsburgh Steelers 1

St. Louis Rams at Washington Redskins 1

Miami Dolphins at Jacksonville Jaguars 4:05

Baltimore Ravens at Oakland Raiders 4:05

Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles 4:25

Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay Packers 8:30

Sept. 21 (Monday Night)

New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts 8:30

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 15, 2015

My notes:

Sept. 17 (Thursday Night)

~~Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs 8:25~~: Fuck Thursday night games. Double fuck these two teams. KC looked great, Broncos looked bad, division game, blah blah blah.

Sept. 20 (Sunday)

~~New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills 1~~: Like the Pats, but we have no idea how good this Bills defense really is. Not interested this early in the year.

Houston Texans at Carolina Panthers 1: Like the Texans a decent amount. Some of the Panthers struggles last week were the Jags playing well. Some of the other struggles was that the Carolina offense isn't good. They'll have a hard time scoring 17 against Houston, and I think Houston can wrack up enough points/turnovers to take care of business.

Arizona Cardinals at Chicago Bears 1: Yeah. The Cardinals D is top 5, and their offense looks good enough to make them a contender this year. The Bears, however, really suck.

San Diego Chargers at Cincinnati Bengals 1: Not interested in either of these teams right now.

Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns 1: Battle of two terrible teams.

Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings 1: We have no idea who either of these teams are.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints 1: Winston makes really, really, really, really bad decisions. He'll make enough good throws to keep them in games, but he's going to cost them a lot of wins this year.

~~Atlanta Falcons at New York Giants 1: I like the Falcons and I'm not too sold on the Giants. Still, not sure where either of these two teams stand just yet.~~

San Francisco 49ers at Pittsburgh Steelers 1: I like the Steelers, but not enough to wager a ton of picks on them.

St. Louis Rams at Washington Redskins 1: Redskins offense is putrid and the Rams defense is legit. Cousins may get killed.

Miami Dolphins at Jacksonville Jaguars 4:05: I like the Dolphins D a lot, and I think the O will turn it around.

Baltimore Ravens at Oakland Raiders 4:05: Oakland is very bad again this year.

Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles 4:25: Pass

Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay Packers 8:30: Pass

Sept. 21 (Monday Night)

~~New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts 8:30: Pass~~

I crossed out the games I don't like, I bolded the games I do like, and I left plain the games that I could be swayed on.

Early on, I feel like Arizona over a putrid Bears team is a really good bet. In fact, I think I like that game more than the Saints game. The Bears hung around against GB because GB's defense was porous (no surprise there). I smell blowout with that game.

I think I like:

Arizona - 8
New Orleans - 7
Miami - 2
Baltimore - 2
St. Louis - 2

Kenny F'ing Powers · Sep 15, 2015

Have a lot of people just missed Arizona, or are people sold on the Bears performance against the Packers? I feel like this is a no-brainer for me, but I haven't seen anyone post anything about the matchup.

Vegas Sox Fan · Sep 15, 2015

Maybe I'm crazy but I kinda like the Titans and the Lions on the road. They both looked decent this week and both the Vikings and Browns looked awful.

Stitch01 · Sep 15, 2015

1.5 point favorite on the road that materially outperformed its pythag the last two years and is better at home. Betting markets have Arizona 21st Chicago 28th. DVOA has Chicago two spots below Arizona and both in the mid 20s. ELO is pretty favorable having Arizona -3.5, but that system is set up to skew favorably for Arizona.

Seems like a real easy pass to me. Arizona having limited future value is the only thing in their favor that I see but Id honestly rather pick Chicago.

SoSH Survivor Pool - Week 2 Discussion

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