Going for Two: Week Twelve Speaking Too Soon

Goddamnit, Packers, WTF. Sigh... At least we got to have all the feels during halftime. Anyway, I made a Tiny URL for this year's Football Spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/UrsFootball2015

You wish you were a Packer fan too.

Going for Two: Week Twelve Scared Sh*tless

That was the feeling I got from Tom Brady and Bill Belichick's press conferences with ESPN. Tom Brady was talking about how the Denver defensive players were some of the best he's ever seen, and Belichick said, with a shaky voice, the team that plays the best will win. Between the lines, I could hear, "I'm really scared," and "I don't want to talk about this." They looked scared.

Today, Detroit beat the pants off of the Eagles, Carolina defeated Dallas, and Green Bay is up on Chicago. This is going to be a good football week.

Going for Two: Week Eleven Curse Lifted

Order has been restored.

I can't say that I never doubted them, because I certainly did, but when I saw Ditka take off that Packers sweater during the early games, I had a good feeling. Then the Cowboys won - sure, Romo is back, it's the Dolphins, blah blah blah - and it was like a new day. That doesn't mean that it was a great day. The best my calculation can do is 50%. But it has now gone to straight wins and losses, and doesn't include anything I created. My mid-season calculations all did better, but Atlanta and Philly losses sent pain everywhere.

Even better news is that my Gut picks could get 71% this week, and certainly won't fare any worse than the benchmark.

But the best news of all - the event that has me cackling with glee.... 

We're back, baby! The future is looking a little brighter today.

Going for Two: Week Ten What the...

This is just insane. INSANE. There's people nodding up and down the line, with grocery bags on their heads. Dollar bills pasted on to their faces, squeegees in their hands. There is no other explanation. Now take a look at this sexy jackass, hamming it up for the camera. He might be our only hope for an NFC Super Bowl win, if the AFC winner can't be the Bengals. Really, I don't care, just as long as it's not Tom friggen' Brady.

At least they're still undefeated.

I mean really, where do we go from here? Is anything knowable any more? Football Locks pulled in 21% - that's a total of three, out of fourteen, correct predictions. They would have done better just picking at random. Home teams, which had previously won at a rate of 58% of the time, were just as successful. It's gotta be Ditka and Rice in those Packers and Cowboys apparel ads. I don't know, but whoever picked upsets this weekend made a shitload of money, that's for sure.

Going for Two: Week Ten and the Ditka Curse

"I'm gonna sink this bitch."

Ever since the Packers sweater didn't do its job and burst into flames as soon as it touched former Bears coach Mike Ditka, the Packers have been playing like shit. Of course, it's possible that everyone has been suffering from Packer Fever and the team just isn't that good. There was that one game against San Diego that was only won by the seat of their pants - or rather, by a single batted football at the last possible second. My father attributes some of the problems to the Defensive Coordinator, who was the Head Coach of the Carolina Panthers back when the Packers defeated them to go to the Super Bowl in 1997. Others are contending that it is a confidence problem, which could be true unless they're saying that it is lack of confidence. Rod-Gers was pretty cocky earlier in the week about Detroit, so maybe this is the loss that kicks them into gear?

Dallas is also feeling this curse after Jerry Rice donned their gear for the same reason. Romo is coming back soon, but Dallas would need to win every game for the rest of the season to hope to make it to post season. The Packers need to do something better on defense, and frankly, sober up and start playing like they want to win before the end of the fourth quarter.

Now, the loss to the Lions in Lambeau for the first time 24 years was certainly traumatic, even if it was pessimistically predicted by many Packer fans, but it wasn't the only upset this weekend. This was the weekend of upsets, in fact, and that's made it an incredible day for NFL Memes. At best, my calculation will be 50% this weekend, which would put Football Locks (my benchmark) at a dismal 29%. If Seattle wins, which is possible, and somehow Houston wins in Cinci- hahhahaha, I can't even finish that, whatever, the worst my calculation can do is 36%, which is also the best that Football Locks can do. Of course, if they do that well, my calculation will be 43%. Regardless, there isn't much you can say to something like that, except...

Going for Two: Week Ten Christmas Special

I need to make a parody of a carol for this section. The only thing I can think of "Outside the snow is falling and the Jets are losing to the Bills." I had a feeling this would happen anyway, so the Bills were my Gut pick. It would be really great if all football games were as colorful as the one last night, even if they do kill Christmas.

Meanwhile, or, rather, 4 days ago,  the Bolts showed off their absolute crappiness, at home even, in the face of really easy opposition.

He's going to his happy place.

Going for Two: Week Nine Final Drive

For a while, I couldn't tell if all NFL teams had decided to play without coaches on the field. Then I noticed that the coaches were there, they were in camouflage.

Better to lose to undefeated teams.

Too many Packer games have been decided on that final drive - too many for my liking, and I was just happy when the game ended and we could be put out of our misery. And at least there is a team in the NFC that is undefeated. Then the Football Gods deigned to knock the Denver Broncos down a notch in Indiana today. Sure, my pick was wrong on that, but it was one I almost didn't want to get right. With that loss, Denver is the biggest loser this week, going from projected Super Bowl Champions to having to play in the Wild Card round. The Super Bowl now looks like New England and Carolina, and no teams will be making it to the playoffs with a losing record. Well, so long as Philadelphia and San Diego do the needful and win. If both lose, the Giants go to post-season at 8 & 8. If the Eagles had lost, they would have joined Denver as the biggest losers this week. Instead, NFC East fans should take solace that Philly is now projected to go 10 & 6.

In calculation news, once again, the original calculation does better than anything else this week - it predicted Carolina. Even my benchmarking site assumed that Green Bay could win in Charlotte. That is projected to be the Packers last loss of the season, unless my original calculation is right through week Week 11 when we are projected to lose in the Twin Cities and play the now evenly ranked Minnesota Vikings.

But I think that the Packers need this. I didn't see very good teams when I watched them last Sunday night and today, and I would worry about the prospect for the team I saw in the playoffs. They need to look inwardly and fix something - I don't know what - so they can be the 14 & 2 team that my Mid-Season calculation predicts.

Going for Two: Week Eight Ups and Downs

The Gospel according to JJ: We played a lot better, and it was good. Houston did play a lot better, as expected. The Kitties defeated the Bumblebees to go 7 & 0 for the first time ever. After tonight, they will be one of three teams with that record, I just hope Denver isn't one of them. Tampa Bay somehow defeated Atlanta, but the big story is Oakland.

Oakland is definitely a Wild Card this year, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be a Wild Card pick, but that they are wild, and, I guess, they have cards, or something. They came from the bottom of the pack - #31 in my rankings - to defeat Baltimore, Cleveland, and San Diego, and were within one score of winning against Denver since then. But the Jets are really good this year, so I didn't expect them to lose to Oakland, much less by 14 points, but it happened. 

And the new numbers are in, both from the calculation tweaks and this week's wins. If all goes as The Ancient Oracle of Football predicts, the only playoff change is that Carolina is on top of the NFC South again. Of course, if events refuse to line up as the Ancient Oracle predicts, Carolina would, once again, be a Wild Card team, and the locations of playoff games might change up a little bit. Oh yeah, Philly is back in the playoffs, and the Giants are out, no matter how things shake out tonight and tomorrow.

In tonight's game, Denver has more to gain (13 to 16 wins) than Green Bay has to lose (16 to 15 wins), or so the numbers go. Personally, I'm not so sure about that. If Green Bay can just stop Denver's offense, because I really don't want to hear Collinsworth tell me that here's a guy from the Broncos who is really good. Eff the Broncos, Go Pack Go!

Going for Two: Week Eight Interlude

CBS asked the following question just before cutting back to the Tennessee at Houston game:

Can Cleveland be the team that finally puts a dent in the Bengals perfect record?

To which I said, "Nnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo," because Cleveland, to use a quote from my dad in years past, can't win a free prize at a pig raffle.

More analysis has been done of my calculation, and along with not really being suitable as a full-season calculation, it had some issues, so it's been improved. It only predicted 9 of 14 games last week, instead of 11, but it has an average through Week 7 of 67%, and it's 2 for 2 so far this week. We'll see.