Week 8: Washington (1-6) at VIKINGS (5-2)

[Freakish Mind]

The Sky is falling.   That will be the story line after the game.    We are huge huge favorites, It's primetime, Kirk with all is accolades.   This is a disaster waiting to happen.  I'm praying to the football gods that I am wrong.  Redskins 33-17

[vike daddy]

1 minute ago, Freakish Mind said:

The Sky is falling.   That will be the story line after the game.    We are huge huge favorites, It's primetime, Kirk with all is accolades.   This is a disaster waiting to happen.  I'm praying to the football gods that I am wrong.  Redskins 33-17

mein Gott!

[JDBrocks]

I can't see the Vikings allowing 33 points to the Redskins.

I've got a comfortable final score of 30-13

[TENINCH]

4 minutes ago, JDBrocks said:

I can't see the Vikings allowing 33 points to the Redskins.

I've got a comfortable final score of 30-13

Especially at home. Vikings 35-10

[swede700]

11 minutes ago, vikingsrule said:

Keenum might just end up being the new version of Ryan Fitzpatrick starting on a new team every year.

He can't be a new version considering Fitzpatrick is still playing.  

However, neither of them can compare to Steve DeBerg...who was the preceding QB to Joe Montana in SF, John Elway in Denver, Steve Young and Vinny Testaverde in Tampa Bay, and Trent Dilfer in Tampa Bay (in DeBerg's second stint in Tampa) and actually subbed in a game for Dan Marino.  

[Torchezim]

1 hour ago, Cearbhall said:

This year is beginning to look like an 11-5 record earning the Vikings a wild card entry into the playoffs. The next step is getting to 6-2 with the win against the Redskins.  Hopefully the Packers falter at some point and allow us to pass them, but the Vikings can only beat the teams they are playing. I think that happens this week.

Out of curiosity, why 11-5?  If Cousins can consistently play close to this current level, I see that at least. I’m not overly impressed with Green Bay; with Rodgers, yes, but with the team as a whole, not nearly as much as a few other teams.

We know what our defense is capable of. They’re seemingly a second half defense that needs the offense to keep pace before then.  Sometimes they will let it get too out of hand, like the Packer game ( though we held them to zero points in the 2nd) and the Lions game (we held them to 9); even the Eagles were on our tail at half time but we held them to 10 - defense wasn’t terrible that game.  My point is, if the defense can quit sauntering around in the first half before waiting for adjustments from the coaches in the second half, I can see us taking the division by just being a better all around team than the ones we are competing against.  
 

Who do you see us losing to? 11-5 is believable. I just see them capable of a bit more. 

[vikingsrule]

12 minutes ago, Torchezim said:

Out of curiosity, why 11-5?  If Cousins can consistently play close to this current level, I see that at least. I’m not overly impressed with Green Bay; with Rodgers, yes, but with the team as a whole, not nearly as much as a few other teams.

We know what our defense is capable of. They’re seemingly a second half defense that needs the offense to keep pace before then.  Sometimes they will let it get too out of hand, like the Packer game ( though we held them to zero points in the 2nd) and the Lions game (we held them to 9); even the Eagles were on our tail at half time but we held them to 10 - defense wasn’t terrible that game.  My point is, if the defense can quit sauntering around in the first half before waiting for adjustments from the coaches in the second half, I can see us taking the division by just being a better all around team than the ones we are competing against.  
 

Who do you see us losing to? 11-5 is believable. I just see them capable of a bit more. 

I’d guess they drop a couple of road games (probably at Seattle and at Dallas or KC) and maybe one divisional home game. I think 11 wins is very reasonable.

[Torchezim]

2 minutes ago, vikingsrule said:

I’d guess they drop a couple of road games (probably at Seattle and at Dallas or KC) and maybe one divisional home game. I think 11 wins is very reasonable.

I think it is reasonable too. I just believe they are capable of a bit more as well. 

[JDBrocks]

The only loss I'm willing to call right now is at Seattle. They have been bad against Seattle and bad coming off of bye weeks. I think they have a legitimate argument to win every other game on the schedule. It all rides on Kirk playing well.

[vikingsrule]

25 minutes ago, Torchezim said:

I think it is reasonable too. I just believe they are capable of a bit more as well. 

There isn’t a game on the schedule that the Vikes can’t win now that Mahomes is out. I just have serious doubts that MN doesn’t stumble along the way, at least for a game or two.

[vikingsrule]

21 minutes ago, JDBrocks said:

The only loss I'm willing to call right now is at Seattle. They have been bad against Seattle and bad coming off of bye weeks. I think they have a legitimate argument to win every other game on the schedule. It all rides on Kirk playing well.

Hasn’t Seattle lost twice at home already this year. I have the same concerns but this Seattle team doesn’t seem to be quite as good as seasons past. Wilson has been great so far so it starts with stopping him.

[TENINCH]

Detroit makes me nervous. They play us really well as home. Rodgers hasn't won in the new stadium but Stafford has won a few times.

[vikingsrule]

1 minute ago, TENINCH said:

Detroit makes me nervous. They play us really well as home. Rodgers hasn't won in the new stadium but Stafford has won a few times.

I think we end up dropping one divisional game at home. Detroit probably makes the most sense given recent history. I don’t think Chicago will be in contention by the time we play them again and Zimmer seems to have Rodgers number in MN.

[Cearbhall]

2 hours ago, Torchezim said:

Out of curiosity, why 11-5?  

Because I favor them winning almost all of their remaining games but I do not give them a 100% probability in any of them.  I am not conceding a loss to anyone, just conceding that the Vikings probability of winning any given game, including this game against the Redskins, is less than 100%.

And since you asked...

To simplify things, if you think the Vikings are 2-1 favorites in all of nine of their remaining games the odds of them winning all of them are pretty slim still, ~2.6%.  As such, I would see predicting a final record of 14-2 an extreme long shot even while heavily favoring the Vikings in all remaining contests.

I can give my guess at odds for the Vikings winning each game. It would be something like this:

Redskins    0.85
@Chiefs    0.6
@Cowboys    0.55
Broncos    0.75
@Seahawks    0.5
Lions    0.75
@Chargers    0.6
Packers    0.6
Bears    0.65

Of course, those numbers are pretty debatable, but each person can adjust them to their own personal taste and run the numbers. Given that set of assumptions, there is a 1.85% chance the team wins all nine games.

So what are the odds of winning various number of games? Again, to simplify I will say the Vikings have a 66% chance of winning each game. Now solving the problem is a binomial distribution. Given 9 games with a probability of 0.66 in each contest, the probability of winning X number of games is this:

0.66^X*0.34^(9-X)*FACT(9)/(FACT(X)*FACT(9-X))

Given that, here are the odds of the Vikings finishing with the following records:

14-2 = 2.4%
13-3 = 11.0%
12-4 = 22.7%
11-5 = 27.3%
10-6 = 21.1%
9-7 = 10.9%
8-8 = 3.7%
7-9 = 0.8%
6-10 = 0.1%

Scanning through for the max odds for a record, it is an 11-5 record at 27.3%.

Obviously, as you change your assumptions odds of finishing with various records change so I would encourage you to make your own assumptions, run those numbers, and draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind, the worse team doesn't always lose. The favored team doesn't always win. As such it is kind of pointless to assign wins to particular games. That is like saying there is a 100% chance of winning that particular game. That is never realistic in the NFL. Your math will get more complicated if you want to assign a different probability to each game, but you can do that math too if you care to run the numbers. I haven't been able to bother myself to get to that level yet considering predicting the odds of any given game is nothing more than an assumption to begin with.

Late add:

I noticed I didn't include the possibility of the Vikings losing all remaining games and going to an unthinkable 5-11 record. For completeness, it is 0.006%.

Also, I reading it back to make sure I was accurate, I notice I said that their probability of winning all the games if they were 2:1 favorites in all the games is around 2.6% but then in my later calculation it shows 2.4% chance of them finishing 14-2. The reason for the difference is because 2:1 does not equal 66:34, which is what I used in that calculation. I used 66:34 to simplify the formula that I was writing. You may instead use this instead, if you are really attached to 2 to 1:

(2/3)^X*(1/3)^(9-X)*FACT(9)/(FACT(X)*FACT(9-X))

That yields a percentage chance of 2.601 (and smaller fractional change) that the team wins all 9 games.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Cearbhall
Late Add

[wcblack34]

I feel like this team has a close loss and at least one absolute clunker left in them. That just seems to be how our team history goes. At this point, 11-5 seems like the floor. That puts us in the playoffs.

In reality, we go as Cousins goes. If he plays as a Top 5 guy (like he has the last 3 weeks), I don't know that I anticipate us losing another game. If he plays like a fringe Top 10 QB, then I think we lose 2.  If he plays like his historically up and down self, then we lose 3 or 4.

This roster is deep and talented enough on both sides of the ball to cover up a few "off" outings from the Quarterback and back into the playoffs in spite of poor QB play.