WheatieMan Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 (edited) 59 minutes ago, Tk3 said: Week 17 Pit and Buf are playing for the right to NOT face the Chiefs in the 2nd round If the Bills lose tonight, Tennessee still in play for the #3 hole with the H2H tie breaker. But is the travel from Pitt to Buffalo really that bad? The advantage is you can play at home two weeks straight without having to travel. This is definitely an advantage, but there is really no home field this year aside from weather. I think the Steelers and Bills will play all out but I can see Tomlin calling off the dogs especially playing on the road. Cleveland should be at full strength. All in all, I like the Bills to knock off the Dolphins barring massive injuries tonight. Edited December 28, 2020 by WheatieMan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AFlaccoSeagulls Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 1 minute ago, Ray Reed said: You're trying too hard to be the objective guy again. Starting last week, there were 9 potential games that would have gotten the Ravens in the playoffs if we won out (any one of the Colts, Browns or Dolphins just needed to lose one of their remaining 3 games). The only way we would miss the playoffs if we went 11-5 was that all 9 of those games went against us. You think it's a miracle that there wasn't a string of games that ended up 0-9 in our favor? I was nervous heading into the scenarios too but come on man, it's not a "miracle" we ended up getting the help we needed lol. It was always "more likely than not" one of those 9 games would fall our way. I certainly didn't agree with the projections that said we had like a 99.6% chance at the playoffs if we won out, but you're going way too far on the other end of the spectrum. tbh yeah I think it's highly more likely that the 0-9 happens than the Jets beating the Browns lol The most likely scenarios never had us controlling our own destiny going into the playoffs, we were likely to be the last seed based on how week 17 games shook out if we won out. Now, because of the Jetsmas miracle, we control our own destiny. I'm not mad about it, but it's not like this was the most likely scenario by any stretch back in weeks 13, 14 or 15. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SalvadorsDeli Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 (edited) I'm happy for any and all help we get (assuming we take care of business next week) especially since that Dolphins/Raiders game had me thinking existential thoughts, but it would have been way funnier if the only result that broke in our favor was the Jets beating the Browns. Edited December 28, 2020 by SalvadorsDeli 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamondbull424 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 42 minutes ago, pf9 said: I'm not advocating the removal of a playoff berth guarantee for a division winner in the NFL - that would be stupid. I'm only advocating that if a wild card team does well enough, they should be seeded above a division winner, especially if the top two teams in a conference come from the same division (ex. 2018 Chiefs and Chargers). Still don’t like it. Sure with a 6-10 division winner it looks fraudulent. But more fraudulent is that a team finishing 2nd in their division could tie with you, not have played your squad at all, and yet get rewarded with a home game because of conference record or common games. Heck how much more ridiculous if it was a scenario similar to the current AFC landscape where you’ve got a 3+ way team tie and because of common opponent records or something you end up as the last seed, even though you’ve played the far more difficult schedule, play in the tougher division, and earned a division title, while the others had not done so. How is somehow MORE fair that those teams get a home playoff game? Thats just as dumb. Winning the division should afford you not just entry into the playoffs, but advantages FOR the playoffs too. Terrible division winners are outliers. And even then, said teams can still get hot and win a SB as the underdog tale. The NFL’s division importance creates an increased loyalty to teams that the NBA’s fraudulent system can’t even get into the ballpark of under their current formula. It’s such a dumb system that has depowered rivalries amongst fans AND players. I still remember that while the Washington Wizards weren’t the best team, they gave the LeBron Cleveland Cavs good playoff battles (same with the Kobe Lakers and the Nash Suns). Division rivalries mattered more then and the chances a guy went from the Wizards to play for the Cavs would’ve been probably far less likely. In the NBA nowadays the players could care less... and I think removing the importance of the division played one of the bigger roles in that (amongst other stuff obviously). Just think how much more competitive the NBA would be with 76ers, Celtics, Nets, Raptors all in the same division only had ONE team guaranteed a home playoff game. Suddenly rivalries are formed and players aren’t load managing through the regular season. So many problems came about for the NBA under their current formatting. It’s a losing formula and the NFL would be fools to try and duplicate any bit of that nonsense. The moment prominent Ravens and/or Steelers players are leaving to play for the rival and its barely even a big deal because divisions barely matter- just the W/L record, is the moment I’m no longer a fan of the NFL. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Reed Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 (edited) 8 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said: tbh yeah I think it's highly more likely that the 0-9 happens than the Jets beating the Browns lol The most likely scenarios never had us controlling our own destiny going into the playoffs, we were likely to be the last seed based on how week 17 games shook out if we won out. Now, because of the Jetsmas miracle, we control our own destiny. I'm not mad about it, but it's not like this was the most likely scenario by any stretch back in weeks 13, 14 or 15. This doesn't even make sense. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. The Browns could have beaten the Jets and one of the other 8 games could have fallen in our favor, dude. Even If the Browns won yesterday we still would have made the playoffs on the virtue of the Steelers beating the Colts yesterday. So, no, the Jets beating the Browns isn't "the reason we control our own destiny". That would have happened anyway after the Steelers win (which happened first in real-time). Just feels like you're fitting everything into your preexisting "this was a miracle" take despite contrary evidence being continually pointed out to you, not to mention the fact that it took a LITERAL miracle for the Ravens not to have gotten in Saturday night with a Raiders win over the Dolphins. If the Dolphins hadn't pulled off a much more unlikely win (19 seconds and no timeouts, facemask + completion out of bounds) than anything you're talking about Saturday night, the Ravens would have ENTERED the games yesterday controlling their own destiny, regardless of what the Browns or Colts did. Edited December 28, 2020 by Ray Reed 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diamondbull424 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 1 hour ago, Slingin' Sammy said: So it looks like if the Ravens win this week then they are in. Where are all of their fans crying that their season was over? @AFlaccoSeagulls? Crying? I saw far more acceptance than crying. No complaints about Covid-19 because we all knew it was our squads own fault they were in that position. But after the Steelers collapse from greatness and the Jets benching Q.Williams, those paths definitely didn’t look so good. Especially considering teams in the final week have less incentive to play for the #2 seed than ever before. I think you’re trying too hard here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackywabbit Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said: No it wasn't lol we needed to win out and receive help from several other teams. Heck, without the Browns losing to the Jets and the Colts collapsing against the Steelers we'd still be longshots to make it in IIRC. We were never in control of our season until several unlikely things happened. I mean, your math is just wildly wrong if you call it unlikely. I literally bet a parlay for the exact scenario that the Ravens were 11-5 and out of the playoffs. It was +383 this weekend alone. That would then have been bet again with a 5 team parlay this weekend (Ravens-Colts-Browns-Titans-Dolphins) which presently is a +1290 bet. There is a reason probability plummets with more and more combination events. This isn't an argument of football opinions. It's just probability. We only needed 1 outcome from (as of Sunday morning after Dolphins miracle). Taking the Ravens wins out, me saying that the likelihood of them not controlling their destiny was >90% is just a conservative lower bar. So NOT unlikely. The Ravens missing the playoffs was always far more likely to be caused by them losing against the Giants or Bengals. Edited December 28, 2020 by wackywabbit 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pf9 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, diamondbull424 said: Still don’t like it. Sure with a 6-10 division winner it looks fraudulent. But more fraudulent is that a team finishing 2nd in their division could tie with you, not have played your squad at all, and yet get rewarded with a home game because of conference record or common games. Heck how much more ridiculous if it was a scenario similar to the current AFC landscape where you’ve got a 3+ way team tie and because of common opponent records or something you end up as the last seed, even though you’ve played the far more difficult schedule, play in the tougher division, and earned a division title, while the others had not done so. How is somehow MORE fair that those teams get a home playoff game? Thats just as dumb. Winning the division should afford you not just entry into the playoffs, but advantages FOR the playoffs too. Terrible division winners are outliers. And even then, said teams can still get hot and win a SB as the underdog tale. The NFL’s division importance creates an increased loyalty to teams that the NBA’s fraudulent system can’t even get into the ballpark of under their current formula. It’s such a dumb system that has depowered rivalries amongst fans AND players. I still remember that while the Washington Wizards weren’t the best team, they gave the LeBron Cleveland Cavs good playoff battles (same with the Kobe Lakers and the Nash Suns). Division rivalries mattered more then and the chances a guy went from the Wizards to play for the Cavs would’ve been probably far less likely. In the NBA nowadays the players could care less... and I think removing the importance of the division played one of the bigger roles in that (amongst other stuff obviously). Just think how much more competitive the NBA would be with 76ers, Celtics, Nets, Raptors all in the same division only had ONE team guaranteed a home playoff game. Suddenly rivalries are formed and players aren’t load managing through the regular season. So many problems came about for the NBA under their current formatting. It’s a losing formula and the NFL would be fools to try and duplicate any bit of that nonsense. The moment prominent Ravens and/or Steelers players are leaving to play for the rival and its barely even a big deal because divisions barely matter- just the W/L record, is the moment I’m no longer a fan of the NFL. Except every NBA team is already guaranteed a home playoff game. In fact, two home playoff games. The NBA considers single-game rounds to be unconductive, since it is not nearly as physical a game as the NFL. Plus think of what we might see without seeding priority for division winners. We could see our first opening round game between 2 division winners since 1977, back when the playoffs were just 8 teams. And we'd see our first division winner opening on the road for the first time since 1989. So if the NFL was fine with having a division winner start the playoffs on the road before 1990, then they would certainly be fine with it possibly happening now. Furthermore, the NFL has already conducted a playoffs where seeding priority for division winners was removed. In 1982, when the season was shortened by a players' strike, the NFL ignored division standings for the season and seeded their playoff teams 1-8 in each conference based on record. Every division ended up sending at least one team to the playoffs though, with Atlanta "winning" the NFC West with only a 5-4 record. The top three seeds in the AFC went to "division winners" as they finished 1-2-3 with the best records in their conference. This was not the case in the NFC, where the top two teams, Washington and Dallas, both came from the East. Green Bay, the Central "winner", had the third best record in the NFC, and thus the third seed. Atlanta, as mentioned the NFC West "winner", lost a tie-breaker for the #4 seed to Minnesota, but beat two other 5-4 teams for the fifth seed, but still, they had to open the playoffs in the Metrodome. The removal of seeding priority for division winners worked that year, as Dallas ended up playing at Washington for the NFC title. And unlike the NFL, the NBA guarantees at least one home game and one road game against every other team in the league. And because terrible division winners are happening more and more frequently, they are becoming less and less of an outlier. And, in the end, precedent rules the day. Edited December 28, 2020 by pf9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pf9 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 Also, I feel load management should be a thing in the NFL, because of how physical the game is compared to the other major sports leagues. We'd no longer have instances of star QBs like Patrick Mahomes starting all 17 games in a season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pf9 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 And like I said, a weak division winner going on to win the Super Bowl would be a far more believable and interesting Cinderella story if they did NOT have a home playoff game along the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tk3 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 1 hour ago, Ray Reed said: You're trying too hard to be the objective guy again. Starting last week, there were 9 potential games that would have gotten the Ravens in the playoffs if we won out (any one of the Colts, Browns or Dolphins just needed to lose one of their remaining 3 games). The only way we would miss the playoffs if we went 11-5 was that all 9 of those games went against us. You think it's a miracle that there wasn't a string of games that ended up 0-9 in our favor? I was nervous heading into the scenarios too but come on man, it's not a "miracle" we ended up getting the help we needed lol. It was always "more likely than not" one of those 9 games would fall our way. I certainly didn't agree with the projections that said we had like a 99.6% chance at the playoffs if we won out, but you're going way too far on the other end of the spectrum. I agree with this post However - every passing week made things more and more nerve wracking.. Up until this past weekend where things finally swung your way 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter2_1 Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 Can CLE still get in if they lose to PIT? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbuff Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 2 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said: Can CLE still get in if they lose to PIT? Yeah if Indy loses to the Jags lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheatieMan Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 19 minutes ago, bigbadbuff said: Yeah if Indy loses to the Jags lol I think it’s possible but only if everyone earlier wins. If they play tight and start scoreboard watching the Titans, they could be in trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatJaxxenGuy Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 39 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said: Can CLE still get in if they lose to PIT? 37 minutes ago, bigbadbuff said: Yeah if Indy loses to the Jags lol For the second time this year... C'mon Minshew Mania. One last ride. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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