Week 11 was a steady week with the Supercontest selections going 3-2 again and the proper bets finished up with 1.94pts.
Week 12 is already off to a decent start, while I unfortunately backed Philly to win (they er, came second), I also had Carolina to win outright and +1.5 in the Supercontest.
While it’s easy to be wise after the event, Carolina were totally undervalued for me yesterday. The betting market must love Tony Romo, although after about 60 seconds yesterday Twitter was awash with these:
I’ve updated the NFL Power Rankings for the 2nd time this week after the 3 games yesterday. As we’re getting towards the business end of the season let’s have a look at who’s who:
Superbowl contenders
I think every single Power Rankings has the top 4 teams being:
- New England Patriots (33%)
- Arizona Cardinals (13%)
- Cincinnati Bengals (8%)
- Carolina Panthers (18%)
Maybe not in that order. The implied chances of winning the Superbowl are the percentages to the right, using the most common odds available. So the betting market believes that there is a 73% chance that the eventual Superbowl winners will be one of those 4. Anyone but the Patriots is fine with me because:
- Tom Brady can be accurately be described as a “whiny lying bitch”.
- The Patriots have won it too many times, so I’d like to see someone else win it.
- The Patriots organisation as a whole lies somewhere between “doing anything to get an edge” and being a “bunch of dirty low-down cheating bastards”
The Patriots lead at the top of the rankings is the lowest it’s probably been since I started. There’s only about 2.5 points between them and the Cards now. Then around a point between each of the next 3 teams.
On the Panthers, after the first 4 games where they beat some of the worst teams by small margins I said:
“Their 4 wins have come against Jacksonville, Houston, New Orleans and Tampa Bay. Any average team could turn up with hangovers and severe diarrhoea all round and still be 4-0 after playing those lot”
A bit harsh in retrospect as they’ve still not lost a game! They’ve been climbing the rankings every week since.
One thing to note on the Panthers, their TO differential is the best in the league at +16. They’re winning the TO battle on average by 1.45 TOs a game! I doubt they’re going to have it this good for the rest of the season.
Best Team without a Winning Record
Kansas City Chiefs.
They’ve sneakily risen to 5th in the Rankings. They’ve currently played 4 home games and 6 on the road.: check out their remaining fixtures:
Easy. The best team they have left to play is the Bills this weekend. The rest are all below average. They can easily get to 9 wins and make the playoffs.
Worst Team with a Winning Record
Atlanta Falcons
It started so well for them going 5-0 and then they lost 4 of the next 5. Tampa Bay are the worst Team without a losing record. How the hell are they 5-5?!
Full NFL Week 12 post tomorrow.