Around the NFL Week 11

[BUCKnation]

Decent photobomb:

Solid. Not this, though.

The greatest.

[th87]

Eh, would rather not have a bye week if we're hot at the end of the season. And may even prefer warmer weather playoff games.

Yeah dude, you know what of course you're right, I would much rather have three opportunities to lose a game and get knocked out of the playoffs and three 60 minute opportunities to have our players get severely injured before we make the superbowl instead of just the two we would have if we secured a bye. In the last few years the giants (twice), the packers, and the steelers have all won the super bowl without first round byes and so it is now clear that it is statistically more probable to win a super bowl without a bye than with one. Its the same reason that if u go play roulette at a casino and u see 36 come back to back u then bet ur life savings on 36 coming again because it has become clear that 36 is now more likely to come than any other number. Thank u for correcting my misconceptions with such compelling statistical evidence....

Calm down, champ.

You equating a football game with a gazillion human variables to a casino game based on pure luck is some real hard-hitting analysis. You tell that strawman who's boss.

Anyway, hot teams tend to continue to be hot in the playoffs. A rhythm is established, which has the potential to be upset with a break in the routine. Further, the Packers can play more to their strengths in domes/warmer weather. And they seem to have an extra gear when they're facing adversity (like being on the road in a must-win game). Just my observation.

[Kerb Hohl]

With gronk out until the playoffs and the pats being the toughest team on the niners remaining schedule by a significant margin I'm legitimately worried that the niners don't lose again for the rest of the regular season. Yeah the bears are schedule frauds (still only one win against an above .500 team) but the defense is still very good and the niners are making it look easy. Sh*t.

The Saints in Nawlins? Seahawks in Seattle? Still some challenges left.

[trwi7]

If the playoffs started today we would get the Seahawks at Lambeau.

[Turk Nowitzki]

If the playoffs started today we would get the Seahawks at Lambeau.

I would be all about this, we need to get our revenge on those guys.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

If the playoffs started today we would get the Seahawks at Lambeau.

I would be all about this, we need to get our revenge on those guys.

[whatthe_buck!?]

Calm down, champ.

You equating a football game with a gazillion human variables to a casino game based on pure luck is some real hard-hitting analysis. You tell that strawman who's boss.

Anyway, hot teams tend to continue to be hot in the playoffs. A rhythm is established, which has the potential to be upset with a break in the routine. Further, the Packers can play more to their strengths in domes/warmer weather. And they seem to have an extra gear when they're facing adversity (like being on the road in a must-win game). Just my observation.

I'm not sure it's true that I'm making a straw man argument. I was simply making an analogy to another situation where people incorrectly invent reasons to distort the odds in their own mind of something happening based on novel recent results in comparable situations. Yes the packers and a few other teams have been successful recently in winning the Super Bowl without having a first round bye. Yes it is possible to come up with (imo strongly debatable) advantages of not having a bye (as u have just done). But no matter how much playing in consecutive weeks throughout the playoffs to keep a rhythm and possibly increasing the chances that the packers get a warm whether playoff game help their chances of winning each playoff game along the way, for it to be rational to hope for a lower seed then those reasons collectively have to amount to more than the advantage gained by bypassing one extra 35-50% opportunity (35% really is the best case scenario btw) of being knocked out of the playoffs.

Inotherwords if there was a choice between playing two playoff games after a bye week at lambeau vs playing two games w/o the bye week in two domed/warm weather stadiums it is conceivable that with a strongly supported argument I could be swayed to agree that the packers would have slightly better odds of winning both games in the latter scenario, but that isn't the bar that u need to surpass to make ur argument a good and rational one. For ur belief to be rational the increased odds of the combination of no bye, warmer weather and an increased 'backs against wall'/increased adversity feeling (as if the long odds of playing in a sudden death tournament and having to win three consecutive games against the best teams in the nfl to claim the Lombardi trophy isnt adversity enough lol) have to overcome (or at least to seemingly approach overcoming) the chance of losing one of three games vs losing one of two games. I really don't think u have any kind of conception of just how high the hurdle u want to jump to make ur case truly is.

Lets say that the odds are 50-50 that any one playoff team wins a playoff game. That makes the chances of winning two consecutive games 25% and three consecutive games 12.5 percent, or u could simply say that u double ur chances of getting knocked out of the playoffs if u play an extra game. Now lets tailor those odds to the packers and give u some much more generous odds to make ur case much easier to defend. A reasonable absolute best case in the playoffs for the best teams (which would still have to be against pretty much the worst competition that can possibly make it to the playoffs) is a 65% winning percentage in any one game. Lets say the packers have a first round game that they have a 65% chance of winning, a second round game that they have a 60% chance of winning, and a third round game that they will win 55% of the time. If they make it past the first round, whether with a bye or by winning, they have a 33% chance of making the Super Bowl. If they have to play that extra first round game however, the chances of advancing to the Super Bowl drops from 33% to 21%.

Now lets examine the true significance of that 12% drop in the packers chances of getting to the owl. For it to be the same or better odds to play those three games instead of the bye leaving only two games to win, those 3 reasons u gave before would have to change the odds as far as the chances of the packers winning each individual game quite significantly. If u want to use the hypothetical odds of the three game scenario I just laid out then, for the odds of getting through the playoffs with a bye to just simply be equivalent, the second and third round games would have to carry at most a 46% chance of winning each as opposed to the 60 and 55 percentages I applied over the last two games in the three game scenario. This would mean that the effects of having a lower seed that u mentioned would have to change the probability of a packer victory in the second and third rounds by 14% and 9% respectively.

Now lets do it the other way. If the packers chances of winning two home playoff games in cold weather (or possibly one home and one away game) in the second and third rounds of the playoffs are 55 and 50 percent respectively (i could reasonably go higher but im really trying to give u a chance here) so 27.5% chance of making the owl, and the chance that the packers win a first round game whether at home or on the road is 60 percent (extremely generous of me to give u that high of a # btw), then to simply equal that 27.5% chance of making the owl the factors u have mentioned would have to change the chances of winning the second and third round from 55 and 50 percent to 68 percent each! Or +13% and +18% in the second and third round! If i give u a less generous (and more realistic) win percentage in that first round game of 55% instead of 60%, to then for it to even be slightly rational (or, more accurately, not completely irrational) to root for not getting a bye the percentages of winning the second and third round games would have to increase from 55 and 50 percent to almost 71% in both games!!!

It's already imo a stretch to believe that no bye and playing in warmer weather could help instead of hurt the packers chances of winning playoff games, but to believe they have that great of an effect in terms of changing the packers win percentages in the second and third round of the playoffs is borderline insanity. And I'm sorry for being condescending in my original reply to u, but in my own defense its really hard for me not to get worked up when I see packer fans thinking our super bowl chances are increased by us not receiving a first round bye. U are making an almost absurd argument and condescension and sarcasm is the response that comes most naturally to me when faced with such absurdity. I honestly cannot stress enough how dumb I think it is for packer fans to be rooting against a first round bye or even to simply not care if we get one or not.

I have to admit however, at this point in the season I wish u were right about packers odds of winning the Super Bowl without a bye being better than their odds with one, because if it was a real and true phenomenon and not just a rationalization u have created in ur own mind based on a gamblers fallacy to alleviate your disappointment in advance if the packers don't get a first round bye then I would be much more confident in the packers chances of winning the owl seeing as at this moment it seems most likely that the packers end up as the 3 seed.

One question for you though: If we took ur argument to its logical conclusion, that would mean that if the packers were 10 and 0 at this point in the season and the current 3 seed had 3 losses, u would be rooting for the packers to lose at least 4 of their last 6 games and for that 3 seed to win out and therefore knock the packers down to the 3 seed right? Or maybe u would want the packers to lose all six of their remaining games, that way there would be a good chance they would get knocked all the way down to the fifth or sixth seed and therefore make sure of no playoff games at lambeau and also increase their chances of playing more or all their playoff games in domes or warm weather stadiums... Do I have all that right or not?

[Kerb Hohl]

Apparently AJ Barker has joined RealGM.

[whatthe_buck!?]

Apparently AJ Barker has joined RealGM.

Lol. Yeah dude, reading sucks right?

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

Apparently AJ Barker has joined RealGM.

Nothing like a good manifesto.

[Kerb Hohl]

Apparently AJ Barker has joined RealGM.

Lol. Yeah dude, reading sucks right?

Yeah, I didn't mean much harm by that, it just seemed to be the relevant thing to say there.

For whatever it's worth, I 100% agree with you. We're a Wes Welker catch away from the entire random theory not existing.

I think there are some cases where I can see it, especially the case of playing in the Georgia Dome for instance, but I have no idea why a bye wouldn't be the way to go. I would much rather have to win 3 in a row instead of 4 in a row.

[Newz]

I'll still always take the bye. I'll especially take it on a team like the Packers where injuries continue to mount. That week can be the difference between having to play your first playoff game with or without one of your star players.

[BigDee]

Plaxico signs with the Steelers.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

I'd probably take the bye too because I have a feeling MM has a few ideas of up his sleeve to avoid the rusty performance we came out with last year.

[El Duderino]

LMAO at Carimi.

Besides maybe Alan Babre getting absolutely destroyed in that game vs Minnesota two years ago, i don't know if i can recall an offensive lineman get whipped to the degree Carimi did last night. He looked like a running back trying to block Reggie White in his prime. That had to feel so humiliating for Carimi, especially on that one play where Aldon Smith pushed Carimi to the ground as if he only weighed 100 pounds.

[whatthe_buck!?]

Yeah, I didn't mean much harm by that, it just seemed to be the relevant thing to say there.

For whatever it's worth, I 100% agree with you. We're a Wes Welker catch away from the entire random theory not existing.

I think there are some cases where I can see it, especially the case of playing in the Georgia Dome for instance, but I have no idea why a bye wouldn't be the way to go. I would much rather have to win 3 in a row instead of 4 in a row.

Not only that, but in the 2010 playoffs the closest we came to losing was at Philly in the first round. If Vicks last pass into the endzone had been literally 6 inches higher not only would not one packer fan be talking about "not caring about a bye" but we also wouldn't have a fourth Lombardi trophy. And as far as last years playoffs go, I'm pretty sure our losing had very little if anything at all to do with getting a first round bye and everything to do with our defense and oline progressively sucking as the year went on (caused in a big part imo by the injuries to Nick Collins, Chad Clifton, and the free agent loss of Cullen Jenkins among other things) not to mention playing a hotter and better team (last years giants team) than we faced throughout the entire four game stretch of wins we had to take the Lombardi trophy in 10/11. In case u cant tell, it just bothers me so much that people use the results of the past two postseasons to draw what should be such a clearly erroneous and irrational conclusion. That is exactly the kind of superficial analysis that espn specializes in these days and it literally has no basis in anything concrete, just the vague feelings of fans who try convince themselves that "last year might have been different if..." and then follow that statement with 'conclusions' like "...if we didn't have to play in the cold at lambeau" or "...if we didn't lose our rhythm by going 13 days between games".

Here's the thing, I actually do think I know why it's easy for people to fall into the trap of thinking its not a big advantage to get a first round playoff bye. The truth is that it really isn't much more likely for a bye team to make the Super Bowl in today's NFL. What I mean by that is, in this era of extreme NFL parity, the teams that make the playoffs, especially the teams that make it past the wildcard round of the playoffs, are all pretty much equally good (one notable exception being the 2010 Seahawks making it to the division round to face the bears). Once the wildcard round is over, there are four bye teams left and four non-bye teams left. Assuming those 8 teams are close to equal in quality, it is understandably pretty much completely random whether bye teams or none bye teams make the Super Bowl. The point is SOMEBODY has to win in the wildcard round. Once they do, they are just as well off as the bye teams. But the fact is only 50 percent of non bye teams survive the wildcard round. So while it may be true that it is almost equally likely that a non bye team makes the super bowl, at the same time, for individual teams, it is MUCH BETTER to have a bye which avoids the coin-flip proposition of having to win a wildcard game. Those two seemingly contradictory concepts, that #1 it is just as likely for a non-bye team to make the owl as it is for a bye team to make it, and #2 that any specific team is much more likely to get to the Super Bowl if they receive a first round bye, are what seem to be causing the confusion for certain people who have trouble reconciling those duel concepts.

The last thing I would add is what newz mentioned above, that the bye is also especially beneficial for an injury riddled team because it not only avoids an extra game where more injuries could potentially accumulate, but it also offers an extra week for already injured players to rest and heal. I'm sorry to keep beating this barely breathing horse, but I really can't stress enough that it really bothers me, REALLY bothers me that packer fans don't care if we get a bye or not or even worse, that they would prefer to not receive a bye at all...

[ReasonablySober]

Legitimately stunned that Kaepernick is starting on Sunday. And to think, it's because the 49ers beat a Bears team that ISN'T GOOD.

[trwi7]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/fo ... 1424.story

Also from the Bears board:

Its become obvious to me that we're not going to win a super bowl with this o-line unless they start drinking some of MJ's stuff from space jam.

So, water then?

[WRau1]

Benson out for season

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/fo ... 6689.story