Football

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 7

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 in 2006 and 2011, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; six teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the 49ers don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 17):

  • Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
  • Prospects: 4-2 v. 1-6. A surefire bet to lose its spot under normal circumstances, but the name value and the tire fire that is the NFC East could save it when you consider the competition.
  • Protected games: Chiefs-Broncos (CBS) and 49ers-Saints (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Right now Chargers-Dolphins is the only game available not involving a team below .500. Ravens-Bears, Browns-Bengals, and Jets-Bills are the next game to watch. Ravens-Bears is really the “least bad” of the bunch. The Giants may only need to pick up a second win for this game to pretty much be assured of keeping its spot.

Week 12 (November 24):

  • Tentative game: Denver @ New England
  • Prospects: 6-1 v. 5-2 and Manning v. Brady. No force on Earth could budge this game from this spot, which is why both networks chose to leave this week unprotected. (Does the fact Cowboys-Giants wasn’t protected say more about this game, or the NFC East tire fire?
  • Protected games: None.
  • Other possible games: Another Chargers game is the only one not to involve a team at or below .500, and it has the opposite problem: it’s against the Chiefs, making it 7-0 v. 4-3. The next option is the battle of 3-3 teams in Panthers-Dolphins. Yeah. This game ain’t budging.

Week 13 (December 1):

  • Tentative game: NY Giants @ Washington
  • Prospects: 1-6 v. 2-4. The name value and NFC East tire fire helps, but these are the worse two teams in the division.
  • Protected games: Broncos-Chiefs (CBS) and Bears-Vikings (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Thanksgiving weekend, paucity of good games, but color me surprised that Fox chose to protect a game involving a 1-4 Vikings team over Cardinals-Eagles (a battle of 3-3 teams but with importance in the NFC East tire fire); does it even have that much more name value? Oh wait, Adrian Peterson. Never mind. (Cowboys-Giants, and the NFC East in general, must REALLY suck for this to not be Fox’s unprotected week.) It may not matter, as Bears-Vikings currently has one more team above .500; the best options at the moment are Dolphins-Jets and Bengals-Chargers.

Week 14 (December 8):

  • Tentative game: Atlanta @ Green Bay
  • Prospects: 2-4 v. 4-2. Doesn’t look good at first glance, but look at the alternatives and it shouldn’t be counted out for keeping its spot.
  • Protected games: Colts-Bengals (CBS) and Seahawks-49ers (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Panthers-Saints is the only game not involving a team below .500. Browns-Patriots, Titans-Broncos, and Lions-Eagles are next on the list, followed by Rams-Cardinals.

Week 15 (December 15):

  • Tentative game: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
  • Prospects: If I told you before the season that this game would be 5-2 v. 2-4 after Week 7, and you didn’t have the bye week schedule on hand, would you have ever guessed that the Steelers would be the 2-4 team?
  • Protected games: Packers-Cowboys (FOX) and Patriots-Dolphins (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Jets-Panthers is the only game not involving a team below .500. Bears-Browns and Saints-Rams are next on the list, followed by Cardinals-Titans. Don’t see anything compelling enough for this game to give up its spot.

Week 16 (December 22):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Baltimore
  • Prospects: 5-2 v. 3-4; might become pretty lopsided, but even then the name value could save it and the Pats might be playing worse than their record anyway.
  • Protected games: Broncos-Texans (CBS) and Cowboys-Indians (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Very surprised CBS chose to protect Broncos-Texans, a game involving a team that was 2-3 and in a tailspin at the time (and hasn’t won since), instead of Colts-Chiefs, two teams now leading their respective divisions and with two losses between them. Perhaps CBS had its eye more on getting Pats-Ravens back. Saints-Panthers is also an option if Colts-Chiefs collapses.

Week 17 (December 29):

  • Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9, but let’s face it, this is probably going to be an NFC East title game, which means more likely than not it’s going to be Eagles-Cowboys.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 6

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 in 2006 and 2011, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; six teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the 49ers don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 17):

  • Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
  • Prospects: 3-2 v. 0-6. A surefire bet to lose its spot under normal circumstances, but the name value and the tire fire that is the NFC East could save it when you consider the competition.
  • Protected games: Chiefs-Broncos (CBS) and 49ers-Saints (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Browns-Bengals and Ravens-Bears are the best games available at 4-2 v. 3-3, and Browns-Bengals sorely lacks name value. Ravens-Bears is possible, but seems iffy. Chargers-Dolphins also in the mix but suffers the same problem as Browns-Bengals, only more so.

Week 12 (November 24):

  • Tentative game: Denver @ New England
  • Prospects: 6-0 v. 5-1 and Manning v. Brady. No force on Earth could budge this game from this spot, which is why both networks chose to leave this week unprotected. (Does the fact Cowboys-Giants wasn’t protected say more about this game, or the NFC East tire fire?
  • Protected games: None.
  • Other possible games: Even with no protections whatsoever, Colts-Cardinals and Bears-Rams are your best games available, unless you consider Chargers-Chiefs to be insufficiently lopsided to rule out. Yeah. This game ain’t budging.

Week 13 (December 1):

  • Tentative game: NY Giants @ Washington
  • Prospects: 0-6 v. 1-3. The name value and NFC East tire fire helps, but these are the worse two teams in the division.
  • Protected games: Broncos-Chiefs (CBS) and Bears-Vikings (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Thanksgiving weekend, paucity of good games, but color me surprised that Fox chose to protect a game involving a 1-4 Vikings team over Cardinals-Eagles (a battle of 3-3 teams but with importance in the NFC East tire fire); does it even have that much more name value? Oh wait, Adrian Peterson. Never mind. (Cowboys-Giants, and the NFC East in general, must REALLY suck for this to not be Fox’s unprotected week.) Indeed, Cardinals-Eagles is a dark horse at best; the best options are Titans-Colts, Dolphins-Jets, Rams-49ers, and Bengals-Chargers. NBC better hope the tentative improves or one of these matchups (or one not listed here) starts looking a lot better or it’ll be in big trouble.

Week 14 (December 8):

  • Tentative game: Atlanta @ Green Bay
  • Prospects: 1-4 v. 3-2. Doesn’t look good at first glance, but look at the alternatives and it shouldn’t be counted out for keeping its spot.
  • Protected games: Colts-Bengals (CBS) and Seahawks-49ers (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Browns-Patriots, Titans-Broncos, Lions-Eagles – all games involving 3-3 teams and with only half the matchup providing name value at best. Rams-Cardinals is a dark horse.

Week 15 (December 15):

  • Tentative game: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
  • Prospects: If I told you before the season that this game would pit a team with four wins after Week 6 against a team with four losses, would you have ever guessed that the Steelers would be the team with the losses?
  • Protected games: Packers-Cowboys (FOX) and Patriots-Dolphins (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Saints-Rams is lopsided, Bears-Browns is mediocre, and Cardinals-Titans is a matchup of 3-3 teams. Don’t see anything compelling enough for this game to give up its spot.

Week 16 (December 22):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Baltimore
  • Prospects: 5-1 v. 3-3; might become pretty lopsided, but even then the name value could save it and the Pats might be playing worse than their record anyway.
  • Protected games: Broncos-Texans (CBS) and Cowboys-Indians (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Very surprised CBS chose to protect Broncos-Texans, a game involving a team that was 2-3 and in a tailspin at the time (and lost to the Rams after that), instead of Colts-Chiefs, two teams currently with at least a share of the lead in their respective divisions and two losses between them. Perhaps CBS had its eye more on getting Pats-Ravens back. Bears-Eagles and Cardinals-Seahawks are also options.

Week 17 (December 29):

  • Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9, but let’s face it, this is probably going to be an NFC East title game, which means more likely than not it’s going to be Eagles-Cowboys.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 5

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 in 2006 and 2011, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; six teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the 49ers don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. Due to the unique circumstances I’m assuming Sunday’s Chargers-Raiders game doesn’t count as a primetime appearance. NBC appearances for all teams: BAL 3 (1 flexible), DEN 3 (1 flexible), NYG 3 (2 flexible), DAL 3, SF 2, SEA 1, CHI 1, PIT 3 (1 flexible), NE 3 (2 flexible), ATL 2 (1 flexible), HOU 2, WAS 2 (1 flexible), IND 2, GB 3 (2 flexible), MIN 1, NO 1, CIN 1 (flexible). All primetime appearances for all teams: BAL 4 (1 flexible), DEN 5 (1 flexible), NYG 5 (2 flexible), DAL 4, SF 5, SEA 4, CHI 4, PIT 4 (1 flexible), NE 5 (2 flexible), ATL 5 (1 flexible), HOU 4, WAS 5 (1 flexible), IND 4, GB 4 (2 flexible), MIN 3, NO 4, CIN 3 (1 flexible), PHI 2, SD 3, MIA 3, NYJ 2, STL 2, TB 2, CAR 2, all other teams 1.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 17):

  • Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
  • Prospects: 2-2 v. 0-5. A surefire bet to lose its spot under normal circumstances, but the name value and the tire fire that is the NFC East could save it when you consider the competition.
  • Likely protections: Chiefs-Broncos (CBS) and 49ers-Saints (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Browns-Bengals is the only remaining game involving two teams above .500. Maybe Jets-Bills, Chargers-Dolphins, or even Raiders-Texans can make a game of it, but none of those are particularly appetizing. Look for NBC to be stuck with Packers-Giants.

Week 12 (November 24):

  • Tentative game: Denver @ New England
  • Prospects: 5-0 v. 4-1 and Manning v. Brady. No force on Earth could budge this game from this spot. This could be a week that CBS especially decides to leave unprotected.
  • Likely protections: Colts-Cardinals if anything (CBS) and Cowboys-Giants if anything (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Colts-Cardinals is the only game involving two teams above .500, making Broncos-Patriots even more of a mortal lock.

Week 13 (December 1):

  • Tentative game: NY Giants @ Washington
  • Prospects: 0-5 v. 1-3. The name value and NFC East tire fire helps, but these are the worse two teams in the division.
  • Likely protections: Broncos-Chiefs (CBS) and Cardinals-Eagles but more likely nothing (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Thanksgiving weekend, paucity of good games, but Titans-Colts awaits if the Titans really are an above-.500 team, as does Dolphins-Jets.

Week 14 (December 8):

  • Tentative game: Atlanta @ Green Bay
  • Prospects: 1-4 v. 2-2. Not looking good.
  • Likely protections: Colts-Bengals, Browns-Patriots, Titans-Broncos, or nothing (CBS) and Seahawks-49ers (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Pretty much whatever games CBS didn’t protect. Raiders-Jets and Rams-Cardinals are dark horses.

Week 15 (December 15):

  • Tentative game: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh
  • Prospects: If I told you before the season that this game would be 3-2 v. 0-4 after Week 5, and you didn’t have the bye week schedule on hand, would you have ever guessed that the Steelers would be the 0-4 team?
  • Likely protections: Cardinals-Titans, Bears-Browns, Packers-Cowboys, or nothing (FOX) and Patriots-Dolphins (CBS).
  • Other possible games: Again, pretty much whatever games Fox didn’t protect, with the caveat that I listed Packers-Cowboys for name value as much as anything.

Week 16 (December 22):

  • Tentative game: New England @ Baltimore
  • Prospects: 4-1 v. 3-2, so a pretty respectable matchup with a good chance to keep its spot.
  • Likely protections: Colts-Chiefs (CBS) and Cardinals-Seahawks or Cowboys-Indians (FOX).
  • Other possible games: Cardinals-Seahawks if left unprotected, and that’s about it. I doubt that threatens Pats-Ravens.

Week 17 (December 29):

  • Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9, but let’s face it, this is probably going to be an NFC East title game, which means more likely than not it’s going to be Eagles-Cowboys.

Preparing Da Blog for football season

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Football season is just moments away, and that means the busiest period on the site. I’ve finally belatedly updated the lineal titles and here’s what you need to know:

  • Despite the 2010 TCU title being merged with Princeton-Yale fairly early last season, we enter 2013 with one more linear title than we entered last year with, although it probably won’t stay that way for long. Texas A&M took the 2006 Boise State title from Alabama last year in the Tide’s one loss, so Alabama picks up a new 2012 BCS title, and while Ohio State were ineligible for bowls last year they did go undefeated and that at least gives them a claim to a linear title; call it the “Screw the NCAA” title. Unlike with 2009 Boise State in 2011-12, this one will never be “split” because its very existence hinges on bowl-ineligible teams being eligible for linear titles.
  • On the NFL front, the replacement officials led me to keep track of five different NFL lineal titles by the time I dropped off: the main version of both titles, versions of both titles where the replacement-ref games didn’t count, and the Packers’ Super Bowl XLVI title counterclaim. The main and no-replacement-refs Super Bowl XLVI titles were unified by a Dolphins-Colts game Week 9 the Colts won; the Packers counterclaim was unified two weeks later when the Patriots beat the Colts. All three remaining claims made the playoffs, so the Ravens enter the new season with the sole NFL lineal title.
  • Due to circumstances I will not be participating in the FantasySharks leagues this year, and I’m severely cutting back in the other leagues to 6 each for NFL.com, ESPN, Yahoo, and Fox, and one each for CBS and Fleaflicker, for 26 in all, though I reserve the right to add more ESPN/Yahoo/Fox teams as I see fit.
  • I’ll tweet when the first college football rankings of the last season of the rankings are due to come out at a later time, but to be honest I’m not looking forward to dealing with this year’s round of realignment and teams moving up to FBS to chase money and fill spots in depleted conferences.

2013 Pro Football Hall of Fame Watch – The Top 50 Active Resumes

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Surefire first-ballot players:

  1. QB Peyton Manning
  2. QB Tom Brady
  3. LB Ray Lewis

No one else has been quite as productive for so long as these three. With Lewis starting his clock, the two quarterbacks whose names have been inextricably linked for the last decade are now our only two surefire first-ballot players.

Borderline first-ballot players:

  1. TE Tony Gonzalez
  2. S Ed Reed
  3. WR Randy Moss
  4. CB Champ Bailey
  5. QB Drew Brees
  6. DT Kevin Williams

Gonzalez would ordinarily be a surefire first-ballot guy, but no tight end has ever gone in first ballot; on the other hand, Gonzalez isn’t exactly a typical tight end. All told, Ed Reed’s honors compare pretty favorably with those of Moss, and I now like his chances of going in first ballot better than I did before, though it’s far from a surefire bet; Bailey remains an iffier proposition. It’s kind of hard to believe the lofty territory Brees is climbing into, where he’s arguably the fourth-best quarterback of the past decade behind Brady, Manning, and Brett Favre. He probably needs to stick around a few more years to really threaten the first ballot, though.

Surefire Hall of Famers:

  1. TE Antonio Gates
  2. CB Charles Woodson
  3. DT Richard Seymour
  4. S Troy Polamalu
  5. TE Jason Witten
  6. LB Brian Urlacher
  7. DE Julius Peppers
  8. DE Dwight Freeney
  9. LB DeMarcus Ware
  10. RB Adrian Peterson
  11. WR Andre Johnson
  12. CB Ronde Barber
  13. G Steve Hutchison

Peterson and Johnson arrive in this group just in time, because otherwise with the exception of Witten (don’t look now but he might be the best tight end of this decade), Ware (who only punched his ticket last year), and possibly Polamalu, this group would be nothing but a bunch of players on the tail end of their careers, no fewer than three of whom retired this offseason. Numbers 11-16 on last year’s list didn’t add any honors to their total, one of them had already retired, and now Urlacher has retired as well. Urlacher didn’t really have a strong enough resume for me to put him in the first-ballot conversation anyway (which jibes with the vibe some have that he was overrated) and there’s no way he’s getting in ahead of Ray Lewis; he might not even go in second ballot. A Manning/Favre situation this is not.

Peterson has about as strong a resume as you could expect from a running back in this era of typically truncated RB careers and multi-RB sets, especially impressive considering the mediocre-to-bad Vikings teams he’s had to play for. Funnily enough, Tiki has been more visible but probably doesn’t have a Hall of Fame resume, while his less-visible brother Ronde, who just retired, is far more likely to get in, though he’ll have to wait.

Borderline Hall of Famers:

  1. WR Larry Fitzgerald
  2. WR Steve Smith
  3. WR Wes Welker
  4. DE Jared Allen
  5. QB Aaron Rodgers
  6. WR Reggie Wayne
  7. LB Patrick Willis
  8. QB Eli Manning
  9. QB Michael Vick
  10. P Shane Lechler
  11. DE Haloti Ngata
  12. DE John Abraham
  13. CB Darrelle Revis
  14. RB Arian Foster
  15. WR Calvin Johnson
  16. QB Ben Roethlisberger
  17. OT Joe Thomas
  18. WR Brandon Marshall
  19. FB Vonta Leach
  20. KR Devin Hester
  21. K Adam Vinatieri
  22. RB Maurice Jones-Drew

Fitzgerald has a similar excuse to what Peterson had before last year, with his only good Cardinals teams coming with Kurt Warner at the helm, but he didn’t come nine yards short of an all-time record last year. Rodgers is interesting, as he’s shockingly elevated himself in just a few years into one of the best QBs in the league and a surefire first-ballot HOFer if he keeps it up… but that’s a pretty big “if”. He had a Pro-Bowl-caliber year last year, but a far cry from his masterful 2011; he could still end up being remembered as a flash-in-the-pan who was, for a brief time, one of the best QBs in the entire league, a figure on par with Brady and Manning who picked up a ring along the way, and one of the great what-could-have-been stories. Would that be enough to get him into the Hall of Fame? Maybe… but it’d be a pretty long wait.

Even more interesting would be Vinatieri: very few non-quarterbacks have been propelled into the Hall of Fame on the strength of their Super Bowls… but Vinatieri could be one of them, despite being a kicker, a position with only one other representative in the Hall at all. And while every quarterback with multiple Super Bowl wins is in the Hall of Fame except Jim Plunkett, they all have substantially better resumes than Roethlisberger (who has only two Pro Bowl selections), which is why he’s so low.

Need work:

  • S Adrian Wilson
  • LB Lance Briggs
  • QB Phillip Rivers
  • CB Nnamdi Asomugha

Not long after this comes a lot of offensive linemen with mediocre resumes all bunched up, including, potentially surprisingly, Jeff Saturday. He’s only been a class lineman since 2005 or so, not quite long enough for a HOF career. Considering his late start, could the lost 2011 “Suck for Luck” season for the Colts, and failure to add to his resume this past year, prove to be poison for his Hall of Fame chances?

Players to watch for the future (exclamation marks indicate players with resumes already strong enough to be among the top 50):

  • OT Jake Long (5th year)
  • RB Chris Johnson (5th year)!
  • RB Ray Rice (5th year)!
  • LB Clay Matthews (4th year)
  • DE Cameron Wake (4th year)
  • DT Ndamukong Suh (3rd year)
  • C Maurkice Pouncey (3rd year)
  • TE Rob Gronkowski (3rd year)
  • DE Jason Pierre-Paul (3rd year)
  • LB Navarro Bowman (3rd year)
  • LB Von Miller (2nd year)
  • WR A.J. Green (2nd year)
  • DE J.J. Watt (2nd year)
  • LB Aldon Smith (2nd year)
  • QB Andrew Luck (Rookie)
  • QB Robert Griffin III (Rookie)
  • QB Russell Wilson (Rookie)
  • LB Luke Kuechly (Rookie)

Can J.J. Watt repeat the torrid performance of his 2012 season? And could three of the five best quarterbacks of this decade turn out to have all been drafted the same year?

Players to watch for the Class of 2017:

  • RB LaDainian Tomlinson
  • S Brian Dawkins
  • DT Jason Taylor
  • WR Chad Johnson
  • QB Donovan McNabb
  • C Olin Kreutz

LDT should go in first-ballot, while Dawkins has an outside shot and Taylor has none but should get in without too much delay. Johnson and McNabb are iffier bets to get in at all; will the HOF voters bring themselves to vote for someone who named himself “Chad Ochocinco”, resume aside? McNabb’s career consists of some pretty good quality production for a number of years, but never quite great, with no All-Pro team appearances and no rings; he’s going to be hotly debated. Both are more likely to get in than not, but they’ll have a long wait, as will Kreutz who isn’t too far behind them.

2013 College Football TV Schedule

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With one month to go until the start of the college football season, here is every game involving an FBS team for the first three weeks, plus national television windows for the rest of the season and nationally televised FCS games, as compiled by mattsarzsports.com. Refer to that site for more details and updates throughout the season. Networks in bold are cable; those in bold italics are Internet streams. Please be cautious when opening this post, as certain elements in it are numerous enough that they may slow down the browser.

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2 years of the Sports TV wars, and the coming Year of Fox

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Year Three of the sports TV wars will be when they start to kick off in earnest with the pending launch of Fox Sports 1, and not only is Fox making a huge push for the launch, they’re not giving up their regional sports network hegemony without a fight. Over the past month and a half, Fox has bought portions of the YES network and SportsTime Ohio, the RSN run by the Cleveland Indians.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were talking about Fox no longer having any presence whatsoever in any market larger than Dallas should Time Warner Cable win the rights to the Dodgers (though TWC SportsNet’s chances are still very much alive at the moment), about the launch of Fox Sports 1 representing the final abandonment of the FSN concept and that Fox would cannibalize FSN’s national programming to fill time on its new national networks. Now Fox has an owned-and-operated presence in the top two media markets, and if they win Dodgers rights they’ll be very hard to kick out of either one.

What might be sustaining FSN’s continued interest in acquiring existing RSNs, including a rumored bid for the MASN network co-owned by the Orioles and Nationals? It may be a clause in Fox’s new baseball contract that only recently came to light: apparently, Fox can fill up its lineup of games on FS1 by cannibalizing them from RSNs it owns – a clause that might be a remnant of the early days of the national FSN experiment when FSN would air a “national” game every Thursday. Owning a piece of YES allows Fox to fill up FS1’s lineup of games with far more Yankees games than, say, Mets games.

This suggests Fox might also be thinking about making a run at NESN and its associated Red Sox rights, and why Dodgers rights will be far more valuable, at least to Fox, than has already been suggested. As much as basketball can move the needle, baseball’s lack of a salary cap and some quirks in its revenue sharing model have made the local sports TV wars especially competitive regarding, and lucrative for, baseball teams, long higher-rated as a whole than basketball games anyway (notwithstanding national interest). If Fox has this added motivation driving them to acquire baseball rights specifically, don’t be surprised to see the values climb into the stratosphere, especially in competitive markets. In particular, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fox absolutely break the bank on the St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves, and Detroit Tigers in their next contracts, even without obvious competition; even the Florida teams could rake in the dough if Fox fears Comcast or Bright House coming calling.

Most speculation on national networks beyond Fox Sports 1 has settled on Fuel becoming Fox Sports 2, with Fox Soccer remaining as is, which has never made much sense to me given Fuel’s smaller reach and Fox Soccer’s loss of its best, most consistent programming. But Fox may have in mind transitioning Fox Soccer out of the sports market entirely. The LA Times reported earlier this week that Fox is considering relaunching Fox Soccer into a general entertainment network, effectively an “FX2”. That seems a substantially riskier move than turning it into Fox Sports 2; if your company runs multiple entertainment networks, it’s usually critical to make sure they have their own identity so as not to cannibalize one another (for example, TBS being all about comedy while TNT stresses its dramas), especially when the channel is starting with relatively little distribution – Fox Soccer is in about 50 million homes, better than a lot of startups but not enough to launch a big-time network and vulnerable to cable company defections, especially when many cable operators currently put it on sports tiers. To explicitly market it as a “lesser” channel to FX smacks of borderline suicide, and something no general entertainment channel I know of does.

If Fox is going to do this, I would suggest either marketing it as a comedy network (FX is primarily known for dramas though it does have more than a few comedies), marketing it towards women, or create a kids network powered by the old Fox Kids block that entertained so many kids during the 90s (though the rights to many of those cartoons may be owned by other entities). Fox could also market to niche genres, like with NBC Universal’s Cloo and Chiller channels, or pick up the geek crowd disenchanted with the state of SyFy and G4. An outside-the-box possibility could be to convert Fox Soccer into an international version of the Fox News Channel; Fox Soccer already occasionally airs the general “Sky News” from Britain. Ultimately, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox decided that turning Fox Soccer away from sports risked losing too much existing distribution for too little gain to be viable and the only feasible option would be to convert it, not Fuel, into Fox Sports 2, getting that network off the ground that way. (I continue to maintain that Fuel doesn’t feel like a sports channel in the same way as the others to me; it may be about “extreme” sports beyond its UFC coverage, but, well, those are marginally “sports” at best.)

In any case, if Fox only creates two networks that means the chances are borderline at best that it shuts down Fox College Sports entirely, but recent events have still suggested it should rethink what role FSN takes when acquiring college rights – people in the Bay Area have been scrambling to watch Cal and Stanford basketball games FSN holds the rights to since the area’s Comcast SportsNet networks aren’t showing FSN programming.

I haven’t spoken about conference realignment in a while (partly because the whole thing has just gotten too depressing for me), but Fox is also the reported leader in the clubhouse for the rights to the so-called “Catholic 7”, the non-football-playing members of the Big East who finally figured out that the depleted remnants of the football half of the conference weren’t going to command a contract anywhere near as good as what commissioner Mike Aresco was trying to make them believe, especially with the Big East losing its privileged BCS status. (Once Tulane became a viable Big East member, it became clear that this was essentially Conference USA 2.0, with only UConn being a true “Big East” school – and they, not Louisville, probably should have been the school the ACC called when Maryland left for the Big Ten.) Fox has been reported to be offering something in the neighborhood of $300 million, an astonishing number for a non-football conference and hopefully a wake-up call for all the other actors in conference realignment that football itself is not what powers the money machine, but sports people want to watch.

Fox is a rather odd choice to go after the Catholic 7, but unless its existing Big 12 and Pac-12 contracts have limited at best basketball inventory for FS1 their only other option to truly establish their basketball bona fides is the Big Ten contract in a few years, which admittedly I’d be shocked if they don’t snag. But until purchasing YES Fox had very little RSN presence in the Catholic 7 territory; RSNs in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Ohio, but Marquette might be the only school in any of those states. YES puts them in St. John’s backyard, and the Catholic 7 might be going after the likes of Butler, Dayton, Xavier, and Saint Louis (and Virginia Commonwealth, which might bring FS South/SportSouth into play as well), so they have that going for them.

But considering how much the Big East and ESPN have meant to each other, and the fact that the Catholic 7, to me, are the true inheritors of the Big East’s legacy regardless of whether they actually win the name (a basketball conference with the likes of Memphis, Temple, Cincinnati, and UConn may be a very good mid-major, but still a mid-major), I cannot believe that ESPN would let them blithely walk away to Fox so easily. I have to imagine ESPN will make a big run for at least a piece of the Catholic 7, probably sublicensing some games to CBS – the first real competition between ESPN and Fox since the World Cup rights came up. (Pre-split, NBC was considered a favorite to snag Big East rights and a major reason Aresco kept hyping how much money the conference would make from the sports TV wars – but at this point, which half they go after depends on whether NBC wants to keep piling up mid-majors in football or establish their basketball bona fides. Considering the Mountain West was literally the only FBS conference at their disposal last season, I would lean towards the latter at this point; the only major football conference they have a shot at for several years at this point is the Big Ten, and that shot is very remote.)

Last year saw Fox establish the foundation for Fox Sports 1 with its baseball and NASCAR contracts, while NBCSN settled into a third-place groove (and potentially started to establish a niche for themselves) by acquiring the Premier League, driving the final nail into Fox Soccer’s coffin. While this year will see the fight for the Catholic 7 and the awarding of the other half of the NASCAR package, and the NBA rights might come up for negotiation as well, for the most part the stage for the sports TV wars will move away from acquiring rights and towards what the contenders, especially Fox, do with them. FS1 is likely coming in August, and that is when the Wars will start in earnest.

Predictions for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013

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The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s selections are performed by a panel of 44 leading NFL media members including representatives of all 32 NFL teams, a representative of the Pro Football Writers of America, and 11 at-large writers.

The panel has selected a list of 15 finalists from the modern era, defined as playing all or part of their careers within the last 25 years. A player must have spent 5 years out of the league before they can be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame. Players that last played in the 2007 season will be eligible for induction in 2013.

During Super Bowl Weekend, the panel will meet and narrow down the list of modern-era finalists down to five. Those five will be considered alongside two senior candidates, selected by a nine-member subpanel of the larger panel last August, for a total of seven. From this list, at least four and no more than seven people will be selected for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

My prediction for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013 is:

Andre Reed
Jonathan Ogden
Michael Strahan
Aeneas Williams
Larry Allen
Curley Culp
Dave Robinson

Hall of Fame Game: Rams v. Giants

A (very) belated post-apocalyptic blog-day.

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So, how’d that Mayan apocalypse go, eh?

Funny story: The idea that the Mayan calendar “ended” last week was always wrong to begin with. I always felt that Y2K was an apt comparison for the whole “Mayan apocalypse” hysteria, since last week actually marked the end of the previous and the start of a new b’ak’tun, a period of about 394 years. The Mayans themselves don’t seem to have ever believed the world was going to end in 2012, referring to future events after that date, but they did have a creation myth that said that the previous world ended at the start of a 14th b’ak’tun, the same one that started a week ago. That previous world was scrapped as a failed experiment that never had humans placed in it, so people who believed the world was going to end last week were a) implicitly believing in the Mayan gods and b) implying this world was a failure despite c) the presence of humans (which should be a mark of success) in it.

Think about that for a second.

Another funny story: The last change in b’ak’tun was in 1618, just a few years after the Catholic Church forbade the teaching of the Copernican heliocentric model of the cosmos, which caused Galileo to stay away from the matter for the seven or so years following. Before that, 1224 was just the year before the Magna Carta became law. 830 saw the foundation of the House of Wisdom, which played a key role in preserving many Greek texts by translating them into Arabic, and roughly corresponds with the decline of the Mayans themselves, or at least their “classic” period; 435 is a couple centuries too late for their rise, but it is smack-dab in the middle of another, more well-known decline, that of the Roman empire, and just five years after the death of St. Augustine (and only nine after the completion of his City of God).

The year 41, less than a decade after the crucifixion of Jesus, saw the formation of the first Christian communities and Jews being given the freedom to worship following Caligula’s death. Alexander the Great was two years old in 354 BC, and it’s possible some of Plato’s later dialogues were being written around that time; as such, the entire b’ak’tun from 748 BC (four years after the traditional founding of Rome, and possibly the rough time Homer lived and Zoroastrianism, perhaps the first monotheistic religion, was founded) to 354 BC corresponds fairly well with the so-called “Axial Age”.

It’s probably engaging in the same sort of over-reading believers in a Mayan apocalypse do to actually claim any sort of correlation between the Mayan calendar and these developments, and even if so it’s hard to figure out what it means given the disparate nature of the milestones involved. It’s worth noting, though, that the last three milestones can be correlated with, respectively, the birth of modern science, the birth of modern notions of freedom and equality, and the birth of the modern intellectual tradition. Now consider that the exact date the Mayans placed the founding of our world at was 3114 BC. This is only 12 years before the start of the Hindu tradition’s Kali Yuga, and right in the middle of the period between the creation of Adam and the Flood in the Bible, suggesting a cross-cultural placing of importance on that time period, and both can be correlated with the unification of Egypt, the start of construction on Stonehenge, and the rise of the Minoans, as well as the earliest writing systems, which some scholars consider the start of “history” itself. It is, in short, the period when what we call “civilization” begins.

Given that history, what sort of period might we be entering now?

It’s possible, as I tweeted a while back, that this is essentially the point when global warming becomes unstoppable and inevitably plunges us back to the Stone Age if not worse. Personally, I prefer to look more optimistically at it, that this is the herald of a change that will make all the changes in human history since the agricultural revolution look like child’s play. Call me conceited, but as a philosopher, I always felt that at this point, I would introduce my own nominee for this change, by starting to increase humanity’s awareness of its own nature. As such, much of the entire history of Da Blog up to this point has been preparation for something to happen on December 21st. I initially planned to release the first of several treatises outlining my philosophy on that date. Later I planned to start my new webcomic then, and even felt, after failing to do much work on that comic over the summer, that I could use one of my classes as an impetus to work on it. When even that failed, leading to me flunking two classes when I hadn’t failed one in over a year, I was all set to settle for writing a rant on America’s reaction to the Newtown shootings and how completely wrong it was in every way.

The day came and went, and what did I do? Bupkis.

You might say I’m going through a personal apocalypse right now. I allowed my e-mail box to completely fill so I could focus with laser intensity on the comic, which of course, didn’t work. Then I planned to write an apology to my teacher, but haven’t been able to work myself up to do it, which also means I haven’t even registered for the new quarter; I’ve been thoroughly depressed throughout the winter break, especially after not doing anything for the 21st, and have wasted most of it on semi-random pursuits. I’m still five classes away from graduation, but that includes probably the two hardest, and I don’t know what’s motivating me to complete them anymore; I seriously considered taking winter quarter off entirely. Flunking two classes means that, for the next three months at least, Mom will cut me off from home Internet access for the entire quarter, reverting me to the state Da Blog was trapped in for much of its history.

Such is a fitting close to Year Six on Da Blog, a year which saw my attempt to recover my early posting frequency with the return of The Streak and a brief return to semi-regular webcomic reviews, yet the former took a far lamer form than it ever had before, with me repeatedly having to finesse and fudge my way to maintaining the streak to a significant extent (often with posts explicitly existing just to continue the streak), and most days posting less than an hour before midnight, leaving me wondering if something was wrong with me compared to the earlier streak, despite the Random Internet Discovery helping sustain the previous streak. Would I have been more able to pull off my goals just a few short years ago; has something damaged my decision-making ability beyond its already questionable levels? That may be unanswerable, and I don’t know whether I want to find it out. As if that wasn’t enough, I finally launched the long-awaited forum, which I saw as the birth of a community that would do much to boost Da Blog’s popularity, yet I might shutter it before it hits its one-year anniversary because it’s gotten to the point I simply assume any new thread was started by a spammer.

A year ago, I felt Da Blog was on its way up. Now, I feel like my future and that of Da Blog has never been cloudier. I still feel the need to do something with my ideas on human nature, if only because I fear the only people who have the clearest vision on human nature lack either the work ethic to share it with the world or the scruples to use it to benefit anyone other than themselves, and I still believe enough in my webcomic idea to do something with it, but it really does feel enough like work that I don’t know how willing or even able I am to do it. There’s something unreal about most of my plans, like they’re all fantasies of mine that I rationalize my way into relying on and which are all disconnected from one another, and they certainly don’t seem to be connected with an actual experience of doing them; I rarely have a clear, realistic path to a concrete goal. I’ve seen myself as a philosopher for years, yet I’ve always found it far easier to think about my philosophy than to actually put it down on virtual paper, and so long as it feels like a job I don’t know if it’s what I’m meant to do after all.

Perhaps my future is in numerical analysis of sports – the SNF Flex Schedule Watch has long been the most consistently popular aspect of the site, and I spent much of my post-failure funk working on several different mathematical formulae with different applications for sports. That’s certainly something I wouldn’t have thought even a month ago when I was thinking of shutting down the College Football Rankings and Flex Schedule Watch after next season. Or maybe not; I knew going in that the FF50 project was going to gobble up a massive amount of time at the worst possible time, but by the end I was finding it so tedious that I doubt I’m going to do much of anything on that front next year. This despite the fact I took 11 of my 42 teams to the championship game – something like double the rate I expected – and won all 11 (after losing my one championship game last year and despite screwing up my ESPN lineups last week knowing ESPN has two-week playoff rounds so I could make it up in Week 17), so let me take a moment to acknowledge my championship fantasy teams: Fox 2, Fox 8, ESPN 3, Fox 3, NFL 6, Split Backs, ESPN 8, Fox 1, ESPN 6, NFL 3, and ESPN 10. (Yeah, Fox leagues don’t seem to attract the strongest players…)

Perhaps that might be the inevitable fate of all my projects, for me to take them up, work on them obsessively for a time at the expense of my other obligations, and then abandon them as they become work and get too tedious. That may have already happened to those formulae I was working on, and it certainly would be consistent with some things I’ve read about Asperger’s Syndrome (including, of all things, an argument that Order of the Stick‘s Eugene Greenhilt has the same thing). Perhaps this site is always doomed to be a holding place for whatever project I take up for some period of time and eventually abandon, my own personal mezzacotta. If so, it doesn’t bode well for its ability to sustain itself, or my dreams of, whatever it is I end up doing in life, being one of the all-time greats at it.

Thanks in large part to The Streak, I’ve written 262 posts since my last Blog-Day post, which is in no way close to a record, as hard as that may be to believe when I couldn’t even hit 100 a couple years ago. I doubt I’ll fall short of 100 again. But I also doubt I’ll ever approach these heights again either. Here’s to Year Seven, a year I can’t even begin to predict.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 15

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 17 (December 30):

AFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (6-8)
EAST
49-5		 59-5
8-6
EAST
310-4		 68-6
CLINCHED
WEST
211-3		 7-7
CLINCHED
SOUTH
112-2
CLINCHED
NFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (6-7)
EAST
48-6		 59-5
2 teams at 8-6
NORTH
310-4		 68-6
2 teams at 8-6
WEST
210-3-1		 8-6
9-5 8-6
SOUTH
112-2		 8-6
CLINCHED 6-7-1
  • Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
  • Possible games: Ravens-Bengals, Packers-Vikings, Cowboys-Redskins, Eagles-Giants.
  • Cowboys-Redskins will be picked if: The Giants lose OR the Cowboys win. Both teams split the season series with the Giants, but the Giants can’t finish with a division record better than 3-3, while the Cowboys-Redskins winner will pick up at least their fourth division win. The Redskins won the first game against the Cowboys and so would sweep them with a win, so even with a Cowboys win this week a loss to the Redskins would eliminate them from the division. As this is the most TV-friendly option, it seems very likely, with the caveat that the loser could still get a wild card spot, and even if this scenario doesn’t play out…
  • Eagles-Giants will be picked if: The Giants win AND the Cowboys and Redskins lose, which would put this scenario (scroll to the bottom) into play. As would…
  • Packers-Vikings could theoretically be picked if: The Vikings win AND the NFC East teams all lose, as the Vikings would lose a tiebreaker to any of them but swept the Bears. But if that were to happen, the Vikings win by itself means I can’t see a scenario where the Cowboys-Redskins loser gets a playoff spot, wiping out Packers-Vikings’ one potential saving grace.
  • Ravens-Bengals will be picked if: The Ravens lose AND the Bengals beat the Steelers AND the Giants and Redskins win AND the Cowboys lose. Even then, the Ravens already have a playoff spot and the Bengals-Steelers result would assure the Bengals of one too; I haven’t researched that infernal common-games tiebreaker between the Colts and Bengals, but it’s very possible this game would merely determine home-field advantage for a rematch the following week, whether as the 3-6 or 4-5 game (if New England loses out, a Ravens win in this game gives them the 3 since they beat the Pats).