Phins @ Donkeys - Rooting for?

Dexter said:

Phins no doubt, another Broncos loss and #1 seed is in the bag. The division is the last thing I'm concerned about, as long as Brady is breathing it will always be ours.

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Dont sleep on the Chiefs. If the fins win next week we should be pulling for the donks week 13.

Oswlek said:

You missed my point. They are factual now, but the person predicting them would have done so at the beginning of the year... when no meaningful data was available. That is the definition of idle speculation.

Having a 10 game sample to base your judgements on is not. Doesn't mean you'll be right all the time, but it is going to be more accurate than preseason predictions.

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I guess we're gonna have to disagree.

With a nine game sample, I thought that the likelihood was trivial that the Rams would beat the Broncos yesterday.

If you had asked me at the time, with an eight game sample, after they blew away the Packers at home and then didn't have a let down against a weak Carolina team on the road four days later, I probably would have said that the chances that the Saints would lose to two very inconsistent teams, San Fran and Cincy, at Home, on consecutive weeks shortly thereafter were "trivial."

I'm not saying it's "likely," but I'm also not ready to say, with a ten week sample, that the chances are "trivial" that the Pats and KC couldn't end up with identical records.

PatsFanSince74 said:

With a nine game sample, I thought that the likelihood was trivial that the Rams would beat the Broncos yesterday.

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Absolutely, but a one game oddity is not really comparative to a six game one.

You can keep putting "trivial" in quotes, but the fact remains that KC's chance of going 13-3 are pretty much non-existent.

Chiefs remaining games:

@OAK
DEN
@ARZ
OAK
@Pitt
SD


They've already had their bye, and would have to end the season on an 11-0 run to win out.

Oswlek said:

Absolutely, but a one game oddity is not really comparative to a six game one.

You can keep putting "trivial" in quotes, but the fact remains that KC's chance of going 13-3 are pretty much non-existent.

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Again, we either mis-communicate or just disagree.

Who said anything about KC ending up 13--3? I don't think it's out of the realm of reasonable speculation that the Pats end up at 12--4, a record that I could also see for the Chiefs. The Pats have a game in Lambeau and three Division games, where all bets are often off. I'm also concerned that I am being over confident by failing to mention the potential trap games against Detroit and @ San Diego.

And, again, I'm not saying that 12--4 for the Pats and Chiefs is "likely," just that the chance of its coming to pass is not, with or without quotation marks, trivial.

Here’s how I see things with regards to the Chiefs and Broncos. While the odds of the Chiefs finishing with the same record as the Pats are there, a few other things need to happen, one of which is the Chiefs would have to win the divisional round for us to go through KC. At this point of the season, with 6 games left, there are too many scenarios to even predict the final record of each team. I still think that the debacle in KC in week 4 was an anomaly and should we play them again in the playoffs, things will turn out quite differently (OL issues sorted out, Browner, Gray, Jones, etc.)


I still think the Broncos are the best team in the AFCW and pose the greatest threat to our run. I think we can bust the Dolphins heads wide open at home in December, so I’d worry about THAT bridge when we get to it. In the mean time, every loss that can be handed to the Broncos will be more than welcomed, if not for the mere opportunity to see yet another Manning (I shat my pants) face, seeing his demise, and last but not least: give him that last little push to throw him off the cliff down towards the end of his era, going out on a low note. And the sooner, the better.


GO PHINS

PatsFanSince74 said:

Again, we either mis-communicate or just disagree.

Who said anything about KC ending up 13--3? I don't think it's out of the realm of reasonable speculation that the Pats end up at 12--4, a record that I could also see for the Chiefs. The Pats have a game in Lambeau and three Division games, where all bets are often off. I'm also concerned that I am being over confident by failing to mention the potential trap games against Detroit and @ San Diego.

And, again, I'm not saying that 12--4 for the Pats and Chiefs is "likely," just that the chance of its coming to pass is not, with or without quotation marks, trivial.

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Perhaps, but you still need to account for Denver. Even if KC beats Denver next time around... if both teams end up 12-4 Denver would take the tiebreaker due to a better conference record. To take the division, they would need Denver to lose one more game than they do the rest of the way. And while Denver is struggling right now, KC hasn't been much better. They played equally poorly to Denver's StL loss in Buffalo, only to get several lucky breaks that Denver didn't, and then they just barely sneaked past a struggling Seattle team in Arrowhead.

When you factor in how well all the teams are playing, and the fact that even if KC and NE end up tied, it wouldn't matter because Denver would win the ACFW, it leads to there being a trivial chance of KC taking the top seed. You may not like the use of that word, but it's applicable in this case. And it doesn't mean it can't happen, just that it isn't likely, which we seem to agree on.

Now that Oakland won has anything changed? I'd think we would be pulling for the phish this week and the chiefs next week

Why is sinkhole not an option?

At this point all the Broncs can do is change our Playoff seeding. But the Dolphins can deny us a Playoff appearance.

So in that case I'll hold my nose and root for Manning.

AzPatsFan said:

At this point all the Broncs can do is change our Playoff seeding. But the Dolphins can deny us a Playoff appearance.

So in that case I'll hold my nose and root for Manning.

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One thing I'm looking at is the game next week (DEN/KC) is much more important than DEN losing this week.

Since we'll be pulling for KC next weekend, I'd have a difficult time imagining DEN losing 3 in a row, not to mention 4 of their last 5. I don't think that's very realistic.

I think a best case for us would be to see MIA lose on Sunday, which will either give us more separation or at least allow us to remain 2 games ahead, should they lose to DET....and then root for KC to beat DEN next weekend.

Deus Irae said:

Chiefs remaining games:

@OAK
DEN
@ARZ
OAK
@Pitt
SD


They've already had their bye, and would have to end the season on an 11-0 run to win out.

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Since they lost to OAK last night, I think it's quite realistic for them to end up 3-3 in their last six, myself.

Either way, I don't think there's any way they end up any better than 4-2. Any one of DEN, @ARZ, @PITT, or even SD can easily beat them.

supafly said:

Since they lost to OAK last night, I think it's quite realistic for them to end up 3-3 in their last six, myself.

Either way, I don't think there's any way they end up any better than 4-2. Any one of DEN, @ARZ, @PITT, or even SD can easily beat them.

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Yeah.... I never understood the logic behind deciding to cheer for Denver. It was basically "Let's cheer for the only team that's on the Patriots level in their attempts to get better playoff seeding."

Would it be better for PM to continue to rack up his record number of playoff losses or to not make the playoffs (which admittedly seems unlikely). I'm kinda torn on this.

Ultimately, I'll just root for my team and want them to knock down anybody who shows up to play them and let history sort out the rest. Let's just keep winning (with maybe 1 more loss) and lock up the #1 seed.

Oswlek said:

Perhaps, but you still need to account for Denver. Even if KC beats Denver next time around... if both teams end up 12-4 Denver would take the tiebreaker due to a better conference record. To take the division, they would need Denver to lose one more game than they do the rest of the way. And while Denver is struggling right now, KC hasn't been much better. They played equally poorly to Denver's StL loss in Buffalo, only to get several lucky breaks that Denver didn't, and then they just barely sneaked past a struggling Seattle team in Arrowhead.

When you factor in how well all the teams are playing, and the fact that even if KC and NE end up tied, it wouldn't matter because Denver would win the ACFW, it leads to there being a trivial chance of KC taking the top seed. You may not like the use of that word, but it's applicable in this case. And it doesn't mean it can't happen, just that it isn't likely, which we seem to agree on.

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OK. OK. Maybe "trivial" is now the operative word.

Deus Irae said:

Yeah.... I never understood the logic behind deciding to cheer for Denver. It was basically "Let's cheer for the only team that's on the Patriots level in their attempts to get better playoff seeding."

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I assume that the logic is simply that you have to win the division. At 2 games back with a head-to-head victory and another meeting to come, the Dolphins are hanging around.

Before KC's meltdown in Oakland, you might also have argued that you expected the Chiefs to win their division, making Denver less of a threat. Now, though, I think the balance is in clearly favor of rooting for Miami.

I'm just happy one of the two has to lose.

fnordcircle said:

You should be rooting for the dolphins it's not even a question.

We can lose 2 games and still control our destiny when it comes to winning the division since we still get to play Miami. We don't have any such direct influence over the Broncos and if we lose two games and they don't then the road to the SB goes to Denver.

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agree fully

If you root for forehead you are WRONG!

This has been an interesting thread to read once the Raiders beat KC.

Now we need KC and/or Miami to knock off Denver.

Things are really going our way right now. Let's hope that continues right through the SB

After Oakland's win last night, all things are possible. The AFCW has to be interesting now, because Oakland has a taste of winning, and that makes them dangerous. What makes them somewhat frightening is that they don't have anything to play for except SPOILER, and there's no better feeling in the world than knocking someone else out of the playoffs if you can't be there.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see KC and Denver both lose at least 2 more games apiece, and that's fine with me. I also could easily believe that Oakland will win at least 1 more, if not 2 more games.

So these next few weeks are going to be all sorts of interesting.