Thanks for your patience this week. Preparing for Christmas can be time consuming, so I’ve been a bit delayed in getting this out. It will be short and sweet.
Last week, JLD was 11-5 and moved up to 56% overall on picks this year. The ESPN power rankings are at 57%. The goal of reaching 60% may be attainable with some more sustained success. It was a good week for picking upsets. JLD correctly picked Lions over Jets and Raiders beating the Patriots, just to name a couple.
For this week, we get to see a rare sight…football on Christmas Day!
Week 16 Rankings
There are some interesting results here (see Vikings, Lions, Seahawks and Raiders). I’m likely to take some heat on some of these, but I stand by the data. For example, there is very little difference in the Raiders and Vikings from a data perspective, except that one of them has managed to win their close games and one hasn’t. The tables could have easily been turned here and we could have the opposite. The major reason the Raiders outrank the Vikings is that the Raiders are scoring on 43% of their possessions vs. the Vikings 36%. This could be field goals over touchdowns, but facts are facts. The Vikings also lead the league in defensive penalty yards at 813, which affects the ranking. There’s more comparisons to make but I’ll leave that to you to research. Leave your thoughts on where your team should be ranked in comparison in the comment section at the end.
Week 16 Predictions
As of this writing, the Jaguars have already snuffed out the Jets and Chicago is leading the Bills (we’ll see how that plays out). Beyond that, here’s the games JLD is most interested in:
KC vs. Seattle: This has huge playoff implications. KC needs to keep in the #1 seed hunt and Seattle is just trying to get in.
Detroit vs. Carolina: The Lions really need to win every game to get into the playoffs without help, but currently they are losing big to Carolina.
Philly vs. Dallas: Battle for the division and giving Philly a serious black eye before the playoffs would be the biggest motivator for Dallas. Philly is out to prove they are not a fluke. News flash to some: they’re not.
Green Bay vs. Miami: Miami is also in trouble late in the season and need to win to stay in contention for the playoffs. The Packers can wreck that goal.
I wish to thank everyone that has been following JLD this year. It’s been fun and we’ll see if it continues into next season. For now, I wish all of you a very merry Christmas and an amazing new year!