NFC Contenders .... AT A GLANCE (**NEWLY UPDATED - Week 10)

[KB_fan]

*The week 10 table is now posted on page 3 of this thread * 

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Hey all,

Given the likely VERY COMPETITIVE NFC playoff race that's shaping up, I thought it would be helpful to create and maintain an "at a glance" chart that shows each NFC contender, their past opponents & results, as well as their upcoming games.  Here's the chart for Week 8.  I'll try to update this weekly.   The chart is listed in CURRENT (week 8) playoff order.  [Thus Dallas is ahead of Panthers as NFC-E winner, even though Panthers have the better record.]

I'm going to try and add rows with the current combined W-L record of each team's past opponents and future opponents, but I haven't found an easy way to look up that info yet.  If anyone has any suggestions on where to find that info quickly, I'd appreciate it!

I welcome feedback & suggestions:

[luke262]

9 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

Hey all,

Given the likely VERY COMPETITIVE NFC playoff race that's shaping up, I thought it would be helpful to create and maintain an "at a glance" chart that shows each NFC contender, their past opponents & results, as well as their upcoming games.  Here's the chart for Week 8.  I'll try to update this weekly.   The chart is listed in CURRENT (week 8) playoff order.  [Thus Dallas is ahead of Panthers as NFC-E winner, even though Panthers have the better record.]

I'm going to try and add rows with the current combined W-L record of each team's past opponents and future opponents, but I haven't found an easy way to look up that info yet.  If anyone has any suggestions on where to find that info quickly, I'd appreciate it!

I welcome feedback & suggestions:

That spreadsheet does not look like an at a glance spreadsheet '! 

 

Appreciate the work seriously though

[KB_fan]

3 minutes ago, stbugs said:

I’d drop everyone below us except the Rams because they have an easier schedule and beat us. The rest won’t be worries to us making the playoffs, not worth the extra effort. If one of those teams get ahead of us, we’re already talking about the draft.

IMHO, the key things to me are projected losses, i.e. if GB plays Minnesota we know that one of the two teams ahead of us will have a loss. It sure doesn’t help us that the two games Mahomes will likely miss are against GB and Minnesota. SMH. The head to head is really big for Seattle, LA and SF.

It would be nice to get a feel for how many Ls we can realistically have before we’re basically out of contention. IMHO, I think we have to be 11-5. I can easily see LA at 9-7, so if they steal one they are 10–6 and seeing Minnesota or Seattle at 11-5 isn't a stretch so 10-6 is really a risky situation for us.

Yes, I probably will drop some of those trailing teams soon, but for now, it was helpful to see who they've played and what their current W or L streak is....

I would like to figure out some way of highlighting upcoming head-to-head games between key contenders.  I'll probably do that next week.  And yes, I was thinking about trying to include "projected record" of each team / possible losses ahead.  But again, that may be something for next week.  I'm still trying to get a feel for what's helpful. 

I don't want there to be too much information to be useful.

[Paa Langfart]

Got to disagree with Cam sitting himself. Why is Rivera making his millions?

[KB_fan]

10 minutes ago, stbugs said:

I’ll be honest that I am way less optimistic looking at the remaining schedules. I think our two NO games plus games at SF, SEA, at GB and at Indy are much harder than the rest of the schedules. NO’s schedule is easier so unless we win bot NO games, we are square in WC hunt. They already beat Seattle and somehow they lucked into playing Chicago instead of GB based on last year’s finish.

We can’t lose any gimmes and can’t blow any games. The TB loss will haunt us. Cam should have sat himself knowing how badly hurt he obviously was.

Yes, I pretty much agree.  I was shocked to see who the Saints have beaten to go 6-1.  But hopefully Any Given Sunday will prevail and they'll lose some game they should have won, just like we lost to the Bucs at home....

Our head to head matchups with SF, Saints, GB and SEA will determine our fate.  At least we DO play SF, GB & SEA rather than somehow just hoping that they'll falter against other teams.  We determine our fate to a large extent.  We win 3 or 4 of those 5 games and we're almost certainly in....  

[KB_fan]

1 minute ago, Paa Langfart said:

Got to disagree with Cam sitting himself. Why is Rivera making his millions?

PLEASE don't turn this thread into a debate on this point folks, thanks! There have been plenty of other threads discussing this ad nauseum.

[KB_fan]

Here are the current Strength of Victory and Strength of Schedule stats from the NFL GSIS site as of this morning.  It does show the 49ers haven't really played a strong schedule, whereas the Saints have....

[amcoolio]

I don't see us catching the Saints who are likely to go 13-3 or 14-2. That means we have to beat out one of the Vikings, Seahawks, Rams, and Bears, and that's tough.. Vikes have relatively easy schedule with Mahomes out, Rams have tiebreaker, Bears will be in every game because of their defense, and Seahawks have MVP candiate. I'd put our chances at 33%, that Bucs loss really killed us. One Christian McCafferry 4th down run could be the difference between playoffs and no playoffs.

[sml1950]

15 minutes ago, stbugs said:

I’ll be honest that I am way less optimistic looking at the remaining schedules. I think our two NO games plus games at SF, SEA, at GB and at Indy are much harder than the rest of the schedules. NO’s schedule is easier so unless we win bot NO games, we are square in WC hunt. They already beat Seattle and somehow they lucked into playing Chicago instead of GB based on last year’s finish.

We can’t lose any gimmes and can’t blow any games. The TB loss will haunt us. Cam should have sat himself knowing how badly hurt he obviously was.

These teams have to beat us also to get into the playoffs.  We don’t deserve to be a playoff team if we can’t beat them.  It’s just nice to have something to play for.

[KB_fan]

Thanks to a reply I got on Twitter, I was reminded that Football Outsiders has rankings of past & future strength of schedule.  Here's the data through the end of week 7, and the definitions of the various stats.

• Panthers have played the 18th hardest current schedule and have the 17th hardest schedule ahead.
• Saints have played the 7th hardest schedule and have the 19th hardest schedule ahead.
• SF have played the 27th hardest schedule and have the 9th hardest schedule ahead.
• SEA has played the 24th hardest schedule and has the 3rd hardest schedule ahead.
• GB has played the 11th hardest schedule and has the 8th hardest schedule ahead.
• Vikings have played the 22nd hardest schedule and have the 10th hardest schedule ahead.

You can find the Football Outsiders data here so you can play with it / sort the various columns:

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teameff/2019

 

 

[KB_fan]

I took the time to manually calculate the "strength of schedule" (to date) of key NFC contenders based on opponents' combined W-L records.

Here you go.  SF has played a MUCH weaker schedule.  New Orleans & Rams much tougher....

[KB_fan]

I'll update my Excel spreadsheet and post a new version mid-week. But in the meantime, here are the current NFC playoff standings after week 8. 

Panthers drop to 8th with the Rams now ahead of us.  All the teams above CAR won in week 8.  Ouch.

 

 

[KB_fan]

Ah, what the heck... here's the week 9 table a few days early.  This week is a busy one, so I decided just to crank this out this morning before the day and week get hectic,

Rams have moved up into #7.  Detroit and Philly now nipping at Panthers heels...

I will try to do more in terms of future opponents' records and predicted future W-L records / highlighting key games later this week.

[GoPanthers123]

I don’t think we are going far this year. Our run defence is terrible, if a team has good rushing and can create holes for big gains we cannot win that game.