Menu

NFL schedule

The NFL Playoff Picture With Four Weeks Left

, , , , , , ,

I went to play around with ESPN’s Playoff Machine, the tool that allows you to pick the remaining games on the NFL schedule and then it automatically calibrates all the tiebreakers and sets up the NFL playoff picture in the aftermath of NFL Week 13.


My approach was conservative. I took whatever I felt would be the chalk pick in a game–if the teams seemed fairly even, I just deferred to the home team and I didn’t pick any upsets. Here’s how the results came out…

1st-Round Games
(6)Pittsburgh at (3)Cincinnati
(5)Kansas City at (4)Indianapolis

(6)San Francisco at (3)Detroit
(5)Carolina at (4)Dallas

BYES
(1)Denver, (2) New England
(1)Seattle, (2)New Orleans

The most interesting result was Pittsburgh, given that I do have them losing at Green Bay. The notion that 8-8 will grab the AFC’s final playoff spot is hardly unreasonable, given that 6-6 holds the spot right now (Baltimore).

My scenario does have the Ravens losing at Detroit and at home against New England. The latter is a classic example of the difficulty with implementing a conservative approach–is it safer to pick the Ravens at home, or defer to the Patriots as the superior team? You can make a good argument either way.

What I think this does illustrate is that Pittsburgh has a good tiebreaker situation, so long as they reach 8-8 in exactly this fashion–i.e, losing to Cincinnati at home while beating Green Bay does not equal itself out, since the Bengals’ game is within the division. It also illustrates that Baltimore is going to need to win at least one really difficult game if they’re going to make it back to the postseason.


I’m not sure I’d pick Dallas over Philadelphia, but that is the chalk pick, with the Cowboys having the Eagles coming to Big D this month and my scenario had both teams finishing 10-6. Again, we have a situation that shows that even you like Philadelphia, they’re going to have take out a team on the road and overcome significant tiebreaker disadvantages in the process. Dallas has a head-to-head win over Philly and is undefeated in the division.

The rest of the bracket is uncontroversial, especially after Chicago’s loss to Minnesota. I might lean Indy over Cincinnati in general, but I won’t dispute the 3 and 4 spots too fervently. This approach also does not factor in the possibility of teams resting starters in the final week.

The Week In Sports: Every Game You Need To Know About

, , , , , , ,

If you like Boston sports—and I do—this promises to be a fun week of TV action, with the week bookended by prime-time Patriots’ games and sequence of Celtics games sandwiched in between, as we take a look at what the coming week in sports offers sports fans.

New England plays Houston tonight in a Monday Night football game of huge consequence in the AFC playoff seeding battle. The Pats-Texans battle was the lead in TheSportsNotebook’s preview of NFL Week 14. Then on Sunday night, it’s another big battle in Foxboro, with the Patriots hosting the San Francisco 49ers. It was billed last night on NBC as a possible Super Bowl preview and the Vegas oddsmakers certainly agree, with these two teams installed as the favorites to be in New Orleans come February.

The NBA action isn’t necessarily highlighted by a Celtics game—that honor would have go to Tuesday night’s New York-Brooklyn game (7 PM ET, ESPN). But when it comes to volume, basketball fans will get a steady dose of green. The Celts host Dallas on Wednesday (8 PM ET, ESPN), travel to Houston on Friday (8 PM ET, ESPN) and then go to San Antonio on Saturday (8:30 PM ET, NBA-TV),

The Eastern Conference is packed up right now in the 4 thru 9 spots, with the Celtics a part of that group. Three other teams that are a part of that pack—Indiana, Chicago and Philadelphia—have seen the early portion of their season dominated by key injuries, and early this week TheSportsNotebook will take a look at all three.

San Antonio has no such problems, riding high at 17-4 and their Saturday night game with Boston caps off a week in which they too get plenty of TV love—we trust Gregg Popovich will play all his starters this time around. The Spurs are at Utah on Wednesday (10:30 PM ET, ESPN) and Portland on Thursday (10:30 PM ET, TNT). They’re in joust with Oklahoam City and Memphis for the top of the Western Conference, and it’s Memphis who will draw some extra attention here at TheSportsNotebook early this week.

College basketball is very quiet—the card during the week is pretty dull, and the best game is a Philadelphia street fight between St. Joe’s and Villanova on Tuesday (7 PM ET, ESPNU). That will work with TheSportsNotebook’s plans to take a closer look at the Atlantic 10, of which St. Joe’s is a leading contender.

As the week goes on we’ll also check in on the Mountain West and other top mid-majors, including Gonzaga. The Zags are in the Top 10 and my Monday podcasting colleague Greg DePalma over at Prime Sports Network believes this is Mark Few’s best team. I’ll be on with Greg at 4 PM ET today, he’s on throughout the week, I’ll have a midmajor preview highlighted by Gonzaga up later in the week—or your best option might just be to ignore us and watch Gonzaga for yourself on Saturday night against Kansas State (9 PM ET, ESPN2). Actually that makes too much sense, forget I brought it up.

Saturday will be a decent day of college sports—both bowls and buckets, though it’s nothing so spectacular that you can’t get some Christmas shopping in if need be. The state of Indiana hits the floor on the hardwood with IU-Butler & Purdue-Notre Dame on a CBS doubleheader starting at 2 PM ET. Michigan and head coach John Beilein host the latter’s former school at 8 PM ET on ESPN. Earlier in the day it’s Texas A&M-Oklahoma (2 PM ET, ESPN) in a game that can whet both fan bases’ appetite for the Cotton Bowl when they play each other in football. The best game of the day is a late show, with Florida-Arizona  at 10 PM ET on ESPN. Late last week, both of these teams were the subject of features here at TheSportsNotebook, as we looked at the contenders in the SEC & Pac-12.

The college bowl schedule has a quiet Saturday warmup with Nevada-Arizona and Toledo-Utah State in an ESPN doubleheader starting at 1 PM ET. TheSportsNotebook will briefly preview each game later this week. Then the bowls go quiet for a few days until resuming on December 20. Be sure and check out the complete bowl schedule and comments that was published here the day after the matchups were announced.

Finally we come full circle to the NFL. The Thursday fare isn’t bad—Cincinnati-Philadelphia (8:20 PM ET, NFL) as the Eagles showed some signs of life on Sunday, while the Bengals still showed they can blow an opportunity as well as anyone. Cincy came back to the back in a crowded AFC playoff picture that will be a prime topic in TheSportsNotebook’s NFL playoff projections that will publish on Tuesday. Sunday’s late afternoon feature is also a part of that AFC playoff mix—it’s Pittsburgh-Dallas (4:25 PM ET, CBS).

But the best football of the week comes early on Sunday afternoon. Fox has a a great NFC tandem of NY Giants-Atlanta and Green Bay-Chicago, while CBS has the same in the AFC, as we’ve got Denver-Baltimore and Indianapolis-Houston. Unfortunately, with all these games in the same time slot, our viewing options are limited—even more so if you have a local team playing then.

But take heart—at least we’ve got the Jets-Titans to cap it off on Monday Night (8:30 PM ET, ESPN).  I just feel like the Jets’ quarterback situation has slid under the media radar and now’s the time to give it some attention (I trust sarcasm comes through online).

Everybody enjoy the week. TheSportsNotebook will be freshened up each day, so be sure and stop back. We’re also adding to the historical collection of articles here each week, with the current focus being under-the-radar historical stories. There’s also a complete collection celebrating the cities who had great sports years.

The Week Ahead In Sports

, , , , , ,

After a weekend of intense college football, with conference championship, debates over the BCS and the final settling of the national title matchup, the time has come for the NFL to take center stage and basketball to get some increased prominence, as TheSportsNotebook takes its Monday morning look at the week in sports ahead.

The Redskins-Giants Monday night battle (8:30 PM ET, ESPN) represents New York’s chance to finally put away the NFC East and that game was looked at as a part of TheSportsNotebook’s overall NFL Week 13 preview on Friday. If we look ahead, Denver and Peyton Manning will be in the Thursday night spotlight when they visit Oakland (8:20 PM ET, NFL). The Broncos are in a three-way tie with New England and Baltimore for the #2 seed in the AFC playoff race.

We’ll look at this more closely in TheSportsNotebook in Tuesday’s NFL playoff projections, but just looking ahead, we see Baltimore with a tough visit to Washington on Sunday and New England hosting a monster Monday night game against Houston (8:30 PM ET, ESPN) on a week from tonight.

Fox has the doubleheader this week in the NFL and the 4:25 PM ET game of Saints-Giants has taken a hit with New Orleans falling to 5-7 and it gets worse if the Giants win tonight and remove any pressure in the division race. But even given that, New Orleans would still be trying to make their last desperate stand and the Giants would join the Packers in being a half-game back of San Francisco for the #2 slot in the NFC bracket and accompanying first-round bye.

Speaking of Green Bay, they’ll be on Sunday night, at home against Detroit (8:20 PM ET, NBC). The Packers are 8-4 and tied with the Bears in the NFC North, with Chicago playing Minnesota in a key game in Sunday’s early window. TheSportsNotebook’s going to take a closer look at the Bears’ slide in recent weeks and see what we can expect of this team down the stretch and into January. You can look for that feature in the middle of the week.  Also of note on Fox’s early Sunday coverage is Dallas’ visit to Cincinnati, with both teams fighting for the playoffs. As always, TheSportsNotebook will do a complete preview of NFL Sunday that will run on Friday afternoon.

The college basketball week starts in earnest on Tuesday with an interesting ESPN doubleheader of Texas-Georgetown and N.C. State-UConn that starts at 7 PM ET. On Wednesday, highly regarded Florida pays a visit to Florida State (7 PM ET, ESPN2). The SEC—Florida and Kentucky in particular—are one of the conferences TheSportsNotebook has not yet done an early season look-in on, and that omission will be fixed in the early part of this week. You can also look for Pac-12 basketball coverage to run over the next few days.

With Saturdays finally open for hoops, there’s a series of intriguing college basketball games on the TV docket. I do say “intriguing”, not “dynamite”, because it’s nothing that should keep you from finishing up Christmas shopping (or starting it). But if you want to catch a game, the best ones on the board are a midafternoon ESPN2 twinbill of Temple-Duke and UCLA-Texas that begins at 3:15 PM ET. Earlier in the day on the same network is Illinois-Gonzaga. My podcasting colleague, Greg DePalma over at Prime Sports Network firmly believes this the best Gonzaga team in some time and has a real shot at the Final Four. Greg and I will be on the air again on Monday afternoon at 4 PM ET.

And in the NBA, I think it’s safe to say the nationally televised games will be taken seriously by the competing teams after David Stern hit the San Antonio Spurs with a $250,000 fine for sitting all their key players in a Thursday night TNT game at Miami last week. I understand where the commissioner is coming from, but it’s more than a little arrogant to sanction a team out of the blue. A fairer approach would have been to put a rule in place going forward that would cover situations like this. But David Stern, like Roger Goodell in the NFL, has never chosen fairness when arrogance was within his grasp.

The NBA’s Central Division is stacked right now, with Milwaukee, Chicago and Indiana all hovering around .500 and the Bucks are on NBA-TV tonight against Anthony Davis and New Orleans (8 PM ET). Then it’s Pacers-Bulls tomorrow in a non-televised game. The showcase game of Tuesday is Oklahoma City-Brooklyn (8 PM ET, NBA-TV). The Nets are playing well in their new home and TheSportsNotebook will take a closer look at this team this week.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are the big TV nights in the NBA, and ESPN’s Wednesday coverage is Denver-Atlanta & Dallas-LA Clippers starting at 8 PM ET. Dallas again gets coverage on Thursday when their game at Phoenix is the back end of TNT’s doubleheader that starts with Knicks-Heat at 8 PM ET. After what happened to the Spurs, I think it’s fair to say Dirk Nowitzki will play both games, even if they are back-to-back early in the season and he’s an older player. Friday’s doubleheader on ESPN is Celtics-Sixers followed by Lakers-Thunder, and it all starts at 7 PM ET.

And don’t think college football is forgotten. Later today, we’ll have a complete breakdown of the bowl schedule and then later in the week—likely Friday—TheSportsNotebook will break down the Heisman race, going conference-by-conference, in anticipation of the awards ceremony in New York City on Saturday night (8 PM ET, ESPN). There’s also one more football game, with Navy-Army at 3 PM ET on CBS.