NFL Season Projections

The NFL season is rapidly approaching as teams are all gong to have their first preseason games this weekend.  As such, its time to start looking at which teams will have bounce-back years, who will fall from the top and who will more or less where they've been.  Projecting the NFL though is actually much more difficult than college football.  This comes mostly from the fact that at the college level, recruiting and the prestige of the team both play major roles and tend to be pretty well known before you get going.  A team with a declining recruitment and high attrition is likely going to face issues down the line.

The NFL though sees quick turn arounds both up and down on a yearly basis.  The Jags went from a 3 win nobody to and AFC title hopeful in a matter of season.  The Packers went from Super Bowl contender to missing the playoffs thanks to an injury to Aaron Rodgers.  This past year though felt extremely odd with a pretty high number of starters missing significant time to injury, and several players regressing in their play from previous seasons.

There are luckily a few tools to look at that can be insightful  The first is Pythagorean wins.  This is a basicac methodology comparing a teams points surrendered to their points scored. Its one of the better methods we have to draw to identify teams that might break out or will face a fall back.

Team	Pts Scored	Pts Allowed	2017 Wins	Pythagorean Wins	Projection
Arizona	295	361	8	6.121667609	Decline
Atlanta	353	315	10	9.073219929	Decline
Baltimore	395	303	9	10.43407068	Improve
Buffalo	302	359	9	6.383506934	Decline
Carolina	363	327	11	8.985091809	Decline
Chicago	264	320	5	6.207261271	Improve
Cincinnati	290	349	7	6.27203956	Decline
Cleveland	234	410	0	3.348716789	Improve
Dallas	354	332	9	8.607085858	Decline
Denver	289	382	5	5.447465578	Improve
Detroit	410	376	9	8.817798162	Decline
Green Bay	320	384	7	6.297991742	Decline
Houston	338	436	4	5.657083749	Improve
Indianapolis	263	404	4	4.248708158	Improve
Jacksonville	417	268	10	11.84555917	Improve
Kansas City	415	339	10	9.881698326	Decline
LA Chargers	355	272	9	10.44406904	Improve
LA Rams	478	329	11	11.32677694	Improve
Miami	281	393	6	4.977440566	Decline
Minnesota	382	252	13	11.65243707	Decline
New England	458	296	13	11.804685	Decline
New Orleans	448	326	11	10.87875129	Decline
NY Giants	246	388	3	4.056257003	Improve
NY Jets	298	382	5	5.711535996	Improve
Oakland	301	373	6	6.009513373	Improve
Philadelphia	457	295	13	11.81346958	Decline
Pittsburgh	406	308	13	10.52917484	Decline
San Francisco	331	383	9	6.630333593	Decline
Seattle	366	332	6	8.920193743	Improve
Tampa Bay	335	382	5	6.765315773	Improve
Tennessee	334	356	9	7.396422456	Decline
Washington	342	388	7	6.812513678	Decline

The table above lists every team's projection.  Teams like Pittsburgh and Philly both overperformed for their 13 wins, so it might be more realistic to have them lose a game or two.  Liekwise, the Browns are pretty unlikely to go 0-16 again.  Brett Lieblich has his own adjusted Pythagorean formula, where he removes garbage time points to help lessen some of the noise of blowouts.  For my own predictions I do a similar thing to keep the program from over evaluating a loss.

The folks over at Footballoutsiders also have some research into defensive improvements year to year that coincides with third down efficicency.  Third down efficiency itself is a useful tool, having a roughly .51 r^2 value to wins.  Basically defeneses that perform well on 1st and second down but a re poor on third downs tend to improve the next year.  From below, we can see teams like Jax, Ten, and Buf all might look forward to a bit of defensive improvement next year.  Jacksonvilel will be tough to get much better, but the Titans and Bills both have a good shot to improve.  New England's defense might also be one to look at a sleeper for a unit that could quickly be back to being near the top.  On the flip side, Cin and Chi might expect a bit more regression this season.  And if you're a a Bucs fan, this defense might get really bad this year.

Team	1st and 2nd Down vs League Average	3rd Down vs League Average	1st and 2nd Down vs 3rd Down
ARI	-0.72	-0.42	0.3
ATL	-0.2	-0.3	-0.1
BAL	-0.32	-0.51	-0.19
BUF	-0.52	0.04	0.56
CAR	0.01	-0.06	-0.07
CHI	0.6	-0.55	-1.15
CIN	0.57	-0.8	-1.37
CLE	-0.11	-0.4	-0.29
DAL	0.26	-0.47	-0.73
DEN	-0.64	-0.47	0.17
DET	-0.31	0.11	0.42
GNB	0.15	0.07	-0.08
HOU	0.2	0.26	0.06
IND	1.28	0.04	-1.24
JAX	-1.82	-0.56	1.26
KAN	0.11	0.18	0.07
LAC	0.16	-0.32	-0.48
LAR	0.49	-0.24	-0.73
MIA	0.22	-0.02	-0.24
MIN	-1.6	-0.65	0.95
NOR	0.52	-0.21	-0.73
NWE	-0.16	0.61	0.77
NYG	1.23	0.05	-1.18
NYJ	0.5	-0.17	-0.67
OAK	0.65	0.08	-0.57
PHI	0.21	-0.57	-0.78
PIT	-0.3	-0.08	0.22
SEA	0.13	-0.62	-0.75
SFO	-0.45	-0.1	0.35
TAM	1.69	0.27	-1.42
TEN	-1.41	-0.13	1.28
WAS	-0.62	0.07	-0.69

On the program front, its classification mostly deals with team trends.  I use a weighted average of a team's past 4 seasons to get some idea of who should be where.  This is that prediction for the 2018 NFL season.  I'm not certain that I like it as much, since its got a high variance and this upcoming season seems to have some huge questions for teams at the top of the charts, but its a starting point.

Team

New England Patriots

Minnesota Vikings

Kansas City Chiefs

Pittsburgh Steelers

Atlanta Falcons

Seattle Seahawks

Carolina Panthers

New Orleans Saints

Philadelphia Eagles

Dallas Cowboys

Baltimore Ravens

Los Angeles Chargers

Green Bay Packers

Detroit Lions

Arizona Cardinals

Washington Redskins

Cincinnati Bengals

Denver Broncos

Los Angeles Rams

Buffalo Bills

Jacksonville Jaguars

Oakland Raiders

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Chicago Bears

Tennessee Titans

Houston Texans

Miami Dolphins

New York Jets

New York Giants

Indianapolis Colts

San Francisco 49ers

Cleveland Browns

The SSD Arrives

Armada finally got an announcement.  Basically a year after teasing something big coming, we finally got the first look on Wednesday night's In Flight Report.  On Friday we got the article giving us the first few details we have about the ship.  Not much is spoiled, besides the lowest costed standard play version.

With what we have so far, I am just not on the hype train yet.  The ship is powerful, boasting an elite suite of upgrades, hull and basic values.  The power to gin a token for each command and a pair of fleet commands gives it wide versatility.  And with a conservative build out you could pair it with an ISD to protect its weak flanks.  The issue this ship presents is the difficulty in flying it and the gameplay that forces.  The side arcs are wide, but you're going to have to keep ships in front to score any kills.  Double arcing is going to be almost impossible with the need to nav to just get a click.  Much like the Victory, if it gets pointed the wrong way its over. This is going to force approaching fleets to go much slower, to try and force that wrong movement. 

Also tamping down expectations is the thought this is the only release coming for possibly a year.  A $200 model as the only release for a year is just not exciting.  As more info comes out I'll probably get more excited.  But  right now its just a miss.

NCAA 2018 Predicted Win Totals

In the last volume of early rankings, I posted the predicted spots for each team.  That's a number based solely on returning production, recruiting and a teams trend over the last 5 years.  It gives a good indication, but it doesn't do a great job of predicting where teams will end up within their conference.  This is due to some conferences being much stronger overall and teams facing a tougher climb.  Northwestern might have the trajectory and recruiting to be a Top 25 team, but having to play Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan State is likely enough to limit their chances of being a 9 win team.

As Always the numbers give me some surprises.  Bama, Boise and OSU having 11 wins as their  most likely outcome with some dips to 9 and up to 11 is standard.  But Duke to 10 wins?  The program apparently finds Duke to be the most wildly unpredictable team, because they have roughly the same odds of winning 10 games (10.12%) as winning just 4 games (9.6%).  Florida is up there as well, largely thanks to solid 5 year recruiting and a lot of returning production from last year. 

Team	Predicted Win Total
Alabama	11
Boise State	11
Ohio State	11
Oklahoma	11
Clemson	10
Duke	10
Florida	10
Georgia Southern	10
Marshall	10
Miami(FL)	10
Michigan	10
Southern California	10
Stanford	10
Toledo	10
Wisconsin	10
Alabama-Birmingham	9
Auburn	9
Louisiana Tech	9
Memphis	9
Michigan State	9
Navy	9
Notre Dame	9
Old Dominion	9
Penn State	9
San Diego State	9
Washington	9
Western Michigan	9
Appalachian State	8
Arkansas	8
Arkansas State	8
Baylor	8
Boston College	8
California	8
Florida Atlantic	8
Florida State	8
Fresno State	8
Georgia	8
Houston	8
Iowa	8
Miami(OH)	8
Mississippi State	8
Northwestern	8
Ohio	8
Oregon	8
Southern Methodist	8
Temple	8
Texas	8
Utah	8
Utah State	8
Air Force	7
Brigham Young	7
Buffalo	7
Central Florida	7
Georgia Tech	7
Kansas State	7
Louisville	7
Middle Tennessee State	7
Mississippi	7
Missouri	7
Nevada-Las Vegas	7
North Texas	7
South Florida	7
Southern Mississippi	7
Texas Christian	7
Troy	7
Virginia Tech	7
Wake Forest	7
West Virginia	7
Wyoming	7
Army	6
Louisiana	6
Maryland	6
Nevada	6
North Carolina State	6
Northern Illinois	6
Oklahoma State	6
Pittsburgh	6
Texas A&M	6
Tulsa	6
Akron	5
Arizona	5
Arizona State	5
Ball State	5
Charlotte	5
Colorado	5
Colorado State	5
Florida International	5
Illinois	5
Indiana	5
Iowa State	5
Nebraska	5
North Carolina	5
Purdue	5
San Jose State	5
South Alabama	5
Vanderbilt	5
Virginia	5
Washington State	5
Western Kentucky	5
Bowling Green State	4
Cincinnati	4
Eastern Michigan	4
Kansas	4
Kent State	4
Kentucky	4
Louisiana-Monroe	4
Massachusetts	4
Minnesota	4
New Mexico	4
New Mexico State	4
Rice	4
South Carolina	4
Syracuse	4
Tennessee	4
Texas Tech	4
Tulane	4
UCLA	4
Central Michigan	3
East Carolina	3
Georgia State	3
Louisiana State	3
Oregon State	3
Rutgers	3
Texas-El Paso	3
Texas-San Antonio	3
Connecticut	2
Hawaii	2
Liberty	2
Coastal Carolina	1
Texas State	1

Last Chance U: Season 3 Review

For football fans, the summer months are a doldrums of things to help satisfy the hunger for games and content.  OTAs for the pros aren't here yet and college teams are even less active with at bets Media days to fill the void.  One of the best things the last two years though has been Netflix's Last Chance U.  The program followed the premise of Hard Knocks, just at a prominent team at the JUCO level instead.  The team at East Mississippi was filled with former Power-5 cast offs looking to spark an interest from other programs and fulfill the promise they tended to have in their recruiting rankings.  The show was very well produced, and the players, coaches and Academic Advisor were all interesting and provided drama for a behind the scenes look at a football team already knowing how their season and attempts to move forward went.

Its an important show to watch for football fans, in large part because it gets beyond the field.  It gives a look into some of the preparation for each week, and the grueling schedule and effort players and coaches must show.  It also shows the absolute struggles some of these players come from, and how for many of them football is the only answer to moving on from it.  The show is at its best showing the redemption stories of players having found themselves mired n addiction or violence, and finding a way to focus themselves back onto the right track and getting a degree and a possible shot at redemption. 

The show moved on from Mississippi this year to Independence Community College in Kansas to follow Head Coach Jason Brown's second year of a turn around of the ICC team.  ICC had been a doormat in one of the most competitive conferences at the JUCO level, but just a year in the expectations were set extremely high for the program.  Without divulging spoilers, this season was not as good as the previous two iterations.  The show needs strong characters to attach to, and this season lacked a likability of many of the featured players and coaches.  Jason Brown was more abrasive than Buddy Stephens, and the show showed only glimpses of the care he put into the players.  The season also expends a lot of time following him, when the previous years had a better mixture between the players and coaches.  It probably isn't helped that most of the players the show follows are sulky at their position in the program, instead of becoming resilient like so many in the past.

Overall the move to ICC should help the show remain fresh, since these interest stories have trouble maintaining authenticity as more people find out about them.  THis season though was light on the likability of the characters involved, and that hurt the show.  Its still worth a watch to see into a different JUCO program and the struggles these players have, but hopefully next season sees a shift back to player focus and to more stories of off field triumphs.  Below are a few more specifics but they come with a spoiler warning.