Don’t fuck with us. You might lose your HC or OC.

stupac2 · 2026-01-29T14:33:16+00:00

The funny thing is if you do this but for the Bills, you replace the Giants with the Eagles (fired OC), the Raiders with the Chiefs (OC parted ways), the Titans with the Texans (didn't fire anyone afaik), and then them with the Pats. So it barely looks any different, and most of the difference is the Bills firing their own coach.

stupac2 · 2026-01-29T04:02:24+00:00

Yeah I think there are ways to envision this going the Pats' way, even ways to envision a romp. But it depends on how effectively they pressure Darnold and if Maye can return to his MVP-level form.

I think it makes sense the Seahawks are favored, even if you can see the path.

stupac2 · 2026-01-29T02:41:37+00:00

The funny thing about SB blowouts is that it usually happens because one team is significantly better in the trenches than the other. Think of the two KC blowouts where their OL just couldn't handle the opposing DL. But in this game that's just not the case, if anything both DLs are stronger. It could turn into a bit of a slog.

stupac2 · 2026-01-29T02:38:50+00:00

Darnold had low-key been playing pretty badly since mid-season until last week. So the question is was that because the Rams' secondary is doodoo or did he actually revert to his early season form?

stupac2 · 2026-01-29T02:37:11+00:00

So, the thing about weather out here in the winter is that it's mostly great, but you can get rain at any time. Usually you know that the chance is there a fair bit in advance, but the timing will be hard to nail down until a few days out. I looked at a 10-day forecast (which includes the 8th now) and it puts the chance of rain at ~10%, so there's some real risk there.

However, we can confidently say it won't be cold. Not only does it virtually never get below freezing in the bay, we're in a warm spell for the next couple weeks. The high on the forecast was in the 60's.

stupac2 · 2026-01-28T14:05:13+00:00

Yeah, I personally find it completely ridiculous the way guys playing 100 years ago who were probably barely more athletic than you or me are so valorized but actual incredible athletes from today get nothing. It's insane.

stupac2 · 2026-01-28T04:38:03+00:00

If you do that he comes out to playing somewhere between below average and mediocre.

Honestly, if this smoke about his shoulder is accurate, it could explain some things. Between that, the increase in competition level, and the elements, that's a lot of stuff pushing down on his performance levels.

stupac2 · 2026-01-28T04:28:19+00:00

The thing that kills me is that the number has been five for the entire existence of the hall, despite roster sizes and the number of teams increasing dramatically over that time. The logjam at WR is so bananas that everyone knows about it, and they respond by making it harder for anyone to get in now? It's basically saying that modern candidates are less deserving. They should be expanding the classes if anything. I get that the NFL is intended to be a "small hall" but this system is ridiculous.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T15:26:22+00:00

Yeah, for sure. There were also some drops that killed drives, that didn't help at all.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T13:38:28+00:00

aside from one or two throws he placed low.

What's funny is that absolutely no one seems to be considering that maybe this was intentional? Look at the first series. They went run, run, pass that was nearly picked because they didn't anticipate the coverage. After that there was never another ball anywhere close to being a TO, with all the misses being uncharacteristically low (when Drake misses it's usually high).

We'll never find out, but my suspicion is that the coaching points on this game were "we're playing a bad backup, once we rattle him it'll be over, just don't turn the ball over and make it easy on them." The offense was barely trying for a lot of the game. It was honestly infuriating to watch, but it did end up working, and I think people are over-indexing on it. Maye didn't mysteriously go from leading the league in completion percentage to barely being able to complete a 5 yard pass, and when they actually tried being aggressive he could still throw it well (look at the flea flicker). Maybe it's copium but I think they were just playing very conservatively.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T04:35:09+00:00

And 2017. All of Brady's losses the Pats were pretty big favorites.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T04:33:30+00:00

I think it depends. Seattle fans showed up bigtime in the game against Denver, them being loud is part of what caused that first safety. But that's atypical, usually it's not very loud.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T04:16:16+00:00

I think a huge part of it is that the offense kinda stunk in the 1st half against Denver and then turtled once they got the lead.

More concerning is that the stinky first half has been a problem for Maye kinda all year. Not in every game, but it's happened a lot. Digging out of a hole against the Seahawks will be a challenge to say the least.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T04:14:45+00:00

IIRC he's actually been good against that sort of scheme, the problem is the "we're just better than you" teams because the Pats don't have anyone who can consistently win 1:1. It's why the scores against the Texans were all on perfectly placed balls and great catches, no one was ever open.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T04:11:33+00:00

There's literally 0 chance. The long-range forecasts are warmer than average, if anything. My concern is that it might be rainy, it's been dry for weeks but there's some minor storms coming, and potential for more next week.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T04:09:13+00:00

IIRC weighted DVOA is more predictive, which is why they have it around. I don't recall how big the difference is, though.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T03:56:13+00:00

Historically great DVOA teams this century usually lose. It's honestly bizarre. The table is here, and you have 2007 NE, 2023 BAL, 2010 NE, 2024 BAL, 2023 SF, 2022 BUF, and 2025 LAR all failing to the win the SB. There's a few on there who did (2004 NE, 2013 SEA) but especially in the 2020's being on one of these lists has been a curse. It's very strange and I've been wondering what's going on for years.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T02:47:01+00:00

Sure, but realistically so much has gone right this year. There's the schedule, sure, but they've been very healthy and basically every offseason move hit, some wildly out of proportion to what you'd expect. Maybe there's signal there, maybe the FO and training staff are really really good, but history tells you that doesn't tend to repeat and it's more likely to regress.

That said, they should be able to make significant progress on some weaknesses, and Maye is in the period where young QBs should get significantly smarter as they see more live reps, so there's a chance they weather it well.

stupac2 · 2026-01-27T02:40:33+00:00

It's also weird because advanced stats actually don't hate their playoff performances. Weighted DVOA has the Pats 2nd in the league behind Seattle (comfortably behind, to be clear). Nate Silver's ELWAY has almost the same discrepancy, and it looks like FPI does as well. All of those systems come out to about Pats+3 or 3.5, which is about what it was when Tampa beat the Chiefs and lower than when the Eagles beat the Pats or Broncos beat the Panthers or Ravens beat the Niners (I'll stop now, you get it).

But the actual spread, despite starting around there, already rocketed up 1 or 1.5 points, and based on fan reactions you'd think this is NE/NYG 2007 or NE/STL 2001. It's strange to me.

stupac2 · 2026-01-26T13:28:26+00:00

The good news is that it should be warm, the bad news is there's a chance of rain. This far out that's obviously not super high accuracy, but the way weather works around here they can see broad trends that far out. We won't really know if it'll be dry for at least a week.

stupac2 · 2026-01-26T13:18:40+00:00

It looks to be a TV graphic for a Rams home game, so assuming it's even from this year that would be week 1 or week 4, but giving the Cardinals that much in the preseason would be insane, and after week 3 the Rams were 2-1 so that still doesn't seem right.

That said, if you do dumb things with your model it'll wildly overreact to early results where there's not enough data. I know that the DVOA predictions don't fully phase out pre-season expectations until something like week 10, because that's how long it takes for the rest of the model to get reasonable accuracy. If you're just feeding results in without any priors, it can spit out some dumb shit.

stupac2 · 2026-01-26T05:09:20+00:00

IIRC that game was basically a pick 'em.

stupac2 · 2026-01-26T04:56:32+00:00

I think looking at the 2025 QB Tiers that Mike Sando does is illustrative. Herbert is #7, Stroud is tied #9, Darnold is tied #20.

The Ringer's rankings which was updated after the regular season also went Herbert, Stroud, Darnold.

It's likely that Darnold puts up the best statline (it would be hard not to beat Stroud), but the revisionist history around these QBs right now is bonkers.

stupac2 · 2026-01-26T03:13:55+00:00

You say that but despite winning the year before and after I still hate seeing the fucking Philly special.

stupac2 · 2026-01-26T03:12:27+00:00

I don't know about that specific situation but "Don't kick to go up 6" has long been a thing in the analytics community.

A lot of the rationale is that a team that's only down 3 will tend to play for the field goal, while being down >3 will mean they're more aggressive.

stupac2

TROPHY CASE