Predictions – Noel Slevin

2016-17 NFL Playoffs – Conference Round

We’re left with four teams and one of the number 1 seeds has been knocked out – so who will make it to Houston?

In the Wild Card round two weeks ago, all four home teams won. Last week, only two of the home teams won, with both the Kansas City Chiefs (#2 in the AFC) and the Dallas Cowboys (#1 in the NFC) sent packing, by the Steelers and Packers respectively. So, can either of them repeat their road wins again this week?

First, let’s look at last week’s predictor predictions:

Game	Prediction	Result
Seahawks - Falcons	Falcons by 9	Falcons by 16
Packers - Cowboys	Cowboys by 7	Packers by 3
Steelers - Chiefs	Steelers by a hair	Steelers by 2
Texans - Patriots	Patriots by 22.5	Patriots by 18

In the Wild Card round, my predictor picked all games correctly. Last week, it picked 3 out of 4 – that’s still a decent 7 of 8 so far in the playoffs. More importantly (to me), the margin of victory seems to hold up quite well.

It predicted the Steelers – Chiefs game would be very tight, and suggested the Steelers would win by a whisker. And they did.

It predicted the Seahawks would lost by more than a score – even though I tried to come up with reasons why that would be wrong. And they did.

It predicted the Patriots would win by three scores. And they did. Not that you’d think that from the media reaction after the game… I’ll come back to that.

It also predicted the Cowboys would win by a score, and they didn’t. The Cowboys’ defense looked awful in the first quarter, and that really cost them as they fell behind quickly. They did really well to recover, but that sideline catch to set up the winning Mason Crosby field goal was really something special.

Anyway, I’ll refer back to those games as we look at the Conference Round games.

Pittsburgh Steelers at New England Patriots

Make no mistake, the Steelers were up against a good team last week. The Chiefs have a good defense and an offense that whilst not explosive, is well-balanced and doesn’t often turn the ball over. It was always going to be a tough game. But they won it, and they played well.

That said, they scored six field goals and no touchdowns. For a team with Le’Veon Bell, Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, even up against a strong redzone defense like the Chiefs’, has to be a little disappointing.

It was the Chiefs’ lowest home score of the season, so the Steelers’ defense deserve credit, but offensively, the Chargers, Saints, Buccaneers and Titans had all gone to Arrowhead and scored more. To win at Gillette Stadium, the Steelers will need to turn some of those field goals into touchdowns. The Patriots allowed only 27 touchdowns in the regular season – ranked #2 in the NFL, behind only the Giants, so that’s not an easy task.

The Patriots won their game by 18 points. It says a lot that despite winning by three scores, their performance was questioned.

Let’s be clear. The Patriots never really looked like losing this game. Yes, as a Patriots fan, it was frustrating to watch, but the Texans didn’t ever look like winning. Don’t believe me? Let me remind you:

The Patriots took the lead with 9:27 left in the first quarter with a dump-off pass to Dion Lewis. After that, the Texans never got back on terms with the Patriots – the closest they got was 14-13 with 10:49 left in the second quarter.
The Patriots scored 34 points – that’s higher than their season average.
The Patriots allowed 16 points – their season average is between 15 and 16 points.
All Houston’s points came from turnovers (2 INTs, 1 FUM, for 13 points) or drives kept alive by penalties (a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on what would have otherwise been 4th and 8, resulted in a field goal).
Brock Osweiler’s QB Rating was 47.6.

Essentially, the game looked closer than it was at halftime because the Patriots made uncharacteristic mistakes – yet they still led. So, in truth, anyone with a brain knew they would go in at halftime – leading by 4 points – and sort themselves out.

And they did. They came out in the second half, made fewer mistakes (except Dion Lewis, who kept coughing up the football), and outscored the Texans 17 – 3. When they Did Their Job^™, the game was over.

One thing they will have to watch this week is looking after the football. The Steelers recovered 10 fumbles in the regular season (10), and if New England has been bad in one area this year, it’s fumbling the football – they gave away 9, compared to the Steelers, who gave away only 3.

Normally, after fumbling twice in a week, Bill Belichick wouldn’t start you the next week. As Dion Lewis did that but also scored three touchdowns, it’ll be interesting to see what happens to him this week…

The key to the Steelers winning is to stop the Patriots scoring. I know, it sounds obvious, but they won’t win if this becomes a shootout. If their defense makes this a low-scoring game, it’ll be a proper slugfest. If not, they will probably struggle. Turnovers will be key.

So, let’s predict this one.

The Patriots are 5 of 6 against playoff teams in the regular season. The Steelers are 4 of 7. Of those, the Patriots are 3 of 4 at home, and the Steelers are 1 of 2 on the road.

The Steelers have a good road defense. They have allowed no more than 20 points in 6 of their 9 road games. They’ve also scored 24 points or more in five of their nine road games, but all five of those games were against teams that didn’t make the playoffs.

My predictor tells me that overall, these teams are ranked closely for this matchup. However, the Steelers have been inconsistent on the road, and so it predicts a Patriots win. With the Patriots in the top 5 for scoring offense, overall offense, passing offense, scoring defense and rush defense, and the Steelers not appearing in the top 5 on any official metric, it’s hard to disagree.

However, the Steelers are, according to my own rankings, the third-best team in the NFL, and top two of those teams still left in the playoffs. The problem? The Patriots are the number one.

Pick: Patriots.
Predictor: Patriots, with 50% confidence, by 10 points.

Green Bay Packer at Atlanta Falcons

Forget the hype: according to my stats, neither of these teams are as good as their AFC rivals – despite what the experts and fans say. Too many people have been too quick to say the winner of this game will win the Super Bowl. They may, but the stats say if they do, they’ll win as underdogs.

My ratings measure seven metrics, in addition to the overall home/road ratings for each game. On each of those seven ratings, the teams are ranked from #1 to #32, with #1 being the best. So, the best possible score for a team is 7. The worst possible score is 32*7, which is 224. So, what are the numbers for the remaining teams?

Team	Score	Rank	Relative
Patriots	14	1	10
Steelers	29	3	16
Falcons	51	6	20
Packers	56	7	24

Of the seven metrics – which are Overall Rating, Home Rating, Road Rating, Points For, Points Against, Points Difference and Cumulative Median (I’ll explain that one another time), the Patriots lead the NFL in 5, and the Falcons lead in 1. The Patriots and Steelers outrank both the Falcons and Steelers on 5 metrics.

The Falcons lead the NFL on Points For. Green Bay are #4, ahead of the Patriots at #5 and the Steelers at #13. The Patriots lead the NFL on Points Difference, followed by Atlanta (#2), Pittsburgh (#4) and Green Bay (#6).

The relative ranks between just the four teams left are also shown in the table above, but essentially, the categories suggest the AFC teams are stronger.

So, the key question then is, of the Packers and Falcons, which is stronger? To be honest, my rankings suggest they’re very evenly matched, and I’d agree with that.

The Falcons are a more balanced team, with a good running game, a great deep threat with Julio Jones (and plenty other receivers besides), and a defense which seems to be peaking at the right moment.

On the other hand, you have a Packers team which doesn’t have a brilliant defense (bad news when playing the Falcons, but which has Aaron Rodgers, who will undoubtedly find holes in the Falcons’ defense. So expect a high-scoring affair.

The Packers aren’t a great road team, but they’ve won so many games on the bounce now (the last three against playoff teams, and the last game against the #1 seed in the NFC), I can’t see it affecting them.

I’m tempted to say whoever gets the ball first wins. But they Packers have won 7 of 9 games against playoff teams this season, and the Falcons are 3 of 5. I’ve gone against the Packers two weeks in a row. After *that* sideline throw last week, I’m not doing it again. They have a winning swagger and last week was the proof they are a very good team.

Plus, I’d love to see a Patriots – Packers Super Bowl. Rodgers and Brady in the same Super Bowl? Yes please!

Pick: Packers.
Predictor says: Falcons, with 80% confidence, by 5 points.

2016-17 NFL Playoffs – Divisional Round

We’re only two wins away from the Super Bowl, so who will be left standing after the Divisional Round this weekend?

In the Wild Card games in last season’s playoffs, all the home teams were knocked out. However, this season it was reversed, with all the road teams knocked out. So, what can be expected this week in the divisional round?

Last week, three of my picks (the Texans, Steelers and Seahawks) were correct, and one (the Giants) was incorrect. However, my predictor went one better, scoring all four correctly:

Game	Prediction	Result
Giants - Packers	Packers by 8.5	Packers by 25
Lions - Seahawks	Seahawks by 9	Seahawks by 20
Raiders - Texans	Texans by 2.5	Texans by 13
Dolphins - Steelers	Steelers by 12.5	Steelers by 18

As you can see, all four games were settled by margins larger than predicted – although the predicted margins were on the whole larger than most other people would have predicted.

The only exception to that would be the Raiders – Texans game, where most people would have expected the Texans to win by more than 2.5 points, but that was mainly down to the injury to Derek Carr, which my model doesn’t take into account.

All in all, my prediction model worked very nicely. So, how will it stack up this week? Let’s see.

Houston Texans at New England Patriots

Let’s get this game out of the way first. Let’s be honest – this is the biggest mismatch of the weekend. Despite being in the playoffs, and even getting through to the Divisional Round, the Texans are the twenty-third ranked team in my rankings.

They are a team that does two things well: they win at home, and they don’t allow many points – at home.

The trouble is, they’re playing on the road, where they allow, all things being equal, ten points a game more, score six points a game less, and lost three quarters of their games.

They play the meanest defense in the league, and an offense that can score on the ground or through the air almost at will.

A sidenote: I know people say the Texans have the league’s best defense. They don’t. The Patriots do. The Patriots allow fewer points per game than any other team (by two points a game). Give out awards for yards a game if you like, but last time I checked, you win based on points scored. That matters a whole lot more.

So, who’s going to win? The Patriots. By how much? Anywhere between 10 and 40 points. I could cloud you with more figures, but I won’t bother – apart from this:

My predictor is 35-3 in games this one-sided this season. One of those was the Cardinals beating the Seahawks in week 16. Another was the Bills beating the Patriots 16-0 in week 4, when the Patriots didn’t have a fit quarterback. The final one? The Texans – Chargers game in week 12. Unfortunately for Houston, they were meant to win it, and they lost – San Diego’s only road win of the season.

Pick: Patriots.
Predictor says: Patriots, 83% confidence, by 22.5 points.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Kansas City Chiefs

This is an interesting matchup. If the Steelers were at home, they would be clear favourites, but a trip to Arrowhead makes this much harder to pick.

Undeniably, a team with Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown are not a team you can write off. Nevertheless, the Chiefs’ defense is tough, they have a quarterback who doesn’t tend to turn the ball over, and they also can run the ball. Add on to that a bye week to rest, and Andy Reid’s 16-2 record after a bye week, and something has to give. So who’s it gonig to be?

People will tell you the Steelers are poor on the road. Well, they’re not the best team, but they are 5-3 on the road, and the Chiefs are only marginally better at home (6-2), so there’s not a lot to choose there.

Intriguingly, their average points per game are almost identical (23.47 to 23.81), as are their points allowed (18.76 to 18.81). However, the Chiefs are marginally better scoring on the road than at home. The Steelers are the third-rated team on the road, behind only the Patriots and Cowboys. So, are the Steelers edging towards victory?

The Chiefs are 2-2 in their last four home games, which have been the toughest of their home games. The Steelers are 4-0 in their last 4 road games, and haven’t allowed more than 20 points in any of those games. They’ve also scored at least 24 points in all those games. That’s a significant turnaround compared to their first four road games, where they scored fewer than 16 points in 3 games, and allowed more than 20 on 3 occasions.

The Chiefs are 1-0 in home games against playoff teams this season, whilst the Steelers are 0-1 in road games against playoff teams.

I’ve flip-flopped on this all week, and I’m not confident. But I’m going to back the Steelers’ recent road form.

Pick: Steelers.
Predictor says: Too close to call. Based on previous similar matchups, it suggests Steelers.

Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys

I refuse to get carried away with how good this Green Bay Packers team is. Yes, they are good, but they’re not really good. Last week, they were flattered by a New York Giants team which had plenty of opportunities to take a big first half lead, but didn’t take them. The Giants paid for that in the second half, but the game could have looked very different had they taken those chances. I suspect the Dallas Cowboys wouldn’t have wasted those chances…

The Packers still have two main weaknesses. First, their defense is not great, especially right of the hash mark. I expect the Cowboys to exploit this. Second, they struggle to run the ball. There’s only so long you can rely on Aaron Rodgers. You need more than him to win a Super Bowl. The Cowboys’ defense aren’t great, but they aren’t bad either, and allow 6 points fewer per game than the Packers. It’s definitely advantage Cowboys.

The Packers give up too many points on the road. They allowed 47 against the Titans, 42 against the Redskins and 33 against the Falcons. Yes, they’ve also scored 30 points three times, but who against? The Falcons (terrible defense), the Bears (just terrible) and Lions (average).

The Cowboys have allowed 20 points at home 5 times, but never more than 26. They have only once scored fewer than 20 points at home, have surpassed 30 three times, and on one of those occasions, they scored 42 (against the Lions).

The Packers are 1-1 in road games against playoff teams this season. They beat the Lions and lost to the Falcons. The Cowboys are 1-1 in home games against playoff teams – they beat the Lions and lost to the Giants.

But, looking at the season, the Cowboys always do the business when they should – except against Eli Manning. Tom Brady knows all about that. The Giants just defy convention.

Pick: Cowboys.
Predictor: Cowboys, with 83% confidence, by 7 points.

Seattle Seahawks at Atlanta Falcons

Although there are three cracking games this week, this is for me the most intriguing, because it’s a battle of relative strengths and weaknesses. It’s hard to know what will win out.

On one hand, the Falcons have an explosive offense, up against a team that whilst not as good as it has been, is hard to beat in the air. On the other, you have a Seahawks team which has struggled to score consistently, up against a Falcons defense which has more holes than emmental.

I suspect the end product may end up disappointing, as I’m coming to the conclusion the Falcons will likely be more able to score against a tough Seahawks defense, than the Seahawks will be able to take advantage of the Falcons’ ropey defense. I do hope I’m wrong though.

The Falcons have allowed 29 points or more 6 times at home this season, and have scored 30 points or more 6 times too. Their lowest scoring home game featured 54 points, a 41-13 win against San Fransisco. They have lost at home to Tampa Bay, San Diego and Kansas City, but all needed at least 25 points to win. Can Seattle score that many?

It’s hard to know. They can, but they don’t consistently. They scored 31 against New England on the road, but they also scored a combined 24 in Los Angeles, Arizona, Tampa Bay and Green Bay. Those four games combined would be enough to get a tie against Atlanta in their lowest-scoring game.

This is the Seahawks’ problem: against balanced teams, they’re a good matchup. They don’t create massive mismatches. Unfortunately, that’s their downfall this week. The rest of their game probably can’t make up for the mismatch of Julio Jones. I think any thoughts to the contrary are probably wishful thinking on my part.

Pick: Falcons.
Predictor: Falcons, with 62.5% confidence, by 9 points.

Reviewing Politics, 2016 Edition

It’s the end of the year, and what better way to end it than to look back on how foolish you were at the start of the year?

You may remember, at the start of the year I wrote my 2016 political predictions. Like many others, I suspect, most of these I now wish I hadn’t, as they turned out to be so badly wrong. So, I thought it would be fun interesting to review them…

Scottish elections
I predicted the SNP would win a majority in the Holyrood elections, that the Conservatives would win more seats than Labour and that the Green Party would win more seats than the Liberal Democrats.

Overall, a good start, I’d say. The SNP didn’t win a majority, of course, although they came very close. I was surprised how many constituencies they lost to other parties – the Liberal Democrats won four and the Conservatives seven, whilst Labour clung on in three.

Winning more constituencies, combined with a slight fall in their share of the list vote, meant they overall lost seats compared with the 2011 elections, although with the Green Party picking up seats overall, their is an overall majority for pro-Indy parties in the chamber.

In the end, the Conservatives did more than make gains on Labour – they passed them, comfortably, although with fewer seats than Labour had in 2011. The results were terrible for Labour, but they’ve not quite reached the bottom yet… that will be in May’s local elections.

The Greens did indeed beat the Liberal Democrats, by one seat. It would have been more, but the Liberal Democrats managed to win four constituency seats. Their local campaigns must have been exceptional, as their campaign nationally was abysmal, and all I remember of it is two randy pigs…

Verdict: Mostly correct.

The EU referendum
I still don’t really understand this. People don’t usually vote to make themselves poorer, which is what they chose to do in this referendum. I guess, all in all, they decided it was worth it, or that it wouldn’t make them poorer.

More than six months on, we’re still none the wiser what will happen and how it will pan out, but 2017 will give us an idea. How much sovereignty will the UK get back? Is it willing to pay the price, or will it become a poor man’s Norway?

In essence, we settled on an answer to the question, but we still don’t understand the question very much.

Verdict: Abject failure

Jeremy Corbyn
Well, he did survive as Labour leader, but his MPs did try to stick the knife in. They just didn’t succeed, thanks mainly to their National Executive Committee. Once Jeremy was confirmed as being on the ballot paper, he was never going to lose.

Well, apart from those pesky elections outside the internal Labour Party. He’s still losing those. Badly. Although not as badly as the branch office in Scotland…

Verdict: Half-right.

Hillary Clinton
It turns out that whilst none of the Republican candidates were electable, she was even less electable. Quite an achievement really.

That said, I don’t think any other candidate would have lost to Donald Trump. Familiarity and contempt cost her. Any other Democrat candidate probably would have beaten Trump. Would any other Republican candidate have beaten Hillary? No one will ever know.

I still would much rather be seeing Jeb Bush as President-elect, but that ship has sailed.

Verdict: Not completely wrong – the Republican candidate is a crackpot.

London mayoral elections
I was half right on this one. Sadiq Khan was the winner, but it wasn’t the closest election yet. Indeed, it was the largest margin of victory since the first election in 2000 when Ken Livingstone won as an independent.

Verdict: Half-right.

2017 predictions
Let me have a think about that. It might be better to use a fake news generator as it may be just as accurate.

2016 Political Predictions

Want to know everything about politics in 2016? Well, you won’t get that here. But I can tell you what I think will happen, and we can all laugh at how bad those predictions were come the end of the year. Or probably in March, to be honest.

The start of a new year is always a great time to make predictions which will ultimately be shown at the end of the year to be entirely misplaced.

That’s certainly true in politics. Who would have predicted a Conservative majority government at the start of last year. Well, me, actually… But I wouldn’t have predicted Jeremy Corbyn would be Labour leader… Or that Jim Murphy would be such a disaster as leader of Scottish Labour.

So,here are some predictions for 2016. Most revolve around the Scottish elections, since that’s what’s mostly on my radar right now.

The SNP will win a majority in the Holyrood elections
There’s nothing I can think of that can stop this. The question is, can they win a majority on constituency MSPs alone? They would need to pick up twelve of the twenty constituency seats they don’t currently hold in order to do this. I think it’ll be very close.

The Conservatives make gains on Labour
I don’t see Labour holding all thirty-seven seats they currently have. They currently hold fifteen constituency seats. Good luck.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, will, I think, gain a small handful of seats, mainly on the list. They’ll gain on Labour more because Labour lose seats rather than by gaining their own, but I think it will be a bit of both.

The Greens will finish with more seats than the Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems will struggle. I think they’ll pick up a single constituency seat and a few on the list. The Greens won’t win any constituency MSPs, but they’ll win more on the list, because they’ll pick up pro-indy, anti-SNP votes. I’d be surprised if the Liberal Democrats get 5% of the vote.

I would say Willie Rennie will no longer be their Scottish leader, but will there really be anyone there to replace him? I think it’ll be grim for the Liberal Democrats, despite the outward optimism they seem to have now.

Britain will vote to remain in the EU
I know Brits are hardly fond of the European Union, but I don’t think people will be prepared to take the risk of leaving when faced with the choice in a referendum. When making a choice, thinking about factors like jobs and money in their pockets, people will stick to what they know. They won’t want to take the risk.

Don’t believe me? Well, it was the same with Ed Miliband.

Jeremy Corbyn will survive as Labour leader
Getting rid of Corbyn would result in full-scale civil war. Labour MPs will decide to let him continue to poll badly, rather than stick the knife in quickly. It’s probably safer.

Hillary Clinton will win the US Presidential race
This will happen for the simple reason that no-one can beat her to the Democratic Party nomination, and all the Republican Party candidates that might do well are crackpots can’t reach out to enough voters. That, in essence, is the problem the Republican Party has at every election at the moment.

London will get a new mayor
But I’ve no idea who. London mayoral election’s are a mug’s game. I think it’ll be the tightest mayoral election yet, though. If forced to make a prediction, I’d probably pick Sadiq Khan, based on gut instinct and nothing else.