2020 NFL PLAYOFFS---Conference Championships

          Division Weekend started out with a clunker when my Minnesota Vikings (+7), did not come close to cashing against the quite-quite-good-and-not-bad-at-all San Francisco 49ers.  But when Tennessee, Kansas City and Green Bay all rolled home (well, OK---Green Bay actually squeaked home), I was back on top.  My ATS record so far is 4-2.

          Tennessee @ KC (-7.5)

            Though I picked the Titans to get the cheese as 10-point dogs to the Ravens, I have to admit I was a bit surprised that they not only won outright but basically crushed the Superbowl favorites this year.  The previous week, defeating the Patriots in Foxboro in January was impressive, but fluke results occur every week during an NFL season and occasionally in the playoffs.  Even following that stunning victory, neither fans nor oddsmakers gave Tennessee much of a chance to beat the Ravens.  But then they did.

          Probabilities change once we obtain more information, and Bay’s Theorem* now comes into play, at least for me.  Beating the Pats?  A shocker but perhaps meaningless, especially since New England had been on something of a downward trajectory at the end of the regular season.  But then going to Baltimore and pounding the Ravens?  It occurred to me that Tennessee had actually gotten good, but nobody noticed.  I am no longer prepared to believe the Tennessee story is all fairy dust and unicorns.

          The AYP (and other), numbers I look at are based on the sixteen games of the regular season, so I decided to check just the last six games for the Titans, following their bye week of November 17.   The differences were startling.

          Tennessee’s AYP for the season as a whole was 7.1 yards, a respectable number.  For the six games from 11-24 to 12-29, however, it was 9.8 yards (an amazing number).  Point differential for the season was 4.4; for the last six, it was 11.0.  Perhaps a more concrete example of their improvement was the difference in their two games against Houston.  In Week 15, the Titans lost to the Houstons 24 -21 in Tennessee.  Two weeks later, the Titans rolled over the Texans, in Texas, 35 – 14.

          Since I checked the last six for Tennessee, why not do the same thing for KC?  OK.  The point differential in those six was about the same as for the entire regular season.  The AYP, however, dropped from 7.4 (entire season) to 6.2 (last six), which may or may not be significant.  I hesitate to downgrade a team that won their last six games by a margin of 16ppg, so I’m not going to.  KC is good, very good.  Why shouldn’t they be?  They’re in the Conference Championship game.  But Tennessee looks like something special.

          One final item.  The three top-scoring teams in the AFC this season were:

          Baltimore        531 points

          Kansas City     451 points

          New England   420 points.

Over the last two weeks, Tennessee’s D allowed 13 points to New England and 12 points to Baltimore.  At this moment, Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes must be watching the tape of those games and wondering how they can prevail over the Titans’ seemingly impenetrable defenders.

          I’m betting Tennessee plus 7½, and I may play them to win outright because I think they will.

          Green Bay @ San Fran (-7.5)

          So of course, I did the same piece of mini-research on the 49ers and the Packers.  I calculated AYP for each of them for the last six games of the season.  Green Bay’s AYP dropped from 6.2 (entire season), to 5.6 (last six games).  San Francisco’s went up from 6.6 to 8.5.

          As you may recall, I wasn’t in love with the Packers from the beginning, and placed them in the “Could Get Lucky” category rather than the “Contender” group.  The Division Week games did nothing to change that assessment.  Green Bay tried to blow their lead over the weaker Seahawks and almost did so.  San Francisco, however, perhaps because of the return of some important defensive players, handled the Vikings easily.

          On November 24, the Green Bay Packers went to San Francisco and had enormous quantities of human feces dumped on their heads by the 49ers.  The final score that day was 37 – 8.  There is no reason to believe that on January 19^th, San Francisco will be worse or that Green Bay will be better.  Lay the 7 ½ and bet the 49ers.

Copyright2020MichaelKubacki  

* Most of us were introduced to Bay’s Theorem on September 11, 2001 at 8:46am, when a plane commandeered by Muhammed Atta flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  At that moment, there appeared to be a very good chance the crash had been a horrible accident.  Initially, in fact, an order went out NOT to evacuate the South Tower.  Then, seventeen minutes later, a second plane flew into the South Tower, and all the probabilities changed.