2020 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

1.  Patrol my neighborhood once a week and shoot racists, misogynists and anti-Semites before they cause any trouble.

2.  Start using the metric system for everything.

3.  Learn how to refine my own petroleum so I can stop paying those high gas prices!

4.  Wear a disguise for any journey of more than 25 miles.

5.  Drive faster when I’m drunk so I get home quicker and don’t endanger other drivers.

6.  Balance my gut flora.

7.  Stop Brexit once and for all.

8.  Change my personal pronouns once a week, and don’t use any (like “him” or “her”), that will allow haters to pigeonhole or gender-identify me.

9.  Learn something about Latvia!  I don’t know anything the place!  Do you???

10. Only wear blackface on important holidays like Memorial Day or Christmas.

11. Finally start paying reparations by giving a dollar to a different black person every day.

12.  Rinse and repeat, consistently!

13.  No matter how bad I may feel in 2020, resolve never to be a Hatey McHateface.

14.  Whenever I buy something (e.g., at Target or Trader Joe’s), that is NOT a “fair-trade” product, pay an extra quarter to the cashier and tell them to give it to the farmer.

15. Eat more red meat but less blue-green meat.

16. Go natural, and stop coloring my hair.

17. Get rid of everything I own that was invented by a white person.

18. Brew my own mead, make candles and soap, make my own formica, ferment foods and vegetables for our pantry, sew my own clothing, raise chickens in the backyard, bake my own bricks, and construct a (small) nuclear weapon.

19. Drink beer whenever I feel like it.  Why be shy about it?

20. Yoga!!!!

---Copyright2019MichaelKubacki

CATS

          When the first hunter-gatherers began to grow crops and settle into villages, one problem that presented itself immediately was how to store grain and keep it safe from the ravages of rats, mice, and other varmints. As if in answer to a prayer, cats began to appear at food-storage sites in order to feed on the vermin and, coincidentally, protect the grain so humans could survive. Humans noticed, and made the cats welcome with warmth and shelter and food so the felines would take up residence in the area. From that point, it was a short step to find me sitting in my Barcalounger watching an Eagles game with a tabby purring in my lap.

          Among domesticated animals, cats are unusual since we can't ride them, we don't eat them, we can't milk them, we don't make coats out of their pelts, and they can't pull a plow. They don't even care about pleasing us, like dogs do. From the beginning, it has been simply a straightforward business relationship, and one which THEY initiated.

          It is sometimes said that we did not domesticate cats; they domesticated themselves. Another way to put it is that they domesticated us, rather than the other way around. In any event, we owe them a debt we can never repay for helping us through the difficult and dangerous transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. If it were not for cats, we might still be feeding ourselves by wandering through the Wissahickon plucking spotted lanternflies off trees.

Copyright2019MichaelKubacki

THE DEMOCRATIC RACE---October 2019

     There appears to be some resistance to the anointing of Elizabeth Warren, and the result is that betting sites now have her at 7-5, though she was the odds-on favorite two weeks ago.  The main beneficiaries of her weakness are Bernie and Pete (but not Biden).  Current approximate betting odds:

Warren  +132

Biden     +335

Pete       +685

Sanders  +816

     The race appears to be a replay of the 2016 race for the Republican nomination.  The most obvious similarity is the large field, but the more important feature is the unwillingness of the party to coalesce around its front-runner.  Trump too held a plurality lead for months, but there was never a point (until the convention). when the opposition crumbled.  Warren, like Trump, seems locked in a prolonged war of attrition where she will have to put away her rivals one by one.  By contrast, the Democratic race in 1991 also had a large field until Bill Clinton took the New Hampshire primary, and then the race was basically over.

     The news coverage also mirrors the 2016 Republican race,  There, it seemed that each candidate got to be flavor-of-the-week until Trump came up with a disparaging nickname for him and put him away.  In turn, Rubio, Carson, Christie, Rand Paul, Kasich, Fiorino, Cruz, and even Jeb! got a few moments in the spotlight before Trump toasted them.  The same dynamic is playing out for the Dems this time, with Bernie and Pete and Beto and Yang and even Kamala Harris getting renewed interest from the media.  (The one exception is Biden, who just sits there like the house by the side of the road, waiting....)

     The difference between this and the Bill Clinton 1992 race is this: when someone drops out, most of that person's supporters do NOT go to Warren but to one of the other contenders.  This is what happened with Trump as well.  Warren is clearly on top of the field, and in fact, I think the race is over, but there is as little enthusiasm for her as there was for Trump among the Republicans in 2016, and for the same reason.  The party faithful do not believe she can win.

     And they're probably right.  Most likely, Trump would chew her up, spit her out, and still have time to grab a pussy and a few emoluments on his way to 18 holes at Mar-A-Lago.  For one thing, considering her politics, how can she ever recover the working-class Democrats and union members that gave the 2016 election to Trump?  Also, does she have a prayer of attracting the 90+%  of black voters any Democrat would need to be elected president?  

Copyright2019MichaelKubacki

Elizabeth Warren---The Globe Lends a Hand

    In preparation for her run for the Democratic nomination in 2020 against twenty-three other candidates (suggested campaign slogan: “23 and Me”), Elizabeth Warren did two things in order to clear her name of the stench engendered by her misappropriation of racial identity. In October of last year, she released the results of a DNA test indicating that ten generations ago, she may have had a Native American ancestor. Prior to that, however, she had released her personnel file from Harvard, and this resulted in a September 1, 2018 article in the Boston Globe in which reporter Annie Linskey concluded that Warren’s claim to be a Cherokee had had no effect on her career. While the DNA test got far more attention from Donald Trump and the media, the Globe’s blessing of Warren’s convenient claims of Indian ancestry deserves more attention than it has received.

    The point is that there is one reason, and one reason alone, that Elizabeth Warren can credibly run for president: she is a US Senator from Massachusetts. And the reason she could credibly run for US Senator in the first place was that she was a Professor at the Harvard Law School. There is no comparable credential. Yale’s Law School may occasionally be ranked higher than Harvard’s by the people who rate such things, but there is simply nothing more prestigious in the world of deep-thinking-on-public-affairs than being a Harvard Law Professor. People like Lawrence Tribe, Alan Dershowitz, Lani Guinier and Elizabeth Warren become celebrities. Elena Kagan was a Harvard Law Professor before joining the US Supreme Court. Even mere graduates of HLS become famous---four other current Supreme Court justices also got their degrees at Harvard Law.

    In the Globe article, Ms. Linskey interviewed 31 Harvard law professors (all she could find), who were on the faculty at the time Warren was hired for the academic year beginning in the Fall of 1992. She reports that 30 of them said there was no discussion of Warren’s Native American claims in the deliberations that led to her hiring. One of the 31 said he thought it came up, but he wasn’t sure. In addition, several of the 31 stated not merely that the issue was not discussed, but also that her racial status had nothing to do with their decision to recommend her for hiring. These interviews form the entire basis of Linskey’s conclusion that, in fact, Warren’s status as a “woman of color” or a Native American was not a factor in her hiring.

    This conclusion cannot be taken seriously.

    In response to Linskey’s Globe article, a woman named Jennifer Braceras, a law student at Harvard during the relevant period, wrote a piece entitled “One of Elizabeth Warren’s Harvard Law Students Explains Why Her Native-American Gambit Matters.” She took Warren’s class, and she even liked her as a teacher, but she points out that Warren used her “family stories” at a time when elite law schools were desperate to hire racial and ethnic minorities.

    “In the early 1990s, HLS was a hotbed of left-wing agitation. I was there and remember well the explosive protests and sit-ins that erupted over a lack of diversity on the faculty. In April 1992, scores of protestors demonstrated outside Dean Robert Clark’s office, some of them wearing masks of Clark’s face. Nine students (my closest friend among them) refused to leave the Dean’s office for over 25 hours. Their specific demand? That the administration hire a faculty member who was a “woman of color.”

    This was the atmosphere when Elizabeth Warren arrived in Cambridge for her job interview. And while it may be true that her racial identity was not explicitly discussed, that was because it didn’t need to be. Since 1986, when she taught at the University of Texas, Warren had listed herself as a minority law professor in the Association of American Law Schools Annual Directory, a standard reference. Her name, in bold, was listed in each of the next eight editions.

    So on the face of it, the claims of the 31 faculty members interviewed by the Globe are hardly credible, are they? I mean, what are they supposed to say to a reporter from the Boston Globe? “Sure. We just hired her because she said she was a Cherokee or a Sioux or something. We didn’t care. We just needed a Red Indian on the faculty before Jesse Jackson showed up.” (Which he did, by the way.) I don’t think so. Assuming their true motives were exactly what they appear to be, there is a zero percent chance any of them would admit it today. Plus, given that this occurred more than 25 years ago, one can understand that even if their motives had been fully as cynical as they probably were, the process of cognitive dissonance would by now allow them to view themselves in a much more favorable light. Memories change over time, usually in a way that makes it easier for us to live with ourselves.

    But quite apart from the credibility of the 31 faculty members, there is another reason Elizabeth Warren would NEVER have been hired to be a Harvard Law Professor on her own merits. There is another, much more obvious reason she would not have asked to join the faculty unless the fix was in.

    Ever wonder who gets hired to teach at Harvard Law School? Ever wonder what law school they went to? Would you be surprised to hear that most of them went to Harvard Law School?

    The HLS faculty is listed in a directory on the University website. I looked at them all. For the ones whose law school degree was not listed, I went a bit further and Googled their education. Then I made a list of the full-time members of the faculty and where they went to law school. I eliminated the Emeritus listings because most of them are 120 years old and don’t teach much, and I eliminated the “Clinical” professors because these are not primarily academic positions, so they are much less prestigious.

    For the 92 full-time non-emeritus, non-clinical, members of the HLS faculty, here’s a tally on where they got their law degrees:

Harvard 57

Yale 24

Chicago 5

NYU 3

Stanford 1

Columbia 1

Texas 1

    The next step was to check these schools on the 2020 U.S. News Ranking of American Law Schools. The top six of these are, in order, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU. These six schools thus account for 91 of the 92 full-time law professors currently teaching at Harvard. The University of Texas is listed at #16 (of the 201 law schools ranked), so it too confers an elite status on its graduates. The lone HLS professor who went to Texas, by the way, is Kristen A. Stilt, a professor of Islamic Law who, prior to law school, had obtained a Ph. D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from---wait for it---Harvard University.

    There is very little turnover in the U.S. News Rankings, which have been compiled since 1987. There have only been fourteen law schools that have ever made the top ten. And Texas is one of them.

    Rutgers Law School is not among that magic fourteen. It is ranked 75^th in the current U.S. News list, which is about where it always shows up. That’s where Elizabeth Warren went to law school after her undergraduate career at the University of Houston, a school primarily known for its basketball teams.

    I’m not saying Elizabeth Warren is a dope, and I’m not saying that if you don’t have a law degree from an elite school like Harvard or Yale, you probably drool more than the rest of us. I’m not a snob.

    But the people at Harvard are. The elitists at a place like HLS think the world of themselves; they like themselves a lot. They would NEVER hire a graduate of Rutgers Law School to teach at Harvard because her mere presence there would reflect on them and their own prestige. They would be afraid her Rutgers cooties would rub off on them. Unless, of course, they were forced to hire her for reasons of political correctness and “diversity.”

    I will wager that no one with a law degree from Rutgers, or a school ranked lower, has EVER been offered a professorship at Harvard Law School. The Boston Globe’s conclusion that Elizabeth Warren was hired purely on her own merits is based solely on the self-serving tut-tuts of Harvard academics who thought this had been swept under the carpet 28 years ago and are now appalled (“Appalled,” I say!), that anyone would question them now.

    Even the Globe acknowledges there were serious questions about Warren at the time she was hired. For one thing, her primary strong point was apparently her skill as a teacher, which tends to be pretty far down the list of qualifications for a professorship.

    “’I thought she was going to be a whiz-bang in the classroom,’ said Andrew Kaufman, a Harvard law professor who supported her. ‘You just have to be in the room with her to see it. It was electric. She would call on 40 people in the hour. The atmosphere was highly charged. The questions were good. She made people think….’”

    Linskey continues:

    “There was less consensus over her brand of scholarship, in which she had pioneered a way of using surveys and actual bankruptcy records to determine how laws affected real people. Warren’s approach was a little too practical, and not intellectual enough, for some.

    ‘The views had a lot to do with the methodology she was using,’ recalled David Wilkins, a Harvard Law professor who voted to offer Warren a job. ‘Was it the right methodology?’”

    The argument presented here, that Harvard would never have hired Elizabeth Warren, was not addressed in the article though it would be obvious to anyone who knows anything about law schools and the hiring of professors. Instead, Ms. Linskey simply trusted in the veracity of those with a powerful motive to “misremember” what happened. This was journalistic malpractice.

    To correct it, all that needs to happen is for Ms. Linskey or the Globe, or Harvard itself, to present another instance in the history of HLS where a person of Warren’s credentials was hired, on his or her merits, to a full (non-“clinical”) law professorship. Barring that, this attempted white-wash by the Globe cannot be permitted to remove the stain of these dirty racial politics from Elizabeth Warren’s record.

Copyright 2019MichaelKubacki

NFL PLAYOFFS---2019 Conference Championships

Rams @ New Orleans -3.5

          Looking at the yard/pass numbers, these are clearly the two best teams in the NFC.  The Saints have a small edge in offensive yards/pass and the Rams have a small edge in defensive yards/pass.  The Saints outscored their opponents by 9.4 points per game, while the Rams outscored their opponents by 8.9.  Based simply on these metrics, New Orleans deserves a small edge and that’s exactly what the line says: 3 ½ points.  Based on the season-long numbers, I would pass.

          However, the defenses of these two teams are going in opposite directions.  For the first 8 games of the season, the Saints gave up 27 points per game; for the last 8, that number is 17ppg.  The comparable numbers for the Rams are 23 ppg in the first 8, and 29 ½ ppg in the final 8.  The Saints, in other words, have gotten quite a bit better as the season progressed and the Rams have gotten quite a bit worse.

          For me, that’s enough to tip the scale.  I’m taking the Saints and laying the points.

Pats @ KC -3

          In the AFC game, KC has the largest adjusted yards/pass number in the tournament at 7.5, while NE is a full yard behind.  KC is second only to New Orleans in outscoring opponents---9 points per game versus New England’s 7 points per game.  In addition, KC has never been “blown out” (beaten by at least nine points), this season, while the Patriots have been blown out three times.  New England’s defense has been better than the Chiefs’ most of the year, but KC completely shut down an Indianapolis offense that many analysts thought would put some serious points on the board.

          In short, my metrics suggest that KC should cover this three-point spread.

          On the other hand….

          Since the 1970 merger of the NFL and the AFL, the Patriots have played in 14 AFC Championship games and have won ten of them.  This will be the eighth year in a row they are playing in this game.  By contrast, in those fifty years, KC has made it to ONE AFC Championship game, which it lost.  I know the players were different, I know the coaches were different, I know everything was different, but still….

          And then there’s Tom Brady, of course, who is still pissed off about losing last year.  And then there’s Andy Reid, the Jacques Who of football coaches, who always wins ten or twelve games a season but can never win the big one.  How many times have we seen that goofy, befuddled, fourth-quarter look on his puss as the clock ticks down in yet another game he should have won but is losing by 14?

          I refuse to bet Kansas City in this game, though my numbers tell me the Chiefs are the best team this year and will win not only this game but the Superbowl as well.  Sorry.  I pass.

Copyright2019MichaelKubacki

NFL Playoffs 2019---Division Week

I went 2-1 last weekend, with a miracle push in the Dallas-Seattle game.  I got Indianapolis completely wrong.

Indy @ KC -5

At 7.5 adjusted yards/pass, the Chiefs boast the best number in the field, and Indy’s 5.8 is among the worst.  This kind of difference would normally suggest a romp for KC and I would lay the points.

I have reservations, however.  First off, Indianapolis came into the tournament on a roll and basically CRUSHED a decent Houston squad.  I was impressed.  Since Andrew Luck was drafted (in 1968), everyone in football land has been certain that he would someday 1) grow up, 2) get healthy, 3) finally find himself surrounded by a team that could perform football-related tasks in a competent manner, and 4) win seven or eight Superbowls.  Has it actually happened, now that we all finally gave up on him?

Second, while the defensive yards/pass figures for KC and Indy are the same, the Colts defense has gotten a LOT better as the season progressed.  KC has been outscoring everybody while giving up about 26 points per game. Indianapolis was also allowing opponents 26 points/game for the first half of the season, but then tuned up the D and permitted only 16 ½ points over the last eight games.  This is the best scoring defense number over the second half for any team in the tourney.

And then there’s Andy, of course.  Despite all his disciples in the NFL coaching fraternity (who are rather tediously listed during every national broadcast of a KC game), the tale of Andy Reid has one recurring theme---losing the big one.  And while his QB, Mahomes, is the most entertaining player in the league, and while the Kansas City Chiefs have the best yards/pass numbers this year and should be the favorite to win it all, I just don’t believe it. Andy always finds a way to lose a critical game he should win by two touchdowns, and I fear this matchup might be the one.

Even beyond Andy himself, the franchise is cursed.  The last time the Chiefs won a home playoff game was a wee bit over twenty-five years ago, on January 8, 1994, when they squeaked by the Steelers 27-24 in OT.  Since then, KC has gone 1-10, its only triumph a wildcard victory in Houston on January 9, 2016.  Four of the ten losses have come in this exact situation, with the Chiefs earning a bye and then losing their first home game in Division Week.

Can’t bet this game.   KC is the best team out there, and Mahomes, if he stays healthy, will break records as a QB.  But I pass.

Dallas @ Rams -7

This one is quite a bit easier.  The Rams dominate the Cowgirls in yards/pass and defensive yards/pass.  They have outscored opponents by nine points per game, compared to Dallas’s one point per game.  Like KC, the Rams outscore everybody, and they will do so here.  Lay the points.

Chargers @ New England -4

I make this game a pick ‘em, so I’m taking the Chargers with the points.  I know the Patriots don’t lose much in January in Foxborough, and I know Brady is probably pissed off about last year, and I know the Pats had the bye week leading into this home game.

Still, the Chargers are half a yard better in adjusted yards/pass, and the teams are comparable in defensive yards/pass.  It was hard to like the Chargers’s win over Baltimore, a game they totally dominated and should have won by 30, but actually won by 6.  I don’t know much about Chargers coach Anthony Lynn, but I have to think his strangely passive strategy against the Ravens will not be repeated in Massachusetts this week.  Assuming he has learned his lesson, I’m taking the Bolts (and the points), in what I expect will be a close game.

Philly @ New Orleans -8

Yards/pass numbers here are comparable to those in the Rams-Dallas matchup, though you only get a TD with the Girls and you get a bit more with the Iggles.  For those of you hung up on reason and logic and Western Civilization, I suggest you pass this game because it will probably be won by the Saints, but it will be a lot closer than the 48-7 pasting delivered by the Saints to the Eagles on November 18.  The Saints, by any measure, are better.  Are they 6 points better?  Ten points better?  I dunno.

For those of you who now believe in magic elf Nick Foles, however, please join me in betting the Eagles to win outright in some outlandish fashion that none of us dare imagine.

Copyright2019MichaelKubacki

NFL PLAYOFFS---2019

          As we all know, magical elf Nick Foles (“BDN! BDN! BDN!”), has emerged from his sylvan lair and will lead the Eagles through four road victories to yet another Superbowl championship and MVP trophy.  There’s really not much point in playing the games.

          However, for those of you who tune in here once a year for a dose of football science, I will proceed as if Nick did not exist and as if the winner of the NFL tournament will be, as it normally is, the team best able to make a big pass play when it needs to.

          These predictions will be based, in other words, on yards/pass numbers (adjusted for interceptions), for the regular season.  I also calculate defensive yards/pass, just because it is easy to do.  Also, one cannot help but notice that New Orleans and KC each outscored their opponents by an average of over nine points per game, while the Cowgirls and the Eagles topped their foes by an average of only one point.

Pretenders

          Every year, there are three or four playoff teams that appear to have no realistic chance of winning the Superbowl.  This year, those teams are Indianapolis, Dallas, Philadelphia and Seattle.  It is possible for these guys to win a game, and this year at least one of them will, since Seattle is playing Dallas in the first round.  It is rare for any of them to go much further.

Could Get Lucky

          There are four of these as well, and they are inferior to the real Contenders in yards/pass, but they have something going for them.  These are Chicago, Baltimore, Houston and New England.

          Chicago and Baltimore have the lowest figures of any team in the tournament, at 5.6 yards/pass, and this would normally relegate them to the Pretender class, but they have the two best defensive yards/pass metrics.  Chicago’s is a mere 3.9 yards/pass, and Baltimore’s is 4.8.  In addition, both teams appear to be peaking at the right time.  In particular, Mr. Harbaugh was supposedly going to be fired as the Ravens’ coach, but then he found his own magic elf quarterback, a guy named Jackson, and now the Baltimores have apparently transitioned from the Flacco era on a high note.

          I dunno.  I don’t really believe in either one of them, and a great defensive team only wins the Superbowl every ten years or so, but Chicago and Baltimore are both better than Dallas.

          As for the other two, well, one of them is New England WITH a first-round bye, so that’s that.  The other is Houston, with a respectable yds/pass number of 6.6.  In addition, they lost their first three games and then won eleven out of the last thirteen.  Their pass defense is not as good as you think it is but their offense is better.  Houston is allowed to get lucky.

Contenders

          This leaves New Orleans, the Rams, KC and the Chargers.  Pop quiz: what do these teams have that the Washington Redskins do not?  That is correct!  A great quarterback.

          In order, their yds/pass numbers are KC (7.5), New Orleans (7.1), Rams (6.8), and Chargers (6.8).  The New Orleans defensive numbers are slightly worse than the others, but the Saints also have the highest points differential (9.4 points/game), of the four.  The Chargers are the only one that have to play a wild-card game, so that puts them at the bottom of the pile, but not by much.

          Take your pick.

Wild Card Games

Indy at Houston -1.    I’m not sure why this line has been dropping.  Maybe there are Andrew Luck fans who have suddenly decided THIS is the year.  At last!  In fact, Houston is a better team on both sides of the ball, and they are at home.  Take the Texans.

Seattle at Dallas -2.5.  Seattle has the better QB and the better pass defense.  Also, while Dallas outscored its opponents by one point per game, Seattle outscored theirs by five.  Seattle will win this game outright.

Chargers at Baltimore -3.  The Chargers beat the Ravens in yard/pass 6.8 to 5.6.  This is a significant difference.  Baltimore has been hot since installing Jackson as QB, and their pass defense is probably better than the Chargers’, but if the ability to throw the ball down the field means anything in the playoffs, the Chargers will win this game.

Eagles at Chicago -6.5.  The Bears have certainly been a better team than the Eagles for most of the season, and their pass defense is the best in the tournament.  However, Philly’s yards/pass is 6.2 to Chicago’s 5.6, so I’m taking the dog again.

Copyright2019MichaelKubacki 

2018 SUPERBOWL

The Eagles victory in the NFC Championship game was truly wonderful.  Foles went 26/33 for 352 yards with three TDs and no interceptions.  He averaged more than 10 yards per pass. The Eagles (mostly Foles, but with some help), put up 38 points on what was supposedly the best defense in football.  Projecting Nick Foles’s numbers into the Superbowl, he’s going to complete 54 of 62 passes for 502 yards and six touchdowns and the Eagles are going to beat the Patriots 84 – 3.  Right?  Right??

In the late 1960’s, Daniel Kahneman, who would win a Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work with Amos Twersky in creating the field of behavioral economics, was working as a psychologist for the Israeli Air Force, helping train fighter pilots.  The instructors had come to believe that criticism was more effective than praise when teaching men to fly jets.  They pointed out (accurately), that pilots who performed well and received praise almost uniformly performed worse their next time out, while pilots who were criticized almost always performed better.  Kahneman observed the process for a while and then explained what was really going on.

Both the good performers who were praised and the bad performers who were chastised were simply regressing to the mean on their subsequent flights.  The “bad” ones would have flown better and the “good” ones would have flown worse even if the instructors had said nothing at all.  What Kahneman described was an illusion of the mind that all of us are subject to---the belief that our words are most effective when they are critical or give pain.  Our criticism is “rewarded” because it is often followed by a better performance.  Kahneman later wrote, “Because we tend to reward others when they do well and punish them when they do badly, and because there is regression to the mean, it is part of the human condition that we are punished for rewarding others and rewarded for punishing them.”

(This story comes from “The Undoing Project” by Michael Lewis.)

In Kahneman’s terms, if we accept Foles’ performance against the Vikings as the reality, we will be punished for it.  If we bet on him now to repeat the day he had against Minnesota, we will regret it because he will most likely regress to the mean rather than produce a second consecutive hall-of-fame afternoon.  You don’t get consecutive hall-of-fame afternoons from Nick Foles.  You get one every three years or so, like the game against the Raiders in 2013 where he had seven TD passes.  We’ll get another game like that from Foles, but it won’t be this Sunday; it will be in 2021.

 

Listen kids, I like Nick Foles.  He is the best quarterback in his family, unlike Eli Manning (or even Chelsea Manning).  When the Eagles traded him to St. Louis for Sam Bradford in March, 2015, I viewed it as the first of many signs that Chip Kelly is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.  And the day he had against Minnesota was not a complete fluke.  He’s played some great games.  Foles is good enough to win a Superbowl someday, though it probably won’t be this one.

In terms of our basic numbers, New England has a significant edge.  If the ability to make big pass plays is what brings home the Lombardy Trophy (and that, of course, is the theory we’re pursuing here), the Pats win because their Adjusted Yards/Pass is a very respectable 6.8 yards (2^nd best in the NFL) vs. 5.8 yards for the Eagles (8^th).  The Eagles’ defensive AYP is better than New England’s, but all the Pats’ defensive stats are somewhat deceptive because their defense played so badly the first four games of the season.  Over the last twelve games of the regular season, New England gave up 171 points to its opponents (14.25/game).  The Eagles gave up 203 points over that stretch (16.9/game).  So who really has the better defense?

My reasoning here is pretty straightforward.  Assuming Brady has his normal day and Foles has his normal day, Brady will prevail.  With the line at Patriots -4 ½, I would normally advise you to take the Patriots and lay the points.

But look at the Superbowl scores in the Brady/Belichick era:

2002---NE 20     St. L. 17

2004---NE 32     Caro  29

2005---NE 24     Phl     21

2008---NY 17     NE    14

2012---NY  21    NE    17

2015---NE  28     Sea   24

2017---NE   34    Atl    28  (OT)

Notice anything?  The only game decided by more than four points in either direction was last year’s overtime extravaganza, and that one was tied at the end of regulation.  I’m not saying New England is incapable of beating the Eagles by more than 4 ½ points this year, but they haven’t shown that kind of domination in seven previous Superbowls, so I do not plan to put good money on the proposition they will do it this time.  I’m passing.  New England is better, and should win.  But the line is about right.

I do have one recommendation, however.

We have all seen the surprising stat that the Patriots, in their seven previous Superbowls, have not scored a point in the first quarter.  Digging a bit deeper and looking at the total scoring for both teams in the first halves of those seven games, we find an average of 18 ½ points scored in the first half.  In only one game (the 2015 match against Seattle), did the first half total exceed 24 points.

This year, the over/under total for the first half of the Superbowl is 24 points.  Take the under.

Copyright2018MichaelKubacki

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS---2018

Jacksonville @ New England (-7 1/2 )

It is assumed that the magic of Brady and Bellichick will prevail once again, and the Jacksonville Jags, like many fine teams before them, will find a way to lose this game.  Certainly, the Patriots are not exactly famous for losing games in January in Gillette Stadium.

But the Jaguars clearly belong here.  In the AFC this year, New England scored 458 points (1^st) and Jacksonville scored 417 (2^nd), while New England gave up 296 (3^rd) as opposed to the Jags’ 268 (1^st).  The Patriots outscored their opponents by 10.1 points/game while Jacksonville’s margin was 9.3.

Turning to Adjusted Yards per Pass, the Patriots have an edge---6.8 to 5.6.  (Bortles is not Brady, and unless Tom’s right hand is actually amputated in the next 24 hours, Bortles will not be the best QB on the field.)  Defensive Adjusted Yards per Pass favors the Jags, on the other hand, and by a large margin---3.3 yards to NE’s 5.8 yards.

These numbers overall suggest a relatively even matchup.  Then there is the nagging sense that NE’s defense is a potentially serious problem, largely because we all remember Kansas City pounding them on national TV in the first game of the season. And in fact, the Patriots are only 19^th against the run and 29^th against the pass during the regular season.

Looking a wee bit deeper, however, you notice that the Patriots gave up 32 points/game or their first four contests and only 13 points/game in the thirteen games since then, so maybe those early defensive issues are ancient history.

So what’s a boy to do?

Well, like everybody else, I am assuming New England will win this game and that if, in the closing minute or two, Tom Brady has to put the biscuit in the basket in order to advance, he will find a way to do so.  All the numbers are sufficiently close, however, that I will take the 7 ½ points and the Jags. With a timely turnover or two, Jacksonville could even win this game.

Minnesota @ Philadelphia (+3)

Last week, when Philly was a three-point dog, I told you the line was wrong.  This time, Philly is a three-point dog and the line is correct.

On my standard measures, the Vikings are superior.  Adjusted yards/pass favors Minnesota by 6.4 yards to 5.8 yards. (The Eagles’ number is almost all due to Wentz rather than the less-skilled Foles, by the way.)  The Vikes have a small edge in Defensive AYP also.  Both outscored their opponents by a substantial margin, Philly by 10.1 points and Minnesota by 8.1 points.  It is also worth noting that Minnesota’s defense gave up 43 fewer points than did the Eagles.

It is true that Minnesota is a dome team coming to the great outdoors in January, and it is also true that the Vikings were 9-1 in domes this year and only 4-2 on grass (losing to Carolina and Pittsburgh).

Also, because these are two great defenses, it is possible the final score will be 10-7 or something like it, and a game like that can swing on a single turnover or a close call by the officials---in other words, the game may be decided by luck rather than skill.

If you want to make arguments for Philly in this game, they are easy to find, and I won’t dispute you. Nevertheless, Minnesota is favored by three points and that’s about what the line should be, so I pass on the spread.  I expect Minnesota will win a close one.

Copyright2018MichaelKubacki   

DIVISION WEEKEND---2018

Atlanta @ Philadelphia (+3)

This line is wrong.  I could understand Philly being dogs, even at home, to New Orleans or the LA Rams, but Atlanta is a 6^th seed for a reason and Philly is a top seed for other reasons.  This line reflects a perception that the Eagles, under Foles, have suddenly become the worst team in the playoffs, and by a significant margin.

In the superficial analysis of this game, there is simply too much focus on the difference between Wentz and Foles.  There is a difference, but Foles is not nothing.  I mean, how many back-up quarterbacks have been to the Pro Bowl?  This perception, or misperception, is exacerbated by the fact that Foles does nothing spectacular while Wentz makes highlight-reel plays every game, and the result is that Wentz is routinely given too much credit for Philly’s success this year.  He’s wonderful, of course, but the reason the Eagles are 3-point dogs here is that the defense, special teams and the peculiar football genius of Doug Pederson are not being given their props.

And then there’s Atlanta, and I guess I’m not as impressed with them as I should be.  The 26 points they scored is---well, a lot of teams did that against the Rams this year. (Eight teams scored 20 or more.)  The surprising thing was the Falcon defense holding the Rams to 13 points, though it wasn’t really all that surprising if you saw it.  Atlanta held only four teams below twenty during the regular season, so for the playoffs, they instituted a new defensive strategy called “assault and battery.”  Basically, every Rams receiver got mugged as he crossed the line of scrimmage and, mirabile visu, yellow flags were nowhere to be seen.

After the embarrassment of the 2014 Superbowl (Seattle 43 Denver 8), in which the Seahawks were permitted actually to win a championship with such a “defense,” there is NO chance Atlanta will be allowed to do to Philadelphia what they did to LA.  The NFL will speak to the officials about this.  The Falcons will have to leave their truncheons home and play their actual pass defense, which is among the worst in the playoffs.

Foles will not scintillate; he rarely does.  But the Eagles can be expected to put some points on the board.  Somewhere in the 20s will be sufficient against the Falcons, who will struggle to get above the teens against the Eagles’ defense.

The Eagles win the game.

Tennessee @ New England (-13 ½)

New England’s AYP is 6.8; Tennessee’s is 4.7.   The Pats beat their opponents by more than ten points per game, while the Titans were outscored.  In games decided by more than 10 points, Tennessee was 3-3 and New England was 8-1.  DeMarco Murray, the heart of Tennessee’s running game, will not play against the Pats.

Want more?  Well, Brady’s QB rating this year was 102.8.  Mariota’s was 79.3

I (and everybody else), assume New England will win, but the problem with this game is the line.  Will the Pats win by 30, or will they be leading by 30 at halftime and then cruise to a 10-point victory?  Both scenarios are plausible.

I can’t bet this line.

Jacksonville @ Pittsburgh (-7)

 Pittsburgh beats J’ville in the AYP battle by a few ticks---6.2 to 5.6, while the Jags win the defensive AYP by a score of 3.3 yards to 4.8 yards.  (The Jags have the best defensive AYP in the NFL.)  Also, the Jags outscored their opponents by 9.3 points/game while Pittsburgh only won by 6.1 points/game.  In addition, Jacksonville handed the Steelers its worst defeat of the season on October 8, in Pittsburgh.  The final score of 30-9 featured two pick-6s for the Jags and 181 yards rushing, with two TDs, by Fournette.  Not a great day for Roethlisberger, obviously, but Bortles’ helmet won’t be headed to Canton, Ohio either.  He passed for 95 yards with one interception.

That was Jacksonville football at its best, and maybe Pittsburgh at its worst, and this weekend will almost certainly look a lot different.  Still, the spread is too much.  I think Pittsburgh wins this game, but a Jaguar win would not surprise me, and I certainly take the seven with the Jags.

By the way, though I don’t usually opine on totals, the over/under here is 41.  I can’t envision the sort of game between these two teams that would produce that many points.  I would go under.

New Orleans @ Minnesota (-5)

This is another game where the line is simply wrong.  New Orleans is a slightly better team, but they have to try to win at U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Vikings are 7-1 this season.  Fortunately for the Saints, they are also a “dome team,” so the venue represents less of a disadvantage than it might for some other visitors.  The game is about even. The only sensible play here is to take the five points.

Brees had an AYP of 7.1 yards this year, highest in the league, while Minnesota (Bradford and Keenum), registered an excellent 6.4 yards.  Minnesota’s pass defense was superior by a small margin, and they gave up the fewest points (252) in the league.  New Orleans beat seven teams by more than ten points and Minnesota won eight games by that margin, so they both pound the weaklings.  These are both serious contenders for the crown.

They met in Minnesota in the first game of the season, and the big story that day was the debut of Adrian Peterson for the Saints.  With six carries for eighteen yards, he was not a factor. The quarterbacks were the real story that day with Brees throwing for 291 yards and Bradford for 346.  There were no interceptions.  Minnesota won 29-19.  Arguably, both teams have improved since that day.  In the case of New Orleans, the obvious change is a running game that compliments Brees and must be taken seriously.

(Note: it has been reported that Bradford, who last played in Week 5, will be activated for this game, though Keenum will start.)
  

I will pick Minnesota to win the game, but with no particular enthusiasm.  They are among the best teams in the playoffs this year, but their real edge lies in the way the draw has fallen.  This first game, at home against the Saints, is winnable, though it may be the most difficult one they face.  If they win, the NFC Championship will be a home game against Atlanta or a road game in Philly, and the Vikings will be favored in either case.  Should they get to the Superbowl, they will be favored there as well because it will be a home game.  If the Vikings don’t get the ring this year, there will be a lot of woulda/coulda/shoulda conversations in the Vikings front office for the next six months, and it will be a cold winter in the land of 10,000 lakes.

Copyright2018MichaelKubacki            

THE 2018 NFL PLAYOFFS---Dome Sweet Dome

Quick, now.  What’s the last dome team to win a Superbowl?

That’s correct.  It was the New Orleans Saints on February 7, 2010 in a game you may have forgotten because it coincided with celebrations of Dimitri Mendeleev’s birthday around the globe.  On that day, the Saints triumphed at Hard Rock Stadium in South Florida and defeated the Indy Colts (another dome team) by a score of 27 - 10.

Most years, two or three dome teams make it to the NFL playoffs, and all of us wise guys nod sagely and say something like, “Well, let’s see what happens when they have to leave their little temperature-controlled hut and play a road game on the planet Neptune (that one’s still a planet, right?), in January.”  I know I’ve thought that in the past when Indy or Minnesota or Atlanta managed to limp into the playoffs.

This year, however, Superbowl Whatever-Whatever will be played under a dome at U.S. Bank Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the home field of the Vikings, and one likely scenario is that the Vikes will simply need to win three home games (the Divisional Playoff, the Conference Championship and the Superbowl), to secure the trophy.

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As you should know by now, the predictions here are based on the theory that the ability to “make a big play” or “throw the ball down the field” is what wins championships and the best statistical measure of this ability is what I call Adjusted Yards Per Pass (“AYP”), which is the readily-available stat yards/pass adjusted downward for interceptions.  Teams with a high AYP number win Superbowls.  Teams with low AYPs do not, no matter how good their running back is or how dominant they are in time of possession or how many of their starters are married to exotic foreign supermodels.

I also calculate defensive AYP because it provides some measure of a team’s ability to stop the other guy from completing long passes.  And finally, I look at points/game differential, and I do this not because it has a great track record of predicting Superbowl victories but because a) it’s so easy to calculate that I don’t see why I shouldn’t, and b) my plodding intellect assumes that if New England outscores its opponents by 10.1 points per game and Buffalo is outscored by 3.6 points per game, then New England is more likely to win a championship.  But I have no evidence to back that up.

And one more thing is being added---I counted the number of times each team has crushed or been crushed, which is defined as winning or losing a game by ten or more points.  I’ve discussed this in the past, and it’s something Bill James originally posited regarding baseball---that the measure of a good team is not its record in close games but rather its record in blowouts.  Truly good teams pummel the weak ones far more often than they get pummeled themselves.  Here, for example, is the record of the last ten Superbowl winners in regular-season games decided by ten or more points:

2017   New England    10-1

2016    Denver    3-1

2015    New England   8-2

2014    Seattle   8-0

2013    Baltimore   4-2

2012    NYG   4-3

2011    Green Bay   5-0

2010    New Orleans   9-1

2009    Pittsburgh    6-1

2008    NYG    5-5

Note that the only two teams with more than two crush losses are the NYG teams in 2008 and 2012 which, under Eli’s magic touch, somehow managed to get the trophy despite being viewed, by rational observers, as the twelfth-best of the twelve teams competing that year.  In other words, they pretty much sucked all season, and then got smokin’ hot.

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THE PRETENDERS---Tennessee, Buffalo, Carolina, Atlanta

There are different reasons for discarding these guys, but the red flags are unmistakable. Carolina (4.5), Tennessee (4.7) and Buffalo (4.9) have the three lowest AYP in the tournament.  Tennessee and Buffalo were outscored by their opponents in the regular season.  None of them has a winning record against the other playoff teams (Atlanta played seven playoff teams this year, and lost five of those games).  Buffalo has a 2-5 record in crush games (i.e., they were beaten five times by ten or more points).  Carolina was 3-4 in crush games, Tennessee was 3-3, and Atlanta was 4-2.

Atlanta is the best of the bunch, but their AYP of 6.4 is only fourth best of the six teams in the NFC.  Their defensive AYP of 5.5 is fifth of six.

All are dogs on Wildcard Weekend, and all of them will probably lose.

COULD GET LUCKY---Philly, KC, Jacksonville

These teams all have something wonderful going for them, but also have potentially fatal flaws.

Jacksonville is a hot team among certain wise guys because they have the best pass defense in the NFL, they are second in points allowed (Minnesota is first), they outscored their opponents by 9.3 points/game, and they seem to be getting stronger as the season progresses.

The problem with Jacksonville is that they are all defense.  When they held opponents to ten points or less, they went 8-0.  When they gave up more than ten points, they were 2-6.  In order to advance to the Superbowl, they will probably have to beat both Pittsburgh and New England (and both those contests will be road games for the Jags).  How likely is it they will hold each of those stalwarts to single digits?

As we all remember, KC started the season by dominating the Patriots in New England, rolled through the first six weeks of the season, and then fell off a cliff in November.  The Chiefs are the only team that lost to BOTH the Giants and the Jets. They recovered their mojo sufficiently to win their last four games, beating the Raiders, Chargers, Miami and Denver (none of which will be playing on February 4th.)  So they kind-of suck, right?

Well, maybe.  When you add it all up, they are 10-6 and are tied with NE for the best AYP in the AFC.  They get a pretty easy home game in the wildcard round, and they’ve already beaten the Patriots.  Also, is Andy Reid NEVER going to get a little lucky and win a Superbowl?  OK, I’m making the call here---KC could get lucky.

Then there’s my Iggles, the team with the best record in the NFL but which will be an underdog at home when they play their first game in the second week of the playoffs.

The theory that Philadelphia can still get to the Superbowl, and win it, is based on everything you can think of that’s good for the Eagles and doesn’t have anything to do with Carson Wentz.  Home field advantage is part of it, for example.  To get to the Superbowl, Philly will probably have to win home games against New Orleans and Minnesota, two decent dome teams that may not like playing in South Philly in January.  It is plausible that Philly can win both those games.  Another thing that doesn’t have anything to do with Carson Wentz is the Eagle defense, which has been very good and which is at least as responsible as the offense for Philly’s success.

Finally, the thing that really has nothing to do with Carson Wentz is Nick Foles, who actually has a decent record as an NFL starter (and backup) quarterback.  Philly being what it is, the overwhelming majority of Eagles fans believe Nick will give us a deer-in-the-headlights-in-the-playoffs kind of performance.  I suspect he will be better than that, but I too fear he will fall short of the performance necessary to get to the dance.  On the other hand, he does bear an uncanny resemblance to Jeff Hostetler.

Kidding aside, the real problem with the Eagles is that even with Wentz, the team’s offense was not good enough to get to a Superbowl.  The AYP, most of which is attributable to Wentz’s play, is only the fifth best of the six NFC playoff teams.  The Eagles played a weak schedule, won a lot of games with their defense, and had more than their share of highlight-reel plays from their quarterback.  That does not normally win you a ring.

But still…

THE CONTENDERS---New England, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, New Orleans, LA Rams

We will discuss these teams in more detail next week (they will all still be in the hunt). 

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Tennessee at KC (-8).  The featured item on Tennessee’s resume is that they beat the Jaguars twice.  However, they have the worst AYP (4.7) in the AFC group, while KC is tied for first at 6.8.  KC will win the game, but to some extent they are limping into the playoffs, and it’s hard to get a sense of how good they are.  I don’t bet this line.

Atlanta at LA Rams (-5 1/2).  The Rams win the AYP battle 6.7 to 6.4, and they also have a superior defense.  With the Rams in the ascendant and the Falcons trying desperately to hang on to last year’s (sort-of) glory, I envision a game in doubt until the second half, but the Rams pulling away.  I lay the points.

Buffalo at Jacksonville (-8 ½).   Initially, you look at this line and think “Well, Buffalo’s not that bad.”  But they are.  Jacksonville beats them in AYP 5.6 to 4.9.  Defensive AYP also favors the Jags 3.3 to 4.9.  Finally, J’ville outscored their foes by 9.3 points per game while the Bills were outscored by 3.6.  My over/under for Buffalo points in this game is 6.  I think Jacksonville covers.

Carolina at New Orleans (-7).   New Orleans beat Carolina twice this year, and dominated them, so it’s tempting to take the contrarian bent that they can’t do it three times.  I reject that view.  The Saints have the best AYP (7.1) in either conference and the Panthers have the worst (4.5).  The New Orleans defense is also superior.  Carolina is probably the worst of the twelve teams in the playoffs this year and New Orleans has a legitimate shot to win it all.  I lay the seven points.

Copyright2018MichaelKubacki