Who makes the playoffs from the AFC East? - AFC East - ESPN

Going off future opponents' winning percentage, the Chargers' remaining schedule is tied for 5th softest with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

14 days ago John (obviousman) 4 comments 0 recs |

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Going off of DVOA

Which has proven to be a better predictor of future wins and losses than winning percentage. The Chargers have the 14th easiest schedule remaining. Their past schedule has been 9th easiest.

The Steelers schedule is the 18th easiest and have had the 2nd easiest schedule of any team so far (The Redskins have had the easiest).

The team with the easiest remaining schedule is the Arizona Cardinals. The team with the hardest remaing is the Carolina Panthers. The team who has faced the toughest opponents so far (its really not a shocker considering that every other team in their division has a winning record and is in the top 15 in DVOA) is the Cleveland Browns.

Another interesting tidbit from visiting Football Outsiders is that they measure performance variance. Teams that have a lot of variance are teams like the Titans where they can play Pittsburgh close in week 1, stomp the Jaguars in week 8 but get seriously blown out by the Patriots or Philadelphia where they get beat by the Raiders, bombed by the Saints, but easily take care of the Giants. The Chargers are the 2nd most consistent team in football so far this year. They play just about as well in their losses to the Ravens, Steelers and Broncos as they do when they beat the Raiders, Dolphins and Chiefs. That’s not a very happy thought. Chargers need to find a new gear.

Wisdom can not be cultivated through ignorance of information.

by Wonko on Nov 6, 2009 10:44 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

That just means we've been consistent so far

It can’t predict how well we will play in the future weeks, normally from watching the team in the Norv Era we have great runs to finish off the season so i don’t know if that stat is really reliable just tells you we’ve played about the same every week with little variance, not that you can’t change it.

Chargers = Aztecs
We have proof.

by Dude52089 on Nov 6, 2009 12:40 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Historically

Teams cannot change their performance level too much through the course of a season, especially teams that don’t have a lot of variance. If you look at the Chargers performances from last year (not the greatest example since we don’t really want to finish 8-8 again) they had a lot more variance (15th most variance in the league), even down the stretch. They started off with 3 straight good performances (2 which resulted in losses) follow by two bad ones. A great one against NE, an awful one against Buffalo. Good against NO, two kind bad ones against KC (only slight bad) and Pit. Good against Indy, bad against Atl, good against Oak, slightly bad against KC, great against TB and Den. Then the finished with two okay performances against Ind and Pit. They were all over the place.

So far this year, they are consistently just below average with probably their only variance being the win over KC. I’m not sure if the previous paragraph proved anything, but I am pretty sure that being consistent at playing mediocre is probably not a good thing.

Wisdom can not be cultivated through ignorance of information.

by Wonko on Nov 6, 2009 2:03 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

There’s more variance at the offense/defense level. We’ve just managed to combine good offensive games with bad defensive games and vise versa. If they happen to play at a high level on both sides of the ball at the same time, that could be enough.

Bolts from the Blue // "Game over." - Jamal Williams
Bloody Elbow // "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken

by Richard Wade on Nov 6, 2009 9:41 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs