Playoff Probabilities: Week 11

Welcome to this week's edition of playoff probabilities, now featuring new and improved probability tables. As always, these numbers come courtesy of Chris Cox at NFL-forecast.com and are generated with the help of his NFL-Forecast software app, which uses the win probabilities generated by the team efficiency model to simulate the NFL season 5,000 times. And if you don't buy the game probabilities from Advanced NFL Stats, you can tweak them as much as you like to generate your own playoff projections. I encourage everyone to download the app and test out your own scenarios.

Regular readers of Advanced NFL Stats will know that we've had the Texans as the AFC team most likely to earn a playoff berth for several weeks now. But with starting quarterback Matt Schaub's injury, it's difficult to say where things stand in the AFC. Schaub has been a big part of Houston's success this year. His EPA ranks 5th among quarterbacks and his 6.9 AYPA is second only to Aaron Rodgers. Schaub's prognosis remains uncertain, but it's almost sure he will miss the next few games and very possible that he will be out for the season.

While losing your starting quarterback generally won't help your team's playoff chances (see the Colts, Indianapolis), even if we assume that the loss of Schaub severely reduces Houston's effectiveness, there are two primary reasons that this won't necessarily signal the death knell for the Texans' playoff hopes:

1. Houston has a fairly substantial cushion in the South—a two-game lead over the Titans, who they've already beaten on the road, and a 3-0 division record.


2. Houston's remaining schedule is among the easiest in the league, with games against Jacksonville, Carolina, and Indianapolis. Overall, the average GWP of their remaining opponents (after adjusting for home-field advantage) is just .405.

Our model doesn't account for catastrophic injuries, but as a quick and dirty fix, let's assume that losing Schaub drops the Texans from their astronomical .83 GWP to the league average. (This is just for illustrative purposes—personally, I think this assumption underestimates the Texans' strength, but I'll leave it to others to debate the precise ramifications of Schaub's absence.) And now we turn to another trusty heat map:

As the above shows, even if we assume that a Leinart-helmed Houston is a league-average team, the Texans still have a 73% probability to finish with a better record than Tennessee. In addition, Houston's edge in tiebreakers over the Titans means that a tie result will almost always tip in Houston's favor, giving them a probability of better than 85% to win the South and earn their first ever postseason berth.

High-Leverage Game of the Week

Cincinnati at Baltimore | Sunday, November 20 | 1:00 pm

Playoff Prob.	BAL Win	CIN Win
CIN	25	60
BAL	90	64

This week, one game clearly stands above the rest in terms of potential leverage, and yet again it features two teams from the AFC North. The model has the Ravens heavily favored to win this matchup, with a game-win probability of .72, but the Ravens have been the definition of inconsistency over the past four weeks. On the one hand, they beat the Steelers on the road. On the other, they lost to Jacksonville and Seattle and just barely eked past Arizona.

A Baltimore win wouldn't do much to help the Ravens catch up to Pittsburgh—the model would still have the Steelers as a 62% favorite to win the North. What it would do is give Baltimore a definite edge in an AFC wild card field that is just as crowded as it was last week, resulting in an 86% probability of a wild card spot given that the Ravens don't win the division.

This game is even more important for the Bengals, who see a swing of 35 percentage points dependent on the outcome. A loss here would reduce their probability of winning the North to only 1%, severely hampering Cincinnati's chances at a playoff berth. A win, however, would put them back in the hunt, giving them an 8% likelihood of winning the North, and, failing that, a 56% chance of getting a wild card spot.

News & Notes

• The Packers continue to close in on an undefeated season. Their biggest hurdles are coming up in Weeks 12 and 13, with games on the road against the Lions and the Giants. If they can get past those two (and win this week), the model estimates they have a 35% chance at an undefeated season.
• It's official—for the first time since 2001, the Colts will not be participating in the postseason. My condolences.

Some changes to announce: The division tables now include a column listing each team's current record as well as their average projected number of wins. Also, in the overall playoff probabilities column, ">99" and "<1" will be used to indicate probabilities that are, respectively, very large but less than 100% or very small but non-zero. Let me know if you guys think this clutters up the tables too much—the last thing I want is a mob of angry ANS readers outside my door with torches and pitchforks.

The probabilities below are the result of simulating the season 50,000 times using the game-win probabilities from the team efficiency model. They may not add up to 100 (in percent form) due to rounding. Enjoy.

AFC EAST
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
NE	6-3	11.2	87	11	2	0
NYJ	5-4	8.9	4	53	42	1
BUF	5-4	8.7	9	36	53	2
MIA	2-7	4.4	0	0	3	96
AFC NORTH
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
PIT	7-3	11.8	67	30	3	0
BAL	6-3	10.5	30	52	18	1
CIN	6-3	9.0	3	18	75	4
CLE	3-6	5.4	0	0	4	95
AFC SOUTH
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
HOU	7-3	12.2	99	1	0	0
TEN	5-4	8.7	1	84	15	0
JAC	3-6	6.3	0	15	85	0
IND	0-10	1.1	0	0	0	>99
AFC WEST
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
OAK	5-4	9.0	75	18	6	1
SD	4-5	7.2	16	49	29	7
DEN	4-5	6.7	8	29	46	17
KC	4-5	5.2	1	4	19	75
NFC EAST
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
DAL	5-4	9.9	58	34	8	1
NYG	6-3	9.6	39	48	11	2
PHI	3-6	7.0	3	16	65	17
WAS	3-6	5.7	0	2	17	81
NFC NORTH
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
GB	9-0	14.1	97	3	1	0
CHI	6-3	10.2	1	51	48	0
DET	6-3	9.8	2	47	51	0
MIN	2-7	4.4	0	0	0	>99
NFC SOUTH
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
NO	7-3	11.2	96	4	0	0
ATL	5-4	8.5	4	83	11	1
TB	4-5	5.7	0	9	56	34
CAR	2-7	4.9	0	3	33	64
NFC WEST
Team	Rec	Wins	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
SF	8-1	12.2	>99	0	0	0
SEA	3-6	5.9	0	46	31	23
ARI	3-6	5.8	0	35	41	24
STL	2-7	5.0	0	19	28	53

AFC Percent Probability Playoff Seeding
Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	Total
HOU	53	29	16	2	0	0	>99
PIT	18	34	13	1	27	4	98
NE	17	21	45	3	3	6	96
BAL	10	10	8	1	37	16	83
OAK	0	1	6	67	0	1	77
CIN	1	1	1	0	13	19	35
NYJ	0	1	3	1	7	24	35
BUF	0	2	6	1	5	13	27
TEN	0	0	0	0	7	14	22
SD	0	0	0	15	0	1	17
DEN	0	0	0	7	0	1	9
KC	0	0	0	1	0	0	1
JAC	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
CLE	0	0	0	0	0	0	<1
MIA	0	0	0	0	0	0	<1
IND	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

NFC Percent Probability Playoff Seeding
Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	Total
GB	81	15	1	0	3	1	>99
SF	17	58	17	8	0	0	>99
NO	1	15	43	37	0	1	97
CHI	0	0	0	0	46	34	80
DAL	0	9	23	26	3	9	70
DET	1	1	0	0	38	28	68
NYG	0	3	14	22	5	11	55
ATL	0	0	2	3	5	14	23
PHI	0	0	0	3	0	1	5
SEA	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
WAS	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
ARI	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
TB	0	0	0	0	0	0	<1
STL	0	0	0	0	0	0	<1
CAR	0	0	0	0	0	0	<1
MIN	0	0	0	0	0	0	<1