Rockstar Matt

One of those cases where you let the color speak for itself and I for one love that.

Good point. 7 of those 10 wins came from the coin toss winning team scoring a touchdown on their first drive.

Since the current OT rules were implanted, 11 playoff games have gone to OT. The winner of the coin toss has won 10 of those 11 games. I don’t have any evidence to suggest why that is, but I’d speculate it’s because playoff teams are generally really good, and they don’t waste the opportunity to score. Additionally the rules are set up to benefit offenses over defenses, that’s probably another significant factor.

Oh my gosh, I finally had the chance to catch the Bills-Chiefs game, I’m gutted for Buffalo. They played so well, especially Josh Allen. He and his offense did everything they needed to win. Man, I hope that wasn’t their only Super Bowl shot. These two QB’s are gonna be here competing for titles for the next decade. What a game. One of the best games ever.

It’s tough to beat a good team 3 times in one year. It happens, but it’s rare. History favors the LA Rams here.

Gotta give Stafford a lot of credit there. He made a perfect throw in the biggest moment in his career thus far.

The Rams returning to their home of 50 years is not a wrong. Don’t know why this keeps getting brought up.

He wants to be the biggest star in every game he officiates. Awful ref.

I’m obviously rooting for the LA Rams today, but Hochuli is the WORST ref in the league. Already called two BS penalties on the Bucs today. I wish he was good like his dad was, but he’s awful. All of his games are flag fest’s.

Umm, Josh Sargent gets left off of the USMNT WC qualifying roster then goes ahead and scores his first two Premier League goals for Norwich City with the first being a PUKAS worthy goal (a damned scorpion kick flick goal). What in the world. His brace also put Norwich out of the regulation zone. Incredible from Sargent.

It seems as if Jerry signed a deal with the devil to be able to buy the Cowboys, win 3 Super Bowl’s quickly but the pay back was utter ineptitude for the next 50 years and to lose playoff games in the most bizarre, incredible ways imaginable. Think about some of these bizarre Cowboy playoff losses (and there’s plenty to chose from). You have Romo’s field goal hold botch (hasn’t happened in a playoff game since), Dez Bryant’s catch/no catch, Rodgers converted a damn 3rd and forever on a sideline tiptoe catch (still Jared Cook’s best catch of his career), and now last night, the Cowboys literally running out of time on a bizarre QB draw call. Y’all remember how the sunlight was shining through the endzone windows in Jerry World? Yeah apparently those windows have curtains just for the purpose of blocking the sun during certain times of the day, but Jerry refuses to have them closed because he likes how it looks.. I wish I was making that up. The Cowboys set a playoff futility record last night for the most consecutive playoff games without a single game being in a conference championship. It starts and ends with Jerry, and his damned ego. The Cowboys won’t win a thing until he backs off and let’s football guys actually run the team.

Pretty disappointed to hear him say that. The league’s most penalized team can’t be complaining about the refs in this situation. McCarthy has got to go. Never heard Dak ever complain about the refs in his whole career until this season. Nor have I heard the other players complain about officials as much as they did this season. The head coach allowed that to fester and to be said, seeing as he complained about the refs throughout the season himself. No accountability on the Cowboys, they always blamed everyone but themselves. Only a few players like Micah and other defensive players took any ownership of their faults consistently this season.

To add on to what I said here, that was the worst coached Cowboys game I’ve seen since the 2009 divisional loss to Minnesota. Jason Garrett, for all his clear flaws, never had the team this ill-prepared for a damn playoff game. The 2014 WC game against the Lions was close, but they still pulled that win out. And Garrett’s teams were relatively disciplined until the end on his tenure. EDIT: Also just found out the Zeke tore his PCL earlier in the season (which explains his production drop off) but then that begs the question why did the Cowboys continue to play an obviously hurt RB over their healthier and more explosive back in Pollard? And why didn’t Zeke go on short-term IR to heal up? Garbage coaching.

Cowboys always find new, and incredible, ways to lose football games. They make it difficult to be a loyal fan. They had the talent to go all the way, but unfortunately they were far too undisciplined and just simply not good enough against good teams all season long. In all 6 games against teams that won 10+ games Cowboys went down by double digits in all but two of them (Patriots and Buccaneers). They just didn’t look ready nor prepared for the intensity of the 49ers. Couldn’t match it until it was too late. Props to the Niners for playing really well. McCarthy needs to go. I’ve seen enough. Cowboys had 14 penalties today (all of them deserved) and couldn’t get out of the their own way. Which was a consistent theme all damn season.

That's what I deserve for changing my pick last minute from Buffalo to Dallas while being exhausted. Yes, point differential does not care who the opponent was. Also, the last time a McCarthy-coached team had a PD this good, they won a Super Bowl and went 15-1 the following year.. It's still the Cowboys, the perennial over-hyped playoff chokers, so I'm half expecting them to lose the Niners because that's the kind of thing they do.

Yes, but I wanted to illustrate that having a good record does not mean you'll have a good point differential either and vice versa. Teams with the best point differential aren't always the teams with the best record or playoff seeding. Sometimes teams with really good PD don't make the playoffs at all (2010 Chargers +119 and 2019 Cowboys +113) and sometimes teams with poor PD win the Super Bowl (2011 Giants). However, more importantly, I wanted to show how point differential is a better indicator of who's going to make it and win a Super Bowl as compared to win-loss standings and playoff seeding, which is inherently random.

weird double post

Yeah so, I went ahead and charted every Super Bowl including before the merger. Found some more interesting stuff. I have the full data set if anyone is interested. I won't post it here because it's so damn long lmao. If we ignore conference point differential rankings and go by overall league rankings, only 3 Super Bowls out of the 55 played didn't feature a top 4 team in PD. They were Super Bowl 11 (Washington, Minnesota), Super Bowl 38 (New England, Carolina) and Super Bowl 43 (Pittsburgh and Arizona). Let me preface this by saying they're obviously can be outliers, but seeing as a top 4 team didn't make it in just 0.05% of all Super Bowls, I can say with just about 100% certainty that one of the Super Bowl teams will be either the Bills, Cowboys, Patriots, or Bucs. Some "fun" facts. The last time the Bills finished first in the AFC in PD was 1992 (they were also 1st in 1990 and 1991), and they went to a Super Bowl. The last time the Cowboys finished 2nd overall was in 1995, (they were also 2nd in 1992, 1993, and 1994), and they won the Super Bowl; and the last time they finished 1st in the NFC was in 1978, where that also made a Super Bowl. As expected, the top 7 teams in the NFC in terms of PD all made the post season. They're ranked by PD (with actual seeding in parenthesis and overall league rank in PD in the second parenthesis): NFC 1. Dallas (3) --- (2nd overall) 2. Tampa Bay (2) --- (4th) 3. LA Rams (4) --- (6th) 4. Arizona (5) --- (9th) 5. Green Bay (1) --- (10th) 6. Philadelphia (7) --- (13th) 7. San Francisco (6) --- (12th) And the AFC is completely and utterly bonkers: AFC 1. Buffalo (3) --- (1st overall) 2. New England (5) --- (3rd) 3. Kansas City (2) --- (5th) 5. Cincinnati (4) --- (8th) 6. Tennessee (1) --- (11th) 13. Las Vegas (5) --- (23rd) 14. Pittsburgh (7) --- (22nd) Using the historical data I charted, I can make some predictions with a level of confidence. Teams ranked 5th in lower in their conference have such a low chance to make the Super Bowl (with some exceptions here and there), I'd be willing to bet that the Bengals, Titans, Raiders, Steelers, Eagles and 49ers will not make the Super Bowl, however I believe that the Titans will make it to the AFC Championship game. That leaves the Bills, Patriots and Chiefs as the favorites to go to the Super Bowl in the AFC; and in the NFC, despite Green Bay being 5th in PD, I think it'll be between the Packers and Bucs/Cowboys to go to the Super Bowl from the NFC. My playoff predictions are as such based on the above (and I'm drinking all the blue and silver kool-aid): AFC Championship Game Buffalo over Tennessee NFC Championship Game Dallas over Green Bay Super Bowl 56 Dallas over Buffalo

Yes. I'm near 100% certain that at least one of those teams will make it to the Super Bowl, and about 90% certain that both participants will be from that grouping. Interestingly, if we ignore the conference PD rankings and go by pure league PD rankings, the eventual champion is highly likely to be one of the 4 best teams in PD as well as both (or at least one) Super Bowl participants. The last 3 Super Bowls however, didn't feature the top 2 teams in PD regardless of conference. But the 5 Super Bowls had either the best team in PD in the league (2015 Carolina) or flat both of the top 2 teams in PD.

Because I hate myself, I went ahead and charted the PD position of every Super Bowl participant since the merger. That's 51 Super Bowls or 102 Super Bowl teams. Out of those 102 Teams, only 15 of them finished outside the top 3 in their conference in point differential. Just 14% of all Super Bowl teams. On the reverse, that means 87 of the 102 teams finished in the top 3 in PD. An overwhelming majority. Only 10 Super Bowls had both teams not finish at least first in PD in their conference. Four of those occurred in the last 21 years which were Super Bowls 55, 43, 38 and 35. 12 Super Bowls featured the best team in PD in both conferences, last one to happen was in 2017 with the Eagles and Patriots. 24 Super Bowls had either the 1st and 2nd best team in PD in their respective conferences. Now for some weird anomalies. Super Bowl 38 between the Patriots and Panthers is the only Super Bowl since the merger that featured two teams who did not finish at least 3rd in PD in their conferences. The 2007 Giants (8th in conference PD), 2003 Panthers (9th), 2008 Cardinals (10th) and 2011 Giants (10th) are the worst teams to ever make a Super Bowl (and that's in order too). 2011 Giants are the worst team to ever win a Super Bowl, and to date, they are the only Super Bowl Champion who had a negative PD in their regular season. So I'd confidently say the Super Bowl participants will be one of the teams who finished top 3 in their conference. And I'd feel in near 100% certainty in saying at least one of the participants will fit that criteria. I'll add more context to the data once today's games have finished.

I've long been curious about point differential and if regular season point differential correlates into post season success. I've found something that quite honestly shocked me after doing some research. (As a side note, I'll refer to point differential as PD from here on to save redundancy and my sanity). Every single Super Bowl participant since 2003* except for eight teams were in the top 3 in their conference in PD. They were the 2003 Panthers and Patriots, 2006 Colts, 2007 Giants, 2009 Colts, 2011 Giants, 2012 Ravens and 2015 Broncos. As you can see 5 of those teams were in the years 2003-2009, whereas since 2010 only 3 of the last 22 Super Bowl participants were outside of the top 3. I have no definitive evidence of why that is, but I can only speculate it's because of how much the game has changed in terms of offensive domination since then. Furthermore, since the 2012 Super Bowl, only twice has a Super Bowl not feature at least one team who was first in PD in their conference (last year's Super Bowl, and the 2018 Super Bowl between New England and LA). Since 2009, aside from 2018 and 2020 Super Bowls, every single Super Bowl had at least one team who was number 1 in points differential in their conference. I didn't honestly believe there was any correlation into PD and postseason success, but there is substantial data to support that hypothesis. Remember the wild-card, 10-6 Green Bay Packers who won the 2010 Super Bowl? They were number 1 in PD in the NFC that season. 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 Super Bowls all had at least one team who topped their conference in PD (the bolded Super Bowls had both teams finish first in PD in their conferences).. Now how does that relate to this season? We'll have the full data set after today's games, but I can make some early statements. Firstly, the Packers (and the Titans if they clinch home-field in the AFC) will have the worst PD of any number one seed since the 2015 Broncos (who had a terrible offense led by the corpse of Peyton Manning who was being carried by one of the greatest defenses in the last 30 years). Green Bay already is the first one seed in the NFC in the last decade to not finish at least 2nd in PD. If they don't pass Arizona and LA in PD, they'll be only the third #1 seed in either conference to not be in the top 3 in their conference in that same span previously mentioned. Tennessee would easily have the worst PD of any 1 seed in the AFC since those Broncos, and any 1 seed in either conference in the last decade. Secondly, since 2010 the only teams who made it to the Super Bowl despite not having an elite PD either got a hot QB at the right time (2011 NYG, 2012 BAL) or an historically great unit (2015 DEN), it'll be a safe prediction to assume both participants will be one of the top 3 teams in their respective conferences in PD. *-I picked 2003 only because that's as far back as ESPN's standing records go. I could use pro-football-reference to go further, but that would involve more work on my part

Nothing frustrating about blowing out the Eagles. Ever. Zeke is hurt, and has been playing through injury. Plus our most explosive back was held out this game, Pollard. I'd have held out Zeke for this one too, but oh well. I wish to retire this notion that 3rd stringers implies they are bad players. 3rd stringers are still NFL players and for a lot of them, this is their one chance to prove they belong in the NFL. You literally have guys out there playing for their NFL future; they are going to play hard. But considering the Cowboys blew out the Eagles 51-20 (before a meaningless late 4th quarter TD by the Eagles), they were good enough. They should have blown out the Eagles and they did. I see no problem with that. Also important to note defensively, the Cowboys were without their two best players; the DPOY candidate and the INT leader. Without Parsons, the Cowboys defense struggles. It has the whole season. Whenever he sits a series, the Cowboys give up points. Again, that's happened the whole year. Game was never in doubt. I know it was tied 17-17 in the 2nd, but no one seriously believed the Eagles were ever going to win that football game. But you are right that they're lucky no one got hurt. However, considering how the offense has been struggling for weeks, they needed to play and that was better practice than the half-speed, no contact teams do this late into the season. The only frustration from that game, is that there was another Zuerlein miss. He's missed kicks in 49% of the games he's played for the Cowboys. He's going to cost them a game in the postseason with his inconsistency.

The Cowboys blew the Eagles out with both teams playing their starters back in Week 3 too. But, have you ever heard of a dude named Ito Smith? or JaQuan Hardy (who I only knew as "goggles" from Hard Knocks)? Both of whom scored TD's today. It was a glorified pre-season game, but after what I had to through in the 2000's at the hands of the McNabb/Reid Eagles, I'll always relish seeing the Cowboys blowing out the Eagles lmao. Which we did twice. But it's still impressive beating all of your divisional opponents by an average of 40-17.

I like this new Cowboys philosophy of blowing the living crap out of their divisional opponents. I know the NFC East outside of the Cowboys are booty cheeks (and the Cowboys might be booty cheeks too), but the Cowboys swept the division with an average score of 40-17 lmao. That's a level of domination within the division that is uncommon in the NFL (also not used to the Cowboys taking care of business against inferior opponents).

Someone said this looks like a burgundy Waste Management logo. Thanks for that; I actually like this logo but now I'll never be able to un-see that.