bukie

Week 16 NFC Playoff Scenarios NFC Clinched: Atlanta (playoff spot), Chicago (NFC North) Eliminated: Carolina, Detroit, Arizona, Minnesota, Washington, Dallas ATLANTA Falcons Atlanta clinches NFC South division and homefield advantage: 1) ATL win PHILADELPHIA Eagles Philadelphia clinches NFC East division: 1) PHI win 2) NYG loss Philadelphia clinches a playoff spot: 1) PHI win 2) TB loss CHICAGO Bears Chicago clinches a first-round bye: 1) CHI win + PHI loss + NYG loss NEW ORLEANS Saints New Orleans clinches a playoff spot: 1) NO win 2) TB loss NEW YORK Giants NY Giants clinch a playoff spot: 1) NYG win Week 16 AFC Scenarios CLINCHED: New England, Pittsburgh (playoff spots) ELIMINATED: Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Miami NEW ENGLAND Patriots New England clinches AFC East division and homefield advantage: 1) NE win 2) NYJ loss PITTSBURGH Steelers Pittsburgh clinches AFC North division and a first-round bye: 1) PIT win + BAL loss KANSAS CITY Chiefs Kansas City clinches AFC West division: 1) KC win + SD loss BALTIMORE Ravens Baltimore clinches a playoff spot: 1) BAL win 2) KC loss + JAC loss 3) KC loss + IND loss 4) SD loss + JAC loss 5) SD loss + IND loss NEW YORK Jets NY Jets clinch a playoff spot: 1) NYJ win 2) JAC loss 3) IND loss (Note: In scenarios where a JAC or IND loss occurs, NYJ has clinched strength of victory tiebreaker over SD) Also, ties.

Maybe you could stop spam trolling the thread and take your bitterness elsewhere.

The NFC 1-seed belongs to Atlanta if they win 1 of their last 2. If not, it can still go to New Orleans, Philly or Chicago.

Joniak/Thayer call on the Hester TD: Link

Aren't Reid and the Eagles due for one of their inexplicable losses of the year?

Probably the nicest looking ice rink anybody's ever played football on.

This could be the best the Bears have looked all year, too.

The Bears do still have a (very) outside chance at the 1 seed yet, but it's pretty unlikely (2 ATL losses, 1 NO loss, 1 PHI loss). However, they do control destiny for a first-round bye yet.

No, incompletion to Shiancoe, last completion was to Rice.

Seems kind of fitting if Favre's last game is against the Bears, because whether he was with the Packers or Vikings, the Bears were a constant rival.

Yeah, I was just about to tell them to shut up about the AFC South, already.

Another weird NFL oddity that probably only interests me: the Raiders have a decent shot at going 6-0 within the division and still not make the playoffs.

I dont know if many of the Vikings have any beef with any of the current Bears other than Kreutz and Pat Williams. As much as I want to build up the Vikings and Packers players as gigantic douchebags, they aren't any different than any other NFL team. Maybe they don't have a lot to play for, but I doubt any of them are going out there trying to concuss somebody. They will probably play a little freer out there though, so we need to watch out for that. we also need to stop pretending that the Bears/Vikings or Bears/Packers rivalries are as big as the Vikings/Packers rivalry. The Bears/Packers rivalry is at least as big as the Vikings/Packers rivalry.

Despite losing, thanks to other game results, Pittsburgh clinched a strength of victory tiebreaker over enough teams to have clinched a playoff spot today.

With plenty of notice, or not in freezing weather.

Oakland avoids being eliminated. That makes today's eliminations Houston, Miami and Arizona. Oakland and Tennessee are still severe long shots, but have a prayer yet. The Pats can't clinch the division anymore today with the Jets win, and the Ravens win prevented the Steelers from clinching, and Indy's win prevented Jacksonville from clinching, so the only team that can potentially clinch the division yet this week is Chicago.

that's a depressing list. this season is lacking in star players. Who the hell is going to be the first pick in the Draft next year? Sullinger? Kyrie Irving or Harrison Barnes, most likely.

To start out, a four-team playoff might be acceptable, but I have a feeling the big six conferences won't accept it unless there are spots for each of their conferences. Especially if there are two teams from the same conference in the top 4 of the BCS standings. For example, this year, if you do a 4-team playoff, do you just take the top 4, and let Stanford be part of it despite not winning their conference? Or do you limit it to conference winners only, so the four teams would be Auburn-Oregon-TCU-Wisconsin?

Why would something like "all conference champs are invited" be a bad thing? 11 conference champions and 5 WC teams sounds fair to me. And if they're so bad they won't make it past the first round, now will they? Yeah, but you'd still have to waste your time watching bad teams getting beat badly in the first round. I don't need to see Auburn beat the dogcrap out of Miami (OH) or Oregon vs. Troy. I'm actually in full support of all the BCS conference winners getting in, even with the Big East being so bad. But you're stretching it to put the MAC and Sun Belt in there. I'd just prefer a rule that your conference champ has to be in the BCS top 25 to get invited. That way it protects conference champs a little bit while avoiding complete cupcake games in the first round.

Auburn/Alabama Oregon/Nevada TCU/Oklahoma St Stanford/Virginia Tech Wisconsin/Mizzou Ohio St/LSU Oklahoma/Boise Arkansas/Michigan St No one wants to watch matchups like these? Replace Alabama with UConn, because nobody would go for it unless each conference with a voice got representation.

What about the dropoff from Gibson to Asik? And Asik to Scalabrine? Noah was currently averaging about 37 minutes per game. Gibson (since Boozer returned) has been averaging about 20 minutes. I would expect at least 25 of those Noah minutes will be taken on by Gibson and additional Boozer minutes (he's been averaging about 28 minutes since his return). The bulk of the additional minutes will be given to Asik (if he can stay on the court, that is), leaving maybe 5-7 minutes for a replacement level player (Scalabrine/Thomas/guy off the street). Factoring those all in, the estimated effect increases to....about 2.7 wins. So, I really don't expect more than a 3 win difference over 10 weeks, and that's with a conservative estimate.

That's not really worse case scenario. Assuming the surgery goes as planned, the maximum anticipated recovery time is 10 weeks. I don't think Noah is 25% better than last year, personally, and I think Gibson is better than last year. Of course, further injuries would be worse, but this is a reasonable worst case scenario.

The last two years, Noah has been worth approximately 8 wins above replacement level over a full season. Let's generously say he's technically improved to be worth 10 wins overall this year. Taj Gibson, on the other hand, was worth abour 4 wins above replacement last year. For the case of being conservative, let's say he hasn't improved at all, and he's worth 4 wins this year. So, the dropoff from Noah to Gibson is 6 wins over the course of a season. If Noah is out 10 weeks, which is the worst case scenario reported, he'd miss all games through the end of February, a total of 34 games. pr about 40% of the season. So, worst case scenario, this injury costs the Bulls about 2.5 wins over 10 weeks, if Noah was 25% better this year and Gibson didn't improve at all.

Who's top 4? Celtics, Heat, Lakers, Mavs? Hollinger: Heat, Celtics, Spurs, Lakers Sagarin: Celtics, Spurs, Mavs, Heat (Predictor has Celtics, Heat, Spurs, Lakers, Mavs, with Bulls 6th)

On a positive note, how about that game tonight? Also, here's an image I found over at a Raptors blog site: