There are six playoff games this weekend, and without my old playoff model in play,we will be discussing favorites based on offensive stats. The first game is Raiders at Bengals, and Bengals, ignoring the very minor HFA effect this year, should be favored by about six points, and thus have about a 70% change of winning.
New England and Buffalo are the next teams in consideration, and ignoring HFA, Buffalo should be favored by about one and a half points, roughly 55% change of winning.
The third pair of teams in consideration is Philadelphia at Tampa Bay. The SRS delta is about six points, and so Tampa Bay would have a 70% change of winning.
The fourth pair of teams is San Francisco at Dallas. Dallas is favored by SRS to the tune of six points, roughly a 70% chance of winning. If you cut the season in half the advantage is three points, but San Francisco’s SOS through that period is awful, three points below average. San Francisco overall wasn’t beating very good teams in its playoff run.
Pittsburgh at Kansas City. KC has a 10 point advantage by SRS. Winning percentage for KC is well over 80%.
The final playoff game, on Monday, is Arizona at LA Rams. This game is even, a pick ’em game. Differences in offensive stats are less than 0.2 points between the two.