NFL 2017 Season Week 3 Picks

Picks are where it's at!

I'm going to go on record to say that the Packers-Falcons game wasn't as bad as it looked. Rodgers seems to think he has to give up a huge turnover to the falcons in every game these days, and if you factor the 3 really questionable pick plays (2 called against the packers, 1 not called against the Falcons that was the exact same thing the Packers got called for doing), things may have been really different. If the first pick penalty wasn't called, the Rodgers doesn't throw an INT deep in Packers territory and the Packers are moving beyond midfield with a minute left in the half, possibly making it a 17-14 or 17-10 game. Instead, 2 plays later, interception....then touchdown falcons on a play with a "pick" that the Packers got called for about 5 plays earlier this time allowed. That's not to say that the Packers don't have some issues to address against an elite team, but if a couple of bad breaks here and there, a bunch of dropped passes, and starting without your 2 tackles, and losing your top 2 WRs and best defensive player and only lose by 11 is reason to not be too alarmed. *removes rose glasses now*

To be fair part of the reason they "only lost by 11" was the Falcons could play prevent defense for basically an entire half while their offense could play more conservatively, learning their lesson from the Superbowl where if they hand off once, accidentally using time on the clock, the game is probably over. They were at 99% win expectancy at basically halftime, and, unlike the SB, the needle never budged.

I think a reasonable person could content it was actually worse than it looked.

There might be truth to that too. But before they played their prevent defense, the score could somewhat easily have been 17-14 (or 17-10) instead of 24-7 at half-time. A lot turned in the last 2 minutes of the first half on series of awful breaks that all went against the Packers (the pick call that shouldn't have been and the int that wouldn't have happened if the pick call wasn't called). So if you discount completely the good breaks Atlanta got in the last 60 seconds, then yes, it could have been worse for the Packers. I stand by my statement. The reasons that the Packers fell behind 24-7 at halftime seem to be very correctable. That was really my main point. They weren't necessarily being manhandled. The 24-7 score at halftime was essentially an artificially inflated score; 17-14 at half would have made the 2nd half play out a lot differently. I'm mostly saying that I don't see any reason to Packer fans to panic.

at the 2 minute mark with the packers down 10, their win probability was at 12%. Here is the win probabilities based on the possible scenarios I mentioned above:

packers score TD on that final drive (down 3 points), start the 2nd half with 34% win probability and the ball
Packers kick FG on that final drive (down 7 points), start 2nd half with 20% win probability and the ball
Instead, bad call leads to bad int leads to falcons TD (down 17 points), packers start the 2nd half with a 3% win probability

So if being down 3 points at halftime when the other team is favored by 3 points is only a 34% win probability, then I contend that this confirms my original statement that it wasn't as bad as it looked.
While even being down 3 at half when the other team is favored by 3 points doesn't give you a great win probability number, that 60 second stretch had an enormous impact on the predicted outcome.

I'm not discounting the way the 2nd half actually played out, especially the fumble-td right off the bat. Basically, a 2 minute stretch made the game go from the Packers possibly being down by 3 to the Packers being down by 17 based on comedy of crappy (some self-inflicted) breaks.

(just for kicks, if the score was somehow tied at halftime, the packers still would have only had a 46% win probability).

I used this: http://pfref.com/tiny/ygwa7

I'm a fairly big believer in the idea that a couple small things can cause a whole death spiral.

I guess 2 points

1) I suppose I was addressing it from the POV of seeing a lot of "the Packers almost came back!" type posts. Which, no, they kind of didn't. That didn't stop anyone from bracing for it, but "lol it IS the Falcons" jokes aside, the Packers didn't really meaningfully "make it a close game". The Falcons' opponent was the clock for the entire second half, and by and large they learned their lesson from the Superbowl. All they had to do was maintain the ball safely and eat clock, and make sure if they did score, the Packers took enough time to do it that the "scores they need / time left" math kept tilting in their favor.

2) You can probably do this with any game. Even the Vikings game without the QB that just lit up SNF because we can't have nice things can boil down to a couple things that alter the whole game. Our most veteran defensive lineman jumped offsides in a "there's no way they snap this, and we kind of want them to if they're dumb enough" 4 and 1 way in their territory. And this getting called OPI and ending a key drive.

This game pivoted on a series of worst case scenario actions that spanned a total of 2 minutes of actual game time, essentially a possible swing of 20-24 points in a matter of 120 seconds. Even as my admittedly rose colored perspective goes, this was a rather severe turn of events that I wouldn't be making in other Packer games in which they appear to have been dominated from the start. My point isn't to nitpick "if this play goes this way" and "if that call goes that way" thing. My only point is really very simple: it wasn't quite as bad as it looked or felt.

I don't think it's really accurate either to suggest that the Packers "almost came back". Had they forced the Falcons to 3 and out and gotten the ball back with 4 minutes left instead of giving up 3 first downs and getting it back with less than 1 minute left, and then scored to make it a 4 point game....and then recovered an onside kick, then you could say they "almost came back".

Why did all of us but 1 person pick the Ravens again? Jaguars LOVE London!