ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

[JohnnyGold]

ESPN's NFL Playoff Machine is BACK!

http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/machine

Let's use this thread to concoct scenarios which get the Bills into the playoffs--with as few wins as possible. Every week, I will update this specific post to include the scenario most favorable to a Bills loss, and any future losses they might take.

So let's get this ball rolling. This will be way more fun than any work I'm supposed to do at the office today.

(Under the 5th seed in the NFC is a link to "Copy URL". Use that to post your scenarios here).

[JohnnyGold]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

Here is a scenario which has the Bills into the playoffs as the 6 seed with a 7-9 record.

[GreedoII]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

Here is a scenario which has the Bills into the playoffs as the 6 seed with a 7-9 record.

well shoot with 7-9 still a possibility then I feel a lot better. we can afford 5 more losses!!

[Fletch]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

ESPN's NFL Playoff Machine is BACK!

http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/machine

Let's use this thread to concoct scenarios which get the Bills into the playoffs--with as few wins as possible. Every week, I will update this specific post to include the scenario most favorable to a Bills loss, and any future losses they might take.

So let's get this ball rolling. This will be way more fun than any work I'm supposed to do at the office today.

(Under the 5th seed in the NFC is a link to "Copy URL". Use that to post your scenarios here).

We're basically contending with AFCN teams. Denver and KC both are going to get in with at least 10 wins apiece. We lost to KC and therefore the tiebreaker with them, so the only way for us to edge either for a WC would be to go 2 games better than Denver over the last 6, or 3 games better than KC, and that's assuming that one of our wins would be against Denver. Ridiculously unlikely.

So then we have to focus on the AFCN. There will be one division winner obviously. Pittsburgh at 7-4 is very likely to make it as a WC if not the DW. Our key game and only game against an NFCN team will be against the Browns, who are a better team right now and get better with the addition of Gordon now. But if any of the AFCN teams edges us, or if Miami does, then we have no chance. Miami's a game ahead of us and after common games (Denver, NE, and the Jets) faces the Jets in NY, and Minnesota and Baltimore at home. We face the Raiders in Oakland where we've never won, and GB and Cleveland at home. Fins have an easier schedule. They too are also playing better than we are.

Just stating the obvious here.

[OpIv37]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

As long as we are living in fantasy land, let's discuss what we'd do if we won the lottery. Or which 2 supermodels we want to have a threesome with. Or what we'd do if a genie in a lamp granted us 3 wishes.

And no wishing for more wishes. That's just absurd.

[notacon]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

Here is a scenario which has the Bills into the playoffs as the 6 seed with a 7-9 record.

Are you being serious???

San Diego & Pittsburgh losing out the rest of the season, and Miami, Cleveland and Baltimore winning only one game each the rest of the season?!?!? Really??

There is a much bigger chance of the Bills winning only one more game this season than ANY of those there events taking place.

I understand the desire for optimism, but, this is really getting pathetic.

[Generalissimus Gibby]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

Just because it needs to be said:

[Generalissimus Gibby]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

As long as we are living in fantasy land, let's discuss what we'd do if we won the lottery. Or which 2 supermodels we want to have a threesome with. Or what we'd do if a genie in a lamp granted us 3 wishes.

And no wishing for more wishes. That's just absurd.

Uh, Lena Horne and Ingrid Bergman (since this is fantasy, I'd have a time machine that could fetch sexy women straight from the 1940s). Three wishes? Well, that one is easy, I'd be named emperor for life of Australia and New Zeeland, the Bills Would win the Superbowl every year, and then I would request three more wishes. . . .

[JohnnyGold]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

Are you being serious???

San Diego & Pittsburgh losing out the rest of the season, and Miami, Cleveland and Baltimore winning only one game each the rest of the season?!?!? Really??

There is a much bigger chance of the Bills winning only one more game this season than ANY of those there events taking place.

I understand the desire for optimism, but, this is really getting pathetic.

I'm going to come out and say something that I believe to the center of my being:

the OVERWHELMING majority of message board posters are either too young to have ever seen a playoff season unfold before their eyes, or are too jaded by years of Buffalo ineptitude to think that it could ever actually happen to us.

Do I think the Bills will go 7-9 and get the 6 seed? No, of course not.

But it is a mathematical possibility. Yes, so is winning the lottery, but guess what: 7-9 is a worst case scenario... if they can get in at 7-9, that means that going

2-4
3-3
4-2
5-1
or 6-0 over their last 6 games ALSO gives them a shot at the playoffs. Yes, "other things will need to happen", but that's how the game works. And 9 times out of ten, those "other things" happen--just ask the Chargers last year, or any wild card team in the history of football to get into the playoffs.

When you look at our last 6 games, can you find 2 wins? 3? 4? I can... we might not win those games, but we could.

It just saddens me that people buy into this "we're not mathematically eliminated, but for all intents and purposes, we are" talk. It's absolute bull*****. We are so far removed from "mathematically eliminated, it's laughable. Yes, the last week of football action didn't help our cause, but it didn't damn it either.

Hey, whatever. I'm not going to argue with you to enjoy the last month of football, people seem pretty *****ing miserable in general, but enough with the

"I just wish we could make it to Thanksgiving with meaningful football games still to play" talk.

I don't think anyone ACTUALLY wishes that, because guess what dip*****s: Thanksgiving is a week away, and we have 2 VERY significant, meaningful football games to play.

Really, what people mean is:

"I wish the Bills were 10-0 right now, and every other teams plane had crashed, and any remaining players had died of Ebola, and Goodell had just given us the Lombardi trophy, and since we were undefeated, he deemed that no one should ever play another football game again until the end of time, because no one would ever be able to compare to our 10-0 start, rendering the game of football meaningless."

[swiper]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

As long as we are living in fantasy land, let's discuss what we'd do if we won the lottery. Or which 2 supermodels we want to have a threesome with. Or what we'd do if a genie in a lamp granted us 3 wishes.

And no wishing for more wishes. That's just absurd.

C'mon. That's been my strategy since I was a kid.

[OpIv37]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

No, really what people mean is "I'd like a season where she are actually in the playoff hunt instead of grasping at straws because we are not 'mathematically eliminated.'l

What people really mean is "I want a season where this team gives me reason to believe they can win instead of pudding away back to back winnable games."

I'm so tired of this ****ing charade. Every single year people get hung up on mathematical possiblilties to avoid the reality of how bad this team is, of how many games they've squandered, of how far they're from being contenders.

We have to suffer through a bad season and then we have to watch happy-go-lucky ignorant asshats like you pretend that we are good. You have accepted mediocrity and are accusing those who haven't of demanding perfection.

And you keep playing this ridiculous age card, seemingly oblivious to the fact that most of us are old enough to remember the 90's. News flash: people too young to remember the 90's aren't Bills fans because all they know of this team is epic suckage.

I'm really tired of this embarrassing charade, pretending that we have a shot when all you need to do is watch the play on the field to know we do not.

[notacon]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

I'm going to come out and say something that I believe to the center of my being:

the OVERWHELMING majority of message board posters are either too young to have ever seen a playoff season unfold before their eyes, or are too jaded by years of Buffalo ineptitude to think that it could ever actually happen to us.

Do I think the Bills will go 7-9 and get the 6 seed? No, of course not.

But it is a mathematical possibility. Yes, so is winning the lottery, but guess what: 7-9 is a worst case scenario... if they can get in at 7-9, that means that going

2-4
3-3
4-2
5-1
or 6-0 over their last 6 games ALSO gives them a shot at the playoffs. Yes, "other things will need to happen", but that's how the game works. And 9 times out of ten, those "other things" happen--just ask the Chargers last year, or any wild card team in the history of football to get into the playoffs.

When you look at our last 6 games, can you find 2 wins? 3? 4? I can... we might not win those games, but we could.

It just saddens me that people buy into this "we're not mathematically eliminated, but for all intents and purposes, we are" talk. It's absolute bull*****. We are so far removed from "mathematically eliminated, it's laughable. Yes, the last week of football action didn't help our cause, but it didn't damn it either.

Hey, whatever. I'm not going to argue with you to enjoy the last month of football, people seem pretty *****ing miserable in general, but enough with the

"I just wish we could make it to Thanksgiving with meaningful football games still to play" talk.

I don't think anyone ACTUALLY wishes that, because guess what dip*****s: Thanksgiving is a week away, and we have 2 VERY significant, meaningful football games to play.

Really, what people mean is:

"I wish the Bills were 10-0 right now, and every other teams plane had crashed, and any remaining players had died of Ebola, and Goodell had just given us the Lombardi trophy, and since we were undefeated, he deemed that no one should ever play another football game again until the end of time, because no one would ever be able to compare to our 10-0 start, rendering the game of football meaningless."

I do not agree with you in the least. I have been a fan since 1962. I have been optimistic every year....even during the depths of the worst years. Too many years of total disappointment means I'm just sick and tired of banging my head against the wall.

Sorry, it does not matter that the Bills are not mathematically eliminated. Anyone with half a brain and even less honesty, knows they are toast. Complete and utter toast. No chance of getting even a sniff of the playoffs, once again. To put forward the idea that this is not the reality of yet another year is foolish.

What OpIv37 saidputs it perfectly.

[Ingtar33]

Re: ESPN's 2014 NFL Playoff Machine: Updating thread

I chose the Bills to win out, and then just picked the games how i thought they'd play out from there.

nothing complicated. of course surprisingly we actually can make the playoffs at 10-6 under this scenario... which is surprising to say the least. I think what's more amusing is how the NFC south is represented by a 7-9 team in the playoffs.