Football Contest: Playoff Predictions

Now that I have stuff set up for randomly simulating the season, I can run it each week.  We're now down to 64 games remaining, so there are 2^64 (18,446,744,073,709,551,200) possible outcomes.

Here are the AFC percentages for 10,000 random cases:

The Pats lost a little bit of their grip on the division, but are still a near-lock for the playoffs.  In the North, the Browns improved their chances while the Bengals fell off considerably.  The Texans' grip on the South decreased while the Jags doubled their division hopes.  The minimum number of wins for the second Wild Card in the AFC is 7, so the Raiders have been knocked out of contention.  They can, of course, still hurt other teams' chances.  The Chiefs are barely hanging on.

Now for the NFC:

The Giants moved into near-lock status by annihilating the 'Skins this week.  The Packers are the week's big winners as they doubled their playoff hopes.  The NFC South still looks to only be sending one team to the playoffs, with the Falcons leading the Bucs.  Those two teams face each other in Week 17, in what could be a win or go home game.  In the West, the rams inched closer to a lock while the other teams suffered setbacks.

See you on Sunday!