I hope Bills Mafia is good and rested after the teams 2020 Bye Week. Whether you spent the week doing lawn work, reading a book, jogging, or drinking until your memories disappeared, I hope you are now prepared for the home stretch of the most promising season this millennium. In that stretch the Bills have some work to do and could use a little bit of help to position themselves better in January. With that in mind I present the twelfth iteration of 2020 “Rooting Interest” posts. Included in this is the “Game Importance Scale” which will rate games from 👏👏👏👏👏 (Most Important) to 👏 (Least Important).
NOTE: I do not consider ties or injuries for the sake of this discussion. Tiebreakers in order below are for overall standings.
- H2H = Head to Head
- WLC = Win/Loss in Conference
- WLG = Win/Loss in Common Games min 4
- SOV = Strength of Victory
- SOS = Strength of Schedule
WEEK 11 REVIEW Not the best week of the season but certainly not the worst. The Bills got some major help in their division with the Dolphins, Patriots, and Jets losing. This gives the Bills some buffer in the AFC East and eliminated the Jets from the playoffs, which is always fun. Outside of the AFC East things didn’t fall as well but were oh so close. It took overtime for the Colts to beat the Packers, same for the Titans to beat the Ravens, and the Raiders came close to pulling off a huge upset of the Chiefs. One week will be chalk full of outside help, maybe Week 12?
Rooting Interests Record: 58-77-1 (LW 5-9) Rooting Interests 👏 +/-: -59 👏 (LW -10 👏) Texans (3-7) @ Lions (4-6) (Thursday 12:30PM) 👏 👏
With the Texans maxing out at 9-7 this game is less about a Texans’ playoff push and more about SOV & Draft Picks. A Texans’ win means a boost in SOV for the Chiefs, Ravens, Steelers, Titans, and Browns. A Texans’ loss means a boost in draft capital for the Miami Dolphins, who own the Texans 1st and 2nd Round picks in the 2021 NFL draft. This ends up being a difficult game to pick because you must balance a small value add to the 2020 Bills against a large value add for the future Bills. Focus on 2020, AFC seeding is still up for grabs.
Optimal Outcome: Lions’ Victory Football Team (3-7) @ Cowboys (3-7) (Thursday 4:30PM) 👏
I despise the existence of the 2020 NFC East. I
tweeted this out Sunday night, “3-6-1 (.350) leads the division. Out of the 28 NFL teams not in the NFC East there are 22 teams with a higher winning percentage”. The good news for NFC East stans is, assuming no tie, the leader of the division will have at least a .364 winning percentage because of this game. Now that that is out of the way, the Washington Football Team has lost to the Browns & Ravens while the Cowboys have lost to the Browns & Steelers. Because we care more about the Steelers’ SOV, in the event of 3-way tie, we root against the team that already lost to the Steelers.
Optimal Outcome: Football Team’ Victory Ravens (6-4) @ Steelers (10-0) (Thursday 8:20PM) 👏 👏 👏 👏
4 of the final 6 opponents for the Steelers have a record of 6-4 or better, the Ravens are one of them. To date the Steelers have only played 3 games where their opponent has a winning record. What this means is that it is not out of the realm of possibilities that the Bills could find themselves tied with the Steelers, record wise, come the end of the season. This would likely mean that the winner of Bills Steelers would be the higher seeded team. While a long stretch, the 2 and 1 seeds seem to have a much easier path through the AFC playoffs. That’s what this is all about right?
Optimal Outcome: Ravens’ Victory Dolphins (6-4) @ Jets (0-10) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏 👏 👏
Let’s assume for a second that the Bills finish the season 3-3 to go 10-6, the Dolphins finish the season 4-2 to go 10-6, and the Patriots lose at least one more game. If this were to happen the Dolphins would need a gauntlet of tiebreakers to fall in their favor in order to take the division, why? See here:
- Bills MUST lose to Dolphins ELSE Bills win H2H tiebreaker
- Bills (0-1) MUST lose to Patriots AND Dolphins (1-0) MUST beat Jets & Dolphins ELSE Bills win DIV tiebreaker
- Bills (0-2) MUST lose to one of Chargers, Broncos AND Dolphins (3-0) MUST beat one of Chiefs, Raiders ELSE Bills win WLG tiebreaker
- Bills (0-3) CANNOT lose to the 49ers ELSE Bills wins WLC tiebreaker
Under these scenarios the Bills and Dolphins are tied at 10-6, 1-1 H2H, 4-2 DIV, 8-4 WLG, and 7-5 WLC, meaning is falls to tiebreaker 5 which would be SOV. The fact is at 10-6 the Bills are a near lock to win the division but why not lower our nerves and end this early while also beginning to pry Trevor Lawrence out of the grasp of the Jets.
Optimal Outcome: Jets’ Victory Cardinals (6-4) @ Patriots (4-6) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏 👏
As stated in the previous matchup the magic number for Buffalo looks to be 10, but that assumes the Patriots lose at least one more game. If the Patriots do not lose another game, and find a way to go 10-6, in theory their TB comparison to Buffalo would be 10-6, 1-1 H2H, 5-1 DIV, 8-4 WLG, and 8-4 WLC. There are too many tiebreakers there where the Patriots could have the edge so why not get the one loss out of the way Sunday and bid sayonara to the dynasty?
Optimal Outcome: Cardinals’ Victory Panthers (4-7) @ Vikings (4-6) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏
Two teams that are almost guaranteed to be on the outside looking in come playoff time will battle in Minnesota. For the Bills we look at SOS & SOV of AFC contenders here which means we focus on the Panthers AFC competition, the AFC West, and the Vikings AFC competition, the AFC South. In such games the Panthers have lost to the Raiders & Chiefs while the Vikings have lost to the Colts & Titans. At this point it looks like a 3-way tie is more likely with the Colts or Titans, than the Chiefs, so root against the team that has lost to them in order to drop their SOV.
Optimal Outcome: Panthers’ Victory Browns (7-3) @ Jaguars (1-9) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏 👏
Take nothing away from the Browns who at 7-3 are in the driver’s seat for a playoff spot and while they haven’t beaten the best competition (.350 SOV) Bills’ fans know better than most that the “Haven’t beaten anybody” narrative is about as stale as a Wegman’s Cookie Cake you bought for Thanksgiving and find in your cupboard on the 4th of July. As Bills’ fans though, we want to open a backdoor into the playoffs in case the sky falls, and the AFC East Title is lost. With that in mind we root for a team whose main chant is just to shout the name of their county.
Optimal Outcome: Jaguars’ Victory Titans (7-3) @ Colts (7-3) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏 👏 👏
A huge game on this week’s slate that will surely have ramifications on playoff seeding come January. A Colts’ victory gives them a 1.5 game lead over the Titans in the AFC South with the 0.5 coming from their 2-0 H2H record against the Titans. That obviously won’t be enough to keep the Titans from the division title but as Bills’ fans we hope this is the start of the end for a Titans team which currently holds the #1 tiebreaker over the Bills, H2H.
Optimal Outcome: Colts’ Victory Giants (3-7) @ Bengals (2-7-1) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏
Giants @ Bengals is one of those weird cases where we many actually root for the NFC team. To date the Giants have only lost to the Steelers and have yet to play the Browns & Ravens. On the other side of the ball the Bengals have lost to the Browns twice and the Ravens & Steelers once. What this all means is that a Bengals loss is twice as detrimental to the three AFC North playoff teams than a Giants loss. SOV & SOS, root for the NFC team.
Optimal Outcome: Giants’ Victory Chargers (3-7) @ Bills (7-3) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏
This game is so much more important than it seems. The Bills need to continue to build their buffer over the Dolphins while also maintaining pace with the other division leaders. A win here, and a little help from some other teams, can open up some paths to better seeding and even push us closer to adding my favorite part to this post, “Playoff Clinching Scenarios”.
Optimal Outcome: Bills’ Victory Raiders (6-4) @ Falcons (3-7) (Sunday 1:00PM) 👏 👏 👏
I’ve talked about backdoors a few times in this post with the one most open to us being because of the Raiders. The Bills currently hold a 1.5 game lead over the Raiders with 6 games to go while the Raiders still must play the Colts & Dolphins. This abstractly improves the Bills chances while a tie with Buffalo still plays out in the Bills’ favor. Still, we root for a loss here to get them closer to 6 and therefore the Bills closer to a clinched playoff spot.
Optimal Outcome: Falcons’ Victory 49ers (4-6) @ Rams (7-3) (Sunday 4:05PM) 👏 👏
An NFC only matchup which pits two teams that the Bills play in 2020 against each other. This game could prove to be a wash as the season progresses but for now the Bills are guaranteed and SOV increase if the team they have already beaten wins this game.
Optimal Outcome: Rams’ Victory Saints (8-2) @ Broncos (4-6) (Sunday 4:05PM) 👏 👏
As I’ve been saying all post, the magic number for Buffalo is 10, so it follows that the Broncos only having 6 losses poses a risk to the Bills. Another backdoor playoff scenario but why not protect it while we can and at the same time dropping the SOV/SOS of the Chiefs and Raiders with twice the effectiveness as to the Bills.
Optimal Outcome: Saints’ Victory Chiefs (9-1) @ Buccaneers (7-4) (Sunday 4:25PM) 👏 👏 👏 👏
The Chiefs have a fairly substantial 2.5 game lead on the Bills with 6 games to go. In reality the only way to catch them is probably via a 3-way tiebreaker where H2H is voided. So, what does this mean for this game? I feel like we have had to do this every week this season, but we must root for the team whose QB seems to have a very unique set of rules to determine which hands he will, and will not, shake.
Optimal Outcome: Buccaneers’ Victory Bears (5-5) @ Packers (7-3) (Sunday 8:20PM) 👏
NFC Only, NFC North matchup. This means the focus for Bills’ fans on this game shifts to SOV & SOV of the NFC North’s AFC competition in 2020, the AFC South. In such games the Bears have lost to the Colts & Titans while the Packers have lost to just the Colts. Simple, one has lost to two teams the other one, reduce SOV as much as possible.
Optimal Outcome: Packers’ Victory Seahawks (7-3) @ Eagles (3-6-1) (Monday 8:15PM) 👏 👏
Another NFC only matchup but one where the Bills have played one of the team and the other plays the AFC North. With that in mind the Bills can get a boost to both SOV & SOS while simultaneously dropping that of the Steelers, Ravens, and Browns (All of whom have beaten the Eagles).
Optimal Outcome: Seahawks’ Victory If all of these games went the optimal route below would be the updated AFC standings (All tiebreakers considered):
- Steelers (10-1)**
- Chiefs (9-2)**
- Bills (8-3 TB = WLC 6-2)**
- Colts (8-3 TB = WLC 4-3)**
- Titans (7-4 TB = WLC 5-4 & H2H Win over Ravens)*
- Ravens (7-4 TB = WLC 5-4 & H2H Loss to Titans)*
- Browns (7-4 TB = WLC 4-4)*
- Raiders (6-5 TB = WLC 4-3)
- Dolphins (6-5 TB = WLC 3-4)
- Broncos (4-7 TB = WLC 4-4 & H2H Win over Patriots)
- Patriots (4-7 TB = WLC 4-4 & H2H Loss to Broncos)
- Texans (3-8 TB = WLC 3-5 & SOV .242)
- Chargers (3-8 = WLC 3-5 & SOV .167)
- Bengals (2-8-1)
- Jaguars (2-9)
- Jets (1-10)
** Division Leader
* Wildcard