NFL (2024 Season)

[NWI_Irish96]

Peacock+ comes free with my Xfinity.

xfinity/Comcast owns NBC/Peacock.
My cable provider is Spectrum and Peacock is not on it.

Even if it didn't come free, I'd pay for it for its Premier League coverage.

PL coverage at least gets you hundreds of games over 10 months out of the year. This is paying to watch a single game.

[JayhawkCO]

Peacock+ comes free with my Xfinity.

xfinity/Comcast owns NBC/Peacock.
My cable provider is Spectrum and Peacock is not on it.

Even if it didn't come free, I'd pay for it for its Premier League coverage.

PL coverage at least gets you hundreds of games over 10 months out of the year. This is paying to watch a single game.

Sure. I was just talking about Peacock in general. If my Vikings happen to be in this game and I didn't already have a subscription, I'd probably subscribe for a month as that's still cheaper than my tab at a sports bar.

[wanderer2575]

What kills me is moving these games to streaming is not because those networks have such a crowded line-up they don't want to detract from.  It's all just a scheme to get people signing up for more streaming services they probably won't use enough to make it worth their while.  I had the same annoyance with the NFL when they started moving some games to cable back when that was the "premium" TV service. 

Like I don't even know what's on a network like NBC any more.  I assume wall-to-wall laws and orders, some stupid singing shows, and people yelling while cooking?
Can't preempt that for a sports game! 

I wouldn't doubt the $$$ is what moving to streaming is about.  But just yesterday I was listening to a sports talk show host ranting about games moving to streaming, and his ire was not about the cost.  He didn't even mention that.  His knickers were in a knot about being "locked into" the game -- no commercial breaks during which he could channel surf to watch other games.  This guy's rants usually make sense, even if one doesn't agree, but that one just floored me.

[mgk920]

I don't even HAVE a TV receiver that I use in my residence.  If there is something on that looks interesting (especially a news or special/current affairs anything), I'll catch it later on an 'on demand' feed.  If it's a game, I'll sports bar it or even ignore it.  Otherwise, especially for a local game that I don't have tickets for, the pictures really are much clearer for me on the radio.

Mike

[JayhawkCO]

I don't even HAVE a TV receiver that I use in my residence.  If there is something on that looks interesting (especially a news or special/current affairs anything), I'll catch it later on an 'on demand' feed.  If it's a game, I'll sports bar it or even ignore it.  Otherwise, especially for a local game that I don't have tickets for, the pictures really are much clearer for me on the radio.

Mike

I own an HD antenna that I used to use for over the air broadcast. It did surprisingly well for only $30.

[triplemultiplex]

Over the air can be tricky these days with the digital broadcasts.  Frickin' Amazon van pulls up to deliver something to the neighbor and your signal suddenly gets all crunked.
Or at my place, I swear it seems like the TV has to "warm up" for a few minutes before certain channels come in clearly.  Like it's a throwback to ye olden days with ancient cathode ray tubes that literally had to warm up before the damn thing would work.
Other times, I could swear the wind speed and direction is affecting which channels come in well and which channels are not.  Probably not, but it's got me doing all these voodoo rituals to appease the vengeful digital over the air TV gods.

[mgk920]

Over the air can be tricky these days with the digital broadcasts.  Frickin' Amazon van pulls up to deliver something to the neighbor and your signal suddenly gets all crunked.
Or at my place, I swear it seems like the TV has to "warm up" for a few minutes before certain channels come in clearly.  Like it's a throwback to ye olden days with ancient cathode ray tubes that literally had to warm up before the damn thing would work.
Other times, I could swear the wind speed and direction is affecting which channels come in well and which channels are not.  Probably not, but it's got me doing all these voodoo rituals to appease the vengeful digital over the air TV gods.

Gotta love vacuum tube electronics!  When I was younger, we'd sometimes get interference on our analog TVs from on-board radars of aircraft on approach to land at ATW.

Mike

[tchafe1978]

I have a 40+ year old rooftop antenna that I use to pull in the Madison stations from 60 miles away and almost never have issues. Once in a while if one of the channels is having transmitter issues might I get some pixelation. In the analog days all the stations would come in but be a little snowy, now they're all crystal clear. I haven't tried the rotor in years so I have no idea if it still works, but I also used to be able to get the Waterloo and Cedar Rapids, IA stations if I rotated the antenna to the west. I should try it again for shits and grins. But many times if you're having trouble getting reception it's the antenna, how it's located or pointed, etc. Digital TV's these days shouldn't really get interference from other appliances.

[mgk920]

It looks like Green Bay, WI will be hosting the 2025 NFL draft.



Mike

[Henry]

The Bay Area is hosting Super Bowl LX!

[NWI_Irish96]

So for a while now NBC has had the option to flex Sunday afternoon games to Sunday night to get a better game. That's a potential inconvenience to ticket holders, but at least it's the same day.

Now, Amazon is going to be able to flex Sunday afternoon games to Thursday nights. Much more of an inconvenience to ticket holders. I have a son in high school. What if we buy tickets for a Sunday game that gets flexed to Thursday, where we'd get home around midnight and he could have a calculus exam the next day? Not going to buy tickets and take that risk.

[hotdogPi]

This means Amazon also has influence over the champion by forcing teams to play four (or even three) days after the previous game, lowering their chance of winning that game.

[thspfc]

Yeah, it sucks. Though, a couple things: 1) it's only available from weeks 13-17, and 2) the change has to be made at least 28 days in advance, which is double the requirement for normal time change flexes. Hopefully they use it very sparingly or not at all. The game would have to be a very obvious bust from a month out for them to move it, so I don't anticipate it being used this year.

I still don't think Thursday games are worth it, aside from Thanksgiving and opening night. And Amazon's product is not as good as Fox's was. Fox got far better ratings as well.

This means Amazon also has influence over the champion by forcing teams to play four (or even three) days after the previous game, lowering their chance of winning that game.

Amazon does not make that decision. The league has the final say.

[jlam]

I'll fork the Cardinals

[thspfc]

I'll fork the Cardinals

I suppose I'll start the table then 

jlam
Cardinals

Everyone good with the point values and timeframes we used last year?

[Ted$8roadFan]

I'll fork the Cardinals

I suppose I'll start the table then 

jlam
Cardinals

Everyone good with the point values and timeframes we used last year?

With Daniel Snyder finally ending his disastrous tenure as owner of the Redskins/WFT/Commanders, is Michael Bidwill becoming the next noxious owner who should be put out of his (ownership) misery?

[NWI_Irish96]

I'll fork the Cardinals

I suppose I'll start the table then 

jlam
Cardinals

Everyone good with the point values and timeframes we used last year?

Really we ought to just skip the game altogether and just use last year's final standings.

[hotdogPi]

I'll fork the Cardinals

I suppose I'll start the table then 

jlam
Cardinals

Everyone good with the point values and timeframes we used last year?

Really we ought to just skip the game altogether and just use last year's final standings.

Optimal strategy actually does include skipping a lot of games:

• You're tanking
• You're heavily favored to lose and need to rest for a winnable game 4 or 5 days later
• You both advance to the playoffs if you tie
• It doesn't matter for your team what happens, so you no show and get some rest for the first playoff game
• Both teams are evenly matched, and since a tie is half a win rather than 1/3 like in soccer, it's better to take a 1/2 win and get some rest rather than play with the same expected value of 1/2 win

[thspfc]

I'll fork the Cardinals

I suppose I'll start the table then 

jlam
Cardinals

Everyone good with the point values and timeframes we used last year?

Really we ought to just skip the game altogether and just use last year's final standings.

Optimal strategy actually does include skipping a lot of games:

• You're tanking
• You're heavily favored to lose and need to rest for a winnable game 4 or 5 days later
• You both advance to the playoffs if you tie
• It doesn't matter for your team what happens, so you no show and get some rest for the first playoff game
• Both teams are evenly matched, and since a tie is half a win rather than 1/3 like in soccer, it's better to take a 1/2 win and get some rest rather than play with the same expected value of 1/2 win

So confused, is this serious?

[hotdogPi]

Yes. While it would obviously be a problem for the team's revenue and would never happen, there are definitely some situations where no-showing or intentionally tying is better for playoff odds (or draft pick if you're tanking).

[thspfc]

Yes. While it would obviously be a problem for the team's revenue and would never happen, there are definitely some situations where no-showing or intentionally tying is better for playoff odds (or draft pick if you're tanking).

And the players, y'know, have to put food on the table.

Tanking doesn't really count for this because if the only goal for the season is to get the #1 pick, then of course you want to throw all your games. But if you're actually trying to do well . . .

You're heavily favored to lose and need to rest for a winnable game 4 or 5 days later

Over the past 10 seasons (my standard stats timeframe, didn't even look at seasons prior to that), teams win 52.8% of the time when coming off a bye. So a 2.8% increase. Forfeiting a game in order to rest up for the next game would functionally be a bye week. I know you specified Thursday games; there's likely not a meaningful amount of data regarding teams playing Thursday games off a bye. Conventional wisdom would say that a team coming into a Thursday game off a bye would have a sizeable advantage over a team coming off a game the previous Sunday, but for what it's worth, per a 2019 study, injury rates in Thursday games were actually less than those of Sunday and Monday games: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30848976/#:~:text=Results%3A%20The%20all%2Dcause%20injury,6%2C072%20per%201%2C000%20athletic%20exposures.

Whether that actually means anything is debatable. One might argue it's possible that players don't quite go 100% in Thursday games, but when you're getting paid millions to play only 17-20 games a year and there's four guys behind you on the depth chart ready to take your job at any moment, I would find it hard to believe that any player holds back in any game.

So all of that is to say, I suspect that with no other factors considered the hypothetical win probability of a team playing a Thursday night game off a bye against a team not coming off a bye is not much higher than that 52.8%. If we oversimplify it and caclulate it based on the marginal rest differential compared to a Sunday game:

14 day rest vs. 7 day rest: 7 day difference, team with more rest sees a win probability increase of 2.8%
14 day rest vs. 4 day rest: 10 day difference, so using a linear proportion, 2.8/7 = x/10, x=4% win probability increase when forfeiting previous game

So now we compare that +4% to the win probability that the team loses in the game they forfeit. In the history of 538's game projections model, which dates back to I believe 2015, there has been exactly one game in which a team entered with a win probability of 4% or less: Giants at Eagles, 2022 week 18, in which it was known well in advance (and therefore taken into account for that 4%) that the Giants would be resting their starters to prepare for the playoffs.

So, my conclusion is that a situation in which forfeiting as a heavy underdog in order to rest for the next game - even if that game is on Thursday - increases the team's expected win total would be an extreme rarity and has not occurred in at least the last 8 seasons.

You both advance to the playoffs if you tie

Ah, 2021 Chargers/Raiders. Also an exceedingly rare spot to be in. It appeared with a couple minutes left in overtime that they were going to play to a tie, but once it became apparent to the Raiders that they had a chance to win on a long field goal and better their playoff seeding, they did. While the Raiders very, very slightly decreased their playoff chances by attemtping the field goal rather than kneeling and accepting the tie (due to the chance of the kick being blocked and returned for a Chargers touchdown), they definitely increased their Super Bowl odds by doing so, as they ended up playing the 4th-seeded Bengals rather than the 2nd-seeded Chiefs who blew them out twice that year. Ironically, it was the Bengals who went to the Super Bowl, but at the time you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who saw that coming (and I think Raiders fans would agree even now that they had a better chance to beat the Bengals than the Chiefs, that game was actually close).

Bottom line is, you can't rely on the other team to agree to tie with you, because they won't. Doing so would get you a big suspension anyways. The Chargers/Raiders game was 29-14 Raiders in the 4th quarter, so clearly the Raiders were out to win from the go, and the Chargers certainly expected as much.

It doesn't matter for your team what happens, so you no show and get some rest for the first playoff game

Yes, resting starters in meaningless week 18 games is commonplace.

Both teams are evenly matched, and since a tie is half a win rather than 1/3 like in soccer, it's better to take a 1/2 win and get some rest rather than play with the same expected value of 1/2 win

I mean, mathematically I get what you're saying, but it's extremely oversimplified and goes against the entire concept of sports.

[jgb191]

Ah, 2021 Chargers/Raiders. Also an exceedingly rare spot to be in. It appeared with a couple minutes left in overtime that they were going to play to a tie, but once it became apparent to the Raiders that they had a chance to win on a long field goal and better their playoff seeding, they did. While the Raiders very, very slightly decreased their playoff chances by attemtping the field goal rather than kneeling and accepting the tie (due to the chance of the kick being blocked and returned for a Chargers touchdown), they definitely increased their Super Bowl odds by doing so, as they ended up playing the 4th-seeded Bengals rather than the 2nd-seeded Chiefs who blew them out twice that year. Ironically, it was the Bengals who went to the Super Bowl, but at the time you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who saw that coming (and I think Raiders fans would agree even now that they had a better chance to beat the Bengals than the Chiefs, that game was actually close).

I really wanted to see both the Chargers and Raiders tie in that game and both advance to the playoffs; the reason for my preference was that this meant that Big Ben Rothlisberger could have retired with a 'W' on his would-have-been career finale in Baltimore on Week 18.  Instead the Raiders choice to eliminate the Chargers caused Big Ben to lose his career finale at Kansas City in the Wild Card game.  I really wanted Ben to go out winning his last career game.  Furthermore, it dashed my hopes of seeing the LA vs LA Super Bowl in LA.  I had a couple of hopes!

[Henry]

The preseason has officially begun, with the Hall of Fame game between the Browns and Jets. (As a Bears fan, I'm just glad that Aaron Rodgers is finally out of the NFC North!)

[Ted$8roadFan]

A-Rod is now part of the AFC East, where he joins Josh Allen, Tula Tagovailoa and Mac Jones and their teams.

[jeffandnicole]

The preseason has officially begun, with the Hall of Fame game between the Browns and Jets.

And...both teams are officially out of the playoffs.