At the half way point in the season, I looked at how well the 3rd down defense was fairing, based on Run/Pass, and the distance.  It's time to look at the 2nd half of the season, and see if the Colts improved at all.

Here are the final numbers for all 17 games, and after the jump I'll put each individual game (from the 2nd half), so you can see how the defense did against each opponent.

Some things to notice:

• Getting outraged at the short yardage rush defense must have lit a fire under the defensive lineman, as they did stop 4 of them over the 2nd half of the season, none bigger than the first one.
  
• The Browns had 20 3rd down plays against the Colts, which tied for the most in a single game this season.  One of the games it was tied with?  The Bengals were 4/20 in their epic tie against Philadelphia.
  
• I mentioned before that teams are only 3/16 running the ball on 3rd and 4 or more in the first half of the season.  It was only tried against the Colts defense 5 times in the last 9 games, and 2 of them were this past weekend against the Chargers.  I guess teams figured out you can't catch the Colts off-guard.
  
• The overall percentages changed very little from the first half to the second half of the season, which is a little disappointing, as the level of competition was much lower in the 2nd half.  The best game of the 2nd half was the Titan game, which is also a little disappointing, since the starters didn't play for either team more than 1 series.
  
• Overall, the Colts finished (tied for) dead last in the league in 3rd down defense.  As a comparison, the Ravens had almost the same number of 3rd down attempts against their defense, and they gave up 30 less conversions.  They finished 3rd overall.  This is definitely one area that needs addressed in the offseason.
  

Like I said above, game by game numbers are after the jump.  Thoughts?

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One weekend is in the books, and as you Titan fans got to sit back and relax last weekend, I did not.  So now, all I have to cheer for is this contest!  We had quite a few submissions (62 to be exact), so this should be a fun contest.

Here's how I'm going to post results:  I am going to post the best team on each individual weekend, as well as the overall standings.  That way you can see who had the best weekend, and who is leading overall.  This week, they are obviously one in the same.  The leader after Wild Card Weekend:  zkmavz  He's actually taken a pretty good lead going into the second weekend.  Here's his team:

As you can see, he went the route of picking only players who played this weekend.  He did lose 7 guys this weekend, so we'll find out if his team holds up once the "Bye" Teams start playing.

Later this week, I'll post some graphs on the Players chosen.  I don't think it will surprise you who was on the most rosters (58/62).

The Overall Standings will be after the jump.  The column "Left" is the number of players that are still playing, so you have an idea how many points you can still score.  Also, if you don't see your name in the Standings, and you submitted a team, that means you had more than 3 players from a given team.  Sorry, but those were the rules.  If you want a sortable table, click on over here, and you can sort each column.  I guess it doesn't work in FanPosts.

I've set up a spreadsheet online where you can see yours, and everyone else's teams.  This serves a dual purpose:  So you can see the teams, and so you can verify I have everything correct.  I checked it twice, so it should be good, but I've been looking at it all weekend, so I may have missed something.

Link to Playoff FFL Teams

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One weekend is in the books, and we've all had our hearts ripped out and stomped on repeatedly (well, at least us Colts fans).  We had quite a few submissions (62 to be exact), so this should be a fun contest.

Here's how I'm going to post results:  I am going to post the best team on each individual weekend, as well as the overall standings.  That way you can see who had the best weekend, and who is leading overall.  This week, they are obviously one in the same.  The leader after Wild Card Weekend:  zkmavz!  He's actually taken a pretty good lead going into the second weekend.  Here's his team:

As you can see, he went the route of picking only players who played this weekend.  He did lose 7 guys this weekend, so we'll find out if his team holds up once the "Bye" Teams start playing.

Later this week, I'll post some graphs on the Players chosen.  I don't think it will surprise you who was on the most rosters (58/62).

The Overall Standings will be after the jump.  The column "Left" is the number of players that are still playing, so you have an idea how many points you can still score.  Also, if you don't see your name in the Standings, and you submitted a team, that means you had more than 3 players from a given team.  Sorry, but those were the rules.

I've set up a spreadsheet online where you can see yours, and everyone else's teams.  This serves a dual purpose:  So you can see the teams, and so you can verify I have everything correct.  I checked it twice, so it should be good, but I've been looking at it all weekend, so I may have missed something.

Link to Playoff FFL Teams

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I'm not sure how much I'm going to watch, but feel free to discuss today's two games here.  For the first game, check out The Phinsider and Baltimore Beatdown for in-depth analysis and first-hand hand wringing.  For the second game, head over to the Daily Norseman and Bleeding Green Nation.  

It's time to put my predicting hat on, and dish out my picks for the rest of the playoffs.  I'll also include what my predictor says will happen in each round, to see how well it does too.  Here goes:

Wild Card:

• Arizona over Atlanta:  I don't trust rookie QBs in the playoffs.  The Cardinals aren't nearly as bad as they have played over the past month.  The Falcons are 3-3 when not playing in a dome this season, and the playoffs are a whole different animal for the Offensive ROY.  I'll take the Cardinals.
• Indianapolis over San Diego:  It isn't ending here.  The Colts can beat any team, anywhere.  It will be close, but the Colts have shown all year that they can win any close game.  Having Gates and Tomlinson will also be a big help.
• Miami over Baltimore:  See the reasoning above with the Falcons.  I don't trust rookie QBs in the playoffs.  Pennington will do just enough to win, as he's been doing all year.  He doesn't turn the ball over.  In the Ravens 11 wins, they've forced 28 TOs.  In the 5 losses?  Only 6.  I'll take the Dolphins
• Philadelphia over Minnesota:  The Eagles defense will confuse Jackson all day long, and they are #1 in the NFC against the run.  The Vikings will struggle to score, giving the Eagles the victory.
• Predictor Picks:

Rest of my picks after the jump...

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It's time to look at the Strength of Schedule for the season.  There was some debate earlier this week here, so I thought I'd make an easy-to-understand table.  If you'd like to know what the columns mean, check back a few weeks ago, where I explain the table.

Some thoughts:

• The Colts finished at 14th toughest schedule in the league.  It was obviously front loaded, but middle of the pack when you play the Browns, Bengals, and Lions in a row.
  
• Of the Playoff teams, the Dolphins (30th), Falcons (28th), and Titans (26th) played the easiest schedules.  The toughest?  Steelers (5th) and Ravens (6th).
  
• Before the season, there was a lot of talk of how easy the AFC East schedule was going to be.  It definitely lived up to it.  The toughest of the bunch was the Patriots, which was 25th toughest.
  
• I didn't realize how much tougher the Chargers schedule was compared to the Broncos.  It's still amazing to me how the Broncos pissed away that lead.
  

Again, the table is sortable by clicking on the column headers.  Enjoy!

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With the Regular Season coming to a close, so too does the Prediction Contest.  We had 10 people participate all 17 weeks, and 2 others who only missed 1 week.  Naturally, they were at the top of the standings.

I'll start with Week 17 results, and we had our first player get 14 picks correct.  Congratulations to oldecoltsfan on a great week.  Also having a very good week is PB, who got 12 picks correct.

My predictor picks finished exactly the same as my head picks, which is pretty funny.  I'm just glad I finished over .500.

Without further ado, here are the final results:

Congratulations to TouchdownMonkey, as he wins our contest by 6 games!  He was consistently good all year picking games, and he can proudly boast about his championship.  Overall, Dave Richard of CBS Sports got 142 correct, which is also mighty impressive.  Simmons finished in 3rd place overall.  I'll lay off of him for a little while, except if he decides to ignore playoff wins by the Colts again.

The results below are (originally) sorted by Total score.  Feel free to click on a column and sort them yourself.  I've again separated out the "experts" who just picking straight up winners, to make it easier to read. 

I'm going to be posting my playoff predictions, as well as my Predictor's, sometime today or tomorrow.

Stampede Blue Prediction Contest Picks Week 16

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Greetings from Stampede Blue (ducking empties flying my way).  Jimmy asked me to bring this contest over to you guys, and I hope a lot of you join in.  It should be fun.

For the past 10 years or so, I've participated in a Playoff Fantasy Football Contest, and I thought I'd share it with everyone here (and some other SBNation sites).  First I'll go through the rules, then the disclaimers.  The Scoring is as follows:

• Passing Yards -> 25 yds = 1 pt
• Rush/Rec Yards -> 10 yds = 1 pt
• Pass/Rush/Rec TD -> 6 pts
• Interception/Fumble Lost -> (-2) pts
• Extra Point -> 1 pt.
• FG < 40 yds -> 3 pts
• FG 40-49 yds -> 4 pts
• FG 50+ yds -> 5 pts
• Defensive INT / Fumble Recovery ->2 pts
• Sacks -> 1 pt
• Safety -> 2 pts
• Def / Return TD -> 6 pts
• Pts. Allowed
  • 0 Pts -> 10 pts
  • Pts 2 - 6 -> 7 pts
  • Pts 7 - 13 -> 4 pts
  • Pts 14 -> 1 pt

A minor clarification:  A player who returns a kick/punt for a TD will get credit for a return TD, as well as the team.  For example, if DeSean Jackson would return a punt for a TD, he'd get 6 points, as well as the Eagles Defense.

For the contest, you take 3 QBs, 4 RBs, 5 WRs, 2 TE, 2 K, and 2 DEF.  You'll keep these players for the entire duration of the Playoffs.  There is no re-choosing after each weekend.  That makes it much more difficult to choose players, as some obviously don't play until next weekend.

The other catch is that you can only choose 3 players from any given team.  That means, if you think the Colts will win the Super Bowl, you can't take every Colt player, going for broke.  It makes you choose different teams.

At the present time, the form won't stop you if you choose more than 3 players from a team (Google Docs aren't that good, yet).  Therefore, you need to ensure that you follow that rule.  Same goes for the number of  players at each position.  It's on the honor system, but I will be checking everyone's entry after they submit.  I've included an optional email field, so that if there is an issue, I can get a hold of you to verify what you want to change it to.  I promise it won't be seen by anyone else, and I'll only use it if there is an issue.

To get more entries, feel free to submit up to 3 different teams.  Be sure to label them as "1", "2", and "3" if you do (mine would be "mgrex03 1", "mgrex03 2", "mgrex03 3").  The first Playoff game starts at 4:30 ET Saturday, so all entries need to be in by then, and no submissions after that will be accepted.  I'll throw up a couple of reminders throughout the week, so that the most people get involved.  I'll update standings after each weekend, complete with how many players everyone has left.

Good Luck to Everyone!

Stampede Blue Playoff Fantasy Football Challenge