The team can roll from here on out. They have the talent for it.
Whether they will, I don't know. we haven't been consistent at all. I think that the Favre jitters had something to do with our first half of play, but the same thing happend to the Bengals.
So far, against good teams, we've ony played well when we're behind or when the game is (nearly) out of reach. Of course, we've had just 2 good teams so far, getting the Vikings twice. Fact is, though, we lost all of them.
I think that we're an ok team right now. A little above average, maybe wild card material, but I don't see us going anywhere in the play-offs or beating more than 1 heavy weigth (and I don't consider Arizone one).
Or, of course, we have to get on one of those sick play-off runs like the Giants in 2007 and the Cardinals in 2008.
"macbob" wrote:
Looking at our record under McCarthy, based on whether our opponent had a winning record going into the game, a .500 record, or a losing record, here's how we've done:
W=teams we played who had a winning record when we played them
E=teams who were .500 when we played them
L=teams with losing records when we played them
2006: 8-8
W: 1-6 (our one win came in the last game of the year, against Chi who was 13-2 and resting their guys for the playoffs)
E: 1-1
L: 6-1
2007: 13-3
W: 4-2 (includes 1-1 in playoffs)
E: 3-0
L: 7-2
2008: 6-10
W: 2-5
E: 1-3
L: 3-2
2009: 4-3
W: 0-2
E: 1-0
L: 3-1
Weve gone 7-15 when weve played teams who have had a winning record coming into the game (2-7 over the last two years), 6-4 against .500 teams (2-3 over the last two years), and 19-6 against teams with losing records (6-3 over the last two years). Basically, we're winning when we should (beating the bad teams), but we can't beat the good teams.
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OK, here's the fine print: the following analysis based on past performance, which is not necessarily indicative of future performance, yada yada yada. The analysis is also based on current records, and those teams with winning records at this time (Chicago) may have losing records by the time we play them...
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Of our 9 remaining opponents, 5 currently have winning records (Pit 5-2, Dal 5-2, Bal 4-3, Ari 4-3, Chi 4-3) and 4 have losing records (TB 0-7, SF 3-4, Det 1-6, Sea 2-5). Based on past performance, we should expect to win 1-2 (1.6) of the games against teams with a winning record (Chi+Ari?) and 3 games against teams with a losing records (lose to SF?).
Based on past performance, we should expect to go 5-4 the rest of the way, which would have us ending the season 9-7. We get there by either winning 1 of the games against teams with winning records and all 4 against teams with losing records or 2 against the teams with winning records and losing 1 against the rest. I don't know that 9-7 would be good enough to make the playoffs.
"Rockmolder" wrote: