Week 14 Other Games Thread

[Bolt-O]

Chargers can still make it at 10-6, even if Pittsburgh and Baltimore both go 11-5. Other teams have to run the table to get to 10-6, though. Regardless win or lose, the Chargers will still control their destiny.

[Yubaking]

Please explain...can't see your logic on the surface.

Right. I agree that on the surface it makes sense to want MIA to lose and BAL to win because we win the tie breaker against BAL and not against MIA. That is true.

We are in for sure at 12-4 and are a good bet at 11-5, so I am not going to address those situations here.

What I am looking at are the scenarios in which we finish 10-6. BAL is 8-5 and has JAC, @HOU and CLE left. They could lose @HOU or versus CLE, but they should probably win all three of those games. Assuming they do, they are 11-5, which would give us no help in a tie break situation if we are 10-6.

What I was looking at was the case in which PIT finished 10-6. If they tie us, they can't lose conference record (second tie breaker) because we cannot lose more NFC games than PIT as they have already lost twice to NFCS teams and we are already 2-1 versus the NFCW. So if we get to 10-6, but our 10-6 includes a win over SF or PIT's 10-6 includes a loss at ATL, PIT has the tie breaker against us because they will have a better conference record in that situation.

However, the way the AFCN tie breakers were setting up before today, BAL was likely to have the tie breaker versus PIT. When wild card teams are determined, ties are broken within a division before they are broken outside of that division. So, if we could get BAL to 10-6, in most circumstances (not including a PIT sweep over CIN), BAL would act as our shield against PIT, knocking them off before we ever got to a tie breaker against them.

It's not impossible for us to win a tie breaker versus PIT, but I didn't want it to come to that because PIT can win them against us too many different ways. I was unconcerned about MIA being 10-6 because my thinking was that they could have one of the WC spots with us taking the other one in a 10-6 scenario.

Of course, now PIT may not even get to 10-6. They may win out with games @ATL, KC and CIN. We may need to root for KC at PIT and/or for DEN at CIN if we are looking like we are not in contention for the division title (probably anything other than 12-4 as DEN has the tie breaker versus us if we both go 11-5 even if we beat them next week as part of our 11-5, assuming their other loss is not at home against OAK).

A PIT loss really would have helped us today. What we do not want is 3 AFCN teams that all only have 5 losses PIT 11-5, BAL 11-5, and CIN 10-5-1. Then, if we finish 10-6, it will be great that MIA is not in the playoffs, but not so great that we are not either. Unfortunately, we will probably need help from either KC or DEN to prevent that from happening.

Anyway, it was not obvious that a MIA loss was the best thing for us although it could end up being that way.

[Boltergeist]

The best thing for us is a Chargers' win. Let's get it done!

[Boltjolt]

Both Oliver and Grice outplayed him.

They didnt give him a chance in preseason. Obviously they made a mistake and Grice still looks bad. Kerwyn and Grice are both on AZ and Grice is behind Kerwyn who was the stater today and is even ahead of Stephon Taylor. Mistakes happen like we made with Welker and clearly Arians sees Kerwyn as the better player. I like Oliver but Kerwyn is quicker and a better reciever.