Armadillo: Friday's six-pack
NFL trends for Week 16:
? Green Bay is 1-7-1 vs spread in its last nine road games.
? Saints covered 10 of their last 11 games.
? New England is 7-1-1 vs spread in last nine divisional home games.
? Chargers covered seven of their last ten games.
? Giants covered their last six road games.
? Chicago covered seven of its last eight games.
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Armadillo: Friday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud??
13) How about this idea for the NCAA basketball tournament?
Committee picks the 68 teams, sets the two playoff games, and seeds the top 32 teams, but then there is a nationally-televised draft, where teams can choose who they play in the first round, essentially filing out half the first-round matchups in real time on national TV.
12) It would work this way; the play-in games are set by the committee so those eight teams can get started on preparation, but say Kansas is the #1 national seed- they can choose any of the four #16-seeds to play in the first round.
The #2 and #3 seeds would then choose which 16-seed they wanted to play, the #4 seed would get the last remaining #16 seed, then they move on to the #2-15 matchups. The #5-seed would have first choice of the #15 seeds to play, and so on??.
It would create some more drama and a little transparency- I think people would watch in on TV, for sure.
11) Duquesne +5.5 or +6 Wednesday night was one of worst beats in recent memory; with game tied and 0:05.4 left. Duquesne was called for a foul under the basket- Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot (Lebron James? high school coach) lost his mind at the call, was given two technical fouls and Penn State made all six foul shots.
Duquesne threw away the inbounds pass and that was that; weird thing about Dambrot going nuts was that Dukes were 29-32 on foul line for the game, Penn State 17-26, so not like he was getting the short end of the stick the whole game.
10) Patriots? WR Josh Gordon is stepping away from football to focus on his mental health; he had been averaging 65 receiving yards a game.
9) Houston Rockets made 26-55 3-pointers in their 136-118 win over the Wizards Wednesday, setting an NBA record for most made 3?s in a game; they only took 30 2-point shots (19-30). James Harden scored 35 points in 34:00 for Houston, which won its fifth straight game.
8) Carolina Panthers are shutting QB Cam Newton (shoulder) down for the last two games; Carolina lost its last six games, Taylor Heinicke is the Panthers? new QB; he?s thrown five NFL passes in mop-up duty in six games, five this year and one for Houston LY.
Heinicke played college ball at Old Dominion; this is his first NFL start.
Panthers have won six divisional titles in their 24-year history, but they?ve never had two winning seasons in a row.
7) There were 66 touchdowns scored in Week 15?s NFL games, nine less TD?s than in any other week this season.
In weeks 1-12 this season, NFL teams averaged 23.0 ppg.
In weeks 13-15 this year, NFL teams averaged 19.7 ppg.
6) New Jersey Giants? combined record the last five years: 31-48, 0-1 in playoff games; they seem intent on moving forward with QB Eli Manning, who turns 38 on January 3rd.
Manning helped the Giants win two Super Bowls, going on 4-0 playoff runs in both ?07 and ?11, but 2011 was seven years ago; he has a career playoff record of 8-4.
Giants have had three head coaches the last four years, but never changed QB?s; interesting decision they have here; if I was them, I?d move on to a younger QB, but thats me? this will be interesting to follow next summer/fall.
5) Favorites won the first seven bowl games this month, going 6-1 vs spread.
4) Dallas Cowboys have scored TD?s only 47.6% of time when they had 1st-and-goal this year, the only NFL team with a %age under 50%.
Giants (52.4%), 49ers (54.5%) have next worst marks. Carolina (88.5%), Denver (86.4%) have the best TD percentage on 1st-and-goal series.
3) Newly-signed Mets? catcher, the oft-injured Wilson Ramos gets a $500,000 bonus next season if he catches 100+ games. He?s caught 100+ games in three of nine MLB seasons.
2) Angels gave Matt Harvey $14M, Trevor Cahill $9.5M to pitch for them next season.
1) People on Twitter are crazy; someone was bashing Drew Brees the other day; now chances are the guy lost his fantasy league playoff game or lost his bet on the Saints or the over, but bashing Brees is pretty bleepin? stupid- his team won that game and is 13-1. Grow up!!!
NFL trends for Week 16:
? Green Bay is 1-7-1 vs spread in its last nine road games.
? Saints covered 10 of their last 11 games.
? New England is 7-1-1 vs spread in last nine divisional home games.
? Chargers covered seven of their last ten games.
? Giants covered their last six road games.
? Chicago covered seven of its last eight games.
**********
Armadillo: Friday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud??
13) How about this idea for the NCAA basketball tournament?
Committee picks the 68 teams, sets the two playoff games, and seeds the top 32 teams, but then there is a nationally-televised draft, where teams can choose who they play in the first round, essentially filing out half the first-round matchups in real time on national TV.
12) It would work this way; the play-in games are set by the committee so those eight teams can get started on preparation, but say Kansas is the #1 national seed- they can choose any of the four #16-seeds to play in the first round.
The #2 and #3 seeds would then choose which 16-seed they wanted to play, the #4 seed would get the last remaining #16 seed, then they move on to the #2-15 matchups. The #5-seed would have first choice of the #15 seeds to play, and so on??.
It would create some more drama and a little transparency- I think people would watch in on TV, for sure.
11) Duquesne +5.5 or +6 Wednesday night was one of worst beats in recent memory; with game tied and 0:05.4 left. Duquesne was called for a foul under the basket- Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot (Lebron James? high school coach) lost his mind at the call, was given two technical fouls and Penn State made all six foul shots.
Duquesne threw away the inbounds pass and that was that; weird thing about Dambrot going nuts was that Dukes were 29-32 on foul line for the game, Penn State 17-26, so not like he was getting the short end of the stick the whole game.
10) Patriots? WR Josh Gordon is stepping away from football to focus on his mental health; he had been averaging 65 receiving yards a game.
9) Houston Rockets made 26-55 3-pointers in their 136-118 win over the Wizards Wednesday, setting an NBA record for most made 3?s in a game; they only took 30 2-point shots (19-30). James Harden scored 35 points in 34:00 for Houston, which won its fifth straight game.
8) Carolina Panthers are shutting QB Cam Newton (shoulder) down for the last two games; Carolina lost its last six games, Taylor Heinicke is the Panthers? new QB; he?s thrown five NFL passes in mop-up duty in six games, five this year and one for Houston LY.
Heinicke played college ball at Old Dominion; this is his first NFL start.
Panthers have won six divisional titles in their 24-year history, but they?ve never had two winning seasons in a row.
7) There were 66 touchdowns scored in Week 15?s NFL games, nine less TD?s than in any other week this season.
In weeks 1-12 this season, NFL teams averaged 23.0 ppg.
In weeks 13-15 this year, NFL teams averaged 19.7 ppg.
6) New Jersey Giants? combined record the last five years: 31-48, 0-1 in playoff games; they seem intent on moving forward with QB Eli Manning, who turns 38 on January 3rd.
Manning helped the Giants win two Super Bowls, going on 4-0 playoff runs in both ?07 and ?11, but 2011 was seven years ago; he has a career playoff record of 8-4.
Giants have had three head coaches the last four years, but never changed QB?s; interesting decision they have here; if I was them, I?d move on to a younger QB, but thats me? this will be interesting to follow next summer/fall.
5) Favorites won the first seven bowl games this month, going 6-1 vs spread.
4) Dallas Cowboys have scored TD?s only 47.6% of time when they had 1st-and-goal this year, the only NFL team with a %age under 50%.
Giants (52.4%), 49ers (54.5%) have next worst marks. Carolina (88.5%), Denver (86.4%) have the best TD percentage on 1st-and-goal series.
3) Newly-signed Mets? catcher, the oft-injured Wilson Ramos gets a $500,000 bonus next season if he catches 100+ games. He?s caught 100+ games in three of nine MLB seasons.
2) Angels gave Matt Harvey $14M, Trevor Cahill $9.5M to pitch for them next season.
1) People on Twitter are crazy; someone was bashing Drew Brees the other day; now chances are the guy lost his fantasy league playoff game or lost his bet on the Saints or the over, but bashing Brees is pretty bleepin? stupid- his team won that game and is 13-1. Grow up!!!