Post Schedule Release - Win Total - Predictions

[reddogblitz]

19-0

[Putin]

17 hours ago, DrDare said:

I'm voting 10-6 on this daunting schedule

 

This is with a sweep of the Jets and Dolphins and 1-1 against Pats

What is so special about the pats****** that we have to split  with them ? 
We could have won both games last year , in one of those Allen was a complete mess , and in the second Brady played like Brady of old and we still had a chance to win ... 

Last time we played them without Brady they scored 0 points ,  with the defense that we have now I don’t expect them to do any better this time either.... We need to SWEEP the division and I believe WE WILL !!!

GO BILLS !!!!!!

Edited May 8, 2020 by Putin

[whatdrought]

NYJ - W

@Mia - W

LAR - W

@LV - W

@ Titans - W

KC - L

@NYJ - W

NE - W

Sea - L

@Arizona - L

LAC -W

@SF - L

PIT - W

@DEN -  L

@NE- W

MIA - W

 

That's 11-5 easily for me, but I see us winning one of those other ones. 

 

People will flame me for Denver, but I just have a feeling they're going to be a really good team this year. 

[CA OC Bills Fan]

4 hours ago, mjt328 said:

Before the season, I usually try to tackle the schedule from a couple different angles.

 

Based purely on last year's (2019 season) results, the Bills had a better record than 11 of their upcoming opponents (Jets and Dolphins 2x, Rams, Raiders, Titans, Cardinals, Chargers, Steelers and Broncos).  They also had a better point differential than 11 of their upcoming opponents (Jets and Dolphins 2x, Rams, Raiders, Seahawks, Cardinals, Chargers, Steelers and Broncos).

 

Of course, teams won't be exactly the same as last year.  And my "objective" non-scientific opinion is that the:

- Jets, Dolphins, Raiders, Cardinals, Steelers and Broncos have improved their rosters since the 2019 season

- Rams, Patriots and Chargers have gotten worse since the 2019 season

- Titans, Chiefs, Seahawks and 49ers are roughly the same as the 2019 season

What makes this schedule so tricky to predict, is the poor/below average franchises in 2019 were usually the ones who apparently made the biggest strides in the offseason.  Fortunately, I also believe the Bills have improved from last year's squad.

 

Since Josh Allen is generally considered our weakest link, I also wanted to do a comparison of Quarterback opponents.  

-  In my opinion, we only play two elite guys this year (Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson), who are significantly better than Allen.  Due to unknowns about his injury/age, I would consider Ben Roethlisberger an iffy addition to this category. 

-  We also play a handful of mid-level/veteran QBs who are inconsistent in performance (Jared Goff, Derek Carr, Ryan Tannehill, Jimmy Garoppolo, probably one game against Ryan Fitzpatrick) and could easily be surpassed by Allen this year. 

-  The rest of the games are against Sam Darnold,  Kyler Murray, Jarrett Stidham and Drew Lock.  I suspect Tua takes over by Week 17 and it's likely that Justin Herbert will replace Tyrod Taylor before Week 12.   

If we lose to the elite guys, split against the vets and beat everyone else, that comes out to 11 wins.

 

Those factors considered, here are my predictions on :

1 - Jets (Home) - Win, 1-0

2 - Dolphins (Road) - Win, 2-0

3 - Rams (Home) - Win, 3-0

4 - Raiders (Road) - Win, 4-0

5 - Titans (Road) - Loss, 4-1

6 - Chiefs (Home) - Loss, 4-2

7 - Jets (Road) - Win, 5-2

8 - Patriots (Home) - Win, 6-2

9 - Seahawks (Home) - Loss, 6-3

10 - Cardinals (Road) - Win, 7-3

11 - Bye

12 - Chargers (Home) - Win, 8-3

13 - 49ers (Road) - Loss, 8-4

14 - Steelers - (Home) - Win, 9-4

15 - Broncos (Road) - Win, 10-4

16 - Patriots (Road) - Win, 11-4

17 - Dolphins (Home) - Win, 12-4

 

 

I really like the way you looked at this M. I, and many others who posted, always say that they could easily lose to a team they shouldn't or beat a team they shouldn't. I think you basically handle this with splitting against the vet QBs. I also noticed that although you said "that comes out to 11 wins", your game by game predictions shows 12 wins. Since there are five games against who you call vet QBs, I presume you're splitting the difference here, game by game you think they'll win three of those but under the expectation they may only win two and lose three you went with the 11 win prediction.

 

I think we will win 11 this year.

[gobills404]

 

[ehfeuh57]

1 hour ago, Putin said:

What is so special about the pats****** that we have to split  with them ? ...

 

The Hoodie

[mjt328]

37 minutes ago, CA OC Bills Fan said:

I really like the way you looked at this M. I, and many others who posted, always say that they could easily lose to a team they shouldn't or beat a team they shouldn't. I think you basically handle this with splitting against the vet QBs. I also noticed that although you said "that comes out to 11 wins", your game by game predictions shows 12 wins. Since there are five games against who you call vet QBs, I presume you're splitting the difference here, game by game you think they'll win three of those but under the expectation they may only win two and lose three you went with the 11 win prediction.

 

I think we will win 11 this year.

 

I always figure that we will win a couple we aren't expected to, and then lose a couple we probably shouldn't.  It pretty-much evens out at the end.

 

For example in 2019, I was pretty much spot-on predicting the Bills to go 10-6 before the season.

But I definitely expected them to lose to the Cowboys, and did not expect them to lose to the Jets in Week 17.

I figured the Titans, Browns, Steelers and Ravens to be toss-ups, and the Bills sure enough went 2-2 in those games.

 

This year, we should absolutely be heavily favored against the Dolphins x 2, Patriots x 2, Raiders and Chargers.  That is 6 games nobody should be picking us to lose, unless they consider last year's success a total fluke, or they think Jarrett Stidham will be a stud.  The Chiefs and 49ers are currently the class of the league, and should still be favored over the Bills at this point.  So these are 2 games we likely lose.

 

At this point, the big toss-ups would be the Rams, Titans, Seahawks and Steelers.  The teams with the biggest chance to improve are the Jets x 2, Broncos and Cardinals.  If the Bills can at least split these games, they repeat at 10-6 and still easily win the AFC East.  Personally, I think they have a good chance to do better than split - putting my expectation clearly in the 11-12 win camp (can't quite decide yet).

 

[HOUSE]

I fall for this post every season. Its like death and taxes

[reddogblitz]

1 hour ago, Putin said:

What is so special about the pats****** that we have to split  with them ? 

 

Cheating.

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, Mango said:

I broke down our defense vs. each QBs average passer rating in the league and their performance vs us against their average QBR for the season. If I recall correctly top half QB's had better than season average days against us, bottom half had below average days against us.

 

DVOA already accounts for that sort of thing and they had our pass defense at 5th last year. We weren't elite, mainly because our pass rush was just average. This year we have better defensive line depth and hopefully Ed Oliver will take a big step. Our secondary will be at minimum as good as it was last year. So I don't see our defense taking a giant leap but it should still be top 5.

[Epictetus]

I voted 11-5 with the Bills going 6-0 in the division.   This vote is about 80% heart and 20% brain

[The Dean]

4 minutes ago, Epictetus said:

I voted 11-5 with the Bills going 6-0 in the division.   This vote is about 80% heart and 20% brain

 

 

Far preferable to the 16-0 (or 19-0) predictions which are all heart and ZERO brain.

[HappyDays]

52 minutes ago, Epictetus said:

I voted 11-5 with the Bills going 6-0 in the division.   This vote is about 80% heart and 20% brain

 

6-0 in the division is a pipe dream. Even the Patriots have only done it twice since 2001. There were 3 separate seasons where they went 14-2 and still lost a divisional game. We're bound to lose 1 or 2 of them, it's just how it goes. Wouldn't surprise me if we're resting starters in our final game against Miami.

Edited May 8, 2020 by HappyDays

[RiotAct]

5 hours ago, gobills404 said:

 

I’ve always liked those ESPN experts.

[BillsfaninSB]

11-5 seems reasonable.  9-7 is the floor.  12-4  is the ceiling. 

[MJS]

8 hours ago, gobills404 said:

 

 

What? ESPN is getting on board? Makes me feel dirty inside...

[No_Matter_What]

My take: I love this schedule. Last year was kinda boring in a sense that we had many predictable games due to relatively weak opponents, so there were many must win games. Whole year I predicted 11-5 and I consider that a correct result since last Jets game we rested starters. We also had clear limitations and winning WC round in Houston was our ceiling.

 

This year there are much more interesting games. There are no gimmies, even Dolphins are expected to be much tougher. On the other hand, we are also better team on paper so I expect us to finally start beating PO/SB contenders, and final result should be open up to AFC CG (and hopefully even SB). Should be lot of fun, especially if JA keeps on getting better.

 

What scares me on the schedule is both Jets games from different reasons. I don't know why, but I just have bad feeling about opener. This time, all the pressure will be on us and I just don't like the vibe. I expect season to start with a disaster (fully appreciated by all doom and gloom posts on this board) and then change to great season overall. Also Josh will start bad so those who don't like have their time to shine (for the last time in season).

 

1 Jets - Loss - see above

2 @Dolphins - Win - Team is angry after opener and just too good for fish.

3 Rams - Win - "Easy" win against inferior team at home.

4 @Raiders Win/Loss

5 @Titans Win/Loss - From these two road games we will win one and lose the other. Titans game looks more like a loss to me.

 

I expect us to start worse than most and be 3-2 when Chiefs come to town. And thats were the real fun starts.

 

6 Chiefs TNF - Win - It's time for this team to start beating contenders. Last year we didn't manage this vs Pats or Ravens, but that's about to change.

7 @Jets - Win - This one is really tricky since I fully expect us to split with Jets but this game comes after strong win against Chiefs. This could possibly become a loss actually.

8 Pats - Win - No questions here, any trauma is over. We are better team and there is no Brady.

9 Seahawks - Loss - We can't win them all, so we lose either here or @49ers.

10 @Cards - Win - If everything goes well, this is the game I would like to see (coming from Europe). I only need (i) season to take place,  (ii) 100% fans to be allowed and (iii) prices of airline tickets and game tickets to be reasonable in late September when it will be clear that first two conditions are met and I can book a trip. I give about 10% chance for this to happen unfortunately. In any case, we will win this game and it will be fun to watch.

12 Chargers - Win - Same as Rams, "easy" win vs inferior opponent at New Era.

13 @49ers MNF - Win - We are good enough to play with anybody and we prove it again. We might lose this one if we manage to win vs Seahawks earlier.

 

At this stage we are 9-3 or maybe 8-4 at worst and on clear path to win division.

 

14 Steelers SNF - Win

15 @Broncos - Loss, but only because we just can't win them all

16 @Pats MNF - Win, but we might lose this one if we win at Mile High.

17 Dolphins - Win - We win even though we rest our starters. Jake Fromm plays solid football and everybody is happy.

 

It looks like 12-4 above but I guess we lose one more in reality and end up 11-5. Games I am really confident about are Miami, NE (I think we might sweep both) and home games vs both LA teams. We win division in any case, even in that weird scenario when we lose both games against Jets. Nobody will care however, since we will show that we can beat the best (Chiefs plus either Seahawks or 49ers). Then we finally win a home PO game and from that point anything can happen.

 

Go Bills! 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by No_Matter_What

[Epictetus]

16 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

6-0 in the division is a pipe dream. Even the Patriots have only done it twice since 2001. There were 3 separate seasons where they went 14-2 and still lost a divisional game. We're bound to lose 1 or 2 of them, it's just how it goes. Wouldn't surprise me if we're resting starters in our final game against Miami.

I am delighted that you called this a pipe dream, given recent events.