NFL Playoff Picture: Green Bay Packers’ win does little to change outlook

KARL BROOKS

KARL

BROOKS

Karl Brooks, big fella. Goes about 6’8, 380. Well anyway, Karl Brooks once hit an o-lineman so hard that he broke through the space-time-continuum and was teleported back 3 plays. This made the guy commit an illegal shift infraction that brought up 4th down. Well, ol’ Brooks realizes he’s in a pickle and doesn’t want to cause the collapse of the universe, so he heads over to the sideline and smacks the guy in the chest again. Thus, preventing the paradox that he would have caused in the first place!

TO KARL BROOKS

With the poor attempt at a reference to a 90s SNL bit out of the way: the Green Bay Packers played football in Week 11. If it weren’t for the last-second heroics by K̷̳͎͈̬͛̀̈́̇̕͠A̵͈̙̭̯͉̥̟̿̐͊̈͑̿͘͜R̷̢̻͓̺͋̏̿̍̎̌͝L̴̨͓̞̟̳̠͉̐͗ ̴̒͊͆̇͑̔́͘͠͝ͅB̸̨̺̰̘̲͔̖̦̠̦̃R̸̯̍̇͑́̔̒́̉͐͘Ò̵̭̭͉͙̗̹̐̊̎͘O̸̙̻̯̰̖̽͊̃Ḵ̸̢̡̡̞̮̞͇̲͈̰̬̗̤͎͂Ş̸̧̬͎̻͍̩̺͙͇̻̰̙͉͕̂͋͌͐̂̓͆̒̉̏̚͝, it would have been a loss to a godawful Chicago Bears team.

According to the folks over at FanDuel, the Packers were favored in that game by almost a touchdown. They ended up winning by only a single point. Green Bay’s now ubiquitous style of punching themselves in the crotch over and over again for the first 40 minutes of the football game followed by 20 minutes of competence sprinkled with miracles and other random ineptitudes has led to some thrilling television. Thrilling television does not, however, lead to improved odds.

Going into this week’s game, the Packers were at +1500 to win the NFC North. The Lions were -440. The Vikings were +500 with the Bears at +24000. This means that FanDuel had the Packers with a roughly 6.25% chance to win the division.

Right now, the Lions and Vikings sit at roughly the same point. The Bears have plummeted down to +100000. That is 1000:1. One-tenth of one percent. And that team just took a last-second screw-up to lose to the Packers.

Improving to 7-3 and winning their first NFCN game has certainly helped the Packers in the hunt for a playoff spot. Where they were previously -300, according to FanDuel they are now -480. That is an improvement from 75% up to 82%.

By the numbers, things are looking good for Green Bay. They are still technically in the hunt for the division and have a pretty decent shot at the playoffs.

They need to figure out how to play an entire game, though, if they hope to actually do anything with those figures.