2018 NFL Tournament of Champions: Group Play Week 4

Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend! The NFL Tournament of Champions is back in action, albeit a little later than I'd wanted after a busy weekend and chaos in the middle of the week.

I extended the days of Week 4 out to include Memorial Day as I think would have happened were this tournament being played in reality. The way the schedule aligns this week, five Dallas teams are hosting, so I'd have to spread it out anyway. And if this were in reality, even though it probably would have beaten the race, I wouldn't want to go up against the Indy 500.

Entering Week 4, a dozen undefeated teams still remain. At most we'll have four when everything is said and done given the nature of four groups playing a single round robin.

So how many will remain unbeaten after the dust clears this week? We're about to find out. Weather conditions from projected game times will be taken into account for these games. You can check out standings and scores from every week here. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's get to it!

The #TakeAKnee Dilemma

Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez (AP)

I've been wanting to write something about this for a while now, largely because the story keeps coming up. Then the furor dies down and I wasn't able to narrow down the stream of consciousness that this whole topic spurs. I think I've finally got enough coherent thoughts though that this time I'm good to go. I'd like to start by pointing out that what follows is purely my opinion. If you don't agree with it, fine. If you want to open up discussion about how you don't agree with me, again, fine. But I'm going to try to not engage in any personal attacks about this topic, because they don't help anything, and if you feel the need to engage in debate, I ask that you do the same.

2018 NFL Tournament of Champions: Group Play Week 3

I'm running a little bit behind again as we move into the third week of the 2018 NFL Tournament of Champions!

Of the 52 Super Bowl champions competing in this year's tournament, we still have 17 with unblemished records, although it's important to note that some of these teams have only played one game so far. With an odd number of teams in every group, we're getting four byes each week.

At the end of group play, the top six from each group will advance to elimination play. We're still a way's out from that yet, but these games are still just as important as the ones to come over the summer.

In an effort to make this as accurate as possible, I'm taking weather conditions from the host cities over the weekend and setting those for these games. Standings and round by round scores can be found here. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's get to Week 3!

2018 NFL Tournament of Champions: Group Play Week 2

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day, and that any moms among the readership base had a great day with family spoiling you.

Meanwhile, the NFL Tournament of Champions rolled on over the weekend. We're in the midst of a 13 week regular season to narrow the field down and set up an all time clash to determine another Champion of Champions.

I think the way the byes got set up in Round 1, the final four from the 2014 Tournament of Champions all took the week off and thus begin their quests to get back this week. That means our defending champs in the 1999 St. Louis Rams take the field for the first time this week.

I put up a link last week to a Google sheet where I was trying to keep track of stats from all the games. It proved to be too much even with a gap between games, so I've cancelled that aspect of it. Simulating these games, however, is still a doable task, even though I'm running a little behind this week.

Weather from the sites of each of the games will be taken into account based on conditions in the home cities from yesterday. Updated standings, plus scores from each round can be found here. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's play some football!

2018 NFL Tournament of Champions: Group Play Week 1

We're well into the month of May now, and with that, it is time to begin the NFL Tournament of Champions!

A week ago I set the stage, as we have four new teams that did not compete in the first iteration of this tournament. But the setup last time was just a straight bracket. I have to expand this out and give teams a little longer to really determine who is the best.

I'm keeping track of the tournament through a new website this year, since Challonge was able to parse out a single round robin with giving every team and equal number of home games. TournamentScheduler, which I've used in the past for the last couple of NBA Tournaments of Champions, as well as to help build out the order of series for the MLB Tournament of Champions last year, has trouble with single round robins; it keeps one team on the left side of the matchups every time, which makes home/road games a problem.

The round robin portion of the schedule requires playing 312 games, which I think is few enough that I will keep track of individual stats for the entire tournament. All told, this tournament will take 335 games to decide a Champion of Champions, which is far fewer compared to other tournaments, especially the ones that have had pool play. You can find those stats here (please note that there may be a delay between the posting of game results and the updating of stats).

Since the NFL is played outdoors in almost every situation, weather will be taken into account from yesterday. All simulations for this tournament are provided once again by WhatIfSports.com. Without further ado... let the Tournament of Champions begin!