Predicting the outcome of the NFL playoffs

It's the time of the year to power up the simulations and attempt to predict the course of the NFL playoffs.  As in year's past I have used the Sagarin ratings and a standard deviation of about two touchdowns to build a monte carlo simulation of the playoff games.  The results are shown in the plot below.

On the AFC side, Denver and New England are the most likely teams to make it to the Superbowl at 44% and 41%, while the other teams are also-rans and make up the last 20% or so of simulations.  The AFC is more spread out.  With San Francisco, Atlanta at 37% and 28%, with Seattle and Green bay picking up some more of the possibilities at 17% and 11%.

Since the goal of this simulation is to try to win the RKB playoff fantasy football pool we also care about how many games each team plays and what players score the most points.  The plot below shows the number of games each team plays in the playoffs, teams with a bye can only play a maximum of three teams, the others can play four if they make it to the final game.  The top plot is the simulation, compared to the bottom plot where the win probabilities are strictly 50/50.

MIN, WAS, CIN and IND have a disproportionate chance of losing there first playoff game so players from those teams will only have a single game to earn points.  One team with a bye, Seattle, seems to hold its own and play through to the Superbowl a good number of times, and certainly high scoring players from that team will have two or three games worth of chances to score points.  As reflected in the pie charts above, NE and DEN play three games in many simulations.

Next step picking the right players given the expectations of which teams will play.

The World's Greatest Chrysanthemums

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving we saw the end of the Chrysanthemum festival at Longwood Gardens. 

That is more than 1000 chrysanthemums trained into this globe shape.  They said they make two of them each year just in case.  It takes 17 months to grow it.

It was at the entrance to the gardens.

 I snuck in a picture of this bird of paradise, they are always in such perfect shape.

Obviously my favorite ones were purple.

Egyptian artifacts and mummies at the University of Pennsylvania

Mayan Artifacts at the University of Pennsylvania

As red as they get

The japanese maple is at or just past it's most red and glorious this fall.  I don't think it can get any redder from now it may be time to lose its leaves.  I love the red of this tree, it's practically purple (or wine or burgundy or cordovan...).

Latest Irises ever

Lynn rescued these Irises that had started budding in the Fall and we definitely not going to finish in time with the weather we are having.

She cut them and put them in water indoors and these are the second and third blooms.  I like having a memory of Spring as winter begins.

Dumb whiteboard is smart

Fall flowers fine foliage

Asters are a big favorite of butterflies, moths and bees.

I think this one is called Jupiter's Beard but I am not sure.

Hopefully these new purple coneflowers will spread.

WHASUP license was probably hilarious in its day

I am sure this WHASUP license plate was hilarious and topical in its day.  Probably around the time the ribbon magnets were put on.  Now that you have read this you will all go around yelling WHASUP! at each other again for know good reason.

PROPP License looks pretty real to me

This SUV with Delaware PROPP license plate looks pretty real to me.