Football Outsiders runs a weekly report in which they break down playoff odds across the league. They run the season 10,000 times and using a combination of DAVE ratings for each team and home field advantage in every single game to come up with odds following each week. Their odds include a rundown of odds for each seed, division title, first round bye, and wild card. They then run down odds for conference title game appearance, victory and Super Bowl victory. Conversely, they also run Suck For Luck (or maybe Jonesin For Jones?) odds, looking at odds of getting the top pick and top three pick.
Following the second week of the NFL season, FO has the 49ers as having a 55.2% chance of making the playoffs. That is a decrease of 5.0% since last week. FO listed out their mean wins for the 10,000 projections and they are currently at 8.0. Prior to the season, the 2011 FO Almanac projected a mean of 7.5.
It's only been two weeks and to talk playoffs is probably a little/a lot ridiculous, but the NFC West is the kind of division where anything can happen. I'm not so sure about Seattle, but Arizona has shown enough to indicate they might be able to hang around for some stretch, and St. Louis will eventually start winning some games.
Right now the 49ers and Cardinals dominate the odds, with St. Louis and Seattle sitting fairly far back. The Rams are a tough team to figure out in all this. There has been some comment about how the second half of their schedule opens the door for a move back up the standings. Of course, if they're 0-7 or 1-6, is the division so soft that they can bounce back to at least seven wins? The Rams are a talented team but there's a chance they could bury themselves considerably and be out of things before they know it. Is it possible those final six games may not mean remotely as much?
After the jump you can view a rundown of the NFC West via the FO playoff odds report.
| Team | Rec | DAVE | Mean Ws | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | DIV | BYE | WC | TOT | CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SF | 1-1 | -0.1% | 8.0 | 2.6% | 5.8% | 10.9% | 33.4% | 0.7% | 1.7% | 52.7% | 8.4% | 2.5% | 55.2% | -5.0% |
| ARI | 1-1 | -10.6% | 7.3 | 0.9% | 2.8% | 6.3% | 22.6% | 0.8% | 2.1% | 32.6% | 3.7% | 2.9% | 35.5% | 3.0% |
| STL | 0-2 | -20.9% | 5.4 | 0.1% | 0.3% | 1.1% | 7.5% | 0.1% | 0.4% | 9.1% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 9.5% | -2.9% |
| SEA | 0-2 | -31.3% | 5.1 | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.7% | 4.7% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 5.6% | 0.2% | 0.6% | 6.2% | -2.2% |