PHILADELPHIA – It’s election season so the focus is always going to spike for Nate Silver’s famed-predictive site, FiveThirtyEight.com.
At least some of the ideological wingnuts who live and die with the latest polls are also NFL fans so sports is part of the daily routine at the website as well.
And the latest NFL predictive models at FiveThirtyEight.com have the 8-0 Eagles at the top of the heap after the perceived top two teams — Buffalo and Kansas City — showed some warts over the weekend with the Bills losing to the New York Jets and the Chiefs needing a Herculean effort from Patrick Mahomes to squeak by Tennessee in overtime despite being at home against a Titans team playing a rookie backup quarterback who basically isn’t allowed to throw the football.
The perception that the AFC is better than the NFC and that the 6-2 Bills and Chiefs are better than the 8-0 Eagles will continue but the snapshot entering Week 10 in the NFL by FiveThirtyEight.com now has Philadelphia as the favorite to win Super Bowl LVII at 19%, slightly ahead of Buffalo at 18% and Kansas City at 17%.
The No. 2 team in the NFC is Dallas (6-2) at 12% which is ahead of 7-1 Minnesota at 7% because the underlying metrics for the Vikings don’t live up to their gaudy record.
The predictive model also has the Eagles at 74% to win the NFC East and a greater than 99% to make the postseason and a 68% likelihood of earning a first-round bye, something that is significantly ahead of the AFC favorite Buffalo, which is at 44% to earn the bye. No. 2 in the NFC for the bye week is Dallas at 16%.
