CFL Simulation: Liking the Riders’ chances

TORONTO — The Saskatchewan Roughriders have taken their fans on a journey this season.

They got out to a 3-1 start before quarterback Trevor Harris went down with a broken leg back in Week 6. The team battled through Harris’ departure and had managed to stay afloat in the West Division behind the quarterbacking of Mason Fine and Jake Dolegala. When the Riders topped the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in their OK Tire Labour Day Weekend matchup, the team used that rare win against their prairie rival to climb to 6-5.

Then everything went sideways.

The Riders haven’t won since that Labour Day game. Their Week 19 loss to the Calgary Stampeders was their sixth straight and has them sitting at 6-11, clinging to the final playoff spot in the West Division. The free fall has been a scary one for the Riders’ passionate fan base but for all of the angst the last six games have caused, the CFL Simulation is here to offer some numbers-based hope.

The Riders are projected to finish ahead of the Stamps in that ongoing playoff race, as the Green team has a 57 per cent chance of making the post-season, while the Red team has a 43 per cent shot. That’s tied to the difficulty of the Stamps’ remaining schedule. While the Stamps hold the tiebreaker over the Riders and have a game in hand on them — the Riders close out their regular season this week when they host the Toronto Argonauts — the Stamps’ final two opponents are the BC Lions this week and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers next week.

A Riders win over the Argos and a Stamps loss in either of their two final games gets the Riders into the post-season. If the Stamps drop their final two games, the Riders would also qualify.

The Simulation has the following probabilities for those three games.

• Saskatchewan has a 15.6 per cent chance of defeating Toronto
• Calgary has a 19.7 per cent chance of defeating BC
• Calgary has a 37.2 per cent chance of defeating Winnipeg

Keep in mind that the Simulation cannot factor in if an opponent will rest starters for a game. It bases its predictions on what it has observed through games played in the regular season.

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Check out the latest CFL Simulation to see where your team stands.

*C: Clinched a particular outcome
*E: Eliminated from achieving a particular outcome

The model considers the following:

• Each team’s current win-loss record.
• Opponents already played (including whether it was a home or away game).
• Margin of victory (or loss) in games previously played in the season.
• Remaining opponents to be played (including whether those games are home or away).
• Most recent results (a recent win is weighted more heavily than a win back in Week 1, for example)

The model calculates each team’s probability of victory in each remaining game. It then simulates 100,000 replications of the remaining regular season schedule and resulting playoff bracket (including the possibility of a playoff crossover team). For each replication, the model keeps track of a number of performance metrics (for example, which teams earned home playoff games, which teams appeared in the Grey Cup, etc.).

For instance, if Toronto won the Grey Cup in 20,190 of the 100,000 replications, then its Grey Cup victory probability would be 20,190 / 100,000 = 20.19%.

The model is updated weekly based on the results of games played that week.