2017 season prediction contest - weekly predictions

BOS 3-2 POR : this matchup tends to be exciting - five of their last eight games have seen 5 or more goals

NJ 1-3 HOU : just blatant hope that HOU can flip the script

WAS 2-1 KC : this is assuming Pugh plays at least half the match

NC 1-2 CHI : CHI's gonna find their groove sometime, right? Why not right after NC hit its first speedbump?

SEA 1-2 ORL : just because, again

 

Friendly reminder what we have a Friday game tonight! Every individual prediction needs to be in before its respective kickoff for it to count, so even if you don't predict the true weekend games just yet, make sure to get your BOS-POR prediction in before work ends today!

 

Week 6 point updates!

59Amerinorsk : 25pts -1 + 1+1+1+2+1 = 30pts / 30g
babranski : 7pts + x+x+x+x+x = 7pts / 10g
Blaze20 : 33pts + 0+2+1+0+0 = 36pts / 30g
blissett : 31pts + 3+1+1+1+1 = 38pts / 26g
BlueCrimson : 26pts + 1+1+1+0+1 = 30pts / 30g
CoachJon : 21pts -1 + 2+3+1+0+1 = 27pts / 30g
holden : 28pts +1 + 1+3+1+0+0 = 34pts / 30g
lil_one : 26pts + 1+3+3+0+1 = 34pts / 30g
Lucy : 29pts + 1+2+1+0+1 = 34pts / 30g
lunatica : 31pts + 0+2+1+1+1 = 36pts / 30g
Smallchief : 20pts + 1+3+1+2+1 = 28pts / 26g
STT : 25pts + 1+0+1+2+1 = 30pts / 30g
weelilbit : 3pts + x+x+x+x+x = 3pts / 2g

Somewhat like we've seen the past two weeks in NWSL, this week our predictions leader took a massive stumble! After earning roughly 1.32PPG through the first 5 weeks, Blaze20 only earned 0.60PPG this week, allowing blissett, who is cruising at almost 1.5 PPG, to take the lead! The big winners on the week, though, are lil_one and Smallchief with 8pts each - which makes lil_one tied for 4th and Smallchief push above 1 PPG for the first time since week 1! Congrats!

(Interesting that, also like the current NWSL situation, we have a sole leader, then ties for several positions down!)

 

Considering that we have a true midweek game this week, I'm going to open predictions for Week 7 a day earlier that normal! Remember, you don't *have* to predict all of the week's games at once, as long as you predict each game before its respective kickoff! So if you want to wait on the weekend games (for injury reports or whatever) feel free to just predict the midweek game for now!

Week 7 games:

NC v NJ, May24, 7:30pm
HOU v SEA, May27, 4pm
CHI v NC, May27, 4pm
NJ v ORL, May27, 7pm
KC v WAS, May27, 8pm
POR v BOS, May27, 10pm

(So many rematches!)

 

Depends on who you ask. The majority of sources I've seen, including almost all leagues, treat a midweek match as attached to the following weekend, which is why I do the same. You'll notice that MLS and NWSL always open their goal/save of the week contests on Mondays, and also do their weekly Power Rankings early in the week (i.e. before the upcoming midweek games) as do most reporting services with their own Power Rankings and weekly updates. Particularly, the headers on NWSL's Twitter account had the May24 game not with week 6 last week but with week 7 this week.

There are occasionally places that treat midweek games as attached to the preceding weekend, though - particularly fantasy leagues, since setting rosters is better to do right before a weekend with the next midweek game just lingering as opposed to setting rosters four days away from a weekend just to account for one midweek game.

 

I forget how many midweek games there will be this year, (I know we had hashed it out in another thread when the schedule came out, I'm just having trouble finding it right now,) but the last true midweek game will be Wed Aug30 when the Spirit host the Courage - so the schedule will never be even again until then. I think each of the ten teams has one midweek match hosted, so two total, but I'd have to double-check.

 

Well, the big thing is that contracts (whether TV, player, or venue) will have a set start and end date each year. If that means fewer total weeks than there are regular season games, then you need midweek games. It's worth pointing out (unlike what I said in my previous post before editing it) that every single weekend this year has the full slate of five games, so venue availability has not forced some weekends to be light (which then would force midweek games to keep things even). So it's literally just that NWSL wanted a 24-game regular season and only had 22 weeks to work with, after accounting for FIFA windows. You could potentially argue then "why not eliminate midweek games and just play a 22- or even 20-game regular season?" but I think it's better to have a slight excess of games (ensuring that each weekend has 5 games makes it more enjoyable for fans plus guarantees the TV contract to have a game and a backup game) than to have a slight deficiency of games.

 

NC 2-2 NJ