tallguyindc's Blog
Posted Tuesday, September 20, 2011 10:41 PM
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/scorecasting/09/15/kelley.pulaski/index.html
I know its high school and not directly comparable to the NFL but it does taste of what could happen if the game is played the way the math geeks say it should be played.
Posted Monday, February 14, 2011 04:43 AM
Bottom line:
The players have far more to lose by missing games.
The framework of this CBA will probably be the basis for the next one and the one after that etc. In other words, they are really negotiating what players will be paid for the next 20 years.
In essence, every lockout/strike situation is a game of chicken. Missing games is clearly bad for both sides but it will happen unless one side accepts an inferior situation. But how useful is it to actually win and get the right CBA for the next 20 years.
A typical owner will look at this and say "I could cave now and save a year's worth of revenues or I could holdout and get a CBA that will pay dividends for the next 19 years."
A typical player will look at this and say "I could cave now and save a year's salary or I could holdout and get a CBA that really won't benefit me personally all that much. My career is likely to be only a few years long. Losing a year would cost me a huge percentage of my lifetime earnings. Sure, "the players" would be getting benefits for the next 20 years if we hold out, but me personally....not really.
I'd also point out that sports owners are typically only part time. They have other real businesses. Losing the NFL revenue for a year is like losing a pinky. Unpleasant and uncomfortable but ultimately not a real problem. For a typical player who has no i... [More]
Posted Friday, October 29, 2010 08:26 PM
I'm going to try this one more time. I created another thread on this topic but I realize that my original post might not have been as clear as it should have been. It was my fault because I included too much math and made it confusing.
This is an important point and I think you'll see football in a whole new light if you get it. Similar situations pop up a lot and about 95% of the time the coach gets them wrong.
Dallas was down by 18 and on the 6 yard line with 12 minutes to play. Nearly all coaches would have kicked the field goal in that situation. Phillips went for it. The announcers couldn't contain themselves talking about how stupid he was. 15 points is two scores. 11 points is two scores. You should in no circumstances ever risk being down three scores when you could be down only two. The number of times you need to score from here until the end of the game is the only thing that matters.
Phillips was right. They were wrong. I'm going to explain why. Hopefully, I'll be clearer this time.
I think most people agree that there was really only one way to win involving the field goal.
Kick the FG
Hold NY scoreless
Score 2 TDs
Convert 2 pt Conversion
Win in OT
Do all of that and you win. Miss a single piece of it and you lose.
If Dallas went for the touchdown, their path to victory would be:
Make the... [More]
Posted Tuesday, October 26, 2010 12:32 AM
Oh my god, I think Gruden is a total moron!!
After the Cowboys came back, he said that "if they would have had that field goal they gave up on a little while back...short field anything can happen..."
I think he honestly thinks that if Phillips could redo it, he should have kicked it. That is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Lets assume that everything else happened in the game up until that point and the Cowboys could remake that move. (I know bad assumption...but theres no reason to assume things would have been any better for the Cowboys if they kicked and they might have been worse....the neutral assumption is correct for these purposes)
Which of the following is more likely...
Gruden's way.
Kick a short field goal (98%)
+
Get an onside kick (10%)
+
Drive 35 yards into field goal position with 40 seconds and no timeouts (25%)
+
Kick a long field goal (70%)
+
Win in Overtime (50%)
Multiply all of these together and you get 0.86%.
Gruden really legitimately thinks that is more likely than Phillips way.
Convert one 6 yard pass and win the game (about 40%).
I'd point out that even missing the pass, the Cowboys still had almost as good a chance to win the game as they would have if they made the field goal. Driving the ball the whole way for a touchdown isn't that much more difficult than driving it half the way, kicking and winning it in O... [More]
Posted Tuesday, October 19, 2010 07:00 PM
OK. I was updating my playoff odds spreadsheet and I noticed an interesting coincidence. The spreadsheet has the teams listed in alphabetical order and none of the top 12 teams by city won this weekend (4 byes; 8 losses).
Obviously, this is purely random and means absolutely nothing. Still I thought I'd mention it anyway. Its a very good example that trends that appear meaningful can often be created by random luck and that 0 for 12 on things that should be coin flips doesn't necessarily mean anything other than overextrapolating a small sample size.
Posted Wednesday, September 29, 2010 12:54 PM
The Bears are an interesting team. They are basically average...maybe slightly higher... and they've been basically average for several years now. But they've occasionally looked great and occasionally looked horrible. Thats gotten a lot of misreads over the years.
"THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE"
One of the greatest press conferences in NFL history. It was just so awesome. Not only seeing the sheer unadulterated anger at his own team. I loved what Green was saying about the Bears. Here was a undefeated Super Bowl favorite some people were calling one of the greatest of all time. Instead of the usual boilerplate pablum "our opponent played great....", Green called them out as a fundamentally mediocre one dimensional team that deserved to lose. Classic television.
That was a long tangent. Anyway, if you look at the schedule, the Bears next five games are:
Giants, Panthers, Seahawks, Redskins, Buffalo
There is a very distinct possibility we could be looking at a 7-1 or even 8-0 Bears team in mid-November.
They are likely to be very overrated at that point if that happens....I can already feel the 1985 comparisons starting.
Just my two cents...
Posted Sunday, January 03, 2010 02:42 AM
Some people might remember me as one of the guys that very vocally argued that Belichick made the right call. I think its pretty obvious that Texas Tech made the right call as well. All of those people that argued that Belichick was wrong because it didn't work....well presumably Tech's guy was right because it did. Right????
Anyway, I don't have the exact college stats for the 2 minute drill. It all depends on a lot of the specifics of the situation. Here are my estimations of what I think they are. If anybody else has better estimations feel free to post them.
If Michigan State is down by 3, I think they would score a TD to win the game immediately 10% of the time. They would score a FG to force OT 30%. 60% of the time, they would get stopped well short of FG range. Since they would win the game in OT half the time they made the FG, there total WP would be 25% (10% + .5 * 30%)
If Mich State was down by 6, they would score a TD to win the game around 25% of the time.
The two aren't really that different. But the FG scenario is based on the idea that they miss the conversion. Since they had about a 50% chance of converting, the actual probability of Michigan State winning gets cut in half.
I know a lot of this sounds counter intuitive but think about it this way. Lets assume that State does drive the ball all the way into FG range. As a Tech fan do you ... [More]
Posted Monday, November 30, 2009 12:55 AM
I'm starting think that Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth are complete morons. Have they ever calculated a probability in their life? The Ravens "have to punt here".... Only if they are more interested in duplicating conventional wisdom than they are in winning the game.
Harbaugh's call basically won that game. But he won't really get credit for it, because with aggressive calls the players become the heroes or the coach becomes the goat. With passive calls, the players take the blame if it doesn't work.
Passive callmaking isn't about winning the game. Its about avoiding blame for losing it.
http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/11/sunday-night-4th-down.html
Announcers really are the ones that should be calling coaches on their pass the buck bullshit. Instead they just echo it....
Posted Thursday, November 26, 2009 03:00 PM
A fourth down conversion is actually more likely than a successful kick. Ultimately, a conversion leads to more expected points. And at this point in the game, getting a reasonable probability at being down 6 is much better than being down 10.
Plus the downside of missing is 8 yards worse than the downside of missing the conversion.
So kicking more risk/less reward. Yet that was definitely the default choice for coaches in that situation.
Posted Tuesday, November 24, 2009 02:26 AM
Almost all coaching decisions basically come down to the same choice.
Passive vs Aggressive
95% of the time if there is any doubt whatsoever, coaches pick the passive route. Thats actually whats the matter with the NFL. Its also one of the reasons why Belichick is the most successful coach in the league. Coaches pick passive because they know that if they lose, they can pass the buck and say "I had confidence in ____. How was I suppose to know they were going to blow it?" They'll get a little bit of blame for a bad play call, but it stops there because ultimately somebody else will get the majority of the blame. They want to win the game. Who doesn't? But winning isn't the top priority. The top priority is making sure that somebody else takes the blame if you lose? A passive coach always has a scapegoat. An aggressive coach is the scapegoat.
Have no qualms about this. In coachspeak, "confidence" doesn't actually mean confidence. It means "not my fault".
Anyway, tonight Kubiak had the decision between aggressive and passive. He could throw for an extra 10 yards which would have greatly increased the probability of a successful kick. Or he could be passive and stand pat.
The ball was on the 32. That gave the kick about a 64% probability of success. Since a kick only tied the game, the WP was 32% (0.64 * 50%... [More]
Posted Monday, November 16, 2009 01:41 AM
I'm watching all of the commentary and the consensus among people on this is that Belichick let the emotions get the best of him and let emotion override discretion and wisdom. They made a stupid call and thats why the Patriots lost. I really don't get it. Don't these people realize that this is why the Belichick is Belichick? Calls like this one are why he has won all those Super Bowls. Seriously, the man has the numbers on his side.
Consider a thought experiment. What should the Colts have done if the call was up to them? Belichick calls timeout and crosses the field and tells Caldwell. Its up to you. I can punt or I can go.
If you are Caldwell, do you give up a sure opportunity for Manning to get the ball back with plenty of time left in order to gamble that Brady couldn't get 2 yards. Or do you take the safe route and ask them to punt?
My guess is that nearly every commentator that is saying that Belichick should have punted there would have told Caldwell that he should have accepted a punt if it was up to him. The thing is that is wrong. Its just blatantly and obviously wrong. If going was a mistake for the Pats, it had to be a benefit to the Colts. And vice versa. But the truth is, if Caldwell had done that he would have been making a huge and bad gamble.
Here is the math: I'm going to give the algebra first ... [More]