Posted on 01/28/2015 3:42:16 PM PST by vbmoneyspender
The 2015 New England Patriots ran 187 plays per lost fumble. Which, statistically speaking, is insane. This season's Patriots are such a black swan that, as data scientist John Candido explained to Sharp,
Based on the assumption that fumbles per play follow a normal distribution, you'd expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten over this period, once in 16,233.77 instances.
Which in layman's terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0000616 probability to win. Which in other words, [makes it] very unlikely that it's a coincidence.
It gets unlikelier still: After finding this outlier, Sharp went digging and expanded his search to the last 25 years. And when he ranked the teams, by season, by the highest number of offensive plays per lost fumble, four of the top six seasons recorded were by the Patriots. And the Patriots have led the NFL in the category in every five-year period since 2007.
This sort of thing doesn't happen by accident. It suggests that while the rest of the league was sleeping, Belichick was in his mad scientist laboratory looking for hidden points of leverage within the game and not only discovering them, but finding out a way to exploit them, too. Is this about deflated footballs? I very much doubt that 1.5 psi could account for such a gigantic disparity. In fact, Deflategate is probably the least likely explanation.
No, I suspect that what happened is that Belichick had the some stat-head do a big, Sabremetric work-up of football statistics and discovered that lost fumbles have a disproportionate impact on wins. And I suspect that after learning this, he made fumble rates a key metric in personnel decisions. And I suspect that he did further analysis on what types of plays are more likely to result in fumbles, and then altered his play-calling schemes accordingly. In short, I suspect that Belichick has been doing Moneyball in football without anyone else knowing it.
He cheats. That invalidates everything. Brady too.
Green Bay exposed Seattle even though they lost on special teams...
Seattle has no down field threats at wide receiver, so ...
Stack the box against the run ... Put a spy on the quarterback and ...
Seattle cannot score enough points to win unless you hand them the game, like Green Bay did.
Cheaters over the Assholes by 10 (but I do like Russell Wilson).
But to our discussion:
This is an assumption: "Based on the assumption that fumbles per play follow a normal distribution"
But you say the following is the assumption. This is not an assumption, it is a statistic (or fact, if we accept these numbers, which we do.) "Patriots have averaged one fumble for every 187 plays since 2010 while the league average is one fumble for approximately every 100 plays."
The FACT, on it's own, is relatively unremarkable given the context of the quality of the Patriots play over the past 5 and more years - especially in that they are not only an excellent team, but one who's success is well known to be characterized by disciplining the basics (for example: holding onto footballs.) It is only made statistically remarkable if we accept the assumption that fumbles should be randomly distributed or at least follow a smooth curve.
There is an effort to say 'Ho! The Patriots are an outlier' - they must be cheating!' But the concept of 'outlier' is moot if you're not looking at a random sample of something that we would expect to behave on a smooth curve, especially for a team which IS an outlier when it comes to so many seasons of success on the back, specifically an notably, of disciplining the basics, like holding onto the ball.
"are you saying that that statistic is factually incorrect?"
NO! I'm saying
Or, as he so elegantly states himself: "For starters, they're a bunch of cheats." ... and then proceeds to bamboozle the lumpen.
Belicheat and his enabling 2nd Lt. Josh McDaniels Q/B & offensive coach are guilty as hell. McDaniels, Brady's assh*** buddy, was caught cheating as the Bronco coach. He was fired by the Broncos and Belicheat took him back ... this organization has a long history of scamming the system.
Brady had a High ankle sprain in practice the week before the game.
On the last drive 2 int’s were dropped. 1 by Junior Seau and the other by Asante Samuel.
Some things can’t be coached.
When a football is inflated in a room of 1 temp and then taken to a different temp the PSI of the ball will vary.
If the ball is wet the PSI and weight will change.
The following video explains how the ball reacted during the Colts Pats game. :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxsXFX3tDpg
The Patriots could have run the ball on a couple of plays in the red zone to get the clock under 2 minutes, maybe even forcing the giants to use a time out. It was poor clock management that left the Giants with too much time. A genius could figure that out.
Really? Why did Tom have 28-0 points in the second half..with the alleged properly inflated footballs?
Football is a passionate sport but hatred has become a mantra to the Media…do not fall for it.
And I am perfectly willing to concede that Belichick has studied the game thoroughly and works very hard to elminate fumbles by intensive training and coaching.
And yet ironically my respect for Belichick's knowledge of the game makes his denials about knowing anything about ball inflation matters so incredibly unbelievable. And he then said to talk to Tom Brady about ball inflation. This makes me even more suspicious. I think someone truly innocent would just deny everything. If the officials tested 12 balls before the game--yet at half-time 11 of them were faulty--then that is simply incredible. And yet somehow the balls used by the Colts were all O.K.
And didn't the Colts complain about this in November?
What mystifies me is this: "Why should a coach of Belichick's talents want to cheat?"
Bellichick went 36-44 in four years with the Browns, and then went 5-11 with the Patriots in the only year without Tom Brady. Tom Brady has been the factor that made the Patriots the success they are today...it’s all about personnel.
I can’t find a record of Home Vs Away W-L but it would be interesting to learn their record when they control the balls (home) vs. when other teams do. (away)
Perception is like Global Warming..
It’s all freaking BS.
Keep on “perceiving” though if that is what you need to get by.
Seattle has been caught the most for drug enhancers , stimulaters since Carroll took over. They are a cheating organization who’s players are hyped up on speed. Their defense is the whole team.
oh horsefeathers
I love Bill. He puts a strong emphasis on having a smart team according to their test scores. He ll be playing a team hyped up on speed sunday night.
You score when you can especially with Brady gimped and the Giants Front Four out playing the Pats OL.
Perception is what it is ... like it or not.
Other than in the New England area the most favored/popular team in the SB is Seattle ... in large measure because the Patriots have cheated in the past, almost certainly cheated with deflategate ... and most sports fans detest those who cheat.
haters gotta Hate!
Best wishes for a good game!
Facts are fun too.
My understanding is that balls are inflated to 13 psi, that 12.5 is the min and 13.5 is the max. At 13 psi the balls would have tested at approx. 12+ psi. by this test. Also that a temp alone would cause the balls to lose 1 psi with a drop in temp from 92 to 50 degrees. Also was not discussed was water saturation and time of temperature and moisture exposure. I assume the balls are kept under a cover during rainy weather and I have seen attendants towel drying balls on the sidelines. Why didn’t the balls the Colts used lose pressure or why weren’t that checked if they didn’t? Was this “scientific test” done by any chance at MIT in BOSTON. Of course we would still be having all this discussion if NE didn’t have a reputation as cheaters.
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