Predictions: My Statement of the Obvious

[PatsFanInVa]

We're all resorting to various modern forms of divination in searching for patterns in stats that will be relevant to the Super Bowl. There are a finite number of plays coming our way this Sunday (and a seemingly infinite number of commercials, but that's off topic).

Coaches will have studied each other's teams, players will have prepped, game plans will have been prepared, coaches will have run their "if/then" trees as often as receivers will have run their regular trees.

If a player "makes that play 90 percent of the time" he might not this time. One guy out of position, one guy reading zone when it's man or vice versa, one guy picking his hand out of the dirt for no reason at the wrong time, and the game changes. I am not putting down the outcome to luck, perish the thought. I am only stating the obvious - that we only know probabilities right now (and can argue about those probabilities for fun.)

We're applying stats and predicting scores for fun, and I get that... but we're yearning for a determinative universe (that comes out right), and the reality is that there's no accurate model that we can apply. I've seen the cogent argument of the superior predictive power of statistics in baseball because of the length of the season. Well yeah, but you either hit the ball or you don't every time. Sometimes it's realllllly important which one happens.

In fact, paradoxically, one can make the argument that it is the team that is most conscious of this fact that can play mistake-free football, never be out of position, etc.

Conversely one can argue that if their heroes "fly around" and "have fun," that means they'll win (putatively one frees oneself to perform better by ignoring such structured thinking - although this might be a much more valuable skill for a field goal kicker or an archer than for a MIKE linebacker or a quarterback).

"Way to kill the board" I guess. But we just can't argue our way to precognition. Sunday can't get here fast enough.

By the way we're gonna win.

/coredump

 

[PatsWSB47]

Yeah I've always have been amused reading all the stats that "proves" which team will win. They're plenty informative and entertaining and I appreciate the effort from everyone that compiles it but in actuality they're racing forms. But you're right. We're going to win

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Damn I wish it was Sunday at 6.

 

[irishfanatic]

Damn I wish it was Sunday at 6.

Me too, I have developed severe tendonitis in my clicking finger since end of AFCCG. I mainly blame PATSFANS Forum.

 

[stinkypete]

If all events in the universe fall into a predictable bell-curve pattern, then the Super Bowl history of the Belichick/Brady Patriots one of probability's great oddities.

SB36: A no name defense shuts down the greatest offense of all time (at the time)
SB38: A defensive struggle collapses into a shootout late, then the game ends nearly the exact same way that it did two years before
SB42: A no name defense shuts down the greatest offense of all time again, thanks to the most improbable completion in history
SB46: The parallels between this game and 2007 were astounding, same team, nearly the same score, nearly the same ending, a slightly-less improbable catch
SB49: Jermaine Kearse, Malcolm Butler

The probability distribution of the Patriots Super Bowls is literally the opposite of a bell curve. It's as if the curve was flipped upside down. Only Super Bowl 39 played out like a regular game between two good teams where the better team won in non-dramatic fashion. The most likely outcome, in a probabilistic universe, is a game like Super Bowl 39.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Stats are for losers

But, advanced analytics can lead to finding a hole to exploit (which requires hours upon hours of film review by experts). In football, especially for the Patriots, everything works 98%+ of the time for each team. It's that small variation (on an individual) when 3-4 players just aren't executing perfectly or where a single player just goes to another level where missed/negative plays happen (that;s usually the pointmy wife makes a complaint or celebrates)

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Stats are for losers

But, advanced analytics can lead to finding a hole to exploit (which requires hours upon hours of film review by experts). In football, especially for the Patriots, everything works 98%+ of the time for each team. It's that small variation (on an individual) when 3-4 players just aren't executing perfectly or where a single player just goes to another level where missed/negative plays happen (that;s usually the pointmy wife makes a complaint or celebrates)

Oh yeah, this is not saying that anything's "random" or "chance," per se, it's just saying that the prep you can do with stats, tendencies, film study, etc. are limited both at the level of reading (which the Pats probably do as well as anybody evah,) and at the level of executing (see above, regarding "reading.")

You can prepare well or badly. I suppose if the coverage is tight enough on Tyree then there's no chance of the helmet catch (or if that particular ref wanted to call Eli in the grasp - which he had leeway to do or not to do, I think... or if the rush tackled him instead of grabbed him, or if this or if that...)

But none of those things happened. That greatest burst and sharpest read that the Pats had left still left open the unlikely chance of the helmet catch. Here's the painful refresher...



So I don't think Tyree is uncovered, and I don't think the rush is incompetent, and I don't think there's anything they should have seen on the film or read in the statistics. There is only what happened.

I know you're not arguing against the obvious... nobody does.

But by the way, if the Pats are up to it, I don't think the foot comes off the gas if we've got a lead. Maybe soft zone once up 3 scores, but not early on. The closest thing will be a good dose of ground game to keep them off the field. EVERYBODY in Foxborough has to be sick and tired of 3-4 point wins (and losses).

So that does militate for a blowout, but that's only assuming that it turns out, in retrospect, to have been a mis-match.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

(PS if you really want the pain of hearing "it was the greatest play in Super Bowl history" from NFL Films... click the watch on YouTube link)

 

[gatsby47]

Filling the Airwaves, leading up to the actual kickoff, must drive network personnel crazy. It surely drives the fans to the limits of endurance. Time is certainly dragging waiting with nervous anticipation that's for sure! I think that I shall avoid watching TV tomorrow until about 5/5:30. I can then check the loonie bin on Fox filled with their own set of "used - to - be's" and let them blither as to why one team will prevail.
I have money on the toss. One quarter with my granddaughter who is a genuine big spender. It was too complicated to explain to her deferrals. I am not sure why either
lol. Go Pats!

 

[PatsFanInVa]

If all events in the universe fall into a predictable bell-curve pattern, then the Super Bowl history of the Belichick/Brady Patriots one of probability's great oddities.

SB36: A no name defense shuts down the greatest offense of all time (at the time)
SB38: A defensive struggle collapses into a shootout late, then the game ends nearly the exact same way that it did two years before
SB42: A no name defense shuts down the greatest offense of all time again, thanks to the most improbable completion in history
SB46: The parallels between this game and 2007 were astounding, same team, nearly the same score, nearly the same ending, a slightly-less improbable catch
SB49: Jermaine Kearse, Malcolm Butler

The probability distribution of the Patriots Super Bowls is literally the opposite of a bell curve. It's as if the curve was flipped upside down. Only Super Bowl 39 played out like a regular game between two good teams where the better team won in non-dramatic fashion. The most likely outcome, in a probabilistic universe, is a game like Super Bowl 39.

This is a lot like "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

Well, we're in the universe where there's something. Some slight mismatch in the amount of matter and anti-matter at the outset of the universe (among other variables that could result in our little universe blinking out the moment it blinked on).

So we've got the bias of being in this universe to begin with - a universe where we're here to ask the question.

Your above observation has one simplest explanation, the one Occam would like the most. The present Patriots organization is just really good. Recent Patriots teams happen to have faced three very improbable plays in successive super bowls. However, the big picture is that just being there 6 times (now 7) is the big-picture anomaly.

The explanation that would explain all of it is a many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, in which this very unlikely world arose out of conditions of essentially equal chances, which are very unlikely to end up in the particular random pattern we've observed... and the smaller the sample size, the better the chance of dramatic departures from the mean. 15 years? Blink of an eye. It would happen to some team in some universe, with the attendant eddies of unlikely occurrences.

I think the simpler explanation is better, but the latter explanation raises the scintillating possibility of 15 straight SBs in the Brady/Belichick era... or at least 2 more wins against the Gintz. After all, outcomes have to be possible for them to exist in a "possible" universe, and I'm not sure that applies with Reche Caldwell as #1 receiver, God love the bug-eyed glandular freak. (He gave us better than his best, and has a special place in my heart).

Now careful about wishing you could wake up in another universe, and this one would be a distant dream in the morning. You might find yourself remembering the Bills SB victories of the 1990s, and Vinatierri's famous "Wide right" that set the stage for our SB losses of 2001-2004. Or everything could be on fire or something.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Clarification - just being there 7 times in the Brady/BB era.