Writers of Pro Football Prospectus 2008

printable version

FO on ESPN

Football Outsiders content published by ESPN

Need Help with KUBIAK or Premium?

blog advertising is good for you


21 Jan 2010

ESPN: Conference Championship Numbers Crunching

Numbers Crunching has lots of stats on this week's conference championships, including reasons why the Colts-Jets game will be close and reasons why a close game favors the Colts anyway. Plus: Gregg Williams could have the advantage against Brett Favre. Many of these tidbits will also be in tomorrow's FO game previews.

Posted by: Aaron Schatz on 21 Jan 2010

9 comments, Last at 21 Feb 2010, 9:34am by Webroot

Comments

1
by are-tee :: Thu, 01/21/2010 - 12:34pm

The Colts are "due" for a fourth quarter meltdown!

2
by W_Joel (not verified) :: Thu, 01/21/2010 - 1:23pm

Being "due" for one implies that fourth quarter meltdowns happen by chance. There's a reason the Colts won all those games in the fourth quarter this year: Peyton Manning is a stone-cold assassin. They're "due" for nothing but more of the same.

3
by Eddo :: Thu, 01/21/2010 - 2:34pm

While your overall point is probably valid (the Colts are less likely to have a fourth-quarter meltdown because of elite quarterback play), your first sentence is a good example of the Gambler's Fallacy.

For things that happen by chance, nothing is ever "due". If a fair coin comes up heads ten times in a row, it's not "due" for tails.

4
by 5rtertrt (not verified) :: Thu, 01/21/2010 - 6:11pm

Unless Manning plays poorly which he has been known to do in the playoffs. Like a lot.

5
by Purds :: Thu, 01/21/2010 - 8:44pm

Although Manning is 5-2 in his last 7 postseason games. Wait, that doesn't fit the stereotype. Never mind.

6
by HostileGospel :: Thu, 01/21/2010 - 10:09pm

Are you maybe implying that Peyton was deliberately letting the other team get ahead, just for fun? Winning close games consistently is uncommon and not generally sustainable- the Colts set a record for close games won this year, no? If you are significantly better than your opponents, you should put them away before the fourth quarter more often than not. If you are not significantly better than your opponents, you should not beat them a high percentage of the time.

This isn't predictive, of course, but it's still true.

--
Overall, I'd be kind of embarrassed to critique something when I didn't know what the hell I was talking about, but then, oh yeah, my NAME is on what I write, isn't it?

-Les Bowen

7
by Dmazz (not verified) :: Fri, 01/22/2010 - 12:35am

Manning is 1-6 against the 3-4 Defense in the playoffs, FYI

8
by Anonymous3 (not verified) :: Fri, 01/22/2010 - 10:19am

This seems incorrect, since he's beaten the Ravens twice and the Patriots once (when they were still a 3-4 team). That would seem to indicate that he's won atleast 3 games vs 3-4 teams.

9
by Webroot (not verified) :: Sun, 02/21/2010 - 9:34am

This page indexed by Google. http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.wildriverreview.com/THINKING http://www.footballoutsiders.com/fo-espn-numbers-crunching/2010/espn-conference-champio&ei=AFQjCNHajN_OX0kgxzx7UGA1yBfsEX VIdsdfWq

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
To skip this, please log in.