The definitive NFL fan base map (LOLJets)

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, there's no shortage of football-related stories bouncing around. Most of them are utter nonsense, but thanks to Deadspin and the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective, we've actually got one pretty fun study to dive into. Yes, this is more sports nerdness, so jump on board.

Using data culled from Facebook, those good folks were able to put together (and then study) a map showing which NFL teams were the most popular (or most "liked") in each county throughout the nation. That enabled us to see, once and for all, what each team's "fan base" really looked like, geographically speaking. Courtesy of Deadspin, here is that map:

While there aren't too many big surprises there (although Alaska is downright bizarre, including a strange patch of Bills fans in the middle of the state), one thing did jump out at me pretty immediately—where the hell are the Jets fans? Oh, there they are... no, not that big green blob that includes southern New Jersey and Delaware—that's Eagles territory. No, it's that little sliver right on the western end of Long Island, comprising basically one county.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the Jets don't have any fans—it just means there isn't any one area in which they're the dominant team, since they're overwhelmed by Giants fans throughout the New York metropolitan area. In fact, the Jets still check in with the 14th-largest fan base according to the study, despite having no real sphere of dominance. Thanks to the HCSAC people, we have the full breakdown for you as well:

Looking closer at this list, it's pretty clear that winning matters, which shouldn't surprise us. The top 3 teams in terms of fan base also happen to be the top 3 teams in terms of historical Super Bowl appearances—the Cowboys and Steelers have 8, the Patriots have 7. And of the top 12 teams on that list, 9 of them have won multiple Super Bowl titles (only the Saints, Bears, and Eagles have not).

Finally, as the HCSAC folks point out, each team that has won a Super Bowl in the last 9 years currently has more than 1.5 million fans, placing them in the top quarter of the league—since both the 49ers and Ravens currently sit on the outside of that top quartile, it'll be interesting to see what kind of fan base jump they may get by winning this weekend.

All in all, the fan base map jives pretty well with our intuitions—the "New England" Patriots moniker is apt, since all of New England minus a small corner of Connecticut leans toward the Pats (they're also big in Canada, and in the U.K.); the Cowboys dominate a huge portion of the country; and Los Angeles, lacking a team, still seems largely to pull for the Raiders, perhaps pining for the olden days. And despite a brief period of dominance at the turn of the century, the Rams can't seem to secure a fan base, nor can the ever-stumbling Jacksonville Jaguars.

Also, the league's fan base continues to skew toward the northern and eastern parts of the country—I ran the numbers to figure out the total numbers of fans by division, and came up with the following:

The East and North divisions make up the top four, combining for more than 65% of the total Facebook fans. Granted, that's aided in large part by the geographical oddity of the Cowboys being in the "East" division, but even if you were to swap the Cowboys with, say, the Rams, you'd still be looking at a 56.2% edge in favor of the North and East versus the South and West. I think it's interesting that the breakdown is in many ways the opposite of what you might expect to see in college football, where the SEC dominates everything—it's possible, if not likely, that the NCAA is pulling share away from the NFL (and the poor Jaguars) in that region.

As one final note, there are some teams who are simply dominant (in terms of fan support) within their divisions—the Steelers boast 64.8% of the total AFC North fans, followed by the Saints with 60.7% of the NFC South, the Colts with 56.8% of the AFC South, and the Patriots with 52.9% of the AFC East. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Bills (6.9% of AFC East), Jaguars (9.0% of AFC South), Bengals (9.4% of AFC North), and Redskins (10% of NFC East).

But getting back to this weekend, in case you were wondering what the "fan base" breakdown looks like if you consider only the Super Bowl participants, we've got that for you, too. Once again from Deadspin:

Clearly, the nation is leaning heavily toward the 49ers, which is unsurprising given that they've got almost 30% more total Facebook fans than do the Ravens. I apparently should have split allegiances, given that my hometown of Boston is red and my current home state of Virginia is painted purple. Good prediction, in fact—I literally do not care who wins this weekend. Good talk. Enjoy the game.

[Deadspin]
[Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective]

Clip of the Week (Gil Santos edition)

I'm going to go in a totally different direction with this week's Clip of the Week, using it as an opportunity to honor one of my favorite Boston sports figures of the past 20 years (no, not Tim Wakefield, we already took care of that one).

For those of you who don't share my Boston roots (or rooting interests), you'll probably move right along and ignore this post, and that's fine. I don't blame you. But for anyone who grew up watching the Patriots transform themselves from a laughing stock into a model franchise—something I still can't believe happened, but for which I give Drew Bledsoe and Bill Parcells a ton of credit, not to mention Bob Kraft—the unavoidable soundtrack of a million Sundays was the tandem of Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti, one of the greatest radio play-by-play pairings I've ever heard. Those two made growing up as the son of a Boston sportswriter (and thereby inheriting my Patriots fandom) significantly more enjoyable, and I can't overstate the joy I received from listening to them.

Gino retired at the beginning of this season, and Gil will retire at the conclusion of this year's playoffs. This past Sunday, during the Patriots' last regular season game, the two were re-united for one final quarter together, and the CBS national broadcast even joined the pair for a live cut-in. It was a fitting send-off for a duo that teamed up to call more than 500 games over 28 seasons, and I wanted to take a minute to pay tribute to the men who I so often listened to while watching the game on TV with the audio on mute (something I know was commonplace among Patriots fans in the good old days).

Gil was always a fair and balanced announcer, something that I think is in short supply these days. When the Patriots deserved his scorn, he was quick to deliver it—of course, those instances became increasingly less frequent as the years wore on. But at the end of the day, Gil was a Patriots fan like the rest of us in the Boston area, and he let it show for one day at least, at Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans.

For those who don't remember, the Patriots pulled off a resounding upset that day, taking down the heavily-favored St. Louis Rams (led by Marshall Faulk and Kurt Warner) on a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri. It was the first title in franchise history, and Gil's call of the final kick can still be heard today on various highlight packages and retrospectives.

To the greatest play-by-play announcer I'd ever hope to hear, this is my official "thank you" for decades of listening pleasure. Things won't be the same without you, and I'll honor you with this week's Clip of the Week—a compilation of clips from the radio call of that famous day in the Superdome eleven years ago. Here's hoping we can send you off in proper fashion a few weeks from now in the very same venue. Thanks for everything, Gil.

The problem with "most likely" outcomes (an NFL playoffs discussion)

On the final Sunday of the NFL regular season (yesterday, for those who weren't paying attention), there's always a number of moving parts as we try to figure out who is going to make the playoffs and who isn't (and also, who is going to be seeded where). Figuring it out is often a challenge, which is why it's nice to have a handy guide at your disposal to help you through the morass.

Luckily, our friends over at Deadspin were nice enough to provide just that, which was an immeasurable help to me as I sat around and rooted for the Patriots and made myself fatter (thanks to Sam Adams and some homemade lasagna). A Patriots win and a Texans loss meant that my Patriots earned themselves the #2 seed and a first-round bye, which was interestingly contrary to what Deadspin had told me to expect. To wit:

The most likely scenario [in the AFC] is that every team which has something at stake wins—they're almost invariably playing teams that don't—and thus the playoff order is exactly what you see above [Texans, Broncos, Patriots].

That line, when I first read it at 2pm or so, stuck with me as I watched the afternoon's games. What does "most likely scenario" really mean? It turns out that the way that we define our terms has an important impact on the way that we understand and respond to the world before us. That's what I'm about to explain.

Yes, it's true, in each individual game, it's "most likely" that the favorite will win—that's what being a favorite means. Therefore, when you start stringing together potential scenarios, the "most likely combination of outcomes" is, indeed, the combination in which all of the favorites win their games. But that doesn't necessarily make it the "most likely scenario"—there's a subtle but very important difference. Bear with me for a second here, because I'm about to get nerdy.

Let's start from the top here, considering a three-game sample. Let's say that each of the three top seeds coming into yesterday (Texans, Broncos, Patriots) had a 60% chance of winning their game (in the grand scheme of things in the NFL, that's a pretty high probability). To determine the likelihood of ALL THREE of them winning their games, which Deadspin said was the "most likely scenario", we just need to multiply the probabilities. In this case, 60% x 60% x 60% = 21.6% , so the likelihood of all the favorites winning was a little less than 1 in 4 odds.

There are 8 possible groupings of winners in this scenario (Texans/Broncos/Patriots would be one, Colts/Broncos/Patriots would be another, Texans/Chiefs/Dolphins a third, etc, etc, etc), and of those 8 possible groupings, the one where the favorites all win is indeed, as we said, the "most likely combination of outcomes". Here's a super-nerdy chart that shows that point, using the 60% probabilities that I used above.

When you look at it this way, you start to see that the "most likely scenario" isn't that all three teams will win, but that one of the other seven scenarios will occur (in fact, the "at least one upset" scenario is more than three times as likely here, with probability 78.4%).

Sure, any one of those individual outcomes is less likely than the individual outcome of "no upsets", but the reality of the matter is quite different. When we start to group the possible outcomes, we see things with a little bit more clarity. I think that a more realistic way of presenting the available data is the following:

Probability of exactly one upset:                       43.2% 

Probability of exactly two upsets:                     28.8%  

Probability of zero upsets:                            21.6% 

Probability of three upsets:                                6.4%

When you group the scenarios this way, you can see that all three teams doing what they're "supposed" to do is, in fact, far from the "most likely scenario" (NOTE: in order for it to become the "most likely scenario" the way I define it, the probability of each favorite winning would have to be more than 75%, as opposed to the 60% that I am using; I find 75% to be way too high for any NFL game). The statistics say that we should probably expect at least one upset, and that "exactly one upset" is the most likely scenario—which, unsurprisingly, is exactly what we ended up with.

Of course, in advance, we can't possibly know which game was likely to produce the upset, but it's almost beside the point. What we can know is that the more times we flip a coin, no matter how lopsided toward "heads" the coin may be, the more likely it becomes that it will eventually come up "tails".

Ultimately, the more independent variables (games) you start linking together, the more likely it is that your "most likely outcome" involves an upset (or a couple of upsets) somewhere along the way. In a sense, this is a similar statistical problem to the birthday problem, which I discussed here once before.

So, why does all of this matter? I'll make this part quick. Let's say you're the Broncos. You're sitting at home this week as the #1 seed, on your bye, trying to decide which team to prepare for (remember, the NFL re-seeds after the first round) while the Wild Card Weekend games are being played. With two games being played—Texans hosting Bengals, Ravens hosting Colts—there are four possible scenarios: (1) Texans and Ravens win, (2) Texans and Colts win, (3) Bengals and Ravens win, (4) Bengals and Colts win.

Assuming once again that the favorite has a 60% chance of winning, we get the following probabilities:

Texans/Ravens (Broncos play Ravens):                 36% 

Texans/Colts (Broncos play Colts):                       24% 

Bengals/Ravens (Broncos play Bengals):               24% 

Bengals/Colts (Broncos play Bengals):                  16%

So, using the same logic we used before, the most likely individual scenario is that both favorites (the Texans and Ravens) win their games, and so the Broncos should be preparing to play the Ravens next week... right?

But no, look again. Even though the "Bengals/Ravens" and "Bengals/Colts" scenarios are individually less likely than the "no upsets" scenario, they combine to be more likely. Because we've given the Bengals a 40% chance of winning their game, and because the Broncos will play the Bengals no matter what if they do indeed win, the Bengals are in fact the Broncos' most likely opponent. Sure, it's only by a small amount, but it's still relevant from a preparation standpoint—Denver should spend at least as much time watching Bengals film as Ravens film, if not more.

Any time we use statistics, we need to be careful with what we're really saying when we communicate our findings or beliefs. In the case of the Deadspin piece, the analysis in question wasn't wrong, it was simply imprecise (and possibly incomplete). When we as readers read that something is the "most likely" scenario, we're almost certainly hoping for something better than a 21.6% probability. Personally, I greatly prefer the much higher 43.2% probability that I ascribed to the "exactly one upset" scenario—I especially prefer it as a Patriots fan, whose team benefited greatly from the way things turned out on the field yesterday.

Good statistics (and good math, and good science, and good writing) requires that we be precise with our methods and our communication of our methods. If we're imprecise, we end up saying things that we don't really mean or that just aren't true.

[Deadspin]

Quote of the Week (NFL Edition)

Shortly after former NFL linebacker Junior Seau's tragic suicide in May, I published a post here regarding concussions and the NFL. In that post, I argued that most NFL players are well aware of the risks of football (not just concussions, but of injuries of all types), but that they choose to play anyway because the rewards are so large.

My argument was lent serious credence over the weekend by former running back (and one-time Patriot) Curtis Martin, who may have said more than he realized during his Hall of Fame induction speech in Canton (which, incidentally, was incredible in its candor and is definitely worth watching in its entirety). In discussing his mentor, Bill Parcells, Martin cited this line from the legendary coach:

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I've always believed one thing... You should never come out of the huddle, because you never know who's going in the huddle."
                                      - Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells, via Curtis Martin

Martin went on to describe his takeaway from Parcells' message—in the NFL, you're always replaceable. There's always some rookie somewhere who's right on your heels, itching for the opportunity to take your job (Drew Bledsoe, meet Tom Brady). Martin later admitted that nearly every year in training camp there was someone on the Jets roster who had more ability than him, but that he kept his job simply by "out-working everyone".

With all due respect to Martin's legendary work ethic, it's probably not the only reason he kept his job—a consistent willingness to shake off injuries and even concussions couldn't have hurt his case. Indeed, Martin would follow up his Parcells story by recounting a tale of having been knocked silly during one game, leaving him so dazed that he ended up inadvertently wandering into the Oakland Raiders' defensive huddle.

I wouldn't be surprised if Martin was back on the field later in that same game against the Raiders, not to mention the next week and the week after that. In fact, given his incredible durability in his career (he missed only 8 regular season games in his 11-year career, 4 of which were in his final season), I'd be almost certain that was the case.

The uncomfortable truth is that if he hadn't found a way to get back on the field, somebody else would have, and the fear of being replaced is never far from a professional athlete's mind. It's never easy to make the decision to step aside and take a few plays off, especially when in the heat of the battle. And yet, despite all of this, and knowing all of the risks inherent in football, Martin still says that he would let his own children play football, because he believes that the risks are worth the potential rewards (be they tangible or intangible).

Honestly, I find Martin's honesty in this regard to be refreshing. We all engage in behavior in our lives that is "risky", but we do it because we happen to assess the situation as "worth it", whatever the potential rewards from the situation may be. So we smoke, we drink, we eat red meat, we play the lottery, we invest in the stock market, we buy houses in Las Vegas in 2005 with interest-only mortgages, whatever. The point is, we're all adults here, and as such we're entitled to make our own decisions about which risks are and are not acceptable in our lives.

I'm fine with all of this, right up until the time that those same people try to blame others when the risks inherent in their actions blow up in their faces. Sure, the bank ripped you off, but it's your fault for not reading and understanding your mortgage documents. Yes, you have a serious brain injury, but it's your fault for rushing back onto the field when you couldn't actually see straight.

I sympathize with those players who played back before there was a full appreciation of the seriousness of brain injuries (concussions), and I certainly don't mean to be callous with respect to players like Seau and Dave Duerson, whose deaths were tragic by any definition. But we're seeing more and more athletes admitting that they know (and knew) the risks of playing through injuries, and decided that the risk of not playing was in fact greater than the risk of continuing to play. That's life in the NFL, and we fans know it just as well as the players do. As long as there's another rookie willing to step out on that field, we'll keep seeing veterans who are willing to sacrifice their health in order to keep their jobs. That's just football.

[Deadspin]

On Junior Seau and smoking

I'm still shocked by the news of Junior Seau's suicide on Wednesday. Seau was well-liked at every step of his career (this anecdote gives you a pretty good idea of why), and his premature death is an unspeakable tragedy, especially to those in his hometown of San Diego. It's even more troubling to learn that Seau followed in the lead of Dave Duerson by shooting himself in the chest, so that his brain could be studied to better learn the impact of head trauma (concussions) on long-term mental health.

Naturally, incidents like the Seau suicide tend to spur many of us into action, in hopes that we can learn some kind of lesson that will help prevent future tragedies. That reaction was evident in the following Twitter post from Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, re-tweeted by Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King:

Smith makes a fair point, but as I replied to him (and King), the information is, for the most part, there--it's just that many players choose to ignore it, because their careers often depend on such ignorance.

Concussion awareness organizations like the Sports Legacy Institute (founded by Chris Nowinski, a former pro wrestler whom I knew in college) have existed since the mid-2000s, inspired by a growing body of evidence surrounding head trauma. Their findings have clearly had an impact on the NFL, and the league has tried its best to respond to their recommendations.

To be fair to players like Seau and Smith (not to mention Duerson), their careers began and essentially ended before they could have benefited from the most recent research. But there's no excuse for current players to be engaging in this kind of behavior, given the NFL's new emphasis on preventing serious head injuries:

A four-month look at how the NFL handles concussions in a more tightly controlled environment shows that following the new rules remains extremely arbitrary. Many times, players ignore them. Sometimes, teams do. In other instances, there is a pact between the two to skirt them. 

While NFL teams have enacted smart and thorough mechanisms to help players deal with the dangers of concussions, some have found a way around them by simply waving off doctors on the hits that aren't clearly visible or where the player doesn't lose consciousness. Some are hiding concussion symptoms from doctors, players said in dozens of interviews. 

"In some cases, if you avoid the doctors, you can avoid the concussion exams," one AFC North player said, "and the doctors know you're avoiding them, but let you." 

Said one player, who is also a player representative: "The concussion rules are the best they can be. The league and the union have done a good job protecting players, but the truth remains, players are still hiding concussions, because they want to protect their careers. In some cases, teams know a player is concussed and let it go. Yes, that still happens." 

The NFL and players union might soon respond to holes in the policy by placing independent doctors on the sidelines during games, taking the decision out of the hands of the interested parties: the teams and players. But until then, some players will continue to put themselves at risk by doing whatever they can to stay on the field.

In this regard, I see significant parallels between concussions in the NFL and the smoking of cigarettes.

In this day and age, everyone knows the dangers of smoking, and everyone (at least, everyone in the NFL) knows the dangers of football and concussions. But for various reasons, people continue to light up, just like they continue to buckle up their chinstraps and take the field. Simply put, some people just don't care about the risks--they want the rewards. That's why people continue to take steroids, and it's also why people continue to invest in the stock market (though that's probably a topic best left for another day).

The only way this dynamic will change is if people stop watching football because of incidents like the Seau suicide, whether as a means of protest or simply out of disgust. Until that day comes, the rewards of an NFL career will continue to be so great (particularly for uneducated or under-educated kids from lower class families) that many players will simply overlook the risks, hoping that maybe they'll be one of the lucky ones.

Simply knowing about the risks isn't enough to prevent future tragedies like the Junior Seau story--knowing is indeed half the battle, but that still leaves the other half. We as a society need to actually respond to those risks in a way that affects future behavior. Otherwise, we'll be doomed to learn nothing from the Seau tragedy, just as many of us learned nothing from millions of smoking-related deaths around the world over the past few decades.

In a sense, maybe that's okay. NFL players are consenting adults, and if they choose to put themselves in harm's way despite knowing the risks, then that's certainly their choice. But we shouldn't pretend that they don't know better, because by now, they absolutely do. If nothing else, Junior Seau's death has at least assured us of that much. Hopefully, it will do even more.

[Twitter]
[CBS Sports]

My (completely non-standard) Super Bowl prediction

With all eyes on Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI--and my Patriots involved in the big game again--I feel the need to join the parade and weigh in with my prediction for how things will go.

Before I begin, I have to say that I've been overwhelmed by the massive amount of Giants love so far from the "experts". Yes, they've played well lately (otherwise they wouldn't be here), and yes, they present matchup problems for the Patriots in multiple regards--hence the win in the regular season (and no, Super Bowl XLII doesn't mean a thing from a matchup/prediction standpoint).

But they don't build those big buildings in Vegas by accident, and the oddsmakers still give the Pats the edge, even given the murky health of tight end Rob Gronkowski. That might have something to do with the fact that the Patriots were 13-3 in the regular season, while the Giants were 9-7 and actually got outscored by their opponents--but I digress. The point is, these teams are pretty dead even as far as matchups go, and I'm surprised to see any consensus at all among the assorted media.

Now, as you'll know if you've read me often, I have significant philosophical problems with the typical reward system surrounding punditry. Experts are rewarded for making big, bold statements at every turn, knowing that they will get tons of attention for their correct picks, but face little accountability when they are wrong. Predictions (and predictors), therefore, tend to be overly bold, overly confident, and needlessly specific and certain.

All of these dynamics are at play with the standard practice of picking not just the winner of the Super Bowl, but the exact score. I won't be doing that here. Instead, I'm going to be the stat-geekiest stat geek around, giving you a range of possible outcomes, with accompanying probabilities. Hooray! Math fun for everyone! And because I'm not actually making a real pick, I can't possibly be wrong! Alright, fine, I'll make a standard pick at the end, just for kicks, because I know you want it. But I'm not happy about it.

Now... let's get to it. I'm presenting you with three potential game scenarios: The Shootout, The Slugfest, and The Blowout. For each scenario, I'll give you both the probability of that type of game happening, and the conditional probability of each team winning if that scenario develops. Make sense? Alright, cool.

Game Scenario #1: The Shootout (Probability: 55%)  

Recent Super Bowl examples: Super Bowl XLV, Super Bowl XXXVIII, Super Bowl XXXII

Neither of these teams has a particularly great defense. The Giants and Patriots allowed the 27th-most and 31st-most yards of any team in the league this year, respectively, and neither was in the top half of the league in terms of points allowed (the Giants were actually statistically worse than the Patriots, allowing 25 points per game vs. New England's 21.4). Furthermore, both offenses were quite explosive, with Tom Brady and Eli Manning both finishing in the top 5 in the NFL in passing yards.

Therefore, "The Shootout" is far and away the most likely game scenario to develop in Super Bowl XLVI. Picture both teams scoring over 24 points, with the winner posting at least 30. Who has the edge in this scenario? The statistics say the Patriots, despite their shaky secondary. That's mostly because of Brady, who has a higher completion percentage, more touchdown passes, and fewer interceptions this year (and for his career) than Manning.

In games this year where both teams scored at least 24 points, the Patriots were 4-1, while the Giants were just 3-3. Simply put, this year's Patriots are designed to win this type of game. Their edge isn't overwhelming here, but it's significant. In a shootout, the better quarterback usually wins, and Eli is still no Tom Brady.

Edge: Patriots (60% to 40%)

Game Scenario #2: The Slugfest (Probability: 30%)

Recent Super Bowl examples: Super Bowl XLII, Super Bowl XL, Super Bowl XXXVI

This scenario is essentially the opposite of The Shootout, and it would be a repeat of the last time these two teams met in the Super Bowl--a 17-14 Giants victory. Picture both teams scoring fewer than 20 points, and a few big plays (think: helmet catch) making the difference.

Despite the limitations of both defenses, this scenario isn't terribly unlikely. Both defenses have their strengths--generally speaking, it's the Giants' pass rush and the Patriots' ability to force turnovers--and those strengths have shown themselves at various times in the playoffs. Neither defense has allowed more than 20 points in a game so far this postseason (the Giants have allowed an average of 13 per game, the Patriots have allowed 15), and the defenses have combined for 17 sacks and 8 turnovers in the playoffs.

Ultimately, though, this kind of game has to favor the Giants. The Patriots are at their best when they're playing a wide-open game, and they certainly don't want to have to rely on their defense to make stops if they can avoid it. That worked against the Ravens, but barely. It's unlikely to happen again, and the Patriots will need to avoid the turnovers that plagued them in the AFC Championship.

Edge: Giants (70% to 30%)

Game Scenario #3: The Blowout (Probability: 15%) 

Recent Super Bowl examples: Super Bowl XXXVII, Super Bowl XXXV, Super Bowl XXIX

Ah, yes. The Super Bowl blowout. It's been so long since we've had one of these that we've almost forgotten that they were a mainstay of our childhood (assuming that we grew up in the '80s and '90s). Beginning with Super Bowl XV in 1981, 12 of the next 19 Super Bowls were decided by two touchdowns or more, and several of those were severely lopsided affairs (seven were 20+ point blowouts, of which four were 30+ point routs).

Those games have gladly become a thing of the past--seven of the last twelve Super Bowls have been decided by a touchdown or less, and there hasn't been a true "blowout" since the Buccaneers' Super Bowl XXXVII rout nine years ago. But there's still a chance of the blowout returning, even if it's the least likely of the three game scenarios.

But if the blowout does rear its ugly head again, chances favor the Patriots--by a wide margin. Since Tom Brady took over as Patriots quarterback in 2001, no team has won more games or lost fewer games by two touchdowns or more. The Patriots are 61-14 in those types of games (in the regular season; they're an additional 5-2 in the postseason), good for a staggering 81% winning percentage. No other team in the league comes close, and this disparity is a big part of the reason that the Patriots have been so dominant for the last decade--the Patriots rarely get run off the field, so they've pretty much always got a chance.

The Giants, for their part, are an even 33-33 in blowout games over the same span (plus 2-1 in the postseason), and they're only 10-10 over the last three seasons, during which the Patriots have gone a staggering 19-3. The only good news for the Giants is that their two postseason blowout wins have both come in the last month, over the Falcons and the Packers. But history indicates that a third such win is highly unlikely. If the Super Bowl rout returns, chances are it'll be Brady & Belichick who bring it back.

Edge: Patriots (80% to 20%)

So what do you get when you put it all together? Well, an awesome little stat geek matrix, that's what! 

For the record, then, the most likely outcome (of the 6 possible) is a Patriots win in a Shootout, with the Patriots also holding the overall edge. Interestingly, though, the 2nd and 3rd most likely scenarios are both Giants victories--in a Shootout and in a Slugfest, respectively. The take-home lesson is that if the Patriots can avoid a Slugfest--something they were unable to do in Super Bowl XLII--they've got a great chance at winning this game.

Okay, since you made me do it, here's my "standard" pick. My matrix, which is mathematically proven to never be wrong, tells me that a Patriots Shootout win is the most likely, so that's what I'm going with. I have 33% certainty that my pick is correct.

The Crimson Cavalier's needlessly precise, certain-to-be-wrong Super Bowl prediction

Patriots 34, Giants 24

With Gronkowski playing but limited, Brady is forced to use his secondary targets more frequently. He does so very effectively, as both Chad Ochocinco and Kevin Faulk haul in touchdown passes. Wes Welker and BenJarvus Green-Ellis contribute the other touchdowns for the Pats, as New England's offensive line does an admirable job of controlling the Giants' pass rush.

Meanwhile, with the Patriots employing bracket coverage on Victor Cruz for much of the game, Manning must also look to his secondary options for production. He is similarly effective, with Jake Ballard and Ahmad Bradshaw making big contributions in the passing game. A slick receiving touchdown from Bradshaw keeps the Giants close, and they have a chance to tie the game in the late stages. 

Trailing 31-24 with under four minutes to play and the ball in Patriots territory, Manning chooses a bad time to throw his first interception of the day--he tries to force a ball to Cruz in the slot, and Julian Edelman comes up with the crucial pick. A screen pass to Aaron Hernandez brings the ball into Giants territory, where a Stephen Gostkowski field goal gives the Patriots the clinching points.

There. Now that you know what won't happen, you can go ahead and enjoy the game. Do I get to be on ESPN now?

Song of the Week(end)

Ten years ago today, the Patriots stunned the sports world with an incredibly unexpected Super Bowl win over the heavily-favored St. Louis Rams. Their win of course sparked a decade of unprecedented success for Boston-area sports teams, and I'll always remember that day fondly.

My brother was in the building (the Superdome) for that win, and I'll always remember him calling me at halftime, with the U2 halftime show blaring in the background. With the Pats gearing up for another Super Bowl appearance this weekend, there's no more appropriate time to throw it back to '02, and that U2 performance. It still gives me chills.

Song of the Week(end)

No, folks, I haven't forgotten about Song of the Week(end) already. I just thought I'd leave it till the end of the day today. It's Friday, the Pats are on tomorrow night (I might've mentioned that already), and I've got the Dropkicks stuck in my head. This song may be taking on a bit of a different meaning up in Boston now that Papelbon's left town, but it still kicks ass and gets me fired up for some hometown sports action.



While we're at it... let's bring things full circle. Pats. Dropkick. Let's do this.

When statistics lie (NFL edition)

One of the primary reasons I started this blog back in 2010 was to shed light on some of the statistical tricks that politicians, corporate executives, and talking heads use (and misuse) so as to confuse, mislead, and otherwise divide the general population. There's any number of tricks that these individuals will use, but almost all of them rely on the same basic dynamic--highlighting one piece of data while ignoring or obfuscating another that would allow for a more complete and realistic picture. It's basic hand-waving misdirection that would make any amateur magician proud.

To see how widespread these statistical games have become, note that I've previously highlighted this dynamic with respect to cancer, budget deficits, oil prices, student loan debt, tennis, Rick Perry, apple juice, education, airlines, and investing. I've also poked fun at the issue here and here. Simply put, given the nature of the public discourse these days, I don't think you can be an informed person (or make good decisions) unless you fully understand statistics and the way that they can be manipulated. The most recent example of this is the GAO's recent takedown of the Obama administration's claim that TARP made money--in a nutshell, the claim is technically true, but only if you ignore a lot of other things that are also true. Pretty standard statistic-manipulating stuff.

With the NFL Playoffs continuing this weekend with a big game between the Patriots and Broncos, a couple of sports journalists have taken a few liberties with a similar statistic, one that allegedly speaks volumes about the Patriots. Here's the statistic, courtesy of SI's Kerry Byrne:

If there's a legitimate statistical and historical reason to doubt the validity of New England's No. 1 seed and 13-3 record, it's the fact that they faced one cream puff after another -- and then lost each time they faced something close to the iron of the NFL. New England did not beat a single team with a winning record in the 2011 season.

We track something over at Cold, Hard Football Facts.com called Quality Standings -- how well you perform against Quality Teams, or teams with winning records. It's an effective way to separate the contending wheat from the pretending chaff each NFL season. Super Bowl champs typically prove along the way that they can consistently beat Quality Opponents. And that historic fact is not good news for the Patriots.

Not only did they face fewer Quality Opponents than any team in football this year (two), but also they lost to both of them (Steelers, Giants). Would the Patriots have gone 13-3 had they faced eight Quality Opponents like the lowly 2-14 Rams? What if they faced the league-high 10 Quality Opponents who made the Peyton Manning-less season in Indianapolis such a daunting challenge?

Cool. Great statistic, right? The Patriots, as it turns out, didn't beat a "quality opponent" all year. The problem is, the meaningfulness of this statistic depends 100% on a completely arbitrary definition of what comprises a "quality opponent".

A deeper look at the Patriots' 2011 schedule reveals that Brady & Co. ended the season with a staggering 7 wins (and no losses) against teams that finished the season 8-8--including their next opponent, the Broncos. Not a single one of these six teams (the Pats played and won two games against the 8-8 Jets) counts as a "quality opponent", so the Patriots get no credit for the victories, despite the fact that every one of them had a winning record in games not played against the Patriots.

Of course, had the Patriots instead lost each of those 7 games against teams that finished 8-8, those teams would have finished at least 9-7, and therefore the Patriots would have finished 0-9 against "quality opponents". If a team is only a "quality opponent" if you lost the game, but not if you won the game, then clearly there's a problem with your definition of "quality opponent".

A closer look at the Gang of Six reveals that three of them (Chargers, Jets, Eagles) were preseason favorites to reach the Super Bowl, and that nearly all of them could have reached the playoffs had they in fact beaten the Patriots--one of them, the Broncos, made it (and won their first-round game--ironically defeating the "quality opponent" Steelers) despite their loss. It seems far-fetched and dishonest to refer to none of these teams as "quality opponents", because the statistic itself is self-referential and relies on circular references.

Ultimately, this is just another example of the way that people misuse statistics to show a slightly skewed version of the world. In this case, the authors are hoping that you won't notice the weird statistical anomaly that defined the Patriots' 2011 schedule. In the case of TARP, the Obama administration is hoping that you won't notice that the "profitability" of TARP depends entirely on the massive expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet (the so-called "money printing" you've been hearing so much about).

It is exceedingly rare that the truth of the world can be easily distilled into one catch-all statistic, but that doesn't keep our favorite talking heads from trying. It's our job to know when they're telling the truth, and when they're using smoke and mirrors. More often than not, it's the latter. Go Pats.

[SI]

On multiple moving variables

In complex systems with multiple changing variables, it's often difficult to determine which variable is producing which outcome--or which interactions are working together in which ways. It's in large part what makes solving our economic problems so difficult, and it's a dynamic that I first explored in this post. As I wrote then,

I'm often writing here about the perils of bad science, and bad statistics, and how people try to draw conclusions from data that is inherently biased (or at least not properly controlled). In complex systems (and almost everything in human interaction is a complex system), it is almost impossible to reliably isolate and determine the impact of just one variable--but that never stops people from trying...

[In] any system with that many moving parts, it's absolutely impossible to know which one of them is having a positive impact, negative impact, or no impact on the overall outcomes. Remember that next time you see a politician trying to take credit for the supposed successes of "his" policy (or, in the case of Ben Bernanke, simultaneously taking credit and blame-shifting)--there's simply no way of knowing what's helping and what's hurting when we can't isolate just one variable.

So what brings me to revisit this dynamic today? Not the economy (for once), but the NFL. As we prepare for the first weekend of the football playoffs (Wild Card weekend, which hopefully won't be as big a letdown as Week 17), we're all still basking in the glow of a record-setting season. Both Drew Brees and Tom Brady broke Dan Marino's long-standing single-season passing record (and Matt Stafford and Eli Manning weren't far behind), leading to countless columns trying to discuss the record's significance and the reasons that led to its sudden shattering.

Many of the explanations correctly focused on a series of league rule changes meant both to protect players and to open up the passing game--the illegal contact penalty, the "Brady rule", and most recently the renewed emphasis on "helmet to helmet" hits on defenseless wide receivers. All of these--in addition to even wider usage of artificial turf and domed stadiums, and even a mild winter so far--helped to push passing numbers higher across the board.

But throughout all of this, one of the simplest variables has largely been ignored, and it's a variable that could easily help explain why this year, of all years, saw multiple quarterbacks take down the record. Let's turn things over to ESPN for a minute.

Before the NFL season, one of the rule changes that received the most discussion was how moving kickoffs up five yards to the 35-yard line would affect the return game...

Did the rule change deprive fans of excitement? From a numbers standpoint, the answer is yes. Nine kickoffs were returned for a touchdown in 2011, compared to 23 in 2010...

The change becomes glaringly obvious when looking at average starting field position. The average drive after a kickoff started just past the 22-yard line, down almost five yards from the previous year.

With each team averaging 189 possessions this season, that adds up to an additional 888 possible yards per team, which may account for part of the offensive boom in 2011.

Now, just because there are 888 yards "available" to be gained certainly doesn't mean that teams are going to gain them. But when you're talking about some of the more powerful offenses in the game, backed up closer to their own endzones, it's a pretty fair bet they're going to come out throwing. Even if we only give these QBs credit for 300 or 400 of that 888 yard figure, that's enough to bring both Brady and Brees back to even with (or slightly below) Marino's record figure. And yet, this ESPN article is the first time I've heard that statistic mentioned, with most people electing to focus more on the "helmet to helmet" rule.

Realistically, neither rule change can be given 100% credit for having spurred this offensive explosion, but similarly neither can be ignored. In a complex system with several moving variables, it's the interaction among all of them that leads to the outcome we observe. Are Brees and Brady's feats any less laudable just because there were a couple of rule changes? Not really. But when we're dealing with small margins between "record" and "not a record", every little bit counts.

This year, the kick returners' loss was the quarterbacks' gain--but that's not the story you'll end up hearing most often. The lesson, as always, is beware of the popular story--it's almost always too simple to actually be correct.

[ESPN]

Clip of the Week

Well, last week we didn't have a whole lot of options for Clip of the Week, so I recycled an old NFL clip. This week was a different story.

First of all, we had a bunch of entertaining clips from random sources, like this one (good if you like cats), this one (good if you like monkeys), and this one (good if you like surfing and/or Kelly Slater). But it was in the world of sports that this week really delivered the goods.

If you hate soccer (or at least hate lame European soccer players who take dives all day long), you'll appreciate this clip. Hell, I like soccer and I even get a kick out of that one. There's also this clip of a guy making an insane catch of a foul ball at a Rangers game (yeah, I know, old guys shouldn't bring their gloves to the park, but whatever--great snag).

And while we're on the topic of great catches and baseball, there's no way I can overlook this clip of the Indians' Shelley Duncan making three consecutive amazing leaping catches--it's impressive to make three catches like that in one week, let alone three batters. The look on his face after the third one is priceless.

But last week I promised NFL highlights from Week 1, and I'm a man of my word. Besides, how can I overlook my hometown team pulling off the kind of play that only happens once or twice in a decade? That's right, I'm talking about Tom Brady, Wes Welker, and 99.5 yards of awesomeness. Go Pats.