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NFL Football 2010/2011 Season

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63dot said:
Who did you think was going to win that game and why?
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I will answer ;)

I thought Green Bay would win, even though I obviously wanted the Falcons to
In fact, I turned the game off at 14-14 and went to bed knowing that the Falcons were about to be torched

Atlanta's offense is built to protect their defense
They keep the ball in time of possession, long drives, no penalties or turnovers
That's how they win, because if they don't, the defense gets exposed

ATL can't handle too many 3 and outs, because if they do, they will be behind quick

Green Bay's defense took ATL's offense out of the game
When they did, the ATL defense was "defenseless"
 
einmusiker said:
I knew GB was going to win because of how well the defense has been playing and the offense finally coming together after facing so much early season adversity. you're a numbers guy right? rodgers numbers says it all and now that they have a fairly legitimate running game in starks anything can happen.

I think chicago is going to come to play just because this is such a historic rivalry. Oldest and most fierce in the NFL that goes back even way before Lombardi (you know, the guy the super bowl trophy is named after?) :p

anyway, as I've said all along, all this postulating and opinion making over who will win is obviously pointless, albeit a fun exercise :p
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The pointless part of postulating is fun, and it's a part of being a numbers person.

When I wasn't a numbers guy I would win on scratchers and slots. But after some basic understanding (and I mean basic) in grad school on game theory, I have just lost and lost. I used to play by a gut feeling but now I use probability. Other students I know also have done better on a gut feeling vs. just running numbers.

When there is a team several standard deviations from winning, it doesn't mean it won't happen but that's it's more unlikely. A team could be down 28 points in the 4th quarter, and while it's not likely the other team can come back, this scenario has actually happened. A QB who threw more picks than TDs in the regular season when his team got into the playoffs won't likely hold up the Lombardi Trophy if he is the starter. But enter Big Ben.

It doesn't matter if there is a 99.7% percent chance of something happening, because unless it happens, then it's just odds.

My friend used to play scratchers and lotto, and when he didn't know anything, he won $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000 playing six tickets a week for several years. I don't know how he is doing after I gave him my textbook. ;)
 
63dot said:
The pointless part of postulating is fun, and it's a part of being a numbers person.

When I wasn't a numbers guy I would win on scratchers and slots. But after some basic understanding (and I mean basic) in grad school on game theory, I have just lost and lost. I used to play by a gut feeling but now I use probability.

When there is a team several standard deviations from winning, it doesn't mean it won't happen but that's it's more unlikely. A team could be down 28 points in the 4th quarter, and while it's not likely the other team can come back, this scenario has actually happened. A QB who threw more picks in the regular season when his team got into the playoffs won't likely hold up the Lombardi Trophy if he is the starter. But enter Big Ben.

It doesn't matter if there is a 99.7% percent chance of something happening, because unless it happens, then it's just odds.

My friend used to play scratchers and lotto, and when he didn't know anything, he won $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000 playing six tickets a week for several years. I don't know how he is doing after I gave him my textbook.
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While writing my dissertation I made a large-scale tactical decision to switch my focus from quantitative data to empirical. My life is so much easier now ;)

Yes a fun part of following sports is stats, and I think they are much more relevent in baseball over football. Football doesn't follow the rule of statistics very closely at all because of all the variables involved with injuries and lose-and-you're-out situations and just gameday occurrences. Stats work just fine over a 182 game season.... football not so much. sorry bro :p
 
einmusiker said:
While writing my dissertation I made a large-scale tactical decision to switch my focus from quantitative data to empirical. My life is so much easier now ;)

Yes a fun part of following sports is stats, and I think they are much more relevent in baseball over football. Football doesn't follow the rule of statistics very closely at all because of all the variables involved with injuries and lose-and-you're-out situations and just gameday occurrences. Stats work just fine over a 182 game season.... football not so much. sorry bro :p
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Exactly, and that's why Seattle actually had a good chance at going all the way. If they had to win a 7 game series, then it's more unlikely.

Baseball has more factors, but what football has is a much shorter season allowing for the possibility of a team with a very bad record to win the Super Bowl. Just look at how many pitchers a team could use on their starting lineup in a season and how different each pitcher can be. Things became very interesting when the changeup was used in pitching leading to some really crazy outcomes.
 
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63dot said:
Exactly, and that's why Seattle actually had a good chance at going all the way. If they had to win a 7 game series, then it's more unlikely.
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The odds of Seattle winning the SB were higher than the Mega Millions lotto :cool:

billions to 1 :D
 
einmusiker said:
oops misread that :p thought he said more likely :rolleyes:
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I sent you a PM. :)

Anyway, I know Seattle had a better chance than a Super Lotto win, but for some reason when I hear about a fairly big winner that I know (happened twice in my state with one person I knew well and the other a local lady I only saw but never spoke with), something seems much stranger about Seattle winning than somebody hitting six numbers.

In both cases the jackpots were between 10 and 20 million somewhere, and it wasn't one of the really big ones. The most I won recently on a scratcher was $17 bucks. It shocks me when I win, but not so much when somebody I see who plays regularly win a much bigger amount.

If Seattle won the SB, I would be very happy for them in that I feel like a 7-9 team every time I buy a scratcher or play some form of lotto like Super Lotto or Megamillions. ;)
 
63dot said:
I sent you a PM. :)

Anyway, I know Seattle had a better chance than a Super Lotto win, but for some reason when I hear about a fairly big winner that I know (happened twice in my state with one person I knew well and the other a local lady I only saw but never spoke with), something seems much stranger about Seattle winning than somebody hitting six numbers.

In both cases the jackpots were between 10 and 20 million somewhere, and it wasn't one of the really big ones. The most I won recently on a scratcher was $17 bucks. It shocks me when I win, but not so much when somebody I see who plays regularly win a much bigger amount.

If Seattle won the SB, I would be very happy for them in that I feel like a 7-9 team every time I buy a scratcher or play some form of lotto like Super Lotto or Megamillions. ;)
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lolz, I'm actually starting to enjoy your posts man. and where's the logic in that??? :p
 
einmusiker said:
lolz, I'm actually starting to enjoy your posts man. and where's the logic in that??? :p
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Logic is easy when it's looking at numbers so that's why I pick a team like Indy or NE over Detroit on most years, but when I buy a ticket, I always feel like a loser.

Everyone I know has done better than me. If a person is to buy six scratchers in a row, and not win, it's always me. I also know what it feels like to be like Tom Brady and then completely laying an egg. I could have every number on my side, and I almost always blow it. Before I knew a thing about numbers, I did very well in both games like poker and game of chance, too. But today, I suck at them all. :)

If I was the coach of NE and I went 23-0 over two years and had to play a team that was 0-16, I would find a way to lose. Call it bad luck, who knows. There are certainly faults in the 1 thru 6 way of picking teams for playoffs, which everybody went over, but I do think it's a fairly rare thing to see two #6 teams go to the SB. Macdawg may know, but has this ever happened? We are one Sunday from this actually being a possibility. Not only a wild card vs. a wild card, but a #6 vs. a #6.

That being said, neither #6 is a Seattle, but that's just the system we have since Seattle did win their division.

Why not have to top six seeds come in as the top six teams by record in each conference? ... just a thought and not having Seattle host a wild card game (and in this years case, not going to the postseason.
 
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63dot said:
Logic is easy when it's looking at numbers so that's why I pick a team like Indy or NE over Detroit on most years, but when I buy a ticket, I always feel like a loser.

Everyone I know has done better than me. If a person is to buy six scratchers in a row, and not win, it's always me. I also know what it feels like to be like Tom Brady and then completely laying an egg. I could have every number on my side, and I almost always blow it. Before I knew a thing about numbers, I did very well in both games like poker and game of chance, too. But today, I suck at them all. :)

If I was the coach of NE and I went 23-0 over two years and had to play a team that was 0-16, I would find a way to lose. Call it bad luck, who knows. There are certainly faults in the 1 thru 6 way of picking teams for playoffs, which everybody went over, but I do think it's a fairly rare thing to see two #6 teams go to the SB. Macdawg may know, but has this ever happened? We are one Sunday from this actually being a possibility. Not only a wild card vs. a wild card, but a #6 vs. a #6.

That being said, neither #6 is a Seattle, but that's just the system we have since Seattle did win their division.

Why not have to top six seeds come in as the top six teams by record in each conference? ... just a thought and not having Seattle host a wild card game (and in this years case, not going to the postseason.
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I would say that's more like Murphy's Law :p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy's_law
 
einmusiker said:
I would say that's more like Murphy's Law :p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy's_law
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I think that defines me, around the time I did certain things like grad school, getting a new car, and getting married. All those things were good, but everywhere my life could have fallen apart in other areas, it did. Money, housing, employment, health, etc...(like a country song).

Not quite Murphy's law since the first few things were and are still good, but I certainly had a downturn in the late 1990s that was hard to explain in so many areas of my life. If it means being terrible about predicting sports teams where I was once pretty good/lucky, then so be it. ;)


Since that late-1990s, it's almost as if I make a pick, then it's pretty safe to go another way. My pick, SB is Chicago vs. Steelers (the higher seeds) in a low scoring game with Steelers winning, 17-10.

I think people who are generally pretty good about picking a team(s) before the season starts had a few statistical outliers they didn't expect to happen:

1) The complete meltdown of Brett Favre's career after a very good 2009
2) The Patriots showing a good regular season with so many newcomers and thus a lot of likely errors and rebuilding issues which didn't happen
3) The Patriots and Falcons, who both would go on to get home field advantage, lose in their first playoff appearances this year

and the biggest shocker

4) A 7-9 team winning a division (a football first)
 
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I for one do not care who makes it to the super bowl this year. My team sucked all year (Cowboys)! :mad:

Either way I'm watching the game outdoors, in the middle of the ocean, on a big screen, on my cruise. :p
 
sorry to hear of your troubles mate, but there's always time for things to get worse :p

63dot said:
I think that defines me, around the time I did certain things like grad school, getting a new car, and getting married. All those things were good, but everywhere my life could have fallen apart in other areas, it did. Money, housing, employment, health, etc...(like a country song).

Not quite Murphy's law since the first few things were and are still good, but I certainly had a downturn in the late 1990s that was hard to explain in so many areas of my life. If it means being terrible about predicting sports teams where I was once pretty good/lucky, then so be it. ;)


Since that late-1990s, it's almost as if I make a pick, then it's pretty safe to go another way. My pick, SB is Chicago vs. Steelers (the higher seeds) in a low scoring game with Steelers winning, 17-10.

I think people who are generally pretty good about picking a team(s) before the season starts had a few statistical outliers they didn't expect to happen:

1) The complete meltdown of Brett Favre's career after a very good 2009
2) The Patriots showing a good regular season with so many newcomers and thus a lot of likely errors and rebuilding issues which didn't happen
3) The Patriots and Falcons, who both would go on to get home field advantage, lose in their first playoff appearances this year

and the biggest shocker

4) A 7-9 team winning a division (a football first)
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I definitely predicted Favre's crap year, but I also thought he would do terribly last year ( I did predict the playoff ending interception though)

I predicted both the pats and falcons to lose in the playoffs, but did not predict the seahawks to make it
 
einmusiker said:
sorry to hear of your troubles mate, but there's always time for things to get worse :p



I definitely predicted Favre's crap year, but I also thought he would do terribly last year ( I did predict the playoff ending interception though)

I predicted both the pats and falcons to lose in the playoffs, but did not predict the seahawks to make it
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Vegas odds had Seattle at 100/1. I would say it would be very nice to have a $10K payoff on a $100 dollar bet had it happened. Even putting money on them to get past the first round probably had a nice payoff.

If you did predict Seattle, then if I were you I would contact someone in Vegas, or Wall Street to give you a job ASAP, and you can call your own salary. I wonder if somebody on these forums within all these posts called Seattle getting in, and on their mediocre record? ;)

OK, I will make a stupid prediction, based on absolutely nothing tangible, and see if it sticks. The SF 49ers will meet the Oakland Raiders in a Super Bowl within two years. There, I said it.
 With every indication saying I should stick to teams like the Pats, Jets, Falcons, Green Bay, etc, it is a very bold (and stupid) pick to go with SF and/or Oakland in SB in two years, and insane to say both will be there at the same time.
 
63dot said:
Vegas odds had Seattle at 100/1. I would say it would be very nice to have a $10K payoff on a $100 dollar bet had it happened. Even putting money on them to get past the first round probably had a nice payoff.

If you did predict Seattle, then if I were you I would contact someone in Vegas, or Wall Street to give you a job ASAP, and you can call your own salary. I wonder if somebody on these forums within all these posts called Seattle getting in, and on their mediocre record? ;)

OK, I will make a stupid prediction, based on absolutely nothing tangible, and see if it sticks. The SF 49ers will meet the Oakland Raiders in a Super Bowl within two years. There, I said it.
 With every indication saying I should stick to teams like the Pats, Jets, Falcons, Green Bay, etc, it is a very bold (and stupid) pick to go with SF and/or Oakland in SB in two years, and insane to say both will be there at the same time.
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Boy we need to book mark this post and come back in two years just to point out how wrong you were! :D

All right people....... Who are is everybody taking:

Jets and Green Bay for me.......
 
rhett7660 said:
Boy we need to book mark this post and come back in two years just to point out how wrong you were! :D

All right people....... Who are is everybody taking:

Jets and Green Bay for me.......
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I picked those two thinking it the most unlikely scenario possible, so I will bookmark it...done.:D
 
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