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Interesting Take on Playoff Records for Coaches - PalmBeachPost

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by Galant, Jan 3, 2017.

  1. Galant

    Galant Love - Unity - Sacrifice - Eternity

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    Dave George over at PBP wrote this piece (LINK) with an interesting question about HC's and their playoff records/performances.

    "For all of his success as the NFL’s winningest coach, Don Shula’s overall record in the playoffs was barely above .500 at 19-17, and that’s with Hall of Famers Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese and Dan Marino at quarterback for most of those games...

    What we’re trying to say here, and what every Dolphins fan should understand, is that the playoffs are an exceedingly cruel and unpredictable environment, and that goes for everybody.

    Adam Gase will try to communicate that to the Dolphins this week as they prepare to face Pittsburgh in Miami’s first playoff game since 2008. Some things, however, just have to be experienced to be believed.

    “It’s another level,” Gase said Monday. “They’ll know it. They’ll know it when they hit the field. Trust me. “ ...

    Consider how much Gase already has seen in his NFL career.

    A playoff win in overtime with Tim Tebow, back when Gase was the Broncos’ quarterbacks coach. Two sudden dead ends when Peyton Manning was quarterbacking the Broncos but they lost their opening playoff game just the same.

    Or how about 2013, the first of two seasons for Gase directly collaborating with Peyton on play-calling? Denver rolled all the way to the Super Bowl that year with the league’s No. 1 offense in all the big categories only to get smashed 43-8 by Seattle...

    On the other sideline Sunday at Heinz Field will be Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. He’s taken Pittsburgh to a couple of Super Bowls, sure, and won one at the age of 36, but overall Tomlin is 6-5 in postseason games. What’s more, half of his playoff teams have lost their opening game.

    It’s another level, all right, and with confidence levels rising and falling with each crucial snap. No reason Miami should be counted out of anything, whether there’s a ton of playoff experience on the roster or not..."

    Good reminder, but to me that's just as much reason to temper excitement as to raise it. That is, to count the Dolphins neither in nor out. We'll just have to wait and see.
     
  2. dolfan7171

    dolfan7171 Well-Known Member

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    So that means we're going to win the Super Bowl right?...

    Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
     
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  3. Dorfdad

    Dorfdad Well-Known Member

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    Except everyone is hurt on our team. Were bringing scabs into the playoffs.
     
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  4. gunn34

    gunn34 I miss Don & Dan

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    Who has a better chance....us or Houston?
     
  5. Finster

    Finster Finsterious Finologist

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    I'd say Hou, just based on D, and of course no Carr.

    We are walking into a bit of a buzz saw here, the Steelers haven't lost a game in about 2 months, the last lost was Nov 13 in a shootout with Dal, 35-30.

    What's left of our crappy LBs vs Bell?

    Whats left of our crappy secondary vs AB and Ben?

    MM will have to play lights out for us to win, but I do think he does give us our best chance.
     
  6. Vinny Fins

    Vinny Fins Feisty Brooklyn dolfan ️‍

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    If Tannehill is healthy he gives us a better chance as he is more accurate
     
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  7. Surfs Up 99

    Surfs Up 99 Team Flores & Team Tua

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    Thanks for posting that! Anything can happen, but hopefully it will temper everyone's expectations.
     
  8. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    People love pulling out playoff stats and talking about how it's a different game. I have one question for them though- how often does the favorite on January 1st win the Super Bowl?

    The answer is almost never. It's anybody's game.
     
  9. Finster

    Finster Finsterious Finologist

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    I agree with the first part, but not so much the 2nd, because the teams you know aren't going to win the SB always get bounced, and almost always it's 2 of the 4 best teams in league playing for the hardware.
     
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  10. Fin-O

    Fin-O Initiated Club Member

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    And almost always with the best QBs.

    Brady Ben Manning, Brady Ben Manning


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  11. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Not sure who the favorite each year was, but the 1st seed in each conference has a HUGE statistical advantage in winning the SB. Since 1975 when the NFL instituted home field advantage in the playoffs the 1st seed in the NFC has won the SB 15 times and the 1st seed in the AFC has won it 8 times (and the last 3 SB's a 1st seed has won it).

    That means out of 41 seasons 23 of those seasons a 1st seed has won the SB, or 56%. Second seed is worse but decent: 4 each for AFC and NFC, meaning that a 3rd-6th seed in either conference wins it only 1 out of 4 times.

    As far as our situation.. only once has a 6th seed in the AFC won the SB: Pitt in 2005. Oh.. and interestingly, never has a 5th seed in the AFC won the SB.
     
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  12. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Think about what you're saying though- one of the TOP TWO favorites will win 56% of the time. The TOP TWO favorites will lose 44% of the time...which means the 3rd best team or lower ends up winning it all four out of ten. And in the AFC, that projected "best team" wins the Super Bowl 8 out of 41 attempts....which rounds out to about 19%.

    In other words, there's a 19% baseline chance the Pats win the Super Bowl this year. There's an 81% chance that one of the other 11 teams wins it. The numbers are nowhere as dominant as people make them out to be condemning the lower seeds.
     
  13. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    I don't know which people you're talking about (not saying they don't exist).. all I can say is I personally thought 1st seeds (top 2 teams) would win much less than 56%.

    My reasoning was this: in the playoffs I thought teams were more evenly matched, meaning that the probability a 1st seed would win the SB would be closer to random chance (= 1/8 probability for 3 wins in a row = 12.5%) than it actually is. So random chance would have predicted the top 2 seeds would win 25% of the SB's. I thought maybe the actual figure was 30% or even 35% but 56%???

    Can't speak for anyone else but that is way above expected. Also, it was way below expected that an AFC 5th or 6th seed won it only once in 41 years.

    So I guess it's all relative to expectations.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2017
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  14. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    If we look at it your way, and break the other teams down in the same way, that means they have about a 7% chance of winning. The 1st seed is almost 3x more likely to win it than any of the other 11 teams. I'd much rather be the 1st seed...
     
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  15. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Not just 1st seed.. 1st seed specifically in the AFC. In the NFC breaking it down that way leads to over 6x the probability.

    In any case, if one is going only by those historical numbers, we can say the Patriots as AFC 1st seed are 8x more likely to win the SB than we are.
     
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  16. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    btw.. just for reference, here's the entire list of the number of teams based on seed that won the SB since 1975 where "A" refers to AFC and "N" refers to NFC.. numbers after A and N are seeds:

    A1 = 8
    A2 = 4
    A3 = 1
    A4 = 4
    A5 = 0
    A6 = 1

    N1 = 15
    N2 = 4
    N3 = 1
    N4 = 1
    N5 = 1
    N6 = 1

    .. really weird how that AFC 4th seed has so many SB wins eh?
     
  17. Jt0323

    Jt0323 Fins Up! Luxury Box

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    Good news is, Gase never lost a playoff game as head coach!
     
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  18. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Okay, and if history can be trusted, then the Miami Dolphins have around a 7% chance to win the Super Bowl. That's infinitely better than every season since 2002...that was my only point.
     
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  19. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    You mean 1/41 = 2.5%. That 7% figure assumes all other teams except the AFC 1st seed have equal chances of winning the SB which historically speaking isn't true.

    Nevertheless, I think one can make your argument stronger by just looking at the salary cap era. As you might expect the #1 seed shouldn't be as dominant in the salary cap era and that's what you see from 1994:

    A1 = 4
    A2 = 3
    A3 = 1
    A4 = 3
    A5 = 0
    A6 = 1

    N1 = 6
    N2 = 1
    N3 = 0
    N4 = 1
    N5 = 1
    N6 = 1

    #1 seeds have won 10/22 = 45% of the SB's since 1994, instead of 13/19 = 68% before the salary cap era (from 1975). And the #6 AFC seed would have a probability of 1/22 = 4.5%. Then one might also note that while the salary cap era started in 1994 teams didn't suddenly change overnight in strength, which is why a #1 seed won the SB in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999 (so 5 out of first 6 years after the salary cap started). So there are good reasons to think the probability of us winning the SB based solely on history is more like 5% or so instead of 2.5%.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2017
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  20. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    curious, what's his record as OC with teams vs NE?
     
  21. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    Back in the day, roulette tables at Vegas casinos did not have a board to keep track of previous winning numbers. Then one day, some brilliant SOB came up with the idea of tracking those numbers and displaying them to the patrons of the casino. That gentleman is a hero to all casinos because he understood what most people do not: statistics are not predictive.

    If you're playing roulette and the board shows that the previous 10 rolls have been on red, most people assume that somehow moves the probability. Let's assume the previous 100 rolls have all been red. Whats the probability of the next roll being black? It's still 50%.

    The moral of the story here is that history can not be trusted and using past statistics to predict future outcome is 100% garbage. Statistics are not predictive.
     
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  22. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I've never understood people looking at historical stats to apply to upcoming games. I couldn't care less if Team A is 3-15 over the past 9 years against Team B, that really has no bearing whatsoever on their upcoming game.
     
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  23. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    100% False. You can most definitely use stats to predict future outcomes. You won't always be right, but if you can find the correct stats to use you can predict things fairly accurately.

    And you're comparing apples to oranges here. Everyone understands the "coin flip" scenario. A football game isn't close to a coin flip or roulette table.
     
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  24. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    For that particular example I'd agree.. the stats are probably more for entertainment only. But some stats are highly predictive, like home field advantage in the NFL staying fairly steady over the years at 57%.

    For this debate.. I think the predictive power is moderate. I mean.. there's a reason the #1 seed in each conference has won so many more SB's. They are generally the best teams in the conference that year! You also have home field advantage AND they play one less game than the WC teams. So there's a mechanistic explanation behind this. With roulette wheels the physical mechanism essentially ensures each slot has equal probability. I mean that's how it's constructed!! Definitely not so with most applications of stats to sports we've discussed here.
     
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  25. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Look, we're Miami fans...so we have better memories than most when the Patriots got eliminated from the playoffs. How many times have they taken the #1 seed only to get embarrassed? Lots of times....and it's been wonderful. Especially when the stinking Jets did it out of the same position that we're in now. They lost to the Pats in week 17 and then spanked that *** in the playoffs.

    I don't mean to sound like a broken record here, but truly ANYTHING can happen with the 12 teams remaining. Will the Fins win it all? Probably not. But we're as good as anyone with our "next game up" mentality and we've consistently beaten teams that Vegas said we'd lose to.
     
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  26. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    Once. The answer to your question is once. Not "lots of times".

    The Patriots have had the Number #1 seed in the playoffs 5 times. (This year makes 6).

    They have gone to the SB 4 out of those 5 times. They won 2 out of those 4 Super Bowls.
     
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  27. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    You are confusing predictions with the continuation of a trend. A prediction is what we believe is going to happen based on current data, not based on past data from a completely different experiment. Do you think that the 2017 playoffs will be the exact same as the 2016 playoffs? If not, then we can't extrapolate any information from last year that is relevant for this year. If the Steelers beat the Dolphins 10 times in a row, there is nothing and I mean absolutely ZERO meaning in those statistics to predict that the Steelers would beat the Dolphins in their 11th meeting. Members of the commentary crew and other talking heads like to pull up these stats during games and the like, but they mean nothing.

    You can make a guess using past outcomes, but that is merely the assumption that the trend would continue. It is not a prediction.

    By the way, if you go to Vegas I would suggest you avoid the roulette table.
     
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  28. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    The roulette example is the most simplistic one I could think of at a rate of about 50%. In such a simplistic model the ability to predict future outcome is still non-existent. A football game, which is vastly more complex, simply adds more variables to the situation and actually amplifies it. That is: a football game is HARDER to predict than a coin flip, not easier.

    The simple fact of the matter is you can not make predictions based solely on past data measured on entirely different teams in different circumstances over different years. If the Pats suddenly lost Tom Brady to an injury do you think the past 15 years of playoff data would ease the concerns of Pats fans?
     
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  29. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    Once more, roulette and a football game aren't similar in the least. The roulette table is 100% independent of outside factors...at least it's supposed to be. A football game is not.

    I can predict, due to past outcomes, the future outcomes of #1 seeded teams in the playoffs. Why? Because the "home factor" (among other things) influences football games. How do I know this? Because a lot of data (hundreds of football games) proves this to be true. Home field, weather, injuries (as you talked about in you last post to cbrad) all affect football games. Injuries, weather, home field do not affect roulette.

    Now, as I wrote earlier, we currently have no way of predicting a football game with 100% certainty, but we can (or at least I can) predict with more certainty playoff outcomes using past playoffs.

    By the way, if you want to bet $10,000 on the Dolphins to go all the way...I'll take that bet. If you don't, why not? I mean, you have just as great a chance of winning picking them over, say, the Patriots. Right?
     
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  30. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah no one is disagreeing with this. Players and coaches HAVE to believe they can win and do whatever it takes to win as long as there is physically/mathematically a chance to win.

    The probabilities/odds are simply useful in estimating how difficult their task is (and for some others.. for betting purposes).
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2017
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  31. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    No two situations are exactly alike. Yet probability and statistics are successfully used in many fields to make very good predictions. You can predict that the average temperature in summer is higher than in winter even though the physical states of the atmosphere, oceans, sun, etc.. are never the same at any two moments in time.

    Same with football: the question isn't whether two situations are exactly the same. The question is simply how much predictive power you can obtain from what is similar (because there are almost always SOME things that stay the same or approximately the same).

    The structure (determined by the league) of the NFL playoffs is similar this year when compared to previous years in the sense that the WC teams will have to play an extra game to win a SB compared to a #1 seed. That and the fact that the #1 seed is guaranteed home field advantage means there is a built-in disadvantage for teams that play in WC games. And as I showed before, changing the structure from pre-salary cap era to salary cap era affected the percentage of #1 seeds that won the SB (their dominance went down, as expected).

    These aren't all "unpredictable" the way you're describing it. The example you gave with the roulette wheel is one of the rare cases you find in real life where you can expect all possibilities to have the same probability. As soon as you can show one possibility has the highest probability, that's the one you pick to "predict" what occurs.

    The history of science and technology speaks VERY loudly against your claim that you can't make predictions from past data if the circumstances are different because not ALL circumstances are different!
     
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  32. Unlucky 13

    Unlucky 13 Team Raheem Club Member

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    I don't necessarily use stats to predict games, but at the same time, I feel that ones like this are highly interesting (even if just as history), and can show that teams in a certain situation might be more or less likely than I otherwise thought.

    As interesting as the ones about who wins the Super Bowl are, I'm actually much more interested in a similar one about who makes it to the Super Bowl (since one team from each conference does every season), and who makes it to the conference titles games, as thats almost always the sign of a very good team.

    And speaking more to our own situation, I would argue that with the current playoff and divisional setups, getting the #1 or #2 seed is more important to Miami than almost any other club. While others may (and will) disagree, our club just does not generally play well in cold weather, and especially in January. The Dolphins are therefore less likely to win as the #5 or #6 seed, even in the first round, than most other teams.

    I'm also of the opinion that one of the reasons that the AFC has had less parity than the NFC since around the time that the league started the regular season later, an pushed back the start of the playoffs, is due to geography and weather.

    The AFC has nine teams that play outdoors in cold weather climates, two that play in mild climates (and TEN, who I include here, can be cold sometimes), two that play in domes, and three that play outside in warm weather.

    In the NFC, only five teams play outdoors in cold weather, three play outdoors in mild climates, six (soon seven) play in domes, and two play outdoors in warm climates.

    I plan on digging into the playoff histories of the clubs deeper soon, but at a casual glance, its clear that in the expanded playoff ear of 1990-present, the warm weather clubs in the NFC had done much, much better than the ones in the AFC.
     
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  33. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]
     
  34. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    Ignoring for a moment that this is actually my profession, I have a quick question for you:

    If you were watching a football game and before the broadcast the announcers took a moment to talk about the fact that the (hypothetical) Dolphins have beaten the Browns in each of their last 10 meetings, would you then conclude that the Dolphins, based on this information, had a greater chance then of beating the Browns in their 11th meeting? Based purely on past games, ignoring the current situation, would you conclude the Dolphins were overwhelming favorites?
     
  35. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    If you're confused you can just ask for my help.
     
  36. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Read the first sentence of the first post you quoted of mine, post #24. Gotta read what I write before arguing against it :up:
     
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  37. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    Now I see where you're confused.

    You thought we were just talking about past games based off of just the match-ups.

    We weren't.
     
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  38. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    He's not arguing anything close to what we're talking about. lol
     
  39. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Since I have the stats handy for those who made it to the SB, here they are:

    A1 22
    A2 10
    A3 1
    A4 6
    A5 1
    A6 1

    N1 24
    N2 9
    N3 3
    N4 3
    N5 1
    N6 1

    Don't have the comparable data for getting to the conference championships.. you'll have to do that yourself haha!

    I would be VERY interested if you can find good reasons for why there hasn't been as much parity between the AFC and NFC. I'll let you dig into that one.. tell us what you find.
     
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  40. Fame

    Fame Well-Known Member

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    I've broken the first rule of the internet and my sanity has suffered greatly.
     

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