Interesting Take on Playoff Records for Coaches - PalmBeachPost

"KeyFin wrote:

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.

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.

"danmarino wrote:

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.

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.

"cbrad wrote:

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.

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?

"Fame wrote:

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.

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?

"KeyFin wrote:

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.

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).

"Fame wrote:

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.

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!

"resnor wrote:

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.

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.

"danmarino wrote:

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?

"cbrad wrote:

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!

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?

"Fame wrote:

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

"Fame wrote:

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?

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

"Fame wrote:

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?

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.

"cbrad wrote:

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

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

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

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.

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!

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

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.

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.

"danmarino wrote:

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

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

"Fame wrote:

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

Rule #1: If you're going to jump head first into a debate ensure you actually know what the debate is about.

I agree. You have broken the rule.

"danmarino wrote:

Rule #1: If you're going to jump head first into a debate ensure you actually know what the debate is about.

I agree. You have broken the rule.

"cbrad wrote:

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.

Conglomerate stats I think aren't good predictors for individual games though.

Like the 57% HFA, which has held steady as you point out, but each team does not have a 57% chance of winning home games, some teams are higher, and some teams are lower, and then matchups also change the %.

For an extreme example, the odds of NE beating the Browns don't change much whether it's in Cle or NE.

It's kind of like shark attack, or plane crash stats, they don't mean a heck of a lot, as in there is a 1 in whatever chance you become a shark attack victim, not if I don't go in the water there isn't, lol, and for a guy who surfs in tiger shark territory, or the guy that surfs where there are seals and great whites, their chances are exponentially higher than that of someone who goes to the Jersey shore once a year.

When they do those type stats, they are basing it on population numbers, but there is a large % of people that have never even seen the ocean, much less been in it, and nearly all the shark attacks in the US all occur in Hawaii, Cali and Fla, and they are mostly surfers and divers.

Plane crash stats are misleading as well, the odds of a plane crashing going from Newark to O'hare are lower than the national avg, because most plane crashes in the US happen to Alaskan bush pilots, so obviously if you are an Alaskan bush pilot your chances of crashing are way higher, and the skill, experience and capabilities of the pilot factor into that as well.

Sports is the same, league wide predictors don't help much on individual games.

"Finster wrote:

Sports is the same, league wide predictors don't help much on individual games.

Got to remember what I was arguing against. Fame in post #21 said "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."

lol.. 100% garbage? In math that would mean you can do no better than chance. Well 57% HFA is better than chance, meaning if you had truly even odds (no bookie) and you just bet on the home team all the time you'd make money over time.

All you're saying is that the 57% might not be good enough for your purposes. But that all depends on what your purpose is. If all you need to make money over many games is on average 56% accuracy per game, then 57% is good enough. If you need more, then it's not good enough and you use more stats (or your own opinion mixed in) or you just lose haha.

So I can agree with what you're saying once the word "much" in your quote is quantified so that you're asking for something "greater than the predictive power afforded by stats". Either way, history can be used to predict the future with better than chance probability, even in the NFL, so it's not "100% garbage".

"Fame wrote:

You get points for using the Dude. lol

"Finster wrote:

Conglomerate stats I think aren't good predictors for individual games though.

Like the 57% HFA, which has held steady as you point out, but each team does not have a 57% chance of winning home games, some teams are higher, and some teams are lower, and then matchups also change the %.

For an extreme example, the odds of NE beating the Browns don't change much whether it's in Cle or NE.

It's kind of like shark attack, or plane crash stats, they don't mean a heck of a lot, as in there is a 1 in whatever chance you become a shark attack victim, not if I don't go in the water there isn't, lol, and for a guy who surfs in tiger shark territory, or the guy that surfs where there are seals and great whites, their chances are exponentially higher than that of someone who goes to the Jersey shore once a year.

When they do those type stats, they are basing it on population numbers, but there is a large % of people that have never even seen the ocean, much less been in it, and nearly all the shark attacks in the US all occur in Hawaii, Cali and Fla, and they are mostly surfers and divers.

Plane crash stats are misleading as well, the odds of a plane crashing going from Newark to O'hare are lower than the national avg, because most plane crashes in the US happen to Alaskan bush pilots, so obviously if you are an Alaskan bush pilot your chances of crashing are way higher, and the skill, experience and capabilities of the pilot factor into that as well.

Sports is the same, league wide predictors don't help much on individual games.

What you're doing is one of the best examples of cherry picking I've seen in awhile.

You can't just use 2 teams when the stats use 32. You can't just use one game when the stats are using 12+.

The argument was, "You can't use past playoffs to predict future playoff outcomes."

Cbrad showed that over the course of NFL history the #1 seeds win more. Now, have there been years when the #1 team doesn't get past the first round? Of course. However, as he and I have been saying, over a given course of time, the #1 seed has a better overall chance of making it to the Super Bowl.

"cbrad wrote:

Got to remember what I was arguing against. Fame in post #21 said "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."

lol.. 100% garbage? In math that would mean you can do no better than chance. Well 57% HFA is better than chance, meaning if you had truly even odds (no bookie) and you just bet on the home team all the time you'd make money over time.

All you're saying is that the 57% might not be good enough for your purposes. But that all depends on what your purpose is. If all you need to make money over many games is on average 56% accuracy per game, then 57% is good enough. If you need more, then it's not good enough and you use more stats (or your own opinion mixed in) or you just lose haha.

So I can agree with what you're saying once the word "much" in your quote is quantified so that it's greater than the predictive power afforded by stats. Either way, history can be used to predict the future with better than chance probability, even in the NFL, so it's not "100% garbage".

I agree that they aren't garbage, and with some, if you stick to your guns, yeah, that'll pan out over time.

I know guys that love to bet on the home dog, and according to them, that pays off in the long run, but it's also picking your spots, based on personal knowledge, you shouldn't take every home dog(although I know a guy that does, and he claims it pays off), but I think stats back that up, that home dogs cover the spread at a higher rate, so as you point out, they can help in spots.

On the other hand, personal knowledge can be a trump card vs stats, take the 05 Steelers, they were a WC team, but the truth is, they were one of the best teams in the league, they had a 3 game stretch where Ben was injured, so 3 losses, but a 4 game win streak before, and another 4 game win streak to end the season after, so with Ben, they were dangerous, with Maddox, not so much.

So statistically treating them like another WC team would be a mistake, they were elite.

This years Steelers are eerily similar, 11-1 with a healthy Ben, 0-4 with a less than healthy Ben, but that 05 team was better overall, especially on D, but not as good on O as this team.

So yes, stats can help you make a more informed opinion, especially in general, but predicting a win vs Pitt based on past results isn't a very good idea, like many people are saying, "we beat them earlier in the year", but that has no bearing on this game, both teams are different now.

"danmarino wrote:

What you're doing is one of the best examples of cherry picking I've seen in awhile.

You can't just use 2 teams when the stats use 32. You can't just use one game when the stats are using 12+.

The argument was, "You can't use past playoffs to predict future playoff outcomes."

Cbrad showed that over the course of NFL history the #1 seeds win more. Now, have there been years when the #1 team doesn't get past the first round? Of course. However, as he and I have been saying, over a given course of time, the #1 seed has a better overall chance of making it to the Super Bowl.

Yeah, whenever one tries to evaluate how good population stats are in predicting "individual games" it's important that one not just look at those cases where the prediction failed, but also include those cases where the prediction succeeded.

So measuring how well a given method predicts "individual games" requires looking at a sample of games, preferably with large sample size.

"Finster wrote:

I agree that they aren't garbage, and with some, if you stick to your guns, yeah, that'll pan out over time.

I know guys that love to bet on the home dog, and according to them, that pays off in the long run, but it's also picking your spots, based on personal knowledge, you shouldn't take every home dog(although I know a guy that does, and he claims it pays off), but I think stats back that up, that home dogs cover the spread at a higher rate, so as you point out, they can help in spots.

On the other hand, personal knowledge can be a trump card vs stats, take the 05 Steelers, they were a WC team, but the truth is, they were one of the best teams in the league, they had a 3 game stretch where Ben was injured, so 3 losses, but a 4 game win streak before, and another 4 game win streak to end the season after, so with Ben, they were dangerous, with Maddox, not so much.

So statistically treating them like another WC team would be a mistake, they were elite.

This years Steelers are eerily similar, 11-1 with a healthy Ben, 0-4 with a less than healthy Ben, but that 05 team was better overall, especially on D, but not as good on O as this team.

So yes, stats can help you make a more informed opinion, especially in general, but predicting a win vs Pitt based on past results isn't a very good idea, like many people are saying, "we beat them earlier in the year", but that has no bearing on this game, both teams are different now.

Never disagreed with any of this Finster. Just keep in mind the actual predictive power of stats is better than HFA only haha! Oh.. and the predictive power of humans + stats is better, but even that combo isn't that good. Really, no one does it well.