mmmm....pie

 

Conversely, and just as importantly, if the Pats don't win the opener, their odds of making the playoffs are cut in half, and their odds of winning the division go down to a "paltry 14%."

 

Yup....

 

This game is much more important than worrying about making the playoffs. If the Dolphins win, Sparano starts buying some extra time. He loses close, things stay the same. They get blown out, the heat gets turned up several notches on the Sparano hot seat. That's the nuts & bolts of this game.

 

Yep these stats are from 1990 on. About the time networks started paying big bucks. The opening week is about ratings.

That said if we win this week and beat a division opponent, Im sure our odds of winning this division increase dramatically.

 

Everyone is 0-0. Each game is important as one another.

 

I disagree. This is the team you have to compare yourself with. This regime has had 4 years to build, and now its time to show the results. You have to be able to compete this year, or its time to get the next set of coaches & FO people in here. Simple as that. Ross can't continue to bleed season tickets like he did this off season. Changes WILL HAPPEN if they don't win this year.

It all starts with this very important game. Like I said in another thread this week, this I believe is the most important game Sparano has coached in since he has been here, even more important than the 2008 win in NY over Favre & the Jets for the AFCE crown.

Time to win Sparano, GO FINS!

 

Dolphins had a pretty good shot by mid-season. If memory serves me right, they controlled their playoff destiny.

 

Yes they did, and then promptly went out and lost to 3 of the traditional door mats of the league. To top it off, ALL AT HOME. :pity:

 

I'd be more curious to know what percentage of teams that lose their first DIVISION game go on to miss the playoffs. The potential meaningfulness of a "first game" statistic is muddied by the strength (or irrelevance) of the opponent. Take for example last night's game. Do you think the Saints aren't going to make the playoffs? Of course they will, in a likelihood, and therefore push this statistic toward the null hypothesis. But I'll bet there's a little more relevance in looking at a team's first DIVISION game as a predictor for playoff appearance.

 

The other stat I saw during the game last night was that in each of the last 11 seaons the super bowl winner has won their first game of the season.

So, Let's Win It

 

No. Because this game is important no matter what, that did not make it any more important.

 

The playoffs stat is just a dumb way to look at "good teams" vs "bad teams". I dont think this game is critical in terms of playoffs.

This game is critical in terms of building confidence and coming out strong. Those stats in the OP are a logical fallacy more than anything else. 0-2 teams miss the playoffs because theyre bad, not because they started 0-2...just as many others have said here.

 

yes and that part is all true as well.

 

Yet we sit here with the Saints still going to make the playoffs anyway.

 

I've got an advertisement covering up the second pie chart, so I'll comment on the Teams going 1-0 chart. It's really a coin flip at 54/46 making the playoffs. That's nothing earth shattering and I'd guess the same. The importance of this game is that it's a division game and if we have hopes of winning a division, you've got to win your home division games.

 

A couple of nitpicks with this analysis.

First off you bring up that the Dolphins started 2-0 last year. But clearly the study shows that starting 1-0 doesn't really increase your odds over-much. We're talking 54% to 46% on 1-0 teams. So that to me is an irrelevant point to bring up.

It's a good point bringing up the Patriots' having started 0-3 in the 2001 Super Bowl year, and 0-1 in the 2003 Super Bowl year. But those are just 2 data points, and citing them opens up whoever did the study to cite the 244 teams (out of 321) that started 0-1 since 1990 and did NOT make the playoffs. Obviously the study shows that 77 teams started 0-1 and did in fact end up making the playoffs, and you've gone ahead and named 2 of them.

You're kind of engaging in a chicken-or-egg argument when you bring up that teams that go 0-1 do so because they're bad teams and they also miss the playoffs because they're bad teams and therefore that is the basis for correlation. I'm not sure anyone attempted to bridge the gap between correlation and causation, at least not explicitly. It being important to win the first game of the season is not saying that losing the game will CAUSE you to miss the playoffs. Nobody's made that connection that I've seen, not the original poster nor the link he provided. Rather, how it should be taken is...it's important for you to show that you're not the type of team that loses its first game of the season.

I agree with you that the HIGH correlation between teams starting 0-1 and teams missing the playoffs probably has to do with bad teams being likely to go 0-1, and also likely to miss the playoffs. However, that doesn't really detract from the value of the study or the value of Week 1 as an identifier of who those bad teams are likely to be.

For instance, if you were to do the exact same study on all the teams that lost their Week 2 game...what do you suppose the results would show? Do you think that 76% of the 321 or so teams that lost their Week 2 games would miss the playoffs? Or do you think that percentage would lower significantly?

I personally would hypothesize that it would lower significantly.

 

Unfortunately the advertisement covered up the crux of the argument being made by the study.

The point is that of the 321 teams that started out the season 0-1 since 1990, only 77 of them (24%) went on to make the playoffs after that 0-1 start.

People are kind of viewing this all wrong. Yes there's an element of the loss itself standing as a barrier to playoff entry. It takes away some of your margin for error. But I don't think that's a very significant factor.

More what it shows is that Week 1 tends to be an effective acid test for identifying teams that (for whatever reason) will not go to the playoffs. So those saying "it doesn't matter", I would disagree with that. It does matter. It matters because if the Dolphins lose this week, there will still be a lot of fans around here insisting we're a playoff team, and according to this historical study there's a pretty strong likelihood that those fans will be wrong.

 

Info like this always makes me chuckle....it would be like posting a poll/pie chart from 1990 to 2008 that says following 1-15 season, no team had ever went 11-5, won their division, and made the playoffs the following season.

thus the pie chart would say since 1990, dont go 1-15, you have a 0% chance to do it.

Reality, simply means this, we have 16 games....the relative goal is to win 10 to 11 to have a fair and honest shot to make the playoffs and then the fun starts all over again once playoff tourney starts.

dont care when and where they come..just rack up Wins.

 

Those fans would be right to argue that the remaining 15 games meant more to insisting the Dolphins could still be a playoff team, then the week 1 game.

 

Half the teams every year start 0-1.

 

Sure, but statistically speaking, it means of the 16 week one losers...only 4 (technically less then 4 - but more than 3...LOL) have a shot at playoffs that year.

 

It would be interesting to see a PIE chart for every week of the season and how it equates....and then group 2 week periods, and 3 week periods, etc.

Maybe it turns out, that if you WIN weeks 8-9 back to back you have a 99% chance statistically to making the playoffs?

Ahhh, stats and pie charts for hindsight 20/20..we could be on to something. I say, winning weeks 7-8 and 12 equal a 100% probabilty to make the playoffs more than any other win or loss during any other week combo.

what say you?

 

And of those teams, 76% of them don't make the playoffs.

 

Now you're arguing black swan theory, the tendency to systematically underrate the chances of black swan events which have low historical incidence, which IMO is a separate issue when it comes to statistical theory.

The value in this study is simply looking at the team in the hypothetical situation in which they've lost their first game of the season, and asking yourself to evaluate what kind of team this is. I think there would be a lot of fans on this board that would be convinced that the Dolphins are still a playoff team. But they should know, as they say that, that the odds historically have been 76% in favor of them being wrong in their evaluation of what kind of team this is. The loss doesn't "prove" anything, but it's a valuable indicator that shouldn't be ignored.

 

However, its fair to suggest we see every other week and combination to try to determine if the % goes up or down based on some other win/loss weekly factor. Just taking week 1 all by itself seems narrow in the scope of what weeks weigh the most. Perhaps, if you lose week 1 and win week 2, the #'s show that the 1-1 teams make the playoffs at a higher than 24% rate, etc. Or if it takes winning weeks 2 and 3 to properly offset a week 1 loss, etc and put you at a 51% chance to qualify, etc. What is the real or truer WINNING weeks?

I dont know...but the info would be interesting.

 

Let me just put it this way.

Let's say Vegas offered odd on the Dolphins making the playoffs. Let's say they offered you +300 for Yes and -250 for No. After Week 1, the Dolphins lose, and the odds are exactly the same...still +300 for Yes and still -250 for No. You would probably be wise to take the -250 knowing that Vegas pits the Dolphins' chances at about 40% whereas historically teams losing the first game of the season are about 24% on making the playoffs.

That's what this study is saying, basically.

 

I get that...and I accept the historical week 1 at its face value.

And I know this is your KITCHEN so to speak....

so not challenging the two pie charts, I am more wondering the other combo's that also measure and lead to 0-1 teams falling short at a 76% rate.

Like I said, if you go 0-2, vs 1-1, how do the % change? 1-2, vs 2-1 following the week 1 loss, etc, etc, etc.

 

I would be interested in seeing what the numbers look like for other weeks and other combinations of weeks, but IMO the lack of them does not necessarily detract from the value of the study.

Let's say for instance you were to look at Week 2 on its own. That would be an interesting study. Historically, I don't know that any team has ever had a bye during Week 2, it's not usually in the NFL's habit to have a bye in the first two weeks of the season.

But I would hypothesize that the losers of Week 2 make the playoffs more than 24% of the time. I don't know what the percentage would be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's more toward 40%...which makes Week 2 results not a particularly valuable test for determining whether a team will or will not make the playoffs.

The reason I would suspect that the Week 1 test would hold more value than Weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc...would be because of the preparation time. Teams have a long time to prepare for their first opponent. Coaches have a long time to study the opponent and prepare their game plans. Players have a long time to mentally prepare for that first opponent. There's also a performance aspect to it. Players mentally prepare themselves for the start of the season and place a lot of performance anxiety on that first game. If there were some magical "Performance Anxiety Index" that scientifically measured the level of performance anxiety that players feel for a game, I think Week 1 would probably be up there with the playoffs. The team that has players that can perform well in high performance anxiety situations PROBABLY win more often than other teams.

That's why it would not surprise me if statistical studies showed that in Week 1, more so than any other individual week of the season, the good teams tend to win and the bad teams tend to lose....whereas for each of the subsequent weeks, the NFL devolves into the morass of parity that it's become where "Any Given Sunday" is a very real statement.

 

Today, from a betting standpoint, would you put money on Saints to make the playoffs????

 

I'd have to see the lines. If they were even, as in -110 Yes and -110 No...I would bet No.

But I would have some reservations about that...because I just feel like the quality of last night's game was such that I 'feel' like the Saints are part of that 24% subset, that just ran into a really good team but is also a good team and will make the playoffs.

But that very well could just be the subjective/emotional part of me ignoring the objective facts as they lay. The safer bet would be "No".

 

As things stand Vegas is pretty convinced the Dolphins aren't making the playoffs anyway, so the Week 1 outcome wouldn't really change anything from their standpoint. I wouldn't be surprised if they already had the Dolphins pitted for only a 24% chance of making the playoffs. So losing the first game "wouldn't matter" from that standpoint.

But people here, fans of the team, I think they naturally have higher hopes and higher evaluations of the teams. Those evaluations are what could receive a reality check (or a significant boost!) according to what happens in Week 1.

 

Reality checks are for people who aren't fans.

The nature of being a fan of any sports team is being outside reality. Hell there is a good amount of people who will not change their underwear because if they did, their team would lose.

 

Maybe. I don't necessarily agree. I don't think anyone keeps the official codex on what precisely it means to be a fan. That doesn't stop everyone trying to define it and make rules about it, though.

 

Doesn't make it any more sane.