NFL -- Are You Ready For Some Football? -- Week 10

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit

Do you realize how stupid this sounds?

It doesn't sound stupid at all.

[SlowwHand]

You still say that after your previous post?
"Yee-HAW!"? You watch too many old movies.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Jaguar and Donegal are correct. The "Champion" and "Best Team" can be completely different teams. The best team, to me, is one who had the best season. Playoffs are usually a crapshoot.

[-Jrabbit]

Ah, the sabermetrician weighs in. Why am I not shocked that someone devoted to the study of statistical analysis would rather see something other than a simple head-to-head contest determine superiority.

The simple fact is that year-end championships in sports were orignially put together for the specific purpose of... wait for it... determining which team is best!

Play your little semantics games if you wish, but it's just self-serving sophistry. And you'll find yourself on the wrong side of this conversation with people actually involved in professional athletics.

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by Donegeal
No. You guys are missing the point. A playoff and Super Bowl is not intented to determine who is the 'best', its there to determine the Champion precisely because 'best' is subjective.

This is exactly 100% backwards, Donegeal. Playoffs are precisely intended to answer the question of which team is "best."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah, the sabermetrician weighs in. Why am I not shocked that someone devoted to the study of statistical analysis would rather see something other than a simple head-to-head contest determine superiority.

I'm not sure if you accomplished what you wanted when you tried to slur the guys that... oh, I dunno, look at the facts rather than misguided "conventional wisdom" .

The simple fact is that year-end championships in sports were orignially put together for the specific purpose of... wait for it... determining which team is best!

Perhaps that's the purpose, but it's not the reality. After all, the BCS is for determining the best team. But I think we can all agree that its got severe problems with that.


European soccer does this best. The teams with the best record are the League Champions. And then you have a separate playoffs (the Cup) and if you win that, you are the Cup Champions. Therefore the best team is rewarded (League Champions) and the team that gets hot at the right time is as well (Cup Champions), instead of the current US model where the rewarded one is the team that gets hot... NOT the best team.

[-Jrabbit]

You say "got hot at the right time." I say "matured as a team."

Your model produces two results. It is inherently inferior.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Your model produces two results. It is inherently inferior.

No, that makes it superior.

[Lord Avalon]

So I looked at an Almanac. The 11-5 Steelers beat the 11-5 Bengals, the 14-2 Colts, the 14-3 Broncos, and the 15-3 Seahawks to finish 15-5. That's 3 of 4 teams which had better records (12-4 Jaguars lost to the Pats, who lost to the Broncos).

And people are going to say they weren't the best team?

[-Jrabbit]

Imran would probably say the Colts were the best team over the course of the season, and the Steelers just "got hot at the right time."

I would say, "let's have a playoff to see who really is the best team."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Imran would probably say the Colts were the best team over the course of the season, and the Steelers just "got hot at the right time."

Yep. Exactly.

I would say, "let's have a playoff to see who really is the best team."

But playoffs don't. They just determine who is the playing the best at that specific point in time, not who actually is the best over the course of the season.

I guess if playoffs really determine the best team, we should just not limit the playoffs. Have a 32 team playoff at the end of the season, "regular season" (shaved of a few games) to determine seeding.

[-Jrabbit]

"Damn, if this was three months ago, we would have kicked your ass."

Look Imran, I know I'm not going to change your mind. You seem to find value in the concept that there is some magical formula that will determine "the best team over the course of a long season." Fine, have at it.

But the winner of your analytical game gains a pyrrhic victory at best, unless they can also win when it counts. The team that does that, receives the well-deserved plaudits and historical recognition they deserve. Those that can't can console themselves with the sour grapes and cold comfort you strive to provide. But in their hearts, they will know they are underachieving losers.

[Lord Avalon]

How long can a team be "hot at the right time"?

The Steelers were 7-5 in early December, after a 3-game losing streak. They then went on a 4-game winning streak at the end of the season. With the playoffs and SB, that's 8 games won in a row.

So it wasn't like they just turned it on in the playoffs.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You seem to find value in the concept that there is some magical formula that will determine "the best team over the course of a long season." Fine, have at it.

That's quite a strawman.

There is no magical formula. It's usually a subjective measure of who is the best team

The Steelers were 7-5 in early December, after a 3-game losing streak. They then went on a 4-game winning streak at the end of the season. With the playoffs and SB, that's 8 games won in a row.

So it wasn't like they just turned it on in the playoffs.

And where was that the rest of the season? And no, they didn't turn it on just in the playoffs, but the last month and then the playoffs. Doesn't show that they are the best team.

Though it'd be great to see an 8-8 team win the SuperBowl one year and people calling them the best team of the season.

[Lord Avalon]

I think that beating a number of the top teams in the playoffs says that the Steelers were the best. I think that 8 out of 20 games is too long a period to belittle as "oh, they just got hot."

4 of their losses were to the Pats, Jaguars, Colts and Bengals, all of which became playoff teams. Only the Colts beat them by more than a TD.

So they weren't the best then, but they finished as the best.