SamPratt.com

The Patriots win the Twitterbowl, 30-27

Can social media predict NFL game outcomes? To answer that question, this site collected more than 200 random fan predictions from Twitter over the past few days. The aggregate of those crowdsourced numbers predicts that the Patriots will win Sunday’s Super Bowl 30-27.

This is almost exactly in line with Vegas, which posits that New England will win by 3 points, with an over/under of 58.5, 1.5 points higher than the Twitter mean.

61% of posters who included a specific score pick the Patriots to win, against 39% for the Falcons. (Coincidentally, 538.com likewise gives New England a 61% chance of winning, 39% for Atlanta, though this is mixing apples and oranges...)

However, that average (mean) score hardly tells the whole story. There are many other ways to break down the numbers.

The most commonly predicted combined score is Patriots 27, Falcons 24 (9 times), followed by Patriots 34-Falcons 31 (6x), Falcons 31-Patriots 28 (5x), and Falcons 30-Patriots 27 (5x).

The most commonly predicted Atlanta-only score is 24 (37 times) followed by 31 (21 times); while the most commonly predicted Patriots-only scores are 31 and 27 (30 times each) followed closely by 34 (27 times).

The most commonly-predicted margin between the two teams’ scores puts New England by up 3 (27x), followed by Atlanta by 3 (20x), Atlanta by 4 (15x), the Patriots by 10 (14x), and the Patriots by 4 (14x).

My own prediction goes against all of these numbers, anticipating a lower-scoring game than most are expecting—with the Patriots eventually winning 24-20.

Everyone agrees that both offenses are explosive. But given that both of these teams have succeeded mostly with long scoring drives, requiring multiple first downs rather than big, quick bombs, it doesn’t seem there will be enough time for each team to score more than 4-5 times, and not all of those will be touchdown. So if I were a betting man, I would take the under, even if I favored the Falcons.

The big difference-maker in my scenario would be the Patriots defense holding Atlanta to two touchdowns and three field goals, while the Patriots prevail (despite scoring fewer times) by scoring three touchdowns and one field goal. The Patriots’ top-ranked defense has been excellent all year in this regard, keeping opponents “in front of them” all the way downfield, then either getting a turnover, a stop, or forcing the other team to settle for a field goal

Hedges: My score could easily vary somewhat due to a two-point conversion attempt (say, by Atlanta trying to pull within one field goal on its final TD drive) or a missed PAT (perhaps by the Patriots). So 24-21, 24-19, 23-21, 23-20 and 23-19 seem equally plausible to me.

And of course, all it takes is one untimely turnover by either team, a badly-missed tackle in the open field, an unusual special teams play, or a catastrophic injury for either side to skew both the score and outcome significantly.

Which is why I never bet on NFL football.

 

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(Note: A handful of absurd predictions, such as the guy who thinks over 100 points will be scored on Sunday night, or the person who though Atlanta would win by a margin of nearly 40 points, were discarded.)

Belichick Derangement Syndrome: A Guide for the Perplexed*

Dear Casual Football Fans and Less-Casual Patriots Haters:

The Super Bowl is a week from Sunday, and millions of people who have not watched a single regular-season game will tune in to see the Seattle Seahawks take on the New England Patriots.

In the long two-week runup to kickoff, scores of reporters who normally don’t follow football also have been writing and talking about a supposed scandal involving the one-point favorites, the Patriots—particularly about their coach, Bill Belichick. (It does not help that most of the influential sports media is based in the territory of the Patriots’ most bitter rivals, the New York Jets and Giants.)

So far, the DeflateGate “investigation” has looked a lot like a trial in the court of public opinion, using incomplete and thirdhand evidence, by a jury of one’s enemies. The NFL itself has come to no conclusions, despite interviewing over 40 Patriots staffers, and it has been leaked that they are having a tough time coming up with any evidence that the Patriots cheated.

You would be forgiven for being misled by such reports, especially as they are amplified by the howls of fans of all the other NFL teams which the Patriots have been beating for years are eagerly joining in this Salem-grade pile on. For them, and for you, below is a guide to overcoming Belichick Derangement Syndrome:

1) The Patriots’ winning percentage has been significantly better since SpyGate than before it: 69.3% before, 75.6 after. Rational observers do not believe the Patriots’ actions—which was legal prior to the 2007 season—had any effect on game outcomes. Attributing their success before or after it comes across as sour grapes. Lesson: Don’t let others’ success breed contempt. 

2) SpyGate was not really about taping opponents’ signals. It was about the location of cameras. All teams taped signals; the Patriots were fined for having a camera on the sidelines rather than a booth. Eric Mangini, the coach who brought it up, has said that he only did so to tweak his former boss, did not expect it to become a big deal, and thought the subsequent controversy was overblown. Using it as a justification for paranoia about everything the Patriots do is unfair and unbecoming.  Lesson: If you’re going to talk smack, know what you’re talking about.

3) A false report of the Patriots taping the Rams’ pre-Super Bowl walkthrough was found by the NFL to be the fabrication of a disgruntled former employee. The paper which published it was covered in shame and retracted the story. Continuing to harp on such things is like believing the ending of Inglorious Basterds was historically correct.  Lesson: Don’t rely on far-fetched theories.

4) The line formations which caused Harbaugh to lose his mind in a playoff game are legal, and the referees actually went overboard in helping the Ravens see what what was happening—specifically announcing that they should not cover specific receivers. These formations have been used by other pro and college teams. Making full and creative use of legal options on the playing field is important to winning, and makes the game more interesting. Lesson: Don’t be a Harbaugh.

5) Multiple Colts players have said that they were beaten fair and square last Sunday. They agree with most retired quarterbacks interviewed on this subject: ball inflation had nothing to do with the outcome. In the half played partially with questionable balls, the Patriots gained 10 points. In the remainder of the game, played with replacement footballs, they gained 28 points. If the Colts aren’t making excuses, why should their fans? Lesson: Don’t fight a battle for someone else.

6) Every quarterback has elaborate specs of how they want the football. Packers QB Aaron Rodgers openly admitted that he likes to inflate balls beyond the “legal” limit, and there was no outcry or punishment. Eli Manning has one of the more elaborate set of demands on how the ball is delivered. Checking the footballs is done perfunctorily, because NFL ratings are all about offense. This is not normally an issue except when Belichick is winning, once again. Lesson: Be evenhanded.

7) Brady/Belichick is the winningest QB/coach combination in the history of the NFL, and it’s not even close. So far, they’ve won 162 games together. Marino/Shula won 116, Bradshaw/Knoll 54. This engenders a lot of irrational resentment, but is easily explained by a combination of talent and preparation. Lesson: Learn to let it go.

8) No team in the NFL has a winning record against Brady. Not one. This, too, breeds resentment and double-standards in scrutinizing the Patriots. As former Patriot and current ESPN commentator Tedy Bruschi has said: “It’s a long line of people that want to step up and make an excuse as to why their team lost... But it feels good to be a player in that locker room knowing that you frustrate someone that much — that you frustrate someone that much that they are talking about some type of ball controversy.” Lesson: Don’t give the other side billboard material.

9) Even if you disregard all of the above, bear in mind that the National Football League is full of scandals far more repugnant than your misplaced outraged at Bill Belichick. The Patriots’ opponents in one of the above contests had a running back who punched his girlfriend unconscious in an elevator, and dragged her out by the feet on video. That team actually defended and covered up for their player, much as they turned a blind eye to another former player covering up a murder. No one suggested that the Ravens should not be allowed to play in that game, yet people are saying the Patriots should be disqualified from the Super Bowl based on an alleged 15% difference in air pressure. Lesson: At least, be consistent.

Belichick Derangement Syndrome is tinged with deep-seated resentment of both talent and intellect. Those attacking the Patriots will lend credence to any explanation, however absurd, which denies that they earned their success using their physical abilities and—even mores—their wits, in a league with spending parity. Learn to love Bill Belichick, the strategic and tactical genius. It’s the closest that armchair quarterbacks will ever get to sitting in the Jeep next to Patton. 

* Apologies to E.F. Schumacher

Crowdsourcing the Super Bowl

Over the next few days, millions of shaky bets and empty boasts will be exchanged by football fans and other soothsayers who think they know in advance the outcome of Super Bowl XLVI (or XXXXVI to all you Roman numeral purists). Only a few of those millions of opinions and wagers on the New England Patriots and New York Giants will be accurate. But taken as a group, there conceivably could be some collective insight to be gleaned.

This raises the obvious question of whether the game’s outcome can be predicted by crowdsourcing—that is, by collecting a large number of predictions from the “crowd” online, and analyzing the results.

Instead of going stir crazy waiting for kickoff, I went online and randomly gathered 100 predictions from a variety of sources: Twitter, Facebook, football discussion boards, newspaper comments, and so on. Casual, generalized predictions—“Pats will prevail! Gints gnash Gronk!”—were skipped in favor of those who actually bothered to predict a definite score. (I also omitted predictions made by dolphins, camels, cats, gorillas, and the like, only because these species rarely predict actual scores as opposed to just scratching the eyes out of a picture of Eli Mannning or Tom Brady.)

For what it’s worth, her are the results aggregated from these random 100 members of the crowd:

• Predictions of who will win were split exactly 50-50.

• The average score predicted was 27.56 for the Patriots vs. 27.05 for the Giants—or 28-27 in favor of the Pats, if, like this New England partisan, you don’t mind rounding.

• Overall, those picking the Giants were slightly less optimistic than those backing the Patriots, with the former anticipating an average margin of victory of 7.5 for New York, as opposed to 8.5 for New England. However, pro-Giants prognostications tended to vary much more than pro-Patriots ones.

• The margin of victory most commonly picked for the Giants was 3 (15 times), whereas the margin of victory most commonly picked for the Patriots was  6 (8 times).

• The scores most commonly picked for the Giants were 27 (17 times), 28 (12 times), and 31 (10 times).

• The Patriots scores most commonly picked among those expecting a New England win were 24 (16 times), 34 (11 times),  and 21 (10 times).

• In the event of a blowout, the largest margin of victory that anyone predicted for the Giants was 30, as opposed to 25 for the Patriots.

• The highest score predicted for the Patriots was 47, as opposed to 45 for the Giants; the lowest score predicted for either team was 7.

• The Giants scores most commonly picked among those expecting a New York win were 24 (16 times), 34 (11 times),  and 21 (10 times).

• The most frequent predicted outcomes were 34-28 Patriots (4 times), 27-21 Giants (4 times), and 27-24 Giants (4 times).

All of this is, naturally, pseudoscientific at best. But if the opinion of 100 random internet denizens counts for anything, this game can be expected to be a dead heat, with the Patriots just a half-point favorite.

Pass incomplete

Lest sports fans endure years of Ravens homers, Patriots haters and Skip Bayless braying about how they were robbed by the refs in the AFC Championship Game, I’ve taken it upon myself to do a frame-by-frame video analysis of the now-infamous play: New England cornerback-du-jour Sterling Moore slapping what might have been a game-winning touchdown pass out of the arms of Baltimore receiver Lee Evans.

After a couple dozen viewings, I isolated the crucial frame which proves that Evans had lost control of the ball before his second foot had hit the turf, as required by the NFL rules:

Just before this freeze-frame, Evans had the ball cradled (albeit too loosely) to his stomach. But Moore swatted at Evans, and batted the ball downward. And as these details show, Evans lost control of it milliseconds before his second foot hit the turf:

The proof? As the detail above shows, there is a visible shadow which extends under the entirety of the ball and toe of Evans’s second foot... his heel being nowhere near the turf:

Higher-resolution video would demonstrate this point even more conclusively, revealing one or more frames immediately prior to this one (but not available to those of us who have to rely on YouTube) which would show Evans’ foot even farther from the ground with the ball already dislodged by Moore’s clutch slap.

Here is the relevant NFL rule:

If a player controls the ball while in the end zone, both feet, or any part of his body other than his hands, must be completely on the ground before losing control, or the pass is incomplete.

Moore, it’s worth nothing, was brought in from the Patriots’ practice squad after a host of other defenders either got injured, got cut, or just generally sucked this year. His instinctive but precise slap at the football, at a moment when others would have given up in despair at having given up a season-ending catch, proves the value of relentless practice and commitment to finishing every play. Über-coach Bill Belichick will no doubt be reminding his teams of this for years to come.

Lastly, here is a final screenshot showing all the emotion which Belichick evinced at the moment that Billy Cundiff’s attempted game-tying field goal sailed left of the goalposts... Which is to say: None.

 

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Personal Note: Though a total sports nut as a kid, for years I lost interest. Two things conspired to bring me back into the fold: (1) The endless St. Lawrence Cement controversy. When one is involved with such an all-consuming, round-the-clock fight, virtually everything one does, hears, or watches in some way starts the mind thinking again about the endless amount of work at hand. Sports, I found, were the only form of recreation which didn’t relate at all to the intense, complex and maddening business of stopping the plant; (2) Belichick’s highly methodical, analytical, dispassionate, disciplined and rational approach to coaching in the salary cap era is fascinating to watch, teaching lessons applicable far beyond football. His success is the triumph of matching talent to strategy: finding both novel and conventional ways to win. He’s married asymmetrical forms of warfare (e.g. surprising Denver with run plays by nimble tight end Aaron Hernandez) to grind-it-out study and training. Meanwhile, there appears to be virtually none of the usual chest-thumping bravado, knuckle-dragging bluster, or faith-based superstition involved. That makes victories over the likes of pious but undisciplined opponents like Tim Tebow’s Broncos all the more awesome. The Patriots do their homework, rather than saying their prayers.

Quotable Spikes

It is what it is, but it ain’t what you think.

— New England Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes