2019 NFL Week 10 Game Thread
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Another video of it....sounds like “hails” ...smooth Geno
Another video of it....sounds like “hails” ...smooth Geno
I heard tails as well, but when there was no reaction after the ref said heads I just figured I needed to add hearing test to my list of wellness tasks.
I think there was some controversial missed flip call that caused them to change the mechanics and to have the ref repeat the call. But in the years since they made the change, it has definitely changed in how they administer it. Right after the initial change, the ref would say the call back to the captain and wait a bit but it seems like now they just say the word "heads" or "tails" as they are flipping the coin, which really doesn't avoid the controversy they were trying to prevent.
Then of course there was Steratore before LII forgetting even to get the captain to make a call before handing the coin to the Medal of Honor guy to do the flip.
I think the refs get nervous too.
Then of course there was Steratore before LII forgetting even to get the captain to make a call before handing the coin to the Medal of Honor guy to do the flip.
I think the refs get nervous too.
The more I think about it, the more I think the game was entertaining but not particularly well-played -- or at least, not by the quarterbacks. Jimmy played scared a lot of the night -- for all the complaining about his receivers letting balls fly through their hands (which is true) he also made a ton of throws that most defenses take to the house. And his ball security was atrocious -- which was complicated by his holding on to the ball forever. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson had a better night but a number of terrible plays, including the red zone pick that was really under-thrown -- and a weird fumble that was a poor play in an even worse spot.
Perhaps the broadcast team plays a role here in people having extremely different reactions from what they were being told by Tessitore's incessant tire pumping and whatever the hell Booger is doing. Tessitore's OTT enthusiasm knows no bounds -- it extends to punts that go into the end zone for touchbacks. But when it came to the QB play, he wouldn't shut up about how incredible, inspiring and without peer each of these guys were, particularly Wilson. Meanwhile, Booger showed a great short memory for following hosannas for that kicker after he made that first kick with "The moment was just a bit too big for him" when he shanked a kick so badly it would've made Mike Vanderjagt blush 10 minutes later. They are, bar none, the worst football announcers on television and in a league with Dan Fouts, that's saying something. Sometimes I think that KC-Rams game was worst thing that ever happened to them. Or to us.
Again: it was an enjoyable game. But particularly in OT it seemed like both teams were doing everything they could not to win. Could that have been elite defensive play? I guess. Even still, this was hardly SB LIII. More entertaining? Sure -- but by no means better played.
Different topic, but from what little I watched it seemed like a lot of injuries to key players especially on SF side.
How much will that hurt them going forward ?
How much will that hurt them going forward ?
Quite a bit, I'd imagine. Kittle is their leading receiver andallows them to be very creative with groupings and formations. Sanders, if with the team all year, would probably be leading the team in receiving, if not neck and neck woth Kittle.
Lots of twitter docs speculating on Kittle favoring his left leg and speculating that the gravity of his injury is why he was relegated to a suite and not on the sidelines. Something to watch for sure.
I feel like it was Pitt/Lions 1997-1998-ish but that’s from memory. I could be totally off
(NB: This refers to Carolina's two-point try after scoring a TD that brought them within eight points of GB in the 4th quarter).
This one is actually easy to see once you slap some concrete numbers onto it. If you assume that any given two-point try has a 40% success rate, that all extra points are successful, and that overtime is a straight coin flip, then the win probability associated with going for two after the first touchdown is 0.4 + (1 - 0.4) * 0.4 * 0.5 = 0.52*, vs a win probability of 0.5 if you kick the extra point. And of course, our initial assumptions are strongly slanted in favor of the extra point, as these are converted with well below perfect success (as Patriots fans are well aware), and two-point tries are converted at well above 40% these days.
Going one level deeper, the reason that people generally fail to grasp this is that we have a strong tendency to assume diminishing marginal utility of any given commodity. (Money is the canonical example: it is obviously much more significant to go from $0 to $1m than it is to go from $1m to $2m). But by construction, win probability is not subject to this property - its marginal utility is always constant. It is just as significant to go from a coin flip to a virtually certain win as it is to go from a virtually certain loss to a coin flip. And it is quite obvious that when people assume that the extra point must be correct after the first touchdown, it is because they overvalue the prospect of escaping an impending loss, relative to the prospect of winning the game outright.
* To forestall any pointless shit-picking: of course, a team is not actually a favorite to win when they are trailing by 8 points in the fourth quarter. For simplicity, we are only considering the relevant scenarios where the trailing team then outscores their opponent by a touchdown over the remainder of the 4th quarter. Both the 0.52 and 0.5 values are multiplied by the probability of this scenario obtaining; whatever this probability may be, it is common to both, and can therefore be omitted.
Do you have to take into account that having a one point lead late in the game is not a guarantee of a win? And in fact it puts losing scenarios on the table that might not have existed in a tie game. The opponent must try to score instead of being content with overtime, and in fact might make more optimal choices than it would have in a tie game — like going on fourth down. In other words, a tie game may make your opponent act sub-optimally for the very same reasons everyone kicks down 8.
I guess, though, in no case is leading by one ever going to make it more than 50 percent likely you will lose in regulation, so it is always better than overtime. It just seems to me that when we say the win probability of TD, convert, TD, kick is 1.00 are we baking in some assumptions there? The entire premise of the exercise is an assumption is that the other team does not score at all, but the question is whether converting or not converting the two point conversion with 9 minutes left changes the way your opponent plays thereafter and thus changes the odds that that they won’t score more.
I think about this sometimes when a team is down by 3 late, like in the Scottish Game. Obviously going up 4 is always better for win probability, except not always in hindsight. If Moss drops the TD and the Patriots kick a game tying field goal, the Giants play more conservatively and certainly do not go for it on fourth down. You can’t assume how things play out but they might have been content for overtime. The Patriots might even have gotten the ball back in regulation on a punt. The 4 point game forced the Giants to play in a way that worked out best and may even have been, given all factors, more optimal and conducive to winning.
I guess, though, in no case is leading by one ever going to make it more than 50 percent likely you will lose in regulation, so it is always better than overtime. It just seems to me that when we say the win probability of TD, convert, TD, kick is 1.00 are we baking in some assumptions there? The entire premise of the exercise is an assumption is that the other team does not score at all, but the question is whether converting or not converting the two point conversion with 9 minutes left changes the way your opponent plays thereafter and thus changes the odds that that they won’t score more.
I think about this sometimes when a team is down by 3 late, like in the Scottish Game. Obviously going up 4 is always better for win probability, except not always in hindsight. If Moss drops the TD and the Patriots kick a game tying field goal, the Giants play more conservatively and certainly do not go for it on fourth down. You can’t assume how things play out but they might have been content for overtime. The Patriots might even have gotten the ball back in regulation on a punt. The 4 point game forced the Giants to play in a way that worked out best and may even have been, given all factors, more optimal and conducive to winning.
You're absolutely right - "ignoring second-order factors" is a caveat that should be added, strictly speaking. But keep in mind that the numbers in the OP were designed to show that the (first-order) conclusion holds even under ridiculously conservative assumptions. If we use more realistic estimates, the win probability differential becomes large enough that second-order considerations (which are admittedly hard to quantify) are very unlikely to fully offset it. And in any case, not to move the goalposts, but the point of the exercise was ultimately to establish the comprehensibility of the two-point try, even if the case for absolute correctness is less than ironclad. Given that the most straightforward approximation comes out so heavily in favor of the two-point try, It is not at all hard to see why a smart coach would choose it in this situation.
Dude, really? You couldn't think of any other game in the entire history of football with which to illustrate this point? Sheesh.
