Suck it Simmons (Colts Luck)

by shake n bake on Dec 31, 2008 10:59 PM EST

Colts are five plays away from potentially being 3-9

-Bill Simmons (and many others)

Columnists and commentators have whined about the Colts luck, tried to dismiss their accomplishments by picking key plays (including plays made by the Colts, rather than mistakes, by the opposing team) and hypothetically reversing them and saying that the other team then wins the hypothetical game. This is ridiculously dumb for a varity of reasons, but lets cut right to the big picture.

Both Football Outsiders and Advanced NFL Stats produce "expected wins" from their statistical breakdowns giving the number of games a team with the team in question's schedule and overall performance would win on average. This allows you to get a rough value for a teams "luck" the wins they got over or under what a team that played at their level and against their schedule would be expected to win.

The Colts, as usual outperformed their expected wins (the gap isn't entirely random non-predictive events, but includes factors that can't really be factored in objectively like coaching and Peyton Manning being consistantly awesome on 3rd down). The Colts were "lucky" but they weren't even in the top 5 of either sites listing.

The sites disagree on most of the of the top luck teams, but one team exceeded it's expected wins by 2 games on both sites ratings. That team that was ahead of the Colts and one of the two luckiest on both sites?

The New England Patriots.

Whine and moan all you want about the Patriots being robbed and the "lucky" Colts Simmons, other ignorant Pats homers and the other assorted Colts haters, but the Colts performed up to their win total more than the Patriots (and many other teams)

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Interesting

Yesterday I told my dad and a friend of mine that the Titans are the luckiest 13-3 team ever, and apparently I was right lol! Also, the Advanced NFL Stats rankings showed that Jacksonville was only going to win about 5 games this past season, which the did; but all the so-called ESPN NFL “experts” had them winning the division and going to the AFCCG. ESPN = a bunch of imbeciles.

by KMR24 on Jan 1, 2009 12:18 AM EST reply actions

I love to see San Diego being unlucky

Let’s hope that continues Saturday.

by Colts Homer on Jan 1, 2009 12:51 AM EST reply actions

to be fair...

Simmons really hasn’t said anything about the Colts’ luck in a long time. He’s kind of waivered back and forth this year… and at one point he was so far on the Colts’ bandwagon his stench was startin to drive some regulars off of it. I think that was the main reason he kept jumping back and taking swipes at the Colts, he didn’t wanna lose his bahstan street cred, ya?

by Nideak on Jan 1, 2009 1:08 AM EST reply actions

it's been a month tops (because the quote was 3-9)

he was the only person I specifically remembered saying it and for some reason it doesn’t seem as mean spirited when I bash a writer than I (usually) like and have no plans of stopping reading.

Shonn Greene for Heisman
Doak Walker award winner
144 yards per game
6.2 yards per carry
08 TDs per game > 06 GPA

by shake n bake on Jan 1, 2009 1:16 AM EST up reply actions

yea but..

Yes, that is a true comment the colts were 5 plays away from potentially being 3-9 but…..we werent 3-9, we won all of those games. When it comes down to it the only stat that matters in football is how high the number in the wins column is. No one cares how you get the win as long as you get the win that the only thing that matters. I will say this to, potentially the Pats were one play away from starting a dynasty back when the tuck rule came about in the game against the raiders.

by hoosierdrummer60 on Jan 1, 2009 8:26 PM EST reply actions