WSJ - GB Packers Bandwagon May be headed for a Crash

[rilamann]

Breaking news guys,the Patriots are under investigation by the league again.


Apparently Tom Brady has been playing with a four leaf clover in his jock strap since 2001.

[thomchatt3rton]

I agree a long FG isnt luck. But to suggest theres no randomness whatsoever in football or life is ignorant.

[ReasonablySober]

I agree a long FG isnt luck. But to suggest theres no randomness whatsoever in football or life is ignorant.

Give us a couple examples.

[Kerb Hohl]

The team had control over scoring 24 points and allowing the other team to score 23,and if those 24 points are good enough to win the game at the end of the day I just don't look at is as luck.

Would you consider a loss where you lose 26-24 on a 65 yard FG as time expires unlucky?

No,I would say that it sucks we weren't good enough to score 27pts on a day their kicker made a 65 yard FG.Or that we weren't good enough told hold them under 24pts.

OK, so now we've established that if your team is up 24-23 and you've kicked off a touchback to the other team with 1:30 to go, defense allowing 75 yards > defense allowing 30 yards.

[thomchatt3rton]

I agree a long FG isnt luck. But to suggest theres no randomness whatsoever in football or life is ignorant.

Give us a couple examples.

Weather.
Turf monster/field conditions.
The ref looking the wrong way and missing a blatant call.
The way the ball bounces includes a degree of randomness.

Off the top of my head theres a couple.

[thomchatt3rton]

I agree a long FG isnt luck. But to suggest theres no randomness whatsoever in football or life is ignorant.

Give us a couple examples.

Weather.
Turf monster/field conditions.
The ref looking the wrong way and missing a blatant call.
The way the ball bounces includes a degree of randomness.

Off the top of my head theres a couple.

Eta: what about a db, whos out of
position- totally in the wrong place- getting a fluke interception off a fluke rebound by virtue of his being in the wrong place?.

[ReasonablySober]

I agree a long FG isnt luck. But to suggest theres no randomness whatsoever in football or life is ignorant.

Give us a couple examples.

Weather.
Turf monster/field conditions.
The ref looking the wrong way and missing a blatant call.
The way the ball bounces includes a degree of randomness.

Off the top of my head theres a couple.

Weather isn't random. It's brought about by atmospheric conditions.
Turf and field conditions could be the result of weather, or maybe the capabilities of the grounds crew.
The ref is looking the wrong way because he's looking at something else that is happening. That's not luck.
The ball bouncing a certain way is due to physics. Also not luck.
A DB getting an INT despite being out of position still happened for a reason: incompetence.

[thomchatt3rton]

So a DB being "rewarded" for his mistake with an interception isnt lucky?
Either I misunderstood you or we have different definitions of the word "luck".
Weather, turf and refs are all out of a teams control and they all distribute their effects randomly and unevenly and cant be controlled or planned for. Call that what you want.

[ReasonablySober]

So a DB being "rewarded" for his mistake with an interception isnt lucky?
Either I misunderstood you or we have different definitions of the word "luck".
Weather, turf and refs are all out of a teams control and they all distribute their effects randomly and unevenly and cant be controlled or planned for. Call that what you want.

I was just giving you an explanation for everything that happens. Incompetence, atmospheric conditions, capabilities, physics...those are all real things that determine the outcomes you see.

[Ron Swanson]

Fortune, luck, players failing to execute basic and routine responsibilities. Whatever you want to call it, I don't see how people can deny that those things sometimes affect games in a sport where literally a single bad bounce has won or lost a Super Bowl. If you want to blame the coach for those things that are pretty much entirely out of his control, then whatever.

I seriously used to be one of the most ardent McCarthy critics out there (basically from 2007 to 2012), but I find that many football fans in general just can't seem to correctly identify what a coach actually is able to influence and what their responsibilities are, and instead just use blanket statements like "scheme" to assign blame where it's most convenient.

But I guess one bad season by the offense somehow overshadows the recurring problems and bonehead plays by the defense and special teams over the past several years? Which ya know, is the real reason why we haven't made it back to the Super Bowl.

[dietac]

The Packers didn't benefit from luck here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBAMYRoZPnM

How about this play? As far as I can tell, the dback did everything in his control but sill didn't get the result that he deserved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXGFZkIEMK0

[ReasonablySober]

Fortune, luck, players failing to execute basic and routine responsibilities. Whatever you want to call it, I don't see how people can deny that those things sometimes affect games in a sport where literally a single bad bounce has won or lost a Super Bowl. If you want to blame the coach for those things that are pretty much entirely out of his control, then whatever.

I seriously used to be one of the most ardent McCarthy critics out there (basically from 2007 to 2012), but I find that many football fans in general just can't seem to correctly identify what a coach actually is able to influence and what their responsibilities are, and instead just use blanket statements like "scheme" to assign blame where it's most convenient.

But I guess one bad season by the offense somehow overshadows the recurring problems and bonehead plays by the defense and special teams over the past several years? Which ya know, is the real reason why we haven't made it back to the Super Bowl.

The only thing I blame McCarthy for, or I guess what I blame him for most, is a complete and utter failure to evolve his offense. That to me is almost criminal when you have Aaron Rodgers and solid weapons. I don't know how anyone can look at what Arians and Haley are doing and not want to scream.

[thomchatt3rton]

So a DB being "rewarded" for his mistake with an interception isnt lucky?
Either I misunderstood you or we have different definitions of the word "luck".
Weather, turf and refs are all out of a teams control and they all distribute their effects randomly and unevenly and cant be controlled or planned for. Call that what you want.

I was just giving you an explanation for everything that happens. Incompetence, atmospheric conditions, capabilities, physics...those are all real things that determine the outcomes you see.

My bad, I thought you were making a substantive argument, but youre just making a semantical one bcuz you dont like the word "luck".
I thought you were trying to say everything in life or football is within our control.

[El Duderino]

Doesn't have anything to do with cosmic forces, that's just you making crap up. If someone told me i'll bet you 1000 dollars that if you flip a coin of your choosing say a 15 times and you only have to call it correct twice to win, yet i still lost, i wouldn't blame some cosmic force for losing. I played poker long enough to know very highly improbable things happen on occasion. I would be bummed though and feeling unlucky as hell at that moment because the odds were vastly in my favor.

When Walsh tricked that basically old school extra point, there wasn't a cosmic force which made him miss it. He simply hooked it, but Seattle was very lucky that he did. They were staring at about 95 percent odds against them and of nothing they did, caught that 5 percent. It's not as if they blocked it.

To me if you say the kick was luck then you could say every play in the game was luck.If you say Seattle got lucky by them missing the kick then you'd have to say that Seattle got lucky when they made Minnesota punt all those times when Minnesota could have scored touchdowns or FGs.

No Seattle had something to do with making Peterson fumble a couple of times and causing those punts. They had nothing to do with Walsh missing basically an old time extra point. The odds were vastly in favor of him making that kick, yet via nothing they did, he hooked a kick that he normally could make with his eyes closed.

Like i said, i used to play poker a lot and either saw or had things happen against me where the odds were 90 plus in my favor. That said, i still consider it bad luck when the odds of something happening are 90 plus in my favor, but i still lose. You are free to say that term doesn't fit, but we'll simply have to disagree.

[El Duderino]

Fortune, luck, players failing to execute basic and routine responsibilities. Whatever you want to call it, I don't see how people can deny that those things sometimes affect games in a sport where literally a single bad bounce has won or lost a Super Bowl. If you want to blame the coach for those things that are pretty much entirely out of his control, then whatever.

I seriously used to be one of the most ardent McCarthy critics out there (basically from 2007 to 2012), but I find that many football fans in general just can't seem to correctly identify what a coach actually is able to influence and what their responsibilities are, and instead just use blanket statements like "scheme" to assign blame where it's most convenient.

But I guess one bad season by the offense somehow overshadows the recurring problems and bonehead plays by the defense and special teams over the past several years? Which ya know, is the real reason why we haven't made it back to the Super Bowl.

The only thing I blame McCarthy for, or I guess what I blame him for most, is a complete and utter failure to evolve his offense. That to me is almost criminal when you have Aaron Rodgers and solid weapons. I don't know how anyone can look at what Arians and Haley are doing and not want to scream.

I agree with this for the most part. Look at how often a big play is made in the passing game and it's not because a receiver was open on his assigned route, but instead Rodgers mainly created it out of scrambling and then making a great throw.

[rilamann]

But I guess one bad season by the offense somehow overshadows the recurring problems and bonehead plays by the defense and special teams over the past several years? Which ya know, is the real reason why we haven't made it back to the Super Bowl.

Except for that one time when the defense and special teams gave the Packers' offense 5 turnovers on a silver platter and the Packers' amazing offense was only able to score 6 total points off of those turnovers.

And you know....it just so happened to be in the NFC Championship game which the Packers went on to lose in overtime.

[thomchatt3rton]

The Packers didn't benefit from luck here?

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

How about this play? As far as I can tell, the dback did everything in his control but sill didn't get the result that he deserved.

Watch on YouTube

I actually wouldn't call either of these "pure luck". Thigpen didn't make a play he should have- that's human error.
On the fail mary, the refs made a mistake they shouldn't have- that's human error.

Look no further than last weeks game at JAX for 2 good examples of pure luck:

First is the interception in 1st quarter- a carom off the hands of the JAX receiver is bobbled, tipped and ends up in whats-his-name s hands for the pick. One could argue he should have made the catch, but that catch wasn't a gimme- another DB had his hands on it too. No one can say it was pure human error by JAX WR that led to that pick. It was a lucky carom for GB.

Second is at the end of the game, a long completion to the JAX receiver who is then drilled by Burnett (or was it HaHa) and fumbles. The ball goes up in the air, just barely misses the hands of a Packers DB and falls back into the JAX receiver's waiting arms/lap for the completion. Again, nobody really was grossly incompetent on either side- it was just an unlucky carom for GB.

You don't have to go far to find plays like this that affect football games in serious ways.

[th87]

I just knew that the "Look at what the Patz do! Urghhhh!" example would come up. Once again, here's your friendly reminder that the Patriots are one dumb opposing coach's decision (Carroll) away from having zero Super Bowls in the last 12 years...

Winner winner chicken dinner. +1

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using RealGM mobile app

I knew that an attempt to equate the Packers and the Patriots successes would come up, and that via nauseating logic.

THE PATRIOTS HAVE GOTTEN TO THE AFCCG OR BETTER IN 9 OF THE LAST 13 SEASONS.

(3 SBs in this period, and crazy catches away from 5. One year without Brady.)

Let that sink in. The Packers are not even in the same galaxy in this regard, and trying to compare the two with such a broad filter is like saying I've been as good a QB as Rodgers since 2010, because we've won the same amount SBs since then.

The point is that the Patriots and Cardinals are doing more with less. Our receiving corps were middle to below average last year, yet still managed to reach last place in important metrics despite having the best QB in the NFL.