Don’t Believe the Hype

From the comments on this Yella post…

Seriously, it’s not like are the Niners or something. We are one damn game out. We have won one diviosn game and lost one. Next week we have another one. And I am going to say right here and right now that I think we will win this one and cover the spread if we are favored and beat it if we aint

An almost identical situation happened after the end of the regular season last year. The Saints were playing shittily. They were riding high, then they slumped then they emerged again. Many haters had them gone in the first round of the play-offs.

Actually, a lot has been covered in this Chic post from before the play-offs last year…

Announcers are not like Spaghetti charts.
When they are all in agreement, they are probably wrong. Right now they all have chubbies over Dallas and San Diego. San Diego is on a long winning streak but Dallas? They were openly mocking those guys a month ago. They were all talking about a “December collapse” that was inevitable for them because the team has played poorly in December in the past. So what happened? That talk got them fired up and they proved something against the Saints. Same for the Eagles, who were the toughest team in football until they got dey ass whipped by Dallas last week. Now they are a “team in trouble.” Expect the Saints to defy the expectations and bounce back.

The announcers, sports story commenters, radio show in-callers and the general sports media are to be listened to only when there is chaos. When they agree about what will happen, that shit generally does NOT happen. Just witness the fates of Dallas, Green Bay and San Diego in last year’s play-offs. Witness the Colts’ loss in the Super Bowl. Witness the 1-4 Dallas record this year. Everyone had them pegged for the first ever “home” Super Bowl game. Now look at them.

Then there are the fans. The ones that freak out at any sign of trouble. These are described in better detail as “Uptown ladies” by Pants in this Yellow post. These aren’t to be confused with Uptown girls. There are many Uptown ladies in the comments of Jeffrey’s posts.

No decent team slumps for long. Look at San Diego, they lead in almost all the stats categories right now but have a 2-4 record. They will emerge soon. Having lived there, I can tell you there are Uptown ladies there too.

Most Uptown ladies like to depend on stats, intangibles, strength of schedule and other straw men to back-up their previous position once it has been disproven by score. I actually know a guy who still maintains the 2009 team wasn’t worthy of their Ring. “He asks, “How many playoff teams did they beat last year?” I started to name the teams we actually beat and he wouldn’t let me include them. He only wanted to count how many we beat in the regular season. There was some sort of method to his madness (for the record, Philadelphia, New England, NY Jets).

So I got to thinking, what if games didn’t have touchdowns? What if instead of points at the end zone, they just reversed the field position and put the ball at the one yard line and plays would just continue until there was a turnover either by downs or fumble /pick? Then at the end of regulation, it would all be added up and the winner would be declared.

Or what if football were judged? Like boxing, figure skating or gymnastics?

Both of those would suck. Be weary of stats loyalists. Stats provide a wonderful insight into the game but it is always goofy to use them to show a team “doesn’t deserve” it’s record. The argument will always come back to the final judgment, the record itself. Though, I do support using stats to explore why a team doesn’t have more wins than it should.

I fully recommend using the announcers “spaghetti charts” method to make bets on football too. It’s tricky though. The Vegas line is the Vegas line and it seems impervious to hype. But when you see Howie and Terry and those guys start to gush and stroke themselves about a team, it’s a good indication that the opposite of what they think will happen is going to happen. It’s like som collective conciousness type thing I can’t put my finger on.

It might be happening to Garret Hartley right now. Before the Minnesota game they had him up there with Tom Dempsey, telling him how awesome he is. Then what happened?

For those that came here because you love Public Enemy…