Posted:
#26
If you think the Pats and Giants defense are close, you should not be betting football. That is not meant as an insult, just friendly advice.
You seriously need to look past the face value of numbers. Interpretation is as important as raw data, and proper evaluation of data in the NFL is a lot more complicated than looking at stats like total yardage/points/whatever and using them to rank anything without further considerations.
While SOS (or SOV) are widely regarded as important mitigating factors in evaluation, but there are still problems with using the strict values for these. Do you go strictly by W/L record? Do you go by the successes teams have had offensively and/or defensively with regard to points scored, yardage or some combination?
Let's say you use W/L record only. What if a team faced an 8-8 team with the easiest schedule in the league? Is that worth the same as facing an 8-8 team with the easiest schedule in the league? There are issues like this with just about every single stat that exists.
There are so many variables in evaluating success in the NFL that to use basic stats to compare teams is just going to lead you to spurious results. (This even applies to a one game evaluation.)
I know I'm not providing any easy answers in this post. Sorry. I just don't want you to be using stats like yardage gained/allowed or points gained/allowed without filtering the data, and drawing early conclusions from them.
0
bucfitty!
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