How much does luck play into football success?

[DallasEast]

A Tale of Two Punters

Once upon a time, there were two punters.

The first punter caught the ball. His form was excellent. His leg was fully extended and the ball recoiled off his foot perfectly. The ball's arc was glorious. The ball rotated two degrees too much as it met the ground, took a wicked hop at the 3-yard line, bounced five yards into the air and landed in the endzone.

"What awful luck!" the first punter said.

The second punter was nervous. His first punt had been nearly blocked. He caught the ball but saw someone on his right, took one step left and hastily followed through with the kick. The ball's trajectory was low and hit the ground at the 26-yard line. Suddenly, the ball took off like a rocket, made a 45-degree change in direction near the left hash mark, bounced four times, until finally coming to a wobbling stop at the 2-yard line.

"Now that's skill!" said the second punter.

Which kick was influenced more by design or by chance? You decide.

The End.

 

[S4 DGMS]

Andrew has been and will continue to be play a huge part in any success the Colts may have going forward..

 

[JackOfNoTrades]

good and bad luck definitely plays a role, look at Eli. Most likely he'll finish ahead of his brother in accomplishing the ultimate NFL accolade while being half the QB as Payton. However, I'll say though Eli might not be elite, he's certainly no slouch either and had substance to back up the good luck he/Gints enjoyed during their SB runs.

 

[jazzcat22]

I'd say the draft is about 90% luck and 10% about being better than the other teams at evaluating talent. Some are consistently better at evaluating talent, but it's not by a substantial margin. To clarify, it takes a lot of time and effort to put together a useful draft board. But all of the teams are spending a great deal of effort in that regard, so what separates teams in terms of drafting is most often not effort or know-how, but rather luck.

PS, JJ Watt is hardly one of the greatest defensive players of all time -- yet. One great season does not make a career.

I remember Pat Summerall making a comment back in 1990. Thanksgiving day game, Cowboys, Commanders. He and Madden were talking about all the draft picks the Cowboys still had coming to them yet.
Emmitt had just ran for a long TD to pretty much put the game away.

He said if the Cowboys get lucky in the draft, and that's just about all the draft is, is luck, they will build something great here for a long time.

 

[CF74]

How unlucky can one truly claim to be when deliberately drafting injured players and they don't pan out?

 

[BotchedLobotomy]

I would say that a franchise's success is based on 50% luck with the remaining 50% being how the team is run, how well they draft, player and coach execution.....etc.

As far as the 50% luck, the Cowboys have had mostly the bad variety. The remaining 50% has been below average at best which has led us to where we are now. A Bad Team.

 

[CyberB0b]

There's a bit of luck involved, but great teams overcome it. We are handicapped from the top.

 

[Verdict]

Those Patriots have been running really hot!

Actually they really haven't. Brady has made up for a lot of bad decisions and draft busts of that franchise. The Hoodie has looked pretty mortal and fallible as of late. They are "lucky" in the sense that Tom Brady has been healthy for most of his career.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

Assembling a board with talent that fits your team a and what you want to do is key. It is about self analysis first. There is a reason some teams do better, they have a system to draft to and identify the right players that fit.

Like what teams? The pats who haven't drafted well? The steelers who haven't been able to fix their O-line for years? Or the Seahawks? Well they were bad for years before finally hitting on a series of late round picks.

People have short memories.

 

[jazzcat22]

When teams start winning, unexplained after years of mediocrity, in hindsight, people will say they drafted well. Partly,they should get better with higher 1st round picks.
Same as a team on top, the lower late rounds catch up to them.
But most of it still comes down to if they get lucky....

However it's not always the case, but other moves made by the teams can have an adverse effect from a team getting good players in the draft, rather they were lucky or just had a very good draft by good scouting and sticking to that board. Or it can have a great effect too, one never knows.

But also a team can have a solid draft board, but gets torn apart, because the way things just so happen to fall.
This past draft, Dalls lost on 3 defensive players they wanted, then passed on Manziel, and picked Martin [which was great decision], but it threw off their entire draft strategy in a way. So they made the trade to get the best guy on their board which was a DE, in Lawerance.

Nest years draft, everything may fall in place and go almost exactly what the want. Then in 3 years, one can say that was a great draft, but yet some luck was involved.

 

[Zekeats]

In a Jerry trash posting, I'll tell you what...get into a financial category that one can afford the quality of liquor that Jerry Jones consumes...and get back to us.

Ooooookay..........so I guess ccboy + alcoholic = jerry

 

[CCBoy]

Ooooookay..........so I guess ccboy + alcoholic = jerry

No, you should have just quit...and well before stating you guess.

Stacking insult just doesn't do much beyond stink...

Take issues and define roles and relationships, not slamming character that is not even yours.

Pick up topic and put your efforts there. I don't abuse alcohol, and you are no judge of Jerry.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

I'm just going back and looking at past drafts.

2011 - Texans get one of the greatest defensive players of all-time at the #11 pick.
2011 - Cardinals get a lockdown corner at the #5 pick.
2012 - Cowboys get Morris Claiborne at the #6 pick.

How much of this is just bad luck?

I read your question as "How much of the draft is reducible to cause and effect models that make predictions of success?"

The answer is "not much", in my opinion, and it probably never will be. Whenever you insert human behavior into the equation, it tends to much everything up. Having said that, it's clear some teams have more consistent success than other teams.

 

[AsthmaField]

None. Luck is a 'tool' used when understanding doesn't allow a better explanation.

LOL, man you are always a deep thinker.

I don't know what you do for a living, but you think well.

Good Job.

 

[CCBoy]

The problem with defining luck as being an item when there is a lack of understanding... Sometimes, there is an understanding and luck still required for one of two reasons. A lack of using all available information due to an agenda. Or despite a direction taken, the human part meets and exceeds the challenge.

 

[jazzcat22]

I think some people use the term LUCK to suit their agenda when it comes to comparing the Cowboys to other teams, that always seem to do no wrong, as where Dallas always do everything wrong.

You have selective reasoning and selective memory, but also they use selective luck....

 

[punchnjudy]

It's the bad luck of having an insane owner.

+1

-Washington Commanders

 

[TwoDeep3]

I'd like for any of the Great Unwashed here to quantify luck.

Not Andrew.

Serendipity, fortunateness, fortune, luckiness, blessing, boon, fluke, godsend, hit, , strike, windfall; break, chance, opportunity; coup, stroke

Compose the components and advise me how we can accurately determine if luck has any hand in football.

Or, for that matter, if luck is factually something which invests itself in life.

 

[CCBoy]

I'd like for any of the Great Unwashed here to quantify luck.

Not Andrew.

Serendipity, fortunateness, fortune, luckiness, blessing, boon, fluke, godsend, hit, , strike, windfall; break, chance, opportunity; coup, stroke

Compose the components and advise me how we can accurately determine if luck has any hand in football.

Or, for that matter, if luck is factually something which invests itself in life.

Oh, that's why Murphy's Law was invented...

 

[jazzcat22]

I'd like for any of the Great Unwashed here to quantify luck.

Not Andrew.

Serendipity, fortunateness, fortune, luckiness, blessing, boon, fluke, godsend, hit, , strike, windfall; break, chance, opportunity; coup, stroke

Compose the components and advise me how we can accurately determine if luck has any hand in football.

Or, for that matter, if luck is factually something which invests itself in life.

Football is a game of inches, as in many sports. That odd shaped ball can produces some starange, and at times lucky / unlucky bounces.

Why does a fumbled ball take a weird bounce, lay on the sideline for a player to recover, but yet other times, it takes a strange bounce away from a player to go out of bounds. Or even for another player on the opposing team to recover....that is luck, no skill, no draft, no GM is going to change that.

Just seems it doesn't go out way as much as we want it too. But it may change, we may get that bounce this Sunday.
Jimmy johnson said, as well as many other coaches, he believes there are about 6 plays that determine the shape and outcome of a game. you just need to be there and be lucky at times to make one of those plays.