It Isn't Just Our Media Who Are Clueless

[Hostile]

So I was surfing several news sites just now looking for some stories and one of them speculated that the Colts need to tank their game tomorrow against the Texans and then again next week so that they do not lose out on the Andrew Luck lottery.

I swear, these guys never do any kind of research. They just throw a sensationalistic story out there and pray that readers aren't smart enough to catch their errors.

Indy could win 1 of their last 2 games and still land Luck. They would have to win both to ruin their chances.

The reason is simple. The winning % of the 3 worst teams opponents.

Right now the Colts opponent winning % is .536. That is quite a bit lower than the Vikings .567 and the Rams .589.

By playing the easier schedule, if they end up in a 3 way tie it is still the Colts pick regardless because it is impossible to lose that much in opponent winning % that fast. the Rams and Vikings could swap places possibly, but as long as the Colts don't win their last 2 games they have Luck in their cross hairs.

Or as I said, the bounty they could haul in by trading him away.

It leads me to conclude that most sports writers, not just ours, just don't follow the actual game any more. They look for sensational stories because they know tabloid journalism is what more fans cling to than ever before.

We should be glad Tony Romo got married. Imagine the crap storm they'd be stirring if she were preggers and they weren't married. You say it's no big deal, that a lot of people have kids without being married. Yeah, but not the QB of the Dallas Cowboys. Yep, we should all be thankful he tied the knot.

 

[burmafrd]

There are not 3 mediots out there that are worth more than a bucket of camel piss.

 

[JakeCamp12]

The issue I have noticed is that blogs and 24 hour sports news makes content a premium and every "journalist", and I use the term loosely, has to come up with some angle in order to get either page hits or ratings. Real journalistic investigation is non-existent.

 

[viman96]

IMO there is way too much opinion based articles with the writer's personality coming through.

 

[The30YardSlant]

I'd be shocked if in 2011 anyone in the media not associated with Fox News acted outraged over someone having a child before getting married, if for no other reason than such indignation would result in them being blacklisted by the modern progressive mindset.

 

[Temo]

 

[Robert_California]

Actually (if I'm thinking about this correctly) it seems like it could pretty easily be done. Only 7 games separate Minnesota's opponent SOS from Indianapolis. Each teams' opponents have a total of 32 games left.

So if Indianapolis wins one game, and has it's opponents go 20-12 over that stretch while Minnesota goes winless and has it's opponents go 12-20 or worse over that stretch then Minnesota ends up with the #1 pick in the draft.

 

[Temo]

Actually (if I'm thinking about this correctly) it seems like it could pretty easily be done. Only 7 games separate Minnesota's opponent SOS from Indianapolis. Each teams' opponents have a total of 32 games left.

So if Indianapolis wins one game, and has it's opponents go 20-12 over that stretch while Minnesota goes winless and has it's opponents go 12-20 or worse over that stretch then Minnesota ends up with the #1 pick in the draft.

See above.

 

[Yeagermeister]

Why would Minn and StL draft Luck? They just drafted Ponder and Bradford. They could trade the pick I guess.

 

[Robert_California]

See above.

Right. So am I correct? I can't really tell. Obviously alot of those teams will play each other, which will make alot of the games a wash. But it doesn't seem like it's entirely out of the realm of possiblity that Minnesota and maybe St. Louis could end the season with a worse SOS than Indy. Do you agree or disagree?

 

[Cowboy Brian]

So I was surfing several news sites just now looking for some stories and one of them speculated that the Colts need to tank their game tonight against the Texans and then again next week so that they do not lose out on the Andrew Luck lottery.

I swear, these guys never do any kind of research. They just throw a sensationalistic story out there and pray that readers aren't smart enough to catch their errors.

Indy could win 1 of their last 2 games and still land Luck. They would have to win both to ruin their chances.

The reason is simple. The winning % of the 3 worst teams opponents.

Right now the Colts opponent winning % is .536. That is quite a bit lower than the Vikings .567 and the Rams .571.

By playing the easier schedule, if they end up in a 3 way tie it is still the Colts pick regardless because it is impossible to lose that much in opponent winning % that fast. the Rams and Vikings could swap places possibly, but as long as the Colts don't win their last 2 games they have Luck in their cross hairs.

Or as I said, the bounty they could haul in by trading him away.

It leads me to conclude that most sports writers, not just ours, just don't follow the actual game any more. They look for sensational stories because they know tabloid journalism is what more fans cling to than ever before.

We should be glad Tony Romo got married. Imagine the crap storm they'd be stirring if she were preggers and they weren't married. You say it's no big deal, that a lot of people have kids without being married. Yeah, but not the QB of the Dallas Cowboys. Yep, we should all be thankful he tied the knot.

I would honestly laugh if that had happened.

 

[Hostile]

IMO there is way too much opinion based articles with the writer's personality coming through.

This.

 

[SA_Gunslinger]

The problem with Football is there is only one game a week, and a very short season. Football beat writers are constantly trying to make a story out of anything they can, no matter how small.

This is a fact. They pretty much have to.

:starspin

 

[Hostile]

Actually (if I'm thinking about this correctly) it seems like it could pretty easily be done. Only 7 games separate Minnesota's opponent SOS from Indianapolis. Each teams' opponents have a total of 32 games left.

So if Indianapolis wins one game, and has it's opponents go 20-12 over that stretch while Minnesota goes winless and has it's opponents go 12-20 or worse over that stretch then Minnesota ends up with the #1 pick in the draft.

The problem with your theory is this. The last 2 weeks of the season most teams are playing division rivals. All of those games become meaningless to the win loss totals. The last week of the season are all inter-division. For example, we played the AFC East this year.

Right now we have played teams who have won 105 and lost 119 games this year so far. New England is playing Miami this week and Buffalo next week. 2 wins will get added to the win column and 2 losses will as well. The only thing that goes up is the games played.

So the chance of finding 8 possible games to improve is so remote it isn't even likely.

 

[adbutcher]

IMO there is way too much opinion based articles with the writer's personality coming through.

 

[Robert_California]

The problem with your theory is this. The last 2 weeks of the season most teams are playing division rivals. All of those games become meaningless to the win loss totals. The last week of the season are all inter-division. For example, we played the AFC East this year.

Right now we have played teams who have won 105 and lost 119 games this year so far. New England is playing Miami this week and Buffalo next week. 2 wins will get added to the win column and 2 losses will as well. The only thing that goes up is the games played.

So the chance of finding 8 possible games to improve is so remote it isn't even likely.

It may be unlikely, but I kind of doubt that it is impossible. I guess you'd have to take games against non-common opponents and if there are more than 7 left the possibility exists.

Games against non-common opponents left:
Indy: (StL@Pit)(KC@Oak)(Ari@Cin)(NE@Mia)(Buf@NE)(KC@Den)
Min: (Ari@Cin)(Den@Buf)(Det@SD - This one counts because Detroit's record counts twice)(Washington @ Phi)

So that's ten games between those two teams that could shift it as far as I can tell.

 

[Sonny#9]

There are not 3 mediots out there that are worth more than a bucket of camel piss.

In my opinion -- Dan Graziano is one of them. He doesn't take it so damned personally. In fact he might be the only reporter at ESPN that actually reports. Adam Schefter is great at information dissemination.

There are so precious few journalists that are worth a snot -- they've all become Around The Horn wannabes -- which is the modern day equivalent to a reject from The Gong Show.

 

[Hostile]

It may be unlikely, but I kind of doubt that it is impossible. I guess you'd have to take games against non-common opponents and if there are more than 7 left the possibility exists.

Games against non-common opponents left:
Indy: (StL@Pit)(KC@Oak)(Ari@Cin)(NE@Mia)(Buf@NE)(KC@Den)
Min: (Ari@Cin)(Den@Buf)(Det@SD - This one counts because Detroit's record counts twice)(Washington @ Phi)

So that's ten games between those two teams that could shift it as far as I can tell.

The gap between uncommon opponents for Indianapolis and St. Louis or Minnesota is fairly wide because of AFC vs. NFC and neither the NFC West nor the NFC North play the AFC South this season.

For the Rams and Colts it would be the Saints and the AFC North. So 5 teams are common and 11 are not.

For the Rams and Vikings it would be the NFC South teams and the Chiefs. So again 5 common teams and 11 uncommon.

Now remember many of these uncommon teams are playing their own inter division rivals. So you have to determine from those 22 games where to make up a 12 gap difference when at least 8 of the games are going to cancel each other out. That leaves 14 games to change 12 places.

Not impossible, but so unlikely that it still wasn't worth the time to write an article about tanking the season.

 

[Robert_California]

The gap between uncommon opponents for Indianapolis and St. Louis or Minnesota is fairly wide because of AFC vs. NFC and neither the NFC West nor the NFC North play the AFC South this season.

For the Rams and Colts it would be the Saints and the AFC North. So 5 teams are common and 11 are not.

For the Rams and Vikings it would be the NFC South teams and the Chiefs. So again 5 common teams and 11 uncommon.

Now remember many of these uncommon teams are playing their own inter division rivals. So you have to determine from those 22 games where to make up a 12 gap difference when at least 8 of the games are going to cancel each other out. That leaves 14 games to change 12 places.

Not impossible, but so unlikely that it still wasn't worth the time to write an article about tanking the season.

Your logic on the wins/losses is a bit off. The common opponents between IND and MIN don't matter very much. What matters, with two games left, are matchups between IND and MIN's seasonal opponents. I broke down the games that matter earlier. For example, New England has a few games matter for Indy because NE has games against two divisional opponents left, and Indy didn't play either of them. If New England wins both (very likely), that improves Indy's SOS by two games. In the Cincinnatti Arizona matchup, it affects both teams because Indy played Cincy and Min played Arizona. So if Cincy wins, it improves Indy's SOS and hurts Min's by a game each. With those three games alone we could have a four game swing. If San Diego beats Detroit, there's another game because Detroit's record will count twice in Min's SOS calculation.

So right there we've got 5-6 games with 5 more in play between the two that could swing the SOS to Minnesota. Unlikely, not impossible. Maybe you were a bit hard on the media in the first post. Might have wanted to do a little more research before throwing a sensationalistic story out there and praying that your readers aren't smart enough to catch your errors. :

 

[Hostile]

Your logic on the wins/losses is a bit off. The common opponents between IND and MIN don't matter very much. What matters, with two games left, are matchups between IND and MIN's seasonal opponents. I broke down the games that matter earlier. For example, New England has a few games matter for Indy because NE has games against two divisional opponents left, and Indy didn't play either of them. If New England wins both (very likely), that improves Indy's SOS by two games. In the Cincinnatti Arizona matchup, it affects both teams because Indy played Cincy and Min played Arizona. So if Cincy wins, it improves Indy's SOS and hurts Min's by a game each. With those three games alone we could have a four game swing. If San Diego beats Detroit, there's another game because Detroit's record will count twice in Min's SOS calculation.

So right there we've got 5-6 games with 5 more in play between the two that could swing the SOS to Minnesota. Unlikely, not impossible. Maybe you were a bit hard on the media in the first post. Might have wanted to do a little more research before throwing a sensationalistic story out there and praying that your readers aren't smart enough to catch your errors. :

My logic is not off. Again, most of these teams play their division rivals in the last 2 weeks. If you play that division, for every one you gain you also lose one.