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**Official Falcons Phins Gameday thread***

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by dirtylandry, Oct 9, 2017.

  1. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    There's no way to spin the results if you do the calculations correctly. All you can say with small sample size is that the results you obtained are unreliable. Let me explain how to do the calculations correctly and you'll see what I mean.

    In post #12, using the 77 games Tannehill started, I said that 46.75% of his games at least 21 points were scored, 57.14% of his games at least 18 points were scored and 87% of his games at least 11 points were scored.

    OK, now remember that this season we gave up 17, 20, 20 and 10 points, in that order. So, looking at only one game at a time, let's say the probability of winning game 1 is P1 = 0.5714 (getting rid of the % sign means dividing by 100), the probability of winning game 2 is P2 = 0.4675, and of course P3 = 0.4675 and P4 = 0.87.

    So.. let's explicitly do two calculations: the probability of winning precisely 4 games, and the probability of winning precisely 3 games. The probability of winning precisely 4 is simply P1*P2*P3*P4 = 10.87% as stated in post #12.

    The probability of winning precisely 3 games requires a bit more thought. There are 4 possible ways to win precisely 3 games: either win games 1,2,3 and lose game 4 OR win games 1,2,4 and lose game 3 OR win games 1,3,4 and lose game 2 OR lose game 1 and win games 2,3,4.

    OK? So what is the probability of that first possibility: win games 1,2,3 and lose game 4? It's simply P1*P2*P3*(1-P4) because (1-P4) represents the probability of losing (technically: not winning) game 4.

    In probability theory, the word "OR" means "addition", while an "AND" means "multiplication", at least if events are all independent of each other which we can assume here.

    So the probability of winning precisely 3 games is: P1*P2*P3*(1-P4) + P1*P2*(1-P3)*P4 + P1*(1-P2)*P3*P4 + (1-P1)*P2*P3*P4 = 34.53% as shown in post #12.

    As you can see, there is only ONE way to do the calculations (correctly) so you can't spin this. Sample size comes into play because you have to estimate the distribution from which you get these probabilities, and the smaller the sample size the greater the potential error in your estimates of P1, P2, P3 or P4, and those errors propagate through the calculations. That's what I was referring to in posts #14 and #18.

    But you can't spin the results. All you can say is the results are unreliable with small sample size. That's also why I said in post #18 that IF the small sample size was truly representative, then you'd most likely get 3-1 in the situation described.
     
  2. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    Okay, but you used one base factor- Tannehill's 77 games under three different coaches, in three different offensive systems, and with three different primary receivers. In a portion of those scenarios, he was told to never leave the pocket. In a portion, he was told to scramble. And in the final portion, he was told to scramble and advance the ball if he saw certain things. So it's safe to say that the 2013 RT was a lot different from the 2016 version- but what do you use to accurately predict how he'd play in the first four games of 2017?

    I don't think the 77 games represents that number.

    As others have said, maybe you need to base things off the last 8 games only when the line was playing good, Parker was involved and Ajayi was hitting his stride. But is that the line we've had on the field for the past month? Nope. Maybe you go with the first four games like I did- but that's just as biased as using the eight game streak.


    Even then, that's not objective in itself because there are so many additional factors we haven't mentioned- abandoning your home with a baby there, travelling thousands of miles, practicing away from home, the Timmons distraction, the kneeling distraction, etc. There are just too many variables to predict a reliable set of compatible games....and we haven't even talked about opponents yet.

    I'm not knocking your math though- I'm knocking your baseline as being taken for a given when it's clearly not. I believe you showed us a stat the other week of the percentage of playoff teams that return to the post-season- that alone says we can't accurately predict 2017 off of 2016 numbers. And with the insane schedule we've had, nothing accurately compares to the last four weeks.
     
  3. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah that's basically what cuchulainn said in post #19, and as you see I didn't disagree.

    Let me summarize: there's no "best" approach here. Either you use large enough sample size but make yourself vulnerable to the critique that conditions probably changed (note that we'd only know for sure after Tannehill played enough years under Gase), or you pick the condition you'd prefer (say from game 6 onwards last year) but then run into sample size issues.

    The calculations were still worth doing, at least for me, because I had no intuition for what to expect either way.
     
  4. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    You always try to be as objective as possible- I realize that. But very few here (myself included) stay objective with our posts...we defend our numerous viewpoints whenever possible. Me pointing out that the calculations didn't work was not a knock on you at all- it was merely saying that there's no factual evidence of how good/bad Tannehill would have done.

    I personally think we would have been 3-1 or even 4-0, but that's based on gut intuition alone.
     
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  5. cuchulainn

    cuchulainn Táin Bó Cúailnge Club Member

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    Not to mention being able to score. Take away the garbage TD in the closing ticks of the jets game and we're scoring 7 ppg on offense. Cleo Lemon did more, better, than what we've seen from Cutler.
     
    Rock Sexton likes this.
  6. They say that defense wins football games, well I believe we finally have a great defense, sure the offence is still not close to what anyone expected but if you remember that the slow start year Miami surprised everyone even themselves after start 1-4 they made the playoffs with such a terrible defence! Losing RT changed everything he showed how well he can play on coach Gase' system.
    If cutler can stay INT free and we can at least run the ball explosive like last year we can show we can once again play with anyone. It happened last year after 4 games why not now as well?
     
  7. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    mods please merge
     
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  8. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    For a defense to win games you need:

    1) a dominant, not just good, defense... and it has to score points

    2) good special teams (esp. punter)

    3) the O has to at least eat up some T.O.P. to keep the D rested
     
  9. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    bump this
     
  10. Fin D

    Fin D Sigh

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    Talk about being petty and pathetic.
     
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  11. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    I know right, the nerve of having another thread like this. I agree!
     
  12. danmarino

    danmarino Tua is H1M! Club Member

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    I'm going to duplicate my posts for each one of the gameday threads.
     
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  13. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    this is the only thread that matters bro
     
  14. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    I like that you have Landry's competitive spirit. We believe in competition here. May the best thread win.
     
  15. jw3102

    jw3102 season ticket holder

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    I remember when gameday threads on this forum were actually started on the actual day of the game. Starting a gameday thread almost a week before the game is played defeats the entire concept of a “gameday thread”.
     
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  16. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I like the idea of “game week” threads...can we all agree on that?
     
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  17. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    That's the first I have heard of this issue.
     
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  18. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    I like games
     
  19. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    I started this thread a week ago discussing theFalcons. The talk shows discuss the Falcons early too
     
  20. dirtylandry

    dirtylandry Well-Known Member

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    just a reminder this is the official gameday thread
     
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  21. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Yeah it's totally cool, just imo call it "gameweek thread" so some dudes don't get their panties all in a bunch.
     
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  22. cuchulainn

    cuchulainn Táin Bó Cúailnge Club Member

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    [​IMG]
     

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