New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexonfyre (Post 443165)

I guess my point was a little bit lost:

My point was that the statistic means that 3% of TEAMS HAVE MADE IT to the playoffs from 0-3, not that THE 2012 SAINTS have a 3% CHANCE OF MAKING IT.

There is no such thing as a "CHANCE" of making the playoffs (outside of the betting world,) we don't spin a roulette wheel to determine the playoff teams. There are too many intervening factors to even make a relative guess at that until late in the season.
Then we have the "0-3" statistic, which encompasses way too many factors to be relevant to any team. By that statistic the Saints are exactly the same as the Cleveland Browns.

Stats that would be relevant to us would be "Avg. wins of a team with no head coach" ; "Avg wins of teams having 13 wins before going 0-3" or something similar.
It turns out they have looked at the last one by the way and it looks like about 6, but most of those teams suffered from a retirement or injury of key players, which is still similar to us, but not directly comparable.

In the law, past experiences and societal norms are relevant to discuss "reasonability" for certain issues like self-defense, but all these statistics would mean about the Saints is that it is not "unreasonable" to believe that they won't make the playoffs. However to say that a season is "over" after three games is equally unreasonable for the EXACT SAME REASON! If the season were over then how did the 95 Lions and the 98 Bills make it to the playoffs? And even if we lose to Green Bay, how is the season over if the 92 Chargers were able to make it to the playoffs from 0-4?

There is simply no rational way to put any team in or out of the playoffs at this point in the season (except the Browns, because they would have trouble winning a BCS championship this year.)

Yeah, like I said I agreed on your assessment of the Saints' situation. My issue, if it can even be called that, was with just the initial statement I quoted.

As for the cases you mentioned, like the '95 Lions and the '98 Bills etc., I don't think they really prove anything when it comes to purely statistical probabilities, because those cases would themselves probably be deemed as outliers because they stray so far from the probable statistical variation that can be expected based on the variables under consideration.

In statistics, it's very rare to get a probability value, which would mean that a certain outcome would be as likely to take place as would be its polar opposite - at least when we are considering multiple variables. So, in practice when dealing with more complex statistical calculations, we would in all likelihood get a probability value which would tell us that a certain outcome was the most probable to take place based on the data we have at our disposal, but with a certain built in standard deviation, and those outliers would not fit in to that standard deviation.

Naturally, the data we use can be faulty and/or the way we use that data can be equally faulty, so not all statistical probabilities are valid even though they might be supported by countless pages of mathematical evidence.

But I agree with you on that it's far too early to count out any team at this point in the season, because anything can happen as long as there is even a slight possibility of it happening.