GumboBC

Good summary, JKool.

But, it seems to me that some guys could just cut and paste this on every thread:

Then once we get past that we could actually talk about the topic at hand.

JKool

Right.

Here is the second thing that people need to think about then: if you describe the data sufficiently generally, you can demonstrate almost whatever you like. Saying \"we haven\'t done x in 5 years\" can be made true by merely filling in the right x. The standard rule for avoiding this is to be sure that x is the kind of thing that could be causally responsible for some thing you\'d like to show. Thus, \"not filling needs\" is the kind of thing that is causally responsible for not winning, but it masks the details, which may be illuminating. And, \"we cannot win because we never have\" is NOT the sort of thing that is causally responsible for our not winning.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

WhoDat

J brings up a good point. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns (flash back to finance class!!!). This is true, and suggesting that simply b/c a player or team performed a certain way last year means he will in the coming year is a recipe for disaster.

Of course, the flip side is that if you want to make a prediction as to what a person might expect in the next season, I don\'t know how you could do that without considering previous performances. Bottom line is that what a player or team has done in the past is the best indicator of future performance that we have. It\'s not perfect, but if you look at the numbers thoroughly and consider all the factors, you can do a pretty decent job.

For example, two years ago I predicted that the Panthers would be much improved. I said I thought that they were a scary team that might even be able to win the division. I didn\'t come close to envisioning them in the Super Bowl, however at a time when most other people on this board were pointing to the Bucs and Falcons, I was probably most scared of the Panthers. Last year I said that the Falcons would be much improved and a contender just by getting Vick back. Again, I didn\'t predict them being as good as they ended up being, but...

The point is, you can do two things. Try and find out everything you can about past performances and try to figure out why they happened. Then apply current events to try and make an educated guess. OR, you can ignore the past and blindly predict 13-3 every year. I choose the former.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"