NFL 2012/13 Playoffs LD

[Poop Master Flex]

@shattered dreams

For momentum I'm gonna try my best to explain. Although physical skill and talent are important 80% of winning is mental. You are more likely to win if you are confident you can win. When you play well a few games it gives you more confidence, you play looser and you play better. The opposite is also the same, if you have some bad games you get less confident, you start believing less and less which makes it harder to win. Its hard to win if you don't believe you can win, its why the cubs lost the nlcs in 03. They played great but then the Bartman incident happened. Moises got pissed, they started believing in the curse and fell apart. Don't believe me just watch Gonzalez fucking up plays that I could have made and I have no depth perception.

Momentum is mental, you believe you can win then you can win. Doesn't mean you will but believing you can play amazing is half the battle.

 

[Slyfox696]

Decent explanation but it is rare to sustain such a shooting streak for even a whole game as an individual, especially if it is abnormal to your talent level. Now you are saying a whole team does it for over a month? Not sure I am buying that.

It was an example to illustrate the point, not meant to carry crossover explanation.

I'm sure you are not denying momentum exists. Once you acknowledge it exists, trying to quibble over whether it's sustainable over arbitrary length of time is a waste of time.

Who displayed the momentum for Baltimore tonight?.

I never said Baltimore won because of momentum. I'm talking about the theory.

I disagree. If you have more talent you are more likely to win period.

If by talent you mean "better players", then I agree. I've never said otherwise. The keyword there is "likely".

But the point I was making is if you're playing game after game with teams who are roughly equal in talent to you, statistically speaking you're not going to sustain a winning streak. The fact teams do sustain winning streak against teams with comparable talent shows a case where momentum, and/or other factors, might come into play

Are you including luck in momentum? Take you hot shooting streak example. If you have your shooting momentum going and then you happen to get a lucky bounce on an off shot, was that momentum aided?

Could be. If you weren't on a hot streak, perhaps the ball comes off the finger wrong, has a slightly different spin and bounces off the rim in a different direction.

One of the biggest plays in this game was that concussion fumble. It had nothing to do with any of this except dumb luck.

I agree. Not everything is always able to be chalked up to momentum. Sometimes a team plays well and another team doesn't. Though I guess one could make the argument of lack of momentum.

Personally I think people use momentum to explain that which they can't easily explain, often retroactively. I am fine with the idea of admitting there are things that we can't fully explain, what I have a problem with is how little effort is put into trying explain the vast majority of what happened. Too many people just skip to the intangible step when there are much less esoteric explanations.

And I think anyone who has experienced that hot shooting streak knows that sometimes things just seem to click, despite you not doing anything different from normal.

I think the great fallacy of momentum is that no one talks frankly about when it ends. Basically momentum last until it doesn't. Of course it is easy to point out when selectively isolated but what if you have to predict if a team has momentum before the game instead of after? If you start doing that I think you will find your results less conclusive. Maybe that is my main issue with momentum. Are you claiming you can predict that shooting hot streak?

As I said, the truth is momentum isn't determined by wins and losses, though many times wins and losses can be determined by momentum.

 

[shattered dreams]

@shattered dreams

For momentum I'm gonna try my best to explain. Although physical skill and talent are important 80% of winning is mental. You are more likely to win if you are confident you can win. When you play well a few games it gives you more confidence, you play looser and you play better. The opposite is also the same, if you have some bad games you get less confident, you start believing less and less which makes it harder to win. Its hard to win if you don't believe you can win, its why the cubs lost the nlcs in 03. They played great but then the Bartman incident happened. Moises got pissed, they started believing in the curse and fell apart. Don't believe me just watch Gonzalez fucking up plays that I could have made and I have no depth perception.

Momentum is mental, you believe you can win then you can win. Doesn't mean you will but believing you can play amazing is half the battle.

I agree with your description, I just think your numbers are absurdly high. 80 percent mental? Then why are athletes well known for their lack of intelligence? Within a game as a player what happens is predominantly instinctual and by that I mean there is little to no time to think about it. I also think there are other ways to achieve such a mindset beyond just winning.

 

[shattered dreams]

It was an example to illustrate the point, not meant to carry crossover explanation.

I'm sure you are not denying momentum exists. Once you acknowledge it exists, trying to quibble over whether it's sustainable over arbitrary length of time is a waste of time.

I never said Baltimore won because of momentum. I'm talking about the theory.

If by talent you mean "better players", then I agree. I've never said otherwise. The keyword there is "likely".

But the point I was making is if you're playing game after game with teams who are roughly equal in talent to you, statistically speaking you're not going to sustain a winning streak. The fact teams do sustain winning streak against teams with comparable talent shows a case where momentum, and/or other factors, might come into play


Could be. If you weren't on a hot streak, perhaps the ball comes off the finger wrong, has a slightly different spin and bounces off the rim in a different direction.

I agree. Not everything is always able to be chalked up to momentum. Sometimes a team plays well and another team doesn't. Though I guess one could make the argument of lack of momentum.

And I think anyone who has experienced that hot shooting streak knows that sometimes things just seem to click, despite you not doing anything different from normal.


As I said, the truth is momentum isn't determined by wins and losses, though many times wins and losses can be determined by momentum.

I am not interested in wasting a bunch of time while you try to prove a point no one is disputing in the first place. Considering I think length of sustainability is hugely relevant to the discussion this originated from then we both might as well do something else today. If you feel differently then a starting place of possible mutual interest would be how theoretical momentum going into a game determines win loss and can you accurately gauge this without the benefit of hindsight.

 

[Slyfox696]

I am not interested in wasting a bunch of time while you try to prove a point no one is disputing in the first place. Considering I think length of sustainability is hugely relevant to the discussion this originated from then we both might as well do something else today. If you feel differently then a starting place of possible mutual interest would be how theoretical momentum going into a game determines win loss and can you accurately gauge this without the benefit of hindsight.

I wasn't trying to prove any point, it was my understanding you were curious as to how momentum affects a contest, so I provided the ways in which it could.

 

[shattered dreams]

You did provide some relevant info, just generally speaking I was/am most interested in how one pseudo measure of momentum effects how well we can predict the winners in a playoff environment.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

I agree with your description, I just think your numbers are absurdly high. 80 percent mental? Then why are athletes well known for their lack of intelligence? Within a game as a player what happens is predominantly instinctual and by that I mean there is little to no time to think about it. I also think there are other ways to achieve such a mindset beyond just winning.

When I say 80% mental I mean if you already have the skills to be in the NFL, not just any random guy can say "I'm a top tier Running Back" and do it because they believe it. Even though a lot of athletes are called out for their lack of intelligence it doesn't apply to the sport in question. For example, RGIII may be an idiot in real life (not saying he is, just an example) but it doesn't mean he's an idiot on the field. Ryan Leaf, the worst draft bust in sports history was considered to have more physical skill and potential than Peyton Manning and its widely believed that the reason he was such a bust is because he didn't have the mental ability to play in the NFL. He constantly freaked out at teammates, cried like a bitch, skipped practice to golf and was overall a nightmare to deal with. Peyton on the other hand became one of the greatest QB's ever and as good as Peyton is when it comes to physical skill the thing that makes him so great is his mind and mental acumen for football.

I agree you don't have a lot of time to think on the field so of course instincts take over but instincts aren't automatic, they must be learned. When you first walk on a football field you don't have much instincts because you don't know what to do in certain situations, instincts come from years of practice and repetition. This also ties in with the game being mostly mental, knowing that you have the skills to win and letting your instincts take over. Instincts don't happen overnight and without a good mentality you will either not play instinctively or you will have shitty instincts, either way you're fucked.

Of course there are other ways to achieve a mindset outside of winning, it was more of an example to explain momentum, it's easy to have a good mindset when you are winning but some are born with a good mindset, some players get it from seeing a player make a good tackle, or a good pep talk from the coach, or making a good play themselves. There are many ways to achieve a good mindset for the game. Momentum can last for 5 minutes or go for games on end but a mix of skill and high mentality often determines how long momentum lasts. I'm just saying you can't have a 16-0 season if you believe you will lose and you can't beat an 18-0 team in the super bowl if you don't believe you can beat them.

 

[shattered dreams]

I still disagree. No matter how much a lower tier RB wants to be or even believes themself to be a top tier RB they can't change that just by mindset. As you allude to there talent still matters most, whether it is something built up to over time or the players current skill level. I am not saying mental attributes don't matter, especially for QB, but it still comes down to executing or QBs wouldn't fade as they got older even though they likely understand the mental part of the position even better at that point. You make a reasonable case that in extreme situations a lack of mentality can break you. I don't disagree with that but I think people wildly oversell when a team or player has reached that extreme point. You really think the majority of any team goes into the NFL playoffs expecting to lose their first game?

Long story short, good teams can win without abnormal "momentum."

 

[Poop Master Flex]

I still disagree. No matter how much a lower tier RB wants to be or even believes themself to be a top tier RB they can't change that just by mindset. As you allude to there talent still matters most, whether it is something built up to over time or the players current skill level. I am not saying mental attributes don't matter, especially for QB, but it still comes down to executing or QBs wouldn't fade as they got older even though they likely understand the mental part of the position even better at that point. You make a reasonable case that in extreme situations a lack of mentality can break you. I don't disagree with that but I think people wildly oversell when a team or player has reached that extreme point. You really think the majority of any team goes into the NFL playoffs expecting to lose their first game?

Long story short, good teams can win without abnormal "momentum."

I've never debated that a lower tier RB can challenge a top tier RB but I would argue a lower tier RB with a good mentality can be more beneficial than a top tier RB with a poor mentality. I'm just saying I've seen a lot of lower tier players over match top tier players and it certainly wasn't because they had more physical skill.

I guess what I'm saying is a top tier player isn't really top tier without having a good mentality even if its not 100% of the time. Skill will always matter but to maximize your skill set you most definitely need a strong mentality to do so, you can't play your best if you're minds not in the right place.

I highly doubt too many playoff teams believe they will lose but going down a few touchdowns quick can greatly affect how a player plays the game. There's no way San Fran would have came back yesterday if they weren't mentally tough.

Lastly, I agree a good team can win without having momentum but its easier to win when you have momentum.

 

[Trill Co$by]

Pro-Bowl begins in 20 minutes. If you don't have the money (or care) to order the Royal Rumble, don't fret because you're in luck. The NFC All-Stars will take on the AFC All-Stars in the 2013 Pro-Bowl. My prediction: NFC wins 27-20

 

[Stormtrooper]

Pro-Bowl begins in 20 minutes. If you don't have the money (or care) to order the Royal Rumble, don't fret because you're in luck. The NFC All-Stars will take on the AFC All-Stars in the 2013 Pro-Bowl. My prediction: NFC wins 27-20

Paint drying is usually more fun then the Pro Bowl.

 

[Nate DaMac]

For the record, shattered totally flipped me on the momentum stuff. I'm with him now.