Tom Brady---Forever a Fraud?
- Thread starter ~Utah
- Start date
L
Lareux
Guest
Well, in this case, the thread killer was the truth that came out about the bogus, embellished, and flat out wrong stats that "proved" the Pats are cheaters.
Call me whatever you'd like, like I said, you aren't gonna hurt my feelings bro.
L
Lareux
Guest
Agreed. But it should have never gotten the coverage it did, and most people weren't using an open mind to begin with since it was the Pats.
takeit
THE Wife
What that says is that Jimmie stopped doing it because he felt it did not give him much of an advantage. If the Patriots didn't think it gave them much of an advantage, why didn't they stop? Why did Mangini (a for Pats guys) think it was so bad that he ratted them out because he didn't want them to have that advantage. He later came out and said he wished he never said anything - not sure if this is because he stabbed his head coach in the back which says he was untrustworthy, because he was on the Pats staff when they won the SB's and didn't like them "tainted", or because he was desperately trying to get another job.
And for every Jimmie you have saying it wasn't much of an advantage, you have someone else saying it was.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...spygate-amid-new-england-patriots-controversy
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ans-hate-to-hear-it-spygate-may-never-go-away
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...regrets-turning-in-the-patriots-over-spygate/
And why did Goodell destroy the tapes???
L
Lareux
Guest
There was nothing obtuse about the rebuttals that were given to the bogus, embellished, and flat out wrong stats that "proved" that Pats were cheaters though. It was actual statistical analysis by people with doctorates in statistics...who showed just how easily stats can be manipulated to come to a conclusion that was already agreed upon beforehand.
L
Lareux
Guest
Jeepers. The point about Jimmy not thinking it worked wasn't really the point in that. His point that most of the teams were still doing it was the point.
I have no idea why Goodell destroyed the tapes, but he's a fucking POS to begin with. I'm certainly not going to defend Roger Goodell. The tapes themselves wouldn't have proven anything anyway (as far as the advantage gained, not the fact they existed), the only way anything could have been proven was to know how those tapes were used, and how effective they were.
L
Lareux
Guest
Haven't we already concluded that no SB was tainted that occurred before the practice was outlawed, in 2006? How could they be tainted when it wasn't against the rules during those years?
KJ
Bump. Set. Shuma!
You are the type of person that gave it the coverage it did, balls weren't inflated properly, people argued some bullshit, then press coverage
You are one of those that argued, go figure
guaranteeed
Pretty much a regular
Kraft calling in favors getting Seahawks 'randomly' tested for HGH this week
CASH
Pretty much a regular
How is that a favor??
i guess if that team leads the league in ped suspensions for cheating... Once a cheater always a cheater ...
L
Lareux
Guest
They really aren't though. Did you even look at the actual data put out there in that deadspin article?
L
Lareux
Guest
How am I that type of person? I said the whole thing was a non-issue from the beginning (you stalk my posts, so you clearly know this).
I started "arguing" when people just started pulling stats that seemed to fit the conclusion they had already made....and funny enough, it turns out those stats/charts/etc were fucking BS. So, you could say I was arguing, sure...but why don't you say the same thing about those on the other side (the ones that said they now had proof, that turned out not to be proof)? Why are you singling me out like I'm the only one in the discussion?
PS - I know why, so don't bother answering unless you're going to tell the truth.
L
Lareux
Guest
I'd think you'd want to call everyone out, especially those who don't respond to direct questions about why they came to a certain conclusion...and then even more direct questions after their "proof" was shown to be misguided at best, and flat out wrong at worst. Whenever someone asks me a question, or 'challenges' me, I respond....I'm wrong an awful lot...and I admit when I am (which I've done often, and pointed it out just as often). Meanwhile, most on here NEVER say they are wrong, don't answer any questions, and think if they just ignore something it didn't happen....then just repeat the same nonsense they were questioned about.
Somehow though, you wanna make me out to be the bad guy, as if I'm the one who's being dishonest or just purposely obtuse. That is too funny bro.
Somehow though, you wanna make me out to be the bad guy, as if I'm the one who's being dishonest or just purposely obtuse. That is too funny bro.
L
Lareux
Guest
I'll even make it easy for you...here's what you missed (or ignored)...
I actually went back and researched 5 year periods for the entire NFL over the last 25 years. The Patriots ratio of 187 plays to 1 fumble is the BEST of ANY team in the NFL for ANY 5 year span of time over the last 25 years. Not was it just the best, it wasn't close:
1. 2010-2014 Patriots: 187 plays/fumble
2. 2009-2013 Patriots: 156 plays/fumble
3. 2006-2010 Colts: 156 plays/fumble
Here, the author curiously ranks the Patriots #2 and the Colts #3, despite the fact that the teams appear to have the same number of plays per fumble (156).
4. 2005-2009 Colts: 153 plays/fumble
5. 2007-2011 Patriots: 149 plays/fumble
6. 2008-2012 Patriots: 148 plays/fumble
7. 2010-2014 Texans: 140 plays/fumble
8. 2004-2008 Colts: 139 plays/fumble
9. 2006-2010 Jets: 135 plays/fumble
10. 1999-2003 Chiefs: 134 plays/fumble
At this point, an intelligent reader should pick up on one issue with the author's metric. The team sharing the 'suspiciously high plays-per-fumble rate' mantle with the Patriots is none other than the Peyton Manning quarterbacked Indianapolis Colts.
Why does this matter?
Because, Manning and Brady are generally among the quickest in football at getting rid of the ball when dropping back to throw. In fact, according to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Manning led the league in time-to-throw in 2014, at a lightning-quick 2.24 seconds. Brady finished 3rd in 2014, and also ranked 3rd, 1st, and 4th between 2011 and 2013 (PFF stats only go as far back as 2011). Even better, Brady also posted the league's lowest sack-per-dropback rate in 2014.
It's not a great strategy to penalize Brady and the Patriots for a lack of fumbles when there was a lower chance of fumbling to begin with, based on the team's play-calling and personnel that yield quick throws and incompletions, as well as fewer sacks.
So what's a better metric?
Well, one idea would be to compare running backs on fumbles per rush, or receivers on fumbles per reception. To look at quarterbacks is a much more difficult task, given the different speeds at which they get rid of the ball and how often they take sacks, but you might look at something like fumbles per sack or fumbles per QB hit. But the point remains: when quarterbacks throw quickly and avoid sacks, it's seemingly much less likely for the play to end in a fumble. More on this later.
Ironically, as my study yesterday showed, the Patriots performance in wet weather home games mysteriously turned ridiculous starting in 2007. In 2006, they went 0-2. From 2007 onward, they went 14-1.
But the Patriots have been really good between 2007-2014 whether or not it's raining. They were also good at home (57-7), in their division (36-10), in their conference (75-21), and out of their conference (25-7). Also, is the author really using a sample size of two before 2006 in his argument?
Let's get nerdy again. From 2007-2014 the Patriots were 100-28 in the regular season for a winning percentage of 78.1%. If you randomly choose any set of 15 of those 128 games, that set of games will be 14-1 or 15-0 a little more than 11% of the time. In other words, that's not statistically significantly different than their overall winning percentage. In other words also, this argument is garbage.
L
Lareux
Guest
Here's some more that you missed or ignored...
Based on the assumption that fumbles per play follow a normal distribution, you'd expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten over this period, once in 16,233.77 instances". First off, thank goodness we are going to 2 decimal places for accuracy. Was 1 in 16233 not enough for readers to understand? But that's not our main issue with this statement.
Per the "data scientist," let's assume that fumbles per play follows a normal distribution. This, in fact, does seem like a reasonable assumption based on the following Q-Q plot (the points should all fall near the line if the data is normal).
Given that the normality assumption is valid, we can calculate the Z-score for fumbles per play for the Patriots. To do this, we take the Patriots fumbles per play (0.00535) and subtract the mean of fumbles per play for each team (0.00983) and divide by the standard deviation of fumbles per play for each team (0.00165). This yields a Z-score of -2.71. Still assuming a normal distribution, a team would only be better than this (i.e. have a lower Z-score) about 0.336% of the time, or 1 in 297. That's pretty rare, but nowhere near 1 in 16233.77. So where did that 16000-ish number come from?
It's arrived at by using plays per fumble, rather than fumbles per play. If you use plays per fumble and calculate the same Z-score for the Patriots you get 3.84. We can then calculate that a team will do better than this (i.e. have a higher Z-score; higher is better for plays per fumble) about 1 in 16256. So we're guessing this is where that number comes from.
The problem is that this calculation also relies on the assumption of normality, which holds for fumbles per play, but NOT for plays per fumble (see the Q-Q plot)!
The "data scientist" and the author validly assumed that fumbles per play followed a normal and then went ahead and calculated the Z-score based on plays per fumble, a variable that is strongly skewed to the right. Formally, X being normal does not imply that 1/X is also normal.
If this is how that happened, it would be a sloppy misstatement of statistics stemming from an arbitrary preference in diction. Either that, or the author just went for the most improbable result that he could find.
Which in layman's terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0000616 probability to win. Which in other words, it's very unlikely that it's a coincidence.
Good clarification for all the laymen out there. Laymen love probabilities like 0.0000616. Much clearer than that "1 in 16233.77."
There are a few other problems with the SharpFootball investigation that we didn't even bring up—issues of multiple testing and the post-hoc fallacy, for example—but we figured it was more important to provide a different look at New England's fumble rates than to continue rambling about best practices.
We'd also encourage interested readers to check out Brian Burke's post at Advanced Football Analytics for a more reasoned take on fumble rates. However, Burke likewise restricts his analysis to "fumbles per play," which we believe is a bit broad, because all offensive plays are not created equal.
Going back to 2007, we isolated the running back rushing attempts and wide receiver receptions made by each team, using easily downloadable data from NFL.com. There is a downside to this, however, as we do not get to look at quarterback-specific fumble rates. But including quarterbacks requires worrying about the pressure each one faced and the time each one had to release the ball, which can vary by team and offensive system; quarterback hits and sacks, likewise, are harder to fit into a single silo than rushes or receptions. It would also give the appearance of fewer fumbles per play among teams with a higher percentage of plays involving quick throws, incompletions, and interceptions. These are the types of plays where fumbles are less likely to occur, so the result is an inflation of the denominator in fumbles per play.
There's less variability to worry about with running backs and wide receivers, however. Here's a plot of the fumbles per 100 rushes, using running backs and fullbacks only.
New England running backs have the fewest fumbles per 100 rushes (about 0.6) of any NFL team going back to 2007, but the difference between New England and the rest of the league isn't as extreme as previous authors suggested—its about 1.5 to 2 fumbles per season. And this puts a point on the whole indictment of these posts: There are some broad and relatively minor observations to be made, if you're conspiratorially-minded enough to make the effort, they just don't have the statistical muscle that you'd expect given how widely they've traveled.
Here's a similar metric, using fumbles per 100 receptions. Only fumbles after receptions are shown here, meaning that special teams fumbles and muffed punts are not included, and the study group includes wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs.
New England finished with the third-lowest fumble rate on receptions, looking at all regular season plays between 2007 and 2014. Interestingly enough, the Ravens, who have been cited as one of the possible whistle blowers for Ballghazi, post the lowest per-reception fumble rate.
Given the number of teams in the league, it is not far-fetched to see one with fumble rates this low. Neither of these results appear all that extreme or insane, and, most certainly, they are not "extremely abnormal."
Additional analysis could also average over the per-game differences in fumble rates, which would help to further isolate the conditions on each game day, and would help mitigate the effects of each game's conditions and field surface. From our graphs, however, it doesn't seem all that obvious that teams with indoor stadiums fumble less often, which is a point that both Burke and SharpFootball tried to make. Detroit, for example, boasts the second-highest RB fumble rate using our metric, despite playing home games indoors.
If better context for quarterback possessions and fumbles were made available, a comparison of the fumble rates of QBs would be warranted as well.
As a final postscript, we'll touch briefly on the third post in the series (here). It has its share of issues, like using an aggregated two-sample comparison despite having paired data, and the continued use of the skewed plays per fumble data, but our favorite part of the new post is that the author posts his individual player data, which demonstrates that not only is he using inappropriate methods, but he is also using the wrong data.
Can you tell what's wrong the data in this table?
Look in the bottom row. Brandon Tate is listed as having 11 fumbles in 35 touches during his time playing for "Non NE". That's absurd. How is that possible? Is Tate a fumbling machine?
Of course not.
According to NFL.com, all 11 of Tate's fumbles during his four years with the Bengals came on kick or punt returns, and because special teams fumbles use different balls, there is no reason for them to be included in this analysis. In other words, not only was the author using inappropriate methods in all three of his posts, but there is a reason to believe he also wasn't using the correct data, either.
While the best part of statistics is analyzing the data, what can make the subject so challenging is the breadth of work that is required in addition to the analysis phase. Tasks like cleaning your data, checking for its accuracy, and examining the validity of your assumptions, however, aren't just recommendations—they're requirements. And without considering these subtle but important steps in any investigation, its easy for any of us to drop the ball.
L
Lareux
Guest
Seems like you're the one who hates stats, or simply chooses to go the lazy route and just assume that something is true based on misguided analysis, embellished data, and flat out falsehoods.
CASH
Pretty much a regular
Thats "Guaranteed" (the super moderator)
takeit
THE Wife
If the tapes that Walsh turned in during those yeas were completely fine and legal, why would Walsh need immunity and why would Goodell destroy them? Do you HONESTLY believe the Pats/Billichick were fined 750,000 and lost a first round draft pick because they illegally taped ONE game?
L
Lareux
Guest
If the rule wasn't put in place until 2006, how could anything done before that be anything but fine and legal?
Again, I don't know why they were destroyed. And no, I don't think it was for one game...it may have been for every game from the time the rule was in place until the time they were ratted out.
L
Lareux
Guest
Well it has to be KJ too, since he just said I'm the one who hates stats based on the "statistical anomaly" of the Pats fumbles that was seemingly shown not to be anywhere near the anomaly it was originally portrayed to be.
CASH
Pretty much a regular
Like you I have no idea what was on the tapes.... they got the harsh penalty because they went against a direct order (memo) from the commissioners office...... no more no less..
L
Lareux
Guest
I'd also imagine they used the tapes from before 2006 to see if what they were then taping after 2006 was similar in fashion and, in fact, a violation of the new rule. That's just me thinking logically though and not jumping to a conclusion...a novel idea, I know.
CASH
Pretty much a regular
maybe a little....
I read through the last few pages..... if you go back even further its teed it just hates..
He made a comment and I had responded that he didnt even know what they got in trouble for and/or what the penalty was for... you answered correctly with being in a certain area and going against the memo...
He even mentions the tuck rule as the Patriots cheating...dont know how that is.....
kinda funny how the refs didnt note any of the numbers down...or couldnt tell during the game...
L
Lareux
Guest
I'm just busting KJ's balls anyway...he's always been a stats guy (at least it's seemed that way). It's just convenient that he now is trying to say I'm the one who doesn't like stats, then uses "stats" that were shown to be bunk as the example of me not liking stats.
L
Lareux
Guest
And, yes, I said the same thing. I'd have more respect if people just came out and said they hated the Pats and don't really care about what the statistical analysis said...this was before the many rebuttals of the bunk stats were posted. I contended that the "stats" and charts they were using as "proof" didn't mean much if we didn't have proper and full context...and, what do you know, that's exactly what we found out, that when you actually looked deeper at those "stats" they were nothing more than hogwash that was dishonestly (or ineptly) 'back fitted' to prove a conclusion the person had already made. You don't say.
L
Lareux
Guest
Could be. They could be using heated air to fill the balls too (I'd still like to know how that would be done, but I'd imagine you could find a way).
Another point that still hasn't been responded to, concerning the Indy game, is that the game time temp was 50 degrees. In what world is that considered "cold," and there's little chance that 50 degree weather would cause the balls to deflate, so why would the Pats even have been trying to pull those shenanigans in a game with a game time temp of 50 degrees? (Teed said they only did it in cold weather, so this game doesn't even fit...if we're using his contention, they wouldn't have been even trying it to begin with). It's just crickets though when that stuff is pointed out, just like it's been crickets when the actual smart people broke down the "smoking gun stats," and it was posted here.
KJ
Bump. Set. Shuma!
I've never mentioned the tuck rule clark
L
Lareux
Guest
That's why he said Teed.
CASH
Pretty much a regular
It is supposed to be a discussion.... i thought you and Take had a good discussion going..
I had only heard the last few minutes in the car yesterday, but they had a science guy on from ESPn.. he said the amount of weight difference was like holding a dollar bill.. you wouldnt even know...
I had only heard the last few minutes in the car yesterday, but they had a science guy on from ESPn.. he said the amount of weight difference was like holding a dollar bill.. you wouldnt even know...
CASH
Pretty much a regular
Not you...
Sorry to sidetrack.. on the golf channel they mentioned weather coming in and the course getting harder to score?? what weather and for how long?
CASH
Pretty much a regular
L
Lareux
Guest
It's always a 'discussion' for everyone but me to most guys...I'm the one who's 'arguing' even though there is more than one person in that discussion. Just how it is around here. No biggie.
L
Lareux
Guest
What about the golf tourney though (which is what he asked
)? Any chance they get delayed at all, or is it not going to be a heavy enough rain?
takeit
THE Wife
CASH
Pretty much a regular
I hope he gets paid a lot of money to let everyone know air doesn't weigh much
Lol
L
Lareux
Guest
Did you hang out at #16 at all? Best hole in golf, would love to get there to experience it one time.
L
Lareux
Guest
Yeah, I posted that video in this thread. I found it very suspicious that ESPN removed the video from its site. Why would they remove a video from their site, made by Sports Science who is on their payroll, if they really, truly cared about getting all of the 'facts' and 'truth' out there? It didn't surprise me in the least that ESPN did something like that, but it's pretty clearly suspicious, is it not?
CASH
Pretty much a regular
He made a comment about only being allowed to keep it on the site like 48/72 hours because of the deal with the nfl.. no idea if that is true or not.....
If it is false,, i want guys like mortensen and king and ja glazer to say they were wrong....
has not been one piece of evidence to support what mortensen leaked out... maybe in a week there might be when this "investigation" is over,, but right now it is just tainted gossip..
btw the aaron hernandez trial started today...
L
Lareux
Guest
Interesting, I hadn't heard that. If that is true, then it's just as suspicious, but now the suspicion lies with the NFL. That wouldn't surprise me in the least in that horribly run league...that they would want to seemingly silence all of the drama that they had built up with the whole deflated footballs issue.
I'm not even sure I can come up with another reason why the NFL would have some limit worked out with ESPN as to how long that video could be hosted on their site. That video wasn't owned by the NFL, and wasn't some game where they would claim the rights....anyone have any ideas as to why the NFL would a. want to do something like that and b. have the authority to do something like that?
L
Lareux
Guest
Haha....that's another issue that the Pats were made out to somehow be assholes for...the fact they drafted Aaron Hernandez. Like, literally, people were insinuating that the Pats somehow knew that AH was a murderer yet still drafted him. Again, just come out and say you hate the Pats at that point, so that no one with half a brain has to listen to anything you say after that and take it even remotely seriously.
If AH was drafted by another team, and was on that team when he was arrested, would the same things have been said about that team? Of course not. And like some other team wouldn't have drafted him if the Pats didn't....he was just going to go undrafted and be a FA that no team signed because he was obviously a murderer and only the Pats would knowingly draft a murderer just because he was good at football. It's beyond laughable.
takeit
THE Wife
What I've heard about the Pats was that they did the right thing by cutting him as soon as the accusation came out. The Pats took a chance on him because he was in trouble in college, but again, just good things about the way they handled it. Not like other teams that keep murderers on their team and let the trial play out.
Not everyone hates the Pats.
Not everyone hates the Pats.
L
Lareux
Guest
You're right, not everyone hates the Pats....but there were a whole bunch of people who not only didn't see it the way you just laid out, but thought that Belichick knowingly drafted a murderer.
And you're also right about other teams who have done much worse by keeping players they knew committed some crime that should have automatically seen them booted from their team.
L
Lareux
Guest
Didn't we have all of these people telling us exactly how much lower the pressure was when tested vs. before the game? Turns out, there is no log of what any of the footballs weighed (they simply approve or disapprove the balls), so how could anyone possibly know how much pressure was lost?
It would also make sense to see if there's any record of any footballs inflation levels either before, during, and after any NFL game in the past. It seems as if this "rule" hasn't been one that's been too strictly enforced to begin with, so there's no way to make a comparison with the Pats footballs from the Indy game. That's if you're trying to actually get to the truth though, and not just automatically saying the Pats cheated "because it's the Pats so they must have been."
It would also make sense to see if there's any record of any footballs inflation levels either before, during, and after any NFL game in the past. It seems as if this "rule" hasn't been one that's been too strictly enforced to begin with, so there's no way to make a comparison with the Pats footballs from the Indy game. That's if you're trying to actually get to the truth though, and not just automatically saying the Pats cheated "because it's the Pats so they must have been."
guaranteeed
Pretty much a regular
what flack did the Pats get because of Hernandez?
I dont remember seeing any, they cut him basically right away
Similar threads
