Sunday, December 27, 2009
And While We're At It..
Quick memo to Jim Caldwell: Super Bowls don't have any inherent meaning other than what we assign to them. We consider them to be the ultimate goal because, under normal circumstances, there's no better way to demonstrate your team is the best, and no better way to become a part of NFL history. But this season, there was--your team had the chance to do something no other team had done. The benefits would have been far greater than those that come from winning a Super Bowl, but you chose not to pursue them. You're clearly an excellent coach, but you just made the most important decision of your career and you made the wrong one.
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16 comments:
Wait... I think your posts contradict themselves. The first one points to the near impossibility of winning 19 games. So if that's the case, isn't it better to lose one regular-season game than to lose the Super Bowl (or worse, another playoff game)?
Also, I think it's ridiculous to say the Super Bowl isn't the ultimate goal. Of course it is. Even the best of teams would be stupid to assume they can beat everyone and should go for 19-0 instead -- and if you need more proof of that, look how close the Colts have been to losing several times this season.
I see your point, but I don't think there's a contradiction for two reasons:
1. I THINK that it can't be done, but I'd love to be proven wrong, and I think teams should shoot for it. I also think no team will ever win ten Super Bowls in a row, but they should try for it.
2. Even if I'm right and it can't be done, I'm not sure my "perfection drives you crazy" theory is popular among NFL head coaches. So, if they don't think it can't be done, then the right move is to go for it.
And why is the Super Bowl the ultimate goal? I can only think of two reasons. 1: Because it brings in revenue, which is true, but I just don't factor in to what I root for as a fan of the game (and I'm sure Jim Caldwell didn't have that on his mind) and 2. just because.
Because nothing is more important in American sports than being #1. And while being #1 in history is even more important, the probability game means that a young head coach is not going to gamble in that direction.
But if you win the Super Bowl, you're the #1 team of your year, and there are already 43 of those (and counting). Someday there will be a hundred. Yeah, that's great, and in most years it's the best any team can do. But if you have a chance to make a solid claim as the best team that ever was, and probably to STILL hold that honor after Super Bowl 100 has come and gone, that's how you get to be #1.
Right, but you're ignoring the statistical improbability of going 19-0. You're normally a numbers man... is being a Patriots fan clouding your logic?
Yeah, 19-0 is tough and might just be impossible. But it's not just better than winning the Super Bowl, it's on an entirely different plane of awesomeness. It takes you from being 1 of 44 (so far) to being 1 of 1. The payoff is so great that you can't not go for it, even if the risks are greater. Bear in mind that, even though I said it was impossible, the Patriots were one circus play away from doing it. I don't think the Colts would have gotten that close, but you never know.
It's easy for you to say that because your livelihood doesn't depend on it. But if you're the Colts head coach, you think about winning the Super Bowl this year, next year, and onwards... not about whether or not you lost 1 or 2 regular season games. How many people talk about the '72 Dolphins at any time other than when we're talking about perfection? How many talk about the Pats of the 2000s? Many, many more.
I'd have to say, judging by the fan reaction at Lucas Oil, most of the fans wanted to see their team try to win, so I don't see Caldwell putting his job at risk by going for it.
The '72 Dolphins aren't talked about all that much because they weren't actually all that great for a team that happened not to lose, but especially because they did it before the era of 24-hour news-and-internet sports coverage. But hey, they're talked about more than whoever the hell won the '71 and '73 Super Bowls.
Fans and newspeople talk about teams from 40 years ago. Coaches play for winning here and now and being revered while they are coaching.
I'd contend you are much more revered if you go 19-0 than if you win the Super Bowl. If you win the Super Bowl, you are revered for a few months, and then if your team sucks the next year, the fans jump all over you again. If you go 19-0, that's actually still true, but there's more of an element of timelessness to your success. You didn't just win the Super Bowl in 2010, you won that whole year better than anyone else has ever done it. Your fans will hold you in higher regard for it.
Also, how do you dismiss "fans and newspeople" as the only ones who still talk about teams 40 years later? Who else is there to please?
I agree 19-0 is more impressive. We are arguing about whether Jim Caldwell made the right decision. 19-0: very, very improbable. Super Bowl: highly possible. Higher expected value: maximizing Super Bowl chances by not going for 16-0. Colts fans will forgive and forget if Indy wins this year. And if they don't, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Newspeople definitely don't matter, now or ever, to coaches.
I disagree. This obviously isn't a numerical thing, but for the sake of being ridiculous, let's say I'd value going 19-0 as an achievement 100 times more than winning the Super Bowl. In that case, the higher expected value is to go for it.
Maybe we think about it the same way, but we just calibrate our values and probabilities differently.
And that's the problem: there is no way 19-0 is 100x. It's maybe 5x, 10x at best. Again, I point to the '72 Dolphins - and I don't think the change in media coverage makes that big a difference. All it reaffirms is that people remember those things that happened during their lifetimes.
Sure there is--this is entirely subjective. It could be twice as good or two hundred times as good. You can value it however you want. It's an arbitrary calculation of how to value two arbitrary occurrences, so why not? It just seems like one of us values 19-0 more and one of us values it less.
Fair enough. A more data-intensive task for some ESPN/SI columnist: calculating the value of 19-0 based on fan reaction, media coverage, revenues, etc. Then we can resume this debate.
That's a good point too--I also think there may be differences in which factors we're including. For example, you seemed more inclined to consider revenues, which makes sense from the Colts' perspective, but looking at it as an outsider, I was putting less weight on that.
But yes: let's say I'd give 19-0 a VOSP (Value Over Super Bowl) of 136.12, and you'd give it a VOSP of 8.3.
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