Nate, I have been enjoying reading your posts. I agree with your thesis, and it reminded me how pleasantly surprised I was 20 or so years ago when I learned that chess' ELO rating system had been adapted by several sports stats gurus.
I want to point out that the 1993 Super Bowl was not, in terms of performance, as lopsided as the score suggests. The two most important factors in that game were the injury to Jim Kelly, the Bills' starting quarterback (the Bills were only 7 points behind when he left the game) and 9 (nine!) turnovers by the Bills, neither of which are good measures of football performance. One good (though imperfect) simple metric of football performance is total yardage, and the Cowboys only outgained the Bills by 408 to 362 yards. The Bears victory over the Patriots in the 1986 Super Bowl was a little more lopsided in score (46-10) and a lot more lopsided in yardage (408-123).
Great points Jeff. I latched onto this example because it seemed to illustrate my point so clearly, but as usual, the reality is more complicated. 9 turnovers is insane!
I know it's not relevant to your main point, but for the sake of accuracy I have to mention that your paraphrase of commentator #1 must be way off the mark. At the time of Super Bowl XXVII, the Cowboys had not only appeared in 5 previous Super Bowls (V, VI, X, XII, and XII), but they had indeed won 2 of them (VI and XII)
Nate, I have been enjoying reading your posts. I agree with your thesis, and it reminded me how pleasantly surprised I was 20 or so years ago when I learned that chess' ELO rating system had been adapted by several sports stats gurus.
I want to point out that the 1993 Super Bowl was not, in terms of performance, as lopsided as the score suggests. The two most important factors in that game were the injury to Jim Kelly, the Bills' starting quarterback (the Bills were only 7 points behind when he left the game) and 9 (nine!) turnovers by the Bills, neither of which are good measures of football performance. One good (though imperfect) simple metric of football performance is total yardage, and the Cowboys only outgained the Bills by 408 to 362 yards. The Bears victory over the Patriots in the 1986 Super Bowl was a little more lopsided in score (46-10) and a lot more lopsided in yardage (408-123).
Great points Jeff. I latched onto this example because it seemed to illustrate my point so clearly, but as usual, the reality is more complicated. 9 turnovers is insane!
I know it's not relevant to your main point, but for the sake of accuracy I have to mention that your paraphrase of commentator #1 must be way off the mark. At the time of Super Bowl XXVII, the Cowboys had not only appeared in 5 previous Super Bowls (V, VI, X, XII, and XII), but they had indeed won 2 of them (VI and XII)
Lol I should have known writing those after looking at wikipedia for 2 minutes was gonna get me in trouble
Oops, that last appearance should be XIII, not XII