Monday Night Fallacies

I didn't see last night's game (the bad thing about Colts-Dolphins games is that one of them has to win). I did just hear it reported that the Colts had the lowest time of possession (TOP) of any winning team since some time in the seventies. Thesis statement: TOP is probably the most overrated stat in football.

My blood boils when I hear some commentator talk about how Pitt's offense kept the ball for 41 minutes against West Virginia, thus limiting the amount of time Pat White and Steve Slaton had to pile up points. This does not translate into any useful advice to a future opponent of West Virginia's other than don't turn the ball over.

TOP can be illustrative of how a game went. For example, if TOP is lopsided but the score close, perhaps one team's yards came mostly from rushing (which plays tend not to stop the clock, so that team racks up the TOP) while the other team passed more (the clock stops on incompletions, so their yardage piles up more on quick plays, without draining much clock time).

On the other hand, if TOP is lopsided and the score is, too, it is usually the case that the winning team also won TOP. This correlation is, I think, often misinterpreted as causation. Whether the winning team built up an early lead and handed the ball off to drain the clock in the second half, or whether the losing team threw four interceptions and kept giving the ball away, letting the winning team accrue TOP throughout, is not explicit by the final TOP figure. And either way, it's not as though any pre-game strategy of maximizing your team's TOP is one that will also help you win. If Pat White and Steve Slaton are your quick-scoring opponents, then holding onto the ball longer will indeed limit their ability to score, but no more than it will your own.

Put another way, Pitt should always run the play that gives Pitt the best chance to score (until, of course, the time remaining in the game is low compared to the score differential, when it makes sense to run out the clock if Pitt is ahead). Otherwise, why not have a receiver take a knee in the open field, taking a fresh set of downs instead of a score?

But so last night the Colts did a rare thing by winning a game while holding onto the ball for less than 25% of the time. More than half of their points came with an 80 yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage and a quick drive in the final two minutes to go ahead at the end of the game. Add to it that Miami runs the ball a lot and the result is still unusual but now sensible. And that's the (only) real use of TOP: it's something that makes one say How queer! and want to discover how it happened. It's not something you should build a strategy around. At least, not a winning one.

My Skin Crawls

At what point does a parochial pronunciation go too far, at least for national TV? I refer specifically to Phil Simms's Kentuckian eem for him. Am I an elitist for even going here?

Does my use of going here negate my elitism?

Is the answer no?

I Got A Poll

I feel like a Republican from 2005.

So this guy, George W. Bush, runs for re-election promising to continue bombing brown people and to dismantle Social Security and American voters are like, "sounds good!" and they elect him. Then six months or so later the voters are like, "Hey! He's bombing browns and dismantling Social Security! He sucks!" as evidenced by his plummet in opinion polls.

So then this guy, Barack Obama, runs for president in 2008, promising health care reform and actually to raise taxes on the rich. And the voters are like, "Awesome!" and they elect him. And less than a year into it, voters are like, "Hey! Keep the government out of my Medicare! And don't raise my taxes!" and public opinion of him plummets.

Your faithful 'Dlogger is getting upset! Politicians are famous for lying, but these guys have been scrupulous to a fault! It forever will remain a mystery to me why Bush's poll numbers fell in 2005, considering he was re-elected in the first place. He did precisely what he said he would do, and voters were incensed. I want to shake the collective weave out of the American electorate's hair! Our misery isn't the fault of our politicians but of lazy, impatient, uninformed citizens who have no earthly idea what they even want government to do except fix this stupid place.

Stupid America. Grow a brain, and until you do, you deserve whatever your elected officials give you. And as extra incentive, if you grow a brain in the next couple of weeks, you'll get publicly funded health care.