McCarthy and "Close Games"

[pbmax]

3) His Offensive staff is turned over yearly and there is little consistency with the O.

Always got the feeling that Snake was never really paying attention. Might have been his girlfriend distracting him.

[pbmax]

Harv answered about Tomlin so I will take Caldwell. He took over a Super Bowl caliber team (including Super Bowl caliber offensive assistants Moore and Howard Mudd) and took it to the Super Bowl. He went 14-2 (impressive under any condition) while playing in a bad AFC South Division. In three years, this might indicate that Caldwell is under-appreciated currently and is indeed a top ten coach. But right now, to me, he seems closer to Barry Switzer or Brian Billick.

Judging the Colts this year is tough as like the Packers they have had extensive injuries. However, unlike Tomlin, Caldwell had the clout to remake his defensive staffand hired Larry Coyer to replace Ron Meeks. Meeks' last two years with Dungy produced points allowed rankings of 1st and 7th. Coyer has notched 8th and 23rd. As I said, injuries make conclusions about this year tough. But Caldwell is a cipher compared to McCarthy. M3 has done more with less for longer.

But let's face facts: McCarthy's credentials can be argued back and forth for eternity. There is material for each side of the debate. If he makes another deep playoff run or wins a Super Bowl, then all questions will fade and his near-genius will be proclaimed far and wide. But until that point, no one will have the guts to comment that this guy is good and that its a good bet that when replaced, the next guy will be worse.

All coaches have holes and weaknesses. No one thought Holmgren could win in Green Bay with a passing attack that couldn't run until he did it (I always thought it odd that the Dickey years didn't provide more confidence about a passing attack in Green Bay-must have been Infante; or Gregg's overall record). But when he made the championship game and then won a Super Bowl, all questions were left in the dust. He didn't transform into a genius and he had the same weaknesses, people just couldn't claim those weaknesses were fatal.

McCarthy has the tools and the smarts. The outstanding questions (special teams, O line inconsistency, penalties, being overly fond of 50 FG attempts(ie. passive late game strategy)) will stay the same. But if he can hold two of those together for a string of six games (ST and penalties) late in the season, then I think he wins one very soon.

Finally a bump that makes me look prescient, not hopeless.

[Lurker64]

It's worth noting that the game last night was not "close" by the media's strictly defined metric, so McCarthy still can't win close games in the regular season.

[pbmax]

It's worth noting that the game last night was not "close" by the media's strictly defined Network, so McCarthy still can't win close games in the regular season.

Well, they wouldn't bother to mention it unless it was a rock solid conclusion.

[HarveyWallbangers]

So he's 10-2 in games decided by 5-7 points. Awesome!

This was a good one.

[ThunderDan]

Bump.

We have now won our last 10 games in a row and still haven't won a close game. We have outscored the other team by 131 points in that stretch. Blowouts of Denver, ATL and NYG included.

[rbaloha1]

IMO this thread is moot -- score aside the packers won a close super bowl.

[gbgary]

IMO this thread is moot -- score aside the packers won a close super bowl.

yep...i'd call the sb a close game too.

[ThunderDan]

Originally Posted by rbaloha
Rant as you want. At the end of the day, MM's record in close and meaningful games is horrible -- zero disputing. MM is good at developing (i.e. Brooks and Rodgers) or enhancing careers (i.e. Gannon, Delhomme and Favre) qbs. MM has proven HE CAN NOT WIN CHAMPIONSHIP(S) IN TITLETOWN, USA.

Keep up the truthiness and see where it leads you.


Says the guy who posted this!

[ThunderDan]

IMO this thread is moot -- score aside the packers won a close super bowl.

See above.

[channtheman]

I don't understand why a "close" game isn't defined as 8 points or less (i.e. one possession). Makes the most sense to me.

[bobblehead]

I don't understand why a "close" game isn't defined as 8 points or less (i.e. one possession). Makes the most sense to me.

Because they couldn't make the point that MM is a choke artist shitty coach with that metric so they found one that worked with the predefined conclusion. If you study statistics you will find that kind of logic often.

[rbaloha1]

Because they couldn't make the point that MM is a choke artist shitty coach with that metric so they found one that worked with the predefined conclusion. If you study statistics you will find that kind of logic often.

After the Loins debacle last season, thought MM fit in this category (Peter King reported MM was slightly in trouble if he failed to make the playoffs.) Also placed MM in the Sherman category (btw anyone notice MS choking 2 weeks in a row at TAMU?) As my friend ThunderDan points-out I was completely wrong.

Winning a superbowl should cancel this type of thought. The packers have issues but losing close game is not one of them.

[pbmax]

Because they couldn't make the point that MM is a choke artist shitty coach with that metric so they found one that worked with the predefined conclusion. If you study statistics you will find that kind of logic often.

It NFL geekdom (elsewhere in geekdom as well) this is known as multiple endpoints.

From Advanced NFL Stats in their dissent about the Curse of 370 Carries:

Statistical Trickery

Why did Football Outsiders pick 370 as the cutoff? I'll show you why in a moment, but for now I'm going to illustrate a common statistical trick sometimes known as multiple endpoints by proving a statistically significant relationship between two completely unrelated things. I picked an NFL stat as obscure and random as I could think of--% of punts out of bounds (%OOB).

Let's say I want to show how alphabetical order is directly related to this stat. I'll call my theory the "Curse of A through C" because punters whose first names start with an A, B, or C tend to kick the ball out of bounds far more often than other punters. In 2007 the A - C punters averaged 15% of their kicks out of bounds compared to only 10% for D - Z punters. In fact, the relationship is statistically significant (at p=0.02) despite the small sample size. So alphabetical order is clearly related to punting out of bounds!

Actually, what I did was sort the list of punters in alphabetical order, and then scanned down the column of %OOB. I picked the spot on the list that was most favorable to my argument, then divided the sample there. This trick is called multiple endpoints because there are any number of places where I could draw the dividing line (endpoints), but chose the most favorable one after looking at the data. Football Outsiders used this very same trick, and I'll show exactly how and why.

As many posters noticed, if Silverstein had chosen any other scoring gap, it would have defeated his premise. He saw a blip in the data and made a guess as to its cause, without having any evidence to back it up.

[Guiness]

Lies, damn lies and statistics. 4 out of 5 dentists recommend...not spreading shit on your toothbrush!