What is up with people manipulating data to try and prove a point. There's enough of that crappy data analysis by sponsored researchers in medicine and government, do we really need it in sports? After seeing some Brady hater make a ridiculous post on Twitter, I decided to check the numbers. Here they are:
HOW NUMBERS WERE DETERMINED- Instead of just throwing some averages at you, I oh so kindly included the raw data. These numbers reflect a combination of actual number of wins a team earned to win the division and an adjusted number for times the winner was more than one win above the nearest team. In other words, if a team won their division by tie-breaker or had one more win than the second place team that's the win total I used. In situations where a team was way ahead of the second place team I assumed one more win would be needed to win the division. The chart below shows all of these numbers and 15 year averages at the bottom.
QUARTERBACK COMPARISON- Next up are the numbers for the five quarterbacks who were being compared. The numbers come from the true years which the quarterback played a majority of the games for his team. Once again the player's average wins needed to win division is at the bottom. Somehow my numbers are a little more even than that viral tweet from yesterday.
CONCLUSION AND QUESTIONS- It appears to me that when you just look at the number of wins needed to win a division over the past 15 seasons, the numbers are pretty close. Of course just considering the number of wins needed to win a division in a vacuum isn't super useful as it doesn't take into consideration that if a team drops their winning total so they squeak by with the division, some other team will get a win. If it's a division team then the win total needed may rise. Was it to a last place finisher? Not knowing that makes the data a bit sketchy. For that reason it is also pretty dumb to try and use this as some sort of measuring stick.
BRADY AND PATRIOTS-For those who are interested, Tom Brady averaged 12.42 wins per season during this timeframe. If we throw in the 2008 season, the Patriots have averaged 12.3 wins per season.
11 WINS NOT ENOUGH WITHOUT TIEBREAKERS- Now that was cherry picking at its finest. Since the AFC East is the one division which consistently needed the required win total to get adjusted, they were the one division that didn't have tiebreakers year after year. If we just look at 11 wins as the cutoff, the quarterbacks are pretty even once again.
BRADY AND PATRIOTS-For those who are interested, Tom Brady averaged 12.42 wins per season during this timeframe. If we throw in the 2008 season, the Patriots have averaged 12.3 wins per season.
11 WINS NOT ENOUGH WITHOUT TIEBREAKERS- Now that was cherry picking at its finest. Since the AFC East is the one division which consistently needed the required win total to get adjusted, they were the one division that didn't have tiebreakers year after year. If we just look at 11 wins as the cutoff, the quarterbacks are pretty even once again.
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