I’ve got something to share, Tennessee Titans fans. But before I do, I’d like to remind you: Computers lack human emotion.
They don’t hate your team. They’re just unimpressed by it.
Deeply unimpressed.
So much that if Titans make a run to win the Super Bowl in the coming weeks, it’ll be one of the more statistically improbable feats in NFL history. No exaggeration. That’s what the numbers are saying, and not just one. It’s pretty much all of them.
As FiveThirtyEight contributor Michael Salfino wrote in a Dec. 27 chat: “I think we’d all agree that Tennessee’s record is a miracle, and I don’t mean that in a good way.”
“We” likely doesn’t mean “you,” the Titans fan reading this column. But elsewhere, widely differing opinions on the Titans’ playoff hopes are likely based on how much stock a person puts into advanced metrics in gauging NFL teams.
Entering this weekend’s AFC divisional game against the Cincinnati Bengals, FiveThirtyEight has the Titans with a 10% chance to win the Super Bowl, behind the lower-seeded Kansas City Chiefs (25%) and Buffalo Bills (12%).
For the Titans, that’s fairly generous. Because ESPN’s power index rankings have the Titans (12-5) ranked 13th in the NFL, behind the Seattle Seahawks (7-10), Indianapolis Colts (9-8) and Los Angeles Chargers (9-8).
And have you ever heard of DVOA?
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Developed by Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders, DVOA — which stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average — measures play-by-play efficiency to determine a team’s strength. A 15% DVOA, for instance, means a team is 15% stronger than the average NFL team. A minus-15% DVOA means a team is 15% worse than average.
This regular season, the Dallas Cowboys (30.9%) had the NFL’s best DVOA.
The Titans (minus-3%) were 20th.
“By DVOA, they have the worst regular season of any No. 1 or No. 2 seed as far back as our numbers go, which is 1983,” Schatz said.
Only two teams, Schatz told me, have made the Super Bowl after a season with a negative DVOA, and both lost the final game: The 2003 Carolina Panthers and 2008 Arizona Cardinals.
Sounds bad when you say it that way.
But take heart: There are good reasons these Titans could prove a statistical unicorn.
The first is the No. 1 seed itself. Doesn’t matter how they got it, just that they did.
“If you luck your way into the No. 1 seed, you get the advantages of being the No. 1 seed,” Schatz said. “We don’t get to take that away from them. … You don’t get the No. 1 seed based on my ratings. So they get the advantages, and that’s a good thing.”
Another reason is equally obvious from this Titans season. As Schatz said, “The injuries explain a lot.”
The Titans arrive at the playoffs as rested and healthy as they’…….
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/computers-dont-hate-tennessee-titans-120131194.html