Michael Lewis wrote a really good piece (almost all of his pieces are good, IMHO) in last week’s Play magazine about N.F.L. kickers and whether the great “clutch” kickers like Adam Vinatieri are actually much better than the average kicker. Lewis’s verdict: not really. It’s just that a few random kicks turn out to be highly memorable (think Vinatieri in the snow against Oakland, or Scott Norwood missing for Buffalo in the Super Bowl).
Vinatieri himself was one of the main characters in Lewis’s piece. So it sure was nice of Vinatieri to go ahead and make Lewis look even smarter by missing a 29-yarder last night against San Diego that would have won the game.
Jinx? Nah. It’s called the law of averages. And, especially when it comes to sports, regression to the mean.
The best thing about Vinatieri’s miss is that his Colts and my Steelers are now tied at 7-2 for the second-best record in the A.F.C. Could it be another charmed season for my beloved black and gold?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Black & Gold?
Didn’t know that those Iowans rubbed off that much on you on your recent visit
Go Hawks!
Black & Gold?
Didn’t know that those Iowans rubbed off that much on you on your recent visit
Go Hawks!
There is a small piece of my heart that wants to see the Colts do great. The reason it’s only a small bit is because I jump for joy when it makes my Steelers tied with them! Glad you have good taste in football!
There is a small piece of my heart that wants to see the Colts do great. The reason it’s only a small bit is because I jump for joy when it makes my Steelers tied with them! Glad you have good taste in football!
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the so-called “law of averages” is not a real law, but is in fact a common fallacy in probabilistic reasoning.
The fallacy is that a chancy event becomes more probable if it hasn’t yet happened. (E.g., if a fair coin has come up heads three times in a row, it’s now more likely (than 1/2) to come up tails on the fourth toss.) In the particular example, the fallacy is in thinking that the kicker is “due” to miss an easy 29-yard kick, just because he has made such kicks repeatedly in the past.
The “law” of averages is also not the same as regression to the mean.
An application of regression to the mean would be if the kicker in the past *made* highly improbable kicks, he would eventually regress to the mean in the sense that you can expect him to *miss* future highly improbable kicks.
Regression to the mean, in this sense, would predict that if 29-yard kicks are common and easily made, the kicker will in the future *make* such a kick, even if in his last outing he missed one.
(Sorry if this is a double-post. I clicked the “submit” button once and was confronted with a “Sorry, you can only post one comment every 5 seconds.” page.)
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the so-called “law of averages” is not a real law, but is in fact a common fallacy in probabilistic reasoning.
The fallacy is that a chancy event becomes more probable if it hasn’t yet happened. (E.g., if a fair coin has come up heads three times in a row, it’s now more likely (than 1/2) to come up tails on the fourth toss.) In the particular example, the fallacy is in thinking that the kicker is “due” to miss an easy 29-yard kick, just because he has made such kicks repeatedly in the past.
The “law” of averages is also not the same as regression to the mean.
An application of regression to the mean would be if the kicker in the past *made* highly improbable kicks, he would eventually regress to the mean in the sense that you can expect him to *miss* future highly improbable kicks.
Regression to the mean, in this sense, would predict that if 29-yard kicks are common and easily made, the kicker will in the future *make* such a kick, even if in his last outing he missed one.
(Sorry if this is a double-post. I clicked the “submit” button once and was confronted with a “Sorry, you can only post one comment every 5 seconds.” page.)
Steelers huh? As a joke I recently a coworker’s black and gold “Terrible Towel” and emailed a picture of it and a Ransom to her and the office’s Bengals fan, inciting a nice little bidding war. I call it free market Ransom. Kickers (much like goalies in general) receive all the blame for a loss, and little of the credit for a win. I think they deserve as much credit for their sangfroid under that sort of pressure as they get for their legs. Anyway, GO EAGLES!
Steelers huh? As a joke I recently a coworker’s black and gold “Terrible Towel” and emailed a picture of it and a Ransom to her and the office’s Bengals fan, inciting a nice little bidding war. I call it free market Ransom. Kickers (much like goalies in general) receive all the blame for a loss, and little of the credit for a win. I think they deserve as much credit for their sangfroid under that sort of pressure as they get for their legs. Anyway, GO EAGLES!