That Last Play To End The Game

[Science Friction]

(12-04-2022, 11:22 PM)Nepa Wrote: But life, and football, doesn't work that way. You don't know what would have happened had the Bengals taken the 3 points at the end of the first half. To say they would have won by 9 assumes things are predestined to go the same way the rest of the game. But maybe the Chiefs with time on the clock at the end of the first half, and timeouts, march down the field and kick a field goal or even get a touchdown before the half. Maybe their play calls change in the second half. We don't know.

I think the best way to describe this is in terms of baseball. It has annoyed me for decades when announcers don't recognize this reality. Say a baserunner gets thrown out trying to steal a base and then the next batter hits a homerun. Inevitably, announcers and fans and players themselves say if the runner hadn't tried to steal, then it would have been two runs when the homerun was hit. But everything has changed. Now the pitcher is throwing from a windup instead of the stretch. The pitch selection is different. Maybe the guy that hit the home run would have popped out.

Basically, things are not predestined to happen the same the rest of the game.

Always best to just enjoy the victories rather than look back. 

Good point. I've said this all my adult life. For every chain of events, if you change one sequence in that chain, it's unlikely that all subsequent events would play out the same way. Great insight.