07-26-2020, 07:59 PM
(07-26-2020, 06:24 PM)impactplaya Wrote: The Bengals lost 8 games by less than a TD in 2019.Here is a pretty detailed look into the history of the average margin of victory in the NFL if you care to read it: https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/935htd/oc_how_has_the_nfls_margin_of_victory_changed
Recent history shows that...
---23% of NFL games are decided by 3 points or less.
---48% of NFL games are decided by 7 points or less.
---57% of NFL games are decided by 10 points or less.
I know you have an 8 point loss incuded in your "8 games" stat, but I don't have a number handy to reference that amount. So for arguments and simplicities sake, let's just say that 50% of games are decided by 8 points or less. I think this is a more than fair estimation, looking at the above.
We had 14 losses. If you were to take the 50% figure we're using here, and then apply it to our losses, the number you'll obviously come up with is 7. On average, an NFL team will lose 7 of those 14 games by 8 points or less.
So just how impressive is that 8 losses by a touchdown or less, knowing the above? A:) Not much. It's pretty much right on par with league averages.
People keep holding up this stat to show that we were closer than our record suggests. That's simply not true. You can go through any number of bad teams schedules, and more often than not, you'll find similar results.
There's a reason Vegas rarely sets a line above 7. Hell, it's somewhat uncommon to see the lines set beyond 4.5. It's becomes it's the nature of the sport, games are usually pretty close. If they set a big line they open themselves up to heavy bets on one side and the potential to get absolutely hammered by payouts.
