Can We PLEASE Stop Referencing One Score Losses?

[bengaloo]

I would take a 1 point victory every game as long as it was a win. Losses get you nowhere. There are no moral victories like ZT thinks there are

[THE PISTONS]

(12-11-2020, 01:28 AM)jason Wrote: That's a stat that not enough people are talking about. Taylor has many flaws, but you can't say that he doesn't win the games that he does. I like how he appreciates the fans too. He makes sure he wins those games at home for the 9,500 faithfully gathered at PBS.

The winning at home part is underrated. He'll be 4-14 at home if projections hold out. Maybe 5-13 if all goes well.

Your average guy on the street doesn't have 5 NFL home victories as a coach. (Unless Rich Kotite is on the street.)

Shula for all his flaws, actually won road games...which is another flaw. That doesn't get discussed. Taylor defends PBS! Well a quarter of the time. IF Teams think they're going to come into PBS and win 80-90% of the time...they're wrong! Not wrong by a lot, but mathematically...they're slightly wrong.

[THE PISTONS]

(12-11-2020, 03:20 AM)BengalChris Wrote: Yes, the Bengals are microscopically higher than the worst two teams in the league.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It's still a worthless clock. Sort of like our coaching staff.

Sadly, Mikey doesn't mind his clocks being screwy.

 

And that is WITH Burrow...who the board talks about like prime Peyton Manning. And I REALLY like Burrow, it's just that he finally has a QB and they still can't win!

Last year the narrative was - No one can win with Dalton. (Which was always obviously wrong as Marvin did.)

[fredtoast]

This is not a defense of Taylor. It is just a little explanation of the math regarding "one score losses".

No one is saying that a majority of NFL games are not decided by one score. But there is a certain amount of "luck" involved in NFL games and even the worst teams are usually able to pull of one or two one score victories. Taylor's record in one score games is way outside the norm. That is why some people bring it up.

But as someone has already mentioned. he also has a terrible record in games that are not decided by one score.

And even if he had gotten a couple of lucky bounces like most other teams get he would still just have 6 or 7 wins in 2 years instead of only 4.

To me the ability to win close games is more about skill and coaching than luck, but the fact is that even the worst teams some times get some lucky breaks in close games. But the fact that Taylor is "unlucky" does not change the fact that he sucks as a coach.

[Yojimbo]

Losing by 1 score or less is a bad thing. Losing is bad.

[*ochocincos*]

Being close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades.

In football, a loss is a loss. And you aren't getting to the postseason with close losses vs blowout losses. You need wins.

[Sled21]

(12-11-2020, 12:34 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Being close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades.

In football, a loss is a loss. And you aren't getting to the postseason with close losses vs blowout losses. You need wins.

True, a loss is a loss, and good coaches find ways to win close games.... yada yada yada. But the reason people talk about losses by 3 points, etc., is that they show that the team is close  and not just getting blown out constantly. Although I know that's not the popular narrative around here. 

[*ochocincos*]

(12-11-2020, 12:53 PM)Sled21 Wrote: True, a loss is a loss, and good coaches find ways to win close games.... yada yada yada. But the reason people talk about losses by 3 points, etc., is that they show that the team is close  and not just getting blown out constantly. Although I know that's not the popular narrative around here. 

The hope is that eventually those close losses turn into wins. So far, it's still losses.
Maybe the close losses under Taylor gives some people confidence there will be more wins, but I don't have that confidence.

[Sled21]

(12-11-2020, 12:59 PM)ochocincos Wrote: The hope is that eventually those close losses turn into wins. So far, it's still losses.
Maybe the close losses under Taylor gives some people confidence there will be more wins, but I don't have that confidence.

Right, the hope is that close losses turn into wins, and with as many close losses as we suffer, it would lead to a pretty good record. When you factor in injuries this year, one cannot objectively think some of those would be wins if they were healthier.  Some will jump up and say injuries are not an excuse, but come on, this team was devastated this year.

[R3stangs]

(12-11-2020, 12:59 PM)ochocincos Wrote: The hope is that eventually those close losses turn into wins. So far, it's still losses.
Maybe the close losses under Taylor gives some people confidence there will be more wins, but I don't have that confidence.

Most people want to gloss over that in many of those one score games it was only one score because we played behind the whole game and were giving some easy scores while running out the clock.

[Wes Mantooth]

(12-11-2020, 12:53 PM)Sled21 Wrote: But the reason people talk about losses by 3 points, etc., is that they show that the team is close  and not just getting blown out constantly. Although I know that's not the popular narrative around here. 

Did you even read the initial post?

Losing by less than a score doesn't mean you're any closer than any of the other majority of teams that are losing in the same fashion.  No team gets blown out constantly.

Even the Jets, who have an historically bad team this year, have 4 one score losses.

Let's take a look at the 2017 Browns, one of the worst teams of all time, one of only two teams to go 0-16.  Here are some of their losses:

21-18 to the Steelers
31-28 to the Colts
17-14 to the Jets
12-9 to the Titans
27-21 to the Packers
28-24 to the the Steelers

They had 6 losses of the less than a score, at an average point difference of 3.75 points.  They only had 3 losses that came by more than 14.  As one of only two teams ever to go winless even they weren't getting blown constantly.

Let's look at slightly better, normal "bad team" and one of our fellow basement dwellers in 2019 with the Lions, who won only 3 games:

34-30 to the Chiefs (Superbowl Champs)
23 -22 to the Packers (13-3 team)
31-24 to the Raiders
20-13 to the Bears
35-27 to the Cowboys
19-16 to the Redskins
24-20 to the Bears
23-20 to the Packers (13-3 team)
Tie with Arizona 27-27

9 of their games they didn't win (8 if you don't include the tie) came by less than a score.  8 of their 12 losses came by an average of 4.5 points.

When people say it shows we're close it's no different than most losing teams.  Trust me, I can pull up any number of teams to keep drilling this point home. (Ex: The 4-12 Giants last year had 6 losses come by less than a score)

I really don't how this can be made more clear.  Losing close happens more often than losing by greater than 8 points.  It's the nature of the game.  So we're really nowhere closer than most bad teams.  The only difference is people choose to go through our record and go out of their way to look for positives.  Except they don't do that for other teams, and this isn't a really postive.  It's commonplace.

[R3stangs]

(12-11-2020, 12:53 PM)Sled21 Wrote: True, a loss is a loss, and good coaches find ways to win close games.... yada yada yada. But the reason people talk about losses by 3 points, etc., is that they show that the team is close  and not just getting blown out constantly. Although I know that's not the popular narrative around here. 

(12-11-2020, 01:04 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Right, the hope is that close losses turn into wins, and with as many close losses as we suffer, it would lead to a pretty good record. When you factor in injuries this year, one cannot objectively think some of those would be wins if they were healthier.  Some will jump up and say injuries are not an excuse, but come on, this team was devastated this year.

smh. 

At 4-23-1 this is beyond the injury excuse. But I'm not going to convince you or even try. We disagree about how close this team is to being even an average team.

[fredtoast]

(12-11-2020, 01:33 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Did you even read the initial post?

Losing by less than a score doesn't mean you're any closer than any of the other majority of teams that are losing in the same fashion.  No team gets blown out constantly.

Even the Jets, who have an historically bad team this year, have 4 one score losses.

Let's take a look at the 2017 Browns, one of the worst teams of all time.  Here are some of their losses:

21-18 to the Steelers
31-28 to the Colts
17-14 to the Jets
12-9 to the Titans
27-21 to the Packers
28-24 to the the Steelers

I agree that close losses are still losses, but you are losing me as you go to these extremes.

Everyone from TV analyst to Vegas bookmakers to the guys who make computer programs to rank college teams all look at point differential to judge teams.  So it is not as meaningless as you claim.  The worse teams get beaten my more points than the better teams.

And I have no idea what you think you are proving by showing that the 2017 Browns got beat my more than a single score 10 times while it has only happened to us 4 times this year.  Seems to me you are proving the point for the other side with that stat.

[Tiger Teeth]

(12-11-2020, 01:51 AM)bfine32 Wrote: If that's not impressive enough: He has won EVERY game in which a team he coached outscored the opponent. 

Dude, you're killin' me!  

[Tiger Teeth]

(12-11-2020, 01:51 AM)bfine32 Wrote: If that's not impressive enough: He has won EVERY game in which a team he coached outscored the opponent. 

Another little known stat.  Taylor is undefeated in games where a team he coached scored the same total amount of points that were equal to any opposing coach that had scored the same number of points as his team.

UNDEFEATED!

[Wes Mantooth]

(12-11-2020, 01:04 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Right, the hope is that close losses turn into wins, and with as many close losses as we suffer, it would lead to a pretty good record. When you factor in injuries this year, one cannot objectively think some of those would be wins if they were healthier.  Some will jump up and say injuries are not an excuse, but come on, this team was devastated this year.

Every team has injuries.  For some of those games you're magically turning into wins, where we get out injured players back, are you giving the opponent their injured players back as well?  Because, if that's the case, you can't objectively say anything.  It's a complete unknown.

It's really easy to look at a game like the Eagles, and say "Man, if we had so and so back we probably win that game."  You're just magically insert Reader and Atkins, Trae Waynes, XSF and think that that's make us better.  And it does, no doubt.  But here's what you're not thinking about or doing...

The Eagles were down Alshon Jeffrey, Desean Jackson, Jalen Reagor, and Dallas Goedert.  That's 4 of their top 5 weapons, and all 3 of the starting receivers.  That not enough?  They were also out 3 of the starting offensive lineman.  Not to mention, 2 defensive starters.

So really, if you're going to play this game, be fair.  If we're actually trying to look at games and how they would be played without injuries, account for both teams.  Otherwise, what you're essentially saying is that if our team is 100% healthy we can beat another team who is clearly not.  What does that tell us?  A:) Not much.

You want to talk injuries?  Look at the 49'ers.  They had multiple games this season where they were down there QB1, WR1, TE1, RB1, and their all Pro DL Bosa. 

Garrapolo has missed 6 games.  Mosert has missed 6 games. Kittle has missed 6 games.  Deebo Samuel has missed 6 games.  Nick Bosa has missed 10 games!!!!

Their record?  5-6.  Do we really want to ***** about inuries when you look at a situation like that?

Look at the Patriots.  They had 8 players opt on this season.  8!!!  Two of their best defenders in Hightower and Chung, and one of their only proven receiving threats outside of Edleman in Marquis Lee.

Edleman has gone on to miss 50% of the season and hasn't played in months.  All 3 of their running backs have missed time, and their other decent one opted out.

This has all happen in what everyone expected to be a rebuilding year with a new, washed up QB serving as a placeholder, and with them right up againt the cap, with no money to spend.

Their record?  6-7.  They beat a team last week 42-0.

Nothing gets overstated on here more than our injuries.  Every year I hear the same thing, that we're cursed because we have players injured.  "Oh my God, we can never win without AJ Green and Jonah Williams!!!" Meanwhile, a team like the Eagles loses an MVP front runner in Carson Wentz at the end of the year, adn wins a Superbowl with their backup QB. But here we act like being down 1 single DT in the first 3 weeks, and a CB1 explains away all of our problems.

Balgona.  It's like some of you don't pay attention to any other teams outside of this one.  Every team deals with this.

[Wes Mantooth]

(12-11-2020, 01:45 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I agree that close losses are still losses, but you are losing me as you go to these extremes.

Everyone from TV analyst to Vegas bookmakers to the guys who make computer programs to rank college teams all look at point differential to judge teams.  So it is not as meaningless as you claim.  The worse teams get beaten my more points than the better teams.

And I have no idea what you think you are proving by showing that the 2017 Browns got beat my more than a single score 10 times while it has only happened to us 4 times this year.  Seems to me you are proving the point for the other side with that stat.

He said "at least we're not getting constantly getting blown out".  My point is that no team gets constantly blown out.  Not even one of their worst teams in the history of football.

I used the Browns as the ultimate extreme, not to show what a typical "bad team" looks like, but to look at the absolute worst of the worst.  I used them to just show that even they had some close games.

6 losses by a score or less.  13 of their 16 losses by 14 or less.  And again, this is arguably the worst time of time.

For a standard "bad team" look at the 3-12-1 Lions I listed from last season.  8 of the 12 losses came by a score or less, by an average of 4.5 points.

This is what losing typically looks like in the NFL.  You can find any number of 2-4 wins teams over the last however many years, and find them with a decent number of one score losses. 

It's ridiculous to insinuate that we're somehow closer to success because we're losing close. Most teams lose close.

[*ochocincos*]

(12-11-2020, 01:04 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Right, the hope is that close losses turn into wins, and with as many close losses as we suffer, it would lead to a pretty good record. When you factor in injuries this year, one cannot objectively think some of those would be wins if they were healthier.  Some will jump up and say injuries are not an excuse, but come on, this team was devastated this year.

It's hard to say how many games though.

For the Chargers, I believe the only two injured were Waynes and Atkins. But the defense still held them to 16 points, and it was the offense that was bad.

The first Browns game wasn't as close as it appeared, as Cincy was down by 2 TDs with less than 4 minutes to play.

The PHI game you could maybe say they could have won with more healthy players since it was a tie, but PHI had almost all of their receivers out of that game too. So if they also had full health, I think it's still uncertain.

With IND being down 7-24 halfway through the 2nd quarter, I think that could have been a win with full health, but I also know IND is normally better than that game and may have not been as surprised to go down by that much if they didn't think Cincy was gonna be a layup.

The second CLE game may have been a win, but that was also the game that OBJ went out with a torn ACL, ending his season. I believe that was in the 1st quarter, right? If I'm remembering right, then I still don't even have confidence that game would have been a win if both teams were fully healthy.

One would think that WAS and NYG would have been winnable with even just Burrow, so I'll give those.

So I guess I'd consider maybe just 2 losses that could have been wins, and then the tie could have also maybe been a win. That would put the wins at 5.

Would people be more confident in Zac if the team was 5-7 right now?
I'd say probably, but it's really hard to speculate when the other teams the Bengals lost to were also dealing with some impactful injuries. And if we talk about what-ifs for the Bengals being healthier, we also need to have the opposition be healthier too.

[*bengalfan74*]

Totally agree, the one score lose excuse is just total BS. If one had the time you could go through 6 or 8 teams every season who lose 6 or 8 games every season by one score, that are "decent" teams on the cusp by the narrative. They just suffer from bad luck blah, blah.

Then the next season they're still bad.

[THE PISTONS]

(12-11-2020, 02:05 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Every team has injuries.  For some of those games you're magically turning into wins, where we get out injured players back, are you giving the opponent their injured players back as well?  Because, if that's the case, you can't objectively say anything.  It's a complete unknown.

It's really easy to look at a game like the Eagles, and say "Man, if we had so and so back we probably win that game."  You're just magically insert Reader and Atkins, Trae Waynes, XSF and think that that's make us better.  And it does, no doubt.  But here's what you're not thinking about or doing...

The Eagles were down Alshon Jeffrey, Desean Jackson, Jalen Reagor, and Dallas Goedert.  That's 4 of their top 5 weapons, and all 3 of the starting receivers.  That not enough?  They were also out 3 of the starting offensive lineman.  Not to mention, 2 defensive starters.

So really, if you're going to play this game, be fair.  If we're actually trying to look at games and how they would be played without injuries, account for both teams.  Otherwise, what you're essentially saying is that if our team is 100% healthy we can beat another team who is clearly not.  What does that tell us?  A:) Not much.

You want to talk injuries?  Look at the 49'ers.  They had multiple games this season where they were down there QB1, WR1, TE1, RB1, and their all Pro DL Bosa. 

Garrapolo has missed 6 games.  Mosert has missed 6 games. Kittle has missed 6 games.  Deebo Samuel has missed 6 games.  Nick Bosa has missed 10 games!!!!

Their record?  5-6.  Do we really want to ***** about inuries when you look at a situation like that?

Look at the Patriots.  They had 8 players opt on this season.  8!!!  Two of their best defenders in Hightower and Chung, and one of their only proven receiving threats outside of Edleman in Marquis Lee.

Edleman has gone on to miss 50% of the season and hasn't played in months.  All 3 of their running backs have missed time, and their other decent one opted out.

This has all happen in what everyone expected to be a rebuilding year with a new, washed up QB serving as a placeholder, and with them right up againt the cap, with no money to spend.

Their record?  6-7.  They beat a team last week 42-0.

Nothing gets overstated on here more than our injuries.  Every year I hear the same thing, that we're cursed because we have players injured.  "Oh my God, we can never win without AJ Green and Jonah Williams!!!"  Meanwhile, a team like the Eagles loses an MVP front runner in Carson Wentz at the end of the year, adn wins a Superbowl with their backup QB.  But here we act like being down 1 single DT in the first 3 weeks, and a CB1 explains away all of our problems.

Balgona.  It's like some of you don't pay attention to any other teams outside of this one.  Every team deals with this.

Yep. EVERY Team has injuries.

The Giants beat us and Seattle without Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley. Good coaches figure out ways to get it done.

Bad coaches and teams...well use injuries as an excuse.

And last year the excuse was we lost AJ Green and Jonah Williams. Well those 2 have played this year...and we have 2.5 wins. ie It DIDN'T make us better!


We added Burrow, Green, Jonah, Reader, Spain, Vonn Bell, Tee Higgins, Wilson, and Bynes...and didn't improve. Ponder that.