Let's talk OTA's

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

The thing about football is that there's so many events in a single game that can be measured that it allows projections on the season level to be based on massive samples: anywhere from 500 to 2,500 events in a season depending on what is being measured. But the trade-off that you touched on is obvious: one week in football is the equivalent of 10 baseball games or five basketball games, and so all analysis in football needs to be inclusive of the idea that a ton can change in one week. Football is just unique in that it packs that many events into a single game.

I think your argument that analytics and data are not going to do a lot to help you predict the outcome of an October matchup between the Redskins and Eagles is pretty accurate, but that's true with most sports. It's always going to be a lot easier to predict the result of 16 games than 1 game.

I meant that it can't even really be used to predict 16 games, not just 1. Because the event argument doesn't hold water - scientists don't measure the number of virus cells eradicated by a vaccine. They measure the number of people who contract the virus.

There are 16 results in a regular season. Yes there are hundreds of events within each that lead up to deciding the W or L on that particular day. But those are all co-varying factors. If you were trying to predict who will win these individual 'events', then yes you have enough data. But you don't have enough to predict a win loss record with any statistical validity.