Let's talk OTA's

[KI Skins Fan]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

As much as I love data driven analysis and its applications in so many aspects of life, football is one area where doesn't help all that meaningfully. The biggest reason is one of the fundamentals of statistics - sample size. The NFL season contains only 16 games, any statistician will tell you that a sample size that small can't provide meaningful conclusions that would pass a confidence test.

And while the stats will factor in a probability of injuries, a significant injury at a key position or two is all it takes to completely change a team's approach to game-planning, completely tossing almost everything the stat book would tell us.

Last year, if RG3 were healthy, the stats never would have called for a 3-13 season, the roster was stronger than that. But the fact is he wasn't himself, no calculation can plan for that. For the Eagles - if they lose Jason Peters and Jason Kelce this year like they did in 2012, they could be looking at 5-11 because Foles simply SUCKS under pressure.

There's just too many curve-breaking variables at play in football, and over the course of only 16 games, anything can happen. Stats just aren't that telling - there's a reason they say Any Given Sunday.

In fairness to Tripp, I think he implied that the Eagles should be the favorite at this time using either prediction method. To me, it would seem that the numbers would be a good starting point. In the case of NFL football, they don't get you very far because of the significant variances that can occur but they can help to keep you from going astray from the beginning.

This may not be scientific, but I think that the play of RGIII in 2014 may the single most significant unknown in the attempt to predict the division winner. I think we pretty much know what can be expected of the other three starting QB's when they are healthy and playing well. Right now, we still don't know exactly what we have in RGIII. If he is able to optimize his athletic ability for use as an NFL QB, his production could be off the charts. If not, his production could be average.

How many wins is an optimized and fully utilized RGIII worth? I don't know but I think the difference in production with and without an optimized, fully utilized RGIII would be close to the difference in production of the Green Bay offense when they had Rodgers in the lineup last season versus when he was not available to them.