Let's talk OTA's

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Just an FYI, games are 4 quarters, not 1. I think in the end, Seattle showed they were the better team, healthy RG3 or not.

I think the bolded part is extremely questionable.
I think everyone agrees that Griffin tweaked his knee at the end of the 1st quarter, on our 2nd scoring drive. After that, many of Griffin's throws were less sharp, and the offense ground to a halt.
Our first two drives were
80 yds and 54yds, both ending in TDs.

Our next 6 drives were
13yds, punt,
3yds, long underthrown INT(imo not happening if the knee isn't tweaked earlier),
23yds punt,
4yds punt,
17 yds punt,
-19 yds, Griffin collapsed, and the fumble.

Just as importantly, our first two drives had 11minutes time of possession, the next 6 had a combined 12 minutes.

During those 6 failed drives, the Skins gave up 2 TDs and 2 field goals. I think it's not irrational to think that a healthy Griffin could have led to at least 1 more score, and probably more.

oh well. Let's hope we see some redemption this year.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by SirLK26

When in doubt, roll out petty semantics!

I'm sure most of you became fans during the glory years, when we were a great team. According to you, that makes all those fans that jumped on during that time, rational. And sure, the Redskins have sucked recently and we continue to be fans, which you cited as a reason for us being irrational, but in fact, not changing teams only makes us rational, due to understanding that once you're attached to a team, you can't wholly change. Thus, the vast majority of Redskins fans are, in fact, rational. The only ones that aren't are the ones saying we're one of the best NFC teams, those who say we'll go winless this season, and the bandwagoners from 2012 who are still hoping that the team they're not fully attached to yet will become good again(probably none of these variety left. LOL.). BA-DUM-BUM KSSSSSH!

The bolded statement in itself is irrational, based on an emotive rather than reasoned argument. A purely rational person is never "attached" to a team as you describe, as the most gratifying (and hence rational) approach is to root for the winner, whomever that might be.

More to the original argument, I understand Schneed's objections. I come to the Warpath rather than some other place because I find the arguments here are more reasoned. It is a good thing to be able to see past the rose-colored glasses when you can.

At the same time, to expect fans to never have irrational attachments seems like expecting a squid not to have tentacles. To be a devoted fan is to embrace a measure of irrationality by definition.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

if I like Pi am I an irrational fan?

Pi needs therapy since it has been nothing but irrational for a long time. Blueberry Pi, however, is entirely rational.

[skinsfan69]

Everyone just needs to be more patient, as painful as that sounds. I expect 7 to 9 wins this year. The division is up for grabs. I think this can be a division winning 9 to 10 win team. To me that's a realistic goal.

[EARTHQUAKE2689]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Everyone just needs to be more patient, as painful as that sounds. I expect 7 to 9 wins this year. The division is up for grabs. I think this can be a division winning 9 to 10 win team. To me that's a realistic goal.

I agree with the last sentence, I dont think it would surprise anyone if anybody outside of Dallas won the division.

[SirLK26]

Originally Posted by Lotus

The bolded statement in itself is irrational, based on an emotive rather than reasoned argument. A purely rational person is never "attached" to a team as you describe, as the most gratifying (and hence rational) approach is to root for the winner, whomever that might be.<snip>

Well then. I guess I am an irrational person. Weird, because I thought I was being so rational in this whole debate.

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Everyone just needs to be more patient, as painful as that sounds. I expect 7 to 9 wins this year. The division is up for grabs. I think this can be a division winning 9 to 10 win team. To me that's a realistic goal.

This.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Lotus

The bolded statement in itself is irrational, based on an emotive rather than reasoned argument. A purely rational person is never "attached" to a team as you describe, as the most gratifying (and hence rational) approach is to root for the winner, whomever that might be.

More to the original argument, I understand Schneed's objections. I come to the Warpath rather than some other place because I find the arguments here are more reasoned. It is a good thing to be able to see past the rose-colored glasses when you can.

At the same time, to expect fans to never have irrational attachments seems like expecting a squid not to have tentacles. To be a devoted fan is to embrace a measure of irrationality by definition.

Agreed. I'm sure I've been guilty of that at some point. I remember acting quite "irrationally" after Griffin ripped off that 76 yard TD run against the Vikings.

Just trying to correct for the egregious fanboy statements that sometimes get thrown around on the message boards. If we don't hold ourselves to that higher standard then our discussions will suck.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Everyone just needs to be more patient, as painful as that sounds. I expect 7 to 9 wins this year. The division is up for grabs. I think this can be a division winning 9 to 10 win team. To me that's a realistic goal.

Yeah, couldn't have said it better. There are plenty of reasons why you could pick us to win the division - rational ones too! But there are also plenty why you could pick against us - the roster/coach turnover and familiarity aspects being the biggest.

I'll be pissed if we're entirely uncompetitive, like 4-12. As long as we show that we're competitive and playing some meaningful December football, even if we miss the playoffs I'll be OK. The fanboy in me will die a little when we get eliminated, but in my head I know that's the likely situation.

But here's hoping we catch lightning in a bottle with our offense.

See, head and heart can coexist!

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Yeah, couldn't have said it better. There are plenty of reasons why you could pick us to win the division - rational ones too! But there are also plenty why you could pick against us - the roster/coach turnover and familiarity aspects being the biggest.

I'll be pissed if we're entirely uncompetitive, like 4-12. As long as we show that we're competitive and playing some meaningful December football, even if we miss the playoffs I'll be OK. The fanboy in me will die a little when we get eliminated, but in my head I know that's the likely situation.

But here's hoping we catch lightning in a bottle with our offense.

See, head and heart can coexist!

I couldn't agree more. Well said.

[SirLK26]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Agreed. I'm sure I've been guilty of that at some point. I remember acting quite "irrationally" after Griffin ripped off that 76 yard TD run against the Vikings.<snip>

LOL. I went back and read the 2012 Vikings-Redskins gameday thread yesterday, and couldn't keep back the grins. The enthusiasm for Griffin was incredible, especially after that run. Wish I would've been on the board that year. Good times.

http://www.thewarpath.net/redskins-l...-game-day.html

[GTripp0012]

A lot of the statistical systems are going to favor the Redskins or Cowboys in the NFC East when they come out. It isn't unwarranted, but objective-based systems are always skeptical of teams that go from 4-12 one year to 10-6 like the Eagles did. The average team that jumps six wins in year X typically loses two wins in year X+1. Sometimes, it's more than two wins, see: the 2013 Washington Redskins.

Subjectively, the Eagles are the team to beat, even if you think they're a true talent .500 team (which I do). That .500 is going to get inflated by a weak division, and they might be able to scrape their way to 10 wins, if they are lucky

The Skins roster is weakened by three straight drafts where they were short on picks, but it's not 3-13 bad. It's a better roster than it showed last season.

[SirLK26]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

A lot of the statistical systems are going to favor the Redskins or Cowboys in the NFC East when they come out. It isn't unwarranted, but objective-based systems are always skeptical of teams that go from 4-12 one year to 10-6 like the Eagles did. The average team that jumps six wins in year X typically loses two wins in year X+1. Sometimes, it's more than two wins, see: the 2013 Washington Redskins.<snip>

That logic seems flawed. Wouldn't "objective-based systems" be even more skeptical of a 3-13 team improving enough to finish ahead of a 10-6 team? I'd think that any person as well as any statistical ranking system looking at the NFC East would say the Eagles are the clear favorite; unless, of course, you're looking at it subjectively with your homer glasses on. Even if the Eagles lost 2 wins, we'd have to gain 6 to finish ahead of them. That doesn't sound like objective thinking to me.

What am I missing?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by SirLK26

That logic seems flawed. Wouldn't "objective-based systems" be even more skeptical of a 3-13 team improving enough to finish ahead of a 10-6 team? I'd think that any person as well as any statistical ranking system looking at the NFC East would say the Eagles are the clear favorite; unless, of course, you're looking at it subjectively with your homer glasses on. Even if the Eagles lost 2 wins, we'd have to gain 6 to finish ahead of them. That doesn't sound like objective thinking to me.

What am I missing?

That's the difference between data-driven analysis and non-data driven analysis.

The Eagles are going to be a pretty huge favorite among the former players and coaches. There's a lot of Cowboys' fatigue, the Redskins have a long history of struggling and changing coaches, and the Giants roster is pretty poor and doesn't offer a lot of hope.

In all honestly, the Eagles probably need to be considered the favorite, but it's a very slight favorite. Here's the thing: a lot of people who were impressed by Chip Kelly and the Eagles last year are going to predict their offense will be even better. Data-driven projections have 50 years of statistics that suggest that the Eagles offense will be worse than last year.

Those same projections are going to expect the Redskins to rebound offensively and the Cowboys to rebound defensively.

I do not think the Redskins are a better team than the Eagles. They aren't quite as good as the Eagles are offensively. But when projection sites run the numbers, it's going to come out closer between the Redskins and Eagles than many think.

In other words, the numbers suggest that the perception gap between the Redskins and Eagles is a lot larger than the actual gap between the two teams on offense. The Eagles are the best offensive team in the NFC East. But it is a legitimately bad defensive roster, and there's a lot of opportunity for other teams in the division to make gains on them.

Just like the Redskins, Cowboys, and Giants need a lot of internal development to catch the Eagles, the Eagles need a lot of internal development if they're going to win the NFC East again.

This is a different point, but I also think the projection systems are likely to overstate how close the Cowboys are to contention. It's hard to factor in Romo and Dez Bryant coming off back surgery into expectations. But that's a really bad sign for them over 16 games. It's asking a lot of those guys to come off offseason surgery, play a full season, and carry a team to the division title in doing so. Those guys are established veterans with a track record of consistent performance, in the eyes of the projections, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect the Cowboys to put it together in 2014 given the way the team relies on those two guys.

They both probably play in Week 1, but it's not Week 1 where I worry about them. It's weeks 11-17.

[EARTHQUAKE2689]

Originally Posted by SirLK26

That logic seems flawed. Wouldn't "objective-based systems" be even more skeptical of a 3-13 team improving enough to finish ahead of a 10-6 team? I'd think that any person as well as any statistical ranking system looking at the NFC East would say the Eagles are the clear favorite; unless, of course, you're looking at it subjectively with your homer glasses on. Even if the Eagles lost 2 wins, we'd have to gain 6 to finish ahead of them. That doesn't sound like objective thinking to me.

What am I missing?

While I get what you are saying completely, the Eagles did improve by 6 games this past season over 2012. Predictions are stupid always will be, but the great thing about the NFL is that you never know who will come outta nowhere and win their division, or who will fall from 13-3 to 4-12.

[SirLK26]

Great post, Gtripp. Not that I agree, because if what you say is the case, it seems a little screwed up to me. Just seems wrong to say that because history suggests the Eagles' offense will regress, they aren't the clear favorites. Do the stats also say that their defense isn't likely to improve? Do the stats say that our offense will improve enough to be equal to theirs even if theirs does regress? Do the stats say that our defense will improve?

I think that data-driven analyses aren't the best way to predict who finishes where in the division, for many reasons. They wouldn't take into account just how good Chip Kelly is at running an offense; in other words, these analyses would factor in all the teams' offenses throughout history run that were run by awful HCs and OCs, not just brilliant offensive gurus like Kelly. These data-driven analyses wouldn't take into account that the Eagles drafted a pass rusher in the 1st round and signed multiple safeties. They wouldn't take into account the fact that RG3 is more of an injury risk than most QBs. And they wouldn't take into account the point you brought out, that Romo and Dez have back issues.

Because of all that and obviously more, I think a non-data driven analysis by an objective person would provide the most accurate view in this situation. Because an analysis of that nature would take into account things that can't be measured. Or maybe I'm completely wrong; maybe your "cold hard fact driven analysis" would actually be more accurate due to the fact that all these things I mentioned are, in fact, too wishy-washy to matter; in other words, I have no idea if any of these things are true, will matter, or will happen, while data provides proof that a certain thing has a certain probabiity that it will actually happen, thus making it more reliable even without out taking into account things of a non-stat nature. Heck, I don't know.

BTW, I would be interested in seeing some of the data you mentioned, particularly the nugget that suggests that the Eagles' offense will regress.