NFL Parity Visualized

[DaFace]

Found this on Reddit and thought some of you would think it's interesting (especially given the vagina graphs).

http://25.media.tumblr.com/c2f193e2f4cf3296c6ecacde835e072d/tumblr_mvt59mmdgM1s3dn7vo1_1280.png

http://25.media.tumblr.com/ac35c136c3f3b49e1e64ae94e7ed608a/tumblr_mvt59mmdgM1s3dn7vo2_r1_1280.png

[CleveSteve]

So, I get the correlation plots, but what's with the floppy vaginas?

[DaFace]

So, I get the correlation plots, but what's with the floppy vaginas?

Yeah, those are weird. I believe they're bell curves of percentage change from year to year. Then they mirror them vertically because bell curves aren't as interesting as vaginas.

[DaFace]

http://vizual-statistix.tumblr.com/post/66117099636/edit-due-to-numerous-requests-for-the-addition

[Canofbier]

Cool. A year from now, the Chiefs may well be the new "outlier of note" on the NFL graph!

[cdcox]

So, I get the correlation plots, but what's with the floppy vaginas?

Violin plot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_plot

[Dayze]

I have no idea what to make of those graphs. I'm not too proud to say.

[MotherfuckerJones]

Those graphs make my had spin :)

[Ace Gunner]

Those vaginas are telling you the nfl has a higher variance of team performance from season to season and rake the yard.

[ChiefsCountry]

I would say the shorter season makes a difference in the NFL numbers. MLB about every team is 60-60 on the season, there is a 42 game swing normally between the clubs.

[Ace Gunner]

The number of contests is not important. What it is trying to convey is that NFL is more dependent on team performance than personnel.

[tk13]

I'd agree that from year to year the NFL does seem to have more variance... so this makes sense. In terms of postseason success though, I'd like to see some charts on that. I know we've hashed out on here before. If you go back through the last 25-30 years of the AFC... it's mostly the Patriots, Steelers, Colts, Bills and Broncos. You'd probably find as much or more championship parity in baseball, even without a salary cap.

[chiefzilla1501]

Found this on Reddit and thought some of you would think it's interesting (especially given the vagina graphs).

http://25.media.tumblr.com/c2f193e2f4cf3296c6ecacde835e072d/tumblr_mvt59mmdgM1s3dn7vo1_1280.png

http://25.media.tumblr.com/ac35c136c3f3b49e1e64ae94e7ed608a/tumblr_mvt59mmdgM1s3dn7vo2_r1_1280.png

The big problem I have with this data is it only accounts for the regular season.

If you factor in the playoffs, the MLB has the best parity the NFL a distant second, and the NBA a very distant third.

[Psyko Tek]

The number of contests is not important. What it is trying to convey is that NFL is more dependent on team performance than personnel.

number of contest is very important

think march madness or NFL playoffs
the better team will win a 7 games series
but in the NFL any given sunday...

the ever\rygame is important
one and done makes it better
FUCK a play off series


hell golf is more competitive that the or three "major" sports
cause you do it now or you go the fuck home

lets change base ball rules so every at bat is 3of % competition
basketball so you get 3 chances to make 2 free throws

this is not surprising information

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Baseball teams in the WS since the strike:

Braves, Indians, Yankees, Marlins, Padres, Mets, Diamondbacks, Angels, Giants, Cardinals, Red Sox, Astros, White Sox, Tigers, Rockies, Phillies, Rays, Rangers

18/30 Teams

Champions since the strike: Braves, Yankees, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Angels, Giants, Cardinals, Red Sox, White Sox, Phillies

10/30 teams

NFL: Super Bowl teams since the strike:

Chargers, 49ers, Cowboys, Steelers, Packers, Patriots, Broncos, Falcons, Rams, Titans, Ravens, Giants, Raiders, Bucs, Panthers, Eagles, Seahawks, Colts, Bears, Cardinals, Saints.

21/32 Teams

Champions: Ravens, Giants, Bucs, Colts, Saints, Patriots, 49ers, Cowboys, Steelers, Broncos, Packers, Rams

12/32 Teams

Sixty percent of baseball teams have been in the WS since the strike, compared to 65 percent of football teams. Thirty-three percent of baseball teams have won it all since then, compared to 37.5 percent of football teams.

Not much of a difference.

[tk13]

Good stuff. Sounds about right. That means 8 of the 16 AFC teams have made it to the Super Bowl in that period. 13 of the 16 NFC teams have. Not bad. Especially since the turn of the century the AFC has been pretty much the Pats/Steelers/Colts/Ravens every year.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Good stuff. Sounds about right. That means 8 of the 16 AFC teams have made it to the Super Bowl in that period. 13 of the 16 NFC teams have. Not bad. Especially since the turn over the century the AFC has been pretty much the Pats/Steelers/Colts/Ravens every year.

The sport where it is nigh impossible to actually compete with any semblance of fairness is basketball. You have to be terrible, win the lottery, and win it in years where there are excellent players available while also existing in a warm weather city. On top of that, the free agents collude now.

[Ace Gunner]

Baseball teams in the WS since the strike:

Braves, Indians, Yankees, Marlins, Padres, Mets, Diamondbacks, Angels, Giants, Cardinals, Red Sox, Astros, White Sox, Tigers, Rockies, Phillies, Rays, Rangers

18/30 Teams

Champions since the strike: Braves, Yankees, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Angels, Giants, Cardinals, Red Sox, White Sox, Phillies

10/30 teams

NFL: Super Bowl teams since the strike:

Chargers, 49ers, Cowboys, Steelers, Packers, Patriots, Broncos, Falcons, Rams, Titans, Ravens, Giants, Raiders, Bucs, Panthers, Eagles, Seahawks, Colts, Bears, Cardinals, Saints.

21/32 Teams

Champions: Ravens, Giants, Bucs, Colts, Saints, Patriots, 49ers, Cowboys, Steelers, Broncos, Packers, Rams

12/32 Teams

Sixty percent of baseball teams have been in the WS since the strike, compared to 65 percent of football teams. Thirty-three percent of baseball teams have won it all since then, compared to 37.5 percent of football teams.

Not much of a difference.


no no no. you're not getting this. it states "winning percentages from season to season" and not "winners from season to season".

what it is pointing out is that NFL teams are much more likely to change winning percentage by a large margin compared with other sports.

It is showing parity is much easier to attain in other sports.

[Bugeater]

I have no idea what to make of those graphs. I'm not too proud to say.
The circles in the graphs represent something. That much I know for sure.

[Phobia]

We're going to need a graph of DaFace's, rainman's, and seedy cox's post domination on this thread by the end.

[cdcox]

The number of contests is not important. What it is trying to convey is that NFL is more dependent on team performance than personnel.

The number of contests absolutely is important. You can decrease the variance by playing more games (increasing the sample size). And I'm not sure where you get the statement about personnel, since the analysis doesn't contain any information about personnel changes from year to year.

[MMXcalibur]

We're going to need a graph of DaFace's, rainman's, and seedy cox's post domination on this thread by the end.

In terms of sheer number of posts on ChiefsPlanet, Clay is the floppiest vagina here.

[kcchiefsus]

I'd agree that from year to year the NFL does seem to have more variance... so this makes sense. In terms of postseason success though, I'd like to see some charts on that. I know we've hashed out on here before. If you go back through the last 25-30 years of the AFC... it's mostly the Patriots, Steelers, Colts, Bills and Broncos. You'd probably find as much or more championship parity in baseball, even without a salary cap.

The Yankees have 27 world series victories. The Cardinals have 11. The A's have 9. That is 47 world series championships between 3 teams. The NFL has nothing close to that amount of domination by a small amount of teams.

[Ace Gunner]

The number of contests absolutely is important. You can decrease the variance by playing more games (increasing the sample size). And I'm not sure where you get the statement about personnel, since the analysis doesn't contain any information about personnel changes from year to year.

I'm not surprised all of this went over your head.

the comparison is done from season to season -- the "sample size" cannot be altered.

[InChiefsHeaven]

I don't understand any of this shit, and it makes my head hurt. Does this mean we will sweep the Donkeys or not??

[Ace Gunner]

I don't understand any of this shit, and it makes my head hurt. Does this mean we will sweep the Donkeys or not??


:LOL: if the lil circle on the far right inches closer to the top of the page, the Chiefs will sweep the donks -- but you must concentrate on that lil circle for it to move :D

[Archie F. Swin]

which circle is Royals?

[ptlyon]

Looks like a duck

[InChiefsHeaven]

:LOL: if the lil circle on the far right inches closer to the top of the page, the Chiefs will sweep the donks -- but you must concentrate on that lil circle for it to move :D

OK....doing my part...

http://pleated-jeans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/when-i-close-the-wrong-tab.gif

[cdcox]

I'm not surprised all of this went over your head.

the comparison is done from season to season -- the "sample size" cannot be altered.

But because MLB and the NBA have many more games per team in their seasons, the variance of their outcomes is inherently biased to be smaller than the NFL's.

[Bearcat]

I'm not surprised all of this went over your head.


WTF, cdcox is like one of the biggest number geeks here. And yeah, if you compare NFL teams based on 2003-2007 and 2008-2012, the points would less likely be all over the map.



(that's a compliment, btw)

[Sannyasi]

I'm not surprised all of this went over your head.

the comparison is done from season to season -- the "sample size" cannot be altered.

The number of trials absolutely plays a factor. Every team tends toward the mean in a longer season. You would NEVER see a team go undefeated in baseball no matter how good they were, for example.

[Bugeater]

LOL @ Buzz TinBrain telling cdcox something went over his head.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

The Yankees have 27 world series victories. The Cardinals have 11. The A's have 9. That is 47 world series championships between 3 teams. The NFL has nothing close to that amount of domination by a small amount of teams.

ROFL....

The Steelers have six SBs, the 49ers and Cowboys have five.

16/47

[DaFace]

LOL @ Buzz TinBrain telling cdcox something went over his head.

Yeah, no kidding. The number of data points in the charts is obviously constrained by the number of teams, but the variance in the data points themselves is driven by the number of games played.

[Ace Gunner]

it's fourteen season of data -- why is that not a large enough sample size? also, this is an abstract comparison, but to say the number of games is going to change the final conclusion is nuts, imo.

14 x 16 = 224 games, that's a good sample size. when all teams are included, the size increases to 224 x 16 = 3,584 games which is more than enough sample data imo.

if you reduced the numbers in each sport to 3,584 games, I don't think these charts will change much, really. in fact, it may make football even more varied, by comparison.

[cdcox]

it's fourteen season of data -- why is that not a large enough sample size? also, this is an abstract comparison, but to say the number of games is going to change the final conclusion is nuts, imo.

14 x 16 = 224 games, that's a good sample size. when all teams are included, the size increases to 224 x 16 = 3,584 games which is more than enough sample data imo.

if you reduced the numbers in each sport to 3,584 games, I don't think these charts will change much, really. in fact, it may make football even more varied, by comparison.

The limiting sample size is 16 games per season. A team's record in a given year is a random variable that is some function of the underlying True Strength of the team. People that don't think statistically tend to equate the team record and the True Strength.

Think of it this way: if Tiger Woods hit two golf balls twice in a row under exactly the same conditions, they might land somewhat close to one another but not exactly in the same exact spot. There is some randomness that factors into his golf swing. In an NFL game there are probably millions of these golf-ball sized random variations. So if the Chiefs were able to replay all of their games this season, they would not finish 9-0 every time. There are enough random variations in any given game to allow the outcome to change if it were to be "replayed". If we would represent the Chiefs on the graph they would be 9-0. However if we replayed their season 100 times I suspect that on average we would be about 7-2. This is my guess of our True Strength. So if the season were now over, and we were to play another 9 game season in a year we would not necessarily expect the Chiefs to win 9 games again even if the rosters all remained in tact and the schedules were exactly the same. We'd expect some random variation. If next year the Chiefs went 5-4 with the same exact conditions, it wouldn't be that surprising. To a large degree we just don't know how good the Chiefs really are.

On the other hand if the Chiefs and played 160 games so far this season and had won 155 of them, we would know the Chiefs are really, really good. We would be shocked if a year from now they kept the same roster, every other team kept the same roster and we played the same schedule and went 90-70. Over a 160 game season the record will be a much better indicator of a team's True Strength than a 16 game season.

That is why the variance of MLB will have a smaller variance than the NFL, and why sample size matters.

[DaFace]

it's fourteen season of data -- why is that not a large enough sample size? also, this is an abstract comparison, but to say the number of games is going to change the final conclusion is nuts, imo.

14 x 16 = 224 games, that's a good sample size. when all teams are included, the size increases to 224 x 16 = 3,584 games which is more than enough sample data imo.

if you reduced the numbers in each sport to 3,584 games, I don't think these charts will change much, really. in fact, it may make football even more varied, by comparison.

And that's why you're not a statistician.

[chiefzilla1501]

The limiting sample size is 16 games per season. A team's record in a given year is a random variable that is some function of the underlying True Strength of the team. People that don't think statistically tend to equate the team record and the True Strength.

Think of it this way: if Tiger Woods hit two golf balls twice in a row under exactly the same conditions, they might land somewhat close to one another but not exactly in the same exact spot. There is some randomness that factors into his golf swing. In an NFL game there are probably millions of these golf-ball sized random variations. So if the Chiefs were able to replay all of their games this season, they would not finish 9-0 every time. There are enough random variations in any given game to allow the outcome to change if it were to be "replayed". If we would represent the Chiefs on the graph they would be 9-0. However if we replayed their season 100 times I suspect that on average we would be about 7-2. This is my guess of our True Strength. So if the season were now over, and we were to play another 9 game season in a year we would not necessarily expect the Chiefs to win 9 games again even if the rosters all remained in tact and the schedules were exactly the same. We'd expect some random variation. If next year the Chiefs went 5-4 with the same exact conditions, it wouldn't be that surprising. To a large degree we just don't know how good the Chiefs really are.

On the other hand if the Chiefs and played 160 games so far this season and had won 155 of them, we would know the Chiefs are really, really good. We would be shocked if a year from now they kept the same roster, every other team kept the same roster and we played the same schedule and went 90-70. Over a 160 game season the record will be a much better indicator of a team's True Strength than a 16 game season.

That is why the variance of MLB will have a smaller variance than the NFL, and why sample size matters.

Yup. If you flip a coin 4 times, good chance that 75 percent will land heads. If you flip it 40 times, it's very unlikely you'll get anywhere near 100 percent heads.

The other key piece is environment. Because there are only 16 games, luck of scheduling impacts records. One injury can decimate an entire season. Just too many things in the Nfl beyond how good a football team actually is that impacts record.

[ChiefsCountry]

A bad year in baseball is 62-100.
A good year in baseball is 100-62.

A bad year in football is 2-14.
A good year in football is 14-2.

A bad year in baseball winning percentage wise in the NFL is 6-10.
A good year in baseball winning percentage wise in the NFL is 10-6.

That should explain why baseball is in a nice box in the middle and the NFL is spread out.

[Ace Gunner]

The limiting sample size is 16 games per season. A team's record in a given year is a random variable that is some function of the underlying True Strength of the team. People that don't think statistically tend to equate the team record and the True Strength.

Think of it this way: if Tiger Woods hit two golf balls twice in a row under exactly the same conditions, they might land somewhat close to one another but not exactly in the same exact spot. There is some randomness that factors into his golf swing. In an NFL game there are probably millions of these golf-ball sized random variations. So if the Chiefs were able to replay all of their games this season, they would not finish 9-0 every time. There are enough random variations in any given game to allow the outcome to change if it were to be "replayed". If we would represent the Chiefs on the graph they would be 9-0. However if we replayed their season 100 times I suspect that on average we would be about 7-2. This is my guess of our True Strength. So if the season were now over, and we were to play another 9 game season in a year we would not necessarily expect the Chiefs to win 9 games again even if the rosters all remained in tact and the schedules were exactly the same. We'd expect some random variation. If next year the Chiefs went 5-4 with the same exact conditions, it wouldn't be that surprising. To a large degree we just don't know how good the Chiefs really are.

On the other hand if the Chiefs and played 160 games so far this season and had won 155 of them, we would know the Chiefs are really, really good. We would be shocked if a year from now they kept the same roster, every other team kept the same roster and we played the same schedule and went 90-70. Over a 160 game season the record will be a much better indicator of a team's True Strength than a 16 game season.

That is why the variance of MLB will have a smaller variance than the NFL, and why sample size matters.

look, I appreciate the stats work you do here and within your site, but I think the major contributor to football's wide performance gap compared with other sports from season to season is caused primarily by injury and secondarily by team chemistry. Imo that is also what separates football from other sports. certainly, other sports rely heavily on team chemistry, but I don't think it is quite as dynamic as it is within a football team and locker room.




And that's why you're not a statistician.

I don't claim to be one, and I, nor anyone else in this thread disputed the statistical data of the OP.

you are wrong to call the gist of this info "statistics". cross referencing this data is an abstract comparison, not statistics. some folks get confused comparing apples with oranges. they forget apples are apples and oranges are oranges. they forget the fact this kind of comparison is only that -- comparison, complete with a set of opinions that are loosely based in fact, but are not statistics :D

[chiefzilla1501]

look, I appreciate the stats work you do here and within your site, but I think the major contributor to football's wide performance gap compared with other sports from season to season is caused primarily by injury and secondarily by team chemistry. Imo that is also what separates football from other sports. certainly, other sports rely heavily on team chemistry, but I don't think it is quite as dynamic as it is within a football team and locker room.





I don't claim to be one, and I, nor anyone else in this thread disputed the statistical data of the OP.

you are wrong to call the gist of this info "statistics". cross referencing this data is an abstract comparison, not statistics. some folks get confused comparing apples with oranges. they forget apples are apples and oranges are oranges. they forget the fact this kind of comparison is only that -- comparison, complete with a set of opinions that are loosely based in fact, but are not statistics :D

I think where the disagreement came in was in referencing sampling. There are a lot of reasons why the study in the op is a complete apples to oranges comparison and I would start with sampling. A series of 16 game seasons just cannot be compared to a 162 game season or an 82 game season. I think the nba vs mlb is pretty apples to apples. The data above tells me nothing about the Nfl. It assumes win loss record defines parity and it just doesn't for the Nfl. At least the mlb and nba are somewhat normalized.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Those graphs are kinda hot.

[Bearcat]

You fuckers got me curious.... so, this is every team, comparing win % of 2002-2006 to 2007-2011.

The outlier at the bottom is the Rams (haha!) and the closest one to it is the Chiefs ( :( ...and it would have been worse had I included 2012). The two biggest improvements were the Texans and Saints.

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r143/bearcat2002/Screenshotfrom2013-11-07184122_zpsca6ceb44.png