Thursday, September 17, 2009

What does 0-2 mean?

This is going to be short, but David Haugh tweets:

Must-win looming for Bears? Only 13.8 percent of 0-2 teams have made playoffs since 1990 (STATS, Inc.)..that is an equation for urgency

The actual number is 22 out of 160 teams if you are checking my math

I have no doubt that Haugh is right, but I don't think people should make more of these numbers than they're worth. Most teams that start 0-2 are bad teams, and of course they miss the playoffs. Obviously you're at a disadvantage if you're down two games in the playoff race after two weeks, but it's not a kiss of death.

I think the Bears are a reasonably talented team, and how many of those 160 teams were as talented as the Bears? Half? A third? I don't know, but the odds start looking a lot better if you filter out the teams that you know are bad.

It would be a bad thing if the Bears started 0-2, but if you thought they were a playoff team before, that statistic really shouldn't change your thinking on the subject.

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Good post vlad. That's essentially the point. The Bears have more talent than most other 0-2 teams (potentially) have and if they manage to win this weekend, all the better. Plus, I'm not all that concerned about the making the playoffs thing as I am about the watching good football thing.

As long as Cutler is in place the Bears can afford to be patient.
They have already filled the hardest position to fill, everything else can be done around that.
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1 reply · active 811 weeks ago
Yeah, I just think it's a little facile when Haugh or other analysts give stats on teams that have gone 0-2. With some of those comparisons it's apples to apples, but you've got teams losing in the easy parts of their schedules in there, teams losing in the hard parts, etc, etc. If they lose again I'm not going to panic.
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