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Welcome, welcome to Wharton Moneyball.
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Welcome to a full hour of sports
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analytics here on the Wharton podcast
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network. This is Kade Massie hosting
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this week with twothirds of my
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colleagues, but the third third is on
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the way. Eric Bradlo is here already.
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He's on the seventh floor of Huntsman
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Hall Wharton campus. I can tell Shane's
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at home. I'm at home. Audi is on his way
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home at the moment. We'll be in here for
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the next hour talking sports analytics.
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We usually are most weeks of the year
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coming up on 12 years. We are a mayor I
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don't know less than two months now from
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our 12-year anniversary hitting probably
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average of 48 or 49 weeks a year. We got
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sports. We're going to talk about
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sports. We got some analytics. We're
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going to talk about analytics right now.
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We're going to do a regular show. We've
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got a guest here in the first half hour.
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We'll go open lines in the second half
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hour. Here peak football. Really peak
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football. We've got college football
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going to culminate a week from now, a
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week from last night. This is Tuesday.
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Show will go up Wednesday. Next Monday,
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college football championship. We'll
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talk about that in a sec. And of course,
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we trimmed the NFL playoff field a
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little bit over the weekend. Three days
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of NFL games. Good fun. Got it down to
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the quarterfinals. Who can talk to us
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about both college football and
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professional football? And any other
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lingering things we want to talk about,
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who better than our old friend Neil
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Payne. Neil Payne, good afternoon to
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you. Welcome to the show.
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>> Thanks for having me back, guys.
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>> Always delighted to have you. Neil,
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looks like he's calling from home, which
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is Arkansas. Bentonville. I want to say
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Bentonville, Arkansas. Is that right?
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Close. Almost.
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>> Good memory.
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>> Yeah. No, I'm always calling from home
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these days. Home is the office.
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>> Home is the office. Neil's Neil's
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blending. Um Neil, what are you thinking
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about this Monday? not Monday, this
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Tuesday morning when you know for our
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show, but also kind of in general. Neil,
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we should say, is runs one of the best
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Substacks in sports. You should
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subscribe to Neil's daily Substack. He's
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going to do something interesting every
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day. He from the first time we met Neil
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back in the beginning of the show, it
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was like, hold on, this it's not fair.
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This guy, he's good with numbers and
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words, and he still does that on a
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regular basis. Neil writes for ESPN. He
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writes for NASCAR. He writes for the
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Washington Post. He was one of the
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originals. He's an OG 538er.
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So, he's he's he's done the work and
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he's still doing the work. And you
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should sign up and listen to him. Neil,
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what are you thinking about today?
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>> Well, I had uh something up uh on
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Tuesday morning just about the what we
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could take away from the wild card
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round. I usually try to do those uh
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little editorial uh behind the curtain.
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Look, would love to do those on Monday
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coming out of a weekend because it gives
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me chance to kind of write digest things
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on a Sunday. Uh, and the Monday night
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wildcard extra thing that they added a
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few years ago uh messes with that a
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little. So, I had to find something else
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to to put on the docket for Monday. But
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then Tuesday got your traditional uh
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coming out of the weekend takeaways. And
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I think uh one of the big things on my
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mind and a lot of people's mind, it got
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spoiled a little bit by the fourth
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quarter of that uh Texans Steelers game,
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but just how close the games were, how
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many comebacks there were and just sort
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of back and forth uh battles. And I saw,
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you know, most people were happy about
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this and I was as a fan just, you know,
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thought it was amazing um television.
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I'm sure you guys uh would agree as
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well. Uh, but I saw some people being
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like, man, when it comes down to this,
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like, can we really say that the best
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team won in these games? Because if it's
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just going to be a coin flip, if it's
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just going to be about who kind of has
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the last possession or if it's sort of a
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50/50 at the end, are we really getting
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uh the the the results that tell us who
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the best teams are? I think that
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presumes a lot about what the purpose of
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playoffs are. They're there to entertain
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us. And are we not entertained uh by
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what we saw? But I thought that was
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interesting. I thought I'd kind of pose
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it to you guys. Uh what you think about
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that argument almost sort of like was it
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too much of a good thing in terms of the
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excitement?
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>> Well, does it speak a little bit to the
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parody? I think I mean I think we do
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have there I mean I I I I I keep
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thinking about the fact that there's
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really kind of not teams that seem
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particularly dominant right now. um roll
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rolling into the playoffs like the I
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mean the obviously the Eagles and the
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Chiefs were kind of both uh um rolled in
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with crazy winning streaks and I guess
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the Texans technically have a big
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winning streak but don't really seem
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like an insurmountable force. So I it
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speaks to me kind of to the parody of
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both the wild card round and even now
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that we're to the divisionals and the
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number one seeds are in it. I still
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think the games are very, you know, like
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I I I I would put I wouldn't put that
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many uh games far off 50/50 in my mind.
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>> Yeah. Maybe I'll just jump just jumping
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in here. When I reflect back on all of
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the games, I'm not convinced the better
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team didn't win. I guess the one you
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could argue with, Neil, maybe you would
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have a different opinion, would be the
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Packers Bears game. You could argue that
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the Packers led for such a long period
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of time. But on the other hand, it
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wasn't like they committed three
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turnovers in the last 10 minutes of the
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game either. They just went three and
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out and they played 60-minute games in
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pro football, not shorter games than
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that. Um, nothing surprised me. I was at
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the Eagles game. I do think the better
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team won that game. And that's even a
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injured 49er team. I think the better
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team won that game. So, I don't look at
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any of the only one I would potentially
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make an argument for was the Packers
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potentially being a better team than the
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Bears. Like, and and what does it even
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mean, by the way? Like, from a
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statistical sense, do you mean if we
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could replay the game a large number of
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times, how many times would the other
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team win under, you know, some scenario
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like that? I don't think any of the
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games maybe to Shane's point also if
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that's the replication we're talking
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about except for Houston Pittsburgh
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which I think that game would end up the
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same 85% of the time
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>> the same outcome not the same score the
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same winner
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>> same outcome yeah same outcome I think
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the other five games were all within
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that band of margin of error
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>> I think by the way I think I think that
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the postgame win expectancy that The
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team that won was positive on that
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except for Buffalo. These vary of
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course. The one I saw, I forget whose it
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was. Buffalo was just below 50%. So they
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were the one team who won who didn't
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play in a way that would have suggested
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they won, but even they were almost that
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close. Audi was trying to get in.
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>> Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I
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think comes to mind as analysts in in
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some level, we've added a dimension to
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sports that has pulled it down by
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analyzing it through the lens of
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probability models, which forces you to
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ask, is this an estimation question? Are
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we inferring from the season and then
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the playoffs who has the highest
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parameter? And we're just trying to get
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that decision correct like like we're
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decision theorists. And I think Neil,
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you're pointing it out that that's not
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exactly the point. This is an athletic
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competition and we give the prize to the
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team that actually won. It's an
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interesting question that we can ask
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ourselves going forward. Who would win
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if they got to do this repeatedly as
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Eric just did, but is there even
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randomness in sports the way we like to
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we analyze it that way because it's the
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only tool that we have at our disposal.
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But does a team win because that there
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was an under or there was an underdog or
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a favorite lose because of just bad luck
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or did they lose because they didn't
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execute when it needed to get done and
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they should lose because of that. I'm
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not saying that and if we had to do it
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again they wouldn't they would be more
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likely to do the right thing. But they
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didn't get it done when it needed to get
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done and there's got to be some reward
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for that. And we I think we as anali an
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analysts have have turned people's
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attention away from that with measures
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like war for example in in various
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sports that use it which takes away from
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doing it when it counts.
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>> Just to be clear what you're talked
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about hypothetically and Neil's I assume
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jump in on this too is a memoryless
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replication. So it's not like the pack
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the the Packers get to say well we blew
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that 21 point lead or whatever. Let's
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play it differently this time. No,
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you're talking about
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>> memories memories
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tier, right? Um there's the randomness
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of like kind of the within team
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heterogeneity like I guess if we are
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kind of thinking about this as a
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parameter is it like a fixed parameter
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or is it like something where a team's
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kind of performance latent performance
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is a random draw from its distribution
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and what we're really interested in if
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the two teams are better is is there a
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difference in those two distributions of
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the team's performance but then even if
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you kind of were able to observe that
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there's on top of it the kind of in-game
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random ness of
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>> That's right.
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>> how things happen.
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>> That's right.
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>> But let let's let's I take Neil's
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question. Y'all dove in kind of the
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middle. I'm going to go high and low. At
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the at the at a high level, it's like
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hell no. There's no there's not too much
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randomness and too much chance. And
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there hell no is is let's real decidedly
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answer that. Hell no. We'll take that
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all day long. But there's also a a
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tournament design question. And of
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course, we also like we we love to turn
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to tournament design when we can. And
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we're watching college football play it
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out in front of us and we have over our
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lifetimes where they used to just vote.
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They just watched 11 games played and
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then voted on who they thought was the
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best. That was just who's got the
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highest alpha or the whatever parameter
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you want to say. Who's highest theta? Um
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and then they no that's that's too much
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of us deciding let's let let's let one
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game decide it. And they did that for a
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few years and then no no let's let three
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games decide. Let's choose four teams.
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And they're they're they're slowly
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expanding and they're saying we're more
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and more gonna let the this thing be
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decided on the field. And I think the
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more you do that, the more you allow
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chance to come into play, obviously
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because you're not just going to sit
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back as analysts and say who's the
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highest theta and let these two high
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thetas play each other. You're saying
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anything can happen. And here's Miami
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the last team in the field
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playing for the national championship.
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And two years ago, Ohio State or was it
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last year? Ohio State comes in as
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whatever they eight and won the next
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>> they were an eight seed. In fact, it was
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an eight versus a seven in the
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championship last year with Notre Dame
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and Ohio State. This year it's kind of
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the the the the two extremes of the
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spectrum, the 10 seed uh in Miami, which
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was really kind of the last uh quote
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unquote real team. And no offense to
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Tulain, no offense to James Madison, but
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they got in through maybe different
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means. and then Indiana, who of course
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seems like this just unstoppable uh
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juggernaut. Uh we we'll kind of see what
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happens in that game. But uh to your
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point, yes, it does introduce randomness
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and similar to the NFL. Uh but I think
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the college playoff, it feels a little
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less random just because we've seen the
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margins be, you know, it wasn't down to
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the wire. Some of the games were uh all
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the Old Miss games I feel like um you
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know uh were at on different levels, but
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then uh many of the games were very
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lopsided to which point you might be
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able to make a case that a smaller
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playoff than the 12 uh was justified
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because you had a lot of teams that were
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just sort of not competitive. Not just
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two lane uh and James Madison, but also
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some of the other teams just came out,
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you know, uh Oregon uh beat Texas Tech
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23- nothing and then they turn around
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and get blown out by Indiana. Alabama,
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of course, loses 38-3, which is one of
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the most ridiculously lopsided games
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Alabama's ever been on the receiving end
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of. So, I think in some ways, uh you
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look at that, that's a little bit
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different than the NFL, right? Where
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it's like anybody could win. Here, it's
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like, h there's really only a core group
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of teams. We just didn't necessarily
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know who that core group was. Like you
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would have put Texas Tech ahead of Miami
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in any kind of ranking going into the
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playoff, but it's pretty clear that they
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belong, you know, where they are more so
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than than some of the teams that got
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knocked out.
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>> That's right. That's right. Well, so two
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quick things here.
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You're right. No question. College
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versus pro, especially this year, the
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parody is stronger. The matches are
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closer on the NFL side. But the other
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thing that's going on with this
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tournament design with college is you're
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deciding how much is deservingness
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versus how much is the best team. And
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best team is just, you know, um you're
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going to you're going to take a team
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like Ohio State who had two losses and
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put them in eight seed and if they play
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their way through, they're the best
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team. And if Miami plays their way to
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the championship, that's the best team.
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They weren't the most deserving teams in
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the field, but by broadening the field,
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you go deeper and you're so you're
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you're necessarily pushing it from
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deserving to the best. Um where they
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used to just pick two teams, they're
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picking the two most deserving at the
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time.
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>> So they broad they've broadened it over
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time.
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>> I also think for the tournament design
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part of it is, you know, you're trying
00:13:06
to like like took Neil's kind of comment
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that like maybe we didn't need an you
00:13:10
know, maybe it's almost like too big or
00:13:12
whatever. We don't need that extra
00:13:13
round. What you're trying to do is on
00:13:14
average ex
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>> in the future project on average what
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the dispare how what the distribution of
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of talented teams at the top is going to
00:13:24
be.
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>> Yeah. Shane
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some years it's like one or two. You got
00:13:29
it. That's definitely those teams. Other
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years it's like eight that you
00:13:33
>> Shane. That's what that's what the guys
00:13:35
who run college football are doing.
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They're they're modeling distributions
00:13:39
of talent and they're trying to pick the
00:13:41
number of playoff teams. They're trying
00:13:43
to pick the number of playoff teams that
00:13:45
would extract the most entertainment
00:13:46
from those district. That's exactly how
00:13:48
they're deciding how to do this. Audi,
00:13:51
>> I just want to add a little comment
00:13:52
here. You you you use the word best as
00:13:55
if the purpose of the tournament is to
00:13:57
find out who's the best.
00:13:59
Is that really true? I asked
00:14:01
>> I said best versus deserving. There's
00:14:02
always this tension in college football,
00:14:04
best versus deserving.
00:14:05
>> Who do what is the who do we call the
00:14:07
the ch we call the winner of the
00:14:09
tournament the champion? We don't call
00:14:11
them the best. We call them agree 100%
00:14:13
>> and we have to conclude on that that the
00:14:15
purpose the team that wins is the
00:14:17
championships is not necessarily the
00:14:18
most deserving on the field or whatever
00:14:20
it is
00:14:21
>> every sport every sport every season
00:14:23
develop I mean there's all sports are
00:14:24
littered with great great great teams
00:14:26
that didn't win their national
00:14:27
championships by the way one last note
00:14:28
on differencing this and play and and
00:14:30
tournament design there's a fundamental
00:14:33
difference and now this is being debated
00:14:35
in college on how the tournament is
00:14:38
seated or how the tournament is
00:14:40
populated did and let let's just know
00:14:42
the general in play in tournament
00:14:44
design. You've got a qualifying stage
00:14:46
and then you've got the knockout stage
00:14:48
and we know this from that's the
00:14:50
language we use in World Cup. But the
00:14:51
same thing happens baseball. It'sund
00:14:54
freaking 62 games of qualifying and then
00:14:57
a few weeks of knockouts. And in in in
00:15:00
NFL, the qualifying happens by divisions
00:15:04
and the champs go. Even if you're a
00:15:07
eight and nine or whatever the hell
00:15:09
Carolina was this year, you're going to
00:15:11
play. And you know, the wild cards are a
00:15:13
way to take the edge off of that, but
00:15:15
it's this automatic qualifying. Col in
00:15:17
college, there's a little bit of
00:15:19
automatic qualifying, but there's
00:15:20
debates on that's exactly what they're
00:15:22
debating right now. Next week is the
00:15:23
meeting. We're going to expand the
00:15:25
tournament probably. Are we gonna put in
00:15:27
more automatic qualifiers or just a few
00:15:30
and let people come in the other way?
00:15:32
This NFL solved this problem years ago
00:15:34
and we don't debate who should be in the
00:15:36
playoffs or not. It's like it's a it's
00:15:37
agreed upon. This is how it happens. You
00:15:39
play divisional divisions matter and
00:15:41
it's kind of nice in that way really.
00:15:43
There's no committee deciding which of
00:15:45
the NFL teams should everyone plays.
00:15:47
Yeah. Roughly equivalent schedules which
00:15:50
I think helps in the NFL compared with
00:15:52
college.
00:15:53
>> Hugely so. Hugely so. Okay. Neil, you're
00:15:56
wearing a Buffalo Bills hat. So, so
00:15:58
those of you not watching the video
00:16:00
don't see this. Neil has one million
00:16:02
sports hats, most of which we can view
00:16:03
in his background. And today he's
00:16:06
wearing the Bills hat. So, tell us about
00:16:08
>> Well, I just uh you know, some of a few
00:16:11
of my best friends are Bills fans and I
00:16:13
just want them to get one. Uh you know,
00:16:16
I think uh them surviving that
00:16:18
Jacksonville game. I kind of uh circled
00:16:21
that and I'm sure you guys talked about
00:16:22
this last week as well as being like a
00:16:24
game between two teams that probably
00:16:26
should have been meeting like later in
00:16:28
the playoffs than uh the the wild card
00:16:31
round. And so the the survival of that
00:16:33
is almost sort of like a test. Uh it's
00:16:36
it's like a natural selection process I
00:16:39
feel like where you get through that
00:16:40
one. Uh it's it's certainly not going to
00:16:42
be easy from there. uh and there's
00:16:44
plenty left to do, but uh it almost gets
00:16:47
uh weirdly uh less stressful I feel once
00:16:50
you get that out of the way and you're
00:16:52
kind of on equal footing like now every
00:16:54
team has to play the same number of
00:16:56
games uh and win the same number of
00:16:58
games going forward to win the
00:17:00
championship. And I kind of think
00:17:02
Denver, like of all the different teams
00:17:03
that the Bills could have drawn uh
00:17:05
coming in, uh they got the tough one
00:17:07
with Jacksonville, but now Denver, and
00:17:10
I'm curious what you guys are are
00:17:11
thinking on them, but they feel a little
00:17:13
bit more like the paper tiger uh of uh
00:17:16
in an AFC where it's really wide open.
00:17:19
Anybody really at this point, you could
00:17:21
envision them winning, but to be the
00:17:23
number one seed in that kind of
00:17:24
conference is not necessarily really a
00:17:27
ringing endorsement the way it would be.
00:17:29
And I wrote about this in my takeaways.
00:17:31
Uh home field in general, home field was
00:17:33
down this year uh in the past couple
00:17:36
years versus what we kind of think of as
00:17:38
being like oh two two and a half points
00:17:39
per game. It's not quite that high
00:17:41
anymore. And there have been years where
00:17:43
it was lower for sure. Uh I think about
00:17:45
the COVID year um which really across
00:17:48
all sports exposed how valuable it was
00:17:50
to have those fans in the stands. Uh but
00:17:53
uh in the wild card the road teams went
00:17:56
two and four. They had a a minus three
00:17:59
point per game differential. Some of
00:18:01
that was because what we were just
00:18:03
talking about the the division winners
00:18:05
in Carolina and Pittsburgh getting those
00:18:07
home games. They were kind of plainly
00:18:09
like the worst division winner is always
00:18:10
going to be worse than the best wildard
00:18:13
team. And so they were underdogs and
00:18:15
they got beat. Uh Carolina to their
00:18:18
credit actually kept it a lot closer
00:18:19
than I thought they were going to
00:18:20
against the Rams. But um that played a
00:18:23
little bit of a role and uh but I even
00:18:25
adjusted for what we would expect uh the
00:18:27
road teams to do and it was still one of
00:18:30
the worst performances by by home teams
00:18:33
in a wildcard round uh since the merger
00:18:36
I want to say which is again you know
00:18:39
not the worst it's not historic uh and
00:18:42
and some of that was a little bit less
00:18:44
bad than you would expect based on who
00:18:45
was playing but it just tells me again
00:18:47
like playing at home not necessarily
00:18:50
really the um huge boost that we have
00:18:53
come to think of it as being over the
00:18:55
years.
00:18:56
>> Is the actually historically is the four
00:18:58
seed usually an underdog compared to the
00:19:00
five seed? You'd kind of think
00:19:02
>> No, but I think their quality just if
00:19:04
they were playing in a neutral sight I
00:19:06
think almost always they would be worse.
00:19:09
>> Like I feel like the five seed almost
00:19:10
always has a better record than the four
00:19:12
seed.
00:19:13
>> Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:13
>> Yeah. Because it's easier to beat three
00:19:15
other teams than it is to beat, you
00:19:17
know, however many non-division winners
00:19:19
there are in the conference. uh out.
00:19:21
>> So, does anyone here is anyone here a
00:19:23
Denver or Bonex believer? Looking at
00:19:26
Massie Peabody rankings through last
00:19:28
week, so they Denver sat out anyway, so
00:19:30
it shouldn't matter, but we had them
00:19:32
like
00:19:33
>> ninth in the league. And you know,
00:19:35
there's a lot of smashing up there
00:19:37
together.
00:19:38
>> There's not that much separation, but
00:19:39
ninth is
00:19:40
>> is weird for the number one seed in the
00:19:43
AFC, right?
00:19:44
>> I mean, they won so many close games. I
00:19:46
I expect that that's probably part of
00:19:48
it. They got a little bit of that 2024
00:19:50
Chiefs syndrome where it's like, you
00:19:52
know, how much do they keep winning, but
00:19:55
how much do we really believe in them
00:19:56
going forward? So, I think that's
00:19:57
probably playing into
00:19:58
>> I'll tell you what I am a fan of. I'm a
00:20:01
fan of Shawn Payeyton and I think if
00:20:04
anyone can figure out a way I think
00:20:05
Buffalo is the better team in that game,
00:20:08
I would much rather have Josh Allen than
00:20:10
Bon Knicks. It's not even I mean I don't
00:20:11
even want to talk about the same planet
00:20:13
here but I just have a feeling that's
00:20:17
the game I know everyone's saying I
00:20:19
think you even knew was the word Neil
00:20:20
maybe paper tiger or whatever it is. I
00:20:23
just think Denver's going to figure out
00:20:24
a way to win that game and I most if
00:20:26
they do most of that credit and I'm I
00:20:28
want Buffalo to win the game. Let me
00:20:30
just be clear. I give most of the credit
00:20:32
to Shawn Peyton because I don't think
00:20:34
they have a great offensive team. I
00:20:37
think Shawn Peyton's going to figure out
00:20:38
a way to win that game. I think he's
00:20:40
going to potentially when maybe using
00:20:41
Audi's words when it comes down to the
00:20:43
key moment of the game, who do I trust
00:20:46
more as a coach, Shawn Payeyton or do I
00:20:48
trust? Was it McDermott? Is that the
00:20:50
coach of the Bills? Who do I trust more?
00:20:52
I trust Shawn Payeyton.
00:20:54
>> And I I also think defense is uh I I
00:20:58
mean I I view this, you know, very much
00:21:01
through a lens covered by what what what
00:21:03
could hurt Drake May in the playoffs. Uh
00:21:06
my golden boy. and and and what scares
00:21:08
me is Denver Broncos's defense. Houston
00:21:11
Tech I I mean basically I think pass
00:21:13
rush um is the way you know that that's
00:21:16
the way I talk myself into Denver you
00:21:19
know being able I I do think the Bills
00:21:21
are a bigger challenge actually to
00:21:23
Denver than whoever comes out of the
00:21:25
Pats versus Texans. But I you know I I
00:21:28
think both the Texans and Broncos have
00:21:31
these very very good defenses. And I
00:21:34
mean I I know it's not predictive, you
00:21:37
know, season to season, game to game and
00:21:38
the same, but I do think it kind of it
00:21:40
can carry a team in the playoffs and
00:21:41
we've seen it before.
00:21:43
>> Let me ask given what you saw yesterday,
00:21:45
how do you feel about Houston New
00:21:47
England? Like is there anything to learn
00:21:48
Neil from the 30 to whatever three
00:21:51
thrashing of the Steelers? Is there
00:21:53
anything to learn from New England
00:21:55
playing so well, not offensively
00:21:58
particularly, they didn't play well
00:21:59
offensively, but defensively? Like do
00:22:02
you how much I asked the same thing last
00:22:04
week. How much do you basianly update
00:22:07
your beliefs about these team strengths
00:22:09
given what you observed in these playoff
00:22:12
games? Anything more than a regular
00:22:13
season game or no? It's just it's a
00:22:15
game's a game and there it is.
00:22:17
>> Well, uh you know, I think there's also
00:22:18
there's the recency factor. You know, I
00:22:20
have something in my model on uh my
00:22:23
substack that weights more recent games
00:22:26
more except for week 18 where we filter
00:22:28
out those pesky games where they're not
00:22:30
uh playing starters. But so I think that
00:22:32
that matters just saying like what kind
00:22:34
of form is a team in now. I think if
00:22:37
you're going to uh try your hardest and
00:22:39
kind of show your best uh level of
00:22:42
yourself, you're going to do that in the
00:22:43
playoffs. But uh to those games, you
00:22:46
know, I think point differential might
00:22:48
be a little misleading about the Texans
00:22:50
Steelers game cuz that was a 9 to7 game
00:22:53
going into the fourth quarter. It was
00:22:55
sort of,
00:22:56
>> you know, a little scary uh for Houston
00:22:58
until uh Aaron Rodgers turned into a
00:23:00
pumpkin in front of us. You know, he had
00:23:03
he's had an amazing career, but that was
00:23:05
>> and wasn't his fault. Wasn't his fault.
00:23:06
That receiver went the wrong way.
00:23:09
>> Yeah. I mean, it's just uh was was kind
00:23:11
of a disastrous ending there and they
00:23:13
kind of ran up the uh the the score at
00:23:15
the end. Uh so I don't know that I would
00:23:17
kind of classify that as being different
00:23:19
in kind than
00:23:21
>> the Patriots, you know, their offense
00:23:22
was really, you know, not as good as
00:23:25
we've seen it be certainly, but the
00:23:26
defense was amazing and they really uh
00:23:29
shut down Herbert. How much of that was
00:23:31
also like if they're going to get the
00:23:32
pass rush in there against the Chargers,
00:23:35
like what team would be better and what
00:23:37
quarterback in Herbert would be better
00:23:39
to to be able to kind of unleash the the
00:23:41
pass rush against? Uh so that could have
00:23:43
also been matchups. Uh we kind of hinted
00:23:46
at this earlier when we were talking
00:23:47
about the meaning of the best team. How
00:23:48
much do you take away from certain
00:23:50
games? I mean, the matchups seem to be
00:23:52
also as important as sort of the the
00:23:55
overall quality of the teams from like a
00:23:58
power rating perspective when we're
00:23:59
talking about who wins and loses these
00:24:01
playoff games. When I updated my basian
00:24:04
uh dist posterior after watching uh the
00:24:07
Patriots game, I noted it was heavily it
00:24:10
was heavily updated by the fact that
00:24:11
Drake May five sacked five times. I
00:24:14
mean, we lose sight lost a little sight
00:24:15
of it because the Patriots were doing
00:24:16
even more to Herbert, but Drake May was
00:24:19
sacked five times. two fumbles, you
00:24:22
know, and I mean that's against the
00:24:23
Chargers and now they're going up
00:24:25
against the Texans, which have the best
00:24:27
pass rush I think in all of football. I
00:24:28
mean, Neil, you could probably give more
00:24:30
sophisticated insight than that, but
00:24:31
>> that sounds right to me.
00:24:33
>> Well, the Texans and Broncos, you know,
00:24:35
the the Bills are like scarily the worst
00:24:38
defense the Patriots like kind of left
00:24:40
that the Patriots would face on on that
00:24:42
side. So yeah, I mean I I uh I was
00:24:45
cheering hard for the Steelers. As much
00:24:47
as that it's hard to kind of based on
00:24:49
historical reasons, I was cheering hard
00:24:50
for the Steelers last night. Too bad.
00:24:52
>> Bet you were just noting that the Texans
00:24:54
are an underdog. They're going to to New
00:24:56
England, of course, but they're a
00:24:57
three-point underdog. The way y'all are
00:24:58
talking about it, you're making a good
00:24:59
case for that not being the case. Ai was
00:25:02
trying to get in earlier.
00:25:04
>> Yeah. I uh I just Eric says something
00:25:06
that I wanted to react to about Shawn
00:25:07
Payton. Um this is a interesting
00:25:11
question. We all have our opinions about
00:25:13
coaches and their ability to win. Is
00:25:15
there a data analytical tool in football
00:25:19
that allows us to measure the quality of
00:25:21
a coach? Obviously, not very accurately,
00:25:23
but at least as with some reasonable
00:25:25
expectation. I mean, you're the king of
00:25:27
the the the metrics, right? So, what do
00:25:29
we got out there for coaches? Anything?
00:25:32
>> Uh, well, I mean, certainly the the
00:25:34
stuff around decision- making in
00:25:36
particular moments. I think you can go
00:25:38
through and kind of say like how often
00:25:40
have coaches made the optimal decision,
00:25:43
how much how much have they helped or
00:25:45
hurt their team going? Um
00:25:47
>> we do fourth downs of course, but beyond
00:25:49
that, how about others?
00:25:51
>> Uh some of it is also like the tactical
00:25:54
stuff, you know, I know that PFF uh like
00:25:58
all of the kind of X's and O's measures
00:26:00
that we have. Football is very
00:26:01
interesting. I I was even looking at
00:26:02
this in the context of Justin Herbert
00:26:04
where they were saying uh stat you know
00:26:07
analytics nerds can't shield Justin
00:26:10
Herbert uh from criticism after this
00:26:12
loss or whatever and I was like well who
00:26:15
are the analytics nerds that are sort of
00:26:17
supporting Justin Herbert. It's really
00:26:18
more of the kind of tape grinder types
00:26:20
which I think have become synonymous
00:26:22
with analytics nerds in football but
00:26:25
only football and I find that I mean
00:26:27
that's way beyond the scope of this
00:26:28
conversation but I find that endlessly
00:26:30
uh interesting that in every other sport
00:26:34
the people that use numbers and yes we
00:26:36
watch games but we don't have that
00:26:37
trained expertise of the kind of
00:26:39
watching tape are the the analytics
00:26:42
nerds and then in football somehow the
00:26:44
people that watch the tape religiously
00:26:46
uh more so than even rely relying on the
00:26:48
numbers are regarded as the kind of
00:26:51
nerds desour of the sport. So they would
00:26:54
have things to say about um you know
00:26:57
tactically what coaches are doing in
00:26:58
particular situations maybe on defense
00:27:00
in ways that the numbers are kind of
00:27:02
blind to. Famously football you know
00:27:04
very difficult to quantify and only over
00:27:07
the course of you know a large sample
00:27:09
can we really get a sense of coaches
00:27:12
that bring maybe a certain amount of
00:27:14
stability or kind of improve their teams
00:27:16
chances uh in in some small amount. and
00:27:19
and it's very ironic that we saw two of
00:27:21
the best at that uh John Harbaugh and
00:27:24
Mike Tomlin leaving their teams uh you
00:27:27
know over this off season uh whether by
00:27:30
choice or by um non-choice. So I think
00:27:32
that that's really interesting that um
00:27:35
coaching in the NFL is so opaque even to
00:27:39
the people making the decisions that you
00:27:41
can have a coach who is currently
00:27:43
regarded as one of the best coaches. You
00:27:45
can fire that coach or let them go. they
00:27:47
will immediately become the most
00:27:48
sought-after coach to the point that if
00:27:51
if it was a blind resume, you would hire
00:27:53
that coach for your open position
00:27:55
despite just firing that coach. And so,
00:27:58
it's just a very interesting uh decision
00:28:01
process because we're all trying to make
00:28:02
these decisions about ultimately people
00:28:05
that are uh leading
00:28:07
53 plus uh people and even larger groups
00:28:11
than that if you include the assistant
00:28:12
coaches and the support staff. And uh
00:28:15
they're doing it in 17game increments
00:28:17
and a lot can happen. Most of those
00:28:19
games are decided by one score or less
00:28:22
as increasingly so. And we're trying to
00:28:24
make sweeping judgments about their
00:28:27
performance in the context of what are
00:28:29
ultimately pretty small samples to act
00:28:31
off of.
00:28:32
>> A lot of people want to get in. No new
00:28:33
questions, just observations riffing on
00:28:35
this thing that we just we've just been
00:28:36
talking about.
00:28:38
>> Yeah. So what would be wrong, Neil, with
00:28:39
doing the following? Like let's imagine
00:28:41
we treat each game obviously as two
00:28:43
teams playing so a paired comparison
00:28:45
model right and so whether you do
00:28:47
something more sophisticated may
00:28:49
offensive defensive team strengths
00:28:51
whatever you want to put in there why
00:28:52
not why can't you just put in a coaching
00:28:54
dummy variable you observe a large
00:28:57
number of games in some sense you'll get
00:29:00
some sort of statistically shrunken
00:29:02
residual estimate that can be attributed
00:29:05
to the coach of the game and there you
00:29:07
get an estimate you would get on a line
00:29:09
let's say Right now, you could put all
00:29:11
the coaches on a line. Um, there you go.
00:29:14
What would be wrong with
00:29:15
>> contributing the entire team effect to
00:29:16
the coach? Is your estimate?
00:29:18
>> Well, that's So, all right. So, that
00:29:20
might be one problem. Sounds like you're
00:29:22
estimating.
00:29:22
>> But, but let me just say it. So, the
00:29:24
answer is at the moment, yes. But I
00:29:27
haven't told you also what I'm going to
00:29:28
condition on. I'm conditioning on
00:29:30
offensive team strength, defensive team
00:29:32
strength.
00:29:32
>> Okay. But now, now you're making the
00:29:33
opposite problem, which is you're you're
00:29:36
some of the coaching values going to
00:29:37
show up. Those aren't exog index.
00:29:40
>> Well, you could have variables for
00:29:42
individual players for instance like the
00:29:44
starting quarterback or you know other
00:29:47
key players and sort it's the Brady
00:29:49
Bellich problem, right? Even there you
00:29:52
you don't have you can't get them uh you
00:29:54
know the two indicators are like
00:29:56
hopelessly confounded. Well
00:29:58
>> yeah and I think the biggest problem
00:29:59
there you could totally do that Eric. I
00:30:01
actually uh you know I don't have a
00:30:03
problem with that but I think uh it
00:30:05
would be if you're doing shrinkage it
00:30:07
would most coaches would be shrunk down
00:30:09
to basically zero and the sample size
00:30:11
that it would take to kind of
00:30:13
distinguish them is probably well longer
00:30:15
than the average coach's tenure. Uh and
00:30:18
so you end up with basically this uh
00:30:20
selection effect as well where like the
00:30:22
only coaches that we would have any
00:30:24
sense of whether they were actually good
00:30:26
or not are the ones who are allowed to
00:30:27
keep coaching long enough which then
00:30:30
biases it toward being the best coaches
00:30:32
anyway.
00:30:33
>> So and so my view is just my own
00:30:34
personal view is um I'm okay with that
00:30:38
like in the sense of that is what we can
00:30:41
say. We can say something about that. As
00:30:44
you said, great coaches get to stay
00:30:46
longer. Successful coaches get to stay
00:30:48
longer. There's other big mass of
00:30:51
coaches that we can't really distinguish
00:30:53
from zero. And that's our jobs as
00:30:55
statistitians. We're going to tell the
00:30:56
public like, I'll make it up. You think,
00:30:59
I don't know, pick Demo Ryan, by the
00:31:02
way, right now seems pretty good. He's
00:31:04
won more playoff games than a lot of
00:31:05
coaches already, you know, but we don't
00:31:08
have enough evidence to say Deique
00:31:10
Ryan's right now is a great coach. He
00:31:12
might be, but it's hard to know. I I
00:31:13
think that's an accurate reflection of
00:31:15
uncertainty is my only comment.
00:31:17
>> That's I think that's that'd be great,
00:31:18
right? That's a that's that's a that's a
00:31:20
service actually, but it also reflects
00:31:23
the limits of our models. And um one
00:31:26
question is just like those old, you
00:31:27
know, essays every people do every now
00:31:29
and then like they ask scientists, what
00:31:31
do you believe that you can't prove? you
00:31:33
know, it's like you can't you can't
00:31:34
publish this stuff, but like given the
00:31:36
chance to opine, who would you say is a
00:31:38
good coach even though you don't have
00:31:39
the data? One of the problems is that
00:31:41
there are so many different elements of
00:31:43
coaching that contribute and they're not
00:31:45
necessarily related. So guys, Eric asked
00:31:48
for a study. I'll give you a study. This
00:31:50
is a athletic study. So their quant
00:31:54
these days is Austin Mock and he looked
00:31:57
at fourth down decisions this season by
00:32:01
the coaches in on with teams in the
00:32:03
playoffs and asked how often the
00:32:05
decision the coach made matches the
00:32:08
decision of some model presumably the
00:32:10
athletics model. So the sample sizes are
00:32:13
small that they must have conditioned to
00:32:15
a small group of fourth down decisions
00:32:17
but they range from like 12 to 25. So,
00:32:21
we can kind of dismiss it on that ground
00:32:22
alone. But then he ranks the coaches top
00:32:26
to bottom. And Demo Ryan, who I just
00:32:28
heard lauded here, is third from bottom.
00:32:32
By the way, Harbaugh, Jim Harbaugh,
00:32:34
bottom. Tomlin next to bottom. I think
00:32:36
we knew that one. Demo Ryan's
00:32:40
third from bottom. Who's the top? Matt
00:32:42
Laflur who just got roasted for his
00:32:44
second half management. Right. Nick
00:32:47
Serani who's out. Vrabel, Shane's new
00:32:50
favorite guy, Vrabel, number three. So
00:32:52
that's just but that's just one
00:32:53
dimension and coaching's coaches
00:32:57
contribute across many many many
00:32:58
dimensions.
00:32:58
>> By the way, just to your point, just to
00:33:00
build on what you're saying, Kate, and
00:33:01
it was same sort of criticism Shane just
00:33:03
made of me, it's not a criticism. I
00:33:05
think the Brill Winer model, if that's
00:33:07
what you guys call it, by the way, would
00:33:08
say that right wrong is not even the
00:33:10
right metric. If someone if it's 5149
00:33:14
and someone chooses the 51 like I'm
00:33:16
gonna say yeah you made the right
00:33:17
decision or you made the wrongest and
00:33:19
why don't we use those probabilities and
00:33:21
add those up in some way.
00:33:23
>> Yeah they don't do it right. The
00:33:24
analysis that we showed is the vast
00:33:26
majority of fourth down decisions are
00:33:29
either obvious and we they generally
00:33:31
exclude those or and this is a good
00:33:34
indeterminate as in we don't have enough
00:33:36
cases know the right move. So if you do
00:33:40
that generally in a game, you don't
00:33:42
really have too many across even a
00:33:44
season of of really tough I'm not saying
00:33:48
not I say tough calls decisions that the
00:33:50
c that the coach made that were really
00:33:52
obviously wrong. Right. and and and then
00:33:54
you have to throw in the level of costly
00:33:56
because one of the things that we
00:33:57
discovered was that there are lots of u
00:33:59
decisions that are obviously wrong in
00:34:02
the first quarter but they don't cost
00:34:04
you that much because decision bad
00:34:06
fourth down decisions in the first
00:34:08
quarter aren't going to throw the game
00:34:09
by 10%. They just a little bit because
00:34:12
the game is barely started. So whatever
00:34:14
the bad decision can but they but
00:34:16
they're knowable and they're measurable.
00:34:17
So in other words, you could cost
00:34:19
yourself one and a half% of win
00:34:20
probability with a with a uncertainty
00:34:23
that's that's minimous. We know that's
00:34:25
the right move and you blew it, but it
00:34:27
didn't cost you that much. And most of
00:34:28
the people who go through this, they
00:34:30
don't look at that that effect size. Um,
00:34:32
and that of course is very dependent on
00:34:33
the quarter that you're making that bad
00:34:35
decision. Fourth quarter bad decisions
00:34:37
are horrendous because they're levered.
00:34:39
>> Okay. Well, let's let's just wrap this
00:34:41
conversation by going back to Eric and
00:34:42
asking, okay, then what is it about
00:34:44
Shawn Peyton, Eric? Is it the is it the
00:34:47
academic essay? What do you believe that
00:34:49
you can't prove or is there something
00:34:50
specific about his coaching that you
00:34:52
like that gives you confidence in him?
00:34:55
>> Yeah, I just have I I'll look at this.
00:34:57
I'll actually do the analysis off air.
00:34:59
I'll post it on WMoney Mo. I just have a
00:35:02
sense if one used whether it's
00:35:04
Massiepuddy,
00:35:06
PFF,
00:35:07
uh could be Neil's prediction model that
00:35:10
Shawn Payton's teams over a long period
00:35:13
of time if we computed residual wins, I
00:35:17
I would think he's going to have a
00:35:19
significant number of residual wins
00:35:21
above and beyond. If I looked at that
00:35:23
histogram of residual wins divided by
00:35:26
let's I'll norm it by the sample size.
00:35:28
So, it's the residual wins per game
00:35:31
played that I think Shawn Payton would
00:35:33
be out in the right tail of that
00:35:35
distribution.
00:35:36
>> Yeah. And I this one we actually can fit
00:35:38
because you need to throw in Drew Brees
00:35:41
as an indicator and we do actually have
00:35:43
separation because Drew Brees played a
00:35:45
few years in San Diego, right? And so
00:35:48
you could try and separate out like I'm
00:35:50
just, you know, the just kind of
00:35:51
thinking about this model here. Again,
00:35:53
one of the things you'd probably want to
00:35:55
condition on his quarterback. And for so
00:35:57
much of Shawn Pton's very successful
00:35:59
career, he's had Drew Brees as his
00:36:01
quarterback. And so that would be kind
00:36:03
of, you know, you'd have to be kind of a
00:36:04
portioning out those wins between Drew
00:36:07
Brees and Shawn Payeyton. And you'd have
00:36:09
to kind of their relative record without
00:36:11
each other is kind of where you'd end up
00:36:13
separating out that partial credit. And
00:36:15
kind of
00:36:15
>> Breeze is an example of how you you
00:36:17
probably could play with heterogeneity
00:36:19
within quarterback. I don't know if
00:36:20
anyone ever did this with with Brady. I
00:36:23
>> mean, Bichc early years of Brady were
00:36:25
not as good as the middle and late years
00:36:26
of Brady. The late years of Breeze were
00:36:29
a negative. That was a drag on Shawn Pay
00:36:31
at the end.
00:36:32
>> Was like Tom Roth the late years of
00:36:34
Rothllessberger, you know, I mean, that
00:36:35
was a big part of Tomlin's kind of time
00:36:37
in Pittsburgh.
00:36:38
>> Interesting. Okay. Well, why don't we
00:36:40
we're keeping Neil longer than we
00:36:41
expected to. So, why don't we wrap and
00:36:43
let's give Neil give give him a moment
00:36:45
to say something about the college
00:36:46
football. Between now and our next show,
00:36:48
next Monday night, Indiana and Miami
00:36:51
will play for the national championship
00:36:52
in Miami. But we're looking at, what are
00:36:55
we looking at here, guys? We're looking
00:36:56
at a 8 and a half point line. Indiana's
00:36:59
favored by eight and a half. If you
00:37:00
listen to the pundits, Miami might as
00:37:02
well not show up. It's ridiculous the
00:37:04
rhetoric around this thing. Any thoughts
00:37:06
on this game, Neil?
00:37:07
>> Yeah, I I think these types of games
00:37:09
always tend to uh be closer than maybe
00:37:13
it seems based on a team coming in. And
00:37:16
you have to think no uh no further back
00:37:19
than the Miami in a championship game
00:37:22
against Ohio State in 2002 when they had
00:37:26
a potential to be considered the best
00:37:28
team of all time. The Hurricanes did. Uh
00:37:30
and they ended up losing that game.
00:37:32
Questionable call in overtime, but they
00:37:35
still lost. Uh to our point earlier,
00:37:36
it's about who wins and loses. Um, and
00:37:39
so with Indiana now, the chatter is
00:37:42
about them potentially being the best
00:37:44
team of all time. Certainly the way
00:37:46
they've gone through the playoffs. And I
00:37:48
think that's kind of an interesting uh
00:37:50
wrinkle that the playoff adds to these
00:37:52
kind of GOAT conversations because in
00:37:54
the past you would play your regular
00:37:56
season, you play your conference
00:37:57
championship, so you'd get some good
00:37:59
teams in there and then you play like
00:38:00
one extra game. Uh, if it was Miami, you
00:38:03
know, in 2001, they played that
00:38:05
championship game against who was it?
00:38:06
Nebraska that they just absolutely
00:38:08
destroyed. Uh, and it's just, okay,
00:38:10
that's it. You really beat the the the
00:38:12
brakes off of another good team here.
00:38:15
And I looked at this last year for Ohio
00:38:16
State. They beat the most number of good
00:38:19
teams in a single season of any team in
00:38:21
the history of college football. Now,
00:38:23
they played more games than anyone else
00:38:24
also by virtue of the expanded playoff,
00:38:27
but it forces you to prove it over this
00:38:29
sequence of pretty tough opponents. And
00:38:32
what Indiana has done, I mean, they beat
00:38:34
uh Oregon by 30 plus points. They beat
00:38:36
Alabama by 30 plus points. They have
00:38:38
kind of gone and laid waste to the teams
00:38:40
that they have. So, they blow out Miami
00:38:42
in this one. I think you could make a
00:38:44
case. It's It reminded me so I was
00:38:46
having this conversation um the other
00:38:47
day on Substack with someone that I was
00:38:51
thinking about Yukon a couple years ago
00:38:53
where uh Yukon had a great team. They
00:38:55
were the defending national champs
00:38:57
actually. And uh during the regular
00:38:59
season, it wasn't like best of all time.
00:39:01
we wouldn't put it up there with, you
00:39:03
know, the the the great like UCLA teams
00:39:05
or Indiana in the 70s or whatever, but
00:39:08
you look at what they did in the NCAA
00:39:11
tournament and I think they didn't have
00:39:12
a single game that they didn't win by
00:39:14
double digits and they were just blowing
00:39:16
the doors off of people all tournament
00:39:18
long. So, I think we might with the
00:39:20
expansions of these playoffs in all the
00:39:23
different sports, we might have like a
00:39:24
different category where instead of
00:39:26
saying like, okay, greatest team of all
00:39:28
time, you could carve out a little space
00:39:30
for like greatest team in the playoffs
00:39:32
specifically, what was the greatest
00:39:34
performance? And I think Yukon 2024, I
00:39:36
think it was, was arguably the greatest
00:39:39
college B men's college basketball
00:39:41
single tournament performance of all
00:39:43
time, even if they weren't the greatest
00:39:44
team across the whole season. And you
00:39:46
could say that about Indiana as well.
00:39:48
Now, they've had a great season in
00:39:49
general. I know the metrics are not
00:39:51
quite as high on them as some of the
00:39:53
other great teams of the past, but if
00:39:55
they end up again blowing out Miami in
00:39:57
this championship game, which is
00:39:59
possible. I don't think it's going to
00:40:00
happen, but it it could certainly happen
00:40:02
the way that they've been doing it, you
00:40:04
got to kind of give them their flowers
00:40:05
as potentially being the best in these
00:40:08
games that we've decided count a lot
00:40:10
more, and there's more of them than
00:40:11
ever. The the the greatest playoff team
00:40:14
of all time. people beingware the hubris
00:40:17
of that inevitability. Eli Manning want
00:40:19
to stop that.
00:40:21
>> Yeah. No, no question the inevitability
00:40:22
thing is is is is relevant this week,
00:40:26
but I love Neil's distinction and
00:40:28
actually it takes us all the way back to
00:40:29
the beginning of our conversation
00:40:31
between the team with the best parameter
00:40:33
value
00:40:34
>> versus the team that does the most on
00:40:36
the field. And whenever like so we I
00:40:39
just saw this uh we just got this um the
00:40:42
the Twitter Andrew Persal our our friend
00:40:45
who does fantastic college football
00:40:48
analytics looked at the best teams of
00:40:51
like the last 10 years because
00:40:52
everyone's making this fuss about
00:40:54
Indiana and Indiana's like or maybe the
00:40:56
last 20. Indiana's like eighth and
00:40:59
they're almost a half a standard
00:41:01
deviation off the top which is you know
00:41:04
like maybe it's a point4 so it's like
00:41:06
four or five points off the top but that
00:41:09
was the stacked air that was the
00:41:10
unbelievable Alabama Georgia three deep
00:41:14
going to the NFL era and they don't
00:41:16
rival that and Neil's saying yeah yeah
00:41:18
that's one question that's the theta
00:41:20
question the who's got the best
00:41:21
parameter the different question now
00:41:23
that we're playing these long playoffs
00:41:24
is who does the best and that's now it's
00:41:27
more like March Madness and it's a whole
00:41:28
different standard. That's cool. Very
00:41:31
cool. And now Indiana has a chance.
00:41:33
Let's see Indiana has a chance. Neil, we
00:41:35
should let you go. Thanks for making
00:41:36
time for us. It's always a delight to
00:41:38
talk to you.
00:41:39
>> Yeah, always a pleasure. Thanks for
00:41:40
having me, guys. Love to talk football
00:41:42
and other sports with you.
00:41:44
>> Absolutely. Neil Payne, get on his
00:41:46
Substack daily. Substack from Neil.
00:41:49
We'll cover you across a wide range of
00:41:51
sports, giving you both good analytics
00:41:53
and good writing. Neil Payne. That's the
00:41:56
first half of Wharton Moneyball. Come
00:41:58
back and join us after the break for the
00:41:59
second half. Welcome back to Wharton
00:42:02
Moneyball. Welcome to the second half of
00:42:03
this week's show. Just off the phones
00:42:06
with Neil Payne. Neil calling in from
00:42:08
his home office in Bentonville,
00:42:10
Arkansas. Long time friend of the show.
00:42:13
Probably original. He probably gets to
00:42:14
count as the original friend of the
00:42:16
show. He kind of helped back in the day.
00:42:19
He goes back as far as Deion Simkins,
00:42:21
our associate producer, goes back um
00:42:25
talking mostly NFL liberty college
00:42:26
football with Neil. Good stuff as usual.
00:42:29
Gentlemen, um why don't we take the
00:42:32
moment? We've got 15 20 minutes here.
00:42:35
Curious what you guys been thinking
00:42:37
about. We've got the big sports. We can
00:42:38
stay there if that's what's on your
00:42:40
mind. We've got other sports if that's
00:42:42
what's on your mind. We're just before h
00:42:45
uh we're just before the Olympics. We're
00:42:48
mid hockey. We're midNBA.
00:42:50
There's golf controversy going on.
00:42:53
There's all kinds of stuff. So, I'm
00:42:54
curious, gentlemen, in the world of
00:42:56
sports, what has caught your eye?
00:42:59
I've got a kind of a fun hockey one. Um,
00:43:03
I would I just kind of noticed I was
00:43:04
checking out kind of the current points
00:43:06
leaders in the NHL. And not not
00:43:08
surprisingly, Nate Mc Nathan McKinnon
00:43:10
and Conor McDavid are number one, number
00:43:12
two. They're currently tied both at 78
00:43:15
points. But if you look at plus minus,
00:43:18
which is, you know, something people
00:43:19
commonly look at for uh for comparing
00:43:21
these two, Nate McKinnon's at plus 48.
00:43:25
Conor McDavid's at plus two.
00:43:27
>> Wow.
00:43:28
>> Yeah.
00:43:30
>> Now, hold on. Is that
00:43:32
>> he's he's tied for the league lead in
00:43:34
points, but his plus minus is barely
00:43:37
above zero.
00:43:38
>> But maybe Edmonton sucks. Maybe their
00:43:40
defense sucks. Maybe it's his linemates.
00:43:42
>> Yes. No, I mean I think it's such a nice
00:43:44
stark illustration of kind of the
00:43:47
problems with just looking at some
00:43:48
aggregate thing like plus minus where
00:43:50
you're not adjusting for the kind of
00:43:53
context of of what the players are doing
00:43:55
with and in his case he's an incredible
00:43:58
goal scorer on a poorest team that
00:44:01
allows a ton of goals too. So he's on
00:44:03
the ice for a lot of goals and I mean he
00:44:05
does bear some responsibilities to that
00:44:07
but trying to partial that out that's
00:44:10
why you need to adjust these types of
00:44:11
things. I just think it I thought it was
00:44:13
kind of a a cool cool comparison between
00:44:15
us.
00:44:16
>> That's it's a great example, Shane. I I
00:44:18
I used to think that hockey plus minus
00:44:20
was this great measure and then I was
00:44:22
going to use it for something and I
00:44:24
wrote Namita, our old friend Namita
00:44:26
Nandukumar who's um
00:44:28
>> a student of Shane's and then has gone
00:44:30
on was with the Eagles briefly and has
00:44:32
been with the
00:44:33
>> Kraken since their beginning. They're
00:44:35
Kraken a year before they even started.
00:44:37
So Nimid is like don't do anything with
00:44:40
this. It's like plus you need the sample
00:44:42
size you need is more or less what she
00:44:44
said. The sample size you need to say
00:44:45
anything about plus minus at the
00:44:47
individual level is in the multiple
00:44:49
seasons. You just you can't you can't
00:44:51
begin to do something with. So you've
00:44:52
get given us a great illustration of
00:44:54
that. Um what else gentlemen? Aie Eric.
00:44:58
>> So so I obviously am a huge tennis fan
00:45:01
that Australian Open's coming up. Um,
00:45:05
I would be surprised
00:45:08
if like I'm trying to decide at this
00:45:11
point. Would I take center
00:45:14
against the field?
00:45:17
I know I would take center and Alcarz
00:45:18
against the field easily. Easily on the
00:45:22
men's side. The women's side, it's hard
00:45:24
to know. I mean, Sabalanka is having
00:45:26
such a great start to the season and is
00:45:28
such a strong player, but the women's
00:45:29
game has proven that, you know, I forget
00:45:32
there was one stretch of like four
00:45:34
straight years where there were
00:45:35
literally 16 different Grand Slam
00:45:37
champions. So, I think that's hard to do
00:45:39
on the women's side, but I think it
00:45:41
would hard to find any legitimate
00:45:43
betting odds any
00:45:46
that wouldn't say matter of fact, I'd
00:45:48
have to give you odds if I took center
00:45:50
and Alcarez and you got the field.
00:45:53
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's not interesting.
00:45:54
The center thing though is interesting.
00:45:56
Like Doug, what what do you think peak
00:45:58
odds were among the big three? Like any
00:46:02
given grand slam,
00:46:04
>> who what was the peak? Any one of them
00:46:07
had
00:46:07
>> doll at the French.
00:46:10
>> That's not close. And
00:46:11
>> but how high did that get?
00:46:13
>> Is this kind of peak for a single
00:46:15
person?
00:46:16
>> That's what I'm asking.
00:46:17
>> Like kind of over I mean because
00:46:18
obviously the big three kind of sucked
00:46:20
from each other.
00:46:21
>> Okay. So you want to go back to like the
00:46:22
Borg Mess
00:46:26
Wimbletons or something. I don't I don't
00:46:28
I mean that that would interesting
00:46:29
empirical question. I do kind of feel
00:46:31
like I mean or or there there was the
00:46:33
Australian that won like everything in
00:46:35
the 50s.
00:46:36
>> Labor
00:46:36
>> people wanted to go far back.
00:46:38
>> So uh but there's but Eric's introducing
00:46:41
this interesting threshold. Has anybody
00:46:43
ever crossed the you know odds on
00:46:46
favorite threshold? a single player in a
00:46:49
mass in a professional grand slam. A
00:46:51
grand slam.
00:46:52
>> Crazy to think in like a four round
00:46:53
tournament that you would ever get to
00:46:55
that point to be honest.
00:46:56
>> Right. Right. Is it only four rounds? Is
00:46:58
it I thought it was like
00:46:58
>> six seven rounds. Sorry. Seven. Seven.
00:47:01
Seven.
00:47:01
>> Yeah. I guess maybe relevant rounds.
00:47:03
Probabilistically relevant rounds. I
00:47:04
mean
00:47:06
>> 3.7. Um.
00:47:09
>> All right. Eric's Eric's working with
00:47:11
his friend chat GPT to answer our
00:47:14
question. And while he's doing that an
00:47:16
answer, we just made it up.
00:47:18
>> No, this question.
00:47:20
>> Do I get Should I do a caught my eye
00:47:21
before we wait?
00:47:22
>> No. No. Eric's got the answer, I think.
00:47:24
>> No, I don't have it yet, but it's
00:47:26
looking.
00:47:26
>> Okay.
00:47:27
>> But I'm predicting it's going to be
00:47:28
Nadal at the French in sometime where
00:47:31
Djokovic wasn't as great yet on Clay,
00:47:34
but was never great. I'm going to guess
00:47:37
Nadal in 2016
00:47:40
or 17 on
00:47:42
>> what what was the max probability
00:47:44
pre-turn?
00:47:44
>> I'm going to guess
00:47:47
60%.
00:47:48
>> My goodness. Well into odds on favorite.
00:47:51
Interesting. Okay.
00:47:52
>> On the dollar ranch over those years.
00:47:54
>> Hey, by the way, Eric, on the tennis
00:47:56
front, by
00:47:56
>> the way, as it's doing thinking, by the
00:47:58
way, in 2006, it just said Federer was
00:48:01
minus 250 at Wimbledon.
00:48:04
>> What?
00:48:08
Really? That's incredible. Did he win?
00:48:10
Not of
00:48:12
>> It's now checking.
00:48:16
Let's not tax sport GPT with that.
00:48:18
>> It's checking Borg 1980 at Wimbledon.
00:48:20
Remember, he was the four-time defending
00:48:22
champion at that point.
00:48:23
>> So, it's checking that. So, well, let me
00:48:26
just say regardless of whether it finds
00:48:28
the maximum or the minimum, however you
00:48:30
want to phrase it, we have now evidence
00:48:32
of someone that's been what, 625,
00:48:34
something like that, minus 250.
00:48:35
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's
00:48:37
impressive. That's a good thing to to
00:48:38
know about. I would not have known. By
00:48:40
the way, I haven't read the article yet,
00:48:42
but a friend sent it. The New Yorker has
00:48:44
a big article on Alcarez and Center. The
00:48:46
budding rivalry of Carlos Alcarez and
00:48:48
Yanik Center. Um, sounds like it might
00:48:50
be interesting reading. Audi Winer, what
00:48:51
caught your eye, buddy?
00:48:53
>> All right. Well, actually, I was on I
00:48:54
was on in Puerto Rico celebrating my
00:48:56
wife's uh big birthday with the with the
00:48:58
family. So, I didn't watch very much for
00:49:00
it was a terrible time to go. We were in
00:49:01
the air while the Eagles were playing.
00:49:03
In fact, we flew into Philadelphia
00:49:05
airport watching the end of the game and
00:49:06
and we had black news blackout. I
00:49:08
predicted I I didn't expect them to win,
00:49:11
but I that was not what caught my eye.
00:49:12
What catches my eye is that January 20th
00:49:16
is coming up and Eric knows that that's
00:49:19
the date the announcement of the Hall of
00:49:20
Fame. So before we have next show, so we
00:49:23
should make some forecast, guys. We
00:49:26
always do this. Who who's going to get
00:49:28
in?
00:49:28
>> It's g it's going to be on it. It'll be
00:49:30
the day of our recording next week, the
00:49:32
20th. Um
00:49:34
>> could be after before. I'm not sure
00:49:35
where they're going to.
00:49:36
>> It's after. It's usually what 700 p.m. 6
00:49:38
or 7 between 6:00 and 7 p.m. on the MLB
00:49:40
network.
00:49:41
>> All right. So that gives you some time
00:49:42
to research it. So they I'll just give
00:49:44
you the a rundown and we'll make our our
00:49:45
predictions.
00:49:46
>> Isn't it Is there any uncertainty, Audi?
00:49:48
Isn't it Carlos Beltron and Andrew Jones
00:49:50
and no one else?
00:49:50
>> So Okay. So, Belran is going to make
00:49:54
>> Andrew Jones um he's around 83%. And you
00:49:58
could have a substantial fall back when
00:50:00
you when the publicly announced ballots
00:50:04
and what actually happens. But I think
00:50:05
Jones is going to make it. Um so those
00:50:07
are the two obvious ones. I don't think
00:50:09
anyone else is going to make it. What's
00:50:10
actually interesting is where where the
00:50:12
rest of them are going to lie, right? So
00:50:14
the big jumps this year were really
00:50:16
surprising. Um, uh, Chase Utley is in
00:50:20
pushing 70 right now. So, he's only in
00:50:23
his what, his third year. That I'd have
00:50:26
to forecast he's going to be a Hall of
00:50:27
Famer before this is
00:50:28
>> he will be for sure.
00:50:30
>> You'd argue that he'd has to be as well.
00:50:32
Here's another one that surprised me
00:50:34
because I thought I mean his final tally
00:50:36
last year was in the 20s. Right now,
00:50:38
Pettit is approaching 60%. Andy Pettit
00:50:42
thought that is a surprise and he's in
00:50:44
his eighth. Um, will he make it or not?
00:50:46
No, certainly not this year. There's
00:50:48
nobody else who's any is anywhere close
00:50:50
to just the Beltran and Jones, which may
00:50:52
be the reason why some of the other guys
00:50:54
are bumping up just because there's just
00:50:55
not that many.
00:50:58
>> Yeah, I guess it could be both a light
00:51:00
year just specifically this year. It
00:51:03
could also be I mean maybe Hul you know
00:51:05
we we have to start reappraising
00:51:09
starting pitchers and maybe you know
00:51:11
like somebody like Addy Pett's career
00:51:12
looks extra I think you know like like
00:51:15
maybe like like as as a starting pitcher
00:51:18
kind of dies out as a as as an ent like
00:51:20
may maybe there's some kind of you know
00:51:22
a renewed appreciation from some of the
00:51:25
for some of the recent starters that
00:51:26
like were on the margins. But here's a
00:51:28
here's a that of all the first time
00:51:31
ballot people none of them is going to
00:51:34
stay
00:51:36
>> what does it take
00:51:38
>> five% I think
00:51:39
>> remind remind us what the first time
00:51:41
>> oh interesting
00:51:43
>> so there's nobody who came up this year
00:51:45
who of really any substantial quality
00:51:47
and that makes it was kind of wide open
00:51:49
so the group is Ryan Braun uh Sinshu Chu
00:51:52
Edwin Carnosion Gonzalez Alex Gordon
00:51:56
Cole Hamills Oh. Uh, no. Sorry. Cole
00:51:58
Hamls is up. Sorry, I missed that. He's
00:52:00
going to stay.
00:52:01
>> I was I going to say Cole Hamls will
00:52:03
probably get
00:52:03
>> Yeah, Cole Hamls is going to stay. I
00:52:05
missed him.
00:52:06
>> What's the base rate of staying? What's
00:52:08
the base rate of first year guys
00:52:10
sticking around?
00:52:11
>> That's a great question. I don't know
00:52:13
the answer. I would imagine it's higher
00:52:14
than this one out of 15, right? This
00:52:18
year it's probably
00:52:18
>> What does it do to get what do you have
00:52:20
to do to qualify? Yeah, I was going to
00:52:21
say that we need to know more about the
00:52:23
selection process of how the builds like
00:52:25
like is is it something where they just
00:52:27
like somebody's added to the to the
00:52:30
ballot?
00:52:31
>> It's 10 years. I believe it's 10 years.
00:52:32
>> Yeah. So, there's a there's a time
00:52:33
eligibility, but there's a lot of player
00:52:35
lot.
00:52:36
>> There's not it's not a deterministic
00:52:38
process that gets on the ballot, right?
00:52:40
It's like some kind of opaque selection.
00:52:42
>> Committee nominates.
00:52:44
>> I don't know. Rick Pcell is on it. He's
00:52:46
got no votes.
00:52:47
>> No, no, but it's a good question. I
00:52:49
don't actually know how someone gets on
00:52:50
the ballot. I know how long they how
00:52:52
they stay on the ballot. I know how the
00:52:54
maximum time, but how they get there.
00:52:58
>> They should be has the answer. And I was
00:53:00
correct.
00:53:01
>> One one second there. Stay with this for
00:53:03
just a quick sec. They should contract
00:53:05
with people like Audi who have models
00:53:08
for who's going to win. And they should
00:53:11
it's just higher in the funnel. It's
00:53:12
earlier in the pipeline. The same model
00:53:14
would be great for nominating players,
00:53:16
right? I mean, you could argue we don't
00:53:18
know what the consideration set was, but
00:53:20
maybe they did a bad job of nominating
00:53:23
players this year, if only one. I don't
00:53:25
know. You could certainly you could
00:53:26
quantify that process if you wanted to
00:53:29
through through Audi's models.
00:53:31
>> Okay, Eric was going to answer his.
00:53:33
>> It was it was extremely close. It's
00:53:35
Nadal at the 2018 French Open. He was
00:53:38
minus 255, which has an implied odds of
00:53:41
71.8%.
00:53:42
Then Nadal at the 2010 French, Federer
00:53:46
at the 2006 Australian, and Federer at
00:53:48
the 2007 Wimbledon were all minus 250.
00:53:52
>> I would never have thought that a single
00:53:54
player. I would never I would I was so
00:53:56
wrong on that. That's amazing.
00:53:58
>> Okay. Um All right. So, let's let's And
00:54:02
where do you have Do you know centers
00:54:03
market odds right now for the
00:54:04
Australian?
00:54:06
>> I can find that quickly.
00:54:08
>> Um All right. When does the tournament
00:54:11
start, Eric? It starts I think it's got
00:54:14
to be next week. He's minus Well, I mean
00:54:20
I know there's the vague in it, but he's
00:54:22
minus 110.
00:54:23
>> Okay. So, he's right at it. Right at it.
00:54:25
>> He's right at it.
00:54:27
>> Um All right. So, has the Estrian gained
00:54:31
uh um respect in recent time?
00:54:35
>> Is it dropped respect? I mean, when when
00:54:37
did it become the fourth major and why
00:54:39
does it get to be the fourth major? I
00:54:41
think it's been the fourth major since
00:54:42
about 1970s, the '7s. But you understand
00:54:45
like I think if you look at this another
00:54:48
thing you could say is impressive about
00:54:50
the you know we it it's hard to compare
00:54:53
across eras like most of the great
00:54:54
players in the 70s didn't play the
00:54:56
Australia and so like I don't remember
00:54:59
how many times Mackenroe played it but
00:55:01
let's say he was a professional for 15
00:55:03
years I'm making that up age 18 to 32 33
00:55:06
I I'm guessing he played it no more than
00:55:08
four times five times. So, I think
00:55:10
there's a deflation of these guys who
00:55:13
have like 7 to 10 majors. I'm not saying
00:55:15
they'd be up at the big three, but you
00:55:17
wouldn't surprise me if they were in the
00:55:18
closer to the 10 to 14 bracket had they
00:55:21
played most of the majors. I think it's
00:55:23
also true for the women on the women's
00:55:25
side as well. You know, you have Chris
00:55:26
Everett and Alberta with 18 majors. I
00:55:29
don't I have to look at Stephie Grath
00:55:31
who's got like 22 or 23. I'm not
00:55:33
convinced she played the Australian that
00:55:34
long. And by the way, she retired at
00:55:36
like age 32 also.
00:55:39
That's interesting. That's
00:55:42
>> Yeah. Where did we decide along the way
00:55:43
that there was four majors in tennis and
00:55:45
four majors in golf? Because it's kind
00:55:47
of a weak one in both sets,
00:55:51
>> right? And now there are claim now
00:55:53
claims for
00:55:53
>> a clear there there's a clear fourth one
00:55:56
in
00:55:56
>> but why is why is four the s you would
00:55:58
have thought everything else is in
00:55:59
threes. Why is why are those four?
00:56:01
>> Why are there four majors?
00:56:04
Historically it's I I fascinating.
00:56:06
>> All right guys, let me give you
00:56:08
Yeah, I want to go back to what also you
00:56:10
talked about with Neil Payne.
00:56:13
>> I just don't I really don't think I mean
00:56:15
I I hope I'm wrong because I want to see
00:56:17
a competitive game.
00:56:20
I don't think Miami should show up.
00:56:25
>> Like I really think like I it's I find
00:56:28
it hard to argue
00:56:30
>> that you're a stronger team than Oregon
00:56:34
or Alabama. I'm not saying on any given
00:56:36
day. I'm just saying if let's go back to
00:56:39
what we talked about with Neil.
00:56:40
>> If I think I I'm just going to make the
00:56:42
following statement.
00:56:44
>> If
00:56:45
>> Indiana played a thousand memoryless
00:56:48
games
00:56:50
against Oregon, Alabama,
00:56:54
Miami, I think the spread would be the
00:56:57
highest in against Miami.
00:56:59
>> Yeah, possible. Now, what what's
00:57:01
different here is if Carson Beck I mean
00:57:04
I'm just going to tell some stories, all
00:57:05
right? They're just stories and we
00:57:06
should short these stories in general,
00:57:08
but Carson Beck is a seventh year
00:57:10
quarterback. He was he was quite good in
00:57:12
his fifth year. He was good enough in
00:57:14
his fifth year to be offered a $4
00:57:16
million contract to go play a sixth year
00:57:18
and now he's in his seventh year and
00:57:20
he's playing what looks to be some of
00:57:22
his best football. Miami is so that's
00:57:25
something that seems to have changed
00:57:27
over time. They've got, everybody
00:57:28
recognizes they have great line play.
00:57:30
Mario Crystal is known for his emphasis
00:57:32
on line play and it allows them to do
00:57:35
some things some colleges just can't do.
00:57:37
They can just move. They they don't lose
00:57:39
yardage. For example, I think probably
00:57:41
have the lowest number of tackles for
00:57:43
loss on the offensive side of anybody in
00:57:45
the NCAA. And they are disruptive on the
00:57:48
defensive line. So they've got athletes
00:57:51
at at receivers. So they've you you can
00:57:54
tell a story, but it's going to it's
00:57:56
going to depend on Beck really being a
00:57:58
good Carson Beck and those guys being
00:58:00
real dis disruptive on the front lines.
00:58:03
You know, anytime sports starts being
00:58:07
talked about as inevitably as the
00:58:09
Hoosers have been talked about and I
00:58:11
mean you couldn't even you could even
00:58:12
listen to that game the other night. I
00:58:14
mean it's like they've turned this
00:58:15
Cinderella into the New York Yankees.
00:58:17
It's like they've somehow now we're
00:58:19
pulling against Indiana that they've
00:58:20
done that. The media has done that to us
00:58:22
in about 15 seconds because they're
00:58:25
making it so inevitable. I I have no
00:58:28
flavor and taste at all for the Miami
00:58:31
Hurricanes. But I think it'd be kind of
00:58:32
fun if they went up there and and upset
00:58:35
the Hooers. Okay, let me let me related
00:58:38
to college football. Let me give you my
00:58:39
what caught my eye. Y'all probably don't
00:58:41
know what's going on in the portal right
00:58:43
now. This is the second full year of
00:58:46
portal. They've limited the number of
00:58:48
portal windows to one. So, we're in the
00:58:50
portal window. It's a two-eek window.
00:58:53
The guys playing the championship have a
00:58:55
few extra days when that championship
00:58:57
game is over. But here's the main portal
00:58:58
window. Two two weeks.
00:59:01
How many players do you think the teams
00:59:03
that are losing the most players are
00:59:05
losing
00:59:07
on an 85 scholarship team? What do you
00:59:11
think? How many players do you think
00:59:12
have been left announced? Join the
00:59:15
portal for the team who's lost the most
00:59:17
players.
00:59:21
10 to 15.
00:59:22
>> That's I was going to guess slightly
00:59:24
higher, but 15 to 20. But Shane's number
00:59:26
doesn't bother me.
00:59:27
>> I'm making that out really out of thin
00:59:29
air, but I think that's the exercise
00:59:30
anyway. Right.
00:59:31
>> What What did you say, Shane?
00:59:32
>> I'm making that completely up, but
00:59:34
that's
00:59:34
>> What' you say?
00:59:35
>> 10 to 15. Sorry.
00:59:36
>> Okay, guys. I may have never asked a
00:59:39
question of you that you're more wrong
00:59:40
on than this. D2.
00:59:44
D2. Oklahoma State, who lost their
00:59:48
coach, 62 of the 85 players. Now, Iowa
00:59:51
State, their coach goes to Penn State.
00:59:53
How many of their players left? Nine.
00:59:57
Go down to teams. Now, here's the thing
01:00:00
that's unbelievable. Maybe it's not
01:00:01
surprising since they lost their
01:00:02
coaches. Here's what's new this year.
01:00:05
the the blueb blood teams that have
01:00:08
stacked years of five-star recruits that
01:00:10
have been crushing high school
01:00:11
recruiting rankings for years have these
01:00:13
guys that are third string. They've been
01:00:16
they're sophomores. They're still not
01:00:18
playing, but they're really highly
01:00:19
recruited.
01:00:21
They're being raided.
01:00:23
Ohio State has lost 29 players. Ohio
01:00:25
State 29 players. Notre Dame 29 players.
01:00:28
Texas more than 20 players. It's a whole
01:00:32
new world. Like we're we're watching
01:00:34
college football change right in front
01:00:36
of us this month with the portal. It's a
01:00:39
whole new world. It's going to change
01:00:40
high school recruiting. It's going to
01:00:42
change the number of scholarships these
01:00:44
teams offer. They're not going to keep
01:00:46
105 players because they can't pay 105
01:00:48
players. So, they're going to have
01:00:49
smaller rosters. They're flat out
01:00:52
letting they're letting they have to let
01:00:54
some guys go because they can't keep up
01:00:57
with BYU wants to hire. they want to get
01:00:59
somebody or Kansas State wants to get
01:01:01
somebody and they can't. It is
01:01:04
transformational.
01:01:06
>> So Kade, what to you is the implications
01:01:08
of that for I'll call it I mean
01:01:11
obviously it's don't count on anyone
01:01:14
being there a second year which means
01:01:16
like maybe you should do a pulsing
01:01:18
strategy which I'm making a number up.
01:01:20
Let's say you have 20 million to spend
01:01:22
on recruits. Maybe you should spend 40
01:01:24
million zero 40 million hero because you
01:01:28
you might as well try to maximize years
01:01:30
that have a down year etc etc.
01:01:33
>> Well, ironically
01:01:36
people were doing just the opposite when
01:01:38
we were growing up the teams that won
01:01:41
national championships were senior heavy
01:01:43
teams and then they would all graduate
01:01:44
and they'd go through this cycle. that
01:01:46
was cyclical. And then about 20 years
01:01:48
ago, 15 years ago, the Alabama of the
01:01:50
world figure out a way to like stack
01:01:51
talent and not ever have the rebuild.
01:01:54
They just quit having rebuild years. And
01:01:56
now with the portal, teams feel like
01:01:58
they can always just go get they lose
01:01:59
their best quarterback, they'll go get
01:02:01
the best the next best quarterback in on
01:02:02
the market. And so I think it's kind of
01:02:04
the psychology is the opposite of that,
01:02:06
Eric. Like we never have to rebuild.
01:02:07
We'll just go buy a new team.
01:02:10
>> You're not I mean they have to compete
01:02:11
with people. So it's we'll see. I mean,
01:02:13
everybody can't buy a new team. Doesn't
01:02:14
work for everybody. I'm sorry, Shane. Go
01:02:16
ahead.
01:02:16
>> No, I was just going to say like if you
01:02:17
did this kind of calculation of a
01:02:19
mobility like conditioning more on like
01:02:21
the top like the start like like they
01:02:23
say the top 50 on a team or something
01:02:25
like that because you you said it was
01:02:27
like the number of scholarships they
01:02:28
give out. So I don't I don't know how
01:02:30
many of these are getting into like kind
01:02:32
of the third stringer like is this
01:02:34
mostly third stringers moving around or
01:02:37
is it like like obviously there's a lot
01:02:39
more fluidity in the market but like how
01:02:40
much of the top talent is kind of moving
01:02:42
around? top talent moves. But what's
01:02:44
different this year is that top talent
01:02:46
hasn't historically left the top teams.
01:02:49
In fact, talent they've been they've
01:02:51
been they've let their bottom people go
01:02:53
and they've retracted. But this year,
01:02:55
for the first time, teams are getting
01:02:57
rated the first year and second year
01:02:59
players who are sit on the bench, but
01:03:00
they're the they used to they're the
01:03:02
future of the team. They're the high
01:03:03
school recruits that won the high school
01:03:04
recruiting classes. They're the guys
01:03:06
we're excited about. They're being
01:03:09
poached, and that's a that's a whole new
01:03:11
thing. It's a whole new world.
01:03:13
um that yeah the optim the equilibrium
01:03:15
here is not obvious the optimization
01:03:16
isn't obvious and they're having to try
01:03:18
to figure it out real time. So wait, so
01:03:20
what does this mean
01:03:22
>> in terms of why would you give someone a
01:03:24
lot of money in an NIL deal or whatever
01:03:26
that deal that payment is for a for a
01:03:28
freshman who's going to sit because he's
01:03:31
not good enough to start yet and he's
01:03:33
going to go to
01:03:34
>> he's going to go to BYU and start he
01:03:39
wouldn't have started at Notre Dame.
01:03:41
>> I see.
01:03:42
>> But he's he's going to go start at a
01:03:44
team that's lesser. That's that's
01:03:45
analogy.
01:03:46
>> It sounds like we're we're dividing
01:03:48
college sports into AAA, double A, and
01:03:51
single A. And you're going to move up
01:03:53
>> the way you're doing it.
01:03:54
>> That's what we thought. That's what we
01:03:56
thought. That's what we thought at this
01:03:57
year's challenge.
01:03:59
>> Well, with the fluidity to move between
01:04:01
organizations, which is not something
01:04:02
you have in baseball.
01:04:04
>> Well, and that but Indiana, Texas Tech,
01:04:08
BYU, they're showing us that money can
01:04:11
level the playing field. And one way to
01:04:13
get there faster is to go steal guys
01:04:16
that aren't yet on the field for these
01:04:18
other teams. And they do other things as
01:04:21
well. They compete for talent
01:04:22
everywhere. But this particular dynamic
01:04:24
is new.
01:04:24
>> That's how Indiana is, right? I mean, we
01:04:26
talk about
01:04:28
let me give me let me explain this. If
01:04:31
you get someone who's like a top four
01:04:33
star recruit and offensive lineman, not
01:04:36
gonna be able to start for the best
01:04:38
teams, aren't they likely now to go to a
01:04:41
weaker team, never not going to compete
01:04:43
for a championship team, but will get a
01:04:45
lot of money and will play and then a
01:04:48
second year will move up to a a better
01:04:50
team for probably more money, but likely
01:04:52
to start and then maybe their third or
01:04:54
fourth year go to a competitive team and
01:04:56
then and then get the most money. That
01:04:58
sounds to me like it's it's double
01:05:00
single A double A triple A more more
01:05:03
teams are competitive viable than they
01:05:05
used to be. So when Indiana's playing
01:05:07
for the national championship and Texas
01:05:09
Tech was in the final eight um you've
01:05:12
just got a lot you've got dozens of
01:05:14
teams that could do it.
01:05:15
>> Kate, can teams not sign players to
01:05:18
multi-year NIL enforcable contracts?
01:05:21
>> Um that's a I don't know the answer
01:05:24
definitively. It's ask enough that we
01:05:29
believe the answer is no. Not enforcable
01:05:33
because if they could they would and you
01:05:35
don't see it
01:05:35
>> right. Okay.
01:05:36
>> Something something you are seeing now.
01:05:39
So Texas Tech got the top quarterback by
01:05:42
most people's account. The Cincinnati
01:05:43
quarterback went to Texas Tech and he my
01:05:46
my understanding is he had a clause in
01:05:48
his contract that if another team
01:05:52
signed him, they had to pay a like a
01:05:54
million dollars to Cincinnati. And I
01:05:57
believe Tech had to honor that and paid
01:05:59
them. And now what does that feel like?
01:06:01
That feels like world soccer. That feels
01:06:04
like transfer fee.
01:06:05
>> Transfer payment.
01:06:06
>> Freaking transfer fee.
01:06:08
So that may be the world that we get
01:06:10
into. So it's a different way of
01:06:11
enforcing it, right, Eric? It's not that
01:06:12
the that the players accountable that
01:06:14
the guy who hires them has to pay the
01:06:16
team, right? Maybe that's the world
01:06:18
we're going to be in.
01:06:19
>> Yeah. And obviously if you make that fee
01:06:20
large enough, then people aren't going
01:06:24
to transfer in a multi-year way. There
01:06:25
is a cost by which you wouldn't pay it.
01:06:28
>> There there is they won't they won't
01:06:29
they won't take you. But it's I mean
01:06:31
they won't be able to give you money.
01:06:32
They can get you to come and and play
01:06:34
for the team, but they won't be able to
01:06:35
pay you, right? How can the player not
01:06:38
be able to transfer a school?
01:06:40
>> No, the player can. Player can.
01:06:42
>> Absolutely. Yeah,
01:06:43
>> that you just have to. He's restricted.
01:06:45
I We'll find out what those kind of
01:06:46
contracts will will stand up in in
01:06:48
court. But let me tell you from a from a
01:06:50
fan from a fans perspective, it's rough
01:06:53
to have this much turnover. I mean,
01:06:55
college triple historically, you see,
01:06:57
you hear about the guys when they're in
01:06:58
high school being recruited. You look
01:07:00
forward to seeing them like play it when
01:07:01
games are out of control. You get to see
01:07:03
that guy play when he's young and then
01:07:05
you watch him grow into a player and
01:07:06
that's just being blown up right now
01:07:08
just completely.
01:07:09
>> I think it's Don't you think that has
01:07:11
tremendous uh possibility potential
01:07:13
being incredibly detrimental to the
01:07:14
sport?
01:07:15
>> Yes. I I I mean it's it's
01:07:19
everyone kind of knows it's out of
01:07:21
>> what's that Shane?
01:07:22
>> Did they say that too and free agency
01:07:23
came into baseball? Yeah, that's a fair
01:07:25
question and it's like will the fans
01:07:28
really lose interest and um can coaches
01:07:30
I mean coaches now have to recruit their
01:07:32
entire roster again every year like
01:07:34
every year they not only are recruiting
01:07:36
people to come in they have to
01:07:37
re-recruit their own players and they
01:07:38
have to decide which players to let go.
01:07:40
I cannot imagine the job of these
01:07:42
coaches.
01:07:43
>> Okay.
01:07:43
>> How long do you think it'll take just
01:07:44
quickly on the same topic? How long do
01:07:46
you think it'll take for us to assess
01:07:47
your point earlier Kade that maybe this
01:07:50
is leading to a good outcome at the team
01:07:53
level that there's more of a opportunity
01:07:55
a distribution of teams that can win and
01:07:58
maybe and the other related question to
01:08:00
me is with play people changing around
01:08:02
all the time will this affect
01:08:05
performance early performance in the NFL
01:08:07
because players have now played under a
01:08:10
bunch of different systems they're not
01:08:12
thinking about the NFL as their
01:08:15
objective they are, but they can make so
01:08:17
much money in college that maybe they
01:08:19
can sacrifice. I'm just wondering when
01:08:21
will when we'll be able to make a
01:08:23
statement other than we don't know
01:08:25
>> on those two issues.
01:08:27
>> Well, you two very different issues. Of
01:08:29
course, I think un unquestionably the
01:08:32
first one is true that we have more
01:08:34
parody now than we've had in a long time
01:08:36
in college football and has to be a
01:08:38
great thing. Indiana, Texas Tech, Miami
01:08:40
in there for the first time in forever.
01:08:42
I mean, everyone recognized that's a
01:08:44
good thing. That second question, I
01:08:45
thought you were going to go a different
01:08:46
direction was like, does this hurt play?
01:08:48
Like early season gonna be a little
01:08:50
rougher because everybody's on a new
01:08:51
team, but you went a different
01:08:52
direction, which is how does this affect
01:08:53
NFL prep? No question that some players
01:08:56
are sticking around longer because of
01:08:58
that contract that's available now. They
01:09:00
they some players do better with their
01:09:02
fifth or sixth year of college instead
01:09:05
of going to pros. And so maybe that
01:09:06
leaves some of those guys better
01:09:08
developed for the NFL, but also it could
01:09:09
be that mostly those are guys that
01:09:11
aren't going to have much of an NFL. be
01:09:13
interesting to see when you know since
01:09:14
many of us have connections with teams
01:09:17
do teams start using measures of the
01:09:21
>> how variable someone's whether it's
01:09:23
coaching staff how many teams they've
01:09:24
played for etc in their predictive
01:09:26
models I'm sure they I'm sure they do I
01:09:29
would just be interested to see what
01:09:30
those predictive models say about
01:09:32
someone's NFL performance as a function
01:09:34
of how many different teams they've been
01:09:36
on the size of their NIL contracts etc
01:09:40
etc
01:09:40
>> well you have an interesting intuition
01:09:41
here that working under different
01:09:43
systems, multiple systems is good for
01:09:45
your learning and learning is a trait
01:09:46
that people want. That's an interesting
01:09:48
intuition. Okay, fellas, why don't we
01:09:50
wrap it there? Remember, we do have
01:09:52
between now and the next show, the
01:09:54
quarterfinals in the NFL and the finals
01:09:56
in college football and the Hall of Fame
01:09:58
announcement one week from today. All
01:09:59
right, guys. Why don't we why don't we
01:10:01
let it go? Thanks for the full show for
01:10:03
the whole crew here on behalf of Derek
01:10:05
Bradley, Audi Winer, Shane Jensen, for
01:10:07
Dion Simpkins, the boss man keeping us
01:10:10
on track. Marissa Raina, our producer D
01:10:12
Patel, the boss lady. Appreciate you
01:10:15
guys. Thanks y'all for listening. Come
01:10:16
back and join us next time. Between now
01:10:17
and then, enjoy your sports.
