Tracking and Trending Our Goal to Beat Winning Teams

[MassSkinsFan]

Over in the Positive Thread I posted a quick summary of the records of teams we've played. Since it was the positive thread I think I had confirmation bias when I compiled and presented the data. Thanks @GoSkins10 for pointing that out astutely. :-)

When I looked at this again I saw that we are not yet able to consistently beat winning teams. So, I'm moving this over to another thread in order to keep the Positive Thread positive.

GOAL: Determine if the Redskins consistently beat winning teams

DATA ANALYSIS PLAN: Track the W/L record of every team we play, both their record at the time we played them, and their current record; Generate percentage figures for W/L of teams we played, teams we beat and teams to which we lost and also record the opponent's winning percentage on the day of the game. Trend those over time.

ASSUMPTIONS: I will not include the outcome of the Skins game(s) in opponents' cumulative records; I will update this every week. Week 1 was omitted since it would be either zeros or N/A for all data points.

Here is the update following Week 7:

The most basic review shows that we beat 3 winning teams and 1 losing team, and lost to 2 0.500 teams and 1 winning team.

I'd like to have a reliable way to see if the Skins are actually able to dispel the commonly accepted maxim that they cannot beat winning teams. So, before I try to draw any conclusions, please if there are any ESers with constructive feedback, I'm all ears.

Sorry - ignore the 2nd table. 

[pjfootballer]

NERD!

[MassSkinsFan]

Just now, pjfootballer said:

NERD!

 

... and proud of it!!! 

[bobandweave]

Not sure what point your trying to make here. You can't put any faith in teams early in the season based on record. A team after 8 or more games played that actually has a winning record means so much more then one early in the season. After week one the 49ers had a winning record and look at that hot garbage. Had we beaten them week 2 we would have beaten a team with a winning record right? That doesn't mean anything. 

Also example look at the Rams. The teams that beat the Rams team when the Rams actually had a winning record this year doesn't speak highly about what it means to beat a team with a winning record - Bills and Lions -  compared to what it means about the Rams knowing it won games against the Cardinals and the Seahawks. 

What difference does it even make?

The reason that Vegas takes a pounding early in every season is because they don't know how these teams are actually going to perform yet. By the time week 8 rolls around they are very very informed and the lines don't get out of wack too often.  Beating a winning record team early in the season means nothing compared to beating on later in the year.

In fantasy football this is why I love the DVOA stats, that doesn't get all out of wack early in the season and considers that a 3 yard gain isn't always the same, just like beating winning teams isn't always the same either.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods#DVOA

Can we beat winning record teams sure yea no question not that it means as much today as it could later. What will matter to me is how many winning record teams have we beaten by the end of the season? That will matter a lot to me

[MassSkinsFan]

1 hour ago, bobandweave said:

Not sure what point your trying to make here. 

We are always hearing how the Redskins can't beat winning teams. Frankly, I'm not sure what THAT means when it's said, but it seems to be the common wisdom. My point is that I used to believe it but I'm thinking it might not be true anymore. Certainly it is one of the excuses used to discount the Skins' strong finish in 2015.

Can we beat winning record teams sure yea no question not that it means as much today as it could later. What will matter to me is how many winning record teams have we beaten by the end of the season? That will matter a lot to me

Of course I understand that beating a winning team in week 14 means more than beating a winning team in week 2. No question. And if you look at that trend table you can see that too. At some point there will emerge an obvious trend - either our wins are coming against good (and bad) teams, or just against bad teams. But which week is the line in the sand? Or am I going about this wrong? Should I be looking at a set number of games prior to the one in question - so for week 1, look at the last 8 games of 2015, week 2 look at week 1 plus the last 7 games of 2015, etc.? That's why I'm asking for feedback.

I'm just tired of hearing that worn-out truism repeated again and again and would like to be able to show that it is wrong.

[bobandweave]

24 minutes ago, MassSkinsFan said:

We are always hearing how the Redskins can't beat winning teams. Frankly, I'm not sure what THAT means when it's said, but it seems to be the common wisdom. My point is that I used to believe it but I'm thinking it might not be true anymore.

 

 

My point was that "winning" tends to right itself out as the season rolls on and it would be a weak argument to say "We beat winning record teams" if we look back at the games we won so far this year and ignore the teams that beat us. Yes it would technically correct that we beat some teams who at the time had winning records but that's a odd thing to say when the best teams we have played this year - Steelers, Cowpukes - Won those games.

When people speak about "winning teams" I tend to not take it in the literal sense of teams with a winning record today and instead go to the best teams in the entire league that I expect to make the final 8 teams in the playoffs. When we get to a place when teams like the Bungholes don't scare us anymore and we see them on the schedule and think, oh look tune up get right game, then we have arrived.

Your taking this in the literal sense to say we can beat teams if they have a winning record when we play them. I don't think too many think that way and was pointing out that even the worst teams (okay well maybe not including the Browns) can have winning records at times in a season (always happens at the beginning of the season too).

 

[bobandweave]

31 minutes ago, MassSkinsFan said:

Of course I understand that beating a winning team in week 14 means more than beating a winning team in week 2. No question. And if you look at that trend table you can see that too. At some point there will emerge an obvious trend - either our wins are coming against good (and bad) teams, or just against bad teams. But which week is the line in the sand? Or am I going about this wrong? Should I be looking at a set number of games prior to the one in question - so for week 1, look at the last 8 games of 2015, week 2 look at week 1 plus the last 7 games of 2015, etc.? That's why I'm asking for feedback.

I'm just tired of hearing that worn-out truism repeated again and again and would like to be able to show that it is wrong.

 

Numbers are interesting, half of the time you hear someone mention a statistic he is making up numbers and talking out of his ass. We can't use numbers to prove this point you want to make.

Who are the best teams in the league? We know them when we see them.  Why are the Patriots considered the best team in the league today, they were shut out at home this year right? Why is Seattle considered one of the best teams in the NFC? Last night they only scored 6 points of offense and didn't win or lose they tied. In fact that's the second time this year they failed to score even 1 TD in a game. Why is Aaron Rodgers considered an elite every week fantasy starting QB today when you realize that including his last 22 games played he's only thrown for more then 300 passing yards 4 times and only one time this season?

All of those things are true, and we all know them to be true yet if I said the Seahawks weren't a top NFC team or Aaron Rodgers wasn't an elite QB people would laugh in my face right? The way you change common thought is you replace it. You can't fight common thought with numbers.

Its a common thought that the Redskins are a trash team, with a terrible owner, who over spends on free agents, who are on par with the Browns. This is what the average NFL fan who isn't associated in any way with the Redskins thinks about us (I DO NOT THINK THIS!!! HTTR!! Don't flame me people) in general. You can show people the numbers, point out bigger failures as a comparison, show people that Snyder isn't involved anymore but that will not change common thinking.

When the Redskins go and beat teams like the Lions with ease, beat a weakened Steelers team in prime time, and win games against the best competition then the world will come around. Key to turning this around is prolonged successes, not showing Ricky Bobby stats about us always being First or Last like they did yesterday. We need to return to greatness and stay there for a while. Then it will change. After the Lions loss I don't think you can convince the common thinking we are there now.

[goskins10]

 

21 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

 

My point was that "winning" tends to right itself out as the season rolls on and it would be a weak argument to say "We beat winning record teams" if we look back at the games we won so far this year and ignore the teams that beat us. Yes it would technically correct that we beat some teams who at the time had winning records but that's a odd thing to say when the best teams we have played this year - Steelers, Cowpukes - Won those games.

When people speak about "winning teams" I tend to not take it in the literal sense of teams with a winning record today and instead go to the best teams in the entire league that I expect to make the final 8 teams in the playoffs. When we get to a place when teams like the Bungholes don't scare us anymore and we see them on the schedule and think, oh look tune up get right game, then we have arrived.

Your taking this in the literal sense to say we can beat teams if they have a winning record when we play them. I don't think too many think that way and was pointing out that even the worst teams (okay well maybe not including the Browns) can have winning records at times in a season (always happens at the beginning of the season too).

 

 

While I get your overall point, I disagree with the bolded statement completely. Like the OP, I hear over and over again that the Redskins did not/cannot beat a team with a winning record. No one qualified it as a winning team. To start with, "a winning team" is more vague and less exact than a team with "a winning record." 

The difficulty in simply waiting till the end of the year and saying - well this team had this record and that team had that record, is that for the teams that are around .500 - 7-9 to 9-7 - the performance of the Redskins against that team could have pushed them one way or the other. For example, last year had we not beaten the Bills they would have had a winning record. But to your point that can have a bigger impact earlier in the season when our 1 gm against them is a bigger % of the overall sample. Thus the assumption of not including the Redskins results is a good one.

As for us "knowing" who the winning teams are - last year Carolina was 15-1. There is no doubt they were a winning team. But they stink this year (something I am very happy about BTW). So are they a winning team? Aaron Rogers has been a great QB.  But beating him and GB is not a big deal. They are getting their heads handed to them. Also, how many wins against these so called "winning teams" does it take to say you are beating winning teams? 1? 2? more than 50%? more than that? What is the exact point where you say - you are not beating winning teams to now you are beating winning teams. Again, last year Carolina was beating the crap out of winning teams. Are they now a winning team? Not this year. It's not that east to just say - well here are the winning teams. Beat them and you are now beating winning team

With all due respect, ultimately, I think you are kind of missing the point of this exercise. It's an attempt to put in numbers to a statement that is made out of hand. It sounds like a fun exercise. If nothing else it may take some of the pain out of last Sundays loss - a diversion some might call it!   

[bobandweave]

No I'm not missing it. You want to say that we exercised the demons, that Kirk has shown he can perform against the better teams in the NFL and some numbers about what happened in September back up that this may have changed when in reality we lost big time to the Steelers, we lost to the Cowboys, and we lost to the Lions. We beat the Browns, we beat the Eagles, we beat the Giants, and we beat the Ravens.

I'm not saying that the numbers don't show that we can beat teams with a winning record, what I'm saying is that no one will buy any argument like that when they know who we lost to and who we beat. Numbers can be on your side, but I'm talking about the general thinking about this team and no one will buy this argument until we actually look at teams like the Steelers, Cowboys, and Lions and we say we beat them, we beat them, we beat them.....

Common misconceptions control how we look at reality and make our "reality" even when they aren't that way.

I'll give you another one. Take the NFC East. Last week Steven A Smith is laughing about how sorry the NFC East is and not one person at the time was saying hey that's not correct, yet when you look at the standings today there is only one division in either conference that has every single team in it with a winning record, and that is the NFC East. If the NFC East was sorry and no good how is that possible? Yet go on and ask NFL fans if the NFC East is any good, and see what they think. Numbers are on the side your on, but the general thinking isn't there. That's what I'm saying until it is no one will buy it

[goskins10]

1 minute ago, bobandweave said:

No I'm not missing it. You want to say that we exercised the demons, that Kirk has shown he can perform against the better teams in the NFL and some numbers about what happened in September back up that this may have changed when in reality we lost big time to the Steelers, we lost to the Cowboys, and we lost to the Lions. We beat the Browns, we beat the Eagles, we beat the Giants, and we beat the Ravens.

Edit..

Yet go on and ask NFL fans if the NFC East is any good, and see what they think. Numbers are on the side your on, but the general thinking isn't there. That's what I'm saying

 

Sorry, but yes you are missing the point. You are addressing the hypothesis while the OP is trying to define the process. Yes, the hypothesis is that we are now beating teams with a winning record, but it's just the hypothesis. OP is not making the actual statement as fact.

I agree, we cannot make that statement - at least not yet. Hence the exercise. Should be interesting to see how it turns out.

[Unbias]

I think you have to look at teams at season's end to determine if they are a winning team or not. 

Maybe to rephrase the argument is that Washington doesn't beat any 'good' teams. A 'good' team finishes the season with a +.500 record. 

By your analysis Baltimore were a 'winning' team going into that game and Washington won. Would you say they were a 'good' team that day or since? They fired their OC after the game and have been fairly inept since. 

 

So why does it matter that we haven't beaten any 'good' teams? It matters because when you get in the playoffs you typically only face 'good' teams. If the goal is a championship you have to be able to beat 'good' teams, not teams that have a statistically 'winning' record going into the game when you played them. 

[MassSkinsFan]

Bobandweave, I'm not saying you're wrong. I get what you're saying, but...

The point of this isn't to present a definitive and accurate statistical tool like DVOA but to debunk what I see as an increasingly inaccurate statement and to have some fun.

I'm going to enjoy updating this every week, even if I don't always enjoy the outcome of the game. Play along and let's see what happens.

HTTR!

[TSO]

Honestly, I've always been of the mind that beating a "hot" team at the time is more important than beating one who, at the end of the year, has a winning record. 

Like, that latter idea seemed so arbitrary to me. 

What if a team ends up with a winning record but we played them when they were generally struggling, or on a losing streak, or were missing their best player/s? Does that make our win against them more impressive because they ended up with a winning record? I wouldn't think so. 

On the other hand, a team that we beat yet played them while they were on a hot streak, or is playing well in general, but then goes on to have a losing record... why would that make our win less impressive? 

What if we were the ones who put on tape how to beat them and then the rest of the league followed? It's a copycat league. We saw that with our game against the Falcons last year. They were undefeated and on fire, then we play them and play them well, even though it ended in an OT loss. But we were the first team to really put on tape a defensive game plan to stop them, and we saw them struggle after that. 

Are we allowed that or is that thrown out the window because a team like that ended up with a losing record? 

I don't know, that whole criticism about not beating winning teams (and they must end the year as a winning team) doesn't make much sense to me. I hate to say this but, to be frank, it's pretty stupid to me.  

[Koolblue13]

Everything can change so quickly. You can't really tell anything like this from season to season.

Some teams might lose two games and look like complete bottom dwellers, then win 4 in a row. That 4 looks great on the surface, until you realize their opposition was beating themselves. Then they have a winning record, look good and lose to another bad team.

To say a team is a winning team, you have to track a franchise over time. Like in the last 20 years has a team consistently won a division? Have rosters and coaches stay consistent? Is there a constant philosophy?

Nerd.

[MassSkinsFan]

8 hours ago, thesubmittedone said:

I don't know, that whole criticism about not beating winning teams (and they must end the year as a winning team) doesn't make much sense to me. I hate to say this but, to be frank, it's pretty stupid to me.  

The criticism? Yeah, it is. 

Lots of good questions in that post, and so few answers. I think I'm just going to see how this goes and maybe find some in the process (nerd).

[Wildbunny]

Last year Tom Brady had 3 wins against team with a winning record IIRC. Not much for a HoF QB no?

As TSO said. It's a stupid argument. Especially when you can only play's who's on your schedule. How do you characterize the teams that beat the Steelers prior to Big Ben's injuries? Those that face Aaron Rodgers in a crappy start, and those that'll face him after he rightens the ship (because he ultimately will...). Those that played the Vikings before Bradford started to suck and/or get injured...

The when is way more important than who. Playing Rodgers is September at home is something completly different than playing him in Green Bay in December.

Example: the Jaguars are 4-0 and have beaten: Denver, New England, Seattle and Green Bay in four games. Now you beat them, and they go on a roll to finish 4-12 after a bunch of injuries and the blueprint you gave the league on how to beat them. How would you see the win?

[MassSkinsFan]

42 minutes ago, Wildbunny said:

The when is way more important than who. Playing Rodgers is September at home is something completly different than playing him in Green Bay in December.

Example: the Jaguars are 4-0 and have beaten: Denver, New England, Seattle and Green Bay in four games. Now you beat them, and they go on a roll to finish 4-12 after a bunch of injuries and the blueprint you gave the league on how to beat them. How would you see the win?

The when is partially addressed by looking at both time of game and cumulative records. However, that doesn't take into account streaks and inflection points (like the one in your example where you beat them and suddenly it tips everyone else off to a weakness) - that would take more work.

[Wildbunny]

Wasn't talking about your stuff specificly

Just giving my own 2 cents about this idea about "winning teams".

[MassSkinsFan]

Yeah, but I'm looking to see if any of the comments might help me out (or, really, give me more nerd excuses). Most of them have helped, including yours. It's all food for thought.

[TSO]

@MassSkinsFan If anything else, what you're doing will be a fun and interesting exercise. I just realized my post may have come off as me questioning you doing this in the first place... that wasn't my intent at all. I was just commenting on the silliness of that criticism in the first place (when the condition of "x team has to finish with a winning record to be considered as beating a winning team"), not your attempt at looking at it deeper.  

[Wildbunny]

1 hour ago, MassSkinsFan said:

Yeah, but I'm looking to see if any of the comments might help me out (or, really, give me more nerd excuses). Most of them have helped, including yours. It's all food for thought.

I'm still trying to understand it. But once I got, I'll throw in a bunch of ideas

[MassSkinsFan]

32 minutes ago, Wildbunny said:

I'm still trying to understand it. But once I got, I'll throw in a bunch of ideas

Oh boy... I don't even get it. 

[bobandweave]

19 hours ago, MassSkinsFan said:

Bobandweave, I'm not saying you're wrong. I get what you're saying, but...

The point of this isn't to present a definitive and accurate statistical tool like DVOA but to debunk what I see as an increasingly inaccurate statement and to have some fun.

 

Not trying to rain on your parade brother, and probably could be doing a better job of communicating this but several below this have brought up points I was trying to make here yesterday. Your goal if I'm reading this correctly is to "debunk an inaccurate statement" that we actually are beating winning teams today. That's the point your trying to make here and I don't understand how this exercise can be started after the season we have had so far

What is the point of this debunking? You have one and I'm missing it. When we see our team consistently losing to the leagues better teams (Steeler's example) so much so you could bank on them losing those games, if we are only beating bad teams who happen to have a winning record when we played them technically one could argue that we are in fact beating "winning record" teams but it's meaningless to me because when we think about "winning" teams are we really grouping the Eagles and the Ravens into that category? 99% of fans would not. That's my overall point. Until we show we can beat the Steelers of the world saying we beat winning teams is saying something untrue. All numbers can be manipulated, but not all things are true right? Based on the statement we beat teams with winning records technically we could lose the rest of the season and still claim to have beaten teams with winning records even if they lost the rest of there games. There's the flaw in this argument to me.

Reminds me of the stat that for a few years the teams that won the Superbowl that season last lost to us. Or the stat that we lead the league in tackles in 2016 as if that's actually a good thing. I mean the first one leaves out that we ourselves were not in the Superbowl, the second doesn't mention if we had a good defense the opposing offenses wouldn't get so many first downs for us to lead the league in tackles right? To me there are 6 "good" teams in the NFL today and this has been a very bad year for the NFL in terms of teams actually being "good", when we win those games and we will have a few chances to beat the Cowboys and the Vikings coming up then I can see us beating "winning" teams and changing that thought process.

This weekend we get to play another "good" bad team, the Bengals have a 3-4 record so even if we beat them we haven't beaten a team with a winning record. We all know that the Bengals are not a bad team like the record indicates, but if all you use is record to say this teams "good" then they aren't "good" but who actually expects the Bengals to have a losing record by the end of the season? I don't. When the end of the season rolls around they will be looked at as a "good" team and a win this weekend will look good for us. We just lost to a different "good" bad team last weekend. They were 3-3 when we played them and we wouldn't have beaten a team with a winning record last week if we had won it either. However beating the Jim Bob Cooter led Lions today is considered a "good" win right?

Good bad whatever I hope we win the rest of our games and this thinking naturally changes for us.

[TheGreek1973]

That's awesome Mass.  Now can you do a table tracking if our cheerleaders are getting better looking or worse. 

[MassSkinsFan]

16 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

Good bad whatever I hope we win the rest of our games and this thinking naturally changes for us.

I can agree with you on this right here.

I work in biotech. I'm surrounded by scientists and equipment that helps us control and test what we make. In short, it's about data. I'm trying to take a subjective statement and look at the actual data that surround it. This is an experiment. Period. Whether the experiment is set up properly is open to interpretation, but nonetheless I'm going to look at data and see what it tells me.

As far as some of your statements above, here are the problems I see:

19 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

I don't understand how this exercise can be started after the season we have had so far

When would you start it? 

Is there ever going to be a good time, and if so, how do we know when (i.e. what is the trigger to start it)?

20 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

Based on the statement we beat teams with winning records technically we could lose the rest of the season and still claim to have beaten teams with winning records even if they lost the rest of there games. There's the flaw in this argument to me.

Nope - we couldn't, because we're looking at both W/L at the time of the game, and cumulatively for the season. If the Iggles end up a .500 or less team, we didn't beat a winning team. Or, put another way, if we beat the Bengals, who are 3-4 at the time of the game, and they go on to have a winning season, we beat a winner.

24 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

To me there are 6 "good" teams in the NFL today

Based on what? Your instinct?

25 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

We all know that the Bengals are not a bad team like the record indicates, but if all you use is record to say this teams "good" then they aren't "good" but who actually expects the Bengals to have a losing record by the end of the season? I don't.

Right, agreed. That's why we look at both time of game and overall records.

Sorry my fellow Skins fan - I'm a nerd and I'm pretty analytical. And, I think this could be fun. HTTR!!!

4 minutes ago, TheGreek1973 said:

That's awesome Mass.  Now can you do a table tracking if our cheerleaders are getting better looking or worse. 

That would probably based on less subjective evidence, and would be a lot more fun...