oldmanfan Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 They put themselves in position to take advantage of the Bengals win. That is not luck.
Thurman#1 Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 (edited) 11 hours ago, Limeaid said: Absolutely. If Luck was health last year it would have affected entire playoff picture. The rest? BS. Agreed, if Luck was healthy the Colts might have been a decent team. As it was it was very lucky indeed for the Bills that there were four teams in the AFC that won more than nine games. That's absolutely terrible. And very lucky for the mediocre teams that luck into the playoffs because of the lack of actual good teams. 2 hours ago, oldmanfan said: They put themselves in position to take advantage of the Bengals win. That is not luck. Questionable. They got nine wins. There was absolutely some luck involved in that - Julio Jones' injury being one very obvious example - but at least they won nine of the sixteen games they were scheduled in. What was luck was that in most years and for most teams, nine wins means only a slightly lower draft pick than the eight-win teams. Lucky for them, for instance, that they weren't in the NFC, where a 9-7 record would have gotten seeded somewhere between 7th and 9th, with no 9-7 teams making the playoffs. Only the teams that are lucky enough to get nine wins in a very weak conference make the playoffs. The Bills were particularly lucky as the tie-breaker - strength of schedule - that put them in the playoffs depended on a bunch of computer nerds in the NFL office who put the schedule together. Edited May 31, 2018 by Thurman#1
Saxum Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said: Questionable. They got nine wins. There was absolutely some luck involved in that - Julio Jones' injury being one very obvious example - but at least they won nine of the sixteen games they were scheduled in. Julio's injury WAS NOT LUCK. He typically out muscles DBs and Leonard Johnson gave as well as he got and Julio could not take as well as he gives. 1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said: Only the teams that are lucky enough to get nine wins in a very weak conference make the playoffs. The Bills were particularly lucky as the tie-breaker - strength of schedule - that put them in the playoffs depended on a bunch of computer nerds in the NFL office who put the schedule together. That was NOT LUCK. It is same every year with a predetermined algorithm and the same "computer nerds" do schedule for all teams every year. Your definition of "Luck" appears to be anything that goes the Bills way. Were you were one of the ones expecting and hoping Bills tank and Bills were "unlucky" that they didn't.
Thurman#1 Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, Limeaid said: Julio's injury WAS NOT LUCK. He typically out muscles DBs and Leonard Johnson gave as well as he got and Julio could not take as well as he gives. That was NOT LUCK. It is same every year with a predetermined algorithm and the same "computer nerds" do schedule for all teams every year. Your definition of "Luck" appears to be anything that goes the Bills way. Were you were one of the ones expecting and hoping Bills tank and Bills were "unlucky" that they didn't. This may be the bizarrest post I've ever seen. You say things aren't luck and then you try to tell why with absolutely zero logical relevance. None. When Julio was injured wasn't luck? Yeah, OK, dude. How the Ravens got a lower difficulty of schedule wasn't pure luck of schedule? Unh hunh. Yeah, great point. They were lucky in many many ways. That Julio was injured and that they caught the Falcons in their only three-game skid, their lowest point, and the Chiefs at their lowest point as well, in a four-game skid for a team that only lost six games. But mostly lucky that they were in a weak AFC where 9-7 teams actually had relevance. 9-7 teams in the NFC sat home and shut up, because their conference was simply better. Edited May 31, 2018 by Thurman#1
oldmanfan Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 5 hours ago, Thurman#1 said: Agreed, if Luck was healthy the Colts might have been a decent team. As it was it was very lucky indeed for the Bills that there were four teams in the AFC that won more than nine games. That's absolutely terrible. And very lucky for the mediocre teams that luck into the playoffs because of the lack of actual good teams. Questionable. They got nine wins. There was absolutely some luck involved in that - Julio Jones' injury being one very obvious example - but at least they won nine of the sixteen games they were scheduled in. What was luck was that in most years and for most teams, nine wins means only a slightly lower draft pick than the eight-win teams. Lucky for them, for instance, that they weren't in the NFC, where a 9-7 record would have gotten seeded somewhere between 7th and 9th, with no 9-7 teams making the playoffs. Only the teams that are lucky enough to get nine wins in a very weak conference make the playoffs. The Bills were particularly lucky as the tie-breaker - strength of schedule - that put them in the playoffs depended on a bunch of computer nerds in the NFL office who put the schedule together. Their conference has nothing to do with luck. The thought that went into figuring out playoff criteria was not luck. Your definition of luck lacks substance. By your thought process every team in the league got into the playoffs because of luck. Bottom line is all the teams in the league had a shot; the Bills put themselves in position by winning the games they won and thus being there when Baltimore lost.
row_33 Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 4 hours ago, oldmanfan said: Their conference has nothing to do with luck. The thought that went into figuring out playoff criteria was not luck. Your definition of luck lacks substance. By your thought process every team in the league got into the playoffs because of luck. Bottom line is all the teams in the league had a shot; the Bills put themselves in position by winning the games they won and thus being there when Baltimore lost. now people demand a "scientific" definition of luck?
oldmanfan Posted May 31, 2018 Posted May 31, 2018 9 minutes ago, row_33 said: now people demand a "scientific" definition of luck? Where exactly did I ask for that?
Thurman#1 Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) On 5/31/2018 at 6:54 PM, oldmanfan said: Their conference has nothing to do with luck. The thought that went into figuring out playoff criteria was not luck. Your definition of luck lacks substance. By your thought process every team in the league got into the playoffs because of luck. Bottom line is all the teams in the league had a shot; the Bills put themselves in position by winning the games they won and thus being there when Baltimore lost. Man, you're missing my point. Yeah, the thought that went into figuring out playoff criteria was not luck. But how those criteria affected the results? Virtually all luck. Agreed their conference had nothing to do with luck. AFC every year. But how crappy the teams in that conference were this year? Very very lucky for a 9-7 team. The way to avoid that luck and win with talent and skill? Win 11 or 12 games. Missing my point again in the second paragraph. I don't know how much more clearly I can put this. Teams that win a ton of games aren't lucking in. Do you hear this? Win 15 games and you're not lucking in. Win ten and you're likely going in simply because of how well you did. Win nine games and get in? Yeah, you're lucking in. Not just the Bills. Any team in the league. Most particularly so, though, when you win nine games with a very easy schedule and the two toughest teams you beat are mired in losing streaks and playing badly at the time they play you. The Bills put themselves in position to make it when Baltimore lost only because the wild card competitors in the AFC were a spectacularly weak-ass group of four 9-7 teams. In the better NFC, 9-7 teams went on their offseason breaks the way God intended. Edited June 1, 2018 by Thurman#1
oldmanfan Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 13 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said: Man, you're missing my point. Yeah, the thought that went into figuring out playoff criteria was not luck. But how those criteria affected the results? Virtually all luck. Agreed their conference had nothing to do with luck. AFC every year. But how crappy the teams in that conference were this year? Very very lucky for a 9-7 team. The way to avoid that luck and win with talent and skill? Win 11 or 12 games. Missing my point again in the second paragraph. I don't know how much more clearly I can put this. Teams that win a ton of games aren't lucking in. Do you hear this? Win 15 games and you're not lucking in. Win ten and you're likely going in simply because of how well you did. Win nine games and get in? Yeah, you're lucking in. Not just the Bills. Any team in the league. Most particularly so, though, when you win nine games with a very easy schedule and the two toughest teams you beat are mired in losing streaks and playing badly at the time they play you. The Bills put themselves in position to making it when Baltimore lost only because the wild card competitors in the AFC were a spectacularly weak-ass group of four 9-7 teams. In the better NFC, 9-7 teams went on their offseason breaks the way God intended. Your point is Ill conceived. Sorry you don't like that.
Thurman#1 Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) 7 minutes ago, oldmanfan said: Your point is Ill conceived. Sorry you don't like that. Ah, I see. You don't get it. Fair enough. I'll try to make it even easier. Winning that game didn't put them in. They had to wait and get help in a game that they had absolutely no control over. That's luck, without a question. Luck over and beyond the luck they got in having an extremely easy schedule. Edited June 1, 2018 by Thurman#1
oldmanfan Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 12 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said: Ah, I see. You don't get it. Fair enough. I'll try to make it even easier. Winning that game didn't put them in. They had to wait and get help in a game that they had absolutely no control over. That's luck, without a question. Luck over and beyond the luck they got in having an extremely easy schedule. Or it's playing well enough to be in position to take advantage of another team's loss. Because a WR on the Bengals ran a good route, his QB threw a good pass. And the line did what they were supposed to do and protected well. Luck would refer to a random occurrence of something not expected in my view. Having the Ravens that day all come down with the flu would have been luck. All these years and you still can't deal with being challenged on something.... 1
Thurman#1 Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 6 minutes ago, oldmanfan said: Or it's playing well enough to be in position to take advantage of another team's loss. Because a WR on the Bengals ran a good route, his QB threw a good pass. And the line did what they were supposed to do and protected well. Luck would refer to a random occurrence of something not expected in my view. Having the Ravens that day all come down with the flu would have been luck. All these years and you still can't deal with being challenged on something.... Dude, if this were a difficult challenge, I'd enjoy it. It's not. Your objection here is ridiculous. You say they played well enough that when they got lucky and the right team lost - through no responsibility whatsoever of the Bills - they were in a position to take advantage of that good luck. Luck is certainly not just a "random occurrence of something not expected." Expectations have nothing to do with it, nor does randomness. A quick look at the dictionary provides a more reasonable one. "Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions." - Oxford They could have controlled their destiny by winning more. They didn't. And because of that they had to rely on chance in a game they had no control over, not to mention the luck that the AFC had only four good teams and that their schedule turned out very weak indeed. None of which was in their control.
GunnerBill Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 On 5/31/2018 at 10:30 AM, Thurman#1 said: How the Ravens got a lower difficulty of schedule wasn't pure luck of schedule? Unh hunh. Yeah, great point. It is lucky but it isn't random which I think you "computer nerds" line kind of suggested, maybe unintentionally. There is a fair and consistent system for determining schedules that doesn't favour one team or the other as a system. Now obviously you can be lucky in the sense you can play a division in a year when that division is not that strong..... but the Bills actually played the strongest division in football last year - the NFC South - which normally you would say is bad luck because it hurts your win total but last year ended up good luck in the end given it went down to that tiebreaker. 1
oldmanfan Posted June 1, 2018 Posted June 1, 2018 3 hours ago, Thurman#1 said: Dude, if this were a difficult challenge, I'd enjoy it. It's not. Your objection here is ridiculous. You say they played well enough that when they got lucky and the right team lost - through no responsibility whatsoever of the Bills - they were in a position to take advantage of that good luck. Luck is certainly not just a "random occurrence of something not expected." Expectations have nothing to do with it, nor does randomness. A quick look at the dictionary provides a more reasonable one. "Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions." - Oxford They could have controlled their destiny by winning more. They didn't. And because of that they had to rely on chance in a game they had no control over, not to mention the luck that the AFC had only four good teams and that their schedule turned out very weak indeed. None of which was in their control. Same old crap from you. 1
Thurman#1 Posted June 4, 2018 Posted June 4, 2018 On 6/2/2018 at 12:00 AM, oldmanfan said: Same old crap from you. Yup, each time I correct you. And each time you miss the point and say the same thing. The bottom line was that four teams won their way into the AFC playoffs, the Pats and Steelers with 13 and the Jags and Chiefs with 10 wins each. Nobody had to win or lose for those teams to make the playoffs. They simply won enough games. The next group of four all had nine wins, and so it came down to all of them having to rely on other teams having won and lost the right weeks. Whoever won those tiebreakers did so not because they won enough game to get into the playoffs. What those four teams - including the Bills - did was win enough games to make the playoffs ... if they got lucky with some games totally outside their control.
GunnerBill Posted June 4, 2018 Posted June 4, 2018 10 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said: What those four teams - including the Bills - did was win enough games to make the playoffs ... if they got lucky with some games totally outside their control. Could you not articulate that as won enough of the right games?
Thurman#1 Posted June 4, 2018 Posted June 4, 2018 (edited) 54 minutes ago, GunnerBill said: Could you not articulate that as won enough of the right games? I guess if you really really reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally stretch it you could. But which games were the right ones was actually totally out of the Bills control. They got lucky with how that turned out. They won nine. And they got lucky with how the other three nine-win teams won and lost games ... games that were totally out of the Bills control. They were also very lucky that while in 2016 both AFC wild card winners had to win at least ten games, this year the AFC was quite a bit weaker. Same with 2015. And, you know, 2014. You have to go back to 2013 to find another year when a 9-7 team won an AFC wild card. Of the eighteen years since 2000, in only six years has nine wins been good enough to get a team into a wild card slot. I think 2017 is the only year since 2000 that a 9-7 record got two teams in, and since we were the second, that makes us very very lucky indeed to be in such a weak AFC. Edited June 4, 2018 by Thurman#1
The Red King Posted June 4, 2018 Author Posted June 4, 2018 The point I was trying to make is more a rebuttal of people that think the Bills' playoff birth was more of luck then skill, that Buffalo did not earn/deserve a playoff spot and only (key word) made it because they got lucky. There's always some luck involved, I just take offense at people who dismiss the Bills' efforts and instead claim it was all the work of the magical Dalton-fairy that somehow elevated a 4-12 team into the playoffs.
row_33 Posted June 4, 2018 Posted June 4, 2018 On 6/1/2018 at 7:35 AM, Thurman#1 said: Dude, if this were a difficult challenge, I'd enjoy it. It's not. Your objection here is ridiculous. You say they played well enough that when they got lucky and the right team lost - through no responsibility whatsoever of the Bills - they were in a position to take advantage of that good luck. Luck is certainly not just a "random occurrence of something not expected." Expectations have nothing to do with it, nor does randomness. A quick look at the dictionary provides a more reasonable one. "Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions." - Oxford They could have controlled their destiny by winning more. They didn't. And because of that they had to rely on chance in a game they had no control over, not to mention the luck that the AFC had only four good teams and that their schedule turned out very weak indeed. None of which was in their control. you've wasted 1000 words on here over this? .get a cat or a dog to talk to.
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