How long does it take an NFL head coach to reach his 1st Super Bowl?

[Einstein]

8 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

I wonder if the narrative changes if we lost to the Colts who completely outplayed us at home. They had over 450 total yards on offense and over 150 on the ground. More than 25 first downs and over 50% on third down. That would have been two years we got ousted in the first round.

 

Yes we were very lucky in that game. Mostly because Frank Reich is not a great head coach. His decision to go for 4th and goal cost them the game.

[LABILLBACKER]

1 hour ago, Augie said:

 

I didn’t see Von’s ACL tear in any of that scientific mathy stuff presented earlier. There may be a problem with the formula. 

Yeah Muppy & Augie are right. The ability to enter the playoffs healthy and stay healthy throughout the playoff run is tantamount to winning it all. Probably more so than coaching arguments.  We had Von, Hyde, Poyer and Josh either out or playing hurt. 

[WhoTom]

5 minutes ago, Einstein said:

It is actually a very difficult calculation. I have spent the last 2 hours trying to calculate it

 

In real research, the researcher is a subject-matter expert (SME). You've alluded to your impressive resume without providing specifics, so let me ask, are any of your credentials or experience related to professional football?

 

Also in real research, when someone develops a measurement tool - a survey, a formula, a method - that tool needs to be checked for validity by a panel of subject-matter experts. Basically, the validity check ensures that you are measuring what you say you're measuring. Have any SMEs performed validity checks on your equations?

 

You're tossing around a lot of stats, and maybe that's where your expertise is, but stats without context are meaningless - as such, they can be twisted and interpreted however one wants. The SME adds context to the stats, both in terms of determining how the stats are calculated and interpreting the results.

 

I have a friend who's a math professor. He's really good at Calculus and could undoubtedly solve a differential equation describing an electrical circuit like a PID control system. He can figure out proportions, integrals, and derivatives, but the control system needs coefficients for each of those quantities - with the P, I, and D variables being weighted according to how much influence they should have on the system. Some applications are heavier on the P; others emphasize the I or the D - it all depends on the context. Since he's not an expert in control systems, he couldn't design the circuit or even be certain that the equation he's solving correctly represents the circuit in question - for that, he'd need a SME.

 

 

 

[Einstein]

9 minutes ago, WhoTom said:

 

In real research, the researcher is a subject-matter expert (SME). You've alluded to your impressive resume without providing specifics, so let me ask, are any of your credentials or experience related to professional football?

 

Also in real research, when someone develops a measurement tool - a survey, a formula, a method - that tool needs to be checked for validity by a panel of subject-matter experts. Basically, the validity check ensures that you are measuring what you say you're measuring. Have any SMEs performed validity checks on your equations?

 

You're tossing around a lot of stats, and maybe that's where your expertise is, but stats without context are meaningless - as such, they can be twisted and interpreted however one wants. The SME adds context to the stats, both in terms of determining how the stats are calculated and interpreting the results.

 

I have a friend who's a math professor. He's really good at Calculus and could undoubtedly solve a differential equation describing an electrical circuit like a PID control system. He can figure out proportions, integrals, and derivatives, but the control system needs coefficients for each of those quantities - with the P, I, and D variables being weighted according to how much influence they should have on the system. Some applications are heavier on the P; others emphasize the I or the D - it all depends on the context. Since he's not an expert in control systems, he couldn't design the circuit or even be certain that the equation he's solving correctly represents the circuit in question - for that, he'd need a SME.

 

This is a thread on a football forum. Attempting to discredit it because it’s not relevant for a dissertation is just silly. But sure, feel free to send my equations to your math professor friend and ask him if i’m wrong.

 

As for developing a measurement tool and assuring its validity - what you’re describing is the peer-review process.  To say that some difficult calculus needs SME’s to peer review the work is literally laughable lol. I wonder how anyone makes it out of college math nowadays.

 

.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Einstein

[WhoTom]

1 minute ago, Einstein said:

This is a thread on a football forum. Attempting to discredit it because it’s not relevant for a dissertation is just silly.

 

Feel free to send my formulas to your math professor friend and ask him if i’m wrong.

 

1. You're treating it like science to make it look valid, so I'm pointing out that it's not at all scientific. Suggesting that it doesn't need to be scientific because this isn't a dissertation is, if you'll excuse the pun, moving the goalposts.

 

2. He's not a football expert either. Again, he could check the calculations, but not the validity.

 

 

[Einstein]

Just now, WhoTom said:

 

1. You're treating it like science

 

Calculus and maths are me treating it like science? Oofta.

 

Just now, WhoTom said:

He's not a football expert either. Again, he could check the calculations, but not the validity.

 

This is college-level calculus. Not calculating the wave length of light passing into a black hole. 

 

You don’t like the results and you are attempting to discredit them by acting as if (mostly) basic math needs to be peer reviewed. It’s hilariously stupid.

 

What has the world come to. We are so stupid that we think the presence of maths needs SME validation. 

I have applied common, age-old formulas and rules to a data set.

[PBF81]

30 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

Did you watch the game? Hopkins cooked White and the defense couldn’t tackle.

 

Out of deference to you I watched the end of the game now.  What I see is Carlos Hyde (aka not Derrick Henry) having some huge runs, Watson one big designed run for 20 and a TD, followed by a rollout right for a 2 PC, White playing Hopkins tight with no YAC.  That was their first scoring drive. 

 

Then I see Stills making a big 20-yard catch setting up a FG with decent coverage by Kevin Johnson who slipped at the end.  

 

On the next play I wouldn't say that Hopkins "smoked" White, he did beat him in coverage tho.  That only put the ball at our 28 however.  After that I see Darren Fells catch a huge 14-yard pass on 3rd-and-3 from our 15 over Milano that set up their TD.  You know, Darren Fells, Undrafted, UC Irvine, 5 teams in 8 seasons, averaged 16 catches for fewer than 200 yards/season.  Then a ridiculous defensive play with confusion all over the field leading to a wide-open Hyde on a screen pass for the TD.  

 

19-16 with 19 points scored within 12 minutes.  

 

I also couldn't help but notice that after Houston's first TD, now up 16-8, we didn't run the ball once despite Singletary having averaged 4.5 YPC up to that point.  Conventional wisdom, aka not requiring an "expert" world-class coaching mind or anything even close, suggests perhaps run the ball a bit to take the clock down and prevent the D from focusing too much on pass-rush, but we do the opposite with 5 straight passing plays resulting in a fumble on a 3rd-and-8 taking only 1:33 off the clock.  That was at midfield.  

 

So spin it as you wish, there's plenty in there to complain about the coaching on.  It was hardly one or two plays, the Texans put togther three scoring drives for 177 yards and 19 points, of which Hopkins was not responsible for 20 plays and 111 Yards of.  Either way, if we're going to vindicate McD from any blame for that, then it's also fair to exempt him from any credit for Allen/Davis going off vs. KC and Allen going off altogether in the '21 playoffs.  At least be consistent.  

 

 

30 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

Allen and the offense could’ve been better.

 

No doubt, but the offense that season averaged 19.6 points and Allen & Co. hit that number, albeit against a 19th ranked scoring D which had allowed an average of 24.2 PPG that season.  

 

The bigger crime, as has been the pattern in the playoffs throughout McD's tenure, was our #2 ranked D which had allowed an average of 16.2 PPG and which had allowed more than 17 points only 6 times, three times to teams ranked 1st, 7th, and 12th offensively (Balt, NE, Philly), allowed 19 points within less than a quarter, and to a team ranked 14th in offense and possessive of only one premier offesive player, Hopkins.  Watson was good but far from great, ranking 13th in Passing Yards and 11th in Passing TDs that season.  The better teams step up, not down, in the playoffs.  

 

 

[Hermes]

@Einstein assuming all of your calculations are indeed accurate and there's less than a 1% chance the Bills  win it all with him at the helm,  who would you have the Bills replace McDermott with? 

 

Does this new coach have a statistically significant , >1% chance of winning the superbowl?  Would you be able to provide a historical analyais for your candidate elaborating on what makes him have greater odds than McDermott? 

 

I'm genuinely curious since you've clearly dedicated a substantial amount of time to the subject matter and the data you present isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for the extention the Bills just doled out. 

 

In my opinion, going through all of the effort that you have to discredit the Bills HC is an exercise in futility without providing alternatives to the current state of the Bills organization.  

[PBF81]

1 hour ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

Tre White got cooked by Hopkins. Milano couldn’t finish a great blitz call in OT, Watson broke loose. Bills lost on that play. 

 

The White play was one play that set the Texans up at our 28.  Let's not turn it into a TD play.  

 

As to what happened in OT, it never should have gone to OT, just like the '21 KC game, proper coaching would have prevented it, in both instances.  Such as I mentioned above with running more.  

 

McD seems to have a knack for keeping our opponents in games during the playoffs.  

 

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by PBF81

[PrimeTime101]

22 hours ago, Freddie's Dead said:

I never made it without biting, ask Mr. Owl.

Uh Wuhunn, Toohoo, Thuhree, <crunch>, Thuhree....

[GoBills808]

45 minutes ago, WhoTom said:

 

1. You're treating it like science to make it look valid, so I'm pointing out that it's not at all scientific. Suggesting that it doesn't need to be scientific because this isn't a dissertation is, if you'll excuse the pun, moving the goalposts.

 

2. He's not a football expert either. Again, he could check the calculations, but not the validity.

 

 

Half the metrics that get thrown around in football are proprietary. Your standard is unrealistic

 

[Einstein]

23 minutes ago, Hermes said:

@Einstein assuming all of your calculations are indeed accurate and there's less than a 1% chance the Bills  win it all with him at the helm,  who would you have the Bills replace McDermott with? 

 

My desire (with no calculation provided just gut feeling) is Lou Anorumo.

 

1) I believe it helps the Bills. Anorumo has stopped the Chiefs offense twice in the playoffs. Something we have never done.

 

2) It hurts the Chiefs.

 

3) It hurts the Bengals (they lose their best coordinator).

 

It is a win/win/win.

 

Ps, I believe the percentage to be higher than 1% once the replacements get added back in and you look at it on a year by year basis.

[Einstein]

5 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

Half the metrics that get thrown around in football are proprietary. Your standard is unrealistic

 

 

Sometimes you just have to laugh at a post. That was one of them. He wants basic calculus to be peer reviewed because he doesn’t like the results 😂

[Hermes]

4 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

My desire (with no calculation provided just gut feeling) is Lou Anorumo.

 

1) I believe it helps the Bills. Anorumo has stopped the Chiefs offense twice in the playoffs. Something we have never done.

 

2) It hurts the Chiefs.

 

3) It hurts the Bengals (they lose their best coordinator).

 

It is a win/win/win.

 

Ps, I believe the percentage to be higher than 1% once the replacements get added back in and you look at it on a year by year basis.

If his defense performs better than McDermott's this year, particularly in the playoffs, then I can see you point about it helping the Bills. Not to say anything about the leadership qualities or intangibles of either man.

 

How much it does it really hurt the Chiefs though? Giving up 24 points isn't great (better than the Bills D did in the 13 seconds game, and the Chiefs ppg ave of 28.2 that year) and considering Mahomes was playing on a bum ankle and still drove down to win the game against them last year I wouldn't necessarily say they were stopping them.  Add in the fact that he is a coordinator for a team that isn't named the Chiefs, I just can't see how it hurts them. If anything wouldn't it make the Bengals easier for the Chiefs to beat because therefore helping them instead?  

 

It's interesting that your choice would be a DC when the current NFL trend is to hire the hot OC's for head coach.  The last 4 superbowls featured exclusively former OC's and the last former DC to win is Belichek (with Brady)

 

I don't claim to know much, especially regarding NFL/college coaches, but it makes sense to me that an up and coming OC would be a better choice.  

[hondo in seattle]

I don't think the best team - or the best HC - necessarily win the Super Bowl, especially in the era of the salary cap.  Each year, there is a group of roughly equally talented teams capable of making a run at the start of the playoffs.  Winning each week is a factor of coaching, roster strength, weather, injury, the bounce of the ball, refereeing, and other factors.  Some of these factors are outside the team's control.  Maybe your QB finds his gf in bed with another guy the night before a big game and it screws with his head.  Or has some other mental health issue.  Maybe your star receiver's dad dies.  Or your stud DE catches the flu.  Or your shutdown corner sprains his ankle while walking down the stairs at home.  As Forest Gump says, "Sh*t happens."  

 

The best coaches tilt the odds in their team's favor with good preparation, game-planning, play-calling, etc.  The best GMs give their coaches a roster that has a legitimate shot.  But you can only slant the odds.  No coach is so much better than his peers that he can guarantee victory.  And no roster is so good that it's invincible.  

 

With 32 teams in the NFL, the average team has a roughly 3% chance of winning the Super Bowl in any given year.  A good GM/HC combo might increase your odds to maybe 10 or 15%.  If you have a good combo, you keep it together until it finally delivers.   Maybe it happens in their first year together.  Maybe in their tenth.  Some of it is simply dumb luck.  

 

 

[WhoTom]

16 minutes ago, Einstein said:

 

Sometimes you just have to laugh at a post. That was one of them. He wants basic calculus to be peer reviewed because he doesn’t like the results 😂

 

It has nothing to do with whether I like the results; I simply questioned their validity. Tossing equations around may give the impression of credibility to those unfamiliar with research, but unless the underlying assumptions have been validated, then they're nothing more than wild-ass guesses. I could write a bunch of equations to solve the same problem and they'd be no more or less valid than yours because neither of us are football professionals.

 

I get it - this is a message board, not an academic journal. So stop pretending that your assumption is valid simply because it has a bunch of equations attached to it. You've stated your opinion that McD won't bring us a Lombardi. Your opinion may be correct, but unvalidated equations don't make it so.

 

 

[Einstein]

3 minutes ago, WhoTom said:

because neither of us are football professionals.

 

NFL teams hire mathematicians and data analysts to run their analysis and statistics. Football professionals (like coaches, GM’s, scouts) know jack squat about data analytics.

 

The Bills data analyst for example, Malcolm Charles, came straight to the team out of college (Clemson and Marquette). 

 

Evan Weiss, the teams football analyst, came from PFF (who also has no peer reviewed equations) and before working at PFF was a marketing intern.

 

You seem to have this idea that NFL teams employ “football experts” for data analytics but in reality they are just mathematically inclined data engineers, sometimes straight out of college, that know about as much about football as the people on this forum.

 

Great data analysts can seamlessly move between sectors - from technology, to oil, to manufacturing - because, it doesn’t matter! They don’t need to be an expert to interpret data.

[Einstein]

29 minutes ago, Hermes said:

How much it does it really hurt the Chiefs though? Giving up 24 points isn't great (better than the Bills D did in the 13 seconds game, and the Chiefs ppg ave of 28.2 that year) and considering Mahomes was playing on a bum ankle and still drove down to win the game against them last year I wouldn't necessarily say they were stopping them. 

 

Mahomes vs playoff teams without Anuromo: 33.1ppg

 

Mahomes vs playoff teams WITH Anuromo: 23.5ppg 

 

That is a MASSIVE difference.

 

Visit the Chiefs forum and you will see a fan base that shudders at the mention of Anuromo’s name. They fear him like we feared Belichick for 2 decades.

[Royale with Cheese]

22 hours ago, teef said:

It’s a beautiful Saturday evening, and this is what’s happening. 
 

 

this ***** place. 

I had 3 Italian sausages last night.  

[Dopey]

On 6/24/2023 at 4:21 PM, Einstein said:

The tenure of Sean McDermott as head coach and the appropriate "leash" to allow him to lead this team to the Super Bowl has been a topic of considerable debate on this forum. While there's a consensus that he deserves additional time, the crux of the argument lies in determining the precise length of this leash.

 

To shed light on this, I conducted a simple data study, examining the trajectory of every NFL head coach who has led their team to the Super Bowl (not necessarily winning, just reaching the final game) over the past 40 NFL seasons.

 

Here is what the data revealed:

 

• On average, it takes a head coach 4.2 seasons to reach his first Super Bowl.

 

• Only 5 coaches in the past 40 years have made their inaugural Super Bowl appearance after 7 seasons of head coaching. This is particularly relevant as Sean McDermott is about to enter his seventh season as head coach

 

• The most frequent timeline for a coach's first Super Bowl appearance is two years, closely followed by five years. This trend suggests that many coaches are capable of assembling a Super Bowl-worthy team within the first 5 years of their tenure (77% of these coaches managed to make the Super Bowl within their first 5 seasons)

 

NOTE: The data is across the coaches entire NFL career. For example, if a coach spent 5 years on his first team, and 4 years on his second team (before making a Super Bowl) the data tallies 9 total seasons prior to his inaugural Super Bowl appearance.

 

NOTE 2: The Sean McDermott line is where McDermott will be after this upcoming season.

 

the chart cuts off some of the names because the list is so long, but the data is there.

How hard is it to move a goalpost?