Comments on: Snake Eyes: Why an 8-point deficit looks worse than a 9-point one http://www.footballperspective.com/snake-eyes-why-an-8-point-deficit-looks-worse-than-a-9-point-one/ NFL History and Stats Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:08:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: mrh http://www.footballperspective.com/snake-eyes-why-an-8-point-deficit-looks-worse-than-a-9-point-one/#comment-1704 Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:08:46 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=2691#comment-1704 Two possibilities I thought of:
1) have the teams trailing by 9 possessed the ball more often to start the 4th quarter than the teams trialing by 8? I don’t know why this would be so, but it might explain why they were more likely to win.
2) could be the turnover disparity favoring the teams leading by 9 more than those than leading by 8. The “down by 9” teams are -0.8 turnovers; the “down by 8” teams are only -0.4. It could be that they trail by more (and have done more poorly on offense) because of the greater turnover disparity. If the “up by 9” teams were only getting FGs out of those turnovers, they may not have been playing well on offense themselves. If the “down by 9” team stopped turning it over and continued to stop their opponents, then that may have been what turned the tables (on a more frequent basis) than in the 8-point differential games.

]]> By: Jim A http://www.footballperspective.com/snake-eyes-why-an-8-point-deficit-looks-worse-than-a-9-point-one/#comment-1701 Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:58:36 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=2691#comment-1701 BTW, this is probably similar to the observation that it’s better to be trailing by 6 late in the game than trailing by 3. Teams trailing by 3 (or 8) tend to play for the tie whereas teams trailing by 6 (or 9) are forced to play for the win.

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/should-the-packers-have-gone-for-it-on-4th-and-5/

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