Idiocy? You be the Judge

Clark Judge of cbssports.com offers a prime example of arriving at a probably correct conclusion with moronic reasoning. I'll use Ski's convention below: normal text is from the article, bolded text is mine. I've taken the liberty of excerpting; click the link above for the whole article.

Sorry, Colts/Saints fans ... Super Bowl highly unlikely
by Clark Judge

There are no better teams today than New Orleans and Indianapolis, so, naturally, the expectation is that they meet in the Super Bowl. Only I'm here to tell you they won't. One of them won't make it, and maybe neither gets that far.

Oh, yeah? Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

That is not an opinion.

Ok, you got me. "Prediction" is probably more appropriate.

It's a history lesson

Um, no. There's no reasonable interpretation of the term "history lesson" for which the above qualifies.

and if you're skeptical, go back to this time last season when the best two teams were Tennessee and the New York Giants. The Titans were unbeaten. The Giants had lost once. Both were slam dunks to breeze through the playoffs, yet neither did. In fact, both bowed out after one game.

Yeah, that´s convincing. If there's one thing I've learned about sports in general and the NFL in particular, it's that things always unfold the exact same way from season to season.

An aberration? Hardly. Teams that are white-hot at midseason often lose that momentum as the season winds down, and for good reason: It's difficult, if not near-impossible, to maintain a peak level of performance -- as well as to avoid key injuries -- for four months. The season is simply too long.

Ugh, where to start? First, we've got a variation of the gambler's fallacy here. The fact that Indy and New Orleans have already been playing extremely well for two months is used as evidence that they're "due" to get cold. Second, they don't have to maintain a peak level of performance for another two months to get to Super Bowl. It's very likely that both teams will receive a first-round bye, even if they falter a little bit, so all they have to do is perform well enough (or get lucky enough) to win two games in January.

The 2007 New England team would seem to contradict that idea, only the way I see it they reinforced it. Yes, they won all 16 regular-season games, but look what happened down the stretch: They could have been beaten by Philadelphia. They should've lost to Baltimore. They should've lost to the New York Giants in the regular-season finale.

So, he's could'ved and should'ved his way into arguing that the Patriots started out white-hot, but actually lost that vital momentum going into the playoffs, while ignoring the Pats' three wins in weeks 14-16 by a combined total of 52 points. But let's accept that the virtually 13-3 Patriots stumbled their way into the playoffs. History shows us that teams that start 9-0 can't make the Super Bowl, right?

And they were taken to the wire in the AFC Championship Game by a San Diego team operating without Antonio Gates and LaDainian Tomlinson and with quarterback Philip Rivers playing on one leg.

Oh, another win in score only. Never mind that this time, San Diego never got closer than 9 points with 12 minutes or less left in the game. If Rivers had grown another leg, the Chargers would have won.

In short, they wound down as the stakes went up. So when they reached the Super Bowl they were beaten by a Giants team that, until a Dec. 23 defeat of Buffalo, wasn't sure it would qualify for the playoffs.

Since the Super Bowl was at least as close, and the Giants caught at least as many breaks as the Patriots did in any of their virtual losses, can't say the Patriots were the "should've been" champs?

My point is this: Don't get dazzled by what's going on nine games into the season. Yeah, it's terrific that Indianapolis and New Orleans haven't lost, and, no, I don't see anyone out there that is superior. But I also know there are seven weeks left in the regular season, and that's a long, long time to maintain breakneck speed.

Well, again, they don't have to "maintain breakneck speed" for the next seven weeks to reach the Super Bowl. They just have to be mediocre at worst over that stretch, then win two games in January.

Besides, I'm not sure you want to maintain anything going into the playoffs. You want clubs that improve weekly. You look for teams that catch fire in the second half, start building momentum, gain confidence and take their game to the next level for the playoffs.

Right, let's rule out the Colts and Saints, because it's impossible for them to "catch fire in the second half", given that they're already on fire. Never mind that their second halves may be just as convincing as any other teams' (hard to know given that the second half of the season has barely started).

San Diego GM A.J. Smith always says the key to any season is reaching the playoffs because anything is possible after that.

And yet, the Saints and Colts have both already all but clinched playoff spots, but it's not possible for both of them to make the Super Bowl?

And he's right. Tennessee struggled down the stretch last season, splitting their last six games. The Giants floundered, losing three of their last four. So when the second season started it really didn't matter that both clubs held home-field advantages; what mattered was that their play ... and, probably, their confidence ... had declined.

See my first remark.

That's why I urge you to start paying attention to teams that are beginning to build something -- someone, say, like Arizona or Cincinnati. They're good, they're dangerous and they're hot. So are Indianapolis and New Orleans. But how can they stay hot for five months?

Gambler's fallacy again. Also, let's look at Cincinatti. They're 7-1 since a fluky loss at Denver week one, including two wins over each Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Aren't they only slightly less "hot" than New Orleans and Indy. Should we really be higher on their chances just because they managed to drop a home game to Texas in that stretch?

I mean, everyone is supposed to peak for the playoffs, right? But when you win early and keep winning, how do you suddenly peak when you've been doing it for four long and exhausting months?

Well, you wouldn't be "peaking", you'd be maintaining then. Oh, yeah, I forgot, for some reason maintaining is bad. Yeah, sustained success for four months is usually an indicator of an inability to maintain that success.

Often, teams don't, and the 2008 Titans are proof. So are the 2005 Indianapolis Colts. They won their first 13, then couldn't beat Pittsburgh in the playoffs. The 2003 Kansas City Chiefs will take their place in line behind them. They won their first nine, then couldn't beat Indianapolis in the playoffs.

Three anecdotes are certainly enough to convince me. But, wait, what about about the '72 Dolphins, '85 Bears, '90 Giants, '91 Redskins and '06 Colts. They all started 9-0, and not only made the Super Bowl, but won it. Now, if I worked at CBS and had a few lackeys under me, I would actually have them calculate what percentage of 9-0 teams have gone on to play in the Super Bowl. But being a lone blogger, I'll content myself with fighting anecdote with anecdote. I have more, so I win.

(Interestingly, the '06 Colts finished the season 3-4, and lacked that vital momentum going into the playoffs. Some of those losses must have been virtual wins.)

"This is a game of confidence and momentum," said Carolina GM Marty Hurney, "whether it's teams or whether it's individual players. It's a game of confidence and momentum, and the teams that are hot at the end historically are the teams that do well in the playoffs."

Notice he didn't say the teams that are hot in September and October.

Yeah, why look at statistical evidence when you can quote a GM? And, of course, a team that is hot in September and October can't be hot at the end, because it's not possible to stay hot that long, and even if a team did, they would be maintaining and not peaking, or something.

By winning now, they can gain home-field advantage for the playoffs, and that is big. But it is not crucial. Only nine of the top 20 seeds in the past 10 years have made it to the Super Bowl, or 45 percent.

A little confusing, but I'm going to assume he meant to say "twenty top conference seeds". In that case, each top seed would need to win two games to advance to the Super Bowl. If the games were coin flips, we would expect about 25% of the top seeds to advance. I'm not sure "only" is the appropriate word here.

So there's a lesson there, and the lesson is this: While New Orleans and Indianapolis are good --- and I mean real good -- they may not be good enough to maintain their torrid paces. The last time the top two seeds entering the playoffs went to the Super Bowl it was 1993, and each had four losses. So there's a history of good teams going bad in the playoffs, and there's a history of top seeds going south. I like the Saints, and I like the Colts, and I like them a lot. But I like them now. One of them will not survive this grind, and it's not something I see in either club that tells me. It's something I see in the league's history.

Yes, it is likely that at least one of these teams fails to make the Super Bowl. The reason has nothing to do with "momentum" or "peaking", however. The reason is that to advance, each will have to beat two very good teams, and there's just not that much difference between very good and great teams in the NFL. If both the Colts and Saints have, say, a 60% chance to win each of their games (making them significant, but not overwhelming favorites), there is about a 13% chance of them meeting in the Super Bowl. But if someone offered me a million dollars if I could pick the Super Bowl participants today, I'd pick Saints-Colts in a heartbeat. It's not that likely, but it's more likely than any other possibility. The thing is, there are just a ton of possibilities. Even when the playoff field is set, there will be 36 possible matchups. Writing an article disparaging the chances of one of those possibilities is a fatuous waste of words.