jrry32 Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 It doesn't really matter for that one year, but it's a bad thing for year-to-year consistency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jakuvious Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 4 hours ago, footbull3196 said: In the season that it actually occurs - a good thing, provided the wins aren't over bad teams. It shows character and ability to do whatever it takes to win no matter what the circumstances. Obviously a team doesn't want to have to resort to having to win this way week in and week out because eventually it will come back to bite them if they let teams hang around, but I think most fans of a team will take close wins over close losses In the season after it occurs - bad thing. Almost always, teams that win a ton of close games tend to regress back to the mean if not more than that. Teams can improve talent wise and still get significantly worse record wise because certain things don't go their way Case in point - 2001-2002 Chicago Bears This is really the best answer here. Winning a ton of close games can be perfectly fine over a shorter period of time. I would even say that we've seen some teams kind of ride the high and the momentum of 4th quarter comebacks and game winning drives and close dramatic wins over the course of a season, and kind of string them together just through a mix of luck and confidence. But a large amount of close wins is almost always predicative of the team regressing the following year. And vice versa. A ton of close losses typically corresponds with record improvement the next year. We've seen it big time with the Raiders and Lions in recent memory. And it can be one of a number of things. Sometimes the luck just regresses to the mean. Sometimes it was a sign that the team couldn't put teams away, or that they were dangerously playing up or down to their competition. It could mean that the team overall was bad but the gunslinging QB was pulling off late game heroics. Plenty of reasons, but regression to the mean basically always happens the following season. And in theory, your close games SHOULD be against similarly talented teams. So the results should be close-ish to 50/50, depending on if they're close but worse or close but better, more of the time. A lot of close games tends to mean you're either letting bad teams keep up with you, which isn't a good sign, or you actually are a bad team and you're just stepping up to competition or they're letting you keep up with them. In either case, it normally doesn't mean you're a great team, despite winning those games. I do think the Pats team that OP mentions isn't the best example, though. I wouldn't typically call two score wins close games. They might have felt close, but the end result really wasn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanLegend Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 1 minute ago, jrry32 said: It doesn't really matter for that one year, but it's a bad thing for year-to-year consistency. I've heard this too, and obviously one team doesn't confirm or deny any statistic, but the Titans have consistently been really good in close games since 2016. Titans are 9-1 in games decided by 3 points or less since the start of that season. That being said the Titans are also coming off back to back 9 win years(well I guess 9 and 10 win years if you count the playoffs), and who knows how this year will end, but we're coming off 3 straight wins by 3 points. I used to buy in to the "winning a lot of close games isn't sustainable", but something the Titans have done the past 3 seasons now has made me assured that if a game is close at the end they've got a really good chance of pulling the win out. No one is shaken in close games on this team in large part because of that now. It's just business as usual. Defense has been really good at stopping teams on final drives and if the offense needs points it's pretty much always went and gotten them, even when having to rely on Blaine Gabbert to go and get said points vs the Texans. There's just a confidence that comes late in games if you're used to the situation and have consistently pulled it off. Obviously you'd rather win a game by multiple scores but I'm not so sure winning close games should be considered a potentially negative thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrry32 Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 2 minutes ago, TitanLegend said: I've heard this too, and obviously one team doesn't confirm or deny any statistic, but the Titans have consistently been really good in close games since 2016. Titans are 9-1 in games decided by 3 points or less since the start of that season. That being said the Titans are also coming off back to back 9 win years(well I guess 9 and 10 win years if you count the playoffs), and who knows how this year will end, but we're coming off 3 straight wins by 3 points. I used to buy in to the "winning a lot of close games isn't sustainable", but something the Titans have done the past 3 seasons now has made me assured that if a game is close at the end they've got a really good chance of pulling the win out. No one is shaken in close games on this team in large part because of that now. It's just business as usual. Defense has been really good at stopping teams on final drives and if the offense needs points it's pretty much always went and gotten them, even when having to rely on Blaine Gabbert to go and get said points vs the Texans. There's just a confidence that comes late in games if you're used to the situation and have consistently pulled it off. Obviously you'd rather win a game by multiple scores but I'm not so sure winning close games should be considered a potentially negative thing. You were 6-4 in one-score games last year (not counting the playoffs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jakuvious Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 2 minutes ago, TitanLegend said: I've heard this too, and obviously one team doesn't confirm or deny any statistic, but the Titans have consistently been really good in close games since 2016. Titans are 9-1 in games decided by 3 points or less since the start of that season. That being said the Titans are also coming off back to back 9 win years(well I guess 9 and 10 win years if you count the playoffs), and who knows how this year will end, but we're coming off 3 straight wins by 3 points. I used to buy in to the "winning a lot of close games isn't sustainable", but something the Titans have done the past 3 seasons now has made me assured that if a game is close at the end they've got a really good chance of pulling the win out. No one is shaken in close games on this team in large part because of that now. It's just business as usual. Defense has been really good at stopping teams on final drives and if the offense needs points it's pretty much always went and gotten them, even when having to rely on Blaine Gabbert to go and get said points vs the Texans. There's just a confidence that comes late in games if you're used to the situation and have consistently pulled it off. Obviously you'd rather win a game by multiple scores but I'm not so sure winning close games should be considered a potentially negative thing. They're 15-10 in games decided by one score or less in that time frame. Which is on the high side, but within norms. Close games for the sake of predicting future seasons tends to mean one score games, not just field goal games. Games where basically one play was likely to have swung it one way or the other. That also means the TItans were 12-9 in close games the prior two years, getting even closer to average there. Since there are still 12 games to be played this year that the Titans could win or lose in close matchups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanLegend Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 4 minutes ago, jrry32 said: You were 6-4 in one-score games last year (not counting the playoffs). That's fair, and further looking in to it just beyond "was it one score at the very end or not" can paint a different picture too. The game vs Seattle the Titans had a pretty decent lead and Seattle scored in what amounted to garbage time to make it a 1 score game at the very end. Dolphins as a legit one score game. Browns a legit one score game. Ravens scored a TD at the very end to make a 10 point game a one score game. Bengals a legit one score game. Colts(round 2) legit one score. Texans an illegitimate two score game, Henry broke off a long TD run at the end to make it two scores. Then the final 4 games all legit one score games(which is where 3 of the losses come from in that statistic as well). All 4 of our games this year are one score games, though the Dolphins would be the only potential "illegitimate" one as we hit a long FG with Ryan Succop before attempting an onside kick to try and throw a couple hail marys in to the endzone. Like with every statistic I guess you can split hairs. In what I would view(not that it means a whole lot, but still) as legitimate 1 score games since 2016: 2018: 3-0 2017: 4-4 2016: 4-3(You could count the final game of the year vs the Texans as a legit one score game as well, but the Texans were sitting a lot of players for their wild card playoff game the next week so wasn't sure I should count that. 5-3 with that, 4-3 without). Which would put it at of course 11-7, though as noted the 17 and 16 seasons were ultimately "balanced" in terms of close game outcomes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjapirate Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 winning close games is good for that one year but typically those teams regress the next season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitanLegend Posted October 6, 2018 Share Posted October 6, 2018 I would suppose the team you're playing the close games against matters too, no? If you're playing a bunch of playoff or playoff caliber teams close, it's to be expected. If you're struggling week to week with teams that are picking top 10/top 5 in the draft it's a cause for concern. Then there's the context of why are the games close. Injuries, just mistakes, etc, etc. So much context has to be involved in NFL(and I guess all sports) stats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandyMossIsBoss Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 Well it's 100% not a bad sign, that's just a silly notion. I'd rather my team blow out teams than win close games, but I think you'd always want your 12-4 team to have had at least a few of those wins be games that came down to the wire as opposed to all 12 wins being blowouts, since I think you do want that practice of winning meaningful 4th quarters which will inevitably come in the postseason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabbs4u Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 23 minutes ago, RandyMossIsBoss said: Well it's 100% not a bad sign, that's just a silly notion. I'd rather my team blow out teams than win close games, but I think you'd always want your 12-4 team to have had at least a few of those wins be games that came down to the wire as opposed to all 12 wins being blowouts, since I think you do want that practice of winning meaningful 4th quarters which will inevitably come in the postseason. This. Good teams find different was to Win close games. Bad teams find was to lose them. Usually comes down to the small things. Technique, tackling, blocking , blown assignment 's, ect. Good teams minimize those mistakes which you can't have in close games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugashane Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 Depends on who you are playing and the quality of each team. If the Rams barely squeak by AZ right now with how hot they have been, it would be disappointing. Donald, Suh, Goff, Gurley, etc would all be mad in the locker room I'd bet. They know they are the best team and should be dominating most teams. If you are squeaking by quality opponents then it is hard to look at that in any negative fashion unless there are major issues with those wins (QB throwing 2+ INTs, fumbling, broken coverages, etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megatechpc Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 Depends on the team and how they are winning the close games. Generally close games signal a weakness of either the offense or the defense, but sometimes its just a matter of bad luck (TO's, penalties, mistakes, etc). Of course the old saw is that winning close games "galvanizes" a team and teaches them how to persevere in the face of adversity but there are also many instances of mediocre-to-bad teams that manage to pull off a lot of close wins at the last minute making them seem better than they actually are. So yeah, just depends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EaglesPeteC Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 In case you are wondering, winning is good for teams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugashane Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 12 minutes ago, EaglesPeteC said: In case you are wondering, winning is good for teams Not always. The Bears were one loss away from getting Aaron Donald and Leonard Williams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EaglesPeteC Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 21 minutes ago, Sugashane said: Not always. The Bears were one loss away from getting Aaron Donald and Leonard Williams. Meh, just wait until the Raiders draft another super star defender and they'll trade him to you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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