The myth of NFL parity

[squire12]

2 minutes ago, youngosu said:

Okay, cool. 

Of course since you are this stats guy as I already mentioned if you expand MLB to 12 playoff teams (instead of the 8-10 they've had) every MLB team makes the playoffs multiple times (the team with 0 goes up to 4) 

Great....so the NFL and MLB are both 100% in all teams getting playoff appearances over the span of time you are referencing.

 

FYI....I am far from a stats guy.  Though I do like numbers and find simple ratios to be easy to tally.

[youngosu]

Just now, squire12 said:

So 28 for 28 reached the playoffs in those previous years.   Seems like the NFL has a really good track record of parity.  

Actually, I do think the league had far more parity (and was a far superior product) prior to the institution of the salary cap. 

Again, you can pick your own definition, honestly I don't care. You want to be condescending because you don't like a quick metric on a message board, cool. As I already mentioned I also posted a link to a Harvard study for the brilliant among us (you apparently)

[youngosu]

1 minute ago, squire12 said:

Great....so the NFL and MLB are both 100% in all teams getting playoff appearances over the span of time you are referencing.

Yep to whatever you say. 

[squire12]

8 minutes ago, youngosu said:

Actually, I do think the league had far more parity (and was a far superior product) prior to the institution of the salary cap. 

Again, you can pick your own definition, honestly I don't care. You want to be condescending because you don't like a quick metric on a message board, cool. As I already mentioned I also posted a link to a Harvard study for the brilliant among us (you apparently)

Not sure that using a study that only looks at 8 years worth of data is helpful when you then modify the information you  are presenting out to 15 years.  

Quote

To do this, I used the preseason title odds provided on sportsoddshistory.com for the last 8 seasons, normalized the probabilities of winning a championship to ensure that they summed to 1, and then calculated the Gini Coefficient of these title probabilities for each of the last 8 seasons.

A comparison of NBA, MLB, NFL and other sports on such a short span of time when having 1 or 2 top tier players can really tip the balance of apparent parity (or lack there of).  Take the NBA...in the Kobe Bryant era for the LA Lakers, they were a perennial playoff team, since he retired (and shortly prior to his retirement) they have been bottom 5-10.  

When looked at over a long enough span of time, the majority of teams in all leagues will rise to the top and then fall back down.

[youngosu]

5 minutes ago, squire12 said:

When looked at over a long enough span of time, the majority of teams in all leagues will rise to the top and then fall back down.

I'd argue that a league with true parity wouldn't need decades of data to prove such parity. If a superstar can "tip the balance" than the talent level is nowhere near equal in your league and therefore you don't have parity. 

[squire12]

5 minutes ago, youngosu said:

I'd argue that a league with true parity wouldn't need decades of data to prove such parity. If a superstar can "tip the balance" than the talent level is nowhere near equal in your league and therefore you don't have parity. 

Comparing the NBA with 5 starters and 12 player rosters with NFL with 5x the roster size and starters is faulty.  The significant influence that 1 top tier player can have when they account for 20% of the starters in the NBA vs 4% of the starters in the NFL makes looking at parity across leagues from just playoff appearances in flawed.   Especially when you own definition is as follows.

Quote

'Sports parity has always meant that the talent is roughly equal.'

Until you can assign a rating/grading system for players in leagues and provide a sum of those ratings for each team in each league, your definition is flawed.

[youngosu]

2 minutes ago, squire12 said:

Comparing the NBA with 5 starters and 12 player rosters with NFL with 5x the roster size and starters is faulty.  The significant influence that 1 top tier player can have when they account for 20% of the starters in the NBA vs 4% of the starters in the NFL makes looking at parity across leagues from just playoff appearances in flawed.   Especially when you own definition is as follows.

Until you can assign a rating/grading system for players in leagues and provide a sum of those ratings for each team in each league, your definition is flawed.

Okay, next time I decide to have post an argument on a message board I will be sure to get a research grant, research the topic fully, submit my paper for peer review, and if/when (fingers crossed) it passes that review and I get published I will post said argument. 

Thanks for your input. 

[Iamcanadian]

11 hours ago, youngosu said:

Seriously where is all this parity people keep talking about? Its a myth. And I don't understand why so many people buy into it. Compare the AFC to the AL since 2002 and despite the AL having less playoff appearances available you still see a better balance of playoff appearances in the AL compared to the AFC.

Since 2002:

Patriots 14 playoff appearances (PA), Jets 5 PA, Dolphins 2 PA, Bills 1 PA

Steelers 11 PA, Ravens, 8 PA, Bengals 7 PA,  Browns  1 PA

Colts 12 PA, Titans 5 PA, Texans 4 PA, Jaguars 3 PA, 

Broncos 8 PA, Chargers 6 PA, Chiefs 4PA, Raiders 2 PA

That is the AFC, compare that to the AL 

Yankees 11 PA, Red Sox 9 PA, Rays 4 PA, Orioles 3 PA, Blue Jays 2 PA

Twins 7 PA, Tigers 5 PA, Indians 4 PA, White Sox 2 PA, Royals 2 PA, 

Angels 7 PA, Athletics 7 PA, Rangers 5 PA, Astros 4 PA (2 since moving to AL), Mariners 0 PA

Parity is a myth in the NFL. MLB which is the sport everyone claims has no parity has more parity than the NFL. Your baseball team is more likely to go from a non-playoff team to a playoff team (and vice versa) than your NFL team is. When can we kill this myth?

 

Actually, you just proved that parity indeed does exist in the NFL as all 16 teams made the playoffs at least once. The NFL is a QB/schedule league, cleverly designed so at least ever 5 years, each team has a shot at making the playoffs. Is it parity, no, but by manipulating schedules, they practically guarantee 4 to 6 new teams make the playoffs every year and the only way to overcome it, is by having a solid franchise QB who can overcome a tough schedule.

Any Division which draws a tough schedule, is practically guaranteed not to have a wild card team and any Division which draws a weak schedule, is almost assured of getting a wild card team. So the NFL creates the myth of parity through a clever use of scheduling, to fool fans into thinking it is all a level playing field.

[11sanchez11]

2 minutes ago, Iamcanadian said:

Actually, you just proved that parity indeed does exist in the NFL as all 16 teams made the playoffs at least once.

Every NBA team has made the playoffs in the same time span. So the NBA has parity?

[11sanchez11]

I think 'unpredictable' is a better word for the way people use parity. 

[Jakuvious]

8 hours ago, youngosu said:

All that said, don't like my explanation than maybe you will listen to researchers from Harvard. 

http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2016/12/which-sports-league-has-the-most-parity/

 

The NFL basically has the same level of parity as MLB despite having nearly polar opposite revenue/spending rules. 

So I guess its not really the myth of parity in the NFL but more the myth that the NFL has the most parity. Its tied for 2nd at best. 

This is a phenomenal stretch in how you're describing that source. The HSAC is a club at Harvard that runs a blog. That's it. It makes for interesting reading at times, but it's not actual peer reviewed academic research. It isn't necessarily even people that are studying or majoring in this kind of work, either statistical or sports-related. At the end of the day it's a club. 

[Superman(DH23)]

11 hours ago, youngosu said:

All that said, don't like my explanation than maybe you will listen to researchers from Harvard. 

http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2016/12/which-sports-league-has-the-most-parity/

 

The NFL basically has the same level of parity as MLB despite having nearly polar opposite revenue/spending rules. 

So I guess its not really the myth of parity in the NFL but more the myth that the NFL has the most parity. Its tied for 2nd at best. 

That article isnt really about parity in terms of wins/losses but is about parity in terms of money spent versus preseason predictions versus actual record.  

Heres some evidence of parity.  

1) NFC south.  For a DECADE this divison sent the last place team to the playoffs the next year.  They just kept rotating the title around.

2) NFC North.  Its interesting you mention the Packers dominance of the North, the problem is your sample size.  This division has been playing each other for nearly 70 years and of course the Packers Bears go back even further.  For example, the split between the Packers Bears is exactly .500 (actually I think GB just moved 1 game over for the first time in the history of the rivalry).  

3) playoff turnover.  The NFL turns over at least 5-8 playoff teams each year.  That means at least half of the teams in the playoffs every year are new teams from the previous year.  

4) Equality of opportunity.  The rules in football are designed to create a competitve environment and make bad teams good and good teams bad.  If you sign the best fas you dont get comp.picks.  You win you get moved down the draft board.  Every team required to spend the floor and every team required to spend less than the cap.  There are no teams in the NFL with 1/10th of the payroll of the top spending team. And glorious revenue sharing.  Do the Bills make exactly the same revenue as the cowboys?  No, but the discrepancy is insignificant thanks to revenue sharing.  The money in sports currently comes from tv deals.  Tv is 100% shared in the NFL.  Nobody has their own cable channel. Games are televised both locally and nationally (with virtually no blackouts) and every team gets the same piece of the pie.  This is the massive distinction between mlb and the nfl.  That revenue sharing means that my payroll comes entirely from tv and ad money and i dont have to worry about how im going to pay my costs.  On top of all that non gtd contracts play a large roll as well.

[tom cody]

I think of all the 4 main sports leagues the NFL has the most parity. Sure the Patriots have been dominant over the past few yrs. but other than that there's been plenty of parity in the league. 

[StLunatic88]

10 hours ago, Heinz D. said:

Actually he's not. He is projecting an assumption onto the future state of the MLB, when in reality we have no clue how it will actually work out. 

The new debilitating luxury tax rules are just coming into place, and actually arent even hitting these teams yet. They are all just trying to get back under the tax for this year (or next) to reset their clock on Luxury Tax spending. For years now the Yankees and Dodgers and Red Sox and others have been freely spending over the Luxury Tax and happily paying the relatively small amounts to do so.

We have no idea if this year's neutered Free Agency in baseball is the anomaly as  teams gear up for the new rules, or if this will be the normal future state of baseball's off season. We dont know what the actual impact of these new Luxury Tax rules, we can all make an assumptions, but if it just leads to shorter higher dollar contracts for players so the big market teams can dump those salaries every few years in order to reset their Luxury clock, that doesnt really fix anything, it just creates small gaps in the much bigger issue.

You cant look at what is at best a weird MLB offseason and say that its proof that the MLB has now implemented what is basically a real Cap. They said that about the NBA too, and the more you looked, it had even more loopholes than the previous CBA did.

And trying to compare vastly different leagues, with completely different schedules, rules, and individual player impacts by just using playoff appearances? Thats not going to work, and is frankly just lazy. (especially when you have decided to use "equal talent distribution" as your definition of parity, not sure why but you went with that)

[StLunatic88]

9 hours ago, youngosu said:

Okay, next time I decide to have post an argument on a message board I will be sure to get a research grant, research the topic fully, submit my paper for peer review, and if/when (fingers crossed) it passes that review and I get published I will post said argument. 

Thanks for your input. 

You really are just running through the Rolodex of bad argument strategies.

No one here is saying we need a dissertation, but you didnt set up a question and then try to solve it. From the jump in the OP you clearly had a point you were trying to prove, attempted to hide it as a question ('where is all this parity people keep talking about?') and have been trying to bully your way to people agreeing with you ever since.

You were the one who claimed that parity is equal talent distribution (again, I and most everyone here disagree with that), so his question to qualify what that is, is really the only logical response to that; How do we define equal talent?

Im sorry that you dont like it, but your definition of Parity and the measure you are using to disprove its existence do not correlate. Because according to you, if all talent is equal, then we shouldnt see any differentiation in record across the league, everyone should be 8-8, 41-41, 81-81 (man we have too many games in these sports). So the proposed metric of comparing teams that fall into that range (using some number of standard deviations from .500) will get you the actual answer to your question, given the perimeters of how you defined 'Parity'

It seems the real question you wanted to disprove, and call out the NFL and their fans for, is really "does everyone actually have a chance to win the Super Bowl?" because that is what they sell to fans every year at the draft, everyone is 0-0 today and all it takes is that great draft to get you there. Unfortunately for that question, most of the NFL Playoffs this year prove against your argument there as well. Small sample size I know, but their was a 2/3 turnover in the playoffs, and the NFC playoff teams who averaged 11.5 wins this year, average 7 wins in 2016. Two of this years Playoff teams were picking* in the Top 5 last April.