The Advanced NFL Stats Counter had the Seahawks' chances to win at around 90% for most of the second quarter.  The Seahawks' actual chances to win peaked at maybe 55% when they were up 14-0.  Seahawks fans knew this.  With a 17-10 halftime lead, the Hawks were underdogs with a fighting chance to upset.

This is what we keep sermonizing about, that as well-intentioned as our formulas might be, they have a dickens of a time capturing all of the variables that human intuition does.

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OK, if you have 1,000 NFL games that are at 14-0 with 5:00 left in the 2nd quarter ... 900 of them are won by the guys up two scores.  Beautiful!  No problems there.

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Now how many of those 1,000 NFL games had a well-below-.500 team that was up +14 .... to a Super Bowl team that was playing at home?    Let's just say 50 of those games*.   Those games were, I'll wager, more like 25 wins and 25 losses.

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Now how many of those 50 games were played between a +14 weak team that had just been crushed at home by the defending Super Bowl team?

You see where I'm going with this.   You could go on and on.  How many of the teams up by +14 in the second, had capsizable offensive lines -- lines well capable of completely disintegrating?   How many of the teams -14 had a 21st-century techno trio of spectacular WR's with which to play catchup... compared to teams that had running games and were down -14?

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There's nothing wrong with simple, one-size-fits-all math formulas.   But have respect for the complexity of the problems.   The computer thought the Seahawks had a 90% chance to win in the 2nd quarter, because the computer is colorblind to lots and lots of real-life factors.

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Dr. D is not quick to call for coach's heads.  But I was always dubious about Jim Mora Jr., and at halftime today, I realized that Mora was not going to be able to coach his team out of the nosediving momentum.

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There was a replay on TV in which the Seahawks had just been victimized by a crushing challenge-and-review -- Mora was on the sidelines, arms apart, saying limply "What the Heck?"  That's verbatim.

I would be glad to go to dinner with the man; I admire him as a person; I like him and wish him well.  In my humble opinion he has one thing in common with me:  he's not NFL coaching material.

He's not the guy.  No way in the world.

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This is a team that's going to finish way under Pythag, per yards and W/L.   It has talent.  It's got Hass, it's got WR's, it's got lots of talented defenders in the front seven.   But at the critical moments of the game, it gets bullied. 

This team doesn't have It.   Of course, neither did the 2008 Hawks.

Chuck Knox used to actually coach to this:  there will be 5 pivot points, 5 plays that decide the game.  You've got to get 4 of them.  Chuck willed his teams to win those pivot points (or maybe he just picked the types of players, the Easleys and Youngs, who exploited them).

Mora isn't the type of guy to will his team to anything.  It's not a knock, just an observation / opinion.

Cheers,

Dr D