Eagles Holiday Rush, Ravens Against the Wall

Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati Bengals, Sunday, 1 p.m.

NFL Week 16 – Imagine a world—nay, a paradise—in which the Ravens succeeded in both of their game-ending two-point conversions and went on to defeat the Steelers and Packers.

In this imaginary corner of football heaven, the Ravens are 10-4 and on pace for the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs by virtue of their Week 2 victory over the Chiefs. Tyler Huntley is being talked about as the next starting quarterback of the Steelers or Panthers. The analytics community is doing a victory lap, even though the analytics around John Harbaugh’s decisions are murky to inconclusive and Harbaugh clearly did not base his decisions on calculations. If someone blocked T.J. Watt, if Mark Andrews hauled in Lamar Jackson’s just-high-and-outside pass, or if Huntley spotted Marquise Brown in the back of the end zone, the entire AFC playoff picture and conversation surrounding the Ravens would be different.

But would the Ravens themselves be any different? They would still be missing all of their running backs and most of their cornerbacks. Their offensive line would still be depleted. Lamar Jackson would still be slumping. Their DVOA would not even change, because two-point conversions aren’t included in the calculations. (The formula would probably include a few fine defensive plays to stop the Packers’ final drive, but you get the idea.) The Ravens would be an injury-plagued, inconsistent team that won a bunch of close games if probability had not made them her punching bag. Those failed two-point conversions provide a more accurate read on the Ravens as a struggling, sagging contender doing everything possible to scratch out wins against a tough schedule.

One other thing would be very different in Ravens Probabilistic Paradise: the Bengals would not be -2.5 favorites, even with Jackson’s status for Sunday in the air.

The Bengals offense waxes and wanes based on Joe Burrow’s deep shots and they’re at the mercy of rookie kicker Evan McPherson’s ups and downs in close games, but they have achieved a sort of consistency lately: a tidy win-loss-win-loss schedule that has lasted for eight weeks. But that’s not the sort of pattern anyone should wager on. Walkthrough is more inclined to take an underdog that has higher DVOA, but we’re also keeping an eye on what could become a Ravens COVID outbreak. Flip this prediction if the Ravens are missing most of their linebackers come Sunday. Ravens 26, Bengals 21.

New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, 1 p.m.

The Eagles became the first team since the 1985 Bears to rush for 175-plus yards in seven consecutive games when they piled up 238 rushing yards against Washington on Tuesday night.

Your Arbitrary Benchmark sirens may be going off, but it’s the holidays, and it’s the Eagles, so don’t be a Grinch. OK, fine: the 175-yard threshold comes from the fact that the Eagles rushed for 176 yards in their loss to the Chargers. That said, 175 rushing yards is an impressively high figure. Even the 2019 Ravens tossed in games here and there when they rushed for “only” 138 yards or so. This isn’t a “rushed for 160 yards and intercepted two passes and kicked three 40-plus-yard field goals” type of streak.

The 1985 Bears streak, as you might imagine, involved Walter Payton thumping out lots of yards in blowout victories against opponents whose quarterbacks were lucky to survive the game. Jim McMahon was healthy at the start of the streak but gave way to backup quarterbacks Steve Fuller and Mike Tomczak by the end. The streak snapped when the Bears suffered their only loss of that season on Monday night against Dan Marino and the Dolphins. They rushed for “only” 167 yards in a game that they trailed 31-10 at halftime. The 1985 Bears weren’t “built to come back,” for all that it mattered.

The undefeated 1972 Dolphins and soon-to-be-Steel Curtain 1972 Steelers each had streaks of eight games of 175-plus rushing yards. The Dolphins streak was bookended by games in which they rushed for 174 yards and 170 yards. The Steelers were still germinating—no Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert, or others just yet—and they won lots of game with Franco Harris and defense. The 1972 season marked the start of the NFL’s Dead Ball Era, and there were still some competitive balance issues in the wake of the merger (the Patriots, Houston Oilers, and a few other teams weren’t being run very professionally at that point), so it’s not surprising to see two 1972 powerhouses on this list.

The all-time NFL record for consecutive 175-plus-yard games is not an NFL record, and the games were not really consecutive. The New York Yankees of the AAFC rushed for 175-plus yards in nine straight games between 1947 and 1948, excluding their AAFC championship loss to the Browns. The name to know here is Spec Sanders, a superstar tailback (quarterback), defensive back, punter, and return man who would be in the Hall of Fame if A) he did not elect to serve in the Navy during WWIl, then return to University of Texas to complete his degree in his mid-20s; and/or B) the Yankees survived the AAFC-NFL mini-merger as an actual franchise instead of a weird series of historical footnotes that ended with the formation of the Baltimore Colts.

Anyway, Sanders was awesome, and the Eagles’ rushing streak is made even more remarkable by the fact that they spent a chunk of October trying not to run the football at all. The Eagles look more like a worthy wild-card team than the Saints, Washington, or (in Walkthrough’s biased opinion) the Vikings.

As for the Giants, Daniel Jones has been deactivated for the remainder of 2021 so he can be a pawn in the upcoming Judge-Mara Wars he can recover from the neck injury he suffered in the last meeting with the Eagles. Mike Glennon is performing exactly as well as anyone who has ever watched Mike Glennon expected him to perform. Jake Fromm went 6-of-12 for 82 yards in a garbage-time drive against pillow-soft coverage last week—sources sitting next to Walkthrough took the Cowboys -11, keeping us VERY invested in those final plays—and Joe Judge threatened at the start of the week that Fromm could take over as the starter based on that “impressive” effort.

The Giants are a great example of what happens when clueless people gain too much power. Eagles 23, Giants 10. (Note: News of Nick Sirianni’s COVID unavailability broke as we went to editing. We’re still picking the Eagles.)

Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots, Sunday, 1 p.m.

Now for some straight talk about the Patriots and their physicality in the trenches in the wake of their Week 15 “manhandling” by the Colts:

• The Colts offensive line overpowered the Patriots on Saturday night. The Patriots offensive line, however, played well against the Colts defense. Mac Jones’ pass protection, particularly in the second half, was excellent. The Patriots couldn’t run the ball because Damien Harris was unavailable, the Colts sold out to stuff the run in a few short-yardage situations, and—most importantly—the Patriots trailed by two scores for much of the game.
   
• The Patriots run defense also got pushed around a bit in the first half by the Titans in Week 12. The Titans had no healthy playmakers, however, and the Patriots were able to exploit turnovers, kick field goals, and pull away.
   
• The Patriots outperformed the Bills in the trenches on both sides of the ball in Week 13. But it was hardly the overwhelming defeat it was made out to be. One 64-yard Harris run provided half the Patriots’ points and 27% of their net offense. Most Patriots drives were non-productive, and the Bills had plenty of opportunities to win. The Bills lost due to a poor game plan and red zone blunders, not because they were thoroughly outclassed physically.

All recent evidence suggests that the Patriots have a very good defense, but hardly a historic one. They also have a very capable and experienced offensive line that shouldn’t be mistaken for the early 1990s Cowboys. They won seven straight games by playing mostly mistake-free, complementary football, then got a taste of their own medicine.

The blueprint for defeating the Patriots does not necessarily involve dominating them in the trenches, and the Bills should not try to do that. The Bills are better equipped to roll out to a big lead and unleash their pass rush. That should be their goal. As for physicality, well, the proof the Colts provided that the Patriots lines aren’t patrolled by superheroes should reassure the Bills that, yes, they can do this.

The team that dictates the terms of this engagement will win: Bills if by air, Patriots if by ground. Both teams were having COVID issues at press time, so it’s tempting to take this game off the board. But Walkthrough is giving the Bills one last benefit of the doubt. We’ll probably regret it on Monday morning. Bills 27, Patriots 26.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, 4:25 p.m.

There have been three types of Steelers games in 2021:

• Blowout losses, often with a late quasi-comeback to make the final score look close;
• Sloppy wins in which neither team looks good;
• Ties.

The tie was just an undercooked sloppy win, so let’s lump it into the second category.

The sloppy wins are generally low scoring and are built upon a handful of high-leverage events: opponents’ fumbles after completed passes (Titans, Browns), fourth-down or two-point conversion stops (Browns, Ravens), penalty chaos (Bears), and huge gains on sketchy underthrown pass interference penalties (henceforth to be known as the Flaming Roethlisberger). Most of the sloppy wins have also come against severely depleted opponents: the Seahawks without Russell Wilson, the Ravens and Titans without much of anybody.

The blowout losses, with or without mini-comebacks, typically occur against quality teams that are healthy enough to defend themselves. Frankly, the Steelers’ only path to victory most weeks is “hope T.J. Watt goes HAM and we get a bunch of breaks.”

The full-strength Chiefs would obliterate the Steelers the way the Bengals did twice and the Chargers and Vikings did for three quarters. But the Chiefs top this week’s COVID crisis list, so the availability of Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, and others is in doubt. So we’re taking this game off the board, because if there’s one thing the Steelers excel at, it’s beating an opponent when they are already down.

Indianapolis Colts at Arizona Cardinals, Saturday, 8:15 p.m.

Be afraid, Cardinals fans.

Your defense just allowed 112 rushing yards to a Houston Astros shortstop from the 1980s. Kliff Kingsbury’s offense has gotten far too cutesy-poo late in the season. And the Colts just out-muscled the Patriots. After such a promising start and middle to their season, the 2021 Cardinals are looking a little like the 2020 Cardinals: fun, clever, but not resilient enough to finish the job.

Of course, that could be Recency Bias talking. The Cardinals beat the Titans and Browns, a pair of ground-and-pound AFC teams similar to the Colts, by a combined 75-27 final score earlier in the year (when the Titans were at full strength). The ability to thoroughly outclass opponents in the trenches appears to come and go with factors such as injuries, fatigue, and scheme that can be impossible to predict: just ask the Patriots. Also, Walkthrough hasn’t gained any trust in Carson Wentz simply because he has perfected the handoff to Jonathan Taylor.

The Cardinals may have “looked past” the Lions, which is a problem in itself: well-coached teams that are suited to the long playoff haul don’t fall into trap games. But Walkthrough likes the Cardinals to snap their mini-slump against a Colts team that isn’t really as dominant as they looked on Saturday night. Cardinals 28, Colts 24.

Denver Broncos at Las Vegas Raiders, Sunday, 4:25 p.m.

This game came so tantalizingly close to the sweet, blessed oblivion of irrelevance on Monday night. Alas, the Raiders beat the Browns on a last-second field goal, and now both the Raiders and Broncos are still alive. At least the loser will be eliminated from the playoffs, unless the Chiefs and Chargers both lose, or the Bills and Colts, or the Dolphins … the Dolphins!? Hurl this damn conference into a volcano.

Drew Lock replaced injured Teddy Bridgewater against the Bengals last week and promptly threw an impressive touchdown pass to Tim Patrick. He looked sharp at the start of the next Broncos series. Then came the hijinks: the Khalid Kareem snatch-and-go fumble, then a sequence on the final drive (when the Broncos could still win with a touchdown) of near-interceptions and unacceptable sacks. Lock, the likely Broncos starter this week, tied Carson Wentz for the league lead with 15 interceptions last season. I forgot that he played enough last season to lead the league in anything. Lock is that kind of player.

The Raiders were so flat and listless on Monday afternoon that they nearly lost to a Browns’ preseason-game roster. Perhaps they will be more inspired to face a divisional rival. Walkthrough will be more inspired to watch Steelers-Chiefs. Raiders 20, Broncos 16.

Washington Football Team at Dallas Cowboys, Sunday, 8:20 p.m.

It feels like lots of folks are just trying to borrow problems for the Dallas Cowboys. Cowboys fans want to keep worrying after the team’s November struggles. Those of us along the I-95 corridor enjoy taking potshots at the Cowboys. Anyone who bases their talking points on television ratings and web traffic knows that Cowboys Plus Controversy Equals Engagement. And just about everyone is waiting for the inevitable silly Cowboys late-season pratfall, because they’re the blundering comic-relief villains in the NFL’s annual morality tale.

Dak Prescott is allegedly in some wicked slump, but he ranks sixth in DYAR. Part of Prescott’s “problem” has been drops, most notably by CeeDee Lamb. Some tougher-than-advertised defenses have also been a factor: look what the Saints just did to Tom Brady. The Cowboys’ Week 14 victory over Washington has been retconned as a close call, when in fact they just let up a little too soon against a backup quarterback in a blowout. Something broadly similar happened against the Giants last week. The Chiefs built their “We’re BACK, baby” winning streak out of lots of victories like the Cowboys’ Saints-Washington-Giants run. The Packers have built much of their season out of such victories. The Cowboys look the way contenders that don’t get to play the Jets over and over again look in 2021.

Washington should get some offensive starters back by Sunday night, but their biggest issue on Tuesday was that their not-that-depleted defense gave up 238 rushing yards to the Eagles. Like the Cowboys, Washington went through a misleading November. Wednesday’s 10.5-point spread will surely tighten once Tyler Heinicke clears protocols, but this game should not really be close. Cowboys 30, Washington 20.

Miami Dolphins at New Orleans Saints, Monday, 8:15 p.m.

Let this be the final referendum on Tua Tagovailoa, Quarterback of the Future.

Tagovailoa had another up-and-down day against the Jets. He threw two ugly interceptions, one of them a pick-six, but also threw two touchdown passes and engineered several long touchdown drives. Of course, he did all of this against the Jets and their Pac-12 defense. Yes, but, leading a comeback against any team demonstrates the encouraging resilience to bounce back from mistakes, right? Also, the Dolphins rely too heavily on RPOs. But they are working and the Dolphins are winning, so who’s to say what “over-reliance” means?

Enough.

The Saints just shut out Tom Brady. Their defense knows they must keep opponents under 17 points or so to keep them in the playoff chase. If Tagovailoa plays well enough to win against the Saints, Walkthrough will be comfortable with his 2021 development. If he lays an egg, it’s reasonable to worry that his recent success was mostly a schedule-and-scheme mirage. And if Brian Flores gets antsy and pulls Tua, we know what the organization (or at least the coaching staff) really thinks.

So this is it: brutal final exam, pass or fail, fish or cut bait.

For Tua, anyway. Taysom Hill is merely auditing the NFL. Dolphins 20, Saints 17.

Cleveland Browns at Green Bay Packers, Saturday, 4:30 p.m.

The Packers are the only team in the NFL that can make headlines by signing a special teams gunner to their practice squad. Peter Kalambayi played three seasons with the Texans, recording 18 special teams tackles, according to the Packers website. Kalambayi won’t prevent bad snaps or shanked punts in critical situations, he cannot make Mason Crosby eight years younger, and he cannot do much about all the Packers’ special teams penalties, but perhaps he can prevent a long return or two once he’s elevated (probably for Saturday).

Aaron Schatz wrote at length about the Packers’ low DVOA figures and unimpressive Pythagorean Wins total on Tuesday. The short version: their season has been full of close wins over middleweight opponents such as the 49ers, Steelers, Bengals, Washington, and the Ravens, so they lack the huge blowouts that are typically the mark of great teams.

Tortoise tactics don’t work against the Packers, who can usually count on reaching 17 points on just a handful of splash plays and then keep ground-and-pound opponents at arm’s length. The Browns, even when closer to full strength, aren’t built to match up with them. Packers 27, Browns 17.

Los Angeles Rams at Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, 1 p.m.

Von Miller was the first high-profile NFL player to contract COVID (and a rather severe case, at that) in the spring of 2020. He was one of many players who ended up on the Rams COVID list last week. And Miller, like Jalen Ramsey and Odell Beckham, was among the Rams starters who benefited from the postponement of the Seahawks game by clearing protocols early Tuesday morning.

“Crazy times. It’s been a crazy week,” Miller said after the Seahawks victory, per ESPN’s Linsey Thiry. “I didn’t know what to expect. I took the test, went home, started playing Call of Duty at 6:45, 7 a.m. … Got the call that I was cleared, and I was like, ‘Oh, snap!’ I finished my game, and then I went upstairs and started packing.”

That’s right: Miller suddenly discovered he would be starting in a playoff-important NFL game in just a few hours, but he still finished his game of Call of Duty.

NFL Hall of Famers are just like you and me.

The Rams will be even closer to full strength on Sunday and should crush the Vikings. But traveling from Los Angeles to frigid Minneapolis on a short week can be rough. The Rams were just three-point favorites at press time, and Walkthrough wouldn’t lay a single point more. Rams 23, Vikings 20.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Carolina Panthers, Sunday, 1 p.m.

Chris Godwin is out for the season with an ACL tear. Leonard Fournette (hamstring) was expected to go on the IR at press time. Mike Evans’ status (hamstring) was unclear. And Lavonte David (foot) is also out for the rest of the regular season .

Poor Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. What did they do to deserve such a rash of injuries?

Oh yeah, that’s right: they enjoyed an almost unprecedented run of good injury fortune in 2020, leading to a championship.

Oh yeah, that’s also right: they tempted the cosmic forces of justice by signing Antonio Brown, who is back from suspension and as charming as ever.

The Buccaneers can beat the Panthers with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and 20 guys named Jaelon Darden. But can they cover a 10.5-point spread with all of those injuries? Based on their 2-1 record against the spread in last year’s Falcons-Lions-Falcons end-of-season sando, we’re guessing they’re gonna allow one backdoor cover during their Panthers-Jets-Panthers Darnoldburger. This might have been the week if not for the Panthers’ kicker woes: they signed Lirim Hajrullahu off Washington’s practice squad to replace Zane Gonzalez. We wish Hajrullahu good luck, but we aren’t wagering money on his ability to keep the Panthers close. Buccaneers 26, Panthers 13.

Detroit Lions at Atlanta Falcons, Sunday, 1 p.m.

The Lions and Falcons are each rebuilding teams led by first-year coaches and veteran quarterbacks. The Falcons faced several easy opponents, have a more capable quarterback in Matt Ryan, and enjoyed a little close-game luck for the first time in four years, so they hung around the wild-card chase. The Lions faced a difficult schedule, have the weaker quarterback in Jared Goff, and suffered catastrophic late-game luck, so they started the season 0-10-1. DVOA informed us through all of it that there wasn’t much difference in quality between the two teams, and that the Lions might actually be better.

The Lions were 5.5-point road underdogs at press time.

You know what to do, folks. Falcons 22, Lions 20.

Jacksonville Jaguars at New York Jets, Sunday, 1 p.m.

With the Lions on the rise, the Jaguars and Jets may be playing for the first overall pick in the 2022 draft. The Jaguars are the heavy favorites to earn that pick, and they are coming off a listless effort on a soggy afternoon to the Houston Texans, who should have even lower morale at this point in the season than they do. The Jets didn’t run, block, or tackle well enough to stick with the Dolphins, but at least they emptied the playbook of gadgets and held a lead for a while.

Walkthrough planned to take the Jets’ haplessness over the Jaguars’ hopelessness before the Jets’ midweek COVID outbreak made this sad game even sadder. Now, we’re just rooting for good health off the field and entertaining chaos on it. Jaguars 24, Jets 19.

Chicago Bears at Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, 4:05 p.m.

The Matt Nagy Era in Chicago began with defensive tackles scoring big-man touchdowns from funky goal-line formations and an ever-surprising Bears offense performing like the Chiefs Lite while the defense hammered out victories for a 12-4 team in 2018. It ended with Nagy throwing an embarrassing vein-popping conniption at an official while Justin Fields executed a high school offense in an ugly loss that knocked the Bears out of the playoff field.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they react when they realize they’re about to be fired. Do they respond with dignity and grace or take their frustrations out on the undeserving? Those who do the latter are usually telling us that they did not deserve their opportunity in the first place. Seahawks 20, Bears 16.

Los Angeles Chargers at Houston Texans, Sunday, 1 p.m.

In light of the Chargers’ three failed fourth-down conversions in the red zone in their Thursday night loss to the Chiefs in Week 15, Walkthrough proposes a corollary to the analytics community’s Theory of Fourth-Down Aggression. We’re christening it the Staley Corollary:

One percentage point of win probability is not worth getting stuffed into a locker over.

In other words: if the probabilities are razor-thin, and a failed conversion has a real chance of frustrating and demoralizing the team, then kick the field goal (or, conceivably, punt).

We’re thinking of the Chargers’ failed conversion before halftime on Thursday, as well as the failed Broncos conversion at the end of a 20-play marathon drive against the Chiefs in Week 13. Neither situation was a probabilistic slam dunk. Both drives ended in throw-the-helmet-at-the-wall frustration just before halftime, no doubt impacting both the mood in the locker room and the tactical approach to the second half. In both cases, we needed something to show for our effort would have been an acceptable justification for a field goal.

This is not an anti-analytical stance. It’s a mathematically sound one. The Staley Corollary acknowledges that our tenth-of-a-decimal-accurate models are crammed with estimates and assumptions about many factors, starting with the relative qualities of both teams. There’s an implicit plus-or-minus X% in every fourth-down calculation. When decisions fall within the margin for error, coaches (and analytics evangelists) should accept a percentage point of fudge factor and accept that some “judgment calls” do require judgment.

Staley’s Corollary won’t catch on because it’s more fun for both sides to be shrill and combative about fourth-down decisions. But feel free to use it anytime it’s fourth-and-6 at the 19-yard line before halftime and you find yourself mumbling, “Golly, I would just take the three here. Does that make me an anti-intellectual Luddite?” No, it does not. And no, none of this should matter against the Texans. Chargers 34, Texans 16.

And Finally…

Quick: What’s 30% of 30%?

You are a Football Outsiders reader, and therefore comfortable with mathematical analysis, so you probably knew the answer without a calculator. You may even be a little offended that I asked. Sorry. I’m on my soapbox here.

Imagine walking around your local tavern offering a gift card to anyone who could answer the question “What’s 30% of 30%?” I guarantee you that some fully functional adults, folks who are successful in their everyday lives, would answer “60%.” Many others would chuckle and say something like “It has been 20 years since I took a math course” as if you were asking them to find the vertex of a parabola or something. A few might try to punch you.

How many folks would provide the correct answer? It probably depends on the socioeconomic makeup of your tavern, what time you are walking around (makeup and sobriety of the crowd), and the size of the gift card (for $100, more folks would start scribbling on cocktail napkins). Maybe 30% would know the right answer. Maybe 30% of 30%. This old math teacher doubts it would be higher than 60%.

The problem with arguments about fourth downs and two-point conversions isn’t that NFL traditionalists are troglodytes, it’s that most Americans are terrible at calculating and interpreting simple percentages.

Lots of very educated people implicitly interpret all binary yes/no situations—either you score a two-point conversion or you don’t—as a 50-50 “coin flip.” Or, and this is equally common, some people equate an 80% chance of success with a guarantee. And once we start linking probability chains together, forget about it. There are politicians, corporate executives, and school superintendents who cannot do the basic math needed to interpret things such as misleading denominators or percentages-versus-percentage points-versus percentiles, let alone juggle the subtle interpretations required to assess risks and rewards. Bill Cowher doesn’t have a chance.

There was a lot of talk after last Thursday night’s Failed Fourth-Down Conversion Bowl and Sunday’s Baltimore Ravens Two-Point Cataclysm II that analytics experts should be available to telecasts in a Mike Periera-type role. I would love to do that! More realistically, I would love to see Aaron Schatz do that. Even more realistically, I would love to see (sorry, Aaron) one of the more telegenic young Football Outsiders do that. OK, fine, it would be Steve Kornacki, but he’s cool.

At any rate, I don’t think an analytics expert would help much. Most viewers would hear “the Chargers’ win probability would have increased by 1.3% on that conversion but decreased by 0.8% if they settled for a field goal” and their eyes would glaze over. Phil Simms would end the segment with, “Bottom line, it didn’t work,” and he would be the hero of all the 60-percenters in the tavern.

Understanding basic percentages and probability doesn’t provide you with all the answers. But it’s essential if we hope to properly frame questions about whether or not a certain choice is “correct.” That’s what is lacking from the in-game, on-the-air analytics conversation right now, as well as many other conversations.

What I would like more than seeing some trusted colleague or chartthrob explain fourth-down conversions—call it my unattainable Christmas wish—is a community that understands the fundamentals of percentages and basic probability. I want math curriculums that don’t treat percentages like just another algorithm and probability like some kooky side quest on the road to calculus (which few humans actually need). I wish for news networks and programs that take time to explain the percentages and probabilities behind issues instead of curating the juiciest or most misleading figures to use as story seasoning or a bully pulpit. I wish for politicians to use statistics appropriately and ethically, but that’s just getting silly. Instead, I wish for parents who are comfortable enough with math to both help their children with their homework and prioritize its importance.

I wish for an entire nation that can be asked, “If the Ravens have an 80% chance of scoring a touchdown on fourth-and-goal, and an 80% chance of making their two point conversion, what is the probability that they will score eight points on this drive?” and come up with the correct answer of 72%.

Kidding! KIDDING.

But I don’t want to go on television to explain the odds of going for two. I want it to be unnecessary for anyone to explain the odds of going for two on television, because most viewers truly understand the concepts, if not the precise calculations.

But wait … that might make both me and Football Outsiders obsolete.

Never mind.