Following the analytics-driven Lions’ big loss in the NFC Championship Game, some football Luddites are embracing the same dumb anti-math mind-set that baseball overcame decades ago, writes Will Leitch.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that, in almost any field, from sports to politics to economics to media to parenthood, there are essentially two types of people: people who want new information, and people who don’t. You have people who are trying to learn, and you have people who have decided that what they already think is just fine, thank you. Perhaps not coincidentally, as the years go by, the first group tends to transform inexorably into the second. But — and this is what’s most important — in the end, the second group always loses.
On Sunday, the long-suffering Detroit Lions, trying to reach their first Super Bowl ever, blew a 17-point lead to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. Many, many things went wrong for the Lions during a nightmarish second half, from dropped passes to untimely penalties to a freakish, act-of-God play in which a Lions defender had a pass bounce through his hands and off his helmet and somehow end up with a game-changing 49ers 51-yard play that led to momentum-shifting touchdown:
After re-watching the second half of 49ers-Lions: I can’t even focus on the fourth down calls because I’m still in shock that this play somehow ended up being a 51-yard gain for the 49ers. pic.twitter.com/xMaRsBoQEj— John Breech (@johnbreech) January 29, 2024
Of all the things that went wrong for the Lions, though, the takeaway from many old-school NFL observers the morning after was: They used too much math.
The reason? Lions coach Dan Campbell, a hyperaggressive metalhead former linebacker who looks and acts like a professional wrestler and thus no one’s idea of a pencil pusher, uses analytics. Specifically, he, guided by his analytically driven front office, followed statistical probability in his decision making rather than whatever may or may not have been in his gut. Thus, Campbell passed on multiple opportunities to kick field goals (worth three points) and instead go for touchdowns (six points; 6 > 3) in key moments, and, unfortunately for him and his team, the probabilities didn’t pay off for him; the Lions missed on two huge fourth-down plays, which led directly to the 49ers victory.
As someone who has obsessed over baseball for as long as I’ve known baseball exists, it is difficult to overstate the impact analytics had on how I (and so many others) viewed the game, thanks to the analytical baseball writers like Bill James and Rob Neyer who introduced me (and countless others) to this lens.
