"You are what you are" is one of the greatest and most accurate sports sayings of all time. Nothing in sports is more underrated than the raw won/loss record. Far more often than not, it is the truth and the light.
For example, when I go back over this NFL season from a betting perspective that game yesterday will jump out as one of the top bargains of the year. How can a 5-5 team be a 9 point home favorite over another 5-5 team? I got +10 early in the week before Tannehill was announced as starter.
The scatter plot of .500 or worse teams late in the season will include dozens of games with a very low pointspread...-3 or less. Only a handful of games will be above 6 point favoritism, and those favorites will not fare well, to put it mildly.
This goes on every year. If you actually chart it out the results are shocking. I do it by computer these days but decades ago when I did it by hand the outlier numbers would be so startling I'd stop and double take. How could that team be favored by so much, given their record? Then you wouldn't really need to look at the outcome. No kidding they didn't cover. They never deserved to be favored by that much in the first place.
However, when the season is underway and subjectivity reigns, then the number does not look out of whack. It is incredible how much benefit of a doubt those Crowd teams can attain, merely by a short and mostly irrelevant winning streak.
I actually look at the Adam Gase situation the other way. I mentioned it last week. The fact that he wins so many games despite extremely low theoretical likelihood deep into the second half makes me believe something unique is going on. I'm not throwing it away. We shouldn't have this record with a YPPA Differential that is so miserable, among the bottom handful in the league. Likewise our 10-6 record in 2016 made no sense. Anyone who was paying attention at the time understood that. There were warnings all over this forum, from myself and many others. That bloated record in 2016 almost guaranteed a severe regression in 2017, whether Tannehill remained healthy or not.
We're a Crowd franchise and roster but Adam Gase is not a pure Crowd coach. He borrows traits from Cream, Crowd and Crap. Very rare and very intriguing, at least to me. If he could merely learn to throw away the fear and replace it with aggression we might have something.
Tough call. I'm not opposed to replacing him, but it would have to be someone undeniably special. If it's just another Crowd type, I'd prefer to stay where we are.
Ryan Tannehill is a Crowd quarterback. There is no intrigue whatsoever attached to him. I'd prefer to see Gase with Other, as opposed to Tannehill with Other. I know how the second one would turn out.
