Most Depressing Losses of All Time

[Zot]

Yup. That Pats game basically made me rethink how I watch sports. I threw a temper tantrum after the game like an angry toddler. I threw all my chargers gear around the house.

I just don't allow football to affect me that way anymore.

curious how we're all on the same "path" lol

[BlazingBolt]

Because it's not statistically valid.

You can't just state statistics are not valid arbitrarily. Well you can, but it's silly.

Panama, this is not a disagreement, it is simply me trying to make him realize he is wrong. He just doesn't realize what he is saying, there is a communication breakdown happening.

The statistical probability of the chance of victory is not the same thing as a statistic like completion percentage. He seems to think it is. Yeah if you quote completion percentage after 1 pass or something like that he has a point, you can cherry pick the stats to say meaningless things. But he can not correctly claim the statistical probability of the chance for victory is the same thing....it's insanity. He is not understanding definitions and facts. He is just plain wrong.

And man, the McCree thing. He is making my point for me and not realizing it. Crazy. I mis-spoke when I said they needed a FG. We were up 8 points. I did not even look it up but he says there was 6:25 left on the clock. Regardless of the play, even if we have the ball and an 8 point lead with 6:25 left in the game...that game is not over, it is still a one possesion game with enough time for them to stop us and get the ball back. My point is this, that game is still not 100% over if McCree bats the ball down. It is not just kneel downs or anything like that. Stopping them on that play it would have made sense for the offense to try and score to make it a 2 possession game right? Well anytime it makes sense that a team should score again it makes sense for a defender to try a return in my opinion....but my point is simply that the game is not over if he doesn't fumble it, we would still have had to have made some plays to put it away. McCrees biggest sin is that he did not protect the ball well enough (because he fumbled), it was not that he tried to run with it.

[homeless simpson]

back to the topic of the thread, i have short term memory, so if we lost the week before, it would be the most depressing loss i would remember.

[BlazingBolt]

I'm the one who doesn't get it, or so it would seem. I have no idea what point you two are arguing.

Like I said...this thread...like opening up a painful, old wound that just won't heal.

Point 1: If Marlon McCree does not fumble that 4th down INT against the Patriots, that did not guarantee Chargers victory. There was still time left and we were going to have to run offensive plays.

Point 2: Statistical probability is not arbitrary.

Both are facts, not sure where the communication break down is. I know I am not the greatest communicator so maybe it's my fault because I don't understand how some one is disagreeing with those points.

[BlazingBolt]

It was very clear from the replay that the TD would be overturned. Woodhead got close, but he did not get in. Nothing questionable about the reversal. There was clear and incontrovertible video evidence that he did not break the plane of the goal line. I'd have been thrilled if they'd upheld the call, but it would have been another blown call in a poorly officiated game.

I felt it was just as clear that Woodhead fumbled earlier.

In both cases there was no single shot that showed both things even though it looked that way. I never saw a shot that showed woodhead down with the ball clearly short of the goal line. I never saw a shot that showed the ball was out before his knee was down either. In both cases it looks like he was short and it looked like he fumbled, I just never saw the definitive indisputable shot that proved it.

Replay is not perfect.

[homeless simpson]

I never saw a shot that showed woodhead down with the ball clearly short of the goal line.

majority of people beg to differ on that one.

[KYBoltsFan]

I will say that the '06 Pats game was just bizarre enough that had McCree knocked the ball down, we probably would have lost anyway. It was just that kind of day. Look at the stats of that game...we dominated in every category except score. It's freakish.

[BlazingBolt]

majority of people beg to differ on that one.

I am not saying there was no shot that showed him being down and short of the goal, I just never saw it. I tried to find it and couldn't so I felt there was a chance the Td might stand.

If you have a shot that shows it I would be interested to see it.

Did you think the earlier play was a clear fumble?

[Big Dog]

For me, the loss to the Benegals in 1982 ... I was on such a high after the Epic in Miami that I was certain we would win the Superbowl, it was destiny, it was our year ... best day as a Chargers fan ... January 2, 1982 !

[ArtistFormerlyKnownAsBKR]

You can't just state statistics are not valid arbitrarily. Well you can, but it's silly.

Panama, this is not a disagreement, it is simply me trying to make him realize he is wrong. He just doesn't realize what he is saying, there is a communication breakdown happening.

The statistical probability of the chance of victory is not the same thing as a statistic like completion percentage. He seems to think it is. Yeah if you quote completion percentage after 1 pass or something like that he has a point, you can cherry pick the stats to say meaningless things. But he can not correctly claim the statistical probability of the chance for victory is the same thing....it's insanity. He is not understanding definitions and facts. He is just plain wrong.

And man, the McCree thing. He is making my point for me and not realizing it. Crazy. I mis-spoke when I said they needed a FG. We were up 8 points. I did not even look it up but he says there was 6:25 left on the clock. Regardless of the play, even if we have the ball and an 8 point lead with 6:25 left in the game...that game is not over, it is still a one possesion game with enough time for them to stop us and get the ball back. My point is this, that game is still not 100% over if McCree bats the ball down. It is not just kneel downs or anything like that. Stopping them on that play it would have made sense for the offense to try and score to make it a 2 possession game right? Well anytime it makes sense that a team should score again it makes sense for a defender to try a return in my opinion....but my point is simply that the game is not over if he doesn't fumble it, we would still have had to have made some plays to put it away. McCrees biggest sin is that he did not protect the ball well enough (because he fumbled), it was not that he tried to run with it.

Well-constructed statistics are not arbitrary. Their usage, can be however. In this case it is arbitrary to draw the conclusions you have across games. Your agenda is to claim there is a trend of choking away "high probability victories." You extrapolate from cherry-picked high-points of probability of victory. You could just as easily construct some theory from the low-probabilities in each of those games and conclude losses were inevitable. It would be just as valid. Please go back and tell me what the probability of victory was when Washington scored at 7:00 to go up by 10 after the Rivers INT. The shocking choke job was preceded by an impressive comeback. Again, when you boil everything down to one point in time, you lose context. Kind of like saying the QB is 10 for his last 10, when he is also 10 for his last 100. In the first case, he looks brilliant. In the second case, he looks horrible.

The misunderstanding isn't on my part. I understand what is being argued, I just don't agree with it.

The usage of the completion percentage statistic was not to compare like types of statistics. It was to compare similar (mis)uses of statistics.

Your argument on McCree is nonsense. Knock down. Change of possession. Touchdown drive thwarted. 8 points off the board. Again, use your own probability theory here. What was the probability of victory with a knockdown? Boomerangs on you.

[BlazingBolt]

McCree intercepted the ball, that was a change of a possession. Offense could of fumbled on the next offensive play. Once McCree intercepts the ball technically we are on offense at that point. What is the difference? Why should McCree waste that offensive play and just lay down? Would that be what the offensive play call would have been? Lie down so you don't risk fumbling.....that would be brilliant. It's the same thing, if it doesn't make sense for the offense to lay down to not risk fumbling than it doesn't make sense for McCree to do so either. It would be a wasted offensive down.

His mistake was not protecting the ball. If he doesn't fumble there no one remembers the play and no one ever even thinks he is a fool for a second or that he should have just batted the ball down.

And yeah Washington probably had a favorable percentage probability to win at that point up by 10. So what. I am guessing your point than is the entire probability statistic is something you don't care about. I wonder why you are discussing it than? It's simply a measure of degree of how much the game is locked up. Not comparable to your 10 straight out of the last 100 in any mathematical way. If you are just shitting on the probability in general as a statistic, fine that's your opinion whatever., it just sounded to me like you didn't understand what it meant. I am still not sure if you do or not but whatever. I am not sure if you understand that Washington blowing that 10 point lead is not as shocking as a the leads the chargers blew. Blowing the 10 point lead required out defense to make one stop

[Panama]

Panama, this is not a disagreement, it is simply me trying to make him realize he is wrong. He just doesn't realize what he is saying, there is a communication breakdown happening.

The statistical probability of the chance of victory is not the same thing as a statistic like completion percentage. He seems to think it is. Yeah if you quote completion percentage after 1 pass or something like that he has a point, you can cherry pick the stats to say meaningless things. But he can not correctly claim the statistical probability of the chance for victory is the same thing....it's insanity. He is not understanding definitions and facts. He is just plain wrong.

Well, actually, no, in this case you are wrong, because you are missing the crux of his argument.

He is not saying that at any given point in a game there is no win/loss probability for a given team. We all agree that there is.

He is saying that whoever determines these published probabilities is using a cherry-picked arbitrary set of statistics, and that this probability becomes decreasingly relevant the further from the end of the game one ends. And in this sense, he is correct. It is patently ridiculous to say that a team's win probability is x% in the 3rd quarter of a game. Why? Because it is simply impossible to take every possible scenario into account. The possibilities are limitless. In order to determine a probability, you have to have a finite set of possibilities. With that much time left in the game, the only way to limit the set of possibilities from an infinite set to a finite set is to hand pick the specific possibilities you want to consider (BKR's cherry-picked stats). He concedes that with 21 second left the set of possiblities becomes limited enough that a probability can be determined with a statistically valid and acceptable margin of error, but he is correct not to concede that point when the set of possibilities is practically infinite.

Now, if you claim that, no, in fact, there is only a limited set of possibilities at any point in a game and the probability of each course of action can be reliably determined, then the two of you simply disagree. But I suspect you haven't gotten to that stage yet and simply don't understand BKR's objections.