Some thoughts on pro football.
Obviously, excitement is running very, very high out here about the Seahawks. So people are "doing the math" to predict the outcome of games, and predictably, most people are very, very bad at math. They pick out specific data points and hold them up as if they are omens. And it's not just Seahawks fans that are bad about this. Before the NFC Divisional Round game Niners fans made much of this: "Brock Purdy has never lost a game in Seattle." Then Purdy got neutered in Seattle and sent to bed without dinner.
So now, Seahawks fans are predicting a similar schooling is going to be administered to the Rams come Sunday, and their data point is the 2014 Super Bowl, where the #1 ranked defense in the league (Seahawks) went up against the #1 offense in the league (Broncos), and the Broncos got embarrassed. That could happen Sunday, but there's no real reason to believe it will happen. People are crazy.
Near as I can tell, the only analytic that means much in football is Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average. DVOA. On that scale, the Seahawks and the Rams are so closely matched that Seattle's slight lead arguably disappears into the margin of error. Overwhelming a banged-up squad, no matter how impressively it had performed all season with so many key players sidelined by injuries, is just not comparable to facing down a Rams squad that is firing on most, if not all, of its cylinders. Some point out that the Rams struggled against the Bears, whose defense distantly trailed Seattle's even in DVOA. But DVOA doesn't track the weather, and anyone who didn't note that the cold in Chicago played havoc with that game has insufficient understanding of physics. Both QBs were over-leading their receivers, because the receivers couldn't move as fast as usual without losing their footing. And when passes were accurate they were bouncing off receivers' hands because the ball was firmer.
It won't be that cold in Seattle on Sunday, so expecting that Matt Stafford is going to struggle with accuracy and Rams receivers are going to drop balls is foolhardy.
Further, while trying to pressure Stafford might be a great idea, the man is very good at picking up blitzes and penalizing defenses for that. He unloads the ball very quickly, and with accuracy. Seattle's defensive front is very, very good, but Mike McDonald knows better than to try to beat the Rams by loading the box and blitzing a lot. That would be a recipe for disaster. Better to let the defensive line try to do what it can, while containing the Rams receivers. Seattle has proven it can deprive even the Rams of yardage after reception, and in the long run that will be a better strategy against the Rams.
I predict the NFC Championship game will be a very close and hard-fought game, and I think it's quite possible this game might prove to be the "real" Super Bowl.
