I’ve officially landed on this conclusion.
Do you remember the early days of online gaming where everyone who was worse than you was a “noob” and everyone who was better than you was a “loser”? It was you and only you who was properly invested in the game.
Well, I think it’s time to apply the same scale to football. Fortunately, for those of you currently assessing your standing on the “noob to loser” scale, look no further. I’m the standard, baby!
Yes that’s right. I know the perfect amount about football.
Here’s how I’m judging it. You want to be able to hold your own in any football related conversation but you don’t want to be able to pull sabermertrics out of your ass. Here’s my rationale and I think you sabermaetrics clowns are actually going to appreciate this.
It’s a little thing in economics called diminishing returns. There’s a bell curve here in terms of how much your knowledge can help you fit in or even give you an advantage from a gambling standpoint. Any additional information past the peak has truly minimal returns for either of these goals.
When showing off to your friends it’s cool to know all the new rookie defensive players. But it’s not cool to know their back ups. Diminishing returns.
In regards to gambling, sure some information will help you make your decision but anyone with a basic sense of the game and the players will probably have as good of a chance of picking correctly as you do. Sure, you read that the right tackle has a slight sprain on his wrist but I know that Aaron Rodgers is good at throwing the football and thus I will pick Aaron Rodgers’ team to throw more good footballs then the other team. See. Diminishing returns.
After a certain point, not only does each piece of knowledge have a smaller and smaller return but I’d argue that sometimes knowing too much can cloud your judgement. It can make you get inside your own head. Stop looking at the data about how this team does against the spread, away from home, when it’s slightly raining. Your gut is as good as the data. And your gut always tells you Aaron Rodgers knows how to throw a football.
Also, and maybe most importantly, football is by far the most random sport when it comes to predicting outcomes. The Eagles beat the Jets. Duh the Jets stink. The Cowboys beat the Eagles. Hmm maybe the Eagles stink. The Jets beat the Cowboys. Wait a second, who stinks?
It’s all very random and that makes all of your knowledge irrelevant.
Okay I think this whole blog is coming across as super defensive. But based on my perfect knowledge about football, defense wins championships baby!
