Is it really random?

[Beerball]

The OP doesn't deserve your rude response. He raised a issue and you seen to know it all - fine but show some class and maturity.

Thank you. Eric Flowers was Aaron Maybin before Aaron Maybin was Aaron Maybin. No reason to take him seriously.

 

Regarding the reason behind the anomoly of the Bills playing the Lions...Ralph was able to negotiate a better deal on his Taurus by agreeing to play the Lions for the entire lease term.

 

No, the odds of playing the lions in the preseason is 1/28 if it were completely random, which it isn't. There are 31 other teams, we will be playing 3 others, so there is a one in 28 chance that the 4th team will be the lions.

Ivy Leaguer?

[saundena]

You need to factor in the league's desire to make games look competitive by matching up two similarly (un)talented teams. They can't do this in the regular season so treat the preseason as their sandbox

My morning is off to a good start thanks to you remark!

[EasternOHBillsFan]

Football is at the frontlines of the Ford family's plot. They intend to crush our spirits with year after year of terrible football and turn us all into mindless drones and provide cheap labor for their automotive plants.

 

BWAHAHAHHAAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

+1,000

[OvrOfficiousJerk]

We've played in KC just about yearly and always in KC. Not saying it's a conspiracy, but it is p*ss poor scheduling and unfair to us.

 

In the same vein, we've played the Brownies at home the last three times (the fourth time, the 2007 snow bowl, was in CLE). Two of these times were the "finishing place-dependent" games where you play the team that finished the prior season in the same place in you [in the other two divisions that you didn't play that year]. If you play one of these two games at home, the other necessarily must be away. It would've been nice though, like this year when we play the whole AFC West, the schedulers would've seen the three-odd straight years at arrowhead and mixed things up a bit.

 

To bring it back to topic, I feel you pick a team that is a) geographically close (as other posters have posted) and b) you don't play regularly in the regular season so you don't tip your hand as to certain plays or personnel. Why we are playing DEN this year I do not know. So in that respect preseason is hardly random.

Edited September 2, 2011 by OvrOfficiousJerk

[OCinBuffalo]

No way this thread leaves the front page. I won't stand for it.

 

Oh, and isn't it right to say:

The first game's chances are 1/31, the next game's chances are 1/30, next 1/29 and only then the last game is 1/28? Didn't you guys learn anything in 8th grade math?

 

For those that took statistics: how many standard deviations is us playing the Lions every year? Anybody want to do a regression?

[GG]

 

The way statistics works is through multiplication so for the Bills to play them say 5 years in a row is 4/31*4/31*4/31*4/3*4/31. That is .0000357 after some rounding. It is quite an anomaly and it will be interesting to see if it happens next year.

 

Yes, but if Ralph lives for the 100,000 years, the probability goes up to 3.5

[Captain Hindsight]

This doesn't make sense for two reasons:

 

1. Deals like this are not fair for other teams. I think if teams were doing this other teams would cry collusion.

 

2. Why in the heck would the Bills pick the Lions as the "rival"? If you couldn't do an in division rival, how about Cleveland or Indy who used to be in the division? The Lions make no sense.

Ralph lives in detroit. But I'm sure that is just collusion too

[The Senator]

Pre-Bills, RW owned a minority stake in the Detroit Lions.

[Smiley Dear]

Duh! The Lions are Ralph's favorite team. That's why.

[Wooderson]

I love crayonz threads. Epic.

[Fan in San Diego]

I don't know the exact history of the Bills/Lions preseason games but if I recall, they usually play in the last preseason game. Given the close proximity of the two cities and the usually short turnaround time between games 3 and 4, it kind of makes sense to play the final game against someone geographically closer just to save on time.

+1

[AxelRipper]

The question should be, what are the odds that we'll play Detroit in the POSTseason!

[Delete This Account]

Why do always play KC in KC?

well, isn't that where KC plays? be strange to see Bills play KC in Idaho, no?

 

jw

[Orton's Arm]

Why do the Bills always play the Lions in the preseason? In any given year the odds of playing them is 4/31 unless the Bills have an extra preseason game which would make it 5/31.

 

The way statistics works is through multiplication so for the Bills to play them say 5 years in a row is 4/31*4/31*4/31*4/3*4/31. That is .0000357 after some rounding. It is quite an anomaly and it will be interesting to see if it happens next year. There is about a 13% chance.

 

You have zero understanding of statistics. You would only multiply the years if those previous years somehow limited this year's chance of playing that team - which it clearly doesn't.

 

So in any year, the chance of playing the lions, if it was truly random (which it isn't) would be 1/28, since we never play the same team twice in the same preseason.

 

You, sir, are an idiot. And I am one for replying to this stupid thread.

Erik, your post was uncalled-for. If you think ieatcrayonz is guilty of a statistical error (which he isn't), all that's necessary is to point out the error.

 

To see why his earlier post is correct, I'll start with a simple example. If you flip a coin, the probability of getting heads is 1/2. If you flip a coin twice, the probability of getting heads twice in a row is 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.

 

As you seem to know already, once an event is in the past it no longer affects future probabilities. Before you start flipping a coin your odds of getting heads twice in a row are 1/4. But if you flip it once and it comes up heads, your odds of getting heads a second time are now 1/2. If you'd flipped an unweighted coin ten consecutive times, and it came up heads every time, your odds of getting heads on the eleventh flip are still 1/2. There is no such thing as being "due" for tails. ieatcrayonz understands this also. He correctly indicated that there is a 13% chance of the Bills playing the Lions again next preseason, assuming the preseason opponent selection process is random.

 

There are (as ieatcrayonz pointed out) 31 other teams against whom the Bills can play preseason games. The Bills typically play four preseason games each year, and never play the same team twice in the same preseason. We know that four teams (out of a total of 31) will be selected as Bills preseason opponents. The odds of playing any specific team during a specific preseason are 4/31, just like ieatcrayonz said. The probability of playing that same team two years in a row is 4/31 * 4/31, for the same reason that the probability of getting heads twice in a row is 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4. The probability of playing the same team for five consecutive years is (4/31)^5, also like ieatcrayonz said. From start to finish I cannot find a single statistical statement he made to which anyone can reasonably object.

[ieatcrayonz]

Erik, your post was uncalled-for. If you think ieatcrayonz is guilty of a statistical error (which he isn't), all that's necessary is to point out the error.

 

To see why his earlier post is correct, I'll start with a simple example. If you flip a coin, the probability of getting heads is 1/2. If you flip a coin twice, the probability of getting heads twice in a row is 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.

 

As you seem to know already, once an event is in the past it no longer affects future probabilities. Before you start flipping a coin your odds of getting heads twice in a row are 1/4. But if you flip it once and it comes up heads, your odds of getting heads a second time are now 1/2. If you'd flipped an unweighted coin ten consecutive times, and it came up heads every time, your odds of getting heads on the eleventh flip are still 1/2. There is no such thing as being "due" for tails. ieatcrayonz understands this also. He correctly indicated that there is a 13% chance of the Bills playing the Lions again next preseason, assuming the preseason opponent selection process is random.

 

There are (as ieatcrayonz pointed out) 31 other teams against whom the Bills can play preseason games. The Bills typically play four preseason games each year, and never play the same team twice in the same preseason. We know that four teams (out of a total of 31) will be selected as Bills preseason opponents. The odds of playing any specific team during a specific preseason are 4/31, just like ieatcrayonz said. The probability of playing that same team two years in a row is 4/31 * 4/31, for the same reason that the probability of getting heads twice in a row is 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4. The probability of playing the same team for five consecutive years is (4/31)^5, also like ieatcrayonz said. From start to finish I cannot find a single statistical statement he made to which anyone can reasonably object.

Thanks for the backup. I almost got it wrong by putting 4/32 but then I realized the Bills never play with themselves.

[BuffaloRebound]

Pretty sure no one plays divisional opponents in the pre-season. That gets it down to 4 out of 28. Also pretty sure no one does the East Coast/West Coast trip for preseason games. That eliminates Seattle, Oakland, San Fran, San Diego, and probably Arizona. That gets you down to 4 out of 23. Still not random, but also makes sense that an NFC team that is a 25 minute plane ride away is usually on the pre-season schedule.

Edited September 3, 2011 by BuffaloRebound

[CSBill]

They used to have a preseason double header in Detroit with the lions, Bills, Browns, and someone else. Can't remember.

 

Calgary Stampede