Estro Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Assuming each team has an equal chance of making the playoffs each and every year, your chance is 12/32 or 37.5%. Therefore your chance of not making the playoffs is 62.5%. If you multiply .625 by .625 and do that 14 times in a row you arrive at the statistic of 0.22%. Because the NFL has a salary cap and all teams have equal access to resources, players and coaches, there are no excuses for NFL teams that they are not on a level playing field. The NFL salary cap has defined "level playing field". To put 0.22% into perspective......it means that a team should experience a playoff drought like the one we're experiencing (14 straight years with not 1 appearance) once every 455 years. Considering the Bills have been around for only 54 years we're about 401 years ahead of schedule on this pitiful drought! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KDIGGZ Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Unless you are the Bills in which case the probability is 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fridge Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Unless you are the Bills in which case the probability is 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dibs Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Assuming each team has an equal chance of making the playoffs each and every year, your chance is 12/32 or 37.5%. Therefore your chance of not making the playoffs is 62.5%. If you multiply .625 by .625 and do that 14 times in a row you arrive at the statistic of 0.22%. Because the NFL has a salary cap and all teams have equal access to resources, players and coaches, there are no excuses for NFL teams that they are not on a level playing field. The NFL salary cap has defined "level playing field". To put 0.22% into perspective......it means that a team should experience a playoff drought like the one we're experiencing (14 straight years with not 1 appearance) once every 455 years. Considering the Bills have been around for only 54 years we're about 401 years ahead of schedule on this pitiful drought! You are slightly off on your math there. 13 years is 0.22% 14 years is 0.14%....or 1 in 720. And your figuring of number of years isn't quite correct either. Ignoring the fact that there were different percent chances in previous years(when there were less teams etc)......that means that each year is the first year in a base 14 year span.....and each base 14 year span has a 0.14% chance to not make the playoffs each year. To figure the chances of this occurring for the Bills throughout their 54 year existence......one first needs to figure the chances that it doesn't happen. There have be 41 x 14 year spans in those 54 years. The chance that a team makes at least one playoff appearance in any 14 year span is 99.86%(1 minus 0.14%). Multiply the .9986 by itself 41 times results in every 14 year span having at least one playoff appearance. This works out to be.....98.7%. That means that the chance that the Bills would have a 14 year span somewhere in there 54 year existence(ignoring past differing percentages as stated earlier) is 1.3% or 1 in 77 chance. That also means that the chance that it occurs league wide in the last 54 years(using 32 teams throughout) is 32 in 77......or 41.55% All this is of course assuming that all things are equal......which i don't believe that they are. IMO it hinges on the chances of not being able to find a decent QB within a 14 year period(along with other factors obviously). I would say that the odds of that happening would be well above 0.14%.......likely closer to 2-3%(at a rough guestimate). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Jabber Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Will next year be 15 years of missing the playoffs? Glad I didn't line up for One Bills Drive kool aid this offseason. Should be interesting to listen to the homers say how much harder the Bills have been playing under Marrone... this is a young team...give the new coaches a chance...you just gotta Billieve!! Heard it and seen it over and over...new faces, just same ol' schitty Bills year after year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyagi-Do Karate Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 So there is a dispute whether our chances are .22% or 1.3% ? I am encouraged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoSaint Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Partially neglects the odds of making it dropping when in a division with a HoF QB but generally, yea we should've gone once by dumb luck if nothing else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodeMonkey Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Also neglects draft order every year based on finishing position which attempts to level the playing field as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorkington Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 I'm basically of the belief that the Bills will never reach the playoffs as long as Wilson owns the team, Brandon runs the team, and they are located in Buffalo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloBill Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Assuming each team has an equal chance of making the playoffs each and every year, your chance is 12/32 or 37.5%. Therefore your chance of not making the playoffs is 62.5%. If you multiply .625 by .625 and do that 14 times in a row you arrive at the statistic of 0.22%. Because the NFL has a salary cap and all teams have equal access to resources, players and coaches, there are no excuses for NFL teams that they are not on a level playing field. The NFL salary cap has defined "level playing field". To put 0.22% into perspective......it means that a team should experience a playoff drought like the one we're experiencing (14 straight years with not 1 appearance) once every 455 years. Considering the Bills have been around for only 54 years we're about 401 years ahead of schedule on this pitiful drought! Interesting but flawed analysis. One would need to look at in any given year there are typically 5 or 6 elite QB's playing. If you have one of them your odds of making the playoffs escalate to what I would postulate is nearly 100%. The fact of the matter is that if the Bills had had a decent QB this year, not even an elite one, we would be knocking on the door. This is the most fundamental problem with this franchise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mead107 Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Numbers are just numbers. Reality, we suck.. I still love the Bills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eSJayDee Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 I don't remember if it was last yr, or the yr before but I determined that "teams that suck" (which I think I defined as 5 wins or less), had a 31% chance of making the playoffs the following yr. I looked back a fews yrs, maybe 5 or so. That's not much worse than any team at random, ie parity works. In fact, if you remove the Bills from the results, you might get sufficiently close to the 38% that it isn't statistically relevant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsClinton Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Analytics hard at work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homey D. Clown Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 It's statistically harder to suck this long than to actually win once in a while. We're #1 at that. We're #1! We're #1! We're #1! We're #1! We're #1! We're #1! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodeMonkey Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 It's statistically harder to suck this long than to actually win once in a while. Everything in the NFL including draft order and salary cap, is to make your statement true. Seemingly it can only be incompetence that would keep a team so bad for so long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tcali Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Missing the playoffs for 14 straight years is nearly impossible...unless your mgmt is not only incompetent but UNDERMINING in the way they do business. And sadly the loyal fan base allows the team to get away with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homey D. Clown Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Missing the playoffs for 14 straight years is nearly impossible...unless your mgmt is not only incompetent but UNDERMINING in the way they do business. And sadly the loyal fan base allows the team to get away with it. I've seen this movie before.... I think it starred Corbin Bernsen, and Charlie Sheen.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDD Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Unless you are the Bills in which case the probability is 100% ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CardinalScotts Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 time to move on with this years team, who cares what happened before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazzu Bill Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 Interesting but flawed analysis. One would need to look at in any given year there are typically 5 or 6 elite QB's playing. If you have one of them your odds of making the playoffs escalate to what I would postulate is nearly 100%. The fact of the matter is that if the Bills had had a decent QB this year, not even an elite one, we would be knocking on the door. This is the most fundamental problem with this franchise. Exactly. Teams, who by the luck of the draw have Rodgers, Brady, Manning, or Brees, are pretty much a shoe in - no matter how bad the supporting cast is. Our defense is way better than Denver's, our WRs are better than in NE, our RBs are better than GB, DEN, NE, (probably not NO they have a kickin' trio with sproles, thomas, ingram). Point is, the QB position makes so much difference. We have been bleeding for a QB for 13 years, and this year especially (no one wanted to see Fitz back). It happened to land on a year with a terrible QB draft class. EJ seemed to have the highest ceiling, and we took a shot on him. I'm not going to speculate whether or not he will turn out, but I think everyone at this point has a feeling the curse isn't ending soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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