Thread: Practice / press conference notes - week 9 (Eagles week)

McKenzie has fumbled four times.....he fumbles again last week, and he 'wants to give him another chance'.

What does he do? He one hands the ball away from his body in traffic.



DUMB PLAYER.


DUMB COACH.

Go BRONCOS!!

Originally Posted by Cugel

There is no way you get to just drop knowledge bombs like that without explaining the law of large numbers to this board. I gotta see this.

Here goes...

When you flip a coin, all else being equal, there’s a 50/50 chance that it will be heads. That is true every single time you flip it. Every time whether it is the first flip or the ten thousandth flip, same 50/50 chance of getting heads. However, you start flipping that coin and it comes up tails, then tails, and tails again. You keep flipping and getting tails, fifty, then sixty, then seventy times in a row tails. Statistics tell us that with a 50/50 chance, over time the results will come out evenly split between heads and tails. So here you are after seventy five straight flips ending in tails, the law of large numbers says that you will get a heads. Even though each flip has the exact same 50/50 odds of being heads or tails despite what the previous flip, or five flips, or sixty flips were. Same exact odds. But we know that eventually you’re gonna get a heads and it becomes more and more likely the larger number of straight tails you get.

So, if Denver hasn’t won in Philly since 19-whatever, the law of large numbers says that the more times they play, at some point Denver is bound to win.

How’s that Cugs?

Originally Posted by LawDog

Here goes...

. . . .

How’s that Cugs?

That's actually a bit lengthy.

If the Broncos play the Eagles 10 times over 20 years and their overall probability of success is 20% say, eventually, if they keep playing each other, the Broncos will win, and the more times they play the higher this probability becomes, but the probability of winning any given game does not change. It's still 20%.

That is because while you are very unlikely to have a flipped coin land on heads 10 times in a row, if you have gotten 9 heads in a row, the probability of getting 10 in a row is 50%. Each trial is independent of all the previous results.

So, while probability favors the Broncos eventually beating the Eagles, the law of large numbers does nothing for them in this game.

Denver has never been good traveling to the east coast. Philly is always good. I would give us a 10% chance.

Originally Posted by Cugel

That's actually a bit lengthy.

If the Broncos play the Eagles 10 times over 20 years and their overall probability of success is 20% say, eventually, if they keep playing each other, the Broncos will win, and the more times they play the higher this probability becomes, but the probability of winning any given game does not change. It's still 20%.

That is because while you are very unlikely to have a flipped coin land on heads 10 times in a row, if you have gotten 9 heads in a row, the probability of getting 10 in a row is 50%. Each trial is independent of all the previous results.

So, while probability favors the Broncos eventually beating the Eagles, the law of large numbers does nothing for them in this game.

That’s not accurate either because the odds of Denver winning, unlike coin flips, is not constant and varies greatly game by game. Still, the more games they play your gut tells you they gotta win sometime. (See also Chicago Cubs).