Just how average have the Vikings been?
I added up the Ws and Ls from the last 25 years. Here are my findings:
year wins losses trend
83 8 8
84 3 13 down
85 7 9 up
86 9 7 up
87* 8 7 down
88 11 5 up
89 10 6 down
90 6 10 down
91 8 8 up
92 10 6 up
93 9 7 down
94 10 6 up
95 8 8 down
96 9 7 up
97 9 7 even
98 15 1 up
99 10 6 down
2000 11 5 up
2001 5 11 down
2002 6 10 up
2003 9 7 up
2004 8 8 down
2005 9 7 up
2006 6 10 down
2007 8 8 up
total 212 187
ave 8.48 7.48
% 0.531328 0.468672
# of wins # of times
0-6 5
7,8,9 13
10+ 7
*strike year
On the plus side of things, over the past 25 years the vikings have averaged 8.48 wins a year and have won 25 games more than they have lost or 1 game more each year. They have had more 11+ win years than 11 or more loss years and the same goes for more 10 win years than 10 loss years. On the negative side of things, if you made a bar graph of the wins and losses and their frequency which I did but can not figure out how to post in here, it looks like the Vikings are a completely average team, with very few highs and lows. The majority of their seasons end with them within 1 game of .500, 13 times, which we all already knew. I am sorry that my data is not in nice clean columns again it did not like me copying the data from excel. I am sure it is an error on my part.
5 Comments:
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October 14, 2008 at 9:22 PM
One thing I left out, only once out of 7 tries after getting at least 10 wins did the Vikings improve the next year or even stay the same. I had said in the previous post that there was no regression to the mean beasue the Vikings were so average. Clearly, I was speaking in general terms. Once actually looking at the data, I would say that if the Vikings win 10 games, the next year it is more than likely that they are going to post less wins, which if my high school math serves me correctly and it may not, is regressing towards the mean. Most teams have these trends, I would imagine. The Falcons have never made the playoffs 2 years in a row, so they are probably in the same boat. However, everyother team is not my team so the Vikings hurt just a little more.
That one year the Vikings improved was 2000 when the Vikings sarted 11-3. They had to be the worst 11-3 team in the history of the league. They dropped their final 2 and then lost 41-0 to the Giants in the NFC Championship game.
October 14, 2008 at 9:34 PM
RTS - Great stuff. Funny, I am working with this progam called "Crystal Ball" at work that is all about statistical analysis of forecast etc. so your work is very apropos to my world right now. I also have never been able to figure out how to upload excel files to Blogger, I once did a sweet analysis of David Ortiz when he was with the Twins to see if we should have given him the $1M plus he was looking for, could never get it on the site (the answer, however, was "yes") but that is another discussion.
On to the Vikes. Wonder how this compares to the NFC North, NFC, and the rest of the NFL to see if we are just a bunch of babies and should feel lucky or if we are just average and should feel, well, average. Scary but hindsight what it is the Denny Green era wasn't horrendous (one losing season) and had a 15-1, 10-6, 11-5 stretch; kind of 49ers-esque.
October 15, 2008 at 8:40 AM
Awesome stuff, RTS. I think the $64,000 questions is whether or not we should be tormented by this data, or content with this data. Take the Bears, for instance. They've been to the Super Bowl twice in the last 25 years, but they have suffered through a TON of horrible years (Wanny and Jauron years). I would do anything for a super bowl title, but I'm not sure I could stomach five straight losing seasons (of the 5-11 variety)...there is something to be said for being competitive every year.
Now, this may sound a lot like what we say about the Twins. "At least we're in the race...". At the end of the day, you need the occasional championship or deep playoff run to keep people passionate.
October 15, 2008 at 1:07 PM
BG, honestly, I think I would take the roller coaster of 5 and 11 seasons led by a poor man's Rich Kotite in exchange for the rare title led by Kotite himself.
October 15, 2008 at 10:46 PM
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