Your Guide To Deflate-gate/Ballghazi-Related Statistical Analyses
There's more at the link, including links to rebuttals of Sharp's fumble analysis (which it sounds like he himself fumbled).The gist of the posts, written by a tout named Warren Sharp, is that the Patriots are a phenomenal statistical outlier when it comes to hanging onto the ball. Sharp presents a chart showing how far New England has stood above its peers in “offensive plays per (lost) fumble” over the last five seasons, giving the odds against such a performance happening by chance as 1 in about 16,234. He also notes that, over the same span of years, the Patriots have fumbled (whether the ball was lost or recovered) far less often than their peers, after excluding dome-based teams from the comparison. And finally, he notes that individual members of the Patriots appear to fumble far less with New England than when they play for other franchises.
The data science community responded with a number of rebuttals (I put together a roundup of my favorite ones below). Collectively, these posts did a great job of breaking down the Statistics 101 problems with Sharp’s original analyses. But even if Sharp had been less sloppy, it would have been right to take issue with the larger implication of his work — that any major outlier, if shown to be statistically significant, should be seen as evidence of rule-breaking.
Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong were outliers. But so is Lionel Messi. And Phil Jackson. And the San Antonio Spurs. It would be irresponsible — and depressing — to assume every incredible performance equals cheating. Celebrating outliers is one of the best parts about being a sports fan.
Oh man, dont even get me started.