I don’t read them as often as I should, but I always get a kick out of Football Outsiders, a website of amatuer statisticians, who attempt to desperately use nerd math to find new angles on the game that occupies so many of my Sundays.

In particular, I found this article and it’s companion piece on Fox Sport’s website very interesting. It talks about, statistically, what turns out to be a better indicator of football success – a team which systematically dismantles lesser opponents, or a team which manages to squeeze out close victories against the good ones. Human nature is to give more credit to the opponent that squeezes out a gutty victory in the waning seconds. However, the stats don’t bear that out.

Football games are often decided by just one or two plays — a missed field goal, a fumble that bounces one way instead of the other, a fourth down where officials spot the ball two inches from the first-down marker. One dropped pass short-circuits a last-minute comeback. A cornerback smothers his receiver all day, only to get beat once and give up the winning touchdown.

The team that comes out with the victory in a tight game is one step closer to the postseason. But has that team really proven that it is better than its opponent? There are many times where two teams are evenly matched, and if they played again the next week the result might just as well go the other way.

Definitely rings true. Which is bad news for my Cowboys, who have only been in one game that hasn’t been close all year. The article (and indeed, the site) is a good read for designers with a secret love of metrics.