From: mzimmers@netcom.com (Michael Zimmers)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro
Subject: What is "superiority"? (Was:  AFC vs. NFC drivel)
Date: 31 Dec 92 18:52:42 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <C046D1.33E@acsu.buffalo.edu> carrato@acsu.buffalo.edu (Michael Carrato) writes:

>lor@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (edward.lor) writes:

>>Geez, why do you want to do that? Gary Strand has been campaigning 
>>AFC vs NFC regular season records for years. Why? because that's the
>>only AFC vs NFC criteria in the last decade that's close.

>You make it sound as if there are TONS of criteria which favor the 
>NFC. There are 2 criteria, the mean and the max. The mean (overall
>record) favors the AFC, the max (Superbowl winner) favors the NFC.
>What other criteria are there?

I really didn't want back into this one, but it's a slow day:

Look, guys, we're never going to resolve whether a given conference
is superior until we can agree on what we mean by superior.  And I'm
not asking us all to run to our dictionaries.  Can we either come to
some resolution or agree to disagree?  It's playoff time, for chrissake.

Now, in response to Carrato's question, here's a spectrum of possible
assertations to support a notion of "superiority".  These are all in
the context of the past decade because to go longer brings into the
argument teams and coaches that aren't around any longer.  For those
who think that a decade is too long, I think the same conclusions
would apply, but feel free to differ.

1. The NFC has produced superior conference champions.  I don't think
   anyone has a disagreement here.

2. The NFC has produced superior playoff teams.  I have a gut feel that
   this is true, but I can't back it up with other than anecdotal
   evidence.  I'm not sure how this could be measured, either.

3. The median NFC team is better than the median AFC team.  I have
   no idea whether this is true or not (in fact, Carrato says it
   isn't above).  I also don't care, as whether the Cardinals and
   Packers could whip the Browns and Colts in The Battle of the Mediocre
   doesn't support my notion of conference superiority, and isn't
   that interesting in its own right.

4. The mean NFC team is better than the mean AFC team.  (This compares
   the two conferences top-to-bottom.)  IMHO, an absolutely meaningless
   stat for superiority measurement.

5. The NFC somehow produces better teams simply because the conference,
   apart from the teams in the conference, is somehow "better".  
   Completely absurd and hasn't been advanced by anyone.

So, the questions are:

- Is #2 true and by what measure?
- Is #3 important and why?
- If two or more out of 1, 2 and 3 are true, does the NFC have
  bragging rights to superiority?  I'd say it would.

As a footnote, let me point out that interconference records are
problematic.  If you use only the playoff teams, the sample space
is pretty small.  If you use all games, you (IMHO) pollute the
results with tons of scores from matchups between such titans as
New England and Tampa Bay.  So, the hero of the newsgroup is the one
who comes up with a suitable way of measuring #2.
-- 
Michael Zimmers                                    |  Home:  408 996 1984
SoftHelp                                           |  Work:  408 996 1965
Software Solutions for Open Systems                |  Data:  408 996 1974
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro