The residue of design

So, I have been hearing people say that the Patriots got lucky on Sunday.   I agree.  They were lucky that the potential game-tying field goal was missed, and that the potential game-winning touchdown was missed.   But luck is the residue of design.   If you think that the better teams are more often more lucky than the bad teams you would be right.  But they are not good because they are lucky.  They are lucky because they are good.    Good teams are usually more disciplined, and by that I mean that they pay attention to little details, and don’t make the same mistakes over and over, and never quit on a play until it is completely over.   Because they seem to always do the right thing, and don’t beat themselves the teams they face often feel more pressure.   But since they are not as disciplined and may not be as mentally tough they sometimes make even more mistakes than they would against a lesser or equal team.    These “extra”  mistakes can be viewed as lucky breaks.  Or you could just say that the winning team MADE its own luck. 

Take the two biggest plays in the Patriots win against Baltimore.  First, the non-touchdown catch with 27 seconds in the game.   Lee Evans had the ball.  For a split second.  But the cornerback (Sterling Moore) had been taught over and over since coming to the Patriots to never give up on this type of play.  The receiver MUST have both feet down and show control of the ball for a touchdown to be called.  So Moore did what he had been drilled to do, over and over and over for the past few months.  He slapped at the ball, and knocked it out of the receiver’s hands at the very same moment his second foot was coming down.  Clearly, he did not have both feet down with control of the ball, and so it was deemed an incomplete pass.   By perhaps one-tenth of a second, the Patriots had life.   Lucky?  Maybe.  But luck by design.  

The second biggest play was the missed field goal.   A 32 yard field goal is nearly automatic in the NFL.  Nearly, but not always.   The Patriots didn’t quit playing.  They gave it their best effort to block the kick.  They didn’t, but the kicker HAD to be worried about it, even if just by a little bit.   And replays showed that the kicker was not ready to go onto the field, and had to run on and kick it with time running out on the play clock.   So he was rushed, on top of being nervous.   The Ravens had a timeout left, but NEVER CONSIDERED USING IT.    Had they done so the kicker would have had time to compose himself, and to make sure he was 100% ready.     Was his missing the kick luck, or was that luck the residue of poor time management by the coach and nervousness on the part of the kicker?

And speaking of luck, the Ravens had their share of it too on Sunday.    Tom Brady had a poor-to-mediocre game, by his own admission.   In the first quarter he missed a wide open Rob Gronkowski, who would have walked in untouched to the endzone.  It was only a 10-12 yard pass.  If Brady has that throw to make 1000 times under those conditions how many times do you think he fails to complete it?  Maybe once or twice?    He also threw two bone-headed interceptions.   Not just poor throws, but inconceivably awful throws.    How many times do you think they might happen if he had them to do over again?    Again, maybe once or twice in a thousand times.   Had Brady completed the pass to Gronkowski and only thrown one of the two interceptions, the Patriots would have scored 4 more points (the difference between the field goal they eventually kicked and the touchdown they should have had) and possibly given up 3 fewer points (the Ravens scored a field goal after the first interception).   So that is a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 7 more points they would have had.  Instead of only being up 3 points at the end of the game they would have been up by 7, or even 10.   And if they were I suspect Brady never even throws the second interception, because he would have played it more conservatively.  

The simple fact is that each team had a little luck during the day.  The difference is that the Patriots just did a little more with theirs than the Ravens did.   And THAT isn’t luck.