Lets look at behavioural biases (and what's actually wrong with the team/franchise)

[Fraser]

There's a lot of pretty traditional behavioral biases going on the site right now and since I've got a pretty wicked sunburn I've got little else to do but explore them. Enjoy (or not)

 

Hindsight bias

 

Many events seem obvious in hindsight. Psychologists attribute hindsight bias to our innate need to find order in the world by creating explanations that allow us to believe that events are predictable.

 

 

The nature of hindsight bias is causing people to look for reasons, or correlations as to why we are losing. This traditionally causes people to "data mine" or look for a sample of data that supports their conclusion. However, football fans don't traditionally apply a scientific method they just get down to brass tax and start spouting off all sorts of reasons or "obvious mistakes" that have been made by the franchise. These tend to have little explanatory power as to why the team is losing making them a sort of spurious correlation. ( A spurious correlation usually shows up in multiple data sets but in this case one one is mining data for different sets they are just applying it to the situation at hand)

 

Spurious correlation

 

 

A false presumption that two variables are correlated when in reality they are not. Spurious correlation is often a result of a third factor that is not apparent at the time of examination. Spurious comes from the Latin word spurious, which means illegitimate or false

 

We are seeing a ton of this right now. People like to blame stuff like:

 

"the GM shouldn't be watching practices on the sidelines during games, he should let the HC do his job unabated"

this was popular in sask when miller gave up the coaching duties to move upstairs and I've heard it about Mack to. Its simply not true. I've seen Buano on the sidelines after giving up HC duties and Popp and barker to and they have been very successful and won GC's. We don't even have a GM right now to be on the sidelines and the team sucks so it's not that that.

 

"The HC is too involved in the offense"

This was a very popular reason when we were losing under lapo but Trestman called the plays and has either the best or one of the best winning %'s of a HC ever and is now a HC in the NFL. Lapo was stripped of his play calling duties and the offense if anything got worse. Maybe Lapo was trying to do too much as a new HC but if that was really the problem it would have gotten better when he stopped and it didn't.

 

"The HC isn't involved enough in the offense"

people like to blame Burkes lack of offensive knowledge as to why we are losing and I agree that it is a problem. I also agree that its is better to have an offensive minded HC and that is why most HC's in the CFL are from an OC background. That being said its not the problem. Benevidas is a former DC. He's got a very capable and experienced OC  working for him. I agree it's embarrassing how little Burke knows about the offense and how to pick the QB and stuff like that but if he was better at it the team would still suck.

 

"The OC is in the booth or on the field"

people like to blame both of these situations but Sask almost won the grey cup with Lapo in the box (see hat throwing scene for proof) and Dickinson is a great OC and is on the sideline. If anyone thinks moving Crowton from the box to the field would have made any lick of difference for this offense I have a bridge to sell you.

 

So what is the problem? A lot of ****

 

Players don't play for Burke. Remember when Miller took over for Marshal in Sask and they whooped us even though we had mirror records? Remember everyone saying how it's the easiest game for players to get motivated for ? Remember the giant Dump the players took on the field last Labour day after Burke took over? guess all the gassers didn't put the fear of Burke into them. Guess Joe Mack didn't get their attention.

 

I don't think our defense is that bad I think they frankly don't give much of a ****. There are improvements to be made and stuff but the bigger problem as that they are playing like the season is lost and it is.

 

Burke also was surrounded by a terrible OC and the Oline and QB talent (for him and Lapo( was subpar to say the least. Joe mack just didn't address either one well enough and that is why he is fired. We hung on to buck for too long but even if we hadn't good luck developing a QB with a **** Oline and OC.

 

We are going to get a new GM and he will hopefully hire a competent HC and fix the Oline. Hopefully we can pry away a QB prospect due to the dispersal draft or Hall will look better with a real oline and real OC (MB is a real OC but can't do **** with this O line and this late into the season so that's a moot point)

 

Burke will be gone and the New HC will select his own assistants and if Wade Miller gets the GM spot right then new GM will get the HC spot right and if the HC is right he'll keep whoever he wants around based on merit and not cronyism or ignorance (like how Crowton stuck around with Burke).

 

Basically that starts another rebuild and hopefully they get it right his time.

 

So yeah whether Burke is animated or not doesn't mean **** he's a dead man walking. I think everyone is smart enough to know that MB isn't responsible for any of this mess and if the new mgmt wants to keep him around it probably won't be because we run the table of the rest of the year it will be because he helped turn around a flailing Hamilton team and he can be an OC in the league. Nothing will save the season and if they fire anyone else it'll just hamper the ability to find the the right personnel for next year because no one showing up midway through 2013 is the guy we actually want running **** next year and if we fire anyone else we will literally have to just forfeit games for the rest of the year.

[Floyd]

You lost me after 'there's a lot of pretty... something something...'

[iso_55]

That's quite the essay. Where's the footnotes with the authors credits you used?  Bottom line for me, you lose you're fired. That's all there is to it.

[Turbo Malone]

Occam's Razor. The simplest solution often turns out to be the correct one.

To me, it's obvious: The talent level was not there which made the inability to find a top-notch QB a kill shot on the team's chances.

[JuranBoldenRules]

I don't care if a GM is on the sidelines during a game.  All you need to know about Mack interfering with Burke and the coaching staff's responsibilities is that the minute he was fired Sandro Deangelis was on his way to Winnipeg and Max Hall was the starting QB.  Clearly Mack was doing more than procuring players and managing from the front office.  The coach (and coaching staff) should decide who is on the game roster.

[Blueandgold]

I don't care if a GM is on the sidelines during a game.  All you need to know about Mack interfering with Burke and the coaching staff's responsibilities is that the minute he was fired Sandro Deangelis was on his way to Winnipeg and Max Hall was the starting QB.  Clearly Mack was doing more than procuring players and managing from the front office.  The coach (and coaching staff) should decide who is on the game roster.

You act like these are positive things.

[iso_55]

DeAngelis has played well & was about the only player who was at least showing he cared on the field.

[JuranBoldenRules]

 

I don't care if a GM is on the sidelines during a game.  All you need to know about Mack interfering with Burke and the coaching staff's responsibilities is that the minute he was fired Sandro Deangelis was on his way to Winnipeg and Max Hall was the starting QB.  Clearly Mack was doing more than procuring players and managing from the front office.  The coach (and coaching staff) should decide who is on the game roster.

You act like these are positive things.

 

I'm not saying if they were positive or negative, I'm saying it is very clear that Burke was uncomfortable with Palardy as his kicker, back to the Banjo Bowl last season, and Goltz at QB.  Pretty clear that he wasn't making those roster decisions and Mack was.  Mack standing on the sideline isn't interfering with the coaching staff.  Mack setting the game roster is.

[pigseye]

I completely agree with your, 'players don't give @#$%' conclusion.

 

I don't remember which player said it after last years LDC but it was basically 'if the organization isn't giving us 100% why should we', the players just didn't believe that they had enough talent left on the team after 2011 to win which was really the whole point behind their twitter outbursts. So, with a new direction being taken by the organization, things should change with better players onboard, and attitudes should change once it looks like the organization is serious about building a winner. If not, then they still haven't found the problem.