Cross my left and hope to fly
Seahawks fans vote Charles Cross as the player they want to see breakout the most in 2024: Seaside Joe 1955
In last week’s poll asking Seaside Joe subscribers/Seahawks fans which offensive player’s breakout season would be most beneficial to the team, it was as clear as usual that folks are not yet satisfied with the offensive line. On the topic of the Seahawks offensive line alone, I would have more than enough material to start a second daily newsletter.
Just this past March before the draft, 59% of you cited guard and center as the biggest area of concern on offense, with tackle getting 10% of the vote despite 2022’s improbably good rookie seasons at both of those starting positions. However, 2023’s regressively regressive seasons by Charles Cross and Abe Lucas left most of us with little choice but to go back to the familiar well of “When?” “Why not?” and “Walter comeback?”
Asking which player you most want to see breakout on offense, Cross received 30% of the vote, barely edging out Olu Oluwatimi with 28%.
In a second poll, asking which player you most wanted to see breakout on a “tier below” those first five names, rookie third round guard Christian Haynes ran away with the ballots at 44%:
On Regression. Seriously, do not ignore it!
I would be remiss to not mention that the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, which I have cited quite a lot this year and will continue to do so because I’m reading it over and over until it is officially stuck in my brain, Daniel Kahneman spends a lot of time trying to convince readers that regression is real and that LUCK is a primary factor in virtually any scenarios of success or failure.
To use a simple example from the book in terms most sports fans would understand:
If a golfer is leading the tournament after one day, will she most likely do the same, better, or worse on day two?
The answer IS that the golfer is most likely to have an “unlucky” day two after a “lucky” day one. Conversely, the golfer who couldn’t buy a hole on day one is probably going to feel much better about her score on day two.
Regression is that simple: “A little bit better than usual” is most likely to be followed by “a little bit worse than usual”.
Another really interesting example is the book is when Kahneman tried to teach regression to instructors in the military. The instructors insisted that cadets usually do better when they get yelled at, and that they don’t get any better when given positive reinforcements for a good job. Well, of course it would work that way usually: If you got yelled at, you did worse than usual. It is the law of nature that you are probably going to do better the next time. And vice versa: If you get a “atta boy” for a perfect shot, you probably won’t hit a second perfect shot in a row.
That’s just REGRESSION.
So how does this apply to Charles Cross and Abe Lucas?
It is obvious.