I’m not sure why this is confusing to you, and I’m not going to belabor this beyond this last post. But what, exactly, do you think the human beings are doing when they sift through those thousands of possibilities to determine which direction to go?
Every single decision human beings are making there, every value judgement, every case-by-case comparison to select one schedule over another, could be systematized and applied in such a way as to maximize consistency and minimize bias. It’s not magic how those decisions get made. And the results over time could be far less affected by human bias if that were important to the NFL. It’s not.
What “decisions” do you think the humans are making? They feed the machine…just like you are saying they should do. They do that. I think you just need to shake the idea that you can feed the machine and it spits out A result. There are hundreds and even thousands of possibilities. Every little change you make, creates a domino effect of dozens and hundreds of potential outcomes.
I realize you want it to be a simple input and output - but an NFL schedule can never give you a single output. I realize its tough for numbers guys to understand. You want a clear answer at the end - but that’s not possible. If it were, they would do it that way. Everything you think they should do, they are doing. But in the end unless you are going to randomly select one of the many possibilities without reviewing it…you will need to review the outcomes.
Hmm… so let’s circle back. They have a baseline set of factors that they’ve programmed, that spits out thousands of possible options. Then, human beings decide from among those thousands of options.
You yourself have said, twice now, that the human beings making those decisions are NOT making them at random. So… if the decisions are not random, then what do you imagine they’re based on?
Every single thought process that goes into choosing one option over another can be quantified and systematized. So that you’re NOT relying on a human being to compare thousands of equivalent options and go with their gut. So that you can narrow those choices down to a handful of equivalent options instead of hundreds or thousands. MOST IMPORTANTLY: So that you can apply the same logic to reach those decisions, in the same way, over and over and over again, for every team.
If the current approach they’re taking relies on human beings to select from thousands of possibilities, then the current approach is obviously not granular enough. Again, it’s not magic that human beings are using to make a call between one schedule over another. And as you’ve said repeatedly, it’s not randomness either. It’s a value judgement, and if it’s a value judgement, than the values being applied can be scored and quantified, so that they’re applied in the same way every time, for every team.
Your insistence that there’s no better choice than relying on a human being’s gut instinct to choose the best among thousands of possible options is just… bizarre. There are much better ways to do it. No, they’re not simple. But most of the complexity gets offloaded to the computers–rather than relying on human beings to consider how much they might have favored one team versus another in a given week or year. That’s… the whole point.
There are several baseline factors that they prioritize when describing what kind of a schedule they want to see, and the factors that play into it. There are hundreds if not thousands of inputs into the machine. I think this is where we have a disconnect. You are under the impression they just type a few things into the computer and then figure the rest out on the fly. Anything and everything they can think of to put into the computer…they do. There is simply never one output. There is always a bunch of different options that require them to take a look and decide between. And every single change you make impacts something else.
In short, they are doing what you say they should do. You just want to see one output at the end. And that’s not possible…or else they would do that.
Umm, no. I’m saying that if they have to rely on human beings to select from thousands of options, they’re not putting ENOUGH inputs in at the front end.
You are saying that… Honestly, you’re not saying anything at this point, I think you’re just arguing on autopilot?
I was surprised to see the Bucs have to travel to LA to play Rams in week 3… before traveling to New England for Sunday night game in week 4. That is the only game the Bucs play out west for the entire season.
The Patriots play at home in week against Saints in week.
And… yes… I always root against Cowboys too!
The only way I could root for a Cowboys win would be if it helped the Lions in a big time way… like making the playoffs… or landing the #1 pick in draft!