The 2023 Titans missed 2 extra points all season, BOTH of them coming in games they would eventually lose in OT.

I bring this up not to say that we are about to go 17-0, but just to point out that despite HUGE deficiencies on the OL and at WR/CB, and an outdated offensive philosophy this team was not as bad as their 6-11 record.

Missing an extra point is one of those unlucky things that every team experiences a few times a year. Missing 2 XP's all year AND having BOTH occur in games that were tied at the end of regulation, is getting struck by lightning on your way to the hospital after getting struck by a preceding bolt of lightning. Someone should do the math on just how improbable this was. So I did (tried).

Nick Folk had a solid year on XP's, going 28/30. The odds of an NFL game going to OT are about 5.5% or 11/200. If we multiply Folk's odds of missing (2/30) by the odds of the game going to OT(11/200) we get 11/3000 or about .37%.

But we're not done. This happened TWICE, so to find the odds of it happening again in a 17 game season, we can use the Binomial Distribution Formula to calculate the probability. Plugging in the probability of 11/3000 happening twice in 17 trials gives us a final probability of 0.00173042058992 or (0.17%)

But we're STILL not done! If we assume that both teams entering OT have a roughly even chance of winning. We can cut this figure in half to represent the probability of missing the XP, going to OT, and then losing...twice. Now that's some bad luck!

I don't exactly recall where I was going with this, but I learned a lot about math today. In short, Titan Up! And let's get ready for the draft!

(I am the farthest thing from a statistician, so please correct me if I have made an error.)

I'm just fascinated by these rare, but unavoidable events and how their distribution throughout the year can alter a team's record. E.g., a sure-handed runningback has his yearly fumble or an accurate kicker misses a single xp.

Do these events happen in a blowout where they will have no effect on the outcome? Or do they come at the worst/best possible time and change the outcome of a game and perception of a season?

For example, if we move these missed XP's to games where they wouldn't make a difference and the Titians win both games and go 8-9, does Vrabel still get fired?

Probably, but it's crazy to think about. I could easily see the narrative being something like "He went 8-9 with the worst OL in the league! This guy knows how to get the most out of his guys!"

tldr: we live in hell