TMQ: Take 3.986 seconds to read this sentence.

Absurd precision in sports and society

All Predictions Wrong sked note. Holiday month has arrived and not a moment too soon. Here’s the schedule:

12-9 TMQ

12-16 TMQ

12-19 reup of my Christmas ode to model trains

12-23 TMQ

12-24 reup of my ode to Christmas Eve

Week that begins December 29 -- “dark,” as the stage manager in Our Town would say: nothing

1-6-26 back to normal

Mina Kimes on ESPN: Brock Purdy of the Forty Niners needs “an average of 2.56 seconds to release a pass.” An average of 2.56!

Purdy could do better, it seems. Chris Collinsworth on NBC’s Sunday Night Football: an NFL quarterback should release the pass in “about 2.35 seconds.” About 2.35!

The Washington Post reports Tua Tagovailoa releases the ball in “approximately 2.36 seconds.” Approximately 2.36!

Tagovailoa should strive to be more like Bo Nix of the Broncos. During an Amazon Prime broadcast, Kirk Herbstreit informed viewers Nix “gets the ball out of his hands in an average of 2.35 seconds.”

On ESPN, Dan Orlovsky told viewers that during one game Caleb Williams of Chicago “improved his time to throw from 2.11 seconds to 2.06 seconds.” The latter is half a tenth of a second faster.

The New York Times reports a sign Josh Allen was playing well was not so much the scoreboard – that’s the traditional metric, so very simplistic – but “his average release was 2.66 seconds, versus a career average of 3.03 seconds.” He got a third of a second faster!

The NFL’s Next Gen Stats project reported in week 10 that Justin Herbert averaged 2.21 seconds to throw, Matthew Stafford averaged 2.79 seconds. Herbert was half a second better!

It’s not just ballhandlers who generate hyper-specific stats. When Philadelphia defensive tackle Jordan Davis took off unopposed with a blocked field goal recovery, Next Gen said he ran at 18.59 MPH, which was “the fastest any 330-pounds plus player has run since 2017.”

Pass-rush get-off is the time required to exit your stance and contact an opponent. Next Gen says the best get-off is Jonathon Cooper of Denver at “0.69 seconds.” Offensive tackle Dion Dawkins of the Bills shows “an average split away from the left guard at 1.97 yards, widest margin for any left tackle since 2016.” The figure “1.97 yards” works out to one inch less than 2 yards.

When the regular season home stretch began, Kansas City and Baltimore both were 5-5. The ESPN Football Power Index – doesn’t that sound scientific? – told us the Ravens had a 63.9 percent chance of making the playoffs while the Chiefs had a 53.8 percent chance.

Had ESPN said, “The Ravens get an easier sked then the Chiefs down the stretch so their chances are better,” that would be a fair statement. But not absurdly precise! Baltimore was exactly 10.1 percent more likely to make the playoffs than Kansas City.

Absurd precision and hyper-specificity run amok in American culture.

During the government shutdown, CNN used a chyron continuously showing how many seconds federal agencies had been closed.

On the eve of the 2024 election, Nate Silver said his models predicted Harris wins the Electoral College in 50.015 percent of simulations compared to Trump’s 49.985 percent. “That equates to Harris winning 40,012 simulations to Trump’s 39,718,” Silver explained.

Must be science – look at the decimal places!

An atomic clock. Photo courtesy National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Absurd precision is an artifact of innumeracy. Unless you are calibrating an atomic clock, or space-based GPS, there is no meaningful difference between 2.11 seconds and 2.06 seconds.

Early in the fourth quarter of Jersey/A at Broncos, ESPN said the Giants had a “99.8 percent win probability.” This number is not meaningfully different from saying “the Giants are likely to win,” which they were, leading 28-6.

But “99.8 percent probability” sounds so scientific! Mister Spock must have made the calculation.

Photo courtesy Desilu.

Young Spock in the fun Paramount streaming series Strange New Worlds: “There is an 83.92 percent probability we will not survive.”

Never mind the Giants lost that game in Denver. In the fourth quarter of the Texas at Mississippi State college football contest, ESPN declared Mississippi State had a pseudo-scientific “90.4 percent” probability of winning. Never mind Texas won.

The objection isn’t that ESPN was wrong – a guy with a Substack titled All Predictions Wrong knows how far from the target predictions can land.

Maxim: when all Experts agree on something, it’s wrong.

The objection is to absurd specificity: pretending to possess a degree of knowledge which does not exist. Pretending the knowledge stems from super-sophisticated computational tools and insider info, as opposed to being guesswork plus a decimal place.