fivethirthyeight--2020-11-19--The Cabinet Appointments That Really Matter In The Incoming Biden Administration

Presidential transitions result in a lot of very inside-the-Beltway stories — an endless stream of leaks and counterleaks that are mainly about some of the world ’ s most ambitious people jockeying for jobs .
Oy .
But the transition itself is still an important story .
Who staffs the government matters , and it matters even more when the nation is in its ninth month of struggling to deal with a pandemic .
And sometimes the results of all that jockeying are crucial .
Imagine how history might have unfolded if President Barack Obama had not tapped Hillary Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if President Trump had chosen Mitt Romney , who he courted but ultimately rejected for the role of top diplomat and who four years later became the only GOP senator to support Trump ’ s removal from office ?
Some slots are already filled , with Biden naming a senior team of White House advisers that includes his longtime aide Ron Klain as chief of staff , his campaign manager , Jennifer O ’ Malley Dillon , as a deputy chief of staff , and Rep. Cedric Richmond , one of Biden ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as a senior adviser .
But there are a lot of jobs still to be filled ( around 4,000 ) .
So here ’ s FiveThirtyEight ’ s guide to the transition process : Many of the rumors about who will get what job won ’ t turn out to be true — and sometimes that misdirection is intentional .
The transition process is a perfect opportunity for : • Reporters to flatter sources by suggesting those sources should be considered for major jobs .
• Team Biden to float someone ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• A person who wants to be considered for a key job to float his or her own name .
• Other constituencies in the Democratic Party to push their preferred choices .
Many of the stories about who will get various jobs in the administration are full of unnamed sources .
And those stories often say Biden is “ considering ” someone , but we have no idea how serious that consideration really is .
For example , Sen. Elizabeth Warren is fairly unlikely to be chosen as Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the job , at least according to “ three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle , ” per Politico .
But Warren probably knows why she ’ s unlikely to get the appointment : The party ’ s centrist wing doesn ’ t want her running the department and Republicans might block her during the confirmation process .
Instead , her public candidacy might really be an attempt to make sure Biden picks someone fairly liberal to run the department — or at least someone not too centrist .
Remember @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision-maker in the administration — so don ’ t focus too much on who gets other senior jobs .
There is a certain logic to the idea that if Biden appoints a person whose views are similar to Warren to a key job , that person will implement lots of liberal policies in that job , and a less-liberal person would implement more moderate policies .
But that isn ’ t really how a presidential administration usually works .
On any really big policy matter ( like who to nominate for an open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden is likely to make the final decision .
Cabinet secretaries or lower-level officials at agencies can make policy , but only if it ’ s in line with what the president already thinks or if it ’ s not a big issue he needs to weigh in on .
Additionally , top White House aides can stall agencies ’ moves if they disagree with them , again meaning the president is the one who makes the final call .
And , of course , if a Cabinet secretary , White House aide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president too often , he or she will be sent packing .
The Trump administration showed why we shouldn ’ t put too much stock in what team of advisers a president initially chooses .
In his 2016 campaign , Trump took stands that weren ’ t traditional for a Republican presidential candidate — he seemed wary of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan , he was skeptical of NATO , and he was eager to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia .
But during his presidential transition , Trump put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOP views into key national security roles , most notably James Mattis as the defense secretary .
Trump , of course , ended up feuding with this early set of advisers and eventually replaced them with people who would hew to his vision .
But keep a careful eye on the appointees , particularly those in jobs below chief of staff and Cabinet secretaries .
Of course , even with the president making the final call , White House staffers and agencies ’ political appointees can make a big difference , particularly if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t going to appear on the homepage or front page of The New York Times every day .
The best example of this might be Trump domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller , who has masterminded a slew of changes that made it harder to immigrate to the United States .
Trump , of course , agrees with Miller ’ s broad goals , but it ’ s not clear that he would have implemented all of these policies if Miller were not in the administration .
On Team Biden , Richmond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the White House ’ s outreach arm to make himself the administration ’ s de facto point person on Black issues , which might be both a major portfolio but also not so high-profile that Biden would interject and make all the big decisions .
Appointments can signal a president ’ s inclinations .
Take another progressive Democrat whose name has been floated for a Cabinet position : Sen. Bernie Sanders as Biden ’ s secretary of labor .
If Biden were to choose Sanders , that could be a signal that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vermont senator freely implement Democratic socialist policies through that department .
But I don ’ t think that ’ s how we should think of such an appointment .
Rather , it would likely be a signal that Biden plans to take fairly liberal stances on labor issues anyway , so he ’ s comfortable having a left-wing figure like Sanders implement that agenda .
For example , in the 2008 transition process , Obama ’ s selection of Wall Street-friendly people like Tim Geithner ( as Treasury secretary ) and Larry Summers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) to key posts foreshadowed that the administration would not be as populist as some liberals wanted .
Appointments can also be more about placating various blocs within the party than policy .
An incoming president who has just won an election usually tries to reward the people and groups who helped him get there .
These constituency dynamics partly explain who ’ s being touted by the media as potential Biden appointees : former Ohio .
Gov John Kasich and former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman ( anti-Trump Republicans ) ; Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen ( women ) ; Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra ( Latinos ) .
But an appointee who is picked mainly for political reasons may not have much sway in his or her role .
Let ’ s revisit the idea of Sanders becoming Biden ’ s Labor secretary .
It ’ s possible that Biden doesn ’ t want to implement liberal policies through the Labor department , but that he would nonetheless pick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then basically ignore the senator ’ s ideas once he is in the job .
A good example of this dynamic in a previous administration was Trump picking South Carolina ’ s then-governor , Nikki Haley , as the ambassador to the United Nations at the start of his first term .
Haley had little foreign policy experience coming into the role — and it wasn ’ t clear that she exerted much influence on Trump ’ s agenda in her nearly two years in the administration .
But choosing Haley was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( she is Indian American ) , women and establishment Republicans ( at that point she was aligned with that wing of the GOP ) .
Expect Biden to choose people who aren ’ t considered really liberal or really centrist .
Biden has always tried to be in the center of the Democratic Party — so it ’ s likely his administration will reflect that approach .
Take his pick of Klain as his chief of staff .
Yes , Klain was a top adviser to more center-left Democrats like Biden , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figures like Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also like him .
So expect Biden to make more picks like Klain and not many picks like Warren as treasury secretary .
Maybe former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel can get a fairly low-profile job like transportation secretary , but there is probably too much opposition from the party ’ s left for Biden to put him in a more prominent role .
Additionally , because Biden is likely to staff his administration with people who unify rather than divide the party , I doubt there will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intensely with each other the way high-ranking aides did in the early stages of the Trump administration .
The biggest unknown might be how Biden deals with the Senate .
It ’ s unlikely Biden will wait until the Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia to name his picks for the Cabinet and other top posts in federal agencies that require Senate confirmation .
Waiting that long would mean that those picks probably wouldn ’ t be ready to start soon after Biden takes office on Jan. 20 .
So the incoming president has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choose whomever he thinks is appropriate for a given job and dare Republicans to block that person , if the GOP has a majority after the Georgia races .
Second , he can try to choose nominees who he thinks Sen. Mitch McConnell will allow to come up for votes ( assuming McConnell remains majority leader ) and who can get the support of at least two Republican senators .
( The GOP will have at most 52 votes , so a 50-50 split would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a third option , too : Biden can use federal laws and procedures to make the people he wants “ acting ” secretaries without Senate confirmation , as Trump has done .
How much Republicans would try to block Biden ’ s picks is a wild card ; in the Obama and Trump transitions , the president ’ s party controlled the Senate , so we haven ’ t seen an opposition-controlled Senate voting on a new president ’ s appointees recently .
It will be interesting to see if Biden avoids nominating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if those nominees are viewed as too liberal ( like perhaps Sanders and Warren ) or have frosty relationships with the GOP ( say , former National Security Adviser Susan Rice , who some Republicans dislike from her days in the Obama administration ) .
Also , with such tight margins in the Senate , Biden may be wary of nominating Senate members from states where a Republican governor could appoint their replacement ( Warren ) or where Democrats might have a hard time holding onto a seat in a special election ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Of course , it ’ s also possible that this presidential transition may not follow these general parameters .
With COVID-19 , a president who won ’ t concede or participate in the transition , a GOP that ’ s increasingly willing to break with democratic norms and values and control of the Senate still hanging in the balance because of the runoffs in Georgia , there are also a lot of unknowns .
But ultimately , I suspect Biden will run his transition in a fairly traditional manner .
After all , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been done in Washington and , as we saw during the campaign , part of the reason he ran in the first place is that he wants to restore some of that normalcy .

Presidential transitions result in a lot of very inside-the-Beltway stories — an endless stream of leaks and counterleaks that are mainly about some of the world’s most ambitious people jockeying for jobs. Oy. But the transition itself is still an important story.
Who staffs the government matters, and it matters even more when the nation is in its ninth month of struggling to deal with a pandemic. And sometimes the results of all that jockeying are crucial. Imagine how history might have unfolded if President Barack Obama had not tapped Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state — or if President Trump had chosen Mitt Romney, who he courted but ultimately rejected for the role of top diplomat and who four years later became the only GOP senator to support Trump’s removal from office?
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Some slots are already filled, with Biden naming a senior team of White House advisers that includes his longtime aide Ron Klain as chief of staff, his campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, as a deputy chief of staff, and Rep. Cedric Richmond, one of Biden’s prominent Black supporters during the campaign, as a senior adviser.
[What Trump’s Refusal To Concede Says About American Democracy]
But there are a lot of jobs still to be filled (around 4,000). So here’s FiveThirtyEight’s guide to the transition process:
Many of the rumors about who will get what job won’t turn out to be true — and sometimes that misdirection is intentional. The transition process is a perfect opportunity for:
Reporters to flatter sources by suggesting those sources should be considered for major jobs. Team Biden to float someone’s name to flatter him or her. A person who wants to be considered for a key job to float his or her own name. Other constituencies in the Democratic Party to push their preferred choices.
Many of the stories about who will get various jobs in the administration are full of unnamed sources. And those stories often say Biden is “considering” someone, but we have no idea how serious that consideration really is.
For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is fairly unlikely to be chosen as Biden’s Treasury secretary, even though she wants the job, at least according to “three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle,” per Politico. But Warren probably knows why she’s unlikely to get the appointment: The party’s centrist wing doesn’t want her running the department and Republicans might block her during the confirmation process. Instead, her public candidacy might really be an attempt to make sure Biden picks someone fairly liberal to run the department — or at least someone not too centrist.
Remember, the president will be the ultimate decision-maker in the administration — so don’t focus too much on who gets other senior jobs. There is a certain logic to the idea that if Biden appoints a person whose views are similar to Warren to a key job, that person will implement lots of liberal policies in that job, and a less-liberal person would implement more moderate policies. But that isn’t really how a presidential administration usually works.
On any really big policy matter (like who to nominate for an open seat on the Supreme Court), Biden is likely to make the final decision. Cabinet secretaries or lower-level officials at agencies can make policy, but only if it’s in line with what the president already thinks or if it’s not a big issue he needs to weigh in on. Additionally, top White House aides can stall agencies’ moves if they disagree with them, again meaning the president is the one who makes the final call. And, of course, if a Cabinet secretary, White House aide or other political appointee disagrees with the president too often, he or she will be sent packing.
The Trump administration showed why we shouldn’t put too much stock in what team of advisers a president initially chooses. In his 2016 campaign, Trump took stands that weren’t traditional for a Republican presidential candidate — he seemed wary of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was skeptical of NATO, and he was eager to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia. But during his presidential transition, Trump put a bunch of people with more establishment GOP views into key national security roles, most notably James Mattis as the defense secretary. Trump, of course, ended up feuding with this early set of advisers and eventually replaced them with people who would hew to his vision.
Polls were off for the 2020 election, but not by much | FiveThirtyEight
But keep a careful eye on the appointees, particularly those in jobs below chief of staff and Cabinet secretaries. Of course, even with the president making the final call, White House staffers and agencies’ political appointees can make a big difference, particularly if they are working on an issue that isn’t going to appear on the homepage or front page of The New York Times every day.
The best example of this might be Trump domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller, who has masterminded a slew of changes that made it harder to immigrate to the United States. Trump, of course, agrees with Miller’s broad goals, but it’s not clear that he would have implemented all of these policies if Miller were not in the administration.
On Team Biden, Richmond could use his role as the director of the White House’s outreach arm to make himself the administration’s de facto point person on Black issues, which might be both a major portfolio but also not so high-profile that Biden would interject and make all the big decisions.
Appointments can signal a president’s inclinations. Take another progressive Democrat whose name has been floated for a Cabinet position: Sen. Bernie Sanders as Biden’s secretary of labor. If Biden were to choose Sanders, that could be a signal that the former vice president will let the Vermont senator freely implement Democratic socialist policies through that department. But I don’t think that’s how we should think of such an appointment. Rather, it would likely be a signal that Biden plans to take fairly liberal stances on labor issues anyway, so he’s comfortable having a left-wing figure like Sanders implement that agenda.
For example, in the 2008 transition process, Obama’s selection of Wall Street-friendly people like Tim Geithner (as Treasury secretary) and Larry Summers (as top White House economic adviser) to key posts foreshadowed that the administration would not be as populist as some liberals wanted.
Appointments can also be more about placating various blocs within the party than policy. An incoming president who has just won an election usually tries to reward the people and groups who helped him get there. These constituency dynamics partly explain who’s being touted by the media as potential Biden appointees: former Ohio. Gov John Kasich and former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman (anti-Trump Republicans); Warren and Sanders (progressives); former undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen (women); Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (Latinos).
But an appointee who is picked mainly for political reasons may not have much sway in his or her role. Let’s revisit the idea of Sanders becoming Biden’s Labor secretary. It’s possible that Biden doesn’t want to implement liberal policies through the Labor department, but that he would nonetheless pick Sanders to placate progressives during the transition and then basically ignore the senator’s ideas once he is in the job.
A good example of this dynamic in a previous administration was Trump picking South Carolina’s then-governor, Nikki Haley, as the ambassador to the United Nations at the start of his first term. Haley had little foreign policy experience coming into the role — and it wasn’t clear that she exerted much influence on Trump’s agenda in her nearly two years in the administration. But choosing Haley was an important nod to voters of color (she is Indian American), women and establishment Republicans (at that point she was aligned with that wing of the GOP).
Expect Biden to choose people who aren’t considered really liberal or really centrist. Biden has always tried to be in the center of the Democratic Party — so it’s likely his administration will reflect that approach. Take his pick of Klain as his chief of staff. Yes, Klain was a top adviser to more center-left Democrats like Biden, Clinton and Obama, but more left-wing figures like Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also like him. So expect Biden to make more picks like Klain and not many picks like Warren as treasury secretary. Maybe former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel can get a fairly low-profile job like transportation secretary, but there is probably too much opposition from the party’s left for Biden to put him in a more prominent role.
Additionally, because Biden is likely to staff his administration with people who unify rather than divide the party, I doubt there will be factions of the Biden administration fighting intensely with each other the way high-ranking aides did in the early stages of the Trump administration.
The biggest unknown might be how Biden deals with the Senate. It’s unlikely Biden will wait until the Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia to name his picks for the Cabinet and other top posts in federal agencies that require Senate confirmation. Waiting that long would mean that those picks probably wouldn’t be ready to start soon after Biden takes office on Jan. 20.
So the incoming president has three choices: First, he can choose whomever he thinks is appropriate for a given job and dare Republicans to block that person, if the GOP has a majority after the Georgia races. Second, he can try to choose nominees who he thinks Sen. Mitch McConnell will allow to come up for votes (assuming McConnell remains majority leader) and who can get the support of at least two Republican senators. (The GOP will have at most 52 votes, so a 50-50 split would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote.) But there is a third option, too: Biden can use federal laws and procedures to make the people he wants “acting” secretaries without Senate confirmation, as Trump has done.
[Related: How Georgia Turned Blue]
How much Republicans would try to block Biden’s picks is a wild card; in the Obama and Trump transitions, the president’s party controlled the Senate, so we haven’t seen an opposition-controlled Senate voting on a new president’s appointees recently. It will be interesting to see if Biden avoids nominating people to jobs that require Senate confirmation if those nominees are viewed as too liberal (like perhaps Sanders and Warren) or have frosty relationships with the GOP (say, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who some Republicans dislike from her days in the Obama administration). Also, with such tight margins in the Senate, Biden may be wary of nominating Senate members from states where a Republican governor could appoint their replacement (Warren) or where Democrats might have a hard time holding onto a seat in a special election (Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar).
Of course, it’s also possible that this presidential transition may not follow these general parameters. With COVID-19, a president who won’t concede or participate in the transition, a GOP that’s increasingly willing to break with democratic norms and values and control of the Senate still hanging in the balance because of the runoffs in Georgia, there are also a lot of unknowns.
But ultimately, I suspect Biden will run his transition in a fairly traditional manner. After all, Biden is deeply familiar with how things have been done in Washington and, as we saw during the campaign, part of the reason he ran in the first place is that he wants to restore some of that normalcy.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-20--Can You Pass The Cranberry Sauce?

Can You Pass The Cranberry Sauce?

Welcome to The Riddler .
Every week , I offer up problems related to the things we hold dear around here : math , logic and probability .
Two puzzles are presented each week : the Riddler Express for those of you who want something bite-size and the Riddler Classic for those of you in the slow-puzzle movement .
Submit a correct answer for either , and you may get a shoutout in next week ’ s column .
Please wait until Monday to publicly share your answers !
If you need a hint or have a favorite puzzle collecting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Twitter .
First , an unlucky puzzle that comes a week late : Depending on the year , there can be one , two or three Friday the 13ths .
Last week happened to be the second Friday the 13th of 2020 .
What is the greatest number of Friday the 13ths that can occur over the course of four consecutive calendar years ?
Extra credit : What ’ s the greatest number of Friday the 13ths that can occur over a four-year period ( i.e.
, a period that doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
From Patrick Lopatto comes a riddle we can all be thankful for : To celebrate Thanksgiving , you and 19 of your family members are seated at a circular table ( socially distanced , of course ) .
Everyone at the table would like a helping of cranberry sauce , which happens to be in front of you at the moment .
Instead of passing the sauce around in a circle , you pass it randomly to the person seated directly to your left or to your right .
They then do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the person to their left or right .
This continues until everyone has , at some point , received the cranberry sauce .
Of the 20 people in the circle , who has the greatest chance of being the last to receive the cranberry sauce ?
Congratulations to 👏 Nathan Ainslie 👏 of Bloomington , Indiana , winner of last week ’ s Riddler Express .
Last week , you were a contestant on the TV show Jeopardy !
You were competing in the ( single ) Jeopardy !
round and your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You chose first and never relinquished control , working your way horizontally across the board by first selecting all six $ 200 clues , then all six $ 400 clues , and so on , until you finally selected all the $ 1,000 clues .
You responded to each clue correctly before either of your opponents could .
One randomly selected clue was a Daily Double .
Rather than award you the prize money associated with that clue , it instead allowed you to double your winnings ( up to that point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should you have less than that .
Being the aggressive player you are , you always bet the most you could have .
( In reality , the Daily Double was more likely to appear in certain locations on the board than others , but for this problem you assumed it had an equal chance of appearing anywhere on the board . )
How much money did you expect to win during the Jeopardy !
Round ?
There were a total of 30 clues on the board , and any one of those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Double .
That meant there were 30 cases to consider : when the Daily Double was the first clue you selected , when it was the second clue , the third clue , and so on .
And when it was one of the first six clues selected , the Daily Double was worth $ 1,000 ; otherwise , it doubled your money .
( Technically , if it was the sixth clue , it was worth $ 1,000 and doubled your money , since you had won exactly $ 1,000 by that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all 30 cases and averaged the winnings .
Alternatively , you could have added up the total amount of prize money across all the cases and then divided by 30 .
Across these cases , each clue was the Daily Double once , which meant it wasn ’ t the daily double 29 times .
Adding up the values of all the clues — without worrying about the Daily Double — gave you 6· ( 200 + 400 + 600 + 800 + 1000 ) , or $ 18,000 , which meant that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 522,000 .
Now to add up the Daily Doubles .
As we already said , for the first six cases the Daily Double was worth $ 1,000 .
When the Daily Double was the seventh clue , it was worth $ 1,200 .
From there , its value increased by $ 400 until it was $ 3,600 as the 13th clue .
Then , it increased by $ 600 until it was $ 7,200 as the 19th clue .
Next , it increased by $ 800 until it was $ 12,000 as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by $ 1,000 until it was a whopping $ 17,000 as the 30th and final clue .
That was some James Holzhauer wagering right there .
Even without a spreadsheet , you needed some hefty addition to tally up these Daily Doubles .
Their total value across the 30 cases turned out to be $ 192,000 — roughly 36 percent of what the non-Daily Double clues had been worth .
Combining the regular clues with the Daily Doubles gave a sum of $ 714,000 for all 30 cases .
That meant the average @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expect ” to win — was $ 23,800 .
For extra credit , instead of working your way horizontally across the board , you selected random clues from anywhere on the board , one at a time .
Now how much money did you expect to win during the Jeopardy !
Round ?
This was a much thornier version of the problem .
First , there were five rows in which the Daily Double might have appeared .
Then , for each row , you had to consider the order in which you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So instead of 30 cases , there were in fact 5·30 !
/ ( ( 6 ! )
45 ! )
, or about 4.1×1019 cases to consider .
From here , most solvers used Monte Carlo methods , simulating the game of Jeopardy !
thousands or even millions of times to approximate the answer .
As a few brave coders ( like Josh Silverman , Lowell Vaughn and Alex Vornsand ) found the answer was approximately $ 26,150 .
( This was quite close to the result you ’ d get — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clue had been worth the average amount of $ 600 .
The answer was slightly larger than this , since the Daily Double more than doubled your winnings whenever you had less than $ 1,000 . )
It made sense that picking clues randomly would net you more winnings on average , because you now had a greater chance of selecting higher-value clues ( like the $ 800 and $ 1,000 rows ) before hitting the Daily Double .
For this puzzle , we ’ ll let Alex Trebek have the last word @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 👏 Alex Zorn 👏 of Brooklyn , New York , winner of last week ’ s Riddler Classic .
Last week , you modeled blown football leads , something the Atlanta Falcons know a thing or two ( or three ) about .
The Georgia Birds and the Michigan Felines were playing a game in which a fair coin was flipped 101 times .
In the end , if heads came up at least 51 times , the Birds won ; but if tails came up at least 51 times , the Felines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Birds had at least a 99 percent chance of winning at some point during the game — meaning their probability of victory was 99 percent or greater given the flips that remained — and then proceeded to lose ?
This was a challenging riddle , to be sure .
For starters , you first had to make sense of what it meant to have “ at least a 99 percent chance of winning , ” while avoiding the tempting answer of 1 percent .
Before any flips were made , the Birds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But suppose , through incredible luck , that the first 50 tosses all came up heads .
From there , the Birds could still technically lose if the final 51 tosses all came up tails — an event whose probability was 1/251 .
That was just one ( albeit very unlikely ) way for the Birds to have a 99 percent chance of winning and then blow the game .
But there were many other , more likely scenarios , each of which involved an excess of heads flipped toward the beginning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ probabilities of these scenarios was to analyze ( preferably via code ) what was happening at each combination of wins ( W ) and losses ( L ) for the Birds .
Here ’ s a graph that shows the pairs ( W , L ) , shown in red , from which the Birds had at least a 99 percent chance of winning .
You could determine these directly using combinatorics , or working backwards recursively , noting that the probability of winning from ( W , L ) was the average @ @ @ @ @ @ @ L ) and ( W , L+1 ) .
Next , you wanted to find the probability that the Birds passed through at least one of the red locations in the graph above .
That is , for each ( W , L ) , what was the probability that at some point the Birds had a 99 percent chance of winning ?
This graph was very similar to the first .
But there were some places — in green and aqua — where the Birds had ventured into the 99 percent region @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through the graph were what made it possible for the Birds to blow their lead .
From here , you had to focus on which of these paths resulted in an overall loss for the Birds , and work backwards .
The final graph below shows the Birds ’ chances of reaching a 99 percent chance of victory at some point and then blowing the lead , for each ( W , L ) .
These chances were greatest when the Birds had won 50 games and lost 51 , when there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had blown a 99 percent lead somewhere along the way .
Working backwards , their chances of blowing a lead when they had zero wins and zero losses were about 10 times smaller , or 0.21 percent .
This was the solution to the riddle : the Birds ’ chances of at some point having a 99 percent chance at victory and then proceeding to lose .
For extra credit , instead of 101 total flips , there were many , many more ( i.e.
, you had to consider the limit as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Again , the Birds won if heads came up at least half the time .
Now what was the probability that the Birds had a win probability of at least 99 percent at some point and then proceeded to lose ?
To solve this , some coders continued increasing the number of flips beyond 101 and looked for asymptotic behavior .
This week ’ s winner , Alex Zorn , approached the extra credit analytically by first defining three key probabilities : • h , the probability that the Birds ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the probability that the Birds choke after attaining their 99 percent win probability • w , the probability that the Birds hit 99 percent and go on to win With these three variables defined , Alex was able to set up a few equations .
For example , w = 0.99·h and c = 0.01·h , since that ’ s what was meant by a 99 percent win probability .
Moreover , the probability that the Birds were the ultimate winners was 0.5 , which had to equal w. That meant h @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that c — the probability of blowing that 99 percent lead , was 1/198 .
Finally , solver Allen Gu noticed some rather peculiar oscillating behaviors as the number of coin flips increased and the threshold for “ choking ” was closer to 50 percent : Personally , I ’ d be very curious to see this plotted on a logarithmic graph .
My hunch is that the oscillations are due to the discrete nature of the problem , when the border between the yellow and blue regimes in that first graph shifts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been informed that the Birds are doing a little better as of late .
Those Los Angeles Lightning Bolts , on the other hand … not so much .
Well , aren ’ t you lucky ?
There ’ s a whole book full of the best puzzles from this column and some never-before-seen head-scratchers .
It ’ s called “ The Riddler , ” and it ’ s in stores now !

Welcome to The Riddler. Every week, I offer up problems related to the things we hold dear around here: math, logic and probability. Two puzzles are presented each week: the Riddler Express for those of you who want something bite-size and the Riddler Classic for those of you in the slow-puzzle movement. Submit a correct answer for either, and you may get a shoutout in next week’s column. Please wait until Monday to publicly share your answers! If you need a hint or have a favorite puzzle collecting dust in your attic, find me on Twitter.
Riddler Express
First, an unlucky puzzle that comes a week late:
Depending on the year, there can be one, two or three Friday the 13ths. Last week happened to be the second Friday the 13th of 2020.
What is the greatest number of Friday the 13ths that can occur over the course of four consecutive calendar years?
Extra credit: What’s the greatest number of Friday the 13ths that can occur over a four-year period (i.e., a period that doesn’t necessarily begin on January 1)?
The solution to this Riddler Express can be found in the following column.
Riddler Classic
From Patrick Lopatto comes a riddle we can all be thankful for:
To celebrate Thanksgiving, you and 19 of your family members are seated at a circular table (socially distanced, of course). Everyone at the table would like a helping of cranberry sauce, which happens to be in front of you at the moment.
Instead of passing the sauce around in a circle, you pass it randomly to the person seated directly to your left or to your right. They then do the same, passing it randomly either to the person to their left or right. This continues until everyone has, at some point, received the cranberry sauce.
Of the 20 people in the circle, who has the greatest chance of being the last to receive the cranberry sauce?
The solution to this Riddler Classic can be found in the following column.
Solution to last week’s Riddler Express
Congratulations to 👏 Nathan Ainslie 👏 of Bloomington, Indiana, winner of last week’s Riddler Express.
Last week, you were a contestant on the TV show Jeopardy! You were competing in the (single) Jeopardy! round and your opponents were simply no match for you. You chose first and never relinquished control, working your way horizontally across the board by first selecting all six $200 clues, then all six $400 clues, and so on, until you finally selected all the $1,000 clues. You responded to each clue correctly before either of your opponents could.
One randomly selected clue was a Daily Double. Rather than award you the prize money associated with that clue, it instead allowed you to double your winnings (up to that point) or wager up to $1,000 should you have less than that. Being the aggressive player you are, you always bet the most you could have. (In reality, the Daily Double was more likely to appear in certain locations on the board than others, but for this problem you assumed it had an equal chance of appearing anywhere on the board.)
How much money did you expect to win during the Jeopardy! Round?
There were a total of 30 clues on the board, and any one of those 30 clues could have been the Daily Double. That meant there were 30 cases to consider: when the Daily Double was the first clue you selected, when it was the second clue, the third clue, and so on. And when it was one of the first six clues selected, the Daily Double was worth $1,000; otherwise, it doubled your money. (Technically, if it was the sixth clue, it was worth $1,000 and doubled your money, since you had won exactly $1,000 by that point.)
Many solvers listed out all 30 cases and averaged the winnings. Alternatively, you could have added up the total amount of prize money across all the cases and then divided by 30. Across these cases, each clue was the Daily Double once, which meant it wasn’t the daily double 29 times. Adding up the values of all the clues — without worrying about the Daily Double — gave you 6·(200 + 400 + 600 + 800 + 1000), or $18,000, which meant that 29 boards of clues were worth $522,000.
Now to add up the Daily Doubles. As we already said, for the first six cases the Daily Double was worth $1,000. When the Daily Double was the seventh clue, it was worth $1,200. From there, its value increased by $400 until it was $3,600 as the 13th clue. Then, it increased by $600 until it was $7,200 as the 19th clue. Next, it increased by $800 until it was $12,000 as the 25th clue. Finally, it increased by $1,000 until it was a whopping $17,000 as the 30th and final clue. That was some James Holzhauer wagering right there.
Even without a spreadsheet, you needed some hefty addition to tally up these Daily Doubles. Their total value across the 30 cases turned out to be $192,000 — roughly 36 percent of what the non-Daily Double clues had been worth.
Combining the regular clues with the Daily Doubles gave a sum of $714,000 for all 30 cases. That meant the average — the amount you’d “expect” to win — was $23,800.
For extra credit, instead of working your way horizontally across the board, you selected random clues from anywhere on the board, one at a time. Now how much money did you expect to win during the Jeopardy! Round?
This was a much thornier version of the problem. First, there were five rows in which the Daily Double might have appeared. Then, for each row, you had to consider the order in which you worked your way across the board. So instead of 30 cases, there were in fact 5·30!/((6!)45!), or about 4.1×1019 cases to consider.
From here, most solvers used Monte Carlo methods, simulating the game of Jeopardy! thousands or even millions of times to approximate the answer. As a few brave coders (like Josh Silverman, Lowell Vaughn and Alex Vornsand) found the answer was approximately $26,150. (This was quite close to the result you’d get — $26,146.67 — if you assumed every clue had been worth the average amount of $600. The answer was slightly larger than this, since the Daily Double more than doubled your winnings whenever you had less than $1,000.)
It made sense that picking clues randomly would net you more winnings on average, because you now had a greater chance of selecting higher-value clues (like the $800 and $1,000 rows) before hitting the Daily Double.
For this puzzle, we’ll let Alex Trebek have the last word. We miss you.
Solution to last week’s Riddler Classic
Congratulations to 👏 Alex Zorn 👏 of Brooklyn, New York, winner of last week’s Riddler Classic.
Last week, you modeled blown football leads, something the Atlanta Falcons know a thing or two (or three) about. The Georgia Birds and the Michigan Felines were playing a game in which a fair coin was flipped 101 times. In the end, if heads came up at least 51 times, the Birds won; but if tails came up at least 51 times, the Felines won.
What was the probability that the Birds had at least a 99 percent chance of winning at some point during the game — meaning their probability of victory was 99 percent or greater given the flips that remained — and then proceeded to lose?
This was a challenging riddle, to be sure. For starters, you first had to make sense of what it meant to have “at least a 99 percent chance of winning,” while avoiding the tempting answer of 1 percent. Before any flips were made, the Birds had a 50 percent chance of winning. But suppose, through incredible luck, that the first 50 tosses all came up heads. From there, the Birds could still technically lose if the final 51 tosses all came up tails — an event whose probability was 1/251.
That was just one (albeit very unlikely) way for the Birds to have a 99 percent chance of winning and then blow the game. But there were many other, more likely scenarios, each of which involved an excess of heads flipped toward the beginning. One way to add up the probabilities of these scenarios was to analyze (preferably via code) what was happening at each combination of wins (W) and losses (L) for the Birds.
Here’s a graph that shows the pairs (W, L), shown in red, from which the Birds had at least a 99 percent chance of winning. You could determine these directly using combinatorics, or working backwards recursively, noting that the probability of winning from (W, L) was the average of the probabilities from (W+1, L) and (W, L+1).
Next, you wanted to find the probability that the Birds passed through at least one of the red locations in the graph above. That is, for each (W, L), what was the probability that at some point the Birds had a 99 percent chance of winning?
This graph was very similar to the first. But there were some places — in green and aqua — where the Birds had ventured into the 99 percent region and then back out. These paths through the graph were what made it possible for the Birds to blow their lead.
From here, you had to focus on which of these paths resulted in an overall loss for the Birds, and work backwards. The final graph below shows the Birds’ chances of reaching a 99 percent chance of victory at some point and then blowing the lead, for each (W, L).
These chances were greatest when the Birds had won 50 games and lost 51, when there was a roughly 2 percent chance that they had blown a 99 percent lead somewhere along the way. Working backwards, their chances of blowing a lead when they had zero wins and zero losses were about 10 times smaller, or 0.21 percent. This was the solution to the riddle: the Birds’ chances of at some point having a 99 percent chance at victory and then proceeding to lose.
For extra credit, instead of 101 total flips, there were many, many more (i.e., you had to consider the limit as the number of flips went to infinity). Again, the Birds won if heads came up at least half the time. Now what was the probability that the Birds had a win probability of at least 99 percent at some point and then proceeded to lose?
To solve this, some coders continued increasing the number of flips beyond 101 and looked for asymptotic behavior. This week’s winner, Alex Zorn, approached the extra credit analytically by first defining three key probabilities:
h, the probability that the Birds ever hit 99 percent win probability
c, the probability that the Birds choke after attaining their 99 percent win probability
w, the probability that the Birds hit 99 percent and go on to win
With these three variables defined, Alex was able to set up a few equations. For example, w = 0.99·h and c = 0.01·h, since that’s what was meant by a 99 percent win probability. Moreover, the probability that the Birds were the ultimate winners was 0.5, which had to equal w. That meant h = 50/99, which in turn meant that c — the probability of blowing that 99 percent lead, was 1/198.
Finally, solver Allen Gu noticed some rather peculiar oscillating behaviors as the number of coin flips increased and the threshold for “choking” was closer to 50 percent:
Personally, I’d be very curious to see this plotted on a logarithmic graph. My hunch is that the oscillations are due to the discrete nature of the problem, when the border between the yellow and blue regimes in that first graph shifts.
In any case, I have been informed that the Birds are doing a little better as of late. Those Los Angeles Lightning Bolts, on the other hand … not so much.
Want more riddles?
Well, aren’t you lucky? There’s a whole book full of the best puzzles from this column and some never-before-seen head-scratchers. It’s called “The Riddler,” and it’s in stores now!
Want to submit a riddle?
Email Zach Wissner-Gross at riddlercolumn@gmail.com


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-20--More Republicans Distrust This Year’s Election Results Than Democrats After 2016

President Trump ’ s refusal to accept the outcome of the election has sown distrust in the election , especially among Republicans .
According to a new Monmouth University poll , about three in four Republicans now doubt the fairness of the 2020 presidential election , even though there is no evidence that the electoral process was compromised in a way that could affect the outcome .
And as you can see in the chart below , distrust among Republicans has skyrocketed since Election Day .
Monmouth isn ’ t the only pollster to find very high levels of distrust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poll this week found that 73 percent of Republicans had little or no confidence that the election was conducted fairly and a Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 67 percent of Republicans thought that the 2020 election was either “ probably ” or “ definitely ” not free and fair .
It ’ s important to stress that all three pollsters did find that a majority of Americans accepted the results — roughly 6 in 10 — but what is worrisome is that only about 4 in 10 said they were very confident that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is troubling , because as my colleague Perry Bacon , Jr. wrote earlier this week on Trump ’ s refusal to concede , there are now very real questions about American democracy and whether it will remain intact .
This , of course , isn ’ t the first time Trump has tried to sow doubt in the democratic process .
Before and after the 2016 election , Trump falsely claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants were going to vote in the election , or that “ people that have died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” even though there was never any evidence that these claims were true .
And , as was the case ahead of the 2016 election , Republicans once again were more likely than Democrats to believe these fraudulent claims as they went to the polls .
The key difference between now and 2016 , though , is that after the election , a majority of Republicans are still unwilling to accept the result .
That wasn ’ t true of Democrats in 2016 .
Lest we think that Republicans are the only ones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ electoral process colored by the outcome , polling shows that some Democrats did lose confidence in the election after Trump won in 2016 .
Nevertheless , a majority of Democrats ( as well as Republicans and independents ) believed that votes were counted accurately after the election was over .
So the finding in this latest round of polls , that roughly three in four Republicans don ’ t have faith in the electoral process , is a big departure from what public opinion polls found after the last election .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for American democracy — Biden ’ s claim to the presidency doesn ’ t seem to be in real jeopardy — but these first few post-election polls lay bare the consequences to sowing disinformation in America ’ s electoral process .
• The presidential election might be over , but polls for Georgia ’ s two U.S. Senate runoff elections — which are scheduled for Jan. 5 and will decide which party controls the chamber — have already started to trickle in .
Since Election Day , we have gotten two polls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from InsiderAdvantage , that show the races could be close .
The polls , both from right-leaning pollsters , show that the special election between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Kelly Loeffler could be a toss-up , with the candidates virtually tied .
A third poll of just the special election runoff , which was sponsored by a Republican PAC , shows Loeffler slightly ahead .
In the other race , the Remington poll shows incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue leading his opponent , Jon Ossoff ; the InsiderAdvantage poll shows that race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first of many more polls to come , so be sure to keep an eye on our database of polls between now and January for a more rounded look at the polling .
• 58 percent of Americans said they would get a COVID-19 vaccine if an FDA-approved vaccine was available right now , according to a Gallup poll conducted in late October .
Willingness to get vaccinated had dipped in September due , in part , to a sharp drop in support among Democrats , but now the share of Democrats willing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while the share of Republicans and independents willing to get vaccinated has stayed constant .
• A HarrisX poll released on Tuesday found that 77 percent of Americans thought that Congress should pass a coronavirus relief package as soon as possible , while 23 percent said one is not needed because the economy is bouncing back on its own .
This includes a majority of Republicans ( 64 percent ) and Democrats ( 89 percent ) .
• A SurveyMonkey poll conducted earlier this month found that 37 percent of Americans planned to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside their household .
And according to a survey from The Ohio State University ’ s Wexner Medical Center , while a majority of Americans do plan to follow precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as they celebrate the holidays , not everyone seems keen on following the CDC ’ s guidelines : 38 percent said they will likely attend a gathering with more than 10 people .
Another third said they will not ask their guests to wear masks , and 27 percent said they ’ re unlikely to follow social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and after dinner .
• Romanians go to the polls on Dec. 6 to elect a new parliament .
And polls show that the Social Democratic Party , a populist left of center party that swept the country ’ s 2016 elections with 46 percent of the vote and won more seats than any other party , is slated to lose seats this year .
The party , which initially ruled as part of a coalition government but lost control after a no-confidence vote amid corruption scandals and protests , was replaced by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Liberal Party .
According to Politico ’ s average of polls , the National Liberal Party , which received only 20 percent of the vote in 2016 , leads with 32 percent of the vote , followed by the Social Democratic Party at 27 percent .
Several other parties trail in the polls with 15 percent of the vote or less .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 44.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 52.4 percent disapprove ( a net @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At this time last week , 44.6 percent approved and 52.3 percent disapproved ( for a net approval rating of -7.7 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 42.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 54.1 percent , for a net approval rating of -11.3 points .

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
President Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election has sown distrust in the election, especially among Republicans.
According to a new Monmouth University poll, about three in four Republicans now doubt the fairness of the 2020 presidential election, even though there is no evidence that the electoral process was compromised in a way that could affect the outcome. And as you can see in the chart below, distrust among Republicans has skyrocketed since Election Day.
Monmouth isn’t the only pollster to find very high levels of distrust among Republicans, either. A YouGov/Economist poll this week found that 73 percent of Republicans had little or no confidence that the election was conducted fairly and a Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 67 percent of Republicans thought that the 2020 election was either “probably” or “definitely” not free and fair.
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
It’s important to stress that all three pollsters did find that a majority of Americans accepted the results — roughly 6 in 10 — but what is worrisome is that only about 4 in 10 said they were very confident that the election was conducted fairly and accurately.
This is troubling, because as my colleague Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote earlier this week on Trump’s refusal to concede, there are now very real questions about American democracy and whether it will remain intact.
[What Trump’s Refusal To Concede Says About American Democracy]
This, of course, isn’t the first time Trump has tried to sow doubt in the democratic process. Before and after the 2016 election, Trump falsely claimed that millions of undocumented immigrants were going to vote in the election, or that “people that have died 10 years ago are still voting,” even though there was never any evidence that these claims were true. And, as was the case ahead of the 2016 election, Republicans once again were more likely than Democrats to believe these fraudulent claims as they went to the polls.
The key difference between now and 2016, though, is that after the election, a majority of Republicans are still unwilling to accept the result. That wasn’t true of Democrats in 2016.
In 2016, both parties trusted the election results Share of voters who were confident that votes across the country would be or were counted accurately, before and after the 2016 election Pre-election (10/15/16) Post-Election (1/28/17) Population confident not confident confident not confident Diff. All 66% 30 67% 26 +1 Democrats 84 14 65 28 -19 Independents 53 37 61 28 +8 Republicans 56 41 73 22 +17 Source: Morning Consult
Lest we think that Republicans are the only ones susceptible to having their view of the electoral process colored by the outcome, polling shows that some Democrats did lose confidence in the election after Trump won in 2016. Nevertheless, a majority of Democrats (as well as Republicans and independents) believed that votes were counted accurately after the election was over. So the finding in this latest round of polls, that roughly three in four Republicans don’t have faith in the electoral process, is a big departure from what public opinion polls found after the last election.
[What Blue And Red ‘Shifts’ Looked Like In Every State]
It’s hard to know what this means for American democracy — Biden’s claim to the presidency doesn’t seem to be in real jeopardy — but these first few post-election polls lay bare the consequences to sowing disinformation in America’s electoral process.
Other polling bites
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 44.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.4 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -8.1 points). At this time last week, 44.6 percent approved and 52.3 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -7.7 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 54.1 percent, for a net approval rating of -11.3 points.
Will Georgia stay blue? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-19--How Durable Is Georgia’s Blue Shift? We’ll Find Out In January.

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight senior writer Perry Bacon Jr. and @ @ @ @ @ Journal-Constitution to understand the trends that turned Georgia blue and just how durable they are @

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight senior writer Perry Bacon Jr. and Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to understand the trends that turned Georgia blue and just how durable they are.
[Related: How Georgia Turned Blue]


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-19--Politics Podcast: Will Georgia Stay Blue?

If 2016 showed that Republicans could win in the upper Midwest , 2020 has shown that Democrats can win in @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden claimed Arizona for Democrats for the first time since 1996 and Georgia for @ @ @ @ @ .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , we focus on the latter @ @ @ @ @ Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight ’ s Perry Bacon Jr. and Greg Bluestein of the @ @ @ @ @ trends that flipped Georgia blue and how durable they are .
You can listen to @ @ @ @ @ “ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes @ @ @ @ @ your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn how to @ @ @ @ @ podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by leaving @ @ @ @ @ on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for “ good polling vs. @ @ @ @ @ in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

If 2016 showed that Republicans could win in the upper Midwest, 2020 has shown that Democrats can win in the Sun Belt. President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since 1996 and the first to win Georgia since 1992. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, we focus on Georgia. Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight’s Perry Bacon Jr. and Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the trends that turned the state blue and whether they might last.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-19--The Upsides And Downsides Of The NBA’s Five Biggest Trades So Far

Between a relatively unpredictable draft conducted remotely and free agency opening a mere 48 hours later — in November , no less — this was already sure to go down as one of the stranger weeks in the NBA ’ s 74-year history .
Now that we ’ ve finally made it here , we might as well fully embrace the weirdness that ’ s to come .
( What choice do we really have , anyway ? )
But before we skip ahead to Friday and figure out where players like Fred VanVleet , Danilo Gallinari , Jerami Grant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , let ’ s take a look at how a handful of key trades have changed the outlook for certain clubs .
Milwaukee getting Holiday ( but somehow not getting Bogdanović ) Upside : If you ’ re trying to set up as stable an environment as possible around two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo ahead of his massive supermax decision , you ’ d be hard-pressed to find a more solid contributor than Jrue Holiday , who ’ s long been one of the best two-way players in the league .
We ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook trade from a season ago .
And while that ’ s not totally analogous — because of both the players ’ ages and the massive contract numbers involved — the idea of swapping Eric Bledsoe out to bring in Holiday feels a bit like getting Paul to replace Westbrook .
Much like the contrast between Paul and Westbrook , Holiday ’ s game is far steadier than Bledsoe ’ s .
Both Holiday and Bledsoe are very good on defense ( Holiday enjoys a 2-inch height advantage ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to widen into something Grand Canyon-sized when the games take on more importance .
Bledsoe shot just 13-for-59 — 22 percent — on jumpers in the two playoff series Milwaukee lost the past two seasons ; that made opponents feel comfortable leaving him open , much the same way they do with Westbrook , who has also shot poorly on the big stage .
By contrast , Holiday — normally a decent-but-not-great jump shooter — was arguably the best player in a series with Anthony Davis , Damian Lillard and C.J .
McCollum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Downside : Bledsoe has been an elite finisher at the rim , shooting 70 percent or better from close range each of the past three seasons .
( Of course , he ’ s been too timid to drive all the way to the basket in the postseason because of how he ’ s been defended . )
Beyond that , the Bucks also lose the sure-handed George Hill , who backed up and played alongside Bledsoe .
They ’ ll also lose three first-round picks in the deal — ones that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if Giannis stays but could feel like the end of the world for a rebuilding Milwaukee if he leaves .
We can ’ t ignore the bizarre , What just happened ?
nature of the Bogdan Bogdanović deal getting leaked like it was done and then falling through .
He would have theoretically been a perfect fit for the Bucks as either a third or fourth option on offense .
He can set up teammates , and he ’ s quite skilled at creating shots for himself .
( Just 37 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assisted , a night-and-day contrast from Donte DiVincenzo , who was aided on 69 percent of his 2-pointers . )
DiVincenzo is clearly a far superior defender .
But based on the cold spells we ’ ve seen Milwaukee endure in recent postseasons , getting someone like Bogdanović , whom the Bucks could likely cover for on D , seemed like a step forward .
It all seems for naught now , though , after the acquisition flub , which may send them back to the drawing board to find another scorer of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coming off an NBA title , Los Angeles can rest assured that it ’ s getting a more complete offensive player in Dennis Schröder than the one it ’ s almost certainly losing in free agent Rajon Rondo .
Schröder finished with 20 points or more in 33 games — just over half his outings — in the 2019-20 regular season , something that Rondo , a facilitator by nature , did just twice for the Lakers .
And where Rondo sometimes looks as if he ’ s trying to avoid being fouled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Schröder gets to the charity stripe far more often .
All of that could lessen the burden on LeBron James and Anthony Davis , who had to take turns playing Superman during their title run .
Downside : While Schröder shined last season as part of Oklahoma City ’ s Three-Headed Hydra , there ’ s an argument to be made that his biggest statistical jump — he hit almost 39 percent from three last year after going just 32.5 percent previously in his career — may have been an aberration .
Also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more protective of the ball , with a nearly 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in the past four seasons , while Schröder is closer to 2-to-1 over the same period .
Upside : If you know anything — anything at all — about Portland , you know the Blazers have plenty of offensive firepower .
What they don ’ t have is much defense .
But fortunately for Portland , the Rockets were once again in sell mode , and they played “ Let ’ s Make a Deal ” with one of the NBA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ player they dealt Clint Capela for just nine months earlier .
Along with P.J .
Tucker , Robert Covington helped Houston play a completely different style of frenetic defense that was based heavily on his ability to rotate over and defend the rim , despite being a 6-foot-7 wing .
So having Covington should , in theory , allow the Blazers to go smaller defensively more often if they so choose .
( Whenever Jusuf Nurkić — and perhaps Zach Collins — is off the floor . )
Also important : The Blazers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while Lillard is in his prime .
So giving up first-round picks , rather than players of value ( sorry , Trevor Ariza ) , to get Covington is totally fine .
Downside : While Covington is beyond solid on that end , it would likely be asking too much of him to try to transform the Blazers into a top-10 defense on his own .
As The Athletic ’ s John Hollinger noted , Covington isn ’ t necessarily a phenom in one-on-one stopping ability .
But he ’ s fantastic as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a part of a switching ideology or a key cog in the sorts of short-ball lineups Houston used last season .
But for those things to work without spreading Covington too thin , the Blazers may need to orchestrate another move to bring another solid wing defender on board .
Philly getting Seth Curry and Danny Green for Richardson and Horford Upside : Depending on who you ask — and how die-hard a Sixers fan they are — some would say jettisoning Al Horford alone was worth whatever it ended up costing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a good teammate and as professional as they come , but the center turned out to be a horrendous fit alongside Joel Embiid in his one year with him .
Philly was minus 0.5 points per 100 possessions when Embiid and Horford shared the court .
But their margin jumped to a plus 8.7 per 100 possessions when Embiid played without Horford .
So to be able to dump Horford on the Thunder , while also getting the three-time champion Danny Green , while also swinging a separate deal to land a Splash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a team that desperately needs shooting ?
It ’ s hard to imagine how the Sixers could have done any better .
With a 45 percent shooter from deep like Seth Curry on the Sixers ’ roster , opponents will be far less able to double- and triple-team Embiid in the paint or crowd the lane to seal off Ben Simmons .
And while Green was merely average from deep this past season , at 37 percent or so , he ’ s a 40 percent shooter for his career , plays solid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ IQ to boot .
We should note here , too , that the Mavericks — who got Josh Richardson in exchange for Curry — also seemed to get a great deal .
After setting an NBA record for offensive efficiency with Luka Dončić running the show , Dallas badly needed some defensive grit .
And Richardson , who ’ s also an underrated shooter from the perimeter , fits that bill perfectly .
Downside : Likely no one is unhappy with this scenario .
Oklahoma City , which also got a future first-round @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seek to unload Horford and the remaining three years and $ 81 million on his contract if and when it can .
Bonus : Speaking of moves with upside and no downside : The Nets made a deal to land 23-year-old Landry Shamet , a sharpshooter who should cause the same sorts of problems playing alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving that Curry will with Embiid and Simmons .
If Brooklyn also brings back Joe Harris , some of the Nets ’ lineups will be flat-out scary offensively .
Upside : This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first thing I think of when assessing Chris Paul ’ s move to Phoenix is his leadership .
The Suns , who haven ’ t reached the postseason in a decade , showed vast improvement after adding respected veterans to the club last season .
One of them was point guard Ricky Rubio , a player whose injection of ball movement helped the team immensely ( Phoenix swiftly jumped from 17th in assist rate in 2018-19 to second last season ) , despite his shortcomings as a jump shooter .
But Paul is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passes and defends as well as Rubio , if not better .
And he was the league ’ s No .
1 clutch scorer last season — not a bad thing when defenses tend to throw everything they have at Devin Booker in those moments , and he needs a reliable teammate to pass the ball to .
There ’ s also no telling how much Paul will help a player like Deandre Ayton , who could be in line for improved numbers as one of Pauls ’ pick-and-roll partners .
Phoenix ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gave them reason for optimism this year .
Now , with Paul in the fold , the Suns should be expecting to reach the playoffs , instead of just hoping to .
Downside : While it was an enormous win to not have to surrender Mikal Bridges in the deal for Paul , losing Kelly Oubre stings in a handful of ways .
Aside from the fact that he could become a 20-points-per-game scorer very soon , he was one of the team ’ s best and most frequent cutters , often ensuring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even late into the shot clock .
Phoenix may have been considering what it would take to re-sign him after next year , when he ’ ll hit free agency and stand to make considerable money .
Or they may have remembered their perfect mark in the bubble without him .
Either way , the Suns will be a popular pick to reach the playoffs in the strong Western Conference .

Between a relatively unpredictable draft conducted remotely and free agency opening a mere 48 hours later — in November, no less — this was already sure to go down as one of the stranger weeks in the NBA’s 74-year history.
Now that we’ve finally made it here, we might as well fully embrace the weirdness that’s to come. (What choice do we really have, anyway?)
But before we skip ahead to Friday and figure out where players like Fred VanVleet, Danilo Gallinari, Jerami Grant and Montrezl Harrell will ultimately end up, let’s take a look at how a handful of key trades have changed the outlook for certain clubs.
Milwaukee getting Holiday (but somehow not getting Bogdanović)
Upside: If you’re trying to set up as stable an environment as possible around two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo ahead of his massive supermax decision, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more solid contributor than Jrue Holiday, who’s long been one of the best two-way players in the league.
We’ve all had time to reexamine the Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook trade from a season ago. And while that’s not totally analogous — because of both the players’ ages and the massive contract numbers involved — the idea of swapping Eric Bledsoe out to bring in Holiday feels a bit like getting Paul to replace Westbrook.
Much like the contrast between Paul and Westbrook, Holiday’s game is far steadier than Bledsoe’s. Both Holiday and Bledsoe are very good on defense (Holiday enjoys a 2-inch height advantage), yet the gap on offense seems to widen into something Grand Canyon-sized when the games take on more importance. Bledsoe shot just 13-for-59 — 22 percent — on jumpers in the two playoff series Milwaukee lost the past two seasons; that made opponents feel comfortable leaving him open, much the same way they do with Westbrook, who has also shot poorly on the big stage. By contrast, Holiday — normally a decent-but-not-great jump shooter — was arguably the best player in a series with Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum the last time he made the playoffs.
Downside: Bledsoe has been an elite finisher at the rim, shooting 70 percent or better from close range each of the past three seasons. (Of course, he’s been too timid to drive all the way to the basket in the postseason because of how he’s been defended.) Beyond that, the Bucks also lose the sure-handed George Hill, who backed up and played alongside Bledsoe. They’ll also lose three first-round picks in the deal — ones that won’t feel all that consequential if Giannis stays but could feel like the end of the world for a rebuilding Milwaukee if he leaves.
We can’t ignore the bizarre, What just happened? nature of the Bogdan Bogdanović deal getting leaked like it was done and then falling through. He would have theoretically been a perfect fit for the Bucks as either a third or fourth option on offense. He can set up teammates, and he’s quite skilled at creating shots for himself. (Just 37 percent of Bogdanović’s career 2-pointers have been assisted, a night-and-day contrast from Donte DiVincenzo, who was aided on 69 percent of his 2-pointers.)
DiVincenzo is clearly a far superior defender. But based on the cold spells we’ve seen Milwaukee endure in recent postseasons, getting someone like Bogdanović, whom the Bucks could likely cover for on D, seemed like a step forward. It all seems for naught now, though, after the acquisition flub, which may send them back to the drawing board to find another scorer of that caliber this offseason.
The Lakers getting Schröder
Upside: Coming off an NBA title, Los Angeles can rest assured that it’s getting a more complete offensive player in Dennis Schröder than the one it’s almost certainly losing in free agent Rajon Rondo.
Schröder finished with 20 points or more in 33 games — just over half his outings — in the 2019-20 regular season, something that Rondo, a facilitator by nature, did just twice for the Lakers. And where Rondo sometimes looks as if he’s trying to avoid being fouled because of his poor free-throw shooting, Schröder gets to the charity stripe far more often. All of that could lessen the burden on LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who had to take turns playing Superman during their title run.
Downside: While Schröder shined last season as part of Oklahoma City’s Three-Headed Hydra, there’s an argument to be made that his biggest statistical jump — he hit almost 39 percent from three last year after going just 32.5 percent previously in his career — may have been an aberration.
Also of note: Rondo is a bit more protective of the ball, with a nearly 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in the past four seasons, while Schröder is closer to 2-to-1 over the same period.
Portland getting Covington
Upside: If you know anything — anything at all — about Portland, you know the Blazers have plenty of offensive firepower. What they don’t have is much defense. But fortunately for Portland, the Rockets were once again in sell mode, and they played “Let’s Make a Deal” with one of the NBA’s most versatile defenders, a player they dealt Clint Capela for just nine months earlier.
Along with P.J. Tucker, Robert Covington helped Houston play a completely different style of frenetic defense that was based heavily on his ability to rotate over and defend the rim, despite being a 6-foot-7 wing. So having Covington should, in theory, allow the Blazers to go smaller defensively more often if they so choose. (Whenever Jusuf Nurkić — and perhaps Zach Collins — is off the floor.)
Also important: The Blazers are looking to improve right now, while Lillard is in his prime. So giving up first-round picks, rather than players of value (sorry, Trevor Ariza), to get Covington is totally fine.
Downside: While Covington is beyond solid on that end, it would likely be asking too much of him to try to transform the Blazers into a top-10 defense on his own.
As The Athletic’s John Hollinger noted, Covington isn’t necessarily a phenom in one-on-one stopping ability. But he’s fantastic as a helper, and he can be a part of a switching ideology or a key cog in the sorts of short-ball lineups Houston used last season.
But for those things to work without spreading Covington too thin, the Blazers may need to orchestrate another move to bring another solid wing defender on board.
Philly getting Seth Curry and Danny Green for Richardson and Horford
Upside: Depending on who you ask — and how die-hard a Sixers fan they are — some would say jettisoning Al Horford alone was worth whatever it ended up costing. By all accounts, he’s a good teammate and as professional as they come, but the center turned out to be a horrendous fit alongside Joel Embiid in his one year with him. Philly was minus 0.5 points per 100 possessions when Embiid and Horford shared the court. But their margin jumped to a plus 8.7 per 100 possessions when Embiid played without Horford.
So to be able to dump Horford on the Thunder, while also getting the three-time champion Danny Green, while also swinging a separate deal to land a Splash Brother’s literal brother? For a team that desperately needs shooting? It’s hard to imagine how the Sixers could have done any better.
With a 45 percent shooter from deep like Seth Curry on the Sixers’ roster, opponents will be far less able to double- and triple-team Embiid in the paint or crowd the lane to seal off Ben Simmons. And while Green was merely average from deep this past season, at 37 percent or so, he’s a 40 percent shooter for his career, plays solid perimeter defense and sports a high on-court IQ to boot.
We should note here, too, that the Mavericks — who got Josh Richardson in exchange for Curry — also seemed to get a great deal. After setting an NBA record for offensive efficiency with Luka Dončić running the show, Dallas badly needed some defensive grit. And Richardson, who’s also an underrated shooter from the perimeter, fits that bill perfectly.
Downside: Likely no one is unhappy with this scenario. Oklahoma City, which also got a future first-round pick and a second-rounder, will likely seek to unload Horford and the remaining three years and $81 million on his contract if and when it can.
Bonus: Speaking of moves with upside and no downside: The Nets made a deal to land 23-year-old Landry Shamet, a sharpshooter who should cause the same sorts of problems playing alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving that Curry will with Embiid and Simmons. If Brooklyn also brings back Joe Harris, some of the Nets’ lineups will be flat-out scary offensively.
Paul headed to the Suns
Upside: This is obviously a data site, but the first thing I think of when assessing Chris Paul’s move to Phoenix is his leadership.
The Suns, who haven’t reached the postseason in a decade, showed vast improvement after adding respected veterans to the club last season. One of them was point guard Ricky Rubio, a player whose injection of ball movement helped the team immensely (Phoenix swiftly jumped from 17th in assist rate in 2018-19 to second last season), despite his shortcomings as a jump shooter.
But Paul is a superior shooter to Rubio. He passes and defends as well as Rubio, if not better. And he was the league’s No. 1 clutch scorer last season — not a bad thing when defenses tend to throw everything they have at Devin Booker in those moments, and he needs a reliable teammate to pass the ball to. There’s also no telling how much Paul will help a player like Deandre Ayton, who could be in line for improved numbers as one of Pauls’ pick-and-roll partners.
Phoenix’s 8-0 finish in the Orlando bubble gave them reason for optimism this year. Now, with Paul in the fold, the Suns should be expecting to reach the playoffs, instead of just hoping to.
Downside: While it was an enormous win to not have to surrender Mikal Bridges in the deal for Paul, losing Kelly Oubre stings in a handful of ways. Aside from the fact that he could become a 20-points-per-game scorer very soon, he was one of the team’s best and most frequent cutters, often ensuring the offense would continue to move — even late into the shot clock.
Phoenix may have been considering what it would take to re-sign him after next year, when he’ll hit free agency and stand to make considerable money. Or they may have remembered their perfect mark in the bubble without him. Either way, the Suns will be a popular pick to reach the playoffs in the strong Western Conference.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-19--The Indianapolis Colts Finally Built A Defensive Monster

When the Indianapolis Colts hired Chuck Pagano as head coach , he promised to “ Build the Monster ” : a perennially tough , hard-nosed team like the one he coached in Baltimore .
Through nine games of the 2020 season , the Colts defense has allowed the fewest yards of any defense in the NFL , just the kind of Ravens-esque unit he surely hoped to build .
But Pagano didn ’ t build this monster .
Instead , it was brought to life by his replacement , Frank Reich , and first-time NFL defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it might be hard to remember that he was an emergency fallback hire .
Indianapolis plucked Reich from the Philadelphia Eagles just five days after Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels reneged on his agreement to take the Colts job .
Remarkably , Eberflus signed his contract thinking he was going to work under McDaniels , not Reich .
Eberflus , who had been considered the Dallas Cowboys ’ defensive-coordinator-in-waiting under Rod Marinelli , brought a flavor of Marinelli ’ s Tampa 2 scheme north with him .
Indianapolis , of course , made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Super Bowl running the Tampa 2 under Marinelli ’ s old boss , Tony Dungy .
Converting from a Ravens-style 3-4 to a Tampa 2-based 4-3 requires extensive changes in personnel , as Eberflus admitted in a town hall meeting after his hiring .
But even though Reich didn ’ t hire Eberflus himself , he bought into the idea .
“ I ’ m really into pressure with four men and let the defense play , ” Reich told SiriusXM at the time .
“ It ’ s a little bit of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a unique coverage that not as many teams run , and the teams that run it don ’ t run it as well as the pure [ Tampa 2 ] teams.
” Pressuring with four pass-rushers and playing well behind them is exactly what the Colts have done this year .
According to Pro-Football-Reference , the Colts are pressuring opposing quarterbacks on 24.0 percent of dropbacks , ranking 12th in the NFL .
Yet they ’ re blitzing just 19.9 percent of the time , fourth-lowest in the league .
Though the Colts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years under Eberflus , there ’ s been one big difference in 2020 .
Literally , a big difference : 6-foot-7 , 295-pound defensive lineman DeForest Buckner .
Acquired in a surprise March trade after the San Francisco 49ers decided they couldn ’ t meet the young Pro Bowler ’ s asking price on an extension , Buckner has had a transformative impact on the Colts ’ defense .
His 16 quarterback hits tie him for sixth-most in the NFL , and just one behind Aaron Donald and Chris Jones for most by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opposing offensive lines focus on Buckner , teammates like Denico Autry have had more room to operate ; Autry has six sacks in nine games so far this year after notching just 3.5 in 14 games last season .
According to Football Outsiders ’ Adjusted Line Yards stat , the Colts ’ defensive line was the 15th-best against the run in 2019 .
This year ?
They ’ re seventh-best in that metric , and sixth-best when opponents are running up the middle — at Buckner .
The defensive line ’ s proficiency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to execute their system and clamp down tight .
According to ESPN Stats & Information Group , the Colts are dropping into Cover 2 more often than any team in the NFL , on 30.3 percent of pass plays .
The Colts have either intercepted or defended 21 percent of the pass attempts thrown against them — the highest coverage-play rate in the NFL so far : Of course , there have been standout individual achievers in the back seven , too .
Despite missing two games , third-year linebacker Darius Leonard has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ match last season ’ s total — which was good enough for a Pro Bowl nod .
Cornerback Xavier Rhodes is the sixth-ranked qualified cornerback on Pro Football Focus , with an opposing passer rating allowed of just 63.6 when targeted .
The Colts smothered the Tennessee Titans last week on Thursday Night Football , allowing just 294 yards of total offense on 60 Titans plays .
Though 5.07 yards per play would be the fourth-best average in the league across the whole season , that actually worsened the Colts ’ league-best average @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it to a still-league-best 4.83 .
That ’ s almost a full yard less than their offense is gaining per average play ( 5.70 ) .
When you ’ re outgaining your opponents by that much , outscoring them by 7.2 points per game and winning the turnover battle , you ’ re going to win a lot of football games .
They ’ re also peaking at the perfect time : After playing the Green Bay Packers in Week 11 , the Colts host the rematch against the Titans , then have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five .
It ’ s no wonder that FiveThirtyEight ’ s NFL model projects Indianapolis to finish this season with the sixth-best scoring differential in the NFL — and gives the team a 62 percent chance to win the AFC South .
The Colts finally have the defensive monster that Pagano envisioned .
It just took Reich to build it .
Looking ahead : From a playoff-odds perspective , the biggest games of Week 11 are Philly-Cleveland and Baltimore-Tennessee .
But from a pure quality standpoint , it ’ s tough to beat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Thursday night .
Both teams have elite quarterbacks playing at a high level , with Kyler Murray of the Cardinals ranking third in expected points added ( EPA ) and Russell Wilson of the Seahawks ranking fourth .
But the two teams are trending in opposite directions .
Arizona has won four of its past five games , including a Hail Mary win over the Bills last Sunday , while Seattle has dropped three of its past four contests .
Murray has a chance to feast on the Seahawks ’ horrible defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least Seattle has home field on its side .
According to our model , the winner will see its chances of winning the NFC West leap to about 55 percent , while the loser ’ s odds will drop to about 15 percent .
So the stakes are clear , and we give the Seahawks the edge with a 58 percent chance to win .
Elo ’ s spread : Seattle -2½

When the Indianapolis Colts hired Chuck Pagano as head coach, he promised to “Build the Monster”: a perennially tough, hard-nosed team like the one he coached in Baltimore. Through nine games of the 2020 season, the Colts defense has allowed the fewest yards of any defense in the NFL, just the kind of Ravens-esque unit he surely hoped to build.
But Pagano didn’t build this monster. Instead, it was brought to life by his replacement, Frank Reich, and first-time NFL defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus.
[Our NFL Predictions]
Given Reich’s early successes, it might be hard to remember that he was an emergency fallback hire. Indianapolis plucked Reich from the Philadelphia Eagles just five days after Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels reneged on his agreement to take the Colts job. Remarkably, Eberflus signed his contract thinking he was going to work under McDaniels, not Reich.
Eberflus, who had been considered the Dallas Cowboys’ defensive-coordinator-in-waiting under Rod Marinelli, brought a flavor of Marinelli’s Tampa 2 scheme north with him. Indianapolis, of course, made seven straight playoff appearances and won a Super Bowl running the Tampa 2 under Marinelli’s old boss, Tony Dungy.
Converting from a Ravens-style 3-4 to a Tampa 2-based 4-3 requires extensive changes in personnel, as Eberflus admitted in a town hall meeting after his hiring. But even though Reich didn’t hire Eberflus himself, he bought into the idea.
“I’m really into pressure with four men and let the defense play,” Reich told SiriusXM at the time. “It’s a little bit of bend-but-don’t-break. It’s a unique coverage that not as many teams run, and the teams that run it don’t run it as well as the pure [Tampa 2] teams.”
Pressuring with four pass-rushers and playing well behind them is exactly what the Colts have done this year. According to Pro-Football-Reference, the Colts are pressuring opposing quarterbacks on 24.0 percent of dropbacks, ranking 12th in the NFL. Yet they’re blitzing just 19.9 percent of the time, fourth-lowest in the league.
Though the Colts defense played well in the first two years under Eberflus, there’s been one big difference in 2020. Literally, a big difference: 6-foot-7, 295-pound defensive lineman DeForest Buckner.
Acquired in a surprise March trade after the San Francisco 49ers decided they couldn’t meet the young Pro Bowler’s asking price on an extension, Buckner has had a transformative impact on the Colts’ defense. His 16 quarterback hits tie him for sixth-most in the NFL, and just one behind Aaron Donald and Chris Jones for most by an interior defensive lineman. And as opposing offensive lines focus on Buckner, teammates like Denico Autry have had more room to operate; Autry has six sacks in nine games so far this year after notching just 3.5 in 14 games last season.
According to Football Outsiders’ Adjusted Line Yards stat, the Colts’ defensive line was the 15th-best against the run in 2019. This year? They’re seventh-best in that metric, and sixth-best when opponents are running up the middle — at Buckner.
The defensive line’s proficiency up front has allowed the back seven to execute their system and clamp down tight. According to ESPN Stats & Information Group, the Colts are dropping into Cover 2 more often than any team in the NFL, on 30.3 percent of pass plays.
The Colts have either intercepted or defended 21 percent of the pass attempts thrown against them — the highest coverage-play rate in the NFL so far:
The Colts cover pass attempts better than anyone Top five NFL defenses by coverage play rate, or the share of pass attempts against that are defended or intercepted, 2020 season Rk Team Attempts Against Attempts defended* Coverage play rate 1 Indianapolis Colts 286 60 21.0% 2 Pittsburgh Steelers 308 56 18.2 3 Tennessee Titans 366 65 17.8 4 New England Patriots 245 43 17.6 5 Miami Dolphins 328 57 17.4 Through Week 10. *Includes interceptions. Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Of course, there have been standout individual achievers in the back seven, too. Despite missing two games, third-year linebacker Darius Leonard has notched 60 tackles, on pace to match last season’s total — which was good enough for a Pro Bowl nod. Cornerback Xavier Rhodes is the sixth-ranked qualified cornerback on Pro Football Focus, with an opposing passer rating allowed of just 63.6 when targeted.
The Colts smothered the Tennessee Titans last week on Thursday Night Football, allowing just 294 yards of total offense on 60 Titans plays. Though 5.07 yards per play would be the fourth-best average in the league across the whole season, that actually worsened the Colts’ league-best average of yards per play allowed, raising it to a still-league-best 4.83. That’s almost a full yard less than their offense is gaining per average play (5.70).
When you’re outgaining your opponents by that much, outscoring them by 7.2 points per game and winning the turnover battle, you’re going to win a lot of football games. They’re also peaking at the perfect time: After playing the Green Bay Packers in Week 11, the Colts host the rematch against the Titans, then have three more divisional games in their remaining five.
It’s no wonder that FiveThirtyEight’s NFL model projects Indianapolis to finish this season with the sixth-best scoring differential in the NFL — and gives the team a 62 percent chance to win the AFC South.
The Colts finally have the defensive monster that Pagano envisioned. It just took Reich to build it.
FiveThirtyEight’s NFL Elo ratings How each team ranks through Week 10 of the 2020 season, according to our quarterback-adjusted predictions Chance To … Rk Team Starting QB QB Rk* Elo Rating Proj. Wins Make Playoffs Win Division Win SB 1 Chiefs Mahomes 1 1735 13.2 >99% 89% 24% 2 Steelers Roethlisberger 6 1692 14.2 >99 90 18 3 Ravens Jackson 5 1635 11.0 86 8 4 4 Packers Rodgers 3 1630 11.8 96 89 10 5 Buccaneers Brady 10 1617 10.7 87 26 7 6 Bills Allen 8 1595 10.6 86 74 3 7 Colts Rivers 17 1590 10.2 73 62 3 8 Seahawks Wilson 4 1584 10.7 87 38 4 9 Rams Goff 16 1575 9.9 76 30 3 10 Raiders Carr 11 1565 10.1 70 11 2 11 Cardinals Murray 2 1564 9.9 71 32 3 12 Saints Winston 22 1561 11.4 96 73 13 13 Vikings Cousins 21 1538 8.2 36 4 1 14 Titans Tannehill 12 1538 9.7 60 37 1 15 Patriots Newton 18 1534 7.8 20 6 <1 16 Browns Mayfield 25 1519 9.9 58 2 1 17 49ers Mullens 29 1507 7.1 10 1 <1 18 Falcons Ryan 9 1506 5.8 3 1 <1 19 Dolphins Tagovailoa 26 1506 9.4 45 20 1 20 Bears Foles✚ 24 1486 8.0 29 7 <1 21 Eagles Wentz 27 1446 6.2 53 53 <1 22 Broncos Lock✚ 30 1441 5.7 1 <1 <1 23 Texans Watson 7 1435 4.8 1 1 <1 24 Chargers Herbert 13 1434 4.7 <1 <1 <1 25 Lions Stafford✚ 15 1419 6.7 9 1 <1 26 Bengals Burrow 19 1415 5.4 <1 <1 <1 27 Giants Jones 23 1408 5.3 23 23 <1 28 Washington Smith 20 1400 4.7 14 14 <1 29 Panthers Bridgewater✚ 14 1357 5.2 1 <1 <1 30 Cowboys Dalton✚ 31 1324 4.2 9 9 <1 31 Jets Flacco 28 1308 1.5 <1 <1 <1 32 Jaguars Luton 32 1208 1.9 <1 <1 <1 *Ranking among Week 11 starters, according to our QB Elo ratings. ✚ Starter is currently injured and may not play. †Starter could be replaced for performance reasons. Simulations as of Nov. 18, 2020. Source: ESPN
Looking ahead: From a playoff-odds perspective, the biggest games of Week 11 are Philly-Cleveland and Baltimore-Tennessee. But from a pure quality standpoint, it’s tough to beat the third-most-impactful game: Arizona versus Seattle on Thursday night. Both teams have elite quarterbacks playing at a high level, with Kyler Murray of the Cardinals ranking third in expected points added (EPA) and Russell Wilson of the Seahawks ranking fourth. But the two teams are trending in opposite directions. Arizona has won four of its past five games, including a Hail Mary win over the Bills last Sunday, while Seattle has dropped three of its past four contests. Murray has a chance to feast on the Seahawks’ horrible defense (25th in EPA), though at least Seattle has home field on its side. According to our model, the winner will see its chances of winning the NFC West leap to about 55 percent, while the loser’s odds will drop to about 15 percent. So the stakes are clear, and we give the Seahawks the edge with a 58 percent chance to win. Elo’s spread: Seattle -2½
Neil Paine contributed research.
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