Joe’s Notes: When Will the Pistons Win?

The Pistons’ latest loss might have been the most painful of what is now their 28-game losing streak. They led big at halftime, they forced overtime when it looked like they’d lose in regulation, and it was on the road against the Celtics, a good team. If you believe in momentum, a loss like that one could go either direction, but in significant fashion in whichever direction it goes. If you don’t believe in momentum (or if you take the pessimistic side): Are these guys ever going to win again?

Obviously, yes. But the obviousness of that illustrates how wild it is that the Pistons have lost so consistently for so long. To have even a 10% chance of losing 28 games in a row, you need a 92% chance of losing each if every game is created equal (92% times 28 equals 9.7%). Even last night, facing one of the worst on-paper recipes for a victory (playing a good team on the road), the consensus moneyline early in the day only had the Pistons with about a 90% chance of losing. If the Pistons were just as big an underdog every night as they were last night, they wouldn’t have a 10% chance of doing what they’ve done.

When will the win come? Projections online have the Pistons going something like 12–40 the rest of the way, meaning their average win probability is something like 23%. If every game was the same, you’d expect the Pistons to—more likely than not—win one of their next three. Those next three—against the Raptors, Rockets, and Jazz—are also all probably better opportunities than the average for this team. The Rockets are the best opponent of the three, and Detroit gets the Raptors at home tomorrow night.

But I do wonder, with teams like these Pistons, if the numbers can break a little. For as strong as the sports media probability industry has at its best become, it’s hard to train models off things other than precedent. There’s no precedent for what the Pistons are pulling off. That momentum question might be real. The numbers say the Pistons will win, and soon. But if the players don’t buy that, it might not matter what the numbers say.

Revisiting Joe Flacco’s Hall of Fame Case

We asked a few weeks ago if Joe Flacco could make the Hall of Fame, pointing out that if the Browns win the Super Bowl, he’ll have won two, something that almost always gets quarterbacks in (albeit over a small sample). Well, the Browns probably won’t win the Super Bowl, but they are tied for the second-longest win streak in the NFL, and last night, they locked up a playoff berth. Their offense has become dominant. They’re nearly unbeaten at home. They’re one of just six teams with eleven or more wins. And with Flacco under center, they’re playing their best ball of the season.

Some of this is competition. The Browns’ four wins with Flacco (they’re 4–1 with him overall) have come at home against the Jaguars, at home against the Browns, on the road against the C.J. Stroud-less Texans, and at home against the Jets. But the Browns might get those Jaguars again in the Wild Card game, and from there they’d have an outside chance of hosting in the Divisional Round, needing two upsets to do so. It’s all still terribly unlikely, but it’s possible. It’s all possible. Futures odds aren’t perfect, and the Browns might not actually be the ninth-likeliest Super Bowl champion, but they might be, and if they’re not ninth, they’re almost assuredly tenth. Far crazier things have happened.

Is the Hall of Fame thing contingent upon the second Super Bowl? Probably. Here’s how Joe Flacco compares to the three most modern quarterbacks currently in the Hall of Fame, at a high level:

Are yards per attempt and wins the relevant stats here? I don’t know. People hate QB wins, but they give some idea of how often quarterbacks were in our focus, which isn’t the worst way to approximate the gut feeling. Focusing the comparison on Warner, Warner was definitely better than Flacco, but the TD/INT ratio isn’t all that different, and each has been a Super Bowl MVP once. If the Browns were to pull this off, there’s a pretty good chance Flacco would be a Super Bowl MVP a second time. He’d be one of just seven players ever to do that.

Flacco’s only 38, which is old but not that old. Clearly, he can still throw the football. Will this be his last season? Were his struggles the last few years mostly a product of playing so many games with the Jets? I say that to say: If his case is contingent on winning a second Super Bowl, this might not be his only shot. I say it also to say: He might still have some time to redefine his narrative. Warner’s lack of longevity (on the front end more than the back end, paradoxically) demonstrates how much weight vibes carry here. We might really end up in a situation where Joe Flacco is remembered, without debate, as a elite quarterback.

How Are the Vikings 7–8?

The Packers play the Vikings on Sunday night with the season on the line for both teams, and with the Vikings turning from Nick Mullens to Jaren Hall at quarterback, it’s worth asking:

How the hell are they this good?

The answer is that the Vikings have played a spectacularly easy schedule and managed to upset the 49ers once. Those Niners are the only team the Vikings have beaten who presently has a winning record. They’ve picked up seven wins despite missing opportunities against the Bears, Broncos, Bengals, Chargers, and Bucs. Their schedule has been absurdly favorable.

And yet their strength of schedule, calculated the simple way, is close to .500.

Nearly everyone is playing a spectacularly easy schedule this year.

The answer again, then, is that a lot of NFL teams are struggling, or so it feels. This is a bad time for the NFL to have things feel this way, too, coming so soon after the playoffs expanded. Playoff formats don’t contract these days, as a rule, but the fact the Packers and Vikings are playing for playoff relevance says a lot about where the league stands as the door closes on 2023.

As for the game itself: It’s going to be tough for the Packers to win in Minneapolis if they keep playing defense the way they’ve been playing defense. The upside, I guess, is that they might earn Jaren Hall a lot more looks in Minnesota. But this might be the end of the Joe Barry era.

The real upside is that the Packers have shot themselves in the feet to such a grand degree this year that it wouldn’t be surprising to look up in February and feel pretty good about the state of the franchise, especially if they do win this week and get themselves a potential playoff play-in game. If you strip away the dumbness, the bones aren’t bad. They aren’t amazing—this isn’t the Chiefs’ down year—but they could be a lot worse.

There Are a Lot of Free Agents on the Board

Where I’m landing with the Cubs offseason, as it stands right now, is that there are a lot of free agents left on the board. Blake Snell is out there. Jordan Montgomery is out there. Shota Imanaga is out there. Going by FanGraphs projected WAR for 2024, nine of the top 15 free agents are still unsigned. Going by 2023 fWAR, seven of the top 15 are left, with Cody Bellinger in the top four. We’re very early in this offseason. And while the Cubs aren’t expected to be in the mix for Snell, and Montgomery’s market is quiet at the moment, they’re the favorite for Bellinger. That’s a little scary, but if they sign him, it will probable be a great sign.

Bellinger’s situation is, in some ways, a lot like Dansby Swanson’s last winter. He’s coming off a great year, but regression is likely, and the market seems to realize that. Dansby Swanson was better by fWAR than all of Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Carlos Correa in 2022. He was decidedly the market’s fourth option anyway. What happened in 2023? He was the best among them again, despite playing fewer games than Turner or Bogaerts. Jed Hoyer might not have a track record of signing big-dollar free agents. He does, though, have the beginning of a track record of finding better players than those big-dollar guys.

Signing Shohei Ohtani would have been invaluable. But the Cubs entered this offseason knowing they weren’t the favorite there. The likeliest situation is that they had two plans: One where they signed Ohtani, and one where they didn’t. We’ll find out what the second plan held when the cards have all been played. Give it a chance.

The Bulls’ +/– Leaders

Basketball +/– is flawed, and I know this, but after last night’s game of runs, the Bulls’ +/– leaders on the season are Patrick Williams and Dalen Terry. That’s not the worst thing in the world. You want your most recent first round picks to be among your most productive players. Whether you trade them or keep them, you want them to be good, and if this ends up really being a sign of a Williams and/or Terry breakthrough, that would be massive for a team mostly comprised of overpaid veterans.

Tough loss to the Pacers, tough game against the Sixers tomorrow night. If you’re looking for something to watch for, though, watch for Williams and Terry. Maybe this is nothing. But maybe it’s something at a very good time.

The Blackhawks Might Get a Great Pick Next Year Too

The Blackhawks go down to Texas this weekend for a pair of games, and they will be big underdogs, as they always are. We’re nearly halfway through the season, and the Blackhawks are the second-worst team in hockey.

This is a great place to be.

They’re clearly making progress, Connor Bedard is as advertised, and they’re currently the second-worst team in hockey, both by points and goal differential. They can make progress and still obtain more cheap talent this offseason. I guess there’s something to be said for crashing your car into a bridge and watching it go up in flames. Better than a smoldering dumpster fire. (This is a bad thing—you don’t want to encourage crashing cars into bridges—but it’s what the NHL has given us, like many other American leagues.)

Cyclones in Memphis

It’s interesting how big a favorite Iowa State is in today’s Liberty Bowl. I’m admittedly not very in the weeds on Memphis’s opt-outs, but I’m assuming there are a lot?

Whatever the case, you have to love a good bowl game, and it’s nice to draw one whose name is recognized rather than one covered up by the sponsor. (This is intended as the furthest thing from a knock on the Pop-Tarts Bowl. That was incredible theater.)