Luck? LUCK?!? What is luck?

[monkey]

Soooo...let me get this straight now.
Stopping the Packers on the goal line/short distance after gifting them multiple turnovers = luck?
Holding the Packers to just 16 points after three turnovers = luck?
Holding the top rated offense in all of football, to 4.5 yards per play = luck?
Holding Aaron Rodgers to 178 yards with just one short field touchdown and two interceptions = luck?
Keeping Eddie Lacy at 73 yards on 21 carries = luck?
Out gaining the Packers on the ground, in the air, and in time of possession = luck?
Smashing the Packers defense on the ground for 157 yards on 25 carries by Lynch = luck?
Moving the ball and scoring almost at will the last three possessions = luck?
A special teams player neglecting his blocking assignment on an on sides kick, to try to play the hero, and allowing the guy he was supposed to block, to recover the kick = luck?
A corner back after an interception, deciding to fall down on the ball with 5 minutes left in the game, because he thought they had the game wrapped up already, and they'd pretty much stopped playing = luck?
A Packers coach so afraid of losing that he didn't have the courage to go for the win on a fourth and goal play TWICE = luck?
One team fighting all the way to the end, while the other team started celebrating early = luck?

Maybe I'm missing something here...What I am being told repeatedly all over the internet and radio today is, the Seahawks were just lucky.

Soooo...
Is it also luck when Green Bay gets three easy turnovers in the first half, giving them incredible field position?
Is it also luck, when a perfectly thrown pass bounces off a receivers hands not once but TWICE right into the waiting arms of a defender?
Just curious what these morons define as "luck" because what I saw was will, determination, skill and most of all, better preparation!

[mykc14]

Yeah I heard all of that and I heard that the place was empty after RW's 4th INT over and over today. It wasn't lucky and the place wasn't empty but thats that national narrative on this one.

[RiverDog]

What is luck? I'll tell you what luck is. Luck is heaving the ball 30 yards in the air and having it land in the tight end's hands. Luck is having a ball bounce off an opponent's helmet on an onsides kick attempt. Luck is throwing an interception then have the returner inexplicitly give himself up. Luck is playing against an MVP quarterback that was obviously compromised by injury.

Lady Luck was on our side Sunday, but I'm stopping way short of calling our win "lucky". We are unarguably one of the two or three best teams in the league and earned every inch of our journey to the Super Bowl. This was not some fluke win where a random last place team pulls off an unlikely upset. We are going to the Super Bowl for one reason and one reason only: We are a damn good football team.

[burrrton]

Funny how the better team always seems to get the "lucky" bounces, eh?

If they were the "better" team Sunday, they wouldn't have absolutely HAD to have a backup TE run his assignments to perfection on a chaotic play. Nobody was going to be calling it "luck" when Kearse(?) mishandled that onside kick a few weeks back.

GB was outscored 28-6 in the 2nd half + OT, and RW's historically bad day was still better than Rodgers' day in many aspects (in addition to all the other things monkey's post details).

Congratulations to GB for playing so well against our passing game for 3.5 quarters, but I hate to break it to you that there is more than 3.5 quarters in a standard NFL game and there is more to it than passing defense.

Enjoy the Super Bowl from the comforts of your living room- you didn't deserve the win.

[Hawktawk]

Hawks were lucky and very good at critical moments Sunday .
Luck is a component of every great triumph in any sport. To say I root for a lucky team is a compliment because I used to root for the unluckiest of teams. The great teams winning the epic games have luck on their side. Like when a woozy Joe Montana drove the 9ers down the field against the Bengals and hit the reciever right in the numbers in the end zone. Oh I mean the safety, except he dropped it. The GW TD was the next throw.

Luck might be which crew referees your game.
Luck is a golfer hitting an impossible flop shot directly towards a sloping green fronted by water. In the biggest tournament in the world it inexorably trickled down and stopped with the trademark swoosh displayed before dropping in.And then he was caught cheating and the luck, the aura was gone.Pats may understand a little about that, hopefully more in a couple weeks.

Its more than luck, its magic. All the great ones in any sport can produce it.

And my hawks are loaded with guys like that.

[c_hawkbob]

We had as much bad luck early in that game as we had good luck late in it.

The Packers also had a lot of luck to build the lead they had, it's not as though they had played a dominant game.

The difference in the game was that we didn't buckle when things weren't going our way. Our defense never flinched, our offense never took our foot off the gas (like GB did toward the end) and the whole team kept believing in our ability to overcome the bad luck. Then when things did start bouncing our way, we were in the proper position and frame of mind to take full advantage.

We earned that game probably more than XLIII. It wasn't a fluke win.

[monkey]

What is luck? I'll tell you what luck is. Luck is heaving the ball 30 yards in the air and having it land in the tight end's hands. Luck is having a ball bounce off an opponent's helmet on an onsides kick attempt. Luck is throwing an interception then have the returner inexplicitly give himself up. Luck is playing against an MVP quarterback that was obviously compromised by injury.

Lady Luck was on our side Sunday, but I'm stopping way short of calling our win "lucky". We are unarguably one of the two or three best teams in the league and earned every inch of our journey to the Super Bowl. This was not some fluke win where a random last place team pulls off an unlikely upset. We are going to the Super Bowl for one reason and one reason only: We are a damn good football team.

Riv, please stop attributing success to non existent forces.
There IS NO SUCH THING AS LUCK!

Not even ONE of those things you described can be attributed to random chance. Not one.

A ball bouncing off players helmet, a player who by-the-way wasn't doing his freakin job correctly, as he was supposed to be blocking, isn't luck. That's a failure on the part of that TE to catch a ball he wasn't even supposed to be trying to catch. Not luck, BAD PLAY.
Luck has nothing to do with playing a QB who was hurt. EVERYONE is hurting by this point in the season! Is it also luck then that Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas got hurt, and continued to play? Bull!
The corner did NOT "inexplicably" give himself up! He was TOLD to get down by several players including Julius Peppers. The team didn't want him running around out there and doing something stupid. They thought that pick had virtually sealed the win, and they were celebrating on the sidelines as though the game was over.
That's not luck, that's STUPIDITY!!!
Russell Wilson scrambling around extending plays as he does so often, then finally throwing across the field to his last read when nothing else was available was luck??? That's GOOD FOOTBALL!!! That's what he's SUPPOSED TO DO! The fact that Ha Ha didn't know how to play that ball that hung up is indicative of just how much the wind was affecting the trajectory of the ball (not randomness, PHYSICS!!!) and just how tired he was after having been repeatedly slammed/shoved/smashed while trying to tackle Beast Mode for four quarters. He made a stutter step and then tried to make a play too late. You ever see an outfielder misjudge a high pop fly? Is that luck? NO! It's proof that no one is perfect.

Dude...seriously. Luck...there is no such thing! No lady who walks around randomly blowing on people's dice, no football gods who decide the outcomes of games.
And for the record, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy? Also, not real.

[RiverDog]

Riv, please stop attributing success to non existent forces.
There IS NO SUCH THING AS LUCK!

If there is no such thing as luck, to what do you attribute our winning the coin toss at the start of overtime? Divine intervention?

[monkey]

If there is no such thing as luck, to what do you attribute our winning the coin toss at the start of overtime? Divine intervention?

It's just a term we use to describe outcome probability.

Coin tossing itself is just a form of sortition which inherently has only two possible and equally likely outcomes.
https://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/experiments/statistics.html

At any rate, was it luck that the Packers didn't stop the Seahawks offense from scoring even ONE TIME in the last three minutes of the game???
We scored at will at the end of that game, LUCK?

Tell you what, I won't ask you to stop believing in some lady who walks around blowing on random people's dice, if you don't ask me to stop believing in explanations that are rooted in physics. Kay?

[kalibane]

Riv,

I tend to agree that some of us may be over reaching on the "no such thing as luck" idea. Obviously there is some hyperbole there. At the same time I think what Bob said is what's key.

The narrative that the Seahawks got a lucky win because a ball bounced off a Green Bay player's helmet on onside kick, thereby taking credit away from the Seahawks is tiresome. Were the Packers not lucky to get two interceptions off of balls that hit the receiver in the hands? Had that not happened (twice) who's to say the onside kick would have even been necessary?

The Seahawks played poorly (particularly Wilson and the WRs) but they still earned the win. You don't call the Packers lucky when Wilson makes a poor decision to throw an interception into double coverage ... so why is it lucky that Morgan Burnett made the poor decision to slide after an interception?

It's all people painting the picture of the narrative they want to believe, which is fine except most of them are not applying their criteria for what constitutes luck evenly across the board.

[HumanCockroach]

I said it in the other thread, and I'll say it again here. You create your OWN luck, by staying prepared, never quitting, doing your jobs and staying ready to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves, which IS indeed exactly what happened in Sundays game. Seattle was the more disciplined, better prepared, stronger willed team, and they won because of it. Period.


As for the coin flip, that is about the only instance I could agree with ( a NON-football, NON-game specific act) but even WITH that flip, not a person in this world can convince me that Seattles offense wouldn't have had a chance to step onto that field, as Seattle DOES have the more complete team, and would not have given up more than a FG, I don't care if Lombardi was on the sideline, Rodgers was at QB and he had Mega Tron, Rice, Largent, Nelson and Cobb to throw to, wasn't going to happen, on that day, in that stadium and in that situation. Period.

[NorthHawk]

Luck is the outcome of a seemingly random event. If it goes your way, it's good luck, if it goes the other way, it's bad luck.

Timing of good luck is the key and we got lucky at the right time where GB could not recover.
They got lucky early whereby we had time to recover.

It was good luck that the End crashed down inside on the fake FG touchdown. He doesn't always do it, but this time he did. There was good preparation for that event, but we were lucky he decided to go inside.
We were lucky that we got the 2 point conversion. Russ floated that ball across the field and yet the DB didn't make a play on it.
We were lucky the Onside kick was perfect and to maybe the one GB guy who would make a mistake on the play.

As said above, the bad luck for us was earlier in the game with the ball bouncing in the air on the deflected passes as examples.

How many teams have won via a Fake FG for a touchdown, a successful 2 point conversion, and a recovered Onside kick in the same game in the last quarter?
I doubt there are many and if there are I would think none were in playoff games or NFC Championship games.
So even if the good luck of the teams evened out over the course of the game, it would seem that ours came at a better time.

[RiverDog]

Riv,

I tend to agree that some of us may be over reaching on the "no such thing as luck" idea. Obviously there is some hyperbole there. At the same time I think what Bob said is what's key.

The narrative that the Seahawks got a lucky win because a ball bounced off a Green Bay player's helmet on onside kick, thereby taking credit away from their Seahawks is tiresome. Were the Packers not lucky to get two interceptions off of balls that hit the receiver in the hands? Had that not happened (twice) who's to say the onside kick would have even been necessary?

The Seahawks played poorly (particularly Wilson and the WRs) but they still earned the win. You don't call the Packers lucky when Wilson makes a poor decision to throw an interception into double coverage ... so why is it lucky that Morgan Burnett made the poor decision to slide after an interception?

It's all people painting the picture of the narrative they want to believe, which is fine except most of them are not applying their criteria for what constitutes luck evenly across the board.

Oh, I agree with Cob's take. Green Bay got lucky in the first half, having benefited from some uncharacteristic turnovers. They didn't take advantage of the good fortune that came their way by not putting us away early. McCarthy should have gone for at least one of those 4th and goal at the one plays, particularly the second one when he already had the lead. And no where did I say that our win was lucky, and went to great lengths to dispute the 'they got lucky' chant that some in the media are spouting.

I guess it depends on how you define luck. Looking at it from Green Bay's POV, it wasn't luck that caused their DB to slide or the onsides kick to bounce off Bostic's helmet. They f#$%&ed up, pure and simple. But looking at it from the Seahawk's perspective, IMO we were lucky that our opponent choked, just like we got lucky when Romo choked that fumbled FG attempt years ago. That doesn't mean that I thought Green Bay was better than us or even that they outplayed us. It just means that we were in the right place at the right time when some very unlikely events occurred. How can you say that we didn't get lucky on the two point conversion when Wilson, in an act of pure desperation, just heave the rock 30 yards in the air and to have Luke standing underneath it? How many times do QB's complete a pass like that? Russell drew to an inside straight and hit it.

[HumanCockroach]

It would seem in #3 case more often than the norm, not sure I would adhere to the he is luckier than others thought on that. He's special, no matter what some say, but "lucky" ? Nah.

[monkey]

Fine, if you guys all want to attribute what can be perfectly explained by PHYSICS with the term luck, then I'll play. (Riv, you especially are going to hate this, but it's how you want it).

Russell Wilson didn't play poorly at all, he just had bad luck! After all, on two of those picks, they bounced right off Kearse's hands into the waiting arms of defenders. SO bad luck there. On the one thrown into double coverage, you could see that the wind got to it, and slowed it up, so again bad luck there, and on the throw to the end zone, that was a one on one so good read, just bad luck the wind caught that one too.

There ya go. How do you like luck as an explanation for events now now?
Or do you prefer honesty now that I've shown you where this luck stuff leads? (To subjectivity and nonsense.)

[kalibane]

Riv,

I do think that luck played an element not trying to say it didn't at all. We got some lucky breaks. I just don't think we got markedly more lucky breaks than the Packers did. We just took advantage of ours to a greater extent.

What's getting me is the length that people are going now. On CBS sports right now they have a "did the Seahawks get away with an Offsides on the Sherman interception?" story. Taking a screen grab of Bennett with his hand on the unofficial blue line on the screen that denotes the line of scrimmage and not paying attention at all that the actual ball is behind the blue line which renders it absolutely meaningless.

They are just trying too hard at this point. On the other hand I guess that's fine because two weeks of nonsense about how the Seahawks don't belong in the Super Bowl could only be bad news for the Patriots, if history can be considered predictive.

[NorthHawk]

"I do think that luck played an element not trying to say it didn't at all. We got some lucky breaks. I just don't think we got markedly more lucky breaks than the Packers did. We just took advantage of ours to a greater extent."

My take, too as well as we got our good luck at the right time.

And, yeah Monkey, Luck does exist. Call it good fortune or whatever, but sometimes bounces go the right way for people and they stumble onto success.
It also tends to even out over time and as we saw in that game GB had their luck early (deflected passes could have gone down, up, or to the side - it's physics - but they went up for the defender to catch) and we had our luck late. That's not to say bad plays aren't responsible for bad things happening rather it's happenstance whether they get away with them or they turn into something bad.

[burrrton]

I think you guys are conflating low-percentage plays with "lucky" plays.

Recovering an onside kick is not luck- it happens all the time. Not the *majority* of the time, but about 20%. To me, "luck" in that situation would have been the ball bouncing off the referees head, not one of their players falling victim to the law of averages.

On the 2pt conversion, again I just think that was a low-percentage throw, not "luck" that it was completed. Those kind of completions aren't something you only see once a season- hell, you might see them 2-3x a game where a QB throws a ball up and the DB misplays it.

Etc.

[burrrton]

They are just trying too hard at this point.

No sht. I"ve heard the most pathetic attempts to excuse this outcome, with some even offhandedly referring to Rodgers' day as "good".

GB played well in one specific phase of the game, and only for part of the game at that. The final stats show a team that had a worse day offensively than in their opening game against us, while their D got run over by ML.

[Hawk Sista]

I posted this in the ADAM SCHEIN Thread but it fits better here:

Yeah, that is the national narrative alright. Good; it'll motivate our boys to hear that the Hawks were lucky, the Hawks sucked, the Packers were the better team, etc..... Uh, NO. They were not the better team. If they were - they would have scored some TDs; if they were - we would not have had 100 more yards from scrimmage; If they were - we would not have beaten them after giving them the ball within our 25 yard line three times (5 times total). Our D (which last time I checked is a PART of this team) held the vaunted GB offense to 300 yards and 22 points....& most of those points came at the hands of our offense/ST choking out turn-overs.

Make no mistake - This was not a good game and if we play this way again, we will not deserve another Lombardi. But, contrary to Mr. Roger's opinion (and every Packer interviewed along with all of the talking heads not in the PNW), the Packers were NOT the best team on the field Sunday. They didn't finish, they could not manage more than 6 points in the second 1/2 (a trend for the Hawks - home & away). Our D played VERY well, the offense (except for Beast Mode) struggled mightily but managed to string together long sustained drives in crunch time. Beast Mode had 157 yards and RW was nearly perfect after he was so bad. I'm not giving him a pass on the INTs, I'm saying he showed mettle.

I'd be broken-hearted if I were a Packer fan and would likely feel the same way they do. I do realize that I proudly sport blue and green goggles and see the game through that lens. BUT this notion that we were out-played for 55 minutes is simply not seeing the whole truth. It is LAZY journalism. Our D played great, and our O and ST shot themselves in the foot over and over again with turnovers and poor decision making. But as an entire team for an entire game, we won! Aaron's post game presser is just another reason to dislike him. What a blamer; I'd be disappointed if RW ever did that. Twas Rogers himself who said he had a free play as he thought the defender came early or he would not have thrown an INT. Yeah, man..........whatever.

[PasadenaHawk]

I don't believe in luck at all. I knew when I got to work this a.m. that is all everyone would say, and I was right. But talking through the game with others, it was obvious they didn't see it all or didn't think the Packers were just as lucky or luckier. So many things went their way in the beginning, and two big things went our way towards the end (on-side kick and 2-point conversion).

The one thing I will argue is Rodgers is full of crap. He was as mobile as he ever was. Towards the end when he ran for the first down and picked up 12-13 yards, he started gimping along knowing full well he could get the first down and get out of bounds without getting hit. He thought he had the game at that point. But it wasn't good enough. He wanted to go into Seattle as the underdog and beat the hated Seahawks, the team that has had his number for most of his career. But that wasn't enough. He wanted to do it with the whole world talking about him doing it injured. I say horse s***. That was playing to the cameras.

And the overall message to the Packers is simply, play hard the whole game. It's reminds me of Kenny Rogers song the Gambler. You never count your money when your sitting at the table; They'll be time enough for counting, when the dealings done.

[Hawktawk]

Great players and teams make their own luck to a large degree but sometimes great players can be unlucky. I remember Easley breaking up a long Fouts pass in the day and having the ball bounce off his heel to be run in for a winning TD. I remember Ray Butler fumbling in Denver when the Hawks were about to pull off a huge win.Those are the Hawks I remember, fumbling away opportunities every year despite being a pretty loaded team for much of the 80's and 2000's.
The switch and script have flipped. They are great and they have been lucky.I'm as much ready to believe the divine intervention angle as anything but something has changed. The stat line may have evened out but Seattle had to have every single play they made at the end on Sunday, never mind how inept they were offensively and in the return game to be in that situation. And had they lost I doubt they would have said they were the better team.

Whatever it was I will take it.....

[Hawk Sista]

The one thing I will argue is Rodgers is full of crap. He was as mobile as he ever was. Towards the end when he ran for the first down and picked up 12-13 yards, he started gimping along knowing full well he could get the first down and get out of bounds without getting hit. He thought he had the game at that point. But it wasn't good enough. He wanted to go into Seattle as the underdog and beat the hated Seahawks, the team that has had his number for most of his career. But that wasn't enough. He wanted to do it with the whole world talking about him doing it injured. I say horse s***. That was playing to the cameras. - Pasadena

Exactly. I NEVER bought his BS calf crap before, during or after the Dallas or the Hawk game. But the blamer has a built in excuse. He even forgot and limped on the wrong leg once. I know I sound like I should be clad in a tin-foil cap, but I will scream out loud if I hear one more person say we were saved by divine intervention, or that we got lucky, or we would have lost badly to a healthy Rogers, or "if McCarthy wouldn't have been such a wuss, the score would have been 30 - 0" etc.... McCarthy going for FGs was the right thing because they were STUFFD how many times by the best D in football right now.

[monkey]

I posted this in the ADAM SCHEIN Thread but it fits better here:

Yeah, that is the national narrative alright. Good; it'll motivate our boys to hear that the Hawks were lucky, the Hawks sucked, the Packers were the better team, etc..... Uh, NO. They were not the better team. If they were - they would have scored some TDs; if they were - we would not have had 100 more yards from scrimmage; If they were - we would not have beaten them after giving them the ball within our 25 yard line three times (5 times total). Our D (which last time I checked is a PART of this team) held the vaunted GB offense to 300 yards and 22 points....& most of those points came at the hands of our offense/ST choking out turn-overs.

Make no mistake - This was not a good game and if we play this way again, we will not deserve another Lombardi. But, contrary to Mr. Roger's opinion (and every Packer interviewed along with all of the talking heads not in the PNW), the Packers were NOT the best team on the field Sunday. They didn't finish, they could not manage more than 6 points in the second 1/2 (a trend for the Hawks - home & away). Our D played VERY well, the offense (except for Beast Mode) struggled mightily but managed to string together long sustained drives in crunch time. Beast Mode had 157 yards and RW was nearly perfect after he was so bad. I'm not giving him a pass on the INTs, I'm saying he showed mettle.

I'd be broken-hearted if I were a Packer fan and would likely feel the same way they do. I do realize that I proudly sport blue and green goggles and see the game through that lens. BUT this notion that we were out-played for 55 minutes is simply not seeing the whole truth. It is LAZY journalism. Our D played great, and our O and ST shot themselves in the foot over and over again with turnovers and poor decision making. But as an entire team for an entire game, we won! Aaron's post game presser is just another reason to dislike him. What a blamer; I'd be disappointed if RW ever did that. Twas Rogers himself who said he had a free play as he thought the defender came early or he would not have thrown an INT. Yeah, man..........whatever.

Great. Post.

[monkey]

Fine, if I must pretend that there is luck, (I do NOT believe in such a thing!) then I will cling to the best definitions I've seen of the word.

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. -President Thomas Jefferson

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning. -Thomas Edison

Luck is opportunity met by preparation -- and to be prepared or unprepared is a personal choice. -Neal Boortz

Luck is the residue of design. -Unknown

All of which puts "luck" right back to physics, hard work, and preparation, which is all that "luck" really is.

[Uppercut]

When Elway, Montana, Young, Stabler, etc did the same it was called great skill by a great QB!

If the show was turned and Aaron did the same to us the talk would be as above

Now lets get lucky for one more game.

[monkey]

When Elway, Montana, Young, Stabler, etc did the same it was called great skill by a great QB!

If the show was turned and Aaron did the same to us the talk would be as above

Now lets get lucky for one more game.

THANK YOU!
If that had been the beloved Packers led by the great and mighty Aaron Rodgers, mounting the comeback, the narrative today would be SO MUCH DIFFERENT and you all know it!
Don't buy the BS the morons in the media want you to buy. Luck had nothing to do with it. Skill, preparation and EXECUTION had everything to do with why Seattle beat the Packers.
They out physicalled the Packers for the most of four quarters, and by the fourth quarter, as usually happens when playing the Seahawks, the Packers were too tired to stop the onslaught.

In one stretch of just over 17 minutes, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers started possessions on the Seattle 19, the Seattle 23, their own 44, the Seattle 33, and their own 44. They came away with just 16 points. 16 points!!!
That's NOT luck!

26-6 in the second half folks.
Had we not spotted them 5 turnovers, this game would have been another beat down. We were EASILY the better team.

[NorthHawk]

Fine, if I must pretend that there is luck, (I do NOT believe in such a thing!) then I will cling to the best definitions I've seen of the word.
[quoteI am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. -President Thomas Jefferson

[quoteGood fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning. -Thomas Edison[/quote]
[quoteLuck is opportunity met by preparation -- and to be prepared or unprepared is a personal choice. -Neal Boortz[/quote]
[]quoteLuck is the residue of design. -Unknown[/quote]

All of which puts "luck" right back to physics, hard work, and preparation, which is all that "luck" really is.[/quote]


Then how do you explain lottery winners?
Planning? No
Hard work? No
Preparation? No

It's just blind luck.

[mykc14]

Then how do you explain lottery winners?
Planning? No
Hard work? No
Preparation? No

It's just blind luck.

It's not quite blind luck as you have to at least play, which could be considered preparation or maybe even hard work because to play you have to waste your hard-earned money to participate.

[The POPE]

If there is no such thing as luck, to what do you attribute our winning the coin toss at the start of overtime? Divine intervention?[/quote]


Never doubt the power of Divine Intervention.


The Pope