Jim O’Donnell: Do all winning turnover margins have to end for the Bears?
LEAVE IT TO MATHEMATICIANS to try and rain on the Bears' victory parade.
The New Monsters of the Rekindled Age are 6-3, solidly in the NFC playoff chase and roll into Minnesota Sunday with a chance to further thrill their nation (noon, Fox; Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady; also AM-1000).
They win games with dramatic flair worthy of a digital voting machine in a shady county. Their propensity for high-risk heroics are positively “Ice Road Truckers” in tension.
NFL ACCESS MEDIA NOW PARSE the Chicago success like first-year medical students in a biology lab. What are the reasons, it is constantly being asked, for this abrupt uptick?
Players can be studied, from amazing competitors like right tackle Darnell Wright on down to DT Grady Jarrett.
Ben Johnson's offense is always under the microscope, especially in theory and regarding execution by the fleet-winged offensive alpha Caleb Williams.
BUT A VERY SIMPLE GAUGE OF VICTORY PROBABILITY lies beneath the zesty start. It's so simple that any 9-year-old worthy of his smart-aleck phone is aware of it:
When the Bears prevail in turnover margin, they win (6-0).
When they don't — or when they break even — they lose (0-3).
IT'S A WILD BAROMETER TO RIDE, especially for a team that's supposed to be in the midst of a developmental season. And yes, there are many corollary factors that contribute.
But as a single predictor, there it is.
If Johnson and his legion could sustain that tendency to the end of the line, in theory, a 10-7 regular-season or even — gasp — an 11-6 record would be in reach.
NOW ENTER the dubious mathematicians. In extensive studies of NFL games done by assorted entities, a conclusion has been that an extended run of positive turnover margins will eventually be offset by a corrective trend.
In stark language for the newly regenerated Bears faithful, one analysis concluded:
“A team with a strong season-to-date record of winning the turnover battle is likely to regress to the mean; conversely, teams losing in turnover margin at a point within a season tend to improve on that statistic moving forward.”
SO, IN THE BLINK OF A PILFERED PEANUT PUNCH, all of the comebacks and ballyhoo of the Bears' 6-3 beginning could turn back into Matt Eberflus outcomes.
It's a mean, dire possibility to present. As a statistical probability, it's almost as bad as anything a random IRS audit could discover.
SO THE BEARS (+3) TAKE THEIR HIGH HOPES to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis Sunday against a longship of floundering Vikings (4-5).
To borrow from the songbook of Ray Davies and the classic Kinks, they go in “Livin' on a Thin Line.”
And hope not to come out beginning to wonder, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone.”
STREET-BEATIN':
With pedestrian regional network telecasts of the last two Bears games (wins over the Bengals on CBS and the Giants on Fox), Tom Thayer and Jeff Joniak have been picking up new audio strays on ESPN-AM (1000). The veteran play-by-play duo has never sounded crisper. …
Chuck Swirsky had ample reason for coming across fatigued on some recent Bulls AM-670 radiocasts. He made a whirlwind trip to Rome to present Pope Leo XIV — once Robert Prevost of South suburban Dolton — with a team jersey. Quite naturally, it was No. 14. …
Dale Romans, a longtime thoroughbred trainer who won the 2012 Arlington Million with the front-running Little Mike, announced that he's in the 2028 race for the U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky to be vacated by Mitch McConnell. As a maverick Democrat, Romans is on the board at 1,000-1. …
Amazon Prime Video continues to expand its sports portfolio. The extremely well-resourced division announced that the weekly “Good Sports” comedy & chat show starring Kevin Hart and Keenan Thompson will launch on Nov. 26. The program gets 12 weeks to prove its worth with new episodes dropping Tuesdays at 7 p.m. …
Horace Grant is working with Wally Lockard and his Urban Grind Studios of Chicago to produce a first-run 13 episodes of “Legends in Session.” The show will feature conversations with past playmates including Scottie Pippen, Charles Oakley, Penny Hardaway and others. (Grant goes up on the Bulls Ring of Honor Nov. 22; 1987 Draft Day, when the team gained rights to both he and Pippen, remains one of the most landmark in franchise history.) …
And that always-friendly NYC sports media, with Justin Fields and the Jets still reeling at 2-8, is now calling the football foragers, “Gang Green.” …
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.