Post by Reignman on Oct 6, 2022 17:52:58 GMT -6
Yes I got that idea from Purple Daily. Phil hasn't stopped talking about it all week, like he's discovered the holy grail. The "middle 8" is the final 4 minutes of the first half and the first 4 minutes of the second half. Also known as doubling up, which the Patriots/Belicheck were always known for trying to do throughout the Brady era. Although technically speaking, doubling up is when you try to score in the final seconds, and then on the opening drive, which is why a lot of teams prefer to defer when they win the coin toss, probably. This middle 8 thing has a little more flexibility.
Anyway, Phil likes to cite some "study" that was done a few years ago where some entity chose some random week to do a "deep dive" into the matter. It discovered the team that won the middle 8 won 13 of the 16 games. And by won, they mean scored the most points in that 8 minute stretch. Why did they only choose one random week? I have no idea because it wasn't too difficult to do all the weeks lol. Which is what we do here at Reignstats Inc.
I'm going to cover the entire Zimmer era, and some of results might be disturbing to some viewers, so viewer discretion is advised.
From 2014-2021, the teams that won the middle 8, won 67.0% of the time. So far so good, that's the premise. Win the middle 8, win the game. Now for some shock. The Vikings won the middle 8 56 times over the 129 game stretch (43.4% of the time), and they went 44-12 (.786) in those games. I did not see that coming. Meanwhile, they lost the middle 8 48 times and went 14-33-1 (.302). Both better than average believe it or not, and hey, who knew the Vikings did it more often than their opponents?
Anyone who has paid attention the past 2 years probably lol. Over the past 2 years the Vikings won the middle 8 only 12 times (8-4) and lost it 18 times (5-13). Yeah that seems more like it, both worse than average.
But hold on. Winning the middle 8 could simply mean kicking a FG and outscoring your opponent 3-0 for 8 minutes. Big whoop. What if you score a TD in those final 4 minutes of the first half and another one in the first 4 minutes of the second half? Well your odds of winning improve a little bit, that's what. You win about 79.1% of the time if you do that. To be fair, only 163 teams have pulled it off in 8 years (3.9%). The Vikings did it only 7 times in the Zimmer era (7-0), and none times last year. They only allowed it 6 times (1-5), and 5 of those came last year (1-4). Uff-da *z-fense*
The only win was against the Chargers week 10. Sitting on a 13-3 lead, they gave up a TD with 1:30 to go in the half, and then gave up another TD drive to open up the second half to fall behind 17-13. The Vikings had a 3-n-out and a kneel down between the 2 TD's. The Chargers even had another quick 3-n-out before half. Evidence that we didn't always allow points before half.
The Vikings responded in the 3rd/4th quarter with 2 long TD drives of their own to retake a 27-17 lead.
There has not been a middle 8 winner in a Vikings game yet in 2022. The Vikings came close in the Packers and Saints game, but the 2nd half Joseph FG in each game was always 2 minutes too late to qualify.
The more important question though, does the middle 8 hold some sort of magical powers? Find out in 7 months, because I'm going to look at other 8 minute stretches of game the next time I'm not feeling lazy. Maybe I'll even discover the most important 8 minutes of game in the process
. Who wants to bet it's the final 8 minutes? 
Maybe it's the first 8 minutes? 
I might even have a chart next time. 
Anyway, Phil likes to cite some "study" that was done a few years ago where some entity chose some random week to do a "deep dive" into the matter. It discovered the team that won the middle 8 won 13 of the 16 games. And by won, they mean scored the most points in that 8 minute stretch. Why did they only choose one random week? I have no idea because it wasn't too difficult to do all the weeks lol. Which is what we do here at Reignstats Inc.
I'm going to cover the entire Zimmer era, and some of results might be disturbing to some viewers, so viewer discretion is advised.
From 2014-2021, the teams that won the middle 8, won 67.0% of the time. So far so good, that's the premise. Win the middle 8, win the game. Now for some shock. The Vikings won the middle 8 56 times over the 129 game stretch (43.4% of the time), and they went 44-12 (.786) in those games. I did not see that coming. Meanwhile, they lost the middle 8 48 times and went 14-33-1 (.302). Both better than average believe it or not, and hey, who knew the Vikings did it more often than their opponents?
Anyone who has paid attention the past 2 years probably lol. Over the past 2 years the Vikings won the middle 8 only 12 times (8-4) and lost it 18 times (5-13). Yeah that seems more like it, both worse than average.
But hold on. Winning the middle 8 could simply mean kicking a FG and outscoring your opponent 3-0 for 8 minutes. Big whoop. What if you score a TD in those final 4 minutes of the first half and another one in the first 4 minutes of the second half? Well your odds of winning improve a little bit, that's what. You win about 79.1% of the time if you do that. To be fair, only 163 teams have pulled it off in 8 years (3.9%). The Vikings did it only 7 times in the Zimmer era (7-0), and none times last year. They only allowed it 6 times (1-5), and 5 of those came last year (1-4). Uff-da *z-fense*
The only win was against the Chargers week 10. Sitting on a 13-3 lead, they gave up a TD with 1:30 to go in the half, and then gave up another TD drive to open up the second half to fall behind 17-13. The Vikings had a 3-n-out and a kneel down between the 2 TD's. The Chargers even had another quick 3-n-out before half. Evidence that we didn't always allow points before half.
The Vikings responded in the 3rd/4th quarter with 2 long TD drives of their own to retake a 27-17 lead.There has not been a middle 8 winner in a Vikings game yet in 2022. The Vikings came close in the Packers and Saints game, but the 2nd half Joseph FG in each game was always 2 minutes too late to qualify.
The more important question though, does the middle 8 hold some sort of magical powers? Find out in 7 months, because I'm going to look at other 8 minute stretches of game the next time I'm not feeling lazy. Maybe I'll even discover the most important 8 minutes of game in the process
. Who wants to bet it's the final 8 minutes? Maybe it's the first 8 minutes? 
I might even have a chart next time. 
. That was my back of the envelope calculation. I might have used the wrong 8 minute chunk, or included playoff games, or I used the wrong era. Since then I created a proper spreadsheet to try and figure out the most important 8 minute chunk, which covers 2002-2021, and would be more accurate (and doesn't include playoff games). Regardless, the "Important 8" is in fact more important than the "Middle 8".
