Shit article.
1. The statistical analysis he links to is talking about luck, though he really means randomness, and it shows that 52% of wins can be attributed to random factors, and 48% are not accounted for by random factors.
But the article Dam linked mis-interprets the article and claims that the 48% is explained by player skill. The original author makes no such claim and in fact, there is no reported methodology in either article to explain how to statistically analyze team performance into player factors vs. coaching factors.
2. The fundamental attribution error occurs when we observe the behavior of others and over-estimate the role of dispositional traits to explain their behavior. Dispositional traits are things like personality, ability, etc. So if make a dispositional attribution toward a team, we would be claiming that their success (or failure) is due to internal factors like player skill OR coaching ability. If we instead made a situational attribution, we would attribute their success (or failure) to external factors like strength of schedule, officiating, etc.
This theory does not address leadership, AT ALL.
3. The illusion of control may apply but it really depends on context. Obv as the author from AFA suggests, it would be wrong to blame Harbaugh for Cundiff's missed FG. But at the same time, practice serves a purpose, it is meant to improve play and reduce mistakes. A team that makes many mistakes has either of two problems, 1) really bad players that don't get better with practice, or 2) really bad coaches who are ineffective at running a practice session.
So here, we can't eliminate bad players, but neither can we eliminate bad coaches, as explaining mistakes. In short, this becomes a non-point.
However, it might be possible to quantify team mistakes. It's difficult without knowing playcalls and assignments, but counting drops, missed blocks, abandoned gaps, miscommunication in the secondary. If this was possible to do in an objective way then coaches could be compared in terms of the number of mistakes their teams make, and this could then be used to compare coaching records.
He's also wrong about the Dungy narrative. The idea that he couldn't get it done in the post-season stuck with him after coming to Indy, and it still lingers because people say we should have won more than 1 Superbowl with Peyton Fucking Manning.
(and for the record, I actually have a PhD in experimental psychology which includes statistics)
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