Why the Raiders’ 3-0 Start is For Real, But the 49ers’ May Not Be

The designer statistic is the NFL’s silent assassin. Seemingly every outlier performance, both good and bad, is accompanied by a computer-generated information nugget that lets us know that teams in a similar position are a combined 987–1 when leading by three touchdowns in late September, when the temperature crests 72°, and the crescent moon hangs over the meadow. The songbirds sing of lovers’ past, with your idiot team being the only one that has lost in that situation. I never know what to do when I see those, and also is anyone else with a supercomputer fact-checking these? I’m not saying the computer is wrong, but it would be pretty easy for me to drop a stat like this into the ether, and everyone else would be like, Yeah, that sounds right.