When the NFL Coaching Survival Challenge was first started for the 2023 NFL Season it was a personal bet between a friend and myself. There was no shield system. 9 coaches were eliminated Week 1, 4 more would be Week 2. We were worried the bet would end to soon. So we introduced the Shield System. If we are punishing coaches for being bad at challenges, we should reward them for winning challenges! It would still end (coaches challenges historically had around a 40% success rate), it was just a way to prolong the bet.
Around mid-season I also posted it to Manifold. Since then however (is it Manifold's fault???) we have actually seen very few eliminations. Some of this is just expected (as each game's challenges/shield rates are just independent events, we were going to see more drop off the first weeks then the future weeks. At the end of the day, however the Shield system definitely has made the market look like it's going to last a long time. Only 3 coaches would be left without any shields. Instead now we sit with two good coaches are double shielded up (Reid himself had a challenge success rating of 49% all the way back in 2014!). And is the 40% success rate actual correct in todays NFL? Analytics and Communications departments are becoming more robust and coaches are gradually giving more trust to those looking at plays upstairs. 2020-21 looks like the coaches actually succeeded more than failed.
Of course this year also has seen the rise of the sky ref to unprecedented levels of power. A mysterious figure not on the field who could be anywhere in the world that will overturn plays unilaterally (and without explanation often). A perfectly sky ref that prioritized the integrity of the game would have people thinking that this might actually hurt coaches in this market (sky ref overturns what would be a shield instead from a coaches challenge). Maybe it is actually hurting coaches (since I'm not recording eliminated or new coach challenges, I don't know the total record this year), and I was just off with the base rate for failed challenges (and losing a 3rd of the league through 2 weeks) when I created the idea for the shield.
But it's also possible that coaches have adapted to the sky ref in other ways. If the sky ref doesn't overturn the play relatively fast, that seems to be evidence that a challenge might be futile. In fact, I've heard stories on the sidelines now are refs telling coaches "not to challenge" things as they won't be overturned (I'd like to find a source here). The Sky Ref might also serve a role that doesn't just purely prioritize the integrity of the action. There is vested interest in keeping the game flowing, and not inspecting fumbles from every angle to confirm that they are. It's easier for the Sky Ref to just make a quick decision than for a coach to take a 20% risk (maybe for a reward that's worth it) that will add 5 minutes of downtime to a game, and increase scrutiny on actual refs. That could impact the other end, reducing coaching challenge losses.
Whatever it is (sample size, improvement in coaches, or the sky ref), it's clear that the coaching survival market definitely won't finish this year (even in the playoffs).
(Free Mana On the Below Question By the Way)
/StopPunting/will-there-be-a-winner-declared-in
With the plan for alive coaches and shields to carry over to 2024, its possible that we continue to run into improvement in challenge percentage. Maybe 2-3 coaches develop a true success rate of 60%+, and hit enough positives to get into a comfortable spot with shields where even an unlucky streak wouldn't eliminate them (maybe 50%+ of coaches improve to that level). Maybe less and less challenges happen every year. If those things happen, at that point, the market would effectively not be analyzing challenging anymore, just longevity (as the only way to be eliminated would be to be fired or retire/switch teams). This might not be the case, but I think there is definitely a chance of it.
Therefore, the challenge market could potentially just converge with the overall coach survival market:
It seems likely that both markets could end up just resolving based on the same criteria (you have a set of coaches in the Challenge market that never will be Challenge eliminated, only eliminated on criteria identical to the Coaches Survival pool that also started from the same set of coaches). Of course, there were some "good" coaches eliminated early on in the Challenge market so they still could resolve differently even in this scenario. But there is definitely a good chance for convergence.
If I make future Coach Challenge elimination (or success rate) markets, I probably will want to come up with a different system than the shield, which seems to have stagnated the current market (although I do like some idea for a reward, maybe something like a non-elimination contest for what coach adds the most EPA or WP% via challenges in a year).
But I want to keep the Challenge market running as is (even if it takes until 2059 to resolve), and I'm curious how others think it will end compared to the Survival Pool.
Not sure why I needed to write an essay to justify the market, but I'm curious to see if others also think the Coach Challenge Elimination market will long term just devolve into a subset of the Coach Elimination market! A singularity, if you want to consider it.
This resolves "YES" if the last eliminated coach is eliminated by having no shields and losing a challenge. It resolves "NO" if the last eliminated coach retires or is fired. This resolves "N/A" if coaches challenges are ever eliminated from the game, or, like, football ends.
Here is a duplicate of this theory that also allows you to weigh the alive Challenge Coaches vs the good Coaches who got eliminated early with Challenge luck: