Should Antonio Brown Accept Brandon Marshall's Porsche for Rolls Royce Bet?
By Jason Lisk
Brandon Marshall, drunk off the euphoria of Ryan Fitzpatrick re-signing with the Jets, took to Instagram last night to issue a bet with Antonio Brown.
Declaring that he wanted to race for pinks, Marshall issued a challenge that if Antonio Brown had more receiving yards than him, Marshall would give him his Porsche. On the other hand, Antonio Brown would have to give up a Rolls Royce if Marshall led in yards.
Antonio Brown responded by saying that Marshall was too old to be doing that, that the Rolls Royce was about $100,000 up in value on Marshall’s Porsche, and that he wouldn’t do it over the internet, but if Marshall wanted, he could call him.
So, let’s run a little hypothetical, given those basics. Should Antonio Brown accept the offer? On a simple note, we could point out that Brown has had more receiving yards than Marshall each of the last three seasons. As Brown also astutely points out, Marshall is older than he is. Marshall turned 32 earlier this year; Brown just turned 28.
On the other hand, as Brown notes, this isn’t a straight-up bet. He would be giving up more value. Thus, the odds would have to be in his favor enough to offset it. Are they?
To try to get an estimate of what the odds should be, I took a look at the last 25 years and the best receivers at each age. For Antonio Brown, I found the 20 best receivers in terms of single season yards at age 26-28 since 1990, and looked at how many yards they put up the following season. For Marshall, I did the same with receivers at 31-33 years old.
This method would cook in the risk of injury and dropoff and give us a good estimate of the odds that Brown should offer, if he believes himself to be of similar quality to the best receivers at the same age.
Then, I just compared each of the 20 head-to-head across groups. For example, Calvin Johnson had 1,681 yards at age 26, and then followed it up with 1,964 yards at age 27. That was more than anyone, so he went 20-0 against the old guys. Antonio Brown, on the list already for 2014, went 19-1 with his total last year, topped by only 1995 Jerry Rice.
Add all of them up, and the young guys went 293-107 against the old guys (73.3%). That’s a reasonable starting estimate of how much more likely Brown is to best Marshall based only on age, and then you can factor in other things like the offenses they play in. (Subjectively, Ben Roethlisberger missing 5 games last year and Brown still beating Marshall, while Ryan Fitzpatrick had a career year and then held out and just signed, would be further factors in Brown’s favor.)
Should Brown take the bet? Assuming that the Porsche is valued at more than $60,000, and that, as Brown says, his Rolls Royce is worth about $100,000 more than the Porsche, then yes, it would still be a reasonable proposition for Brown to take those odds.