FanPost

A History of DOOOOOOM

James Brady's DOOM Index is awesome.

But I've always wished there was a better record over time than the imgur gallery. A couple weekends ago I was stuck in bed with a nasty cold, so figured I'd go ahead and just make that thing.

This is the result.

All Time History of Doom

I have to admit, I was sort of hoping for some sort of interesting long-term trends—perhaps a years-long cycle of loss and regained hope, or maybe a cliff of sadness mirroring my own following the release of my favorite player.

Instead, we get this:

All time doom

Help I need more data

My theory: in the past, Brady would just post a DOOM pool after interesting things, and those things tended to be either "Jordan Devey Is Back Doomed" or "Jorday Devey Is Gone Forever Doomed".

A Recent History of Doom

In a move that makes data nuts like me much happier, Brady has begun posting polls after every week's fresh hell, rain or shine. More granular data? More interesting trends. Here's a picture of Your 2017 49ers, starting with the first Doom poll of Kyle Shanahan's tenure:

Doom 2017

This is fine

That's a much better story (if you're a fan of any other team). I especially like the short-lived "hey losing by a little bit is better than being destroyed by the Panthers on opening day" rebound.

Correlates of Doom

Ok I don't have a great set of cross-tabs to correlate these numbers to (if you do, please drop me a line -- is anyone tracking Jed York's total number of cabanas over time or something?).

Best thing I have so far is the total amount of participation in the polls. What I found will shock you:

Votes as a function of doom

Did you know that fan testosterone levels drop after losses?

Ok this probably won't shock you. Fitting a simple linear correlation, every drop in average doom level is good for another 385.8 votes in the poll on average, with approximately 180 diehards still voting if the 9ers every achieve Peak Infinite Doom.

God Emperor of Doom

Without correlates, the best of I have are maxima and minima.

The prize for Most Doomed on Record goes to March 9 2015, after the announcement of everyone good departing the team. This is pretty fair. Average doom for this day was 1.777, placing it between "AHAHAHAAHA HASAD HDAID PFE FISDOI N doomed" and "Trying to get Jed York to stop talking Doomed." For the numerologically inclined, the vote totals were also pretty interesting: 888 voted "Most Doomed" (very auspicious), while somehow 69 people (Seahawks fans?!) voted "Least Doomed" (nice).

Runner up: yesterday!

The prize for Least Doomed on Record goes to January 16 2016, after Chip Kelley was hired to replace Jim Tomsula as head coach. Average doom was 3.874, between "Quinton Patton's Potential Doomed (somewhat doomed)" and "Blaine Gabbert Is A Franchise Quarterback Doomed (kinda doomed)". In retrospect those descriptions seem about accurate, even if the sentiment was wildly optimistic.

Runner up: August 29 of this year. Hahaha we are all fools.

The average Doom vote is Somewhat Doomed, at 3.02 on the Doom Index. Due to the enthusiastic voters phenomenon discussed above, the average poll result is Somewhat More Doomed, coming in at 2.88.

Alright, that's all I got. Thanks for being one of the best fan communities on the web, and thanks to Fooch and James for their incredible work!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.