If a team is outgaining the other team by a huge margin in yardage, but still loses, then they likely lost the game due to TOs, bad special teams play, terrible execution in the red zone. These are all factors in a football game that you cannot overlook. The baseball and football situations are certainly not analogous, as run/hit differential will show you a truer representation of how the team should perform over the long haul rather than how the team played that particular game, whereas in football "you play to win the game.". It takes 2 losses to dash your national championship goals. What matters in the end is execution. Nothing else. You just cited my exception as your example. As I said, the only time a team performs better and loses is due to missed calls by the officials. That's really the only thing they can't control.