Mike Greenberg, on ESPN Radios Mike and Mike in the Morning, is trying to argue that Donovan McNabb is a Hall-of-Famer.
His basis for doing this is that:
1) Donovan McNabb will have better numbers than Troy Aikman when he retires.
2) Donovan McNabb will have better numbers than Steve Young when he retires.
3) Both Troy Aikman and Steve Young are Hall-of-Famers.
He also says that Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady are the sure-fire Hall-of-Famers from this era. Does McNabb belong in the same category with these guys?
There is no doubt that players in the current era will have the strongest passing statistics of players in any era ever. So the direct comparison to Young/Aikman is already imperfect.
I'll get to Aikman/McNabb in a minute. Here's Young vs. McNabb in career rate totals.
Completion Percentage
Steve Young 64.3
Donovan McNabb 58.9
Yards per Attempt
Steve Young 8.0
Donovan McNabb 6.8
TD Rate
Steve Young 5.6%
Donovan McNabb 4.5%
Sack Rate
Steve Young 7.94%
Donovan McNabb 6.96%
INT Rate
Steve Young 2.6%
Donovman McNabb 2.1%
Passer Rating
Steve Young 96.8
Donovan McNabb 85.9
I included stats where McNabb was better to show how close it was in comparison to Young, and without coming up with a complicated era regression multiplier to normalize the numbers. On all stats that don't pertain directly to negative plays, McNabb is clearly inferior to Young, and it really isn't even all that close. I don't have any idea how Greenberg is claiming that McNabb has better numbers than Young. Even ignoring the elephant in the room -- the fact that McNabb played in a big passing era on a big passing team -- he's still not even remotely comparable to Steve Young on merit.
But since "compares well to Steve Young" is not necessarily a hall of fame criteria, let's look at Greenberg's other comparison: Troy Aikman.
McNabb actually compares much better to Aikman.
Completion Percentage
Troy Aikman 61.5
Donovan McNabb 58.9
Yards per Attempt
Troy Aikman 7.0
Donovan McNabb 6.8
TD Rate
Troy Aikman 3.5%
Donovan McNabb 4.5%
Sack Rate
Troy Aikman 5.21%*
Donovan McNabb 6.96%
*Well above average for the time, but again, Aikman's protection was particularly outstanding, perhaps the best in history. McNabb's had very good protection by current standards, but nothing like Aikman.
INT Rate
Troy Aikman 3.0%
Donovman McNabb 2.1%
Passer Rating
Troy Aikman 81.6
Donovan McNabb 85.9
Aikman, statistically, is a much better McNabb comparable. Although era-adjusted Aikman would put McNabb to shame, Aikman's best years are concentrated in the six best years in the history of the Cowboys franchise: 1991-1996. In those seasons, he never posted a completion percentage below 63.7. Outside of those seasons, he never got above 59.5. That's unheard of, and probably had everything to do with the talent around him. Aikman's 61.5% career figure is one he not ever came within two points in any single season. Astounding.
But here's the point: A random player with Troy Aikman's numbers is NOT a hall-of-famer. That's the big point here. Troy Aikman is in Canton because and only because he won three Super Bowls, not because he was a particularly great passer. Donovan McNabb is also not a particularly great passer, and happens to have no Super Bowls. If he can win his next two games, he will have a single Super Bowl. And he still won't have anywhere near Aikman's credentials for hall-of-fame selection.
Although, if you want to use the innovator angle on McNabb, he is widely credited with bringing the bounce pass to football. That's got to be worth something, right?
Look, Donovan McNabb is a good player. But if he goes in the Hall-of-Fame for any reason but sympathy, then what do you tell Jeff Garcia?
Or Mark Brunell?
Or Rich Gannon?
Or Chad Pennington?
Or Steve McNair?
Or Trent Green
Or Marc Bulger
Or Matt Hasselbeck?
Or, eventually, (in no specific order) Jay Cutler, Carson Palmer, Phillip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Brady Quinn, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan, or Joe Flacco?
Most, if not all, of those guys will never make the hall of fame. But if Donovan McNabb deserves it, don't all those guys deserve at least the same honor, if not a greater one?
Donovan McNabb and Hall-of-Fame, probably the worst thing said this entire football season.
Showing posts with label pulling numbers out of his ass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pulling numbers out of his ass. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Great season for the NFL
After decades of finishing right at .500, the NFL is finally expected to right the ship and post a winning record.....against itself. Now I know that not every jackass columnist working at ESPN has taken a statistics or economics course, but evidently Jeffri Chadiha is unaware of the concept of a zero-sum game. Namely, both teams can't win.
Of course, this wouldn't matter if he actually looked at the teams' respective schedules and predicted who will win a given game. This approach would be called "analysis". Mr. Chadiha, instead, glanced at the teams' records at the midway point and decided that a good team will win x games, a bad team will win y games, no one will go winless, the Vikings will magically finish 7-9, and somehow the Raiders and Chiefs will combine for 8 wins in the second half. This is known as the "blind-folded two-year-old throwing darts at a number line" approach, or the "pulling numbers out of his ass" approach. Take a minute to understand the magnitude of this. He's getting paid to analyze teams and have some idea of who's more likely to win. He isn't just being dumb, he's not even doing his job.
However, before we let the issue drop, I thought I'd highlight some of the true gems embedded in this article:
The Panthers:
"This offense has second-half disaster written all over it.
Prediction: 7-9."
A 7-9 disaster.
The Niners:
"Surprise: Rookie linebacker Patrick Willis leads the NFL in tackles. After that, there really hasn't been much to smile about around the 49ers.
Disappointment: What happened to their running game? Frank Gore made the Pro Bowl last season. This year he has 435 yards at midseason.
Prediction: 6-10."
Anyone who thinks the Niners will DOUBLE their first half wins (2) with 4 in the second, raise your hand. Really? No one? Even though the wins they've got so far have been amazingly fluky?
Anyone think Minnesota will go .500 the rest of the way?
Think the NFC East will combine for 41 wins? That's more than 10 per team, and 20 more than they have now. A combined 10 games against division opponents, means 5 wins, assuming no ties. So they have to get 15 wins. Of the remaining 19 games, 15 are against opponents that Chadiha himself picked to go .500 or better the rest of the way (2 against the Pats).
Suddenly it becomes obvious how the NFL ended up with a winning record. Everybody's a winner.
A tip of the TurnOffESPN chapeau to FireJoeMorgan.com, the statistically-minded, funny, and utterly classy baseball blog that broke this story.
Of course, this wouldn't matter if he actually looked at the teams' respective schedules and predicted who will win a given game. This approach would be called "analysis". Mr. Chadiha, instead, glanced at the teams' records at the midway point and decided that a good team will win x games, a bad team will win y games, no one will go winless, the Vikings will magically finish 7-9, and somehow the Raiders and Chiefs will combine for 8 wins in the second half. This is known as the "blind-folded two-year-old throwing darts at a number line" approach, or the "pulling numbers out of his ass" approach. Take a minute to understand the magnitude of this. He's getting paid to analyze teams and have some idea of who's more likely to win. He isn't just being dumb, he's not even doing his job.
However, before we let the issue drop, I thought I'd highlight some of the true gems embedded in this article:
The Panthers:
"This offense has second-half disaster written all over it.
Prediction: 7-9."
A 7-9 disaster.
The Niners:
"Surprise: Rookie linebacker Patrick Willis leads the NFL in tackles. After that, there really hasn't been much to smile about around the 49ers.
Disappointment: What happened to their running game? Frank Gore made the Pro Bowl last season. This year he has 435 yards at midseason.
Prediction: 6-10."
Anyone who thinks the Niners will DOUBLE their first half wins (2) with 4 in the second, raise your hand. Really? No one? Even though the wins they've got so far have been amazingly fluky?
Anyone think Minnesota will go .500 the rest of the way?
Think the NFC East will combine for 41 wins? That's more than 10 per team, and 20 more than they have now. A combined 10 games against division opponents, means 5 wins, assuming no ties. So they have to get 15 wins. Of the remaining 19 games, 15 are against opponents that Chadiha himself picked to go .500 or better the rest of the way (2 against the Pats).
Suddenly it becomes obvious how the NFL ended up with a winning record. Everybody's a winner.
A tip of the TurnOffESPN chapeau to FireJoeMorgan.com, the statistically-minded, funny, and utterly classy baseball blog that broke this story.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Tonight we're gonna Party like it's 1695!
Remember when Dr. Z was cool? I don't.
We have fun on this blog with Dr. Z's works. In fairness to him, he's not really a serious journalist. He's reached the point where you either accept his rankings as absolute truth no questions asked, or you realize that they are complete baloney and you are better off taking teams out of a hat and listing them as the pills fly.
Senile or not, there is absolutely no excuse for this piece of crap. I wish not to discuss the nuiances of a football game with anyone who can't see from this piece that Dr. Z has simply lost his mind.
He basically tries to denounce passer rating as a stat as utter garbage.
[I]t's a prehistoric monster that no one understands, an illogical piece of antiquity that influences so much of the game when it shouldn't. It affects what is written, what is discussed, what becomes the basis, in some cases, of salary structure and bonuses for players and coordinators.
Okay. Settle down kiddos and take a deep long breath. If you are reading this blog, you are certainly not a member of the sample universe that Dr. Z is addressing. Therefore, you are a no one to him. Because let's face it, if you are anyone, you aren't allowed to understand passer rating. Anyway, for those of you who need a refresher course: here's a basic overview of how passer rating is calculated.
Passer rating is a cumulative statistic that is split equally into 4 parts: Int/Att, TD/Att, Comp/Att, Yards/Att. Scores can range anywhere from 0.0-158.6 Each component of the stat will range between 0.0-39.7. The 4 components are added together and gives you a cumulative number. League average tends to hover around 78.0 depending on the year.
Passer rating has some major flaws. First of all, remember that the stat represents all 4 categories as equal components of QB performance. Yards/Attempt is generally seen as the most important stat, and should rank more than one quarter of the total output in a perfect system. Combined, TDs and INTs make up half the rating, but these number can skew the total BAD especially in a small sample. Additionally, Completion percentage already correlates somewhat to TDs AND INTs based on attempts, so its essentially stating the same thing 3 different ways.
A better formula would look something like this:
(Quantity INT/ATT) * .05 + (Quantity comp/att) * .5 + (Quantity Yards/Att) * .45
Where the completion percentage makes up half the total and the yards per attempt makes up 45%, leaving a measly 5% for interceptions per attempt to account for the select QBs (Favre) who always exceed their INT projection based on their completion percentage.
Here's the point. QB Rating is a main stream stat, and it gets it right in a lot of ways because of its use of the ever so important rate stats.
Now with that out of the way, back to Dr. Z totally humiliating himself.
Steve Young, who has the highest career passer rating in history, admits that he's "not quite sure how the system works."
Steve Young is an idiot. Maybe the greatest QB ever, but an idiot nevertheless. I wouldn't expect anything different, would you?
Charley Casserly, who as Redskins general manager was quite aware that some clauses were built into contracts that reflected the rating points, says, "No, I couldn't tell you exactly how they determine the ratings."
Charlie Casserly drafted both Heath Shuler and David Carr in the top 5 picks of their respective drafts.
Bill Parcells, whose 11-point dictum to quarterbacks came from years of study of the position, says, "I don't know how they arrive at their ratings and I don't care. I don't pay any attention to them. I have my own system for evaluating quarterbacks."
The key here is that he does in fact have his own system for evaluation. Dr. Z clearly does not, but curiously ignored that part of Parcells' quote. As stated above, QB Rating is hardly the be all end all, but in a large sample, you won't stray too far from reality if you use it.
Average grades were in the 60s and 70s. En masse, NFL passers in 1972 completed 51.7 percent of their heaves. A mark like that would earn a player a grade of 72.3. Average, in other words. Interception percentage, or number of interceptions per 100 passes thrown, was 5.3, league-wide. A grade of 70. Touchdowns per pass attempts averaged out to 4.5, a grade of 60, and yards per pass attempt came out to 6.82, which got a mark of 63.7.
Put all those figures together and you've got a number of 66.5 for a dead average player, hitting the norm in each category. Higher achievements, of course, would bring higher grades.
Okay. This is getting weird.
After spending the entire first page of his article criticizing a system that "no one understands", Dr. Z goes on to show a pretty solid understanding of the system as it applies to stats in the 60s and 70s. One can only wonder where he's going with this.
Now here's the snapper. Achievements have gone way above the old standards, but Elias has maintained that same system for 35 years, with the same benchmarks and the same schedule of rewards. The passing game has changed dramatically, but [The] Elias [Sports Bureau] plods on, stuck in its standards of 1973, when its system came in.
That's it folks. Dr. Z. thinks QB rating is a useless stat, because it's old and hasn't changed in thirty five years. That's...blatent hypocrisy.
But that's not all, Dr. Z now goes on the offensive.
I said that their practice of including quarterback kneels at the end of the game in the rushing stats was wrong and misleading. It penalized the good teams, which won, therefore had QB kneels. It could knock a team's rushing stats down from 4.0 to 3.7 by artificial means. Just have an asterisk designation ... "Three kneels for minus three yards, not to be included in the official statistics."This of course is a good point, but sample size more than accounts for this. Not that I would expect Dr. Z to know anything about sample size, it's not like that concept has changed in the last 35 years, so it must be garbage.
The small sample stats would be a lot more accurate if kneels weren't included in the stats, but it really is much ado about nothing.
I screamed about spikes being scored as incompletions thereby penalizing the QBs from bad teams, which always were catching up, hence spiking the ball. Why should they influence a passer's accuracy?
Same deal here. Dr. Z is right that the short term stats would be more representitive of the job a guy did if spikes didn't count as incompletions, but like the above example:
1) Independant Organizations such as Football Outsiders have already created stats (See: DVOA) that measure more accurately than the basic stats.
2) Sample size all but eliminates rare plays such as spikes and kneels.
In Dr. Z's defense, his beef seems to be against the Elias Sports Bureau, but that doesn't give him a right to project his beef to any and all objective evidence.
As of this week, all the ranked quarterbacks in the league average 63.3 percent completions. In 1972, the year that keyed the standards put in, that was a stunning statistic. Only one passer even topped 60 percent, Norm Snead of the Giants at 60.3. A mark of 63.8 percent would have gotten you a rating in that category of 110.9, a Pro Bowl number. Guess what? It still does today. In other words, average equals excellent.
Okay. This is where Dr. Z culminates his pretty solid argument by drawing one of the most asinine conclusions in the history of logic. Outside of his complete and utter ignorance of era adjustments, he makes the blanket assumption that all "stat geeks" feel that there is a hard number that QBs must stay above to reach certain levels of achievement. This is every bit as stupid as arguing that a RB who gains 99 yards in a game had a comparable game to a RB that gains 101 yards under similar conditions, and then bitching out the guy standing next to him under the assumption that he might disagree with this logic.
Obviously a QB rating of 90 was more impressive in 1958 than it is now. Any stat relies on realistic interpretation to give it value.
And here's where the shit hits the fan:
Chad Pennington: 111.2
Jeff Garcia: 110.7
Ben Roethlisberger: 108.0
Byron Leftwich: 97.2
Sage Rosenfels: 91.4
Donovan McNabb: 91.1
In each case, the passer with those gaudy numbers lost ... repeat: lost the game. And yet many people rely on them to judge the quarterbacks. A safety-first mentality has been created. Throw the 8-yard checkdown on third-and-12; it'll work wonders for the rating chart. Avoid interceptions at all cost, don't be bold, take care. Remember, your contract is tied to it.
I would be willing to bet Dr. Z's house and his wife that QB Rating correlates STRONGLY to winning percentage. Thanks for giving us a sample of one week and trying to make a conclusive argument though.
For the record: 8 yards on 3-12 is significantly better than an interception, and measurably better than an incompletion. If it was simple to convert on third and long, this discussion wouldn't be necessary.
Also, avoiding interceptions=generally a good thing.
Anyway, that's whats wrong with the system, per Dr. Z. He doesn't understand it, and you nobodies who happen to understand it...how can you sleep at night!
We have fun on this blog with Dr. Z's works. In fairness to him, he's not really a serious journalist. He's reached the point where you either accept his rankings as absolute truth no questions asked, or you realize that they are complete baloney and you are better off taking teams out of a hat and listing them as the pills fly.
Senile or not, there is absolutely no excuse for this piece of crap. I wish not to discuss the nuiances of a football game with anyone who can't see from this piece that Dr. Z has simply lost his mind.
He basically tries to denounce passer rating as a stat as utter garbage.
[I]t's a prehistoric monster that no one understands, an illogical piece of antiquity that influences so much of the game when it shouldn't. It affects what is written, what is discussed, what becomes the basis, in some cases, of salary structure and bonuses for players and coordinators.
Okay. Settle down kiddos and take a deep long breath. If you are reading this blog, you are certainly not a member of the sample universe that Dr. Z is addressing. Therefore, you are a no one to him. Because let's face it, if you are anyone, you aren't allowed to understand passer rating. Anyway, for those of you who need a refresher course: here's a basic overview of how passer rating is calculated.
Passer rating is a cumulative statistic that is split equally into 4 parts: Int/Att, TD/Att, Comp/Att, Yards/Att. Scores can range anywhere from 0.0-158.6 Each component of the stat will range between 0.0-39.7. The 4 components are added together and gives you a cumulative number. League average tends to hover around 78.0 depending on the year.
Passer rating has some major flaws. First of all, remember that the stat represents all 4 categories as equal components of QB performance. Yards/Attempt is generally seen as the most important stat, and should rank more than one quarter of the total output in a perfect system. Combined, TDs and INTs make up half the rating, but these number can skew the total BAD especially in a small sample. Additionally, Completion percentage already correlates somewhat to TDs AND INTs based on attempts, so its essentially stating the same thing 3 different ways.
A better formula would look something like this:
(Quantity INT/ATT) * .05 + (Quantity comp/att) * .5 + (Quantity Yards/Att) * .45
Where the completion percentage makes up half the total and the yards per attempt makes up 45%, leaving a measly 5% for interceptions per attempt to account for the select QBs (Favre) who always exceed their INT projection based on their completion percentage.
Here's the point. QB Rating is a main stream stat, and it gets it right in a lot of ways because of its use of the ever so important rate stats.
Now with that out of the way, back to Dr. Z totally humiliating himself.
Steve Young, who has the highest career passer rating in history, admits that he's "not quite sure how the system works."
Steve Young is an idiot. Maybe the greatest QB ever, but an idiot nevertheless. I wouldn't expect anything different, would you?
Charley Casserly, who as Redskins general manager was quite aware that some clauses were built into contracts that reflected the rating points, says, "No, I couldn't tell you exactly how they determine the ratings."
Charlie Casserly drafted both Heath Shuler and David Carr in the top 5 picks of their respective drafts.
Bill Parcells, whose 11-point dictum to quarterbacks came from years of study of the position, says, "I don't know how they arrive at their ratings and I don't care. I don't pay any attention to them. I have my own system for evaluating quarterbacks."
The key here is that he does in fact have his own system for evaluation. Dr. Z clearly does not, but curiously ignored that part of Parcells' quote. As stated above, QB Rating is hardly the be all end all, but in a large sample, you won't stray too far from reality if you use it.
Average grades were in the 60s and 70s. En masse, NFL passers in 1972 completed 51.7 percent of their heaves. A mark like that would earn a player a grade of 72.3. Average, in other words. Interception percentage, or number of interceptions per 100 passes thrown, was 5.3, league-wide. A grade of 70. Touchdowns per pass attempts averaged out to 4.5, a grade of 60, and yards per pass attempt came out to 6.82, which got a mark of 63.7.
Put all those figures together and you've got a number of 66.5 for a dead average player, hitting the norm in each category. Higher achievements, of course, would bring higher grades.
Okay. This is getting weird.
After spending the entire first page of his article criticizing a system that "no one understands", Dr. Z goes on to show a pretty solid understanding of the system as it applies to stats in the 60s and 70s. One can only wonder where he's going with this.
Now here's the snapper. Achievements have gone way above the old standards, but Elias has maintained that same system for 35 years, with the same benchmarks and the same schedule of rewards. The passing game has changed dramatically, but [The] Elias [Sports Bureau] plods on, stuck in its standards of 1973, when its system came in.
That's it folks. Dr. Z. thinks QB rating is a useless stat, because it's old and hasn't changed in thirty five years. That's...blatent hypocrisy.
But that's not all, Dr. Z now goes on the offensive.
I said that their practice of including quarterback kneels at the end of the game in the rushing stats was wrong and misleading. It penalized the good teams, which won, therefore had QB kneels. It could knock a team's rushing stats down from 4.0 to 3.7 by artificial means. Just have an asterisk designation ... "Three kneels for minus three yards, not to be included in the official statistics."This of course is a good point, but sample size more than accounts for this. Not that I would expect Dr. Z to know anything about sample size, it's not like that concept has changed in the last 35 years, so it must be garbage.
The small sample stats would be a lot more accurate if kneels weren't included in the stats, but it really is much ado about nothing.
I screamed about spikes being scored as incompletions thereby penalizing the QBs from bad teams, which always were catching up, hence spiking the ball. Why should they influence a passer's accuracy?
Same deal here. Dr. Z is right that the short term stats would be more representitive of the job a guy did if spikes didn't count as incompletions, but like the above example:
1) Independant Organizations such as Football Outsiders have already created stats (See: DVOA) that measure more accurately than the basic stats.
2) Sample size all but eliminates rare plays such as spikes and kneels.
In Dr. Z's defense, his beef seems to be against the Elias Sports Bureau, but that doesn't give him a right to project his beef to any and all objective evidence.
As of this week, all the ranked quarterbacks in the league average 63.3 percent completions. In 1972, the year that keyed the standards put in, that was a stunning statistic. Only one passer even topped 60 percent, Norm Snead of the Giants at 60.3. A mark of 63.8 percent would have gotten you a rating in that category of 110.9, a Pro Bowl number. Guess what? It still does today. In other words, average equals excellent.
Okay. This is where Dr. Z culminates his pretty solid argument by drawing one of the most asinine conclusions in the history of logic. Outside of his complete and utter ignorance of era adjustments, he makes the blanket assumption that all "stat geeks" feel that there is a hard number that QBs must stay above to reach certain levels of achievement. This is every bit as stupid as arguing that a RB who gains 99 yards in a game had a comparable game to a RB that gains 101 yards under similar conditions, and then bitching out the guy standing next to him under the assumption that he might disagree with this logic.
Obviously a QB rating of 90 was more impressive in 1958 than it is now. Any stat relies on realistic interpretation to give it value.
And here's where the shit hits the fan:
Chad Pennington: 111.2
Jeff Garcia: 110.7
Ben Roethlisberger: 108.0
Byron Leftwich: 97.2
Sage Rosenfels: 91.4
Donovan McNabb: 91.1
In each case, the passer with those gaudy numbers lost ... repeat: lost the game. And yet many people rely on them to judge the quarterbacks. A safety-first mentality has been created. Throw the 8-yard checkdown on third-and-12; it'll work wonders for the rating chart. Avoid interceptions at all cost, don't be bold, take care. Remember, your contract is tied to it.
I would be willing to bet Dr. Z's house and his wife that QB Rating correlates STRONGLY to winning percentage. Thanks for giving us a sample of one week and trying to make a conclusive argument though.
For the record: 8 yards on 3-12 is significantly better than an interception, and measurably better than an incompletion. If it was simple to convert on third and long, this discussion wouldn't be necessary.
Also, avoiding interceptions=generally a good thing.
Anyway, that's whats wrong with the system, per Dr. Z. He doesn't understand it, and you nobodies who happen to understand it...how can you sleep at night!
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