Stop looking at just stats, watch football (or sports)
“Stats are for losers.” – Mel Kiper, Jr.
I am not a huge
fan of Mel Kiper, in fact, I disagree with a lot of things he says. At the end
of the day, Kiper is a smart guy. Todd McShay, his “rival” analyst, I agree
with a lot more when it comes to analyzing talent. They’re both smart guys and
they know what they are talking about. I don’t care what innovative stat you
came up with, or the fact you graduated with a sports journalism degree from an
Ivy League school. I don’t care that you just won a Madden tournament for a
million dollars, so you “know” football. At the end of the day, I will always
favor actual scouts over journalists. I am not talking about the people who
give themselves the title “Head/Lead Scout for [insert sports website here]”. I
want credibility and actual experience. Anyone can become a journalist and then
make a list of the “Top Defenses in the NFL (Ranked all 32)” or articles as
such. Usually they just look at the stats, because that’s the easy way out. (I can
know for sure when someone isn’t watching a Bills game. They look at
highlights, too. You can’t get anymore lazier than that.)
First of all,
let’s get this out of the way. I love reading journalists and bloggers (I mean,
I am writing a blog for goodness sakes). I like to read BuffaloRumblings,
BleacherReport, Roar Lions Roar, etc. At the end of the day, if you don’t
actually know how to evaluate talent, it’s hard to read some of the content. At
least this goes for me, someone who wants to actually be a scout and work
within an NFL organization. So, I respect the likes of Daniel Jeremiah, Mike
Mayock, Jon Gruden and Bucky Brooks. These are guys who have actual experience
scouting and/or coaching at a high level. I am more likely to actually give
guys like them room for error, as well. The next point is just having
experience playing that certain sport. (This is a more football-based outlook
on this blog post, because that is my expertise.) I am still learning, but I’ve
literally seen and read articles by journalists who never played the sport.
That doesn’t mean they can’t have an opinion, but I also know some sports
journalist who don’t even bother to do their homework. Leading up to the draft
every journalist is writing opinion articles and this goes for fans too. They
will look at that player’s highlights/stats or they will make judgement upon
those things. Instead of actually watching the full game and why those stats
came about. Now not everyone can just watch full games and make analysis like,
“He’s good, he looks good.” There is an art behind evaluating talent and it
comes with knowing the game’s strategies. Just like everything else in life –
practice makes perfect.
The issue with
the NFL is access to watching these games, you can’t watch them on YouTube in
full. So, you either have NFL Ticket or the new, NFL Game Pass. There are a lot
of people getting paid to write articles or analysis these games. For example,
when the draft comes around I see a lot of “analysis” on certain players.
Recently, I know of a sports journalist who put down a specific prospect
leading to the draft using stats. He wasn’t the only one, but then that team
drafted that same prospect. So now he was forced to cover that player. He then
released a full analysis of that prospect in an article (yes, this guy doesn’t
have scouting experience, but he could be right) and within that article he
admitted that he hadn’t seen most of his games. (Now watching college football
games are a lot easier because you can find full games on YouTube for free. The
NFL doesn’t even show all their games for free, unlike college football. It is
easier to access these games.) The point is, this journalist barely watched any
of this prospects games (outside of the ones he had to cover) and judged him by
his “stats” alone. His mind was changed about the prospect and he saw why those
stats were not so good.
Stats don’t tell
the full story, but they are needed and hold some great value. It has been
witnessed, even in a stat driven game like baseball, that building a team
around stats can only get you so far (aka Money Ball). That offensive line could’ve been abysmal that game and
caused the QB to not perform well. The wide receivers may have dropped multiple
balls causing that percentage to drop. The QB may have had time to throw, but can’t
throw receivers open, which leads to not many first downs. Therefore, the
defense was out there all day and they were tired. Stuff like that happens and
it is needed to be recorded aka stats, but you have to watch the game, too. I
respect the journalists/analysts who do understand the game whether they are a
woman or a man. Women do not get the same opportunity to play football like
men, so when they are knowledgeable, I respect that. Maybe you were never
athletic enough to play a sport, and you still love sports. Well, be
knowledgeable. No one is perfect, either. (I am not trying to sound
condescending. People shouldn’t act knowledgeable, if they’re not.)
I am not trying
to disregard journalists or analysts, because it is their job to write articles
and they are trying to make a living with opinions. I can’t stand articles like
the following “Predicting the Cowboys season record, game-by-game analysis” or
“Ranking any type of ________”. I have a hard time believing that they went
back and watched every game of the past season. I look to journalists for
reports on team activity, well-written stories and blogs/articles that put my
writing skills to shame. I want to hear these people’s opinions (this goes for
armchair GMs/QBs/Coaches as well), but they have to come with credibility. If
you can’t tell me the difference between a Cover 1 man and a Cover 2 zone, then
it’s going to be hard for me to listen to your “analysis”. I don’t care how
many Madden ranked online games you’ve won either. I repeat, I wrote this
article football-based because I have the most knowledge in that sport. I can
still have opinions on basketball, baseball, hockey and other sports; but I
also know my limits. The same idea should go for people who are making articles
looking at stats alone.
I am going to
wrap this up by saying we need journalists and analysts. Scouts will be wrong
and statisticians will be wrong. Not everyone can evaluate talent, but everyone
has a right to their opinion. The opinion can be not valid due to credibility,
knowledge and overall understanding of that game. Anyone can look at stats and
say “he sucks”, while stats can prove opinions and argument correct. Knowing
the game, watching the game and knowing how to evaluate the players hold a lot
more weight. There’s a reason why general managers go to scouts and not an
article a journalist or analyst wrote. Yes, they look at stats too, but
scouts/players/coaches spend hours watching game film. (Not highlight tapes)
That is why they get paid to do their job. I encourage all journalists/analysts
to continue to write great articles (I am not an amazing writing, all props to
them), but don’t rely on stats. Thanks for the read, while have a follow up
blog in the future that is more in-depth.
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