Jamalisms Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 Stats are cool. Advanced / adjusted stats are even cooler, (when done well). They tell the story of what was and they can be gleaned from to tell the story of an individual player's role. But what happens when stats go wrong?Stats don't trump true film breakdown but trusting the film breakdown of non-professionals is risky and professionals are too-oft loathe to share their analysis with others. From my perspective, stats are better than the conjecture and guessing that many fans engage in because there is a certainty to them. Given a large enough sample size, excuse-type context of stats becomes less meaningful and cumulative trends come to the fore. With that said, even though I like stats, I acknowledge two things. The presentation of stats can mislead even the person presenting them because... Determining the most appropriate lens through which to view and interpret stats is an inexact matter. Even worse than misused stats are assumed stats that result from adjustments to results based on context. Adjustments to results involve even more judgement because an undue adjustment can skew things. You also have the matter of people assuming that an adjustment will present players in a more favorable light when such may not be the case. In fan circles, (see: groups of passionate people who don't take the time to manually make the adjustment and prove that it results in line with their preconceived notions), this can lead to fruitless or misguided discussions. We dug into this a bit around here this offseason when discussing dropped passes thrown by Jake Locker and how that affected his completion percentage. In team circles, (see: The Jacksonville Jaguars who made some adjustments and presented the results to the media but did not compare them to adjusted results for other players), this can result in an embarassing rebuttal from ESPN Stats & Info. As we advance into a new season full of glorious statistical results and numbers upon numbers, let this serve as a reminder to all that due dilligence is always warranted and even professionals get it wrong. Follow Titans Report on Twitter: @TitansReport Follow Jamal on Twitter: @Jamalisms Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License. Click here to view the article Pragidealist, begooode, and Bobo 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamalisms Posted August 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 Also, I must admit that I continue to dismiss Total QBR. Emphatically. I have a few reasons but none truly weighty enough to convince anyone else. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pragidealist Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 Good post/ article. In other words, stats never lie. They are what they are. They just can be very difficult to interpret and are largely too easy to misuse. The only line that I disagree with is this one " stats are better than the conjecture and guessing that many fans engage in because there is a certainty to them. Given a large enough sample size, excuse-type context of stats becomes less meaningful and cumulative trends come to the fore." But you did say it was your perspective- so I'll let you be "less right" and leave it there. ;-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamalisms Posted August 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 I added that qualifier with you in mind. Jonboy, Pragidealist, and XAEA12 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
apocalypse33 Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 (edited) My main beef with QBR is that it tries to quantify clutchness and attribute that specifically to the QB. I wouldn't mind a WPA type stat for football, but there's too many moving parts to completely isolate and assign increasing value to a QB for the same performance but different external circumstances. Edited August 22, 2013 by apocalypse33 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamalisms Posted August 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 One of my gripes is that it weights performance low when the score is far apart... which on the surface sounds ok... but means that a QB who leads a big comeback gets much less credit than deserved and a QB who threw interceptions, etc to allow for that comback can still score high. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stats Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 The deal is that none of the current, widely cited statistics involving team sports are orthogonal. Each play has both temporal and physical contexts that need to be atomized to eliminate related factors. Sports statistics have always been for casual observation and accessibility, not a concerted understanding of the underlying, latent factors. We leave that stuff to virtually meaningless terms, like the 'it' factor and being 'clutch.' That said, I appreciate your bringing up the topic...right in my nerd zone. Pragidealist, XAEA12, and Jamalisms 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitansGuru Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 The deal is that none of the current, widely cited statistics involving team sports are orthogonal. Each play has both temporal and physical contexts that need to be atomized to eliminate related factors. Sports statistics have always been for casual observation and accessibility, not a concerted understanding of the underlying, latent factors. We leave that stuff to virtually meaningless terms, like the 'it' factor and being 'clutch.' That said, I appreciate your bringing up the topic...right in my nerd zone. begooode, stats, Pragidealist, and 1 other 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justafan Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 VY's winning percentage is proof that Stats lie all the time. ::::DUCKS FOR COVER:::::: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamalisms Posted August 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 Interestingly, Kuharsky just retweeted a comment from the Jags that this ESPN Stats & Info article is based on an incomplete picture and is judging a book by its cover. Stat Wars Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OILERMAN Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 When stats(don't tell the story I want) lie Jamalisms 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 (edited) I first recognized how much stats lie when I was a teen, when I started reading John Elway's stats. Elway is one of the two or three best QB's I've ever seen play,easily, and his stats were never that impressive. It must have been those "underlying latent factors" that "stats" mentioned. Edited August 22, 2013 by Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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