I love this site: FiveThirtyEight. Great number crunching and whatnot.
Numbers will never tell the entire story. It's a measurement issue and a dimension issue. It's very easy to look at a one-dimensional measurement and do comparisons. Height, for example. In that one dimension it tells the story. So if a building is 1000' tall and another is 1050' tall, clearly the second is taller than the first. Story over. However, to say the second is LARGER than the first would be over-stepping the bounds of the measurements. For that, you'd need the height, width, and depth - 3 dimensions and even then, you may still not know for certain which is the larger building - shapes of each floor, underground area, things unseen could make a huge difference.
This is why sports statistics are often so deceiving and why player comparisons are often wrong.
FiveThirtyEight enjoys enhancing the measurements/stats and granulating them in order to possibly achieve better grounds for comparisons, analysis, and predictions. They do a very good job at it. And that is why I find myself returning to read their analyses a lot.
And that is why I read this article about Tom Brady and Pressure.
It shows in numbers and measurements why I have always said that Tom Brady is a fortunate QB, not necessarily a great QB. He is a well protected QB and when he isn't, he struggles just like very average QBs do.
You can easily dismiss the numbers in that article. Brady has won 4 Super Bowls, being the MVP multiple times. Brady has never had a losing season. He has a lot of top 10 career and season records for that position. And thus you can hold to the notion that Brady is easily one of the greatest QBs ever. But you really aren't measuring everything completely.
Brady has always had...
...time in the pocket - usually, very good offense line.
...a resilient defense that gives him multiple chances at evening the score or taking a lead.
...a fantastic coach that is constantly adjusting his style to the other team's weaknesses.
...a solid group of possession receivers (um...and Randy Moss for a span)
And when any of those things are missing - Brady loses just like average QBs.
Ultimately, it is debatable. He may truly be the best. Or even top 10. But he also may not be and I think the numbers in the FiveThirtyEight article give reason to doubt.
Brady does have one thing necessary for winning - his composure level. It is high. He rarely ever, even under pressure, pushes the ball or forces an inadvisable play.
Ultimately, Brady makes me think of Corey Crawford G for the Blackhawks.
Also notable:
Look where these guys sit in that chart (upper right corner would be the best spot for this measurement)...
Philip Rivers - a great mind but not great athlete. Very solid QB. Sits with Brady.
Aaron Rodgers!
Russell Wilson!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment