Most overated football statistic

[bluenews]

thanks for your support.

 

[OnTheRocks]

i went with First Downs. But would list QB Rating a close second.

[Beerball]

If it's the most overrated stastic why is it important to keep track of it?

 

Anyway, I voted for QB rating.

[Chilly]

YAC. It mostly depends on where the DB is on the field at the time of reception. In a dink-and-dunk style offense, or versus a team with good DBs, you could protentially have 0 YAC but still have a strong offensive showing.

[mtdoak]

If it's the most overrated stastic why is it important to keep track of it?

 

Anyway, I voted for QB rating.

714666[/snapback]

 

Whoa, the most overrated football statistic is by far wins. Since when is a good season measured in W-L?? a good season is by how many TDs your QB throws, how many rushing yards your RB gets, or how many TDs your special teams run back. I'm so sick of hearing "wins wins wins", nobody cares about wins!

[Beerball]

Whoa, the most overrated football statistic is by far wins.  Since when is a good season measured in W-L??  a good season is by how many TDs your QB throws, how many rushing yards your RB gets, or how many TDs your special teams run back.  I'm so sick of hearing "wins wins wins", nobody cares about wins!

714669[/snapback]

Uniform accessorization is also overlooked. To play good you have to look good. Take T-80s pink jersey for instance...

[H2o]

Honestly, they all kind of matter. They all will have an impact on the games outcome. First downs and TOP may not matter to teams like the Bengals and Colts really because they put up points so quickly. Other teams like the Bears and Pittsburgh rely heavily on keeping the ball by the run game. Turnovers always turn out to be huge. Field position is always a big factor, so the punting does come into play. Yards after the catch is good because it shows how truly explosive a WR is, like Steve Smith and Santana Moss for instance. Sacks is the tracking of one person's dominance versus the opposing team's line. Now, somebody could pull a Derrick Thomas (RIP) and get 7 or 8 sacks in one game and then like 6 to 8 more and lead the league. It's just one of those things. The one that seems like it's the least important is the QB Rating. Does it matter? Yes, because it's the indicator of your QB's overall performance. But look at Ben's QB rating from the Super Bowl. It was in the 20's and they still won. See what handing off to the Refs in pregame warm-ups can get you?

[BuffOrange]

i went with First Downs.  But would list QB Rating a close second.

714662[/snapback]

 

Agreed. If anything I would say YPC and net punting are underrated; since rushing is generally a statistic measured by yardage and punting by gross (50 yard punt into the endzone for a 30 yd net, yipee!).

[smokinandjokin]

YPC is the most overrated stat, IMO. It doesn't do much for me at all. Imagine a RB breaking a run off for 81 yards on his first carry of the game. Then he rushes 19 more times for 19 yards. We're supposed to say he had a good game rushing because he earned 5.0 yds per carry? He had one good play, and was shut down for the rest of the game.

 

And what's the benchmark standard for an effective RB? Anything 4.0 ypc and above? So that means 3.8 ypc is ineffective? That difference over 20 carries in a game is four yards (80 vs. 76). If you think your team is losing because your offensive line/RB can't gain 4 more yards over the course of 20 carries, I think you need to reexamine your criteria on what is effective.

 

I think the stat is interesting, and it's a way to measure RB's averages. But I just don't think it's that important, and is one of the most easily skewed. For example, on 3rd and 25 you run a draw play, and your RB picks up 19 yards. Nice run, and it will certainly help the ypc, but come on, the defense is giving away that yardage.

[Buftex]

I was torn between YAC (for reason BlueFire mentioned), and would have voted for "TD catches, TD rushes, or TD passes" if they were options. In the end, I voted for QB rating.

 

I don't think a good QB rating necessarily means that a QB is good, while a bad one is indicative that the QB has some problems.

[Pyrite Gal]

Almost sll things involving the QB are over-rated in this game. Football is interesting because it is such a team game as asport. Yet given our short attention spans and small brains as Americans the business of selling stuff leads to an overfocus on the QB and his importance.

 

He is important since he handles the ball and call signals on offensive snaps, but they get far too much blame for things not going well and far too much credit for tems winning.

 

Thus the QB rating is probably the most over-rated stat. Folks who should no better based on some of their posts use this tool to compare QBs across seasons and even across decades when the rules of the game in terms of how they are enforced and even how they are written change all the time.

 

The QB rating itself has been changed and refined over time so though you may be able to compare one QBs performace to another using this tool in the same year, it simply has little reasonable application in different years.

 

Still even though it is a flawed tool, it is the best tool we have for measuring a QB. It should be used but it is easily abused amd thus it is often overrated.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

YPC is the most overrated stat, IMO.  It doesn't do much for me at all.  Imagine a RB breaking a run off for 81 yards on his first carry of the game.  Then he rushes 19 more times for 19 yards.  We're supposed to say he had a good game rushing because he earned 5.0 yds per carry?  He had one good play, and was shut down for the rest of the game.

 

And what's the benchmark standard for an effective RB?  Anything 4.0 ypc and above?  So that means 3.8 ypc is ineffective?  That difference over 20 carries in a game is four yards (80 vs. 76).  If you think your team is losing because your offensive line/RB can't gain 4 more yards over the course of 20 carries, I think you need to reexamine your criteria on what is effective. 

 

I think the stat is interesting, and it's a way to measure RB's averages.  But I just don't think it's that important, and is one of the most easily skewed.  For example, on 3rd and 25 you run a draw play, and your RB picks up 19 yards.  Nice run, and it will certainly help the ypc, but come on, the defense is giving away that yardage.

714729[/snapback]

 

This illustrates a good point: that no statistic on its own is very meaningful. A 5.0 YPC can be meaningless if it represents 1 81-yard run and 19 one-yard runs...but if a back's longest rush is for 8 yards and he has a 5.0 YPC, he pretty much dominated the game. Most football stats are like that: they mean a hell of a lot more in concert with other stats than they do on their own. (Or they're even contraindicated by other stats - a RB with 19 yards on 19 carries is having a lousy day...unless he's got 11 rushing first downs as well, because then he's sustaining drives.)

 

So the most useless stat would probably have to be a number that is supposed to, on its own, tell an entire story about an individual's or team's performance. That would have to be QB rating.

[Matt in KC]

I put down sacks, for similar reasons to what is spelled out for QB rating. I see a number of games where a team gets ahead, then racks up a couple sacks at the end when the other team is desperate. Then, invariablly, someone posts that the defense won the game and sites the sacks. Yes, the sacks helped, but garbage-time sacks distort the truth.

 

I chose sacks because it's a low base-rate stat that can be greatly distorted by a few plays. If for example if a team gets ahead by 13 in a somewhat close game, due to a late turnover. And let's say they earn 4 sacks throughout the game, but then gets sacks on each of the last three plays. A large number of people will come out and declare that the defense won the game.

 

I think the sportswriter will automatically call them "dominating" if the team gets seven or more sacks. As an indiviadual player stat, I think it's good, when taken in the context of at least 2-3 years performance.

[TKO]

Wins and Losses.

[colin]

over the course of a season a team that gets a lot of sacks is one that is good at getting to the QB. a player's individual season or game numbers might be misleading, but for a team over a year you get a good idea.

 

it has to be QB rating.

 

3 5 yard outs with a holding penalty gets a massive QB rating and no first down.

 

1 for 3 and a 22 yard bomb over tight coverage gets you a first down and a worse QB rating.

 

if a qb throws a couple TDs and no INTs you get a huge QB rating, but if a QB throws a couple long bombs for Ints on hail mary's and the team runs it in from the one instead of a pass he looks about 50 points worse on the QB rating.

 

it is a dink and dunk rating

[smokinandjokin]

While I agree that QB rating may not be the best tool for measuring QB's, a high QB rating does seem to correlate to a successful team. Last year, 7 of the top 9 rated passers led their teams to the playoffs (and 9 of the top 13.) Of the top-rated QB's whose teams missed the playoffs, Bulger and Johnson started only 8 and 9 games, respectively, and Green went 10-6 with KC while Brees was 9-7 in SD. Like CTM mentioned above, no stat is truly perfect, and there's always room for skewing and outliers. For example, Eli Manning was on a playoff team, but he was 23rd in passer rating with a 75.9.

 

1 Peyton Manning IND 104.1

2 Carson Palmer CIN 101.1

3 Ben Roethlisberger PIT 98.6

4 Matt Hasselbeck SEA 98.2

5 Marc Bulger STL 94.4

6 Tom Brady NE 92.3

7 Jake Plummer DEN 90.2

8 Trent Green KC 90.1

9 Byron Leftwich JAC 89.3

10 Drew Brees SD 89.2

11 Brad Johnson MIN 88.9

12 Jake Delhomme CAR 88.1

13 Mark Brunell WAS 85.9

 

 

I chose rushing yards per carry, because it doesn't seem to correlate to anything. Like it was mentioned above, 5.0 yards per carry can be the result of one 81-yd run and 19 1-yd runs, or it can be a guy dominating a game by picking up 4, 5, 6 yards every carry. There's too much ambiguity for it to be a meaningful stat. However, it has a similar outcome to passer rating with regard to playoff teams- 5 of the top 9 were on playoff teams, and 8 of the top 13, and 12 of the top 22.

 

Here are the leaders in ypc (RB's with over 100 attempts). The columns are games, attempts, att/game, yards, long, avg, ypg, and runs of 20+.

 

1 Tatum Bell DEN 15 173 11.5 921 68 5.3 61.4 8 10

2 Tiki Barber NYG 16 357 22.3 1860 95 5.2 116.2 9 16

3 Larry Johnson KC 16 336 21.0 1750 49 5.2 109.4 20 15

4 Shaun Alexander SEA 16 370 23.1 1880 88 5.1 117.5 27 14

5 Warrick Dunn ATL 16 280 17.5 1416 65 5.1 88.5 3 11

6 Frank Gore SF 14 127 9.1 608 72 4.8 43.4 3 4

7 Willie Parker PIT 15 255 17.0 1202 80 4.7 80.1 4 8

8 Ronnie Brown MIA 15 207 13.8 907 65 4.4 60.5 4 5

9 Ricky Williams MIA 12 168 14.0 743 35 4.4 61.9 6 4

10Rudi Johnson CIN 16 337 21.1 1458 33 4.3 91.1 12 5

11Thomas Jones CHI 15 314 20.9 1335 42 4.3 89.0 9 12

12DeShaun Foster CAR 15 205 13.7 879 70 4.3 58.6 2 3

13Mewelde Moore MIN 16 155 9.7 662 33 4.3 41.4 1 5

14Clinton Portis WAS 16 352 22.0 1516 47 4.3 94.8 11 6

15LaDainian Tomlinson SD 16 339 21.2 1462 62 4.3 91.4 18 8

16Edgerrin James IND 15 360 24.0 1506 33 4.2 100.4 13 5

17Mike Anderson DEN 15 239 15.9 1014 44 4.2 67.6 12 4

18Chester Taylor BAL 15 117 7.8 487 52 4.2 32.5 0 2

19Domanick Davis HOU 11 230 20.9 976 44 4.2 88.7 2 3

20Samkon Gado GB 8 143 17.9 582 64 4.1 72.8 6 3

21Cadillac Williams TB 14 290 20.7 1178 71 4.1 84.1 6 7

22Steven Jackson STL 15 254 16.9 1046 51 4.1 69.7 8 6

[Bills_Chick]

QB rating is BS! Look at Holcomb's QB rating!

[/dev/null]

Hits

 

Of course they only record them for one player

[Acantha]

QB rating.

 

The real life example of how someone can give 110%.

[Nanker]

YAC.  It mostly depends on where the DB is on the field at the time of reception.  In a dink-and-dunk style offense, or versus a team with good DBs, you could protentially have 0 YAC but still have a strong offensive showing.

714668[/snapback]

 

You're on opposite sides of the coin on this with Marv.

He says it's the most important statistic.