when metric stats go horribly wrong

although you might be tempted to do so, it would be unfair to say that me, chris w, dan-bob, pnoles, and eriz simply write this blog to criticize writers who love intangibles in favor of those who would rather gush about pure, quantitative statistics. why? because i'm about to make fun of espn.com's kc joyner. kc's heart is in the right places; he's not here to tell you darin erstad brings a football mentality to the baseball field or that randy moss is a bad player to have on your team because he's lazy. kc is all about the numbers. in this case, he wants to use them to break down wide receiver performance. why is this a bad idea? you'll see. i'm not going to use hyperbole and say that joyner is the biggest dumb dummyhead who ever moroned his way into a sports journalism job. still, i gotta call him out- this is poor statistical analysis, plain and simple.

Overrated wide receivers

Donald Driver
For sheer production, Driver had few equals last year, as he ranked fifth in the league in receptions and in receiving yards.

awesome. in my opinion he still doesn't get the press he deserves for amassing such totals, making him at the very least regular-rated (or even underrated). but let's see what joyner has to say.

However, it took a huge number of pass attempts for him to amass these figures. When I rank wide receivers, I place the highest value on consistency and explosiveness. Driver certainly wasn't that explosive, as his 7.6 YPA ranked him 48th among wide receivers (of 67 qualifiers).

and this is where i start having problems; look, it's great to try to use numbers to break down situations. i strongly encourage it. numbers are far superior to anecdotal bullshit. but sometimes, they don't tell the story their user wants them to tell. receiver yards-per-attempt doesn't seem like a very solid statistic. what if the guy has an inaccurate quarterback throwing to him? that's going to hurt him right there. what if he's a receiver that gets most of his work done over the middle on slant and drag patterns because the team feels he works best there? does that make him "less explosive" than a guy who only goes deep? you can argue that if a guy is running short patterns, his team probably doesn't consider him to be very "explosive" in the first place. i hear that. it still seems like a fishy stat to me.

His 10.3 YPA on bomb passes (30-plus yards downfield) ranked him 39th in the league, and his 10.1 YPA on deep passes (20-29 yards) ranked him 44th.

again, i think maybe just maybe the guy on the other end of the passing/receiving transaction might have a little bit of impact on this number. brett favre is still a decent NFL quarterback, but let's just say that the deep ball is probably the second thing that starts to go (after mobility) when a gunslinger starts getting a little long in the tooth.

Driver's consistency also left something to be desired. His success percentage, which used to be Driver's calling card, plummeted to a meager 57.6 percent last year, his lowest total in the four years I have been tracking metrics.

success percentage is defined by joyner as the percentage of plays for a WR in which they catch a pass or draw a penalty. favre's completion percentage last year was 56%, his lowest in the last 4 seasons. how much of driver's decline in success percentage is attributable to that? i say lots.

He also had the most dropped passes of any wide receiver, and his dropped pass percentage (14.4) was the 12th worst in the NFL.

can't argue with that. still, it's like the 5th item on joyner's list of reasons why driver is overrated. and the other four suck.

I'm not saying Driver is a bad wide receiver. I just think metrics such as these did not warrant the Pro Bowl starter slot he garnered last year.

i think favre's declining skills were mostly responsible for driver's poor YPA, YPA on "bomb" and "deep" passes, and success percentage. but what i do know? i'm just a nerd blogging from my mom's basement.

Chris Chambers
Chambers isn't considered a great receiver, but his metrics indicate he wasn't even a good receiver last year. Chambers had the lowest YPA (5.1) and success percentage (44.8) of any wide receiver in the NFL in 2006. He ranked no higher than 49th in YPA at any depth level, so he lacked production across the board.

are you effing kidding me? some guy named cleo lemon was throwing to chambers by the end of the 2006 season. before that it was joey harrington and dante "a bad season or two away from a spot in the fox nfl studios" culpepper. in 2005 chambers had gus ferrotte throwing to him, and still managed to grab 82 balls for 1100+ yards. i don't know what his YPA then was, but those raw totals were with gus freakin' ferrotte throwing to him. christ, what kind of numbers would he put up with a decent QB?

Honorable mention

Randy Moss: He'll have to dramatically improve on his meager 6.2 YPA to keep the Patriots happy.

tom brady will have to dramatically improve on the performance of aaron brooks and andrew walter to keep moss happy. think he can pull it off?

Greg Jennings: He is a Favre favorite, but his success percentage (45.2) was the second-lowest in the league.

what a coincidence- two packers, both with bad receiving metrics! weird. i wonder if favre knows about this?

Wes Welker: He is being touted as a vastly underrated player, but his 7.2 YPA last year ranked 55th in the league.

gasp! and two dolphins! what are the odds?

Torry Holt: He is one of my all-time favorite wide receivers, but his 7.5 YPA and 55.9 success percentage were his worst numbers in the four years I've been doing this. He also didn't deserve a starting spot in the Pro Bowl.

ok, you got me. marc bulger is pretty good; he completed 63% of his passes last year. so holt must've dropped a lot of balls, or run a lot of very difficult to complete routes. not sure how you can explain away these bad stats. maybe he really IS overrated. but you know what? it's too late. based on the first 10 paragraphs of this article, i already think joyner is full of shit.

he's trying to measure something that's very much a function of two inputs while pretending like one of them, almost definitely the more important one of them, doesn't exist. receiver YPA is just as useless as a lot of other stats that have very significant hidden/ignored factors. team rebounding averages in basketball is a great example. teams that play at a very slow pace usually don't rack up very high rebounding totals because their games have fewer possessions than games involving, say, the suns or nuggets. does that mean these slow paced teams like the raptors or pistons are "bad" at rebounding? of course not. but this stat is still widely used as if it means something. or in baseball, how about "catcher ERA"? just like it sounds, this is the ERA of a pitching staff when a specific catcher is behind the plate. some dipshit analysts like to pretend like it means that certain catchers are better at calling a game or choosing good pitch locations than others. in 2006, pudge rodriguez of the tigers had a fantastic catcher ERA. in 2005 brad ausmus of the astros did. what did those guys have in common? dominant fucking pitching staffs throwing to them, that's what. which do you think was a bigger factor in their respective teams' low runs allowed totals?

on one hand, i gotta hand it to joyner for going out on a limb and trying to quantify things that are not easily quantifiable. looking for new ways to objectively explain trends or evaluate performers is a worthy pursuit. and like i already said, i'd much rather read something like this than something about how david eckstein is great because he looks like he's actively trying to dislocate his shoulder when he throws the ball to first base.

on the other hand- shut up, kc joyner. your wide receiver metrics are stupid.