New York Giants: Lies, damn lies and statistics

Football fans, especially New York Giants fans, love their statistics.

You want to prove the running back Saquon Barkley was a great draft pick by the New York Giants, we’ve got stats to prove this. Want to prove that quarterback Sam Darnold would have been a better draft pick than Barkley, we’ve got different statistics to prove that point.

I can’t blame fans for this predictable state of affairs, as we have all been conditioned by football beat writers and announcers. If you hadn’t noticed, they thrive on spewing statistics.

Team X is winning the game, but losing the time of possession battle by 10 minutes! How is that possible? Team Y has won their last ten games when they are +3 in the turnover category. Gee, knock me over with a feather.

I have a secret for you, football has fallen behind the other sports in terms of use of metrics. In baseball, the shift was adopted as a direct result of knowing the frequency where a batter liked to hit the ball. Analytics don’t lie, and baseball defenses adjusted the odds to their favor. Remember, for over 100 years, baseball players, except for minor adjustments, basically stood in the same place, regardless of who was hitting.

New York Giants

Hockey’s Corsi and Fenwick ratings give us a pretty good idea of who the effective players are in a sport that used to be measured only by goals, assists, point and plus/minus rating. Now we understand that some player stats suffered because a checking center gets matched against the opponent’s top player night-in-and-night-out.

The best that professional football has done thus far is embrace a grading system implemented by Pro Football Focus. Now, I’m as guilty as anyone at using their grading system, but I’m not completely sold that it’s the most effective way to fairly evaluate performance in the sport. In addition, beat writers generally undermine this system because they are reluctant to allocate balme to the players they cover. Or they want to prove that they “know” more than the average fan.

Now, in his post game interview, Janoris Jenkins conceded he blew the coverage, so breathe easy, you can believe your own eyes. More importantly, how does football evaluate plays and players effectively? (i.e – not exclusively through a sportswriters’ eyes) In that respect, the current lack of solid metrics continues to plague the New York Giants and, quite frankly, the NFL.

In essence, everyone is right, because no one is really ever wrong.

The great Parcells

One of the reasons I love Bill Parcells is that the old ball coach didn’t mince words. He has two of the best football quotes ever uttered in the sport, which gets us back to the only statistic that matters – wins.

"Parcells opined, “You are what your record says you are”, as well as the infamous, “Let’s not put him in Canton on roller skates.”"

The first quote clearly applies to the 2018 New York Giants, despite the fact that folks want to quote statistics to point out that the team’s W-L record belies the numbers. Here’s an example:

One thing we do know is that NFL teams throw the football more than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Hopefully, that’s accepted as a given, but we can always pull out the numbers. Then ask yourself this question: Why was running back Saquon Barkley such a great draft pick?

Wasn’t Barkley supposed to be the addition that made tepid offensive line play irrelevant?

According to Pro Football Reference, Barkley has 49 receptions this season. That’s great, he will single-handedly transform the NFL because he can run and catch the football, right?

This opinion spawns the most overused phase in football – he’ll create mismatches.

Well, when you peel apart that onion, you’ll find that Barkley had 14 receptions against the Dallas Cowboys. The New York Giants lost that game. He snagged nine passes and had 130 rushing yards against the Philadelphia Eagles. The G-Men were walloped 34-13 by the Birds.

Against the Carolina Panthers, Barkley had four receptions, and against the Houston Texans, the Penn State rookie had five receptions. In one game the New York Giants were victorious, and the other game, Big Blue should have won.

Explain the correlation between Barkley’s stats and the Giants winning or losing?

You can’t. In addition, the way in which announcers spew statistics lacks the important element of context. The truth is that Barkley is only one of 22 players on the field, and if you think he can single-handedly transform anything, well, look at the won-loss record. Before anyone tries to create fake news, I’m not blaming Barkley for the losses, it’s just statistically, we can’t manufacture a correlation.

Each and every NFL game operates differently. I like Thom Brennaman as an announcer, but I don’t love him because he’s a statistical spewing machine.

If you want some context, listen closely to CBS analyst Tony Romo, he doesn’t just regurgitate stats, but he gives insight into the in’s and out’s of the formation, as well as why some play calls work and some don’t work. Which maybe why he and Jim Nantz were ranked as the No. 1 announcing team by Sports Illustrated. It’s unknown what percentage of football fans agree with that assessment, and we’re perfectly okay with that.