the rules for pff.com grades are very simple. they grade players by their matchups of what went on during the play. if they cant clearly tell whats supposed to happen on that play they dont grade it

Grading | ProFootballFocus.com

of course...that was my point. i can use stats to show something but i wouldnt say our line makes drew look better because it cant be proven. its just a blanket opinion to try and explain whats going on without actually explaining whats going on

I think if we were to take some stats of this thread nobody would be surprised.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the Saints' staff are using those same guidelines to rate their players. For all we know they may have a completely different way of rating players' performances.

I'm not saying they do, but if there's no proof for or against, I'd prefer to think those rating are not applicable.

Canton, here's a life lesson for you. It is clear to me that you do not already know this. With all sincerity I bequeath to you the following:

Statistics are:
A way to organize data. Period. That is all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Statistics are not:
The end all by which one proves or disproves a thing. This is because, as any inking of research on your part will reveal, it isn't the data, but rather it is how you perceive the data.

Now you either get that or you don't.

Let me ask you a question: Do you believe in God? Whether yes or no be your answer, prove your stance statistically.

You can't. Your argument is bunk. Here endeth the lesson.

i coach offensive and defensive lines and im the assistant head coach for a small high school near akron. since ive been here weve won our league every year except 2. we made the playoffs every year and won a state championship in 02

I agree. Without statistical evidence we would have to base our opinion on the objective observation of the event(s) coupled with the information we have at our disposal, which could entail, for example, pre season games with Daniel as the QB - although those would hardly be comparable for various reasons.

Another way would be to come up with a dedicated data/stat collecting method that would be applicable to test this particular hypothesis, but that would be beyond difficult as we wouldn't have any control over the different variables involved.

What my point comes back to is that since we can't prove or disprove this particular point by data/stats - we are forced to rely on our observations, and in that case I would have to agree that it is far more likely that Brees is making the O-line look better than vice versa.

fwiw im agnostic. i dont know if god is real and i wouldnt even try to think one way or another. the point is that you cant prove ur stance whether he is real or not without stats

stats are facts that i can use to back up my opinion

what kind of facts are you using to back up ur opinions?

Any reasonable person not on medication (and some that are) would easily recognize this. The problem is there exists among us some extremely unreasonable people.

Well congrats on that...now with all that knowledge you should know how many times Drew has to avoid the rush because of pressure...if you are really watching..and that we have trouble picking up short yardage..

Now i know we are great in the screen game with our O-Lineman in space..but at protecting Drew a lot has to do with him stepping up and feeling the pressure...that my friend is obvious..just be glad we don't have a statue for a QB or it would be a lot worse..

Hmmm... I wouldn't completely agree with your arguments here.

Data/statistics are an important part of any research without which you can't expect anyone to agree with your findings, since all valid research results have to be replicable. And if you are not presenting the data you based your findings on or the method by which you gathered it in the first place - then there's no way for someone else to replicate your research, and, therefore, it has no scientific value. Also perceptions or observations are also a type of data, which have to be carefully collected and coded for further use in a scientific research.

And as for the God argument... there's really nothing scientific about one's beliefs, but on the contrary statistics are very much based on scientific ways of collecting data. But as a rebuttal, I would say quantum physics.

what i have been doing is referring to a site that does have access to those kinds of stats. a site that recognizes the degree of difficulty in grading a players performance when they dont know the players responsibility.

however, understanding that its an imperfect science that they are using on every player to the same extent, you realize that a lot of the uncontrolled variables can be taken out

you guys can throw out all the grades if you want but then you turn it into a he said/she said type argument with no facts to back up anything...just uneducated opinions and testosterone

why is it more believable that drew makes our line look better than vice-versa? because hes an excellent QB? we have an excellent line too but because they dont get recorded stats and touchdowns they cant possibly be capable of keeping drew upright?

heres a question...

is nicks or jahri evans a better guard than drew is a QB?

how do you measure that? by the competion around the league at the time? how many guards rank above nicks and evans? how many QBs rank above brees?

I'm curious to know what then, about this, that you disagree with:

As for God, you beat me to it. Quantum Physics. It pisses me off. :-)

The point is, as you already know (and so too does Canton by the way he just can't bring himself to admit it), is that Stats don't tell the whole story - and lets remove all doubt by simply looking at his own words in post #52. Particularly in the way people throw them around when discussing something like football. Of course there is value in the numbers, but the number's don't tell the whole story. To tell the whole story in such a way you'd need IBM's Watson and that might not even be sufficient.

Now, because Canton can't prove the existence of God, he chooses to become agnostic? I'm sure he has other reasons, but he (purposefully most likely) misses the point.

I can tell you that, statistically speaking, Canton isn't a very good Coach because he's only managed a single championship in a decade. :-)

I don't think you fully understood the point I was making, because I sincerely doubt that such a site exists. What I tried to convey was that we would have to have a method specific to this particular hypothesis, by which we would have to have a way of comparing all of the variables (players' performances) in a given setting - assigning dependent and independent variables in order to prove or disprove our original hypothesis. This would mean that we would have to be able to have the players play in various different combinations in otherwise similar circumstances, which would be very difficult to put it mildly.

im agnostic because everything ppl have told me is that god exists but everything ive found in my own life suggests otherwise. because i cant disprove god i cant say hes not real and i cant say he is real because i cant prove that either

one championship in a decade considering the 50 some odd schools that have made the playoffs over that same time is a pretty good ratio if you ask me. especially considering we are a public school

i remember an article that came out of the akron beacon journal a few years ago that mentioned that while only 4% of the schools in ohio are private schools, that 4% of private schools wins about 97% of the state championships in all sports

1 in a decade. You suck. But then your involvement in the decade of losing might be minimal. Prove that statistically. Otherwise we'll have to assume that YOU are the biggest loser on the staff. Unless of course you can prove otherwise. Statistically mind you...

Ok fair enough...let me ask you one..which one would you rather have on your team?

For the first statement:

I hope you'll forgive me for quoting wikipedia, but my methodology books pretty much state the same thing and this was the fastest way:

Statistics is more than just a way of displaying data, it is a discipline in itself, which has numerous real world applications.

As for the second statement:

I would like to refer to my earlier wikipedia quote (that just sounds wrong). If by statistics you mean just a representation of data - then you're closer to the truth, but still incorrect in a way, because it is (and has to be) in fact the data on which you have to base your findings on for reasons I already went over in an earlier post. And if you refer to the discipline of statistics, [i]"perception of the data"[i] is part of analyzing and interpreting data, which can't be separated from the gathering and presentation of the said data.

If I break my arm, and you break your arm, statistics can be used to tell us when our arms might heal.

Yours may heal faster. Mine slower, other the other way around. The mountain of data you would need to make the claim that my arm will heal x days faster than yours boggles the mind.

Stats can give you part of the story. You can organize what data you have and you can come to some conclusions. Those conclusions are dependent on the data. How can you prove the data you have is complete? You'd also have to account somehow for assumptions.

9 out of 10 dentists say my toothpaste is better than yours. A different set of dentists are one shy of unanimous about the superiority of yours. Hmmmm....

Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing that stats have no value. I'm rebutting Cantons claim that I must present some statistical evidence to indicate that Drew does, in fact, improve our o-line's statistics. Of course I could poll every NFL player and to a man they would agree with me, but is that enough? A reasonable person would likely think so, but can we ever prove that, statistically? Good luck with that...

Oh, and no worries about quoting wikipedia. I do it all the time. We know that, statistically speaking of course, everything on the internet is true. :-)

I don't know what to say to the first part about the broken hand...? Statistics could be used to give a broad idea of how long a recuperation from a similar type of injury usually takes. But it would only be a guesstimate, because there would be so many variables involved, for which statistics couldn't account for... so why would we even try?

To the second part I would say that if the method of collecting the data is scientifically constructed... the data sample has to be representative and, therefore, you can make valid statements based on it. I've never heard of a complete data set in any type of large scale research involving humans... something like a census would probably come the closest, but, alas, that would also fall short of a complete data set. You can have a data set collected from a representative sample on which to try and prove or disprove a hypothesis, but in most cases you just end up either corroborating or contradicting the initial hypothesis, which leads to further research.

As for the dentists... they are bought and payed for by the company making the tooth paste. :D


But, I need to add a disclosure, because I haven't really studied statistics, so I'm not a hundred percent on all that is involved. But my second college major was sociology, which is as close to statistics as you can get methodology-wise.

ah the level of conversation goes down and down. you guys just argue to argue.

i dont care if you dont like me but the last couple posts are a perfect reason for why i come in here and rip on you guys.

Your mom goes down and down...

Is that more to your liking and standard?

As far as I think, we were debating some very interesting things (to me at least) and doing it in a very civil way. If you don't care about it - don't read it!

But your appraisals carry very little weight if you don't present any evidence as to why you think taking about statistics and the methodology involved on a forum for a sports team is so beneath your high standard.

That might change ....and to be honest you brought this on yourself by putting yourself above us..and you never answered my question..which i posted in good faith.

Is that what you think you're doing. Alrighty then.

Which is true.

Now - your avatar. I owukd like to hit that about 4 times a quarter!! :hump: