JKool

I guess, we do disagree on improvement. The things you stated are different, un-related things; I don\'t see what that could have to do with whether or not someone got better at something?

Here is one thing we may agree on: passer rating. ABs passer rating has gone up every year until this one - is that improvement or not?

saintswhodi

I don\'t understand this statement at all:

Huh? That makes no sense at all. If the NFC is bad, that tends to lend us the ability to get easier wins, thus making us look better. Unless you feel we could beat a full strength Panthers that went to the Superbowl last year, when we split with them this year at half strength. Unless you feel Atlanta being able to rest all its starters in Week 16 against us shows a strong NFC, what if they were at full strength? Another loss. KC no Priest. I don\'t understand at all. A BAD NFC makes a mediocre-bad team look better than they are. I think that\'s pretty clear. No?

saintswhodi

I don\'t care if AB has a 100 passer rating, if he leads the league in red zone turnovers or leads the league in fumbles, we can not win. That is not improvement. Passer rating is not really consistent as it doesn;t take into account total turnovers, only INTs. If they counted fumbles in that equation, I guarantee AB\'s rating would have been horrendous, and thus not improved at all.

saintswhodi

I\'ll pick this up tomorrow Kool. I have company and wanna watch the game. Later. Good talk.

JKool

Your answer to the question \"how did we win so many games?\" was that the NFC was bad.

You must have meant we played only bad teams. That has nothing to do with the NFC, but rather the teams we faced. Thus, you cannot make such a sweeping claim.

If you want to make the sweeping claim, then it follows that we were bad as a result of being a member of the NFC, just like those other teams. If that is the case, then your point is irrelevant.

Here is something frustrating - either you think that things like aggregate stats and generalization matter or you don\'t. You can\'t just switch between them to make points. For example, if you say that having a good running game is good and that shows that we need a better line, you cannot turn around and say this - we cannot get better by improving the running game because SD didn\'t get better when they did that 4 years ago.

Either you\'re on board with the generalization or you\'re not.

I think that is a fairly good diagnosis of the reason you and I disagree on a few things.

Either way, great discussion, but I have to get going. See you tomorrow. Cheers.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

saintswhodi

Glad the halftime show sucks. I have no idea what point you are making on that last statement Kool so count me in as a dummy. I use stats to express some issues, then on other issues I may not. I used stats for this argument cause people want to keep making the point our D killed us. When our D didn\'t kill us , AB did. That was my point. I don\'t know how this lends to a generalization.

Also, if you don\'t realize the NFC was the worst it has been possibly ever this past year, well I can\'t really help with that either. That\'s not a generalization, that is a fact. There is all sorts of articles on it if you simply google it. I don\'t know how that is general at all when it is true and was talked about weekly on ESPN and sports shows in general. I have been really specific in what I have stated all along, we can not win with AB. That is not general either. That is a specific belief I have backed up with 4 years of proof. So if you point to what specifically was general, maybe I will understand better. As of right now I am at a loss as to what was a generalization.

Also, since we are in the NFC, would it stand to reason that we play mainly NFC teams? And if such is the case, and the state of the NFC was as bad as it\'s ever been, would that lend to the fact that we played bad teams? If we were an AFC team and I said the NFC had bad teams, I would see where you are coming from. But we were a part of the bad NFC, so the fact that we played bad teams is a given. Again, you can google the info on how bad the NFC was. We played 12 NFC teams as opposed to 4 AFC teams. Do with that info what you will with a horrible NFC this past year.

saintswhodi

I thought about it Kool, and you must be talking about what I said about passer rating. If a QB throws 25 tds, no INTs but fumbles 100 times and loses 75, QB rating ignores the fumbles completely. He would have pretty much a perfect ranking. Now we know a QB like that would not be perfect. That\'s not very accurate at all. Some stats can\'t be disputed, defensive stats, offensive stats and such cause they are not subjective, they are a compilation. A RATING based on a formula that doesn\'t take into account all factors is flawed. So some stats can be taken at their face value, and their MEANING disputed. But QB rating is entirely subjective considering not all factors are put into play. Here is ESPN\'s efficiency rating.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...eek17/rankings

It\'s not perfect either. All we can take into account is what we see, and form an opinion, which is what we all do. Your opinion may differ from mine, but that\'s cool. But I know things like leading the league in red zone turnovers or leading the league in lost fumbles are not stats winning QBs lead the NFL in. I don\'t need any ratings to tell me that.

JKool

Whodi, thanks for the thoughts, as always.

I feel like we\'re talking past each other right now, but I\'m hard pressed to diagnose the problem. Perhaps some external observer can help us out? If not, I\'ll think on it for awhile.

My current view is that we both think the other guy has a point, but we\'re not sure why we aren\'t making more progress. I think it is safe to say that we both think that we have a point that isn\'t stupid, but we also think the other guy\'s isn\'t either.

I\'m willing to call it a draw for right now, if you are?

More thoughts later... ok?

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

saintswhodi

JKool