Phil Simms: "The Stat Guys Are Idiots"

he calls his partner, Jeeeeeem Nantz

I wonder who holds Phil Simms, NFL quarterback, in higher regard: the "stat guys" or your conventional-wisdom types?

Parcells joined the Cowboys. The Cowboys.

And, as another Giants fan in the same boat, I would guess that leaving Tiki Barber out was intentional.

Simply being exposed is not enough. There are plenty of people who are either too lazy, or simply don't have the brain chip to easily understand the meaning of stats and how they can be used. They'll often use the "stats are garbage" argument to protect their egos.

I was wondering when somebody was going to fall into the same trap as Simms. He wouldn't need a background in statistics to understand and comment on them any more than you'd have needed to play in the NFL. Is his take rather absurd? Sure, but it has nothing to do with him not having a "background in the field."

"Strangely, Simms feels eminently qualified to discuss the relative merits of statistical arguments, despite the fact that he apparently has no background in the field at all."

yes, this is Phil's defining characteristic. I remember Phil on Inside the NFL blasting the Zeus Playingcalling system on the following basis:
-Bill Parcells made surpising, ballsy play-calls
-Zeus would never recommend Parcell-esque play-calls

You can guess the punchline. Phil had never bothered to look at what Zeus's recommended play-calls were and of course Zeus's play-calling was far more Parcell-seque than the typical NFL coach.

Sadly I fear this may be a sign that Phil is losing his mind. He also challenged Desmond Howard to fight a couple months ago. He seems to be raging at the world.

Strangely, Bill Barnwell feels eminiently qualified to discuss what it takes to be an NFL quarterback, despite the fact that he apparently has never been one.

...just for the record, my point here is NOT that Bill isn't qualified, because he most assuredly has a much deeper knowledge of football than I. My point is that all of us are armchair quarterbacking here, and I would wager that none of us have had near the level of success as an NFL quarterback that Simms has. If we invalidate his opinion on statistics based on him not having any experience in the field, than we discredit most of our own criticisms of his quarterbacking.

Yes... "You, Lt. Weinburg?" gets me every time. He's just sitting there minding his own business and gets totally singled out.

Boom! Roasted?

Seems to me that the implication of this is that we need at least one color guy per position, plus some ex-linesmen, doctors and what-have-you so that the guys calling the game are allowed to talk about down and distance, injuries and other things that players are not trained to deal with.

They're gonna need one big-arsed booth.

Another good one is homosexuality.

There are just as many idiots there as, say, Morehead State.

That is an unsupportable statement, unless you're taking the angle that neither college has very many idiots at all.

I don't think anybody who considers themselves an elitist would admit to having attended Morehead State...

Come on. Come on, that expression has been around for 70 years now.

You give him far more credit than I.

Nobody had Colt McCoy rated higher than Bradford or Clausen based on his completion percentage...It seems like Simms is saying that they should have. Or maybe I should pay more attention to Simms's words, but I don't want to.

OK, so upon a re-read, I agree with you. He seems to be sarcastic. However, he seems to be sarcastically dismissing claims that I don't remember anybody making this time last year. Other than perhaps Mike Leach, who thought Graham Harrell should be a first rounder? Outside of perhaps Colt McCoy, who thought Colt McCoy should have gone first overall? Who are these "stat guys"?

Kind of like those NFL commercials I hated so much from last year: Some teams will never win a Super Bowl...Halftime is never followed by an onside kick.... Really? Who said these things that are presented as common wisdom?

"Colt McCoy should have been the best player in the draft! He hit 78% of his passes in his junior year! He should have been the first player picked."

Yes, it was sarcasm. It was also the dumbest sarcastic comment I've ever seen.

What is Phil saying? That there's more to judging a QB than statistics. Specifically, he's saying that if you just went by statistics, i.e. completion %, you would have thought Colt McCoy should be a high pick.

That's an incredibly stupid example to use because Colt McCoy should have been a high pick. All the 're-drafts' suggested that Cleveland would have taken McCoy 7th overall if they knew he would be as good as he was.

That's interesting as by DVOA, Tom Brady was never worse than 8th starting in 2004, and no worse than 4th by DYAR.

Which is pretty damn good.

I'm not sure I agree that your last statement is as much because Elway is "clutch" as it is because Elway is "good".

I think the reason why you don't want Elway, or Manning, or Brady, etc., within a score in the final minutes is that they're really good. In general, you don't want to play such QB's period, if you had a choice.

Also, some of the apparent "clutchness" is because coaches are too risk-adverse to use an optimal strategy anytime except near the end of the game. Sure, passing tends to be more successful than running in most cases...but CW says we have to "Establish the Run" early in the game, so we'll try to beat them with Joseph Addai instead of Wayne/Harrison/Manning. Sure, giving a QB like Elway or Manning four downs instead of 3 is absolutely deadly and strikes fear into the hearts of DC's, but we have to do the "correct" call and punt on 4th down. Sure it's better to go for it on 4th and 1 from the 20 when Elway is your QB and Davis is your RB...but unless the game is on the line, we're going to do the safe thing and kick the FG.

Until the game is on the line, coaches with excellent QB's will follow convention wisdom rather than put the ball in the hands of their best player. Once the game is on the line, they actually give it to their QB's, who then appear "clutch" by comparison. They're not clutch, they're just good, and playing in situations where their goodness can win close games.

Now, on the flip side, I will agree that, even if there is no such thing as a "clutch" player, there is such a thing as a choker...a player that in high pressure situations performs worse than he would in the first quarter. A certain Patriots kicker by the name of Sisson comes to mind...

As someone else noted, you didn't want to face Elway or Jordan at any point in the game.

My point is that if a player (or team) plays well enough in the earlier part of the game, the game won't be on the line later. I remember a while back, Aaron did an article for ESPN ranking the best Super Bowl QB performances. Somehow he ended up with a Tom Brady game on top (I believe the one against the Panthers) ahead of games like Steve Young's. The reason was that Brady's production had come late in a close game, while Young's 49ers blew out the Chargers. This is manifestly stupid because the reason the 49ers-Chargers game was a blowout was because Young was playing so well.

Eli Manning (before he was actually any good) used to get praised for "comeback victories" in games that were only even close because of his earlier ineptitude. That's the sort of thing that I think Simms and company are doing with Sanchez.