news on CJA has been relatively quiet...

[Jfever]

This discussion repeats itself fairly often. The only thing that changes is the particular player that we discuss. Whether it is M.Gordon, J.Landry, or now CJA, Some owners use statistics and that is fine, I myself also use some stats for player analysis. We as a fantasy community should not - NOT use statistics. It seems though that some owners use statistics and weigh them fairly heavily and they use these stats as their eyes so to speak as it pertains to constructing player value and even player talent or ability. The reality seems to be that stats are one part of the puzzle of this game. In this particular case, we have a fellow poster that seems to be (correct me if I'm mis representing) heavily weighing his opinion on CJA based off of some statistical analysis that indicates CJA was less productive on his team than other rbs on his team at the same time with the same coaches, same qb, etc. I understand what Bsp27 is trying to say. But, the thing is, there is more to it than what stats can reveal.

Time and time again stats are the end result of multiple variables and context (looking at as many variables that are causative agents) is very important.

[Vcize]

This discussion repeats itself fairly often. The only thing that changes is the particular player that we discuss. Whether it is M.Gordon, J.Landry, or now CJA, Some owners use statistics and that is fine, I myself also use some stats for player analysis. We as a fantasy community should not - NOT use statistics. It seems though that some owners use statistics and weigh them fairly heavily and they use these stats as their eyes so to speak as it pertains to constructing player value and even player talent or ability. The reality seems to be that stats are one part of the puzzle of this game. In this particular case, we have a fellow poster that seems to be (correct me if I'm mis representing) heavily weighing his opinion on CJA based off of some statistical analysis that indicates CJA was less productive on his team than other rbs on his team at the same time with the same coaches, same qb, etc. I understand what Bsp27 is trying to say. But, the thing is, there is more to it than what stats can reveal.

Time and time again stats are the end result of multiple variables and context (looking at as many variables that are causative agents) is very important.

I admittedly haven't been following this discussion closely, and I was one of those that was arguing against the stats folks in the Landry discussion, but wouldn't the fact that Miami let Landry walk and that CJA was cut imply that the actual people out there working with these guys every day agree with the stats guys on this one?

I know there will be some excuse about cap space or yada, but if the Broncos felt that CJA was a much better RB than his stats indicate then they would have held on to him. They didn't really save that much cap space ($4.5mil) by cutting him. They clearly saw him as a pretty replaceable talent.

[Phaded]

I think the biggest problem with those assumptions is that you have to believe those teams know what they are doing.
Neither Miami or Denver seem to have provided any sort of evidence that they do know what they are doing.

I mean - Miami let Landry walk presumably because they refused to pay Landry $16m per year; yet they paid Amendola & Wilson a combined $14m per year.

Denver has been a dumpster fire since Manning retired.

[bsp27]

This discussion repeats itself fairly often. The only thing that changes is the particular player that we discuss. Whether it is M.Gordon, J.Landry, or now CJA, Some owners use statistics and that is fine, I myself also use some stats for player analysis. We as a fantasy community should not - NOT use statistics. It seems though that some owners use statistics and weigh them fairly heavily and they use these stats as their eyes so to speak as it pertains to constructing player value and even player talent or ability. The reality seems to be that stats are one part of the puzzle of this game. In this particular case, we have a fellow poster that seems to be (correct me if I'm mis representing) heavily weighing his opinion on CJA based off of some statistical analysis that indicates CJA was less productive on his team than other rbs on his team at the same time with the same coaches, same qb, etc. I understand what Bsp27 is trying to say. But, the thing is, there is more to it than what stats can reveal.

Time and time again stats are the end result of multiple variables and context (looking at as many variables that are causative agents) is very important.

I admittedly haven't been following this discussion closely, and I was one of those that was arguing against the stats folks in the Landry discussion, but wouldn't the fact that Miami let Landry walk and that CJA was cut imply that the actual people out there working with these guys every day agree with the stats guys on this one?

I know there will be some excuse about cap space or yada, but if the Broncos felt that CJA was a much better RB than his stats indicate then they would have held on to him. They didn't really save that much cap space ($4.5mil) by cutting him. They clearly saw him as a pretty replaceable talent.

That's another valid point. The Broncos have been trying to dump him for years, and rightly so.

[Jfever]

I think you guys missed my point a bit. The phrase / term skape goat comes to mind. The Broncos may have been trying to "dump" him as you say. But, it is more likely that it is a financial reason than a lack of talent reason. His production was down, his contract wasn't cheap, but, was his production down because he sucks or because there are other more reasonable / likely explanations? The contract (discussed earlier / a few pages back) was not a good / team friendly contract. J.Elway may have been a very good NFL Qb, but, as a president of team operations - He isn't very good.

I'm not understanding how that is hard for some to understand. Bsp27, I'm not quite sure what your motivating factor is in digging your heels in the sand on this one. It seems quite obvious that you are over evaluating and over weighing some statistical analysis and simultaneously ignoring causation and other sets of conflicting stats. I can't help but wonder why. Perhaps you know CJA personally. Maybe he was a neighbor of yours and he let his dog crap on your yard or he borrowed a hedge clipper and didn't return it. Not sure what it is - but, I can simply tell you that in my honest opinion, your opinion on this particular case is just a tad skewed.

Peace.

[bsp27]

I think you guys missed my point a bit. The phrase / term skape goat comes to mind. The Broncos may have been trying to "dump" him as you say. But, it is more likely that it is a financial reason than a lack of talent reason. His production was down, his contract wasn't cheap, but, was his production down because he sucks or because there are other more reasonable / likely explanations? The contract (discussed earlier / a few pages back) was not a good / team friendly contract. J.Elway may have been a very good NFL Qb, but, as a president of team operations - He isn't very good.

I'm not understanding how that is hard for some to understand. Bsp27, I'm not quite sure what your motivating factor is in digging your heels in the sand on this one. It seems quite obvious that you are over evaluating and over weighing some statistical analysis and simultaneously ignoring causation and other sets of conflicting stats. I can't help but wonder why. Perhaps you know CJA personally. Maybe he was a neighbor of yours and he let his dog crap on your yard or he borrowed a hedge clipper and didn't return it. Not sure what it is - but, I can simply tell you that in my honest opinion, your opinion on this particular case is just a tad skewed.

Peace.

Completely agree on Elway. He's terrible. But the fact that the team wanting him gone for years suggests that they do not think he is worth a middling rb contract.

But instead of attempting to broadly diminish and discredit any form of empirical data I present, tell me which data points I used that "ignore causation" and we can have a conversation about that. These attempts of yours to silent anyone who uses facts makes you seem lazy and uninformed.

[Valhalla]

The thing is, is that it is not my opinion, it's the facts. A player that faces the easiest defenses and ranks bottom of the league in success rate is objectively bad at football

Sounds like that "objective" take is leaning on some subjective takes to me.
Sure, you can objectively state that it is a FACT that he ranks near the bottom of the league in success rate...but it's a largely subjective take to say that this "success rate" is the ultimate indicator of talent.

I looked it up because I was curious.
"A play is successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down."
That's how "success rate" is measured. I like the concept. It's an interesting stat. Yet...it has some glaring weaknesses and it can't account for all variables.

Do this quick simple logical exercise:
You have two RBs that are getting a decent workload on a team. One of those RBs is clearly the ground game guy, and the defense knows it's highly probable that if he gets the ball it's a handoff exchange. He's designed to go up the gut. He understandably gets more runs up the gut than any other back on the team. You have another back that is more of a speed and receiving specialist. He doesn't get as many carries, but does occasionally run up the gut because frankly, the defenses aren't respecting it with him in the game. He will understandably meet less resistance up the middle than the other back.

Now...according to "success rate," the designated scat back that gets an occasional up the gut run to surprise/take advantage of the defense playing the flats will tell you that he's the superior runner in close quarters. The guy that is trapped in a crappy offensive game plan where the defense knows what the offense does with him...he's not going to be as successful quite as often. They will face different fronts to run through, yet they play on the same team.

I am a stat guy. I like using them quite a bit. Unfortunately, though, the more you dig into stats, the more you realize that many of them have big flaws. They are still useful, but you have to put some context around them. Formulating rankings on a single stat like "success rate" is something you may want to rethink.

[Phaded]

Good post, Valhalla. Sums it up pretty well.
Stats can be useful - but they all have to be taken with the impression that they are flawed.

[Vcize]

I think you guys missed my point a bit. The phrase / term skape goat comes to mind. The Broncos may have been trying to "dump" him as you say. But, it is more likely that it is a financial reason than a lack of talent reason. His production was down, his contract wasn't cheap, but, was his production down because he sucks or because there are other more reasonable / likely explanations? The contract (discussed earlier / a few pages back) was not a good / team friendly contract. J.Elway may have been a very good NFL Qb, but, as a president of team operations - He isn't very good.

I'm not understanding how that is hard for some to understand. Bsp27, I'm not quite sure what your motivating factor is in digging your heels in the sand on this one. It seems quite obvious that you are over evaluating and over weighing some statistical analysis and simultaneously ignoring causation and other sets of conflicting stats. I can't help but wonder why. Perhaps you know CJA personally. Maybe he was a neighbor of yours and he let his dog crap on your yard or he borrowed a hedge clipper and didn't return it. Not sure what it is - but, I can simply tell you that in my honest opinion, your opinion on this particular case is just a tad skewed.

Peace.

Like I said I knew someone would use the cap as an excuse.

His cap number this year was 2.5% of the cap. He was set to make less or roughly the same amount as backup RBs and situational players like Dion Lewis, Gio Bernard, Latavius Murray, James White, Theo Riddick, and Bilal Powell.

Yes the cap is an issue, but if a team truly believed that he was an above average player or better than the stats indicate they would find a different avenue to save some space than a guy who they believe is an above average starting player on their team who is making less than many backups and change of pace players at the position.

The Broncos are aware of their line and QB situations. The bottom line is that they don't think cja is a good player and think he is as much at fault as those are. Whether you believe them is certainly up to each individual owner, but the Broncos did recently play in two super bowls and Peyton had basically nothing to do with one of them.

It's just an odd point to make bringing up guys that people should overlook the stats for while the very guys that are paid to do exactly that and who see them in person every day believe the stats tell a true story in this case.

[Jfever]

Vcize, Pretty obvious that one of the main reasons for the not too distant Broncos success was their defense. I think you are oversimplifying the contract issue and the running game production problem. But, I could be wrong. There also could be other things we don't know. Is it possible that there was personal issues between CJA and coaches? Is it possible that because CJA was not Elway's guy (Elway didn't draft him) - that there were less compelling reasons to look for ways to make it work and more compelling reasons like pride to cut him loose? I think all these things contributed. Anyway;

The thing is, is that it is not my opinion, it's the facts. A player that faces the easiest defenses and ranks bottom of the league in success rate is objectively bad at football

Sounds like that "objective" take is leaning on some subjective takes to me.
Sure, you can objectively state that it is a FACT that he ranks near the bottom of the league in success rate...but it's a largely subjective take to say that this "success rate" is the ultimate indicator of talent.

I looked it up because I was curious.
"A play is successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down."
That's how "success rate" is measured. I like the concept. It's an interesting stat. Yet...it has some glaring weaknesses and it can't account for all variables.

Do this quick simple logical exercise:
You have two RBs that are getting a decent workload on a team. One of those RBs is clearly the ground game guy, and the defense knows it's highly probable that if he gets the ball it's a handoff exchange. He's designed to go up the gut. He understandably gets more runs up the gut than any other back on the team. You have another back that is more of a speed and receiving specialist. He doesn't get as many carries, but does occasionally run up the gut because frankly, the defenses aren't respecting it with him in the game. He will understandably meet less resistance up the middle than the other back.

Now...according to "success rate," the designated scat back that gets an occasional up the gut run to surprise/take advantage of the defense playing the flats will tell you that he's the superior runner in close quarters. The guy that is trapped in a crappy offensive game plan where the defense knows what the offense does with him...he's not going to be as successful quite as often. They will face different fronts to run through, yet they play on the same team.

I am a stat guy. I like using them quite a bit. Unfortunately, though, the more you dig into stats, the more you realize that many of them have big flaws. They are still useful, but you have to put some context around them. Formulating rankings on a single stat like "success rate" is something you may want to rethink.

This is precisely what I have been referring to the entire time. My apologies if I wasn't detailed or clear enough. Thank you Val for spelling it out so clearly with your example and saving me the time. As always, a fresh breath of reason injected into the thread. Much appreciated.

bsp27, When you come back with responses like this one "But instead of attempting to broadly diminish and discredit any form of empirical data I present, tell me which data points I used that "ignore causation" and we can have a conversation about that. These attempts of yours to silent anyone who uses facts makes you seem lazy and uninformed." It makes it tough to stay civil. I guess from my point of view, the fact that I have to continue to explain to you over and over why weighing statistics so heavily - as it is clear - you are prone to do - is a mistake, leads me to the thought that maybe you are the one being a touch lazy and uninformed in regard to talent evaluation. I can assure you that I am neither of those things as it pertains to fantasy talent evaluation. Looking up numbers is but part of the analysis one should or can do in player talent scouting. It appears to me that your kick stand that you lean on so heavily of statistics is the primary method that you use to evaluate talent. Unfortunately, it doesn't ever show the big picture.

[Jfever]

I'm not at all saying that statistical analysis is worthless. It is a part and an important part of this hobby. It just doesn't give ALL the information needed to label a player good or not good. Stats are the cliff notes to the novel so to speak. The variables and the context need to be considered and the majority of stats are limited in that capacity. So, when you come to your conclusion that he sucks or is worthless because of xyz. I'm fine with it if you think he sucks but, the xyz is only a small part of the big picture as to why according to your stats that he produced or didn't produce.

[bsp27]

Vcize, Pretty obvious that one of the main reasons for the not too distant Broncos success was their defense. I think you are oversimplifying the contract issue and the running game production problem. But, I could be wrong. There also could be other things we don't know. Is it possible that there was personal issues between CJA and coaches? Is it possible that because CJA was not Elway's guy (Elway didn't draft him) - that there were less compelling reasons to look for ways to make it work and more compelling reasons like pride to cut him loose? I think all these things contributed. Anyway;

The thing is, is that it is not my opinion, it's the facts. A player that faces the easiest defenses and ranks bottom of the league in success rate is objectively bad at football

Sounds like that "objective" take is leaning on some subjective takes to me.
Sure, you can objectively state that it is a FACT that he ranks near the bottom of the league in success rate...but it's a largely subjective take to say that this "success rate" is the ultimate indicator of talent.

I looked it up because I was curious.
"A play is successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down."
That's how "success rate" is measured. I like the concept. It's an interesting stat. Yet...it has some glaring weaknesses and it can't account for all variables.

Do this quick simple logical exercise:
You have two RBs that are getting a decent workload on a team. One of those RBs is clearly the ground game guy, and the defense knows it's highly probable that if he gets the ball it's a handoff exchange. He's designed to go up the gut. He understandably gets more runs up the gut than any other back on the team. You have another back that is more of a speed and receiving specialist. He doesn't get as many carries, but does occasionally run up the gut because frankly, the defenses aren't respecting it with him in the game. He will understandably meet less resistance up the middle than the other back.

Now...according to "success rate," the designated scat back that gets an occasional up the gut run to surprise/take advantage of the defense playing the flats will tell you that he's the superior runner in close quarters. The guy that is trapped in a crappy offensive game plan where the defense knows what the offense does with him...he's not going to be as successful quite as often. They will face different fronts to run through, yet they play on the same team.

I am a stat guy. I like using them quite a bit. Unfortunately, though, the more you dig into stats, the more you realize that many of them have big flaws. They are still useful, but you have to put some context around them. Formulating rankings on a single stat like "success rate" is something you may want to rethink.

This is precisely what I have been referring to the entire time. My apologies if I wasn't detailed or clear enough. Thank you Val for spelling it out so clearly with your example and saving me the time. As always, a fresh breath of reason injected into the thread. Much appreciated.

bsp27, When you come back with responses like this one "But instead of attempting to broadly diminish and discredit any form of empirical data I present, tell me which data points I used that "ignore causation" and we can have a conversation about that. These attempts of yours to silent anyone who uses facts makes you seem lazy and uninformed." It makes it tough to stay civil. I guess from my point of view, the fact that I have to continue to explain to you over and over why weighing statistics so heavily - as it is clear - you are prone to do - is a mistake, leads me to the thought that maybe you are the one being a touch lazy and uninformed in regard to talent evaluation. I can assure you that I am neither of those things as it pertains to fantasy talent evaluation. Looking up numbers is but part of the analysis one should or can do in player talent scouting. It appears to me that your kick stand that you lean on so heavily of statistics is the primary method that you use to evaluate talent. Unfortunately, it doesn't ever show the big picture.

Not sure why that makes it "tough to stay civil"? I asked for you to clarify what stats I used that were ignoring causation. You tell me every stat is misrepresentative, then get upset when I ask you which stats and why they are flawed? I simply asked you to clarify, it's not that big of a deal lol.

And this "logical exercise" would seem to make sense on the surface, but I'd appreciate if their was some substantive fact to support it, because right now, that is just speculation.

[Jfever]

No offense but I feel like we are talking in circles. I've said my piece. I've said it a few times. I'm punting. Maybe someone with a touch more patience for repetition can take the ball and run with it. A few others have chimed in very well and provided very clear examples as to why relying on statistical break down is but part of the equation when it comes to analysis of talent. Not sure why it is tough to understand, Not sure why it is that some cant see that stats can be spun to support points of view. It occurs to me that the Statistics class I had in my undergraduate days should be a required course. --- but, to each their own.

Peace.

[ericanadian]

An easy explanation for why the team is moving on from Anderson is the move from a predominantly zone scheme to a predominantly power scheme under Musgrave. Anderson had success under Fox for a year, but he's largely made his name under Kubiak's zone heavy scheme.

I'm sure this will get cast aside, but between the tackles:

Anderson 3.54 YPC
Booker 4.07 YPC
Charles 5.24 YPC

Anderson offset those weak numbers with a 5.08 YPC outside the tackles. Booker (3.09 YPC) & Charles (3.13 YPC) were garbage outside the tackles. I think that if Anderson gets back to a zone scheme, he'll be fine. He may even be alright in another power scheme, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.

[hjernazian]

I own zero shares of CJA, but I don't hate him either. Relatively unbiased. I find the statistical arguments against him lacking, however. It reminds me of all the attacks on McKinnon for years, and the statistical attacks on how Gurley just wasn't that good. Then the surroundings change...
Label me as uninformed, but...how exactly is SROA measured?
Also...describe to me how blocking efficiency is measured. I'm betting in that description, you'll have a hard time weeding apart how a RB's skills can heavily influence the run blocking grade.

For fun: take a look at Melvin Gordon versus CJA over the past 3 years. By no means am I implying he is "better" but would it surprise you if I told you CJA has a higher YPC? And if he take the average for what he put up when he was healthy, and add that to his yards/catches/TD's, he passes Gordon in all 3 areas?