Hottoddies wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 10:47 pm
OhCruelestRanter wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 8:21 pm
Hottoddies wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 8:08 pm
This is one of the most ridicules arguments ever.
Ice is saying that 10 yard split quickness is a highly desirable trait for a RB. I totally agree. I believe most reasonable people, including Dynasty DeLorean, would agree. However, what Dynasty Delorean is saying, is that no matter how value those numbers are, those numbers can't be trusted to be accurate. Due to the ambiguous start time, short distance, and different timing methods; I believe this may be true as well. It is in the realm of possibilities for both positions to be true at the same time. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you on this one , Ice.
edit: other than the CruelestRanter ... but that's what he does
Neither of you have any evidence that it matters, or how much. If you do, I’d like to see it. If you don’t, you should stop suggesting it matters.
Why is “we should focus on things that actually correlate with success” such a controversial idea?
Thanks for calling me out though. That felt necessary.
The reason I called you out was because you were the only person in this silly argument to claim that short area quickness has no correlation to RB success. Assuming that the amount of time that a hole remains open at the line of scrimmage isn't infinite, it would stand to reason that rate in which a RB can get from point A to point B should matter in his success rate. And in the game of football that distance is normally less than 10 yards. I'm sorry that I can't provide you with any hard data to back up this claim. I can only appeal to your common sense.
At no point did I “claim that short area quickness has no correlation to RB success.” I never did that. This is a straw man. I said that the 10 yard split didn’t matter. You implicitly made the assumption that those two things are the same.
The problem with using something like a 10 yard split is that you’re making a number of assumptions- some of them are fine, like “short area quickness is good” and some of them are bad, like “the ten yard split is a good measurement of short area quickness.”
When you say that the 10 yard split matters because short area quickness is important, it’s implicit that the 10 yard split must then be a good measurement of said quickness. The problem is that we have no idea if that’s true. First, in order for it to be true, it would have to be accurately measured; doesn’t seem like it is. Second, they’re not analogous situations, even if they might seem like it, because during the 40 yard dash players start on their own, and in a game they have to react to the snap.
Then, even if you think it matters, we still don’t know how much, or at what threshold. Like what’s better, a 4.40 with a 1.59 split? Or a 4.45 with a 1.55 split? If it’s predictive, is it only predictive because it correlates with 40 time? Without any data to support your decision making, you have no idea what to do with that information. It’s just there.
This is why it’s important to not make these arguments without something to support them and why it’s necessary to focus on stuff that actually correlates with success; otherwise we end up trusting arbitrary numbers that don’t mean anything, and we get further away from identifying good players.