Football Stats are Still in the Dark Ages

The NFL playoffs are here. In fact, they're halfway done. It's been a pretty good year for them so far, with many close games and well matched teams. The problem is that we know how Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning episode gajillion, and we will inevitably get into the argument over who was the better quarterback.

You'll see stats thrown around like crazy, you'll see the trolls on ESPN come out and yell and shout about "Brady can suck Peytons dick" or "Count dem rings, bitch", and I will go cry about how backwards football, its stats, their fans, and their "experts" are. Full disclosure, if it wasn't obvious before: I'm a baseball guy. I'm a hardcore baseball stats guy. I don't like it when people use stats that don't matter (except in fantasy. Fantasy I can survive). ESPN has even started reporting on WAR and FIP and other baseball stats that are genuinely smart instead of letting Joe Morgan give all his analysis on RBIs.

But football is baseball in the '90s. It is baseball with Joe Morgan announcing. It is the overvaluation of the trivial, luck-based occurrences and then giving credit to players for them.

The biggest thing in the Manning/Brady debate is postseason wins. Baseball abandoned wins long ago. They're a useless stat that tell you nothing about the player. They tell you about the team and your luck. Brady played with elite defenses. Manning played with bad defenses. Unless Manning is much better than Brady (in which case we wouldn't be having this argument), wins only tell you about the teams that Brady has played on.

I still think interceptions are a stupid stat. I think completion percentage is a stupid stat. If you make the perfect throw and it goes through your receivers hands and right into the chest of a defender, why do you get penalized on the stat sheet. Drops should not factor into the completion percentage. Hell, even deliberately throwing the ball away shouldn't have any effect. Completion percentage should be reserved for balls thrown with the intention of being catchable. Baseball figured out long ago that once the pitcher lets go of the ball, they lose control of it. Earned runs and unearned runs are separated. Football has not. Football believes that the quarterback is entirely at fault for whatever may happen to the ball after release.

There are many, many other "definitive" stats that frustrate me because they rely too much on luck: passing yards, yards after the catch, and tackles being just a few. Football will never have the statistical knowledge of baseball from the nature of the sport. The fact that the game isn't clearly divided into separate occurrences is the primary culprit. But it can do better than what it is. Much better.