In baseball circles, the phrase “small sample size” is thrown around a lot. What it means is that in a few games, players can vastly over or under perform their true talent level and in time, everything will balance out. However, you can apply that phrase to other sports as well, and one brilliant example comes in the form of Robert Griffin III.
In October of 2012, ESPN published an article by Adam Schefter comparing RGIII’s completion percentage through six games of his NFL career to some Pro Football Hall of Famers. This is the ultimate example of small sample size – you’re looking at a six game, 161 pass sample for Griffin, while you’re looking at sample sizes of 15 seasons and over 4,000 passing attempts for other quarterbacks. It’s taking the aspect of longevity out of the comparison of rate stats.
More times than anyone can count, former NFL coach Bill Parcells warned about praising young players too much.
“Let’s not put him in Canton yet,” Parcells has said about almost any rookie who made an early impact.
And so while no one should put Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III in Canton yet, it is fair to show how advanced he has been by comparing him to the signal-callers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Through six games heading into Sunday’s pivotal NFC East showdown against the defending world champion New York Giants, Griffin’s 70.2 percent completion percentage is better than all 26 quarterbacks in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. By a lot.
Let’s go back to baseball for a second. Imagine if you looked at the first month of White Sox rookie Jose Abreu’s career. In that month, he slugged .617. That’s fantastic. Now, imagine how ridiculous it would be if a major outlet wrote an article saying that Abreu’s slugging percentage was the fourth-best of all-time, better than Hall of Famers Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. Well, of course it is – those guys are already retired, went through bad months and bad seasons, and are still among the best sluggers ever. Comparing Griffin’s career through 161 pass attempts to Football Hall of Famers is absurd.
And sure enough, Griffin has come back down to earth with a thud following a torn ACL that ended Washington’s 2012 season. After those first six games, in which Griffin completed 70.2% of his passes, he only completed 62.5% of his passes – still good, but not exactly at the historic level Griffin was being compared to. The funny thing is that thusfar in 2014, Griffin is actually completing passes at a 69.7% clip – but you don’t hear anyone talking about that, given the fact that he was more interceptions than touchdowns, is 1-4 as a starter, and has run for just 100 yards on the season.
Griffin’s career percentage of completed passes is still 63.5%, higher than every Hall of Famer aside from Steve Young. You know who else has a higher completion percentage than every Hall of Famer? Drew Brees. And Chad Pennington. And Aaron Rodgers. And Peyton Manning. And…Tony Romo? And Philip Rivers? Matt Schaub has a higher completion percentage than every Hall of Famer than Steve Young. Daunte Culpepper, Brian Griese, Marc Bulger, Brad Johnson, and David Garrard have higher completion percentages than every Hall of Famer aside from Young and Joe Montana. Maybe, just maybe, choosing one stat to compare a player to Hall of Famers isn’t a good thing to do.
And this isn’t a rebuke on Schefter, after all, he did try to exhibit some caution. (Although it is funny to see “let’s not put him in Canton yet” in one paragraph and “but this is how much better he is than everyone in the Hall of Fame in this stat” in another.) It is a rebuke on how it’s possible to use statistics to spin whatever narrative you want, and how major networks, teams, agents, and fans can cherry pick the stats they want to build their case while ignoring those that don’t fit the narrative.
ESPN helped build RGIII up, and now, they’re watching as he gets torn down. Maybe if they didn’t kick the hype train up to 10 with him, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. We’re a long way from anyone mentioning RGIII and the Hall of Fame in the same breath again.
H/T Chris
Comments are closed.