Yes. People let their personal biases get in the way of facts. Like the Favre fiasco, people took sides and there wasn't much of an honest appraisal on Favre's abilities. They were either exaggerated good or exaggerated bad, depending on which side of the fence you took.

I know, bad example and my apologies for bringing him up. But he's immediately who comes to mind when biases get in the way of facts.

I showed Barnett's stats last year with Buffalo. They weren't too shabby and he's certainly missed here. I know he had personality issues. That's not what I'm discussing. I'm discussing his actual abilities.

I think the best criticism of Nick Barnett comes down to availability. 🇲🇲 talks about accountability and availability. Barnett's raw numbers spoke for themselves. However, he did miss a lot of games in the past few years and that was a valid argument for letting him go. His performance wasn't.

Originally Posted by: zombieslayer 

It’s a valid point. Even with unfettered access to an unobstructed view of every player, it remains impossible to know whether a player made a mistake on a given play without knowing his specific assignment, which has been the Achilles heel of any and all efforts to grade players based on watching the televised broadcast of games. Although the assignment often can be inferred from the assignments executed by other players, who’s to stay the other players weren’t the ones who screwed up?

"PFT  wrote:

I remember one pass play where another team scored a TD with Bigby trying to chase down the WR, from behind and because of that lots of fans thought Bigby gave up a TD. When it came out a few days later what really happened was that Collins and the CB weren't on the same page and they both went to cover the underneath guy, leaving the deep guy uncovered and Bigby saw and went chasing after the deep guy. So it wasn't Bigby fault (that time) but he still got the blame.

Just pointing out sometimes players wrong get the blame.

Originally Posted by: beast 

I understand the importance of statistics and their place in evaluation. I work with detailed statistics daily. However, in some cases, they do not always tell the whole story. I always examine statistical significance and the implications of it. After that, though, I always examine the practical significance of the results. I often find that although a certain effect is statistically significant, it has little to no affect to those actually practicing the work being researched. For example, I was in a heated debate elsewhere about the fact that the Packer's defense "wasn't that bad." While I agreed that perhaps they weren't the worst defense in the NFL, they were still pretty damn bad. Last in yards and most plays over 20 yards? OK, that's bad. 19th in points? OK, that's still bad to me. Some argued that 19th isn't that bad. My argument was, which wasn't supported by any statistic, that the defense was not "clutch" at all last season. I cited few examples that anyone that watched every snap would have seen. Such as the failure of the defense to come up with some stops on obvious run plays against the Chief's, which lead to them running out the clock, negating any last second opportunity for the offense to win the game (although I realize there was no reason to think they would have anyway). Or perhaps the game against the Charger's where Vincent Jackson ABUSED the secondary for 3 tds and who knows how many yards in a game that should have never been close. Or worst of all, during the most important game of the season (divisional playoff game against the Giants), the failure of the defense to contain a HUGE draw play which allowed them to attempt and SOMEHOW complete a long hail-mary. Those plays epitomized the 2011 Packer's defense to me and are a good examples of a reasonable use of the "eye test" for evaluating certain circumstances in the NFL. I don't NEED to look at statistics to know the defense was bad when they allowed such things to happen. A good defense simply doesn't allow such things, especially when it matters most. I understand no one here is trying to argue that they were good, but I'm just hoping to illustrate a point (which is probably rhetorical anyway).

In the case of Barnett, he was a solid player but far from a dominant force in the middle, especially in the 3-4. His injury history was likely what decided an otherwise close race after a decent-to-solid season by Hawk. I agreed with the decision then and one season from two players are two different teams doesn't really change that for me. Perhaps two would though, but even then, the circumstances are different and it's hard to compare.

I'm not going to attempt to say that Bishop is good in coverage, by any means. I do remember reading, however, that Dom often asks more of Bishop and "hides" Hawk in coverage. I believe it was an article by Rasaam (sp?) on this forum. That SEEMED to be the case to me but I am not knowledgeable enough to know if it is true or not. The point is, perhaps is not entirely accurate to only use statistics or any indexing system to judge a players performance. As the cliche' goes, only the coaches and perhaps the rest of the defense truly know what each player was asked to do on any given play. I remember many plays where Bishop was left one-on-one in man coverage with an athletic tight end and not enough adjustments were made to prevent this, despite his obvious struggles. This could be another example of something that the "eye test" could apply to. Sure, it's not entirely valid, but neither are statistics. As I said, only the coaches and players know who messed up on a play. I think it is often the coaches fault for asking certain things from players that they can't handle. If Bishop can't handle consistent one-on-one coverage against tight ends, stop asking him to do so often. If I had to guess, the reasoning for it was Dom had the most faith in Bishop over any of the other LBer's. Hopefully that will change this upcoming season though because Bishop certainly leaves something to be desired. I'm not yet convinced, however, that the disparity between some of the coverage statistics between Hawk and Bishop is as dramatic as they suggest, and yes, I have seen the numbers.

EDIT: Perhaps some here will purchase the "All 22 " coaches film and will provide some better input. Although as mentioned in the article, even then many opinions may be too strong (and relates to my statements above):

Originally Posted by: doddpower 

12 4th down stops are positive, except it leads to believe they are not getting off the field on 3rd down.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

12 4th down stops are positive, except it leads to believe they are not getting off the field on 3rd down.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

You kind of got that backwards. The other team had to go for it on 4th down because we stopped them on 3rd.

Originally Posted by: Dexter_Sinister 

Yeah, things like that or the fact that the defense didn't stop a team like the Saint's during all of the previous drives and the game potentially comes down to the last play (when a few more timely stops could have prevented such). I'm certainly not attempting to say there was nothing positive about the 2011 Packer's defense. One needs to look no further than a league leading 31 interceptions to see that. They took the ball away from opposing offenses, no doubt. Unfortunately, it involved too much gambling for my likes. I'm not a coach, so what I like doesn't necessary matter, but still.

The point, as mentioned in the PFT article as well, is that without understanding every intricacy of a particular defense play, opinions are likely going to be misguided, or at the very least skewed. It doesn't mean that's going to be the case at all times, but it's going to happen. As long as it's acknowledged, I'm OK with it. We have to make opinions with the information we have available. How else are we supposed to waste our valuable time? My only problem is when one uses a few specific numbers as an attempt to make an absolute and definitive statement about a player, coach, scheme, etc. Unless he or she knows absolutely every detail of the circumstances, many statistics alone are just providing a clue about the source of the problem, not the entire problem itself.

As I said, we have to work with what we got, I suppose. Statistics most certainly can't be ignored. But neither can certain things many of us see from watching every snap season after season, in addition to most other games, college and youth football, etc. At some point, some level of intuition takes over and one can feel confident about their opinions, especially with the support of the statistics. Pack93z's posts about several players come to mind. I remember him describing Bishop very early in his career as a potential difference maker, mostly only using what he saw with his own two eyes. Again, I go back to the examples of the Chief's, Charger's, and Giants playoff game as just a few examples that the defense wasn't "clutch" last season (although, I suppose the very definition of clutch itself should be more critically defined before trying to defend that statement too much).

At this point, it's late and I'm just babbling. I'm going to stop now.

BTW, that's an interesting take on Hawk, Porky.

Originally Posted by: doddpower