Upon reading the initial post, my first reaction was "Of course Grant is different than Gado. Gado was a fluke; Grant is the real deal."
But I've sat here for 10 minutes trying to find solid evidence to support that opinion and I can't honestly do it. Does that mean Grant will have the same fate as Gado? Of course not. It just means that the evidence we have on hand doesn't necessarily lend itself to the conclusion that Grant is definitively different than Gado. Here's what I can come up with though:
While both sample sizes are limited, Grant's was twice as large as Gado's.
Grant, being a star high school athlete and productive college player at a big time school, shows that the talent was there from the beginning and that he was just overlooked by NFL executives - likely due to the hand injury.
I can't come up with much else, though I'll be interested to hear your takes. Again, I think Grant is different, but I can't find the data to support it.
But more importantly Edgar, Ted and the like KNOW what he can and can not do..And they wouldn't just toss all that money at him for no reason and WE ALL KNOW how muchTed Thompsonhates to pass out money like that for unproven players
"longtimefan" wrote:
I'm as big of a believer in Ted Thompson and Packer management as the next guy, and I see the above reasoning a lot on this board. Regardless, it's still a logical fallacy. Appeal to authority is what I believe it to be called. The fallacy lies in that the expert's opinon (TT in this case), is used as evidence that the decision must be correct. The problem is that the argument ignores that fact that the expert can, and frequently is, wrong. So while TT's decision to sign Grant long term and not Gado, may lend credence to the idea that Grant is better than Gado, it certainly doesn't prove the case.
If you're being intellectually honest, you have to conclude that the verdict is still out on whether or not Grant is significantly different than Gado. For my money, I'd make a solid bet for that to be the case, but we can't unequivocally "know" it.