Debunking an Inane Football Journalist

[title courtesy of the headline makers at SI.com]

I'm going for the throat. I'm gonna take down PK- and on his own, non-fantasy football turf.

From Monday Morning Quarterback, Tuesday Edition (re: Games Played on Sunday, Except for that One on Monday. Tomorrow is Wednesday) by Peter King:

I want to begin my Tuesday morning by thanking Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt for debunking the biggest myth in all of football: that you can't replace your starting quarterback for three or four series during a game because you'll ruin his psyche.

Okay, now re-read it and make sure you understand the BIGGEST MYTH he is all sweaty and salty about debunking: that you MUSN'T temporarily replace your starting QB in the middle of a football game, OR ELSE, BECAUSE IF YOU DO...he will be upset. His confidence will be shaken. He'll go nutty.

To argue his point, PK boldly presents this rock-hard and conclusive peice of evidence: a quote from Matt Leinart after being replaced temporarily by Kurt Warner in the last two Cardinal games, both wins:

"If I'm the franchise quarterback, play me and let me stumble, because I'll
fight through it, and that will help me and our team in the long run. I know
coaches want to win now, and they have their reasons. But I don't understand,
and this switching back and forth is almost worse than getting benched.''\

Bullseye!

Bingo!

Jenga!

The Title of That Stupid Movie With Robin Williams Where that Fucked Up Board Game Came to Life and Tried to Kill You that was Weirdly Marketed to Children and Can You Believe They're Making a Sequel of Some Sort What the Fuck!*

You've done it, Peter!

You've proven beyond reasonable doubt that YOU CAN'T replace your starting QB in the middle of the game BECAUSE IT WILL MESS WITH HIS PSYCHE with this telling quote from a bothered, tortured, pained, confidence-beaten, priority-fucked, psyche-shat Matt Leinart, a starting QB who was replaced in the middle of a game.

I mean, I'm no professional sports journalist, but "I don't understand and this...is almost worst than getting benched," sounds pretty psyche-damagy to me.

Okay, look. I know I'm being overly literal. Read the whole article, and it's clear that PK is ACTUALLY arguing against a "myth" that sounds more like:

Under no circumstances should you ever temporarily replace your starting QB or you will lose.

...which the Cardinals have apparently disproven by winning the past two games by doing just that. Okay, that's completely fair. But...but he doesn't say that. Mr. Monday Morning says this [paraphrasing]:

Temporarily replacing your starting QB midway through a game will smush your QB's confidence.

There's a big fat logical disconnect here. He cites as the "myth" not the myth itself but the reason that the myth exists. Peter use brainy. (p.s. pickiness makes me feel better about myself.)

And I still have to berate P. Jerk for his unnecessary and large-cock claim that this is the "biggest myth in all of football." Ergo:


Bigger Football Myths Than the QB Thing:

Eli and Peyton are blood-relatives
Devin Hester can be stopped
LT was born on the planet Earth
Gnomes hold the ball in place at kickoff
The lady in the Chunky Soup commercials is, in fact, Donovan McNabb's mom
Terry Bradshaw is socially graceful human being
Punting is a good idea
Touchdown celebrations kill pupkits, the genetic combination of puppy and kitten
Pac-Man Jones didn't do it
Fuck! My guy was right there and I pressed B! That shoulda been a pick! Fuck Madden.


In conclusion: Peter needs to pay attention to what he writes.



*It was Jumanji. That's what I was thinking of. Stupid fucking movie.

Debunking Some Reds Myths

Wooeee! Look at this fun little feature! What a clever prompt I've created for myself! Here we go!

So, anyways, I feel compelled to bring some clarity to both the local and national consciousness about the Reds and certain players. And since I'm not a scout nor a beat writer nor a really rich old guy who lives near Sarasota or Cincinnati, I gotta do this based solely on statistics. Bear with me.


MYTH 1: Alex Gonzales Gots Glove

This isn't a myth so much as a lame excuse for me to bring up the disparity between what EVERYONE says about A-Gon's defense and what the statistics say. I can't say I've ever seen the guy play defense, but word is he's ultra-smooth, and he's been given rave reviews by pitchers, managers, and beat writers alike (although the only statistic they ever point out is that he only made 7 errors last year, woopdeefreakingdoo).

So it was kind of disconcerting when I looked up his BP card and found out that he rates below average in pretty much all defense metrics they use (keeping in mind that even sabermetricians aren't really pleased with the ability of any currently available defense metric available at the moment):

FRAA(Fielding Runs Above Average): <0 in all but 2 of his 9 full seasons, which is at least better than Felipe Lopez (negatives in every season), but certainly no Juan "manos de oro" Castro (negatives in only 2 of his 11 seasons). I wish I knew what this meant.

That said, I'm pretty sure there's something there that the stats are picking up. I posted an abbreviated version of my theories on C. Trent's blog a couple weeks ago and he responded as such:

after watching lopez, aurillia and clayton for the last couple of years, he
looks like ozzie freakin' smith. i think the guy is really, really good

i've read as much as i can about sabermetric ways to measure defense -- picked up john dewan's fielding bible -- and as impressive as the research and the conclussions are, i still look at defense as a know it when you see it kinda thing

In spite of and because of C. Trent's dorkiness, I believe him. Plus, there was that one time I saw Gonzales turn a slick-ass double play. You should have seen it. Can't put a number on that shit. Yeah! Stats are for fats!

No seriously, though, in this case I do actually think the stats blow.



MYTH 2: There are more myths

It's true, there aren't. I just wanted to bring up the Gonzales thing. It wigs me out. Suck it.