BaBastage said:
Ok, no butter this time.
I believe penalties are not rewards to players for being fouled, and therefore should not be added to the players' stats line. Penalties are a deterrence to prevent illegal behavior. Spot fouls, in particular, are proportional to the amount of flagrancy involved. A PI call far downfield is more damaging than a PI call at the line of scrimmage, therefore more yardage is awarded. Statistics, on the other hand, are a measure of concrete performance. It doesn't matter if you didn't perform because a foul prevented you from the opportunity or if you just failed on your own. I know it's not a perfect analogy, but take walks in baseball. Heavy HR hitters would have more home runs if they were walked less. They don't deserve inflated statistics because they had fewer opportunities to hit the ball. (And yes, I know they do track walks.)I think the problem arises because we really want to use those stats to determine "who's better", and in turn predict which players will perform better for our ff teams, nfl wagers, etc. At some point though, we have to accept that numbers are just numbers. -Hence the "lies, damned lies, and statistics" quote (which incidentally, was not Mark Twain, but Benjamin Disraeli who originally coined the phrase. but I tangent now too.) That's just my $.02
There's no "deterrent" part to Pass Interference, though. Basically, the DB is faced with a choice- don't interfere, and let him catch the pass... or do interfere, and we'll reward him as if he caught it anyway. Either one is just as severe. Now, I understand that interference is a 100% chance at the yardage being awarded whereas there's a chance the WR might drop it (maybe giving him a 75% chance of catching it naturally)... but at the same time, there's also the potential for the WR to run after the catch if you don't interfere, and that potential is gone with pass interference.A "deterrent" would be saying "as a punishment, we're going to make the end result MORE SEVERE than it would have been had you not cheated". Instead, with PI, they make the end result exactly as severe as it would have been had you not cheated- no more, no less. Which, again, takes me back to my basketball goaltending analogy- which is really the perfect analogy in this situation.As for the "PI is called too much already, let's not reward it!" crowd... that's a completely different argument. If the problem is "PI is being called incorrectly", the solution isn't "improperly record PI yardage", it's "work with the refs to improve PI calls".At the end of the day, all this is is a bookkeeping change. The field position from a PI doesn't change at all. There is absolutely no change in the on-field impact of PI. The only difference is that WRs who draw PI calls are now properly recognized and rewarded. Which is as they should be- it's a positive play for the offense! If my DE gets held on 20% of the snaps that he plays, I would want to know that, too, because that's a positive play for the defense. If my DT would have had 8 sacks, but instead the QB intentionally grounded each time, is it a fair and accurate description to have this DT look statistically identical to another DT who had 0 sacks because he never came within 5 feet of the opposing QB? It's simply a question of having the statistics more accurately describe what happened on the field.
footballnerd said:
As a 49ers fan I would like to say we do not need to give WRs anymore leverage in negotiating contracts.
That's a very silly position, imo. Tracking PI calls would improve the standing of 50% of the league's WRs vs. their peers. At the same time, it would worsen the standing of the other 50% of the league's WRs vs. their peers. In any comparison where one player benefits, another player will necessarily suffer. This doesn't change how much leverage WRs have as a whole, it just changes WHICH WRS HAVE THE LEVERAGE. It puts the leverage more in the hands of the WRs who are consistently making positive plays for the offense, which is where the leverage belongs in the first place.
I agree with this. SSOG said in the original post that the QB threw a perfect pass and the WR ran the perfect route, but that is not necessarily true. I have seen plenty of PI calls where I doubted the ball would have been caught. And even if the WR is in perfect position to make the catch does not mean he makes the catch... we see drops all the time.Furthermore, this raises the question of where one would draw the line. For example, if a running back is tackled by a defender penalized for grabbing the facemask or a horsecollar tackle, does the RB deserve more yards? After all, he presumably would have gotten more yards if not for the illegal tackle... but how many more should he be given? And what about defensive holding? The WR may have still run a perfect route, and the QB may still have thrown a perfect pass that would have been caught, but the holding occurred prior to the pass... why should one of those result in passing/receiving yards and one not result in passing/receiving yards?
I used the perfect pass/perfect route argument not as a characterization of all PI calls, but to provide a very simple and very palatable example where it seemed most just to award the QB and WR with the yardage.As for where the line is drawn... that's another easy one, and one that I've already mentioned. Spot fouls = tracked by player, Punitive fouls (penalties with set yardage) = tracked by team. An RB doesn't get extra yards on a facemask, because a facemask penalty isn't the league's way of saying "this is what WOULD HAVE happened, and we're going to make it happen anyway". It's not like the league believes that every time an RB gets pulled down by his facemask that he was on his way to gaining exactly 15 more yards.The only penalties that would get added to the player totals would be DPI and Intentional Grounding.
But the current statistics do describe what happened. Statistics are kept on penalty yards. In theory, every penalty that occurs could be the result of a play made by an opposing player... it is illogical to do this with some penalties and not others.
Statistics ARE kept on penalty yards, and in some instances, those statistics are assigned to certain players... and it's generally an improvement of statistics. I'm all for tracking holding penalties by offensive lineman and tracking holds drawn by defensive linemen, too. I think that would be a fantastic addition that would offer a far better description of what has actually happened during the season. Let's track false start and offsides by offending player, too. You want to come up with a cumulative "yardage lost to penalties" stat for offensive linemen, then I will applaud you all the way (although I'd keep false start separate from holding, because holding is a "better" penalty than false start- which is a whole different can of worms).And no, not every penalty can be the result of a play made by the opposing player. False start and delay of game, for instance. Late hit, unnecessary roughness, unsportsmanlike conduct.
Well, aren't there already judgement calls made in football scoring? For example, a drop by a WR is a judgement call is it not? It certainly isn't the case that every pass a WR gets two hands on but doesn't catch should be ruled a drop, and I'm pretty sure it isn't... which implies a judgement call by an official scorer, not unlike the judgement calls made in baseball for errors.That said, there are other cases where interceptions are not really the QB's fault that don't fit this model, like when a ball is tipped by a DL at the line... when the QB is blindsided right when he throws the ball... when a WR runs the wrong route and the QB throws to the right spot... etc. If the QB still gets blamed for those, why not just stick with the easy method of crediting them with all of them, as has always been done?
The drop is not an official NFL statistic.Also, I think plays batted at the line have to be credited to the QB (because some QBs have shown a demonstrable "skill" for having their passes batted, and also because the QB made the initial decision to try to get it past that DL in the first place). But that's neither here nor there. You're basically arguing "your proposed solution is imperfect because of these reasons, so why not just stick with the current method which is even more imperfect?"The goal here isn't to achieve perfection. The goal is to be closer tomorrow than we are today.
I agree with this. SSOG said in the original post that the QB threw a perfect pass and the WR ran the perfect route, but that is not necessarily true. I have seen plenty of PI calls where I doubted the ball would have been caught. And even if the WR is in perfect position to make the catch does not mean he makes the catch... we see drops all the time.Furthermore, this raises the question of where one would draw the line. For example, if a running back is tackled by a defender penalized for grabbing the facemask or a horsecollar tackle, does the RB deserve more yards? After all, he presumably would have gotten more yards if not for the illegal tackle... but how many more should he be given? And what about defensive holding? The WR may have still run a perfect route, and the QB may still have thrown a perfect pass that would have been caught, but the holding occurred prior to the pass... why should one of those result in passing/receiving yards and one not result in passing/receiving yards?
to both of you). Logistically, it would be a bit more difficult because it would require a judgment call... but on the other hand, it would be easy to strictly word it so that there was no judgment involved. And even if it did require a judgment call, it's not like that'd be the worst thing in the world- there's already a judgment call involved on whether a QB being tackled behind the LoS is a sack or a tackle for a loss.
to both of you). Logistically, it would be a bit more difficult because it would require a judgment call... but on the other hand, it would be easy to strictly word it so that there was no judgment involved. And even if it did require a judgment call, it's not like that'd be the worst thing in the world- there's already a judgment call involved on whether a QB being tackled behind the LoS is a sack or a tackle for a loss.
