HisRoyalSweetness wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:15 pm
IE wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 3:47 pm
I'm sorry - did Monty not have an opportunity to break long runs? So now I'm wrong for not holding Juice's explosive plays against him?
No, you're wrong for dismissing Yogi's stats on the grounds that 'attempts skew the data' and then refusing to acknowledge that a couple of long runs skew your favoured ypc stat. It's a hypocritical stance to take.
Data should be considered impartially and within context, not cherry-picked in order to justify a desired conclusion which is what you're doing by continually citing Herbert's ypc.
As for explosive runs, aren't they akin to INTs for DBs in that they vary from year to year? In 2020 Monty had 5 runs over 20 yards with 2 over 40 yards and in 2021 he again had 5 over 20 yards with 1 over 40 yards. This past season he only had 2 over 20 yards.
For context, Josh Jacobs led the league in rushing this year and had 7 runs over 20 yards with 2 over 40 yards. The previous year he only had 2 over 20 yards, the year before that it was 3 over 20 yards and in his rookie year he had 8 over 20 yards with 2 over 40 yards.
There is no doubt that Herbert has hit longer runs at a higher rate per carry than Monty, but there's no guarantee that will continue. I hope it does.
Ultimately everyone here acknowledges that Monty wasn't a big home run hitter, but some still see value in him for his all-round game and ability to grind out tough yards and will be interested to see what he can do behind a different offensive line given the deficiencies in those that he's played behind thus far in his career and with a competent passing game. For $6m a year it would have been nice to have found out with the Bears, but Poles decided otherwise.
As the kids are saying these days... "nuts!" The Oline excuse is ridiculous. We eliminate common variables on both sides of the equation.
We've gone toe to toe on stats before -and I'm always the one doing the cherry picking accusation and complaining about abusive use of "averages". Cherry picking is calling Monty better because on some small number of x yard runs for one split he averaged 1 more yard. Averages are for charlatans. Monty has 5X more attempts at 1-3 yards and averages .5 yards more - and we're going to hang our hat on that small difference? No. It's a bad sample.
Splits can be informative and provide visibility into how a guy might do in a given situation. But there is a high chance of variability in splits, and small numbers. IF I was cherry picking Juice's stats, I would say something like he averages 10 yards on first and second down combined - so short yardage stats don't matter with him. Which is also silly.
You and I have had this discussion before. When I'm talking about ypc I'm NOT talking about individual runs or getting into raw counts of "runs over 20" and such - I'm talking about long-term comprehensive performance as a reliable indicator - but not averages. It is the MEDIAN that tells you what you should expect when a given guy plays, based on their median performance. Monty's career median yards per carry is well under 4... it is like 3.88 per game. Juice's is OVER 5.5 in games where he's had more than 4 carries. That means every time each of those guys plays in a game, THAT is what you should expect as the most common outcome in terms of ypc. Not two games where he had a long run - it is all games. Granted, Juice has a smaller sample overall. But it is plenty large enough to establish median stats and see who consistently delivers, or on a percentage basis. And the trends mattter too ... Juice's ypc go up with more carries.
Let's break it down:
Monty: In 4 years, Monty has only 8 games out of 60 averaging over 5 ypc. That's only 13%. He has only 28 out of 60 over 4 ypc ... less than 50%! That means he has 30 games averaging UNDER 4 ypc (50%!). If you look at who survives & is considered "good" in the NFL over time, 4ypc is sort of the Mendoza Line for respectable performance. Monty is under.
Juice: Running in the same offense during arguably the two worst OL years, Juice already has 12 games over 5 ypc in two years (almost 50%!) - and encouragingly, those tend to be the ones where he has gotten MORE carries. He has 16 over 4 ypc, out of about 25 (~64%). It is respectable - but again the more he gets the better he generally does. Juice has only ONE game with a heavy load where he was under 4ypc (3.13 on 23 carries). Better performance with more sample is normally encouraging - it is reversion to a higher mean.
Sample good plays and outliers indeed are not reliable predictors of performance. But medians sure are. And that is where it gets ugly for Monty.
The new Bear regime is analytics and performance-driven. So it is not surprising at all that they have hashed these sorts of numbers and draw the conclusions they clearly have (no matter how much credit a guy gets for being a "team guy" or "tough"). I believe it is possible that Poles offered Monty backup RB money in the $3-4MM range and said "that's where we are".
Jamaal Williams scored a thousand TDs last year, and got $4MM/year yesterday. Lions fans were celebrating the Monty signing - but I bet they aren't now! Lions fans are going to go apeshit paying Monty 50% more for less. Right now they're happy, but the median stats should be setting their expectations that they're basically just replacing Williams but with fewer TDs and paying a lot more.