Tuesday Evening Corrections

Dr. X again posts this from the Mean Regression Archives at Stanford (0-5, 1-4 against the spread) University:

"TMQ is confused. Lacking a reliable metric for rating quarterbacks, he falls back on hearsay and anecdote.

"He opines that 'soon novice Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy will face a dilemma he surely dreads: whether to bench his famed quarterback...a case can be made for handing the ball to Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay's quarterback of the future, and letting Rodgers get some experience so that 2007 might be a winning season for the Packers.'

"Ha! I say. There is no dilemma. There is nothing to dread. Favre is an average NFL quarterback, with a middle-of-the-pack 5.0 IAYPA. That's better than 1/2 the men who take the field every Sunday. He is the player who gives the Packers the best chance to win the game. Surely Mr. Easterbrook would never recommend a team deliberately make itself worse? Yet that is exactly what this ill-informed 'play Aaron Rodgers' policy would do.

"Then, denouncing McNabb, he says 'throwing little dinky-dunk passes when the length of the football is needed is going to come back to haunt this team, you mark my words.'

"Now you mark my words mister - the ball moves forward an average of twenty-seven feet every time Donovan McNabb puts the ball in the air. That's not a dinky-dunk, chump, it's the best YPA and IAYPA in the NFL. Get your facts straight man! Or did Rush Limbaugh start working for the Brookings Institution?

"The argument is so bad, it is wrong even if it is right. Let's say Philadelphia is living off dinky-dunk passes...so did the 49ers in their heyday, and I didn't notice too much punishment from the football gods.

"Alas, Easterbrook makes a valid, but unpleasant point when he notes that 'Seattle has a winning record despite being outscored.' The mean regression vultures are circling patiently, Mr. Holmgren..."