Kirk Cousins pick 4.7

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by warriorzpath

But I just made the adjustment to the Elway's %, is it still BS?

If you make the adjusted statement, it reads something like "when adjusted for the era they each played in, Jason Campbell is roughly as effective in terms of his rate of completing passes as John Elway was back it the day."

Which is pretty close to factual. That's a really INTERESTING statement, and there is plenty that can be learned from it. It probably says something about Campbell, and it likely says something about Elway as well. This is a great example of how using stats responsibly can help us understand football better.

Here's now to misuse statistics. An adjusted statement: "once adjusted for the era they play in, Jason Campbell is just as good of a player statistically as John Elway was."

Well, no, not really. In some ways yes, in most other ways no. Campbell only looks like Elway in terms of adjusted rate statistics. In terms of career statistics such as total touchdown passes, total attempts, games started, total completions, total passing yards, etc., statistics of a counting nature are highly unlikely to ever support the idea that Campbell is eventually likely to be John Elway. If we came back and looked at Campbell's stats in 2015, we would likely see a guy who had an undistinguished six year career as a productive starter, then settled in as a backup.

Which is why I think it would have been so interesting if Elway played today. Would he have been able to have had a 15 year career? We know for a fact it would have been tougher.