Sturm's McFadden breakdown

[Stash]

He compared McFadden's stats to the aggregate of second RBs and the like. It is what it is. You are only considering half of his presentation.

I'm not interested in the video. Everyone knows you can show one that makes him look all-pro while another makes him look like a bum.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I give like I get. If someone is arrogant enough to try to tell all of us what is a valued opinion vs a valueless one, they deserve what they get.



Is over 3 years a few? Or is it several? And what's 'pretty good' for you? 700 yards? Because that's about as 'pretty good' as this player has ever seen for the vast majority of his career.



I don't argue much of what you're saying here, but my position is 'prove it', and then I'll believe it. His track record of failure buys him zero benefit of the doubt from me. And I don't think that is in any way an unfair position to take. Seven years of NFL disappointment support it.

I respect your opinion. Like I said, I'm not going to tell you his performance in Oakland was good. It wasn't.

I think he will do better here than there though.

 

[Stash]

I respect your opinion. Like I said, I'm not going to tell you his performance in Oakland was good. It wasn't.

I think he will do better here than there though.

I respect yours as well, thanks.

I hope you're right. And I always enjoy the conversation!

 

[jnday]

Love it when posters such as yourself, call themselves a "realist". As if fans that try to be optimistic about new players on the team need to be giving the low down about players such as McFadden and his under achieving career with Oakland. Jerry and company are not putting all their eggs in one basket with McFadden. McFadden is a low risk signing. Maybe the Cowboys believe in their Oline, and want to give Randle a shot, and want to see more of Dunbar and possibly McFadden, or someone else. this season. Maybe McFadden will shine in a backup role. Who knows, maybe this rb situation will blow up in Jerry's face, but until the real games are played, I personally will take your negative Nancy posting as glass half empty predictions.

There is nothing negative about the truth. The truth if the matter is that DMac or Williams are injury prone . If Dallas keep four RBs, there is a good chance that 50% will stay injured. That is as real as it gets. There are many "positive" things that we can discuss about this team , but that is off topic for this thread. Jerry brought in every decent RB for pre-draft visits . There is no doubt that they wanted to draft a RB, but it seemed like the draft fell in the worst possible way for the Cowboys to draft a RB. At one time AP was a real possibility , but that didn't come together. Randle has talent and exceptional speed when he has stolen underwear in his pocket . Dunbar is more of a situational RB. Exactly what is so negative about the truth. Is it because you feel that a true fan should never admit to certain players being jags? There is nothing that I have said that has not been said already by the media and other football experts. IIRC , the recent ranking had the Dallas RBs rated at 27th in the league and that was generous . These Cowboy fan boards are the only place that you will see much good about the RBs on the team. Most fans let their emotions cloud their judgement and will actually think that these RBs are anything other than a below average group of players. Is the whole world wrong and, a few Dallas fans are smarter than everybody else ? I seriously doubt that.

 

[xwalker]

He compared McFadden's stats to the aggregate of second RBs and the like. It is what it is. You are only considering half of his presentation.

Good to get your input on this issue.

My primary point in this thread is that aggregating backup YPC stats is not a valid method of analysis. This has been my primary point in this thread regardless of anything else in regards to McFadden.

A bunch of Joseph Randle's 6.7 ypc stats can't just be added together to make an invalid sample size valid and show that Randle is better than Murray. It also can't be done to show any meaningful information about Oakland's backups.

I've known some people that their brain goes numb when Math is discussed and they just tune out. That is the only thing I can think of in regards to why a couple of posters can't grasp the concept.

In 2014 Seattle had the leading team rushing average at about 5.3 ypc and I think it was about 4.9 without the QB runs. Dallas was 3rd at 4.6 ypc. When Sturm adds together the backup RBs from Oakland for the past 3 years, he gets a 5.5 ypc. It seems that it would be obvious to anyone that Oakland's rushing attack when McFadden was not on the field was not better than the best NFL team's rushing attack; however, using his method of statistical gerrymandering he makes that appear to be the case.

I'm not saying that Sturm did or didn't use an invalid method intentionally in an attempt to prove a point. He likely just didn't realize what he was doing.

I don't know if McFadden is good or not, but Sturm's article did nothing to prove anything either way.

Maybe you can explain the statistical issue to 1 particular poster better than I can.

 

[Stash]

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Good to get your input on this issue.

My primary point in this thread is that aggregating backup YPC stats is not a valid method of analysis. This has been my primary point in this thread regardless of anything else in regards to McFadden.

A bunch of Joseph Randle's 6.7 ypc stats can't just be added together to make an invalid sample size valid and show that Randle is better than Murray. It also can't be done to show any meaningful information about Oakland's backups.

I've known some people that their brain goes numb when Math is discussed and they just tune out. That is the only thing I can think of in regards to why a couple of posters can't grasp the concept.

In 2014 Seattle had the leading team rushing average at about 5.3 ypc and I think it was about 4.9 without the QB runs. Dallas was 3rd at 4.6 ypc. When Sturm adds together the backup RBs from Oakland for the past 3 years, he gets a 5.5 ypc. It seems that it would be obvious to anyone that Oakland's rushing attack when McFadden was not on the field was not better than the best NFL team's rushing attack; however, using his method of statistical gerrymandering he makes that appear to be the case.

I'm not saying that Sturm did or didn't use an invalid method intentionally in an attempt to prove a point. He likely just didn't realize what he was doing.

I don't know if McFadden is good or not, but Sturm's article did nothing to prove anything either way.

Maybe you can explain the statistical issue to 1 particular poster better than I can.

A feature back is not a backup is not a rotation back. Comparing what they do statistically is not comparing like to like.

I'm not sure exactly why the roles output diverges as it does although I have my suspicions. Nevertheless it bears out again and again. A recent example is Randle as opposed to Murray running behind the same line. Troy Hambrick running behind Emmitt Smith. Latavius Murray's splits as a starter as opposed to as a backup last year also bears this out.

Backup RBs have inflated stats. There is enough data out there to normalize the two similar to park effects in baseball but the raw data is misleading.

 

[Dodger12]

Sturm's attempt to use stats was terrible. I have a degree in Mathematics and I'm certain that his usage of the stats was flawed in terms of trying to group together multiple different RB's stats into 1 group for a larger sample size. RBs with less than 100 carries have meaningless ypc stats. Randle has a 6.7 ypc and Murray had a 4.7 ypc. Was Randle a better RB than Murray?

Even without the stats, you have to review the game footage yourself to really have a valid opinion. I've reviewed all of McFadden's games from 2014 and some from past years. For whatever reason, Sturm just cherry picked McFadden's runs to make Gifs of the bad ones. I could do the same thing with failed runs by DeMarco Murray in 2014.

There is no proof that McFadden was or was not the problem in Oakland.

Using stats your way shows Joseph Randle to be a much better player than DeMarco Murray.

YPC in 2014
Randle 6.7
Murray 4.7

In all your mathematical equations, you forgot to take one thing into consideration; Murray's success vs DMac's lack of success. Randle may have had a higher YPC than Murray but Murray's success will tell you who the better RB is/was. If DMac had the type of success which everyone thought he should based on where he was drafted, then the YPC becomes a moot point because success would statistically be determined based on his overall body of work. But when a RB has the type of success behind the same OL that another RB failed to achieve, then it's not a stretch to say that it may not be the OL. And not only did DMac fail to achieve even a modicum of success, he was statistically near the worst at the position in multiple seasons.

 

[xwalker]

In all your mathematical equations, you forgot to take one thing into consideration; Murray's success vs DMac's lack of success. Randle may have had a higher YPC than Murray but Murray's success will tell you who the better RB is/was. If DMac had the type of success which everyone thought he should based on where he was drafted, then the YPC becomes a moot point because success would statistically be determined based on his overall body of work. But when a RB has the type of success behind the same OL that another RB failed to achieve, then it's not a stretch to say that it may not be the OL. And not only did DMac fail to achieve even a modicum of success, he was statistically near the worst at the position in multiple seasons.

The idea was to attempt to determine if the problem in Oakland was McFadden or if it was the OLine and lack of passing threat. Comparing DeMarco Murray to McFadden is irrelevant in regards to that question because they were on different teams.

Obviously, the Cowboys believe that the problem in Oakland was due to their OL and lack of passing threat. If the Cowboys thought the problem was just McFadden, then they would not have signed him.

McFadden did have some good years. He had 5.4 ypc one year and a 5.2 another year.