When sacks happen in a career: a brief analysis

[Bob Sacamano]

what exactly is your point again?

 

[AbeBeta]

No, but if you're going to project the career of, say, a 30 year old DE, that's where you have to start. Now if all you wish to be is completely off topic, and ignore the premise of the original discussion, you can continue to introduce 22-26 year old prodigies into the fold.

Just providing balance to your one-sided argument.

And actually, if you want to project the career of a 30 year old player, most statisticians would suggest you start with average 30 year old DEs -- not with the best ones in the league.

 

[dwmyers]

what exactly is your point again?

Did you bother reading the the first entry in the thread? It's largely a reaction to Alexander claiming that 30something DEs were better performers in their first few years than their last few. I took a look at a few older DEs and didn't see that trend. In the examples I posted they were more consistent when older.

I don't have the extensive stats to do a Bill James like analysis, so you have to take them as examples, not a proof. But since 6 of the 7 ends discussed so far follow it, I'm inclined to think it a decent enough working hypothesis.

Does it apply in all cases? Probably not, but you need to look at older defensive ends if you're going to project the career of an older defensive end. The guys that burn out at 29 really don't apply, do they?

Part of the problem with analyzing a guy like Ellis is the lack of an easily recognizable similar player. Reminds me a bit of the problems I've seen with baseball management sports games and the way they model Jose Cruz, Sr. He was in his 30s when his average stared rising. Had he not been in the Astrodome, he probably would have won some batting titles in the early 1980s. But that's not the "typical MLB player profile" so they tend to project him as worth about as much as a AAA player by 1981 or so. And the failure isn't in Jose Cruz, Sr. It's the failure of the game model to account for the history of his play.

David.

 

[dwmyers]

actually, if you want to project the career of a 30 year old player, most statisticians would suggest you start with average 30 year old DEs -- not with the best ones in the league.

Well in this I have a similar problem to the one you have. You don't seem to know any defensive ends over the age of 26, and I don't seem to have a database of 30+ DEs in the quantity required to do an in-depth analysis.

That's WHY I described this as a brief analysis. It can't be comprehensive. Best I can do in the time I have is present a few counterexamples to misapplied generalizations that float on this board.

It's a legitimate question ==> How do you project the career of a 30ish defensive lineman?

But until data on retired NFL defensive players are as common as the stats are on retired baseball players, it's impossible (for me) to answer analytically. As I mentioned earlier, try finding the sack stats on Curly Culp sometime.

David.