The New York football Giants have one of the worst offensive lines in the National Football League.
They’re 0-2 and likely will be 0-3 after your team, your town, your Philadelphia Eagles inevitably lay the smacketh down this weekend.
YES broadcaster and ESPN NY 98.7 FM radio host Don La Greca didn’t want to hear excuses for the G-men’s miserable line play:
No words. pic.twitter.com/btsaBZLrpf
— Alex Seixeiro (@alexfan590) September 21, 2017
As a public service, I transcribed the above clip.
Don La Greca: “Did he have to throw the football? Come on, stop it already! Everybody’s coming up with these, ‘well this offensive lineman, only 27% of the time was Eli pressured from his left side on Monday nights when Sean McDonough is the announcer.’ Stop. Stop creating some narrative that everybody knows football better than somebody else. Your eyeballs tell the story. The offensive line sucks, period. That’s my stat. You want a stat? You want Sabermetrics? Don La Greca tweeted last night or said on the Michael Kay Show, that the offensive line stinks. That’s the stat. Give me a break. That’s what we’re going to do now, Michael? We’re going to be accountants now in baseball? What is it, the Pythagorean Theorem? The Pythagorean Theorem said that the their offensive line, that their record should be 1-1. The Pythagorean Theorem said the Giants should record should be 2-0. (random sounds)
Michael Kay: “When I talk Pythagorean Theorem I sound like that?”
La Greca: “No. The people that trust the Pythagorean Theorem, the people that listen to the Pythagorean Theorem, the people that sit there at their desk that only know the naked body through National Geographic that do the math to come up with the Pythagorean Theorem. That’s what they sound like. ‘duh daa duh duh da duhhhhh!’ Quit it. IT’S FOOTBALL. I’VE BEEN WATCHING IT FOR 40 YEARS. 40! 40 YEARS. THAT’S ONE OF THE WORST OFFENSIVE LINES I’VE EVER SEEN. And they have not gone this long without scoring 20 points since 1977-78 when Joe Pisarcik was their quarterback. (???). So take that with your PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM. The Joe Pisarcik theorem. YOU’RE DEAD.
For what it’s worth, the Pythagorean Theorem is a geometry concept stating that the square of the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides.
Apparently some people are now using the concept in football, I guess as a way to explain what kind of angle a defender needs to take in pursuit.
The irony is that this example uses Asante Samuel vs. Ahmad Bradshaw, as if Samuel would even make the tackle if he did catch up.
https://twitter.com/nbclearn/status/777600293177593856
Edit: Apparently La Greca was actually railing against the “Pythagorean Expectation,” a baseball metric that predicts wins and losses based on stats.
Edit 2: I should have known this. I’m ashamed of myself.
Edit 3: Actually, now that I think about it, this metric sounds completely pointless. He’s right; let’s just use our eyes instead.
17 Responses
I’ve got to say this from the start
Love/Hate me though, you may!
I’m from Philly, born and raised
To God and sports we pray!
Go phils
Just saying
Is what he is referring to. Bill James developed the formula for baseball, he called it the Pythagorean Expectation. Later it was adopted by football analytics and is called Pythagorean Expectation. It has nothing to do with geometry, other than the formula to calculate it looks similar to the formula to calculate the Pythagorean theorem.
I can see the Giants covering Sunday . They are fighting for their season Sunday
6 is a tough number for a division game, stay away from this one.
I never believed in any of this Pythagorean bullshit!
A bottle of whiskey got me Steve Carlton for Rick Wise!
why does the word “narrative” have to be used in every story by every writer/blogger/talking head in sports? does that make them sound smarter?
But I question whether you have the capacity to judge whether Pythagorean expectation is a valid metric in football when you transcribe that conversation and somehow come to the conclusion that they are talking about pursuit angles.
Yea, I didn’t understand what he was talking about at first, nor did he.
Now that I do understand, I feel comfortable labeling the “Pythagorean expectation” as totally useless.
..and I don’t need no egghead engineer telling me how big those support columns on the bridge need to be! Just use whatever you got.
because football and engineering are the same thing
Matt Patricia went to RPI and has a degree in aeronautical engineering. I’ll bet he uses none of the math or engineering principles he learned to help him better understand football.
Using engineering concepts to understand in-game patterns and develop defensive schematics is NOT the same as using advanced math to predict how many games a team will win or lose.
One application is USEFUL while the other is USELESS.
The radio host knew exactly what he was talking about since he kept referring to their predicted record. I mean the context clues are everywhere, even if he was using the wrong terminology.
Regarding the second point, it’s actually already been proven to be an accurate forecast based on a 7yr study. It was actually Daryl Morey (Rockets GM) who was the first to apply it to the NFL and he discovered the optimal exponential value (the professional football version of PE is called the Morey Model). So I will take Daryl Morey and statiscally verified studies over your hot takes.
The point isn’t whether or not the metric is sound, it’s whether or not it’s useful.
Why you don’t think it’s useful? Surely if the smartest guys in sports, across all sports, are using it, they feel there is a use. Seriously if you’ve discovered some reason why it’s useless, you could probably get a prime speaking spot at the Sloan Conference. Just think of the all the attention Crossing Broad would get if one of their writers showed up and stuffed a bunch of nerds in the locker.
Because the forecasting of wins and losses does not lead to any kind of tangible, on-field application.
“hmm.. this advanced math says the New York Giants will win 5 games this year.”
Yea? Ok good. Let’s play the games. That’s the whole point of the radio host’s rambling diatribe.
Comments are closed.