I abhor this tweet:

This guy Aaron Schatz runs Football Outsiders and writes for ESPN as well. He’s relatively high on the dorks-with-calculators hierarchy. If nerds started a Mexican drug cartel, he’d be El Chapo.

But yes, his tweet is basically suggesting that Mahomes should get the MVP nod, right? That’s how I interpreted “Mahomes is the guy,” apparently because he has a really good DYAR this season. If you weren’t convinced before, this DYAR number cannot be ignored! (thick sarcasm).

For all you normal people out there who trust your eyeballs and don’t turn football into a boring spreadsheet, DYAR means “Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement.” The explanation for this statistic is six paragraphs long at their website, but in the FO glossary, it’s described this way:

DYAR: Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement. A Football Outsiders stat which compares the performance of each player, in terms of DVOA, to a replacement-level baseline rather than the league average for that position, then translates that total into yardage. Because DYAR is a total stat, not a rate stat, it helps show the importance of workhorse running backs and receivers who can draw the attention of the defense away from other players. DYAR replaced DPAR as our method for measuring individual players with the publication of Pro Football Prospectus 2008 in July 2008. The method and the computation of replacement level are discussed further here.

Whatever. It hurts my head reading that. We’re DEEP in the weeds with this shit, like Jokic VORP and RAPTOR territory here. Analytics can be very helpful, but your eyes also must be trusted. Go too far to one end of the spectrum and you’re doing yourself a disservice. Bottom line, Mahomes is amazing and Hurts is amazing. The guy who finishes second will not have been robbed of the MVP award. If anything, that guy from the Bible should get out his sword and cut the thing in half.

The dorks with calculators must be stopped. They’re sucking the fun out of football.

(This does, however, remind me of my favorite Metallica song, DYAR’s Eve) –