NFL Game Analysis: It’s more than the numbers
September 5th, 2007 3:23 am
by
NFL Freak
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See, here’s the thing. I’ll readily admit that the numbers are important in sport. Right from the obviously important scoreline through to which individual contributed how much.
I’ll agree wholeheartedly that it’s useful for players and coaches to measure individual effort against team achievements to get an indication of progress and performance. I even agree that it’s useful and fun for fans to be able to toss stats back and forth endlessly, arguing the finer points of which is tougher to accomplish 500 yards rushing or 1000 yards passing.
The numbers matter. There’s no doubting that, but the numbers can’t tell you the whole story. If all you’re interested in is the numbers then you need to just hit the stats page and try to contain your excitement.
See, while someone throwing for 350 yards in a game is significant, what’s the point if the team loses? What if Eli Manning throws 37 interceptions in a game, but he also throws 73 touchdowns? The numbers are important, but they’re not the only thing going on in the game.
For a start there’s the position and mentality of the team. It’s been a long-held belief in most professional sports that winning breeds winning and losing breeds losing. It’s the confidence and optimistic enthusiasm of a winning team that often carries the day on the field.
Then of course there are the fans. There’s a reason it’s called home field ADVANTAGE. The passion of a home team’s supporters can have a significant impact on the opposition and home teams alike.
And it would be remiss of us to ignore the many other potential issues like the weather on the day, the intrusion of personal tragedies in players’ lives, the injury lists and the coaching strategies.
That’s why we’re not interested in just giving you big lists of numbers and leaving it to you to work out what happened on the day. NFL Game Analysis is exactly what it sounds like, detailed analysis of everything that has an impact on the outcome of the game, whether it happened on game day or not, on the field or not.
If it affected the game, you’ll hear about it here.
NFL Game Analysis – the game, the whole game and everything that touches the game.
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