Thread: The most overrated/underrated stats in fooball games

I believe the most overrated stats in football games
is yardage.

A lot of yards can come in garbage time or if I team continually
blows it in the red zone and does not get TDS

case in point the Pats destroyed Miami and only outgained them
443 to 382

Also the Redskins got badly outgained and beat Arizona
364-160

the Bucs outgained Det and lost

The important stats are turnovers, Red Zone efficiency and
3rd down conversions IMO

what do all here think or is med all wet

I Agree Med.

I disagree that yardage gained is overated; the more yardage you gain, the more opportunities you give your team to score. You might also control the critical time of possesion through it. It's almost similar to the fire-Marty argument ... "he only wins in the regular season, not the playoffs". Actually, Marty puts his team in an opportunity to win. Same goes for yardage.

Turnovers, red-zone efficiency, and 3rd down conversions are critical, but they are never underated.

For me, the most underated stats are 1st and 2nd down effectivity, whether in converting 1st downs, or in getting good chunks of yardage. Everyone talks about 3rd down, and it is the most important, but if your team can dominate 1st and 2nd downs, the 3rd downs become much easier. Conversely, if your team wastes 1st and 2nd downs, 3rd downs will always be a low percentage play.

Yards-per-carry can be deceiving. Sure a guy has 20 carries for 100 yards at 5.0 ypc. What it doesn't tell you is that if you take away one run, his is only 19 carries for 42 yards.

Originally Posted by sneakers

Yards-per-carry can be deceiving. Sure a guy has 20 carries for 100 yards at 5.0 ypc. What it doesn't tell you is that if you take away one run, his is only 19 carries for 42 yards.

Yeah that is pretty deceiving. Almost as inconsistent as WR stats.

Originally Posted by omac

Yeah that is pretty deceiving. Almost as inconsistent as WR stats.

That is very true. Chad Johnson and a lot of the other really good WRs can have a huge impact on the game even if they only get mediocre or poor stats. When one player demands double coverage they will always have a big effect on the game. Heck I have see many Wideouts have great games where they get 5 catches for 45 yards. I mean if you get shutout for a large portion but then get key first downs you still did a commendable job. You can get 9 catches for 110 yards and either choke in the clutch or get your yards on one play or even get it all in garbage time.

It is my opinion that stats are the best way to determined how good a player is. But they only truly do justice when someone watches that player for a long time and knows a lot of the context of those numbers.

There's only two stats that matter:

As long as Point For > Points Against, you're doing something right