Numbers don’t lie

The saying “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” is normally credited to either Mark Twain or 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.  It is a saying that I have often used especially when watching politics since it seems there is a statistic for every argument.  (I will NOT get into that discussion here though!)

Nevertheless, I have learned from experience that this saying is NOT valid in the world of business.  No matter how many excuses you make or how many people you point your finger at – NUMBERS DO NOT LIE!  I once worked with a VP of sales who told me “SELL and all of your problems go away” and he was right.

In the world of sports you can “feel good” about a player, you can like his values and beliefs, you can even like him as a person or as a family man, but in the world of professional sports performance matters more than anything else.

Remember the scenario I outlined in my previous post?  An NFL team in the southeast was having difficulties in the preseason picking a starting quarterback.  The initial 1st string guy was a long-time NFL veteran with a very, very mediocre career given his physical talents.  The 2nd string guy will probably be a perpetual backup in the NFL and has never started AND WON an NFL game in his career.  Then, there’s  the rookie…

Well who knows how the season will play out and I certainly do not have any “insider” knowledge with this particular organization, but I can tell you this.  The 3rd string rookie consistently graded out better in preseason play than the other two.  You’ve also got to remember the challenges faced by a rookie trying to make a squad: limited snaps with the 1st string offensive live, little access to the 1st string skill players and all sorts of practice limitations and lack of game day experience, etc, etc….

So guess what happened this weekend?  The kid finally got a chance to play!

Now, this particular team is still facing some very, very large challenges in turning their season around, but given the hostile environment faced this weekend, the kid didn’t do half bad.  The question I always have for NFL coaches is “Would you rather have a veteran player in there making rookie mistakes over and over again or would you rather have the rookie in there making mistakes, learning and getting better.”  As I mentioned before, I just don’t think (if history is any lesson) that the first two quarterbacks are going to get any better.  But, this rookie gets better every time he touches the ball.  His Real Sports Analytics scoring tells me that he gets one or two more starts and he’s going to have his first 300 yard day and the team will get one in the “W” column.

I guess only time will tell.  Ironically, I do know that this organization has some sort of “computer” system to help in evaluating their player performance.  Apparently it is NOT working too well for them this season.