{"id":12476,"date":"2006-12-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehogs.net\/blogs\/?p=12476"},"modified":"2025-06-02T00:13:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T04:13:41","slug":"cheap-seats-rushing-to-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-hogs.net\/blogs\/2006\/12\/11\/cheap-seats-rushing-to-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheap Seats: Rushing To Judgment"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are different kinds of pain in the world of a football fan. This week’s loss to the Eagles was the kind of hurt that has a bright side — with the season gone there are other things to watch for than the final score. Fortunately, over a lifetime of watching the Skins, losses may be tough to take, but the wins more than make up for any suffering we must endure. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, however, there is a weekly torture that accompanies almost every game, regardless of the outcome. Is there anything worse to experience while watching the Redskins than the color commentary from the broadcasting booth? <\/p>\n

There are times that I am tempted to return to grad school, if only to write a dissertation on the fallacies and inconsistencies that I put up with every week if only to hear some of the crowd noise. (If, in addition, writing pages of announcer refutations gave me a shot at a broadcasting job, all the better). <\/p>\n

As it stands, it looks as though I\u2019m destined to endure a life plagued by broadcasters trying to dumb down the game. The prescriptions for each team before the game, the second-guessing of coaches whenever a play goes wrong and the omniscience they exude all sicken me. <\/p>\n

Not that I’m breaking new ground here. Plenty of people (including my fellow THN writer Stephen Zorio) have pointed to the glaring flaws in modern sports broadcasting. Still, at the risk of only increasing pain by commenting on commentary, I\u2019ll give one example of a fallacy that I have seen often in the past couple of years (I am sure that you will recognize it). It starts with something like the following made-up statistic: \u201cWhen the Redskins rush for over 100 yards, they are 4 and 1; when they don\u2019t rush for 100 yards, they are 0 and 5.\u201d <\/p>\n

This, in itself, is a respectable statistic. Like highlighting the time of possession, turnovers, penalties, or any one player\u2019s stats, looking at the \u201cwhen they rush for\u201d statistic focuses on one of the fundamentals of winning. But this can also be misleading, and becomes so the moment one starts to speak of \u201crushing 30 times\u201d or \u201crushing for 100 yards\u201d as the cause<\/i> of winning rather than simply as a characteristic<\/i> of a winning team. <\/p>\n

This distinction is crucial, but the two concepts are generally conflated by commentators. Most often, we hear some variation of \u201cthe Redskins need to rush for more than 100 yards if they want to win.\u201d In other words, rushing for 100 yards causes victory, anything less causes defeat. This is a classic case of confusing correlation with causation. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give two examples for why this thinking is rubbish. Let\u2019s say that the Redskins are down by 14 going into halftime. Clinton Portis has 12 rushes for 67 yards and is therefore on pace for 24 carries and 134 yards. If the Redskins come out of the locker room and give up a touchdown on the opponents\u2019 first drive, what happens next? <\/p>\n

Now the team is down by three scores with about a quarter and a half to play. It\u2019s time to start working more quickly and decisively. With a bigger gap in the score, the play calling philosophy will shift from \u201cwearing the defense out and eating up clock\u201d to a more rapidly-paced, passing-based offensive scheme. Portis may have had 12 carries in the first half, but as the clock ticks down in the second half \u2013 assuming the Redskins remain behind — he will see fewer carries. <\/p>\n

If the Redskins blindly stick to the \u201crushing for 100 yards equals victory\u201d equation, they will use up valuable time; the later in the game it gets, the more damaging this will be. Clearly, then, whether the Redskins rush 10 times or 500 times has little to do with how they will handle a large point deficit. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have to reach too far for my second example. On Sunday against the Eagles, Ladell Betts had a career day \u2013 33 carries for 177 yards \u2013 in a loss. Whatever your magic formula for rushing to victory, it can\u2019t overcome costly interceptions and the defense giving up just a few big plays. Betts was phenomenal but Sunday\u2019s game falls outside of any predictions based on the number of rush attempts or the rushing yards gained. <\/p>\n

Every situation is different, and this is precisely why one should be skeptical whenever a color commentator circles the \u201cwhen they rush for\u201d statistic and spends the rest of the afternoon deriding Joe Gibbs<\/a> as if he\u2019s a senile man that doesn\u2019t \u201cget it.\u201d After all, if these commentators really knew the<\/i> secret for winning football games, wouldn\u2019t they be coaching? <\/p>\n

Do the best teams run the ball effectively, control time of possession, limit turnovers and minimize penalties? Yes. Is it a mistake to make any of these factors the cause of winning? Yes. Instead of approaching football as a great mystery that has yet to be solved, TV broadcasters would do well to stick with descriptions rather than giving grand advice. <\/p>\n

Of course, I can always hold out hope that a television will one day have a \u201ccrowd noise only\u201d option. Until then, be sure to check out the view with us from the Cheap Seats.<\/p>\n

Edit: This blog was archived in May of 2016 from our original articles database.It was originally posted by Daniel Coleman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are different kinds of pain in the world of a football fan. This week’s loss to the Eagles was the kind of hurt that has a bright side — with the season gone there are other things to watch for than the final score. Fortunately, over a lifetime of watching the Skins, losses may … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1746,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-washington-redskins"],"yoast_head":"\nCheap Seats: Rushing To Judgment | The-Hogs.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/the-hogs.net\/blogs\/2006\/12\/11\/cheap-seats-rushing-to-judgment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cheap Seats: Rushing To Judgment | The-Hogs.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are different kinds of pain in the world of a football fan. 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