Vick lucky? A bad decision-maker?
While much of the national media have praised Michael Vick for his performance this season, one writer says he's getting lucky and making bad decisions.
Vick lucky? A bad decision-maker?
Sheil Kapadia, Philly.com
While much of the national media point out Michael Vick's league-leading 108.7 QB rating and 8.42 yards per attempt, one writer says he's getting lucky and making bad decisions.
Vick has yet to throw an interception in 191 attempts this season.
But KC Joyner of ESPN.com writes that luck has more to do with that stat than Vick's decision-making (Note - This is an Insider article that requires subscription to see fully):
Exhibit No. 1 in this arena is the tremendous volume of bad decisions Vick has made this season. For those unfamiliar with this metric, a bad decision is defined as when a quarterback makes a mistake with the ball that leads to a turnover or a near turnover (e.g. a dropped interception, a fumble that is recovered by the offense, etc.). Common instances of this include forcing passes into coverage, staring at receivers or not seeing zone defenders in a passing lane.
It is a subjective metric, but it is also one that throughout the years has done a very good job of identifying which quarterbacks are taking too many risks, and Vick certainly fits that bill.
The game-video analysis shows him as having made 12 bad decisions in 202 dropbacks. (The dropbacks in this case include plays that were nullified by penalties but do not include spiked passes or sacks.) That equates to a 5.9 percent bad-decision rate. That means one out of every 17 passes Vick has thrown this season have been unnecessarily risk-laden.
To put that total into perspective, consider that Chicago Bears fans were almost ready to run Jay Cutler out of town last season in large part because of his risk-taking, and he posted a bad-decision rate of 3.4 percent. Vick's current rate is nearly 75 percent higher.
Joyner isn't the only writer who's not fully on board the Vick bandwagon.
SI.com's Peter King thinks Vick is taking too many hits:
I'm not quite sure why, but in the past three weeks, since Vick has come back from his rib-cartilage injury, he's run the ball 29 times (too many), while LeSean McCoy, the bellwether back, has run it 41 times in those three weeks. Will the Eagles do a better job of getting Vick to stay at home, and a better job of distributing the ball to other playmakers? They'd better, if they want Vick to last well into the playoffs.
King also thinks it's too early to start mentioning Vick as an MVP candidate since he's only played 58 percent of the Eagles' snaps.
Other links:
* The Redskins have signed former Eagle Macho Harris. Harris started at free safety for the Birds in 2009, after they selected him in the fifth round out of Virginia Tech. He battled injuries through training camp as the team tried Harris at cornerback, and then moved him back to safety. He was waived before the season.
* Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post writes that Brian Dawkins might not have much of a future with the Broncos:
"I'm going to continue to fight. That's just what I do," Dawkins said Monday night.
But watching Dawkins give futile pursuit to the San Diego Chargers, it felt like the end is near. Is Dawkins done? Have the years finally stolen his talent?
* Earlier today, I posted Man Up on the offense.
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and how many of these bad decisions occurred on plays where QBs like cutler would have been sacked (and thus would not have counted in this metric)? do some more homework, joyner, and get back to us.- Anyone else feel like KC just invented this "metric" on his way to work? I mean his criteria for bad decisions includes forcing passes into coverage and staring down receivers. Well, Cutler does one of the two (or both) on pretty much every play. How does he come up with a rating of 3.4%? Seriously, this is a joke. But I guess KC's looking for a novel angle to a well documented story. Got to feed the family.— Jack Burden
- HINDSIGHT! big deal.— Miss M.
- I think it should be noted that KC Joyner is female. I'm not saying anything, I'm just sayin.— aznsun93
- the O line may have something to do with that. Well, I'll take the win-loss stat over the abstract stat of this writer.— retzlaff
- Yeah, this is just seems like "fuzzy math". You can slap a number on anything and call it truth but it doesn't necessarily make it so. I'm not familiar with the details of this metric, but based on this article I can almost guarantee it's not "real" science. Maybe it has some usefullness in predicting bad decisions makers, but we have to keep in mind that Vick is not a typical quarterback, so it may very well be that the criteria used here is not fully relevant in Vick's case. Again, I have only read this article and not the orginal article, so I could be wrong, but my sense is that many of these supposed bad decisions may be from plays where Vick is scrambling out of the pocket and is making throws on the fly. In those cases, he's inevitably going to be making more bad decisions than he would in a scripted pocket play. So when most quarterbacks would be flat on their backs, Vick is still out trying to make something happen. If that increases his bad decisions but still ultimately results in more big plays, it's probably worth the increased risk.
Another way to look at this risk reward tradeoff is by comparing the deep pass to a short pass. The short pass statistically is going to be more successfull from a strict completion percentage, but that doesn't mean teams should abandon the long pass due to it having a lower success rate. It's all about risk reward. The long pass eats up more yardage so it's got a bigger reward. The tradeoff is fewer completions. I think Vick's playing style can be viewed similarly. He takes more risk but those risks come with huge payoffs when the are successful.— JFW3 - Fuzzy math indeed JFW3.. its always something with the national media and the Iggles.. I sweat they love to hate on us..— albertpa
- This is silliness.
- 5-0 when he starts and finishes a game. The only stat that matters.— Theo1980
- K.C. wants to be like Billy Bean and his "Moneyball" with all of these "metrics"
Dawk lost it 2 years ago, which is why the Eagles let him leave. His Pro Bowl last year was on reputation only. He hasn't been able to cover in about 3-4 years. Great career Dawk, but time to hang em up.— jimmydugan - This just shows that statistics don't tell the whole story in sports. That's why the games are decided on the field, not by computers.
aznsun93, is she hot?— Stoshie - I have an idea... no longer subscribe to someone who has to make up stuff for a living. Instead, watch Vick win ballgames. It's much more entertaining to be built up with good efforts all around from Vick and the team, than to be torn down by someone with a negative opinion that has little or no truth or importance. As a matter of fact, why are you even giving it any credence in this article ?— landt
- When Vick takes off for a 30 yard run if his receivers are covered, it represents a mistake by this new metric. I think more sports pundits will be adding their fuzzy logic to make Vicks degree of difficulty higher than that of the traditional drop back QB.
On Peter Kings comments, I think it is partically true, however last Sunday 5 QB's where hurt standing in the pocket (2 in Miami, 1 in Carolina,1 in Tenn. and Brett Favre in Minn.) None of which was running when they were injured.— gditty - A very significant factor that is not included in this calculation is the velocity at which the ball is thrown. If it's lofted in the air, Cutler-style and there is a bad decision then you get an INT. If it's thrown like a bullet then it gets smacked down, Vick style. You can take more risks if you throw the way Vick does. The end result is still a very low TD/INT ratio regardless of the risk.— cin7
- That analyst has books on Amazon and if the reviews and titles are any indication, he likes to take a contrary position and then select the data that supports that predetermined assertion. It reminds me of a televangelist latching onto Harry Potter for attention.— CatoTheElder
- i thought someone invented this thing called a QB rating to provide a better metric on quarterbacking. this other thing sounds idiotic. forcing passes? really? someone that throws a ball as well as vick to receivers as good as ours CAN force passes. that stat is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. On top of that, I'll take a QB that makes a bad decision only once every 20 pass attempts. That equates to only 2-3 times a game that there is a bad decision.— djack10
- Only stat that matters is Eagles are 5-0 when he starts and finishes.— BooDuhBud
- @Theo. Amen to that. 5-0.— jamesiri
KC Joyner is a hack. Everybody knows that.— phillychaos- Joyner needs to get her mathematics corrected. First of all, if you're going to bring up a stat that is not widely appreciated, you need to support it with raw data. That would be correlation with other well-used stats such as QB ratings, win/loss or completion percentile. Stating that it's 'one that throughout the years has done a very good job of identifying which quarterbacks are taking too many risks' is not enough evidence, and actually tells you that either the writer herself doesn't know how reliable the stat is, or she knows but wants to sell you on the idea and isn't telling you. Second, if she wanted to 'put it into perspective', just stating Cutler's percentage is not enough. Since when was comparing 2 individual samples enough data to measure a stat? If she had compared the stats to at least 10 QBs around league from Manning to McNabband found Vick near the top of the list, the article would have had 10 times the persuasiveness. The reason she doesn't do that (although since she already has the stats on the 2 she should have them on all of the QBs as well,) is probably because most of the outcomes don't fit her 'logic'. Third, and this is probably the most important, last I checked, risk-taking wasn't necessarily one of the negative attributes of a QB. If a QB only lofted short passes to receivers who were wide open, he would have a ridiculously low bad-decision rate which would not correlate well with his win/loss ratio. Anyone can tell you that a QB with a cannon arm who occasionally went for the big play is a better QB than the one with the weak arm who always went for short, safe plays and whose completion percentage was high but yardage low.
Very poor article by this Joyner or whoever.— goeagles87 - Stinking sabermetric nerds. It's this simple, how many int's has Vick ACTUALLY thrown? Zero, not how many times the defender 'should' have caught it. Stepping on to my soap box for a second, I'd bet that KC has dogs, probably was disgusted at what Mike did, and resents the NFL for letting a dog killer make a living again doing what he does better than any other person on the planet does, and that's 'run' the QB position to it's ultimate effectiveness. Hence, let's find the holes in his game with made up numbers. The only statistical analysis I care about is how many times he runs without sliding till he gets hurt. One of you sabermetric nerds run that analysis and give us something that's useful for crying out loud.— Bleue
- LMAO this guy says Vick threw 15 balls that should have been int'ed.Althought he has thrown 191 without 1 INT wht is this guy eating.Oh so I guess Manning is better by this guys standards.Sounds like just making up stuff to write......— rneal
- KC Joyner has been saying that all season. Most of the writers who use advanced QB metrics have concluded the same. We will see if things even out. I think Vick clearly holds the ball too long, but the line is giving him time and if they have the "triplets"- Maclin, Jackson, & McCoy- all on the field, I don't really see how a competent QB can go wrong.— jtj06
- negative comments all the time.we still won the game and beat arguably the best team in the nfc.a lot of games were played with back up players. kolb is a good back up qb GO EAGLES— waqlter kessler
- negative comments all the time.we still won the game and beat arguably the best team in the nfc.a lot of games were played with back up players. kolb is a good back up qb GO EAGLES— waqlter kessler
- There's a little truth in these articles. King is more on target. You can't talk about Vick as an MVP yet. The excitement is basically about 5 games. So yeah, we should be excited by what he's done, and his potential to do more, but he has to remain consistent and remain on the field. Talk MVP in January if he's done both. Until then we can say he's had some great games. I see him as more like Favre, than Manning, Brees, Rodgers or Brady. He can be really good, and put the ball into some unbelievable spots. I think we'll also see some real clunkers of games down the road. A high risk/high reward player, which is basically Joyner's point. Like Favre, he can get you a Super Bowl (if we get some more players). Unlike Brady, I don't see him as a strong candidate to win two in four years.— tacklinjoe
- 5-0, best (or top 3 at this point) QB rating in the NFL, 0 INTs, division lead...that's all I care about. I agree with that fact that this no name writer could only come up with 1 example (Cutler) in her story...please, do tell me what Peyton or Brees' ridiculous "ratio" is...better yet, what is Favre's?— EaglesBleedMoney
- in case anyone was wondering KC Joyner is a Steelers fan. just throwing that out there.— Iggles21
- Paying to read the insider on the ESPN site confirms the saying that a fool and his money are soon departed.— Ron
- i agree a QB has to have some luck to go without an INT,MV7 is playing Very Well this season but he did have atleast 3 ints dropped by the Colts,also he has to cut down on the hits he takes,they take a toll late in the season and later in age-30 and up,i think part of the reason Mike goes all out is because he has KK4 ready to come in as he said last week,if he can't play the team can still win because they have a 'great QB'(kk) to back him up,just sayin.........wolf.— wolf 4
- Oh little wolf, again you show why only one feather in head dress. Remember wise saying "Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light." BCS— Big Chief Strongbow
- Here's a thought - don't market yourself as a "stat-head" if you're going to use a stat category that YOU ADMIT is "subjective".— JLB
- Peter King is a double-talking bet-hedging Johnny Come Lately. He's a dying breed as a sportswriter--he's purely speculative rather than analytical. He doesn't know *why* a running QB would have more carries than the HB in an Andy Reid offense? Srsly!? King waits for popular opinion to crown players before he lauds their accomplishments. As far as Joyner guy goes, he is very analytical, but maybe suffering from a form of myopia in regards to Vick. He hasn't been beaten as a starter. He's made some questionable decisions, but has his team at #1 in the NFC East. Kind of hard to argue with that, unless you have some...other...agenda.— JofreyRice
- All of the football analyst that watch these films say Vick is playing great football. There will always be guys that have an axe to grind with Vick and he's one.— Gee Money
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