Hartline wants 5-6 million per season

Did Hartline score yet?

 

He is married....so probably not.

 

Hartline is married? Super model or just regular model???

 

Looks like your standard sororitute. http://www.google.com/search?q=bria...FJrKQ0QHWhoGIBw&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=806

 

Ill bet she made a pass at him and he fell hard

 

Is this the one?

 

Whatever he could get for 3.5 million/year.

 

Sooooo Joan Rivers' old skin?

 

Even with that kind of money I bet he only scores once a year with her.

 

I think we can all agree that variable strongly correlates with "winning," however.

 

A bit of perspective:

...especially when you consider this:

http://wp.advancednflstats.com/playerstats.php?year=2012&pos=WR&season=reg

You'll need to scroll down a ways (well past Bess and Hartline) to find Wallace.

 

That stat sheet should be laminated and saved for posterity as a prime example of how questionable stats can be when they're used to compare players and draw conclusions. So this data shows what, that Hartline is a better and more valuable player than:

1. Victor Cruz
2. Percy Harvin
3. Brandon Marshall
4. Hakeem Nicks
5. Larry Fitzgerald
6. Mike Wallace

Really? And Bess towers above these and more at #18? Bess is just two behind Julio Jones? Good Lord.

The worst two receivers in the study are Larry Fitzgerald and Mike Wallace? How about you just give me the bottom two ranked receivers in this study, Larry Fitzgerald and Mike Wallace, and then print out this abomination and wrap some fish in it. Then delete this thing from your computer.

WADR, I'm not sure why you would care about this kind of WR study anyway, since you seem to believe that the passing game is all about the Quarterback, WR TDs are more random and based on QB performance than anything else and it's a myth that WRs have "special talents" that make some more valuable than others.

They're interchangeable, right? Then why do you bother with this study? Just pick two WRs at random, put them on the field and let the QB take over.

I asked you earlier- would you spend draft picks on WRs if it were up to you or just sign them as free agents, and why? Add that question to the list questions you never answered, no real surprise there.

 

I thought we already covered this? I told you I believe that wide receivers may indeed have special talents that distinguish them from each other in ways that correlate with winning, but that "touchdown scoring ability" isn't one of them, according to the data I'm aware of.

Do we ever get to the point where the discussion can advance based on an aggregation of mutual understanding?

Wait a minute: so when I answer questions you ask, you repeat the same misunderstanding of what I'm saying later on, as though you completely ignored my answer (like the above), but then at the same time you gripe that I'm not answering questions?

As for the actual question (this time), what I would do if I were drafting wide receivers is identify the elements of college performance and the physical and mental variables that best predict a high level of performance in the NFL, and integrate that with objective data regarding the importance of the wide receiver position with regard to winning in the NFL, as well as with an appraisal of how much of a need it is on my team, in making a selection. Obviously that's going to yield a highly variable, case-by-case, year-by-year approach, which means I can give you no precise answer, although I will say I'd spend draft picks on them, yes.

As for the Bess/Hartline/Wallace point, it's just another piece of data to consider IMO. Wallace is asking for nearly double the money Hartline is, yet according to two measures of performance I personally put a good bit of stock in (WPA and EPA), he performed quite a bit more poorly in 2012, despite receiving passes from a quarterback who played much better. That's all.

 

For the most part fair enough, thx. I do think that you're deluding yourself if you think that you can draw a conclusion that WR TD receptions are random- good luck putting Hartline in Chicago, Dallas, GB or even Denver and having him score as many TDs as Marshall, Bryant, Jones or Decker. Discounting strength, speed quicks, height, craftiness, etc as precursors to scoring TDs is just silly- and these are talents and/or attributes- the WRs aren't riding on segways out there, they actually have to have ability to get open and makes plays, especially touchdowns.

Some of your odd conclusions simply underscore how incomplete pure statistical analysis can be. That WR list that you provided above is just awful, case in point of stats gone awry if using them blindly to judge overall talent or ranking players. Davonne bess at #18, Victor Cruz at #33 right behind Hartline (cough, cough) Hakeem Nicks at #60, Larry Fitzgerald at #75 and Mike Wallace at #76. 'Nuff said- if there was a league wide draft of all available WRs, a reshuffling so to speak, I guarantee you that they weould be ranked and selected far, far differently that this study does, and for very good reason. This ranking of WRs is just smelly awful. Case in point of how a cross section of data can be misleading and how ignorant it can be to use stats alone to rank players. Numbers may not lie, but the interpretation of numbers can lead to big piles of steaming crap.

 

Is there a reason why you're only looking at a year at a time? Because over Wallaces career, he's had a WPA of 4.02, and 166.8 EPA. Hartline, over the same timeframe, has accumulated a WPA of 2.69, and 81.1 EPA. Jackson, who Wallace is looking to match, has a pretty amazing 6.02 WPA and 171.6 EPA. I'm just wondering why the 1 year sample as opposed to the career view.

 

I bet you he won't fall down on his way to cash the checks if we pay him.

Hey Brian..."Go **** Yourself."

 

The objective data indeed show they are random. I'll admit it's certainly counterintuitive, but then again I have far less faith in my intuition than it seems some others do.

Like I said, it's just one piece of the puzzle to consider.

 

The career view is certainly more representative and informative. I just thought it was interesting that in both players' "contract years," where players likely want to turn on the juice compared to previously in their careers, Wallace performed so much more poorly with regard to a couple variables I put lots of stock in, and then he wants what's probably no different from the salary he would've asked for the previous offseason, after he'd performed much better. It illustrates the (sometimes crazy) supply and demand dynamics of the free agent market IMO.

 

I think Wallace's numbers dropped for intangible reasons moreso than talent. I agree that supply and demand is huge in FA. Tanne was the 3rd QB taken but would probably be #1 overall this year.

Overall I think supply-demand is in our favor this year, at WR CB and TE especially. OT also if we lose Long. It's still on Irish to get the right guys in hear, the coaches to use maximize the talent and the talent to perform on Sunday but just looking at it broadly I think we're in a better spot than we have been in over a decade.

 

I find that hard to believe. How could any level of faith be less than none?

 

Wallace certainly did himself no favors by holding out, that much is for certain. The thing that I don't like about the Hartline year, though, is that he received roughly double the amount of targets from the year prior. While his WPA and EPA were both up, they weren't up by double, but by half of that. What I mean is that he did increase his production, but at a rate that differs from what you'd expect. His WPA went up to 1.12 from .88 and his EPA went to 36.9 from 23.8, roughly half the amount of the year prior. I don't know what that means, if anything at this point, and I dont have any other examples to compare right now as I'm doing this in some downtime. I'd expect to see those numbers be higher with the increase in targets, but since I don't have a comparison worked up I can't say if that's good or bad. I'll see what I can put together later.

 

Do you think playing in Todd Haley's offense rather than in Bruce Arians' had anything to do with it? Then didn't he hold out all through training camp, so entered the season rather behind on learning it?

 

No, it doesn't. The way that you use the data and the conclusions that you draw are wrong. A WRs # of TDs per season, half a season, whatever, certainly varies. Some years are better than others, big deal. But that's neither here nor there. The genesis of all of this is trying to invalidate Brian Hartline's lack of TDs as a relevant issue, iirc. Your premise regarding WRs and TD production is, quite frankly, absurd, and your statistical analysis on the subject does nothing to alleviate the absurdity.

 

The more I think about it, the less likely I think it is that I'm going to be able to find a way of looking at Hartline's production differences between last year and now. I can't think of any examples where theres a new coach, new system, rookie QB, and the offense has lost their #1 receiver from the year before.

 

I kind of sort of did. Just looking back at all the Super Bowl winning teams in history, beginning in 1966, the fewest TD passes caught in the regular season by their WRs was 6 by the 1977 Dallas Cowboys. If you feel like going through and comparing the WR TD passes caught by the losing Super Bowl teams, please feel free.
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/super-bowl/

 

thought you were gonna say you switched to unleaded paint chips. lol

 

so the lowest in 47 years was double ours this year?.... and that was 37 years ago before it became a passing league. dang.

 

Well at least you're making a strong and genuine effort to discover the truth, objectively, while considering the relevant contextual variables.

 

That team also had a young RB name of Dorsett, who ran for 12 TDs, and one of the first of the modern athletic TEs who was as much a receiver as a blocker in Billy Joe Dupree.
Even the 66 Packers who ran the ball 475 times in 14 games and managed with just 193 total pass receptions, had 8 TD passes caught by their WRs.

 

If the contention is that TDs by wide receivers vary randomly, how can that be "neither here nor there"?

 

Those were just SB winning teams. I haven't looked, but there were teams that have done worse in terms of passing TDs overall since.

 

I may check the SB losers later today. If someone wanted to be really ambitious they could check all playoff teams for the past 25 yrs or so.

 

I haven't come up with a way to tie in this data in with other data( such as YPA) yet (or even if it's possible). My hunch is that passing TDs to any one particular skill position doesn't correlate highly with winning across the board, but I sadly don't have the time to check and confirm that.

 

TD reception numbers vary year by year for individual WRs- Calvin Johnson for example, year by year TDs- 4,12,5,16,5. The number varies, so what? That's neither here nor there in terms of the conclusions that you're reaching for. CJs TD #s varying year to year hardly equates to his ability to score TDs being on par with any other receiver, which if I understand correctly is your conclusion- that in terms of TD production all WRs are created equally. You're saying that, for example, Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant and Brian Hartline are equals in terms of ability to score receiving TDs? Do you really think that Calvin Johnson has no more innate ability to score receiving TDs than Brian Hartline, that it's all about the QB throwing the passes with some randomness added in?

 

The point is that TDs scored is affected by a lot of things aside from the WRs ability. Calvin Johnson's ability doesn't change, but the circumstance around him does change. Therefore, TDs aren't a very reliable measure of ability. The logic applies to any position, not just WR. There are plenty of measures available that don't display the same kind of variance that TDs do.

 

And then couple that with the fact that when you control for TD passes thrown overall, the correlation between TD catches by wide receivers and winning is nil.

In other words, couple the random variation in wide receiver TD catches with the fact that TD passes overall appear to be driving the bus on winning, and at that point you have the basis for my belief that Brian Hartline's number of touchdowns should be a comparatively small consideration in determining his contract.

It's a relatively simple concept when you boil it down like that. It's just so counterintuitive, especially in the day and age of fantasy football, where TDs reign supreme and people draft their players based on the TDs they think they'll score, that it takes dozens upon dozens of posts to make it understandable and to combat all the "cognitive momentum" going the other direction. I'm happy to put in the effort, however, as long as it doesn't devolve into potshot interchanges. That's when I get frustrated.

Now, none of the above necessarily means Hartline is lighting the world on fire in terms of the things that IMO should determine his contract to a greater degree, just that his TD catches shouldn't be one of them.

 

what do you mean "one particular skill position"? We're talking about the wide receiver position, the skill position <excluding QB> with the greatest impact on the passing game in general.

What's the correlation like when there's a LACK of of receiver TDs?
There's no two ways about it; if 40+% of your skill players account for very little scoring production (IE: 3 TDs), the offense will most most most most most likely be operating at an inefficient or less than optimal level, especially when those TDs aren't being subsidized by another aspect of the offense. Period.

 

Sounds like a pretty lousy point. CJ has 54 TDs in 6 years. Hartline has 6 TDs in 4 years. Do you really think that if they switched roles that their TD numbers would be reversed as well? CJ scored almost 5 times as many TDs in his 1st 4 years as Hartline- if you want to chalk that all up to randomness and Matt Stafford, go ahead.

The point actually is that Shouright said that WR TDs are a result of QB play and randomness, WRs don't have any special talents that lead one to score more TD's than the other- it's a combination of randomness and the effectiveness of the QB. To equate Hartline to Megatron in terms of ability to score Touchdowns is sheer absurdity.

 

No, I don't think their TD numbers would be reversed.

Depends on how you define randomness. I think its largely affected by play calling and turnovers.

I'm not sure where anyone equated Hartline to Johnson. It was simply pointed out that if TDs were a reliably measured skill, then you wouldn't see such fluctuation and variance. Not sure how that can be taken as an argument that Hartline is comparable to Johnson.