I am not expecting anything. I am uncertain what will happen. My point is that you can't be certain that he is going to be significantly worse. He might step up.
It would be relatively easy to determine statistically the degree to which the difference in performance between Stills and Wallace is explained by the difference in performance between Brees and Tannehill.
I never meant to say he'd be worse, I was talking about the circumstances he'll be operating in being worse. Again, he's currently our #1, he was a 3 or 4 in Nawlins. As such he'll receive more attention, and in the AFC East he'll receive it from better defenses and better DBs than he ever saw in the AFC South. He'll have a lesser QB and arguably a lesser staff to play for. The overall point being that even if his individual play rises higher than ever factors outside his control will make it hArd for that improvement to show up in the stats.
You would simply determine how discrepant Brees's performance was from Tannehill's, and then determine whether that discrepancy is bigger or smaller than the discrepancy between Stills and Wallace's performance. It wouldn't be fully explanatory, but it would give more insight than any one person's subjective perceptions in my opinion.
the skills Stills has have already been on display. Easy deduction. Stills was a #3/4 in New Orleans with Brees. I wouldn't expect more here.
Do you realize what kind of assumptions you're making there? First of all, you're assuming that whatever (mathematical) function describes how the stats that measure individual performances of QB and WR combine to give you overall WR performance must be 1) the same for all QB-WR combinations, and 2) a linear function with equal weights on QB and WR (any non-linearity in the function means you can't just compare differences between individual performance metrics, and if you have unequal weights even with a linear function, then you have to weight the differences in individual performance metrics accordingly). I think you yourself have been arguing that #1 is not true when it comes to Tannehill-Wallace. Haven't you argued that Tannehill's deep ball problem is specific to Wallace? If so, that's evidence against #1. And #2 is impossible to believe anyway. So.. saying your approach wouldn't be "fully" explanatory is a massive understatement. Any "objective" argument that is based on assumptions that aren't anywhere near accurate enough in the relevant context isn't worth considering.
In two seasons with the Saints, Stills had 95 receptions for 1,572 yards and eight touchdowns. He averaged 14.8 yards-per-catch in 2014. 2014 Jimmy Graham 85 889 10.5 29 10 Kenny Stills 63 931 14.8 69 3 Marques Colston 59 902 15.3 57 5 Brandin Cooks 53 550 10.4 50 3 Pierre Thomas 45 378 8.4 39 1 Travaris Cadet 38 296 7.8 31 1 Mark Ingram 29 145 5 14 0 Benjamin Watson 20 136 6.8 15 2 Nick Toon 17 215 12.6 24 1 Josh Hill 14 176 12.6 37 5 Erik Lorig 9 27 3 14 1 Khiry Robinson 8 63 7.9 17 0 Robert Meachem 7 114 16.3 25 0 Joseph Morgan 4 92 23 62 0 Austin Johnson 2 15 7.5 13 1 Brian Leonard 1 15 15 15 0 Jalen Saunders 1 7 7 7 0 Drew Brees 1 1 2013 Jimmy Graham 86 1,215 14.1 56 16 Pierre Thomas 77 513 6.7 29 3 Marques Colston 75 943 12.6 35 5 Darren Sproles 71 604 8.5 48 2 Lance Moore 37 457 12.4 44 2 Kenny Stills 32 641 20 76 5 Benjamin Watson 19 226 11.9 32 2 Robert Meachem 16 324 20.3 60 2 Jed Collins 14 54 3.9 8 0 Mark Ingram 7 68 9.7 23 0 Josh Hill 6 44 7.3 9 1 Nick Toon 4 68 17 35 0 Travaris Cadet 2 5 2.5 3 1
True, and it's still worth more than the subjective perception, about that particular issue, of a nobody (including myself) on a message board in my opinion. How "fully explanatory" do you figure one of those is? That was my point here:
I'm saying it's really worth nothing because the assumptions of your suggested approach just don't hold. Now the subjective view has a serious problem too in this case. I think the game tape approach is insightful when talking about individual plays (far more than stats), but since you're referring to an aggregate stat (performance), the problem with the game tape approach is you can't determine what influence something you see on tape for 1,2, or several plays has on overall performance. It's a wash in this case Tannephins. Neither side can do much with the paucity of data we have. I'd just wait until we actually see what Stills does with Tannehill and both sides can contribute. The game tape guys will be useful for examining why Stills was more/less effective, and you with your stats will be more useful in pointing out aggregate effects of replacing Wallace with Stills.
The problem is that its not going to be a Stills vs Wallace comparison. It's going to be last year's offense vs this year's. We can compare Stills NO stats w Wallace in Miami, for the sake of discussion. But missing in TPs flawed assessment is what would have happened had Wallace been in Stills' cleats. Mike Wallace being single covered snap after snap by the opposing D's lesser CBs, targeted by one of the best deep ball passers in the game, in an offense designed to attack down the field? You don't need a PhD in statistics to figure that one out.
Stills, Landry, Matthews, Cameron, and Parker/Strong/DGB with Albert, Turner, Pouncey, a G from the draft, and James? Tannehill getting 4,500 yards with 30 TD passes next year.
Yes it is. Wallace always had a safety over top waiting for him. A lot of the pass defensive focus was on him. Team doesn't need him though.
And that would likely be true as long as the passing game is efficient. Winning across the league is far more a function of YPA than it is the run-pass ratio.
