Just how important is "clutch", really?

No, they're simply saying that what matters is making kicks when it counts (I don't even want to get into the argument about when points DON'T count). So, they are saying that even though the overall average is way up, kickers are still kicking worse than average in key situations. So, again I ask, how the hell can we say someone is "clutch" when they are performing below their normal level?

Performing below your norm is...































CHOKING.

 

So.. let's say that in a particular pressure situation, another unit like the OL or the defense just on average performs worse across the league. The QB is just playing as well as he always does, but because you don't look at league-wide drop-off all you see is a drop-off in performance for the QB.

I don't think it's fair to say in that case the QB performed worse. Comparing to league-wide drop-off allows you to remove to a much greater degree the effect of other factors (notably the team) on the QB stat.

 

Sorry, but Tim Tebow is regarded as clutch. You don't believe clutch exists so its not surprising that you don't think Tebow, or any QB, is clutch.

Why do you think he was a first round draft pick? His good looks? His faith?

 

Looks like they go half-way, not all the way. They show the average drop-off and say that's good enough, but don't say less than average drop-off is "more clutch". Still, a good stat to have.

 

Yet, we've already come to the conclusion that we lack the stats to truly evaluate the OL, you've said it many times. So you always come back to the QB.

Regardless, you're still operating with your definition of clutch, which is playing below your norm but better than average.

That's simply not clutch. Call it being a good QB. Call it "getting it done." You can call it many things, but "clutch" it is not.

 

Don't ignore the issue. Just because we can't pin down what percentage of the final outcome is due to the QB doesn't mean one method doesn't remove more of the effect of the team than another.

Comparing to league-wide drop-off removes the effect of conditions that are similar across the league for that QB in pressure situations. So if a unit on the offense or defense just in general is responsible for any portion of the observed drop-off, my approach gets rid of that.

There's really no situation I can think of where comparing within the individual only is superior statistically speaking to comparing across the league (which includes comparing within the individual).

 

Regardless of technical definition if somebody remarks that they like Tom Brady because he is clutch everybody in this thread knows what he means. Just like if somebody remarks its cold outside everybody in this thread knows what he means.

 

Uh, to sell tickets and merchandise. How many analysts thought he'd make it as a QB? He was a goldmine for the franchise that drafted him. Who regards him as clutch? The masses following ESPN? Skip Bayless? Come on, man.

He certainly wasn't drafted because of his QB skills.

 

Yeah...it means he plays better that his normal level in pressure situations......or he plays without choking....or he chokes slightly less than the average of other QBs.....

 

So you agree or disagree with cbrad's new definition?

If you disagree, then I'm not sure why you're arguing only with me. And, judging from this quote, you can't possibly agree with cbrad's new definition.

 

"It's not cold. It's just the rapid decrease in the available amount of heat"

Said nobody ever! Except maybe Spock and Data

 

Yep, resort to juvenile retorts when you know you're wrong. Like I said, we call it cold, because that's what we feel. But we feel it because we remove the heat.

Why is it cold in New Hampshire in the winter? Because there is less heat transfer due to the angle of the sunlight. Cold isn't produced, it's that heat isn't produced.

 

Sure you can produce heat.. your own definition after the bold part shows you how: you produce heat by transferring energy from a higher temperature system to one with lower temperature.

 

Here's the thing: I think that "clutch," as most people think of it, not as defined in this thread, can exist. But, is something is "clutch," it can't be the norm for the player, or else it is no longer "clutch," is normal play for that player. We humans call things by names all the time, even if those words are incorrect.

I agree, I suppose, that Tebow could be clutch, if he consistently played better than his average in high pressure situations.

But he certainly wasn't drafted in Round 1 due to a supposed "clutch" gene.

 

Moving something from one place to another is not producing anything.

 

The terms are subjective to some extent...however, is still the same thing. Why is Siberia colder than NH? Because there is even less heat transfer than in NH. It's not that Siberia produces more cold than NH.

Think of absolute zero as stasis, and all environments want to get to stasis. Absolute zero is what the environment wants to be, but transferring heat energy into the system prevents that. It feels "cold" when we aren't able to put enough heat energy into the system.

 

If a player only plays their best in times of pressure, then clutch is pointless, because that means the player was slacking the rest of the time.

 

The energy is only called heat when it's being transferred. Energy is never created or destroyed (within limits of the uncertainty principle, which actually says energy can be created or destroyed though you never observe it), but it is defined as heat energy only during that transfer. So yes you can create heat because it's another form of energy you created.

The analogy isn't good because the environment certainly doesn't "want to be" or "tend towards" absolute zero. It tends towards thermal equilibrium (if we're talking thermodynamics). Also, it only feels cold when heat leaves your system, not because you can't put enough energy into it. It can be any temperature you want (outside.. not within your system), you won't feel cold if (internal) energy from you is not transferred to that lower temperature system.

 

If energy can't be created, then you aren't creating "heat energy."

Most definitely all systems tend to absolute zero. Eventually, if time went on infinitely, our sun will burn out, and the earth will lose its heat, until it reaches absolute zero.

 

That's not how scientists talk about changes in types of energy. Taking your logic further, you can't create matter, light, or for that matter you can't create anything because all you've done is change the form of energy it is. No.. you have created a different form of energy called heat energy.

You're confusing absolute zero with the concept of entropy. 2nd law of thermodynamics basically says that statistically speaking over time entropy increases, meaning the amount of "disorder" increases in the system. That's quantified mathematically essentially by how many "bits" of information are needed to encode the system. The fewer bits (the more order there is), the smaller the entropy.

btw.. 2nd law is only statistically true.. in rare cases you can get a reversal of that process.

There is no physical law that suggests things tend towards absolute zero.

 

http://highschoolenergy.acs.org/content/hsef/en/energy-theories/cold-doesnt-exist.html

 

Scientifically speaking, if it has an affect, it exists.

Does darkness not exist, that is the absence of light, does arid not exist, that is the absence of moisture, in most, if not all cases, the absence of something creates something else, the absence of heat creates cold.

 

That is a contradictory synopsis, because the ice does make the drink colder, which is why we put ice in drinks, and they directly contradict that;

 

That's not true though.

You're acting as if the model of heat and cold fits the model of digging a hole, where if you remove the dirt you create a hole. That's not what this is. Its more like whether you remove the dirt or not the "space" where the dirt is (or the hole when you remove the dirt) is the same and wasn't created by removing or placing the dirt.

Remove everything from the universe so there's nothing and we consider that to be "cold" and "dark". So nothing = cold & dark. Think of it as things like heat and light are layered on top of the nothing (which is cold and dark), so that like "space" in the digging example, the "nothing" is always there whether there's dirt (read: heat & light) or not.

 

Again, and I know this is going to trigger you but its truly not my intention, you aren't understanding. Its explained in the sentences you didn't bold.

Basically what you're doing is conflating how physics' defines cold with a layman's definition of cold. Its the same thing when people conflate science's definition of "theory" with the layman version of "theory".

 

I'll tell ya what I learned in this thread.......there are some smart mother bleepers in it.

 

So you seem to want to cherry pick his playoff 4th and OT from behind stats? That's already a pretty small sample size.

But if you want to go through each game, yeah one can point to poor Brady performances in the playoffs that led to or caused their exit.

Ravens 2009 -- 49.1 rating

Ravens 2013 -- 62.3 rating

Denver 2015 -- 56.4 rating

Then there are also games when Brady was OK overall but threw late 4th quarter interceptions to kill any chance of a comeback (Den 2006, Indy 2007, etc.)

I don't much care about the Brady v. Manning clutch debate because I don't think clutch is real.

 

Going to try again to end this side discussion. So Fin D's link is actually describing things correctly in terms of the physics. There is no physical property called "cold" that is transferred from the ice cube to the soda.

However, Finster is also right in that as a sensation "cold" exists, and as long as you can create a state that elicits that sensation you can create cold. But it's NOT a physical property per se. It does correlate highly with the physical property of lower temperature (+ conductance between materials/mediums) relative to the temperature of the person who has that sensation.

Not sure if this can finally end the side debate.. but there's no other (scientific) solution guys!

 

No one has been arguing that the sensation of cold doesn't exist. No one. In fact, its been said a few times now.

When I stated what I did about cold and heat, I stated it in scientific terms not layman's terms. I've pointed that out a few times. If Finster, JD and others aren't getting that, there's nothing I can do about it as I've already tried to no avail.

 

No, I do not "keep repeating that win% in close games is correlated to the team win%." I don't think team win% in close games is a viable measure of clutch for QBs and I've said that repeatedly.

And I don't agree that your approach is the better way to determine the correlation. The more dominant teams tend to have larger drop-offs, which is hardly surprising, as in 8+ games they are far more likely to be the ones blowing the other team out than getting blown out. So yeah, the Brady, Bradshaw, Staubach, Montana, Young teams didn't get blown out much but blew out a lot of teams. The teams with roughly .500 records are parity teams that are just as likely to be blown out as to blow someone else out. But overall, with the exception of Blanda, which seems like a strange outlier (and he's before my team so I don't necessarily know why without doing some research), the really good teams tend to win a higher percentage of close games than the average teams. Run your correlation with win% overall and lets see what it shows.

That said, there is a positive correlation between the two figures you used. It isn't super strong, but it is there. Considering sample sizes, there is a margin for error of probably 5-10% on any of the close game percentages. And needless to say (although I guess I have to keep saying it because people keep ignoring it), team win % is not a QB stat and it is not all about the QB or even mostly about the QB. And even to the extent it is about the QB, it is isn't really a measure of clutch. Many close games are not decided by late game play or pressure moments. When a QB wins a game 10-3 with the winning team's only scoring in the first half, the QB hasn't done anything clutch. He rode a dominant defensive performance that required him to do virtually nothing. And as discussed previously, the 0-7 pt game measure doesn't really always reflect a truly close game. Sometimes it is very non-close game in which the winning team gave up a gimme TD or 2 late in the game to make it seem "close."

 

Pauly is definitely using the better approach. If approximately half of all games are close games, then looking at the correlation between close games and all games is half the time looking at the correlation between close games and close games, which obviously will be perfect. So you want to remove the effect of close games (on itself) in the correlation.

Also, the degree to which a team will be blown out per se won't affect the correlation (correlation remains the same if you scale everything by a constant.. that is, if you multiply all point differentials by the same amount).

Finally, you cannot just look at sample size and estimate what the margin of error is. You need to know the standard deviation of the distribution for that, which we don't know here.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

 

Questions?

Margin of error refers to a confidence interval, which is only defined if you know the distribution.

 

One of the things that has been said about Tebow, and I think it may have some validity, is that his style of play and attitude toward risk changed late in games. He was very risk averse and "game manager" like in the earlier parts of games, careful not to throw into traffic, etc. Late in games, when trailing, there was no need to be that way and he let it loose more. The game became less structured and more playground-like and that suited him. At least in the small sample sizes that we have. I guess one could say that was a positive response to "pressure" but maybe it was more of a response to "non-pressure" in that he suddenly had nothing to lose. Again, his NFL sample size is pretty tiny.

The general idea that the game changes in late and trailing situations is true though. More 4-5 receiver sets, more shotgun, more no-huddle, more prevent/shell defenses, less blitzing, coaching decisions, coaching clock management, etc. Those things suit some players better than others and the fact that some players may perform better in those situations may have nothing to do with clutch or pressure and more to do with it being a more favorable set of conditions for that player. Again, just another example (or set of examples) for why trying to find QB stats that define or reflect clutch is futile. Simply too many other factors/variables.

 

No, I understood what you said. I just find interesting how you are negating someone's stance because they lack all the available info.....

 

Not "available".. all "necessary" info, which obviously depends on the situation (and stat).

 

lol, I see. Knowing how "clutch" the other units on the offense are isn't "necessary".....

Sigh.