Just how important is "clutch", really?

Late to this but clutch isn't a thing. You're either good or you're not. If you can control whether you are better at the end of a game than you are during the other parts then why wouldn't you just be that level good for the whole game? It's a media and fan narrative, in part because it's the last thing that happens and therefore it's the thing we remember best.

"DevilFin13 wrote:

Late to this but clutch isn't a thing. You're either good or you're not. If you can control whether you are better at the end of a game than you are during the other parts then why wouldn't you just be that level good for the whole game? It's a media and fan narrative, in part because it's the last thing that happens and therefore it's the thing we remember best.

it is a real thing as pros talk about it, before the pressure they are just playing, but when the pressure turns up they feel it

Yeah, but this idea that people play better than their norm when under pressure is ridiculous. Sure there can be more pressure, but, you get used to it. Like, in golf. When I first started playing, par putts were crazy hard, cause I wasn't used to them. Then par putts were no problem, but birdie putts made my knees knock. Now I'm getting more used to taking birdie putts, and those aren't such a big deal anymore. Or teeing off with people watching. Used to freak me out. Now, I don't care.

"DevilFin13 wrote:

Late to this but clutch isn't a thing. You're either good or you're not. If you can control whether you are better at the end of a game than you are during the other parts then why wouldn't you just be that level good for the whole game? It's a media and fan narrative, in part because it's the last thing that happens and therefore it's the thing we remember best.

I have looked at the win% of QBs who have started a minimum of 100 NFL games and their record in 0-7 point games.
Stat monkeys have long said that a record in 0-7 trends back to 50%. Since every game has a winner and loser this is correct for the league.
From what I have found there are 86 QBs who have started 100 games that we have stats for their record in 0-7 point games. We don't have that information for pre 1960 games.

Overall:
86 QBs.
Win% in 0-7 point games: 52.3
This is a lot higher than expected considering this is a record of nearly 6000 0-7 point games.

But of those 86 QBs 19 are in the HoF. I think any reasonable person will agree that Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, who are not in the HoF yet will be first ballot HOFers. I will therefore treat them as if they were already in the HoF for analysis purposes.
If we treat HoF QBs and non HoF QBs as separate groups.

Hof QBs
22 QBs
Win% in 0-7 point games: 57.1%

Non HoF QBs
64 QBs
Win% in 0-7 point games: 50.6%

The non-HoF group of QBs performs basically as expected, very close to 50% and no evidence that 'clutch' is more than random chance. By making the cut off 100 starts we are making sure we are looking at long term starting quality QBs.

The HoF group are performing far beyond what could reasonably ascribed to random variations. What this demonstrates is that some QBs have the ability to consistently win more close games than average QBs.

When you consider that most QBs play an average seven or eight 0-7 point games per season winning 57% of them equates to winning an extra half a game per season. So to my mind it would be close to impossible to say whether a QB won any particular game because of their 'clutchiness', but it is more an overall effect that is in play whenever they are in a close game.

What I think the debate is about is where that shift in win% above or below 50% comes from.
What you describe is well known and I think it counts a long way to excluding execution of physical skills as the cause in the shift in win%. My belief is that it has more to do with decision making, the 'field general' side of being a QB - knowing which receiver to throw to, knowing when to eat the sack or to throw the ball away, making good down and distance judgements, knowing when to throw for receiver to get YAC and when to throw to help the receiver to get out of bounds.
Some posters however believe that it is more in the execution of physical skills.
The only way to get a proper answer is really extensive film analysis,

PS When I started this I was firmly of the belief that 'clutch' did not exist. precisely for the reasons you say. It's only when I looked at the difference between HoF and non-HoF QBs that I realized there is something to be investigated further,

"DevilFin13 wrote:

Late to this but clutch isn't a thing. You're either good or you're not. If you can control whether you are better at the end of a game than you are during the other parts then why wouldn't you just be that level good for the whole game? It's a media and fan narrative, in part because it's the last thing that happens and therefore it's the thing we remember best.

What you are saying, is that "nervous" doesn't exist, which is obviously false.

When people say clutch doesn't exist, they mean a player doesn't play at a higher level than normal in pressure situations. Of course a player can crack under pressure. But it seems just "not cracking under pressure" isn't what people are talking about when talking about clutch. It seems they are talking about a player playing better than they can....which doesn't make sense from a logic level.

Clutch is merely a euphemism for things such as maintaining focus. There has been research on this that indicates pressure can lead to a decrease of working memory.

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"Fin D wrote:

When people say clutch doesn't exist, they mean a player doesn't play at a higher level than normal in pressure situations. Of course a player can crack under pressure. But it seems just "not cracking under pressure" isn't what people are talking about when talking about clutch. It seems they are talking about a player playing better than they can....which doesn't make sense from a logic level.

Performance will always be relative to those a player is competing against, so someone playing better could merely be a player handling pressure better than those in the same situation.

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"DevilFin13 wrote:

Late to this but clutch isn't a thing. You're either good or you're not. If you can control whether you are better at the end of a game than you are during the other parts then why wouldn't you just be that level good for the whole game? It's a media and fan narrative, in part because it's the last thing that happens and therefore it's the thing we remember best.

Nate Keading destroys your whole argument. Clutch means performing under pressure. So if you're good, you're still good when the big lights are on. It doesn't necessarily mean a player gets even BETTER in high pressure situations.

The bold part is exactly the point.

"Fin D wrote:

When people say clutch doesn't exist, they mean a player doesn't play at a higher level than normal in pressure situations. Of course a player can crack under pressure. But it seems just "not cracking under pressure" isn't what people are talking about when talking about clutch. It seems they are talking about a player playing better than they can....which doesn't make sense from a logic level.

If a player can "crack" under pressure, then it stands to reason that a player can "elevate" under pressure, some people lose focus, others have their focus intensified.

I can't speak for everybody, but if a player can maintain his own level under high pressure situations I consider that clutch.

"jdang307 wrote:

Nate Keading destroys your whole argument. Clutch means performing under pressure. So if you're good, you're still good when the big lights are on. It doesn't necessarily mean a player gets even BETTER in high pressure situations.

Lol, Kaeding was always clutch in the playoffs, clutch'n his throat.

"Stringer Bell wrote:

Performance will always be relative to those a player is competing against, so someone playing better could merely be a player handling pressure better than those in the same situation.

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And?

"Finster wrote:

If a player can "crack" under pressure, then it stands to reason that a player can "elevate" under pressure, some people lose focus, others have their focus intensified.

I can't speak for everybody, but if a player can maintain his own level under high pressure situations I consider that clutch.

Not really though to the bold.

If the best a player can play is X, then they cannot exceed that by definition. If they are playing at level X in pressure situations and that's better then they normally play, then the level they normally play is <X. That means they aren't playing their best at other times essentially....which isn't a good thing.

In this way, you can either play as good as you can play or worse.

But I guess we're kind of saying the same thing.

"Fin D wrote:

When people say clutch doesn't exist, they mean a player doesn't play at a higher level than normal in pressure situations. Of course a player can crack under pressure. But it seems just "not cracking under pressure" isn't what people are talking about when talking about clutch. It seems they are talking about a player playing better than they can....which doesn't make sense from a logic level.

Yeah it's important to understand what we're arguing so that debates aren't based on misunderstandings.

As you point out people can crack under pressure. The question is whether a person cracks less under pressure than the average person in the same situation (like Stringer Bell pointed out). That's where the whole idea of looking at drop-offs comes from. Look at the average drop-off in whatever stat you care about (say 4th quarter performance from overall average, etc..) and compare the drop-off for your QB to the average drop-off.

If statistically speaking that drop-off was unlikely to occur (quantifying what "unlikely" means by looking at a distribution), then you have statistical evidence for "clutch" in the sense that the person doesn't crack as much under pressure as others do. Of course, you'll have to look at many other such stats to see if there's a pattern or you're just cherry-picking one stat.

There is of course the rare case of someone performing better under greater pressure. Flacco is the best example. After 2 disastrous playoff seasons, he just got better and better till he consistently averaged a higher rating in the playoffs than during the regular season, but that's rare of course:
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/F/FlacJo00.htm

"Fin D wrote:

Not really though to the bold.

If the best a player can play is X, then they cannot exceed that by definition. If they are playing at level X in pressure situations and that's better then they normally play, then the level they normally play is <X. That means they aren't playing their best at other times essentially....which isn't a good thing.

In this way, you can either play as good as you can play or worse.

But I guess we're kind of saying the same thing.

Adrenaline can push a person to go beyond what is normal, being in pressure situations can raise the adrenaline, high pressure can also "galvanize" a person and thereby raise his normal focus level.

Same thing occurs in the Army, generally speaking, you can do more push ups with an angry drill sergeant behind you than you can on your own, which is based on fear.

Bravery is "clutch" performance, people have in many instances performed well above their normal capabilities in critical situations.

Why are we surprised that HoF QBS have better win percentages in 0-7 point games than non HoF QBs? HoF QBS are better, hence, HoF, so...

I bet if you had to have an angry drill sergeant yell at you for many years while you did push-ups, the effect of the angry drill sergeant would become much less pronounced. You would get used to it, and would no longer fear it. You would eventually regress much closer to your mean.

As the brain becomes accustomed to stressful situations, they become less and less stressful, thereby improving the level of performance.

"dolphin25 wrote:

it is a real thing as pros talk about it, before the pressure they are just playing, but when the pressure turns up they feel it

"pressure" is a thing. That's why less than 1% of 1% of the population can play pro sports.

Clutch, "the ability to play better at certain times", is not a thing.

"danmarino wrote:

"pressure" is a thing. That's why less than 1% of 1% of the population can play pro sports.

Clutch, "the ability to play better at certain times", is not a thing.

Eli Manning? Joe Flacco?

"Fin D wrote:

Not really though to the bold.

If the best a player can play is X, then they cannot exceed that by definition. If they are playing at level X in pressure situations and that's better then they normally play, then the level they normally play is <X. That means they aren't playing their best at other times essentially....which isn't a good thing.

In this way, you can either play as good as you can play or worse.

But I guess we're kind of saying the same thing.

lol.

"resnor wrote:

Why are we surprised that HoF QBS have better win percentages in 0-7 point games than non HoF QBs? HoF QBS are better, hence, HoF, so...

To be honest I was.

It's repeated as a mantra on stats sites that 0-7 point games regress to 50% and clutch does not exist.

Before looking at the numbers I thought coaching would make a bigger impact.

Also the correlation between passer rating and win% in 0-7 games is zero.

So the Hof QBs aren't winning a higher% of 0-7 point games because they have a higher overall passer rating. Which makes sense because your passer rating is what helps you get into close games against evenly matched opponents. Passers with high passer ratings are playing their 0-7 point games against good teams and poor passers are playing their 0-7 point games against bad teams, so the result should be a coin toss.

The specific nature of what HoF QBs are doing to move the win% needle in close games is the $64,000 question

Maybe I'm being simple minded, but I'm not surprised that better QBs do better in those situations than orise QBs do, regardless of opponent skill level.

In other words, I would expect Tom Brady to make better decisions when playing the Seahawks than I would Mark Sanchez when playing the Browns.

I don't see that as "clutch," but as better QBs doing what better QBs do. If the worse QBs made better decisions all the time, they wouldn't be worse QBs. HoF QBs aren't simply making good decisions in pressure situations, they always (well, not always cause they're not perfect) are making good decisions. So in pressure situations, they do what they always do. And the poor QBs do what they always do.

"jdang307 wrote:

Eli Manning? Joe Flacco?

Eli Manning has had stretches in regular season where he was awesome. He's had times in playoffs where he's awesome. And he's had the opposite. People just remember the awesome. Same with Flacco

"resnor wrote:

Eli Manning has had stretches in regular season where he was awesome. He's had times in playoffs where he's awesome. And he's had the opposite. People just remember the awesome. Same with Flacco

Flacco has had one bad game since his year in the playoffs in 2009. Since then he's 24 TD/4 INT and ridiculous ratings. Against better competition.

Eli Manning in the playoffs has a better rating, usually where ratings go down in the playoffs because of tighter competition.

It is very important as that it is over in the coming down to the playoffs. As well as trying to go right down to the Nitty Gritty of It! Either win or go home!