Kirk Cousins pick 4.7

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by warriorzpath

What my point is - you can't take stats out of context and use it in place of playing ability. Every qb's situation is different. And in the case of Elway's (and also, Campbell's case), you have to throw the completion% stat out of window. So when someone is supporting an opinion and uses a stat like that - to me - it's the lazy way to determine a qb's potential and ability -- in place of analyzing through watching and it's just plain B.S.

When you take statistics out of context, you've made them useless. Which is why I said if you don't know how to use them, they aren't useful. It has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to judge talent from watching a guy play. It is not an either or. They are two different evaluation skills. They are actually both at their most predictive when they are unrelated to each other.

Most fans don't know how to use statistics, and they don't know how to evaluate from watching. But I think a much higher percentage of fans overestimate their ability to evaluate by watching. Hardly anyone overvalues their ability to read statistics meaningfully.

And the truth is if you watch a team 16 games per year you will hear enough football jargon on broadcasts and in the papers to have some concept of who is good and who is bad, even if you have absolutely no football background. So even someone who never has seen a football game in their lives, if they watched every Redskins game between now and 2013, they would be able to tell you that Brian Orakpo is really good, and Jammal Brown is not.