Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

rewing84 wrote:would you least agree john that anderson peetered out between 83-86

yes, and he had some "doldrums" in late-1970s

Andy Piascik wrote:a lot of us going head to head with Clark Heins

Those were the days. Better than the time he was going on about the only way to rank QB's was by their posteason W/L record in road games before going off the deep end. That thread was a classic. Though, with the way advanced metrics/stats and stats people are ranking QB's these days -all surely taking things into account such as Bobby Layne calling his own plays- I guess it was no more ridiculous than that nonsense.

The other AAFC player I wish would get a look but who I don't think has a chance is Dick Barwegan. Like Speedie, he packed a lot of honors into a short-ish career. When I interviewed the late Dick Stanfel, he said Barwegan was considered the gold standard of guards when Stanfel broke in.

Yes. Barwegan absolutely should be in the PFHOF.

Reaser wrote:(some snips added)Though, with the way advanced metrics/stats and stats people are ranking QB's these days -all surely taking things into account such as Bobby Layne calling his own plays- I guess it was no more ridiculous than that nonsense.

Yes. Barwegan absolutely should be in the PFHOF.

Agreed fully about Barwegan -- belongs in, no question Not holding my breath until he does, though.

Re Bobby Layne: just want to clarify that I'm not against him being in the HoF. But like every HoF QB, his resume has strengths and weaknesses. And if Layne had no titles under his belt, instead of the 2 outright and 1 he heavily contributed to, it's unlikely he'd be in Canton. The strongest part of his argument are titles, some intangibles, and possibly some film study aspects (I haven't seen anything written about him on the last of these), not his stats. That's fine -- the HoF has clearly established that QBs with multiple titles and pedestrian or worse stats belong in, and the more titles you win (see Terry Bradshaw), the more you can get away with crummy stats. QB HoF fitness is regardless a blend of factors.

It may be my particular bias, but I like looking at and evaluating things I can quantify, and these tend to be things I prize highly. I also tend to be skeptical of things you can't quantify. Perhaps it's no coincidence that I also like advanced metrics in baseball. I've come around on the thinking that film study is also important, but given the more subjective nature of this discipline, I want to choose folks to believe who seem to know what they're talking about. Couch Troup, Dr. Z, John Turney, Ken Crippen, poster "Bryan" here? My thinking is that these are folks who know how to evaluate film well, given the observations they've shared. But even here, there can be biases and funny glitches -- note that Turney and Dr. Z think highly of Bob Kuechenberg, while Ron Wolf reportedly doesn't so much. In fact, I'm not sure how much I trust Wolf, and I definitely trust Gil Brandt even less (the latter's "best of" lists were a deal breaker for me, at least regarding his capabilities as of now). Maybe my trust is misplaced, but I don't think so.

Reaser, I think you know a lot about this as well, though my guess is that you can be a tougher grader than some. Might be wrong, of course. No question your detailed (and I think fairly stated) observations on Dick Stanfel definitely impacted my thinking on his HoF fitness. He went from a bad snub to "eh" for me as a result, and I appreciate the correction.

JohnTurney wrote:

bachslunch wrote:
In baseball, it has helped show how good players such as Bert Blyleven and Bobby Grich were, which fortunately was enough to get the former enshrined in the BBHoF.

But, according to a very fine book on defensive baseball, Baseball Wizardry I think it's called, the guy tries to come up with metrics that rate defensive players and he uses huis own method but also discusses the 5-6 other methods out there.

I am no baseball guy, I watched a lot when I was younger, but not so much after the guys I was interested were out of MLB. This guy writes that Johnny Bench is probably the best overall catcher, but does not list him in his top 10 in his metric and adds that NONE of the metrics that anyone has come up with rate Bench "very high" I am guessing that is top 10.

However, if you read the literature of the day, also the commentators... they said Bench was one of the best, if not the best. Sure, Jim Sundberg or Yeager or Bob Boone were also good... but to have a metric that leaves Bench out, well, it defies the eye and ear test.

Do I know who the best fielding catchers were? No. Not even close. Was Bench? I don't know. But id lots of people think he was the best? Yes. Do metrics show that? No.

The author does mention the intimidation factor, the fact that when he was in his prime he wasn't challenged and that no one bunted on him, he was too good and those "lack of defensive chances" may skew the metric.

And the guy does a good job of showing Brooks Robinson was great, but likely didn't deserve all 16 GGs..and I can but that, not one (according to Proscout) is always dominant...he maybe deserved 9-10 or so which is pretty awesome..

Catcher fielding, interestingly enough, is probably one of the most nebulous areas in baseball advanced metrics, and even most sabremetricians admit to it. There are a couple reasons, including the need to factor in things that are still not well quantified such as how well they call a game and how well they frame pitches. And other things, such as percentage of caught stealing, gets overrated by some observers. FWIW, there's an article someone posted up at Bleacher Report, and Bench isn't on that list either:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/163 ... ory-of-mlb

In addition, it's pretty clear that WAR tends not to like catchers in relation to everyone else, so one needs to position adjust for them.

JohnTurney wrote:anyway, when a metric shows Ken Anderson all time and I think I know a little, my eye test just takes over. And I was into normalizing stats over eras, I have spreadsheets full of it, and there is some value, but even in mine, it shows Anderson had 4-5 excellent years and the rest...just okay.

3rd or 10th all time? I just have to pass on that kind of metric.

I'm in agreement that rankings like this are only one piece of Anderson's HoF fitness puzzle. He didn't win a title, which dings him for sure. But I don't think it can be discounted, either. And I'm not going to say Anderson is the equal to, say, Peyton Manning or Otto Graham or Joe Montana in total argument. He's not. I just don't think he's the barely borderline guy several folks have suggested here, either.

bachslunch wrote: Reaser, I think you know a lot about this as well, though my guess is that you can be a tougher grader than some.

Just to be clear, all scouting reports on my site are a collaboration of Reaser and myself. Sometimes he was tougher on players, sometimes I was tougher. The end result is us coming to an agreement. Where we differed, we would go back and watch, re-watch, re-re-watch film to come to a consensus.

Ken Crippen wrote:

bachslunch wrote: Reaser, I think you know a lot about this as well, though my guess is that you can be a tougher grader than some.

Just to be clear, all scouting reports on my site are a collaboration of Reaser and myself. Sometimes he was tougher on players, sometimes I was tougher. The end result is us coming to an agreement. Where we differed, we would go back and watch, re-watch, re-re-watch film to come to a consensus.

Thanks, appreciate the clarification. I stand corrected.

rewing84 wrote:which o linemen would you rather see than covert

Quite a few, actually: for pre-1940s; Al Wistert, Ox Emerson, Riley Matheson. For 1950s and later; Jim Tyrer, Walt Sweeney, Dick Barwegan, Winston Hill, Jim Ray Smith, Duane Putnam, Ed Budde, George Kunz, Mike Kenn, Bob Kuechenberg, Gale Gillingham, Ken Gray, Ed White, Joe Jacoby, likely Marvin Powell and John Niland as well. Today, anyway.

Andy Piascik wrote:Regarding Speedie, I don't know exactly how to factor this is in but it seems that his losing four potential seasons to World War 2 military service should be considered in his Hall-worthiness. Lots of guys lost time to the war (and others lost a lot more) but I can't think of another elite player who spent over four years in the service. Whenever Speedie's name comes up regarding the HOF, him jumping to Canada invariably gets mentioned, the gist sort of being, "Well, if he had just stayed and played at a high level for another season or two, he would have been elected a long time ago." The fact that he didn't play his first game until well past his 26th birthday because of the war kind of gets left out of the story.

Andy, this gives me some more sympathy for Speedie's case. I'm fighting a similar uphill battle with Latone who didn't play a down in the NFL until '25 at the age of 28 but really made the most of those 5 seasons in the '20s establishing himself as one of the best backs in the game - unofficial statistics, testimonials, and what few contemporary articles that are out there, in programs and such, back this up. He was also just as good on defense, but disappointingly, no one gives any extra weight to two-way players. I was able to find where he made All-Anthracite league in '24 and players like Grange and Pollard have attested to the high level of play there - the pay could even be better than in the NFL. Possible AAFC analogy? Latone was also in the Navy during WWI. And if you don't like Latone, Lewellen, and Youngstrom are also good choices outside of the big 2 (Dilweg, Slater). Then you take the 10s - an entire decade of football represented by just Jim Thorpe. I'll just give you one player - Bob Nash. Always recruited to play for Massillon, one of the top teams, testimonials from Greasy Neale and Thorpe, Phil Dietrich won the Nelson Ross Award and you can see what he says about Nash helping Akron to the '20 title and similarly with John Carroll, Pollard's biographer. Nash was even All-Anthracite League as late as '24.

Anyway, I read the PFRA does not support candidates for the HOF. It was in the minutes of a meeting. Doesn't that mean the page with Dilweg, Speedie, Slater, and Wistert shouldn't be up? Not that it bothers me, but I thought there was an organization wide position on the subject.

bachslunch wrote: Couch Troup, Dr. Z, John Turney, Ken Crippen, poster "Bryan" here? My thinking is that these are folks who know how to evaluate film well, given the observations they've shared. But even here, there can be biases and funny glitches -- note that Turney and Dr. Z think highly of Bob Kuechenberg, while Ron Wolf reportedly doesn't so much. In fact, I'm not sure how much I trust Wolf, and I definitely trust Gil Brandt even less (the latter's "best of" lists were a deal breaker for me, at least regarding his capabilities as of now). Maybe my trust is misplaced, but I don't think so.

Everyone has biases. Also, maybe only the coaches and teammates of the individual players can truly properly evaluate the film. With everyone else it can be a lot of guesswork. Maybe a stunt caused guard and tackle confusion which led to a tackle being credited with a sack allowed when really the guard messed up worse on the play. Pro Football Focus might ding the guard, you might ding the tackle, I might ding them both, and someone who was an offensive lineman might actually find a way to blame the center!

Baseball and football are completely different sports. Weird to use baseball thinking in football, especially statistically.

Baseball is basically the perfect game for stats. A player either got on base or he didn't. It's black and white. Not much context needed. It tells the story of what happened. It's largely an individual (1v1) sport. There isn't 11 players in the batters box at one time. If the leadoff hitter strikes out and you're batting 8th, you don't get a/his strikeout applied to your stats. He struck out, you didn't.

"Catcher fielding" is a good example of one of the few non-black and white areas of baseball stats. And it's an even better example for football because all of football is like that, and even moreso.

It's a team sport. A QB isn't throwing the ball 30 yards downfield, teleporting, then catching it himself. A RB isn't sending his spirt(s?) out of his body to block for himself.

Kicking is the only thing really comparable to baseball stats, either made it or you didn't, and even that is dependent on teammates (good snap, good hold, etc). Or Punting, but as we've seen on our forum no one can decide which punting stats matter and net, teammates downing it inside the 20, teammates saving it from being a touchback, etc, dependent on teammates.

Baseball if you don't read a detailed description or watch it you still get what happened. If someone grounded out to third they grounded out to third. Football isn't like that, at all. An incomplete pass doesn't necessarily mean the QB failed. It can mean he sailed it 20 yards over everyone's head. It could also mean he threw a perfect pass and the WR dropped it. It could mean the ball was tipped at the LOS. It could mean a DB just made a great play and knocked it away. It could mean no blocking and had to throw it away. Who knows unless we watch what happened, or get a detailed description from someone who did.

Since Layne was mentioned, will use him for example:

No context: Layne only threw for 155 yards, didn't throw for any TD's and threw an interception. And we judge interceptions in the 50's the exact same way we do in more modern times because that makes complete sense. Typical Bobby Layne, throwing an interception and having bad stats.

Context: Layne led his team down the field, in a true sense calling his own plays, using his teammates and putting them and the team in the best position to advance the ball down the field, he ran for a TD then kicked the extra point to finish off the drive and tie the game. Then he led his team down the field, calling his own plays, and put his team and himself in position with seconds left in the game to kick the game-winning FG, which he made.

Then you can add more context: Layne missed a potential GW FG 3 minutes earlier, one of his few misses that season, but the Lions got the ball back when Yale Lary intercepted a pass when the opponent was trying to get in position to break the tie.

And so on. A lot more going on than 155, 0, 1.