Oh, I have been. I haven’t even told you that you shouldn’t try to converse in a language you obviously don’t understand, which is something you sorely need to be told, and told repeatedly.
I’d be really interested to see what the numbers are for each quarterback when behind in the fourth quarter, or better yet, when behind in the final two minutes. Of course, that gives us an even tinier sample size.
Baseball isn’t analogous. Late in close games, the batter’s role doesn’t change. In the NFL, a QB’s role does, as you yourself explained. (More shotgun, facing different schemes, more likely to pass, etc…)
And as I understand it, people don’t believe in clutch because in baseball, there is no statistical difference in the regular stats compared to clutch stats. In football, there is. So the same numbers convincing people there is no clutch in baseball should be equally convincing that there is clutch in football.
Yes, very much so. How can you, a Giants fan, even ask that? Kerry Collins had a huge stretch where he was the comeback kid, a little with the Panthers but then very much so with the Giants.
Favre, OTOH, is well-known as the “throw a pick late in close games to lose it” guy. He didn’t set the record by accident. Tell me, when, exactly, do you think it’s most likely for Favre to throw a pick? Maybe when he’s behind, running out of time, and trying to force a throw to mount a comeback? Ya think?
And that right there is the generalized difference that makes all the baseball clutch stats irrelevant. Late in close NFL games, QBs are more likely to throw picks because they can’t just punt and try again next drive; they have to force the throw even if nobody is open. Late in close MLB games, batters more likely to strike out/ground out/pop fly because…why?
How about the fact that QBs are suffering from “we’ll lose anyway, so might as well try to force the ball in there”? This is not a difficult, or even particularly esoteric, concept.
Again, YES. For a Giants fan, you seem to not watch a lot of Giants games. Are you seriously telling me you have never noticed that the Giants under Eli have always struggled in the 3rd quarter?
I get prickly with you for two reasons: One, Jimmy’s swarmy douchiness never ceases to annoy me. Second, you really don’t seem to be a very good Giants fan. You don’t pay attention to the Giants; I’ve never seen you once offer any kind of insight on the Giants you couldn’t glean from Sportcenter highlights. Three years into his career you’re still on the fence about Tuck, while every other Giants fan and his brother recognized his talent from day one. You don’t think Tiki can survive because other backs don’t, despite his running style combined with his mastery of angles made his amount of wear and tear obviously less than most RBs, thereby making his career window longer. You never noticed that the Giants struggle in the 3rd quarter. You think it’s a slam dunk that Favre is better in the clutch than Collins despite Scary Kerry being literally the comeback kid for the Giants for half a decade. You probably don’t even know that the Giants suck on MNF.
I mean, come on man, if you’re the representative, Giants fans are casual fans at best who think the Giants suck and/or are overrated.
It’s funny; in every debate we’ve had, you’ve abandoned the debate and gone for cheap personal attacks while claiming victory. Perhaps that’s why I give your opinion zero respect. By contrast, VarlosZ is always thoughtful and is able to remain on-topic, making his arguments worth reading.
If you want to attack me personally, open a pit thread. This thread is for debating football; give that a shot, oh brilliant one. Your post does not count as your cite.
As a related question, is Tiger Woods clutch?
EDIT: I believe most people think he is, though ironically I do not. One of the main reasons I still think Jack is better is because Jack was clutch, with something like 8 or 9 comeback wins in majors. (Not sharing the lead going into the fourth day.) By contrast, Tiger has never come back to win a major. Not once.
So what? That just means Jack wasn’t as good on the first three days.
Are we all agreed that choking under pressure is a real phenomenon? Most professional athletes are loathe to admit ever doing so, but tennis is a notable exception. Several top tennis players have been open and candid about choking under pressure, and how they had to fight to overcome such issues. One of the top women players – maybe Justine Hennin – spoke about this within the past few years. Andy Roddick probably has as well.
If there is such a thing as choking under pressure, it would stand to reason that there is such a thing as stepping up under pressure. I don’t want to assume you guys believe in choking, so I’m asking. Do you?
Well, it does mean that, but not just that. It also means that Tiger has never rallied on the fourth day; he has always and only ever ridden a lead on the fourth day. Classic frontrunner.
Don’t get me wrong; Tiger’s ability to get out in front early is quite impressive. Jack was no slouch in that department either, though obviously not on Tiger’s level. But how impressive is it to jump out to an early lead and coast to victory? Isn’t that the strategy that Peyton rode to six straight years without a playoff win to start his career?
That’s not exactly accurate. In baseball, there are plenty of players with better numbers in “high leverage” situations (and plenty of players with worse numbers). The reason people say that clutch hitting doesn’t exist is that the distribution of the “clutch” and “choke” players is no different than you’d expect if there was no clutch ability and the differences were just the result of random chance; some players are just going to wind up with unusually good or bad numbers in certain situations; get enough data points together and there are bound to be some outliers. Also, there’s no predictive value to the numbers. That is, a baseball player who’s had better clutch numbers than regular numbers for five straight years is no more likely to have better clutch numbers in Year 6 than a player who’s had *worse *clutch numbers for five straight years.
As you correctly point out, football is somewhat different. There may well be (in fact, there almost certainly are) Quarterbacks whose strengths lie in the types of things QBs are asked to do at the end of close games … but that’s not what people usually mean by “clutch.”
More importantly, statistically speaking, we don’t know what the deal is with football and clutch situations. As far as I’m aware, no one has ever done a *serious *analysis (thissort of thing doesn’t qualify), and even if they did football is a much harder game to quantify than baseball, as you’re well aware. You can’t just look at one player, or 17 players, and think you’ve proved something. You can’t even prove something by looking at 1,000 players if you don’t know what it is you’re supposed to be looking for.
I never really bought the comeback kid routine: just because the Giants (not just Collins) had a string of come-from-behind wins eight years ago does not mean that Kerry Collins becomes a better QB in the clutch. And, yes, that’s Favre’s reputation now, but for the longest time he was the Jeter of football as far as rep goes.
This is a total sidetrack, but if you’d rather have mid-career Collins than mid-career Favre to lead a 2-minute drill down by 4, then you is nuts, brother. Favre will probably throw more interceptions, but he’ll also throw more touchdowns. He was just a much better player. To pick Collins because his QB Rating in C&L situations is 75.3 while Favre’s is 69.5 is silly. Favre’s numbers will be hurt by all the interceptions he throws, but Collin’s numbers won’t be hurt by the times he throws a 6-yard completion on 4th & 10, or the times he gets sacked to kill the drive.
To pick Collins over Favre in these situation because you watched him play and he was totally clutch also strikes me as kind of silly, but for different reasons.
Never noticed it. Checking now. . .
Giants’ Offensive DVOA:
. . . . 3rd Q . . . Ovr.
'05 – 18th . . . 9th
'06 – 8th . . . 9th
'07 – 18th . . . 19th
'08 – 9th . . . 1st
Doesn’t look that different to me. Three years ago they were slightly below average instead of slightly above, and in less than half a season this year they’re slightly above average instead of excellent. It would actually be a little surprising if the numbers were *more *consistent than this.
Is it possible this is a case of confirmation bias? Maybe sometime in '05 you see a stat about the Giants poor performance in the 3rd Quarter, and since then, whenever the Giants have a bad 3rd, you remember it and classify it as part of a trend, while not taking as much notice of the 3rd Quarters that contradict your previously held beliefs. I do it all the time. *Everyone *does it all the time.
A lot of folks would be offended by the above. Just sayin’.
Anyway, I don’t think I’m a worse fan than you are. Just different. You might watch the game more intently than I do, and I imagine you spend more time talking about the Giants, as well. If you think that makes me a bad fan then, well, ok I guess, but you seem a lot more fanatic than the vast majority of fans in those regards.
However, if you think I’m a bad fan because I’m not tuned into the same memes as you are, then I don’t know what to tell you. You never noticed that Eli Manning’s closest statistical comparison through his first three years was Jay Schroeder, right? And you probably don’t even know that the 2007 Giants outperformed their pythagorean projection by almost 2 wins. Yes? Does that make you a bad fan, or just a fan who pays attention to different things than I do?
And your list above isn’t a list of things I’m ignorant of, it’s a list of things we disagree about. I never said Tiki couldn’t survive, I said it was very unlikely that he wouldn’t decline, and it *was *unlikely. I said Tuck has never been a full-time player and so I’m reluctant to label him as literally “great” just yet, which I think is prudent, to say the least. I don’t think the Giants do struggle in the 3rd Quarter in any meaningful way that’s likely to repeat itself. I don’t think the Giants do suck on MNF in any meaningful way that’s likely to repeat itself. I will take the first-ballot Hall of Famer to lead my game-winning drive over the somewhat above average journeyman any day of the week, and I won’t apologize for it.
Probably not in the way you mean.
There are some really obvious examples of egregious mental blocks affecting performance (Chuck Knoblauch suddenly losing the ability to throw from 2nd Base to 1st Base comes immediately to mind), but for the day-to-day stuff (“A-Rod grounded out in the 9th because he’s a choker”) I think it’s mostly crap. I think almost all of the guys who do freeze up in the big spots get weeded out before draft day.
An alternate theory I’ve heard holds that virtually *everyone *tightens up in the big spots, and that the “clutch” players are the just the guys who can go on playing their normal game (sounds like the famously unflappable Eli, right?). I don’t entirely buy it, but if there is a clutch ability I suspect this is the form it would take.
Individual sports like golf and tennis may be different, I really can’t say.
Yes, I’ve certainly claimed victory here and made cheap personal attacks. That’s certainly true.
Guys, is this really necessary? We’re getting into a three-way spat over what are, let’s face it, very, very ethereal concerns.
No, it’s a two-way spat; **Ellis **and I have been pretty cordial with each other. For implying otherwise, however, I am now required to get into a spat with you. Ratfucker!
You’re right. My apologies for the distraction.
I’m surprised it is up to me to revive this thread after BIG BLUE laid a whupping on a depleted Cowgirls team, despite Manning-the-Younger’s three turnovers. That’s 2 NFC East wins under out belt, only 4 more to go. Hopefully the 'girls heal up over the bye-week and come back ready to play and beat the 'skins mercilessly.
Weird game though, it was very one-sided but yet I feel like the Giants failed to capitalize several times in the second half and Eli looked careless and Plaxico out of sync.
I was also really angry about the Tuck foul that should have been a sack and rescued the drive that got Dallas their offensive TD. That was one of the worse foul calls I have ever seen. If that was considered a foul, they really do need to put the Quarterbacks in dresses.
It wasn’t going to be a sack - Bollinger had already gotten rid of the ball (into the ground about eight yards downfield, I think).
It was a silly call, though; Bollinger stepped into the throw right into Tuck, so his options were creaming the quarterback or trying not to hit him, which would have been pretty dumb since he was still holding the ball.
That was a pretty clutch insult, there. 
No apologies necessary. I’m not an NFC East fan so this isn’t really my thread. I just don’t like people getting personal over stuff like this.
and then rack up enough wins to make wildcard, then go to NYG as underdogs, beating the gnats in the playoffs on the way to a Dallas Super Bowl win.
Right…why don’t you have them beat the #1 and #2-seeded teams on the road, eventually beating the then-18-0 Titans in the SB, why dont’cha?
That sounds familiar, was that the premise of some ridiculous sports movie out of Hollywood?
Really Not All That Bright, good point, not a sack. I was just so pissed at the call that I forgot he got the ball away.