Why Is Coaching Just The Last 10 Percent?

I wrote the other day about the issue I've had assuming that, you know, Andy Reid had some sort of plan for what he's been doing and wasn't just making things up as he went along.  Wrong-o on that one and I try to take my knocks when they're deserved.

And thank you again for the back-handed compliments in the comments on that one...

Today I want to bring up another fallacy I think a number of other people are falling prey to at the moment.  That's this idea that losing close games somehow proves the coaches are at fault, rather than the players.

Now with that statement, I know the defenses for half of you just went up, so let me try to talk them back down before we move futher forward.

For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't really matter where on the continuum we place the blame.  My graph looks something like this:

             blame
              ||
              \/
Players x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Coaches 

Yours may look something like this:

                             blame
                               ||
                               \/
Players x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Coaches 

All of that's cool, and I think we'd all agree that no matter the issues, we'd certainly be better off with a roster of 22 Hall of Famers or a coaching staff of Lombardi, Walsh and Belichick.  There's certainly room for improvements on both ends. 

The specific point here is simply the use of "close games" as a way of proving the fault lies with the coaches -- and why that doesn't work.

A few weeks ago, Reuben Frank tried to make the case that it does.  He defined a "close game" as anything within a touchdown, so his methodology would have covered this past week's game against the Giants. 

The problem is that the only reason the game was close was because of Winston Justice.  If he doesn't completely blow his block on that field goal attempt, at the very least it's a 13-point win.  (And it could have been 16 if Akers had made the kick.)  Furthermore, if the defense does just a little better job on its last drive on the field, it's not even that close.

You could make the case that all of those things are at some level Reid's fault.  Or you could say instead that he bears little blame for what happened on those few plays.  Either way, what's clear is that there's absolutely no reason Andy Reid should get "close win" credit for that one.  And yet he would have under any points-based analysis, which just goes to show that these sorts of statistics, without context, are pretty meaningless.

The second problem is that if you disagree with me about that, you'll find that there are people who want to use the exact same statistics to make the exact opposite case.  Here's Mark Eckel doing just that with McNabb:

When Donovan McNabb was becoming one of the top quarterbacks in the league and taking the Eagles to that quartet of NFC Championship Games, he would have found a way to win a game like Sunday night's loss to the Giants.

That was one of the qualities that made McNabb special, his ability to win games in the clutch, bring his team back in the fourth quarter, do, well, what all the great quarterbacks do...

Now, it never happens any more.

He kind of has a point, right?  Does anyone doubt that if Tom Brady were running the show, the Eagles offense would look a little better in those late and close situations?  I love McNabb, but I don't think so.  He's not as good in the two-minute drill as a guy like Brady.

But let's say you figured out a way to scrub out all that variation.  Your model somehow looked only at games that were actually close, not "close" based on the final score.  And you had a way to control for things like McNabb in the two-minute drill, maybe by only looking at games where that situation didn't come up (perhaps because the defense finished the game or the score stayed static near the end).

You still wouldn't be able to use this to definitively blame the coaches or the players because you wouldn't be able to appropriately credit why the game was even close.

Say the Eagles were playing the Titans tomorrow.  Or if you don't want to concede the superiority of that squad, call it the 2007 Patriots, 1990s Cowboys, 1980s Niners or 1970s Steelers.  Pick your favorite dominant team and go with it.

If the Eagles lost that hypothetical match-up by a score of 23-20, would you say it was because the coaches suck?  After all, it was a close game, and don't we all know that coaching makes the difference in those situations?

No, you wouldn't, because you'd understand the the Eagles were the less talented team and therefore the coaches must have done something right to make the score as close as it was. 

But what if everything was the same except that Andy Reid mangled the timeout situation in the second half -- oh that Andy Reid -- costing the Eagles a chance at a late field goal to tie the game?  In that case, wouldn't it be fair to blame Reid for blowing the close game?

Well, yes and no.  It would absolutely be fair to pillory him for screwing up the clock management situation again.  Especially since I'm still here waiting for the call and would work for sideline passes.

On the other hand, that would be like blaming Ryan Howard for striking out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to cost his team the game.  Yes, it's an annoying habit he has.  Yes, it hurt his team that day.  No, he's not the reason they lost, since he'd driven in six runs earlier and the problem was the ghost of Adam Eaton couldn't get it done. 

The difference is that in the Howard situation, it's very easy to see the positive plays he made.  Just like it's easy with a wide receiver to say, "Well, he dropped that one, but did you see the amazing catch he made earlier?"

We can't get this kind of complete picture with coaches.  We see when he blows his timeouts or makes a crummy challenge or does the wrong thing on fourth-and-one, but what we don't see is when he uses something he sees on film to take advantage of a defensive end or to create a goal-line auto-audible for the shovel pass or even the little adjustments he makes with where he tries to get Westbrook the ball in the passing game. 

It could still be that he nets out negative in this analysis.  Maybe he's good for two points a game and costs his team three.  I doubt it, but it's certainly not easy to tell. 

You can't just pin the last 10 percent on the coaches without also considering the first 90.

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Programming note.  I'm going to try to do some video rewinding tonight.  We'll see what I can get through.