andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-2082 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Sports researcher Dave Berri had a disagreement with a remark in our recent discussion of Malcolm Gladwell. Berri writes: This post [from Gelman] contains the following paragraph: Similarly, when Gladwell claimed that NFL quarterback performance is unrelated to the order they were drafted out of college, he appears to have been wrong. But if you take his writing as stone soup, maybe it’s valuable: just retreat to the statement that there’s only a weak relationship between draft order and NFL performance. That alone is interesting. It’s too bad that Gladwell sometimes has to make false general statements in order to get our attention, but maybe that’s what is needed to shake people out of their mental complacency. The above paragraph links to a blog post by Eric Loken. This is something you have linked to before. And when you linked to it before I tried to explain why Loken’s work is not very good. Since you still think this work shows that Gladwell – and therefore Rob
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1 Berri writes: This post [from Gelman] contains the following paragraph: Similarly, when Gladwell claimed that NFL quarterback performance is unrelated to the order they were drafted out of college, he appears to have been wrong. [sent-2, score-0.504]
2 But if you take his writing as stone soup, maybe it’s valuable: just retreat to the statement that there’s only a weak relationship between draft order and NFL performance. [sent-3, score-0.231]
3 Loken begins by looking at the link between touchdowns and draft position. [sent-11, score-0.441]
4 We documented in our research that quarterbacks drafted first receive more playing time. [sent-15, score-0.27]
5 Given that this research is about how draft position relates to performance, not being able to measure performance is a problem. [sent-22, score-0.369]
6 He also looks at per-play statistics, like touchdowns per game, to counter what he considers an opportunity bias. [sent-25, score-0.553]
7 We also looked at career performance after 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 years. [sent-32, score-0.313]
8 Loken then says we looked at touchdowns per game, which he calls a per play statistic. [sent-42, score-0.968]
9 Touchdowns per game are obviously not a per play statistic. [sent-43, score-0.68]
10 Touchdowns per play or per pass attempt would be a per play statistic. [sent-44, score-1.127]
11 In our research we did look at touchdowns per pass attempt. [sent-46, score-0.551]
12 So we also looked at QB Score per play, Net Points per play, Wins Produced per play, the NFL’s quarterback rating, Passing yards per attempt, Interceptions per attempt, and Completion percentage. [sent-48, score-1.527]
13 I also sent you the above link to the blog post I wrote responding to Loken and other writers. [sent-52, score-0.235]
14 com/2010/05/26/and-yet-another-look-at-drafting-quarterbacks-in-the-nfl/ Despite all this, you have chosen to argue that Loken’s poorly constructed blog post indicates that Gladwell – and again, therefore Rob Simmons and I – are “wrong”. [sent-56, score-0.284]
15 Rather than report the results seen in the academic literature, imagine Gladwell argued that poorly constructed blog posts by uninformed people were sufficient to refute what we see in the academic literature. [sent-58, score-0.224]
16 Both of you are relying on very poor analysis from a blog post to refute published research. [sent-62, score-0.245]
17 Berri argues that high draft picks get more playing time and that it’s best to compare scores per play, yards per attempt, etc. [sent-69, score-1.04]
18 Loken argues that by conditioning on the outcome that is total playing time, you’re eliminating much of the effect. [sent-70, score-0.209]
19 To put it another way: Berri and Loken agree that NFL quarterback outcomes are related to the order they were drafted out of college. [sent-71, score-0.294]
20 From a formal causal inference perspective, I think one would want to study this using some sort of latent-variable model to take advantage of the information from playing time and also the per-play, per-game, and per-season statistics. [sent-75, score-0.258]
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Introduction: Sports researcher Dave Berri had a disagreement with a remark in our recent discussion of Malcolm Gladwell. Berri writes: This post [from Gelman] contains the following paragraph: Similarly, when Gladwell claimed that NFL quarterback performance is unrelated to the order they were drafted out of college, he appears to have been wrong. But if you take his writing as stone soup, maybe it’s valuable: just retreat to the statement that there’s only a weak relationship between draft order and NFL performance. That alone is interesting. It’s too bad that Gladwell sometimes has to make false general statements in order to get our attention, but maybe that’s what is needed to shake people out of their mental complacency. The above paragraph links to a blog post by Eric Loken. This is something you have linked to before. And when you linked to it before I tried to explain why Loken’s work is not very good. Since you still think this work shows that Gladwell – and therefore Rob
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Introduction: Dave Berri writes: Saw you had a post on the research I did with Rob Simmons on the NFL draft. I have attached the article. This article has not officially been published, so please don’t post this on-line. The post you linked to states the following: “On his blog, Berri says he restricts the analysis to QBs who have played more than 500 downs, or for 5 years. He also looks at per-play statistics, like touchdowns per game, to counter what he considers an opportunity bias.” Two points: First of all, we did not look at touchdowns per game (that is not a per play stat). More importantly — as this post indicates — we did far more than just look at data after five years. We did mention the five year result, but directly below that discussion (and I mean, directly below), the following sentences appear. Our data set runs from 1970 to 2007 (adjustments were made for how performance changed over time). We also looked at career performance after 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 years
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