Approximate Value. That's a direct port over from the baseball stat. The idea is to be able to group players by impact for comparison. AV lets you look at the player's contributions over a series of seasons and make closer value comparisons to other players. In the Neo-Modern era that we're in now it is going to need to be updated to reflect the fact that QB has become even more important than it was in the post-merger era. I don't have a clue how they're going to do that but anybody who would rather have J.J. Watt (AV 22) than Andrew Luck (AV 16) in a vacuum is crazy. J.J. Watt is the best player in football but there are probably a half dozen QB's who are more valuable, maybe as many as a dozen. Approximate Value, Andrew Luck has significantly more than J.J. Watt for an NFL team. This, BTW, is why the Jets and Fins are over-rated in the Harvard Study. Neither team has a QB that is good enough to rate that highly. The Fins are much closer to that but Ryan Tannehill is going to have to step up his game again to get to the point that they should rank as highly as they do in the study. One more follow-up: over the 3 seasons they've both been in the NFL Andrew Luck has 44 AV and the Colts have won 36 games including 3 in the playoffs. J.J Watt has 57 AV and the Texans have won 24 games including 1 in the playoffs. Given what we know about the two teams and the two players impact on their teams how can Watt be more valuable than Luck? Simple answer: he can't be no matter what the formula says.
Advanced statistics in football always tend to get cloudy. Just like the "Geno is 6-1 with Kerley and 2-7 without him" it tends to be heavily circumstantial and an overrated way to measure things that don't factor in any of the other players on the field, or the team that is being played. It's fun to think about and compare but the eye test is still king. Watch the games, don't measure them with bullshit. Football is more of an art than a science, as it needs to be observed rather than measured. I think advanced statistics go a lot further in something like baseball and even then it's not the tell all information in the sport.
True story - Harvard had the only undefeated college football team in all of Division I last year. So they actually don't suck at that either lol
They don't have sports scholarships in the IVY league ...that's why they don't have the big time athletes ...I grew up near Cornell...my dad used to take me to games as a kid. They were 1-A football until 1982. They'd play Rutgers, Army out of conference....But he used to go on and on about how that league was as good as any back in the 50s. He saw Cornell defeat defending champs Michigan right there in Ithaca NY in 1953..... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I saw the Columbia Lions win a football game once. True story. Me and Quasimodo were sitting in the bleachers behind the Loch Ness monster when they stopped the game to observe Haley's comet go by.
A guy who played QB for Columbia once got drafted in the 6th round after winning like 4 games in 3 years for the Lions. Who drafted him? The Detroit Lions of course.
The mighty John Witkowski....actually he could sling it...turned down a chance to sign with the USFL Philly Stars and, like you said, later drafted by the lions....played two yrs... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This study, others like it, and all of the so called journalist experts get it wrong every year. Why do people continually go through this garbage?? The NFL changes yearly because of their parity scheduling = their hell bent philosophy of changing schedules to help the weak and make it harder for the strong.
I'll take the Jets making the playoffs any day. Jets and phins in also doesn't bode well for the pats.
It's the FCS, they did away with "Division I" and "Division II" for college football. (BCS used to be "Division I" and FCS used to be "Division II".) (FCS stands for Football Championship Series.) While it is true that Harvard went undefeated, it's a little misleading, because Harvard does not participate in the FCS playoffs. They just play out their regular season, and whoever has the best record with all the tiebreakers gets crowned the Ivy League Champions. Whereas other leagues in the FCS, they send their winner on to the playoffs, and sometimes the second best team gets an at large bid. Don't get me wrong, Harvard's team was good, but if they had gone to the playoffs they would not have gone undefeated in my opinion.
The Dolphins are not winning the AFC East ....Harvard study or not the Jets will be in playoff contention this year
Remember they were four divisions in NCAA football....1-A, 1-AA, II and III.....FCS is technically Div 1 still... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The only point of getting in is to have a shot (even if only a slim one) at winning it all. If you ask me before the start of the season if I would sign for the Jets getting in and the Dolphins getting to the Superbowl, I would say: "Thanks, but no thanks."
