When you are hot, you’re hot. Our favorite whipping boy is at it again. Bob Kravitz today called for the ouster of Tom Moore and Howard Mudd, basically reciting verbatim the horribly flawed arguments of Cold Hard Football Facts. I’m sure this has something to do with their appearance on his radio show on Wednesday, since Kravitz isn’t original enough to pen these thoughts on his own. He even comes out and says as much in the article.
I thought I could avoid a point a by point rebuttal of the CHFF piece, because it was unnecessary. The original piece is so flawed, that I thought I would just make fun of it. It’s clear that the arguments, are taking hold though, because apparently people can’t think or reason above a 5th grade level. Bill Simmons used them on his podcast and now Kravitz has swallowed the tripe.
For now, I’ll just pose this question to Bob: why fire Moore and Mudd now? When was the last time the offense ‘failed’ in the playoffs? It wasn’t this year. Given the Colts starting field position (which they largely had no control over), 17 points was actually a strong total. It wasn’t last year, when they scored 24 despite three fluky red zone turn overs, and lost when the D melted down completely. It wasn’t in 2006 when the won the Super Bowl.
He quotes the Colts ‘average’ points scored in playoff losses, which of course is the problem with small sample sizes. They played in a swamp in 2002 and scored zero. They played in the snow in 2004 and scored 3. Apart from those two games, the Colts offense has averaged 18 points in losses. Overall in the playoffs, they’ve averaged 22.8 ppg in all games and 26 in 13 games if you take out the two terrible weather games.
Offense always drops in the playoffs, especially when you play in bad weather and against great defenses. It seems clear that the original nonsense by CHFF must be completely shredded if any semblance of sanity is to be restored. Check back later today for the complete rebuttal.
Update:
And here it is You can find it in the Articles section on the side. Here’s my favorite excerpt:
Warner has played 9 of 10 playoff games in domes. Some of
Peyton Manning’s worst playoff games came on sloppy fields in poor
weather. Kurt Warner has NEVER played a bad weather playoff game. He
has played more dome playoff games than Manning has in his whole
career. Consider what Peyton Manning’s numbers would be if he had
played in the same conditions as Warner. Take his 7 home playoff games,
the second round road win at KC (similar to Warner’s win at Carolina),
XLI, and this year’s playoff game (to make an even 10 games like
Warner). In those 10 games in similar conditions (we’ll pretend it
WASN’T raining in Miami) here are Manning’s numbers:
252 for 393 (64%), 3231 yards, 8.2 YPA, 323 yards per game, 20 TDs, 8 INTs, 98.3 Rating
Oh,
wait. So you mean that when Manning plays in comparable conditions to
Warner he actually has BETTER postseason numbers? The irony of these
stats is that while Warner’s teams are 8-2 in the playoffs, Manning’s
teams only went 6-4 in these 10 games. So Manning played BETTER than a
guy who went 8-2, but his teams still lost. QB play is only one part
of the equation in the playoffs.
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Dungy will be on Letterman on Wednesday
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