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Watch Jimmy Kempski Make a Football Outsiders Writer Look Stupid

Adrian Fedkiw|

I’ve never been a big stats guy when it comes to football.

I understand why they’re around, it’s the simplest way to evaluate talent and teams without watching the tape. Obviously, it’s nearly impossible to watch every snap of every team. Pro Football Focus and Football Outsiders have done a fantastic job of providing unique statistics to help fans get closer to the game.

The problem?

Sometimes statistics don’t tell the entire story. I’ll use them as a guide, but I need to get confirmation from the game to make sure they are warranted.  And sometimes people hold onto these numbers like the Holy Grail.

That brings me to this Football Outside writer named Scott Kacsmar, who believes Carson Wentz is a dink-and-dunk quarterback because he has the third-lowest “air yards per throw” (average distance per throw past the line of scrimmage) in the NFL.

Silly Scott.

Only Philip Rivers’ 6.55 yards and Trevor Siemian’s 6.85 are lower than Wentz’s 6.86. Even Sam Bradford has Wentz beat at 7.51.

Somebody needs to do his due diligence … WATCH THE TAPE!

PhillyVoice’s Jimmy Kempski came to the rescue, however, and wrote this awesome and sarcastic post about the topic. 

Now, I know what your rebuttals are going to be, Eagles fans.

1. The Eagles’ heavy usage of screens serve as glorified running plays, therefore wildly skewing Wentz’s numbers here. In other words, every time the Eagles run a screen, Wentz is chalked up with a big fat zero on yards traveled past the line of scrimmage. And maybe, just maybe, screens shouldn’t be included in this metric as a measure of how often a quarterback will take shots down the field.
2. The Eagles have had huge second half leads, so why on Earth would they continue to take risky shots down the field?
3. The Eagles don’t exactly have much in the way of vertical threats at the wide receiver position.

All of those rebuttals are wrong, and if you use them, you’re dumb. Wentz is a dink-and-dunker, and should not be given undue credit for the Eagles’ success so far:

That led to this rebuttal from Kacsmar.

Here was a rant from Kacsmar from his Captain Comeback blog.

I’m going to fire off a rant here, so if you don’t know the backstory, let me quickly catch you up: Shocking, but after three games, I don’t think Carson Wentz is the greatest rookie QB to ever live. I pointed out that Wentz has thrown the third-shortest passes through three weeks, and naturally, this turned the Eagles fan base into an angry mob. I was even getting criticized for pointing out an argument in my mentions between a Cowboys fan and Eagles fan. This was all fueled even more by one of the most cherry-picked articles you’ll ever see by one of their writers. Apparently picking out 12% of specific plays beats a statistical analysis of all 100% these days. Straw men were created at record rates, including things I never said such as Wentz is bad, Wentz never throws deep because he can’t, that I hate Wentz, and insert any other thing you want that’s unfounded. I never said if Wentz’s play has been good, bad or indifferent. I just did what I’ve always done for six years: told people to pump the brakes on unjustified hype, but when you try to knock a player down a few pegs, people automatically assume you hate that player. Welcome to the 2010s, I guess, where being rational isn’t as good as calling a guy “pre-snap Peyton, post-snap Rodgers” after three games.

So he talks about 12 percent of specific plays not beating 100 percent, but when you look at numbers on a piece of paper and not take into account all the different variables that refute it, that beats the “dink-and-dunker” stigma. And like he said, it’s only three games.

Perception is reality and those statistics are his Holy Bible.

Let’s discuss that 100 percent. When I watch him and combine the circumstances, down and distance, time and score, Wentz makes the proper decision most of the time. Again, I don’t consider that being dink-and-dunk, it’s smart quarterbacking.

He’ll ramp it up when called upon.

With a suffocating defense so far, Wentz hasn’t needed to air it out because the Eagles have held sizeable leads in the second half and fourth quarter. Head coach Doug Pederson is conservative as it is and likes to slowly matriculate the ball down the field. Just go re-read Kempski’s first rebuttal again and my point is made.

It’s only three weeks into the year, it’s still a small sample size and when that time comes when the Eagles are trailing by double digits and Wentz needs to be more aggressive and push the ball downfield, that air yards per throw stat will increase.

So when you look at a statistic like the one Kacsmar presented, you can’t just take it as is like he did. You have to dig much deeper and when you do, Wentz isn’t a dink-and-dunker, he’s just mentally superior and more understanding of in-game situations than most rookie quarterbacks. He’s managing the game, not making mistakes and letting the defense win games. When it’s a 3rd-and-4 and Wentz is throwing a 5-yard stop route to Trey Burton for a first down, that’s not dinking-and-dunking, that’s being smart.

When that situation comes for Wentz to be more aggressive, however, he’s shown the ability to make plays. This is a bullet to Dorial Green-Beckham for a first down on a 3rd-and-12.

In a two-minute drill late in the second quarter against the Bears and trailing 7-6, Wentz took a chance into triple coverage after scrambling to his left.

These are the first two touchdowns of Wentz’s career. Look at the impeccable ball placement because the coverage on both throws isn’t terrible.

These are only a few examples and I can go on. Kempski has more in his post. They’re only 12 percent, though, so beware.

Kacsmar uses the words pump the brakes and he’s right in that sense. There’s many different types of scenarios and circumstances Wentz will face as the years go by. We haven’t seen him throw an interception yet, we haven’t seen him have to lead the Eagles back, we haven’t seen him lose a game, we haven’t seen him handle a losing streak, a multiple interception performance, a slump.

You get the point.

But there’s also some very encouraging signs from the first three games. We just don’t see rookie quarterbacking like this every day.

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