The Minnesota Vikings defensive end recently took to social media to express how he feels certain football websites cannot fully evaluate a player’s performance.
In this day and age, talking about football seems to go way beyond the simple box score. Thanks to websites like Pro Football Focus and Football Outsiders, a vast array of advanced statistics are more available to the public than they have ever been before.
The statistics are pretty inarguable, but where these sites seem to venture into a bit of a murky territory is with their player evaluations and analyses. Sometimes the opinions of these sites are treated with as much validity as the statistics they publish.
Minnesota Vikings defensive end Brian Robison is the latest member of the franchise (see Mike Zimmer and Matt Kaili) to voice his displeasure with how seriously some of these analyses are treated.
People put way too much stock in these "Analysis" sites. Sure it's fun and cool and keeps things interested, but if they don't know the ....
— Brian Robison (@Brian_Robison) February 22, 2017
Scheme, play calls or what exactly a players role is then how can you make an honest "analysis"??? Then what makes it worse is media.......
— Brian Robison (@Brian_Robison) February 22, 2017
Outlets use it as if it tells the whole story. I'm not talking about just me by the way it's lots of players and teammates I'm saying......
— Brian Robison (@Brian_Robison) February 22, 2017
This for. Ok that's my rant for a while. Thanks for listening
— Brian Robison (@Brian_Robison) February 22, 2017
The points Robsion made in his tweets are certainly true. It is incredibly hard for a analyst to fully evaluate a player’s performance without knowing what that player was asked to do out on the field by his coaches.
This especially rings true with a player like Robison. He has never had the most amazing statistics (single-season career high for sacks is nine), but he has proven time and time again that he will do whatever his coaches ask of him in order to improve the team’s chance to win.
From playing defensive tackle as a 258 pound lineman, to drifting back into coverage, to forcing a game-sealing fumble, Robison’s importance to the Vikings is not really something that can be precisely analyzed by a football website.
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Will the analysis ever stop? That is highly unlikely, but it is always refreshing to see someone with actual on-field experience explain that these sites still have a lot to learn when it comes to evaluating players.