Empty Sacks

One of several cliches which I hate is the notion that "statistics lie". Mark Twain's famous quote about there being "lies, damn lies, and statistics" has been over quoted about a million times (source: OMD). Contrary to what many people may think, statistics DO NOT lie. They can't lie. They are just numbers, which makes them incapable of lying. You can have false statistics, which is a different issue because someone else is lying by making them up, but assuming the statistics are accurate in what they are measuring then they are not lying. They can be misinterpreted, misanalysed, misappropriated and otherwise mistreated, but they can't lie.

Statistics are merely numbers which tell parts of a story in quantifiable ways. In order to really get the most out of them, you have to think, something that most people lack the time or inclination (or both) to do. And an important part of this thinking involves realizing the limitations of what statistics can and can't tell us about a given phenomenon.

Today's victory against the Chiefs can remind us of the interesting ways in which stats can't quite capture everything that goes on in a football game. Simply looking through the box score, or at the accumulated stats of a team or player, can never tell us the whole story, because of course the whole story isn't easily quantifiable.

The Charger defense played fairly well today, giving up just 14 points and limiting the Chiefs to 284 yards of offense. They managed to do with without three of their best players, who were all down for most or all of the game with injury. Most importantly, they forced 4 turnovers. But surprisingly, the Chargers actually recorded no sacks today. Someone without knowledge of the game itself might look at this and think that the Chargers were unable to generate any sort of pass rush today, but this would be wrong. The Chargers actually had several plays which were nearly sacks but actually ended up better than sacks.

(EDIT: after writing this post, I actually looked over the Chargers.com message boards, and this subject was already a discussion topic. Someone who hadn't seen the game had looked at the sack stats and was bemoaning the Charger lack of pass rush.)

Paul Oliver would have had a sack if not for the inexplicable fumble by Matt Cassell. Instead Oliver got a gift TD, which was a much better outcome. Similarly, Larry English could have had a sack except that he beat Cassell to recovering a fumble. Dobbins also would have had a sack if not for the intentional grounding call. The result was the same, a safety, but no sack recorded.

So in this case you have at least three would be sacks which the Bolts missed out on, but it was actually to their benefit to do so! It won't help them in the league standings for most team sacks, but the actual outcome was better.

Looking at LT's stat line, you can see another way statistics fail to tell the whole story. True, he had 2 TDs, but he gained a mere 39 yards on the ground. From this we might conclude that he had a poor game, but the reality is that he played as much as the Chargers needed him, and was basically pulled from the game pretty early on because it was a rout.

Its not fair to blame the stats for this. They aren't inaccurate at all, they are just limited by their nature. A sack can only be a sack, it can't be anything else. Its a good example of how statistics are merely a tool which require careful thought and consideration in order to be utilized properly.