Pro Writing From Amateurs
Posted: June 23, 2005 @ 2:13 am
I sense some restlessness on the site, and I feel it too. Four football annuals have been published so far and it’s clear that their quality is slipshod. You’re hungry, and what you really want is better material to work with.
Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated offers some better material in this week’s mailbag, where he touts Scientific Football 2005, a 467-page tome by one K.C. Joyner of Altamonte Springs, Florida. I have a lot of respect for Zimmerman, the longtime S.I. writer and author of the now out-of-print The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pro Football. While I disagree with a lot of his points, Zimmerman is the most thorough analyst around. That’s because he’s the only analyst at any of the major publications who watches tape. He watches lots of it. And he’s found a kindred spirit in Joyner, who claims to have taped and broken down every game of the ‘04 season for his inaugural book.
Joyner’s goal is to offer the football nut a comprehensive look at the pro passing game. Scientific Football rates the quarterback, receivers, tight ends, backs, linebackers and defensive backs on their effectiveness at completing or preventing forward passes. What inspires Zimmerman is Joyner’s fearlessness at deflating the reputations of the media darlings. Established stars like Champ Bailey get dressed down. So do Madison Avenue wannabes like the young Eli Manning and the established Michael Vick,who is, if I read Joyner correctly, one of the most error-prone QBs in the NFL.
Joyner seeks the truth on the field, which is not obvious to the TV-aided eye, since the screen only shows play roughly five yards past the line of scrimmage. HDTV will improve on this greatly in the next few years but for the time being, we’re often left to the hyperbole of the announcers. And it is their lazy ramblings that Joyner threatens to demolish.
I can appreciate Joyner’s effort. When I wrote for TheBoys.com a decade ago, I used old tapes of Cowboys games from 1991 through 1995 as the basis for my scouting reports. All my game reports hit the web only after I’d watched the tape twice. It’s painstaking work, but it provides a much richer perspective on the game.
I’m also excited to see an outsider take on the established football press. As the preseason annuals have shown, this is an area that is ready to be blown up and reconstructed. While we’ve seen a proliferation of alleged former scouts in the draft book market, the preseason and in-season publications do not look much different than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Pro football is at the place where baseball writing was about fifteen years ago, when sabermatricians got frustrated with the lousy quality of baseball writing and took it upon themselves to do a better job.
I was a regular on the usenet forum rec.sport.baseball back in the early ’90s and watched a group of “regular guys” create a set of home-cooked metrics to better understand what was happening on the field. One was a meteorologist. Another a medical student. Another was fresh from law school. Another was a business consultant. They combined their writings with those of other wise and original thinkers, took a deep collective breath and, like Joyner, created their own book.
The first issue of what they called The Baseball Prospectus was photocopied and mailed to buyers. The next year, they found a publisher. Today, BP is one of the more respected baseball publications on the market. Established analysts like Peter Gammons, who made fun of the “statheads” in their early years, now quote their material as gospel. Many of its original writers still work on the book. Some now write for ESPN. One, Dave Pease, is now in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays.
These guys helped change the way baseball is watched and appreciated. Joyner now seeks to remake the football landscape. His book is pricey, at $49.95, but I’m going to buy a copy. Anybody who can provide a more honest appraisal of the game deserves all the help he can get.
Update: I e-mailed K.C. Joyner asking for an interview and he has graciously accepted. I’m not sure when we’ll get to hear from him; he’s quite busy since the Sports Illustrated piece, but says he’s always eager to talk to hardcore fans. If you have any questions for K.C., post them in the thread. His ratings promise to be more detailed — and more surprising — than those we’ve reviewed here the last few weeks.
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Rafael,
Sabermatrician? Had to look that one up. Thanks, I learned a new word with which to distract my boss when he’s chewing me out for one of my mistakes! LOL!
Rafael, I agree totally. The restlessness you have sensed is due exactly to the BS tripe and drivel that the mediots put out, and if they make their “prognostications” without watching ANY tape it is no wonder they are always so far off the mark. After you buy Mr. Joyner’s book please post a thread about its quality.
i am glad to see someone do something about these so called sports “experts”. the rest of “us” just sit around and complain to our fellow cowboy fans about a lot of this being a bunch of crap. i am just down right tickled to see someone say that they are wrong and here is what is on tape. not just the reputation of the past.
my hat is off to you SIR!!!
Rafael
Good job getting an interview and kudos on another excellent article! You are the man, live long & prosper!
Outstanding. Be very interested to hear what Mr. Joyner has to say. One question that comes to mind is: what does he have to say about the current quarterback rating system — what are the essential flaws and weaknesses, and has he got something better?
I spoke with Joyner in person a few years ago and besides being an incredibly nice guy he is football’s answer to Bill James: the guy knows everything about everything when it comes to schemes, playcalling etc… Hell, he told me the first 15 plays Buddy Ryan called in the 1985 Super Bowl. Needless to say, his mind is an encyclopedia of football knowledge and I’m really glad he’s getting the publicity he deserves.
Great article Rafael,
One question that I would like to ask is, Would he change the way the MVP system works with his book because I think the MVP award should be given to other players that are actually the most valuable to their team and not just pick a QB or RB?
Good stuff.
I read the SI piece yesterday, and agree with your assessments of both Zimmerman and Joyner.
Quick question: how does one go about acquiring game tape? The limited TV camera angles drive me nuts.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Good stuff, espically in this time of the year. There is nothing going on out there.
I know everyone is probably tired of hearing this, but if Ty Law is only warrenting minimum salary deals right now, why not at least take a look? It cant hurt to see where hes at. A year ago this guy was the defenition of “shut down corner”. I would love for us to at least see if he is willing to play FS, to take some pressure off of his foot.
The only problem I see with this is I really like Keith Davis and want him to get a real shot at winning it, cuz I think he plays his heart out and needs a chance to prove himself. But if Law is only recieving those offers, as John Clayton of ESPN.com reported, why not take a look?
JB,
I didn’t use game tape. I just VCRed the games, just like everyone else. You get a good machine that can give you a line-free, jump-free pause button and you use it until the machine wears out. Now that TIVO is around, that’s even better, cause those are ice clean frame by frame recorders.
Now, I see that some of the cable companies offer HDTV Tivos. How many people have seen a game in HD? It’s a mind blowing experience. They’re still a few years away from getting the maximum effect of it, for reasons I’ll explain in a post, but it will completely change the way you watch the game. When they frame the action right, you can see fifteen yards down field rather than five. You can see patterns being run. You can see the route combinations. You can see the passes developing before the ball is thrown. It’s flat out awesome.
Rafael
I read Paul Zimmerman’s “Ratings Game†article (or “Numbers Game†as it is titled on subsequent pages) and you should be grateful that his football analysis & writing skills surpass his interview skills, because he leaves plenty of room to explore this K.C. Joyner and his work.
I have several questions, but if I could ask only one I would ask for his take on the Dallas @ Philly game last season, if he could recall with much detail the 1 of 512 games he reviewed. Dallas called seven running plays to twenty passing plays in the second half, while defending a lead and while fielding a healthy, clock-consuming running attack. I’d ask what he saw that might explain the disparity in play calling when the situation perhaps dictated otherwise.
Others areas I’m curious about are:
–why his focus is on the passing phase of the game
–his analysis of Drew Bledsoe last season
–the length of time his entire process took
–the expertise he brings to his analysis
–what he thinks about the run phase of the game
–his plans for broader scope analysis in future study, and what it’s to include
–if his investigation reveals why teams experience quick turnarounds, good or bad, or if that’s simply the machination of league parity
I’m sure your questions will be more pertinent, I look forward to reading it.
StarStruck:
The man’s selling the book, do you really believe he could let a guy like Zimmerman to place at the public eye more material? He needs to sell books, and I guess Rafael shouldn’t put himself in position to receive a lawsuit if he gives to us all he reads about the Cowboys when he buys the book, even though I’m curious and I won’t have a chance to give the book a read considering the latitude I’m on (Veracruz, Veracruz, México)………
Chandus
I’m not blasting Zimmerman so badly, am I? I didn’t mean to. I didn’t say he sucked just that he was better suited for other aspects of his profession.
As far as Mr. Joyner is concerned, he is selling the book and do you know how difficult that is? It’s just Marketing baby! I’ll be willing to bet that he’s willing to say whatever he must to sell his self-published, fifty-dollar book. Without checking, I’d guess books in the genre aren’t topping any sales lists, so he better be willing to exhaustively promote it and answer almost any question connected to it. Besides, I don’t think he’ll throw the baby out with the bath water by disclosing certain contents and will stop short of answering anything he feels is too revealing.
Do you get CSPAN2 in Mexico? You should catch BookTV on Saturdays and Sundays, authors love to read, discuss and field questions about their books. Especially ones that are hard to sell.
CSPAN not in my cable concessionaire.
I understand you what you mean when you talk about marketing, but if someone reads the book and responds every area in which you expressed curiosity, areas that I bet are shared by almost every people on this blog, there’s gonna be people that may look at the price tag of $50 and say: “I already know what he said of my team!”.
I’m an engineer, so I like numbers, I would like to get the book with number all-around the league, I’m not on that line, but there’s people that’s on that line, and there you find money that Joyner losed. And a lawsuit could be filled.
And I didn’t said anything about you blasting Zimmerman, I just said that he, working in mega-corporation like SI, can’t write something that could be considered as a lawsuit filler. He promoted the book, giving the information necessary to be readed by guys like us to fire our curiosity.
BTW, I don’t mind Zimmerman being a tad of a bad interviewer, he’s just too good of a writer to mind that……
Lou,
Are u kiddin me? Ty Law will not come cheap as u have referenced. First of all, we wouldnt spend more money on a veteran corner when we have already spent a bunch of money on Anthony Henry over the offseason. We got our insurance policy in Aaron Glenn and we need to save that cap rom to pay out Roy Williams when his contract ends soon anyways. Secondly, the reason Ty law was shipped out of New England in the first place is 1) he was looking for “shut down” corner money and 2) because of his injury concerns. Why would we choose to overlook this? We wont. Bottom line is if u were a corner, would u be willing to change positions from corner to free safety for a minimum salary? Why dont u go ask Pete Hunter how he feels about that? The probablility of Law comin to Dallas is nil. There are way too many teams interested in signing him and they will not offer him the minimum salary I guarantee u that. Law will probably want to be playing for a division rival against the Patriots much like Lawyer Milloy is in Buffalo. I think he is a New York Jet by seasons start.
And if he is even worth the pick up he will be holding out by week 9. Last year at this time Law was holding out in New England. Law will be a bad pickup for anyone. By the way! “The Poston Brothers” Things are looking too good for us right now. Lets not blow it up tring to get a name.
Rafael,
Thanks for all the hard work and the great board. My question for Mr. Joyner would be whether he thinks Michael Irvin should be in the Hall of Fame. I am referencing Mr. Joyner’s article for the “Coffin Corner†that analyzed Andre Reed regarding his potential for induction into the Hall of Fame. I would like to a see a summary of Mr. Joyner’s thoughts in line with the great analysis he did on Andre Reed.
Who are all of these teams interested in him? The Jets say they aren’t going to go after Law, and they have to pay Abraham. The Chiefs say Surtain and Knight are good enough for them. The Jags are the front runners right now, but dont you want this guy in camp for training camp if he wants that much money? Read the article John Clayton wrote. He’s not going to get alot of money, hes old and hurt and New England didnt help by showing him the door and saying they dont need him. The Bucs want him but offered a one year minumum salary deal. The Dolphins want him to play corner to replace Surtain, and offered him a one year minumum salary deal. You really think that someone is going to give him a Anthony Henry deal out of the blue? No. Under 3-4 million a year for Ty Law? How could you not be interested? And as for Roy Williams, the guy is going to stay, he loves Dallas, and the REAL good teams, which we will be in the upcoming years, have stars that take less money to help the team out. He will be that type of player.
Lou,
Miami has a one year contract offer on the table for him, as Jacksonville just recently met with him. KC is still interested in him if he gets healthy. So there are 3 right there. There are alot of teams interested in him considering how late in the free agency period we are, especially for the right price. Probably not so many at his current asking price.
ASK KC FOR SOME ANALYSIS ON THE COWBOY STARTING RECEIVERS, AND THE CONERS THEY WILL MATCH UP AGAINST.
I for one am really mixed about Zimmerman. He is an unabashed Cowboy hater. He has written several scathing reviews and always preferences it with a caveat that he is not a fan of Dallas. He also admits his east-coast biased.
That being said, he is a truly entertaining and prosaic writer. His weekly power rankings, though show a truly subjective bias toward NE teams.
As far as a mathmatical analysis of football…come on. Football is a very boolean analysis: Win or Lose. No justification or reasoning can be made by an analytical view of the statistics. Yes, trends do develop (i.e., the relationship between turnovers & winning) but they don’t tell the story.
History is replete will winners that “defied” the statistical trend. Remember, no team won with a league rushing leader until our Cowboys did it with Emmitt.
Remember, there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Great website! Ask Mr. Joyner about Drew Bledsoe’s lack of mobility.
Fighter 15,
Zimmerman’s a Cowboys hater? Really?
The guy is a TEX SCHRAMM hater. And I would be too if Tex called
you as communist, as he did to Zimmerman. For the record, I don’t
think much of Tex either.
Zimmerman has been a champion of many of the Cowboys the Hall
has snubbed in recent years. He’s said for several years that Cliff Harris
is one of the two best FS ever and should be in the Hall. His columns
have alerted us to the dark maneuverings that torpedoed Rayfield Wright
and Bob Hayes two years ago.
On the Hayes front, Zimmerman tells a very interesting story about him.
When Lawrence Taylor was up for induction a few years ago, there was a
lot of rancor in the press ranks. A lot of folks wanted to blackball him for
his off the field behavior. Both SI guys, Zim and Peter King wrote of heated
debates where Taylor supporters pointed out that the NFL bylaws required
that they vote only based on a player’s on field performance. And this is how
LT got in the first ballot.
Anyway, Zimmerman mentioned “a writer from Dallas” who said that if he knew
that this was how the LT vote was going to be he would have championed Bob
Hayes years before. To which Zimmerman replied, “why haven’t you been?”
Dr. Z didn’t name names, but it was clear that the “Dallas writer” was longtime
DMN scribe Frank Luksa. As you probably know, candidacies for players are
usually driven by the player’s team’s beat writers.
So there is the dirty little secret: the reason Bob Hayes never got close to the
HOF unitl 2004 is because HIS OWN GUY was sabotaging his candidacy. What’s
that line about “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”
Well, there are much worse Cowboys haters than Paul Zimmerman. Some of them
actually made good livings living in Dallas and covering the team.
Chandus
You too may acquire your own copy of Mr. Joyner’s book by writing to him at KC@thefootballscientist.com, or at Box 161605 Altamonte Springs, Fla., 32716-1605. Happy reading! (Contact info from Dr. Z’s article)
Lou,
I take it your only source is John Clayton? Well in addition to Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and Kansas City, the Indinapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Cleveland Browns are giving Law a very hard look (and none of these teams are trying to convert him into a free safety). Preliminary offers for Law are low because there are plenty of concerns regarding his foot injury. Once teams are assured that Law can still play they will give him more than the minimum thats being offered (maybe not the money he is due or is requesting but more none the less). Keep in mind, Ty Law turned down a 4 year 26 million dollar offer from the Patriots when they tried to resign him before. He was quoted as I recall calling it a “slap in the face”. Granted Ty Law is one of the best corners in the NFL when healthy, we simply would not use any more money this year on a veteran with injury concerns (we got our own injury concerns we’re hoping pan out with Canty, Rivera, and Burnett all getting over surgeries…and worries about our WR core possibly getting injured). Ty Law is in it for one thing only and thats getting paid. Its evident winning is not enough for Law or else he would have just stayed with New England. As for Williams he’s inked in for a 7 year deal so we wont be worrying about him just yet, but he will definately be asking for, at the very least, his current contract of 20 million with roughly 9 million in incentives. We’ve suffered many years to get this salary cap freedom because of veterans with high asking prices who didnt pan out. Why would we be suckered into it again? I’m sorry Lou…its a nice thought but its just not gonna happen brotha. Hell, Lance Schulters makes more sense and we probably wouldnt even sign him for a 1.5 million dollar contract that McQuarters got from Detroit. Lets save our money and start developing some young talent. Law has question marks all over him. Im not sure why I even have to explain it. I thought it was obvious.
Lou,
And if u dont wanna listen to me this is what Mickey Spagnola had to say bout it when asked the same question….
Mike Knight, Brandon, Fla.: Why don’t the Cowboys sign Ty Law to a one-year contract? He has the ability to play safety and has the pass coverage skills to play alongside Roy Williams. Is this even something that Dallas is considering?
Mickey: Don’t think so. One year deal? Law wants a really big deal. That’s why he’s no longer with the Patriots, and probably one reason why he’s still a free agent, other than the fact he’s not completely healthy. Now Jacksonville brought him in for a visit, and did plan some sort of workout to basically to see how his foot is. But don’t think Law would settle for a one-year deal unless he’s still searching for a job come August. By the way, the guy isn’t a safety. Safeties do have to tackle. It’s not a picnic back there, you know.
StarStruck:
I believe you don’t have an idea of the cost of a shipment to Mexico…… try doubling the prize of the book…… I guess a book wroten by the hand of Jesus Christ might be worth the money…… but that one, I really don’t know……
Chandus
You are right about that, I had no clue about the shipping expense to Mexico. Wow. I guess then that my post can be perceived as a bit sarcastic, which was not my intent. I was just trying to be helpful.
There’s no problem, why would you need to know the cost of a shipment to Mexico? Or from Mexico to the US? Those aren’t things of common knowledge…..
hey yall this way off subject but i was wondering if any of you might know where i can pick up some terrance newman game used memorabilia