Same case for Monk but with slightly different stats

[FanSinceWomb]

ESkin'ers - sometimes with the many threads and mega members I feel like adding your own opinion to a subject is like adding water to the ocean and I post this with hesitation in that regard. I'm just try'n to help the Skins 'community out is what I'm saying.

Like many of you I was outraged about Monk's HoF snub, so much so that I sat down with the stats to make sense of it all -- I found some interesting stats, stats that I've yet to see in other places, or at least all in one place. These stats a comparison of each HoF WR's (the 6 who played concurrent with Monk); weighted seasonal yardage average, % of teams passing yards, % of teams total yards. % of teams completion, weighted completions. Even a comparison of average team passing ranking. I think some of them make Monk's case even strong, hence me sharing them here.

I wrote a lengthy blog post with three parts; the problem, defining a HoF WR based on various available evidence, and a statistical comparison. The entire post is here but the stuff (comparitive stats) you'll be most interested in is reproduced below. The short in attention department may want to scroll to the charts. I hope it's useful to a few of you.

The Juicy Stat Stuff

Before matching into the stats on a comparative basis, I need to make it clear that we’re assuming the following to be true:

All receptions were of equal importance (including TDs (a quick note on TDs: even if a catch in that special 10 yards of field is considerably better than a catch in the other 100, there is no statistical pattern present to indicate that this number is tied to a WRs controllable skill level, rather, it appears to merely be a function of coaching philosophy and chance. Example: 1987; Jerry Rice catches 22 TDs, 1988; he catches 9. In ‘88, Rice had 3,000 more yards than and 4 more games than ‘87, yet he caught 13 less TDs. Did his red zone skill simply dissipate for a season (only to return and leave again, over and over, for his entire career)? Coincidently, these same seasons of Rice’s cast doubt on yardage being a function of a WR’s controllable skill as he had one less reception in ’88 but managed to increase his yards per catch by 4 (16.6 to 20.4). But I digress…) – let me repeat, all receptions were of equal importance. (FUN FACT: Two-thirds of Monk’s catches came on 3rd down)

All quarterbacks were of equal skill (FUN FACT: Monk played without a Hall of Fame QB, of the 6 HoF members only Steve Largent shares this distinction (though Lofton played the bulk of his career without one)).

All teammates were of equal skill, including the wide receivers (FUN FACT: Monk shared the field with an 1,000 yard receiving teammate 6 times, 2 of which occurred in the same season, making that receiving trio the first in history to each have 1,000 yards in a season. Of the 6 HoF members, Joiner played 3 seasons with an 1,000 receiver and Lofton played with only one (with possible future Hall of Famer Andre Reed, who, like Monk, put up great career numbers with 13 yards per catch. If you look at Lofton’s years with the Bills his numbers dropped when sharing his yardage with Reed)).

For the most part we’re assuming that all game plans were equal (FUN FACT: This isn’t true either! Chart in appendix)

That said, let’s get comparing.

Since their careers differ in length and due to various injury shortened seasons we’re comparing averages of the player’s best 7 seasons (except for Stallworth who because of his Great Super Bowl Performance Quotient get’s to be compared with an average of his 5 best years – well, that and he only had 5 “great” seasons). I tried to keep the seasons clustered but in several cases made huge jumps to include better years.

Why seven seasons?

Because players with long careers are sometimes accused of simply “compiling” numbers it’s important to examine the best years of each player on a smaller scale. Looking at all the careers together, 7 seemed like a good representative number. For some it would be a disservice to include more than 7 while for others it would be a disservice to include less, but all managed 7 fairly productive years. It seems like a very equitable middle ground. All except Lynn Swann, his Great Super Bowl Performance Quotient was so high that we’re not comparing him at all; it wouldn’t be much of a comparison considering he had 2, maybe 3 “great” regular seasons.

Our first comparison is the player’s yardage per season as weighted against that season’s average Top-10 receiver’s yardage, which will be fixed at 100. This will account for the difference in play each season over the twenty year span. For example: in 1979 the average yardage of the 10 league leaders was 1093.1, in 1995 it was 1522.4. Weighed against each year’s top-10 average, John Stallworth’s 1183 yards in 1979 is represented as 108.22, Michael Irvin’s 1603 yards in 1995 becomes 110. So in 1979 Stallworth was 8.2% better than the average top-10 receiver, in 1995 Irvin was 10% better than the fictional player sitting at 5.5 on the league leader’s chart. Ultimately, the percentage is not what’s important, only the how relatively good each player is when compared with their contemporaries.

Here’s the 7 year average of those top-10 weighted numbers for each player (click on chart to enlarge):

Unsurprisingly -- given his lack of yardage leading years -- Monk lags significantly behind several of the Hall of Fame members. But he’s not without company. Joiner is only about 1% closer to the top-ten average and Stallworth not far ahead of that. But without looking at each member’s yardage as a percentage of team performance, do these numbers even hold much meaning? Is it possible to compare Monk to the league if we don’t know how he compared to his own team?

The next chart shows just that, comparing each member’s percentage of their teams passing yards, averaged over their 7 best seasons:

In this chart Monk gains ground on all of the member’s, even surpassing Joiner whose high-flying Charger offense generated tons of passing yardage, not only for him but for the entire team. This gives slight context to the statistical vacuum, other than Irvin, who accounted for almost 40% of his team’s passing yards, Monk was almost equally important to his team, from passing yard standpoint, as the other Hall of Fame members were to their own. But how important was he as a percentage of the team’s total yards?

The next chart is similar but this time uses the team’s total yards from scrimmage and the player’s percentage of those yards, averaged, again, over his 7 best seasons:

Now Monk has overtaken Stallworth and is almost equal to Largent and Lofton. Even Irvin, because of the preeminent rushing of Emmitt Smith, nears the pack. In fact, as dominant as Irvin was, he never led his team in yards from scrimmage where Monk held that distinction twice. What this chart shows is that, regardless of how many yards Largent or Lofton provided relative to the league, they were only 21% of their respective teams. Monk provided his team with 19% of their total, and over this span his team won three (two in the 7 seasons averaged here) Super Bowls.

The next chart will address another problem that seems to plague Monk, the fact he sometimes wasn’t the leading receiver on his own team! How could he be a Hall of Famer when he sometimes failed to best on his team? This is where receptions become important because a QB -- and by extension the play caller or head coach – has no control over the ball once it leaves his hand. When he throws the ball he has no idea how many yards after the catch the receiver will make and because we, without examining each pass, have no idea which receptions were long passes or which were short passes broken for long gains, we can look at the one thing the QB can control; who the ball is thrown to. How many times the ball was thrown to the receiver as a percentage of the team’s total competitions should give us one of the most important stats of all; how much the team valued the player in their passing game:

As you can see Monk has overtaken everyone and is in a virtual tie with Irvin. Despite accounting for almost 40% of his team's passing yards the ball only made it to Irvin 28% of time. Monk’s % of his teams passing yards almost directly correspond with his % of the team’s receptions. In short, Monk’s Redskins threw the ball to him as often as Irvin’s Cowboys threw the ball to him and more than any of the remaining Hall of Fame members.

The final chart is the most unsurprising of them all but important, nonetheless, because it illustrates Monk’s most prolific skill: catching the football. Similar to the first chart, this is a weighted average; where 100 represents the average top-10 reception total, and the player’s number is the average of his 7 seasons relative to that top-10 number in each individual season:

As you can see Monk’s strength is borne out in a high relative %, and it’s important to note this is not just as a lifelong compiler but his best seasons as a compared to the other Hall of Famer’s best seasons. Tit for tat Monk caught more balls relative to his peers than any member of the Hall of Fame. Whether the Hall of Fame voter reward this accomplishment, among many others, remains to be seen.

...

Notes and Disclaimers:

1. The years used were chosen by me and may not be the most productive. If you think a better year should have been used, do it yourself. The years for each player were:

Charlie Jonier: 1976, 1979 – 1981, 1983 – 1985

John Stallworth: 1978, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1985

Steve Largent: 1978 – 1981, 1983 -1985

James Lofton: 1979 – 1981, 1983 – 1985, 1991

Michael Irvin: 1991 – 1995, 1997, 1998

Art Monk: 1984 – 1986, 1988 - 1991

2. Most stats are from http://www.pro-football-reference.com . These stats are not necessarily accurate, as the site disclaims (read: blame him, not me) and my transcribing them may be equally inaccurate (read: blame me, not him). However, it’s doubtful than any one error is so egregious as to effect the argument or data as a whole.

3. Other websites were helpful in providing information or game clarification:

www.profootballhof.com/

www.monk4thehall.com/

www.superbowl.com/

www.extremeskins.com/

http://artmonk.wordpress.com/

www.thehogs.net/

4. All averages and charts were calculated and made by me and therefore could be completely inaccurate. If this is the case the fault rests with my years navigating through the Virginia public school system in a dirigible constructed of a short attention span and daydreams. If such a mistake exists, my 10th grade math teacher – the ******* that he was -- is the true culprit, blame him.

5. I’m just a guy; not a mathematician or statistician. Hell, my college was an art school. If you’re hell bent on debunking this do it all yourself. But please, don’t give me **** for my honest mistakes.

Appendix

These charts show the players average offensive rank for the 7 seasons in comparison. The first shows the team’s average yardage NFL rank, the second shows the team’s average yards per catch NFL rank (the smaller the bar, the better the ranking):

Because of the cluster (excluding Joiner) it’s more difficult to draw any conclusions from these charts. There are also many possibilities for what these rankings mean, if they mean anything at all. Here are a few of the many possible scenarios:

Yardage Rank

- That Joiner, and to a lesser extent Monk, benefited from high yardage offenses, while the remaining players put up great personal numbers in offense that accumulated an NFL average amount of passing yards

- That Joiner’s and Monk’s percentage of their teams passing yardage is of greater importance because they played on teams with a top-10 passing attack. Irvin’s 37% of his team’s passing yards helped his stats, but not the team’s.

- That Stallworth and Irvin’s presence never helped their team have anything other than an average passing attack

- That the Chargers and Redskins’ top-10 passing attacks help Joiner (considerably) and Monk become top-10 receivers.

- That the team’s rankings have zero significance to the individual’s stats

Yards per Catch Ranking

- That Largent, Lofton and Monk’s teams threw many more shorter routes as a percentage of their passes (which would explain Largent and Lofton’s lower percentage of the team receptions) which hurt their personal yards per catch stats

- That Joiner, Stallworth and Irvin’s teams threw longer passes which helped each player’s personal yards per catch.

- That the teams threw their longer or shorter passes based on the skills of their star receivers

- That the team rankings have zero significance to the individuals' stats

Either way, because Monk’s Redskins are not at either the high or low end of the rankings, it’s doubtful these could hurt Monk’s HoF campaign without arguing against a current inductee.

[No_Pressure]

Whoa. In the middle of free agency man? This thread could be breaking news of Bush being assassinated and it would drop like a stone to "Leonard Davis is gay" or "WHY HAVEN'T WE SIGNED A DEFENSIVE LINEMAN?!!11" threads.

[FanSinceWomb]

Wait WHY HAVEN'T WE SIGNED A D-LINEMAN.

I agree with you, which is why I almost didn't post this, but other than you guys, who would even care about such a thing?

[JoeKnowsBest]

Thanks! I'm bookmarking this thread baby!

[JoeKnowsBest]

Come to think of it, if Monk should make it in along with Darrell Green, then maybe... just MAYBE the wait and all the frustration will have been worth it. But so far all I've seen from the committy is that they absolutely hate Washington Redskins. Farther proof of that is evident with only about 2 or 3 Redskins in entire NFL HISTORY making it in. Riggins and Gibbs I know for sure. I think that's it.

Next hall of fame ballad we shall see just how much the rest of the world and the press committee actually hates the Redskins.

[rebornempowered]

Holy cow! Good stuff dude! I'm impressed.

[SkinsOrlando]

Interesting post,:applause: for the effort your put into it.

[Capt Rich Fla]

Come to think of it, if Monk should make it in along with Darrell Green, then maybe... just MAYBE the wait and all the frustration will have been worth it. But so far all I've seen from the committy is that they absolutely hate Washington Redskins. Farther proof of that is evident with only about 2 or 3 Redskins in entire NFL HISTORY making it in. Riggins and Gibbs I know for sure. I think that's it.

Next hall of fame ballad we shall see just how much the rest of the world and the press committee actually hates the Redskins.

Wait a sacond. We have the biggest stadium in the NFL,The longest waiting list, The most sold out games, The most jerseys sold, the most memorabelia bought,.....Seems there are more fans than we think. Do the redskins have the biggest fanbase in the NFL? I feel we have more fans that will admit to being skins fans then Dallas has.

[JoeKnowsBest]

Wait a sacond. We have the biggest stadium in the NFL,The longest waiting list, The most sold out games, The most jerseys sold, the most memorabelia bought,.....Seems there are more fans than we think. Do the redskins have the biggest fanbase in the NFL? I feel we have more fans that will admit to being skins fans then Dallas has.

That may be true and we have a very loyal fan base at that, but what I am saying is that it seems that any one who is not a fan of the Redskins seems to hate us. The media especially. I can't tell you how many times growing up through school I had to justify me wearing a Redskins shirt and was ridiculed for it. Those who don't get it, seem really bitter about the Redskins. There doesn't seem to be very much in between when it comes to non Redskins fan/media.

But like I said, next January we will find out for sure how much the rest of the world (namely the national media) really hates the Redskins.

[autograph]

Thanks for the great effort!

Talked to Sid Hartman (Minneapolis Star Tribune) at the Wizards game and he says that he votes for Art Monk. :logo:

We just have to find out who doesn't vote for a class act like Art and teach them about statistics.

Art for the Hall, and take DG with you :logo:

[bigyim]

(FUN FACT: Monk played without a Hall of Fame QB, of the 6 HoF members only Steve Largent shares this distinction (though Lofton played the bulk of his career without one)).

Great statistical comparison, but I believe Lance Alworth & Pete Pihos also played without a HOF QB throwing to them.

This fact is what makes electing HOF recievers the most fickle choice in all HOF ballots...you may have everything to be the greatest reciever ever, but you can't get the ball thrown to you if you play with mediocre QBs all of your career. It says so much that Alworth, Pihos, Largent and Monk overcame merely servicable QB to become as prolific as they did.

(interesting aside: can anyone tell me how many All-Pro appearances each QB had during the careers of all the HOF recievers? I think Monk had only 2--Theismann in 1984, and Rypien in 1991. That would be an interesting stat to dig up.

[Bryan81]

Lots of good information. Hopefully people will see this posting & remember the anger they felt earlier this year when Monk was again denied & keep their drive to get him in alive. Monk should be in the Hall of Fame.