Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

however anyone feels about his HOF inductions
what is bothersome is Dan Pompei's
article in that Covert gave up "12 holding calls his entire career" paraphrase
but he only played 110 games and also gives no context for others
HOF tackles

I've looked at that stat--and for one--you always have to double-check those
things because in gamebooks in the 1980s not all holding calls named the
offender

Anyway, he kind of does the same thing with sacks allowed
if you play 8 years and two of those are 8-game seasons or so
it does keep the gross stats down a little.

Ron Mix's HoF bio says he had only two holding penalties in 10 seasons...
Is this correct?
And can you imagine how pissed he was at the second one?!

Stats without context are meaningless. Unfortunately, too many stats are tossed around without giving context in order to intentionally skew in favor of one thing or another.

Yes. Very important to think about context when dealing with statistics and even All-Pro honors. Strike-shortened seasons, injuries, rules, field conditions, wider hash marks, all of those factors affect statistics in a number of ways. Stats are great but can also be misleading. Specifically as far as holding statistics, if a guy plays in a fewer amount of games for a team that generally doesn't run as many plays (e.g. a lot of three and outs), that's also something to consider vs a guy playing on an offense that generally has longer drives. All that adds up.

In addition to offensive holding calls, another good stat without context is TDs allowed by a defensive back. The 1979 Charger highlight film claims that Mike Williams didn't allow a single TD pass all season.

Part of me thinks that Jim Sweeney - Jim Covert's offensive line teammate at Pittsburgh - had a better pro career - fifteen years.

I always thought that the voters' logic on Covert was that Walter Payton should have had a HOF offensive lineman, like many Hallof Famer running backs. Mike Kenn and Joe Jacoby were better contemporary tackles, IMHO.

JuggernautJ wrote:Ron Mix's HoF bio says he had only two holding penalties in 10 seasons...
Is this correct?
And can you imagine how pissed he was at the second one?!

That is one of those stats that cannot be verified---the gamebooks ust
didn't list who held---

no way to know for sure

Bryan wrote:In addition to offensive holding calls, another good stat without context is TDs allowed by a defensive back. The 1979 Charger highlight film claims that Mike Williams didn't allow a single TD pass all season.

That, at least, would be verifiable at the time---not now because those films are likely gone---

but interestingly Proscout's rank for him that year was 4th in the NFL, so
there is some independent verifcation for the quality of his play.

though not for the number of TDs allowed

you will see that type of thing in the lieratur of the say

in 1971 Herb Adderly didn't allow a TD--so say the Dallas records
that same year, ironically, Gene Howard, allowed just one.

Is that true? No way to know, but here is the thing, why would they lie

my guess is that the PR guys put in the film or media guides what the
coaches told them---but then again, on the other hand that is
how we got 23 sacks for Harvey Marin in 1977 when the gamebooks showed 20

and 26 for Deacon in 1967 when there were less or 26 for Bacon
in 1976 when there were 21.5 and so on

At best, those stats give us good TD allowed stats, or at worst
a good idea that someone we didn't know at the time (Mike Williams)
had a very good year...