Belichick's fourth-and-reckless ESPN
In baseball, statistics seep throughout every aspect of the game. And they should. It's an individual sport. You are on your own. If a major league team hired a computer programmer to build a GM program over hiring an realistic human being, the GM program probably wouldn't embarrass itself. It would be like the auto-pilot option in a fantasy bill of exchange. The computer believes we need a higher OBP guy who takes a ton of pitches, and it believes we can sacrifice above-average defense in an outfield spatter. It recommends that we pursue Bobby Abreu. Do you even need to watch baseball anymore to have an educated opinion? It's unclear.
In football? Statistics can ease. Absolutely. But you still need to watch games to have an educated opinion. After my beloved Patriots threw away Sunday's Colts business with one unnecessarily dangerous decision, my educated opinion was this: "That's the second dumbest thing I have ever seen any Boston group do." It trumped Darrell Johnson pitching Jim Burton in Game 7 of the 1975 World Series. It trumped K.C. Jones playing Fred Roberts forwards of Reggie Lewis for the entire 1988 playoffs. It trumped Raymond Berry starting Tony Eason in Wonderful Bowl XX. It trumped everything except Grady/Pedro in 2003.
