Iconoclast: (noun) a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition.
There was a time in my youth when I prided myself on my iconoclastic identity.
Later, there came a time when I took that young iconoclast out behind the shed...
He hasn't been heard from since.
Time has taught me that, despite my desire to change the tenants of time-tested institution, truth is truth. That is not to say that truth should not be challenged. It most certainly must be. But, truth being truth, passes the test of time...every time it is tested.
How's that for dizzying logic? And, what in the Sam Hill does any of this have to do with sports?
Two words: Chip Kelly.
The former Duck turned Igle Head Coach is an iconoclast.
And, last night, former Igle now Chief Head Coach, Andy Reid, was The Truth.
I had held out hope that Kelly's up-tempo, high energy and extremely entertaining offensive philosophy would at the very least find some fundamental gap in NFL game planning as we know it. Alas, I am convinced that is not the case.
This is not to say that Kelly will go the way of Spurior or Saban. I think that, if his ego is pliable enough to concede the fact that truth is truth for a reason, he can learn to be a good (if not great) NFL head coach.
OK Mr. Smarty Pants - what the heck is this truth you speak of.
Here it is: Statistics can not change the outcome of an NFL game.
Chip Kelly, based on his success at the collegiate level, believes that they can. He believes that if he runs his offense fast enough, enough times, eventually (statistically speaking) he can find something in opponents' defenses that he can exploit.
He cannot.
One of my professors in college, put it like this. Mathematically, I can convince you that if I shoot a bullet at your car, it will never make contact. He pointed out that in the abstract analysis of the way the bullet might travel, it can be argued that there must always be a "halfway point". When you fire the gun, a point A and point B are created and there is a halfway point between the two. Once the bullet reaches that halfway point, there is a new point A and point B and therefore a new halfway point. And, so the logic goes, that there must always be a new halfway point....
Until I have a bullet hole in my car and want to punch him and myself for even entertaining the idea that there wouldn't be.
Experience tells me that if you shoot a gun, the bullet will eventually make contact with something and typically to devastating effect. Experience also tells me that you can't change the NFL through statistical analysis. Not since the invention of the forward pass anyway.
Push back will come from sports fans that point to Billy Beane, and this is a valid point. Even though he has not won a ring with his philosophy, I believe that Mr. Beane, aided by an army of underground stat geeks, have fundamentally changed how we evaluate baseball success, thusly changing the beautiful game forever.
Wait, didn't you say earlier that truth is truth? Yes, I also said it must be tested in order to prove it to indeed be truth. Moneyball demonstrates that the methodology inherent in the grand old system of measuring baseball success could very well be flawed.
Could. I hearken back to Beane's ringless finger..
Bottom line: Baseball is a statistical game. Bill Miller and company taught Billy Beane that baseball's "better mousetrap" was all in the numbers.
Chip Kelly's problem is that football is not a game of statistics. Each season for each NFL team is a military-esque campaign divided into 16 battles. Each battle's outcome effects the next battle. These battles and the eventual campaign are won with tactical strategy, logistics, good training and the ability to survive inevitable attrition.
These battles are fought in the trenches where men attempt to bend the will of their opponent with brute force. You can't do that with a calculator.
Could this be false and upon me proved?
Time will tell. In the meantime, let me repeat:
Chip Kelly is an Iconoclast.
Andy Reid is the Truth.
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