[BostonCard]

* I see the QBR numbers continue to evolve as the week goes on. Presumably because somebody is sitting in a dark room at ESPN evaluating tape. That is supposedly a strength of QBR, a human is making decisions about game-situation and effectiveness. But that also means it isn't really a statistic.

Although I know what you mean, that is not quite the correct definition of "statistic".  "Statistic" doesn't mean that a human is not involved or subjective judgement, just that that the statistic represents an estimate of the parameter.  QBR would not be a statistic if you had a human reviewing all the plays and coming to a qualitative judgement like "McKee is a great quarterback".  While the underlying parameters that go into the QBR involve an element of subjectivity, and the calculation is a bit of a black box, as I understand it, the video reviewers score each play and QBR is a statistic that summarizes those scores.  That the individual scores are scored by humans does not make it any less of a statistic than if the components were based on in-game measurements.

To give you an example, it is perfectly fine to say that the average score on an English essay was 82 points out of 100 possible.  That average score is a statistic that summarizes the underlying data.  That the essay was hand-graded by the teacher according to a rubric does not mean the average score is not a statistic.

BC

[BostonCard]

* I see the QBR numbers continue to evolve as the week goes on. Presumably because somebody is sitting in a dark room at ESPN evaluating tape. That is supposedly a strength of QBR, a human is making decisions about game-situation and effectiveness. But that also means it isn't really a statistic.

Although I know what you mean, that is not quite the correct definition of "statistic".  "Statistic" doesn't mean that a human is not involved or subjective judgement, just that that the statistic represents an estimate of the parameter.  QBR would not be a statistic if you had a human reviewing all the plays and coming to a qualitative judgement like "McKee is a great quarterback".  While the underlying parameters that go into the QBR involve an element of subjectivity, and the calculation is a bit of a black box, as I understand it, the video reviewers score each play and QBR is a statistic that summarizes those scores.  That the individual scores are scored by humans does not make it any less of a statistic than if the components were based on in-game measurements.

To give you an example, it is perfectly fine to say that the average score on an English essay was 82 points out of 100 possible.  That average score is a statistic that summarizes the underlying data.  That the essay was hand-graded by the teacher according to a rubric does not mean the average score is not a statistic.

BC