thekaleshake t1_jdqiua4 wrote on March 26, 2023 at 12:10 PM

When you understand the context, you'll understand why this is beautiful. I was wishing someone would make this graph.

Two previous posts (https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/122avg2/taller_american_football_players_tend_to_throw/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/122c5b2/american_football_starting_quarterback_pass/) put out weak evidence that QB height was correlated with passing performance. No R2 values, polynomial regressions where they are not needed, uninformative bubble sizes.

OP just put up the real analysts graph - a measure of passing performance that is acceptably unbiased for time on the field plotted against QB height, modeled linearly showing that height explains 0.3% of the variance in this metric. This graph is the hero we need, but not the one we deserve.

JPAnalyst t1_jdqlxt3 wrote on March 26, 2023 at 12:42 PM

And the two charts you link to were an effort to respond to my chart which started this parade of QB height scatter plots. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/121pvx7/oc_nfl_quarterbacks_of_passes_batted_down/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

In my chart, which was not an attempt to evaluate QB effectiveness against height, but an attempt to evaluate one aspect of quarterbacking...batted balls.

There is widely assumed belief that shorter QBs will have their passes batted down more frequently which is proven to be false in my analysis. People point to players such as Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray who are short and have passes batted down often, but these two commonly used examples are not the rule which is evident in my chart. That’s was the point of my analysis, to either prove or disprove that narrative wasn’t sure which way it would go when I started, but it was clear when I finished.

The person who created the other two weird and flawed charts was aggressively critical of my analysis and thought they would create something more meaningful. It’s clear that they don’t understand football or analytics. So here we are. Then this OP responded to them, and this OP gets it.

Exiled_From_Twitter OP t1_jdr45gv wrote on March 26, 2023 at 3:14 PM

Yup, I appreciated your post. It was very interesting and I recognized that you were not trying to prove performance but rather something that I thought would have been more positively correlated (as you explained already haha). I definitely would have guessed that shorter QB's would have had a higher percentage of balls batted down (and very glad you used percentages). I then saw the two that were linked above and was like wow, these are pointless.

If I added a bit more context or lengthened the time period a bit it would have likely had a negative correlation b/c Russ and Kyler had poor seasons by their standards (the two main short guys) AND I could have gone back far enough to add Brees which would have really given the short guys a boost. But it didn't matter, pretty clear that of all NFL QB's, which is a selected and managed group, there's no correlation between performance and height.

JPAnalyst t1_jdr89hw wrote on March 26, 2023 at 3:43 PM

Not only are they pointless. The OP just doubles down when you try to explain why they aren’t looking at things the right way. And they clearly don’t understand the game of football. I’ve had some frustrating conversations with them on my post.

And I agree, both of our analyses are impacted by survivorship bias. If you get to this point, you’re the best in the world. But within that context it’s still worth proving that height doesn’t make much (or any) difference. A slight build might make a difference in injury risk, but that’s a story for another day.

Exiled_From_Twitter OP t1_jdr4n9q wrote on March 26, 2023 at 3:18 PM

Thank you sir / madam, seeing these previous posts was precisely why I created this one. Russ and Kyler, 2 of the short guys, had poor seasons by their standards so it could have actually had a negative correlation if I had chosen a longer time period (especially if I had Brees in it) or chosen a different season. Didn't think I needed to and was correct.

Admittedly this is a specifically selected and managed group, so there is a bit of selection bias as guys who are short might simply need to be quite a bit better to even be considered good enough to be in this group but it still shows that anyone who is good enough to be a QB in the NFL is not impacted by height, i.e. if Bryce Young does in fact fail based on his high draft profile it won't be b/c he's shorter than others.