Mail Monday: What if Brock Purdy Had Jordan Love's Saturday Performance?
The discourse is unfair to Purdy and that's why he's fun to watch
A few of you wrote in, wanting a Niners reaction take. Okay.
We’ll naturally go with top HoS muse Brock Purdy.
That’s well summarized by Kimes.
I did the Wharton Moneyball podcast and the hosts, who are analytically minded sports fans, expressed frustration over how small sample size outcomes in the NFL wildly swing analyst opinions. They disliked how irrational our national sports conversations are, given that luck obviously informs outcomes. Since they’re Philadelphia based, they were annoyed by how just a few plays swung the Eagles season and general perception of the team. My take, paraphrased: Yes, but that’s why it’s fun, and you’ll miss the overreaction when it’s gone.
Baseball’s gotten so much less interesting as the analysis of it has gotten more painstakingly correct. Hey, I know you want to rage against this slumping bum the Yankees paid a billion dollars to, but we can clearly see from his BLARF and his WERBLATT numbers that he’ll regress to the mean in a positive way.
Perhaps accurate, but not enjoyable for fans. The baseball approach also detracts from any moment feeling particularly meaningful. I’m thankful for analysis that finds signal through the noise, but I also recognize that this widespread scientific isolation of performance, divorced from team result, has had a dampening effect on enjoyable sports discussion. Baseball is not a safe place to just have a take on a guy in the moment. Football is.
I like living in a world where 10 out of 10 football analysts tell me before the Cowboys-Packers Wild Card game that Dak Prescott is better than Jordan Love and by the third quarter everyone’s changed their position. I can’t even call them stupid or irrational because in my own head I did the same thing. That said, the overreactions are clearly not equally applied in response to outcomes. To reference my Wharton podcast friends, Brock Purdy would not get the media leeway to perform like Jalen Hurts did to close this season.