TWILIGHT RED ZONE

Former stat guy: Inside-20 numbers are folly

SO IF you reinvent the flat tire, where do you apply for the patent? With the NFL season starting, we’re inspired to ask how conspicuously stupid stats — those that fill TV screens — are introduced then parroted until they become part of our steady diet, force-fed to us as must-see, must-hear “enlightenment”?

Perhaps Ed Joyce can provide some answers. He read a recent column here about how no one knows how NFL TV networks’ red-zone stats work, when they begin, and how, regardless of where and when, they make no contextual, applicable football sense. Yet TV shoves them into our good sense as significant data.

“I was an info and stat guy at ABC Sports and then ESPN just as the red zone was becoming a ‘thing’ for telecasts,” Joyce writes.

“There were conversations, internally, as to when a given possession was to be given the RZ designation. So I reached out to the NCAA office, led and staffed by excellent men. They told me there was no way they would add it to their official stats as there were far too many variables, several of which you included in your [flattery deleted] column.

“The biggest argument was about a first-down prerequisite. I was foursquare behind this as it would at least take away the silliness of a single down, say fourthand-9 at the 19, counting the same as a first-and-10 at the 19. If I re- call correctly, there was a majority sentiment that a first down ought to be required, but it would be too confusing to coordinate in the heat of a game telecast to insist on it.

“The bottom line was that it would be left to the individual crew/statisticians to create the stat. Since it wasn’t official, it would never matter down the road if there were some variance amongst different entities for season totals.

“I believe, but am not certain, that all but one crew ended up going with any one snap inside the 20 triggering an RZ designation.”

Thus red zone stats remain wildly misleading, often senseless and worthless. Yet, they’re ubiquitous, posted and spoken at every opportunity, and compared to other teams’ RZ stats, as if they’re telltale. TV will believe anything and take you along for the long, long ride.

There are few in-game football stats that are reality-based, thus worthwhile. They are: the score, the quarter, time remaining, down-and-distance, remaining timeouts and, at times, particulars about the weather. After that, we’re good to go. And so here we go.