A Mike Mayock sentence goes something like this: Tape, tape, tape, kid, kid, tape, kid, tape, tape kid, tape, tape.
And that's all you need to know.
Mayock has been a boon to the type who somehow think it's a revelation to look at tape. As in, look at me, I'm watching the same thing as everyone else.
Perhaps we should throw a parade.
Fixation on tape is laughably simplistic. The high error rate in scouting is largely due to obsession with tape while ignoring the peripheral variables and how to weigh them. But I concede it won't change. Guys in this era are brainwashed to rely on tape, just like college football fans are now paralyzed to evaluate a team minus strength of schedule.
Two horses can be dead even at the top of the stretch. But how they got there and their likelihood to win the race, or subsequent races, can be vastly different. If you know the pedigree and the surrounding details, you understand that. It's not a surprise when there's a 7 length gap at the wire. But the goof with the binoculars and no background in the sport is cheering for the red saddlecloth and little else. If he sees Ryan Tannehill and Johnny Manziel looking roughly the same in a Texas A&M uniform late in their careers, he concludes they are parallel and their pro potential is roughly the same, if not advantage Tannehill. Heck, draft each one of them in the 8 spot. Disregard that one guy has been a special playmaker all his life while the other has been a perennial tease.
Tape lies all the time when conventional wisdom is the principal ammo of the beholder.
Bar stool types are shocked to be challenged. That's verified daily here. They are accustomed to screaming this guy sucks and that guy sucks and awaiting peer approval. That's how a modern day Steve Deberg-like Alex Smith and his lifetime pathetic 6.6 yards per attempt, just good enough to get you beat, is actually preferred above Colin Kaepernick and his 7.9 lifetime number and adjusted 8.1. It's rare for the second number to be superior to the first but the happy adjusters are wonderfully oblivious. Something in their system screamed suck so they stick with stuck. They don't even understand the criteria that places the second number above the first but none of that matters as long as the guy in the adjoining stool is equally bewildered.
futurescout is talented but he makes basic mistakes. Like yesterday when he announced that Cameron Wake has many top years left since he was inactive in his early 20s. That's happy adjuster caliber. Walrus properly scolded. Now the onslaught on numbers. I remember when I was new to Las Vegas and bet strictly on line of scrimmage mismatches. I scoffed at the eccentric nerds who were babbling about situational bias, and some vague concept of value. I threw away my stubbornness, studied what I'd previously dismissed, and prospered. Let it happen to you.
In the meantime, make sure you never speculate.
