New Comment and Fanpost Guidelines

I think healthy, lively discussion is important for a thriving community. I've been very slow to create absolute policies regarding the content of comments and fanposts for fear of a chilling effect. After a lot of consideration, I realize a few basic rules are needed for the sake of readability, and for the sake of the Field Gulls environment.

1. Fantasy General Managing is no longer allowed. Any post or comment involving elaborate, far fetched trade scenarios will be hidden and the poster warned. This does not bar endorsements for individual free agents or draftees.

2. Two particular types of logical fallacy will no longer be allowed.

A. Appeal to authority. To my knowledge, no other coach or manager in any major sport enjoys the mystique and respect of NFL coaches. Many, I would dare even most NFL fans believe their head coach to have an almost mystical power to influence the fate of their football team. And unfortunately that means many see them as infallible.

I do not think NFL coaches are stupid. I think they are very knowledgeable about the game of football. But I know they are men and as men capable of bias, favoritism, misinterpretation of data, inaccurate emphasis on certain abilities or qualities, superstition, laziness and error. So am I. The opinions of coaches are widely available. My goal is to offer an alternate, informed opinion. (As a side note, if you're interested in an accurate portrait of coaches and executives, I would suggest reading John Feinstein's Next Man Up.)

The problem is that when my opinion or the opinion of another poster differs from that of the coaching staff some readers have a negative and incredulous attitude. The response is typically "how could you know more than an NFL coach?" This is where the logical fallacy comes in. Because an NFL coach is fallible, it doesn't matter their access to information, their expertise or position, they can be wrong and another less qualified person can be right. What matters is the argument itself, not the person who makes it. If an NFL coach can present a compelling argument as to why a player is good, then his argument is to be respected like anyone else's. "This is true because this person says so" is not an acceptable form of argument and will not be tolerated on this site.

B. Call to Perfection. I do not have access to coach's film. I also do not have the time it would take to rigorously document the performance of every player on every play. Even if I did, I do not know exactly what a player is assigned to do on each individual play. This creates an incompleteness to my work. It's possible that I will miss important details and make mistakes. I feel very confident that the information I do have is enough to evaluate the performance of individual players. There is no perfect measure of performance, no perfect measure of potential, but there are good, logical, empirical and transparent methods that have served me well, that I trust and that I think most of the readers of this site trust. Invalidating an argument, because it is not perfect and cannot be perfectly comprehensive is not an acceptable form of argumentation and will not be tolerated on this site.

Let's take this for a test run. These arguments are no longer acceptable:

Brian Russell is a good safety because: He wasn't cut, was praised by whoever, or because his frequent visible failing is exceptional among his complete awesomeness in everything we can't see or prove.

These arguments are acceptable:

Brian Russell is a good safety because: Seattle allowed so few long receptions to his side of the field, Russell pairs his awing athleticism with an Euclidean knowledge of angles (as evidenced by...), or his ability to consistently double opposing receivers (as evidenced by...).

These are logical, debatable, even falsifiable. Most require some kind of work. Because these are logical, debatable, falsifiable and require some kind of work they create interesting conversation in which ideas are exchanged and knowledge spread.