Didn't say that was the reason she got the gig (I didn't know about her degrees, ill admit).
It's the vibe she gives off. I just see someone that talks a bunch of numbers that don't lead to anything, who also looks good which goes against the stereotype. I feel that is being pushed on screen too much. Just talk football.
I feel ya. There's just a pretty common narrative around here when critiquing or even praising women reporters/analysts and it tends to circle more around their appearance/gender and it's not really the best of looks. I'm probably a little more sensitive to it because I've shown this forum to potential new posters and had them come back with posts that were rather unbecoming and tell me they didn't want to participate in an environment like that. Not pointing fingers at you or anything, as far as I remember it's not something I notice from you, it's just something I think we as a collective can do better at.
Her analytics are pretty simple statistics, nothing too exciting, she just plugs her numbers into her model and reads out the results. Again, just by virtue of being a sport there are so many unknown and variables that it's impossible to really have a lot of accuracy and you're probably running with a similar hit rate as the people who are just guessing based on nothing but a gut feeling.
With sports moving more into the age of analytics, moneyball, corsi, etc, the NFL probably just loves the fact they can get these percentages on screen because it makes it appear more legitimate. Personally I agree, I'd rather just stick with some football stuff.
Really the issue is the 24 hour TV cycle stuff, there's just not enough going on in the NFL to talk about it for 24 hours day after day. Even when the season is going on, there isn't enough content. For example Good Morning Football is a 30 minute to an hour long show that they stretch for three, which is why they repeat segments like a little "news" drop multiple times in an episode, just to fill some time.
