This is the same argument that baseball has been having for the past 20+ years, but really since the advent of the internet. On one side you have the grumpy curmudgeons who adamantly believe that, for example, the only important stats for a pitcher are win loss record, earned run average, and "quality" starts. They completely dismiss things like fielding independent ERA, WHIP, strikeout ratios, and, to a lesser extent WAR. On the other side of the coin are the sabremetricians: the Brian Kennys, Keith Laws, and Joe Sheahans of the world who believe that they, without watching a single game, can lord over a spreadsheet and a computer and a calculator and not only break down the best players in the league, but could build better ball clubs than every single GM in the league.
Both points are valid, but each camp refuses to acknowledge the validity of the other, which causes rifts in the game. Lately, it has impacted Hall of fame voting, with sabremetric aficionados actively arguing against a guy like Frank Thomas in lieu of putting Fred McGriff into this year's hall of fame class. In football, statistics don't mean nearly as much as it is a true team game: baseball is very much an individual game disguised as a team sport. Advanced statistics will be helpful in the future of football as mathematicians and statisticians alike begin to find unique patterns and correlations between the successful as well as the unsuccessful players and what, if any, measurables exist that can be extrapolated to give the individual stats and plays and players and situations more meaning and value. I just hope that when that day comes, football historians and commentators and analysts alike view the introduction of the two as more of a marriage, and not a war of two combatants who are arguing to the same end, but whose arrogance blinds them to the value of the other.
