1. you may have a problem with it but that is precisely why trimmed means or in some cases medians are used. in cases with small samples, a mean can fluctuate dramatically with severe outliers. for example if the temperature for 7 days were as follows: 100, 100, 100, 30, 100, 100, 100. what would you expect the temperature on the 8th day to be? it would probably be ~100 (as the median or a trimmed mean would indicate), but the true average is 90. similarly, if you trying to predict what an average qb performance, a severe outlier can bias your estimation.
2. so your argument against goff seems to boil down to the fact that hes too stupid to digest a defense (and know with direction the sun sets). while its certainly possible i find it doubtful. first he scored a 36 on the wonderlich which isnt too shabby. second, when did teams suddenly take away the "pre snap communication tactic"? you note that goff declined after the KC game, so was Detroit the first team? if so, why did he perform well in AZ and SF. if its all his success is due to mcvay telling him what to do, surely he would not have played well even against inferior competition. moreover goff seemed to play better in an up temp or hurry up style which provided less time for mcvay to tell him what to do. nevertheless, perhaps im wrong. lets see what he does next year.
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moklerman
The problem I have with something like a trimmed mean is that the data is already very limited. Taking 2 games out of an 8 game sample seems counterproductive in terms of analyzing how a player is playing.
You mentioned not having Kupp as a potential reason there was a drop off in Goff's production. I don't agree with that because he had his best game as a pro against KC when Kupp wasn't in the lineup. No Gurley, Anderson filled in nicely. O-line not playing as well? Based on what? The numbers don't support a significant drop off.
I certainly appreciate considering these other things but each of them don't really hold water IMO. So, I'm left with my theory. Much, if not most of Goff's success since McVay arrived was due to the pre snap communication tactic. Which there's nothing wrong with using. Many teams also use it but it seems that Goff still has much to learn when not having that resource available.
When teams took that away and the Rams weren't able to run plays up tempo, Goff struggled. Much like when he was a rookie. It seems like a plausible lynch pin to me. Take away that pre snap communication and Goff's reads, audibles and line calls/protection calls are going to suffer. So, is it more reasonable to think that there is a list of 6 or 7 different things failing throughout the coaches and players or that this one thing happened which had rippling effects?
