Quote
dzrams
If you're basing your assessment of a player primarily on what your eyes see you are being subjective by definition..

With all due respect I have to disagree with that. It's what scouting teaches us constantly. You can see key traits on the field. They count in an assessment. Otherwise you are running blind.

Let me give you an example. People don't remember this but when Faulk got traded to the Rams and then held out, there was a bit of a backlash. One of the things said was that Faulk was just this finesse speed back and could not run up the middle. Even some national press people said that. The ideal back then was the heavier guys like Duce Staley, Ricky Watters, Eddie George, and Bettis. Even Emmit Smith was around 219.

A lot of us said, no Faulk can run up the middle. He does it with vision and a very highly skilled ability to maneuver in traffic. He just avoids the direct hit and weaves his way through. I have to tell you, for some people, this was just fancy wishful thinking and had nothing to do with how backs really operated in the NFL.

And of course--Faulk was exactly as described. The way we were putting it then was that he had micro-gears within gears and could genuinely maneuver in traffic at a level far superior to anyone else. It got driven home as we saw slo-mo replay after slo-mo replay. Things that were simply not visible as you watched the original play showed up in the replays and you could see the multiple micro-hesitations and micro-bursts and micro-shifts.

Seeing and describing that skill is very much part of objective assessment.