Joining me now a man you know from his work on the Broncos broadcast for many years now, and he will be assisting the Spanish language broadcast for the Kansas City Chiefs for the second year in a row.
Rick Winer, Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with me, Mandy. Thanks for having me.
Well, I'm sorry I'm calling you so late, but in my mind you were coming on on Friday and today is clearly Thursday, So just kidding.
Sorry about that.
Read no problem.
I want to ask you how did you get into stats.
Or I'll believe it or not. It started when I was fifteen years old and I simply went into the high school football coaches office and offered to the seat if they needed anyone to help with stats. And I got this look like I had just gotten off of the UFO, because they'd never had anybody, let alone as students at the school come in with that kind of a request. And the coach said to me, may, by
all means, we'll give you a playbook. You can start the plays come with us to all the road games too, And that kind of got it going for me, and then I started working that same fall at the Chiefs Games. I'm from Kansas City originally, and I got a chance to work in the press box with the public relations director, and then when Arrowhead was built, I did the statistics for the storeboard when the stadium first opened. I've been
sort of doing this company ever since. Even used to do play by play back in college on the campus radio stations.
Well, yeah, I certainly have a radio voice.
But you have a real profession, Like, you have a real job that's outside of this, don't you.
Yes, I do have a day job that takes me to, you know, some fun stuff that I've been working on. A psychiatrist. I've been in private practice forty years and I always tell people that are doing stats of games has been my therapy all these years. So I think it works out pretty well and my patients really get a kick out of it. Because I have a lot
of sports memorabilia in my office. I really do have some psych books in there as well, but they're far more entertained by what I've brought back from games, whether it's a bobblehead or a program or flip or whatever. So it's a lot of fun.
It seems to me that as a as a sports fan, the sort of stats that we used to gather have expanded dramatically. Is that accurate or am I just learning about some of these stats that.
We're actually right?
You're right? And in some of the stats, there are just so many abbreviation it's almost impossible to keep up with them. And one of the things that I try to do and i'm doing stats the game is try to keep it fairly simple. You know, what are the numbers that help tell the story of the game. And you want it to be not only accurate, but you want it to be concise, and you want it to be understandable when it's conveyed by the announcers to the
people who are listening or watching. So there's so much out there, But I'm doing a lot of this on the fly as the game is going on. So yeah, I do my homework, but I'm really looking for a lot of different things during the course of the game as well.
What are some of your favorite sort of obscure statistics that you just personally enjoy that maybe you don't share as much.
Well, I mean one, the Super Bowl sort of has its own set of statistics, and I've compiled my own record books and might say that goes beyond what the NFL generally provides in the postseason media guide. But there are some fun ones. I mean, for one thing, we never had a punt return for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. That been five hundred and thirty six punts and not a one of them has been returned for
a touchdown. And yet there have been three blocked punts that have been returned for touchdowns, So that's kind of unusual.
That's very cool.
Do you think that the new kickoff rules made more or less more or fewer returns for a touchdown on.
The kickoffs were on kickoffs? You know, we've had some kickoffs that have been returned for touchdowns in the Super Bowl, but no punts.
Okay.
I think what's also happened. I think the punters have gotten so good. I think they punt the ball so high anymore these days. And also the spinning. A lot of them are the kind of the Australian rules guys who come over and they've become punters, and I think the spin on the ball makes a difference as well.
So there are a lot of things that have contributed to that, and certainly the rules on the kickoff, although we now have the ball if it's a touch back in the end zone on a kickoff, it comes after the thirty yard line, so a lot of teams figure out, just take the ball to thirty right enough for me
and go from there. So we've had like sixty five percent of the kickoffs resulted in touchbacks during the regular season, and that wasn't a whole lot different than it had been when the rules were for you to kick off from the thirty instead of the thirty five.
Are there any sets that you feel are more useful in determining whether a team is, you know, as good as you think or a player is as good as you think than others.
You are certain ones that sort of jump out at me. And just with the Super Bowl in mine, the turnover ratio continues to be such an important statistic. I mean, in the Super Bowls, what we've had with fifty eight of them so far, and there have been thirty nine times that the team with the better turnover ratio has won the game and only six times as the team
lost when they've had the better ratio. But that also means that we've had thirteen games when it was even but that's still a very telling statistic as his points off turnovers, and it's a trend that we're continuing to see here in the postseason. The twelve teams that have won postseason games so far are plus twenty one in the turnover ratio. Who so they have the winning teams have twenty five takeaways, the losing team's only four, and those four takeaways by the losing team came in just
two games. Three of the four came in the first game of the postseason, when Houston had three turnovers, has still won the game against the Chargers, and then the Chiefs had one turnover against Buffalo, the only game in the postseason, by the way, so far that the winning team has had a losing turnover ratio.
That's because the Chiefs always find a way.
It feels like, I mean, that's what separates the good from the great, you know, it really does. What are some of the stats that you personally feel maybe over relied on by, because I feel like there's two different kinds of stats, right there's fans stats where you just want to find out how your team did and how your favorite players did, and then there's like analyst stats where they're trying to figure out, you know, statistically, what
the best moves on the team are. What do you find to be I mean, do you feel like the NFL maybe is relying too much on stats or not enough.
I mean, it's gotten to the point it almost feels like they really too much. But I don't think so. And I think one of the trends that we've seen here in recent years, based on some of the analytics that have been done, you see teams going forward on fourth down. What used to I mean, to me, that's a big change. It was fourth and one. It's like, well, were either punting the ball or we're going to try a field goal if we think we got a shot
at it. But now teams are going forward on fourth and four and more than five from midgfield or sometimes even in their own territory. So I think that's been a dramatic change. Just to give you an idea, I mean, so far in the postseason, the winning teams are sixteen of twenty on fourth down.
Wow, that's pretty impressive.
But the losing teams are fifteen out of twenty nine. So it's not like they've been bad, it's just you know, here we are twelve games in postseason play and there have been forty nine fourth down attempts already, which is sort of mind boggling.
Mark Winer is my guest.
He is going to be doing the stats for the Kansas City Chiefs Spanish language broadcast.
Do you speak the Espaniel, Rick.
Peka? You know what I mean? My six years of French are of limited value during the broadcast. Thank goodness. The announcers I work with are bilingual, so I can give them information in English. I'm pretty decent on numbers in Spanish, and I find myself every now and then just sort of lapsing into giving them yardage of a play in Spanish. But thank goodness, they can take my information in English and go from there.
I really appreciate you making time for us today, Rick, and have a fantastic time, doctor Rick Winer. He's our stats guy for the Broncos. He's working for the enemy this weekend, but we'll forgive him for that. Rick, thanks for your time today.
Have a great one.
Man.
Enjoyed the Super Bowl.
Thank you so much. Many pleasure being with you.
Thank you