Football analytics guru Aaron Schatz invoked Taylor Swift when responding to a vicious attack from Stephen A. Smith.
Schatz was the lone voter out of 50 who kept Lamar Jackson from being the unanimous MVP choice, having picked Josh Allen and Dak Prescott ahead of the Ravens quarterback.
Without referring to Schatz by name, Smith went after the voter who snubbed Jackson on ESPN’s “First Take” on Friday.
“That was a stupid homer vote by that individual, probably scared to go back in the locker room if he had voted against Josh Allen,” Smith said.
“That compromises everything. You have to be objective when you have a vote. And that writer — I don’t know who the hell it was — but that’s an embarrassment.”
Schatz seemingly responded to Smith Friday morning, tweeting the Taylor Swift lyrics, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”
In a column published after the end of the regular season in January, Schatz described his statistical rationale for ranking Allen over Jackson on his All-Pro ballot.
Schatz is probably more responsible for popularizing analytics in football as he founded Football Outsiders, which published a yearly almanac that was must-read to prepare for NFL season, and developed the DYAR and DVOA metrics which are useful tools in power-ranking quarterbacks and overall teams.
One of Football Outsiders’ longtime axioms, which stated that total starts and completion percentage were the most statistically significant factors in predicting whether college quarterbacks will have success in the NFL, would have revealed Brock Purdy to be a much better prospect than the last overall pick in the NFL draft.
Schatz left Football Outsiders for the outlet FTN last year.