On bar stools everywhere, everyday the same arguments are constantly happening about the greatest of all time. No matter the subject, be it sports, movies, food, etc. Many people having these arguments may have had a few “pops” in them, but that just adds to the seriousness (or hilarity) of the debate.
This website will strive to use fact-based, statistic-driven research to generate the lists of the greatest of all time. Heck, I may even throw in just a little bit of logic out there as well. While this site was originally intended to cover sports with an analytical slant, most anything can be analyzed and researched using this method.
While sports may be the main focus early-on, I can see this site covering a multitude of topics. If you have a suggestion just leave a comment, send an email, or contact the site via Twitter @Gr8testAllTime. Thus far, I have started working on creating a value system that can rate players; and eventually teams in sports; by how dominating they were each season in their respective sport.
This value has a few names, but for now I am calling it the “Dominance Value” or DV. DV is generated by using a smaller population of a specific position I am evaluating based on the league size. To make each individual season more comparable, the population must increase as the respective league expands.
To better illustrate the DV of each position, the population has to include more than just the great players. It must also include the very good, good, and even above average players to provide a more accurate picture of each season, and not only WHO was dominant but just HOW dominant they were.
Next, with input from many sources, I selected the most telling stats for the specific position being evaluated. Each players’ yearly performance is then weighted against the populations performance each season, giving us a DV for each selected stat. DV is then added up across the key stats and produces a total DV for each season. This also makes it more accessible to compare how a players stats in one year would compare to another in different eras (Granted there will be many versions of this as it evolves).
I didn’t quite realize how complicated it would be to explain this and I will go further in depth in a future post, because I might have lost myself a few times. The DV seems to be producing good results so far. I have started to compile the Dominance Value for NFL WRs into various lists for not only the players entire careers, but their 5 best years as well as excluding years where the players were injured for at least half a season, etc. The results are not exactly what I or anyone else would have expected.
I intend to get something up on NFL wide receivers as soon as I possibly can. I anticipate this process will require some tweaks and here and there and that is where you come in. I want anyone reading this to give me their thoughts, ideas, and even criticisms on any work throughout the life of this site. If you have any other ideas for other lists that I could create using the dominance value or anything else please comment below or tweet at @Gr8testAllTime