Speaker 1: Joining me now a man you know from his work
Speaker 1: on the Broncos broadcast for many years now, and he
Speaker 1: will be assisting the Spanish language broadcast for the Kansas
Speaker 1: City Chiefs for the second year in a row.
Speaker 2: Rick Winer, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with me, Mandy.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry I'm calling you so late, but in
Speaker 1: my mind you were coming on on Friday and today
Speaker 1: is clearly Thursday, So just kidding.
Speaker 2: Sorry about that.
Speaker 3: Read no problem.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you how did you get into stats.
Speaker 3: Or I'll believe it or not. It started when I
Speaker 3: was fifteen years old and I simply went into the
Speaker 3: high school football coaches office and offered to the seat
Speaker 3: if they needed anyone to help with stats. And I
Speaker 3: got this look like I had just gotten off of
Speaker 3: the UFO, because they'd never had anybody, let alone as
Speaker 3: students at the school come in with that kind of
Speaker 3: a request. And the coach said to me, may, by
Speaker 3: all means, we'll give you a playbook. You can start
Speaker 3: the plays come with us to all the road games too,
Speaker 3: And that kind of got it going for me, and
Speaker 3: then I started working that same fall at the Chiefs Games.
Speaker 3: I'm from Kansas City originally, and I got a chance
Speaker 3: to work in the press box with the public relations director,
Speaker 3: and then when Arrowhead was built, I did the statistics
Speaker 3: for the storeboard when the stadium first opened. I've been
Speaker 3: sort of doing this company ever since. Even used to
Speaker 3: do play by play back in college on the campus
Speaker 3: radio stations.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I certainly have a radio voice.
Speaker 1: But you have a real profession, Like, you have a
Speaker 1: real job that's outside of this, don't you.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do have a day job that takes me to,
Speaker 3: you know, some fun stuff that I've been working on.
Speaker 3: A psychiatrist. I've been in private practice forty years and
Speaker 3: I always tell people that are doing stats of games
Speaker 3: has been my therapy all these years. So I think
Speaker 3: it works out pretty well and my patients really get
Speaker 3: a kick out of it. Because I have a lot
Speaker 3: of sports memorabilia in my office. I really do have
Speaker 3: some psych books in there as well, but they're far
Speaker 3: more entertained by what I've brought back from games, whether
Speaker 3: it's a bobblehead or a program or flip or whatever.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that as a as a sports fan,
Speaker 1: the sort of stats that we used to gather have
Speaker 1: expanded dramatically. Is that accurate or am I just learning
Speaker 1: about some of these stats that.
Speaker 2: We're actually right?
Speaker 3: You're right? And in some of the stats, there are
Speaker 3: just so many abbreviation it's almost impossible to keep up
Speaker 3: with them. And one of the things that I try
Speaker 3: to do and i'm doing stats the game is try
Speaker 3: to keep it fairly simple. You know, what are the
Speaker 3: numbers that help tell the story of the game. And
Speaker 3: you want it to be not only accurate, but you
Speaker 3: want it to be concise, and you want it to
Speaker 3: be understandable when it's conveyed by the announcers to the
Speaker 3: people who are listening or watching. So there's so much
Speaker 3: out there, But I'm doing a lot of this on
Speaker 3: the fly as the game is going on. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I do my homework, but I'm really looking for a
Speaker 3: lot of different things during the course of the game
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: What are some of your favorite sort of obscure statistics
Speaker 1: that you just personally enjoy that maybe you don't share
Speaker 1: as much.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean one, the Super Bowl sort of has
Speaker 3: its own set of statistics, and I've compiled my own
Speaker 3: record books and might say that goes beyond what the
Speaker 3: NFL generally provides in the postseason media guide. But there
Speaker 3: are some fun ones. I mean, for one thing, we
Speaker 3: never had a punt return for a touchdown in the
Speaker 3: Super Bowl. That been five hundred and thirty six punts
Speaker 3: and not a one of them has been returned for
Speaker 3: a touchdown. And yet there have been three blocked punts
Speaker 3: that have been returned for touchdowns, So that's kind of unusual.
Speaker 2: That's very cool.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the new kickoff rules made more
Speaker 1: or less more or fewer returns for a touchdown on.
Speaker 3: The kickoffs were on kickoffs? You know, we've had some
Speaker 3: kickoffs that have been returned for touchdowns in the Super Bowl,
Speaker 3: but no punts.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I think what's also happened. I think the punters have
Speaker 3: gotten so good. I think they punt the ball so
Speaker 3: high anymore these days. And also the spinning. A lot
Speaker 3: of them are the kind of the Australian rules guys
Speaker 3: who come over and they've become punters, and I think
Speaker 3: the spin on the ball makes a difference as well.
Speaker 3: So there are a lot of things that have contributed
Speaker 3: to that, and certainly the rules on the kickoff, although
Speaker 3: we now have the ball if it's a touch back
Speaker 3: in the end zone on a kickoff, it comes after
Speaker 3: the thirty yard line, so a lot of teams figure out,
Speaker 3: just take the ball to thirty right enough for me
Speaker 3: and go from there. So we've had like sixty five
Speaker 3: percent of the kickoffs resulted in touchbacks during the regular season,
Speaker 3: and that wasn't a whole lot different than it had
Speaker 3: been when the rules were for you to kick off
Speaker 3: from the thirty instead of the thirty five.
Speaker 1: Are there any sets that you feel are more useful
Speaker 1: in determining whether a team is, you know, as good
Speaker 1: as you think or a player is as good as
Speaker 1: you think than others.
Speaker 3: You are certain ones that sort of jump out at me.
Speaker 3: And just with the Super Bowl in mine, the turnover
Speaker 3: ratio continues to be such an important statistic. I mean,
Speaker 3: in the Super Bowls, what we've had with fifty eight
Speaker 3: of them so far, and there have been thirty nine
Speaker 3: times that the team with the better turnover ratio has
Speaker 3: won the game and only six times as the team
Speaker 3: lost when they've had the better ratio. But that also
Speaker 3: means that we've had thirteen games when it was even
Speaker 3: but that's still a very telling statistic as his points
Speaker 3: off turnovers, and it's a trend that we're continuing to
Speaker 3: see here in the postseason. The twelve teams that have
Speaker 3: won postseason games so far are plus twenty one in
Speaker 3: the turnover ratio. Who so they have the winning teams
Speaker 3: have twenty five takeaways, the losing team's only four, and
Speaker 3: those four takeaways by the losing team came in just
Speaker 3: two games. Three of the four came in the first
Speaker 3: game of the postseason, when Houston had three turnovers, has
Speaker 3: still won the game against the Chargers, and then the
Speaker 3: Chiefs had one turnover against Buffalo, the only game in
Speaker 3: the postseason, by the way, so far that the winning
Speaker 3: team has had a losing turnover ratio.
Speaker 2: That's because the Chiefs always find a way.
Speaker 1: It feels like, I mean, that's what separates the good
Speaker 1: from the great, you know, it really does. What are
Speaker 1: some of the stats that you personally feel maybe over
Speaker 1: relied on by, because I feel like there's two different
Speaker 1: kinds of stats, right there's fans stats where you just
Speaker 1: want to find out how your team did and how
Speaker 1: your favorite players did, and then there's like analyst stats
Speaker 1: where they're trying to figure out, you know, statistically, what
Speaker 1: the best moves on the team are. What do you
Speaker 1: find to be I mean, do you feel like the
Speaker 1: NFL maybe is relying too much on stats or not enough.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's gotten to the point it almost feels
Speaker 3: like they really too much. But I don't think so.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the trends that we've seen
Speaker 3: here in recent years, based on some of the analytics
Speaker 3: that have been done, you see teams going forward on
Speaker 3: fourth down. What used to I mean, to me, that's
Speaker 3: a big change. It was fourth and one. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: were either punting the ball or we're going to try
Speaker 3: a field goal if we think we got a shot
Speaker 3: at it. But now teams are going forward on fourth
Speaker 3: and four and more than five from midgfield or sometimes
Speaker 3: even in their own territory. So I think that's been
Speaker 3: a dramatic change. Just to give you an idea, I mean,
Speaker 3: so far in the postseason, the winning teams are sixteen
Speaker 3: of twenty on fourth down.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3: But the losing teams are fifteen out of twenty nine.
Speaker 3: So it's not like they've been bad, it's just you know,
Speaker 3: here we are twelve games in postseason play and there
Speaker 3: have been forty nine fourth down attempts already, which is
Speaker 3: sort of mind boggling.
Speaker 2: Mark Winer is my guest.
Speaker 1: He is going to be doing the stats for the
Speaker 1: Kansas City Chiefs Spanish language broadcast.
Speaker 2: Do you speak the Espaniel, Rick.
Speaker 3: Peka? You know what I mean? My six years of
Speaker 3: French are of limited value during the broadcast. Thank goodness.
Speaker 3: The announcers I work with are bilingual, so I can
Speaker 3: give them information in English. I'm pretty decent on numbers
Speaker 3: in Spanish, and I find myself every now and then
Speaker 3: just sort of lapsing into giving them yardage of a
Speaker 3: play in Spanish. But thank goodness, they can take my
Speaker 3: information in English and go from there.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you making time for us today, Rick,
Speaker 1: and have a fantastic time, doctor Rick Winer. He's our
Speaker 1: stats guy for the Broncos. He's working for the enemy
Speaker 1: this weekend, but we'll forgive him for that. Rick, thanks
Speaker 1: for your time today.
Speaker 2: Have a great one.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Enjoyed the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Many pleasure being with you.
Speaker 2: Thank you