A few weeks ago I watched my hero Bill James on “60 Minutes.” James, in case you don’t know, is the inventor of SABRmetrics, a way of applying stats in new and revolutionary ways to baseball. His ideas reportedly helped the Red Sox win a couple of World Series.

I couldn’t help thinking that it would be great if James applied his genius to an important sport like football, With the help of his innovations, who knows? Maybe the Bengals would be working on their third straight Super Bowl victory. Or at least a winning season.

One thing for sure, there wouldn’t be so many silly ideas floating around about some football stats.

For example, I’m sure James could set straight those people who put so much stock in the number of tackles a player makes. You’ve seen them drawing comparisons like Joe Blow made 120 tackles last season but John Doe only had 90 and that proves Blow is the better defender.

James probably would start out by reminding everybody that baseball is a team game played by individuals, but football is a team game played by teams. In baseball, every player is personally responsible for all or most of the stats he produces in batting, fielding, or pitching. Derek Jeter never stretched a single into a double because A-Rod laid a block on the opponent’s left fielder. 

In football, every player’s stat is dependent upon what his teammates and opponents do. For example, many of Blow’s tackles might be because his team runs a particular defense that pushes opposing runners toward his position. The Ravens’ defensive tackles in their Super Bowl season of 2000 didn’t make a lot of tackles; their job was to clear out blockers so that LB Ray Lewis could tackle the runners. Lewis deservedly racked up high tackle totals, but he’d be the first to say it was a team effort.

Blow’s high tackle total could mean that his team had such a paltry offense that the defense spent extra time on the field, thus racking up scads of tackles. Or, another possibility, opponents decided Blow was a weak link and sent more plays in his direction.

Don’t laugh. Did you ever notice how many rookie defensive backs have their best interception totals in their first couple of seasons? Do you think it just might be because they’re being tested in their early seasons?

All of this aside, tackle totals are completely meaningless anyway, unless we know where those tackles were made. I’m sure Bill James would point out that 10 tackles, each made 6-8 yards downfield, keeps an opponent’s drive going. Now, 10 tackles, all within 2-3 yards of the line of scrimmage, is a whole different matter.

Counting up the number of tackles a player gets doesn’t prove much except the guy was on the field for those plays.

One of the reasons I admire Bill James is that he’s willing to change if the evidence suggests so. Recently, after maintaining there are no such things as clutch hitters in baseball, he has backed off and decided “Maybe.” I’ll leave baseball to Bill. What bothers me is when football fans start comparing “clutch ability” among quarterbacks.

There’s no doubt that Bobby Layne, John Elway, Joe Montana, Roger Staubach and a whole batch of other famous quarterbacks saw their teams score final-quarter victories many times. They were outstanding players who didn’t mess up very often. They played mostly with teams that had offensive weapons capable of scoring late points and defensive units capable of holding a late lead. With those circumstances, any long-standing starting quarterback is going to preside over enough so-called comebacks that eventually he’ll get a reputation for winning in the clutch. In reality, he’s simply a good player doing what he’s paid very well to do. Different circumstances yield different “clutch abilities.” Archie Manning of the New Orleans Saints might have racked up lots of comebacks, except he had one major weakness — the Saints.

I always think of Manning when someone tries to sell “comeback wins” to me as a statistical way to rank quarterbacks. A “comeback win,” according to its believers, occurs when a team comes from behind to win. OK, but the devil’s in the details. Some say a team must be down at the beginning of the fourth quarter. A few count shorter end times, like five minutes to play or even two. The number of points a team must be trailing also varies, according to different advocates. Many will say a team must be a touchdown or more behind, but the most common margin I’ve seen is one point.

So, according to many, if a team is behind by a single point at the start of the fourth quarter and ends up winning, the quarterback gets credit for a “comeback win.”

I’ll pause if you care to guffaw. 

You’re probably adding up the ways a team can score without the quarterback even touching the ball. My favorite scenario has our team’s defense holding its opponent scoreless through the fourth quarter, but we still trail by a point with only a minute left. Every time we get into the red zone, our clutchless quarterback messes up. Then, our opponent decides to punt to play it safe. And their long-snapper fires one high, wide and out of the endzone for a safety. Chalk up a comeback win for our quarterback!

Comeback wins are even more absurd than pitchers’ won-lost records in baseball — a stat that James regards as meaningless. 

No doubt the quarterback is the most important man on offense, but to credit him alone for a victory is nonsense. The greatest irony would be when our quarterback throws a pair of fourth-quarter TD passes only to see the opponents score three touchdowns. Our quarterback not only misses getting a comeback win, he gets saddled with a “comeback loss.”

Maybe someday James will decide to analyze football. Until then, anyone making comparisons of base-hits-in-an-inning with yards-gained-in-a-quarter should remember the batter does it on his own — the running back had help from 10 other guys. As already noted, baseball is a team game played by individuals, and football is a team game played by teams.

Bob Carroll is a football historian who has written several books about pro football and helped edit “Total Football.”