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David Boston career statistics

Over the years, I've done lots of complicated studies on consistency. I've convinced myself that it should be ignored completely. First of all, I'm not convinced it's important enough to worry about. But more importantly, I don't see any way to predict who is going to be consistent and who is not. Instead of throwing stacks of numbers at you, I'll just say two words:

David Boston.

His 2000 season showed flashes of promise, but he was one of the most inconsistent WRs around. In 2001, he was a model of consistency, and his consistency was frequently listed as a point in his favor last year. Sure, you could come up with some after-the-fact rationalizations to explain this, but in fact nothing changed. The Cards defense was still terrible, their running game was still terrible, Plummer was still Plummer and Boston was the same person in 2000 as he was in 2001. My claim is that no one has any idea whether Boston will be consistent or inconsistent in 2002. Consistency, in my view, is not a trait that some people possess and some don't. Rather, it's something that just happens to people for reasons that no one can predict.

If you want to take Boston high, do it. But don't do it because he was consistent in 2001. Do it because he's a great receiver.