Mid week thoughts.... on QB's

I was reading http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000214876/article/most-improved-for-2013-brandon-weeden-heads-quarterbacks

and I really liked the analysis w/QB Weeden...

but w/MIA QB Tannehill, I think the loss of WR Bess, will prove to be too much for MIA to overcome

and w/MIN QB Ponder, I thought he still needs seasoning, he has the physical traits that these scouts look for, but upstairs decision making really needs to improve a lot IMO, thus the acquisition of WR Jennings is just not enough

what's he seeing w/TEN QB Locker? Locker of all starting QBs, has accuracy issues and it hasn't changed since his college days, maybe if they really run the ball more like on two downs every series, then perhaps an improvement statistically might be seen, but I still think he'll have accuracy/timing issues w/WR's

For the most part QB's make the WR's, there are a few instances when the WR's make the QB in the NFL.
The slot WR is really light regarded by many football analysts, but I view these goto/possession WR as the QB's best friend when needed.

That's why for MIA to let go WR Bess will be a minus for MIA and a plus for CLE. WR Welker is a loss for NE and a gain for DEN. WR Amendola is a loss for STL and a gain for NE, though I don't believe Amendola is as big a gain as Bess or Welker. In this vein of thought, WR Bolden is a loss for BAL and a gain for SF. These are the good hands people the WR's I'd count on most in crunch time, not the down the field guy or any flashy player, yes the spectacular play is great to see, but I want a guy you can count on when the chips are down and you really need that first down, 'cause w/o those first downs, you'll never get to a TD consistently.

I also think of an ol' retread QB that may have a good year. ARI QB Palmer to WR Fitzgerald appears to be magic in the waiting w/WR's Roberts and Floyd on the other end of hopefully many catches. My only concern is their OL, if they improve ARI should do well, if not, QB Palmer may get knocked out of a game early and often.

KC QB Smith should also do well, though that first month maybe a bit rough playing the NFC East (DAL, PHI, NYG), but if they can win one or even two games they'll be setup rather well going into their bye in week 9 w/HOU being the only team that can out right thrash them. Coming off their bye week, they'll play DEN twice in three weeks, really rough with only WAS and perhaps IND posing any type of a challenge.

Young QB's Wilson, Kaepernick and Griffin all have a great supporting cast, thus you'd think they would do just as well this year, but I'm thinking only Wilson may actually have improvement. Who will Kaepernick throw to? And until I see Griffin back on the field, you can't count on his whole ability for at least a few games as I'm estimating he won't have a preseason to sharpen his skills.

I'll take a wait and see approach w/QB's Newton (new OC), QB Cutler (new HC/OC), and QB Romo (new OC).

2012 KO's by time and score

FP has again another gem of an article see http://www.footballperspective.com/knockouts-in-the-nfl/

If you examine the season records, you'll notice IND, DAL, STL, PHI ToKO wins of less than 10 min average and their associated record (11-5, 8-8, 7-8, 4-12) from the 2012 season. This really points to IND having overachieved for the season and this could point to a bet against them situation this year and with in game betting this might be true as well. And if you believe in the IND view then, perhaps PHI will be on the way up and a bet on proposition for much of the season.

JAC and KC had 0 ToKO wins, which speaks to the talent level and coaching of the team. This year they have new staff and new players (KC more incoming veterans than). If you believe in what goes up must come down and what goes down must come up, then perhaps JAC and KC will be on the upswing, though from personnel, I'd really expect KC to have a change in fortune this 2013 season and JAC perhaps slightly, but this because of the dependency on QB's and unless JAC returns to a running game w/MJD then perhaps good fortune will return.

Of the teams with less than 10 min average (<10) for ToKO losses, SEA, NE, PIT, CIN, WAS (-0.7, -1.3, -5, -7.3, -9)  with records of 11-5, 12-4, 8-8, 10-6, 10-6 all play close games and would be great half time teams as an underdog or pick'em. PIT is the underachiever of the bunch and NE is the overachiever, so perhaps progression(?) this season for PIT and regression(?) for NE.
 
Of the teams with greater than 30 min average (>30+) for ToKO losses, DEN, SF, HOU (-30.6, -31.7, -35.8) all have winning records (13-3, 11-4, 12-4), yet when then lose they are dominated. If you could predict this situation, then this would be a good 'in game' betting scenario as you could be against them, if they were down early in the game.

You also really notice which teams stick out in this table since it is based on Net Avg and the teams record next to it. BAL and IND appear to have overachieved with their winning record and not so much by dominance (due for regression? this year). SD appears to be the most unlucky team (due for progression? this year)

I would be nice to see the past three seasons to get a better feel for progression, regression or stays the same for each team and for me if there was a new HC, OC, DC or ST for that season.

looking at rosters from DraftMetrics point of view and a few more thoughts

Here's Tony Villliotti latest article on the myriad of changes to roster for each NFL team. See http://www.draftmetrics.com/files/RETAINING%20STARTERS%20AND%20FREE%20AGENTtrainingcamp.pdf

Highly interesting and it coincides a bit w/my own little spreadsheet/database. I prefer to use http://www.pro-football-reference.com/ and I create a page for each team every season.

What's missing.. ST of course, though the saying is ST counts as one third of the team, they aren't on the field one third of the time. ST are counted on between drives or at the end or start of a drive. It's difficult to have  an exact measurement of their portion of the game. I looked at the one third portion and thought it was way too much, thought about one fourth (and five eights for O & D) and still decided that was way too much. I finally settled on a portion of 2/12 (and 5/12 for O & D).

The other missing issue is accounting for injury (difficult to assess again due to will the player progress, regress or stay the same) and I think in the future game suspension will need to be address'd. I believe for the majority of players that the NFL teams bring them back onto the field to soon and thus they re-injure themselves or aren't playing up to the required standard and are either cut or replaced by another player.

The mindset of NFL teams should be that with so much money tied up in this investment, I need to give it time to heal and perform again at expected levels. I think some players won't truly be healed until a year or a year and a half has passed. The NFL teams seem to be in a hurry to get their players back on the field and have yet to produce players back from injury at a truly productive level IMO.

Perhaps the NFL teams should have a separate medical salary cap instead of including all players under the present 120M cap umbrella.

Let's say that teams will still have their 120M cap for healthy active players. Those players designated as not healthy or inactive for whatever reason will be placed on a separate cap of 40M. This would allow teams to bring in additional players to replace injured players as injured players would be added to the medical cap and their worth subtract from the active cap.

This would also allow teams to let players to progress to their level of athletic talent, which is the greatest benefit for the players IMO. It's like having enough rest before you go to work. Sure their may be a few people who can work with just four hours of rest each night, but the majority of people need their eight to ten hours. Anyone consistently having less rest will make more mistakes each day, at work, on the commute and elsewhere. The greater the complexity of your work whether it's physical or mental the greater amount of rest required IMO.

I also think even if doctors believe the physical injury has healed that the players psyche has just as much importance in the healing process. The players level of confidence has to be high if they are to perform at their original superior athletic levels and if not they will need to learn what to do to compensate for  this new found lack of athletic level if they are to step onto the field again (for example, keep more distance between yourself and your opponent).

an insight into teams with 8 or more, $6 mil contracts

John Clayton has another commentary article that casts insight into something, I wish I had time for. He built a spreadsheet or database of players earning six million plus per year see..$6 million-a-year contracts in decline

This helps build a picture of the teams mentioned in the article youth and strength. If you have more 6 mil contracts combined with Pro Bowl players, you could say you're built to win this season.

Notable teams that have 8 or more players with $6+ mil contracts:

DAL
PHI

CHI

ATL
TB

SEA
SF

What jumps out to me is that these are all NFC teams, this could point toward the NFC dominating the AFC in their interconference game this year.

John also mentions a big decline for OAK, which could point to a 'bet against' and perhaps 'under the total' season for OAK.

I just wish the current spreadsheet or database was available online as well as prior years.

So it's the off season and this is what people post...

Here's an interesting article from FP Mike Lombardi Cracks the Code to Winning in the NFL

note: the volume of games when looking at winning percentages

Somethings I think:
Some of them are obvious, some aren't so obvious and some even with the knowledge it's hard to predict (for example predicting 6+sacks by a D is not easy to do or predicting the number of turnovers in a game).

As for the 50+ combined attempts rushing and passing on offense, with the NFL teams increasing offensive tempo, I expect this to occur more often and not be as big a factor as the percentage of wins indicates at this time.

The first half with a lead stat is highly interesting and end of Q3 as well, especially for the 'in game' (aka betting during the game) betting that has escalated in popularity these past few years. I'm much more partial to these only due to volume of games (wins and losses). As a caution, a recent article at CHFF details the 2012 SD team that lost 5 half time leads (see http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/2012-san-diego-chargers-led-nfl-blown-leads/23215/) It notes as well that PHI and DET gave away four half time leads and three teams did not lose a game if they had the lead at half time (HOU, DEN, ATL)

The comments are hilarious, if you hadn't noticed this article is categorized as History, Statistics, Totally Useless. I guess Joe at NFP, where Lombardi often wrote as well, is not well respected to say the least. As I recall Joe has been writing for NFP as well as contributing w/video. I did notice the interviews w/the books, but I couldn't put 2 cents with what he had to say or the books had to say. So it's never been on my RSS reader, though I will admit to following Matt Bowen of NFP, I suspect he could go anywhere and continue to write his nice insights on the game itself.

Basic football is what wins. You need to know starters, you need to follow coaching tendencies on both sides of the ball and there are few ST coaches who really gave an edge to their team, but now with this past season implementation of 30yd kickoffs and the subsequent increase in the number of touchbacks, I suspect their relevance will be less of an impact, unless they can find those exceptional directional punters.

Interestingly enough BUF carried an extra kicker for the first part of the season, I think it was six weeks or so. Perhaps it was just an experiment, but the FG kicker normally does kickoffs as well. The question for most ST coaches is should I carry a better more accurate FG kicker or a kicker who can get the ball into the endzone. Depending on the kicker their can be a trade off and this weighs in on ST coaches decisions. If you can coach good coverage and the players cover well, then a more accurate FG kicker is your first choice, if not, I would consider getting an end zone kicker as the number of 80yd drives resulting in a TD each game are perhaps one or two at best (this is instinct talking) and only the better offenses can do this. If you are an average offensive than I would expect zero to one and the bottom fourth of offensives I suspect may get a TD every other game or every two games (again instinct talking from following teams over the years)

Perhaps one day I might make a statistical attempt and quantifying some of my thoughts, but then I would need to write them all down and that would be a bit arduous for me. For now I'll let instinct rule and watch what the statistical heads find.

a dissection?? of JAC QB's? really?

 I picked up this via RSS, but found the original link here http://www.13wham.com/sports/nfl/story/Extra-Points-Dissecting-the-Jags-QB-situation/M0SavkfCJk6Z8XM8zY7-hw.cspx


This is more laughable to read about JAC and 5 QB situation than anything else, but I wanted to point out an ol' saying 'when you have too much of one thing, you have nothing' and this has not changed.

The GM for JAC states he's introducing competition w/QB Kafka, uhhhh, in reality, he really was a product of his college system. He doesn't have an arm and he doesn't have the smarts IMO. Who cares if he came out of Northwestern? The head coach of Northwestern should be lauded for winning with not much to work with, you might want to look at the supporting cast for Northwestern not their QB!

If these QBs for JAC get on the field, it's a bet against them AND bet under the total. What else would you be looking at? Just Favorite and Under combo, nothing else to consider.

Chip Kelly - PHI

Here's another view point from SI's Don Banks http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20130605/chip-kelly-philadelphia-eagles/?xid=si_nfl

notables:

"There's a leap of faith underway around here, and it's being taken at a breathtaking pace. To describe Kelly's preferred style of practice as "up-tempo" is a sizable understatement. Frenetic is more like it."

"I didn't see a single huddle all day long on offense, and it looked like Eagles quarterbacks will do very little work under center this season."

"Kelly is bringing to the Eagles being new, both on offense and on a defense that is transforming into a hybrid formation that has elements of both a 3-4 and a 4-3"

"Vick and Foles continue to basically split first-team reps"
"You can see what this offense could become,'' Avant said. "Our defense is doing pretty good, but we're always a man or a half a man ahead of them most of the time. Toward the end of practice we start completing more passes against them, and that's just a sign of us being to the ball, being in shape and playing at just a different level of tempo and conditioning. I think this offense will work in the NFL, if the quarterback can do it. I think we're in the position to win, and I like it. As long as the quarterback puts us in the right position, I think we'll be fine.''

Ok, so QB is still unsettled and the team will go as far their QB takes them, but the most noteworthy quote is 'very little work under center'. So shotgun for QB, gives them that extra second to find the open guy and D's will likely be more frustrated w/nearly no opportunity for a sack.

TC is only a month away.....