It's July, and nothing, nada, diddly-squat is happening in the NFL. That hasn't stopped me from watching the NFL Network every day. Watching NFLN in July is like watching the Weather Channel on a clear day. It's repetitive, and there's nothing to talk about, but the pretty colors and the cool jazz keep you tuned in.

Here's what I've learned.

In their continuing effort to spin straw into gold, the Saints acquired former Eagles linebacker Dhancin' Dhani Jones to help bolster their run defense. Wow, I wrote that sentence without snickering. To get into the Big Easy spirit, Jones may change his victory celebration from Air Banjo to Air Trombone; he'll toot the imaginary horn after he makes an important tackle (in other words, once every four games). Before signing with the Saints, Jones said he would work for Al Gore as an environmental activist. I feel bad for the Saints defense, but on the flip side, I'm suddenly optimistic about the giant panda.

Jones was on NFLN on Friday reciting poetry. Remember that awkward moment when your girlfriend opened her journal and shared her soul-bearing blank verse with you? ("Here I sit, listening to Morrissey, my heart an empty shell.") Now imagine your girlfriend weighing 230 pounds and wearing a bowtie. That's what NFLN was like on Friday.

In other Saints news, a group of Saintsations cheerleaders has been touring Iraq. The troupe performs at military bases around the Middle East, traveling from gig to gig in Black Hawk helicopters. Talk about Bombshells over Baghdad. The tour has been going smoothly except for one hitch. At a mobile army surgical hospital, a hairy Lebanese corporal donned a miniskirt and pompoms and attempted to sneak off with the girls. He was captured and sentenced to room with Jones in training camp.

The Falcons signed NFL Europa receiver Noriaki Kinoshita, who if he makes the team will be the first player born in Japan to play in the NFL. Bobby Petrino was initially excited by the move, then disappointed to learn that Kinoshita cannot throw a Gyroball. Michael Vick and other Falcons were also disappointed that the long time Amsterdam Admiral didn't smuggle any extra goodies with him from overseas. They hoped Kinoshita could score one of those hard-to-find Nintendo Wii systems. What were you thinking?

For months, NFLN has been running an American Heart Association public service announcement featuring Steve Smith and a bunch of kids running, skating, and swimming. The "Get Up and Move" spots were fast-paced and good-natured efforts to encourage kids to exercise, and Smith looked comfortable in front of the camera. Recently, the PSA was edited: Steve Smith is out, with Matt Leinart in his place. Leinart displays all of the charisma of a department store mannequin and reads his few lines as though he's translating on the fly from Lebanese. This guy is supposed to be "Hollywood"? On camera, he's barely Glendale.

Watching the Smith PSAs made my son want to swim the English Channel and hang glide over the Grand Canyon. But when he saw Leinart, he grabbed a crate a Pop Tarts and a blanket and settled in for a Spongebob marathon. It's time to retire the Leinart ads. The health of our children is at stake.

Don't get me wrong. I like Dhani Jones. He's a Renaissance man. The trouble is, they didn't have football in the Renaissance.

In non-NFLN news, the Sporting News season preview is out, and the otherwise solid publication predicts that the Cowboys will go 13-3 this season. Yes, 13-3. Who is making these predictions … Jon Kitna? Seriously, for the Lions to win 11 games (as predicted by the Oracle of Kitna) and the Cowboys to win 13, the Vikings will have to lose about 34 games.

Speaking of the sports bible, Donovan McNabb's rehabilitation from an ACL tear is on schedule. The Sporting News reported a few weeks ago that McNabb's regimen includes games of tag to improve agility and stop-start strength in the knee. Tag is no laughing matter: the collective bargaining agreement strictly prohibits Kick the Can, and rumor has it that Eric Mangini keeps his players in shape with a vigorous Red Light, Green Light drill. Donovan was apparently playing traditional tag, not freeze tag or TV tag ("Grey's Anatomy! You can't touch me!") TSN reports that at one point, a cornered McNabb improvised, stood at attention, and declared, "I'm a tree. You can't tag a tree." There's no truth to the rumor, however, that McNabb was hanging out with Kinoshita in Amsterdam.

I just realized that my Spell Checker is happily accepting "Kinoshita" without a little red underline. A quick Google search reveals a stunning model named Ayumi Kinoshita, a film director named Keisuki Kinoshita, a hotel named Casa Kinoshita in San Miguel, Mexico, and an NFL Europa receiver who was just signed by the Falcons. Apparently, Kinoshita is a fairly common name in Japan, and possibly Mexico. I'm told Tanier is pretty common in France, but Spell Checker never accepted it until I added it. Maybe if I could throw a Gyroball, or something.

Rookie tight end Greg Olsen signed a contract with the Bears. Olsen is eager to be in camp on time; he wants to master his timing with Rex Grossman. When he does, he'll be the first.

Okay, I'll cop: I watched a lot of NFLN on Friday because I thought I would be on. Indie filmmaker Tim Carr was hawking his movie "Leaf, an Almost True Story," and I appear in the film as a football humorist/historian. Yep, a stretch. Sadly, I wasn't in the clip Carr used, probably because I have the screen charisma of Matt Leinart.

Mike Nolan and Jack Del Rio have once again gotten league permission to wear cheap-looking suits designed by a sneaker company during games. The NFL should adopt a rule that if a coach wears a sneaker suit, then his players must wear Armani cleats. I don't have a problem with suits per se, and I know Nolan wears one as a tribute to his sick father, but I wish these guys were allowed to line up their own formalwear endorsements like NBA coaches. The typical NBA coach looks like who he is: a high-profile executive for a successful multi-million dollar corporation. The sneaker suits make Nolan and Del Rio look like Salesmen of the Month at the local used Hyundai dealership.

It could be worse, though. Rumor has it that liberal firebrand Michael Moore is working on a new film called "Slobbo," an expose on how Bill Belichick's wardrobe choices have unintended consequences for low-wage garment industry employees. In one of the film's most dramatic scenes, Moore and Belichick visit a dry cleaner for the first time in their lives.

Aaron would be miffed if I didn't mention that Football Prospectus will be out in just two weeks. A quick look at the Amazon sales board on Friday found us ranked 1,505th among books, pretty darn good for two weeks before the drop date. I told Aaron that we should call it Football Prospectus and the Deathly Hallows, but the muggle never listens to me. We're ranked 30th in sports books. Take that, Inner Game of Tennis! Be sure to check us out, even if sobriety prevents us from predicting a 13-3 season for the Cowboys or 11-5 season for the Lions.

Finally, as the father of two small children, I watch nothing but kiddie programming when I am not glued to NFL Network. I also see all of the superhero movies. I saw Spider-Man 3 and was disturbed by the amount of time Peter Parker spent dancing in the movie. I saw Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and shielded my eyes as Reed Richards performed an elaborate dance at a New York club. Superheroes should not dance. Remember the Batutsi? Be glad you don't.

I bring this up because I haven't seen Transformers yet, but I heard a song from the soundtrack by the Goo Goo Dolls. It's a ballad. Worse yet, it is in 3/4 time, making it a waltz. A Giant Robot that Turns into Motorized Vehicle to Fight Evil Waltz. Mark my word, if champagne bubbles start floating and Optimus Prime starts waltzing in that movie, I am taking my kids and marching right out of the theater.

And if old Optimus starts playing Air Banjo or reciting poetry, I'm demanding a refund.

post by Mike Tanier

When Steve Hutchinson put his pen to a $49 million offer sheet in March of 2006, the agent of every elite offensive lineman in the NFL whose free agency status was imminent did a little happy dance. And as we have seen, the 2007 salary cap bump from $102 million to $109 million has teams spending Yankees-style on every position. But can a guard really be worth this much? Until recently, guard was a position seen as low-cost and fungible.

The attempt to answer that question leads us to the Football Outsiders stats for the offensive line: Adjusted Line Yards (which takes all running back carries and assigns o-line responsibilities based on yardage) and Adjusted Sack Rate (sacks per pass attempt adjusted for opponent, down and distance). In addition, we have the “blown blocks” numbers from the FO game-charting project. These are “whiffs” that led directly to quarterback sacks.

One caveat: Offensive line stats as they relate to individuals aren’t perfectly conclusive, because the efforts of one are related so closely to the efforts of many. We measure five directions – left end, left tackle, mid/guard, right tackle, and right end – but responsibility is more fluid than a one-on-one correspondence. (Left tackles should not be measured only by "left tackle" runs, etc.) The "blown blocks" numbers are still incomplete, as the game-charting data only includes Weeks 1-16 with about 20 missing game-halves.

Still, we can get a better insight into the value of each of the five linemen who have signed combined contracts in the last fiscal year worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars on their face.

Steve Hutchinson, Minnesota Vikings

Contract: Seven years, $49 million, $16 million guaranteed. The Vikings signed Hutchinson to a now-legendary “poison pill” offer sheet which would have made the entire contract guaranteed for the Seahawks if they had matched the offer after Seattle gave Hutchinson the transition tag instead of the franchise designation. This was the Shot Heard ‘Round the World for offensive linemen – between this and the increasing salary cap, things would never be the same.
Games Started (Position) 16 of 16 (16 LG, Minnesota Vikings)
Positional Adjusted Line Yards: Left Tackle, 4.85 (Rank: 6, League Average 4.37) Mid/Guard 4.33 (Rank: 19 League Average 4.32)
Blown Blocks: 3
Penalties: 0 (the second straight season Hutchinson hasn’t been penalized)
Comments: You’ll get arguments, but most would agree that the first big-money guard is still the best. Spent some time adjusting in Minnesota, but this is a technician with a brawler’s soul … the complete package. And if you want to know how good he really is, don’t look at the Minnesota line – check out at the Seattle line he left behind. Quite possibly the league’s best in 2005, the Seahawks’ front five dropped from sixth to 30th in Adjusted Line Yards, from ninth to 28th in Adjusted Sack Rate, and from second to 31st in Mid/Guard ALY.

Kris Dielman, San Diego Chargers

Contract: Six years, $39 million, $17 million guaranteed in the first two years alone. Dielman and his agent had been negotiating with Seattle, but left as much as $10 million on the table – of course, the guaranteed money offered would have been a lot closer.
Games Started (Position) 15 of 16 (15 LG, San Diego Chargers)
Positional Adjusted Line Yards: Left Tackle, 5.04 (Rank: 4, League Average 4.37) Mid/Guard 4.38 (Rank: 16, League Average 4.32)
Blown Blocks: 0
Penalties: 5 (2 False Start, 1 Clipping, 1 Chop Block, 1 Holding)
Comments: Perhaps the most coveted pure guard in free agency (at the Combine, all the talk about Dielman and Steinbach was about how the former would prove to be the better player over time), Dielman got to the altar with the Seahawks on Paul Allen’s private jet only to balk and fly coach back to sunny San Diego, and the best offensive line in the NFL. He’ll continue to shore up the Chargers’ left side with Marcus McNeill, who had such a great rookie season in 2006.

(For people who don't know the specifics on Adjusted Line Yards, one aspect of the stat is that it cuts off the extended yardage on long runs, when a running back is mostly gaining yardage with his own talents rather than his blocking. That explains how an offense with LaDainian Tomlinson could possibly rank 16th in anything rushing-related.)

Eric Steinbach, Cleveland Browns

Contract: Seven years, $49.5 million, $17 million guaranteed. Some reports have indicated that he’ll move to the right side (guard or tackle) for Cleveland, though nothing is set in stone for the versatile Steinbach.
Games Started (Position) 16 of 16 (14 LG, 1 LT, 1 C, Cincinnati Bengals)
Positional Adjusted Line Yards: Left End, 4.19 (Rank: 16, League Average 4.12) Left Tackle, 4.45 (Rank: 13, League Average 4.37) Mid/Guard 4.34 (Rank: 16, League Average 4.32)
Blown Blocks: 3
Penalties: 5 (5 False Start)
Comments: Interesting note: While the Bengals’ injury-depleted line finished around the league average at four of the five directions, the Right Tackle direction was the NFL’s best with an Adjusted Line Yards rating of 5.29, more than a yard over the league average. RG Bobbie Williams and RT Willie Anderson would be primarily responsible for that.

Derrick Dockery, Buffalo Bills

Contract: Seven years, $49 million, (sensing a trend here?), $18 million guaranteed.
Games Started (Position) 16 of 16 (16 LG, Washington Redskins)
Positional Adjusted Line Yards: Left Tackle, 4.95 (Rank: 5, League Average 4.37) Mid/Guard, 4.58 (Rank: 7, League Average 4.32)
Blown Blocks: 0
Penalties: 7 (6 False Start, 1 Offensive Holding)
Comments: The Redskins were below the league average in Adjusted Line Yards for Left End, Right Tackle and Right End – basically, each of the five directions we measure in which Dockery didn’t play a fairly major part. Think they’ll miss him?

Leonard Davis, Dallas Cowboys

Contract: Seven years, $49.6 million, $18.5 million guaranteed. Yeah, this one had a lot of people wondering. And the numbers below put Davis in the vicinity of the dreaded Alex Barron Statistical Cluster, which is the rough equivalent of the Mendoza Line.
Games Started (Position) 16 of 16 (16 LT, Arizona Cardinals)
Positional Adjusted Line Yards: Left End, 4.08 (Rank: 17, League Average 4.12) Left Tackle, 3.96 (Rank: 26, League Average 4.37)
Blown Blocks: 7
Penalties: 10 (8 False Starts, 2 Offensive Holding)
Comments: It’s quite simple, really. If Leonard Davis is worth $18 million guaranteed, especially since initial reports indicate that the Cowboys will move him to the right side, I’m the President of the Skip Bayless Fan Club. In an offseason of big-money signings (some more ridiculous than others), this is the goofiest. If Hutch’s deal was the equivalent of the attack on Fort Sumter, Davis’s signing was the rubber chicken upside the head.

Post by Doug Farrar

Host: Welcome to the hottest new show on television, the one that pits precocious middle schoolers against people who were too dumb to get on any other reality shows. This week, we offer a new twist: the kids will be competing against NFL personalities.

It's time for our first matchup. Here's the scenario. You are a 32-year old NFL quarterback coming off a bad season. You were just traded to new team, but you are seriously considering retirement instead. What do you do?

Fifth Grader: In recess, I play on a football team. Playing football is fun. My 32-year dad is on an insurance sales team. Selling insurance is not fun. Anyone who chooses selling insurance, or managing a construction company, or waiting until his money runs out and then selling his autograph for $5 a pop at sports card shows is just crazy. I would keep playing football.

Contestant "Jake:" I'm tired of football and I don't want to play anymore. I don't even want to sit on a bench for a year or two and collect a big salary while retaining the $5 million portion of my signing bonus that I may forfeit by retiring. I won't be installing patios for a living in three years. I'm gonna be a television personality. Everybody wants a television analyst with a beard that looks like a squirrel's nest.

Host: Sorry, Jake. The fifth grader wins this round easily.

Now for our next scenario: Your team just went 14-2 but lost in the playoffs. You are a general manager who can't get along with your head coach. You give the coach a vote of confidence after the playoff loss, but a few weeks later you find that you still can't see eye-to-eye with him. What do you do?

Fifth Grader: That's easy. In school, we are taught to put differences aside and work together. When we do group projects, we get grades on how well we divide responsibilities and how well we cooperate. If the team is playing well, the general manager must work with the coach, and they must share credit and blame. Plus, if the general manager waits too long and tries to fire the coach, all of the good replacements will be gone. In gym class, we learn that you never want to pick last, or else you get stuck with someone like Norv Turner running your dodge ball team.

Contestant "A.J.:" Fire the unreasonable son-of-a-gun. Hire whoever is left on the market. Risk tearing down everything we've built in the last four years. I'll show fans who the real football expert is around here, just you wait and see.

Host: Sorry, A.J., we have to go with the fifth grader on that one.

Okay, here's another scenario. You are an NFL owner, and you are signing free agents. You have a chance to sign a left tackle, a former Cardinals first round pick who has been a disappointment for his entire career. What do you do?

Fifth grader: My math teacher told me that money is important, and I shouldn't waste all of it on bubble gum and Avatar action figures. This player sounds like the kind of toy who looks great in the commercial but doesn't quite work right when you bring it home. If a toy like that comes with a Happy Meal, then it is great, but if you spend too much money on toys like that, then you cannot afford really good ones.

Contestant "Jerry:" A big left tackle who might be good? Pay him $50-million. Give him the largest bonus in team history. And put him at guard or right tackle, where he can't possibly be worth that kind of money. Sure, that will shake up the team's salary structure a little, but we don't have any complainers or malcontents on our roster, so no worries. In August, the tackle and T.O will be hanging out in the whirlpool with phantom hamstring pulls while the rest of the team sweats through training camp, but I'm sure my new coach and novice offensive coordinator will be able to manage the situation.

Host: Oops, sorry. The fifth grader wins again.

Okay, here's our final scenario: You are hanging out at a Vegas strip club and have the urge to throw $81,000 around on stage. The promoter decides that the money is his and puts it in a big trash bag. What do you do next?

Fifth grader: Well, I'm a little young to be talking about strip clubs, but hey, this is FOX. I know I am not supposed to throw money around. And my uncle once told me that as soon as the cash hits the stage, it belongs to the club, not the dude who threw it. And most important, I know that the best way to avoid trouble is to just walk away from it. The moment you walk into a strip joint with entourage, a rapper, and enough money to buy a loaded Lexus, you are just asking for trouble.

Contestant "Pacman:" First of all, let me say that I'm a victim in all this. I was the one attacked by the bouncers. My stylist got pushed into a cactus, for goodness sakes, and those things are spiky. Anyway, what red-blooded American man wouldn't blow 81 grand on a chance to "make it rain" for visual effect? And who wouldn't expect to get his money back? How would I know that a major fight would break out and that someone would get seriously injured? For some reason, trouble just keeps finding me.

Host: I'm sorry, but the fifth grader wins again. It looks like a clean sweep for the kids, folks. Tune in next week when a 11-year old demonstrates the proper way to dispose of a water bottle before approaching airport security.

post by Mike Tanier

I was talking to a friend the other day about the Giants and he brought up the questionable ratings given to Sinorice Moss in a popular video game franchise whose namesake is a particular commentator. I noted, rather astutely, that Moss should have been given a Hiding rating, since he didn't bother to show up for his first season in New York. While Jared Lorenzen actually disappeared for his entire rookie campaign on the Giants practice squad, the second-rounder was around but failed to make a difference on the Giants season. Some of the blame can be put on Moss' strained quadriceps, but Big Blue could have sorely used Moss to stretch out opposing defenses and create space for Jeremy Shockey and Plaxico Burress to work underneath.

A couple of days later, I was talking to another friend (yes, I'm quite popular) about Chad Jackson, the Patriots' second round pick. I retold the Moss story and remarked that Jackson should have also received a Hiding rating -- the Patriots were signing street free agents and Reche Caldwell was their number one wideout most of the year and Jackson still didn't get any burn! "Must have been a bad crop of wide receivers", my friend remarked. That got me to thinking -- was it a bad crop? Historically bad, or just unlucky bad? Or, alternately, do fans just expect too much of rookie wide receivers? The easiest way to find out is to take a look back at wide receivers

I crunched the numbers on the last ten years of wide receivers. Since I was talking about Moss and Jackson, I looked at second-round picks initially, but I spread it out to third and fourth-rounders to try and gain a broader sense of performance. I didn't include first-rounders because more is naturally expected of them.

Compared to other classes, the second, third, and fourth-rounders of 2006 were atrocious. The seventeen wide receivers selected averaged fewer than nine catches and 117 yards each for the season; the average year's average receiver catches fifteen balls and gains over 200 yards. The only other group that was in 2006's territory was even worse: the "class" of 1997.

1997's first round wide receiver crop may go down as one of the all-time worst hauls from a position in a draft, ever. Although it's outside the boundaries of our study, it's worth pointing out that this round saw Ike Hilliard, Yatil Green, Reidel Anthony, and Rae Carruth come off the board. It's not a good sign when your career consists almost solely of three entirely torn ACLs and you are still better off than someone else in your pool. The Florida pair of Hilliard and Anthony did not live up to their relative expectations. As you will see, their performance still blew away the receivers to come.

While 1996 saw Amani Toomer, Muhsin Muhammad, and Bobby Engram go in the second round, and 1998 gave out useful parts like Germane Crowell, Mickael Ricks and Jerome Pathon, 1997's second round offered no redeeming value whatsoever. Kevin Lockett, a college star at Kansas State, wasn't an NFL-caliber receiver. The fact that he lasted seven years in the NFL makes him the star of the group. Will Blackwell, drafted by the usually-reliable Steelers, made Troy Edwards' career in the black and gold look good. The third member of the class was Joey Kent, who had all of thirteen career NFL catches. Hooray.

The third round saw only one wide receiver get drafted: Dedric Ward, who went to the Jets. Ward was actually a useful receiver for a single season, which probably makes him the second-most valuable receiver of the entire group, after Hilliard, until you take a look at the fourth round.

The fourth round, well, it was surprising. It can bring good players into the league -- '96's fourth round brought Charlie Jones into the league, while '98 saw Tim Dwight, Donald Hayes, and Az-Zahir Hakim into pro football. These guys don't generally get much playing time, as fourth-rounders only average eight catches per player their rookie year (that is, if they even make it at all). Even so, '97's performance was below average; it's receivers only caught five passes each. Those receivers? A mix of good and bad. Macey Brooks didn't play until his third season, and was done in the league after his fourth. Keith Poole was developing into a solid receiver with 42 catches in his third year, but he was out of the league by 2002. Albert Connell also had a big third year, and saw himself joining Poole on the unemployment line in '02.

On the other hand, Marcus Robinson's enjoyed a solid professional career, with a big season his sophomore year and a few good weeks in 2003. He'll collect a pension. The other guy to go in Round 4? Derrick Mason, who did nothing until the fourth year of his career but hasn't let up since. Mason had 47 catches through his first three years.

After 1997's season finished, this group of receivers would have been hailed as an awful, awful crop of talent. Carruth had 45 catches, Anthony 33, and after that, Ward had 18 That's abysmal, even for a set of rookies. Furthermore, the guys who had the best NFL careers, Mason, Hilliard (who was injured and only played two games his rookie year) and Robinson, all didn't produce their rookie year. It brings up another question to look at: are the guys having big rookie seasons the ones who develop into future stars?

Going round-by-round, here are the biggest performances and what they boded for the future, as well as the biggest stars and how they did their rookie campaigns:

Second Round: Anquan Boldin's rookie-record 101 catches lap the field; Kevin Johnson's 66 are a runner-up, and he had the benefit of being the only threat on an expansion team that was always losing. Pathon's 58 catches are third, Chris Chambers' 48 fourth, and Antwaan Randle El and Keary Colbert are tied for fifth with 47.

That's an uneven group of receivers. Boldin's a stud. Johnson had a couple more big years but fell out of favor in Cleveland and his career never recovered; he's out of football. Pathon was perpetually expected to break out and never did. Chambers is perceived, at least, as a stud, while his performance has yet to match up. Randle El is yet to match his rookie numbers, and Colbert's lost his spot and on his way out in Carolina. Two (one for Boldin and a half each for Chambers and Randle El) isn't really a strong prediction rate.

The biggest stars from the timeframe that went in the second round would probably be Boldin, Amani Toomer, Chad Johnson, Deion Branch, and Muhsin Muhammad. Toomer had one catch his rookie year; Johnson, Branch, and Muhammad were all around or above the league average for second round wide receivers, but none of them stood out as future stars the way that Boldin did.

Third Round: The best year belongs to Darrell Jackson, whose 53 catches were 16 more than second-place Stepfret Williams. That's right -- the guy whose poster Patrick Crayton had on his wall. Number three is Terrell Owens. Fourth in performance their rookie year was Marvin Minnis, and fifth was friend of the law Chris Henry. Nate Burleson and Laveranues Coles also make appearances in the Top 10.

Maybe Williams did nothing, and Minnis suffered multiple injuries that forced him out of football. Jackson and Owens have had excellent careers, and Burleson, Henry, and Coles aren't doing poorly for themselves either. Stats seem to be a slightly better predictor for this round.

A top five based on career value would include Owens, Jackson, Coles, Steve Smith (10 catches his rookie year), and Hines Ward (15). A better group than the second-rounders, certainly.

Fourth Round: Again, someone steps out from the pack; it's the aforementioned Charlie Jones, who caught 41 passes for the '96 Chargers. He had a similar year in '98, but was out of football after '99. This group's top five finally sees some 2006 guys show up, with Demetrius Williams second in catches with 22, and Brandon Marshall fifth. Hakim is fourth, and Titans receiver Roydell Williams third. The jury is still out on three of these guys; Hakim benefited from being in the right place at the right time, and hasn't done much since he left said spot.

The best fourth rounders from the time period don't compare to the other rounds. Mason stands out, and there are plenty of guys who have had varying degrees of success, but pick four from Robinson, Hakim, Ernest Wilford, Brandon Lloyd, Jerricho Cotchery, Tim Dwight, Hayes, Justin McCareins, and Brandon Stokley and you'll be picking four guys who haven't really developed into anything beyond solid complementary receivers.

So, then, is there hope for the 2006 crop? I'd say so. It's not unprecedented for guys like Moss or Jackson to take big leaps forward as they learn more of the playbook and get more NFL game time in their sophomore season. The land of guys with five-catch rookie seasons, though, is littered with a lot more failures than the stratospheric heights reached by Boldin and Darrell Jackson. If you're a Giants fan (or administrator), hope Moss will get better, but don't depend on it; in the Patriots' case, hope that Bill Belichick's faith in Florida Gators works out slightly better than his previous obsession with guys from LSU.

post by Bill Barnwell

I was thinking about the strange case of Michael Turner. How many backup running backs average six yards per carry over three seasons? (5.99, to be precise.) San Diego will give their restricted free agent a sweet tender, so teams that want Turner have to give up either a first-round pick or a first and a third. Part of the question is what happens to Turner going forward, so I thought I would look for similar players using FO similarity scores.

Looking at a three-year span, one player stands out, far ahead of everyone else:

• 849: Stump Mitchell, STL (1981-1983)
• 807: Bill Johnson, CIN (1985-1987)
• 799: Hokie Gajan, NO (1982-1984)
• 781: Ron Rivers, DET (1996-1998)
• 780: Booker Russell, SD (1978-1980)
• 779: Najeh Davenport, GB (2002-2004)
• 778: Barry Redden, LA RAMS (1982-1984)

Everyone else is below 770.

Mitchell provides a fascinating look at what life might be like for Michael Turner if free agency did not exist. Like Turner, he was drafted by a team that already had one of the league's top running backs, Ottis Anderson. But unlike Turner, there was no threat that he would go anywhere, in restricted OR unrestricted free agency. He kept plugging along with 5.5 yards per carry each year, along with play on special teams. In his fourth season, 1984, he became a receiving threat, with more catches, yards, and touchdowns receiving than in his first three seasons combined.

Anderson started having some injury issues, so Mitchell's playing time finally went up in 1985. He gained 1,000 yards with just 183 carries, 5.5 yards per carry, with seven touchdowns rushing and another three receiving. In 1986, he had 174 carries and played well again, although he averaged a career-low (to that point) 4.6 yards per carry. For that to be a career-low, well, that shows you how good he was through 1986. By this point, he was sharing the job with Earl Ferrell rather than Anderson. 1987 was his career high, 203 carries, but actually his worst season, just 3.8 yards per carry. He rebounded with another good year as a part-timer in 1988, played a handful of games in 1989, and that was that. He's now the running backs coach in Seattle, where he's partly responsible for Shaun Alexander's MVP season.

Bill Johnson's third year is the strike year and he never played again, the strike means that's probably not worth looking at.

Hokie Gajan also had three great seasons but in the fourth year had injury problems. He also never played again, but that clearly was not an issue of talent. He's now the Saints' radio color guy.

Here's a look at two-year similarities:

• 839: Mitchell, 1982-1983
• 810: Charlie Garner, PHI, 1995-1996
• 803: Redden, 1983-1984
• 802: Russell, 1978-1979
• 798: Gajan, 1983-1984
  
• 795: Richard Huntley, PIT, 1998-1999
• 794: Maurice Morris, SEA, 2002-2003
• 786: LaMont Jordan, NYJ, 2003-2004

Once again, Mitchell is ahead of everyone else. If you are Michael Turner's agent, you like that Charlie Garner similarity second. We know Garner now as a pass-catching back, but he actually had only 32 catches in his first three seasons, and he averaged 5.4 and 5.2 yards per carry in 1995 and 1996. When he finally moved to San Francisco in 1999, he became a starter and one of the best backs in the league. LaMont Jordan also acquitted himself well once he got a starting job, especially considering the quality of the Oakland line. Huntley went to Carolina for a year, played well, but that was the end of his career.

All in all, I think this is another piece of evidence that Turner would be excellent as a starting back somewhere other than San Diego. Will that happen? Probably not this year, but I bet it happens in 2008. Maybe, if Shaun Alexander has more injury problems, Turner can go off to Seattle and be coached by Stump Mitchell.

Post by Aaron Schatz 

Bob in Seattle: I am ALREADY tired of sports-writers saying that the "home town team's schedule for 2007 is really, really tough because the combined record of the teams is XXX-YYY." AAGGHHHH! I hope you'll be publishing 2007 Strength of Schedule for each team based on the Final 2006 DVOA so the informed NFL fan can accurately evaluate schedules for next season.

Aaron Schatz: Your wish is my command. Of course, DVOA this season doesn't tell you which teams will be good or bad next season -- a better strength of schedule will come after we do our team projections, and even that will be imperfect. But we can get a good idea of what's up by looking at the average 2006 DVOA of 2007 opponents. I'll use weighted DVOA so we account for the fact that teams like Tennessee are likely to be better next year.

When it comes to regular schedule, it isn't even close: The four hardest schedules in the league belong to the four teams in the AFC East. First, they have to play each other, and all four AFC East teams were in the Top 20 in weighted DVOA. They also have to play the AFC North, which had only one team with a weighted DVOA below zero (Cleveland), and the NFC East, which had only one team with a weighted DVOA below zero (Washington).

After that, the next hardest schedules belong to Indianapolis, Washington, and Cleveland.

The easiest schedules are generally teams in the NFC West. Arizona has the easiest by far, then San Francisco and St. Louis. They play the AFC North, but they also play the NFC South, which wasn't very good this year. Seattle's schedule comes out as much harder than the other teams because they have to play Chicago instead of a bad NFC North team. Other teams that come out with easy schedules are Chicago and all the NFC South teams -- since they get to play the NFC West.

I also split things into just offense and defense.

• Hardest schedule of opposing offenses: Tennessee, New England, Baltimore, and Buffalo.
• Easiest schedule of opposing offenses: Detroit, San Diego, Green Bay, Chicago, and Minnesota.
• Hardest schedule of opposing defenses (Fantasy Warning!): San Diego, Detroit, Indianapolis, Washington. OK, maybe not so much of a warning.
• Easiest schedule of opposing defenses (Fantasy Opportunity!): Arizona, Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore.

Here's the whole list:

1. BUF     6.7%
2. NYJ     6.4%
3. NE       5.7%
4. MIA     3.7%
5. IND     3.6%
6. WAS   3.2%
7. CLE     2.7%
8. TEN     2.5%
9. HOU    2.5%
10. DEN    2.1%
11. OAK   2.0%
12. DAL    1.8%
13. PIT      1.5%
14. CIN     1.2%
15. SD       1.0%
16. PHI      0.7%
17. KC      0.6%
18. NYG    0.5%
19. JAC     0.5%
20. BAL     0.4%
21. DET     -0.5%
22. MIN    -1.2%
23. GB       -1.8%
24. SEA     -2.0%
25. ATL     -2.1%
26. TB       -2.5%
27. CHI     -2.5%
28. NO      -2.8%
29. CAR    -3.2%
30. STL     -3.3%
31. SF        -3.8%
32. ARI      -6.8%

Sean Payton will win Coach of the Year this season. There are other great candidates (Marty Schottenheimer, Andy Reid, Eric Mangini), but the award usually goes to the coach who brought his team from nowhere into contention. That description fits Payton to a "T."

But who was the NFL's worst coach this year? There's no clear winner (loser?) but a long list of candidates.

Art Shell would be an obvious choice. Shell made many mistakes this season: hiring his overmatched buddy as offensive coordinator, bungling the Jerry Porter situation, letting Randy Moss get away with murder, and so on. His most grievous error: the Raiders are no further along now than they were last year. It's one thing for a first-year coach to have a bad year, but quire another for him to show no signs of progress.

There are mitigating factors in Shell's case. First, there's the fact that a first-year head coach can only do so much. Then there's the Raiders front office, which is still lost in the 1970s. Finally, there was the brutal division schedule that offered the Raiders few cheesy wins. If they played in the NFC West, the Raiders might be 5-11: bad, but not punchline bad.

The Cardinals are in position to go 5-11 in the NFC West, and their head coach has had three years to install his system. Denny Green has done an awful job in Arizona, and he has flopped at a time when the team's ownership is spending money like crazy to shed the team's loser image. Green hasn't been able to field a competitive offensive line despite free agent acquisitions, draft picks, and staff changes. Look at what Payton has done with the Saints line this season and it's clear that there's no trick to fielding a competent line. Green just hasn't gotten it done. And he didn't earn any style points with that post-game tirade after the loss to the Bears.

The Cardinals were a fashionable playoff pick this year. So were the Redskins; some experts had them heading to the Super Bowl, and we're not just talking about Joe Theismann. It may be sacrilegious to suggest that Joe Gibbs was the worst coach in the league this season, but the Redskins were pretty terrible for a team with a high payroll and a coaching staff filled with living legends. Gibbs is supposed to be a master of finding and developing young players, but the Redskins haven't produced any surprise stars in the last three seasons (Chris Cooley and Ladell Betts were high draft choices, not surprises), and major talents like Sean Taylor and Carlos Rogers don't seem to be developing. Gibbs handled his quarterback situation poorly and seemed unwilling to step in and make changes when it was clear that the Redskins offense was in trouble at the start of camp. It was a lousy coaching effort, and only some of the blame can be pinned on owner Dan Snyder for assembling another all-name, no-game roster.

Gibbs' woes in Washington were overshadowed by Tom Coughlin's bellicose blundering in New York. Beware of sel####escribed disciplinarians. Real disciplinarians use tight organization and clear communication to enforce rules, but would-be drill sergeants like Coughlin just congratulate themselves for shouting the loudest. Most of the Giants tuned Coughlin out last year, but youngsters like Mathias Kiwanuka didn't know better and found themselves on the receiving end of Coughlin's public tantrums. Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey were right when they said that the Giants were outcoached in 2005 and 2006, but the team that executes cleanly and plays hard can overcome an inferior gameplan. Coughlin's Giants couldn't execute, and by the end of this season, none of them even wanted to execute, unless they had the chance to execute Coughlin.

Was Coughlin the worst coach of 2006? I think we can go lower. In my opinion, the worst coaches have two fatal flaws: 1) They are incapable of fixing their team's problems even after a few seasons and a commitment of resources, and 2) They are divisive and create a toxic atmosphere. Coughlin is divisive, but the Giants really haven't had one recurring problem during his tenure. Gibbs hasn't gotten the Redskins to turn the corner, but he creates a professional work environment for his players. Shell couldn't fix the offensive line and didn't exactly build unity by creating a double standard for Moss and Porter, but he's only been at the job one year.

Then there's Jim Mora. He keeps waiting for Michael Vick to mature. He keeps waiting for the run defense to fix itself. Mora and the Falcons invest money in defenders like Ed Hartwell and Lawyer Milloy and high draft picks on wide receivers, but the results are the same year-in and year-out. The Falcons are never terrible, and I might be easier on Mora if he had a reputation as a class act. But Mora is, by most accounts, a jerk. He's a poor communicator to his players who seems incapable of developing them past the "raw talent" level. And his recent "I wanna coach at the college level" wisecracks, spoken while the Falcons were still very alive in the playoff race, demonstrated just how clueless he is.

It's tough to pass on Coughlin and Green, but I believe that Mora was the worst coach in the NFL this year. His dad might have called Vick a coach killer, but Mora has done a pretty good job of hanging himself without Vick's help in the last two seasons. When firing season starts next week, Mora will probably be among the first to get the boot.

post by Mike Tanier

It's time again for our weekly roundup of Sunday's action. Here's what the Football Outsiders staff was talking about this week:

"Jacksonville's first play from scrimmage against the Colts was a 76-yard Fred Taylor run. Their second play was an 18-yard run by Maurice Jones-Drew. Two rushing plays, 94 yards, one minute off the clock, touchdown. That kind of run defense is how you lose in the first round of the playoffs."

"The announcers are talking about what a fine job Brad Johnson is doing managing the game. There are approximately 100 quarterbacks on NFL rosters, and I think it's safe to say every one of them would do a fine job managing the game against the Lions' defense."

"The amazing thing about the Colts is how they can be simultaneously great and terrible. On the one hand, every play I've seen so far, the Jags have been physically manhandling them. On the other hand, they've still got a 10-7 lead midway through the second quarter on the road against a good team."

"After watching Jeff Garcia the last two weeks I'm convinced he was just half-assing it in Cleveland and Detroit. He just threw a bomb to Reggie Brown and hit him right in stride, then he followed that up a few plays later with a great 4-yard touchdown pass to Stallworth. Jeff Freakin' Garcia.

"Kansas City's last three possessions: interception, Trent Green fumble, interception. Both interceptions by Ed Reed, just hanging out in center field."

"Holy ####! Vince Wilfork just got called for a personal foul because Joey Harrington tripped over him while he was lying on the ground."

"The Chiefs are now walking off the field at halftime -- at Arrowhead -- to a resounding host of boos."

"I think there are more Giants fans in Carolina than Panthers fans."

"The Colts look like a bad MAC team playing Michigan."

"With hot Tennessee and schizophrenic Jacksonville on the schedule still, the Patriots are actually in danger of blowing the division to the Jets. I'm in shock at the very thought."

"Jason Taylor is without question the Defensive Player of the Year."

"Vince Young is just plain awesome. When he gets a little more seasoning, he's going to be scary good."

"We love Arizona safety Adrian Wilson, and he just recovered a Shaun Alexander fumble caused by a perfect Robert Griffith hit. The subsequent Edgerrin James rushing touchdown gets an assist from Seattle's continued enrollment in the Indianapolis School of Tackling."

"Shanahan deserves Goat of the Century for the way he handled his quarterbacks this year. Only in the world where Super Bowls are all that matter is this decision not the worst we've seen since the Rob Johnson/Doug Flutie debacle in Buffalo. Ok, you wouldn't have won a Super Bowl with Jake Plummer, but now you're going to miss the playoffs and ruin your team and your fan base's confidence in Jay Cutler."

"Cutler looks like he's about 15. The kid who mows my lawn looks older than he does."

"Fourth-and-20 for the ball game in Arizona, Matt Hasselbeck throws a 19-yard pass to Deion Branch. Branch catches it with about three yards to go, and if he pushes straight forward, I think he has it. But he tries to go sideways to get around the guy in front of him and it costs him. Can we all guess which Arizona defensive back made the game-ending tackle? Our man Adrian Wilson."

Read more at FootballOutsiders.com.

post by Mike Tanier

All week, we're profiling the semi-finalists for the Fantasy Football Hall of Fame class of 2007. The FFHoF enshrines players whose statistical accomplishments were more impressive than their actual accomplishments. To be eligible, a player must be retired, have made a significant contribution to fantasy football, and have no shot of making the Pro Football Hall of Fame. To find out more or to vote for your favorite players, read this Friday's Too Deep Zone at Football Outsiders or right here on FOX.

If Hearst had avoided injuries, we would be polishing his bust for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But Hearst couldn't stay healthy. His first two seasons were marred by injuries. He bounced from Arizona to Cincinnati to San Francisco, emerged as a great running back, and promptly tore up his ankle in a playoff game. The injury was so bad that it led to a circulatory problem, and Hearst disappeared for two full seasons.

When he came back in 2001, he was the kind of player you take in the very last round of your fantasy draft: a big name worth a flyer in the unlikely event that he plays. But Hearst did play, rushing for over 1,200 yards and scoring five touchdowns. He scored nine more touchdowns in 2002 for another fine fantasy season.

Hearst was a great player in the regular season, but he rarely played well in the playoffs. He did have a great game against the Packers in 1998, but that was the only postseason game in which he rushed for over 55 yards. And of course, getting hurt so bad on your first carry that you need two years of rehab can officially be classified as a "very bad day."

A great statistical player who didn't play as well in the playoffs? A top talent whose career is full of false starts and strange interruptions? There's only one place that can truly honor such a player: the Fantasy Football Hall of Fame. You can do your part by voting for the finalists at Football Outsiders on Friday. It's your chance to be part of the democratic process.

Every week, Football Outsiders staffers e-mail each other with updates on Sunday's action as it happens. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"The Jets-Texans announcers must be the CBS "R"-Team. I am pretty sure the next broadcast team they'd send out would be Jeff Probst and the clock from 60 Minutes".

"Michael Vick may not be able to pass, and may be a 'coach killer,' but boy does he have moves."

"Baltimore's second touchdown drive was something Bronko Nagurski would have enjoyed: 8 plays, 47 yards, and six of the plays were essentially runs up the middle."

"Drew Brees just threw a 50-yard, half-ending Hail Mary TD. With triple coverage, the Falcons made a lame attempt at batting down the ball. The primary coverage was DeAngelo Hall, who was in such poor body position he wasn’t able to do any defending. The Falcons took a timeout right before the play began and Daryl Johnson noted, 'they don't get to take those into the locker room with them, so you better use them if you are unsure of what to do. The worst thing would be to get burned on the last play here, so it's best to take the timeout and be sure.' Guess they weren't that sure."

"Boredom is Texans-Jets. Long drive, field goal. Long drive, punt. Rinse, repeat."

"Ben Roethlisberger is getting heat on just about every play, and the distressing thing is how much of the pressure is unblocked. The only time this season I've seen a quarterback under siege to this extent was when Andrew Walter got sacked nine times by the Seahawks a few Monday nights ago. Yes, I just compared the offense of the defending Super Bowl champs to the Oakland Raiders."

"There's a really good chance that neither Edgerrin James nor Shaun Alexander will run for 100 yards in a single game this season. Between them, they did so 20 times in 2005."

"Is anyone really surprised by Edge, though? The guy never saw an eight-man front in his life, and then he moved to a team with an absolutely horrid offensive line. I'd have to say he is who I thought he was."

"It's time for the general populace to realize how good this Oakland defense really is. In the first half, the Chargers - who are currently ranked second in the NFL in offensive DVOA - have gained 55 total yards, have three first downs, are 0 for 4 in third-down conversions, and have had the ball for a whopping eight minutes and twenty-three seconds."

"Yeah, the Raiders defense is great, but their offense handed the Chargers the ball on the 12-yard line and couldn't execute a drive longer than four plays in the second half. The defense can't hold on forever."

"If any of the subjective power ranking writers drop the Bears because they lost, they are complete and total idiots. They just lost by four points on the road against one of the top five or six teams in the league. This does nothing -- nothing -- to prove that the Bears can't win against the best team the AFC has to offer on a neutral field in February.

"Guess who's on my fantasy bench this week? Joseph Addai. Time to trade someone for a receiver."

"The Eagles can blame a lot on the McNabb injury and bad luck, but there is no excuse for the complete and total disintegration of their run defense over the past few weeks. I know they are in nickel a lot tonight, but last time I checked you weren't supposed to stop tackling people just because you had one less linebacker on the field."

Check out more in this week's FO Audibles at the Line.

Kyle: I very much enjoy reading, analyzing and using your stats. However, I found it odd this past week that the stats have Arizona ranked as #5 vs. other teams' #1 wide receivers. I played Randy Moss with confidence two weeks ago (I'm not saying that the Raiders actually inspire confidence, only that I'm stuck with him), as a non-statistical review of the Cards' performance this season revealed that they have struggled against the #1 WR on teams that can throw: Antonio Bryant, 114/0; Darrell Jackson, 127/1; and Torry Holt, 129/1 (I'd even consider LJ as KC's primary receiver, 104/1).

How did the results of the other three games offset these results enough to get a #5 ranking? The game against the Bears must be seen as an outlier from a qualitative perspective, if not a quantitative one. It's just that teams with above average WRs and a QB that throws regularly have succeeded versus the Cardinal defensive backfield, and fifth seems high. I know that the stats are simply one tool in the toolbox, but this one seemed out of place. Thanks.

Aaron Schatz: Well, the first problem is considering Larry Johnson as the KC #1 receiver. That's simply not how our numbers work, and to be honest that's not how NFL teams work. They don't go to the nickel to account for Johnson, and they don't stick a corner on him in man coverage. Once upon a time, perhaps they did this with Tony Gonzalez when he was the best tight end in the game, but not with a running back.

The Arizona defense has been remarkably inconsistent against the #1receivers. They gave up huge games to Bryant, Jackson, Holt, and Moss. But you also have Michael Jenkins at 28 yards, Eddie Kennison with just 48, Donald Driver with just 48, and Muhsin Muhammad with 2. Just because the Chicago game was weird doesn't mean we toss it out.

Finally, you have the fact that DVOA is not fantasy points. DVOA is opponent-adjusted. It considers not just total yards but incompletes, and #1 receivers are catching 50% of balls against Arizona, while the leaguewide percentage for #1 receivers is 55%. DVOA vs. receivers also takes into account interceptions, because it is measuring the defense on passes to those receivers, not the performance of the receivers themselves. Arizona has picked off 5 passes meant for #1 receivers, tied with Kansas City for the highest total in the league. Two of those, in fact, were intended for Moss in the game you mention in your e-mail.

Post by Aaron Schatz

I think we can all agree that last night's Arizona-Chicago game was one of the most shocking games in NFL history. Shocking in how Arizona dominated the first three quarters, and shocking in the way they choked at the end.

How on earth did the Cardinals manage to blow their 23-3 lead? Sure, kicker Neil Rackers deserves some blame for missing the game-ending field goal, and everyone on the Arizona punt coverage team is wearing goat horns today. But the biggest culprits in this loss were running back Edgerrin James, the offensive linemen who couldn't block for him, and the coaches who kept calling his number.

Yes, normally it is a good idea to run out the clock with a lead, rather than stop the clock with incomplete passes or worse, risk an interception. But not every general statement applies to every specific situation. The Cardinals have not been able to run the ball against anyone this year, let alone the Bears. (When asked why he suddenly started dominating, Brian Urlacher told reporters “First of all, they weren’t blocking me.”) Matt Leinart, meanwhile, was killing the Chicago zone coverage in the first half. Every single play he'd find some guy open and ping, first down.

The offensive strategy against the Bears seems pretty clear now: keep in multiple tight ends and/or running backs for max protect against the Chicago pass rush, and send the rest of your guys out to go find the holes in the Cover 2. Leinart was running a lot of quick drop-and-throws, play-action rollouts, and shotgun formation, plays designed to compensate for the fact that Arizona's offensive line is awful.

But in the second half, the Cardinals shied away from using their hot quarterback. They started running on every first or second down -- and since the running game was completely impotent, Leinart was always stuck in third-and-long. No quarterback can consistently convert third-and-long over and over, let alone a rookie with one NFL start under his belt and his best receiver sitting on the sidelines in street clothes.

James gained a grand total of 55 yards on 36 carries. No player in NFL history has rushed for fewer yards on that many carries. Looking at the play-by-play shows you how futile the Arizona running game was. Nine times, Edge lost yardage on a run. Five times he was stopped at the line of scrimmage for zero yards, and six times he gained just one yard. It's hard to tell how much of this is Edge's fault, and how much is the offensive line. But Edge's calling card is supposed to be his ability to push forward for extra yardage. Did anybody ever notice him actually doing that during the second half of last night's game? I sure didn't see it.

If you read the weekly Quick Reads column, you know our DPAR (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) stats. Edge's runs were worth -7.8 PAR; since Arizona has actually played good run defense against other teams too, that gets bumped up to -6.9 DPAR. That's pretty horrible, but believe it or not, when it comes to our Football Outsiders stats, this is not the worst rushing game ever.

It's hard to compare Edge's game to past years with the opponent adjustment, because we don't know how the opponent adjustments will look once both Arizona and Chicago have played a full season. But based on the non-adjusted PAR number, there have been three rushing performances since 2000 with even less value:

• 2001 Week 1: Stephen Davis, back when he was still with the Redskins, gained 35 yards on 14 carries with three fumbles in a 30-3 blowout loss to San Diego. FO result: -10.1 PAR, -8.2 DPAR with opponent adjustment.

• 2001 Week 17: Ricky Williams, in his final game with New Orleans, gained 33 yards on 11 carries with three fumbles in a 38-0 blowout loss to San Francisco. FO result: -8.7 PAR, -8.3 DPAR with opponent adjustment. By the way, Ricky also had -8 receiving yards in this game.

• 2003 Week 16: Deuce McAllister gained 50 yards on 21 carries in a 20-19 loss to Jacksonville. This is the famous game that ended with New Orleans running one final play with a zillion laterals for a touchdown, only to have John Carney honk the extra point to end the Saints' playoff hopes. McAllister fumbled away the ball as the Saints were driving for the game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter, and the official stats for some reason don't count a play where McAllister dropped the handoff on fourth-and-2 and lost nine yards. Only two runs went longer than four yards: one for five, one for nine. FO result: -10.1 PAR, -8.2 DPAR with opponent adjustment. If you add in receiving, though, McAllister was better than Edge was on Monday night; he caught six passes for 63 yards. James caught just one pass for seven yards.

In general, these games score lower than Edge last night because of the fumbles. Edge's fumble came at the worst possible time in the game, but he only fumbled once. Without considering fumbles, this was unquestionably the worst rushing game of the last few years.

Before the season, we wrote in Pro Football Prospectus 2006 that James would have a serious decline behind the Arizona offensive line, but we never imagined anything like this. After six games, James is averaging just 2.7 yards per carry. That's less than either Marcel Shipp (2.9) or J.J. Arrington (3.3) averaged last year.

As a team, the Cardinals now average 2.5 yards per carry. That number will climb before the end of the year, but only one team since 1978 has averaged less than 2.9 yards per carry: the 1994 New England Patriots, the team where Drew Bledsoe set the all-time record for pass attempts.

At this point, it has to be acknowledged that the signing of Edgerrin James was a dismal failure. The impotence of the Arizona offensive line has rendered him completely ineffective -- and things are only going to get worse. James is fighting the twin demons of age and overuse. Running backs generally decline after age 28, and Edge will start to lose his speed and agility. Worse, despite his horrific performance, the Cardinals have handed Edge the ball 148 times this year. That puts him on pace for 394 carries, which would be the sixth highest total in NFL history. Remember: running backs generally break down if they carry the ball 370 or more times in a season. I can't even fathom how bad Edge will be next year if the Cardinals work him for more than 370 carries this year -- and then stick him behind this line again.

Note: Edited with correction on 2003 New Orleans game.

Post by Aaron Schatz

Our man Michael David Smith has an article in today's New York Sun about the current trend to carry just two quarterbacks on the roster. He talks primarily about the effect that this will have on quarterback development, but I was curious about the other issue involved. How often are teams going to be screwed because they only carry two quarterbacks?

The answer is "not that often." Over the past four years, there have only been 10 games where three different quarterbacks took snaps. By the way, the game in Week 3 of last year where the Jets lost both Chad Pennington and Jay Fielder is not one of them -- although both quarterbacks were gone for the year after that game, Pennington was healthy enough to finish up after Fielder got hurt, and Brooks Bollinger never entered the game as the emergency third quarterback.

The 10 games, and the circumstances involved:

2002 Panthers, Week 12: Carolina went through Rodney Peete, Randy Fasani, and Chris Weinke while getting pounded by Atlanta 41-0. No injuries involved.

2002 Bears, Week 14: Jim Miller hurt his knee, Henry Burris came in for a handful of snaps, then Chris Chandler finished the game. But Burris was never hurt, the Bears were just goofing around with him, so really they only needed two quarterbacks.

2003 Raiders, Week 16: Used Rob Johnson, Rick Mirer, and Tee Martin while getting blown out by Green Bay 41-0. No injuries involved.

2003 Bears, Week 17: Rex Grossman hurt his hand, Kordell Stewart came in and was awful, Chris Chandler finished the game. Only one injury.

2004 Packers, Week 4: This is the famous incident where Brett Favre came back in with a concussion to throw a touchdown pass. Doug Pederson was hurt on a hit near the sideline later in the game but managed to stay in until the final play, when Craig Nall came in for a Hail Mary.

2004 Eagles, Week 16: Donovan McNabb, Koy Detmer, Jeff Blake. The Eagles were sitting their starters in preparation for the playoffs.

2005 Eagles, Week 2: McNabb, Detmer, and Mike McMahon all went under center because McNabb came out in the fourth quarter of a 42-3 win over San Francisco. Remember when everything was all hunky dory and the Eagles were going to get through the T.O. thing okay? Ah, nostalgia.

2005 Jets, Week 11: Brooks Bollinger was knocked out with a concussion, Vinny Testaverde hurt his ankle with 1:28 left, and Kliff Kingsbury finished up.

2005 Lions, Week 12: Joey Harrington, Jeff Garcia, and Dan Orlovsky in the middle of a blowout Thanksgiving win for Atlanta. No injuries involved.

2005 Cardinals, Week 15: Arizona had to use emergency third-string quarterback John Navarre for the entire second half after Kurt Warner injured his knee in the second quarter and backup Josh McCown didn't return after halftime because flulike symptoms.

The summary? Only 2.5 games per season where a team used three quarterbacks. Seven times it was entirely voluntary, and the team would have been fine with just two quarterbacks on the roster. Twice, the third quarterback only had to come in due to injury in the last two minutes of the game. Only once in the last four seasons was a team forced to involuntarily go to its emergency third quarterback for a significant part of the game. I wonder if the seven people actually watching Arizona play Houston last year realized what a rare event they were witnessing?

The moral of the story: The odds that Patrick Crayton or Troy Brown or any of the other "emergency quarterbacks" on two-QB teams are actually going to have to go under center are really small.

Post by Aaron Schatz