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

It's easy to talk about the NFL's behavior problems. It's much more difficult to quantify them. At Football Outsiders, we like to use statistics to analyze every aspect of football. Unfortunately, there has never been an effective metric to measure arrests, suspensions, barroom brawls, or other acts of naughtiness.

Until now. After 45 minutes of intense boredom, I've developed the latest weapon in Football Outsiders' data arsenal. I call it the Violent, Immature, Criminal, or Knuckleheaded Behavior Statistic, or VICK BS. The VICK BS tells you instantly whether, on any given day, the NFL is a collection of respectable young athletes dedicated to making the world a better place, an ocean-liner-sized hand basket careening straight into hell's deepest septic tank, or something in between.

Like all of our statistics, the VICK BS is easy to compute. You only need two bits of data:

1) The number of stories in the "Headlines" box on the NFL section of FOXSports.com that relate to criminal or antisocial behavior, and

2) The number of days since an NFL player was last arrested. This value can easily be found on ProFootballTalk.com

Each of these values, by itself, is a pretty potent indicator of how prevalent bad behavior is in the NFL on any given day. Put them together, and you have a handy uber-stat. Just square the FOXSports.com headlines, divide by the days since an arrest, and you have VICK BS.

On Sunday, Mat 27th, at 6 p.m. Eastern time, five of the nine football headlines on FOXSports.com dealt with criminal or mischievous incidents. Over at ProFootballTalk.com, the counter stood at six days without an arrest. Five squared is 25, and 25 divided by six is 4.17. I did that without a calculator, folks, because I have a degree in mathematics.

So Sunday's VICK BS was 4.17. What does that mean? In the world of statistics, context is everything. That's why I devised a simple color-coded companion system for VICK BS. If you are too busy or math-phobic to deal with the actual numerical value, you can simply refer to VICK BS by its color code:

VICK BS: Zero to 0.99

CONDITION: Rosy

COMMISSIONER GOODELL'S FACIAL EXPRESSION: A guarded smile.

TYPICAL WATER-COOLER DISCUSSION: "Hey, that new Australian punter sure is giving our veteran punter a run for his money in minicamp. I'll be following that battle right up until the end of August."

VICK BS: 1.00 to 2.99

CONDITION: Orange you glad you weren't partying with the Bengals this weekend?

COMMISSIONER GOODELL'S FACIAL EXPRESSION: An embarrassed grimace.

TYPICAL WATER-COOLER DISCUSSION: "Crushing and snorting Skittles to get high just isn't right. If NFL linebackers think they can get away with it, then junior high kids will be next."

VICK BS: 3.00 to 4.99

CONDITION: Amber, the exotic dancer who works the 3 a.m. shift and tried to make off with 81,000 of your hard-earned dollars. One at a time.

COMMISSIONER GOODELL'S FACIAL EXPRESSION: Roughly the same look your wife gives you when you come home smelling like you were run over by a cement mixer filled with Makers Mark.

TYPICAL WATER-COOLER DISCUSSION: "Did you hear that Terrell Owens faked his own death to avoid paying income taxes? That man has issues."

VICK BS: 5.00 to infinity

CONDITION: Blinding, searing, oops-I-looked-straight-at-the-eclipse white.

COMMISSIONER GOODELL'S FACIAL EXPRESSION: Omega beams are actually shooting from his eyes.

TYPICAL WATER-COOLER DISCUSSION: "Gosh, I had no idea that there was a panda roller derby subculture in the NFL. I am shocked and dismayed."

I think we would all like to live in a world where the VICK BS level was exactly zero. That may be too much to ask. But we can dream.

(Special thanks to Rob Lawrence, who came up with some of the ideas for this piece.)

post by Mike Tanier

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

Ron: OK, many of the Cowboys fans and I are a tad bitter about Terrance Newman not making the Pro Bowl - especially with DeAngelo Hall getting in. We feel that Newman does an excellent job of shutting down whatever side of the field he's on, or whatever receiver he's been assigned to. He doesn't get the picks or huge plays because QB's just don't throw at him and he doesn't give up big plays.

Are we correct? Is Newman better statistically?

Aaron Schatz: DeAngelo Hall is not the worst Pro Bowl selection this year. That would probably be Mack Strong -- Strong would have been a great pick in any of the last few years, but this year his ability to block just disintegrated. Hall is probably the second-worst selection. Hall is an example of a phenomenon that we may be writing more about in the coming months, and in next year's book: people wrongly assume that great athletes are effective football players. This is a huge problem with boom-and-bust running backs of the DeShaun Foster type, for example, but it also goes for Hall, who is super insanely fast but still learning effective cornerback technique. He's not a bad cornerback, he's just average. His reputation is helped by the fact that the other cornerbacks on his team are god awful. Compared to them, average and fast looks Pro Bowl-caliber.

Anyway, spurred on by your question I recompiled the data from this year's game charting project with all the games that are finished so far. We've got partial data through Week 13, although the later in the season you go, the more games that are unfinished. So take this stuff with a grain of salt. Also note that this stuff doesn't include pass interference penalties yet.

But... I was surprised to see that Newman's metrics don't come out much better than Hall's metrics. With 56 charted passes, Hall has given up 8.8 yards per pass with a Stop Rate of 55%. Newman, on 39 charted passes, has given up 8.2 yards per pass with a Stop Rate of 56% -- slightly better, but not much. The difference does come out in the last thing you noted, that quarterbacks avoid Newman. We've charted more passes thrown at Hall than at the inferior Jason Webster (52) but far fewer at Newman than at his partner, Anthony Henry (61). Remember not to compare those numbers between teams, since we have different amounts of games charted for each team.

Of course, if you open your Pro Football Prospectus 2006 you'll see that Newman was in the top five in both stats last year, and Hall was emphatically not.

Here's a look at the players who are best in the metrics, based on the data collected so far. We're listing players with a minimum of 30 passes. First, the top 10 in Stop Rate. (Stop Rate measures percentage of plays that do not achieve offensive success by Football Outsiders standards: 45% of yards on first down, 60% on second down, 100% on third down.)

• 32-A.Jones TEN 52 65%
• 28-L.Bodden CLE 31 65%
• 31-R.Marshall CAR 35 63%
• 33-C.Tillman CHI 75 63%
• 21-C.McAlister BAL 53 62%
• 20-C.Gamble CAR 38 61%
• 29-D.Florence SD 55 60%
• 26-L.Sheppard PHI 35 60%
• 22-F.Thomas NO 49 59%
• 36-D.Barrett NYJ 34 59%

The other number listed is number of charted passes. First of all, I should point out one player who ISN'T listed here, because I made the cut-off 30 passes. Antonio Cromartie has a Stop Rate of 69% with 28 charted passes. Wow, was I wrong when I thought the Chargers made a mistake because Cromartie would require years to learn to play corner in the NFL. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Then we've got Pac-Man, who probably should have made the AFC Pro Bowl team over Rashean Mathis, and our boy Leigh Bodden -- remember, this doesn't include the recent games where Bodden played hurt and not up to his previous level. Fred Thomas is still on this list for the same reason, because he played so well early in the year, and this doesn't include those recent games where he got torched like Johnny Storm. I'm a little surprised to see two Panthers on the list, since I thought the secondary was one of the big reasons they didn't live up to their Super Bowl potential this year. And I read some San Diego blog where some guy was talking about Quentin Jammer having a huge year this year. Actually, by our numbers he's the only one of the three San Diego cornerbacks who still qualifies as a weakness.

The top 10 in yards per play:

• 36-D.Barrett NYJ 34 4.5
• 28-L.Bodden CLE 31 4.6
• 22-A.Samuel NE 53 4.7
• 27-W.Harris SF 48 5.0
• 25-R.McQuarters NYG 35 5.0
• 31-N.Vasher CHI 44 5.4
• 31-C.Finnegan TEN 30 5.4
• 32-A.Jones TEN 52 5.5
• 26-L.Sheppard PHI 35 5.5
• 31-R.Marshall CAR 35 5.5

These numbers are a little kooky. David Barrett? R.W. McQuarters has looked horrible recently. Let's see where those guys stand at the end of the year.

I have no problem with Ronde Barber (we all know about his amazing run support) or Sheppard. Based on these numbers, Richard Marshall, the Carolina rookie, should be going to the Pro Bowl, but I don't trust that, not with this incomplete data. Combining this data with what we know from past seasons, I would have given the third NFC spot to Nathan Vasher. Vasher has a lower Stop Rate (57%) than Charles Tillman, but allows fewer yards per pass and opponents throw at Vasher roughly half as often compared to Tillman. Newman would have been a better choice than Hall, certainly, based on what we know from last year. Look, Jason Webster and Allen Rossum are so bad that if DeAngelo Hall was as good as people think, teams would treat those guys the way they treat Darrant Williams when Champ Bailey is on the other side of the field.

To finish up, here's a look at the worst cornerbacks so far by these metrics (remember, though, incomplete data). First, Stop Rate:

• 22-S.Rolle BAL 46 30%
• 22-Tr.Fisher STL 42 33%
• 24-T.Law KC 35 37%
• 27-J.Webster ATL 52 38%
• 23-M.Trufant SEA 55 40%
• 25-K.Wright WAS 42 40%
• 21-J.Fletcher DET 32 41%
• 27-Da.Williams DEN 59 41%
• 23-Q.Jammer SD 64 42%
• 24-I.Taylor PIT 67 43%

And then yards per pass:

• 22-S.Rolle BAL 46 14.1
• 22-Tr.Fisher STL 42 10.7
• 26-T.Hill STL 40 10.7
• 21-J.Fletcher DET 32 10.4
• 20-T.James CIN 42 10.0
• 21-R.Hill TEN 45 10.0
• 27-J.Webster ATL 52 9.9
• 24-T.Law KC 35 9.7
• 29-B.Williams JAC 47 9.6
• 24-I.Taylor PIT 67 9.3

You can be very sure that Bill Belichick, Marty Schottenheimer, and Tony Dungy know who to pick on if/when they face the Ravens in January. Also, Ty Law is over the hill -- his metrics were awful in New York last year too -- and the Rams' defensive backfield is horrific.

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:

"Seven minutes to go in the first quarter: two Vick passes, two Crumpler drops."

"I think the Titans have a very good chance of pulling off an upset, though I would rather that they never win a game with the light blue uni-color uniforms. Some decisions just shouldn't be rewarded."

"This is what it is to be a Lions fan: They're up 7-3 and have first-and-goal inside the 5. Do they score? Nope. Ball squirts out of Kevin Jones' hand, Patriots pounce on it."

"Props where props are due: On third-and-5, Vick play-actions, and hits Crumpler in stride for a 20-plus yard gain. Great throw, great catch."

"Wow. In the first half, Rex Grossman completed 3 of 9 passes for 22 yards and 2 picks. That, my friends, is a quarterback rating of 2.8."

"After trailing 14-0, the Falcons are now leading 17-14. The last TD resulted from Falcons' DL Chauncy Davis intercepting a Jason Campbell pass and returning it to the Atlanta 25-yard line. Two plays later, Vick gets time and throws a laser to Michael Jenkins who inexplicably doesn't drop it. By the way, the best thing about the Davis pick was that Grady Jackson was right next to him when he made the play and proceed to take two steps before seemingly saying, 'Look, you know I'm not going to run downfield and block, and I know I'm not going to run downfield and block, so let's stop kidding ourselves right now.' Jackson stopped running."

"Halfway through the third quarter, Grossman has three more incompletions and another pick. His rating is now the Big Blutarsky. Take it, Dean Wormer: 'Zero-point-ZERO. ' Right now, I'm picturing Grossman with a pencil in each nostril."

"The Steelers are way down the depth chart at WR. For example, on the last play Ben Roethlisberger threw a pass to Sean Morey and it was broken up by ... Phillip Buchanon. This is sad on so many levels."

"The Giants socks should have been hung by the chimney with care."

"At what point in discussing the problems of the Denver offense will somebody finally say the words 'Matt Lepsis'"?

"Bootlegs, scrambles, incomplete passes ... golly, Denver sure looks different tonight."

"I swear, they should just put it right on the ball: THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NFL FOOTBALL. DO NOT THROW THIS ANYWHERE NEAR CHAMP BAILEY."

"Okay, Seahawks fans - your team is 8-4 and your kicker is your MVP. You'll take it, right?"

For more, check out Audibles at the Line at Football Outsiders.

post by Mike Tanier

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.

In the Atlanta chapter of PFP 2006, I ran similarity scores for Michael Vick's 2005 season and showed that the two most similar seasons since 1978 belonged to Steve Young (1986, his first year in the NFL) and Steve McNair (1997, his first year as a starter). Certainly Vick's 2005 numbers did not suggest that he would never develop as a passer. But the top 10 list of similar seasons also featured players like Kordell Stewart, Dave Brown, and Charlie Batch, players with similar skill sets who never developed (although Batch has turned into a nice backup).

So here we are, halfway through 2006. We've gone through a roller-coaster ride where the conventional wisdom on Vick changes roughly every two or three weeks:

• This new shotgun option is going to help Vick succeed, even as a run-first quarterback.
• No, never mind, he's never going to be any good.
• Wait, he's coming around -- two big games!
• No, never mind, he's never going to be any good.

Add the good games to the bad ones and Vick is suffering yet another terrible year as a passer. His completion percentage is 52.6 percent, which would be the worst of any of his full seasons. He's gaining just 6.3 net yards per pass, only slightly higher than the 6.2 from last year. He's on pace for a career high in touchdowns, but also in interceptions.

I pro-rated Vick's stats over the whole year and ran similarities again to see whether McNair and Young were still on the list. Assuming Vick is going to actually stay healthy for 16 games is always a bit of a stretch, but he's doing well so far, so we'll give him 16 games in the projections.

Comparing just a single season, the most similar player is Randall Cunningham in 1989, followed by Trent Dilfer in 1998 and Steve McNair in 1997. Yes, that's the same McNair season that was similar to Vick last year, but that makes sense because the fifth most similar season to Vick in 2006 is Vick in 2005. Also on the list are Kordell Stewart twice (1997 and 1998), Cunningham again (1990), Cliff Stoudt (1983), Shaun King (2000), and Timm Rosenbach (1990).

Extending the list to 13 gets really strange, because 11-13 includes Vick himself in 2004 and 2002 and Ron Jaworski in 1978. If I could name the quarterback that Vick was least likely to turn into, it would be Jaws -- can you see Vick debating Sal Palantonio Jr. and Mike Alstott on NFL Matchup in 2034? But Jaws in 1978 had passing numbers similar to what Vick is going this year -- he shows up below the top ten because the running numbers are so different. (Part of this is that 1978 was still a transitional year for the new passing rules, so the quarterback numbers from that season are all over the place.)

Anyway, what really matters about this list of similar players is how dissimilar they are. For those unfamiliar with similarity scores, they work on a scale where 1000 is the same player, and the lower the score, the less similar. The top ten for Vick's 2005 that I ran in the book ranged from 762 (David Carr in 2005) to 855 (Young in 1986). This top ten ranges from 660 to 745.

At this point, there is really nobody to compare Vick with, at least not in NFL history since 1978. There has never been a quarterback this inaccurate, this far into his career. Those few quarterbacks who come close were not runners, and of course, Vick runs with the ball more than any quarterback since Bobby Douglass.

Three-year similarity scores, which we usually use to help project careers, are also fairly useless here. The top player is Dave Brown 1994-1996, but the similarity score there is 685. Then comes Trent Dilfer, Randall Cunningham, Donovan McNabb, and Steve McNair. McNabb and McNair are similar to Vick if, by similar, you mean "numbers with similar ratios but dramatically superior in every passing category."

The one player who keeps showing up is Cunningham, but Cunningham's lower completion percentage makes some sense because he was throwing for more yards and more yards per attempt than Vick. You can live with a lower completion percentage if you throw more long passes.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that Vick is sui generis. There's never been anyone like him. Last year, there were historical parallels of players who developed, and this year, there aren't. Certainly that doesn't decide the fate of Vick's career, but it's a point in the argument that he's just never going to "get it." At what point is it just too late for him to develop into an actual NFL passer?

BlueStarDude: I’m really surprised by Dallas’s continued high defensive ranking (happy, but surprised). So often they seem to give up four or more yards on first down. Are they propped up by an overachieving third-down defense? An ability to force turnovers? Or is my anecdotal memory that far off?

Aaron Schatz: To be honest, I didn't even realize while I was writing the commentary today that I complimented three defenses that gave up 36, 38, and 41 points this week -- Dallas, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh.

I think part of the issue is the natural tendency to think of things in terms of the last game. Obviously, this wasn't the best week of the season for the Dallas defense, although the worst defensive DVOA for Dallas was Week 1 against Jacksonville. (This was the worst week of the season for both the Pittsburgh and Atlanta defenses.) And while the Dallas defense moved up one spot in rank, the actual DVOA rating declined, from -19.5% last week to -15.5% this week.

But Blue Star Dude is a hardcore fan and FO reader and he knows there is more to this than just a single week, so let's go a little deeper into that Dallas defense.

He is not mistaken that the Cowboys often give up a ton of yards on first down. In fact, the Cowboys are giving up an average of 6.8 yards per play on first down, the worst figure in the league. That high average is in large part caused by four very specific plays, and those four very specific plays can probably be named by every single Dallas fan out there, and those four very specific plays are all tied to a single player who is currently the glaring weakness of the Dallas defense:

• The 60-yard pass to L.J. Smith with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.
• The 87-yard touchdown pass to Hank Baskett with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.
• The 40-yard flea flicker touchdown pass to Reggie Brown with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.
• The 50-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with safety Pat Watkins in coverage.

I don't want to be rude, but as I stated in the DVOA commentary two weeks ago, the Cowboys might want to rethink the way they use Pat Watkins.

Having given away all these yards on first down, however, the Cowboys really buckle down. It's not an overachieving third-down defense, because they are playing exceptionally well on second down too.

• On first down, Dallas has a defensive DVOA of 14.2%, which ranks 28th.
• On second down, Dallas has a defensive DVOA of -36.5%, which ranks third. Only Baltimore and Chicago are better.
• On third down, Dallas has a defensive DVOA of -37.75%, which ranks second. Only Denver is better.

If you don't get at least four yards against Dallas on first down, you are screwed. On third or fourth down with 7+ yards to go, the Cowboys are allowing 2.1 yards per play. In these 41 situations, the Cowboys have more sacks (9) than conversions allowed (8).

The final issue is opponent strength. The three other teams in the NFC East are ranked 2, 3, and 7 in offensive DVOA, and the Houston Texans -- who only managed two field goals against Dallas -- are 15th.

Honestly, even this week the Dallas defense wasn't as bad as it looked. The Giants scored nine points on defense, the interception return and the safety. They scored a touchdown on a drive that started on the Dallas 14 because of one interception, and a field goal on a drive that started on the Dallas 48 because of another interception.

What about the other teams?

I don't think anybody was questioning Pittsburgh's defense before they let Atlanta score 41 points. Remember what they did to LaDainian Tomlinson and Larry Johnson? They just had a bad week.

Atlanta's defense has been much less consistent, and their above-average rating comes from three strong games: the 20-6 victory over Carolina to start the year, the 14-3 win over Tampa Bay, and the 32-10 drubbing of Arizona that began the Matt Leinart era.

Post by Aaron Schatz

With the signing of Morten Andersen, the Michael Koenen experiment in Atlanta is now over. Koenen will punt, kick off, and handle any 50-yard field goal attempts. Andersen will take care of the short stuff. And Frank Corral remains the last player to serve as both a punter and a kicker for a full season.

Corral kicked and punted for the Rams in 1980 and 1981 after kicking for the team in his first two seasons. He finished seventh in the NFL in punting average and converted 17-of-26 field goal attempts 1981. But one awful game took away his job security. Corral missed three field goals and had a fourth kick blocked in a 20-17 loss to the Niners. The Rams entered that game 4-3. They would finish the season 6-10.

The next off-season, the Rams brought in youngsters John Misko and Mike Lansford to punt and kick, respectively. The Rams had signed young "camp kickers" in the past; Corral would rest his leg during training camp and coast through preseason games. But in 1982, the Rams started tracking the progress of their three kickers carefully. Corral didn't ramp up his effort in response to the new competition. "I wasn't going blow-to-blow with those guys," he told The Sporting News. "They were kicking the thunder out of it. If I tried to do that, I could have blown my leg and ruined my career. Besides, I've never been a pretty practice kicker." Misko said that he easily outpaced Corral on punts. "Let's face it, he's not Ray Guy," Misko said.

The Rams didn't mince words when they released Corral in favor of Misko and Lansford before the 1982 season. "Frank never came down to practice once during the off-season," Rams coach Ray Malavasi said. "Then when he comes to training camp he simply goes through the motions. Maybe he'll learn from this."

Corral (who was born in Chihuahua, Mexico) fired back at his former coach. "Ray can say that I'm a dumb, dirty, bean-eating Mexican, but don't fool the public and tell them I can't kick anymore," he said in The Sporting News. But Corral, whose $125,000 was high for a kicker of the era, would never kick or punt in the NFL again. Misko punted for three years in Los Angeles but wasn't very good. Lansford kicked for the Rams throughout the 1980s. Their 1982 salaries combined were less than Corral's. Ironically, the Rams ditched their kicker-punter for the same reason the Falcons created theirs: to save money.

(For more on Koenen and other two-way kicker-punters, read this week's Too Deep Zone, running Friday on FoxSports.com and Football Outsiders.)

Post by Mike Tanier