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.
So, over at NFL.com, Adam Schefter is writing about the great head coach free agency of 2008, and after talking about Bill Cowher and Jeff Fisher (whose contract ends this year) and Bill Parcells, we get to this:
And maybe, most interesting, multiple sources around the league believe
that Belichick's contract, which does have three years remaining on it,
is filled with mutual options that could allow him or the team to
nullify the deal as early as next year.
Schefter is not the first person to write about these supposed "Bill Belichick will leave the Patriots rumors." But do you remember what I said a couple weeks ago about the ridiculous Donovan McNabb-to-Vikings nonsense? I mean, I trust Adam Schefter a lot more than I trust random dude at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, but again, unless I have missed something, there is absolutely no proof of this being true.
There is no proof that Belichick's contract has out clauses. Apparently, multiple sources believe. That's it. Bill Belichick has not told anyone he has out clauses. Robert Kraft has not told anyone he has out clauses. Nobody has actually seen the physical contract with out clauses. If one of those three things was true, Schefter wouldn't use the word believe. He would say "multiple sources around the league say..."
But wait, it gets better. In all the rumors of Belichick leaving New England, nobody has brought up any possible reasons WHY he would want to leave. People talk about the Giants job being his dream job, but Bill Belichick did not grow up in New York or New Jersey. He grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, and lives on Martha's Vineyard during a large portion of the off-season.
Power? He has total control in New England. If Belichick told Jonathan Kraft that the Patriots would be more likely to make it to Super Bowl XLII if he had an egg salad sandwich for lunch, you can bet Kraft would have an egg salad sandwich for lunch.
Money? Coaches are the one thing for which there is no salary cap (well, coaches and trainers) and you could not possibly list a salary so high that Robert Kraft would not pay it. I mean, if Belichick gets super greedy there are going to be a couple of synagogues around Boston that don't get new Torahs next year, but it isn't like Robert Kraft is hurting for money, considering how much of it he gives away.
Maybe he's just tired of this and wants a new challenge? Um, hello? In the salary cap NFL, EVERY YEAR is a new challenge. Almost half the 2006 Patriots were not on the team when they won Super Bowl XXXIX. Besides, would you trade the challenge of building a team around Tom Brady for the challenge of building a team around Eli Manning?
The only possible reason that makes any sense is the idea that Belichick would want to live closer to that woman down in New Jersey who broke up his marriage. I assume she's getting a divorce herself, though, and what, he couldn't move her up to Foxboro? Get real. Plus, that only explains the Giants rumors, not the wacko "Belichick to the Houston Texans" nonsense from Ron Borges.
Oh, and have you noticed all the hype about Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith becoming the first African-American head coaches in the Super Bowl? Yes, the NFL sure would look fondly upon the Mara family telling new general manager Jerry Reese to go take a hike so white boy Bill Belichick can run the Giants. That would certainly score one for racial progress.
I guess when I go to the Indy combine, I'll put this near the top of the to do list: Find out if anybody has any actual concrete reasons why the "Bill Belichick wants to leave New England" rumors are true.
Until then, to quote Chuck D., don't believe the hype.
Here's what we were talking about at Football Outsiders over the Wild Card weekend:
"This Colts first drive has been all runs and checkdowns. Apparently, the Colts' offensive plan is to keep their own defense off the field."
"Herm Edwards might be the worst in-game manager in all of sports."
"If it weren't for the two penalties on the punt return team, I'd say the Colts' defense and special teams have been entirely replaced by actual professional football players."
"My god, is Ty Law a lucky mofo."
"What's up with all these drops? Are they using the new NBA ball or something?"
"OK, this was funny and all, but does the real Chiefs-Colts game start after halftime?"
"It is 6:32 PM Eastern time. The Chiefs have their first first down."
"The long Indianapolis third-quarter drive that ended with the Joseph Addai touchdown run - 12 plays, 89 yards and seven minutes off the clock - was a masterpiece of consistent, measured playcalling. The Colts saw that gasping defense, and they went with the Long, Slow Goodbye. Just great football."
"I don't know if its the Colts defense suddenly changing into Mr Hyde. I don't know if its the absolute inability of Herm Edwards to change a plan that clearly wasn't working. But this was a stunning game."
"Why is Kelly Jennings solo on Owens? He weights about 175 pounds and isn't a good tackler."
"Why is Pete Hunter solo on Terry Glenn? Dude, it isn't like the Seahawks have choices right now."
"Let's start a pool... when will Tony Romo finally throw a pass above a guy's ankles?"
"Did Seattle just call a DRAW TO THE FULLBACK on third-and-7 in the red zone? Who thought that one up?"
"The two fourth-down conversions on Seattle's first touchdown drive were nice flashbacks to the past. Of course, there's nothing line a 93-yard punt return touchdown on the next play to kill that momentum!"
"That was one of the goofiest defensive plays I've ever seen. Catch, fumble, but the ball went out of bounds in the air before Lofa Tatupu batted it back in."
"This is going to be the longest replay challenge in the history of replay challenges."
"Well, it's hard to say that the same week as that Boise State game. A couple weird plays are nothing compared to that thing."
"As a statistical analyst, it is not my job, nor is it my forte, to psychoanalyze Tony Romo and figure out what this mistake will mean for the rest of his career. However, this will not stop many, many writers and talking heads from doing just that over the next few days."
"Psychoanalyze Romo? Who would do such a thing? 'Hey, Carrie's man, what's your game, boy? Can anybody play?'"
"Chad Pennington surprises me with his arm strength when he throws downfield."
"I'm surprised that the Pats sideline is in the sun to the point that Bill Belichick is continuously shielding his eyes with his arm. (I guess he can't afford a visor to go with his hoodie.) This seems like exactly the sort of detail Belichick would have micromanaged."
"Watching Belichick and Mangini trying to outsmart each other is kinda like two Mathletes having a nerd off while everybody else in junior high is as the dance."
"Shawne Merriman is on national TV at halftime, and he can't put on a shirt? He's either wearing a wifebeater, suspenders, or a pair of overalls without a shirt, like the big guy from the original Final Fight."
"Kickoff distance is one of those things that nobody notices without looking at the numbers first, but the difference between Steve Gostkowski and Mike Nugent has been mind-bogglingly obvious this week."
"I don't agree at all with what Phil Simms just said: 'You look at this 37-16 score and it's misleading.' The Pats pretty much dominated this game. The Jets had a handful of good drives, but this was basically the Patriots' game all day. At halftime when it was 17-10, they commented that all the stats (16-7 first downs, for example) showed that the Patriots were dominating, and that was right. The score just started to reflect that by the end."
"Cris Collinsworth last night: 'Kevin Gilbride has changed the outlook on offense; they run Tiki Barber and they throw the ball long.' Yeah sure, that's not at all what the Giants offensive game plan looked like for all of 2005 and 2006 prior to last week.
"Jared Lorenzen: The unholy offspring of Michael Vick and Refrigerator Perry."
"Somebody needs to get the Giants offensive line some anti-anxiety medicine or something."
"Koy Detmer earns his paycheck with two tough holds on field goals on a rainy day. Koy for MVP."
"The only person who was playing with any sort of urgency in that game was Tiki Barber. The performance was entirely indistinguishable from any other Giants game this season, and I'd like to think that they'd focus more and play better. I'm normally not inclined to blame a performance on a coach, but this team isn't going to get any better with Coughlin at the helm. They need a change."
"Seeing Jeremy Shockey stretching for first downs with his helmet knocked off, taking off Coughlin's headphones to talk to him... he seemed to be playing with urgency. And you've got to give Plaxico Burress credit for some good receptions there. On the other hand, when your tight end is coming up to your head coach and just taking off his headphones to talk to him, and your offensive line then false starts 37 times, yeah, I don't think the discipline thing is working."
"I think the Giants were playing hard out there, but you don't just flip a switch and acquire intensity. If you have a month of the season where everyone is playing like ####, yapping in the media, and tuning out the coach, then you have dozens of practices that are just shot to hell. Guys can fly around on Sunday and hit hard and yell and scream, but football requires precision and controlled aggression. The Giants have been an imprecise team all year."
So, we've got most of Weeks 1-14 now compiled in our game charting project, and four very important games to analyze, so I thought perhaps I would go through and see what the charting data says about the wild card weekend games. Standard caveats, of course: this data is unofficial, compiled by volunteers, we're missing some games, and it is hard to always see who was in coverage when using TV tape.
Kansas City at Indianapolis
Last year our stats said that Jason David made a successful play on a higher percentage of passes than Nick Harper, but when he gave up a completion, it went for more yards. This year, their stats are virtually identical in every way. The only difference is that the average pass David faces is 13 yards in the air, the average pass for Harper just 10 yards in the air.
("Made a successful play" does not mean just an incomplete or interception; it also applies to a complete pass that does not gain 45% of yards on first down, 60% on second down, or 100% on third down.)
Indy had 32 passes marked "Hole in Zone," more
than any other team. That's 10.3% of the total charted passes marked with a
defender of some sort. The second-highest team was Jacksonville (7.2%).
KC had only 6 passes marked Hole in Zone, which makes sense,
since Gunther Cunningham loves man coverage. Unfortunately, he's got just one guy who can pull it off. For two years now, the game charting has said that Ty Law is now a subpar cornerback. We've got 51 passes targeted at Ty Law, averaging 9.5 yards per pass. We've got just 32 targeted at Patrick Surtain, averaging 6.2 yards per pass -- even though the average pass at Surtain actually traveled slightly longer in the air (10.5 yards to 10.1 yards). We've got almost as many passes targeted at Lenny Walls, the nickel back, as we do targeted at Surtain.
Dallas at Seattle
We covered this one a couple weeks ago. The numbers on the Dallas cornerbacks are fairly similar and all worse than last year, but there are many more passes thrown at Anthony Henry than thrown at Terrance Newman. And our charting doesn't include most of the recent period where the Dallas pass defense imploded.
Seattle numbers are pretty worthless given all the injuries. Jordan Babineaux's numbers sucked as a cornerback last year. There's going to be a LOT of passing in this game.
New York Jets at New England
Asante Samuel is your lord and master. He allowed just 4.7 yards per pass, which is the lowest of any cornerback in the league with at least 30 charted passes except for R.W. McQuarters. Except the average pass against McQuarters was FIVE YARDS SHORTER than the average pass against Samuel, and we charted nearly twice as many passes against Samuel because McQuarters is a nickel back. Samuel also had a high 61% stop rate (stopping plays short of success). Ellis Hobbs and Chad Scott had similar, average stats, which is strange because it seemed like Scott was burned constantly. Hobbs was one of the best guys in the league in these stats last year but struggled with injuries in 2006.
Usually the nickel back faces shorter passes, because he's facing guys trying to convert third downs, but David Barrett of New York faced an average pass that went 15 yards in the air, compared to just 10 for starters Andre Dyson and Justin Miller. Miller's stats were pathetic as a rookie but much better this year. Dyson and Miller allowed the same average yards per pass (7.7) but Dyson was successful against just 40% of passes, Miller against 55% of passes. Barrett had excellent numbers, but I'm guessing that's a sample size fluke caused by a few overthrown bombs.
New York Giants at Philadelphia
If the charting numbers are to be believed, the safeties in New York are horrible.
Kevin Dockery's 12 yards per pass was #1 among all players with at least 30 charted
passes. Will Demps' 9.8 is eighth. Both had stop rate of 36%, the only defensive
back worse than that was Travis Fisher of St. Louis.
As for the cornerbacks, as mentioned above, R.W. McQuarters comes out with great stats, which is really weird and completely goes against the subjective view of my eyes any time I watched the Giants. Corey Webster was thrown at more often than Sam Madison, giving up slightly more yards per pass with a slightly lower stop rate.
Last year in Philly, Sheldon Brown and Roderick Hood both ranked among the best in the league while an injured Lito Sheppard was near the bottom. This year, Hood was the injured corner with the subpar stats, and Sheppard's stats were near the top of the league. Injuries are bad, huh? Anyway, Sheppard had a stop rate of 62%, one of the best in the league, and allowed just 5.4 yards per pass, and that doesn't even take into account all his timely interceptions. Brown had a stop rate of 57% and allowed 8.6 yards per charted pass (in his defense, he faced longer passes on average). Hood's stats don't mean much since we're missing the recent weeks where he was actually healthy.
There are people out there who suggested that Tiki Barber wasn't trying his hardest in the past few weeks because he plans to retire. I hope they felt like idiots Saturday night.
Vince Young just threw a crazy no-look hook shot to the end zone. Randy Cross can't stop fawning over it. "This is why this city is so excited about this guy." If Eli Manning had thrown that pass, people would have been all over him for making a stupid, risky decision. It just goes to show that 'heroic' moves are driven by incoming expectations.
Are the Cowboys under the impression that this game is a 4 p.m. kickoff or something? They're playing like absolute ####.
At -34.4%, the 2006 Oakland Raiders would seem to have an outside shot at the Negative Offensive DVOA record, set by the 2005 San Francisco 49ers (-39.8%). Now THAT's something you want on your resume: "Coordinated record-breaking offense, according to Football Outsiders."
In the third quarter, David Garrard threw a little line-of-scrimmage screen to Ty Law. I’m sure there was a back in a Jaguars uniform behind him, but Garrard threw the ball right to Law. Looked right at him, and threw it anyway. Not surprisingly, Quinn Gray is now in at quarterback. We'll see if Gray can just win ballgames.
I predict the Bengals draft a special teams-specific player on Day 1 of the NFL Draft.
And with 2:33 left in the fourth quarter, Larry Johnson carried the ball for the 411th time this season, breaking Jamal Anderson's 1998 record for carries in a season. In 1999, Anderson ran 19 times for 59 yards and went down in the second game of the season with a knee injury. He was out of the league two years later. As we've said before at Football Ousiders, this would almost be excusable on Herm Edwards' part if a) he wasn't so stubborn and defiant about Johnson's carries; and b) he didn't run Curtin Martin out of the league two years ago.
Everytime I switched over to the Cowboys, they were playing an interesting new zone coverage called "Cover-Nobody."
The Seahawks avoided the indignity of an 8-8 record, though they’re still one of the least impressive teams ever to win a division.
I'm glad the Lions won't have the top pick. They'd just blow it.
Let me also just say J-E-T-S! One! And! Done! This is not a playoff team, but I'll ride the happiness anyway. Plus it gives the young 'uns some playoff experience.
I believe that Tony Romo has the potential to be a very good starting quarterback. Heck, I don't mind the Pro Bowl selection, because there weren't a lot of options (remember that Jeff Garcia had some of his best games after voting was closed). But when things go too well too early for a quarterback, he can pick up some awful habits. For example, not gripping the ball tightly, and not protecting it in traffic, and waiting forever for a magic play to develop when you could just dump it to Marion Barber and gain five yards.
And Denver officially craps the bed. Which means: 1) Another week of Mangini-Belichick stories. Kill me now. 2) Indianapolis is freaking out at the prospect of playing Larry Johnson. 3) Another 30 and maybe 60 carries for Larry Johnson, which means he is super duper Oompa Loompa Dupity Screwed.
I think Mike Tanier had a point on Jim Mora (though I’d personally put Denny Green above him), but the firing of John Hufnagel gave me an entirely new respect for the true terribleness of Tom Coughlin.
Stripping your offensive coordinator of his duties before the last game of the season, a game you must win for a chance at the postseason, is enough of a doozy. But he’s replaced John Hufnagel with Kevin Gilbride, his quarterbacks coach. The man responsible for the "awesome development" of one Eli Manning. The man who seems to be alright with the notion that Manning can simply throw to zones, with terrible timing, whether there’s a receiver in the vicinity or not. Just as Manning the Younger was doing three years ago as a rookie.
And what was Coughlin’s rationale for such a move? "I’m hoping it sparks us to win a game," he said. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the Giants’ own home crowd calling for the firing of their team’s head coach. Nothing at all to do with the deferment of blame. He now says that he has been considering a move at the offensive coordinator position for months, an admission which would (and should) backfire horribly upon him should the Giants lose to the Redskins this Saturday and miss the playoffs.
"How can you look at the production of Sunday and not think that, O.K., there’s some issue here?" Coughlin continued. The issue’s been an elephant in the living room for the seven weeks in which the Giants have lost their last six games. Against the New Orleans Saints, New York never ran a play in Saints territory, and their offense was held in check for most of the game. Manning’s day was particularly terrible, but he’s been regressing through the losing streak anyway. Those last few voices who proclaimed his the Next Great Quarterback are now particularly silent, as it appears that Elisha will play the part of Frank Stallone in this movie.
And now, Coughlin will put his offense, his team, and quite possibly his own future in the hands of the man who could not curb that regression.
"I was disappointed," center Shaun O’Hara said. "I was disappointed in myself and, I think, my teammates, because I think it reflects and looks bad on all of us." O’Hara and his teammates are another part of Coughlin’s problem – Coughlin’s reputation as a disciplinarian has been completely torpedoed in New York. When his players weren’t throwing him (and each other) under the bus, they were setting landmarks for stupid penalties. In 2005, the Giants committed 167 total infractions, second-worst in the NFL behind the Arizona Cardinals. In 2006, through fourteen games, they’ve committed 108 - sixth in the league, Ah, the little improvements.
Coughlin says that Gilbride won’t be the offensive coordinator, that "if there would be one, it would be me". After this last regular-season game, it’s quite possible that the choice will be taken out of his hands.
What "would be him, if there were one," would be the Worst Coach of 2006.
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.
The Giants hosted the Bears with five of their defensive starters hurt, including All-Pro defensive end Michael Strahan, and three rookies in the defensive starting lineup. You might think that coordinator Tim Lewis would be more conservative with so many substitutes in the game. Quite the contrary: Lewis schemed aggressively to compensate for the loss of Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, and others with zone blitzes and blitzes from the secondary.
The Bears faced third-and-9 from their own 25-yard line on their opening drive of the first quarter. They lined up in a three-receiver set, with Thomas Jones as the lone back behind Rex Grossman. The Giants countered with their nickel package with R.W. McQuarters in the game in place of rookie linebacker Gerris Wilkinson. McQuarters was also on the field on the previous play; he blitzed from the nickel position, forcing a poor throw by Grossman. On this play, he shows blitz from the strong (offensive right) side, and linebacker Reggie Torbor also shows blitz from the strongside A-gap between the center and the guard.
The Giants' front four takes a wide alignment. Right end Fred Robbins lines up outside the left shoulder of left tackle John Tait. William Joseph, who spent much of the game playing end, covers the weakside A-gap as a defensive tackle. Rookie tackle Barry Cofield plays the 3-technique in the strongside B-gap. Mathias Kiwanuka is shaded to the inside shoulder of tight end Desmond Clark.
A split second before the snap, the Giants shift. Kiwanuka drops from the line, McQuarters and Torbor drop out of their blitz look, and deep safety Gibril Wilson, who was shaded to the right side of the offensive formation, rotates quickly to the left side. In that fraction of a second, the Giants reveal that they are running an overload blitz to the offensive right side. Unfortunately, the Bears don't have a pause button. Everything about the Giants formation and tendencies suggested a strong side blitz, and that's what the offensive line is prepared for.
At the snap, all three of the remaining Giants defensive linemen slant to their left. Kiwanuka drops into coverage in the flat zone. Joseph does an excellent job of forcing a double team by avoiding the block of Rueben Brown and crossing the face of center Olin Kreutz. Cofield occupies right tackle Fred Miller. Robbins starts straight up the field and works inside on Tait, demonstrating surprising quickness. Robbins easily beats Tait to the inside. It's a fine example of how a small thing like pre-snap alignment affects the outcome of a play. Robbins' wide alignment, coupled with Joseph's inside move to clear Brown, gave Robbins the space to beat a very good blocker.
Two Giants defenders blitz from the offensive left side behind the slanting linemen: linebacker Antonio Pierce and safety Will Demps. Both get a great jump at the snap: they are moving forward as soon as Grossman gets the ball, but they don't give away their intentions a second early as Kiwanuka did. Both defenders attack over Robbins' right shoulder, Pierce by looping from a point behind Joseph, Demps on a direct course from the secondary. Robbins, Pierce, and Joseph essentially execute a three-man stunt, and it works better than Coach Lewis could have hoped. With Robbins past Tate, there are three defenders coming free to Grossman's blind side. With two defenders blitzing to one side, it's clear why Wilson shifted before the snap. If Grossman looked right, he would see lots of open space where Pierce and Demps used to be. If a receiver crossed into that part of the field, Wilson would be the last line of defense to prevent a long gain.
Thomas Jones is Grossman's only remaining bodyguard. He cannot block Robbins, Pierce, and Demps by himself. He chooses Pierce. The cleverness of the play design is best illustrated by the fact that right guard Robert Garza blocks nobody for much of the play; he was assigned to either Torbor (if he blitzed) or Kiwanuka (if McQuarters blitzed). Grossman feels the heat and tries to throw to R. Davis along the right sideline. Unfortunately, he rushes the throw, and the pass sails right into the hands of Kiwanuka. Credit Kiwanuka, a rookie, with a heads-up play in coverage: many defensive ends look lost in flat coverage, but he takes a proper drop and puts himself in position to haul in an errant throw. Kiwanuka's long interception return sets up an easy touchdown run by Brandon Jacobs.
Lewis' schemes work because he has great depth and athleticism along the defensive line, and because defenders like Pierce, Joseph and Robbins understand their roles in the gameplan. Of course, his schemes work better when Strahan, Umenyiora, and others are available. In the second half of the game, the Bears began to adjust to Lewis' blitzes, and Grossman looked much better when he had time to throw. When Lewis gets his starters back, he'll probably rely a little less on the blitz. But he'll still use creativity to isolate his best defenders against one-on-one blocks, and he'll find ways to use weapons like Kiwanuka as pass rushers (or zone coverage decoys) off the bench.
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:
"Buffalo is using a really soft front against the Colts. They are only keeping six in the box. I want someone to create a montage of Edgerrin James watching this while 'Memories' plays in the background."
"It's amazing how different San Diego's defense is without Shawne ('I can't find the bottle') Merriman in the lineup. They can bring no real consistent pressure, and Carson Palmer is shredding them to bits."
"Is my scoreboard messed up? Tennessee's put 26 points on Baltimore in the first half?"
"Somebody forgot to tell Travis Henry the Ravens' run defense is good. He's running all over them in the first half."
"#### Enberg and Randy Cross are going on and on about how smart Tony Dungy is because he doesn't care how big a player on his defense is, he just cares if he can play. Uh, guys, did you notice how the Colts' small defensive players are getting their butts kicked up and down the field every Sunday?"
"Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the locker room, the Chargers scored 21 points in the third quarter. Philip Rivers is showing a very admirable ability to rebound from a rough start ... and before I could even finish writing that, Chad Johnson ran by the entire right side of San Diego's defense for a 74-yard touchdown."
"San Francisco shut down Minnesota last week, and now, thanks largely to three fumbles, they've rammed the Lions' bandwagon off the highway. Are they getting better?"
"The Jets brought a ton of pressure, and the Patriots simply haven't had time to react. Tom Brady can't move around well on the sloppy field."
"Marlon McCree should be suspended for the rest of the year for the helmet to helmet hit he just put on T.J. Houshmandzadeh before the pass was even there."
"I like Jeff Fisher, but he made a cardinal sin at the end of the Baltimore game. Driving for the game-winning field goal, he has 3rd-and-4 at the 25-yard line. The Titans run the ball into the line, leaving a 40+ yard field goal. It gets blocked, and what probably would have been the biggest upset of the day does not happen."
"Shaun Philips really abused Bengals fullback Jeremi Johnson on the Carson Palmer fumble in the fourth quarter … The last two LaDainian Tomlinson touchdowns came within 15 seconds of each other."
"St. Louis' run defense is horrid. 'Oops - I missed the assignment again!'"
"This is the same Steelers team we've seen all year, except with better luck and more stability on special teams."
"Sean Payton - he knows what he's doing - but he looks like a middle manager out there."
"Richie Incognito is the real-life embodiment of the fat guy from Varsity Blues."
"Broncos-Raiders was a heck o####ame if you hate drives or offense."
"Hi, Brandon Jacobs? This is Steve Smith. When you finally give birth to that football, give me a ring, I can give you some wiping tips."
"The Giants were really dominating the game for about a quarter and a half, and then it suddenly turned at the end of the first half, and now they've turned into the gang that couldn't shoot straight."
"The short field goal attempt returned for a touchdown is easily my favorite play in all of football. Except, of course, when it's against the Giants."
There are several things that NFL scribes and fans refer to when attempting to determine how underrated a player is. For a player like Steelers DT Casey Hampton, it’s his skills in occupying offensive linemen at the line of scrimmage and allowing the linebackers behind him to make plays. Chargers FB Lorenzo Neal plows the holes to keep halfbacks LaDainian Tomlinson and Michael Turner going, while Bears LB Lance Briggs is a machine in coverage, shutting down tight ends and even wide receivers coming over the middle.
It’s hard, though, for a skill position player to be underrated solely because of the sheer amount of coverage they get. Fantasy football players could tell you more about Bertrand Berrian than they could about Vince Wilfork, even if the latter plays a much more important role in winning football games. Highlights focus on diving catches and long runs, and they should -- they’re exciting! That being said, there’s a NFL quarterback whose play is underrated by even fanatical followers of the L who simply look at his statistics and watch his highlights Monday morning. That man, shockingly, is Brett Favre. And even more so than Favre, his top WR, Donald Driver, remains remarkably underrated for a skill he and, perhaps, only a few others in the NFL share; the ability to draw pass interference.
As you may be aware, the NFL does not award the yardage gained from a pass interference penalty to the individual statistics of a quarterback and his wide receiver, which seems quite unfair when you consider the letter of the law: a interference penalty is only supposed to be called when a defensive player commits "...any player movement beyond the line of scrimmage significantly [hindering] the progress of an eligible player of such player’s opportunity to catch the ball". In English, he prevents a player from catching a ball he had the opportunity to catch.
Now, of course, not every pass would result in a catch if the interference penalty was not committed; on the other hand, though, most NFL receivers catch anywhere from 55-65% of the balls thrown in their general direction. Is it fairer, then, to award them none of credit for the plays they are prevented from making, or all of it? I’m inclined to think the latter.
With that in mind, I used Football Outsiders’ play-by-play database from the last several years to look at every pass from 2002-2005 that resulted in a pass interference penalty against the defense that was accepted by the offense -- an event that occurred 820 times in those four seasons. I wanted to see if there were certain players or a certain subset or archetype of player (tall guys, fast guys, good or bad route-runners, etc) that recorded more pass interference penalties than the norm. What I found was that for a majority of players, pass interference penalties were generally dependent upon how many devious stares they got in their direction. Take Plaxico Burress, for example:
Just to note, I sorted guys who had the same number of penalties drawn by the yards they recorded on those non-catches to determine their rank.
As you can see with Burress, when he was getting a lot of throws towards him, more of them resulted in pass interference penalties. Burress is actually tied for the lead in pass interference penalties against him for the four-year stretch with 17 -- his yardage, though, pales in comparison to the leader.
Most players had patterns like that -- one year, they’d be in the top ten, the next, they’d be in the late seventies. To give another example, Peerless Price was in the top five in 2002 and 2003, when he was thrown 289 passes; in 2004 and 2005, when he was thrown 106, he didn’t record a single pass interference against him.
There were several players, though, whose numbers really stood out against the pack. As I mentioned previously, the Brett Favre to Donald Driver connection has been quite strong: Driver’s 17 pass interference penalties drawn are tied for the lead when it comes to wide receivers over that timeframe, while Favre’s 36 are in first for quarterbacks. What makes the gap even more dramatic, though, is that their pass interference penalties draw so many yards. Driver’s 17 penalties have drawn nearly 27 yards per catch, fourth over the timeframe -- the three receivers who have averaged more (David Patten, Torry Holt, and DJ Hackett) have done so with only half as many throws. With this combination, Driver’s 443 yards gained through pass interference penalties blows away the number two receiver, Patten, who has only 311. If you apply the yardage gained in penalties to Driver’s numbers, the difference is quite dramatic:
While Driver does also draw more penalties as he’s thrown to more, he consistently draws some even in leaner times -- when he was hurt in 2003, for example, he still drew a pass interference penalty about every 28 throws. Last year, Driver had plays of 10, 18, 33, 36, 37 and 41 yards wiped off his record by pass interference penalties; 13% of the yardage he gained all season, a whopping 175 yards.
While Driver clearly has shown a propensity for being interfered with, he doesn’t dominate his position like Favre does. Favre’s 36 completions are four more than the next highest quarterback, Peyton Manning, and his 729 yards blow away Matt Hasselbeck’s 523 yards for second place. Last year, Favre had 276 yards taken away by penalties, which would be nearly 7% of his season total if included in his numbers.
Speaking of the Packers, the other player who stood out as the one who draws pass interference penalties at a rate beyond that commensurate with his attempts is Koren Robinson. Robinson has racked up 13 pass interference penalties drawn in four years despite missing chunks of the 2004 and 2005 seasons, good enough to be tied for fourth in the league over that timeframe.
Strangely enough, Driver hasn’t drawn a single pass interference penalty this season, while Favre hadn’t drawn a single one until last week’s game against the Cardinals, when he managed to earn three penalties. The change may have something to do with the coaching change the Packers underwent, and may raise a point about scheme having something to do with drawing pass interference penalties.
Whether drawing pass interference penalties is an actual skill or something entirely subject to usage is still up for debate, two things are clear. One, if anyone really does have the skill to draw them, it’s reasonably rare; Two, quarterbacks and especially wide receivers are losing a pretty significant chunk of their performance that they could be applying come contract time.
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