NFL 2011-2012 Off-Season Pre-Draft Catch-All

My understanding is there are a predetermined number of commercial breaks sold per game. If we take a break for a review session, that's one fewer break later for a change of possession (for example).
I'm not sure how overtime fits into that. I'd guess the overtime commercials are sold at a significantly lower price to reflect the small chance they'll actually occur.
Regardless, I think the only way we'll see more commercials in a game is if the NFL and the networks decide they can get away with it. If reviews factor in, it'll be because of something like "The league predicts on average one more review per game, so we'll sell eleven commercial breaks instead of ten". That extra break would happen regardless of whether there are any reviews in a particular game or not.

Phishposer wrote:

My understanding is there are a predetermined number of commercial breaks sold per game. If we take a break for a review session, that's one fewer break later for a change of possession (for example).

Correct. There are 8 "random" commercial breaks in a game, which happen during timeouts, game stoppages after scores, and other such events.

Extra reviews will not result in extra commercial breaks. Hence why there are some reviews in which you sit and watch the ref under the hood instead of seeing a commercial.

Also, keep in mind that the NFL is obsessed with keeping game length tight. Running games longer for more commercials backfires if early games end up stomping on the starts of later games, keeping viewers from seeing the commercials in the beginning of the late games. The NFL wants games to wrap up so that early games segue right into the later ones.

I really have no idea which is more absurd: Skip Bayless asserting that Tim Tebow is "the most unfairly, over-criticized quarterback in the history of this league", or Donovan McNabb saying that it's him.

Skip's been pretty absurd for 6+ months now with this whole Tebow thing.

They spent about 5-7 minutes today on First Take discussing the Final Four. But a solid hour+ on football. And at least 2 separate topics I saw on Tebow, but there could have been more. It's nuts.

Stele wrote:

Skip's been pretty absurd for 6+ months now with this whole Tebow thing.

I just can't wrap my head around the whole ESPN professional troll gig. Isn't it embarrassing? I mean, I get that professional sports journalism isn't exactly the most high-brow of gigs, but wouldn't you want to aspire to be a Bert Sugar, a Paul Zimmerman? I guess it's the people that are plenty happy to be trolls on TV that climb the ladder to get there.

Someone's feeding into it. Maybe it's the whole facebook contests or twitter followers, but I think there has to be some ratings numbers in there too. People are tuning in when they talk football, so they keep talking football, and it's just this constant cycle, over and over.

I've never been more disappointed with Final Four coverage, or March Madness coverage as a whole on ESPN than these past 3 weeks. It feels like the Sean Payton or Tebow stories alone have gotten more coverage than the whole damn tournament.

*Legion* wrote:

I really have no idea which is more absurd: Skip Bayless asserting that Tim Tebow is "the most unfairly, over-criticized quarterback in the history of this league", or Donovan McNabb saying that it's him.

Small correction, McNabb later corrected himself to say "most criticized in the last 10 years", which is probably a fair assessment.

Skip's refusal to acknowledge the rest of the Broncos in what they did last year, is a good example of why I hate "Tebow-mania". Many people get irrational in their support of him, and I really don't have a clue why. I don't even know why there is a Tebow-mania. It's not like he's the first QB to ever start off 7-4, or have a few comeback drives.

Stele wrote:

I've never been more disappointed with Final Four coverage, or March Madness coverage as a whole on ESPN than these past 3 weeks. It feels like the Sean Payton or Tebow stories alone have gotten more coverage than the whole damn tournament.

ESPN's coverage hasn't bothered me a bit. It's hard to be bothered by it when I never watch it.

Seriously, I'm not sure why anyone watches anything but actual games on ESPN. It's all so bad. The closest I come is listening to Mike and Mike on the radio in the morning.

A lot of talk about Richardson in Tampa even doing special workouts with him. If he is there it looks like the Bucs will take him.

I'm not even sure I'd even put tebow in the same class as Gus Frerotte. At best tebow is a benchwarming reliever.

Jeff-66 wrote:

Small correction, McNabb later corrected himself to say "most criticized in the last 10 years", which is probably a fair assessment.

Most criticized, or most unfairly criticized?

karmajay wrote:

A lot of talk about Richardson in Tampa even doing special workouts with him. If he is there it looks like the Bucs will take him.

Mayock is over the moon on Richardson. He was kind of pooh-poohing taking a RB in the top 10, and then he said he went back and watched more tape and decided he was dead wrong.

He's especially high on Richardson's ability to pass protect. He's not going to be a guy that has to come off the field in passing situations.

Interesting article on Run Stopping Percentage: http://www.profootballfocus.com/blog...

As someone who still plays Front Office Football, I'm use to seeing numbers like tackle percentage (my current SILB is tackling on almost 20% of the plays he's in), but sadly the game doesn't have an actual "run stop percentage" which shows which tackle was making an actual play/run stop and which was a "normal" tackle. Tackle for loss is tracked, though you won't see it on the player card I linked.

In some non-Tebow news, Ryan Leaf was arrested twice this weekend.

The LoL line from Yahoo Sports: "Showing the kind of consistency he never did as a professional quarterback, the most recent arrest was, once again, for burglary and possession of drugs."

Claibourne scores a 4 on the Wonderlic.

This is funny, from the ESPN article on his score:

A 2009 study by professors from Fresno State University, the University of Georgia and Towson State found no connection between Wonderlic scores and performance during the first three years of a player's NFL career. The group studied 762 players from the 2002, 2003 and 2004 draft classes.

John W. Michel, an assistant professor at Towson University who co-authored the study, told the Washington Post: "We found in no cases was cognitive ability related to (football) performance. We did find a negative relationship for tight ends and defensive backs. For defensive backs, it was the most pronounced; basically, the lower you scored on the Wonderlic, the better you performed."

So if you are smart you will be a bad DB.

If DBs could catch were smart they'd be WRs.

I read someplace that the highest Wonderlic score ever recorded was from a kicker.

If the average Wonderlic score is 20, wouldn't that be saying that Claiborne is basically mentally {ableist slur}? I somehow doubt that is the case. Maybe he thought the test was stupid, a waste of time, or whatever, and didn't try.

I doubt someone at his skill level is stupid. Far from it, I'd bet.

So the Detroit Lions love their weed....

I just saw a segment on ESPN regarding the Wonderlic test. They cited a study done, forgot the name, but it showed zero correlation between Wonderlic scores and NFL on-the-field success.

Peyton Manning scored a 16 on it, a full 4 points below avg. This would be the equivalent of scoring an 80 on your IQ test, which would rank you slightly above a Forrest Gump level of mild {ableist slur}ation. Does anyone think Peyton Manning isn't highly intelligent? He's probably one of the smartest QB's to ever play the game, and is allowed to run complex NFL offenses on the field.

I guess all I'm saying is I wouldn't read too much into Claiborne's score.

Jeff-66 wrote:

I just saw a segment on ESPN regarding the Wonderlic test. They cited a study done, forgot the name, but it showed zero correlation between Wonderlic scores and NFL on-the-field success.

Peyton Manning scored a 16 on it, a full 4 points below avg. This would be the equivalent of scoring an 80 on your IQ test, which would rank you slightly above a Forrest Gump level of mild {ableist slur}ation. Does anyone think Peyton Manning isn't highly intelligent? He's probably one of the smartest QB's to ever play the game, and is allowed to run complex NFL offenses on the field.

I guess all I'm saying is I wouldn't read too much into Claiborne's score.

As far as football, yeah, but I don't want a guy making dumb off the field decisions either.

karmajay wrote:
Jeff-66 wrote:

I just saw a segment on ESPN regarding the Wonderlic test. They cited a study done, forgot the name, but it showed zero correlation between Wonderlic scores and NFL on-the-field success.

Peyton Manning scored a 16 on it, a full 4 points below avg. This would be the equivalent of scoring an 80 on your IQ test, which would rank you slightly above a Forrest Gump level of mild {ableist slur}ation. Does anyone think Peyton Manning isn't highly intelligent? He's probably one of the smartest QB's to ever play the game, and is allowed to run complex NFL offenses on the field.

I guess all I'm saying is I wouldn't read too much into Claiborne's score.

As far as football, yeah, but I don't want a guy making dumb off the field decisions either.

Maybe they should change to Wonderlic to include questions related to off field situations.

You and your friends, who I'm sure aren't just hanging out with you because of your money, are at a gentlemen's club. Do you:

A) get in a fight?

B) push a girl into the bathroom and forcibly have sex with her?

C) shoot yourself in the leg?

D) stay home and read a book?

iaintgotnopants wrote:
karmajay wrote:
Jeff-66 wrote:

I just saw a segment on ESPN regarding the Wonderlic test. They cited a study done, forgot the name, but it showed zero correlation between Wonderlic scores and NFL on-the-field success.

Peyton Manning scored a 16 on it, a full 4 points below avg. This would be the equivalent of scoring an 80 on your IQ test, which would rank you slightly above a Forrest Gump level of mild {ableist slur}ation. Does anyone think Peyton Manning isn't highly intelligent? He's probably one of the smartest QB's to ever play the game, and is allowed to run complex NFL offenses on the field.

I guess all I'm saying is I wouldn't read too much into Claiborne's score.

As far as football, yeah, but I don't want a guy making dumb off the field decisions either.

Maybe they should change to Wonderlic to include questions related to off field situations.

You and your friends, who I'm sure aren't just hanging out with you because of your money, are at a gentlemen's club. Do you:

A) get in a fight?

B) push a girl into the bathroom and forcibly have sex with her?

C) shoot yourself in the leg?

D) stay home and read a book?

Your girlfriend tricks you regarding birth control and gets pregnant. Do you:

A) deny the baby is yours and engage in a smear campaign.

B) chase her down with your car and shoot her to death.

C) give her half your assets and future earnings.

D) engage a fixer to give her a discrete payment to go away.

Pete Schrager weighs in on Clairborne and makes some good points, like the kid has a learning disability.

garion333 wrote:

Pete Schrager weighs in on Clairborne and makes some good points, like the kid has a learning disability.

Good article, thanks. I think they should drop this test, since most teams pay it little heed anyway, from what I've been reading.

I think the test is useful information. It obviously is not the sole factor a team uses in choosing a player.

But let's say you were considering spending millions of dollars and a first round a pick on a guy. Maybe the 4 doesn't predict how well he will play. But I'd bet it was a pretty good indication about how well he may handle off the field situations that will eventually affect his on the field performance. See Vince Young.

The draft is all about making good bets. I'm not saying Clairborne is not NFL worthy, but that score is an indicator that he may come with a greater risk. Couple that with interviews and background check, and a team will have to decide if a player lower on their board might be a better risk than Clairborne.

The draft is all about making good bets. I'm not saying Clairborne is not NFL worthy, but that score is an indicator that he may come with a greater risk.

Except he has dyslexia, so in his case at least, the test is very close to meaningless. I doubt that an inability to solve for x in a geometry word problem will translate to off the field problems.

Some people just aren't good test takers, especially with time pressure.

Is there a firm correlation between a low Wonderlic and off the field incidents?

Or is that only a concern with black players?

I'm half kidding with that second question. I'm certainly not calling you, Jay, racist. I feel like there might be some racial overtones to this whole thing. Again, not coming from what you're writing, Jay, but from the whole topic and the way the internet et al has responded.

garion333 wrote:

Is there a firm correlation between a low Wonderlic and off the field incidents?

Or is that only a concern with black players?

I'm half kidding with that second question. I'm certainly not calling you, Jay, racist. I feel like there might be some racial overtones to this whole thing. Again, not coming from what you're writing, Jay, but from the whole topic and the way the internet et al has responded.

I understood your point perfectly. In my response above, I almost typed "might as well use race as a predictor"

LeapingGnome wrote:

This is funny, from the ESPN article on his score:

A 2009 study by professors from Fresno State University, the University of Georgia and Towson State found no connection between Wonderlic scores and performance during the first three years of a player's NFL career. The group studied 762 players from the 2002, 2003 and 2004 draft classes.

John W. Michel, an assistant professor at Towson University who co-authored the study, told the Washington Post: "We found in no cases was cognitive ability related to (football) performance. We did find a negative relationship for tight ends and defensive backs. For defensive backs, it was the most pronounced; basically, the lower you scored on the Wonderlic, the better you performed."

So if you are smart you will be a bad DB.

Yay, we're talking about Fresno State in the football thread!