NFL 2019: Wild Card Weekend!

Nice to see some of the highly touted rookies actually have a very promising rookie season. Time will tell but Josh Allen, Bosa for example were the edge rushers to draft and they haven't disappointed.

Minshew's stache alone gets him in by default!

I would just like to remind folks that there were otherwise well informed people screaming to the rooftops after the Patriots loss in Baltimore that Bellichick was "just setting a trap" and that he lost the game on purpose so he could know how to beat the Ravens in the playoffs.

All those folks are dumbasses.

All of them.

Paleocon wrote:

I would just like to remind folks that there were otherwise well informed people screaming to the rooftops after the Patriots loss in Baltimore that Bellichick was "just setting a trap" and that he lost the game on purpose so he could know how to beat the Ravens in the playoffs.

All those folks are dumbasses.

All of them.

Was anybody here saying that? If you are responding to PFT comment sections that is on you!

EvilDead wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I would just like to remind folks that there were otherwise well informed people screaming to the rooftops after the Patriots loss in Baltimore that Bellichick was "just setting a trap" and that he lost the game on purpose so he could know how to beat the Ravens in the playoffs.

All those folks are dumbasses.

All of them.

Was anybody here saying that? If you are responding to PFT comment sections that is on you!

I would like to say it was restricted to just the comments section, but there were sports talk show hosts promulgating that nonsense.

Paleocon wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I would just like to remind folks that there were otherwise well informed people screaming to the rooftops after the Patriots loss in Baltimore that Bellichick was "just setting a trap" and that he lost the game on purpose so he could know how to beat the Ravens in the playoffs.

All those folks are dumbasses.

All of them.

Was anybody here saying that? If you are responding to PFT comment sections that is on you!

I would like to say it was restricted to just the comments section, but there were sports talk show hosts promulgating that nonsense.

I listen to Boston Sports Radio 98.5 and still have no idea what you are talking about. They make fun of / memes of callers that say stuff like that.

Here is Skip and Shannon talking about this sh*t. One of the few times they aren't on the side of the nonsense.

Oh, I don't watch those type of shows, I'll take your word for it on that. I don't know if I would classify that crew as "otherwise well informed people" though!

PFF tried to quantify what impact Brady's team-friendly contracts had:

One win over 15 years.

Pretty underwhelming, but consider this:

One win over 15 years is roughly 0.07 wins per season, which equals the PFF WAR of New York Giants rookie Dexter Lawrence in 2019. Lawrence graded out as the 15th-best qualifying interior defensive lineman, with his grade against the run being better than against the pass. Hence, if we want to translate Brady’s willingness to take a discount into a player, we can think of a good but not great interior run stopper. This won’t make a contender out of a mediocre team, but we doubt anyone would say no to getting such a player for free.

His discount gets you a good interior run defender.

This chart, however, is the most interesting:

IMAGE(https://media.pff.com/2020/01/WAR-plot-1024x717.png)

The impact of having Brady on a friendlier contract than, say, Eli Manning, is that they were able to provide good support for him from other positions, which translated to more wins. Only the Saints got more wins from their QB.

garion333 wrote:

PFF tried to quantify what impact Brady's team-friendly contracts had:

One win over 15 years.

Pretty underwhelming, but consider this:

One win over 15 years is roughly 0.07 wins per season, which equals the PFF WAR of New York Giants rookie Dexter Lawrence in 2019. Lawrence graded out as the 15th-best qualifying interior defensive lineman, with his grade against the run being better than against the pass. Hence, if we want to translate Brady’s willingness to take a discount into a player, we can think of a good but not great interior run stopper. This won’t make a contender out of a mediocre team, but we doubt anyone would say no to getting such a player for free.

His discount gets you a good interior run defender.

This chart, however, is the most interesting:

IMAGE(https://media.pff.com/2020/01/WAR-plot-1024x717.png)

The impact of having Brady on a friendlier contract than, say, Eli Manning, is that they were able to provide good support for him from other positions, which translated to more wins. Only the Saints got more wins from their QB.

That chart makes me sad for all the wasted years with Flacco.

Notice where all of the AFC East teams besides the Patriots are on that chart. Part of the reason for the Patriots success is that the other teams in their conference. The Bills, Dolphins, and Jets have been bad for years giving the Patriots a free pass to the playoffs every year and, in most years, 6 easy wins and a first round bye.

That chart is fun for Cleveland

Stele wrote:

That chart is fun for Cleveland

Aren't they all.

Clicking the linked article I found this crazy. Bolded for emphasis.

"Who is the MVP this year?

So, everyone wants to know: who is the most valuable player this year? Despite Lamar Jackson’s effect on the Ravens (which is sizeable), the most valuable player in the NFL this season has been Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson.

In 908 snaps this season, the eighth-year pro has earned 3.1 wins above replacement, almost a full win more than the next-highest player in Dak Prescott (2.2). What’s most impressive about Wilson is that he’s accounted for over half of his team’s total WAR. Seattle is fifth among all NFL teams in cumulative player WAR through the first 14 weeks of the season, but only 19th if you don’t count quarterbacks.

The other MVP frontrunner, Jackson, is sixth in WAR (1.7 wins) through 14 weeks, as his Ravens are second in the NFL in WAR generated by non-quarterbacks and first in WAR generated by offensive linemen. Thus our grading system, and the PFF WAR model built off it, appears to be capturing the fact that Wilson is doing a great deal of the work for the Seahawks, while the Ravens are more of a team effort."

Edit: The MVP chart seems to indicate drafting a running back high will rarely pay off.

No one much talks about PFF's WAR because it's not a great stat, yet.

That said, about 14 weeks through the season Russell Wilson was still considered the MVP, so it makes sense. The disparity in PFF WAR is because Wilson was largely doing everything through the air while Jackson was using the air and his legs. Running is not important to PFF WAR, passing is.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

Notice where all of the AFC East teams besides the Patriots are on that chart. Part of the reason for the Patriots success is that the other teams in their conference. The Bills, Dolphins, and Jets have been bad for years giving the Patriots a free pass to the playoffs every year and, in most years, 6 easy wins and a first round bye.

Sure, to an extent, but they also had to win in the playoffs. If they were merely "kings of a crap division", then they'd be the Houston Texans.

garion333 wrote:

Running is not important to PFF WAR, passing is.

Because passing wins games. Period. It's the most efficient way to move the ball. Even if you're mediocre at passing, you're more likely than not to be moving the ball closer to scoring.

Case in point. Derrick Henry's "generational" game was worth about as much to Tennessee winning the game as Ryan Tannehill's "awful" game.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/cN1YWH7.png)

I'd also be interested in why you say PFF's WAR isn't a great stat? Everything I've seen about it suggests it's one of the few stats with some modicum of prediction power.

EvilDead wrote:

Clicking the linked article I found this crazy. Bolded for emphasis.

"Who is the MVP this year? ...

It's not crazy at all to say Wilson is the MVP because he has dragged them into the divisional round of the playoffs.

But the MVP is really a Most Outstanding Player award, and LJ8 has been all that and more.

staygold wrote:

Because passing wins games. Period. It's the most efficient way to move the ball. Even if you're mediocre at passing, you're more likely than not to be moving the ball closer to scoring.

It's not really that simple though, is it? If it was, then it would be a mistake for an NFL team to do anything other than pass on 100% of their offensive plays.

Pass and run aren't two separated, isolated things.

The old "run to set up the pass" adage has been debunked, but the flaw in that wasn't suggesting that one influences the other.

Even without numbers, we should be able to sanity check ourselves here by simply looking at the development of offenses over the past few years. Every major development has involved run game concepts being treated as foundational components of pass plays. The pistol, the read option, the RPO. The Roman offense (first with Kaepernick, now Lamar), the Shanahan offense, the McVay offense (aka the Shanahan offense for millennials).

The problem with simply measuring the effect of individual run plays and measuring the effect of individual pass plays is that it treats these things as isolated events, when the reality is far messier.

Enix wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Clicking the linked article I found this crazy. Bolded for emphasis.

"Who is the MVP this year? ...

It's not crazy at all to say Wilson is the MVP because he has dragged them into the divisional round of the playoffs.

But the MVP is really a Most Outstanding Player award, and LJ8 has been all that and more.

I'm pretty much in favor of the abolition of the MVP award, and replacing it with position awards.

Give the Montana Award to the top quarterback, the Jim Brown Award to the top running back, the Munoz Award to the top offensive lineman, etc. Perhaps even awards for excelling in certain types of play, like hockey's Selke Trophy. The Ditka Award for best blocking tight end.

MVP is basically "the quarterback award that goes to a running back once every 20 years" and it's just nonsensical.

Plus, like you point out, the name has "valuable" in it, which suggests a measurement of value to his team, but the award really isn't treated that way. I also think treating an award based on "value" is a sticky situation, risking turning it into the "best player on a deficient team" award (would Wilson be a less deserving player if the rest of his team had played better and required fewer RW individual heroics?)

staygold wrote:

I'd also be interested in why you say PFF's WAR isn't a great stat? Everything I've seen about it suggests it's one of the few stats with some modicum of prediction power.

WAR in football, just like in baseball, is a quick and easy number to use that's best used for things like determining HoF induction. It removes all context and should only ever be considered a first step, not a final step, in evaluation.

It's also very much still in development. Football also changes more than baseball, so time will tell whether or not they can build in Era-adjusted ratings to it.

Jake Fromm declared for the NFL draft.

That is surprising to me. Probably because I saw the game against South Carolina, his worst of 2019 by far. But his total numbers were down across the board, and one can't help but notice the pattern of QBs transferring away from Georgia and becoming better (Justin Fields, Jacob Eason). Not hard to imagine why staying in the UGA offense for another year might not appeal to Fromm.

Top four passing teams
1) Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2) Dallas Cowboys
3) Atlanta Falcons
4) Los Angeles Rams

Top four rushing teams
1) Baltimore Ravens
2) San Francisco 49ers
3) Tennessee Titans
4) Seattle Seahawks

I rest my case.

Really? You are impressed that teams holding leads run more?

Good news for Legion. Noted Fresno State killer Antoine Winfield Jr declared for the draft.

Fresno State has a football team? Isn't it a community college?

*Legion* wrote:
Enix wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Clicking the linked article I found this crazy. Bolded for emphasis.

"Who is the MVP this year? ...

It's not crazy at all to say Wilson is the MVP because he has dragged them into the divisional round of the playoffs.

But the MVP is really a Most Outstanding Player award, and LJ8 has been all that and more.

I'm pretty much in favor of the abolition of the MVP award, and replacing it with position awards.

Give the Montana Award to the top quarterback, the Jim Brown Award to the top running back, the Munoz Award to the top offensive lineman, etc. Perhaps even awards for excelling in certain types of play, like hockey's Selke Trophy. The Ditka Award for best blocking tight end.

MVP is basically "the quarterback award that goes to a running back once every 20 years" and it's just nonsensical.

Plus, like you point out, the name has "valuable" in it, which suggests a measurement of value to his team, but the award really isn't treated that way. I also think treating an award based on "value" is a sticky situation, risking turning it into the "best player on a deficient team" award (would Wilson be a less deserving player if the rest of his team had played better and required fewer RW individual heroics?)

I'm all in on position awards.

WR: Rice
TE: ?
DT: ?
DE: Reggie White
LB: LT
CB: Deion
Safety: Ed Reed?
K: Who cares?

Top_Shelf wrote:

I'm all in on position awards.

WR: Rice
TE: ?
DT: ?
DE: Reggie White
LB: LT
CB: Deion
Safety: Ed Reed?
K: Who cares?

TE I wanted to say John Mackey, but he's already the award for that in college. I'm gonna say Gonzalez. Thought about Winslow but that name just makes me think of awful things now.

DT, give me Merlin Olsen.

No arguments with LT. Nor with White or Deion, though could go a generation older and pick Deacon Jones and Mel Blount.

Safety, it'd be hard for it to be anyone but Ronnie Lott, though there does already exist a Lott Trophy in college. Either Larry Wilson for an older name, or, yeah, Ed Reed.

Kicker, has to be Vinatieri but I'm partial to Morten Andersen.

garion333 wrote:

Fresno State has a football team? Isn't it a community college?

IMAGE(https://media2.giphy.com/media/l3mZczeyOZ3Z4l6b6/giphy.gif?cid=19f5b51adc4a115a610c2e7ca5379d274fea0633a1ab7d8f&rid=giphy.gif)

Someone is seeing the phantom pressure again.