NFL 2021: The preseasoning

*Legion* wrote:
Vector wrote:

It probably gets confused by my Canadian ISP.

"He only gets like 3 megabytes a month, just give him the article."

Because the USA has famously amazing internet.

American Internet access may not be great, but Canadian Internet access is the American health care of Internet access.

garion333 wrote:
staygold wrote:

Kelce and Hill are underrated (still)

I disagree here since they made it to #3 on the strength of the duo.

I was more specifically mentioning they were underrate in relation to their lower ranking on Barnwell's list.

Enix wrote:

In any case, Barnwell vs PFF makes for some interesting comparisons. Take Carolina, for instance -- 7th in offensive talent, 21st in receiving corps. CMC is the obvious difference here. But I don't know why PFF doesn't account for him in its rankings -- he caught 80 passes his first season and 100+ in his next two.

CMC catches a lot of passes but he's still sub-optimal as a pass catcher (honestly or maybe exclusively due to coaching). He catches 80-100 passes because he's running low ADOT and therefore low EPA/play routes. A 20 yard deep out to Robby Anderson is worth 4-5, 5 yard dump-offs to CMC.

*Legion* wrote:

American Internet access may not be great, but Canadian Internet access is the American health care of Internet access.

I'm legitimately confused why you think we have bad internet in our cities.

Probably from reading about a decade of articles that look like this.

I don't know how many times I've read tweets, comments, etc. from Canadians complaining about excessively bad Internet.

Canadian internet access would be fine, except so much of the bandwidth is taken up with all of those extraneous "u"s.

staygold wrote:

CMC catches a lot of passes but he's still sub-optimal as a pass catcher ...

CMC, 2019: 116 rec, 1,005 yards, 58 first downs, 8.8 yards after catch, 0.6 yards avg depth of target, 7 drops, 99.7 passer rating on passes he was targeted (source)

Robby, 2020: 95 rec, 1,096 yards, 49 first downs, 6.3 yards after catch, 9.7 yards avg depth of target, 6 drops, 95.1 passer rating (source)

They're basically the same guy except Robby is catching passes near the sticks and CMC is catching passes (usu by design) at or behind the LOS and then weaving through traffic.

Rhule/Brady only had three games with CMC last year before he got hurt. The great unknown of 2021 is what sort of role CMC will play in the offense and whether that unlocks some more mid-range/deep passing.

Has CMC ever done the Eddie McCaffrey thing of getting knocked on his ass after a catch, getting up, and cracking his neck?

Enix wrote:
staygold wrote:

CMC catches a lot of passes but he's still sub-optimal as a pass catcher ...

CMC, 2019: 116 rec, 1,005 yards, 58 first downs, 8.8 yards after catch, 0.6 yards avg depth of target, 7 drops, 99.7 passer rating on passes he was targeted (source)

Robby, 2020: 95 rec, 1,096 yards, 49 first downs, 6.3 yards after catch, 9.7 yards avg depth of target, 6 drops, 95.1 passer rating (source)

They're basically the same guy except Robby is catching passes near the sticks and CMC is catching passes (usu by design) at or behind the LOS and then weaving through traffic.

Rhule/Brady only had three games with CMC last year before he got hurt. The great unknown of 2021 is what sort of role CMC will play in the offense and whether that unlocks some more mid-range/deep passing.

Passes to CMC, which are not always "dump offs" but designed pass plays, help setup the longer passes to Robbie "Aura" Anderson.

I'm all for passing efficiency, but the whole "everyone should pass all the time and let's get rid of RBs" is a step beyond where I'm willing to go. I honestly think it's a conclusion folks have come to through isolation of stats. The best offenses have different moving parts that work together to get favorable match ups and isolate certain individuals. Reducing it all down to "RBs are worthless" is someone almost certainly using analytics to make their point and lacking in overall football knowledge and nuance.

And before it gets thrown out let me add that I'm not agreeing with the old way of thinking that wants to continue sh*t for tradition and whatnot. I'm all for change, it's what has kept the game interesting. But the 100% analytics approach is partially why the Browns got so bad so quick and a large part of that is sample size. Football simply does not currently translate well to full analytics. It's still too young with too many variables. Eventually we might get there, but right now we're still very much in its infancy with some of the best analytics minds working for teams, not websites.

Looks like the median NFL run/pass balance for 2020 was ~59 percent pass, according to this.

Only three teams ran more than they passed: Ravens (D-Jax), Patriots (Cam) and Titans (Derrick Henry).

The five teams that passed most often: Jags, Steelers, Bucs, Texans, Lions. Three of those teams were down at all times in every game. One team has the GOAT. And who knows what the Steelers were doing last season.

If you go back to 2003, the median was not much lower -- ~56 percent. (The big difference seems to be a lot more teams are throwing more than 60 percent of the time now vs then.)

Legion can probably confirm this, but the changes in NFL playing calling over the past two decades probably haven't changed as dramatically as it did in the two prior decades (1983-2002).

Enix wrote:

Legion can probably confirm this, but the changes in NFL playing calling over the past two decades probably haven't changed as dramatically as it did in the two prior decades (1983-2002).

I think you can make the timelines even more exaggerated. Playcalling changed more in the 15 years from the mid-70s to the end of the ‘80s than they have in the 30 years since.

Mike Tanier recently made this very point in the Brent Jones article on FO:

What struck me when watching old games was that the Walsh offense Jones joined in 1987 looked like something that was still jerry-rigged atop a 1970s drive train. The Holmgren offense he played in from about 1992 onward looked like something you might see next September.

The modern NFL is absolutely aflood with the mid-‘90s 49ers play concepts. Bill Walsh’s offense was the genesis, but it’s the Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan versions that are the “West Coast” offense that spread out league-wide by the 2000s and have simply become staples of modern offenses since. (And a slight correction to Tanier: Shanahan was 49ers offensive coordinator by 1992. Holmgren was coordinator from 1989-1991, though I guess he could still be giving Holmgren some schematic credit for what Shanahan was running early on. Or he mixed up his Mikes).

The major alteration in offense since then has been the proliferation of spread concepts at the NFL level, which was facilitated in part by the downfield contact emphasis (ie. what I keep calling “PolianBall”) in the mid-‘00s. But they haven’t pushed out West Coast concepts. Rather, they complement and have even melded with them in some offenses, most notably with the Shanahans in Washington for RG3’s rookie season.

Even the Air Raid offense was built by basically taking a West Coast playbook, tearing out half the pages, and then feeding it a sh*tload of cocaine.

(Actually, it is probably more accurate to say that papa Shanahan was pulling from the 80s/90s LaVell Edwards BYU concepts when evolving the West Coast offense into his incarnation, and Mike Leach - who was a BYU student in the ‘80s - later pulled from that same source material when making the foundations of the Air Raid offense. But I like my visual better.)

You used to be able to define much of NFL coaching by the Walsh tree, the Parcells tree, and the Schottenheimer tree. The Walsh tree has grown more dominant as it bears more fruit, while the Parcells and Schottenheimer trees have comparatively dried up. For the Parcells tree, the lack of success of Belichick disciples has become a meme, but perhaps even more egregious is Sean Payton, who hardly seems to produce any disciples to begin with.

Does weather play into any other sport as much as it does in the NFL?? I can imagine on any given day that will heavily skew analytics for that game and then potentially the year.

*Legion* wrote:

but perhaps even more egregious is Sean Payton, who hardly seems to produce any disciples to begin with.

I think we're headed for a serious re-appraisal of Sean Payton, Official Super Genius in the coming year or two. Sure, Belichick and Brady were together for years, but they were together on a team whose philosophy changed multiple times based on personnel, and those Patriots teams look very different from each other. Payton's teams feel like an endless series of teams with bad defenses and great passing offenses, because Drew Brees was the perfect guy for his system, and, outside of Brees' freakish accuracy and smarts, there wasn't a whole lot for him to do. I think there's a very real chance he gets Indy Jim Caldwell-ed in the sense people start thinking the only reason he was able to win was the presence of a QB who did so much of the work.

I could be wrong, but literally his entire head coaching career he's had Brees, and it's consistently felt like the same offense around Brees with just shuffling of personnel.

TheGameguru wrote:

Does weather play into any other sport as much as it does in the NFL?? I can imagine on any given day that will heavily skew analytics for that game and then potentially the year.

In North America the only other one that is played outdoors is baseball and the effects of weather are MUCH more subtle. Wind plays a huge factor but too hot or too cold really messes up pitchers. Rain creates all sorts of problems and a canceled game results in a later double-header. The NFL is the only one that just plays through whatever is happening, however.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

but perhaps even more egregious is Sean Payton, who hardly seems to produce any disciples to begin with.

I think we're headed for a serious re-appraisal of Sean Payton, Official Super Genius in the coming year or two. Sure, Belichick and Brady were together for years, but they were together on a team whose philosophy changed multiple times based on personnel, and those Patriots teams look very different from each other. Payton's teams feel like an endless series of teams with bad defenses and great passing offenses, because Drew Brees was the perfect guy for his system, and, outside of Brees' freakish accuracy and smarts, there wasn't a whole lot for him to do. I think there's a very real chance he gets Indy Jim Caldwell-ed in the sense people start thinking the only reason he was able to win was the presence of a QB who did so much of the work.

I could be wrong, but literally his entire head coaching career he's had Brees, and it's consistently felt like the same offense around Brees with just shuffling of personnel.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the Hooded Menace if he continues to lose without Brady.

I think Sean Payton's legacy rides entirely on the shoulders of Taysom Hill.

He'll forever be a hero in NO no matter what, and rightfully so.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

it's consistently felt like the same offense around Brees with just shuffling of personnel.

Honestly.... yeah. I don't think I've seen anything from the Saints offense in years that has changed my mental model of what it is. It's still the Gulf Coast offense, a hybrid of the West Coast's power ground game with a field-spreading pass attack driven by an "undersized, point-guard QB".

In Payton's defense, it worked. And not only with Brees, but when they stuck Teddy Bridgewater in there, it continued to run smoothly.

In college, those small point-guard QBs are often runners. Obviously this was not the case with Brees or Teddy B. But we can see why he wants to make Taysom Hill happen so badly.

And I think that makes your point perfectly. Given the choice between building new scheme around a more talented QB (either Jameis or, you know, actually pursuing someone), or trying to manufacture a guy to fit your existing scheme, Payton is clearly more interested in door #2.

Belichick's legacy is fine; if nothing else, the level of adaptability he showed in changing with his personnel was pretty amazing. Besides that, he was a defensive coordinator for the two titles under Parcells, and even had some success in Cleveland before Modell moving the team imploded everything. There's a lot on Belichick's resume at this point, and he's staying the GOAT coach.

Payton will absolutely be a hero in NO forever, which is understandable, but if he wants a "legacy", to use that heavily-loaded term, he needs to have another chapter elsewhere like Holmgren or Andy Reid, or turn Taysom Hill into Football Jesus 2.0.

Knew that was coming.

Fred Warner is the new benchmark for modern linebackers.

NFL's Next Gen stats ranked pass coverage players based on a few advanced metrics. The Top 10 coverage players were nine defensive backs, and Fred Warner (who ranked #4).

He's the next guy following in the Kuechly mold (and according to him, he studied Kuechly's game closely).

Ravens need a Warner.

garion333 wrote:

Ravens need a Warner.

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

For some context, Patrick Queen made PFF's 5 disappointing rookies article earlier this year. Queen's PFF grade as a rookie was... rough.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/6t09Arw.jpg)

ohmigawd, why are you always SO LAME?

I can't believe that's really from the Jags official.

Oh my, I love the comments: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRmLDDIL...

Half of them are "this is awesome" while the rest are "that's a leopard, not a panther". lololololololool

Ya, in addition to it not even being a jaguar, the quote is from LION king, ha. Good ol Jags, never change.

Pretty sure if there's a Social Media Team draft coming up, the Jags are still drafting #1 overall.

The degree to which the Shanahan system produces yards after catch is... unique.

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

All they care about is making money.

But that means we're on the same side in re vaccines, so that's cool.

I'm good with that in this case. If you're part of a business and refuse to take basic health precautions that both endanger the health of your fellow co-workers and endanger the entire business itself, why shouldn't you pay a price?

DSGamer wrote:

This rocks so hard.

It would rock harder if the word “if” were removed from it.

I want it to say that games affected by COVID outbreaks WILL NOT be rescheduled.

As it stands now, the back door is still open for irresponsible teams to have games rescheduled.