That makes one of us.

I had invested bits and pieces of four days pondering and rooting for a sporting miracle that would shake the foundations of all our expectations.  I was begging for the ghost of a hero long gone to take on flesh and storm the Scottish plains one last time.  I wanted him to hit the putt for me.  My nearly every thought was ego and self.

If he hits this putt, I’ll be able to tell my son I was watching…

Oh, I suppose I also thought about other people too.  I thought about Jack Nicklaus.   I wondered how he felt about seeing his old friend and rival accomplish the impossible and remind the world how great the players from the 60s, 70s, and 80s were.  Jack had 6 prime competitors with at least 4 majors each.  Tiger has none.

I thought about Tiger.  I wondered if he felt sick about missing the cut, but also wondered if Watson didn’t inspire him.  We all figured that he had maybe 10-15 years to break Jack’s record.  But now…who knows?  We may be watching Tiger for another 30 years, hoping he’ll break through one last time.  We’ll remember Watson at Turnberry, and wonder if anything really is possible.

I thought about Watson as well.  By age 33, he had won 8 majors, but ironically his prime was shorter than that of most great golfers.  He never won another.  His flame went out too soon, or so we thought.  Every shot of his face this weekend painted him as both quietly delighted and quietly forlorn all at the same time.  It was as if he was remembering a prime so glorious that he once stood toe to toe with a Bear and lived to tell about it.  The years that had piled up behind him tumbled away as the game whispered to him, “I’m still yours if you want me.”  The champion’s heart warred with the wisdom of age for four days as his mind said it was impossible and his will refused to listen.

Still, much more than those men, I thought about myself.

I have kids now.  They make you mortal.  Didn’t Indiana Jones once say, “It’s not the years, it’s the diapers?”.  No?  He should have. 

I thought about my job.  I’m 7 years into a career that for all its rewards, doesn’t offer much tangible sense of accomplishment.   You can help hundreds of people, but there are thousands more still waiting.  I’m at that age where I’ve started to wonder what I’m making of myself.  When do I hit my prime?  How do I not waste it?  Will I even know when my best chance to leave my mark on this world has passed me by?

They are all stupid, self-absorbed existential type questions, I know.  It’s not like they consume my every waking moment, but they are there in the background like a Greek chorus.  I shout them down by remembering incredible people who are better, stronger, wiser at 60 and 70 than they were at 30, but sometimes it’s hard to keep that focus.

Peyton Manning is 33.  I turn 33 this year.  He’s ‘on the downside’ of career.  His prime may not last more than another season or two.  It’s hard for me to hear that and by implication feel like my own prime is dwindling.  It’s nonsense, but it’s part of the eternal war against wisdom and age our culture wages against us all.  Watson offered an alternative.   Life doesn’t end at 40.  The clock is still ticking, but with enough work and a dash of providence, you can turn it back or at least hold the hands steady for few extra hours.  

I wanted Watson to give that last putt a go.  I wanted him to put it on line and take an honest chance.  I wanted it to at least skirt the edge of the hole.  I wanted it to be close enough to make me believe it was going in…even if it didn’t. 

I didn’t get what I wanted.  The minute the ball left the face it was dead.  The same flaw that stopped the young Watson toppled the old Watson.  Maybe that’s the lesson.  If so, it’s not one I’m ready to absorb just yet.  

When Tom Watson lined up his fateful putt, all I could think of was
myself.  I wanted this.  I was hoping around the room, narrating
history to my brother over the phone.  My wife, whose tolerance of my
enthusiasm for sport goes only so far, chided me.  “Oh no!  Some guy we
don’t know might lose to some other guy we don’t know!”. 

I could have snapped back that I feel like I DO know Watson. I’ve been
watching him play golf for more than 20 years.  I was too young to
remember any of his great victories; he was already a legend by the
time I was aware of him.  Still, I’ve seen the film. I’ve rooted for him on countless summer afternoons.

 I held my tongue and didn’t answer her.

She would have mocked me if I had told her the truth.  Honestly, knowing the truth myself, I wouldn’t have blamed her for it. 

She didn’t know that I was thinking about me.

Links:
I hate to just vulture other people, but a couple of links bear repeating:
If you only visit one line today, make this the one.  Dallas Clark is amazing.

Oehser looks at the O Line.  If the line plays to previous standards…the Colts will be impossible to beat.

SB comes through with a couple of nice ones.  BBS runs down an interesting plan to keep the Zombie’s arm from falling off.

This was posted there as well, but it demands to be seen in as many places as possible:

Kuharsky does a fantastic piece on Ugoh.  The only thing I don’t understand about Ugoh is the angst and doubt expressed by so many concerning his play.  Is he an All-Pro?  No.  He is also far from the biggest problem on the line right now.  Both guys to the right of center deserve far more scrutiny based on last year’s play. 

Some observations:
1.  Ugoh is better at LT than Charlie Johnson was.  Oehser and BBS did an excellent podcast the other night, and they heaped praise on CJ.  I agree that his work at guard was admirable last year, but it isn’t true he can play four positions on the line.  I think he can play either guard spot well, but he’ll get 18 killed if he winds up back at tackle. (that being said, he’s still a valuable player who filled in well for Lilja). Ugoh has been far and away the best option at LT, and I hope he’s the biggest problem on the line this year.  If he is, the line will be very good.

2.  Ugoh has been hurt, and injuries destroy a player’s production.  Just like the revelation that Tim Jennings was banged up until late last year (when his play suddenly improved dramatically!), knowing that Ugoh has been hurt should get him some slack.  Lost practice time and nagging injuries can make an above average player look below average, especially a young player still learning at this level.

3.  Given the games and practices he’s missed, Ugoh is basically early in his ‘second full’ season of play.  There’s still plenty of time for him to improve.

I’m not trying to apologize for him.  He is a work in progress, and needs to improve.  I just worry more about why Diem played so poorly on the other side.

Next up:
Tanier is back with a new Walkthrough.  The penalty discussion is a must read.

Oehser lists his top-10 Colts’ MVPs.  Mathis is still too low, but he gets Freeney right.  Freeney has to be number two.  I can’t take any list seriously that puts him some place different.

Whitlock says athletes shouldn’t get married.  In it he states his position from last week a little differently:

I’m not dismissing the smaller, more obvious lessons: McNair needed
to keep his butt at home with his wife and kids;

Apparently, I did read him wrong last week.  This time he was more clear; he added McNair’s wife to the comment.  As for his larger point, I agree to this extent:  Don’t get married unless you are prepared to take it seriously.  I think that’s what JWhit was getting at.

18to88 has helped out from time to time on Walkthrough, and Mike even showed up during a live in-game chat.  He has generously agreed to answer 18 Questions with 18to88 as a fitting wrap-up to our 2009 Almanac Week.

1. So are you a math teacher/football writer or a football writer/math teacher? 

I try to give them equal billing by staggering them, like Ted Danson’s and Shelly Long’s names in the Cheers credits:

                                                math teacher 

                              football writer 

2. Peyton Manning, DVOA darling, is obviously still writing his legacy, but if you had to guess what people will be saying about him in 20 years, how do you think he’ll be remembered? 

A lot of rancorous things that have been said about Peyton over the years – the “choke artist” or “stat compiler” stuff – will be long forgotten in 20 years. The Colts-Patriots rivalry will be idealized, and there will be a glow around his name and his accomplishments. Right now, if you ask someone “Peyton or Elway,” they’ll say Elway, because Elway has that post-retirement, NFL-Films slow-motion glow, while Peyton’s still a mortal who throws incomplete passes and gets flustered by the Chargers defense. Twenty years from now, I think most people will choose Peyton, and that’s just based on what he’s done so far. 

Even if Peyton Manning never plays a down, he’s one of the top 10 quarterbacks in history, probably among the top 5. Anyone who makes a serious top 10 list and doesn’t include Peyton has some sort of axe to grind.  

3. How long will McNabb have to be retired before he finally achieves universal love from Eagles fans?  They’ll eventually embrace him once he’s gone, right? 

McNabb is in the same boat as Phillies legend Mike Schmidt. Most baseball experts will tell you that Schmidt was one of the 2-3 best third basemen ever, but walk into a Philly-area bar and you’ll find an old-timer who swears Brooks Robinson or Ken Boyer or somebody was a better player, that Schmidt was lousy in the clutch and was too temperamental to be a leader, blah, blah, blah. Julius Erving gets universal love in Philly. There have been a few others: Chuck Bednarik, Richie Ashburn, one or two of the Broad Street Bullies. McNabb will spend eternity on Philly’s loooooong love-to-hate, hate-to-love list. That assumes he doesn’t lead the Eagles to three straight championships in the next three years. 

4. How do you balance being a fan of a team (the Eagles) with having to write knowledgeably about all 32 teams? I mean, there’s only so many hours in a week… 

The hardest part is when the Eagles are a Sunday early game, because it’s easy to focus on them and forget seven or eight important games. I often DVR them and force myself to give at least equal time to an important national game when that happens. When it comes to a bias while writing, the first step is admitting there’s a problem. I know I am biased toward the Eagles and against the Cowboys, so I look to eradicate it from my serious analysis or game predictions. When I’m doing jokes, well, everybody loves a good Terrell Owens joke. 

5. Walkthrough has developed a dedicated following. How do you keep it fresh each week? Do you read the comments or intentionally try not to? 

I’m lucky to do things many other writers don’t. Not many other people diagram plays and explain them, so a play diagram or two can give me a fresh angle on a story. Not many writers take a historic approach, so when I go back and write about Steve McNair’s first training camp, it provides a fresh perspective.

 I do read comments, first to see if readers found obvious mistakes (I get left and right mixed up a lot), then to get impressions about what readers think. At the same time, I have to do what I do. For the Steve McNair memorial I wrote, I knew some readers would think it was a “puff piece,” but I wasn’t interested in writing about his sordid death or his Hall of Fame chances or just a Wikipedia biography. I had to accept that my take on McNair wouldn’t satisfy all readers. 

6. This year you personally wrote up the Ravens, Browns, Saints, and Steelers for the 09 Almanac. Sort of an odd group. How do you guys assign who writes up which team? 

We try to rotate writers so that the same person doesn’t cover the same team year after year. Imagine if I wrote the Eagles every year: everyone would get sick of the McNabb apologetics and dissertations on how crazy the Philadelphia sports media is. Send me to cover a team like the Saints, and I can provide a fresh approach while learning a lot more about a franchise I don’t normally follow intently. 

We get our assignments early in the season, so we know what teams we are supposed to focus upon. I was lucky to get the Super Bowl champions and a local team that’s on television a lot. The hardest team for me to cover was the Browns, who disappeared from all media after Brady Quinn got hurt. Luckily, their story was defined by the front office and coaching changes, so I didn’t need to go watch tape of Ken Dorsey running the team in December to get a sense of where the franchise is going. 

7. Does moonlighting as a football writer make you seem more cool to your students? Or does it just amplify the geek factor of being a math teacher? 

Some students find it impressive; my appearances on NFL’s Top 10 were a big deal to some of them, and the kids who are big football fans love trying to get me off-topic on Monday mornings. I teach in a school where dozens of the students are close friends or relatives of a starting NFL quarterback (Joe Flacco), so I rank a very distant second on the “cool football guy” scale. 

8. Do you consider yourself a football journalist?  A football researcher?  A football columnist?  Do such distinctions even matter anymore?  Do you have any ‘code of ethics’ in your writing other than ‘be honest and funny?’ 

The Football Outsiders are journalists because we can, through our stats, investigate and present original stories. We aren’t very reliant on local media outlets to break stories so we can spin/repackage them: we get the stats and game tape and create much of our content from there. I don’t usually call myself a journalist, but I think of Walkthrough as a “column,” and I value the freedom I have in that space. 

One rule I have, besides honesty, is to always portray NFL fandom and the experience of watching NFL games as a positive experience. I try not to vilify players, to harp on every little arrest, to get carried away with negative remarks. I try not to label players or teams as “chokers” or “busts,” and while I take some shots at television talking heads, I try to avoid “boy, these television guys are stupid/annoying” commentary. Watching football is a cherished Sunday ritual, a chance to spend time with friends or family. It’s something to celebrate, and I try to treat it that way, even when I’m on my fifth paragraph of Al Davis jokes. 

9. Where’s the next frontier of NFL stats? Is there any chance we’ll see DVOA type individual stats for defenders in the next five years, or are we stuck with sacks, tackles, and interceptions for perpetuity? 

Thanks to the Game Charting Project, we are now sitting on a mountain of football data, and we’ve only begun excavation. I think we’re reaching the point where we can better differentiate players from schemes. If we know that a quarterback threw 26% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage for one coach, then 9% behind the line of scrimmage for another coach, we can use that data to analyze changes in that quarterback’s statistics: did he get better/worse, or did his stats change because the scheme changed?  

I think our formation data may soon help us predict strategic changes. Two years ago, we wrote about how much more productive teams were from shotgun sets. Shotgun sets are more prevalent than ever, so we must have seen something that coaches also saw. We may learn the same thing about empty backfield plays, Wildcat plays, or other strategies as we study trends in the data. 

A few years ago, I tried to create a DVOA metric for individual defenders, and it fell apart. Without game film (and I mean coach’s film, not television tape), there’s no statistic to measure a cornerback’s blanket coverage for a full game (leading to zero passes thrown his way, zero tackles, zero interceptions) or to getting double-teamed on every snap. What I’d like to see go mainstream is some variation on our Stops-Defeats stat: don’t tell me how many tackles the linebacker made, but tell me how many of them came after a one-yard gain. 

10. Why should a casual Colts fan buy a copy of the ’09 Almanac? 

The Colts make a great “starter team” for a casual fan who wants to learn more about football and about our methods. It’s one thing to say the Colts “don’t blitz much”, but we’ll tell you they rush with only their front four defenders 84.6% of the time, the highest percentage in the league. The Colts lead the league in three-receiver sets but rank last in outside-the-pocket passes. There are many other strategic categories where the Colts rank either first or last. Working back from the Colts, a new reader can see what tactics other teams use, and they can also see how our analysis makes football more interesting. 

We also provide a sober look at the new coaching staff that’s a lot deeper than any other national publication. If you’re not sure who Larry Coyer is or what to expect from him, we’ll tell you. 

11. footballoutsiders.com is not only one of the smartest sites around, but one of the funniest. Do you guys try to spice up the stats with witty commentary as an intentional strategy, or has that developed naturally? 

From the beginning, humor was a major part of the site. Scramble for the Ball was the very first regular column, and the original writers used it as a chance to riff on wrestling and the XFL while dispensing fantasy advice and over-unders. I don’t think there are many readers who would enjoy statistical treatise after statistical treatise. And after all, this is football, not macro-economics: it’s supposed to be fun. 

12. Could you get fired for weighing in on the irrational Manning/Brady debate? Does the mere mention of the question make you want to bang your head against a door? 

I get hung up on what “better” means. Who had the better career? Who would be better if you needed a quarterback to win just one game? Who could make a bad team more competitive? Who was better in any given year? And if so, what year? You get different answers depending on what you think “better” means, though my answer to just about all of those questions is Peyton Manning. 

Instead of arguing, fans should put these two players into context. Brady is in a class with guys like Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr, Bob Griese, and Troy Aikman: great quarterbacks who won multiple championships with phenomenal teams. Manning belongs to the Steve Young-Dan Marino-Fran Tarkenton-Brett Favre group: guys with phenomenal stats and tons of wins but few or no championships. How you rank these players depends on how much credit you give quarterbacks for winning the Super Bowl. That’s more a matter of taste than a matter of analysis.  

13. Why (other than Peyton Manning) should Colts fans feel good about 2009? Why should they be worried? 

The Colts defense looks better than it has in years. The linebackers are young and very solid, and there’s a lot more depth (and size) on the defensive line now that the team drafted Fili Moala and Terrance Taylor. Running back Donald Brown will be a big help: the change-up runner is a big part of the offense, and Dominic Rhodes wasn’t providing much juice. The offensive line survived some injuries last year and is stronger because of it. 

Colts fans should be worried about the schedule. There are no weak divisional foes, and the AFC East is also tough. They do get a respite against the NFC West, but their at-large games (Broncos, Ravens at Baltimore) aren’t gimmies. They also should worry about expectations: a 10-6 season would look like a disaster after years of 12 wins or more, but it may just be part of the process of changing coaches and dealing with the strength of the division. 

14.  Marvin Harrison to the Eagles would make you:

a.  happy

b.  confused

c. wish it was 2002 Marvin that was signing

d.  wimper slightly 

Oh, “c” all the way. A lot of great wide receivers ended their career sojourns in Philly: Art Monk, James Lofton, Roy Green. There’s nothing worse than seeing a great receiver bobble a seven-yard smash route. 

15. The best team in the AFC South in 2009 will be…?  If it’s Indy, who will be second best? 

We have the Jaguars bouncing back in a big way this year. Their mean projection is higher than the Colts’, but I see them as two 11-5 teams, give or take. The Titans are going to regress but still project with a winning record. The Texans are pesky.  

16. Vince Young’s future as an NFL starting quarterback is… 

all but over. He doesn’t seem to want to be a football player all that much, making him a Todd Marinovich type. I don’t think that he can force himself to make the necessary commitment to being a good starter, just to pay the bills.  

17. Do you have a Super Bowl pick? 

I’ll have to make one on Football Outsiders soon. Let me wait until I eyeball these teams in the preseason a little.  

18. When Bob Sanders decapitates a running back and feasts on his brain at the 35 yard line, how does that translate into DVOA for the defense? 

Zombies get penalized by DVOA. Decapitation is a violation of the Roy Williams rule, and most zombies are too slow to play safety, even in-the-box safety. Undead and other mythical creatures are accounted for in DVOA as follows (remember, negative is good for defenders): 

      Robots  - 4

      Cool, dangerous vampires  -3

      DC Comics heroes (not counting Booster Gold, the Art Schlister of superheroes) -2

      Klingons -1

      Zombies +1

      Lame, emo, Stephanie Meyer vampires who don’t bite their girlfriends until they’re “ready”  +5

Wow.  That’s a big thank you to Mike.  Don’t forget you can check out his work every week on footballoutsiders.com.
 

This article will appear in the sidebar in one week.

18to88 has helped out from time to time on Walkthrough, and Mike even showed up during a live in-game chat.  He has generously agreed to answer 18 Questions with 18to88 as a fitting wrap-up to our 2009 Almanac Week.

1. So are you a math teacher/football writer or a football writer/math teacher? 

I try to give them equal billing by staggering them, like Ted Danson’s and Shelly Long’s names in the Cheers credits:

                                                math teacher 

                              football writer 

2. Peyton Manning, DVOA darling, is obviously still writing his legacy, but if you had to guess what people will be saying about him in 20 years, how do you think he’ll be remembered? 

A lot of rancorous things that have been said about Peyton over the years – the “choke artist” or “stat compiler” stuff – will be long forgotten in 20 years. The Colts-Patriots rivalry will be idealized, and there will be a glow around his name and his accomplishments. Right now, if you ask someone “Peyton or Elway,” they’ll say Elway, because Elway has that post-retirement, NFL-Films slow-motion glow, while Peyton’s still a mortal who throws incomplete passes and gets flustered by the Chargers defense. Twenty years from now, I think most people will choose Peyton, and that’s just based on what he’s done so far. 

Even if Peyton Manning never plays a down, he’s one of the top 10 quarterbacks in history, probably among the top 5. Anyone who makes a serious top 10 list and doesn’t include Peyton has some sort of axe to grind.  

3. How long will McNabb have to be retired before he finally achieves universal love from Eagles fans?  They’ll eventually embrace him once he’s gone, right? 

McNabb is in the same boat as Phillies legend Mike Schmidt. Most baseball experts will tell you that Schmidt was one of the 2-3 best third basemen ever, but walk into a Philly-area bar and you’ll find an old-timer who swears Brooks Robinson or Ken Boyer or somebody was a better player, that Schmidt was lousy in the clutch and was too temperamental to be a leader, blah, blah, blah. Julius Erving gets universal love in Philly. There have been a few others: Chuck Bednarik, Richie Ashburn, one or two of the Broad Street Bullies. McNabb will spend eternity on Philly’s loooooong love-to-hate, hate-to-love list. That assumes he doesn’t lead the Eagles to three straight championships in the next three years. 

4. How do you balance being a fan of a team (the Eagles) with having to write knowledgeably about all 32 teams? I mean, there’s only so many hours in a week… 

The hardest part is when the Eagles are a Sunday early game, because it’s easy to focus on them and forget seven or eight important games. I often DVR them and force myself to give at least equal time to an important national game when that happens. When it comes to a bias while writing, the first step is admitting there’s a problem. I know I am biased toward the Eagles and against the Cowboys, so I look to eradicate it from my serious analysis or game predictions. When I’m doing jokes, well, everybody loves a good Terrell Owens joke. 

5. Walkthrough has developed a dedicated following. How do you keep it fresh each week? Do you read the comments or intentionally try not to? 

I’m lucky to do things many other writers don’t. Not many other people diagram plays and explain them, so a play diagram or two can give me a fresh angle on a story. Not many writers take a historic approach, so when I go back and write about Steve McNair’s first training camp, it provides a fresh perspective.

 I do read comments, first to see if readers found obvious mistakes (I get left and right mixed up a lot), then to get impressions about what readers think. At the same time, I have to do what I do. For the Steve McNair memorial I wrote, I knew some readers would think it was a “puff piece,” but I wasn’t interested in writing about his sordid death or his Hall of Fame chances or just a Wikipedia biography. I had to accept that my take on McNair wouldn’t satisfy all readers. 

6. This year you personally wrote up the Ravens, Browns, Saints, and Steelers for the 09 Almanac. Sort of an odd group. How do you guys assign who writes up which team? 

We try to rotate writers so that the same person doesn’t cover the same team year after year. Imagine if I wrote the Eagles every year: everyone would get sick of the McNabb apologetics and dissertations on how crazy the Philadelphia sports media is. Send me to cover a team like the Saints, and I can provide a fresh approach while learning a lot more about a franchise I don’t normally follow intently. 

We get our assignments early in the season, so we know what teams we are supposed to focus upon. I was lucky to get the Super Bowl champions and a local team that’s on television a lot. The hardest team for me to cover was the Browns, who disappeared from all media after Brady Quinn got hurt. Luckily, their story was defined by the front office and coaching changes, so I didn’t need to go watch tape of Ken Dorsey running the team in December to get a sense of where the franchise is going. 

7. Does moonlighting as a football writer make you seem more cool to your students? Or does it just amplify the geek factor of being a math teacher? 

Some students find it impressive; my appearances on NFL’s Top 10 were a big deal to some of them, and the kids who are big football fans love trying to get me off-topic on Monday mornings. I teach in a school where dozens of the students are close friends or relatives of a starting NFL quarterback (Joe Flacco), so I rank a very distant second on the “cool football guy” scale. 

8. Do you consider yourself a football journalist?  A football researcher?  A football columnist?  Do such distinctions even matter anymore?  Do you have any ‘code of ethics’ in your writing other than ‘be honest and funny?’ 

The Football Outsiders are journalists because we can, through our stats, investigate and present original stories. We aren’t very reliant on local media outlets to break stories so we can spin/repackage them: we get the stats and game tape and create much of our content from there. I don’t usually call myself a journalist, but I think of Walkthrough as a “column,” and I value the freedom I have in that space. 

One rule I have, besides honesty, is to always portray NFL fandom and the experience of watching NFL games as a positive experience. I try not to vilify players, to harp on every little arrest, to get carried away with negative remarks. I try not to label players or teams as “chokers” or “busts,” and while I take some shots at television talking heads, I try to avoid “boy, these television guys are stupid/annoying” commentary. Watching football is a cherished Sunday ritual, a chance to spend time with friends or family. It’s something to celebrate, and I try to treat it that way, even when I’m on my fifth paragraph of Al Davis jokes. 

9. Where’s the next frontier of NFL stats? Is there any chance we’ll see DVOA type individual stats for defenders in the next five years, or are we stuck with sacks, tackles, and interceptions for perpetuity? 

Thanks to the Game Charting Project, we are now sitting on a mountain of football data, and we’ve only begun excavation. I think we’re reaching the point where we can better differentiate players from schemes. If we know that a quarterback threw 26% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage for one coach, then 9% behind the line of scrimmage for another coach, we can use that data to analyze changes in that quarterback’s statistics: did he get better/worse, or did his stats change because the scheme changed?  

I think our formation data may soon help us predict strategic changes. Two years ago, we wrote about how much more productive teams were from shotgun sets. Shotgun sets are more prevalent than ever, so we must have seen something that coaches also saw. We may learn the same thing about empty backfield plays, Wildcat plays, or other strategies as we study trends in the data. 

A few years ago, I tried to create a DVOA metric for individual defenders, and it fell apart. Without game film (and I mean coach’s film, not television tape), there’s no statistic to measure a cornerback’s blanket coverage for a full game (leading to zero passes thrown his way, zero tackles, zero interceptions) or to getting double-teamed on every snap. What I’d like to see go mainstream is some variation on our Stops-Defeats stat: don’t tell me how many tackles the linebacker made, but tell me how many of them came after a one-yard gain. 

10. Why should a casual Colts fan buy a copy of the ’09 Almanac? 

The Colts make a great “starter team” for a casual fan who wants to learn more about football and about our methods. It’s one thing to say the Colts “don’t blitz much”, but we’ll tell you they rush with only their front four defenders 84.6% of the time, the highest percentage in the league. The Colts lead the league in three-receiver sets but rank last in outside-the-pocket passes. There are many other strategic categories where the Colts rank either first or last. Working back from the Colts, a new reader can see what tactics other teams use, and they can also see how our analysis makes football more interesting. 

We also provide a sober look at the new coaching staff that’s a lot deeper than any other national publication. If you’re not sure who Larry Coyer is or what to expect from him, we’ll tell you. 

11. footballoutsiders.com is not only one of the smartest sites around, but one of the funniest. Do you guys try to spice up the stats with witty commentary as an intentional strategy, or has that developed naturally? 

From the beginning, humor was a major part of the site. Scramble for the Ball was the very first regular column, and the original writers used it as a chance to riff on wrestling and the XFL while dispensing fantasy advice and over-unders. I don’t think there are many readers who would enjoy statistical treatise after statistical treatise. And after all, this is football, not macro-economics: it’s supposed to be fun. 

12. Could you get fired for weighing in on the irrational Manning/Brady debate? Does the mere mention of the question make you want to bang your head against a door? 

I get hung up on what “better” means. Who had the better career? Who would be better if you needed a quarterback to win just one game? Who could make a bad team more competitive? Who was better in any given year? And if so, what year? You get different answers depending on what you think “better” means, though my answer to just about all of those questions is Peyton Manning. 

Instead of arguing, fans should put these two players into context. Brady is in a class with guys like Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr, Bob Griese, and Troy Aikman: great quarterbacks who won multiple championships with phenomenal teams. Manning belongs to the Steve Young-Dan Marino-Fran Tarkenton-Brett Favre group: guys with phenomenal stats and tons of wins but few or no championships. How you rank these players depends on how much credit you give quarterbacks for winning the Super Bowl. That’s more a matter of taste than a matter of analysis.  

13. Why (other than Peyton Manning) should Colts fans feel good about 2009? Why should they be worried? 

The Colts defense looks better than it has in years. The linebackers are young and very solid, and there’s a lot more depth (and size) on the defensive line now that the team drafted Fili Moala and Terrance Taylor. Running back Donald Brown will be a big help: the change-up runner is a big part of the offense, and Dominic Rhodes wasn’t providing much juice. The offensive line survived some injuries last year and is stronger because of it. 

Colts fans should be worried about the schedule. There are no weak divisional foes, and the AFC East is also tough. They do get a respite against the NFC West, but their at-large games (Broncos, Ravens at Baltimore) aren’t gimmies. They also should worry about expectations: a 10-6 season would look like a disaster after years of 12 wins or more, but it may just be part of the process of changing coaches and dealing with the strength of the division. 

14.  Marvin Harrison to the Eagles would make you:

a.  happy

b.  confused

c. wish it was 2002 Marvin that was signing

d.  wimper slightly 

Oh, “c” all the way. A lot of great wide receivers ended their career sojourns in Philly: Art Monk, James Lofton, Roy Green. There’s nothing worse than seeing a great receiver bobble a seven-yard smash route. 

15. The best team in the AFC South in 2009 will be…?  If it’s Indy, who will be second best? 

We have the Jaguars bouncing back in a big way this year. Their mean projection is higher than the Colts’, but I see them as two 11-5 teams, give or take. The Titans are going to regress but still project with a winning record. The Texans are pesky.  

16. Vince Young’s future as an NFL starting quarterback is… 

all but over. He doesn’t seem to want to be a football player all that much, making him a Todd Marinovich type. I don’t think that he can force himself to make the necessary commitment to being a good starter, just to pay the bills.  

17. Do you have a Super Bowl pick? 

I’ll have to make one on Football Outsiders soon. Let me wait until I eyeball these teams in the preseason a little.  

18. When Bob Sanders decapitates a running back and feasts on his brain at the 35 yard line, how does that translate into DVOA for the defense? 

Zombies get penalized by DVOA. Decapitation is a violation of the Roy Williams rule, and most zombies are too slow to play safety, even in-the-box safety. Undead and other mythical creatures are accounted for in DVOA as follows (remember, negative is good for defenders): 

      Robots  - 4

      Cool, dangerous vampires  -3

      DC Comics heroes (not counting Booster Gold, the Art Schlister of superheroes) -2

      Klingons -1

      Zombies +1

      Lame, emo, Stephanie Meyer vampires who don’t bite their girlfriends until they’re “ready”  +5

Wow.  That’s a big thank you to Mike.  Don’t forget you can check out his work every week on footballoutsiders.com.
 

This article will appear in the sidebar in one week.

Jason Whitlock commented on Matt Cassel’s huge new contract today by saying that Randy Moss makes QBs rich.

This column is about Randy Moss. He deserves to be regarded as one
of the 15 or 20 best players of all-time. It’s ridiculous that he’s
never won the league’s MVP award. He should’ve won the award in 1998
outright and should’ve shared the award with Tom Brady in 2007.

Moss
reminds me of Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq has one MVP award and four NBA
titles. Steve Nash has two MVP awards and no NBA Finals appearances.

In
his prime, we took O’Neal for granted because he was so much bigger and
more dominant than his competitors. We didn’t think it was fair.

We’ve
made the same mistake with Randy Moss. Not since Jim Brown has a single
offensive player had the kind of impact Moss has on the game.

That sounds pretty similar to what we said not too long ago.  In discussing Marvin Harrison’s rank among the all-time greats, we noted:

We aren’t going to argue about Randy Moss
either.  While Marvin is comparable to
Moss in many ways, we consider Moss to be one of the most devastating offensive
weapons in the history of football, and so in a completely subjective sense will not argue about his ranking.  The
only question about Moss is, “Why hasn’t he become the unquestioned greatest
receiver ever?”

Whitlock may have been trying to stir up trouble and controversy with his ‘bold’ opinion, but nothing could be more obvious and undeniable.

Randy Moss is a king maker.

Though we’ve gone on the record about the Hoosiers once or twice, there is rarely anything good to say about them.  So, since I won’t be unveiling any state secrets, I suppose it’s fair game to tell you that the Almanac is so thorough that it bothers to even cover the humble Hoosiers.

To start out with, the Outsiders declare the Hoosiers to be the only team in the Big 10 with no aspirations of a title at all.  Ouch.  The Hoosiers are ranked 77th overall among Bowl Tier schools.  This comment essentially sums up FO’s opinion about the Indiana:

On defense, the good news is that eight starters return.  The bad news is that they were part of a pretty bad unit in 2008.

Oh.  Ok then.  Moving on…

The Boilers get a look as well, but didn’t fare much better, barely cracking the top 60.  FO sums up the Joe Tiller era quite nicely:

With the way his tenure ended, it is easy to forget just how successful Joe Tiller was at Purdue. He inherited a program that had not experienced a winning record in 12 seasons and immediately turned things around. The Boilermakers did not have a losing record until Tiller’s ninth season and had only two during his 12 years in West Lafayette. Unfortunately, his worst team was probably his last.

So,  at least the Cream and Crimson can rejoice that they will likely be joined by the Black and Gold at the bottom of the Big 10 for another decade or so.

Finally, does Notre Dame offer us any consolation?  Meh.  They break the top 20…I suppose that’s good.  Frankly, the Irish test the limits of ambivalence in my life.  I’m Irish.  I’m from Indiana.  My extended family is all Catholic.  I’m morally obligated to give a crap about lads up in South Bend. 

But on the other hand…they also hired Charlie Weis, and frankly, watching him fail is fun.  So I remain torn.  Plus, when it comes to this year’s team, the refrain is familiar.  I swear I’ve heard this ditty before:

Much will be made about Notre Dame’s schedule in 2009, which may be its weakest in years… A BCS bowl berth is plausible, but there are probably enough stumbling blocks to keep ND’s win total in the single digits.

Hmm, sounds about like nearly every other Fighting Irish team for the last 10 years.  Maybe they make a big bowl, but if they do, they get destroyed.  I guess that’s why we don’t cover college football very much.

So, in summary, if you love college football, you probably aren’t from Indianapolis, but you will love the Football Outsiders 2009 Almanac which has enough pro and college football to choke a camel.

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up FO week with 18 Questions with Mike Tanier.  You don’t want to miss it. 

The 09 Almanac says, “Keep hope alive!”.  First they look at what effect losing Dungy might have on the Colts:

When Dungy left Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers retained defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin. Since Kiffin was a long-time associate of Dungy’s, the theory was that the defense would remain elite and fundamentally the same. Dungy’s influence is apparent in looking at Tampa Bay’s DVOA before and after his departure. In Dungy’s last four years in Tampa, his defenses ranked seventh, first, fourth, and second in DVOA. In 2002, the first year after his departure, Tampa Bay had -32.1% DVOA, the best defensive rating of the DVOA Era. (No other defense has been below -30% for a whole year.) The Buccaneers fell to third in the rankings in 2003, and have regressed from that dominant level to merely very good since 2004.

So, eventually the loss of Dungy will be felt, but there’s a good chance it won’t come right away.  The Outsiders also give some fascinating research about what to expect from new D-coordinator Larry Coyer, as well as a hint about the run defense.  When Dungy left Tampa, the run improved dramatically, even as the overall defense declined.  Dungy is a smart guy who knows that stopping the pass is the key to winning.  You need a competant run D, but not even a good one to field a tough overall unit.  The Colts problem most of the years was an inability to even field a mediocre run defense (thanks to the curse of the Corey Simon).

Speaking of Jabba, they love the new tackles coming in this year as well.

The Colts have responded by giving (Ed) Johnson another chance and drafting a couple of big defensive tackles in Fili Moala (USC, second round) and Terrance Taylor (Michigan, fourth round). Moala in particular may be a draft steal; our friend Russ Lande at GM Jr. rated him as this year’s second-best tackle prospect, ahead of first-rounders Peria Jerry and Evander Hood, because of his consistency and explosive closing burst. These players give the Colts the most defensive tackle depth they have had this decade… The Colts now have three defensive tackles over 300 pounds for the first time since the team switched to the Tampa-2

The Almanac is rife with statistical data begging to be poured over for a deeper understanding of how the Colts operate.  Of particular note is this nugget:

DVOA versus TE (negative is good)

2006  -8.4%  12th
2007 -21.6%  2nd
2008 1.6%  14th

So what happened that lowered the Colts to being below average against tight ends (having a DVOA above zero) for the first time in several years?  Sigh…

Just a word of warning, we’ll wrap up our look at the 2009 Almanac tomorrow, and on Thursday, we have an amazing 18 Questions with Mike Tanier of the Outsiders.  It’s spectacular in every possible way.  I promise I’m not overselling it at all.

Links:
I rarely post about my kids because other than me…who cares?  Still, my four year old daughter said today:

My name is Strawberry Shortcake Hello Kitty Blossom.  That’s because I fight bad guys, have fun with my friends, and am a kitty.  Meow.

The knock on the Zombie is that he can’t stay healthy.

Demond Sanders:  Politics should be more like this:

Our long held opinion is that Houston, if Matt Schuab is healthy, will be the second best team in the South.  The Outsiders disagree, saying:

Still, the Texans are basically the same team they were a year ago: slightly below average. They have no magic statistical indicator that portends success.

Their feeling is that the Texans good offense and bad run defense will translate into just about 7 wins and only a 22% of being in the playoff hunt. 

So what of last year’s division winner, the Titans?  We are less concerned with them because of the loss of Haynesworth, and the realization that Kerry Collins is unlikely to duplicate his ’08 results.  FO, has similar thoughts:

The Tennessee defense will continue its slide from dominant in 2007 to very good in 2008 to above average in 2009.  That leaves the Titans in an awkward position, relying on their offense to get them back to the playoffs.

They call Albert Haynesworth “a singular player” and don’t expect the Titans to easily replace him.  Their projection is for 9.3 wins, but with a 64% chance of being in the playoff hunt or better.  So on this point, we are essentially agreed.  The Titans will be formidable, but not nearly as good in 2009.

The biggest point of departure we have from the 1s and 0s of FO would be about the Jacksonville Jaguars.  They have the Jags as the second best team in the South, and are calling for a 10.2 win season.  The guys at FO have always recognized that it takes both common sense and good math skills to predict football.  They joke about how sometimes they don’t even believe their own numbers.  Last year they had the Ravens as a playoff team, and didn’t really believe it themselves until it happened.

The Jags are that team this year.  I scoured the article for a quote that would explain or justify how the Jags could get to 10 wins.  I couldn’t find it.  The article is mostly a hilarious recap of just how inept the Jags have been at drafting for the better part of the last 5 plus seasons.  The closest thing I found to optimism was the final summary of the team in 2009:

Years of mistakes can be painted over in a miracle season, and our projections favor a turnaround in Jacksonville. Smith must move forward as he tries to separate himself from the failures of the past collective.  We’re going to find out in 2009 whether the Jaguars’ story ends with the line, “Meet the new boss,  same as the old boss…”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.  You have to hand it to these guys, they report what the numbers say, but they don’t try to shoe horn in a false narrative about a team.  Neither FO nor 18to88 can see any reason to like the Jags to rebound in 2009. 

I guess they haven’t invented a computer yet that can fully understand Jack Del Rio’s capacity to sink a team.  If you still need a reason to plunk down the $12 for a copy of the 2009 Almanac, look no further than the Jaguars team report.  It is one of the funniest, most satisfying reads I’ve had in some time.

Links:
This ain’t happening.

There’s never been any debate that Peyton Manning is the most important player in blue and white.  Last year, we caught our first glimpse of his football mortality as he dealt with a knee injury to open camp.  It has always felt like #18 was going to play forever, but in our more rational moments we know he won’t.

We also know that at some point, we’ll see his skills erode.  Many QBs experience career rejuvenation in their 30s, mainly because they finally understand the position.  At the QB position, smart is better than skilled.  Manning has been both for almost his whole career.  At some point, we’ll start to see those skills drop off.  History tells us that QBs start to diminish around age 32.

Peyton just turned 33.

So, is there any evidence his play has dropped off.  Well, there is the curious case of the lack of deep completions last year.  The Almanac points out that:

he completed the fewest 20-plus-yard passes of his career

There are many reasons for this.  Harrison wasn’t himself; the line couldn’t protect him, he had no training camp to get a rhythm.  Those may be the causes.  On the other hand, it certainly did seem like Peyton was under-throwing the deep ball all year.  Was it the knee?  Who knows.  But an honest observer (and we are homers, but never dishonest) would have to say that something looked off.

Perhaps 2008 was a sign of things to come for 18.  As he ages, the deep ball may not be there as it was when he was 28.  Still, he more than proved that he has the chops to be an effective QB in the mid/short range passing game.  FO’s projections for Manning in 2009?  Right on target with the last three years.

66.2%, 4054 yards, 31 TD, 10 INT, 7.7 YPA, 40.9% DVOA, 101.1 Rating

I think all of us would be happy with that.  The Outsiders are projecting another vintage Manning year. 

Whew.

The other critical offensive cog for the Colts is Reggie Wayne.  The FO target age for wideout decline is 30.

Reggie Wayne just turned 31.

Take a look at his three year trends in YPC and DVOA from 2006 to 2008:

YPC: 15.2, 14.5, 14.0
DVOA: 30.9%, 23.1%, 19.2%

As the Outsiders put it:

Wayne was considered Marvin Harrison’s understudy for so long that even as Wayne became the better player, people always assumed he was young. In fact, Wayne turns 31 this season and probably is on the downside of his career.

So what do they for see for 87? 

92 Catches, 1153 yards, 10 TDs, 12.5 YPC, DVOA 16.0%

That would be another Pro-Bowl type year for Wayne, but a decline in his YPC and DVOA would illustrate the cracks in his game starting to show.

 Marvin Harrison played at an elite level until he was 34.   Wayne has three years to separate himself from the pack and become a Hall of Fame caliber WR.  If he can extend his prime past where players normally fall off (like Marvin did), he’ll have a strong case for Canton. If his career follows a more conventional curve, however, he’ll simply go down in history as one of the great Colts ever, and the second best wideout in Indianapolis history.

So the verdict is split.  They see 18 holding steady and improving on 2008, and 87 slipping almost imperceptibly.  Either way, both projections bode well for 2009, if not beyond.

Links:
Bruce breaks his wrist, and a look at the first half.  Note the sidebar.  It says:

Biggest bad surprise: Willy Taveras. No one expected him to be
Rickey Henderson. But no one expected him to be Corey Patterson without
the power. The Reds have to hope he comes around, or make him the
fourth outfielder.

Oh, no one expected him to be Corey Patterson 2?  I DID!  Here’s my exact quote from December 27th:

They had three possible OF options (Hariston Jr, Baldelli, and Taveras)
and they invariably sign the most useless of the three.  Awesome.
Taveras is a glorified pinch runner who could barely post a .300 OB% in
Coors freaking Field.   I know the other two were massive injury risks,
but I’d rather have a guy who might be good when healthy than a guy I
know will play every day and suck.  Why not just resign Corey
Patterson?  Ugh.

I don’t accept “we didn’t know he’d be this bad!” as a line of reasoning.  He’s horrible.  He was horrible last year.  I knew he’d be this bad. Anyone with eyes knew he’d be this bad.
By the way, Baldelli has been a solid bench player for the Red Sox.  Sigh.

Great article on the NFL and Wall Street.  Thanks FO

Johnny O covers Peyton and the AP at the Manning Passing Academy

Video: Manning Passing Academy

]]> http://18to88.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/on_the_way_back_down/feed/ 11 Deshawn Zombie http://18to88.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/lining_up/ http://18to88.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/lining_up/#comments Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:46:36 +0000 Deshawn Zombie http://18to88.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/lining_up/ ]]> Welcome to day two of our exploration of the Footballoutsiders 2009 Almanac.  Today we are going to look at some general principles about the offensive line (AKA the most important issue facing the 2009 Colts).  First, let’s look at one of the core issues from the “Pregame Show” portion of the book:

Rushing is more dependent on the offensive line than people realize, but pass protection is more dependent on the quarterback himself than people realize.

We’ll if that doesn’t perfectly describe the 2008 Colts, I don’t know what does.  The 2008 Colts had the lowest adjusted sack rate in the NFL, but Manning was one of the most hit and hurried QBs and the running game was horrible. 

Now let’s look at what FO said about Joseph Addai:

Through one and a half seasons of his career, Addai had won a Super Bowl and looked destined for stardom.

After gaining 100 yards in four of his first seven games as the primary back in 2007, Addai has done so only twice in his past 24 games

Interesting. So 24 games huh?  That goes back to the Chargers game in 07 when…the offensive line started to fall apart.  Does anyone remember that game?  The Colts couldn’t even field a full squad that day, because they had so many linemen hurt. That was followed by the eye bleeder at home against the Chiefs where Addai played his finest game despite no where to run. 

FO’s projections for Kid Joe were incredibly modest:

175 for 687, 3.9 ypc, 4 TDs, 37 catches for 276 and 1 TD

For Brown, they predicted slightly better (though essentially similar) numbers:

147 for 623, 4.3 ypc, 5 TDs, 42 catches for 349

This surprised me.  There is no way that Brown catches more balls than Addai in 2009, barring a major injury.  I also doubt that you’ll see that degree of separation from two young, fast backs playing behind the same offensive line.  If the line is good enough that Brown can average 4.3 ypc, it’ll be good enough that Addai will as well.   I’m not sure there is any real style differences between the two, but last year showed that no matter what the style, there were no holes to run through.  Dom slammed into the line for 3.5 yards.  Joe picked his way for 3.5 yards.

Again, the Almanac is $12 for the PDF, $20 for the printed version.  All week long, we’ll be looking at FO’s Colts-related projections.  We might just have an interview as well.

Links:
So, can we stop the “Peyton has all the weapons” talk?  Fox sports says the Colts WR/TE unit is 15th in the league.  Seems a tad low.  I wouldn’t take the Cowboys or Bucs WRs straight up for the Colts. Ain’t no way.

Scott Rolen?  This was the trade they should have made years ago, but it was nixed for money reasons.  Sigh.  Still, he’s a Hoosier.