3441

No pressure, Manningham!

Meanwhile, the Zerg Rush in the QT3 fantasy football keeper league wipe a tear from their eye as they slide Nicks down onto the bench for the stretch run.

3442

More good news for the Skins - Frazier is committed to Favre as the starter.

3443

Figured that would be part of the deal. It’s really irrelevant anyway, as they won’t make the playoffs. I guess they plan on picking up a QB in free agency, otherwise you would think they’d want to play Jackson to get him into shape for next season. Or is Jackson signed through next season? If not, then sure, play Favre. Wth.

3444

And why do you think that is? I mean, you can argue that Fisher didn’t want him, but the owner has always been a VY fan and there have been a couple of GMs. Even if Fisher is being unfair, why would the fans be upset with VY, unless they see a reason for that?

3445

Here you go: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5838293&campaign=rss&source=NFLHeadlines.

Vince gets overly emotional and has maturity issues. He needs to seriously work on both of those.

That said Fisher is equally at fault. He’s repeatedly taken a hard-line stance against VY and it hasn’t been working for years now. His shitty management abilities cost the Titans a playoff spot last year and will again this year. The titans will be lucky to win another game in 2010.

3446

According to Jason La Canfora’s Twitter, Vince Young is heading to IR.

3447

VY has left three games due to injury and missed another one completely. He’s thrown a miniscule amount of TDs and a big week for him this year is completing 13 passes for 150 yards. His health has been unreliable and his production has been low. Yes, I think Vince Young is having an entirely unremarkable season.

And really, the delusion of VY fans knows no bounds. In one the posts cited above, a fan complaining of Fisher bias cited how VY sat out most of the 2008 season after getting injured – leaving out the part where the Titans went 13-3 and got the AFC #1 seed under Collins. The nerve of Fisher! But this is my new favorite:

Seriously, whose first reaction to this story would be to assume that Fisher made this up? An NFL head coach has nothing better to do than concoct easily disprovable lies about his franchise QB? Does logic and common sense ever enter the equation? Not for VY defenders.

I don’t know how much blame Fisher deserves in this equation. Typically, there’s usually a fair amount to go around. But to hear VY fans explain it, it’s 200% Fisher, 200% the media, 200% fans, and 1% VY. Enough already.

3448

What? I already linked to an earlier version of that article and there is nothing in there that supports “it’s Fisher’s fault” because the only anti-Fisher stuff in there is quotes from VY.

And we’ve already had the Fisher debate on this board before. Most people think he’s a pretty good coach. If Adams wants to make a change he can, but the fact that he hasn’t after all this time indicates he realizes that Fisher has done a pretty good job. Fisher is, after all, the longest tenured head coach in the NFL right now by a wide margin.

At any rate, it’s irrelevant for this season because as noted, Young was placed on IR because of the thumb thing. Unless it turns out the Titans are exagerrating the injury to justify getting him off their roster, it just further reinforces the idea that VY completely overreacted since a basic premise of many of the linked pro-VY stuff has been that Fisher’s bias is why he wasn’t allowed to come back into the game.

3449

Oh, I forgot another apologist excuse for poor player production: “They’re not using him right”. Typically trotted out when someone doesn’t perform well because the system he’s playing in is not like the system he’s used to. 3-4 vs. 4-3, shotgun vs. under center, run option vs. drop back, etc.

3450

Tavaris is a free agent next year. The Vikes should be starting Joe Webb, to be honest. They already know what Tavaris can do.

3451

You mean, other than the dozen-odd things I’ve linked to and quoted over the past 24 hours? Like how Fisher had to be ordered by Bud Adams to start Vince after the team started at 0-6?

I’m sure the Tennessee fans have their reasons for booing Vince for his first missed throw in 8 attempts, for having one of the highest QB ratings in the league, and the winningest QB they’ve had in 4 seasons.

3452

You’d be completely right, except where is this “poor production” you speak of? Based on wins, based on passing rating, he’s not only clearly the best QB on that team, he’s one of the best in the league.

The problem isn’t that Fisher is using Vince wrong. It’s that he is reluctant to use him at all, even when every indication is that he gives the Titans their best chance to win.

It isn’t just that Fisher won’t put him in games; he won’t let him throw when he’s in the game, either. Look at that list I linked above and notice the pathetic number of attempts per game.

I might be an “apologist,” but at least I’m not disagreeing with facts. There’s nothing to apologize for here, BTG. VY is producing by any metric you would judge a QB by.

3453

It really doesn’t matter at this point, Rimbo. VY has played his last game for the Titans, and he has no one to blame but himself. Fisher isn’t going anywhere.

3454

VY is 31st in the league in attempts. The more attempts, the more the expected variance. You can’t argue that on the one hand, he’s this great QB because of passer rating and then on the other hand he hasn’t gotten enough attempts. That’s part of the reason why Vick is #1, he hasn’t had many attempts. P. Manning has a rating of 94.2, with 436 attempts. Now that’s pretty damn good.

3455

IMO a lot of VY’s production comes from the fact that he’s played with an amazing RB and one of the best defenses in the league for the last couple of years. Sort of like Trent Dilfer when he was with the Baltimore Ravens (or any of the other Ravens QBs). I think a lot of other QBs could be more successful than VY has been with the Titans. You’ll note that while VY has a high QB rating his average total yards per game is 140. He’s not asked to do as much as other QBs.

Edit - He’s last in average yards per game and Lorini got the point across better than I did.

3456

See, this is why people hate Vince Young fans.

VY is currently ranked 32nd in completions, 30th in yards, 25th in comp%, and 23rd in TDs. Those stats are pitiful. Even Kevin Kolb has more completions than VY this year. And it’s not like he’s been leading his team to wins this year.

But then you have VY fans who say things like this:

Unless, of course, you don’t count touchdowns, yards, completions or wins.

3457

They know darn well what they have in Jackson. He started two seasons for them, and he wasn’t very good. Before his third season, he was competing with Sage Rosenfels for the starting position, up until Favre signed with the Vikings.

There’s a reason Childress was pushing so hard for Favre – Jackson is a lousy QB. In 2010/11, so is Favre, but there shouldn’t be any pretense that Tarvaris is going to come in and be awesome.

3458

Is he? Let’s see what Football Outsiders thinks of Young’s season, using their advanced metrics. If you don’t know FO, check them out, they’re good. To use an extreme example, if Young were to complete 100% of his passes for nine yards on every third and 10, conventional passer rating would love him, and FO would hate him, because he fails to lead his team down to score more points. Conventional stats would see a phenomenal QB, save perhaps throwing for no scores.

But exaggerations away, let’s go see.

Young ranks 22nd in DYAR, which is total value over a season to date. He ranks between such luminaries as Shaun Hill and Kevin Kolb. Other QBs above Young include Ryan Fitzpatrick, Carson Palmer, David Garrard, and Mark Sanchez.

But he’s been a part-time starter. How is he on DVOA, which is value per-play? There he’s better, 11th, in between Matt Ryan and Colt McCoy. (Colt McCoy?! Wow.)

Young’s conventional stats look pretty good, with 10 TDs and only 2 picks as of week 10. But one thing lurks below the surface – a 57% completion percentage. That ranks 25th out of the top 28 players listed, ahead of only Mark Sanchez, Donovan McNabb, and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Young remains an incredibly inaccurate passer, and this year he’s actually worse than before in that regard.

Young’s DVOA is worse than his VOA by a decent margin. What that means is that he has faced worse defenses on average. If you throw for 400 yards and 4 TDs against the Steelers, that’s much better than throwing for the same against the Texans. Conventional stats ignore this – DVOA doesn’t.

Young is not having his worst season – that was his second season, where he was absolutely awful. He’s been above average on a per-play basis, but when you count the whole body of work this year, he’s a Shaun Hill or a Ryan Fitzpatrick – hardly third overall material. (By comparison, Michael Vick, with only 10 more passes, ranks 11 spots higher, and is completing 63% of his passes.)

TL:DR – I disagree, with numbers!

3459

But he’s not last in average yards per attempt.

And Vick isn’t #1 because he’s had fewer attempts. He’s #1 because he has been playing football at an insanely high level. The Giants did everything right on defense last night to shut him down and he was still pretty much unstoppable.

And the Titans have other QBs. And Fisher has done everything he can to try and get them playing time. And they haven’t been more successful than Young.

What is it with people? This isn’t McNabb “toss it into the dirt on 3rd down several times per game” where the statistics belie a mediocre QB, or a guy who “just wins games” despite the statistics. He’s got the wins and the stats, and now people are trying to magically divine through tea leaves some tiny thread of a possibility of lack of production.

What am I supposed to believe, that some magical formula behind the numbers shows that he’s actually unproductive, or that he’s actually as productive as the statistics and victories say that he is? Well, the latter is the simplest explanation, but accepting that makes me some kind of fanboy apologist?

Man, I grew up in Amarillo, Texas. I know what bullshit smells like when it comes waftin’ past my nose. And that right there is what happens to grain after it’s been used by a bovine male. STANKY ASS BULL SHIT, pardner. Get your waders on! Because y’all are fillin’ up the trough to HIP level, baby.

3460

Of course he looks good if you cherry pick. So let’s use the wayback machine (and by this I mean the drop down menu on that same page) to get more of a valid set of data to draw conclusions from!

2009:18th with an 82.8 rating. Pretty mediocre.
2008:find him on the list, please. On second thought, you won’t. So I dug it up: 64.5 rating, with only 36 passes. We’ll disregard this season.
2007:26th, behind such luminaries as Kyle Boller, Brian Griese, Damon Huard, and Joey Harrington. 71.1 rating.
2006:30th of 32. 66.7 rating. Enough said.

He’s never finished a season in the top half of the league; this year, he will likely not qualify for the final list. He’s had one year where he finished above an 80 rating; this year will be the 2nd, but as it’s an injury shortened year, it’s not very significant statistically.