2701

Go for 2, Dan.

2702

It’s been my opinion for a while that Curtis Painter has for several years held one of the greatest jobs in pro football history. I think he’s a guy who probably isn’t anything close to an NFL-quality QB but has been picking up a regular paycheck and praying weekly that Peyton never gets hurt so no one ever finds out.

2703

From that Bad Quarterback League link above

While in sports bars across America, the Bengals-49ers game was relegated to the dusty Standard Definition TV outside the bathroom, BQBLers were locked in and hoping for the worst. Alex Smith facing Andy Dalton — what could go right?

I chuckled. Probably even sniggered.

2704

Hey, if Orlovsky was good enough to play for the Texans last year*, then he’s good enough for the Colts. Amiright?

  • where he got no snaps.
2705

Some crazy NFL passing numbers:

The NFL record for 300+ yard games by QBs after three weeks was 21. This year we had 33. Nine QBs are averaging more then 300 yards a game so far, and five of them are on pace to break Dan Marino’s record of 5084 in 1984.

Tom Brady is on pace for over 7000 yards passing. When he passes for another 600 yards or so in the next couple of weeks, he will exceed Steve Grogan’s numbers from all of 1976, a year when the Patriots were a very good 11-3.

Drew Brees, Cam Newton, Phillip Rivers, and Matthew Stafford are the other QBs on pace to break Marino’s record, but they are “only” charting out to numbers in the 5200 to 5600 range.

So what does this mean for their teams? Not a Superbowl win if history is a guide. On the top 100 single season passing yardage list of all time, only four of those QBs lead their team to victory at the Superbowl.

2706

I think this is one of those trends that you can’t reliably use past performance to measure. The NFL has undergone a complete one-eighty and become a quarterback league instead of a running-back dominant league. You can list ‘feature backs’ on one hand, it’s all about running-back-by-committee now. Still that is pretty shocking that only 4 out of 100 in the past have won it all when you think about it.

2707

I don’t think it’s necessarily all that shocking. Teams that pass for a lot of yards are often playing catch-up at the end of games, trying to get back into it. At least that’s my first guess – let me grab a year or two of stats and see.

  1. Philip Rivers, 9-7 Chargers - did not make playoffs
  2. Peyton Manning, 10-6 Colts - AFC South
  3. Drew Brees, 11-5 Saints - NFC Wild Card
  4. Matt Schaub, 6-10 Texans - did not make playoffs
  5. Eli Manning, 10-6 Giants - did not make playoffs
  6. Carson Palmer, 4-12 Bengals - did not make playoffs
  7. Aaron Rodgers, 10-6 Packers - NFC Wild Card, Super Bowl Champions
  8. Tom Brady, 14-2 Patriots - AFC East
  9. Matt Ryan, 13-3 Falcons - NFC South
  10. Kyle Orton, 4-12 Broncos - did not make playoffs

Average wins: 9.1. 50% missed playoffs.

Hmm. Not great support for my hypothesis. I do think it’s safe to say that of those teams, most of them had decent-to-bad defenses. Houston, Indianapolis, New Orleans, New England, Denver…

Let’s try 2009!

  1. Matt Schaub, 9-7 Texans - no playoffs
  2. Peyton Manning, 14-2 Colts - AFC North, AFC Champions
  3. Tony Romo, 11-5 Cowboys - NFC East
  4. Aaron Rodgers, 11-5 Packers - NFC Wild Card
  5. Tom Brady, 10-6 Patriots - AFC East
  6. Drew Brees, 13-3 Saints - NFC South, Super Bowl Champions
  7. Philip Rivers, 13-3 Chargers - AFC West
  8. Ben Roethlisberger, 9-7 Steelers - no playoffs
  9. Brett Favre, 12-4 Vikings - NFC North
  10. Eli Manning, 8-8 Giants - no playoffs

Average wins: 11. 30% missed playoffs.

Okay, 2009 is awful for my hypothesis.

2008!

  1. Drew Brees, 8-8 Saints - no playoffs
  2. Kurt Warner, 9-7 Cardinals - NFC West, NFC Champions
  3. Jay Cutler, 8-8 Broncos - no playoffs
  4. Aaron Rodgers, 6-10 Packers - no playoffs
  5. Philip Rivers, 8-8 Chargers - AFC West
  6. Peyton Manning, 12-4 Colts, AFC Wild Card
  7. Donovan McNabb, 9-6-1 Eagles - NFC Wild Card
  8. Matt Cassel, 11-5 Patriots - no playoffs
  9. Chad Pennington, 11-5 Dolphins - AFC East
  10. David Garrard, 5-11 Jaguars - no playoffs

Average wins: 8.7. 50% missed playoffs.

Hmmmmm. Let’s dig deeper.

Teams that show up on all three years:

Saints: The team is built around Drew Brees, with limited but effective running to support him. Drew has one primary receiver, Marques Colston, but has a bevy of weapons to support Colston – Lance Moore, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem, Jeremy Shockey, and Jimmy Graham. Reggie Bush was far more of a threat in the air than on the ground, and every running back New Orleans has brought in can catch the ball out of the backfield.

Chargers: Since losing the old-and-busted Tomlinson (who found the Fountain of Youth, or at least the Fountain of Fuck You Shonn Greene) and his backup Michael Turner, the Chargers have had awful running games. So why not use Philip Rivers, Antonio Gates, and Vincent Jackson instead? Rivers-to-Jackson is the best deep combination in the NFL.

Packers: See the Saints comment, but sub in Aaron Rodgers, Greg Jennings, then Donald Driver, Jermichael Finley, Jordy Nelson, and James Jones.

Patriots: New England runs the ball about as often as Philly does, which is to say, they don’t. Instead of using a running back, they use Wes Welker for short passes and reliable gains. New England throws a whole lot.

Well, it’s nice that I’ve identified that teams that throw the ball well tend to throw it a lot, but I’m not coming up with any interesting information here. It’s a passing league? Some teams make the playoffs while throwing, and some don’t?

On the one hand, I can point to this and say, “the passing champion in each of the past three years missed the playoffs.” Anyone with half a brain will counter, “The guy who finished second went to the Super Bowl twice and made the playoffs each time.”

I guess the only conclusion is that a team with a good passing offense can be very good, but you tend to need more around them to excel and take that next step, or have Peyton Manning in one of those years, I guess.

Stupid data.

2708

Your data’s noisy because you’re not looking at defense. If you throw pass defense into the mix, too, you get a very predictive result. Pass offense plus pass defense == victory.

2709

Due to the lockout and lack of camps, I think this is going to be a bad start of the year for defenses in general. I expect them to tighten up, especially after the bye weeks.

2710

Hmmmmm. I’m still dubious.

  1. Philip Rivers, 9-7 Chargers - did not make playoffs (Pass Def: 1)
  2. Peyton Manning, 10-6 Colts - AFC South (PD: 13)
  3. Drew Brees, 11-5 Saints - NFC Wild Card (4)
  4. Matt Schaub, 6-10 Texans - did not make playoffs (PD: 32)
  5. Eli Manning, 10-6 Giants - did not make playoffs (PD: 10)
  6. Carson Palmer, 4-12 Bengals - did not make playoffs (PD: 14)
  7. Aaron Rodgers, 10-6 Packers - NFC Wild Card, Super Bowl Champions (PD: 5)
  8. Tom Brady, 14-2 Patriots - AFC East (PD: 30)
  9. Matt Ryan, 13-3 Falcons - NFC South (PD: 22)
  10. Kyle Orton, 4-12 Broncos - did not make playoffs (PD: 25)

So let’s add those up, for a nice simple number to see.

2 - Chargers, missed playoffs
7 - Saints, NFC Wild Card
12 - Packers, NFC Wild Card, Super Bowl Champs
15 - Colts, AFC South
15 - Giants, missed playoffs
20 - Bengals, missed playoffs
31 - Falcons, NFC South
35 - Broncos, missed playoffs
36 - Texans, missed playoffs
38 - Patriots, AFC East

Pass offense plus pass defense =/= victory, necessarily. The Patriots had an absolutely terrible passing defense and went 14-2. The Chargers had the league’s top passing attack and passing defense and went 9-7 and missed the playoffs.

2711

Oh, all numbers courtesy of Pro Football Reference.

2712

Oh my…so many numbers…

2713

You are right in the sense that two of those four have been in the last few years (Brees and Manning Superbowl wins). Before that the numbers were even worse. But even for the four years that resulted in Superbowl wins, the rankings were not near the top of the all time list - the best was 34th overall.

On the other hand, the stat is focused on Superbowl winners. Superbowl losers are all over the top 10 (such as Marino at #1). So throwing the ball a lot may not result in the ultimate victory, but it can result in some very good years.

2714

The Colts cut a DB yesterday, which normally wouldn’t be big news. But the cut player tweeted the following afterwards:

“Caldwell wanted to start me but it wasn’t up to him!” he wrote. Another tweet later said: “IM BLESSED!! lay off of Caldwell he’s a great coach! Peace.”

Colts owner Jim Irsay responded with his own tweets, denying that Caldwell isn’t making those decisions.

But it does raise some questions about what is going on in Indy right now. Either Caldwell really doesn’t have that much say or he lied/mislead a player about why he was being cut and not played.

2715

Or a player misunderstood some let-you-down-easy “I’d love to keep you around, but…” phrases.

2716

Yup. That’s why Tom Brady was a slam dunk pick this year.

2717

So I was checking the local TV schedule to see what games are being shown on Sunday. And we get the Titans again. I understand that someone thinks Seahawk fans want to see what Hasselbeck and (potentially) Locker are up to, but do we really need to see them every week?

2718

“Hey, Seattle fans! Your team sucks! See what your old flame is doing with his new arm candy!”

2719

I get the stupid Charger/Dolphin game instead of the at least potentially exciting Raider/Patriot game, or even the Bronco/Packers game. Geez there are not many Charger fans in LA but that will never deter CBS. The Chargers are much more popular in Orange County, which makes sense given the proximity.

2720

Which is exactly why the LA market is getting the Chargers game – because Orange County is part of that market.