y2zipper

Since passing efficiency is the #1 stat that correlates with winning in the regular season, Coaching records and situations should be judged based on QB play for context. For context, McDermott hasn't had better than the 20th most efficient passing offense (2017) and they've ranked 32nd and 26th in Allen's 2 years here. At that level of quarterbacking, Buffalo is 25-23 with 2 playoff appearances. I don't expect the team to compete for super bowls unless the QB play gets better and in a hurry, but the extension is well warranted because McDermott is punching above the QB weight class. More simply put, he gets the most out of the tram, they play hard and have a great defense. This isn't difficult. I've always compared the performance to pre-Wilson Seattle, though McDermott's performance is actually a little better than that.

It's hard to pass judgement on players that opt out because high-risk people have a different set of math, but Sanders is right in that if you're an NFL player that shows your team they don't need you, you could end up out of a job.

Something that I really like about what Buffalo does is that they constantly look for offensive linemen who have starting experience at the end of free agency. It's how they got feliciano edits how they got Spain and they did another signing earlier this year and now Winters. It is so hard to keep five offensive lineman that can play at a starting level healthy, if this philosophy makes sense and pays dividends.

I'm not as pessimistic on MLB and I think ultimately baseball will make it, but I don't think every team will play exactly 60 games. The league manages postponements and cancellations of games due to weather a lot. Postponing a team because of positive tests and shuffling games around is going to happen but I think MLB makes it through the regular year and that teams will take it more seriously now that there's been an outbreak. NBA is in a bubble right now and showing that model to work. It'll be more interesting to see how NBA handles next year with more teams coming in given that this season is going to finish into next season. The NFL has the luxury of going "Next Man Up" provided that a bunch of starting quarterbacks don't test positive. The harder adjust for the NFL is what happens if they have to cancel or postpone a game because of an outbreak with games only played once per week.

I think if anything undrafted free agents are probably go in because veterans are not being there creates more opportunities. the league is 70% black, has a lot of obesity on the offensive and defensive lines, and the players union specifically negotiated an opt-out clause. those things tell me that there's going to be players that opt out. The players also generally distrust that the league has an interest in player safety. The profile of a veteran player that's already made their money in that doesn't play for a contending team it's probably the profile with somebody that's going to opt out. In particular with the New England Patriots, they're going through a season for the first time in 20 years where Bill belichick's sales pitch have come here and win the super bowl even though it's harder to play for us than anybody else doesn't exist. With regards to anybody immunocompromised I would make the argument that they should opt out just because there's so much playing through injury that already happened in the NFL that somebody is bound to play through covid-19 symptoms.

Without a bubble, the next man up mentality becomes more important than ever across team sports. At some outbreak point, we will see leagues shut down but I like others appreciate them trying. Professional wrestling, boxing and UFC have all been back for awhile. We've seen fights get called off and positive tests but UFC in particular has been very successful.

The school "reopening" debate issue is largely based on the impracticality of implementing risk-mitigation protocols due to lack of infastructure, funding, and how teacher-dependant school is.

Every first round pick is at least a cheap starter for 3-5 years and a shot an all-pro if a team drafts competently. If you're not hitting on first rounders you don't stay employed. Football has talent abundance and safety isn't a critical position that's going to win or lose Seattle a Super Bowl. If Seattle traded multiple first-round picks in an effort to beef up their pass rush or their bad protection for Wilson, I would feel different about it. The Jets did well here. If you can get multiple picks for any non QB/pass protector/pass rusher it's probably worthwhile to make a trade.

What jumps off the screen here was how bad this draft class actually was. From what I remember there were about 22 first round grades from some evaluators and expected, this was a bad class. At the time this went heavily into Buffalo's decision to move the pick. I'm not surprised at all that Winston failed the way he did but I thought Mariotta would be better.

What's good for the bottom line changed, which is why the NFL is changing its stance now. Execs opened up about wanting to sign Kaep. Kaep didn't get a job because he wasn't a good enough player to justify the 20% projected loss in revenue that a team was going to face by signing him. That takes money out of everyone's pocket and nobody at that time was going to be the owner to do it.

I think he's way too high on Tennessee and the Raiders, and I like what the raiders did this offseason. The take on Buffalo is fair here. There are expectations, and Allen has to be way better this year.

If I could trade Allen for Dak I'd do that in 5 seconds and not look back.

Yeah the hope here is that AJ and Phillips beat out Star and Murphy for the majority of snaps with Oliver and Hughes on the line. With Clowney I'm not sure he's good enough where I'd want to bring him in.

There are some wonky things to me about the projections here. I think New England is way too high but outside of that the top ten is okay. I also think that Green Bay, Minnesota and Houston are a better set of teams than the Rams. Houston in particular at 24 is absurdly low for a team that's as well-coached as they are and for a team that's going to get superstar play out of Watson.

A lot of that is also bad luck too. The Cowboys should progress to the mean in one score game record and their defense should get more turnovers just on random variance. Dak's efficiency is good and has never particularly swung based on players on lot off the field and he's better than average against the blitz. What did change in 2019 is that Dallas asked him to throw a lot more. It's the opposite end of the spectrum as to why New England won't win as much as they did last season. One thing that's fairly remarkable about Buffalo's year is that random variance didn't particularly alter what they did. Buffalo needs better QB play to progress.

Dalton and Newton aren't NFL starters at this point. Those two players haven't been above-average quarterbacks for 5 years and only did so for one season each. I don't understand what people are looking at when they think Dalton or Newton can play. They can't. The NFL has also chosen the likes of Nick Foles, Stidham, Hoyer, and Fromm over these two. Tennessee reset the market already when they gave Tannehill 29 per, and the market's bi-modal. I'd argue on ability that Prescott is 6 million a year better than him and Prescott is 5 years younger. Prescott is also at least a decade younger than Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Big Ben, and is 5 years younger than Wilson. The deal really pays off in the NFC in 2-3 years if it gets done. The impact of the pandemic and what happens if the cap decreases is pretty interesting, but I don't the Cowboys' issues have to do with Prescott or his play. The potential cap issue for Dallas is that they probably have too much money tied up in Elliott, especially considering that Pollard outproduced him at RB last season and Prescott's production doesn't change with Elliott on or off the field. That'd be the player I'd look to to fix the cap issues.

The idea that Dalton is some kind of leverage is absurd if the Cowboys actually want to compete but would fit with the idea that Jerry doesn't know what he's doing. Of Dak really wanted to bring that point home he could hold out but the fact that he won't is part of the reason you do a deal with him. The current squabble is over a 5th year. Dak wants another bite at free agency going into his age 30 season or wants Dallas to pay a premium for that year.

The Patriots dynasty has warped people's expectations, and even they went 11 years between Super Bowl wins. A lot of quarterbacks only win one because that's the going rate if you get 10 years of superstar play thanks to contract values, salary caps and because in a one-game playoff format that's now going to be expanded further, actually winning the Lombardi is more a product of catching lightning at the right time than it is about consistently being the best team in the league. This is the design of the NFL. In the 2010's, these 5 teams have the best records: Patriots Packers Steelers Saints Seahawks 3 of these teams won Super Bowls during the decade, and the Saints and Steelers won in 2009 and 2008 respectively. Excluding New England, these teams also averaged 7 playoff appearances each between 2010 and 2020 and one Super Bowl Appearance each (but Seattle got there twice and New Orleans got 0 Super Bowl Appearances). What this shows is that it isn't really possible to build an NFL team past the point where you're getting to the playoffs consistently. What these teams also have in common is that they've gotten superstar quarterback play and have been well-coached. With Bradey out, New England is probably done, and New Orleans, Green Bay and Pittsburgh are on the back end of theirs with aging quarterbacks. Looking at this, I think that Baltimore and Kansas City are the next 2 obvious candidates to be good for awhile. Reid's been coaching that team well and been winning 10 games a year since 2013 and Mahomes has only been in the league 2 years. Harbaugh is also already proven in Baltimore. Outside of these 2, I'd look at Seattle, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco as teams I think will be really good for awhile because they're well-coached and have an extended period of superstar quarterback play ahead. Philadelphia fits the bill if you project Wentz healthy, and Buffalo fits the bill if Josh Allen gets better.

Overwhelmingly, NFL head coaches come from one of these positions: 1. Been an NFL head coach before. 2. Offensive coordinator. 3. Defensive coordinator. 4. Special teams coordinator. 5. College head coach. On just coordinators alone, you're looking at 60 people or so excluding special teams. If you just cut to successful units (let's say playoff experience), it's still 24 people plus college coaches and special teams coordinators for one job that most organizations want to get filled right away. "Hiring by merit" as also very subjective and the definition has moved in different directions over the years. This means NFL teams are dealing with something of an abundance in the pipeline, and this is the root cause what's being labeled as the "diversity problem." I'm not 100% sure that I agree that's in an issue considering the rarity of out-of-line hires, but I think these rule changes can't possibly hurt and that if anything, slowing down the process and having teams interview more people for more positions is mutually beneficial to teams and prospective hires. In 2018 and 2019, we saw teams move in this weird direction where anybody who had a connection to the development of a young QB or a good QB tree got a head coaching job. Freddie Kitchens, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Kliff Kingsbury and Zac Taylor were able to get jobs of this trend, but the varying degrees to which these hires did and didn't work out moved teams in the other direction this offseason and we saw teams hire either successful coordinators (Stefanski and Judge), experienced coaches (McCarthy and Rivera), and experienced college coaches (Rhule). We also saw plenty of successful coordinators not get jobs (Kansas City and Baltimore come to mind here).

Tennessee got where they got last year because Ryan Tannehill was the best QB in the league for a stretch but the postseason is closer to what Tannehill is for his first 5 years in the league. Denver also had a better defense than Tennessee last season and gets Chubb back. I can see the like for Denver here, especially at Denver.

I don't like veteran backups because the backup quarterback position isn't about whether a guy can play now. It's about hitting the next Brady. If Josh Allen stinks or gets hurt, I'd rather put Fromm in to see what he can do than play Barkley because I already know Barkley won't win games. Most veteran backups won't, otherwise they wouldn't be backups. There should also be considerable separation between the starter and backups ability unless there's an open competition. At the point where a backup QB has to play any number of games of consequence, a team's season is likely over. There are rare exceptions where a team has 2 guys that can start or doesn't know who the best guy is but it isn't normal and doesn't last long. Starting quarterbacks are expected to play 16 games. Last season, QBs that started less than 10 games for their teams (the vast majority are backups) had a total record of 31-72 across the league for every team. That's 30%, meaning that the likely records are -1-3 in 4 games. -2-4 in 6 games -2-6 to 3-5 in 8 games. -3-7 in 10 games. There's a lot of reasons for this. Mostly, backup QBs take 0 reps and don't really get a training camp, and they aren't very good to begin with or are prospects. Only 3 had winning records. Bridgewater went 5-0, but his situation was the rare one of a starter rehabbing an injury and he's now a starter. Mason Rudolph went 5-3 for Pittsburgh and was benched for ineffectiveness because he wasn't good. Drew Lock went 4-1 and is now a starter, it really had only one good game in that span.

There's a few under/over win totals I'd bet this year. I'm with you on liking Carolina at over 5.5 wins. Houston over 7.5 wins New England under 9 wins Green Bay over 9.5 wins Chicago under 8.5 wins The week 1 lines don't look that interesting to me right now though.

I think that we've already seen the high-end of what next year's Patriots could look like: the 2019 Steelers. If TL:DR, I expect the Patriots to get abysmal QB play from Hoyer and Stidham and I expect their high turnover rate on defense to regress. For all the talk of the Patriots' weapons, lack thereof, etc..., the totality of their offensive production last year was average to below average. They were 15th in total yards, 21st in yards per play, and 26th in rushing yards per attempt. The only part of their offense that was above average was Tom Brady, who produced a lot of yards. (NOTE: this was mostly on volume. Brady was 4th in the league in attempts and produced a below-average passer rating) The interception rate for Brady was also very low, as always (top ten at not throwing picks). I don't particularly see Stidham or Hoyer matching Brady's production while maintaining that low of an interception rate, and the Patriots simply don't have the rushing attack to make up the deficit in production. For example, if Hoyer/Stidham have an NFL average interception rate, that's double Brady's. For reference, last year's Pittsburgh team was 29th in yards per rushing attempt and only managed to beat Jameis Winston and Baker Mayfield in interception rate (3rd lowest). Pittsburgh and New England managed to win by having an exceptionally high and unsustainable turnover rates. The average team got turnovers 12% of the time. Pittsburgh got 19% and New England got 17% for turnover rates, and I expect both of these teams to regress some because turnover rates always change and high turnover reliant defenses are historically not sustainable. It adds up to the Patriots being a .500 team if they sustain a huge turnover rate and a 5-6 win team if they can't, unless Stidham is way better than people think.

I strongly agree here. I don't know how they let Prescott get away.

Aaron Rodgers at 36 isn't Aaron Rodgers at 26. He has a propensity to get hurt more and while he still has a lot of ability, running the complete spread system and letting him sling the rock around doesn't work for 36 year-old Rodgers like it did when Rodgers was 26. It's perfectly normal for Rodgers not to be able to see this. Green Bay saw this and hired LaFleur to help Rodgers by improving the defense and improving the rushing attack, which are exactly the right ways to extend the career of a good QB who is aging. It helped them to the tune of 7 more wins and a conference title appearance with virtually no change in Rodgers' performance as a passer. Their offensive line and defense are good, and I'd expect Green Bay to continue to be one of the best teams in the conference as long as Rodgers doesn't decline. Yes, they could use a receiver, but reports of their demise are exaggerated here. Green Bay took Love because that's where they felt the value proposition was with their pick. The top 6 Wide Receivers were off the board, the run on Offensive linemen and defensive backs was already done, and this wasn't a great class for Tight Ends or Defensive Linemen. Green Bay also has the organizational stability to take a long-term view on the draft sometimes, which is why they've been able to contend consistently for such a long time. Given the choice between reaching for a 2nd round receiver and taking a shot at a first round QB prospect, I get why they'd take Love in that spot. All that said, I really don't understand Green Bay taking a RB in the second round.