Coach Tuesday

No excuse for the Bengals’ D to play this poorly.

Puppy Bowl

Cody Ford's NFL career is on life support. He is FAILING.

Bills have the easiest remaining schedule in the league per Football Outsiders.

No matter what happens, Peter King will write an article.

Didn’t the Texans trade for Tunsil after his fifth year option was picked up?

Same poster.

Not even in the top five for the OP.

I know that - but my point is he’s still comparing two consecutive seasons in each “set,” looking for correlation. If you read the study linked to above, the author basically concludes that forcing interceptions and fumbles is close to random, too, which makes little sense. Also, is he counting fumbles out of bounds as “recoveries” by the offense? If so that will skew the results. To do the study right I think you’d want to exclude those, perhaps by only measuring recoveries of fumbles by the quarterback (since they tend to occur toward the middle of the field/in bounds more often than not).

I’ve read that article before, but I went back and read it more closely tonight after you linked to it. I’m no statistician but it strikes me as problematic. If I understand correctly what he’s done, he’s measured teams over two-year periods to look for correlation between what he calls “drive rate” (which appears to be some kind of accumulation of points, yards and turnovers per drive) and measured each to test whether forced turnovers correlate to drive rate. He concludes that the variance/unpredictability of defensive turnovers between years 1 and 2 demonstrates that turnovers are “random,” because “if a particular measure closely represents actual ability, then that stat will hold relatively consistent from one year to the next.” The data set may be flawed - 2 years is both too short, in that there may not be enough turnovers to measure correlation, and too long, in that - as he notes - teams change out players every year. But also, I just don’t understand how he gets to his conclusion that a high variance from year 1 to year 2 means it’s random. There could be a multitude of factors explaining the discrepancy; there could be some additional factor he’s not accounting for, etc. He never fully explains it other than to say, “by far the least predictable of these drive rate stats is the defensive turnover per drive rate. This suggests that defenses have relatively little persistent ability to force turnovers.” Does it? Couldn’t it mean that defenses that fail to produce turnovers might excel at other things resulting in “successful” drive rates (however he’s measuring it), such as keeping the play in front of them and making tackles (Jauron Ball)? Maybe forcing and recovering fumbles is really hard, and a great defense that fails to force a fumble on second down is able to get a drive-ending sack on third down instead. We need more information and analysis than what he’s put forth in this article. And finally, he concludes by remarking, “Whether there are some individual players with a special ability to force turnovers significantly above average rates would be an interesting subject for further study.” Note that if this is a possibility, the converse is also possible: perhaps there are some individual players with a below-average ability to cause turnovers. Which brings us full-circle…

Lost in all of this Edmunds discussion is the fact that Milano through three games is playing at All Pro level.

The above ^^ is what YOU SAID. Now you're moving the goalpost. Why don't you just admit you didn't watch the clip being discussed? Because if you had you would never have called it an example of "a MLB blanketing his coverage like he was a Tre White clone." HE LITERALLY TAKES TWO STEPS TO HIS LEFT TO DISRUPT A PASSING LANE. Please. There are reasonable bases to defend Edmunds' play, and then there's hyperbole and outright mythology.

Allen dismantled their entire defensive strategy. It must be disheartening to be a WFT coach today.

What? You realize teams practice fumble recoveries right? Whether a ball bounces towards or away from the offense is a random event that, over the course of a season (or several), should even out. But when it bounces toward the defense, WHO recovers it on that defense is not completely random, no. Some players have a knack for being around the ball, which starts with processing where the ball is on the field - something Milano excels at and Edmunds does not.

He did not “blanket” anything. They were coached yesterday to take away Heineken Light’s first read. Edmunds on that play is shading to the inside bracket of the first read. He literally takes like three steps to his left. Tre White clone? It’s hardly an example of a game-changing play, it’s just good well-coached team defense. Meanwhile Milano recovered another fumble yesterday…

They used Young’s speed against him and he seemed unable to counter.

The Bills had a good plan for him - they realized Williams couldn’t match up with him athletically but also realized he rushes the same way every time, so they seemed to scheme for Williams to let him rush deep and push him past Josh, who would simply step up and to the right past Young, over and over again. Washington never countered this.

I agree, you can watch it here: Not sure what else he’s supposed to do, he locks onto his first read too often but he’s mostly delivering catchable balls from a very muddy pocket. His right tackle is basically a pylon and his receivers have two left hands. Can’t judge the guy from what they’ve surrounded him with.

I could watch today’s game on repeat.

When you hire good people it makes the bad employees stick out like sore thumbs. Frazier and Daboll illuminate the below-average nature of Heath Farwell. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that position upgraded in the offseason.

Edmunds is EXACTLY the kind of player the Patriots would have traded away for premium picks during the Brady years - high potential but too expensive and too easy to replace. I don't know that Beane will have the stones to trade Edmunds to some desperate franchise like the Giants or Cardinals for a 1st but that would be highly preferable to paying a big money extension for a player who too rarely makes a difference.

As in beat poetry?

It’s weird then that the Bills’ coaches have been saying the same things - that Edmunds needs to start making more big plays. They must not understand their own defense. 🧐

What I took from this? Darryl Williams had one of the worst games I’ve ever seen by an offensive lineman - just an absolute disgrace of a performance and he deserves to be benched if he does that again. Josh is better at handling pressure from his left than his right, it seems, and Williams was so bad - atrociously bad - Allen never got comfortable enough to set his feet in the pocket. Again: Darryl Williams has been a disgrace this season and I suspect they’re already regretting that signing. I’m furious after watching those replays.