dave mcbride

Tell that to Jonathan Taylor. The Indy line was good, but his elite abilities led to him creating a ton of yardage on his own too in that game.

Some tidbits on Milano: First, in terms of passer rating against defensive players, he was 13th best in the entire NFL last season, and that includes all CBs and safeties: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/defense_advanced.htm. QBs had only a 62.6 rating against him (sort the page by passer rating). Secondly, in PFR's equivalent of WAR/VORP for the NFL -- AV (approximate value) -- Milano was rated a 19 last season. That was third overall: Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts tied for first at 20, and Milano was tied for third at 19 with Mahomes. Bottom line: he is ELITE. Finally, https://theathletic.com/4727127/2023/07/28/nfl-draft-franchise-defensive-players/ (great piece overall, but paywalled; I'm including the bit on Milano): 'Let’s finish with the second level of defense: linebackers and slot defenders. On the former, what does it take to succeed at that position in the modern game? On the latter, what kind of nickel defender do you prefer: a third corner, safety or off-ball linebacker? Baumgardner: We don’t have a Luke Kuechly playing right now, I don’t think. Closest to that would be San Francisco 49ers LB Fred Warner — no disrespect to Bobby Wagner, who is still getting it done. Another guy I love is Bills standout Matt Milano. The thing all these guys have in common is that they are coverage assets. It’s so hard to find guys who can take the physical burden you’re asking in the box while maintaining stamina and focus to be functional coverage players. This position, to me, is as mental as any on the field. Its offensive counterpart today is more tight end than running back. There’s a lot going on, so on top of being athletic enough, the player has to be insanely dependable from an IQ standpoint.'

Paywalled, but very good if you have access. They do it over the course of a bunch of articles (defense, qb, etc.). I feel like the Bills follow this logic pretty closely, with the exception being that Spencer Brown is too tall for their ideal OT. And judging from his game, I think they are right to worry about players of that height. good stuff about TEs, the importance of interior line versatility, X and Z receivers, and RBs. https://theathletic.com/4717969/2023/07/26/nfl-draft-franchise-offensive-players/ ‘What are your physical preferences for an offensive tackle, and what do you want from athletic and mental standpoints? Lee: I’m a devotee of the bigger-faster-stronger model — physical archetypes exist at certain positions for good reason. If you don’t clear 6-foot-4, I’m placing an asterisk by your file (and if you’re 6-8, I’m worried, too). If your arm length is shorter than 33.5 inches, you better have some special athletic traits and film, otherwise I’ll be expecting you to play guard in the NFL. I’m a bit more forgiving with weight thresholds, because I’m measuring it against your explosiveness and agility scores. If you clear 305 pounds, it’s all good with me. … Baumgardner: Ideally, I’d like an OT to have 34-inch arms but 33 is an acceptable floor. Anything below 33 would require some type of elite agility/burst combination and/or an elite football IQ. My height floor would be 6-4 and — like Diante — anything above 6-7 makes me nervous.’ EDIT: For the coaching article, I thought this was interesting given that the Bills drafted Terrel Bernard (Baylor) in the third round last year: ‘One more, from the college ranks: Dave Aranda at Baylor. We know that schematically, much of his playbook is inspired by the kind of 3-4 defense we’re seeing increase in popularity. He also aided in the development of several NFL players, many being linebackers he worked with directly. His offense at Baylor mixes the college-style spread with some professional passing concepts. He’s maximized his roster and improved every program he’s been at. It’s still a bit early in Aranda’s career to make this big a leap, but expect his name to generate more and more interest in the coming years.’ https://theathletic.com/4681445/2023/07/17/nfl-ownership-franchise-head-coach-selection/

Who were the Giants’ receivers last season again? A fair argument could be made that they had the least talented receiving corps in the league. His fifth year hasn’t started yet either. More generally, C.B., you strike me as a death-or-glory sort of evaluator when it comes to QBs — they’re either great or suck. You said this about Derek Carr for years. You say it about Tannehill. I think you said it about Jimmy G too. Maybe Cousins as well. Yet the truth is that the world is mostly shades of gray rather than black and white, and guys like these are all decent-but-not-elite QBs who on average tend to win more than they lose. They’re in that range of 12-18 in terms of ranking — ie, not horrible and definitely more valuable than any one particular running back. And most of these guys got better over time because of experience. Also, they have all been better than the QBs the Bills trotted out from the 2000 benching of Flutie to the arrival of Josh Allen.

Good post. They do have better weapons this season and a better overall roster, so we’ll see who he really is this year. People do get better as they get more experience. Also, with regard to his arm, it’s actually pretty decent. It’s not Allen-level, but it’s Tua/Tannehill/Goff level. (Goff, btw, had a sneakily good season last year.) He is widely regarded as a good athlete with excellent size.

I personally think Jones is on a path to be a better-than-average QB. He has gotten better over time and had the lowest interception rate in the NFL last season to go along with a 67.2 percent completion rate and 22 total TDs. His QBR of 60.8 was pretty strong too, assuming people put stock in that (his passer rating was 92.5, which was above average -- his rating-plus was 104, with 100 being league average). The Giants' receiving corps was also abjectly terrible last season.

In 2021, he was sixth in the NFL in terms of passer rating of opposing QBs against him -- 55.8 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/defense_advanced.htm). In 2022, the rating against him was 86.1, which was a little above average (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/defense_advanced.htm). In 2020, his rookie season, he was at 85.8, which was in the top third of the league (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2020/defense_advanced.htm). Bottom line: he's a good player who can make game changing plays. He does get beat, but so does everyone who plays CB in the NFL. He's without question above average. Jordan Poyer was second in the league in 2021 and eighth in 2022. Pretty darn impressive given how banged up he was last season.

And also a very low positional franchise tag number as a consequence.

I think this might explain the appeal of Evans to the Bills: "Awesome ball security; no fumbles in his 2019 tape" (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2883751-darrynton-evans-nfl-draft-2020-scouting-report-for-tennessee-titans-pick). The Bills really RB prioritize ball security and punish backs with a propensity to fumble. Cook fumbled on his first play, was relegated to the bench for a while, and didn't fumble again last season. TJ Yeldon fumbled inside the red zone a couple of years ago and basically disappeared for a long stretch. There is a common theme in the guys the Bills have brought in this offseason to play RB: Harris, who has a 0.6 percent career fumble rate, and Murray, who has a 0.58 percent career fumble rate. Murray's fumble rate from 2017-2022 over 1,069 touches was 0.28 percent. Those are very low rates. Singletary's career fumble rate is 1.6 percent. Melvin Gordon's is 1.4 percent, and I've always regarded him as an inveterate fumbler. Incidentally, OJ Simpson's career fumble rate was a sky-high 2.4 percent.

I know the number don’t show it, but I actually watch the games. While Jacobs is a good back, Barkley strikes me as twice as talented as him, and I don’t even think it’s debatable. Which tells me … that money should be spent on the offensive line.

Worst rule in the history of baseball. And I say this as a Yankees fan.

I’d be much more interested in DVOA rankings. Easy enough to put that material together.

Also a fumbling machine -- 11 fumbles on 247 total touches over his career and 3 times on 36 touches last season (a sky-high 8.3 percent rate). In comparison, Diggs has 8 total fumbles on 734 touches and Beasley has 6 fumbles on 567 touches. Newsflash: coaches care a LOT about fumbling and it's one of those semi-hidden stats that can drive decisions.

?? - The Bills sacked Cousins four times and had 10 total hits on the QB!

Well, Aaron Donald is getting $31.7 milion per year (https://overthecap.com/player/aaron-donald/2952), at least on paper, so it's not crazy. Donald is better, but only by a little bit. Chris Jones is for my money the second best DT in the league. He's unblockable.

The Royals have had 4 winning seasons following the strike year of 1994. They have also had 6 seasons with 100 or more losses. That is truly terrible. The Pirates are in the same boat - 4 winning seasons since 1993. I grew up a Pirates fan and they are the only team I have ever abandoned. That's because it came out that during all of the losing, the Pirates were in fact making a lot of money despite ownership's claims that they were losing money. I found that unforgiveable. They were literally profitable and weren't willing to spend anything to try and build a contender. So I became a Yankees fan (partly because I lived in NYC by this point because my son has been a big Yankees fan since he was little).

Now we know that all of Harty's fumbles/muffs came on ST plays, we can do the math: 9 fumbles on 193 touches (152 returns plus 41 fair catches: https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/player-stat/punt-return-faircatches?season_id=20). That's a 4.7 percent fumble rate, which is awfully high. It basically works to a fumble on a special teams play ever couple of games (assuming 4-5 kickoff opportunities and 5 or punt return opportunities).

Total fumbles -- both those lost and those recovered. Once a fumble occurs, it is essentially a crapshoot -- close to a 50/50 flip of the coin -- with regard to who recovers. No, he was hurt in New Orleans on Thanksgiving night.

It was really all about the presence or absence of Bob Sanders for that defense. He played in only four games that season, and when he came back for the playoff run they transformed immediately into an elite defense because he was THAT good at that particular point in his career. He played in all of the playoff games, and in those games, they gave up 8, 6, 27, and 10 points (the Pats had an INT return for a TD to get 7 points in the AFC championship game, and their offense scored 27; the Bear had a kickoff return for a TD in the SB and otherwise only scored 10 points). Over the course of the playoffs, the defense allowed an average of 12.75 points. Injuries were the real reason there defense was so bad. When the key defensive player got healthy, they became a lot better. The next season (2007), he was the AP Defensive Player of the Year and the Colts defense was ranked #1 overall.

He had 143 returns over the course of 2019-2021 -- 74 punt returns and 69 kickoff returns. Just an fyi. He also fumbled 8 times over those three seasons, although it's not clear whether they came on ST plays or scrimmage plays. He had 77 touches from scrimmage between 2019-2021. So, 8 fumbles on 220 total touches from 2019-2021, which is 3.6 percent. That's very high. In 2022, he had 1 fumble on 11 total touches (ST and from scrimmage). That's a 9 percent fumble rate, although the sample size is way too low. Over the four seasons, he's fumbled at a 3.9 percent rate (9 fumbles over 231 touches). Not good. Over the course of his career, McKenzie has fumbled 10 times on 296 total touches, which is 3.37 percent. However, if you take out his first season for Denver, in which he fumbled a ridiculous 6 times on 29 total touches (24 returns and 5 catches/runs), he has fumbled 4 times on 267 touches -- a respectable 1.4 percent rate. A couple of takeaways: McKenzie's propensity to fumble is greatly exaggerated if you take away that rookie season in Denver, and Harty truly is a fumbling machine.

This is an awesome thread idea. I think that you should do this every year going forward, and you have to do it right on the cusp of training camp. That's because you really only get a true picture of someone over the course of an offseason. Other award ideas: angriest and most reactive poster during gameday threads. Requirement: at least five blow-ups over bad plays (fire whoever, cut his ass, so-and-so sucks, this effing team is on course for 8-9, etc. etc.) *on average* during the gameday threads in which said poster participates. There are a LOT of competitive candidates for this one! Also: poster who is most gullible about click-bait news stories that put forth trade/internal team controversy etc. rumors based on virtually nothing and who compulsively starts threads about them. Anyway, if you do this long enough, we could even have a preseason fantasy league draft of posters based on the awards scheme that gets handed down in late July. The points are then calculated a year later, bearing in mind that the stretch run performance (i.e., the offseason) matters a lot in the ultimate evaluation. I also think it only works if you get to be the sole judge (which means you can't get awards yourself, but you make up for that fact by getting to play god).

Thought you'd appreciate this quote from David Ignatius in a Washington Post column from the other day: "An Israeli friend remarked the other day that optimists and pessimists die the same way, but optimists live better." Embrace that line! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/18/ukraine-war-west-gloom/

I think you're wrong. The TN passing game got a lot better after he arrived. It's a fact. And playing under Adam Gase does no QB favors whose name isn't Payton Manning. Also, he was objectively an above-average passer his final two years in Miami, with an adjusted passer rating above league average both years. Derrick Henry is a very good RB. I'm not arguing that. But he doesn't win you games. Competent-to-good QB play does, and despite the misinformed mockery of Tannehill that has populated this board for years upon years, he's objectively a pretty good QB. He's not as good as Josh Allen, obviously, but he's probably the best QB TN has had in team history (and I include McNair). The only comparable season to Tannehill's best seasons was McNair's MVP season in 2003. And when I see TN vs the Bills over the Henry years, I assume that we can beat them without Tannehill (Mariota, etc.) Henry but struggle against Tannehill, who is a great play action passer (a genuine skill). In 2018 and 2019, the Bills played Mariota twice. They won 13-12 and 14-7. In 2020 and 2021 vs Tannehill, they lost 42-16 and 34-31. In other words, the scoreboard talks, and buls**t walks.

Good points. I think Tannehill is a better than average QB when healthy, but that's JMO. The larger issue, which you raise, is that if RBs want to change things, they should be lobbying the league to get rid of the newer rules protecting QBs and allowing receivers to run wild because of increased enforcement of defensive holding/interference. That's why they're less valuable now. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, the league-average passer rating, which focuses on passing game efficiency, was in the mid 70s (it was 74 in 1981), and now it's in the high 80s. The vast improvement in passing game efficiency across the league made passing far more valuable because it produces a lot more yards per play on average (7 as opposed to around 4.3). The chance of those changes happening, of course, are nil.