The case for the "Bad Weather" QB.

[SouthernMan]

FWIW - I always think the "bad weather" factor is soooo overrated. As an example, the Bills play1 game after November 17 in Buffalo. Every year, there are maybe 3 games played in Buffalo within the last 6 or 7 weeks. Is it assumed that all of those will have horrible conditions? I can remember a lot of December games in recent years when the game announcers commented how "unseasonably warm (or mild) the temps in Buffalo were. The blustery wintery games are burned into our memories as if they're far more frequent than games when there were more tolerable weather conditions. Yes, I don't deny that there are and have been some arctic-like conditions at Bills homes games, but I don't thing they're nearly as frequent as the common perception suggests. Teams like Miami, Atlanta, Oakland, etc have had to endure plenty of cold weather games as well. I'm not going to bother researching all the weather statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, Miami plays maybe 1 less "bad weather" game than the Bills. What about those pre-season and early season games in places like Tampa, Miami, Carolina, etc when it's 88 degrees and 90% humidity. Is that really preferable to the 300 lb lineman who's sucking oxygen on the sidelines? Again, don't have stats in hand, but it seems to me that last season there was more snow and foul weather at games for the Patriots, Steelers, Jets, Giants, and all the others along the Atlantic coast. Denver has their share, and it can come anytime beginning in October. All things being equal, If it came down to having an overall inferior QB with a better arm, I'll take the superior QB who can win games in the early part of the season. Whatever team and QB they play in December will be subjected to the same weather conditions.

[Leelee Phoenix]

QB, CB, LB, OL....sunshine, rain, snow...doesn't really matter does it?

No, it doesn't. The only weather that's a significant hindrance is wind or a field with bad footing, and that will affect all players. And the amount of true "bad weather games" in Buffalo are so few that it's of no concern.

 

Blabbing about weather is filler for TV/radio personalities.

Edited May 4, 2013 by Leelee Phoenix

[KDIGGZ]

 

If I recall, however, weren't you saying that you wanted a guy who already proved he could play in cold weather? I could be wrong.

I mentioned that it was good to have that experience and it was good to have that tape for the scouts to examine vs simply not knowing since playing in inclement weather is definitely a top consideration when picking a qb. Someone in the thread said I was trying to say because Nassib was from the north that he was better than other qb's and that simply wasn't the case. I was just saying that it was good that he has played in it and the scouts can use that info to determine whether or not he will be a good bad weather qb or not. From the article I feel confident that the coaches highly considered this factor and determined that Manuel will be able to handle the elements.

[Orton's Arm]

You have some valid points about the Bills "lovin' them some sleepers", drafting guys (esp. smaller school/smaller program guys) several rounds above where the overall consensus had them, and getting skunked on talent.

 

I think there may be a bit of misunderstanding of the role of BLESTO and National and the quality of the information that leaks, however. BLESTO and National are both scouting combines to which individual teams subscribe. The subscriber teams pay a fee and provide a scout, who is usually the most junior, least established scout on the team. These guys put together profiles of UNDERCLASSMEN which are presented at meetings AFTER THE DRAFT to serve as a starting point for the next year's draft evaluation. The fundamental purpose as I understand it, is to help the subscribing teams winnow through the thousands of players across the country to help them identify the top 300-400 players for next year's draft evaluation process - the candidates that are "on the radar" to become the 250 players who will be drafted, and who merit further attention from the individual team's top individual scouts and who will be invited to the following year's pre-draft scouting combine event:

"As a tool, the organizations fill a need by presenting a starting point for the twelve month cycle based on information that would be hard to keep secret. General managers are often quoted as saying the medical and interview aspects of the combine event are more important than the times, which at that point are common knowledge."

 

BLESTO and National, as far as I know, do not put together a final draft evaluation board that can be or should be regarded as more definitive talent evaluation than an individual team's board - which depends entirely on the quality of the individual team's scouts.

 

It's correct that media pundits draw their information from BLESTO and National lists, public information such as combine times, and "inside information" harvested from their contacts within each team - note that obviously such "inside information" pre-draft can represent either truth or disinformation.

 

Does it make you feel more positive about the quality of BLESTO's talent evaluation to learn in May 2012, they hired Modrak as National Scouting Director?

 

I think the bottom line on this year's "top QB prospects" is that there WAS no national consensus, except on the point that the class as a whole lacked a clear Newton/Luck/RGIII type front-runner, and all of the QB candidates were perceived as having strengths and weaknesses. Their rank thus depends on the value each team places on these qualities: strong arm? read option capability? experience in a pro-style offense? intelligence? intangibles? This was reflected in the LACK of consensus in QB rankings. We have the functional answer for several teams who voted "none of the above" (eg, Chiefs, Raiders, Cards), and the Bills who voted "trade down, bottom half of the first, we'll take a flier on the guy we like best".

 

The players that bother me more in the Bills draft as flying against consensus evaluation were players like Marquise Goodwin in the 3rd and Jonathan Meeks in the 5th, both of whom fit the Bills habitual draft behavior of ignoring consensus about these less-scouted later-round players where the combine and BLESTO info gets weighted more heavily by all teams*, and instead going for the "dark horse".

 

*all teams who subscribe, that is

 

Good post, and good link to the article about BLESTO and National. I also agree with you that, in theory, the Bills should be better able to evaluate talent than national scouting services which consist largely of junior scouts or castoffs such as Tom Modrak. But I also know that in practice, when the Bills have gone against conventional wisdom (as defined in large part by such organizations), it's backfired.

 

I don't know for certain why this is. Maybe it's because whatever process the Bills use to evaluate players is worse than that used by junior scouts. For example: studies have shown there is zero correlation between how well someone does on a job interview and how well that person later performs in the workforce. Part of that may be because people who do terribly on job interviews don't get hired in the first place, so you only have workplace performance data on those who achieved some minimum threshold level. But the other part is that job interviews are not necessarily a good way of estimating future performance.

 

In order to increase the emphasis on one factor in player evaluation, you have to de-emphasize other factors. For example: suppose team A cared only about 40 times, and based 100% of their player grade only on that. Someone decides that's too narrow, so they add agility drills and bench press to their player evaluations. Now 40 times represent only 1/3 of a player's total score.

 

Every time you add in an additional measurement, you dilute the measurements you already have. If you have five measurement tools which collectively work well, and if you dilute those with another five which work poorly, then due to this dilution effect your player evaluations will be less accurate based on all ten factors than they would have been with the five meaningful ones. It's possible the BLESTO and National people are focusing on a comparatively small, but reasonably useful, set of factors to evaluate. It's also possible that the Bills are diluting their emphasis on those useful factors by paying too much attention to other, less meaningful indicators of future player performance.

 

That, at least, is one possible explanation as to why the Bills have been burned every time they've tried to defy conventional wisdom. Other explanations might be devised.

[Kelly the Dog]

I mentioned that it was good to have that experience and it was good to have that tape for the scouts to examine vs simply not knowing since playing in inclement weather is definitely a top consideration when picking a qb. Someone in the thread said I was trying to say because Nassib was from the north that he was better than other qb's and that simply wasn't the case. I was just saying that it was good that he has played in it and the scouts can use that info to determine whether or not he will be a good bad weather qb or not. From the article I feel confident that the coaches highly considered this factor and determined that Manuel will be able to handle the elements.

Yup. There were two dozen factors of course but that was one of them. They came right out and said it. More of a "would he be able to" versus a "has he done it well" idea, but it surely was a factor.

[John from Riverside]

I think that day where they had the bad weather and high winds and EJ wanted to throw for the bills anyway went a LOOOONG way. When you look at it EJ Manuel has not shied away from any opportunity to prove his worth.......he competed in the senior bowl......he said said lets do it the high wind situation when he could have said no.....he stepped up at the combine....

 

He is a gamer....plain and simple

[3rdnlng]

FWIW - I always think the "bad weather" factor is soooo overrated. As an example, the Bills play1 game after November 17 in Buffalo. Every year, there are maybe 3 games played in Buffalo within the last 6 or 7 weeks. Is it assumed that all of those will have horrible conditions? I can remember a lot of December games in recent years when the game announcers commented how "unseasonably warm (or mild) the temps in Buffalo were. The blustery wintery games are burned into our memories as if they're far more frequent than games when there were more tolerable weather conditions. Yes, I don't deny that there are and have been some arctic-like conditions at Bills homes games, but I don't thing they're nearly as frequent as the common perception suggests. Teams like Miami, Atlanta, Oakland, etc have had to endure plenty of cold weather games as well. I'm not going to bother researching all the weather statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, Miami plays maybe 1 less "bad weather" game than the Bills. What about those pre-season and early season games in places like Tampa, Miami, Carolina, etc when it's 88 degrees and 90% humidity. Is that really preferable to the 300 lb lineman who's sucking oxygen on the sidelines? Again, don't have stats in hand, but it seems to me that last season there was more snow and foul weather at games for the Patriots, Steelers, Jets, Giants, and all the others along the Atlantic coast. Denver has their share, and it can come anytime beginning in October. All things being equal, If it came down to having an overall inferior QB with a better arm, I'll take the superior QB who can win games in the early part of the season. Whatever team and QB they play in December will be subjected to the same weather conditions.

 

I want my quarterback to be able to play in those bad weather games at home in January to get to the good weather game in February.

[Mr. WEO]

Where in that article does Marrone or Buddy say anything about EJ and bad weather? It's an article about why the Ravens picked Flacco

[Kelly the Dog]

Where in that article does Marrone or Buddy say anything about EJ and bad weather? It's an article about why the Ravens picked Flacco

I think Marrone, Whaley, and Nix, during interviews last week, said that one of the reasons they liked and took EJ was because they went back and looked at what the QBs that have done well late in the year in inclement weather had in common, and it was a strong arm and big hands, which EJ had, plus they said the day that they worked out EJ was windy and rainy and he threw the ball well in the inclement weather.

 

Here's one that mentions it.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000165659/article/buffalo-bills-like-ej-manuels-hands-badweather-play

 

I think the Whaley talk with the QB Club mentions it.

 

This one has Nix mentioning it.

http://www.wkbw.com/sports/Bills-Nix-Marrone-talk-about-addition-of-EJ-Manuel-204794771.html

Edited May 4, 2013 by Kelly the Dog

[Mr. WEO]

I think Marrone, Whaley, and Nix, during interviews last week, said that one of the reasons they liked and took EJ was because they went back and looked at what the QBs that have done well late in the year in inclement weather had in common, and it was a strong arm and big hands, which EJ had, plus they said the day that they worked out EJ was windy and rainy and he threw the ball well in the inclement weather.

 

Here's one that mentions it.

http://www.nfl.com/n...badweather-play

 

I think the Whaley talk with the QB Club mentions it.

 

This one has Nix mentioning it.

http://www.wkbw.com/...-204794771.html

 

Thanks.

 

I agree that the bad weather angle has to be way down on the list. There have been so few really bad weather games played at the Ralph the past 3 years or so. It's more of a cliche.

[SouthernMan]

I want my quarterback to be able to play in those bad weather games at home in January to get to the good weather game in February.

My point is that if an inferior QB translates to 2 less wins, that's usually enough to negate the home field January games anyway, and as previous stated, if they do get a home game in January, both QBs will be playing under the same conditions. If he's superior and a good "bad-weather" QB, all the better, but I wouldn't make that the deciding factor. There are too many other elements of quarterbacking that are the difference between and top tier QB and a journeyman. I believe in the case of EJ Manuel, the Bills think he'll be a better presence on the field in any conditions, and the fact that he has the hands and arm to make plays in windy conditions is an added bonus. If you were to calculate the windy games and the instances when a long ball is required in those matches, the percentage is probably well less than 5% of all plays the QB has to make for an entire season - not enough for the "bad-weather" QB factor to be the make or break decider.