Category: Football

Strat-O-Matic

by A.J. Coltrane

Fun piece about the history of Strat-O-Matic here.

My 1979 math teacher introduced our class to Strat-O-Matic, I think using the flimsy math underpinnings of the game as justification.

If only Griese had *this* good of a season!

My 1979 Strat-O-Matic football team:

Quarterback- Bob Griese

Running Back- Archie Griffin

Full Back- Horace King

Tight End- Henry Childs

Split End- Alfred Jenkins

Flanker- Lynn Swann  (or maybe he was the Split End, and Jenkins was the Flanker)

Special Teams- Raiders (Featuring Ray Guy)

Defense- Patriots

The teacher suggested we draft a quarterback first, followed by defense.  I went along with the suggestion, as I think most of the kids did.  Drafting at the end of the first round left me a 34 year-old Bob Griese at quarterback.  I then drafted the defense — New England was absolutely league average, but was the best available.  I then drafted all of my pass-catchers,  followed by snapping up punter extraordinaire Ray Guy.

Q:  What was I missing?  A:  Any semblance of a running game.  Archie Griffin was a two-time Heisman trophy winner who never exceeded 700 yards in his seven year pro career.  This was a bad thing, since a big part of Strat-O-Matic football was (and is) correctly guessing whether your opponent intends to run or pass on the next play.

For my passing game though — I had a decrepit dink and dunk quarterback throwing to a trio of deep threat wide receivers:

Lynn Swann:  19.7 yards per catch, good for 4th in the NFL.

Alfred Jenkins:  17.2 yards per catch.  (20th)

Henry Childs:  16.6 yards per catch.  (As a Tight End(!), 27th in the league.)

Swann was a couple of years removed from the Pro Bowl.  Jenkins would be a Pro Bowler the following two seasons.  It was Childs’ lone Pro Bowl season.

What’d all that add up to?  Old QB + No RBs + Great WRs + Average Defense = a 5-4-1 record.  I made it into the playoffs as a Wild Card and lost in the NFC Championship game by throwing the ball all over the place.

My buddy won the league in part because he had the Steel Curtain defense and an actual running game.  It didn’t hurt that I traded (read: gave) him Lynn Swann right before the Super Bowl — I’d just used Swann to terrorize his opponent in the previous game, I’d gotten behind early and spent most of the game throwing bombs to Swann.

The cool part was that the teacher gave my buddy the cards after the season, as a prize for winning the Super Bowl.  Good times.

Super Blowouts

by A.J. Coltrane

Maybe they’re not all blowouts, at least not lately.  Left axis is the percentage of each victory margin, bottom axis is decade :

There were five blowouts in a row in the 80’s, and three out of four Superbowls of the 1960’s were blowouts too.

It was this column that got me thinking about Super Bowl victory margins, including this table:

Location G Winner Loser Total Points
Indoors 13 30.5 15.8 46.23
Outdoors 31 30 15.3 45.26

Fisher And Young, The Pink Slip Twins

by A.J. Coltrane

Jeff Fisher has joined Vince Young on the unemployment line. I’m a little suprised — I thought it was an either/or proposition.

In other NFL news, a tweet dustup between Antonio Cromartie and Matt Hasselbeck:

Comartie had this to say on Monday:

“Especially when you don’t get no information about nothing from the union or the owners,” Cromartie said Monday. “So to tell you the truth they need to get their damn minds together and get this [expletive] done. Stop bitching about money. Money ain’t nothing. Money can be here and gone. Us players, we want to go out and play football. It’s something we’ve been doing and we love it and enjoy it. It’s our livelihood.”

Then, according to ESPN:

On Thursday, a tweet on Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck‘s account said: “Somebody ask Cromartie if he knows what CBA stands for.”

The tweet was later removed but not before Cromartie found out about it.

He responded Thursday afternoon with a tweet that said: “hey Matt if u have something to then say it be a man about it. Don’t erase it. I will smash ur face in.”

Then this from Hasselbeck:

Hasselbeck later apologized for his initial tweet.

“Sorry for the joke man. No hard feelings,” a tweet from his account said. “DB’s & QB’s have a hard time getting along I guess sometimes. lol.”

As usual though, Jason Whitlock has the truth in his piece about Cromartie’s initial outburst- “Players Will Turn On Union Director”:

Cromartie had a lot more to say, but I’m not going to waste time repeating it here. He’s not the most eloquent, concise or thoughtful speaker. Let me translate what he said:

“I got baby mama drama and at least nine mouths to feed. I’m a free agent this offseason and need a new contract. DeMaurice better get this (spit) settled quick, because I can’t get behind on my child-support payments.”

Now, the overwhelming majority of NFL players do not have nine kids by eight different women like New York’s fertile, 26-year-old, condom-hating, shutdown corner. But Cromartie is not alone when it comes to baby mama drama among NFL players.

Roger Goodell and NFL owners probably can’t control their laughter thinking about battling Smith in a prolonged contract dispute. We’re two weeks from the Super Bowl and Cromartie is already raising a white flag.

I thought it was pretty savvy of Goodell to set his salary to $1 in the event of a lockout. He won’t be getting paid either, so the players can’t cry poverty… Of course, Goodell doesn’t have eight child-support payments.

Seriously though — “I will smash ur face in.”  ??? 

What a Neanderthal.

Seahawks Career Passing Leaders

by A.J. Coltrane

Because it came up today — the Seahawks career passing leaders:

Rank Player Career Yards
1 Matt Hasselbeck 29434
2 Dave Krieg 26132
3 Jim Zorn 20122
4 Rick Mirer 9094
5 Jon Kitna 7552
6 Warren Moon 5310
7 Seneca Wallace 3547
8 John Friesz 2971
9 Trent Dilfer 2560
10 Kelly Stouffer 2333
11 Jeff Kemp 1735
12 Stan Gelbaugh 1426
13 Steve Myer 851
14 Dan McGwire 745
15 Gale Gilbert 703
16 Brock Huard 667
17 Charlie Whitehurst 507

There’s one guy in the top 10 I *never* would have guessed:   John Friesz.

For some reason, *this* image came up when searching for Gino Toretta.

Jeff Kemp didn’t quite make the top 10, though I thought he might.

Other notables:

Gino Toretta #26.

Steve Largent #27.

Norm Johnson #29.

And the fewest yards, greater than zero:  Ricky Watters.  1 yard.  #34.

Seahawks Fire Offensive Coordinator

by A.J. Coltrane

The Seahawks have fired Offensive Coordinator Jeremy Bates. Also:

Quarterbacks coach Jedd Fisch left to go University of Miami to be its offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Defensive line coach Dan Quinn is leaving the team to become the defensive coordinator at the University of Florida.

Defensive backs coach Jerry Gray left to become an assistant head coach and defensive backs coach at the University of Texas.

I think it’s interesting that the other coaches who “left” all went back to coaching college.

ESPN writer Mike Sando’s take on it:

…The Seahawks ranked 28th in total yards, 31st in rushing yards, 29th in time of possession and 28th in first downs per game. Those depressed rankings seemed understandable, in my view, given the state of the roster in general and the offensive line in particular.

Carroll could have lived with poor first-year production, I think, if he thought Bates were the right coordinator.

Making this move after only one season suggests the fit wasn’t right. Carroll is resoundingly upbeat. He doesn’t cuss out players. Bates isn’t much of a people person. He’s gruff and takes a harder line in his approach to players. Of course, Carroll would have known these things about Bates, it seems, because the two worked together at USC in 2009.

Absent something more, this is the sort of move that makes greater sense when the head coach has another candidate in mind.

Josh McDaniels’ name comes to mind immediately. Talks between McDaniels and the St. Louis Rams hit a snag this week, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported. McDaniels also interviewed with the Minnesota Vikings…

Of course, the baggage associated with Josh McDaniels may include …  TIM TEBOW!!

——————–

Late edit:  Less than three hours after this post, the Rams hire McDaniels as Offensive Coordinator.  Whew.

Quarterback Carousel – Conclusions

by A.J. Coltrane

The 2010 NFL regular season is now over.  How’d the predictions go in this September post?

Team 2009 PPG 2010 Predicted PPG 2010 Actual PPG
Raiders 12.3 17.1 25.6
Redskins 16.6 20.5 18.9
Eagles 26.8 25.4 27.4

So, what happened?

Raiders: 

Passes:  Jason Campbell 67% of team attempts, 84.5 rating;  Bruce Gradkowski 31% of team attempts, 66.3 rating.   Aggregate rating 77.5.

“The Raiders will make a big leap forward with Jason Campbell.  Part of that will be due to JaMarcus Russell’s release, simple addition by subtraction.”  [Actual Result — The Raiders scoring went up by 13.3(!) points per game.]

JaMarcus Russell must have been more of a black hole than I could have ever believed.  The Raiders more than doubled their scoring output from 2009, finishing 6th in points scored.   Also:  Jason Campbell is a good quarterback, hopefully more people will see that now.  He’s earned it.

Redskins:

Passes:  Donovan McNabb 78% of team attempts, 77.1 rating; Rex Grossman 22% of team attempts, 81.2 rating.  Aggregate rating 78.0.

“McNabb and new coach Mike Shanahan will score 3-5 more points per game than the 2009 Redskins.  A big part of that will be (or should be) attributed to the upgrade from Zorn to Shanahan.”  [Actual Result — The Redskins scoring went up by 2.3 points per game.  How much of the credit should go to the coach?]

McNabb wasn’t worth the 5-6 points that John Clayton predicted — in reality it wound up being something of a lost season for McNabb.  His status in Washington turned into a very public mess that was handled extremely poorly by McNabb, his agent, and the Redskins.  I think other teams will now think twice before acquiring McNabb — he may be permanently damaged goods.  (What happens if the next team feels the need to bench him?)  Going into the year I felt McNabb was overrated.  Now I think he’s cooked.

Eagles:

Passes:  Michael Vick 66% of team attempts, 100.2 rating;  Kevin Kolb 34% of team attempts, 76.1 rating.  Aggregate rating 92.1.

“The Eagles won’t miss McNabb.  Philadelphia was 5th in the league in scoring last year, so some regression back to the pack is figured in the chart below.  Kevin Kolb will be an All-Pro within three years.”  [Actual Result — Michael Vick miraculously resuscitated his career and the Eagles scoring went up by .6 points per game.]

It looked like I picked the wrong All-Pro, though I still think Kolb may get there eventually.  Vick took almost exactly 2/3rds of the snaps, and I would guess that’s about as many as he *can* take, given his propensity to put himself in harm’s way.  I don’t think Vick will ever get close to repeating his 2010 season;  he had career bests in Completion Percentage, Yards Per Attempt, TD Percentage, and Interception Percentage — everything that went into his career best Passer Rating of 100.2, good for 4th in the league.

The Eagles win the brass ring.

Will There Be A New Coach In Cleveland?

By Blaidd Drwg

Seneca Wallace on the possibility of Mike Holmgren returning to coaching:

“I kind of do just because things probably haven’t turned out the way he wanted on offense and being an offensive guy, I think he still has that itch to come back to coach,”

If Mike Holmgren really wants to coach again, and I always did believe that he had every intention of eventually making himself head coach of the Browns when he took the President of Football Operations job with them, he is going to do it.

Holmgren and Mangini have a meeting about the future of the Cleveland Browns on Monday. I would be willing to bet the mortgage payment that Mike Mangini is out of a job by the end of a week (especially in light of the thrashing that the Browns took this week) and Holmgren becomes head coach sometime in the next few weeks, right after the Browns pretend to interview a couple of candidates.

–UPDATED 3:20 PM – it didn’t even take to the end of the week – Mangini is out of a job.

The Final Week Of The NFL Season

By Blaidd Drwg

In the game that means everything for the week, the Seahawks, who despite having a losing record and giving up at least 33 points to opponents in 6 of their last 8 games (the only 2 teams that failed to score that many are Arizona and Carolina – who currently have the 2 worst records in the NFC) have a chance to be the first team without a winning record to win a division in a non-strike year and make the playoffs. I would really like to see the Seahawks win because: I live in Seattle and I really think this will finally make the NFL change their playoff seeding. It seems like every year there is some team that makes the playoffs as the wild card with a significantly better record than the 4th seeded division winner and then gets to play that game on the road. I think that is just stupid. Home field is a pretty significant advantage in the NFL (more on that below) and I don’t think that winning your division should guarantee you that advantage, especially if you are playing a team with a better record.

Can he lead the Seahawks to the promised land of the playoffs?

As for the Hawks chances, well, this is a tough call. They have the home field this week which can be good for them and they are going to be going against a rookie QB which could work to their advantage. The weather, which will probably be bitterly cold probably doesn’t help either team as neither offense if particularly great to being with. I would however like the Seahawks chances a bunch more if they had Hasselbeck starting for them instead of Charlie Whitehurst. My prediction, the Seabirds beat the Sheep 13-10 in an epic suckfest.

The topic of home field has come up a lot in stuff I have read recently. I decided to actually take a look to see how big of an advantage home field really is in the NFL over the last 6 seasons. The numbers played out pretty much the way I expected them to:

Home W Home L PCT
2010 133 107 .554
2009 146 110 .570
2008 147 108 .576
2007 149 107 .582
2006 136 120 .531
2005 151 105 .590

There is definitely a downward trend in home field advantage – Bill Simmons attributes it to all of the new “luxury stadiums” that have been built in the NFL over the last couple of seasons. I think I might have to agree with him (but that is for another post involving much more research). Unless something bizarre happens, like all of the home teams win this week, the win % for home teams will drop again slightly. Still, you have to figure that there is probably about a 5-10% advantage to playing at home versus playing on the road. Basically, you still probably want the home game if you can get it.

In other weird NFL news:
If the Dolphins manage to beat the Patriots this week, they will be guaranteed at least a tie for the best road record in the NFL (The Fish are currently 6-1 on the road). Only the Steelers and Bears have a chance to win 7 on the road this year (they are both currently 6-1). The strange part of that is that they have already locked up the worst home record in the NFL at 1 – 7. Even the truly pathetic Carolina Panthers have won 2 games at home. I would be willing to bet that no team has ever had both the best road record and the worst home record in the same season in NFL history.

You could end up in a situation in the NFC and AFC where a 12-4 team ends up having to play all of their playoff games on the road. In the AFC, if both the Steelers and Ravens win, they end at 12-4 but the Steelers have the tie-breaker, so the Steelers get to take next week off and the Ravens have to go on the road to play (most likely) Indy. In the NFC, if the Saints win and the Falcons win, the Saints get to go on the road as the WC (and play the “winner” of the Seahawks-Rams game) while the Falcons get a 1st round bye and home field throughout the playoffs. If the Saints win and the Falcons lose, the Saints get the bye and the Falcons are the wild card. If we end up with a situation where a 7-9 team gets to host a 12-4 team in the playoffs, the NFL really needs to rethink its seeding.

The Company You Keep, Part 3 (The Free Repeaters)

by A.J. Coltrane

Continued from The Company You Keep, Part 2

A list of the guys who made the bottom 10 QB list two years in a row, and how many passes they attempted in the following year (2007 to present):

Repeater Year Player Passes Thrown The Following Year
2007 Vince Young 36 (Hurt)
2007 Rex Grossman 62
2008 Mark Bulger 247
2009 Mark Bulger 0
2009 JaMarcus Russell 0
2009 Ryan Fitzpatrick 470 (Projected)

For reference, 450-550 passes is about a “full season” for a starting quarterback.

Fitzpatrick is on his 3rd team in five years.  There’s debate in Buffalo as to whether he’s The Guy or not.

I couldn’t find a “Free Repeater” video, here’s one of my other favorites: