The Company You Keep, Part 2

by A.J. Coltrane

What happens to the bottom 10 QB’s the following year?

2009 and 2010 both have 32 quarterbacks with enough attempts to qualify as “regular” players. Below are the #23-#32 qb’s from 2009 — the right column shows what they’ve done in 2010.

2009 Rank	Player	QB Rating	One Year Later
23	Matt Hasselbeck, QB	75.1	29th
24	Marc Bulger, QB	70.7	Backup, Changed Teams
25	Matt Cassel, QB	69.9	5th
26	Ryan Fitzpatrick, QB	69.7	19th
27	Brady Quinn, QB	67.2	Backup, Changed Teams
28	Mark Sanchez, QB	63.0	28th
29	Matthew Stafford, QB	61.0	Hurt (13th if he qualified)
30	Josh Freeman, QB	59.8	16th
31	Jake Delhomme, QB	59.4	Backup, Changed Teams
32	JaMarcus Russell, QB	50.0	Out Of The League

Sanchez got another shot because he’s young (and because the Jets invested a high pick in acquiring him.)

Hasselbeck started in 2010 too — the Hawks didn’t have any better options.

The other quarterbacks either:

Elevated their games.

Got jettisoned by their teams.

—-

Want to have some fun? Point out to a Jets fan that Sanchez isn’t getting any better.

The Company You Keep

by A.J. Coltrane

The bottom 10 in NFL Quarterback Rating:

Player	Rating
Carson Palmer, QB	78.7
Shaun Hill, QB	78.6
Chad Henne, QB	77.6
Donovan McNabb, QB	77.1
Sam Bradford, QB	75.9
Mark Sanchez, QB	74.6
Matt Hasselbeck, QB	73.1
Brett Favre, QB	69.9
Derek Anderson, QB	65.9
Jimmy Clausen, QB	59.1

Two thoughts:

My suspicion is that Charlie Whitehurst looked better when he was further away, rather than up close.

Nobody stays on this list for long.

It’s A Slippery Slope

by A.J. Coltrane

LaDainian Tomlinson will join the NFL Hall of Fame after he retires, and his retirement is probably coming up soon.

Here are Tomlinson’s Career Yards Per Carry, season by season:

Tomlinson’s Yards Per Carry declined steadily after his age 27 season — four years ago he averaged 5.2 yards per carry. Since then his average carry dropped to 4.7 yards, then to 3.8, bottoming out at 3.3.

At that point the Chargers had seen enough, and they released him … Running backs don’t stay employed for long while averaging under about 4.0 yards per carry.

The Jets decided he could still play and signed him to a two-year deal.

Tomlinson started this season going gangbusters for the Jets. Television analysts were saying things like “He hasn’t run this well in years!” or “He looks like the LT of old again!”

That lasted four or five games:

Note the helpful “trend line.”

Fortunately for Tomlinson, he started well enough that his season average sits at 4.3 yards per carry — even after a six-game stretch of fewer than 4 yards per attempt. I’ll be interested to see if Tomlinson plays next year, and if so, how much the team lets him handle the ball. My suspicion is that he’s basically a 3rd down back at this point in his career, and the Jets have tried to use him as an every-down back — a role he can’t capably fill anymore.

Great career though. He’s 6th all-time in career rushing yards, 2nd in rushing touchdowns, and 7th all-time in total yards from scrimmage.

What was that again?

by A.J. Coltrane

Sandy Barbour, California Director of Athletics was interviewed during the 2nd quarter of the Cal Bears – Washington Huskies football game on November 27. Cal has begun building a new stadium, here’s part of the reason why:

“…one of the priorities was very clear, that we needed to renovate Memorial Stadium, for safety reasons with the Heyward Fault running right down the middle of the stadium…”

What?!

The Ohio State University Whiners

By Blaidd Drwg

Let me be honest, I have never liked Ohio State. I think they are overrated every year because they are Ohio State and play in the Big Ten and I think it is a bit pretentious to call yourself “THE Ohio State University”, because, you know, I might get it confused with some other Ohio State.

Today, ESPN linked an article where Ohio State’s president dissed TCU and Boise State by saying that neither team belonged in the National Championship game. Here is a fine comment:

“Well, I don’t know enough about the Xs and Os of college football,” said Gee, formerly the president at West Virginia, Colorado, Brown and Vanderbilt universities. “I do know, having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it’s like murderer’s row every week for these schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day.

Ok – Ohio States non-conference schedule over the last couple of seasons:

2010 – Marshall, Miami (FL), Ohio, Eastern Michigan
2009 – Navy, USC, Toledo, New Mexico St
2008 – Youngstown St, USC, Ohio, Troy
2007 – Youngstown St, Akron, Washington, Kent State
2006 – Northern Illinois, Texas, Cincinnati, Bowling Green

Looks like their non-conference schedule contains at least 2 games each year against teams that would be competitive with Little Sisters of the Poor. In that stretch, the Buckeyes have played 3 ranked non-conference opponents – USC in 2008 and 2009 (both losses) and Miami in 2010 (win). In the 20 games over the last 5 years, they haven’t exactly scheduled the toughest non-conference games.

As for the Big 10 Conference, there is nothing to suggest that they are great teams. The Big 10 has been around forever and has always been associated with great football, so I think their reputation is built greatly on that. How else would you explain Ohio St, Michigan, Michigan St, Penn St, etc. being ranked in the top 25 every pre-season only to see them have mediocre seasons (I call it the Notre Dame effect – they are ranked every year and get a shot at a BCS berth because they are ND, not because they have been dominant in the last 15 years). How overrated is the Big 10 – well let’s look at their bowl performance:

2006 – 2 wins, 5 losses
2007 – 3 wins, 5 losses
2008 – 0 wins, 6 losses
2009 – 4 wins, 3 losses

That, my friends, is a 32% winning percentage in bowl games. It might be hard to argue that Ohio State faces a murderer’s row every week when the combined win percentage of the teams they are playing in 2010 is a whopping 68-64.

I know that the BCS is all about money and the big schools don’t want anyone encroaching on their paydays (2 non-AQ schools means that 2 BCS conference schools have to go to a “lesser” bowl game with a much smaller payout), so here is my solution for Ohio State – if you are so good, how about you schedule Boise St. and TCU and play them both on the road next year. That should prove once and for all if those teams are deserving or not to play in the championship game. Besides, I would love to see THE Ohio State University get its ass kicked on the Smurf Turf up in Boise.

You Think You Are Having A Bad Day?

By Blaidd Drwg

No matter how bad your day is going or how much shit has gone wrong for you today, you are still in better shape than the Carolina Panthers. Their starting quarterback is out for the year, their backup QB is out with a concussion and their 3rd string QB doesn’t give the coach the warm fuzzies that he is ready to start an NFL game. So what do you do, you go out and sign and start Brian St. Pierre. Never heard of him? Not surprised. St. Pierre after very underachieving career at Boston College (he was very highly recruited) managed to spend 8 seasons as a back up QB for the Steelers and Cardinals. In those 8 seasons, he managed to throw exactly 5 passes. Yep, not a typo.

I feel bad for Tony Pike (the aforementioned 3rd string QB) – he is being passed over for a guy how has thrown fewer passes in the NFL (Pike has 12 attempts), was not even in any team’s training camp this summer, and, up until last week, he was stay at home dad, although, Carolina coach John Fox isn’t exactly giving St. Pierre a ringing endorsement:

A season of anemic offensive play, multiple injuries and one victory took an even stranger twist Thursday when coach John Fox picked the 30-year-old St. Pierre over rookie Tony Pike to play against Baltimore.

“The guy has been in some games,” Fox said.

That’s good enough these days to start for Carolina (1-8), the NFL’s lowest scoring team that has scored nine touchdowns and has no healthy, experienced quarterback.

Let’s face it, Carolina is probably the worst team in the NFL, is 1-8, has averaged 12 points per game and is playing Baltimore this weekend. I want to watch this game purely out of morbid curiosity.

Athlete in Retrospect — Lester Hayes

by A.J. Coltrane

In honor of the Raiders revival, one of the coolest and most famous cornerbacks of the 80’s — Lester Hayes:

NFL.com has a cool video featuring Mike Haynes and Lester Hayes, declaring them the greatest cornerback duo of all time: Top Ten Cornerback Tandems: Mike Haynes and Lester Hayes

Watch the video — At one point Hayes has a free blindside shot at a quarterback and pretty much tries to rip the guy’s head off. That was normal at the time, or even encouraged. The only legal place to hit a quarterback now is between the waist and the shoulders. The game has really changed the last 30 years.

Lester Hayes was a big, strong guy for a db. He played linebacker in college at about 6′ and 200 lbs. His size and strength fit well into the Raider’s defensive schemes: The Raiders have always played “Bump and Run” coverage — their db’s try to “jam” the wide receiver at the line of scrimmage. Lester was strong enough that he could maul guys before they could get into their routes.

Lester had 13 interceptions in 1980, good for 2nd all-time, winning the Defensive Player of the Year Award. (He did this in a 16-game season.) The remarkable thing is that he had another five interceptions in four playoff games, giving him 18 in total for the year. (Night Train Lane holds the regular-season record, with 14 interceptions in 12 games as a rookie in 1952. Lane’s listed position was “RDH”, which I assume means Right Defensive Halfback in Precambrian Football Terms.)

The other enduring image of Hayes is the stickum.

…And Leon’s Getting Laarrger!

by A.J. Coltrane

I’ve talked about how the I thought the Seahawks were going to get bigger players with Pete Carroll in charge. I estimated that in 2010 they’d be about 5 pounds heavier per man.

Here’s the table:

Position	2009 Weight	2010 Weight	Weight Difference
Offensive Line	304	306	2
Defensive Line	283	298	15
Linebacker	233	242	9
Defensive Back	199	200	1
Halfback	205	210	5
Wide Receiver	194	206	12
Tight End	257	250	-7
Quarterback	210	225	15

The Seahakws are bigger at every position except Tight End — they have a 227-pound special teams guy listed at TE. If you take him out the TE’s average 255 pounds.

I left Fullback Owen Schmidt off of the table — the Seahawks don’t have a designated “Fullback” this year.

Sources:

2010 roster, ESPN.

2009 roster, Pro-Football-Reference[dot]com.

Pro-Football-Reference is usually terrific for this kind of thing, but for whatever reason their 2010 roster listed only three offensive linemen. According to their site the Seahawks got 9 pounds lighter in 2010, and that’s pretty obviously not right..

———–

Here’s a collection of Johnny’s scenes from Airplane!

…and here’s the making of the scene: “I Speak Jive“, including a present-day interview with the two men.

The Not Scottish Performances of the Week

By Blaidd Drwg

So who had the worst weekend of the Washington football teams:

Udub Huskies – they played like a puppy who has just been disciplined for peeing on the carpet in their 41 – 0 beat down by Stanford at home. They didn’t pass 100 yards of total offense until 3 minutes left in the game, had most of the fans leaving at halftime looking for anything that was more interesting, looked outmatched and outclassed, gave up a 51 yard run to the opposing QB on a fake handoff and were outgained 470 – 107 total yards. Jake Locker may have single handedly played himself right out of the first round in the 2011 draft with his putrid performance in front of 20 NFL scouts in this one. The Sled Dawgs have been a big disappointment all year for those who were drinking Sark’s cool-aid, but they still can make themselves bowl eligible by winning 3 out of their last 4. It is doable since they play @ Oregon (let’s face it, this one could get ugly), vs. UCLA (They have the same record as the Huskies and are actually a worse team), @ Cal (should be a winnable game, maybe) and @ Wazzu (heck, I think my HS football team could beat the Cougs). My prediction – the Pups get their act together and finish 6-6, saving Sark’s job; and if they lose to the Cougs somehow – Sark gets fired before he gets back to Seattle.

myers_father_01 — "Ay, the performances of the Washington Football teams this weekend were defintely not Scottish, so they were CRAP!"

Wazzu Cougars – They played like an old cat that is in need of being taken out back and shot in their 42 – 0 blowout at ASU. The Kittens were their own worst enemy, getting into the Red Zone 6 times (!) and not scoring once (!), turning the ball over 3 times and giving up 493 yards of offense. In all of this, they somehow managed to actually hold the ball slightly longer than ASU. Not that I think it would have made a difference, but it would have probably been a bit closer than the actual final if they managed to get a few points on the board. Let’s face it, WSU just plain sucks and will be lucky to end this season with more than one win (and that was a 1 point win against FCS Montana State), so this pasting really wasn’t much of a surprise.

Seattle Seahawks – Just a few days after being anointed the “best team in the NFC” by Tony Dungy, they go out an play like a bunch of canaries being chased by a cat in a 33 -3 embarrassment against the Oakland/LA/Oakland Raiders. The Chicks gave up 545 yards of offense and still couldn’t stop the Raiders despite the Black and Silver’s 11 penalties. If anyone thinks the Hawks are a good team, you haven’t been watching them. The offense, to put it nicely, is pathetic. The only way they stay in games is through defensive turnovers and special teams – if those two aspects of the game don’t come through for them, they don’t stand a chance. The really sad thing about this game is that the Hawks were only down 10 – 0 at the half and still never looked like they were in the game at that point.

My vote for this week’s inept performance – The Seachickens. No way should you ever give up 545 yards to a team in an NFL football game. On the bright side, they should still win their division as none of the other teams really seem like they are trying either.

Progress Is His Middle Name

by A.J. Coltrane

Colt McCoy (a.k.a. “The ManCrush”) had his NFL regular-season debut against Pittsburgh this past Sunday. Despite playing against one of the toughest defenses in the league, and losing both starting wide receivers to injury, he produced a respectable line: 23 completions on 33 attempts, 281 yards, 1 TD, 2 Int — good for a 80.5 Quarterback Rating.

Here’s some of the reviews:

ESPN – James Walker

I’ve seen a lot of quarterback debuts up close as a former Cleveland Browns beat writer, and Colt McCoy’s first NFL start was the best of the group. McCoy became Cleveland’s 16th starting quarterback since 1999 and threw for 281 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers (4-1). McCoy took a pounding and made rookie mistakes. But he also showed toughness, leadership and good accuracy. What does this all mean? McCoy deserves at least one more start this week against the New Orleans Saints until Seneca Wallace (ankle) or Jake Delhomme (ankle) are 100 percent healthy. Then the Browns (1-5) can evaluate two of McCoy’s games against the starts of Wallace and Delhomme during the bye week and figure their direction at quarterback.

SI – Andrew Perloff

Ben Roethlisberger‘s return was the story of the week for this game, but the more interesting development was Browns rookie Colt McCoy showing he’s a real NFL quarterback. The final numbers (23-of-33, 281 yards, 1TD, 2 INTs) may not necessarily prove that, but McCoy had a surprising amount of poise with the Steelers’ pass rush coming down on him all afternoon. The Browns never wanted to use McCoy this early. If he can survive in Pittsburgh, he’s good enough to start for this 1-5 team.

: Colt McCoy

The Cleveland Plain Dealer – Bud Shaw (not blockquoted in the interest of avoiding formatting issues next to the cool photo):

The most promising aspects of the Colt McCoy Experience were his poise in the pocket and his sense of self before and after. How else to explain his message when he addressed teammates Saturday night as the team’s latest starting quarterback.

“I just told ’em the hay is in the barn,” McCoy said. “For some of the city folks I had to [explain].”

As his head coach and a number of teammates said Sunday, the game didn’t look too big for McCoy. After his run-for-cover training camp, that was a welcome sight.

Give Eric Mangini and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll credit. They didn’t send the kid into the ring and tell him to clinch and cover up. They let him come out swinging. Where the Browns offense is concerned, this is a relative term, of course.

McCoy threw on first down early (or at least tried). He completed a dozen passes for 10 yards or longer. Six covered 20 yards or more. A chunk of his 281 yards happened late, but there was less garbage time than the final score indicates. He did more than dink and dunk.

“He took control of the huddle,” guard Eric Steinbach said. “That’s what a quarterback has to do. I don’t care if he’s a first-year guy or a 12-year vet.”

The Colt McCoy Experience — I like the sound of that.

———

Finally, two funny, if somewhat mean-spirited, Sprint ads:

“Injury” — “It means I’m dropping you from my fantasy team, that’s for sure.”

“Restaurant”