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.

The Battle In Seattle, And Other Ruminations

by A.J. Coltrane

Some impressions of two games I watched on Saturday:

UNC-Kentucky: Kentucky entered the game ranked 10th. UNC entered the game unranked due to three (close) early season losses. I don’t really see a dimes worth of difference between them. Both teams feature young players that will be playing in the NBA soon — at times there were as many as about seven NBA guys on the court at once. UNC has more overall depth, especially in the frontcourt. Kentucky has the better guardplay, and their guards should improve between now and the NCAA tournament. (This can’t be said of UNC’s guards — they’re both combo guards who are miscast when playing the point. Neither has good court vision, and neither is very good at creating for other players. I don’t think UNC’s guards will experience any real improvement between now and tournament time.)

The outcome was an entertaining win for UNC, 75-73.

Two Players Who Caught My Attention: Kentucky freshman guard Doron Lamb and UNC’s 6’10” sophmore forward John Henson. UNC’s freshman Harrison Barnes was a preseason AP All-American. As of right now he’s shooting 33.8% for the season, and you can see why — too many forced shots. If he gets it together, look out, but I don’t see it yet.

Gonzaga-Illinios at the Key:

Many thanks to the veteran usher who took mercy on us at the Battle in Seattle. The Gonzaga-Illinios game was (predictably) a blowout. We were sitting in relatively inexpensive seats, and our row contained three infants on the laps of parents. (I’m not making that up!) Naturally, this turned into a Chinese Fire Drill of people getting up to use the “facilities.” We vacated our seats to sit somewhere further back, and the young parents didn’t hesitate to wave over a female friend of theirs, who was carrying a fourth(!) infant. (She had a baby in one hand and was texting with the other — I didn’t see a lot of basketball watching happening from any of the parents.) Here’s a tip folks: Next time, hire a sitter.

In any event, kudos to the usher who moved us away from the bedlam and into good seats where we could actually *watch* the game. He took what had been a crappy situation and turned it into a positive experience.

As for the game, Illinios had the two best players on the floor in senior point guard Demetri McCamey and senior center Mike Tisdale. They look like an Elite Eight team to me. (You could argue that Illinois had something like 5 or 6 of the best 7 players in the building.) Gonzaga doesn’t have their usual Big White Scorer (Boldin, Dickau, Morrison, etc) this year. Elias Harris will be an NBA guy, but the rest of the team lacks the ability to consistently get and execute good shots.

Illinois entered the game ranked 21st. Gonzaga was ranked 24th. The final score was 73-61 Illinios, and for most of the second half it wasn’t that close.

Predictions on end-of-season ranks and tournament performance:

Kentucky: 9th. (Sweet 16, due to lack of depth.)

UNC: 11th. (Elite 8.)

Illinois: 15th. (Elite 8. In March, I’m going to like Illinois more than everyone else does, unless everyone likes them by then.)

Gonzaga: 24th-30th. A couple of league losses would knock Gonzaga out of the top 25, and it’s possible they’ll miss the NCAA tournament. Best case is that they make the tournament and survive a round or two.

TTO Revisited

By Blaidd Drwg

Back in July, I made this post about Three True Outcomes. Well, now that the season is over, we can crown this year’s champion. The winner – Mark Reynolds of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Not only did Reynolds win the award, he blew away the second place finisher, Adam Dunn, and Reynolds also won in spectacular fashion by striking out 211 times, having the second lowest batting average for guys who qualified for the batting title, going 5 for 64 in September for an .078 BA (and still managing to post a .231 OBP) and essentially getting benched for the last 8 games of the year.

Here is the 2010 leaderboard:

reynoldsl — Mark Reynolds - your 2010 TTO Champion!

	TM	PA	HR	BB	SO	OPS+	TTO%
Mark Reynolds	ARI	582	32	83	211	98	.56014
Adam Dunn	WAS	635	38	77	199	138	.49449
Carlos Pena	TB	571	28	87	158	102	.47811
Colby Rasmus	STL	527	23	63	148	132	.44402
David Ortiz	BOS	600	32	82	145	137	.43167
Drew Stubbs	CIN	569	22	55	168	108	.43058
Justin Upton	ARI	559	17	64	152	111	.41682
BJ Upton	TB	603	18	67	164	105	.41293
Prince Fielder	MIL	692	32	114	138	137	.41040

With that incredibly ugly season by Reynolds, I believe the all-time leader board now looks like this:

	TM	PA	HR	BB	SO	OPS+	TTO%
Jack Cust	OAK	2311	102	400	732	122	.53397
Mark Reynolds	ARI	2285	121	260	767	108	.50241
Adam Dunn	TB	6065	354	990	1632	133	.49068

Cust is still #1 for his career (he had a .48941 TTO% in 2010, but only had 425 PA, so he didn’t qualify for the first list), but the lead is shrinking and Adam Dunn has now passed Rob Deer for #3 all-time.

Congratulations, I guess, to Mark Reynolds, who will probably be rewarded by the Diamondbacks not renewing his contract and letting him become a free agent.

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.

Summing It Up Perfectly

By Blaidd Drwg

There have been plently of eulogies for Dave Niehaus’ passing. He was a great announcer (although clearly slipping over the last couple of years), one of the last remaining great ones and his death is truly a loss to the baseball world.

Rob Neyer chimed in on his meeting of Niehaus, and it is moving:

In the Big Baseball World, I’m a nothing and Dave Niehaus is an Institution. Frankly, every time I walked into the booth and saw him, I halfway assumed he would have completely forgotten me. How many people must Niehaus have met over the years? How many other broadcasters and writers and glad-handers and just plain baseball fans have wanted their little moments with the man who had seen nearly every game in Mariners history?

And every time I stepped into his office, Dave Niehaus seemed genuinely glad to give me a few of his precious moments, happy to invite me to sit down next to him and talk about baseball or his trip to Cooperstown or whatever was ailing his Mariners.

I wish I had just a few more of those moments. I didn’t visit the booth in 2010. I didn’t want to impose. And I didn’t imagine, for even a second, that I would never have another chance. I sort of thought Dave Niehaus would live forever.

Tonight I’m feeling sorry for myself. I’m feeling sorry for his family. And I’m feeling sorry for the many thousands of Pacific Northwest baseball fans who have spent huge and hugely important chunks of their lives with Dave Niehaus. All of us will go on next spring, because that’s what we do. It’s just not yet apparent how, exactly.

Neyer is right – we will go on, and I am sure that there will be a moving tribute to Dave Niehaus on opening day, one last chance to say goodbye to a great one.

There Was Much Rejoicing

by A.J. Coltrane

From ESPN:

Jon Miller and Joe Morgan’s 21-year run on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” is over.

Morgan’s contract is expiring and he will not be renewed. Miller’s contract is also expiring though he may remain at ESPN working the “Sunday Night Baseball” series and postseason baseball for ESPN Radio…

I liked Miller, and fortunately he’s landing on his feet. Joe Morgan, however, was a champion of things like “clutch” and “RBI man” and “productive outs” — basically the antithesis of the Bill James school of thinking.

Now I can watch Sunday Night Baseball without muting the TV.

——–

Late edit: Joe Posnanski has an excellent piece on the subject: The Two Joe Morgans, exerpt below:

…Joe would go to bizarre lengths to avoid saying that teams with high on-base percentages often score a lot of runs and that pitchers who command their pitches and don’t give up home runs often pitch well. With Joe, after a while, it always came down to intangibles. Which is OK, I guess. But the tangible can matter, too. Also, he hated Moneyball and never seemed to figure out that it wasn’t Billy Beane who wrote the darned thing…

…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.