Can someone explain to me how auburn was up on Georgia three touchdowns in the fourth, and had to throw a Hail Mary on fourth and 18 to take the lead
Chris, was it last year or the year before when we both kinda boldly said we didn't see any difference between Skov and Kuechly? BTW, did you watch Gameday's piece on Skov? What an intelligent, wise, mature player. Quite affable too. The kind of player I'd entertain drafting this 1st round to provide that top notch defensive QB the next dozen years. Side note: what would you think about Derek Mason taking over our defense next year and reverting back to a 3-4 base but with the capability of switching up if the opponent dictates, kinda like how he does at Stanford? The discipline and soundness he gets his defense to play with is impressive IMO.
we on the same page, I came back in here to talk about Skov, mentioned it earlier today in the club, wanted to say what I think this team and town needs most, and that's a middle linebacker mentality leading it..we need to look at that boy real close for the specific reasons you mentioned..don't care how bad we need oline, we need a intellectual player that is so freakin tough that he puts black makeup all over his face while attending Stanford..looks to be a true bad *** that won't care if the stadium is half full and the city is a front runner.
well, we could address both tackles in FA and leave our 1st rounder open. Whomever is in charge might not see it that way though considering the depth at potential 1st round tackles year. Then again, that might make signing Albert & Oher more feasible.
I don't know about not seeing the difference. But I know that I considered him right up there with Kuechly. And I was a huge Kuechly fan. We'll just have to see if Skov ends up that good.
While we're on MLBs, anyone have an opinion on Tennessee's A.J. Johnson? I've seen him play live a few times. He was about the only defensive player on UT that impressed me when I went to their 'Bama game last year. He even played some Wildcat/Short Yardage RB under Derek Dooley. I'm not sure I'd rank him up there with Kuechly, but maybe close to Skov. I don't think he's got the instincts Skov does, but he's a pretty good player IMO.
Can we be done with the Brian Hartline experiment at starting WR yet? 9 straight weeks he hasn't broken 70 yards, can't do sh-t after the catch, doesn't come close to taking full advantage of the coverage opportunities provided to a receiver playing opposite Wallace, and is still like Stephen Hawking trying to blow his way up a flight of stairs in the redzone.
It's interesting to talk about his RAC now after he probably had his best RAC game I've seen in quite a while. But he did struggle. Fell on a route that nearly resulted in a pick-6. Dropped two balls. To me I'm not worried about him. I'm worried about the guy that is being outproduced by him yet makes twice the amount of money. THAT is the guy whose salary I want to find a way to get off my books. Unfortunately we're stuck with him at least through the end of 2014.
This team is ****ed in so many ways by Jeff Ireland. They've got money sunk in Brian Hartline. You'd like to maybe do something about it but the money is sunk already. He's got about $5 million payable in 2014 and that money is guaranteed to him whether he's on roster or not. You can't even get rid of the guy because then you're paying $5 million to a ghost. You don't have much choice in the matter. They've got a lot more money sunk in Mike Wallace. Every criticism we heard prior to his signing has been true, even amazingly the criticism that he's not a team player or a good character guy. I didn't think that would be the case, but it is. Just watch him play out there the last two weeks, then tell me that dude's giving 100%. He's not, we know. But he's got $15 million guaranteed, payable in 2014. Even if you cut him, you're paying his ghost $15 million. So they can't cut him either. They can't move on. They have to try and make it work another year. But then you have the offensive line. Holy hell has Ireland ****ed that unit over. Jonathan Martin is a bust and a locker room cancer. Tyson Clabo will not and should not be back. John Jerry should be gone. He's ****ing awful. Richie Incognito has to go in the wake of all this bull sh-t, not that I'll miss him because the bottom line is he's a terrible human and apparently can't stop himself from finding a way to embarrass the franchise. But you know what? There's a fifth shoe to drop. We have NO CLUE how involved Mike Pouncey is in this gun trafficking thing. We really have no clue. He's under federal subpoena and the people that served it have made it clear they think he's involved. No he's not under arrest yet, but he wouldn't be under arrest until they've finished gathering evidence. Evidence that the subpoena has been served so that they can gather. We know the dude smokes pot away from the field like a fiend. I don't usually hold that against football players because a lot of them do. But he's also implicated in this Martin bull sh-t. How close are we from an announcement that he's under arrest and set to serve trial for financing the running of guns with Aaron Hernandez and his brother? And if that happens, we have to find FIVE new offensive linemen in ONE off season. Christ, that's an expansion team's task. How can you possibly field a good unit by 2014 while trying to do that? Hell, even if it's only four...how can you do that in one off season? So what it means is that Jeff Ireland has ****ed over the 2013 Miami Dolphins as well as the 2014 Miami Dolphins. You stand no real hope of using the off season to start doing the lord's work of turning the WRs unit into what I think you and I both want. No chance. If Mike Evans is available to you in the draft do you think Miami is in a position they can take up that chance, needing four or five new starting OLs in one off season and having $20 million worth of 2014 salary GUARANTEED payable to Wallace and Hartline? Hell no. Hands tied. Can't do it. And then there's the linebacker position. My goodness it looks like he may have ****ed that position over big time with those big contracts to Ellerbe, Wheeler and Misi.
It's not as bad as Marty Hurney paying $90M to DeAngelo Williams, Stewart, and Tolbert [with $48M guaranteed] only to have a QB lead the team in rushing yards & rushing TDs..... but it's still disheartening nonetheless. Hopefully Dallas Thomas takes some strides this offseason, Pouncey doesn't land behind bars, Albert & Oher can be had in FA, and a guard can be picked up in the 2nd round so that our 1st rounder is freed up b/c I f****** hate drafting linemen over impact receivers. HATE IT. HATE. IT. Ryan Clady was on the damn bench tonight but that didn't implode Denver's offense.... and the 2 first round tackles on KC's OL didn't make a tangible difference, however when you take Julio Jones away from Atlanta's offense there's a considerable impact. Having all that money tied up in Tannehill & Wallace would be a reason for me TO use a 1st on Evans/Watkins b/c we can no longer afford to upgrade the receiving corps via FA, but we can with a 1st round pick.
You could go another way about it. Instead of trying to figure out how to get Wallace off the books, what if we lend some attention to getting the most out of him and his big contract? Mike Evans as the split end opposite Wallace suddenly creates an entirely different dynamic than having Hartline there. At least try to capitalize on the 1 on 1's afforded that position with Wallace on the field and at the same time give Wallace better downfield opportunities. Conversely, if we drafted Evans to replace Wallace then he'd become our most dangerous receiver who in turn would receive the stiffest coverage and we'd be right back where we started from in terms of matchup advantages/disadvantages go with Hartline on the other side.
I'd love to draft Mike Evans, I think he'd be great for Tannehill. I don't know how you get him on next year's team though with the contracts the Dolphins have. I don't find Hartline's contract egregious or anything, but even if we kept Wallace on the books and picked up Evans to take Hartline's spot you have to deal with Hartline's contract. He's due 4.8 million in guaranteed salary next year and 1.4 million on his signing bonus proration. If you were to cut/trade him and accelerate the proration, you have 10.4 million of dead money. And you're paying him 4.8 million dollars cash to not play for your team. That's pretty tough to swallow.
IDK, based on how Evans has been accustomed to playing at A&M he might need half a year to a year to integrate [especially if Philbin still happens to be here], so Hartline would still be the 2014 starter, but you'd have packages for Evans to get him touches, and he could earn some money in the redzone where Hartline shouldn't be on the field anyways. Then it'd become more feasible to part ways with either Wallace or Hartline in 2015 when Evans is ready to incur a bigger role. Heck, let Evans eat into both Hartline AND Wallace's touches on the perimeter so that neither of their time is minimized to the point of seeming like we're paying them to do nothing. Hartline can play flanker so give him a few of Wallace's snaps while Evans is on the field.
I think the contracts doled out to Misi and Wheeler are more palatable, though by no means desirable, to part ways with than some of the other big contracts Ireland doled out.
Wallace just isn't worth that money. He's not a complete receiver. He can't threaten the defense in multiple ways. He just threatens them one way. And he's not finishing plays like he used to, either. Sometimes that goes away. I remember reading a study someone did on speed receivers and how quickly their production diminishes with age. They tend to just flash and then quickly dim. That's what we're seeing with Mike Wallace. And getting a Mike Evans is not going to sync the receivers with one another any better because Mike Evans himself is a 4.5-4.6 guy. That's a problem right now. That's something Section126 brought up from when he spoke to a quarterback evaluation specialist that works with the NFL to find and develop quarterbacks. He mentioned the synchronization of Wallace's speed with the other receivers and the offense isn't there. I think we saw a perfect example when Tannehill underthrew Wallace on the first play of the 2nd quarter. The timing of the drop was shotgun, play fake, 3 steps, hitch step, throw. Tannehill got the ball off perfectly in rhythm but it still didn't come out until 3.0 seconds after the snap. The offense started off on opposite hash and that means to get the ball 42 yards down the field as Tannehill did, that's a 51 yard throw. He really needed to throw it 56 yards so Wallace could maintain his speed. But you can't just change the throw distance from 51 yards to 56 yards and assume the same timing. It takes extra time for the ball to get another 5 yards. And it's not a straight line, either. It's an arc. So whatever extra distance the ball is traveling on the ground is multipled roughly by 3 in terms of how much extra distance it's traveling through the air. That's going to take an extra 3 to 5 tenths of a second because of the significantly higher arc he'd need. And meanwhile Wallace is traveling at his top speed which means he clears an extra 5 yards in about 5 tenths of a second. Bottom line, if Tannehill throws it that extra 5 yards then Wallace still has to slow down for that ball. In order to hit the 4.28 speedster in stride, the design and timing of the play itself needed to be changed. Just take the play-fake out of it, and that alone might do it. But if you take the play-fake out of it, does that screw up the timing of the route breaks with the other receivers on the play? The play can't just be a "throw to Wallace no matter what" play. If he started going into his 3 step then hitch after the shotgun snap and saw the safety cheating over top of Wallace, he's got to move to his next read. Without the play-fake, do those other receivers have enough time to get to their break and get open? There's a synchronicity factor that I don't think is being accounted for and I'm not precisely sure it'll get better with a Mike Evans. I think you can marginalize the synchronicity factor by marginalizing the player causing it. But at $12 million a year, it's kind of hard to justify that.
And honestly I think in the end we're going to look at some of the investments Jeff Ireland made in the 2013 off season and say they were as bad as the Hurney mis-steps.
Is there any possibility at all that someone could be enticed into trading for Wallace? Any at all? The Raiders maybe?
With $15 million due on receipt? No. But I've always wondered why teams don't make cash a part of these trades. We know what teams will tell you if you offered Wallace to them knowing that the new team would have to pay him $15 million immediately. But what if the teams made a deal to where they split that amount?
I'm not sure if my interest in QBs this year is a subconscious thing based on fears related to Ryan Tannehill or if I just see more interesting players at the position this year than a year ago. A year ago I was a big fan of Matt Barkley and thought E.J. Manuel was a worthwhile early round acquisition as well. I had little to no interest in anyone else. I didn't spend much time on it because Barkley I'd been talking about for years and Manuel was just sort of one of those 2nd round guys that could go 1st round if you're desperate, like a Christian Ponder. This year we've got a Teddy Bridgewater who is already better than any QB prospect a year ago. After that you've got some guys that could get pushed up. I like Boyd to some degree and I like Blake Bortles a LOT. Bortles might end up being sort of my guy that I pimp a lot. That said I'm going to pick him apart right now. 1. He doesn't necessarily spin a great ball. He still needs work and reps before he's consistently spinning the football really well. It's not bad but it could be better, more crisp. Many of the great ones just had to keep throwing thousands and thousands of footballs and eventually the ball is coming out perfectly. Brady a good example. 2. He's got a tendency to leap before he looks. He likes to use his eyes all over the field to disguise his intentions and when he clicks over sometimes he can throw it before really checking that he's not going to get burned for it. 3. He's definitely a back foot kind of guy. Someone needs to break him of that habit. It's not really uncommon but it does detract from his accuracy and ball placement. Some evaluators like players that are confident enough to throw off their back foot and with bad leverage. Others want picture-perfect mechanics as consistently as possible. 4. Related to #3, as a result of the inconsistent footwork and stepping into his throw, his ball placement can be off at times. I've seen him throw interceptions because of back foot throws, although they were under heavy duress. I think he's at worst a Ryan Fitzpatrick. But if he polishes up some of those things, there are a lot of Andrew Luck's traits in there. One quick note. I had someone come to me on twitter saying they know the coach that coached both Bortles and Jeff Driskel in baseball back in college. The coach said it never failed that whenever they got into clutch moments of the game, Bortles came through and Driskel fell apart.
Interesting. Here are the "Adjusted QBR" numbers for NCAA QBs. The QBR is that one rating that ESPN is pimping, the new efficiency standard they've created. I have no idea what the "adjustment" is but here they are: Marcus Mariota - 93.0 Jameis Winston - 92.9 Bryce Petty - 91.8 Johnny Manziel - 89.6 Zach Mettenberger - 88.2 Aaron Murray - 86.7 A.J. McCarron - 81.1 Tajh Boyd - 80.2 Brett Hundley - 80.1 Stephen Morris - 78.3 Teddy Bridgewater - 78.2 Taylor Kelly - 77.8 Blake Bortles - 77.1 Rakeem Cato - 76.5 Derek Carr - 75.8 Sean Mannion - 74.8 Keith Wenning - 71.7 Jordan Lynch - 64.9 David Fales - 59.3 Logan Thomas - 55.5 Still no clue what the QBR is based on.
No I understand the synchronicity aspect. I said in the preseason that it'd take Tannehill some time to acclimate to Wallace's speed after coming from the slowest group in the NFL. At this point in the season, however, Tannehill has to realize it's not Hartline anymore on these bombs and that he doesn't have to worry about trying to get cute with it. Let it rip and put some air under it so that Wallace can take care of the rest. It really doesn't get any easier than that. The speed issue shouldn't come into play on the bombs b/c that doesn't really need to be a timing route. Foles doesn't have a problem with it in Philly with DeSean Jackson & Riley Cooper who are on the opposite ends of the speed spectrum. IMO our passing game's biggest problem is having to rely sooo heavily on timing routes b/c of our weak OC and limited personnel rather than having playmakers like Evans & Watkins whom a talented OC can spend half the time either scheming to get them the ball in space or hitting them on easy high-percentage throws and allowing them to gain yards on their end. If synchronicity remains an issue then hope for Watkins to fall. As far as our 1st round pick goes, we rarely se a great lineman have the same impact of a great receiver, so if we're fortunate enough to have Evans or Wallace on the board at our pick and posing great value, I'd hate to pass on the best long term impact in order to satisfy an immediate need. It's not like teams can easily grab an impact receiver any year they feel like it, and there's a drastic difference between an impact receiver like Dez and an acceptable one like Brian Hartline, but in today's NFL where defensive pressure comes from everywhere, there's not a drastic difference between an outstanding offensive tackle like Duane Brown and an acceptable one like Andrew Whitworth. Is there anyone in their right mind who would choose the duo of Duane Brown & Hartline over Whitworth & Dez?
Looks like per this: http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/id/87317/wilson-bradford-gain-in-adjusted-qbr The "adjustment" is opponent quality, which is why Teddy is getting a raw deal here. Teddy's goes from 85.8 -> 78.2 while Mettenberger's goes from 80.8 -> 88.2 with opponent quality. But I'm just a huge Bridgewater fan, I'm not even remotely enticed by the Mariota/ Manziel are the best QB arguments.
I don't approve of their adjustment based on schedule. I think it's a good way of taking what could otherwise be a valuable tool and muddying it considerably. Not that I know of the QBR as being a valuable tool. I've no idea how valuable it is.
TE Troy Niklas from the above bookmarked videos: [video=youtube;UC6M0SbNReM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC6M0SbNReM&feature=youtu.be[/video] Other videos to be found: vs. Michigan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g10YtM1Qjk&feature=player_embedded vs. USC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6mdq9bsjTg&feature=player_embedded
I'm not sure how ESPN uses competition level to adjust their ratings. I do like to look at the player's performance against top competition though. For instance, Teddy Bridgewater completes 76.3% of his passes against ranked teams with 2 TDs, 0 INTs in 38 attempts at 9.0 YPA. Against non-ranked teams, his completion percentage drops to 70.1% and has 22 TDs to 3 INTs in 271 attempts at 10.0 YPA. It's a small sample size, but it is interesting that against the 1 ranked opponent Louisville has faced, Teddy was asked to throw the ball 8 more times than he has been asked in all other games. That tells me that when the game is on the line, they are not afraid to put it into his hands. Bridgewater's numbers are better against FBS winning programs than they are against losing programs as well. Compare that to Tajh Boyd, whose numbers are worse against better competition.
Alright, I know the Dolphins probably won't go CB but let's talk about a few for the hell of it. Darqueze Dennard - Already posted some thoughts on him, but here are a few more. During the draft evaluation process he's going to get dinged for a lack of long speed, the numbers don't bear that out. He was only beat on 2/17 passes 20+ yards, which should speak to the fact that he's just not getting beat deep. In fact most of the receptions he let up were short passes. He's a physical corner, 26% of his alignments were in press and another 29% were in press-bail. So he's used to getting in the face of the WR. His overall burn rate is 33% meaning he was beat on 1 out of every 3 passes. If we take a 1:1 comparison of my data to STATS' numbers then Dennard would have had the best burn rate in last year's class. I don't know exactly what or how they charted burn rate, which is a main reason why I'm just doing it myself this year. I like knowing the methods instead of citing someone else's stuff.Anyway pretty average in terms of ball-skills (1 def/ 4.67 targets). He's not going to get a ton of deflections, but he'll lock down the opposing guy. Jason Verrett - Widely accepted as the top SR corner in this class, the numbers tell a different tale. Verrett is your ball-hawk, getting his hands on the ball 1 out of every 3 targets which would have been tops in last year's class. However, he's getting beat on 45% of targets - amongst the worst in last year's class. However that comes with a caveat. I'm counting pass interference penalties as "completions" because they effectively give the opposing offense yardage. Verrett has had 4 PIs this year (I eliminated one ticky-tack call to make it 3) which puts his burn rate anywhere as low at 37.5% when you take those out. Still a bit worrisome as he's getting beat quite a bit. He's not a guy whose numbers are inflated by getting constantly beat underneath though. On 13 completions against Verrett, 7 are deeper than 15 yards. A bit concerned that deeper patterns may be a weakness. Kyle Fuller - I'd be really interested to hear if anyone has watched Fuller and has an opinion on him because I'm a bit divided. His numbers are superb. 33% burn rate which is down there with Dennard in the 'elite' level. Unlike Dennard he has some nice ball skills, especially when it comes to deflecting the ball. His overall passes defensed rate is 3.6. A bit lower than Verrett but better than Dennard and in the upper echelon among last year's prospects. He's targeted a ton, once on every 4.5 throws. However, that's not necessarily a problem if he's not letting up catches and is defending passes well. 55% of his alignments are 6-10 yards from the LOS, so he plays off the ball quite a bit. Despite all of that, I'm really not a fan. I think his technique in coverage is poor and he's overly reliant on his athleticism to make up for it. That athleticism gets him a lot of deflections, but I'm not sure how sustainable that is. He's not lackadaisical in his play because he's a very willing/quality tackler that blitzes with intensity. But sometimes he seems that way because he's lost in the coverage. There's a play against Devin Street where he just doesn't move when the ball is snapped. Street runs a 5 yard out behind him and Fuller recovers to make the deflection, but if Street had gone any further up field Fuller would have been beat badly. The numbers say elite, but I'm just not feeling the projection. Curious for thoughts on Fuller.
I'm not sure what can be taken from this when 3 of the 4 "winning programs" Bridgewater has faced are Ohio [who just lost 49-0 to Bowling Green and 30-3 to Buffalo], Rutgers [who's about to be 5-5], and Houston. Not exactly the FSU's of the world, no? UCF is the only legitimate one. I'm guessing with a sample size of only 4 teams, that if you substituted FSU for Ohio, his stats would look noticeably different. To me, what we have is Teddy's 82% completion/5 TD game against Ohio skewing things b/c against Rutgers & Houston he combined for 66.7% and 2 TDs. Teddy also had his top 3 receivers return from 2012, so that's a big help when facing "tougher" competition. It's rough looking at him statistically b/c of his competition: Eastern Ky: non FBS UConn: 0-9 FIU: 1-9 Temple: 1-9 Kentucky: 2-8 [lost to Western Ky for Pete's sake] USF: 2-7 You mention how his stats are greater against "better" competition as if that's a good thing, but that only leaves me asking- why are his stats poorer against worse competition? Why the combined 57% completions & 2 TD against UConn & Ky?
Great stuff as always. I can't really comment on Fuller as I've not seen VaTech play very much at all. I'd be interested to see if you had a numbers for Justin Gilbert of Oklahoma State. I know he was talked up a bit last year as he had that huge Fiesta Bowl game vs. Luck & Stanford, but his star seemed to dim quite a bit last season. He seems like he's got good measureables and has been explosive as a quick returner. Interested to see how he does against Baylor on Saturday.
I've always been a fan of three pillars of statistical evaluation where it concerns corners. The first two are yards per attempt and yards per coverage snap. Those stats ideally will be consistent with one another. When they're not, that raises a flag for further tape evaluation. A third stat I like to look at is PBUs and PDs. I would relate that as a percentage of targets. Good corners get their hands on the football. I would personally not worry too much about pass interference penalties as far as evaluations go, unless there is an egregious number of them (four is not my definition of egregious), or unless my tape evaluation has identified the guy as having a consistent problem getting his head around and locating the football in man coverage.
For instance right now two guys I'm definitely going to have to look into more are Tim Bennett of Indiana (whom I've already heard of) and D'Joun Smith of FAU (whom I saw return a 75 yard interception against my team South Florida). Wouldn't hurt to look at Will Davis' old teammate Nevin Lawson at Utah State either.
He needs coached up a little bit, but I would like Justin Gilbert anywhere from the third round and beyond. We need a kick returner and someone who is more dependable than Nolan Carroll.
NUGap I forgot to mention that I got a GOOD look at Jahwan Edwards this week in that Ball State game. I remember you mentioned him ages ago. I was watching for Keith Wenning but came away more interested in Jahwan Edwards and Willie Snead. Not that I hate Wenning, but I have some Chad Henne-ish concerns about him. Edwards looked fantastic though, and Snead caught my eye too. I was wondering if Snead might be kind of carrying Wenning a little bit. Snead could just be a nice college player. Haven't decided yet. NFL Draft Scout lists him at 4.67 speed, sized at only 5'11" and 193 lbs. That's not going to be good enough most likely. But he still caught my eye. Will say this. There's a TD against Kent State where he beats CB Malcolm Pannell in straight up coverage. Pannell is listed by NFLDS as having 4.58 speed. Jahwan Edwards though at 5'9" and 225 lbs, I'm not particularly mindful of what his 40 speed is. I'm not sure it's important.
Here's a video I found of Willie Snead. It's such a tired comparison to compare a guy to a Wes Welker but I do see some of that in him. The balance is there, the quick feet, the fight, the ball skills, etc. [video=youtube;NUPnyaoygW4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NUPnyaoygW4[/video]
