“… personnel/talent/execution matters way more than scheme…”
Amen. A good scheme with bad talent is like (take your choice):
A. Lipstick on a pig
B. Wall paper over a hole
C. The emperor’s new clothes
Since the rules are so skewed, the primacy of talent is especially true on offense. Even on defense, *I* could get better results with the 2013 Seahawks than Vic Fangio could with a defense of mediocrities.
Well scheme matters because scheme puts your talent in the position to make the most of their talent if they execute. Likewise execution doesn’t happen if the players don’t understand their responsibilities and believe in the scheme. But I will agree that if you don’t have talent no scheme is going to work for long and execution will be beaten by better talent.
The era of truly great teams ended with the salary cap. There are arguments for the cap and against it (I’m against it), but there’s not much doubt of its impact on roster building. We’re not going to see runs like the 60’s Packers , the 70s Steelers, the 80s Niners, or even the 90s Cowboys.* again. This does mean that more teams (and fans) can have legitimate hope for winning records and deep playoff runs, but something is lost, too.
* The Patriots were a mirage—they had the greatest QB ever, but not many great teams.
On the personnel faced by the Hawks this year, I think there are a few factors which have led to us seeing more 11 personnel than anyone else:
- We've played the Rams, Bengals and Lions who all play a bunch of 11 personnel
- All of our games have been close losses/moderate wins, so the opponent has little desire to salt the game away until the final series, thus little to no 12/22 personnel.
- Our early nickel package was poor before we got Adams, 'Spoon and Tre Brown integrated.
- We haven't played the 9ers or Steelers yet, who run the most 12 personnel in neutral game scripts (from memory).
It's also a possibility that our opponents have scouted our run defense to be strong and are attacking through the air in the lighter formations. But, like Village Idiot stated, we can't even say that definitively because there is not enough data. We see the most 11 personell, but if that's 8 plays more than the average and every team sees similar amounts, then seeing the "most" doesn't really mean anything.
QBR, PFF Rating etc - all bollocks! Over statting is a problem in modern sports, driven by analyist providers like AWS or PFF to give themselves an income. But you can tweet them quick, headline a post etc so they are here to stay, unfortunately. Just got to take the time to find a genuine analyst talking about the game without relying on numbers - like SSJ.
Still going to campaign against a Tackle in Rd1 unless it's Fantanu. That back end of the 1st though he'll be gone and quite possible onto the #8 tackle going this year. Would rather swing on IDL like Taylor or Sweat who could well be in range. And whilst JS hasn't gone QB in Rd 1, without a current Rd2 pick I would not be shocked if he went early on a Rattler/Ewers just because this draft looks thin in top end talent. Would rather take the gamble on a QB to take the team to the next level than shifting a Tackle inside to Guard and pushing us over the line.
I love Stats and what you can do with them but the main problem is context. You can't really compare one player to another because of the missing context of every play. You would have to connect every little dot to understand how these stats came together and what they really mean. Just taking one Stat and claiming that the one who is on top is Elite Super Next Level may really be just clickbaiting because two players can have the exact same Stat there and one had to work extremely hard for it because of circumstances and the other may have been bad because he could have been way better. In watching a game life you get a feeling for which players change the pace of the game and which players make many mistakes but even there a lot is execution within a team so 1 player at the backside of the play can make a fault and the play fails (Flags, missed assignments,... Etc). That being said I still love looking for stats to get a feeling for a team or player.
For example in seeing spoons last college season with around 26% Completion and 0 TDs you could already say he has to be at least good, but just for the Stat you don't know if he faced bad QB throws, wrong routes by receivers etc.
The most meaningful Stat is Wins and Losses and we can't decide by how many % each player has contributed to them.
I would like for someone to explain to me about 12 personnel. Also, Cover 3 and all those terms are leaving me with question ass to what they are. For instance, I know that you can only have 11 players on the field so how do you get 12 personnel? I, not ever having played football, am unaware of what these terms mean. I believe most of the members of this community know these terms and I want to quit feeling stupid because I don't. So I'm asking.
A Cover 2 has two deep Men, I think mostly they play Zone.
Cover 3 has 3 of them
Cover 4, you guessed it 4.
You basically split the deep of the field in bigger or smaller zones and therefore open or close deep space for the sake short zones.
So a Cover 2 could have the middle and the sidelines for the offense, Cover 3 more the 2 zones between them and with a Cover 4 or more you mostly better decide to throw if short and go for YAC or a running play.
In my understanding the players who play the zones are interchangeable, depending on how you use your players to cover or blitz so for example if you decide to blitz your free safety a CB or fast LB can drop into his deep zone.
Let me see how many birds (non-Seahawks) I can whack with one stone. Or, more accurately, with one bag of rocks.
The first digit tells you how many Running Backs are on the field. The second digit tells you how many Tight Ends there are. Since there are (more or less, kinda sorta) always two tackles, two guards, one QB, and one center, then a little bit of ciphering tells you how many receivers are present.
If there are one or more decent TE's who can both block and catch, then the QB can call either run or pass at the line from 11-personnel, depending on what defending players are present & how they are deployed. Both options are held open to the last possible instant.
If the QB is good at analyzing the opposition, 11 personnel provides more options at a later decision point than most (all?) other personnel complements. If (and only if) they have the versatile TE's to exploit it.
As for the numbers...by themselves, the table Ken showed doesn't mean much to me at all. More context is needed, and can be found by following the link. Of greatest interest (to me) and least effort (for me) is what the Seahawks defense sees in comparison to other teams, and whether their number is an outlier (which cannot be told from the excerpt Ken included).
The full 11-personnel filter of the table seems to suggest that, overall, teams face 11-personnel on more than half of the snaps, averaging 61.4% of 15,983 snaps with a median of 60.8%. The mean and median being very close together suggests (but does not prove) that the statistical distribution is probably close to Gaussian ("normal", "bell curve"). I didn't formally verify that but, if it is true then additional statistics might be relevant.
For example, the standard deviation in the incidence of 11-personnel is about 8.1%, meaning that 2/3 of the teams see that grouping somewhere between 53% and 69% of their snaps, while 1/3 of the teams see either more than that or less than that. The width of the standard deviation suggests that having teams by themselves near either end of the distribution might be telling you something.
The only "outlier" I could see "by inspection" (meaning "I didn't actually run the numbers") is the Panthers away down at the bottom: the gap between them and Green Bay is larger than the typical gap between any other pair of teams that are next to each other in the ranking. If you look at the EPA columns, you'd see that the Panther suck at defending both pass and run. The relatively low rate of 11-personnel against them suggests that other teams' OC's think they (themselves) are pretty good at knowing what to do in order to whup the Panthers (because personnel package selection tells you what the opposing OC's think they should deploy in order to beat that particular defense).
Recent history does not suggest those OC's are very far wrong.
The other thing I noticed when plotting the data was that there is a "knee" in the incidence curve: the "top" seven teams see 11-personnel at a rapidly increasing rate. They are, in decreasing order of incidence, Seattle, Baltimore, Nawlins, San Francisco, Phily, the Rams, and Miami. An argument could be made that the knee includes an eighth team (Cleveland).
Since the personnel package is what the OC thinks is most likely to provide the options to be successful on each play (that is: it indicates the OC's perception, which may/may not be based on objective fact), the data suggest that, in general, the OC's feel it is significantly more critical to delay the rush/pass decision against those seven (eight) teams. It might (or might not) be reasonable to suspect that's true because those seven (eight) teams have defensive players that are effective against both the run and the pass.
It is, however, just a hint of a suggestion...at first glance, the EPA numbers don't necessarily bear that out. I'd have to work a whole bunch harder in order to figure out whether any additional analysis was worth either my time to execute, or your time to read...and I've just noticed how close behind my ass I've sawed the branch I'm sitting on...and also, my head hurts.
P.S. - Don't feel bad about not knowing. I had to go look it up, too, then sit and cogitate for about an hour in order to come up with a totally unfounded rationale for what the numbers might mean. Which is just a long-winded way of saying "You're not allowed to feel like an Idiot while I'm around."
Do my best--- Cover 3 is just Free Safety playing the middle, reading where they are needed as they see the play , hopefully pre snap, the corners are basically playing man(most of the time) and the Strong safety ( at least are supposed) to be the STUD by reading /knowing what is coming and making sure it is either messed up or Blown up- rush or drop! I'll let someone else step up on the 12 - unless they don't - I'll watch
I truly believe that most underestimate the influence of a decent well functioning ,used to being together O-line means in the NFL! If you follow the top offense's they either have a GREAT O-line coach ( New England, plus players) or just Very good to great O-linemen, at most of the positions. IF--- we had health and consistency at Our O-line we would have a much better Offense, at least very more consistent. Bet Money !
I agree with your assessment that there's not a lot of difference between good and bad teams, and that the ones that stand out are the very best and very worst. I still think the trade was misguided because I don't see us making a deep run this year, even though we have a great core of young talent. I don't think Geno is that hard to beat. Any team that can dial up consistent pressure will have a great chance of neutralizing him. If there's no pressure, he's shown a propensity to make very nice throws that pick opponents apart. For that reason, if Seattle is going to stick with Geno, I agree that a tackle might be a good use of a first rounder. That said, I'd rather use it on a QB if there's one on the board that we think is likely to be a potential franchise guy. Another reason I wish we still had our second round pick.
I'm not as sure as you that not having taken a QB in the first round under Carroll means much. Until this last season we'd never taken a corner in the first. What we have is way too small a sample. Carroll came in and we got lucky with Russ in the third round. Then we had Russ, so there was no reason to burn a first on a QB. Since losing Russ, there was a year in which no QB was worth the #9 pick and then one in which none of the guys thought likely to go in the top 5 were still on the board.
If Seattle is truly as smart in the draft now as they seem to have been these last two years, they'll make sure we get value. We won't pick a guy too high because of a need and we won't pass over someone we think great because we're sure we're set at a particular position. We'll take value when we see it. I was encouraged that Seattle got the importance of value in a salary cap era until they traded a 2nd and a 5th for rental on a veteran edge whose not truly dominant. I'd have been okay with a talent like Adams for a 2nd and a.5th. I thought it was idiotic for two firsts. So my assessment on this trade window was and is Stupid Move!
Geno is 1/4 quarter the way through a 2 year contract. I see no reason to assume they plan to stick with him long term, but any QB needs a functioning O line. After reading Seaside Joe's comments I looked back at QBs taken in the 1st going back 15 years and it's far more miss than hit. It's true a lot of good prospects go in the 1st and also true a lot of good prospects wash out of the NFL fairly quickly. Look at that recent history, it's sobering to say the least. The hit rate on tackles in the 1st is also mixed, I'm just saying.
I initially was skeptical of this trade but I've come around to it, even though it's a steep cost. Getting NY to pay virtually all of his remaining salary was what cost them the 2nd and 5th instead of just a 3rd rounder because there were multiple teams offering a 3rd. I guess it's a matter of opinion whether he's "truly dominant" but we'll certainly see, and there may be issues with player health they know of that we don't that lit a fire for this trade. Their depth at DT was basically non-existent and there's a lot of football left to play. I'm just hoping this isn't Sheldon Richardson 2.0. Again, we'll see.
Right, well that's why they couldn't afford this trade. A third rounder might have made sense and if they hadn't overpaid Dissly, as an example, there would have been money for the contract.
As for QBs, we have a guy on the roster because Schneider saw a lot of potential. He has a way better arm than Geno and real scrambling ability. He was a second round pick who, had the draft been based on talent alone, would have gone in the first round. But we've not given him a chance. Instead, we stick with a guy with a not great but nice arm who can scramble just enough but who makes mistakes under pressure. Really bone headed ones.
I'm not sure if Lock would be better. But there's a chance. I see no reason not to give him a try. We know what Geno can do and it's not enough. I agree that most QB draft picks are misses. But we have to get someone better under center if we're serious about building the team. So take a shot with a draft pick. And give the guy a real chance. Does us no good if we pick someone up late, give him no chance and then cut him.
If we start Geno next year, I'll be even more sure that Carroll is well past his prime. He should be a salary cap casualty. Draft someone and then have a real competition between Lock and the new kid.
Thanks Joe! I really appreciate you acknowledging and answering my question.
I also agree with the points you made. With respect to good vs bad teams, there are clearly top teams and bottom dwellers, but in general the margin is razor thin. It’s why I like the NFL, and weekly “upsets”, which are really just based on sports book odds. On that note, road favorites have not fared well this year.
My question arose from some of the recent comments around the Williams trade. There were some that felt it was a good move (I agree) and others who felt we gave up to much (it’s possible). But only time will tell, and all of us have to make decisions based on the information we have available at that time. I think that making incremental improvements at individual positions add up to a greater sum of the parts. Every NFL game comes down to a few key plays and having playmakers increases the chances that those plays go our way.
With respect to parity there is a lot of truth in "any given Sunday"... which is how the NFL wants it.
Injuries, especially the "nagging" kind, to key players, heck even the weather can have a week to week impact on games that is beyond the "on paper" analysis of who *should* win a particular game.
At some point NFL media is going to figure out a compelling way to market Strength of Schedule the way they have Power Rankings (pure blah blah blah), and then we'll never hear the end of it. I still find SoS interesting even though my rationale brain knows its inherently problematic and deceptive.
“… personnel/talent/execution matters way more than scheme…”
Amen. A good scheme with bad talent is like (take your choice):
A. Lipstick on a pig
B. Wall paper over a hole
C. The emperor’s new clothes
Since the rules are so skewed, the primacy of talent is especially true on offense. Even on defense, *I* could get better results with the 2013 Seahawks than Vic Fangio could with a defense of mediocrities.
Well scheme matters because scheme puts your talent in the position to make the most of their talent if they execute. Likewise execution doesn’t happen if the players don’t understand their responsibilities and believe in the scheme. But I will agree that if you don’t have talent no scheme is going to work for long and execution will be beaten by better talent.
The era of truly great teams ended with the salary cap. There are arguments for the cap and against it (I’m against it), but there’s not much doubt of its impact on roster building. We’re not going to see runs like the 60’s Packers , the 70s Steelers, the 80s Niners, or even the 90s Cowboys.* again. This does mean that more teams (and fans) can have legitimate hope for winning records and deep playoff runs, but something is lost, too.
* The Patriots were a mirage—they had the greatest QB ever, but not many great teams.
On the personnel faced by the Hawks this year, I think there are a few factors which have led to us seeing more 11 personnel than anyone else:
- We've played the Rams, Bengals and Lions who all play a bunch of 11 personnel
- All of our games have been close losses/moderate wins, so the opponent has little desire to salt the game away until the final series, thus little to no 12/22 personnel.
- Our early nickel package was poor before we got Adams, 'Spoon and Tre Brown integrated.
- We haven't played the 9ers or Steelers yet, who run the most 12 personnel in neutral game scripts (from memory).
It's also a possibility that our opponents have scouted our run defense to be strong and are attacking through the air in the lighter formations. But, like Village Idiot stated, we can't even say that definitively because there is not enough data. We see the most 11 personell, but if that's 8 plays more than the average and every team sees similar amounts, then seeing the "most" doesn't really mean anything.
QBR, PFF Rating etc - all bollocks! Over statting is a problem in modern sports, driven by analyist providers like AWS or PFF to give themselves an income. But you can tweet them quick, headline a post etc so they are here to stay, unfortunately. Just got to take the time to find a genuine analyst talking about the game without relying on numbers - like SSJ.
Still going to campaign against a Tackle in Rd1 unless it's Fantanu. That back end of the 1st though he'll be gone and quite possible onto the #8 tackle going this year. Would rather swing on IDL like Taylor or Sweat who could well be in range. And whilst JS hasn't gone QB in Rd 1, without a current Rd2 pick I would not be shocked if he went early on a Rattler/Ewers just because this draft looks thin in top end talent. Would rather take the gamble on a QB to take the team to the next level than shifting a Tackle inside to Guard and pushing us over the line.
I love Stats and what you can do with them but the main problem is context. You can't really compare one player to another because of the missing context of every play. You would have to connect every little dot to understand how these stats came together and what they really mean. Just taking one Stat and claiming that the one who is on top is Elite Super Next Level may really be just clickbaiting because two players can have the exact same Stat there and one had to work extremely hard for it because of circumstances and the other may have been bad because he could have been way better. In watching a game life you get a feeling for which players change the pace of the game and which players make many mistakes but even there a lot is execution within a team so 1 player at the backside of the play can make a fault and the play fails (Flags, missed assignments,... Etc). That being said I still love looking for stats to get a feeling for a team or player.
For example in seeing spoons last college season with around 26% Completion and 0 TDs you could already say he has to be at least good, but just for the Stat you don't know if he faced bad QB throws, wrong routes by receivers etc.
The most meaningful Stat is Wins and Losses and we can't decide by how many % each player has contributed to them.
I would like for someone to explain to me about 12 personnel. Also, Cover 3 and all those terms are leaving me with question ass to what they are. For instance, I know that you can only have 11 players on the field so how do you get 12 personnel? I, not ever having played football, am unaware of what these terms mean. I believe most of the members of this community know these terms and I want to quit feeling stupid because I don't. So I'm asking.
Most basic explanation for the Covers:
A Cover 2 has two deep Men, I think mostly they play Zone.
Cover 3 has 3 of them
Cover 4, you guessed it 4.
You basically split the deep of the field in bigger or smaller zones and therefore open or close deep space for the sake short zones.
So a Cover 2 could have the middle and the sidelines for the offense, Cover 3 more the 2 zones between them and with a Cover 4 or more you mostly better decide to throw if short and go for YAC or a running play.
In my understanding the players who play the zones are interchangeable, depending on how you use your players to cover or blitz so for example if you decide to blitz your free safety a CB or fast LB can drop into his deep zone.
Pat Kirwan’s “Take Your Eyes Off The Ball” is a great introduction to the ins-and-outs of stuff like this.
Let me see how many birds (non-Seahawks) I can whack with one stone. Or, more accurately, with one bag of rocks.
The first digit tells you how many Running Backs are on the field. The second digit tells you how many Tight Ends there are. Since there are (more or less, kinda sorta) always two tackles, two guards, one QB, and one center, then a little bit of ciphering tells you how many receivers are present.
If there are one or more decent TE's who can both block and catch, then the QB can call either run or pass at the line from 11-personnel, depending on what defending players are present & how they are deployed. Both options are held open to the last possible instant.
If the QB is good at analyzing the opposition, 11 personnel provides more options at a later decision point than most (all?) other personnel complements. If (and only if) they have the versatile TE's to exploit it.
As for the numbers...by themselves, the table Ken showed doesn't mean much to me at all. More context is needed, and can be found by following the link. Of greatest interest (to me) and least effort (for me) is what the Seahawks defense sees in comparison to other teams, and whether their number is an outlier (which cannot be told from the excerpt Ken included).
The full 11-personnel filter of the table seems to suggest that, overall, teams face 11-personnel on more than half of the snaps, averaging 61.4% of 15,983 snaps with a median of 60.8%. The mean and median being very close together suggests (but does not prove) that the statistical distribution is probably close to Gaussian ("normal", "bell curve"). I didn't formally verify that but, if it is true then additional statistics might be relevant.
For example, the standard deviation in the incidence of 11-personnel is about 8.1%, meaning that 2/3 of the teams see that grouping somewhere between 53% and 69% of their snaps, while 1/3 of the teams see either more than that or less than that. The width of the standard deviation suggests that having teams by themselves near either end of the distribution might be telling you something.
The only "outlier" I could see "by inspection" (meaning "I didn't actually run the numbers") is the Panthers away down at the bottom: the gap between them and Green Bay is larger than the typical gap between any other pair of teams that are next to each other in the ranking. If you look at the EPA columns, you'd see that the Panther suck at defending both pass and run. The relatively low rate of 11-personnel against them suggests that other teams' OC's think they (themselves) are pretty good at knowing what to do in order to whup the Panthers (because personnel package selection tells you what the opposing OC's think they should deploy in order to beat that particular defense).
Recent history does not suggest those OC's are very far wrong.
The other thing I noticed when plotting the data was that there is a "knee" in the incidence curve: the "top" seven teams see 11-personnel at a rapidly increasing rate. They are, in decreasing order of incidence, Seattle, Baltimore, Nawlins, San Francisco, Phily, the Rams, and Miami. An argument could be made that the knee includes an eighth team (Cleveland).
Since the personnel package is what the OC thinks is most likely to provide the options to be successful on each play (that is: it indicates the OC's perception, which may/may not be based on objective fact), the data suggest that, in general, the OC's feel it is significantly more critical to delay the rush/pass decision against those seven (eight) teams. It might (or might not) be reasonable to suspect that's true because those seven (eight) teams have defensive players that are effective against both the run and the pass.
It is, however, just a hint of a suggestion...at first glance, the EPA numbers don't necessarily bear that out. I'd have to work a whole bunch harder in order to figure out whether any additional analysis was worth either my time to execute, or your time to read...and I've just noticed how close behind my ass I've sawed the branch I'm sitting on...and also, my head hurts.
P.S. - Don't feel bad about not knowing. I had to go look it up, too, then sit and cogitate for about an hour in order to come up with a totally unfounded rationale for what the numbers might mean. Which is just a long-winded way of saying "You're not allowed to feel like an Idiot while I'm around."
Do my best--- Cover 3 is just Free Safety playing the middle, reading where they are needed as they see the play , hopefully pre snap, the corners are basically playing man(most of the time) and the Strong safety ( at least are supposed) to be the STUD by reading /knowing what is coming and making sure it is either messed up or Blown up- rush or drop! I'll let someone else step up on the 12 - unless they don't - I'll watch
I truly believe that most underestimate the influence of a decent well functioning ,used to being together O-line means in the NFL! If you follow the top offense's they either have a GREAT O-line coach ( New England, plus players) or just Very good to great O-linemen, at most of the positions. IF--- we had health and consistency at Our O-line we would have a much better Offense, at least very more consistent. Bet Money !
I agree with your assessment that there's not a lot of difference between good and bad teams, and that the ones that stand out are the very best and very worst. I still think the trade was misguided because I don't see us making a deep run this year, even though we have a great core of young talent. I don't think Geno is that hard to beat. Any team that can dial up consistent pressure will have a great chance of neutralizing him. If there's no pressure, he's shown a propensity to make very nice throws that pick opponents apart. For that reason, if Seattle is going to stick with Geno, I agree that a tackle might be a good use of a first rounder. That said, I'd rather use it on a QB if there's one on the board that we think is likely to be a potential franchise guy. Another reason I wish we still had our second round pick.
I'm not as sure as you that not having taken a QB in the first round under Carroll means much. Until this last season we'd never taken a corner in the first. What we have is way too small a sample. Carroll came in and we got lucky with Russ in the third round. Then we had Russ, so there was no reason to burn a first on a QB. Since losing Russ, there was a year in which no QB was worth the #9 pick and then one in which none of the guys thought likely to go in the top 5 were still on the board.
If Seattle is truly as smart in the draft now as they seem to have been these last two years, they'll make sure we get value. We won't pick a guy too high because of a need and we won't pass over someone we think great because we're sure we're set at a particular position. We'll take value when we see it. I was encouraged that Seattle got the importance of value in a salary cap era until they traded a 2nd and a 5th for rental on a veteran edge whose not truly dominant. I'd have been okay with a talent like Adams for a 2nd and a.5th. I thought it was idiotic for two firsts. So my assessment on this trade window was and is Stupid Move!
Geno is 1/4 quarter the way through a 2 year contract. I see no reason to assume they plan to stick with him long term, but any QB needs a functioning O line. After reading Seaside Joe's comments I looked back at QBs taken in the 1st going back 15 years and it's far more miss than hit. It's true a lot of good prospects go in the 1st and also true a lot of good prospects wash out of the NFL fairly quickly. Look at that recent history, it's sobering to say the least. The hit rate on tackles in the 1st is also mixed, I'm just saying.
I initially was skeptical of this trade but I've come around to it, even though it's a steep cost. Getting NY to pay virtually all of his remaining salary was what cost them the 2nd and 5th instead of just a 3rd rounder because there were multiple teams offering a 3rd. I guess it's a matter of opinion whether he's "truly dominant" but we'll certainly see, and there may be issues with player health they know of that we don't that lit a fire for this trade. Their depth at DT was basically non-existent and there's a lot of football left to play. I'm just hoping this isn't Sheldon Richardson 2.0. Again, we'll see.
Right, well that's why they couldn't afford this trade. A third rounder might have made sense and if they hadn't overpaid Dissly, as an example, there would have been money for the contract.
As for QBs, we have a guy on the roster because Schneider saw a lot of potential. He has a way better arm than Geno and real scrambling ability. He was a second round pick who, had the draft been based on talent alone, would have gone in the first round. But we've not given him a chance. Instead, we stick with a guy with a not great but nice arm who can scramble just enough but who makes mistakes under pressure. Really bone headed ones.
I'm not sure if Lock would be better. But there's a chance. I see no reason not to give him a try. We know what Geno can do and it's not enough. I agree that most QB draft picks are misses. But we have to get someone better under center if we're serious about building the team. So take a shot with a draft pick. And give the guy a real chance. Does us no good if we pick someone up late, give him no chance and then cut him.
If we start Geno next year, I'll be even more sure that Carroll is well past his prime. He should be a salary cap casualty. Draft someone and then have a real competition between Lock and the new kid.
Thanks Joe! I really appreciate you acknowledging and answering my question.
I also agree with the points you made. With respect to good vs bad teams, there are clearly top teams and bottom dwellers, but in general the margin is razor thin. It’s why I like the NFL, and weekly “upsets”, which are really just based on sports book odds. On that note, road favorites have not fared well this year.
My question arose from some of the recent comments around the Williams trade. There were some that felt it was a good move (I agree) and others who felt we gave up to much (it’s possible). But only time will tell, and all of us have to make decisions based on the information we have available at that time. I think that making incremental improvements at individual positions add up to a greater sum of the parts. Every NFL game comes down to a few key plays and having playmakers increases the chances that those plays go our way.
With respect to parity there is a lot of truth in "any given Sunday"... which is how the NFL wants it.
Injuries, especially the "nagging" kind, to key players, heck even the weather can have a week to week impact on games that is beyond the "on paper" analysis of who *should* win a particular game.
At some point NFL media is going to figure out a compelling way to market Strength of Schedule the way they have Power Rankings (pure blah blah blah), and then we'll never hear the end of it. I still find SoS interesting even though my rationale brain knows its inherently problematic and deceptive.
“Maybe in the age of smart phones, it’s natural to want definitive answers now.”
This was true in the time of Caesar Augustus. Cell phones are a mere bagatelle.
Had to google bagatelle.
It’s an obscure reference, I admit.
Had to look up that word and I still don't get it.
Yeah you’re probably right!
People are what they are and always have been.
Awesome that you answered them all, thank you man!!
Thank you!