NFL 2012

So since it looks like the vikings arent going to make the playoffs or have a winning record, does Adrian Peterson have a realistic chance to win the MVP? Personally I think he deserves it if he keeps at this level of play, but I know that not being on a winning team is held against a player.

If they don't make the playoffs, nope. Otherwise, he'd lose to Calvin Johnson anyway ;)

It will be sad if he doesnt, he is the best player in the league, that should translate to being MVP.

I'm amazed that, despite the refs' best efforts, Seattle was able to pull that win out in Chicago.

On a more serious note, it's getting old hearing people talk about what a badass combo Brandon Browner and Richard Sherman are. I've watched them get torched week in and week out by elite, average, and backup receivers this entire season. Brandon Marshall pistol-whipped them both today. And he's the only guy on the Bears whole team.
His big catch at the end of regulation, after what he did all game, with no other credible receiving threat on the field, with I dunno, a couple safeties and other D-backs standing around him, should be the final nail in that particular misconception's coffin.

Fuck off, Bob Costas. Not only do you fucking talk down to your audience, you end up quoting Jason Whitlock's idiotic conclusion - if Belcher didn't have a gun, he and his girlfriend would still be alive. Right. Because suicidal people don't know anything about knives, right Bob?

Just fuck off.

I'm not sure what you mean by "torched" because it makes it sound like Seattle has a terrible pass defense. But there are so many things that go into how a pass defense operates. Statistically Seattle has a better then average defense in completions against and completion percentage against terms, and a much better then average defense in passing yards given up. Of course, teams may not even bother passing if they can run. And individual plays can't be used as examples in a pass friendly league. Not to mention the impact of a pass rush - you can have the greatest corners ever and they will break down and give up plays if the QB has the time to wait for receivers to get open.

About the only statistical thing you can look at would be maybe how many 100+ yard individual receiving games Seattle has given up. Welker (NE) went over 100 against them in week 6, Young (DET) got exactly 100 in week 8, Bess (MIA) got over 100 in week 12, and Marshall (CHI) had by far the biggest day against them today. That's not bad for 12 games into the season. And its not like Seattle has faced only poor passing offenses.

The reason Browner and Sherman get talked about is because they are a good tandem, not because either is a true shutdown corner (though Peter King and others seem to think pretty highly of them). But I don't think anyone considers either to be a Revis or Bailey in his prime kind of cornerback.

Yeah, I know, you're right. It's still a top 3 or 4 D against the pass by total yards.

I'm having a bit of a skaky moment after watching them get poned by Tannehill of all people last week and Jay Cutler with his one receiver this week.

Speaking of guns, tomorrow the Cardinals will be lining up their QBs and having them shot.

Why's that? Because the referees don't believe he has the arm strength to flick the ball 25 yards and get it across the line of scrimmage, so they awarded the Rams a safety without looking at where the ball landed? Or because he didn't make Ted Ginn fall on the ball or knock it out of bounds? Or because he can't kick field goals, and the team really needs him to?

Like I said before, Kaepernick's floor is Alex Smith's ceiling. 208 yards passing is a pretty standard Alex Smith outing, never mind the 84 yards on the ground. The Rams played good defense, but they didn't play well enough to win. If not for the mistakes by the refs and Ginn, the game probably ends 13-6.

Well, being the quarterback of an offense scoring a total of 30 points against two teams with losing records is normally not what I'd call great. Or a very hot hand. And again, I'm not arguing he has greater potential than Smith. That's obvious. The play that broke down and turned into a quarterback sweep was awesome. I'm just saying there's a reason why no one else switches quarterback in November when you're winning unless you absolutely have to. But OK, I'll just drop the subject - let's only talk about the 49er defense from now on.

Wow, I don't see how you can blame ginn for that fumble. It was a horrible pitch that he didn't have a great chance of recovering.

How many people do you suppose commit suicide by stabbing themselves? Is it your position that the relative availability of devices with which to top oneself has no influence on whether one in fact does so?

First this is an NFL thread, so let's not derail it much. I don't know how many people slit their wrists or cut their carotid arteries, and honestly, I don't care. I do know that suicide by gun is common, but people do end up killing themselves in other ways.

But here, I'll spell it out for you. My point is simply saying that "if he didn't have access to a gun, he and his girlfriend would both be alive today" is a ridiculously conclusive statement. How could he possibly know that? It's essentially saying that the gun is the only reason he murdered his girlfriend and himself. I'm thinking that there may be more to it than just availability of a gun; you know like that suicidal people obviously are very vulnerable psychologically and Belcher was probably not thinking all that coherently. But then again, I'm not a smarmy fucking self proclaimed genius like Bob Costas, so maybe I'm just wrong and Belcher killed 2 people solely because he had a gun.

"If Belcher didn't have a gun, they would both be alive today" is a long, long way from "Belcher killed 2 people solely because he had a gun."

Wish I had seen this post a week or two ago. That's some pretty ridiculous hyperbolic reasoning. "The defensive end didn't record a tackle in a whole quarter! He needs to be benched!"

Yes Costas is an idiot for what he said, I guess in his world no one has ever killed themselves or anyone else with anything other then a gun

What a great win for the Skins. And it came when Eli was actually playing a good game against us...usually he craps the bed against the Skins. In the last 5 Giants-Skins games (before tonight), he has thrown 2 TDs and 8 INTs.

This is the only time I hate not having ESPN.

I love you Brett but you know in your heart the MVP will be either Brady or Manning. Just like every other year.

Football Outsiders has Russel Wilson's performance as the best rookie QB performance in the history of their stats (which, I think, go back to the early nineties). Woo!

Best performance ever, or best ROOKIE performance ever?

The Wilson hype locally is getting a bit out of hand. The last two days local sports talk has been dominated by whether he should be in the mix for rookie of year or even more. Looking at the various rookie QBs, Wilson is doing quite well, but it seems to me that RGIII is having the best season overall in that group. What is interesting is that Luck's numbers don't seem to support the idea that it should come down to he and RGIII. It's not that he's having a bad year, just that in a number of key areas he is behind (and in some cases well behind).

Rookie! Post corrected, thanks. :)

Not that I care greatly but it should be noted that Luck took over the Colts which were 2-14 last year, the Redskins were 6-10. So maybe the turnaround factor should weigh somewhat in Luck's favor?

Luck definitely came into the worst situation of the three rookies, and Wilson definitely came into the easiest. I think the reason for the Wilson hype is that, unlike RGIII and Luck, nobody saw him coming. Luck was basically anointed as the next Peyton Manning, and RGIII wasn't too far behind on the hype machine before the season started.

Sure, Luck's situation was tougher, though I think that only goes so far when you throw twice as many picks and fewer TD's with a lot more attempts. The Redskins were 6-10 last year, which is only a game worse then Seattle's 7-9, and Washington made some big free agent moves to help RGIII so that's a more comparable scenario.

As for Seattle, Brandon Browner has dropped his appeal on the adderall PED thing and will begin serving his suspension right away. So he is gone for the rest of the regular season but would be eligible to return for the playoffs. Richard Sherman is continuing to pursue his appeal, with the hearing set for next week. So he will play this Sunday against the Cardinals. Seattle has enough depth at the position with the return to health of former starter Walter Thurmond that I think they will be fine.

On another front, offensive lineman James Carpenter is done for the year, again. This is looking like maybe the biggest draft mistake of the Carroll/Schneider era. Carpenter was taken in the first round of the 2011 draft, and was considered a reach as a guard out of Alabama. That pick was questioned even more when Seattle announced they were converting him to be their right tackle. Carpenter struggled in that role early last season, then suffered a major knee injury. Most did not expect him back this year at all, but the team kept him active and he started playing about a month into this season, though only at guard. The circumstances of his sitting the rest of this year are vague - officially he was put on non-football illness injured reserve, but Carroll's comments at his press conference today make it sound like this is just a decision to give the knee more time.

I assume that takes the defense into account? Because on paper it doesn't even look like the best rookie QB performance of the year.

Oh, here's the link:

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/quick-reads/2012/week-13-quick-reads

Higher DYAR = gooder

Bingo. FO includes opponent adjustments, and Chicago has a sick passing defense. The fact that Wilson worked them over fairly thoroughly makes for a very impressive game.

The NFL has been looking at alternatives to the kickoff, the argument being that full speed open field collisions are more likely to result in concussions and other serious injuries. So in the new Time magazine there is a Goodell interview where he reveals one alternative being considered, and idea that Schiano suggested. So instead of a kickoff, the "kicking" team would instead get a 4th and 15 at their own 30. They could go for it (this would be the equivalent of an onside kick attempt), or they could punt.

That would be a horrible idea and would pretty much ruin football as we know it. Getting 15 yards is a hell of a lot easier then recovering an onside kick.

They can set it at a distance that it's essentially statistically the same chance. 15 yards may in fact be that distance, but I wouldn't know. It does significantly decrease the importance of special teams, though, but that might be okay.

How many onside kicks are recovered each week? 1 maybe, you see multiple plays every game of 15-20 yards or more. And why this need to decrease the importance of special teams?

There are a lot more plays each week than attempted onside kicks. What percent of plays go for over 15 yards, particularly when the other team knows you have to get over 15 yards?

It reduces the importance of special teams because every time there's what would have been an onsides kick, you're removing a special teams play and adding a standard offensive play.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/67957/on-roger-goodells-kickoff-musings

Small sample size, but someone can look at a few years worth of data, do the math, and maybe add a few yards. I'm sure someone has, but that was easy to find.

There's a certain irony in removing one of the last instances of foot/ball contact from the game of football.

As has been pointed out, they need to fix the hell out of pass interference if they're going to try anything like this. Otherwise possession becomes essentially randomized.

What's wrong with it and how would you fix it?

Pretty soon its going to be flag football the way they are going.

The success rate for an expected onside kick is about 16%. It goes up to near 50% (iirc) for surprise onside kicks. I don't have access to FO's database so I can't tell you what the success rate for a 4th and 15 is.

Also: comparing this to "plays of 15-20 yards" is not the correct comparison; many of those plays occur on downs other than 4th and 15 when the defense is not expecting a 15 yard play. The correct thing to compare it to are 3rd and 15 & 4th and 15 plays.

edit: I see Hanacker has the stats for this season. It sounds like you can get the probabilities right by jiggering the yards; maybe turn it into a 4th and 20 play or something. Quick googling turns up a graph indicating that 3rd and 15 is converted about 20% of the time while 3rd and 15 is converted about 15% of the time. So if you set the play to 4th and 20 you'd have the odds about right it seems.

editx2: Actually what this would really screw up is the surprise onside kick. Assuming you bring your normal offensive personnel onto the field to try and "convert" the 4th and 15, the other team would be able to throw their normal defense out there and your conversion rate goes to 15-20%, which is not very good. Otherwise your conversion rate is going to be whatever the conversion rate is for fake punts which is uhh pretty low.

If they switched to that, maybe the Jets would finally have a reason to keep Tebow on the payroll.

From my friend who has access to the FO play database: "On 3rd/4th down passing plays with 15 or more yards to go this year, the average conversion rate is 11 percent. If we limit that to teams that are losing in the fourth quarter and less likely to check down, the average drops to 10 percent. Because if you're losing in the fourth quarter you're probably a bad team."