NFL - Are You Ready For Some Football?! - Regular Season

[Ben Kenobi]

Well I don't really need all those Chargers backups.

[SlowwHand]

Chicago at Denver tonight. That should be a hoot.

[snoopy369]

A hoot it was Not an amazing performance, but adequate. Nice to see Hester still has some of his return ability. I'd rather not have had quite so many 3 and outs, and wasn't particularly impressed by Hanie, but we won't need him this year now will we...

[SlowwHand]

Denver looked pretty crappy, overall. Did you see that sign in the stands? "Hey, Denver. Thanks for Jay Cutler.~Bears Fans."

[snoopy369]

Jesus, are they going to call roughing the passer on every ****ing play where he gets hit this year? Favre just got hit properly by a defender while he was releasing the ball, and they throw the flag.

[Lord Avalon]

Since the s were on, I wondered if the Football Outsiders Almanac said anything about Favre, and it did:

Truthfully, there's not a real difference; last year, Favre looked alternately injured and unconvincing against one of the easiest schedules a quarterback has had to face in the past 15 years, yielding a -2.2% DVOA. THere's no reason to think that Favre would significantly improve the situation relative to Rosenfels, so even if the Vikings do sign him, their outlook wouldn't change dramatically. (1)

That led to an interesting bit about AP:

Whoever the Vikings line up behind center will spend most of the time handing off to Adrian Peterson, whose -0.3% DVOA (22nd in the league) indicates several things. First, it shows that DVOA will never be a perfect statistic; for all the value it has, it fails to understand how many defenders are keyed on stopping Peterson on each snap and the amount of work he has to go through to get the yardage he does. If someone suggests to you that Peterson's the 22nd-best halfback in football, they're simply wrong. The rating is also lower than you might expect because of a league-high nine fumbles. Peterson's player comment later in the book (2) explains why that's not a huge worry for 2009. However, the low rating also indicates that Peterson isn't pushing his team towards first downs as frequently and reliably as he should. ON first down, Peterson's Success Rate was below the league average; furthermore, he was stuffed for no gain or a loss of yardage on 20.4 percent of his first-down carries. Among backs with 100 carries on first down, only Larry Johnson, Marion Barber, Kevin Smith, Chris Johnson, and DeAngelo Williams were stuffed more frequently. That led to Minnesota having to face an average of 8.11 yards to go on second down, the sixth-worst total in the league. The group of eight teams that average more than eight yards to go on second downs includes the Vikings, Steelers, and six teams that owned draft picks in the top eight of this year's draft. (3) On the flip side, though, the idea that Peterson is more likely to break a big gain that other backs is true; while the average back gains 15 or more yards on first down 4.8 percent of the time, Peterson picked up 15-plus on a full 8.0 percent of his first down carries, behind only Derrick Ward, Williams, and Mewelde Moore in that category.

(1) 2009 Mean Projection: 8.8 wins

• On the Clock (0-3): 2%
• Loserville (4-6): 12%
• Mediocrity (7-8): 28%
• Playoff Contender (9-10): 36%
• Super Bowl Contender (11+): 23%

(2) The other thing perceived to be holding Peterson back are his fumble issues, but that shouldn't be a problem going forward. Peterson fumbled once every 40 rushes or so, the 27th-highest ratio out of the 197 instances of a back carrying the ball 300 times. In the subsequent year, every back who fumbled more than once every 45 rushes fumbled, on average, once every 98.3 attempts, better than the league average of once every 89.9 attempts. That's a list that includes Eric Dickerson, Walter Payton, Earl Campbell, and Tony Dorsett. In other words, assuming he makes adjustments, Peterson should be fine.

(3) Second-And-Forever
Team / Avg. Yards to Go
SEA 8.38
STL 8.20
DET 8.18
OAK 8.13
PIT 8.12
MIN 8.11
JAC 8.04
CLE 8.03
DAL 7.99
WAS 7.94

[Ben Kenobi]

Interesting. I'm inclined to believe that DVOA is correct and AP is massively overrated.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Reading that on AP (stuffed a lot on 1st down, but can break the big one more frequently) reminded me of Barry Sanders. But then again, Ben probably thinks Sanders was massively overrated too .

[snoopy369]

Don't say those words

[Ben Kenobi]

Reading that on AP (stuffed a lot on 1st down, but can break the big one more frequently) reminded me of Barry Sanders. But then again, Ben probably thinks Sanders was massively overrated too

I'm not about to compare any player with less than a full year under his belt with Barry Sanders.

[Sava]

"Hey, Denver. Thanks for Jay Cutler.~Bears Fans."

[Sava]

Don't say those words

Why are you scared? As a Bear fan who got to see Sanders and the Lions quite often, I'm trying hard to remember all their Super Bowl victories.

hmmm... I can't... it must be all that pot I smoked back in the day

[Zopperoni]

I'm not about to compare any player with less than a full year under his belt with Barry Sanders.

What about a player who's played 31 games, like Adrian Peterson?

[Ben Kenobi]

What about a player who's played 31 games, like Adrian Peterson?

You mean 30? AP's never started a full 16 game season.

[Lord Avalon]

He did play in 16 games last season. When did he not start?