Fantasy Football Discussion Thread

[Al B. Sure!]

I'll buy that # of dropbacks itself isn't necessarily correlated; but you are more likely to get a sack if you are in a deep passing game, no? WC offense has lower chance of sack as it's faster, but lots of deep passes ought to correlate more with sacks.

Again, vertical passing offenses probably have the offensive lines for it. Also, the use of the Shotgun mitigates the risk a bit. Unfortunately, there's no average yardage at completion statistic or anything like that so I can't tell you if this is true or not, but I suspect it is not a factor because, again, Peyton Manning was only sacked 10 times and he airs it out.

As for yards per attempt (which is obviously not a good metric to judge how vertical an offense is) and sacks I can already eyeball that they are not correlated.

Don't underestimate that if a team plays a certain style of offense that they can be very good at it. A team that specializes in a vertical offense can not afford to slack in pass protection. Teams with bad offensive lines don't run those offenses.

[-Jrabbit]

The fact is, there are plenty of bad and mediocre teams in the NFL. Some coaches are tied to a specific scheme and need a couple years to get the right personnel. Some teams are just bad at football, and no scheme will really help them. Some teams have superior personnel and would likely flourish in any reasonable system.

Teams with bad offensive lines don't run those [vertical passing] offenses.

Simply not true. You're confusing what makes sense with what teams actually do. Example: Oakland. Sack rates are deceptive, as they combine variables including scheme, line play, release time and accuracy. You can coach a bad QB with poor protection to take an incompletion instead of a sack (as the Bears tried to do with Grossman). It might cut down on INTs and sacks, but it doesn't make him a good QB. There are not a lot of Peyton Mannings in the NFL.

[snoopy369]

In any event there is SOME correlation between QB usage and sack rate, and if it's much more highly correlated with o-line, that's fine by me - in a lot of ways the QB is in part a stand-in for some of the O-Line points, and this just makes it more official

[Al B. Sure!]

The fact is, there are plenty of bad and mediocre teams in the NFL. Some coaches are tied to a specific scheme and need a couple years to get the right personnel. Some teams are just bad at football, and no scheme will really help them. Some teams have superior personnel and would likely flourish in any reasonable system.



Simply not true. You're confusing what makes sense with what teams actually do. Example: Oakland. Sack rates are deceptive, as they combine variables including scheme, line play, release time and accuracy. You can coach a bad QB with poor protection to take an incompletion instead of a sack (as the Bears tried to do with Grossman). It might cut down on INTs and sacks, but it doesn't make him a good QB. There are not a lot of Peyton Mannings in the NFL.

Please never use Oakland as an example for anything except complete illogical kookery... that's the crazy Al Davis zone. Nothing makes sense in Oakland.

[-Jrabbit]

If you feel free to use an elite team as your example, I think using the mirror-image to point out the weakness of your argument is perfectly appropriate.

[Al B. Sure!]

The league average among the top 32 passers last year was 28 sacks on 473 dropbacks so 6% of dropbacks end in sacks.

Peyton Manning was sacked on 1.7% of dropbacks

As for the Raiders:
JaMarcus Russell: 11.8%
Bruce Gradkowski: 6.8%
Charlie Frye: 5.4%
It's clear to me, JaMarcus Russell is terrible and that's the only reason why he was sacked so much. Gradkowski and Frye are both around the league average.

Of course, I didn't pay enough attention to the Raiders to be able to tell you if they were slinging to Darius Heyward-Bey and Louis Murphy more or less with Gradkowski and Frye than with Russell.

Now, fortunately, last year we had an example of a team that made a transition from a run-first to a vertical pass-first offense mid-season: the 49ers.

Shaun Hill: 10.4%
Alex Smith: 5.6%

Under Shaun Hill, the 49ers were averaging 28.8 dropbacks over 6 games. Under Alex Smith, they averaged 35.8 dropbacks over 11 games (Smith and Hill overlapped in the Houston game).

Though the 49ers threw the ball 24.3% more with Smith than Hill, Smith's sack rate was half of Hill's!

Same team. Same season. A quarter more pass plays, yet half the sacks. And that was without Joe Staley during most of Smith's tenure! Staley, clearly the team's best offensive lineman, played every game with Hill under center.

And the fact that the 49ers are such an average team and Smith and Hill are such average QB's shows that, all else being equal, more vertical passing does NOT increase exposure to sacks. In the 49ers' case, it was the exact opposite.

[-Jrabbit]

Under Martz's 2008 offense, Shaun Hill was noticeably better than Alex Smith (at least in the coach's eyes). Under a new system in 2009, he was perhaps more tentative and got sacked more often. When the change was made, Smith could hardly have done any worse.

Al, all I'm trying to say here is that there are probably examples available to support any POV out there.

[Al B. Sure!]

Under Martz's 2008 offense, Shaun Hill was noticeably better than Alex Smith (at least in the coach's eyes). Under a new system in 2009, he was perhaps more tentative and got sacked more often. When the change was made, Smith could hardly have done any worse.

Al, all I'm trying to say here is that there are probably examples available to support any POV out there.

Which means exactly what I said... passing more does not mean more exposure to sacks! All I've done is shown that there is little correlation between how many times a pass play is called and how often the QB is sacked. This is all a response to snoopy's contention that the more reliant a team is on throwing the ball downfield, the more often the QB gets sacked.

[-Jrabbit]

OK then.

[Jaguar]

I would be happy to play an auction league. I've wanted to do one for a long time.

[MRT144]

Alright, I'll start a thread and get a headcount for those that would like to join.

[MRT144]

On leaving lists; Spaced Cowboy needs to leave lists.

[Al B. Sure!]

On leaving lists; Spaced Cowboy needs to leave lists.

It's not that big of a deal. As far as I can tell, he comes on around 10 pm EST everyday.

[MRT144]

I just hate being in the middle of this draft because I feel like I go so long between picks

[Ben Kenobi]

Better than being right behind him so you have to wait to pick for him