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

[SlowwHand]

Must be a biased report.

[ColdWizard]

Ho-hum

...

Of course, this all assumes that what owners are really concerned with is growing the game and not just trying to line their pockets with additional money.

Or, worse, simply trying to show the players who is in charge. One of the concerns by some owners is that there are a few in their brethren who are more concerned with gaining the upper hand after the players got the best of the 2006 negotiations.

“There are some owners out there who didn’t like how the last round went,” one league executive said. “You’re talking about some smart business people who felt like they were beaten at what they do best … there are some hard feelings about that.”

One of the prime examples has been Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who has been leading the call for owners to “take back our game,” as he said during a firebrand speech at the league’s three-day meeting in March 2010. According to multiple sources, Richardson’s anger is an outgrowth of having to get an agreement from the NFLPA in 2007 to upgrade his stadium.

There are other examples of the problems between the owners and the players. Simply put, there are some people on the owners’ side who have no understanding of the art of negotiation. And even more, there’s more a tone by owners of dictating terms opposed to finding a middle ground.

While Pash said during the days leading up to the Super Bowl last week that the goal was to have an agreement “that both sides could be happy with,” other statements contradict that sentiment. When another member of the NFL’s negotiating team was asked recently how Smith and the union could possibly accept a $1 billion cut in revenue and claim victory, the response featured a startling lack of understanding of good negotiating.

“He’s protecting his players’ W-2s,” the NFL source said in a harsh tone. Simply protecting wages in a business that’s making money can hardly be considered victory.

Likewise, players need to understand that owners are faced with some high-risk expenditures in coming years. For example, the league is hoping to have at least two new stadiums built in California over the next five years: one in the Bay Area and the other in either Los Angeles or San Diego. In addition, Minnesota is hoping to build a new stadium and Miami is hoping to upgrade its current facility. Given the lack of public funding available in almost every city, a large portion of the investment will have to come from the league.

Finally, and most importantly, NFL owners will likely never be able to solve one of the biggest problems they face: The ability to share all revenue. Currently, owners share TV and ticket revenue, but other revenue from items such as naming rights is not shared. Throw on top of that that some owners have better stadium deals than others (the Cincinnati Bengals get almost every dollar from a stadium that was publicly funded while the Minnesota Vikings get next to nothing) and you have drastically unequal situations.

It has led to huge resentment between high-revenue owners (Jerry Jones of Dallas, for example) and low-revenue owners (Zygi Wilf of Minnesota, for example).

Or as one union source said: “What the owners want is for the players to solve their revenue-sharing problem. The owners can’t agree on how to split the profits, but they all can agree to take the money from the players.”

[Al B. Sure!]

Just as troubling for Sanchez is his 54.8 completion rate.

Umm... second season? You do realize that QB's usually take two years to develop and it's their third year that's the breakout?

That 'It' factor of winning tough playoff games and pulling out victories in the fourth quarter is something that is always the toughest thing to come to a QB and Sanchez has that already. Now just work on his mechanics and decision-making in the 'non-critical' situations and he'll be just fine.

Second season stats:

Sanchez: 278/507 (54.8%) 3291 yards (6.5 Y/A) 17 TDs 13 INTs 75.3 QB Rating
Eli Manning: 294/557 (52.8%) 3762 yards (6.8 Y/A) 24 TDs 17 INTs 75.9 QB Rating
Matt Ryan: 263/ 451 (58.3%) 2916 yards (6.5 Y/A) 22 TDs 14 INTs 80.9 QB Rating
Donovan McNabb: 330/569 (58%) 3365 yards (5.9 Y/A) 21 TDs 13 INTs 77.9 QB Rating

He's right in the ballpark with all those guys. The only thing that's a bit lower is his TD numbers. His completion % is 2 full percentage points higher than Eli's in his second season... but of course, Eli got all the flak in the world as well. Can never win if you're a New York QB, I guess. Win on the field and lose in the papers.

[Al B. Sure!]

This article that the NY Times did using stats from EA Sports on the usage of teams in multiplayer Madden is really cool:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/05/sports/football/madden-superbowl-graphic.html

Not just because it's interesting to see popularity for teams changing during the course of the season with respect to a video game but because it provides graphs for each team which kind of give a visual presentation for how a team did per week over the course of the season.

Since there's a million Chicagorillas here, I'll post the 13th most popular team, Da Bears:



Beating the Packers the first time was the high point of the Bear's regular season followed by a trail-off until playoff position started to be solidified.

The most popular team was the Eagles which also had some pretty dramatic shifts up and down, the down-parts looking like during Kolb's time.



Pretty cool I think to see a proxy for a team's performance being presented in visual form.

[Al B. Sure!]

It's also amusing to see the 'Randy Moss' factor with regards to expectations when teams brought him in.

2nd most popular team overall, the Vikings (which had a very dramatic fall from grace, obviously):



Titans:

[-Jrabbit]

Second season stats:

Sanchez: 278/507 (54.8%) 3291 yards (6.5 Y/A) 17 TDs 13 INTs 75.3 QB Rating
Eli Manning: 294/557 (52.8%) 3762 yards (6.8 Y/A) 24 TDs 17 INTs 75.9 QB Rating
Matt Ryan: 263/ 451 (58.3%) 2916 yards (6.5 Y/A) 22 TDs 14 INTs 80.9 QB Rating
Donovan McNabb: 330/569 (58%) 3365 yards (5.9 Y/A) 21 TDs 13 INTs 77.9 QB Rating

He's right in the ballpark with all those guys.

He's 3rd or 4th in most categories, even out of your hand-selected list.
Last in TDs and QB rating.

Cherry-pick FAIL.

[Ben Kenobi]

Al:

So Moss Fans are Eagles fans? Explains quite a bit, actually.

[Al B. Sure!]

He's 3rd or 4th in most categories, even out of your hand-selected list.
Last in TDs and QB rating.

Cherry-pick FAIL.

Huh? He's in the same ballpark as all of them. My point is there's nothing to be worried about. Sanchez is statistically about where you would expect a 2nd year QB to be.

What's actually amusing is that I remember Eli's second season very well. I remember how he was praised for the dramatic improvement in his game his 2nd year but then started taking a heap of criticism in his 3rd year. Funnily enough, Sanchez is more accurate than Eli was in his second year yet Sanchez is getting flak for his accuracy?

Cherry-picked? Okay, I went for QB's who played their first two seasons and I did specifically not bother looking up Peyton Manning but if I wanted to be disingenuous I could've put out Rex Grossman, Joey Harrington, Jamarcus Russell, Alex Smith, and whoever else. I went for above average good solid QB's. Don't accuse me of cherry-picking to make Sanchez look better. There's no sense in comparing him to Peyton Manning nor any sense in comparing him to the crappy busts. If I cherry-picked it was the good QB's in between.... you know, something that would be meaningful. We all know he's not a bust of Russellian proportions nor is he Peyton Manning. What the hell point would there be in comparing him to the entire gamut of QB's?

[Al B. Sure!]

Just for you, Jrabbit, here's how Sanchez's sophmore season stacks up to the sophmore years of some Hall of Fame QB's:

Sanchez: 278/507 (54.8%) 3291 yards (6.5 Y/A) 17 TDs 13 INTs 75.3 QB Rating
Troy Aikman: 226/399 (56.6%) 2579 yards (6.5 Y/A) 11 TDs 18 INTs 66.6 QB Rating
Steve Young: 195/363 (53.7%) 2282 yards (6.3 Y/A) 8 TDs 13 INTs 65.5 QB Rating
John Elway: 214/380 (56.3%) 2598 yards (6.8 Y/A) 17 TDs 15 INTs 76.8 QB Rating

So how does Sanchez stack up against those guys? Pretty ****ing good, right? How's that for cherry-picked?

That's exactly why talking **** about Sanchez means nothing. It's too early for this ****. Look how bad Aikman, Young, and Elway were their 2nd seasons. Sanchez may fall off a cliff and be a bust, who knows? (Doubt it though) But you can't say that **** this early.


It's also interesting to note that though the Jets are a D-centered team that runs the ball more than anybody but the Chiefs, they still asked Sanchez to throw it 507 times while none of those HoFers even reached 400 pass attempts in their sophmore seasons.

[ColdWizard]

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys didn't obtain a permit to install temporary seating at Cowboys Stadium until about three weeks before the Super Bowl, despite being informed of Arlington's requirements five months ahead of the big game, according to records released by the city Friday.

City and stadium officials then scrambled to prepare the temporary seating for the game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers, the records show, but about 1,250 of the seats were deemed unsafe -- and about 400 fans who had bought tickets with a face value of $800 had nowhere to sit.

E-mails between Ed Dryden, Arlington's chief building official, and Jack Hill, the stadium's general manager, show the city began asking about the permit last September but didn't receive a request for it until Jan. 13. The lack of a response during the intervening months prompted at least one reminder from Dryden.

"We are currently reviewing the other interior stadium items proposed for the Super Bowl," Dryden wrote Hill on Dec. 22. "The bleacher seating is noted as supplied by others and there are no details included with this permit set. We will appreciate either you or your vendor moving forward quickly with a permit application submitted to us for review and approval."

Dryden told The Associated Press on Friday that the seats could have been installed properly despite the delay in getting the plans to his office.

"It isn't a real complex project," he said. "There's not a lot of detail involved in the plan review, so it would have been possible."

A call to Hill by the AP was returned by a Cowboys spokesman who said the stadium official would have no comment.

The e-mails released by the city show Arlington fire officials attended a Jan. 29 meeting during which Hill informed the contractor hired by the team, Seating Solutions of Commack, N.Y., of 18 engineering and construction issues that needed to be addressed before the Feb. 6 game.

At 7:14 a.m. on game day, Dryden sent an e-mail to Jim Parajon, the city's director of building inspections, predicting trouble.

"Looks like we may be here until noon," he wrote. "There's still no absolute finality on the seat count. I think that the Cowboys are not going to correct certain items and assume the risk. This is not a good situation!"

Shortly after noon, Arlington assistant fire chief Jim Self sent an e-mail to two other assistant chiefs marked "seat update-confidential." In the e-mail, he indicated that Seating Solutions had walked off the job and that it was being handled by Manhattan Construction, the general contractor that built the stadium.

"Maybe between 1,300 lost seats due to incomplete construction," Self wrote. "Working on it now. . Contractor did walk, but Manhattan taking over."

Phone and e-mail messages to Seating Solutions weren't immediately returned.

At a news conference Friday, deputy city manager Trey Yelverton said the city began assessing the situation during the late morning and early afternoon on the day of the game and concluded the temporary seats couldn't be used.

The controversy has been a black eye for the NFL, which has given fans who lost their seats two options. One is a cash payment of $2,400 -- three times the face value of their tickets -- and a ticket to next year's Super Bowl. The other is a ticket to any future Super Bowl, along with round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations.

At least two lawsuits have been filed on behalf of fans whose seats didn't exist or had obstructed views for the game that the Packers won 31-25.

[-Jrabbit]

Just winding you up, Alby. You should be ranting at Football Outsiders, not me. But while we're on the topic, I find it interesting that you felt a need to go for "above average good solid QB's" in making your list.

I thought Sanchez was a franchise QB.

But now that you've revealed that he's just an "above average good solid QB," surely no one would argue with that.

[Al B. Sure!]

Just winding you up, Alby. You should be ranting at Football Outsiders, not me. But while we're on the topic, I find it interesting that you felt a need to go for "above average good solid QB's" in making your list.

I thought Sanchez was a franchise QB.

But now that you've revealed that he's just an "above average good solid QB," surely no one would argue with that.

Huh? In my book, above average good solid QB's ARE franchise QB's. Not all teams can have HoFers. If a team can get that next tier of QB... you know, like McNabb, like Eli Manning, like Matt Ryan... then they are set. That's literally a franchise QB.

Maybe it's an issue with semantics but I never said Sanchez will be a HoFer. I have always maintained he will have a very good career and be a Pro Bowler though... you know, just like those guys I compared him with.


Sorry that you're a Bears fan and average QB would be equivalent to perennial backup and draft bust to me. That's probably what it is.

HoFer: Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Dan Marino
Above average ('franchise') QB: Eli Manning, Drew Bledsoe, Randall Cunningham, Boomer Esiason, Phil Simms, (Mark Sanchez will be here)
Average QB: Jake Delhomme, Matt Hasselbeck (who would be borderline between this and the above), David Garrard, Jeff Garcia, Ron Jaworski, Brad Johnson
Chicago Bears QB: Erik Kramer, Jim Harbaugh, Jim McMahon

It's not me. Your perspective is all out of whack.

[Al B. Sure!]

Washington Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth has been formally charged with misdemeanor assault stemming from what police say was a road-rage encounter in which he threw a punch at a fellow motorist in a Washington, D.C., suburb.

Fairfax County police say the 29-year-old Haynesworth and his attorney appeared at a police station Saturday morning. Haynesworth signed a summons warrant charging him with assault and left.

He's scheduled to appear in court on March 31.

Police say a 38-year-old man told investigators he was assaulted by the driver of a pickup truck who was tailgating him on Feb. 2. The driver was later identified as Haynesworth.

Simple assault is punishable in Virginia by not more than a year in jail and a fine of $2,500 or less.

Does he have a moral clause in his contract? This could be the opportunity for Washington.

[Ben Kenobi]

Hmm, I'd call the Franchise QB level folks like:

Rivers, Rodgers, Roethlisberger, and Schaub, (I'll give you McNabb).

I'll give you Bledsoe, and I'd add Testaverde, Warner, Kreig, (Esiason), and Simms. Cunningham just misses my cutoff.

[Al B. Sure!]

Testaverde? Krieg?

And Cunningham misses the cut-off? Are you serious?

How can you be so wrong in your appraisal of QB's, guy who thinks Flutie is better than John Elway?

Cunningham was 82-52-1 as a starter. That's a .607 winning percentage. He led his teams to 6 playoff appearances. He was a 4-time Pro Bowler.

In 1990, Cunningham rushed for 942 yards and threw for 3466 and 30 TDs. In 1998, he led the 15-1 Vikings, one of the greatest offenses in NFL history, second in points scored all-time to only the '07 Patriots.

Cunningham's only knock was his durability. Had he not been so injury-prone, he would have been a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame. He was probably the best scrambler to ever play the game and was probably the first pure running QB ever.

And even with his injuries, Cunningham threw for more TD passes than Aikman. (Though I've already explored on these forums that Aikman was not particular deserving of all his kudos and HoF status; case in point, Phil Simms was better statistically than Aikman).

Your opinion on QB's is a joke, Ben. Cunningham was a clear-cut franchise QB and one of the best QB's of his generation even though he only played a handful of full seasons. His passing statistics alone are respectable not to mention his incredible ability to run with the football.

It's very telling that the only seasons where Cunningham actually played in more than half the games (87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 98), he made the playoffs 5 of those 7 years (he didn't play 8+ games in one of his playoff years). Cunningham stayed healthy and the Eagles (or Vikes) made the playoffs. Simple formula. That's a franchise QB.