"NFL Football is Back!" 2011 Season Thread

[MRT144]

But... but he can run! Don't forget he can run!

I also remembered that he could return punts and intercept passes.

Oh yeah, he also has 3 fumbles on 82 rushing attempts.

Cam Newton is a better Tim Tebow than Tim Tebow at rushing too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The lack of turnovers thing is huge, for all the joking. That has had a massive effect on the Broncos.

[MRT144]

The lack of turnovers thing is huge, for all the joking. That has had a massive effect on the Broncos.

In a few of the wins, like the one against Oakland, they came from behind but Tebow contributed very little to that as McGahee and Eddie Royal on a punt return had the only TDs to come from behind. McGahee had two TDs on runs over 20 yards, one being 60 and one being 24. Also, the Raiders in the last 17 or so minutes had two 3-and-outs, two INTs, and one punt on a 7 play drive.

Or in the jets game, tebow only had one good drive all game towards the end, the defense scored a pick 6 early.

Against the Chargers, the Chargers missed two game winning field goals, clearly not Tebow's doing.

Against Miami, Miami fumbled the ball in OT on their half of the field which resulted in the game winning field goal.

Against KC, KC punted the entire first half and only had two drives of 50 yards or more.

Against Minnesota, Ponder throws an INT on a drive that could have won the game, and not only that, the INT resulted in the game winning field goal.


Look at that; 2 games where turnovers towards the end of the game or in OT by the other team resulted in 3 points wins, one game where a missed field goal results in a 3 point win by the broncos. Half his wins have been the result of his defense and Prater. One win was the result of his defense stuffing the raiders in the 2nd half and every player but him scoring, one win was the result of his defense not only scoring a TD but also stuffing Sanchez, and one was the result of KC being a bad team.

I'm not saying he's terrible but he's clearly not the best QB in the NFL, nor is he solely or mostly responsible for the success the Broncos have enjoyed. If not turning over the ball while the defense makes plays and your kicker kicks FGs is the hallmark of a great QB, then Trent Dilfer is almost better at being Tebow than Tebow.

As I said elsewhere, he accounts for 48% of his teams scoring in the last 7 games. Aaron Rodgers accounts for 55%. Tebows team's defense since he's started has given up an average of one less TD per game.

[Al B. Sure!]

One less TD per game BECAUSE he's not turning the ball over. Orton was throwing 1.4 picks a game. That meant that, most likely, at least one opponent drive was on a short-field... likely touchdown. By not turning the ball over, his defense has a longer field.

Denver is not a good team. I can't believe you're comparing them to the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. Their defense was atrocious both last year and during the Orton tenure this year.

Look at the stats:

24th in yards per game (23rd against the run, 20th against the pass)
15th in yards per play
24th in points per game
23rd in interceptions
They are 5th in sacks, though

It's just hilarious to me how there's always an excuse. If the Broncos lost those games, it'd be "See! Tebow sucks. He should play fullback." Apparently, Tebow can only lose games for his team

[Jaguar]

I do some rough econometrics on QB value relatively frequently. I measure in points-per-game added, from their passing (including sacks!) and rushing performance, relative to a standard veteran journeyman. There's no reason to center "0" at anywhere in particular, since it's a linear measurement, but Jason Campbell comes pretty close to the number I historically identify as the baseline.

One thing I do a little bit differently from a lot of football statisticians is that I look closely at the second-order effects of player performance, which can be quite dramatic for QBs. There is actually a huge second-order effect of rushing QBs on their respective running backs, which I take into account. Observe Warrick Dunn and LeSean McCoy with Michael Vick, or Chris Johnson with Vince Young.

I occasionally rerun my regression, but the coefficients usually don't change much. I've had this model for a while now. It's pretty close to Brian Burke's Expected Points Added model, which I like a lot, but I think some of his coefficients are off a bit.

Selected Career Average Points Added per Game:

10.2 Peyton Manning
10.0 Tom Brady
 7.0 Philip Rivers
 4.9 Matt Ryan
 3.9 Cam Newton
 2.5 Michael Vick
 2.4 Joe Flacco
 0.0 Jason Campbell
-0.5 Tim Tebow
-2.6 Christian Ponder
-4.0 Curtis Painter
-6.9 Ryan Leaf

If Michael Vick looks low to you, you don't remember how bad he actually was in Atlanta. His 2010 season was a 7.9, putting him in MVP territory. (Of course, Peyton's 2004, Brady's 2007, and Rodgers's 2011 are in the mid-teens, which is quite a bit more amazing.)

I don't know how good Tebow will end up. It's hard to create a confident projection from a small sample of stats from a young QB. Drew Brees was a -2.0 or so at the point in his career where Tebow is now, but he has shot up to 10.0 territory in New Orleans. On the other hand, Matt Leinart was a 1.7 as a rookie, which is excellent, and never got off the ground.

I find it amusing how rancorous the debate over him gets, given how average his stats actually come out. There's nothing wrong with being slightly worse than Jason Campbell as a second-year. But it's not something to celebrate.

[Al B. Sure!]

Being just under Jason Campbell is impressive for a guy with 10 starts with as many passing mechanics issues as Tebow. Sounds pretty good.

I'm not sure that the RB correlation is necessarily true, though. I'm not sure of a football reason for it to be so (a run-oriented QB probably isn't exactly going to have safeties playing deep) and it doesn't pan out for Randall Cunningham who had incredibly bad performances from his RB's. Jerome Bettis was pretty good during Kordell Stewart's tenure but I don't think he improved because of Stewart. CJ was just as effective with Kerry Collins under center and he's an elite talent regardless, as is Lesean McCoy. Warrick Dunn was a first-round talent and Vick's 'aura' didn't exactly help TJ Duckett (who had his best season the year Vick only played 4 games). It's an interesting theory that I have noticed as well but I think the small sample size of real running QB's with several seasons under their belts is so small that it's tough to say that a running QB helps his RB.

[Al B. Sure!]

I also realize that means he's 'subtracting' from the Broncos but I wonder how much effect last year's games and the Detroit game have on this. With only 10 career starts, the 3 rookie games (where he threw some picks) and the ugly Detroit game are half his career games.

Jaguar, what does his rating look like for just this season? For just this season excluding the Detroit game?

[Jaguar]

The Detroit game was -9.1 passing, +2.4 rushing, for a -7.7.

Removing it moves him up to a +0.3, but it's cheating to remove things from the sample like that.

His three rookie starts are a tiny sample to go on, but just a tiny shade better than he has been this year so far. He produced 7 TDs over 3 starts. Not bad! My regression loves his INT% this year - like, REALLY loves it - but it hates pretty much everything else besides his rushing numbers.

Each new game makes me a little bit more confident, but most non-rookie QBs fall somewhere in the "between Christian Ponder and Joe Flacco" range, so what I'm saying here shouldn't be controversial.

[Al B. Sure!]

The Detroit game was -9.1 passing, +2.4 rushing, for a -7.7.

Removing it moves him up to a +0.3, but it's cheating to remove things from the sample like that.

His three rookie starts are a tiny sample to go on, but just a tiny shade better than he has been this year so far. He produced 7 TDs over 3 starts. Not bad! My regression loves his INT% this year - like, REALLY loves it - but it hates pretty much everything else besides his rushing numbers.

Each new game makes me a little bit more confident, but most non-rookie QBs fall somewhere in the "between Christian Ponder and Joe Flacco" range, so what I'm saying here shouldn't be controversial.

It's 'cheating' I guess but the very small sample size should be considered, where one especially bad game can deflate his numbers considerably. I wouldn't make any determinations about Christian Ponder from his -2.6 in almost as many starts as Tebow, either, for the same reason (how much of that was his 3 picks the other day? One went for a score so that's at least -7 right there ). Those are career numbers that you posted, after all, right? Tough to use them to compare with established guys like Campbell and Flacco.

For the most part, looks like Tebow's essentially breaking even and that's not bad for a guy in his first 10 starts.

[MRT144]

One less TD per game BECAUSE he's not turning the ball over. Orton was throwing 1.4 picks a game. That meant that, most likely, at least one opponent drive was on a short-field... likely touchdown. By not turning the ball over, his defense has a longer field.

Denver is not a good team. I can't believe you're comparing them to the 2000 Baltimore Ravens. Their defense was atrocious both last year and during the Orton tenure this year.

Look at the stats:

24th in yards per game (23rd against the run, 20th against the pass)
15th in yards per play
24th in points per game
23rd in interceptions
They are 5th in sacks, though

It's just hilarious to me how there's always an excuse. If the Broncos lost those games, it'd be "See! Tebow sucks. He should play fullback." Apparently, Tebow can only lose games for his team

Dude, I just broke down the micro events in each game where the defense or the opposing offense's terrible turnover unequivocally contributed to the victory. In the Jets game he actually put up the points that provided the go ahead score. In at least 3 of his victories the Matt Prater put up the go ahead score, in either OT or in the last few minutes of the game.

You are absolutely crediting Tebow with defensive play.

Week One: Kyle Orton Sack Fumble Leads to 65 yard, 3 play drive for 7 Points. (Short field?)

Week Two: Fumble by Eric Decker on Kyle Orton Pass results in a 6 play, 14 yard drive for 3 Points. Kyle Orton Sack Fumbled results in a 4 play, 9 yard drive for 3 points. (3 points the fault of Orton)

Week Three: Kyle Orton Interception leads to 7 play, 36 yard drive that results in a fumble turnover. Kyle Orton Interception Leads to 3 play, -5 yards end of game. (Orton's mistakes don't cost the defense, just the offense not getting points)

Week Four: Kyle Orton Intercepted Pass returned for 7 points. Kyle Orton Pass to Fells fumbled, leads to 5 play, 86 yard drive for 7 points. Kyle Orton Interception leads to 8 play, 46 yard drive for 7 points. Kyle Orton Interception leads to 3 play, 1 yard end of game. (14 points on Orton's head and lost opportunity to score. One short field)

Week Five: Kyle Orton Intercepted Pass leads to 1 play Intercepted Pass returned for 7 points. (Kyle Orton Turnover doesn't matter as defense bails him out and get's a pick 6 the next play.)

So in all teams have taken 37 points off turnovers against Orton during the game Orton started. of those 37, Orton was responsible for 24 of those points. Excluding the pick 6, the average length of the drive resulting in a Touchdown was 55 yards on 5.5 plays. Not exactly a short field and the defense giving up 10 yards per play?

In the Oakland game that turnover was the difference.
In the Cincy game they won in spite of the 3 points.
In the Tennesee game they lost but the Titans didn't capitalize on the turnovers at all.
In the Packers game, the 14 points given to the Packers would not have changed the outcome. In fact, all turnovers would not have changed the outcome.
In the San Diego game, the turnover didn't matter and actually was followed up by a defensive TD the next play.

So all in all, Orton cost the team one game through negative action.

I already outlined Tebow's contribution to winning in the other weeks. Arguably only in the Jets game and Miami game did he lead the team to victory, rather than the defense getting the ball within field goal range. Even then, in the Miami game they recovered an on-side kick and also got the fumble to kick the field goal. And in the Jets game the pick 6 mattered.


He's not a bad QB but he's not the primary reason for winning in Denver as he hasn't contributed nearly as much as people assign to him.

If Denver lost those games, it wouldn't be Tebow sucks. Because he wasn't a major factor in the loss in the same way he wasn't a major factor in the win.

[Donegeal]

Holy crap Al! Flutie is better than Tebow could ever be! Clearly this is a sign that Flutie needs to be in the HoF.

/Ben

[ColdWizard]

Clearly the Tebow is inspiring his special teams and defensive teammates to play better and achieve greatness.

[Al B. Sure!]

In all seriousness, Tebow had a reputation in college for motivating the hell out of his team-mates. Don't sleep on intangibles like leadership. Often, coaches are faulted for their inability to bring out the best of their guys or praised for doing it with mediocre talent. No reason a QB doesn't have the same ability.

I'm sure no one would take issue with the statement that Ray Lewis or Troy Polamalu contribute to their defenses in similarly intangible ways, for example.

[-Jrabbit]

All of a sudden, faced with the facts, a notably different tune...

[SlowwHand]

Ray Lewis and Troy Polamalu motivate the team by knocking the other team's player's dicks in the dirt.