Live-Chatting with Football Outsiders

I think Kaeding’s probably one of the better kickers in the league, but his variance is well within the range you might expect from a normal kicker. Kaeding was third among kickers with 20 or more attempts this year in FG percentage; a year ago, he was 19th.

I agree with you 100 percent, which is why we don’t track success/failure rates for individual linemen. We do assign blame out for when the quarterback is hurried or sacked, because that’s usually much easier to tell — pass-blocking is much easier to diagnose than run-blocking. Even then, sometimes, it’s impossible to say, which is why we’ll put something like “Rusher Untouched” or “Overall Pressure”.

On running plays, since we can’t parse out the individual actions of an offensive lineman or a blocking back, we do just list how a team did on runs to, for example, right tackle or left end. I think that’s the fairer way to do it, and it also allows for interpretation by fans of a team. Are the Jets great at running to right guard because Brandon Moore’s effective at the point of attack, or because left guard Alan Faneca’s excellent at pulling into the hole and sealing off an end? That’s something a dedicated fan with a close eye can answer better than statistics.

It’s an easy target, I agree. Research we’ve done into how teams perform late in games, though, does suggest that Norv leaves lots of points and time on the field. It’s reasonable to say that he’s improved over the past three years, sure, but you also have to consider the quality of talent on the team. Just because Turner got them to the playoffs (and remember, it took a small miracle in 2008 to get there) three years doesn’t mean that 95% of other head coaches wouldn’t have.

I’ve always liked Fargas; he also has a great Speed Score, so his athleticism is sound. I tend to be very heretical about running backs; unless you have someone insane like LT in his prime or Barry Sanders or someone, I’d rather just have two or three cheap backs that play specific roles than one expensive guy who you can have do it all. All of the research we’ve done into running backs suggest that they’re far overrated — for example, injuries to a team’s starting running back has absolutely no impact on the effectiveness of the running game, historically. Injuries to the team’s starting quarterback have had far more of an impact.

Also, as I’ll discuss in this year’s book (and as you all saw this past year), there’s absolutely no relationship between the amount of money a team spends on their running back(s) and success in the running game.

You know, I don’t honestly think they were too far off from our expectations. I forget what the win total we had them projected at was, but they went 13-3 and were pretty close to 14-2. I think our projection was around 12.5, so I’ll take that.

As harsh as it is to blame one guy, who knows what would have happened if Nate Kaeding hadn’t gone 0-of-3 in that game? It was remarkably odd; the Jets had five field goals in a row missed against them in the playoffs, and no team had had five field goals in a row missed against them in 10 years. If either team hits their field goals, the Jets probably lose both of those games.

We definitely did expect more out of LT, though. The Chargers, by our numbers, had the best passing DVOA in the league, but they were last in rushing DVOA (the total added up to fifth). Some of that is on the OL injuries, but some is on LT and Sproles, too.

They were 23rd this year in DVOA after being 20th in 08 and sixth in 07. I think it’s really impossible to say considering the change in talent; Jamal Williams missed all of this year, and the team spent all year re-configuring the line up front with various castoffs and backups. Shawne Merriman isn’t anything close to the same. At the same time, Eric Weddle’s better than anything the ‘07 Chargers were lining up at safety, too, so it’s hard to say. I’d give him one more year before I made any sort of definitive statement on whether he was a good DC or not.

We do factor in rookies, but it’s broader strokes than the individual players. When we’re doing our team projections, we include factors like draft position with the players to form a baseline expectation of how he’ll help.

A sample factor might be “Teams that take tackles in the first five picks of the draft have seen their rushing DVOA improve by ____ and their passing DVOA improve by ____ over the next X seasons.”

Wow. That’s a tough question.

If you had a gun to my head, I would say dominant edge rusher. I think a dominant rusher allows you to do more schematically to compensate for your average talent than a dominant NT does.

I don’t think that’s actually the case. I’m sure you can make the example that there are guys who had big first years who then exploded onto the league, but there are enough examples of players slowly growing into their roles as 3-4 OLBs — Andre Tippett comes to mind as an example.

We have some idea about organizations using their own stats, but they tend to be pretty hush-hush about it.

We do active consulting work for two NFL teams at the moment, whom I cannot name. I know that both they and other teams who we’ve worked with in the past as consultants have made decisions that, at the very least, were informed by our research to consider something they otherwise might not have done. Fortunately, they’ve universally worked out pretty well for the teams in question.

Hmm.

I think Peppers is an elite player that, much like any other DL, can appear to be “invisible” when he gets triple-teamed, which is what teams have to do. The Giants tried blocking him 1-on-1 in Week 16 and he single-handedly destroyed their offense. Literally, by himself. It was amazing to watch. I think, as a 3-4 OLB, he’d probably have the most impact of any FA this offseason, although I don’t know where he’d fit in San Diego, which already has Phillips, Merriman, and English competing for time.

Sproles is a player who’s heavy on context. He’s a good return guy, not a great running back, but a great receiver out of the backfield. He needs to be in the right offense to succeed — a pass-happy offense like SD or Philly — but he’s very valuable in those offenses. He’ll always be a health risk, even though he’s only missed one year, so it’s hard to expand his role beyond what he’s done the past two seasons.

Taylor’s like a poor man’s Sproles. Very good on dumpoffs and as a receiver on screens, and while he had that famous fumble earlier this year, he’s usually got reliable hands. I think he’d be a good signing for the Chargers.