San Diego Chargers Daily Links: June 30, 2015

Joe Barksdale Acclimating to Brand New Techniques - Hayley Elwood
"(I’m working on) more technique-based things," he said.  "Especially with this offense, there are a lot of things I’ve never done before that we do here.  The technique and concepts that are used are different.  Some of it’s mental, but some of it’s physical as far technique."

Chargers Insider: Best of Charger Girls Calendar - Chargers.com Video
Get a sneak peek at the upcoming 2015-16 Charger Girls Calendar.

All You Need to Know About Philip Rivers - Ricky Henne
He posted his sixth-career 4,000-yard season, extending his own team mark and tying Favre and Dan Marino for the sixth-most 4,000-yard seasons in NFL history.

2014 Play-Action Offense - Sterline Xie
One of the problems with these stats, as we've noted in past years, is that the year-to-year correlation of play-action DVOA is shockingly small. As noted last year, the year-to-year correlation of an offense's play-action DVOA over the past few years is just 0.16. With such an important strategy, you probably would expect more consistency, but a lot of teams are good with play-action one year and then bad the next, even while offense overall is much more consistent.

2014 Play-Action Defense - Sterling Xie
There's no "magic bullet" formula that encapsulates how a defense will fare against play-action, but we can look at particular characteristics and see if they provide any hints. One idea here could be to search for a connection between play-action defense and teams that have great pass rushes. Last year's article illustrated how the average depth of play-action passes was significantly longer than non-play-action passes, a finding that's hardly surprising. With slower developing routes featuring deep dropbacks, strong pass-rushing defenses should theoretically have a better shot at disrupting these big-play opportunities.

2014 Pressure Plays: Quarterbacks - Sterling Xie
Unsurprisingly, our initial two observations hold up: Offenses fare better against the blitz regardless of whether or not the pressure gets there. However, when the pass rush fails (i.e., the defense gets no pressure on the quarterback), offenses are only slightly better against the blitz. And while pressure from a standard rush is much tougher to beat, the -67.8% DVOA from blitz pressure (2,085 plays last season) is nothing to scoff at. This would tentatively suggest that the risk-reward balance favors more blitzes against quarterbacks who are poor at handling extra rushers.