Tag: drew brees

Evaluating Baker So Far.

A certain media member in town consistently refers to Baker Mayfield as “statistically the worst quarterback in the NFL”.  While that is true, you have to remember that the statistic he refers to is really called “passer rating”.

The stat measures basically three things:  Completion percentage, average yards per attempt, and how many touchdowns and interceptions you throw.  You can pile up incredible numbers in those categories while you are losing a game 28-7.

The point is it is not a true measurement of how great a quarterback is, it does measure how efficient you are as a passer.

The current NFL passing leader is Ryan Tannehill, followed by Kirk Cousins, Drew Brees, Lamar Jackson, and Russell Wilson.

Brees is a future Hall of Famer, while Jackson and Wilson are the favorites for league MVP.  The other two?

Cousins was also in the top five a year ago, and the QB who was 6th was Case Keenum, who is no longer a starter in the NFL.

As a frame of reference, the others in the top five last season were Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck, Matt Ryan, and Aaron Rodgers.  Four excellent signal callers.

Looking at Mayfield, if his interceptions were cut in half, his passer rating would increase from his current 77.6 to 85.3, moving him from 33rd to 24th in the NFL.

So, we were thinking, rating aside, where would the Browns’ quarterback rank in the league based on just our opinion, devoid of any statistics.

AFC East:  Tom Brady, Josh Allen, Sam Darnold, Ryan Fitzpatrick.  It would be presumptuous to put Mayfield ahead of Brady, but we’d take him over anyone else, including Allen, who is still more dangerous with his legs than his arm.

AFC North:  Jackson, Andy Dalton, Duck Hodges.  As we said, Jackson is the co-MVP favorite, and until Roethlisberger retires, we would take him as well.

AFC South:  Tannehill, DeShaun Watson, Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew.  Watson is spectacular, still wish the Browns had taken him in 2017.  Otherwise, we’ll take Mayfield over the rest.

AFC West:  Patrick Mahomes, Derek Carr, Philip Rivers, Drew Lock?  Rivers is a borderline Canton enshrinee, but has been bad this year, Mahomes is last year’s MVP and a top two or three QB in the game today.  We would prefer Mayfield to Carr, Rivers, and Lock right now.

NFC East:  Dak Prescott, Carson Wentz, Daniel Jones, Dwayne Haskins Jr.  Although Wentz has struggled this year, and we aren’t huge fans of Prescott, we acknowledge they should both rank ahead of the Cleveland QB.

NFC North: Rodgers, Cousins, Mitch Trubisky, Matthew Stafford.  The first two have to be ahead, white Trubisky is clearly behind.  Stafford puts up a lot of stats, but doesn’t win.  For the sake of argument, we’ll take him over Baker.

NFC South:  Brees, Ryan, Jameis Winston, Kyle Allen.  No question here, Brees and Ryan are ahead of Mayfield.

NFC West:  Jimmy Garoppolo, Wilson, Jared Goff, Kyler Murray.  We would say only Murray would be behind his former teammate at Oklahoma.

That would rank Mayfield 16th among the quarterbacks in the league, and you can make a case he could be a little higher.

That’s why talk of being a draft bust is ridiculous.  Some players start off great, then have a learning curve, and then wind up being great players.

If at this time next year, Mayfield has shown more signs of regression, then perhaps his leash will be shorter.  But let’s wait until that is seen.

MW

Can NFL/NBA Go Back To Thinking Defense Is Important?

Somebody once said about sports that you never hear crowds chanting for offense, but Defense…Defense is heard many times at the end of both NFL and NBA games.

We realize that this will make us sound like “get off my lawn” guy, but really haven’t things gotten out of control in favor of the offense in both professional football and the NBA?

Watching last weekend’s AFC and NFC Conference Championship games, we realized that these offensives are basically unstoppable and the only way to stop a top notch NFL quarterback is to force him to throw quickly by pressure.

The final score in the NFC was 44-21, while the AFC score was 36-17, a total of 118 points between the four teams.

Ten years ago, still in the era where virtually every rule is in favor of the passing game, the scores were very similar.  Indianapolis beat New England 38-34, although it was a battle of all time great quarterbacks in Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, while in the NFC, Chicago (behind Rex Grossman?) beat the Saints, 39-14.

Twenty years ago, the Patriots beat the Jaguars 20-6, and the Packers beat the Panthers 30-13.  That’s a total of 69 points.

So, almost 50 more points were scored this weekend in conference championship games!  These are supposed to be the best of the best teams.

Thirty years ago, the NFC title game was a shutout, the Giants beat Washington 17-0.  It was the third consecutive whitewashing in the NFC.  Since then, there has been just one shutout in a conference title game, in 2000, when the Giants beat the Vikings 41-0.

It simply has gotten too easy to throw the football in the NFL.  Granted, we had four of the best QBs in the game playing last weekend, but the four combined for 68% completion percentage on 172 throws with 11 touchdowns and just two interceptions.

Do you realize that four of the all time leaders in passing yards are playing right now?  They are Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, and Ben Roethlisberger.  Add in Peyton Manning, who retired after last season, and that’s half of the top ten.

Two more passers, Philip Rivers and Carson Palmer, are in the next five in terms of yardage.

In basketball, the NBA changed the rules a few years to encourage offense, as the games were beginning to have scores with both teams in the 80s, and it wasn’t an enjoyable game visually.

So, they basically said you can’t hand check the point guards.  So, now the sport, once dominated by George Mikan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Shaquille O’Neil, is controlled by point guards.

Currently, four of the top ten scorers in the NBA are point guards (Russell Westbrook, Isaiah Thomas, James Harden, and Damian Lillard), and two more (Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving) rank 11th and tied for 12th.

Quite frankly, these guys are too quick to guard out of the floor, and with the ability to “carry” the ball, when the opposing team needs a stop, they put it in the hands of one of these guys and they deliver.

To that point, the four guys in the scoring top ten are also in the top ten in terms of free throws attempted, as is Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who has the ball in his hands a lot at crunch time.

FYI, twelve players take more free throws than LeBron James.  Take that for what it is worth.

We aren’t suggesting going back to the way things were 20-30 years ago, but perhaps the rules restricting defense can be relaxed in both sports, especially in the NFL where the quality of play has declined in recent years.

It used to be said that defense wins championships.  Right now, that can be crossed off the sports cliché lists.

MW