Residual Prolixity

Tennessee Titans Estimated 2012 Salary Cap

2012-01-27T19:22:00.008-06:00

For the past several years, I've attempted to keep track of the Tennessee Titans salary cap situation. As with the All-22 footage, the NFL doesn't necessarily want you to have this information, so getting accurate numbers is a non-trivial task. The following numbers should be considered estimates only and should be relied on at your own risk. Numbers in italics in particular should be regarded as educated guesses. Use of 1 represents an unknown non-zero quantity.

PLAYER	CATEGORY	AMOUNT	NOTES
Afalava, Al			Futures
Amano, Eugene	Salary	3,182,500
	Signing Bonus	1,450,000
	Roster Bonus?	500,000	Guess based on reported 2012 cap amount
Amato, Ken			UFA
Avery, Donnie			UFA
Ayers, Akeem	Salary	598,932
Ayers, Akeem	Signing Bonus	520,728
Babineaux, Jordan			UFA
Bailey, Patrick			UFA
Ball, Dave			UFA
Bironas, Rob	Salary	2,850,000
Bironas, Rob	Signing Bonus	825,000
Britt, Kenny	Salary	755,000
	Option Bonus	733,750
	Signing Bonus	250,000
Brown, Tony	Signing Bonus	1	Dead Money
Campbell, Tommie	Salary	465,000
Campbell, Tommie	Signing Bonus	22,500
Casey, Jurrell	Salary	507,625
Casey, Jurrell	Signing Bonus	155,500
Clayton, Zach	Salary	465,000
Clayton, Zach	Signing Bonus	27,500
Cook, Jared	Salary	615,000
Cook, Jared	Signing Bonus	175,000
Curran, Rennie	Signing Bonus	322,200	Dead Money
Davis, Hall	Signing Bonus	1	Dead Money
Dawson, Keyunta			Futures
Donaldson, Herb			Futures
Durand, Ryan			Futures
Egboh, Pannel			Futures
Finnegan, Cortland			UFA
Graham, Cameron			Futures
Graham, Daniel	Salary	2,000,000
Graham, Daniel	Signing Bonus	666,667
Griffin, Michael			UFA
Hall, Ahmard			UFA
Harper, Jamie	Salary	465,000
Harper, Jamie	Signing Bonus	94,000
Harris, Leroy	Salary	1
Hasselbeck, Matt	Salary	5,500,000
Hasselbeck, Matt	Signing Bonus	2,000,000
Hawkins, Chris			ERFA
Hawkins, Lavelle			UFA
Haye, Jovan	Signing Bonus	1,000,000	Dead Money
Hayes, William			UFA
Hope, Chris			UFA
Ingram, Jake			Futures
Johnson, Chris	Salary	8,000,000	Subject to $250,000 workout reduction
	Signing Bonus 1	50,000	2008 contract
	Option Bonus	966,000	2008 contract
	Signing Bonus 2	2,000,000	2011 extension
Johnson, Quinn	Salary	615,000
Johnson, Robert	Salary	540,000
Johnson, Robert	Signing Bonus	95,000	Dead Money
Jones, Jason			UFA
Kern, Brett	Salary	706,000
Kirkendoll, James			Futures
Klug, Karl	Salary	465,000
Klug, Karl	Signing Bonus	49,000
Kropog, Troy			Futures
Kropog, Troy	Signing Bonus	101,125	Dead Money
Locker, Jake	Salary	947,091
Locker, Jake	Signing Bonus	1,912,500
Malast, Kevin	Salary	1
Mariani, Marc	Salary	540,000
Mariani, Marc	Signing Bonus	14,850
Marks, Sen'Derrick	Salary	615,000
Marks, Sen'Derrick	Signing Bonus	230,000
Matthews, Kevin	Salary	540,000
McCarthy, Colin	Salary	465,000
McCarthy, Colin	Signing Bonus	113,850
McCourty, Jason	Salary	615,000
McCourty, Jason	Signing Bonus	22,455
McRath, Gerald	Salary	615,000
McRath, Gerald	Signing Bonus	106,531
Morgan, Derrick	Salary	725,000
	Signing Bonus	1,400,000
	Option Bonus	750,000
Mouton, Ryan	Salary	615,000
Mouton, Ryan	Signing Bonus	166,250
Otto, Michael			UFA
Preston, Michael			Futures
Reynaud, Darius			Futures
Ringer, Javon	Salary	615,000
Ringer, Javon	Signing Bonus	36,600
Robinson, Duke			Futures
Roos, Michael	Salary	5,500,000
Roos, Michael	Signing Bonus	1,500,000
Ruud, Barrett			UFA
Scott, Jake			UFA
Shaw, Tim			UFA
Sheppard, Malcolm			ERFA?
Smith, Anthony			UFA
Smith, Rusty	Salary	540,000
Smith, Rusty	Signing Bonus	28,500
Smith, Shaun	Salary	1
Stevens, Craig	Salary	1,000,000
Stevens, Craig	Signing Bonus	1,000,000
Stewart, Dave	Salary	5,000,000
Stewart, Dave	Signing Bonus	1,000,000
Stingily, Byron	Salary	465,000
Stingily, Byron	Signing Bonus	27,625
Ta'ufo'ou, Will			Futures
Velasco, Fernando			RFA
Verner, Alterraun	Salary	540,000
Verner, Alterraun	Signing Bonus	132,000
Washington, Nate	Salary	3,400,000
Washington, Nate	Signing Bonus	900,000
Wheatley, Terrence			Futures
Williams, Damian	Salary	540,000
Williams, Damian	Signing Bonus	205,500
Wilson, Lawrence			Futures
Witherspoon, Will	Salary	3,500,000
Witherspoon, Will	Signing Bonus	1,000,000
UDFA Bonus Amount		75,000	Estimate
Missing		9,350,000	Estimate
TOTAL	$86,490,429

Guide to Notes

Dead Money: If a player is cut by an NFL team before the termination of his existing contract, any guaranteed money, particularly signing bonus, remains on the books and counts against the salary cap.
ERFA: Player was a member of the Titans in 2011, is not under contract for 2012, and has accumulated fewer than three seasons of NFL experience. Player is an exclusive rights free agent who can only be signed by the Titans, unless the Titans elect not to submit an offer no later than March 13, 2012.
Estimate: The amount is estimated. For the UDFA Bonus Amount row, the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement imposed a maximum aggregate bonus amount to rookie undrafted free agents of $75,000. Because it is generally not possible to locate UDFA bonus amounts for every individual player, I have included the maximum amount as a placeholder. For the Missing row, that amount is calculated based on the difference between my total and the reported aggregate salary cap value.
Futures: Player has signed a futures contract. Players who sign a futures contract are, generally speaking, not likely to make a 53-man NFL roster, and if they do likely will be making at or close to the league minimum.
RFA: Player was a member of the Titans in 2011, but is not currently under contract for 2012 and has accrued three accrued seasons. The Titans must make him a qualifying offer no later than March 13, 2012, or the player will become an unrestricted free agent. If the Titans make the player a qualifying offer, the player may sign the tender or enter into contract talks with other teams. The Titans will have the right to match contract offers from any other team or permit the player to sign with the other team and potentially receive draft compensation for the player. Potential draft compensation for the player depends on the amount of the qualifying offer.
UFA: Player was a member of the Titans in 2011, but is not currently under contract for 2012 and has at least four accrued seasons. The player will be an unrestricted free agent who may sign with any NFL team if not re-signed by the Titans prior to the start of the 2012 League Year on March 13, 2012.

Known Unknowns:
To make these tables more complete, these are the amounts I know are likely or almost certainly inaccurate: Eugene Amano-explanation for difference between known numbers and reported 2012 cap value; Kenny Britt-signing bonus; Tony Brown-dead money related to signing bonus from 2010 contract extension; Tommie Campbell-salary and signing bonus; Jurrell Casey-salary and signing bonus; Rennie Curran-signing bonus; Hall Davis-signing bonus confirmation and amount; Jamie Harper-signing bonus; Leroy Harris-salary and signing bonus, if any, from 2011 contract extension (reported APY of two-year deal $3.15 million); Chris Johnson-confirmation signing bonus 1 and option bonus amount from original 2008 contract apply and explanation of approximately $400,000 difference between numbers shown and reported 2012 cap value; Brett Kern-signing bonus from Feb. 2011 contract extension, if any; Karl Klug-signing bonus; Kevin Malast-salary; and Shaun Smith-salary and signing bonus.

LATEST UPDATE:
2012-01-31, 1848 CT: Sort of figured out some more information about 2011 rookie deals, including what should be more accurate bonus estimates. See this rookie salary explanation from Ted Sundquist, though note it doesn't seem be universally applied.
PRIOR UPDATES:

2012-01-29, 1009 CT: Added some updates from the Rotoworld page not included in my spreadsheet, and also corrected some minimum salary bumps associated with the 2011 CBA I had overlooked.
2012-01-27, 1925 CT: Chart first published with initial introductory and explanatory text.

Book Review: Three and Out

2012-01-13T21:03:00.002-06:00

Two books about football in one month! I must be ill or something (where "or something" is defined as "insomnia").

All-access books have a relatively long and generally, though not entirely positive reputation. They generally cover only one season. At their best, they're able to provide deep insight into the day-to-day operations of something almost none of the readers will ever experience. Not at their best, they're a good way for an author to write nice things about their sources and what they already believed.

John U. Bacon's Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football actually results from Bacon's three years of access to Rodriguez, what proved to be the entirety of his tenure as Michigan's head football coach. To Bacon's good fortune, those turned out to be three very interesting and tumultuous years, and to our good fortune, Three and Out actually tries to chronicle all of the tumult and drama, both behind the scenes and otherwise. When most of the purported adults involved hate the book and probably its author yet aren't bothering to actually make specific criticisms about its contents, that's a good sign.

Beyond being a fascinating and eminently readable book about life inside a major college football program, Three and Out also is a story about a classic case of bringing an outsider into an existing culture, strong elements of which end up seeing the outsider as an invasive species that must be destroyed. Rodriguez the outsider ends up making a number of missteps that didn't endear him to the existing power institutions at Michigan, even those that, unlike Lloyd Carr, weren't hostile to him in the first place. Carr refused to talk to Bacon for Three and Out, perhaps because Bacon had nothing to offer him, and perhaps because Carr saw how easy it would be for somebody else to read the book and think deeply unkind things about Carr; specifically, that Lloyd Carr comes across as being interested in a successful Michigan program only if it features what Lloyd Carr thinks is important.

In some ways, that's one of the deep ironies in Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez was a West Virginia native who walked on to the football team in Morgantown as a student and eventually became head coach at the school. He won there, almost playing for a national title in 2007 right before being hired to coach Michigan, and could have been there until he retired, like Don Nehlen. In perhaps the most interesting part of Three and Out, though, Bacon writes about how Rodriguez fell afoul of the existing power structure in West Virginia, including Governor Joe Manchin. This sort of upper-level political involvement is the kind of thing that you know happens in university athletics, but it's rare to get a good portrait of it. One of the reasons Rodriguez was willing to listen to Michigan in the first place is there was pushback by Manchin, WVU's President Mike Garrison, and A.D. Eddie Pastilong against Rodriguez for what they viewed as the personal brand he was developing with his success. Rodriguez ended up not winning the political struggles with his nominal superiors, and saw that even when he raised the money for things for his football program he wasn't necessarily going to get them. That kind of thwarting of aspirations is precisely what Rodriguez left Morgantown to avoid in the first place, yet it's what he encountered in Ann Arbor essentially from the day he got there.

The other deep irony I found in Three and Out is the one of the most successful things Lloyd Carr did to put Rich Rodriguez beyond the eight ball actually happened long before the thought of Rodriguez coaching Michigan occurred to anybody, and that's the extraordinarily bare defensive personnel cupboard he left. Carr (in)famously volunteered to sign everybody's transfer paperwork after initially recommending RichRod, which led to a spate of offensive transfers. With RichRod being a spread guru, though, a high degree of offensive changeover was inevitable, especially with the most prominent offensive skill position players, Mike Hart and Chad Henne, exhausting their eligibility. Rodriguez had gone through, and expected, a certain level of ineptitude that first year on offense. What he didn't expect coming to Michigan, and what he failed to adapt to, were personnel deficiencies and coaching struggles on defense. As Bacon's initial plan was apparently to write about RichRod bringing his offense to the B10, the story of the defense ends up under-covered in Three and Out. One of the great "what-ifs" implicitly raised by Bacon's book is what would have happened if Carr hadn't retired at the end of 2007. A great deal of offensive turnover was inevitable, and defensive decline was the order of the day. How much better would a Carr Michigan team have done in 2008 than RichRod's 3-8, and would Carr (or his designated successor) have been able to turn around the Wolverines' defense any faster? Carr's retirement meant never having to publicly face the music for this, and, if he so desired, room for plenty of private backbiting about the new coach's inability to meet the challenges bequeathed to him.

I should make it clear that while Carr comes off quite poorly in the book, it's far from a whitewash of Rodriguez. While he showed some improvement in his handling of various issues, his occasional missteps and clashing with the extant Michigan culture (one which Bacon was a part of and seems to value highly) started with his introductory press conference and continued essentially until almost the end of his tenure at Michigan. In addition to those flaws, he also has a lot more of what I think of as "normal coach" flaws, including profane and angry reactions after losses (in private) and at times letting his personal struggles influence his team unity-building. It's also not quite clear that Bacon sees the deep ironies I found in Three and Out; it's more a work of narrative journalism than a psychological study of RichRod.

For somebody with no Michigan connection who's spent more time singing "We Don't Give a Damn for the Whole State of Michigan than "The Victors" the past decade, I obviously found Three and Out a deeply interesting and enjoyable read. For more on Three and Out, see MGoBlog's tag, which includes a couple extensive Q&As with Bacon.

UPDATE (1/29/12, 2217 CT): Made a couple stylistic and typo edits.

Book Review: A Team for America

2012-01-09T22:38:00.001-06:00

Well, I'm finally back in the saddle. Sort of, at least.

College football during the Second World War was kind of an unusual enterprise, what with that whole military draft thing resulting in males of collegiate age being called up for service. If you look at, say, the final AP Poll for 1944, you notice a bunch of "schools" like #3 Randolph Field, #5 Bainbridge Naval, #6 Iowa Pre-Flight, and more of the same ilk mixed in with more familiar names like Ohio State and Notre Dame. Then again, even a school like Notre Dame was not the typical undergraduate institution it had been in, say, 1941, but was instead largely devoted to Navy and Marine training.

That was true of essentially all of the top twenty teams in the country. Many schools dropped football, simply because they didn't have enough healthy men of the proper age. Those that didn't were the beneficiaries of an influx of those military trainees, who were then also subject to the whims of military training. For instance, 1943 Heisman Trophy winner Angelo Bertelli played in only six of Notre Dame's ten games before being activated for military service. Eligibility rules, which were previously fairly strict, were modified, permitting freshmen eligibility and letting transfers play without the need to sit out a year.

For purposes of Randy Roberts' A Team for America, it's worth a reminder that those were predominantly Navy and Marine training bases, and pretty much the only defender of The Long Gray Line was, well, The Long Gray Line itself, the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The problem had been the Army gridiron team had recently not been a great defender of the Gray against the Blue. Army hadn't beaten Navy since 1938, and the Cadets had bottomed out in 1940 with a 1-7-1 record. It's really there that Roberts' book begins, as he tells the story of the growth and development of the Army gridiron squad beginning with the hire of USMA grad Earl "Red" Blaik.

The Blaik hire was the beginning of a process where Army did essentially what many other formerly-quite respectable institutions have done. Lou Holtz reportedly recruiting Tony Rice and his poor SAT score to Notre Dame as a Prop 48 player who didn't come close to meeting even Notre Dame's relaxed admissions standards is an old story. The first challenge was simply hiring Blaik in the first place; Army had a policy of requiring football coaches to be serving officers, and while Blaik was an alumnus, he'd been out of the Army since the 1920's.

That surmounted, Army then had the problem of acquiring more talented players, one subject to two additional challenges: first, that entering cadets had to meet certain height and weight limitations that made it difficult to recruit players of the size even then normally found on the offensive and defensive lines, and second, ensuring that players had the academic wherewithal to survive and stay eligible at West Point, a school with a demanding enough daily schedule, mathematically and scientifically rigorous classes, and constant examinations that could make a player's eligibility a question from week to week.

Well, we know how the story ended. Army recruited and managed to keep enough great players like Mr. Outside Glenn Davis and Mr. Inside Doc Blanchard, and beat Navy en route to an undefeated season in 1944, where A Team for America ends.

Roberts, a professor of history at Purdue who's written books on other sports topics from the first half of the twentieth century, tells the story well enough. The book is well-researched, including interviews with the surviving members of the Army teams of the early 1940's, and, as you'd expect from a professor, includes footnotes and an index. From the subtitle, I expected more on Navy and the game itself, but this is really a book about Army's rise from 1940 to 1944 and Navy is present primarily as a foil. That's not a criticism of Roberts or the book, mind you, just a note that you should be aware of what you're getting.

Recommended for what it is, even though it doesn't escape the the problems of most football books.

Play Notes: 2011 Week 07 vs Houston-Run Defense

2011-10-24T20:33:00.003-05:00

Data dump for another Total Titans post, this one on the rushing defense against the Texans in Week 7. Per normal practice, full details after the break.

FIRST QUARTER
Drive #1
1-10-HST 20 (15:00) A.Foster right tackle to HST 21 for 1 yard (C.Finnegan).
Titans bring two extra defenders down, Texans don't adjust and run right into the strength of the D. Foster gets the edge, but an unblocked Finnegan makes a solid tackle.

2-9-HST 21 (14:22) A.Foster right guard to HST 28 for 7 yards (S.Smith; J.McCourty).
Titans in nickel against Texans in 21, surprising. Titans bring a run blitz, Texans run away from it and Casey in particular gets moved at POA. McCourty was solid coming up in run support.

3-2-HST 28 (13:43) A.Foster left tackle to HST 27 for -1 yards (S.Smith).
This play is made by RDE Dave Ball and particularly RDT Shaun Smith. Smith is lined up at NT right over C Myers and shoves him well into the backfield and blows up the play. Ball plays a supporting role by getting good push against LT Brown and preventing Foster from getting a bounce. Really nice play by both guys.

Drive #2
1-10-HST 20 (10:42) A.Foster left end to HST 36 for 16 yards (M.Griffin).
Toss to Foster on the sweep. LDE Ball heads upfield, but gets crackblocked by WR Walter and LT Brown pulls. Sweep is to the two receiver side out of 21 personnel. Brown's pull (nice mobility) lets him pick off McCourty, but the key block is by WR Jones on Witherspoon. Spoon never establishes proper leverage and gets pushed downfield. I've written nice things about Will than most Titans fans, but that's because I haven't seen many plays like this one. This is a battle he can and should win, and he loses it badly.

Drive #3
1-10-HST 8 (8:43) A.Foster right tackle to HST 12 for 4 yards (J.Babineaux).
Texans in 12, though Daniels motions out to create a 1x2 look. Titans in nickel. Texans have 6 to block 6 and manage it. Ruud beats Myers' initial block, but gets picked by a pulling RG Brisel. The player whose work I'm curious about this play is LDE Morgan(?), who initially doesn't do anything, then engages playside TE Dreesseen. He rides him out of the play, but that takes him out of the way as well. Babineaux from the opposite site makes the tackle, but also credit Finnegan for getting off Walter's block.

1-10-HST 47 (5:47) B.Tate left end pushed ob at TEN 42 for 11 yards (M.Griffin). R4
PENALTY on TEN-W.Witherspoon, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at TEN 42. X5
First note: the actual penalty was on Jones, not Spoon. He had a bad enough game without having to take responsibility for other people's mistakes. Same initial look by the Texans as the previous running play, though with Tate in for Foster. Titans are in base this time. RDE Sheppard and RDT/NT Marks are taken out by LT Brown and C Myers, with LG Smith shooting through to pick up Spoon. RG Brisel beats Klug to the spot and picks Ruud, while playside WR Johnson blocks Finnegan. Finny has a chance to stop him for no gain, but avoids a tough play and Griff has to come up from deep safety to make the play. Guys here to highlight are Sheppard, Marks, and Klug.

1-10-TEN 27 (5:25) B.Tate left tackle to TEN 24 for 3 yards (D.Ball).
21 against base personnel. Ball gets off Brown's block at the POA and grabs Tate, who falls forward for a couple yards. Casey and Smith would help if they weren't 5 yards downfield. Smith in particular got driven back by Myers, not one of his finer efforts. Spoon shoots the gap but gets picked up by Vickers, which is about what I'd expect.

2-7-TEN 24 (4:43) A.Foster right end to TEN 19 for 5 yards (B.Ruud).
Texans in 12, with a bunch of Walter and TEs Daniels/Dreesseen right side. Titans in nickel. Play goes about how you'd expect: front man in trips Daniels blocks down on LDE, outside guy blocks down on Finnegan man up on Daniels, inside back Dreessen and RT Winston pull. Credit McCourty for coming up and a force and Ruud for fighting off Winston's block to make the play.

3-2-TEN 19 (4:00) A.Foster up the middle to TEN 16 for 3 yards (B.Ruud). R6
Texans in 22, Titans in nickel (why? why? why?). Playcall is Foster on the cutback. Babs should have this play dead to rights as his initial move was to come flying in for the weakside. Unfortunately, he's on bootleg contain, headed straight for Schaub and is several yards too far downfield to get Foster. LDE Jones has been ridden downfield by RT Winston, and LDT Smith went down the line on the initial action and is blocked by RG Brisel. C Myers is to the second level. Ruud is kind of in the hole, kind of not (avoids getting picked by Myers), and brings down Foster as he dives forward for the first down. Credit Foster, who does a good job of slanting his run away from Ruud and taking away his leverage.

1-10-TEN 16 (3:24) B.Tate right end to TEN 17 for -1 yards (J.Casey).
21 against base. Winston and Daniels get a seal on LDE Jones(?), but tons of credit to LDT Casey. He gets off RG Brisel's initial block and quickly scoots down the line, beating Tate to the corner and stopping him for a loss. Just an awesome play by Casey, love to see more of this.

3-21-TEN 27 (2:11) (Shotgun) A.Foster up the middle to TEN 14 for 13 yards (M.Griffin).
11 personnel against nickel. Giveup draw. Playside TE Daniels blocks RDE Ball, LT Brown picks Ruud, who sheds the block but not quickly enough to get Foster in the hole. Pulling RG Smith picks LB Witherspoon. Damn, this team is good at blocking. Foster is eventually tackled downfield by Griffin. Demerit here to Babineaux, who comes up in from his safety position and dives for Foster, who easily cuts and avoids him.

SECOND QUARTER
Drive #4
1-10-HST 47 (10:23) A.Foster left guard to TEN 46 for 7 yards (J.Babineaux).
21 personnel against base. Hat on hat, a guy for everybody in the box. Demerits to LDE Sheppard, who's not really in the play but gets moved by RT Winston, DT Smith, who loses to Casey this time, not badly, but enough. Babs comes up from his safety position and makes the play. Credit also to Finny for getting off Jones' block and helping.

2-3-TEN 46 (9:47) A.Foster up the middle to TEN 36 for 10 yards (M.Griffin). R8
12 personnel, double tight right, against base. Titans this time bring a safety into the box. Babineaux, I think, though for some reason it sorta looks like Smith. He's unblocked. His job is backside contain. Foster makes the cut, right into him. He whiffs badly.

1-10-TEN 36 (9:09) B.Tate right tackle to TEN 33 for 3 yards (B.Ruud).
21 against base. Ruud's lined up 5 yards off the LOS, a little deeper than the other linebackers, and beats LG Smith's pick to the hole to tackle Tate. Really solid play by Ruud. LDE Jones gets moved out of the way at the point of attack and a free RG Brisel has blocked Spoon out of the play. Myers is standing firm against Smith-losing, but not enough to disrupt the play.

1-10-TEN 12 (8:07) A.Foster right end to TEN 10 for 2 yards (J.McCourty).
12 against nickel. Foster run to the two wide receiver side. Slagged him some, but credit to LDE Jones for forcing Foster to string this play out. He eventually gets outside of Foster and forces him to cut up and dive forward for a couple yards. Gee, it'd be nice to have a back who could do that, wouldn't it?

Drive #5
1-10-HST 6 (5:41) A.Foster right guard to HST 7 for 1 yard (K.Klug).
12 against nickel. Walter motions again, creating the same look at the previous play. LDT Marks gets pancaked at the point of attack, Myers and Winston get to pick second-level defenders. LDE Morgan takes an outside rush and prevents Foster from going right end but he has space to go inside (TE Daniels is on him). Credit on the play goes to Klug, who does really stand up when LG Smith hits him but is still able to keep his motion going playside and eventually runs into Foster. Credit as well to RDE Sheppard, who doesn't prevent LT Brown from getting to the second level but who does get backfield penetration and scoots down the LOS as well. Without the end zone angle, tough to be sure, but I think Klug in particular and maybe Marks just being on the ground prevented this from being a double-digit gainer.

Drive #6
1-10-TEN 30 (1:32) A.Foster up the middle to TEN 27 for 3 yards (K.Klug).
11 against nickel. DTs Klug and Marks run a twist, which screws up the blocking. Klug gets his hand on Foster as he goes by, and an unblocked Ruud falls forward to get the stop.

THIRD QUARTER
Drive #7
1-10-HST 28 (12:00) A.Foster right tackle pushed ob at HST 45 for 17 yards (J.McCourty). R17
12 against base. Good job by RDE Ball and 5th man on line ROLB Ayers to block off the left side, but LDE Jones gets moved on the backside. Jordan Babineaux abandons his outside contain and doubles up with Witherspoon on the inside of Jones, leaving the outside free.

1-10-HST 45 (11:30) B.Tate right tackle pushed ob at TEN 38 for 17 yards (J.Babineaux). R18
21 against base, run goes away from the two WR side. This is just hat-on-hat stuff on the outside zone. Sure, Witherspoon has solid contain on the backside, but LDE Jones and Ayers get single-blocked, RG Brisel picks Ruud, and I'm not enamored of the angle Jordan Babineaux takes on the play either. LDT Casey also gets too easily reach-blocked(?) by C Myers, which freed up Brisel. If that doesn't happen, this is about a 3-yard gain.

1-10-TEN 38 (10:58) B.Tate up the middle to TEN 14 for 24 yards (B.Ruud). R19
12 personnel, against Daniel motions to create a 2x1 look. Titans in base, again with a 6-man front designed to set the edge. Initial action is to the left, but this is a cutback up the middle. LDT Marks (lined up at NT) gets moved initially, then decides to scoot down the line, abandoning where Tate ends up running. He should have him in the hole, but doesn't. RG Brisel kind of cuts him, but if he's where I think he should be, that doesn't much better. C Myers gets downfield and picks Ruud, who's the only guy not on the line. Tate eludes Babineaux and Finnegan downfield to turn about a 12 yard gain into 24.

1-10-TEN 14 (10:14) A.Foster up the middle to TEN 10 for 4 yards (K.Klug). TEN-B.Ruud was injured during the play. His return is Questionable.
12 against base. More really solid stuff by the Texans, picking everybody. Klug makes this play, getting off Myers and getting to the hole. Griff was about 8 yards downfield to make the play if Klug didn't. Ruud fills the hole, but gets blocked by Daniels and Foster runs somewhere other than straight into him.

1-1-TEN 1 (9:10) A.Foster right tackle for 1 yard, TOUCHDOWN.
Texans in goalline, 23, against 53, I think, for the Titans. LDE Morgan gets double-teamed and moved back a yard or two by RT Winston and TE Daniels (key play his assist), LDT Casey gets moved back by RG Brisel, FB Vickers gets EMLOS Babineaux, NT Smith gets knocked to the ground, and RDT Marks can't get there in time. Whatever Smith was doing looked designed, so the guy I'd point the finger at here is Casey.

At this point in the game, it's 27-0 and effectively over, so I'm just going to highlight a couple of plays from the drive that made it 34-7.

FOURTH QUARTER
Drive #9
2-8-TEN 27 (12:53) B.Tate left end to TEN 12 for 15 yards (J.Jones). R25
12 against base, Daniels again motioning out to create a 2x1 look. RDT Casey tries to shoot a gap and gets knocked to the ground by LT Brown. RDE Ball gets sealed by TE Dreessen (disappointing), LG Smith picks Ruud, TE Walter blocks Ayers (disappointing), Daniels has Finnegan, and Tate has himself an alley.

1-10-TEN 12 (12:05) B.Tate up the middle to TEN 2 for 10 yards (J.Babineaux; M.Griffin). R26
12 against base, 2-TE with 2WR right. Not a lot to say here, just more hat-on-hat stuff. Finnegan has outside contain, but Tate's taking this one up the middle. Griffin kind of gets run over at the end of the play, or at least you'd like to see him stop Tate short of the first down. DTs on the play are Marks, who gets single-blocked by Myers too easily, and Klug, who barely slows down LG Smith on his way to the second level.

1-2-TEN 2 (11:31) B.Tate right tackle to TEN 4 for -2 yards (W.Witherspoon; S.Smith).
Both teams in goalline, 23 against 53. Lots of credit here to LDT Klug, who does exactly what I wanted Casey to do against Brisel on Foster's TD. Credit also to Witherspoon for outside contain.

2-4-TEN 4 (10:44) A.Foster right end to TEN 5 for -1 yards (B.Ruud; W.Witherspoon).
12 against base, with 2WR left. Credit JBabs for doing a good job of getting upfield and in Foster's way even though he gets blocked by Vickers. Credit here particularly goes to LDE Jones, who could've drawn a holding call on Winston, and LDT Klug. The guards don't get to the second level, leaving Ruud and Witherspoon to fill the two gaps and easily bottle up Foster.

3-5-TEN 5 (10:00) A.Foster left tackle for 5 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
11 against nickel. RDT Klug gets too easily reached by Myers, and LG Smith easily picks up Ruud. RDE Ball gets moved just enough by LT Brown. Finny coming in from his slot blitz has kind of a chance, but is stuck with a bad angle and no leverage. An unblocked Griffin should have Foster, but Arian is run away from him and get an easy score to make it 34-7.

Book Review: America's Quarterback

2011-10-20T23:09:00.000-05:00

America's Quarterback: Bart Starr and the Rise of the National Football League is the third book by Keith Dunnavant I've reviewed on here, after The Fifty-Year Seduction and The Missing Ring.

As you might guess from the subtitle, America's Quarterback is a biography of Bart Starr. It's a well-done straightforward narrative of Starr's life from growing up, Alabama, Green Bay, and afterward, with the bulk of the time spent on his time as quarterback for the Packer dynasty under Vince Lombardi. Starr comes across, as he has in anything else I've ever read about him, as a consummate professional and very high-character guy.

Ultimately, though, and this speaks more to me than it does to America's Quarterback, it's well done, I appreciate it, but I just don't actually care. I had this same feeling about Missing Ring or for that matter about When Pride Still Mattered. I mentioned this on twitter earlier, but America's Quarterback and the other books about football I've been reading lately feel, well, small. Hypothetical Tyler Cowen who reads about football would probably dismiss all of them as insufficiently theoretical or conceptual, or at least that's the way I'm feeling right now.

That's probably a sign I need to start reading something else, which will likely mean few or no book reviews here coming soon. I do have out from the library Roger L. Martin's Fixing the Game, though I'm not sure I'll end up writing a review here about it. Perhaps I shall finally get around to Finding the Winning Edge.

America's Quarterback contains an index, source notes, and some bibliographic notes in the Acknowledgments section, which all nonfiction books should have and too many of them don't. I noticed a couple typos, none major. I should probably buy a copy of The League by David Harris. Recommended for what it is.

Book Review: Lombardi and Landry

2011-10-17T20:55:00.000-05:00

Longtime New York Giants beatwriter Ernie Palladino's Lombardi and Landry: How Two of Pro Football's Greatest Coaches Launched Their Legends and Changed the Game Forever tells the story of one of those remarkable times in NFL coaching history: when Vince Lombardi was offensive coordinator of the New York Giants in the 1950's while Tom Landry was simultaneously serving as the Giants' defensive coordinator, and head coach Jim Lee Howell just got out of their way and let them run their units.

As subtitles are wont to do, Lombardi and Landry's overpromises something the book doesn't really try to deliver. Rather than a real explanation of how Lombardi and Landry changed the game, Palladino tells the straightforward narrative story of their time as Giants coordinators. I didn't see anything groundbreaking in the book, but the story is told well and flows quickly.

Lombardi and Landry isn't a special book, and it isn't one I see myself returning to in the future, but is a very solid book and one that was a quiet pleasure to read. Recommended for what it is.

Book Review: Year of Pain

2011-10-11T00:29:00.001-05:00

Some books I feel like deserve a long review. Kenny Hand's Year of Pain: The 1989 Houston Oilers Season is not one of those. Hand, a longtime Houston Post scribe, as the subtitle suggests, put together a book chronicling the 1989 Houston Oilers season [N.B. Year of Pain was published in 1990]. Now, this is an old and much-imitated form of doing a book, and the results can be very good or, well, not so much.

My primary problem with Year of Pain is that beyond seeming a larger degree of access to Oilers coach Jerry Glanville than most journalists, I don't get the feeling that there's anything in the book that any other reporter covering the team, or now any other person, couldn't have written. It's better edited than a collection of my long-form game recaps when I wrote those every Sunday, but it doesn't feel fundamentally that much different. For one, there doesn't feel like much of an overarching narrative to the book. This isn't a fiction book; the outcome is known when the book is published, but the chapter on any individual game week could have been (and well may have been) written the week after that game, depriving you of any sort of bigger picture. Whatever its other faults, even Next Man Up was able to tell the story of a season, not just the story of individual weeks. Of course, as somebody who doesn't necessarily care about the normal narrative, reading Hand's normal columnist gloss on the game isn't necessarily helpful in getting a feel for what happened and why and how each game turned out the way it did; that's definitely a YMMV point, though.

Hand did at least have pretty decent material to work with. The Oilers were in the early days of their fun but ultimately deep unsatisfying run of seven straight years in the playoffs without making even a single conference championship game, and Jerry Glanville was under pressure to improve on the two previous wild card appearances. The AFC Central in those years was a good example of why the AFC was better than the conventional wisdom created by NFC Super Bowl triumphs would have you believe (that said, 1989 was the first year of the stretch where you could plausibly argue the NFC actually was better, though the AFC Central did go 11-5 against the NFC Central)-none of the Bengals, Browns, Steelers, or Oilers was a great team, but three of the four were coming off 10-plus wins in 1988 and each would end the 1989 season with 8 or 9 wins.

The season would go down to the finish line, as the Oilers lost their last two games to the Bengals (the infamous 61-7 game) and Browns to fall from a division title and bye to the wild card, and then completed the trifecta by losing to the Steelers in the wild card game. Glanville would leave the Oilers in the offseason (pseudo-non-firing) to coach the Falcons, and Jack Pardee would arrive for his four years of playoff disappointment. Oh, and those Oilers were also one of the most penalized teams in NFL history, a proud result of Glanville's policy of drawing the "too aggressive" line way past the "stupidity" line. The elements for an interesting book were there, but, well, it's a trip down memory lane for old Oilers fans only.

Bonus "hey, that guy" note for people who don't remember what famous people were assistants on the 1989 Houston Oilers: future Oilers/Titans general manager Floyd Reese and of course the defensive backs coach was future Miami Dolphins head coach Nick Saban.

My 2011 Total Titans Archive

2011-10-09T00:31:00.002-05:00

Book Review: Showdown

2011-10-03T19:06:00.000-05:00

Showdown: JFK and the Integration of the Washington Redskins by Thomas G. Smith tells the story of how the Washington Redskins were essentially forced to start using black players. D.C. Stadium, later RFK, was just built on federal land. JFK's Interior Secretary, Stewart Udall, in furtherance of federal government regulations banning discrimination on the basis of race, declared the Redskins, who'd signed a 30-year lease for the facility that was crucial in getting it built, wouldn't be allowed to play in the new building unless they agreed to add their first black player. Redskins owner George Preston Marshall got Udall to agree to a one-year extension, then drafted and otherwise acquired black players. The end.

Admittedly, the story is somewhat more complicated than that. Marshall, who originally acquired the team when it was in Boston and then moved it to D.C., made a conscious business decision that seemed to match his personal predilections to keep the team lily-white, even at the cost of success on the field. Baseball and the rest of the NFL integrated, the Redskins got worse, Marshall kept trying to act like he was a football man like his friend George Halas, the Redskins got even worse but still apparently made money, then eventually agreed to integrate under federal and NFL pressure.

Smith pads out the Redskins integration story with some of the color of Marshall's life and the story of integration, including perspective from the black newspapers. The Redskins integration story itself is relatively thin; Smith, a professor of history, got on to the story from writing about Udall and environmental policy. The subtitle is misleading-Udall seems to have done it on his own, without any push from or even the assistance of JFK and the rest of Camelot. Marshall spent the last half-decade-plus of his life in particularly ill health, estranged from his family, and didn't seem to ever have elaborated on why he made the final decision to integrate or even go to court for the right to use the stadium without integrating. Bobby Mitchell, the most notable player to integrate the Redskins, might have been able to share some interesting tales; he gave Smith an interview in 1985, when the academic work that formed the basis for Showdown was being written, but didn't cooperate with the actual writing of Showdown (which ended up not being released until September 2011).

Questions that I'd like to see flesh out notwithstanding, Smith tells the story in Showdown reasonably well, and I can see why the suggestion was made to expand his academic articles into a book, but at just over 200 pages of narrative, the book feels about 50 pages too long. As you'd expect from a book by a professor, Showdown includes endnotes, a bibliography, a brief bibliographic essay, and an index, each a feature too often missing in books about football. I noticed a couple nits; the man who threw to ball to Don Huston is referred to as Arnie "Huber" rather than Herber, some of the Redskins stock sales are referred to as purchases but sound more like redemptions (a distinction you may have to be a corporate attorney to care about), and one more that's so important I don't remember what it was.

Overall, I found Showdown an interesting story about something I hadn't known that much about. The material wasn't quite enough for a fully-satisfying book, but it was a worthwhile read as a library rental. Recommended for what it is.

Play Notes: 2011 Week 02 vs Baltimore-Pass Rush

2011-09-20T15:35:00.001-05:00

Another post that's primarily a data dump, this aimed at judging the Titans' pass rush against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2 of the 2011 NFL season. Even less detail than last week's simple defense UFR. Read the Total Titans post for the analysis and takeaways [note to self: insert direct link to Total Titans post once it's done.]

As per normal course, full details after the jump.

3-7-BLT 23 (13:43) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete short right to A.Boldin (C.Finnegan).
Rush 4. Klug punches off the LG and loops. Ravens pick it up, but LT McKinnie has to retreat. Jones also coming from LDE position against Oher. Flacco scrambles, Finnegan in tight coverage w/ PD.

2-8-BLT 6 (10:48) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete short middle to E.Dickson (C.Finnegan).
Titans rush 4. Pressure doesn't seem to affect decision/throw. Solid hit by Finnegan creates PD.

3-8-BLT 6 (10:43) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete short right to L.Evans.
Titans loop right again, Ball breaks free against fill-in LG LeVoir. Flacco has times, but forced to scramble and throws too far for Evans.

1-10-BLT 48 (9:41) J.Flacco pass short right to V.Leach to TEN 48 for 4 yards (J.McCourty).
Bootleg, LDE Sheppard sucked in. No pressure on FB flat pass.

3-4-TEN 46 (8:21) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short left intended for L.Evans INTERCEPTED by A.Verner at TEN 35. A.Verner pushed ob at TEN 39 for 4 yards (L.Evans).
Flacco has time, but see Klug has beaten LG LeVoir and is coming and arms a horrible pass for Evans that Verner easily undercuts. Horrible decision/throw by Flacco.

1-10-BLT 4 (4:40) J.Flacco pass short right to L.Evans pushed ob at BLT 17 for 13 yards (J.McCourty).
Playfake, Titans rush 4. McCourty has soft coverage and Evans has an easy 9-yard completion for the curl. Griffin appears to have lined up closer to midfield than the line of scrimmage on this play, as he's not visible on screen until very late.

2-7-BLT 20 (3:36) J.Flacco pass incomplete short left to A.Boldin (A.Verner).
PENALTY on TEN-M.Griffin, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at BLT 20 - No Play. X2
The return of the wide-9! Both DEs are lined up there outside of the respect TE. Playfake, and both RDE Ball and LDE Morgan are playing very aggressively and up on Flacco soon after he steps up. He arms the ball off for Evans, who had a difficult release against Verner and can't haul the ball in. Griffin gets flagged for going in headfirst on Evans, ruining an RPS advantage and defensive win.

2-12-BLT 33 (2:54) J.Flacco pass incomplete short left to D.Pitta.
Titans bring an overload blitz to the left and a total of 5, but it's picked up. Flacco throws shallow for Pitta on a crossing route. Ruud gets there early and is fortunate not to be flagged for pass interference.

3-12-BLT 33 (2:49) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete short middle to R.Rice.
LDE Morgan gets late pass pressure on a spin, but Flacco has time to read downfield and decide to throw the dumpoff well before Morgan gets there.

1-10-BLT 24 (14:55) J.Flacco pass incomplete short right to R.Rice.
Another rush 4 and a playfake with a 7-step drop. Flacco looks downfield and elects to take a dumpoff to Rice, which isn't well-thrown.

3-4-BLT 30 (14:10) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short right to R.Rice to BLT 36 for 6 yards (C.Finnegan).
Joe Flacco as a quarterback. Instead of making the stop route throw to Boldin, who had inside position on McCourty, he throws short of the sticks to an open Rice, who gets blocks from Boldin and Dickson to pick up the first. Rush 4, pressure no effect.

1-10-BLT 30 (8:01) J.Flacco pass short left to D.Pitta to BLT 46 for 16 yards (C.Finnegan) [D.Ball].
Playfake and rush 4. Ball is playing aggressively and Rice has to block him to give Flacco time to scramble, which he does and finds an open Pitta against what looks like zone.

1-10-BLT 46 (7:15) J.Flacco pass short right to A.Boldin to TEN 38 for 16 yards (M.Griffin).
Zone blitz, with Jones dropping into coverage and Ruud rushing. Ravens pick it up, and Flacco does a good job to hit Boldin in a zone window.

2-7-TEN 35 (5:58) J.Flacco pass incomplete short right.
Playfake and rush 4, though a zone blitz this time as RDE Ball drops off and Finny off the left slot blitzes into the runfake. Flacco has time to take a deep drop and does a classic KFC-style ballpat before Finny (on Rice), RDT Jones (LT McKinnie), and LDE Morgan (TE Pitta) start to converge on him and he scrambles for a throw away. Credit downfield coverage here.

3-7-TEN 35 (5:48) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short left to E.Dickson to TEN 26 for 9 yards (A.Verner). P7
3-2-6, and they bring S A.Smith as the fourth rusher. RDE Ball (from a wide-9!) is RB Rice's responsibility and jumps over the cut block attempt (kind of funny, to be honest), but Flacco finds TE Dickson in the right flat (designed) and Verner's tackle try is unable to stop him short of the first.

1-15-TEN 31 (4:49) J.Flacco pass short right to R.Rice for 31 yards, TOUCHDOWN. P8
Screen pass. Rush 4. Three attempted tackles (Ruud, Babineaux, Griffin), three whiffs. Touchdown.

1-10-TEN 30 (:29) (Shotgun) J.Flacco sacked at TEN 38 for -8 yards (K.Klug). FUMBLES (K.Klug), and recovers at TEN 34. J.Flacco to TEN 34 for no gain (D.Ball).
PENALTY on TEN-D.Morgan, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at TEN 34.
Rush 4 again, and RDE Ball and RDT Klug loop and create trouble. This time LT McKinnie doesn't get out quickly enough to pick up Klug, who swipes the ball out of Flacco's hands. I'll forgo comment on Morgan's roughness penalty.

1-10-TEN 19 (:22) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short left to R.Rice to TEN 19 for no gain (D.Ball).
Rush 4. Flacco has time available, but LDE Morgan's bull rush against Oher eventually lets him wriggle toward Flacco, who again elects for the dumpoff to Rice.

2-10-TEN 19 (:15) (Shotgun) J.Flacco sacked at TEN 23 for -4 yards (D.Ball).
Rush only 3, as LDT Jones drops into coverage. DEs Morgan and Ball bring outside pressure, Flacco steps up into a clean pocket and eventually gets dropped by Ball for his indecision. Coverage sack more than a pressure one in my eyes.

1-10-BLT 20 (11:10) J.Flacco pass short middle to R.Rice to BLT 31 for 11 yards (J.Jones).
Playfake and rush 4. Flacco again has time to survey downfield and then takes the checkdown to Rice, who beats Ruud in man coverage for a first down.

2-11-BLT 30 (9:20) J.Flacco pass incomplete short left to E.Dickson.
Ravens run a clearout trying to get Dickson on a flat route. RDE Ball, intentionally blocked by Rice, gets some pressure up in Flacco, who arms it ahead of Dickson. Babineaux had good coverage on the play.

3-11-BLT 30 (9:16) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete short right [D.Morgan].
3 DL, and McRath becomes the fourth rusher. No real pressure on Flacco, but he still gets antsy and and rolls right, where Klug is able to get pressure. After that, he scrambles more but has lost composure and eventually just chucks the ball out of bounds. It looks like he has Boldin across the middle just short of the sticks if he stands in the pocket a half-second longer.

2-10-BLT 20 (2:44) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete deep left to L.Evans.
Rush 4, no pressure. Evans has beaten Verner on a fly pattern, but Flacco overthrows him by 3 yards. Why couldn't you have completed this one and overthrown the pass in the playoff game, you !@#!%#?

3-10-BLT 20 (2:37) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass deep middle to A.Boldin to BLT 40 for 20 yards (J.Babineaux). P11
Rush 4, no pressure, and Flacco hits the deep in the zone window. The kind of play I was expecting to see.

1-10-BLT 40 (1:59) J.Flacco pass incomplete short left to R.Rice [J.Casey].
Playfake, rush 4. Flacco has time to look downfield and doesn't see anything he likes. Casey eventually comes off LG LeVoir and Flacco arms a dumpoff.

3-2-BLT 48 (1:11) J.Flacco pass incomplete short left to E.Dickson.
Ravens outsmart themselves here, as the playcall is a throwback to Dickson, who lines up in-line right and dives forward on the ground at the snap. They're trying to leak him backside, but Babineaux picks him up. The play design has LDE Marks essentially unblocked, at RT Oher pulls to sell the run action on this 3&short. It's a one-man throw, essentially, for Flacco, and he can't make a good pass to Dickson.

2-9-BLT 38 (14:12) J.Flacco pass deep right intended for E.Dickson INTERCEPTED by J.McCourty (C.Finnegan) at TEN 44. J.McCourty to BLT 26 for 30 yards (L.Evans).
Rush 4 and a playfake. RDT Klug gets good penetration quickly, beating Birk and shooting the gap before getting picked up by Ricky Williams. Flacco boots and before Morgan gets there has time to set up and throw to Dickson. Unfortunately for the Ravens, this is a horrific decision, as Dickson's blanketed by Finnegan, who gets the tip and a fortuitous pick for McCourty.

1-10-BLT 17 (11:54) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short left to R.Rice to BLT 22 for 5 yards (J.Babineaux).
Rush 4, read downfield, then take the dumpoff to Rice. Snore. Pressure w/ no impact on the play.

2-5-BLT 22 (11:17) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short right to A.Boldin to BLT 32 for 10 yards (J.McCourty).
Rush 4, throw the quick curl to outside receiver Boldin. Same kind of route they ran from the 4 earlier with Evans.

1-10-BLT 32 (10:42) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass deep right to L.Evans to TEN 36 for 32 yards (M.Griffin).
Rush 4. Looks like cover-2, and Flacco hits the deep outside void before Griffin can get over. No relevant pressure. As far as cover-2's go, this is a deep one and Flacco's excellent arm strength allows him to make this throw. Just had to get that in, since Flacco has looked like garbage most of this game.

1-10-TEN 36 (9:57) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short middle to D.Pitta to TEN 28 for 8 yards (C.Finnegan).
Rush 4, throw out quickly on the sitdown route to TE Pitta against the underneath zone.

1-10-TEN 25 (8:37) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete deep middle to A.Boldin (M.Griffin).
Rush 4, pressure with no effect. Flacco for some reason tries to fit in a deep seam pass against man-free (aka Cover-1 or Man-1) and Griffin has an easy PD, though honestly you'd like to see Griffin pick this pass off. If Griffin doesn't get it, McCourty should be able to get the PD. Just an inexplicably bad read.

2-10-TEN 25 (8:31) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass short middle to E.Dickson to TEN 9 for 16 yards (B.Ruud).
Rush 4, no pressure to speak of. Complete against Ruud in front of what looked like a deep drop in Tampa-2.

2-6-TEN 6 (7:15) J.Flacco pass incomplete short middle to A.Boldin.
Ravens run trips to the right. Boldin runs a short in, and can't haul in the pass with Finnegan in coverage after a hit from Ruud. Should've been a TD. The reason it's not is Finnegan has one of Boldin's arms hooked and he can't get it free. Should've been flagged for pass interference, and the Titans get away with another one.

3-11-TEN 11 (7:10) (Shotgun) J.Flacco pass incomplete short middle to A.Boldin.
Rush 3, with LDT Jones again dropping off in coverage. No pressure, Flacco scrambles anyway. Boldin from his left slot position runs an in and starts to go out as Flacco scrambles that direction. Does this throw get tipped by Finnegan on its way? Not listed in the play-by-play, and I don't see enough flutter to make me say for sure it was. In that case, this is a really bad drop by Boldin, and even if it was tipped, it's still a bad drop.

1-10-BLT 31 (:20) (Shotgun) J.Flacco sacked at BLT 26 for -5 yards (D.Morgan).
Rush 4, some pressure on Flacco as the pocket collapses and rather than throw the ball away he decides to step up into rushers. Another decision that's almost inexplicably bad, and Morgan is the winner in "who gets the sack" roulette.

Simple UFR: 2011 Week 01 at Jaguars-Defense

2011-09-15T16:18:00.000-05:00

I gave you the offense a couple days ago, now it's time for the defense.

I haven't really done true UFR for the defense before outside of just play notes on preseason games. If I had to put things in a spectrum, these are much closer to play notes in terms of responsibility than "true" UFR, which I think of as much more hardcore into grading and analytic measures.

There are few personnel notes-I didn't record when the Titans were in nickel or other interesting formational bits unless particularly relevant to the play. As with the offensive breakdown, the only separator for drives is what's listed in the Gamebook, the team name and time. I've bolded those, and added two-spaces. I also didn't do drive recaps like I used to, but will probably include those if I have time to do this going forward.

Full details after the jump.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 12:59
1-10-JAX 37 (12:59) M.Jones-Drew right tackle to JAX 42 for 5 yards (D.Ball).
Well-blocked power run to the right side, as Ruud and Witherspoon get picked. Ball does a good job as MJD is going past him to prevent a bigger gain.

2-5-JAX 42 (12:27) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 44 for 2 yards (B.Ruud; J.Casey).
Ruud and Casey get the credit, but the key play is Ayers who stands up Lewis at the POA and that gives Ruud the chance to make the play.

3-3-JAX 44 (11:50) (Shotgun) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 48 for 4 yards (G.McRath).
Congrats to Casey and Smith for getting blown off the ball to create a hole in the middle of the line. Ruud is lined up at a sort of MLB and takes a step to follow Lewis, revealing the man coverage. McRath has MJD and steps to fill the hole and stop MJD two yards short, but he converts anyway.

1-10-JAX 48 (11:17) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to 50 for 2 yards (W.Hayes).
Casey gets doubled and ends up 6 yards downfield, so fortunately Hayes is able to do a good job of coming down the line and hitting MJD in the hole.

2-8-50 (10:40) L.McCown pass short right to M.Thomas to TEN 42 for 8 yards (C.Hope).
Penalty on TEN-S.Smith, Defensive Offside, declined.
Titans have 8 in the box and McCourty is playing well off, so McCown takes the quick out to Thomas, who does a good job to pick up 8 yards. Hope was a box defender and has to hustle to get Thomas, who evades his first hit and gets a couple extra yards to pick up the first. Personnel note: Marks at LDE.

1-10-TEN 42 (10:13) D.Karim up the middle to TEN 34 for 8 yards (C.Hope).
Jaguars have 7 defenders to block 7, and everybody wins. Karim has a good hole to run through and Hope has to come down from his deep safety position. Particularly disappointing was Smith, who gets beat 1v1 by Rackley at the point of attack.

2-2-TEN 34 (9:34) D.Karim right end to TEN 33 for 1 yard (W.Witherspoon).
Jaguars OL does a good job of slanting down, but Witherspoon beats the OL to the hole and fills it to make a solid tackle and prevent a first down.

3-1-TEN 33 (8:56) L.McCown up the middle to TEN 31 for 2 yards (B.Ruud).
Low man wins in this situation, and Smith and Casey are both high man and get beat because of it.

1-10-TEN 31 (8:16) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short left to M.Thomas to TEN 25 for 6 yards (Z.Clayton).
Wide receiver screen, and Finny whiffs at the point of attack. Good pursuit from the unblocked linemen, and Clayton makes the tackle.

2-4-TEN 25 (7:36) M.Jones-Drew right end to TEN 21 for 4 yards (B.Ruud).
Sweep to the right side. Ruud gets picked by the linebacker but stands up the fullback to make the stop, though not before preventing the first down. Ayers does a good job in pursuit until the end, when he's just behind MJD and can't make the play.

1-10-TEN 21 (6:55) M.Jones-Drew up the middle for 21 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
The touchdown. Klug gets moved way too easily, Rackley shields off Ruud to create a lane, and it's an untouched score for MJD.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 5:15
1-10-JAX 44 (5:15) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 46 for 10 yards (B.Ruud).
McCourty and Ayers should have MJD stopped for a short gain on the cutback, but instead he gets low and bounces off of them and Ruud has to make a cleanup tackle.

1-10-TEN 46 (4:39) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 40 for 6 yards (W.Witherspoon).
Kind of like Power, and it's well-blocked. Ball goes well to get an arm on MJD as he's going through the hole, but MJD is able to scoot forward for a few more yards.

2-4-TEN 40 (3:59) M.Jones-Drew left end to TEN 35 for 5 yards (B.Ruud).
Ruud takes a step too far, kind of opening up a lane, but Ball gets an arm on MJD and slows him down enough for Ruud to recover and make the tackle.

1-10-TEN 35 (3:21) L.McCown sacked at TEN 40 for -5 yards (W.Hayes).
Penalty on JAX-W.Rackley, Offensive Holding, declined.
The Jags' protection gets screwed up here, and it looks like the line was expecting a different defensive call than they got, like a stunt. RDE Hayes gets instead of LT Monroe much too easily and is able to get on the outside shoulder and turn LG Rackley much too easily. Nice individual effort.

2-15-TEN 40 (2:52) D.Karim up the middle to TEN 43 for -3 yards (C.Finnegan).
Penalty on JAX-B.Meester, Offensive Holding, declined.
An inside draw handoff, but Clayton(!) has done a good job of pushing C Meester a couple yards downfield into the hole and Karim has to try to make something on his own. Good job by the rookie, the first time I remember actually being impressed by him.

3-18-TEN 43 (2:31) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass incomplete short right to M.Thomas.
Not much of an angle here for a pass, and McCown just sails it out of bounds. Curious to see him not check down to Karim slipping out of the backfield, who could've gotten a couple yards.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 12:45
1-10-JAX 20 (12:45) D.Karim up the middle to JAX 24 for 4 yards (A.Ayers).
Ayers at LOLB takes too many steps inside and can't get outside the FB, which gives Karim a good gain on this play instead of nothing, though at least his shoestring tackle prevents a bigger gain.

2-6-JAX 24 (12:08) D.Karim left end to JAX 25 for 1 yard (A.Ayers).
Similar to the earlier stop by Hayes, nice effort by an unblocked player to motor down the line, though Ruud appears to be in the position to make the tackle after a short gain.

3-5-JAX 25 (11:28) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short middle to M.Lewis to JAX 45 for 20 yards (C.Hope).
The defensive playcall is to show blitz, with Ruud then dropping off into an underneath middle zone). McCown isn't fooled at all, and easily finds an open Lewis with room to run.

1-10-JAX 45 (10:44) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 49 for 4 yards (J.Casey).
Draw play after a faking the quick pass, and the DTs get moved. Casey eventually gets credit for the tackle, but the stop really goes to Ruud and Witherspoon for filling the hole.

2-6-JAX 49 (10:07) L.McCown pass short middle to J.Hill to TEN 33 for 18 yards (J.McCourty).
Not sure what the coverage here is, maybe quarter-quarter-half, but whatever it is Hill finds an open spot in the zone and McCown hits him. Ruud blitzes and gets McCown after he completes the pass, which is TOTALLY my favorite kind of blitz.

1-10-TEN 33 (9:28) (Shotgun) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 32 for 1 yard (K.Klug).
Really nice play by Klug of getting off his blockers this time and filling the hole-if he'd done this on the touchdown, that would've been really nice. Ayers and Ruud both do a better job this time of filling holes.

2-9-TEN 32 (8:50) L.McCown pass short right to M.Lewis to TEN 24 for 8 yards (C.Finnegan).
Quick out, McRath in man coverage, and it's complete and a missed tackle to turn 3&medium in to 3&short.

3-1-TEN 24 (8:10) D.Karim right end to TEN 23 for 1 yard (K.Klug).
Toss sweep to the right. Ruud does a good job of diving in to take out Karim's legs, but he's able to fall forward for the first down.

1-10-TEN 23 (7:24) D.Karim up the middle to TEN 20 for 3 yards (A.Ayers).
I've been trying to pay special attention to him because of the grief he's taking (a lot of it deserved), but this is a veteran play by an MLB. He flows, but has to recognize that Spoon gets picked by an outside linebacker and if Karim takes the outside cutback he has to make the play. Once Karim can't take the outside cut, he avoids a blocker and fills the inside cut, Ayers is playside, and Karim (without hesitation-take note Titans RBs) plows forward for what he can get.

2-7-TEN 20 (6:42) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass incomplete short middle to M.Lewis (J.McCourty).
Lewis is lined up wide to the right and runs a deep in. McCourty does a nice job of undercutting the play and breaking it up. Dan Fouts then criticizes him for not making an interception, but I can't do that-it's a good play by McCourty to prevent a score and is a difficult interception.

3-7-TEN 20 (6:37) (Shotgun) L.McCown sacked at TEN 28 for -8 yards (J.McCourty). FUMBLES (J.McCourty), recovered by JAX-E.Monroe at TEN 30. E.Monroe to TEN 30 for no gain (D.Ball).
McCourty untouched off the slot blitz. He's to McCown's right, but Luke's scanning the field to his left and never sees him. Titans are unfortunate not to get the fumble, as that would've taken points off the board.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 3:46
1-10-JAX 7 (3:46) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 8 for 1 yard (D.Ball).
NOT ON SHORT CUTS

2-9-JAX 8 (3:01) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 8 for no gain (C.Hope).
Ayers gets inside of Lewis's block and fills the hole, another nice play by the rookie.

3-9-JAX 8 (2:39) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short right to J.Hill to JAX 12 for 4 yards (J.McCourty).
Jaguars roll right, away from the blitz, and throw short for Hill. McCourty does a good job of making a quick tackle for little YAC and forcing the Jaguars to punt.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 1:37
1-10-JAX 16 (1:37) G.Jones up the middle to JAX 22 for 6 yards (W.Witherspoon; B.Ruud).
RDE Sheppard gets his arms out to slow down Jones, Ruud avoids his blocker to get in there, and Witherspoon makes the tackle. Disappointing at the point of attack, but a good second effort by Sheppard.

2-4-JAX 22 (1:11) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short left to M.Thomas to JAX 23 for 1 yard (W.Witherspoon).
Another quick screen attempt, and Witherspoon does a great job of reacting quickly, avoiding the block, and making the tackle.

3-3-JAX 23 (:27) (Shotgun) D.Karim up the middle to JAX 24 for 1 yard (D.Ball).
Draw on third down. Ball is the unblocked defender and makes the tackle, but the play was made by Hayes, who gets inside of the right tackle and forces the cutback into Ball.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 15:00
1-10-JAX 20 (15:00) L.McCown pass short middle to J.Hill to JAX 36 for 16 yards (J.McCourty).
Complete on the in against McCourty in man coverage. The Titans show blitz, and it's again ineffective.

1-10-JAX 36 (14:28) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 37 for 1 yard (J.Casey).
Casey gets the tackle, but credit here goes to Ruud who stands up FB Bolen in the hole and limits MJD's places to run.

2-9-JAX 37 (13:49) L.McCown scrambles up the middle to JAX 45 for 8 yards (G.McRath).
No clue what's happening downfield, but McCown sees a hole and gets close to the first down. A braver quarterback probably gets the first, but McCown's dive before he gets touched is the smarter play.

3-1-JAX 45 (13:14) L.McCown up the middle to JAX 46 for 1 yard (J.Casey).
The new era of defensive tackles again gets overpowered on a QB sneak. Ho hum.

1-10-JAX 46 (12:21) (Shotgun) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 47 for 7 yards (D.Ball).
McRath should have this stopped for almost no gain, but he overreacts to the initial play look and leaves the cutback open. Ball was dropping into coverage or something and has to make the tackle.

2-3-TEN 47 (11:34) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short left to M.Thomas to TEN 45 for 2 yards (M.Griffin).
Quick pass with two eligible receivers out blocking. Griffin is the third defensive player and makes the tackle, as he should. Credit further McCourty, who does a good job of preventing Thomas from getting to the outside where Griffin would've taken longer to get to him.

3-1-TEN 45 (10:58) L.McCown FUMBLES (Aborted) at TEN 45, RECOVERED by TEN-W.Witherspoon at TEN 44.
W.Witherspoon to TEN 44 for no gain (U.Nwaneri).
McCown tries a quick sneak and dive to the right, would likely would've worked if he'd been able to handle the snap. A fortuitous turnover for the Titans.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 10:20
1-10-JAX 36 (10:20) D.Karim up the middle to JAX 40 for 4 yards (D.Ball).
PENALTY on JAX-W.Rackley, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at JAX 36 - No Play.
Rackley gets flagged for holding Casey, who started to get away from him as Karim was running past. Ruud overruns this playside and gets picked and backside defender Finnegan off the slot gets picked as well, so it's good Ball is around to make the tackle.

1-20-JAX 26 (10:18) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short left to M.Thomas to JAX 27 for 1 yard (M.Griffin; B.Ruud).
Another quick pass with blockers, but it's a poor throw by McCown. Verner is aggressive and runs himself out of the outside contain McCourty kept earlier, but Griffin is able to come up and fill the outside lane from his deep safety spot.

2-19-JAX 27 (9:14) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short left to D.Karim to JAX 36 for 9 yards (G.McRath) [K.Klug].
Ian Eagle calls it a dumpoff, I call it a screen. McRath gets partially picked by C Meester, but recovers to make the tackle another 7 yards downfield.

3-10-JAX 36 (8:40) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short left to D.Karim ran ob at JAX 48 for 12 yards (C.Hope).
A swing pass this time, not a screen, and both Verner and McRath whiff on tackle attempts to permit the first down. Poor performance by the nickel subs.

1-10-JAX 48 (8:10) M.Owens left end to TEN 49 for 3 yards (B.Ruud).
Penalty on TEN-M.Sheppard, Defensive Offside, declined.
PENALTY on TEN-S.Smith, Unnecessary Roughness, 15 yards, enforced at TEN 49.
Outside zone. Finnegan plays it aggressively and gives up the edge, forcing Ruud to get out there and make the tackle. Sheppard at LDE lined up in the neutral zone, a stupid mistake. Smith and Munchak might not have been able to tell you what he got his penalty for, but I can: WR Shorts gives Sheppard a late block, so Smith goes over and, well, I can't be absolutely sure, but seems to give Shorts a piece of his mind and/or a bigger shove.

1-10-TEN 34 (7:53) M.Owens left end to TEN 27 for 7 yards (B.Ruud).
I thought the defensive tackles were supposed to be able to keep offensive linemen off the linebackers. Well, they can't. Ruud gets credit for the tackle, but the force defender is Hope coming up from his safety spot.

2-3-TEN 27 (7:15) (Shotgun) M.Owens up the middle to TEN 20 for 7 yards (B.Ruud).
Ruud reacts to the read-option look and is slow to attack the hole, giving Owens a couple extra yards. Marks at LDE is much too easily blocked out of the play.

1-10-TEN 20 (6:42) M.Jones-Drew left end to TEN 14 for 6 yards (B.Ruud; A.Ayers).
Ruud heads around a blocked Ayers to fill the outside, so MJD takes it not quite outside but more to the inside. Another play that's much too well-blocked for the Titans to have a win, but they're able to limit the losses. Hayes is the RDE on the play, so just know he's not having a great game even though my mentions of him have been positive.

2-4-TEN 14 (6:04) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 11 for 3 yards (S.Smith).
Smith does a good job of getting an arm around MJD, as Ruud is playing passively. I think his passive play is mostly by design, but it's frustrating after watching last year's much more aggressive defense.

3-1-TEN 11 (5:22) M.Jones-Drew right end to TEN 5 for 6 yards (M.Griffin).
Ruud here does a good job of attacking the hole on the toss sweep, but MJD is able to flatten around to the outside and avoid his lunge. Witherspoon could've done a better job of standing up the tigth end, too, and McCourty becomes the third corner to lose his contain by playing aggressively.

1-5-TEN 5 (4:37) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 1 for 4 yards (M.Griffin).
Griffin gets credit for the tackle here, but it's really Hope making the hit on MJD going through the hole that sends him to the ground, with a dive that ends just short of the end zone.

2-1-TEN 1 (3:59) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 1 for no gain (B.Ruud; A.Ayers).
Power. Ruud and Ayers both read the pulling guard and fill the hole. Ideally on Power on the goalline you'd fill the backside gap, but the Jaguars cut the Titans DL, who aren't that quick anyway.

3-1-TEN 1 (3:16) M.Jones-Drew right end to TEN 3 for -2 yards (B.Ruud; A.Ayers).
Ruud meets MJD in the hole and doesn't get run over. MJD's second effort gets cleaned up for naught.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 2:18, (1st play from scrimmage 2:12)
1-10-JAX 19 (2:12) D.Karim up the middle to JAX 20 for 1 yard (M.Sheppard).
Good play here by Casey against LG Rackley and by Sheppard of eliminating the cutback. It may not be the Ravens, but somebody's going to run boot action against the Titans and may have 8 seconds to throw.

2-9-JAX 20 (1:31) L.McCown pass short right to M.Thomas to JAX 32 for 12 yards (C.Hope).
Or it could be the Jaguars. Thomas runs the jerk route out of trips and is an easy option for McCown, who's under now pass pressure at all. Thomas is faster than Hope (who knew) and turns 7 yards into 12.

1-10-JAX 32 (:50) (Shotgun) D.Karim up the middle to JAX 33 for 1 yard (M.Sheppard).
Nice job by LDE Sheppard of bouncing off the block of a pulling LG Rackley and tackling Karim in the hole.

2-9-JAX 33 (:11) L.McCown pass incomplete short middle to J.Hill.
Quick slant against McCourty's man coverage, dropped.

3-9-JAX 33 (:08) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short middle to J.Hill to JAX 48 for 15 yards (J.McCourty).
Titans bring 5, McCown isn't hugely pressured but scrambles to buy time and finds Hill on an intermediate in against McCourty's man coverage. I like Jason, but he hasn't had the best game in man today.

1-10-JAX 48 (15:00) L.McCown pass incomplete short left to G.Jones.
Not sure about what was available downfield, but McCown takes the checkdown to Jones in the flat, who drops the pass. Three underneath zone defenders, Finnegan the man on Jones.

2-10-JAX 48 (14:54) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass short right to D.Karim to TEN 34 for 18 yards (C.Hope). P19
Screen pass. Titans in nickel, and McRath has been benched for Witherspoon. Well-blocked, and the closest open defender, Ruud, doesn't take the best angle, though he also didn't have a good one.

1-10-TEN 34 (14:12) D.Karim right end to TEN 25 for 9 yards (C.Hope; A.Ayers). TEN-W.Hayes was injured during the play. His return is Questionable.
I didn't care for Ayers' performance on this play, as he's entirely too passive and needs to realize Ball has outside contain so he needs to go playside. Ruud gets picked by RG Nwaneri and can't make the play. There's no need to block Ayers, so Hope has to come up from his safety spot as the force defender.

2-1-TEN 25 (13:49) D.Karim up the middle to TEN 26 for -1 yards (S.Marks).
RDE Marks gets credit for the tackle, but the key to the play is Hope coming up on a run blitz from his safety spot. While he doesn't get credit for the tackle, Marks has an easy cleanup.

3-2-TEN 26 (13:08) L.McCown pass short left to M.Thomas to TEN 27 for -1 yards (M.Griffin).
Another quick pass to Thomas, though there's only one blocker for two DBs. Griffin reacts well before the lineman can come out and pick him and makes a good tackle to prevent the first.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 11:00
1-10-JAX 33 (11:00) D.Karim right end to JAX 40 for 7 yards (M.Griffin).
Another toss-sweep, and again the Titans are outnumbered and overpowered. Ruud reads the pulling offensive lineman and overruns the lane Karim eventually takes, and this time it's Griffin that has to come up from his safety spot and make the play.

2-3-JAX 40 (10:15) D.Karim up the middle to JAX 40 for no gain (C.McCarthy).
McCarthy in for Ruud now. Yes, Gray was apparently as annoyed with him as most of you. He makes an immediate impression, playing the hole much more aggressively. Though he gets credit for the tackle, the force was by Hope coming in from the backside.

3-3-JAX 40 (9:31) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass incomplete short left to M.Thomas [D.Ball].
Titans bring an obvious overload to the offensive right, so naturally it's a rollout to the offensive left. RDE Ball is heading into this face, so he can't set and try to make a throw to a covered receiver and instead just throws it away.

Jacksonville Jaguars at 3:34
1-10-JAX 20 (3:34) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to JAX 22 for 2 yards (S.Smith).
Heavy set against a lot of people. Can't tell what happens in the middle without an end zone angle.

2-8-JAX 22 (3:25) L.McCown pass incomplete short right to M.Thomas [M.Sheppard].
Pretty sure the QB hit goes to Ayers. He is EMLOS on the offensive right in a 2-point stance over trips and is in a straight rush. Boot action, and McCown has to just get rid of the ball in the general direction of Thomas. The clock stops about :13 too late.

3-8-JAX 22 (3:08) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass deep middle to M.Thomas to JAX 48 for 26 yards (B.Ruud). P20
Titans bring 5, but the corner blitz from Verner takes fooooorever. McCown has plenty of time to set up in the pocket and complete one to Thomas over Ruud in what looks like man coverage and in front of the safeties. Gee, linebacker on wide receiver on a vertical route, who ever would have guessed the wideout would win.

1-10-JAX 48 (2:16) M.Jones-Drew left end to 50 for 2 yards (S.Smith). TEN-W.Hayes was injured during the play. His return is Questionable.
Another toss sweep. Ayers and Finnegan at least prevent him from getting the edge, and the rest of the defense cleans it up.

2-8-50 (2:16) M.Jones-Drew up the middle to TEN 47 for 3 yards (W.Witherspoon).
Short run up the middle. Witherspoon fills the hole, MJD still gets a couple.

3-5-TEN 47 (2:00) (Shotgun) L.McCown pass incomplete short right to B.Bolen.
A stop route to the fullback flexed outside against a corner in man coverage when the opponent is out of timeouts? Why, Dirk Koetter, why? A horrible failure of a play, and hardly any credit to the Titans for it.

Simple UFR: 2011 Week 01 at Jaguars-Offense

2011-09-12T17:02:00.000-05:00

Along the lines of the data dumps I've done recently, here's a simplified version of the Upon Further Review I used to do. Note this is only the offense.

One thing I've modified from the original UFR as I did it is personnel and formation. That's listed under "PERSONNEL". The first item is the formation, but I've changed and simplified nomenclature. I-formation is obvious, and I've used 2x1, 2x2, or 1x3, etc. to show how many receivers are to one side. This includes, for the most part, everybody not an in-line tight end or back. Left side of the formation is listed first, so 1x2 means one receiver to the left side and two to the right side. Then come personnel, first RBs/backfield people, then TEs, then WRs. WR are generally listed from left to right. For instance, "3x1, CJ, Cook, Williams/Washington/Britt" would indicate CJ is the lone setback, Williams was the wide receiver to the left side, Washington in the slot to the left, and Britt the right-most receiver. Cook's location isn't specified, but he lined up largely in the slot. One thing I plan to do for next time is include Cook or anybody else with the WRs whenever he's listed in the formation (3x1).

The only separator for drives is what's listed in the Gamebook, the team name and time. I've bolded those, and added two-spaces. I also didn't do drive recaps like I used to, but will probably include those if I have time to do this going forward.

As per normal practice, full details go after the jump.

Tennessee Titans at 15:00
1-10-TEN 20 (15:00) M.Hasselbeck sacked at TEN 14 for -6 yards (M.Roth).
PERSONNEL: Ace, CJ, Stevens/Cook, Washington/Britt
The season begins quite sharply, with the Jaguars enjoying a clear rock-paper-scissors edge. Hasselbeck tries to boot right only to run directly into Matt Roth, who completely ignored the playfake and went straight for Matt at the spot.

2-16-TEN 14 (14:28) C.Johnson left end to TEN 14 for no gain (P.Posluszny; D.Cox).
PERSONNEL: Offset I, CJ/QJ, Stevens, Washington/Britt
Run to the offset left side. Jaguars RDE Mincey gets leverage on Roos and pushes him a couple yards into the backfield. CJ has to run parallel more than I’m sure the play was designed for. Demerit on this play also to Harris, who couldn’t get to the second level fast enough to prevent Posluszny from filling the hole CJ eventually found.

3-16-TEN 14 (13:44) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short middle to N.Washington to TEN 21 for 7 yards (D.Coleman).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Washington/Britt/DWill
Jaguars run a stunt, and while the OL gives ground the 5 protect against the 4 so CJ slips out in the flat. Washington and Britt are aligned to the left, Washington in the slot. Britt runs a deeper route designed to pull the defenders away, but it doesn’t really work and Washington is tackled after making the catch.

Tennessee Titans at 6:49
1-10-TEN 20 (6:49) C.Johnson left end to TEN 20 for no gain (D.Smith).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Washington/Britt/DWill
Cook motions from in-line right to slot left before the snap. Run left to CJ, and it’s Amano’s job to slant left, then slide to the second level to pick up linebacker Smith. He doesn’t, which forces CJ to hesitate, and the rest of the defense arrives.

2-10-TEN 20 (6:09) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short right to C.Stevens (T.Alualu).
PERSONNEL: Offset I, CJ/QJ, Stevens slot R, Britt/Mariani
Playfake to CJ and a deep drop from Hasselbeck. The Jaguars bring 4, the Titans protect with 5. I question Stevens running a deep out from the slot, but he’s open. Unfortunately, LDT Alualu has pushed Jake Scott back almost into Hasselbeck and he can’t step into the throw. The throw sails and falls incomplete.

3-10-TEN 20 (6:02) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to D.Williams to TEN 25 for 5 yards (P.Posluszny; D.Landry).
PERSONNEL: Trips right, CJ, Cook, Hass/Washington/DWill
Titans come out with the trips, with Cook running a drag, Williams an in, and Washington a deeper route. Cook’s drag is designed to pull zone defender Coleman away, but he plays disciplined defense and doesn’t bite. That allows him to react quickly and disrupt Williams, preventing him from the YAC necessary for the conversion.

Tennessee Titans at 2:10
1-10-TEN 20 (2:10) C.Johnson up the middle to TEN 20 for no gain (P.Posluszny).
PERSONNEL: 1x2, CJ, Cook/Stevens, Washington/Britt
The draw starts off relatively promisingly, there are two holes, should be two blockers, and three defenders. The result of that should be an open lane for CJ. Unfortunately, Amano is preoccupied with helping Scott against LDT Knighton and can't make the block I'm assuming should be his. Posluszny fills the hole, and CJ is sunk.

2-10-TEN 20 (1:34) C.Johnson up the middle to TEN 23 for 3 yards (A.Lane).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Cook, Britt/DWill/Washington
Williams in the slot moves left, hoping to draw the attention of slot defender Coleman, but he doesn't bite and CJ can't take the play there. CJ looks for the cutback, but Cook hasn't sealed LDE Lane so he has no choice but to dive forward for a couple.

3-7-TEN 23 (:58) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short middle to J.Harper to TEN 44 for 21 yards (J.Chick). P1
PERSONNEL: 2x2, Harper, Cook, Britt/DWill/Washington
Jaguars line up in a pressure look, and bring 5. Titans protect with 5. It looks like a designed screen, but because of the pressure the lead blockers can't get there. No matter, as the receivers running downfield routes have pulled the shallow coverage away. Harper makes one defender miss around the first down line, and gets an extra 15 yards. Great playcall.

1-10-TEN 44 (:13) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete deep left to K.Britt.
PERSONNEL: Empty, 2x2, Stevens, Harper, Britt/Washington/?
Jaguars don't blitz against the empty set but instead rush 4 and play coverage. Hasselbeck throws the deep corner route for Britt. He's open, but the Jaguars have pushed the OL back (Alualu v Harris the key but not the only one) and Hasselbeck throws off his back foot inaccurately again.

2-10-TEN 44 (:06) J.Harper up the middle to 50 for 6 yards (D.Landry; C.Session).
PERSONNEL: Offset I, Harper/QJ, Stevens, Hawk/DWill
Oops. The Jaguars bring a blitz to the left side while the Titans run Power to the right. Harris pulls and gets the seal on LDE Lane, allowing QJ to slide off him and pick up LB Smith. Harper follows his blocks (good patience) and cuts it back for a couple extra yards. Really nice to see a good run after the earlier nonsense.

3-4-50 (15:00) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to K.Britt to JAX 39 for 11 yards (C.Greene)
PERSONNEL: Trips left, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/DWill
Trips in close to the left, but it's instead a quick slant to Britt against Mathis. Britt wins to the inside, breaks a couple tackles at the marker and gets a good gain. Two good plays in a row!

1-10-JAX 39 (14:27) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck sacked at JAX 48 for -9 yards (D.Coleman). FUMBLES (D.Coleman), recovered by TEN-J.Scott at JAX 47. J.Scott to JAX 47 for no gain (D.Coleman).
PERSONNEL: 3WR left, CJ, Britt/DWill?/Washington
Jaguars bring the blindside blitz with 6. Titans have 5 to protect. Roos properly takes inside rusher Poz, but that leaves slot defender Coleman untouched. Hass is looking right to Cook and CJ and never sees Coleman. Titans are fortunate enough to get the ball back.

2-18-JAX 47 (13:38) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short middle to J.Cook to JAX 40 for 7 yards (D.Smith).
PERSONNEL: Trips left, CJ, Cook, Washington/DWill/Britt
After last play's sack, the Titans aren't going to let that happen again. Hasselbeck fakes the quick pass to Britt, who's taken an outside release this time, and hits Cook on a stick route over the middle. No real hope of converting here, but setting up third and more reasonable is a laudable goal.

3-11-JAX 40 (12:59) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete deep left to K.Britt.
PERSONNEL: 1x3, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/?
Jaguars rush 4, Titans protect with 5 as CJ slips out. Hasselbeck seems to be looking left at Britt the whole way, waiting for him to come open, but Cox and a safety over the top have good coverage. Hasselbeck eventually launches an overthrown ball off his back foot too far for Britt, but it looks like a throw away, not an attempt to complete a pass. The better decision probably would've been to check the ball down to CJ-with 5 more yards, the Titans are in field goal range.

Tennessee Titans at 5:55
1-10-TEN 20 (5:55) M.Hasselbeck pass deep middle to N.Washington to 50 for 30 yards (D.Landry)
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Stevens, Britt/Washington/DWill?
Rush 4, protect 6 as Stevens stays in. Washington lines up in the slot left and runs a simple seam route upfield. Protection is good enough-Hasselbeck doesn't step into the throw, but still puts a nicely placed one for Washington over Coleman and in front of safeties. If Coleman looks back, he has a chance to break the pass up, but he doesn't.

1-10-50 (5:16) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short right to J.Cook.
PERSONNEL: 2TE Left, CJ, Cook/Stevens, Washington/Britt?
Another bootleg, this with a fake pitch, and again LDE Roth stays home. Hasselbeck has Cook running behind the OL and gets the ball to him, but Coleman does a good idea of taking Cook's legs out from under him and forcing an drop. I wrote in the preseason about how the Titans would need counters for the bootleg action, and Roth hasn't been fooled either time.

2-10-50 (5:13) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to C.Stevens to JAX 48 for 2 yards (C.Greene).
PERSONNEL: Ace, CJ, Cook/Stevens, Britt?/Washington
A shallow out to Craig Stevens. Yes, it picked up 2 yards. Why did you think it would pick up anything else?

3-8-JAX 48 (4:30) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to C.Johnson to JAX 43 for 5 yards (D.Landry).
PERSONNEL: 1x3, CJ, Cook, Britt/Hawkins/Williams?
Titans come out in a formation designed to overweight the defense to the offensive right, then throw the swing to CJ. Unfortunately the Jaguars don't react the way the Titans expect them to, as S Landry (lined up in an LB-like position) follows CJ and makes the tackle. Britt doesn't get a good block, but he was kind of stuck with both CB Cox and Landry. The man advantage was on the other side, as Hawk appeared to be open.

Tennessee Titans at 2:23
1-10-JAX 44 (2:23) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short right to D.Williams.
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Williams
Hasselbeck takes the quick drop and fires the quick slant left for Williams. The pass is high but catchable, and Williams can't hang on.

2-10-JAX 44 (2:22) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to J.Cook to JAX 35 for 9 yards (C.Greene).
PENALTY on TEN-L.Harris, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at JAX 44 - No Play.
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Williams?
Roll right and pass to Cook on the drag route. Greene has good coverage and makes a good tackle, but still a nice pickup. Unfortunately, the Jaguars blitzed and ran a stunt. Hasselbeck wasn't in danger, but Harris wasn't ready to deal with the stunt and grabbed RDE Mincey.

2-20-TEN 46 (2:03) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to C.Johnson to TEN 40 for -6 yards (D.Cox).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Washington/Williams/Britt
It's a screen, which LB Smith does an excellent job of reading. He has CJ stopped for a 2 yard loss, but CJ spins out of the tackle and loses 4 more yards. This stuff writes itself some times.

Two-Minute Warning
3-26-TEN 40 (1:53) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete deep left to K.Britt (D.Cox).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ?, Cook, Britt/Williams?/Washington
You don't expect to convert 3&26, and the Titans don't. The pass is a jump ball for Britt, but Cox is in good position and S Greene is available for help over the top. The OL doesn't do a good job again, as Hasselbeck is crushed by DE Chick on a stunt right after letting the ball go. Amano is the most guilty culprit for that in my eyes.

Tennessee Titans at 0:14
1-10-TEN 39 (:14) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to C.Johnson ran ob at TEN 46 for 7 yards (R.Mathis).
PERSONNEL: Split backs, 2x1, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Williams
Designed dumpoff to CJ in the right flat, get your most explosive athlete in space and let him run as the wideouts run clearing routes downfield. Some yardage, and CJ smartly steps out of bounds.

2-3-TEN 46 (:09) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to C.Johnson pushed ob at JAX 49 for 5 yards (R.Mathis).
PERSONNEL: Split backs, 2x1, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Williams
See above. Same thing.

Tennessee Titans at 10:45
1-10-TEN 44 (10:45) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short middle to M.Mariani (D.Smith).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Williams?/Mariani/Britt?
Shallow crosser for Mariani. The throw is slightly late-Mariani doesn't have to break stride exactly so much as he slows down slightly and Smith is better able to break and prevent the catch. A slightly faster decision from Hasselbeck is the cure here.

2-10-TEN 44 (10:41) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short right to C.Stevens.
PERSONNEL: 1x2, CJ, Stevens/Cook, Britt?/Washington
Interesting formation here, as CJ is offset in a wing formation a couple yards behind Roos, while Stevens is flexed right a little off the OL and Cook in the slot right. Jaguars bring the slot blitz from the right, and Hasselbeck's pass is behind Stevens on the shallow out. Hasselbeck gestures at Stevens after the play, so I'm guessing his read was Stevens should've just stopped and set up instead of running the out.

3-10-TEN 44 (10:38) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete deep left to N.Washington.
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Britt?/Washington/Williams?
Jaguars rush 4 again (see, the Titans aren't the only team that rarely blitzes), and protection is fine. Washington and the other left side receiver run a combo at the snap and after Washington's defender slips, he's wide open. Unfortunately, Hasselbeck's pass has too much air on it. The Titans would've been in field goal range with an accurate pass, so this one hurts.

Tennessee Titans at 2:33, (1st play from scrimmage 2:32)
1-10-TEN 20 (2:32) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short middle to K.Britt for 80 yards, TOUCHDOWN [L.Douzable].
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Williams/Washington/Britt
Jaguars bring 5 on a zone blitz. CJ does a terrible job in pass protection and Hasselbeck is forced to scramble. Forutnately while he's doing so, Britt on his drag route loses Mathis going over the middle. He adjusts his route, Hasselbeck's awkward flip makes it to him, two Jaguars defenders whiff, and it's off to the races for a score.

Tennessee Titans at 12:22
1-10-TEN 20 (12:22) C.Johnson up the middle to TEN 29 for 9 yards (T.Alualu).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Cook, Williams/Britt/Washington
Something like good blocking! Okay, not quite-Cook gets pushed four yards into the backfield by LDE Roth, almost killing the play before it starts, but Stewart and Amano pick the linebackers. If Cook has a better block on Roth, who did get a hand on CJ and slowed him down, this is a play that might've gone for big yardage.

2-1-TEN 29 (11:54) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short middle to C.Johnson (P.Posluszny).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Britt/Williams/Washington
Hasselbeck doesn't like what he sees, so he tries the simple dumpoff to CJ for the first down. Unfortunately, Posluszny is right there and knocks the ball out to set up 3&1. Williams on the out to the left side was another not-great option.

3-1-TEN 29 (11:49) C.Johnson left end to TEN 29 for no gain (C.Session).
PERSONNEL: I-Formation 2-TE, CJ/QJ, Stevens/Graham, Mariani
I mentioned this play in my quick recap, but RDE Mincey does a good job of tying up playside blockers Roos and Stevens. If Roos gets Mincey, Stevens should be able to peel to get LB Smith, who's instead able to fill the hole and force CJ to make something out of nothing. He couldn't.

Tennessee Titans at 9:16
1-10-TEN 20 (9:16) C.Johnson right end to TEN 22 for 2 yards (W.Middleton).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Stevens, Williams/Britt/Washington
If the back doesn't take it, is there still an alley here? Scott gets blown into the backfield by Alualu, but if CJ runs forward, there's a lane for him to go upfield as all Jacksonville defenders have a blocker between him and the running lane. Unfortunately, CJ doesn't see it or can't get it and instead bounces it outside.

2-8-TEN 22 (8:49) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to C.Johnson to TEN 25 for 3 yards (R.Mathis) [J.Mincey].
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Stevens, Britt?/Washington/Williams?
Hasselbeck doesn't like what he sees and dumps it off to CJ for a short gain. Protection was fair, not great, and the Titans showed again a vulnerability to looping. CJ can't make anything happen against the zone.

3-5-TEN 25 (8:05) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to N.Washington to TEN 32 for 7 yards (D.Coleman).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Cook, Williams/Washington/Britt
Jaguars show a little bit of blitz look, but only rush 4. Hasselbeck finds Washington just past the marker on a little stick route for a first down. Nothing fancy, but keeps the drive alive.

1-10-TEN 32 (7:25) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass deep left to K.Britt to JAX 43 for 25 yards (C.Greene) [J.Mincey].
PERSONNEL: 1x3, CJ, Cook, Britt/Williams?/Washington?
Complete to Britt on the big gain on a bow out in what looks like the deep outside void against cover-2. Hasselbeck took a hit on the play, listed as from Mincey, but the key again was the stunt and the RDT looping. The OL couldn't adjust, and Roos was stuck blowing two players.

1-10-JAX 43 (6:39) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to C.Johnson to JAX 32 for 11 yards (D.Smith) [J.Mincey].
PERSONNEL: 1x3, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Williams?
Mincey beats Roos to the outside, forcing the dumpoff to CJ in the left flat. Being CJ, he makes Mathis miss and Smith has to force him out of bounds once he's past the first down marker. I'll leave exactly what Roos did wrong on the play to someone better able to diagnose OL play.

1-10-JAX 32 (6:21) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete deep right to J.Cook [J.Mincey].
PENALTY on TEN-D.Stewart, Offensive Holding, 10 yards, enforced at JAX 32 - No Play.
PERSONNEL: 1x3, Harper (offset), Cook, Mariani/Washington?/Williams?
Hasselbeck throws for Cook on the deep out. Cook's ahead of Landry in man coverage, but the throw's a little too far. Neither OT fared well on the play-Stewart gets flagged for a hold on Roth, a necessary hold after getting beat, and Roos doesn't let Mincey get outside of him but gets beat all the same.

1-20-JAX 42 (6:13) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to N.Washington to JAX 35 for 7 yards (C.Greene; L.Douzable).
PERSONNEL: 1x2, Graham?, Stevens, Williams?/Washington/Britt
I believe that's Graham in the backfield, yes. The pass is a quick one to Washington in the slot with Britt blocking for him. Washington jukes his cover guy, Coleman, but is quickly brought down by the rest of the Jaguars defense. Still, it gets the Titans into a much more reasonable second down situation.

2-13-JAX 35 (5:42) PENALTY on JAX-R.Mathis, Encroachment, 5 yards, enforced at JAX 35 - No Play.
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Hawkins

2-8-JAX 30 (5:42) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short left to K.Britt (L.Douzable).
PERSONNEL: 2x2, CJ, Britt/Washington/Hawkins?
Hasselbeck appears to be throwing for Britt on a deep dig, but Scott can't prevent Douzable from getting his arm up and the pass is harmlessly batted down.

3-8-JAX 30 (5:37) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass incomplete short right to M.Mariani.
Penalty on JAX-J.Mincey, Defensive Offside, declined.
PENALTY on JAX-R.Mathis, Defensive Pass Interference, 14 yards, enforced at JAX 30 - No Play.
PERSONNEL: 3x1, CJ, Hawkins?/Washington/Cook/Mariani
Jaguars show blitz, and bring 6. The stunt works, as Roth (I believe) comes free and CJ doesn't pick up Lowery off the edge either. Hasselbeck is forced to throw up a desperation pass for Mariani in single coverage against Mathis. Fortunately Mathis doesn't get his head around and runs into Mariani for pass interference.

1-10-JAX 16 (5:30) C.Johnson right end to JAX 9 for 7 yards (D.Landry).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Britt?/Washington?/Hawkins?
Power works again, as Harris pulls and Cook doesn't get blown up by the DE. CJ seems to flatten the run out, which draws S Greene to the outside, only to cut it up for a good gain before Landry comes up from his deep safety position to make the tackle.

2-3-JAX 9 (5:08) C.Johnson up the middle to JAX 6 for 3 yards (D.Landry).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, CJ, Cook, Britt?/Hawkins/Washington
Not much room here, as the deep safeties aren't that deep and are able to come up and fill the hole after only a short gain. Still some good blocking by the OL and a first down.

1-6-JAX 6 (4:35) J.Harper right tackle to JAX 6 for no gain (P.Posluszny; D.Smith).
PERSONNEL: Offset I, Harper/QJ, Stevens, Britt/Washington
The Jaguars have 9 defenders in the box. Both wideouts have single coverage. Obviously you should run the ball. Scott gets out to pick Session, but Poz shoots the gap and a pulling Harris can't get a productive block on anybody. Next time, please check to a pass Mr. Veteran Quarterback.

2-6-JAX 6 (4:04) J.Harper up the middle to JAX 2 for 4 yards (T.Alualu; T.Knighton).
PERSONNEL: 2x1, Harper, Cook, Britt?/Hawkins?/Washington
The Titans double both defensive tackles, and they still get credit for making the play. Ok, Harris splits off from Knighton to pick up a linebacker, and Scott does leave Alualu to get a linebacker of his own, but Alualu has inside position on Stewart, Knighton is bigger and stronger than Amano, and a DB (Landry, I think) filled the hole. A productive gain despite all that.

3-2-JAX 2 (3:40) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to K.Britt for 2 yards, TOUCHDOWN. P11
PERSONNEL: 2x2, Harper, Cook, Britt/Hawkins/Washington
Throw it up for Kenny Britt and let him make a play. Fortunately, he's Kenny Britt and makes a great grab over Mathis with a better toe-tap for the score.

Tennessee Titans at 1:45
1-10-TEN 3 (1:45) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck scrambles up the middle to TEN 12 for 9 yards (D.Landry).
PERSONNEL: 3x1, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Hawkins
Not sure what Hasselbeck sees downfield. I do know, however, that I don't like Hasselbeck's decision to keep the ball himself and run up the middle of the field instead of dumping it off to CJ. I recognize he wanted to not have to drop back into the end zone, but it'd be :21 before the Titans ran their next play.

2-1-TEN 12 (1:24) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to N.Washington to TEN 22 for 10 yards (D.Landry).
PERSONNEL: 3x1, CJ, Cook, Hawkins/Washington/Britt?
Complete the in against soft coverage for a first down and let Washington dive forward for a few yards. Needed yards, but the time/distance tradeoff is not a great one.

1-10-TEN 22 (1:03) (No Huddle, Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short left to N.Washington to TEN 28 for 6 yards (D.Coleman).
PERSONNEL: 3x1, CJ, Cook, Hawkins/Washington/Britt
The same sort of 6-yard in, and Coleman comes up and makes a good tackle in coverage. Why throw this pass, given the game situation? Why? Why? Why?

2-4-TEN 28 (:39) (No Huddle, Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass short right to K.Britt to TEN 46 for 18 yards (D.Lowery).
PERSONNEL: 3x1, CJ, Cook, Hawkins/Washington/Britt
Quick slant to Britt. An easy pitch and catch against single coverage, Britt juggles the ball but still hangs on and gets some territory after the catch.

1-10-TEN 46 (:23) (No Huddle) M.Hasselbeck spiked the ball to stop the clock.

2-10-TEN 46 (:22) (Shotgun) M.Hasselbeck pass deep left intended for K.Britt INTERCEPTED by D.Lowery at JAX 20. D.Lowery to JAX 16 for -4 yards (K.Britt).
PERSONNEL: 1x3, CJ, Cook, Britt/Washington/Hawkins
Jags rush 5 for the first time in the drive, but CJ stays in and the blitz is picked up. Hasselbeck forces it for Britt, but it's off the mark and Lowery has an easy interception. Hasselbeck said he should've checked it down to Britt, but that's nonsense as CJ was blocking and nowhere near open.

Book Review: Swing Your Sword

2011-09-06T20:11:00.000-05:00

Autobiographies, particularly autobiographies of famous people take several different forms. Normally there's a ghostwriter involved, and the celebrity may not have very much involvement in the book. Most famously, Charles Barkley claimed to have been misquoted in his autobiography. Sometimes the celebrity is very involved and actually even writes, or at least sets the tone of, much of the book.

Having never met or had personal contact with Mike Leach, it's difficult to say how precisely Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life matches his personality and personal style. That said, I've read a decent amount of Leach-related material the last few years, and Swing sounded an awful lot like what I think Leach looks like. Some credit for this must go to his ghostwriter, Bruce Feldman, but Swing is a very engagingly and entertainingly written tour of Mike Leach's life up to and through his termination by Texas Tech and his relocation to Key West.

Beyond the degree of involvement to the celebrity, one of the things that helps dictate how interesting a celebrity autobiography is is just how ... revealing the celebrity is interested in being. Swing is a tour of Mike Leach's life, starring Mike Leach and Mike Leach's career and accomplishments. He's worked and come into contact with some people who are interesting and/or accomplished, like Hal Mumme, Bob Stoops, and Dana Holgorsen, but even people who give half-page or one page blurbs, like Leach's quarterback at Texas Tech Graham Harrell, don't come alive. They're mostly paper cutouts, not fellow stars in the firmament.

That relative lack of depth is a recurring theme in the book. You get a feel for Leach and the way he thinks, but I'm not sure it's hugely deeper than what I already knew. Swing is probably best viewed as an entertaining trip through an entertaining coach's career.

For a much more useful review, see that by Chris Brown of Smart Football, who has had both personal contact with Leach and more familiarity with the airraid offense and Leach's version thereof.

Book Review: NFL Record & Fact Book 2011

2011-09-05T17:00:00.002-05:00

Another year, another edition of the NFL Record & Fact Book. See my review of the 2009 edition for a basic description of what the book is.

To release this year's edition at the normal time around the start of preseason, the NFL had to print the R&FB based on rosters as of the day before the lockout, plus the draft picks. Thus, all the free agency moves after the lockout that are in Football Outsiders Almanac 2011 are not included.

I've only skimmed the 2010 edition for changes, but these are the changes I've seen:
1. ~~The rundown on overtime procedures seems to have been removed.~~
2. ~~There's a list of the number of active players permitted in a game over time (going back to 1925), plus the numbers for player movement in the free agency era.~~
3. The cover in the past has featured the image of a Super Bowl-winning player. This year's cover instead as the 32 team shields.
4. Most game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime since 1970 has been added.

By now I'm in the habit of buying it every season. It's a useful reference to have nearby when I'm watching games and sometimes if I need to look up a particular item or two when writing something. On balance, though, if you're only looking for current information, you can find pretty much everything in the Record & Fact Book online, either on NFL.com or P-F-R.

UPDATE (9/05/11 1913 CT): Item #2 wasn't removed, just moved to a new section and with an entry added to the table of contents.
UPDATE #2 (9/07/11 2207 CT): Item #1 wasn't removed, just moved to a new section. Jon Zimmer (@NFLHistory on twitter) also noted most GW drives by QB has been added. Note, though, their numbers don't match those listed by P-F-R based on Scott Kacsmar's research (see parts one, two, and three), whose numbers are transparent enough I have some trust in them. For example, John Elway is listed as having 40 (p.310), while P-F-R has him with 35 fourth-quarter comebacks and 46 game-winning drives. Maybe there's a methodology issue involved.

Book Review: Football Outsiders Almanac 2011

2011-09-05T14:37:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, Football Outsiders Almanac 2011. It's the latest edition of the annual from the people at Football Outsiders. For the second year in a row, that group includes yours truly, and you can find my name on the cover page.

I'm not even going to pretend to give you some sort of objective review of this book. I did the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans chapters. Neither is perfect; subjective, my favorite chapter I've done is the Jaguars one last year.

We held the book this year until after the lockout, so we had a couple frantic weeks of writing and editing. There are probably more flaws than there have been in the past, but I'm pretty confident the book's not the disaster too many rush projects are.

I've reviewed previous editions of the annual, which was known as Pro Football Prospectus through 2008, on here. My review of PFP08 is probably the most useful.

FOA2011 is available in print from Amazon or Createspace, or in PDF download from the FO online store.

Disclosure: As a co-author, I got a free PDF copy of the book, though I did have to pay for my hard copy.

Titans-Saints data dump

2011-09-02T17:25:00.000-05:00

As I did recently for the Vikings game, it's time for a play-by-play comments data dump for the Titans' most recent preseason games. Notes on each first-half play of the Saints game after the jump.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 1

P1-Bootleg, Hayes gets kind of sucked in. Verner comes up for the cut tackle on the TE and can’t get him, nor can Ayers on the hit.

P2-5-man front, Ayers jams TE Humphrey. Short out complete against soft coverage.

P3-Deep out complete against Fuller in man on slot receiver.

P4-Ayers blows outside contain, solid play by McCourty to get off block and tackle Bell.

P5-Hayes can’t set the edge, Marks can’t get the guard, and McRath gets picked, so Bell gets the edge and 5 yards.

P6-Smith doesn’t penetrate, but does stuff the run after a short gain.

P7-Hayes eventually gets pressure and beats the TE blocking him, forcing a dumpoff which Cobbs drops.

P8-Looks like Canfield wants a slant, but Verner’s in position and it’s a bad read by him. Klug gets some penetration and Canfield eventually throws it away.

Punt, 0-0

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 1

P1-Nice completion on what looks like a deep in to Washington.

P2-Great hole on a cutback, but Harper is slow to attack Greer and gets tackled by him anyway. 7 yard gain, but from the shot on TV CJ would’ve had a TD.

P3-Something we may see a bit of this year: Cook in the slot with Britt, quick pass to Cook, let Britt give him a block and then plow forward.

P4-Run right. Harper sees an unblocked Greer on the edge, so before he gets to him he just stops. Only a 2 yard run, should’ve been more. RUN FORWARD!

P5-Looks like the Saints D adjust well to the Britt/Cook route combination, Hasselbeck doesn’t complete the dumpoff.

P6-Screen on 3^rd down gets blown up, so Hasselbeck smartly throws the ball into the turf.

Punt, 0-0

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 2

P1-Awful throw by Canfield on a rollout to his left, short pass falls incomplete.

P2-Klug beats the Saints’ second-team OG soundly with a swim move and sacks Canfield in the end zone for a safety. Nice to see Klug beat the OG, but a better QB throws the ball away here.

Safety, 2-0

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 2

P1-Blah, short run right side.

P2-Nice gain of 5 by Harper on the draw, and he didn’t try to bounce it for once.

P3-Hall is Hasselbeck’s protector in the gun. Looks like a miscommunication as Hasselbeck throws the comeback and Britt keeps running. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of that early in the year.

Punt, 2-0

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 3

P1-Cutback & Ayers is ridiculously out of position. Sheppard gets held on the edge to wipe out the 11-yard gain.

P2-McCarthy fills the hole on the draw, short gain.

P3-Canfield hits Bell on the short pass and McRath tackles him from behind to turn 2&long into 3&short.

P4-McCarthy stop Humphrey on the short pass, then Babineaux comes in and knocks the ball out, recovered by McCourty.

Fumble, 2-0

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 3

P1-Locker in. Harper carry, counter, faces no penetration, but Cook sort of loses his man on the edge and Harper of course bounces it.

P2-Harper cutback up middle. See defender, bounce, get tripped up by defender. I’m frustrated again.

P3-Locker doesn’t see anything open, semi-throw away to cover Hall in the flat short of the sticks.

FG, 5-0

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 4

P1-Bootleg and McRath gets sucked in, as does S A.Smith coming up in support. Smith eventually recovers but not before the Saints get 10 yards.

P2-Canfield scrambles, then throws late, across body, to the opposite side of the field. How could that possibly fail?! McCourty gets the PBU, Babineaux the opportunistic pick.

Interception, 5-0

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 4

P1-Nice pass to Curtis in what looks like a zone void on the left side. Second-team OL is in here, with Otto-Velasco-Matthews-Durand-Terry.

P2-Moore finds no running room inside, so he bounces it and Curtis’s man makes the tackle. Decent gain.

P3-Short curl complete to Hawk, but can’t get away from his defender.

P4-Short run by Moore, only shown part of on Saints broadcast. 3&1 converted exactly.

P5-Smoke to Curtis. Porter’s only playing 5 off and makes the tackle for no YAC.

P6-Daniel Graham? Not exactly explosive after the catch on this waggle action.

P7-Matthews gets bulled back into Locker, but the receivers and defenders are all on the left side of the field and Locker has clear sailing for 22 yards to the end zone.

Touchdown, 12-0

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 5

P1-Cobbs finds 5 yards up the middle as Egboh is the only DL to really do much. Clayton/Marks the pair at DT.

P2-No room up the middle, so Cobbs tries bouncing it and gets dragged down by McRath from behind.

P3-Billings drops the little sitdown, and it bounces right to Campbell. Hooray, another fluke pick.

Interception, 12-0

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 5

P1-Moore gets tripped going through the hole by a DL on the ground or else he has a nice gain.

P2-Former Iowa star beats the backup guard and causes a big loss. It seems like we had this play earlier in the game, but now it’s former Titan Mitch King beating Durand. Moore avoids the initial attack but King eventually makes the tackle anyway.

P3-RT Terry flagged for moving early.

P4-Locker doesn’t like what he sees, scrambles right, then eventually takes off. No downfield camera shots, so don’t know what he saw.

FG made, 15-0

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 6

P1-Blah, short run left.

P2-Short pass complete left.

P3-McRath tries to shoot the gap but can’t get through and Bell gets the corner for a big gain.

P4-Blah, short run.

P5-Short pass complete middle.

P6-Campbell with a PBU on 3^rd down.

P7-S A.Smith maybe gets away with one on a 4^th down PBU. I thought Canfield had something earlier.

Downs, 15-0

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 6

P1-Complete to Geer over the middle on the drag route, but he made Daniel Graham look explosive.

P2-Nice seals by Geer and Graham and Donaldson gets 9 on the edge. All 3 of those guys have already been cut.

P3-Not much room for Donaldson right end.

P4-Graham whiffs on the DE, but at least recovers the fumble the DE causes. 3&1 becomes 4&1.

P5-LB overruns the play, no penetration, and Donaldson gets a bakers dozen for the fourth down conversion.

P6-Jump ball for Gage, maybe a little underthrown, broken up by the CB.

P7-Screen for Donaldson. Not elegantly blocked, but still gets 10.

P8-Stafon Johnson has a surprisingly decent cut and gets a couple yards, but Otto gets flagged for a clear hold.

P9-Decent in for Gage, plus he goes forward past the flat-footed linebacker and doubles the gain with YAC.

P10-Boot leg, and the Saints leave Hawk wide open in the end zone. Locker finds him for the score. CB probably screwed up.

Touchdown, 22-0

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 7

P1-Short pass middle.

P2-Nice stick by McCarthy for a loss.

P3-Short out complete.

P4-Short run.

P5-Short pass complete, wiped out by penalty.

P6-Short pass complete, nice strip by McCarthy.

P7-Complete middle to what looked like a zone void.

P8-Complete short middle

P9-Looks like a deep out or comeback complete in front of Campbell in what’s probably man.

P10-Spike.

P11-McCarthy pops Cobbs when the ball gets there and he can’t hang on.

P12-Draw, short run middle.

FG missed, half, 22-0.

On Terrelle Pryor's Suspension

2011-08-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

Since this seems to be a bit of a lingering issue, I thought I'd bother to collect my thoughts on Terrelle Pryor being permitted to enter the NFL draft but also being suspended for five games. My first thought upon hearing the news was that Roger Goodell had spun his Wheel of Justice again and it had somehow landed on five games, the precise length of time for which Pryor would've been suspended had he returned to Ohio State this fall. After a couple minutes of thought, though, I decided that, as much as I don't care for Roger Goodell and his image-conscious discipline strategy, I actually agreed with Pryor being suspended as a condition of being permitted to enter the Supplemental Draft. As to why, well...

The purpose of the Supplemental Draft is to provide an opportunity for football players whose eligibility status changes between the time of the January early entry deadline and the Supplemental Draft deadline. The NFL’s argument against letting Pryor in the Supplemental Draft was that his status didn’t really change much if at all between January and now; rather, he decided the deal he’d agreed to in January (sit 5 games, then resume playing) was a bad deal. To the extent he’d taken actions within his control since then that would’ve affected his eligibility (hiring an agent, openly taking benefits, etc.), the NFL does not believe the Supplemental Draft should be available to those players because they can be used as a method of manipulating the regular Draft process.

The poster boy for this draft manipulation is Bernie Kosar. A native Ohioan, he wanted to join the Browns. He bypassed the regular entry Draft, where the Vikings likely would’ve selected him, but entered the Supplemental Draft, where he was indeed selected by the Browns. The NFL frowns on that sort of thing, and modified the Supplemental Draft eligibility rules after that.

The NFL is therefore very conscious of players whose status doesn't change between the regular early entry deadline in January and the Supplemental Draft date, and hesitant to let those players into the draft. Thus the normal supplemental draft players are guys like Caleb King, who loses his academic eligibility for the fall after January, Mike McAdoo, who lost an appeal of his suspension and can't play this fall, or guys who apply for an extra year of eligibility and are denied after January (I believe Titans FB Ahmard Hall was eligible for this reason). Pryor could have made a case that his circumstances with the NCAA changed enough that he should've been eligible, but I don't find it a persuasive argument, and apparently neither did the NFL. Pryor could have sued, but any litigation wouldn't have been resolved quickly and he likely would've had to wait until next April's regular draft. Rather than end up in court, the NFL and Pryor’s reps agreed on the suspension so he could play in the NFL this year.

The part that the NFL should have made clear is that Pryor’s suspension is an NFL suspension, not an NFL enforcement of his collegiate suspension, and they should’ve made the suspension a different number of games (I’d have been fine with 4 or 6) to reflect that it was a different suspension. However, I think Roger Goodell as part of his image-conscious discipline strategy would like the ability to suspend players for violations of NCAA rules and otherwise while not under the NFL's aegis, so that evidently wasn’t a concern of his. That, however, was not why Pryor was suspended.

Titans-Rams data dump

2011-08-25T23:16:00.001-05:00

Here are my notes on each play of the first half of last Saturday's preseason game between the Rams and the Titans. I wrote a sort of summary post over at Total Titans, but this is the raw data. Notes are fairly long, almost 2k words, so they're going after the jump, and also unedited.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 1
1-83 yard score to Gibson. Finnegan takes him in single coverage, Griffin is playing single-high, lined up deep. Gibson is wide open, and without a better downfield look, it’s not clear exactly what happens. Griffin likely bites on the shallower crossing route, and Finny just loses track of Gibson. A major oops.

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 1
P1-LDT Fred Robbins splits the Scott-Amano gap and screws up the play. Tough block for Amano and Scott’s caught in no-man’s land. Harper of course strings the play out.
P2-Na’il Diggs overruns his gap creating a big hole for Harper. Once Harper sees Mikell coming in for an angle, he tries to bounce.
P3-Rams blitz, picked up more or less including by Harper, an encouraging sign. Not sure what’s downfield, but Hass scrambles for the first.
P4-Screen. Nobody’s right there, so Harper blows forward. Apparently that’s the key, nobody in his field of vision.
P5-Nice first carry by Donaldson, getting upfield and trusting his blocks. Amano & Scott pick up Robbins, Laurinaitis bites & gets clipped by Roos so can’t fill the hole but does make the play downfield.
P6-Not much for Donaldson, but a play I like anyway. He sees the edge won’t be open, so he turns upfield and gets 3, even though there’s a guy lurking to tackle him.
P7-Pressure from both ends, Hasselbeck dumps it off to Donaldson, who spins and gets 3 extra yards.
P8-Stevens moves right to left and the Rams D-line shifts to the side to follow him. RDT Bannan shoves Harris back at the POA to disrupt the play.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 2
P1-Morgan at LDE does a good job of getting down the LOS to make the play. No contain issues, either, as Hope was run-blitzing to his side.
P2-Some DL shenanigans, as Ford lines up at LDT before dropping into coverage. Soft zone and Amendola finds a hole and sits down in it for a first down.
P3-Titans rush 5, Bradford throws for MSW on the intermediate dig 15 yards downfield, but he’s not ready for the ball (might be a bit of a sloppy route) and it’s off his hands with a fortuitous bounce to Verner.

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 2
P1-Short run right. Robbins gets doubled by Scott & Amano again but still makes the play after a 2 yard gain.
P2-The only linebacker to get touched is Kehl by Cook, but the DL is moving and the cutback picks up 4 yards. Two consecutive plays where I’m not angry with Harper!
P3-Kehl bites on the playfake and Hall will be open. Hass recognizes it quickly and throws him the ball. One missed tackle later and the Titans have 12 yards.
P4-One yard TD run for Harper. Nice hole in the middle of the line, as Harper and Amano both get low on their guy and Hall and Scott are there to clear out any detritus before Harper can stroll in.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 3
P1-Hayes gets penetration to kill the play, then Hope comes up from his S position to blow him up. Smith and McRath are also there, as it’s McRath who gets credit for the tackle. Nice team defense.
P2-Titans bring a blitz, and Finnegan follows Jackson, destroying the called screen and forcing an incompletion.
P3-Titans bring a zone blitz, Bradford gets a throw off for MSW but he slips on the comeback and the ball sails out of bounds incomplete. Really getting a bad feeling for MSW.

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 3
P1-Looks like Scott gets beat, but it’s actually a nice design and Scott had to make a good recovery to get into position to look like he’s getting beat. Tough for Hass here, as he has to make an unplanned quick decision. Damian Williams also lined up on the LOS to cover up Cook-dunno whether DWill or Cook is the one to blame, but it’s one of them.
P2-Nice cutback run with some good space here. Harper bounces a little but it works out well as he’s ahead of one safety and then turns it upfield where Washington gets crushed but essentially takes two guys out of the play. Harper then turns into Fletcher at the end of the run. Not a great run, but an encouraging one. Na’il Diggs way overran the play to open up the cutback.
P3-Nate Washington is a shrimp, but he is a willing blocker. Hall and a pulling Scott get seals, Donaldson barely gets tripped up by an unblocked corner or he has a 12 yard touchdown instead of a 6 yard gain.
P4-False start, Amano. Center false starts always really annoy me.
P5-Some good blocks and Harper didn’t screw it up. Solid 5-yard gain.
P6-Robbins beats Otto, which screws up Harris’s pull on the seal and kills the play.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 4
P1-Smith gets doubled by the C and RG and goes on some roller skates. McRath should be hitting the gap and stopping Jackson for no gain, but instead he’s backing up in apparent fear of play-action. Spoon comes up and changes Smith’s backwards progress, so it’s only a 3-yard gain.
P2-Funky coverage scheme for the Titans, as ATV ends up in the middle of the field, inside of Ayers, to make the tackle on the dumpoff to SJax.
P3-Simple sitdown route for Amendola just past the first in zone coverage, easy pitch-and-catch for the third down conversion.
P4-Run right at RDE Jacob Ford, who ends the play 4 yards downfield. Smith’s able to motor down the LOS and McRath sheds his block to limit the damage to a couple yards, though.
P5-I didn’t think this was supposed to happen. Interior v. interior, and the Rams win as Haye and Smith go backwards. Hope comes in to slow down Jackson from the side and Ball from his LDE spot is in on the tackle as well.
P6-More of what looks like 5-under, 2-deep zone on third down, and Bradford finds Kendricks this time open against the zone on what looked like a jerk route.
P7-Well-timed run blitz as Spoon knifes in and creates trash in the backfield to slow down Jackson, which Finny then cleans up for no gain.
P8-Titans get good pressure as McRath blitzes, with Ford and Casey flushing Bradford from the pocket. Rather than taking the easy dumpoff to Jackson, he tries for Gibson downfield but ATV has good coverage and the pass is too far.
P9-Delay of game.
P10-Titans bring a zone blitz on 3&long and it actually works. Finny gets picked up, but Spoon is untouched and has a straight shot for a relatively easy sack. Saffold probably overcommits to RDE Ford’s rush.

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 4
P1-Deep throw for Hawk, who only gets separation when the (backup) corner tries to locate the ball and can’t follow it. Just a bit too deep. Interesting to see Hasselbeck go for Hawk deep, as Cook appeared to be available shorter-probably a decision based on single coverage outside.
P2-Two-deep look by the Rams, creating a mismatch in the box. Cook does a decent job of getting in the way of Laurinaitis playside to give Harper a couple extra yards before a safety comes down and makes the tackle.
P3-Slant/flat combo for Cook in the flat, and Al Harris does a good job of releasing off the slant and coming up and making the stick on Cook. Smart veteran play.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 5
P1-Hate the close-up pocket shots, as whoever Bradford wanted to throw the ball too was covered. Egboh eventually got pressure, and Bradford chucked the ball at Cadillac’s feet.
P2-Nice tip by Ball on the WR screen for Amendola.
P3-4-man rush doesn’t get home, and it’s a completion to a zone void on 3rd and long. Gee, I’ve never seen that one before. Whiff by Babineaux on the tackle.
P4-Short run middle. Good job by Hayes to slip the block and limit the gain to 3.
P5-Nice play by Casey to follow the guard and blow up a screen.
P6-Zone blitz on this 3&long, and Finnegan off the slot gets home when the Rams protection doesn’t slide right.

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 5
P1-Excellent production values by the STL broadcast to start this play with Cook making the catch. No clue how he got open or what the play design was.
P2-Another deep throw by Hawkins-Hass throws the deep fade, but Hawk kept running upfield on the streak. I have to think this one’s on Hawk, as he had leverage to go get the ball.
P3-Oops. Titans line up in a double-TE right and motion Hawk outside Cook. The Rams bring down a safety and align to the Titans’ right. Meet the cutback run, Cook gets a seal on the DE (who probably should’ve crashed harder), Roos gets the linebacker, and Harper has a huge hole. A little bit of a shake, but a more decisive cut would enable him to avoid the safety altogether.
P4-Out and go combo, but kind of an ugly route and/or throw for Stevens on the out, who struggles to bring it in for a short gain.
P5-Sort of the mirror image of the previous play, as to the opposite side of the field Hawk runs an in and Cook runs a seamer designed to draw off the defenders. It sort of but doesn’t work and it’s another short gain. Hass would go out after this play after getting hit when Harper’s man goes over him.
P6-Locker’s first play, and it’s essentially a smash combo with Cook running the flag. Simple read, a little much air under the ball, but executed for a big play.
P7-My first sustained burst of expletives at Harper, as he likely has a touchdown if he follows Hall through the hole, but instead he cuts it back and gets nothing.
P8-Bootleg. Locker has some pressure and tries to find Hawk in the back of the end zone, but can’t fit the ball between two defenders. Locker tries the ball too late, distracted by the presence of the stay-at-home defender.
P9-Fade for DWill, but the corner’s playing outside technique. Hate the playcall, hate the read.
FG good from 23, Titans lead 16-7.

DEFENSIVE DRIVE 6
P1-Manned up, and the Titans were just outnumbered at the POA. Babineaux makes the tackle by getting run over by Cadillac.
P2-Babineaux knifes in on the run blitz and slows down Cadillac. Spoon fills the hole, and Cadillac bounces into Hayes, who gets credit for the tackle. Tackle stats are incredibly meaningful!
P3-Smith and Jovan Haye try to play low man and end up on the ground, making it an easy 3-and-1 conversion up the middle. But, y’know, the Titans’ problem last year was totally run defense!
P4-Spoon fills the hole and gets the tackle for a short gain, but the key here is McRath with a good play to avoid the pulling guard and prevent Cadillac from bouncing the run.
P5-Zone blitz on 2-and-long right after the 2 minute warning. Bradford finds Avery open for a short gain before Finnegan off the slot gets home.
P6-Horrible pass pro by the Rams, as Hayes is barreling down on Bradford quickly. He gets the ball out for Amendola on the curl, but it’s a drop.
Punt, Titans lead 16-7.

OFFENSIVE DRIVE 6
P1-Blah, draw.
P2-False start. Called on Scott, but it looked like Locker flinched. O-line wasn’t visible when the false start happened.
P3-Blah, another draw. What happened to the idea they might run a two-minute drill?

An Ode to Lockout Coverage

2011-07-15T18:09:00.000-05:00

With apologies to Albert Breer, Dan Kaplan, and everybody else who's doing the best job they can...

Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, V, v, 23-28.

The Unread List

2011-05-25T22:36:00.002-05:00

Just because, here are the books about football I own and haven't read yet:

Richard Whittingham, Rites of Autumn
John Sayle Watterson, College Football
Michael Oriard, Reading Football
David Nelson, Anatomy of a Game
Robert W. Peterson, Pigskin
Chris Willis, The Man Who Built the National Football League
Andy Piascik, Gridiron Gauntlet*
Lou Sahadi, One Sunday in December
Dave Klein, The Game of Their Lives
Mark Bowden, The Best Game Ever
Jonathan Rand, The Year That Changed the Game
Dave Steidel, Remember the AFL
Sean Lahman, The Pro Football Historical Abstract
Carroll/Palmer/Thorn, The Hidden Game of Football
Carroll/Palmer/Thorn, The Football Abstract
John Maxymuk, The Quarterback Abstract
Steve Belichick, Football Scouting Methods
Mike Ditka, Ditka
Bill Walsh, Finding the Winning Edge
Jim Tressel, The Winner's Manual for the Game of Life
Bill Walsh, The Score Takes Care of Itself
Kenny Hand, Year of Pain
Tom Bass, Play Football the NFL Way

Don't worry, the list of books not about football I own and haven't read yet is several times long than this list. There's also the 100+ football books listed on the spreadsheet, and then you have the strategy books, and all the books that are far enough down the priority list they're not even on the spreadsheet, and all the football-related PDFs I've downloaded...

*-Copy provided gratis to Football Outsiders. Yes, I feel bad I haven't read and reviewed it yet.

UPDATE (5/30/11, 2059 CT): I neglected to mention Roy Blount's About Three Bricks Shy, which I've been pretending to read for the last two-plus months.

Book Review: The Big Scrum

2011-05-25T21:57:00.001-05:00

Well, my New Year's non-resolution to read at least one book about football every month lasted a whole three months before falling by the wayside. I did read Scorecasting in April, but (i) it's not a real football book, and (ii) I didn't find it interesting enough to review here. But April has passed, and I can't go back and read a book about football then, so it's time to move on.

It's a relatively familiar story, to many football fans: the game called football at the dawn of the twentieth century was a bloody scrum more like a particularly violent version of rugby than today's more elegant (well, sometimes) game. The brutality came to a peak in 1905, when 18 players died. Teddy Roosevelt used the bully pulpit to declare football needed to be changed, and the powers that be got together and instituted a series of rules changes, most notably the introduction of the forward pass. Football opened up from the scrum, fewer people died, and life went on. The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football by John J. Miller retells this story, and a lot about Theodore Roosevelt's devotion to a strenuous life. An awful lot about Roosevelt's devotion to a strenuous life, from a sickly youth up to his time as President in 1905 and beyond.

The key 1905 rules changes come toward the end of The Big Scrum and cover 30 or so pages toward the end of the book. The first 180 or so pages cover the development of football as a game, and more detail than I particularly cared on Theodore Roosevelt's opinions on a vigorous life and on the wonderful virtues of football (which game, I will note, he spent just as much time playing as yours truly or, for that matter, Pope Urban II). The main antagonist in the story is Harvard's President, Charles W. Eliot. Whereas in Stagg's University, when Chicago dropped football, President Hutchins was opposed to all athletics, Eliot like Roosevelt was a follower of Muscular Christianity, and personally devoted to fitness; it was to football's brutality, team nature, competitiveness, and emphasis on winning that he found fault with.

In telling the story of the 1905 rules changes, Miller does not seem to trod any new ground, but draws on standard accounts, most notably the work done by John Sayle Watterson. Of course, many people will not have read Watterson's work (yours truly included, even though I do own and have skimmed much of College Football), and Miller's story will be of greater value to them. If you're like me, you want and plan to read Watterson, and Ronald A. Smith's work, and maybe even Mark Bernstein and Allison Danzig. If you are like me, you can safely give The Big Scrum a pass.

If, on the other hand, you have nary an interest in reading more detailed and scholarly treatments of how college sports and football in particular developed, and you're interested in Theodore Roosevelt's life story explored through his interest in the strenuous life, you might enjoy The Big Scrum.

Aside from finding Theodore Roosevelt and his avocation of the strenuous life and the great virtues of a game he never played quite tiresome, I have no complaints about the writing of The Big Scrum. Includes many footnotes for a book directed at a more popular audience, all of which may be skipped by those not interested, and an index, both of which should be standard in books of this nature but which sadly are not. As I often do with nonfiction books, I read the bibliography first and saw Miller cited most of the books I expected him to, including all of those referenced above, but not Nelson's Anatomy of a Game or Walter Camp's American Football (though he does cite Camp's later 1896 work). Miller writes for National Review, a conservative/Republican periodical, but I did not feel the heavy hand of partisanship in Scrum.

For more on Miller and Scrum, see Hey Miller, his website. Miller does a book podcast, Between the Covers, which I listen to regularly but whose guests may tax your partisanship tolerance. Blogfriend Nate Dunlevy of the Colts blog 18 to 88 reviewed Miller's book and did a podcast (mp3 link) with him.

Titans 2011 Draft Recap

2011-05-07T22:32:00.000-05:00

Another April weekend, another NFL draft. As I try to do every year, it's time for me to put down my idiosyncratic, pessimistic, snarky thoughts on the players the Tennessee Titans drafted this year. That way, in 6 years when it's time to pass judgment on how the picks actually performed on the year, I can claim plaudits or you can laugh at how silly my predictions were. Players names are links to the relevant Total Titans post. No trades to consider this year, so you won't see any of that analysis.

#1-8: Jake Locker, QB, Washington
A.k.a. the pick by which the Titans draft will be judged in the future, rightly or wrongly. I've been a personal fan of Locker since early in his Washington career, but right now he's not accurate enough to be a good NFL quarterback and I'm skeptical of the idea of spending a first-round pick on a player who's not accurate enough and may never be accurate enough. I'll still be rooting like heck for him, though.

#2-39: Akeem Ayers, LB, UCLA
Hello, defensive makeover in progress. Ayers was seen as more of a 3-4 linebacker prospect than a 4-3, as he moved around a little bit for the Bruins. DC Jerry Gray said he plans to use him more as a true Sam linebacker, a position the Titans haven't used much lately. Personally, I thought the Titans and Cowboys, who picked UNC LB Bruce Carter with the next pick, would've been better off with the other team's pick.

#3-77 Jurrell Casey, DT, USC
The Titans' raid on the Pac-10 continues. Some people loved Casey, others were more skeptical. I didn't think the Titans had a need a defensive tackle really at all, and a third-round pick seems like a real luxury for somebody who'll play inside. I hope it's a good pick, but who's the last USC player to live up to or exceed his draft status. Brian Cushing as a roided-up rookie, but beyond him, Steve Smith-WR-NYG, and there've been several others since then.

#4-109 LB Colin McCarthy, Miami-FL
I don't have strong feelings on McCarthy. Hopefully he'll prove useful, but his injury history suggests he might not be. Might be an MLB-OLB tweener, so I'll be curious to see just how the Titans use him.

#4-130 Jamie Harper, RB, Clemson
A bigger back who doesn't always use his size effectively or run with the power you'd think he'd have. Gee, where have I ever heard that one before. Prediction: he'll get 300 more carries than he should over his first two years, and has less than 100 carries for a team other than the Titans. I really hope I'm wrong about that, but hitting on Chris Johnson seems more like random luck than any sort of evidence the Titans know what they're doing when it comes to running backs. Yes, I know the front office and staff hasn't been the same the whole time, but the stink permeates the organization.

#5-142 Karl Klug, DL, Iowa
I liked him better when his name was Mitch King and he was an undrafted free agent and not a fifth-round pick. Granted, it was still stupid to pay King one of the top signing bonuses given to a UDFA that year when he couldn't have been more than the 10th defensive lineman on your team. I guess there's a chance with the defensive makeover Klug could be the 7th or 8th defensive lineman on the team, but he wouldn't be higher than 10th on a team with a real defensive line. Looks like a wasted pick.

#6-175 Byron Stingily, OL, Louisville
Whee, a developmental tackle prospect. Hopefully he'll pan out, but no great shakes if he doesn't.

#7-212 Zach Clayton, DT, Auburn
Let me get this straight: the Titans come into the draft with four decent defensive linemen, then draw three more? Something does not compute here. I'll try to do a Total Titans post figuring how the mess will shake out, but Clayton's a DT, not even a potential DE tweener like Klug. Another real WTF pick.

#7-251 Tommie Campbell, DB, California-PA
Another guy with a pretty good story-not quite Todd Williams, but still making the best of what he can after throwing away some opportunity early. I'm not opposed to fliers on seventh-round defensive backs.

But if this draft is going to work out, Chris Palmer and Dowell Loggains are going to have to do some very good work with Locker and Jerry Gray is going to have to sort out a mess of defensive players in a way that makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, this draft is going to go down the toilet like 2006's mostly did.

Big Play Data Dump

2011-05-07T20:51:00.003-05:00

I just wrote a post for Total Titans on how the Titans gave up big plays in 2010. This is the supporting data for that post.

Because of the length of this post, I've stuck most of it behind a read more tag.

WEEK ONE
3Q 2-16-OAK 38 (9:16) 8-J.Campbell pass deep middle to 80-Z.Miller to TEN 35 for 27 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: busted coverage. No all-22 here, so I'm not sure what happened. The play is a completion on a seam route to Miller, who lined up as part of three receivers to the right side. The "apparent" responsible party is Chris Hope, whose coverage responsibility was on the slot receiver. Both Witherspoon and Tulloch took McFadden and ignored Miller; barring knowledge of the actual playcall, my best guess is one of them should have been on Miller.

WEEK TWO
1Q 2-10-PIT 30 (4:17) 34-R.Mendenhall right guard pushed ob at 50 for 20 yards (24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: Jamie Winborn. This is just hat on hat. The Steelers overpower the Titans to the right side, and Jamie Winborn fails to maintain outside contain. If Winborn gets to Kemoeatu's outside shoulder, Mendenhall probably cuts it back and Witherspoon makes a tackle after a short gain. But he doesn't, so deep safety Hope has to make the tackle.

1Q 3-2-TEN 42 (1:46) 10-D.Dixon scrambles left end to TEN 21 for 21 yards (24-C.Hope). TEN-33-M.Griffin was injured during the play. His return is Probable.
EXPLANATION: bad luck, sort of. The Titans rush 4 and get pressure. Two issues, though: RDE Jacob Ford slips trying to turn the corner, which helps open up the offensive left side. When Mewelde Moore stays in to block, Stephen Tulloch, who was just lurking, rushes to the offensive right side. With the rest of the defense playing coverage, Dixon finds room to scramble to his left before deep safety Hope can make the tackle.

WEEK THREE
1Q 2-2-NYG 37 (8:05) 10-E.Manning pass deep middle to 89-K.Boss to TEN 9 for 54 yards (33-M.Griffin, 30-J.McCourty).
EXPLANATION: .5 Tulloch, .5 Winborn. I'm not sure exactly what the assignments were, but Winborn and Tulloch both bite very hard on the playfake. That leaves Boss open to just run down the center of the field. Witherspoon tries to deflect the pass that goes by where Tulloch should be, but can't get it. Winborn misses a tackle well downfield as well.

2Q 1-10-TEN 30 (:48) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 10-E.Manning pass deep left to 82-M.Manningham pushed ob at TEN 10 for 20 yards (22-V.Fuller).
EXPLANATION: .5 Verner, .5 scheme. Titans are in what appears to be Cover-2, and the Manningham grab hits the deep outside void here. The reason why I'm blaming Verner, though, is he too quickly abandons Manningham after covering him initially for Fuller to get over in time. Boss in the flat is technically his area of responsibility, but Griffin had (rightly) followed Boss. Leaving a guy open to double a guy not as far downfield is, I suspect, not the right decision.

3Q 3-10-NYG 1 (10:53) (Shotgun) 10-E.Manning pass deep left to 82-M.Manningham pushed ob at NYG 44 for 43 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: Verner. Man coverage, and Verner's inexperience shows in a complete absence of ball skills here. If he spots the ball, this looks like a play he'd have been able to break up, but he looks lost and Manningham hauls in a big gain. Alas for the Giants and thankfully for the Titans, a Bradshaw chop block negates this play.

3Q 2-5-NYG 16 (7:15) 44-A.Bradshaw right end to NYG 38 for 22 yards (24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: .5 Griffin, .5 Tulloch. Negatives here come from perceived failures to maintain gap integrity. Tulloch tries to use his speed to make a play, but Bradshaw's just fast enough to avoid him. Griffin's job as deep defender on this half of the field is to prevent any big plays on runs to his side. Instead, it's Hope who comes over from his job as deep defender on the other half of the field to make the play.

3Q 1-10-TEN 26 (3:55) 44-A.Bradshaw left end pushed ob at TEN 6 for 20 yards (52-J.Winborn).
EXPLANATION: .5 Ball, .5 Witherspoon. Hey, it's the counter-pitch and the Titans overpursue badly. Witherspoon is the linebacker to this side, and bites hard on the fake to fullback Hedgecock. Even if he had played it better, though, LT Diehl would've been able to block him because RDE Ball started off with a hard move upfield and got stuck in absolute no man's land. A play like this is one of the reasons the Titans will be doing something different with their defensive ends in 2011.

3Q 3-4-NYG 31 (:24) (Shotgun) 10-E.Manning pass short right to 82-M.Manningham pushed ob at TEN 44 for 25 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Giants go 5-wide, Titans man-up the wideouts. Finnegan tries to make the play on the short pass, but misses the ball and there's nobody nearby to tackle Manningham quickly. Nicely-placed pass by Eli.

4Q 1-10-TEN 44 (15:00) (Shotgun) 10-E.Manning pass short right to 88-H.Nicks pushed ob at TEN 24 for 20 yards (31-C.Finnegan).
EXPLANATION: .5 Finnegan, .5 Witherspoon. Bradshaw moves out wide right with Nicks slot right. The pump fake to Bradshaw draws both Witherspoon and Finnegan, leaving Nicks wide open. I think the Titans are in zone and Witherspoon shouldn't have bit on the fake to Bradshaw, but am not sure.

4Q 1-10-NYG 20 (1:39) (Shotgun) 10-E.Manning pass deep middle to 12-S.Smith to NYG 49 for 29 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: Fuller. Straight man coverage, Smith runs a post, and Eli hits him ahead of Fuller's coverage.

WEEK FOUR
1Q 1-10-DEN 25 (9:21) 8-K.Orton pass deep right to 19-E.Royal ran ob at DEN 48 for 23 yards.
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Cortland abandoned Royal and started chasing the play after Orton's playfake.

2Q 1-10-DEN 32 (13:47) 8-K.Orton pass deep middle to 84-B.Lloyd to TEN 45 for 23 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: Verner. Completion in man coverage on a deep in.

3Q 2-13-DEN 39 (12:30) (Shotgun) 8-K.Orton pass short left to 19-E.Royal pushed ob at TEN 20 for 41 yards (24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 Tulloch. WR screen that the Broncos bust for big yardage against an alignment they must have liked. Tulloch once again almost makes the play.

4Q 2-1-DEN 39 (7:54) (Shotgun) 8-K.Orton pass deep right to 10-J.Gaffney to TEN 33 for 28 yards (31-C.Finnegan). TEN-95-W.Hayes was injured during the play. His return is Questionable.
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Underthrow on what may have just been a back-shoulder fade, but either way it's complete against Finny in man coverage.

4Q PENALTY on TEN-24-C.Hope, Defensive Pass Interference, 49 yards, enforced at 50 - No Play.
EXPLANATION: .5 Finnegan, .5 Hope. Hope is the guy who commits the penalty here, but if Finnegan plays coverage the way he's supposed to on here, Lloyd isn't open by 10 yards and Hope doesn't have to panic.

WEEK FIVE
1Q 1-10-DAL 40 (11:21) 28-F.Jones left tackle to TEN 40 for 20 yards (51-G.McRath).
EXPLANATION: .5 Witherspoon, .5 Tulloch. Cowboys run power, and a pulling Leonard Davis takes out both Tully and Spoon, who are playing too much of the same gap. This play looks like as much of a coordination problem as anything else.

1Q 3-6-DAL 31 (3:50) (Shotgun) 9-T.Romo pass short middle to 19-M.Austin to TEN 41 for 28 yards (24-C.Hope). Pass complete on slant.
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 Verner. Titans are in zone, and Austin's in Verner's area of responsibility, crossing from right to left. Romo waits for him to clear Verner and hits Austin for a big completion with the YAC.

2Q 2-32-DAL 44 (7:30) (Shotgun) 9-T.Romo pass deep middle to 19-M.Austin to TEN 30 for 26 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: .5 Tulloch, .5 Griffin. Tulloch's manned up on Austin and gets beat (granted, not a favorable matchup), Griffin's playing deep safety and has a chance to break up the play and whiffs.

2Q 1-10-TEN 33 (1:18) (Shotgun) 9-T.Romo pass deep left to 11-R.Williams pushed ob at TEN 6 for 27 yards (24-C.Hope). Pass complete on fly pattern. The Replay Assistant challenged the pass completion ruling, and the play was Upheld.
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 Finnegan. Complete against a cover-2 void, but I don't know why Finnegan didn't just stay with Williams because there wasn't anyone else for him to be playing.

3Q 3-4-DAL 31 (13:44) (Shotgun) 9-T.Romo pass deep left to 19-M.Austin for 69 yards, TOUCHDOWN. Austin leaps and catches the pass between two defenders at the Tennessee 44 before running the distance.
EXPLANATION: .5 Mouton, .5 Griffin. Mouton gets beat in man, Griffin goes for the pick and whiffs and takes out Mouton.

3Q 2-4-DAL 41 (12:12) 28-F.Jones left end pushed ob at TEN 25 for 34 yards (24-C.Hope). TEN-95-W.Hayes was injured during the play. His return is Questionable.
EXPLANATION: Verner. Run defense = gap control. Jones runs right into Verner's gap and he can't make the tackle. The eye in the sky don't lie.

3Q 2-8-TEN 45 (2:53) 9-T.Romo pass short right to 82-J.Witten pushed ob at TEN 21 for 24 yards (92-W.Witherspoon). Pass complete on crossing pattern off play action.
EXPLANATION: Witherspoon. Complete in man coverage on a drag route. Witherspoon gets caught in the trash with Tulloch a little and stumbles. Good play by Witten.

4Q 1-10-DAL 48 (15:00) 9-T.Romo pass deep middle to 82-J.Witten to TEN 21 for 31 yards (24-C.Hope). Pass complete on seam route. Montrae Holland has a right eye contusion and will not return to the game.
EXPLANATION: scheme. I'm not sure what defense the Titans are in here. It looks like mostly cover-2, only Michael Griffin doesn't play cover-2 and Hope is playing deep half. Complete in the void over the linebackers and in front of Hope.

4Q 2-10-DAL 40 (7:21) (Shotgun) 9-T.Romo pass deep right to 11-R.Williams ran ob at TEN 33 for 27 yards [22-V.Fuller]. Pass complete on fly route.
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Complete in man coverage.

WEEK SIX
3Q 2-11-JAC 34 (10:44) 5-T.Edwards pass deep right to 80-M.Thomas to TEN 45 for 21 yards (31-C.Finnegan).
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Completion in man coverage when Cortland seems to be extraordinarily surprised that Edwards runs something like an actual route.

3Q PENALTY on TEN-31-C.Finnegan, Defensive Pass Interference, 25 yards, enforced at TEN 45 - No Play.
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Right after the previous play, Jags go after him again on a fly pattern. Finnegan just cuts off MSW's route with the ball in the air, and that's an easy flag.

4Q 2-4-TEN 49 (12:20) (Shotgun) 5-T.Edwards pass short middle to 80-M.Thomas to TEN 29 for 20 yards (22-V.Fuller).
EXPLANATION: Fuller. Complete in man coverage.

WEEK SEVEN
2Q 1-10-TEN 42 (3:28) (Shotgun) Direct snap to 18-J.Maclin. 4-K.Kolb pass deep right to 14-R.Cooper to TEN 5 for 37 yards (51-G.McRath). Maclin handed of to McCoy who then pitched it back to Kolb.
EXPLANATION: .5 Griffin, .5 Hope. Griffin just stands there and lets Cooper run right by him instead of, y'know, actually playing defense. Hope is playing deep safety and has a chance to make a pick, but Cooper just beats him to the ball. A very frustrating play all around.

WEEK EIGHT
2Q 3-3-SD 35 (3:33) 17-P.Rivers pass short left to 89-S.Ajirotutu to TEN 40 for 25 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: .5 busted coverage, .5 Hope. Scramble drill, Titans coverage breakdown. It's tough to tell without all-22, but I think Hope had Ajirotutu and abanoned him to pursue a scrambling Rivers. I'm not a huge fan of negging Hope for this play, given that it was third down, but his man made the play.

2Q 1-10-TEN 40 (2:48) 17-P.Rivers pass short right to 85-A.Gates to TEN 7 for 33 yards (33-M.Griffin, 24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: .5 Griffin, .5 McRath. Throwback screen to TE Gates, and it works like a charm because Griffin and McRath totally abandoned any pretense of discipline on the play.

3Q 1-10-SD 16 (5:16) 35-M.Tolbert left end to TEN 48 for 36 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: .5 Griffin, .5 Verner. Once again, no sense of discipline or gap responsibility from either player on this play. Simply horrific.

3Q 1-10-TEN 48 (4:29) 17-P.Rivers pass deep left to 85-A.Gates for 48 yards, TOUCHDOWN [93-J.Babin].
EXPLANATION: Witherspoon. Completion to Gates up the sidelines. The Chargers run a little cross, the trash slows up Spoon, and Gates is just faster. The really dispiriting part of this play is Finnegan stops running at the 20 or 25, and I'm not sure Hope pursued to the best of his ability on the play either, though he could have sensibly believed he was out of the play.

3Q 3-1-SD 28 (:32) (Shotgun) 43-D.Sproles up the middle to TEN 40 for 32 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: .5 Tulloch, .5 Hope. Frustrating play here. Tulloch has the gap and seemingly should be able to stop Sproles maybe even short of the first down, only he whiffs, then Sproles against Hope in the open field results in the same sort of mismatch you'd expect.

4Q 3-11-TEN 39 (9:03) (Shotgun) 17-P.Rivers pass short middle to 85-A.Gates to TEN 18 for 21 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: Seeing the failure of Witherspoon covering Gates, the Titans put Griffin in man coverage, and Gates uses the magic of Football Playing Ability. Griffin gets turned around on the play, and the Chargers have a big play and a third-down conversion.

WEEK TEN
2Q 1-10-MIA 20 (14:15) Handoff to #34 Williams pitched back to Henne 7-C.Henne pass deep right to 82-B.Hartline to TEN 26 for 54 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: .5 Verner, .5 Hope. Flea-flicker. After the handoff, Verner decided he could stop paying attention to Hartline, so he did (contra Finnegan, the other side, who stayed with his man). Hope, whose job as the deep safety is to prevent big plays, decided the run posed an immediate threat and wasn't able to recover to help Verner. Blame all around!

2Q 3-8-MIA 4 (2:54) (Shotgun) 7-C.Henne pass deep middle to 80-A.Fasano to MIA 35 for 31 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 Tulloch. Really looks like cover-2, and this was a completion in the void in front of the safeties. The Mike's job may include dropping deeper to protect against routes like this one, but Tulloch's off doing something else somewhere.

3Q 1-10-TEN 49 (11:40) 7-C.Henne pass deep middle to 80-A.Fasano to TEN 21 for 28 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: Scheme. Cover-2 void in front of the safeties. If there's anybody to blame here, it's Verner, as Tulloch's attention was (rightly) with the defenders who were crossing in front of him and Witherspoon.

3Q 1-10-MIA 49 (:16) Direct snap to 23-R.Brown. 34-R.Williams left end to TEN 28 for 23 yards (94-S.Marks).
EXPLANATION: .5 Ball, .5 scheme. Another example of other teams taking advantage of the Titans' defensive ends playing aggressively. Brown's reading Ball out of the Wildcat, Ball comes in too far inside, and the Dolphins have blockers to the outside. If Ball plays less aggressively, then the inside pursuit should be able to get Brown for a short gain.

4Q 1-10-MIA 31 (9:11) 16-T.Thigpen pass deep right to 80-A.Fasano to TEN 38 for 31 yards (24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: .5 Verner, .5 Hope. I'm not sure what the right division of responsibility between Verner and Hope is. Verner has Fasano in coverage initially, then abandons him, hopefully to Hope's deep coverage.

WEEK ELEVEN
1-10-WAS 21 (8:12) 5-D.McNabb pass deep right to 89-S.Moss to TEN 31 for 48 yards (31-C.Finnegan). FUMBLES (31-C.Finnegan), ball out of bounds at TEN 31. Tennessee challenged the pass completion ruling, and the play was Upheld. (Timeout #1.)
EXPLANATION: Griffin. As deep safety, your responsibilities include "don't just let a guy run by you downfield." Griffin stumbles, Moss runs by him, and without Finnegan's help this may have been 6.

1Q 3-16-WAS 40 (:05) (Shotgun) 5-D.McNabb pass deep middle to 84-J.Galloway to TEN 40 for 20 yards (33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 Griffin. Cover-2 void in front of the safeties, only Griffin seems to have been playing deeper than necessary.

2Q 1-10-WAS 37 (3:25) 5-D.McNabb pass short right to 86-F.Davis to TEN 40 for 23 yards (24-C.Hope) [78-J.Ford].
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 busted coverage. Another TE throwback screen that works great. This is a 23 yard gain instead of a 12 yard gain because Finnegan, Marks, and Griffin all missed tackles downfield. Play run to Gerald McRath's side, though he misplayed this one less badly than he did previous plays.

4Q 1-10-WAS 26 (8:33) 5-D.McNabb pass short left to 86-F.Davis pushed ob at WAS 47 for 21 yards (33-M.Griffin, 78-J.Ford).
EXPLANATION: .5 scheme, .5 Hope. Another TE throwback screen. Hope is the only, well, hope, but he gets partially picked by LT Williams and can't make an ankle tackle shortly after Davis makes the grab. After Hope's failed effort, there's nobody there to make the play.

OT 1-10-WAS 13 (13:26) 5-D.McNabb pass deep right to 47-C.Cooley pushed ob at WAS 39 for 26 yards (51-G.McRath).
EXPLANATION: McRath. Cooley runs a little crosser and turns it upfield and McRath's flailing around trying to follow him.

WEEK TWELVE
1Q 2-10-HOU 23 (9:08) 8-M.Schaub pass deep middle to 80-A.Johnson to HOU 44 for 21 yards (24-C.Hope, 33-M.Griffin).
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Complete on a deep in in man coverage.

4Q 3-10-HOU 5 (9:58) 23-A.Foster left tackle pushed ob at HOU 42 for 37 yards (31-C.Finnegan).
EXPLANATION: .5 Tulloch, .5 Griffin. Gap responsibility and discipline. Tulloch blows his area of responsibility trying to make a play once again, and fails (which is kind of the point of this series). Griffin has deep responsibility, but he's slow to react, has a worse angle to Foster because of it, and tries to bring him down in a failed horse collar. This would've been a decent gain even without those plays, but watching these mistakes is just incredibly frustrating.

WEEK THIRTEEN
3Q 1-10-JAC 31 (5:52) 9-D.Garrard pass short right to 89-M.Lewis pushed ob at TEN 49 for 20 yards (55-S.Tulloch).
EXPLANATION: Scheme. TE screen, and it's well-blocked and well-executed by the Jaguars. McRath stays at home and maintains his responsibility on Lewis, but gets blocked out of the play, which I can't ding him for. Maybe with all-22 I'd feel differently, but I don't see anybody I want to blame here.

4Q 2-9-JAC 35 (2:42) 32-M.Jones-Drew left tackle to TEN 28 for 37 yards (92-W.Witherspoon).
EXPLANATION: .5 Hope, .5 Griffin. An ugly capper to an ugly game for the Titans' defense. Hope has responsibility for MJD's cutback, and misses the tackle, then Griffin gets stiff-armed to the ground as he tries to make the tackle to stop him short of the first-down marker.

WEEK FOURTEEN
1Q 1-10-50 (6:11) 18-P.Manning pass deep middle to 85-P.Garcon to TEN 30 for 20 yards (24-C.Hope) [93-J.Babin].
EXPLANATION: Verner. Completion on an in in man coverage.

1Q 2-10-TEN 30 (5:27) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 18-P.Manning pass deep middle to 15-B.White to TEN 10 for 20 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: Verner. Completion in man coverage after Verner bites hard on a fake.

2Q 3-14-IND 37 (14:05) (Shotgun) 18-P.Manning pass deep left to 87-R.Wayne to TEN 13 for 50 yards (31-C.Finnegan).
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. Completion in man coverage after Cortland stumbles tring to fend off Wayne.

3Q 1-10-IND 46 (9:43) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 18-P.Manning pass deep left to 87-R.Wayne to TEN 8 for 46 yards (31-C.Finnegan).
EXPLANATION: .5 Finnegan, .5 scheme. Completion against Finnegan in man coverage. Finnegan was actually in pretty good position, but just a better throw. You need deep help to prevent that, and Finnegan didn't get it.

4Q 2-10-IND 25 (3:37) (No Huddle) 18-P.Manning pass short right to 85-P.Garcon pushed ob at TEN 32 for 43 yards (30-J.McCourty).
EXPLANATION: .5 McCourty, .5 Hope. Missed tackles on a quick slant resulting in a big play. Honorable mention to Griffin, who ALSO had a chance at Garcon before he got the first down, though not as good a chance as Hope or McCourty.

WEEK FIFTEEN
3Q 1-10-TEN 38 (12:00) 8-M.Schaub pass deep middle to 81-O.Daniels to TEN 15 for 23 yards (24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: Griffin. Completion in man coverage.

WEEK SIXTEEN
1Q 1-10-KC 31 (14:55) (Shotgun) 7-M.Cassel pass deep right to 82-D.Bowe to TEN 48 for 21 yards (24-C.Hope).
EXPLANATION: busted coverage. Chiefs motion McCluster out right behind a stack including Bowe. Both Finnegan and Tulloch bite hard on McCluster, leaving McRath in coverage against two guys. Not a winning combination. I'm not confident who should've been in coverage on Bowe after the adjustment that should've been made, so not blaming anybody.

2Q 3-19-KC 25 (7:30) (Shotgun) 7-M.Cassel pass deep middle to 82-D.Bowe for 75 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
EXPLANATION: .5 Finnegan, .5 Griffin. Completion in man coverage right in front of deep safety defender Griffin.

4Q 2-6-TEN 44 (4:25) 7-M.Cassel pass short right to 82-D.Bowe to TEN 17 for 27 yards (31-C.Finnegan).
EXPLANATION: Finnegan. A wing and a prayer and Bowe hauls the ball in and gets some more yardage. To his credit, Finnegan did not bite on the smoke pumpfake.

WEEK SEVENTEEN
3Q 1-10-TEN 30 (9:22) (Shotgun) 18-P.Manning pass deep right to 85-P.Garcon for 30 yards, TOUCHDOWN [93-J.Babin].
EXPLANATION: McCourty. Man coverage, and Garcon just runs by him. Deep safety help is not a reasonable expectation here.

4Q 2-10-IND 38 (1:20) (Shotgun) 18-P.Manning pass deep right to 15-B.White to TEN 42 for 20 yards (20-A.Verner).
EXPLANATION: Verner. Completion in man coverage on a corner route out of the slot.

Book Review: The Little League That Could

2011-03-26T22:49:00.000-05:00

Another short review this time.

Ken Rappoport's The Little League That Could: A History of the American Football League is a light and fairly readable run through the history of the AFL, from its founding by Lamar Hunt, Bud Adams, and friends up through the Chiefs' victory in Super Bowl IV. It hits the expected high points, with overviews of each of the championship games, draft wars with the NFL, the New Orleans All-Star Game boycott, the merger, and the Super Bowls.

Personally, I found it a little too light. The high points are hit, but I already knew about them from reading other books like America's Game and Going Long and the fantastic TV series that aired on NFL Network "Full Color Football," all of which I enthusiastically recommend, plus other books on the sidebar and other things I've read. I enjoyed reading Little League, but didn't get much out of it.

Index, no bibliography, list of interviews. Most valuable to people who know very little, if anything, about the AFL and its history. If you don't know much about the AFL and want to learn about it, though, you should read the other works I mentioned first, and if you do that, there's not much point in reading Little League.

Book Review: The Games That Changed the Game

2011-02-20T21:06:00.001-06:00

There was a troika of football strategy books that came out that fall. Having read and reviewed both Tim Layden's Blood, Sweat and Chalk and Pat Kirwan's Take Your Eye Off the Ball, I finally turned my attention to the one I'd actually anticipated the most, The Games That Changed the Game: The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays by Ron Jaworski, Greg Cosell, and David Plaut. Jaworski and Cosell are known for their work on ESPN's NFL Matchup show, and it's a good pairing for talking about more of the technical football stuff in a way that's accessible to those of us who never played the game at a high level (or, like yours truly, at all).

If you're interested in a more conventional sort of review of the book, I commend to you FO colleague Doug Farrar's view of the book and also the podcast Doug did with Greg Cosell. As is normally the case, my "review" will be more my ramblings and thoughts on the book and where it fits into the grand scheme of things.

Setting Kirwan's book aside, because I didn't like it very much, Games is clearly much more technical than Layden's Chalk. Whereas Chalk was much more the history of football evolution by storytime, Games goes more into the detail of what happened, and what sort of impact it had. Jaws et al focus on a single game in describing their innovation, and their innovation and the games are mostly well-chosen. The game that sort of sticks out is Super Bowl XXXVI, and Belichick's focus on hitting Marshall Faulk; gameplans designed to take away a single player's unique ability didn't exactly begin in 2002, and that sort of monomaniacal focus on a single player hasn't propagated itself the same way the West Coast Offense or the Zone Blitz has.

The focus on games is also an interesting one, and works both well and not so well. If you treat innovations more generally, as Layden does, you have to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of talking about the changes in more general terms and cherry-picking individual plays. Talking about individual games lets you drill down in more detail about what teams did and how they incorporated the changes into the whole rest of what was already going on. The Bears played maybe a third of the 1985 rout of the Cowboys in a 46 front-that's a lot, yes, but it's not like they did the same thing the entire game, and they had success both in the 46 and in their more conventional formations.

One downside of writing about individual games is you don't see how the specific changes themselves changed over time. Take, for instance, the chapter on the zone blitz. The instant game was against the Bills, and though the Steelers lost, center Kent Hull, who made all the line calls, talked about how the Bills' standard line calls were totally incapable of handling Dick LeBeau's innovation. Obviously teams did adjust and learn better how to deal with a zone blitz, but the focus on a single game doesn't, in my view, do a particularly good job of handling the changes that are more transitory like the 46 with the ones that are more persistent, like the zone blitz which exists in pretty much the same form 18 years later. Obviously, this is part of the tradeoff in deciding how you're going to structure a book.

One note of caution: as mentioned above, this is a more technical sort of book than Layden's. Football books mostly tend to go to one of two extremes: the hard-core coaching manuals, which normally feature a lot of jargon and aren't designed to be accessible to the casual fan, and most books written for a popular audience, which I like to describe as not being about football at all but instead about people who happen to do football for a living. I'd say Games is aimed at the more serious casual fan, the kind of person who watches NFL MatchUp. There are a couple diagrams per chapter, but they talk about a number of plays in each game just in written form, without diagrams. I generally didn't have an issue following them, but I had to concentrate more on those passages to get a better understanding of what's going on. I also have some experience writing about that myself, which I think makes it easier, and am more of a hardcore fan who voluntarily reads stuff like that. If you're not a serious football fan, Chalk is the better, more accessible book.

There are a few places I could go with some of the strategic stuff, but I think those are best explored in other posts at another time. This review also probably comes off as a little too critical. I really enjoyed reading Games, and it had a lot of good content. That said, it's not for everybody, and isn't at the same level of insight as more general and comprehensive books like New Thinking Man's Guide or One Knee Equals Two Feet, or the closest thing to a modern equivalent, More Than a Game (which I still need to re-read and write a review for). Strongly recommended to those who think they'd enjoy it.

UPDATE (5/25/11 2244 CT): For an alternative take, see Chris Brown of Smart Football.

Book Review: The Ultimate Super Bowl Book

2011-02-05T21:50:00.000-06:00

Sitting on my shelf for the past year and change has been The Ultimate Super Bowl Book by Bob McGinn, and with the Steelers and Packers squaring off tomorrow, I thought I'd finally get round to reading it. Having done so, it's time to write a review.

Ultimate Super Bowl Book is really forty-three chapters, one on each of Super Bowls I through XLIII, plus random lists of superlatives scattered throughout, generally in a relevant place. That something is a collection of connected associated material rather than an actual book is a common complaint of mine in my reviews, but here it's perfectly appropriate. Ultimate Super Bowl Book is really a reference work rather than a book, and it's perfectly fine for it as what it is. In putting together the chapters, McGinn did an impressive amount of research, interviewing no fewer than four people associated with every single Super Bowl and reading enough about them to tell a coherent story about each one. Each chapter also includes a full box score, plus the starting lineup and lists of reserves for every game, which is very useful information that is not collected in any single book I have. My one complaint about the information is that each game has list of scoring plays, but as in the case in P-F-R's box scores, the time of each scoring play is not listed.

One interesting thing that comes out occasionally is the recriminations players or coaches have about how things came out. You hear the obvious stories, about Rams players angry at Mike Martz for not running the ball enough against the Patriots, but they're a common story. Take, for instance, the five Super Bowls preceding that game:
XXXI (GB-NE): Bill Parcells leaving the Patriots screwing up preparations;
XXXII (GB-DEN): Holmgren's failure to adjust protections, letting the Broncos score in part because of a down mixup, and calling a rarely-used play on the crucial fourth-down call at the end;
XXXIII (ATL-DEN): Eugene Robinson's arrest and subsequent decision to play him;
XXXIV (STL-TEN): Titans offensive coordinator Les Steckel throwing Kevin Dyson under the bus for running his route at the wrong depth; and
XXXV (BAL-NYG): Giants defensive players blaming coordinator John Fox for unnecessarily complicated defensive calls against an unthreatening offense.
Obviously, pretty much any game story could include these kinds of recriminations, but the seem more prevalent in this book than they normally are. Mind you, this isn't a criticism of McGinn's work, more a comment about what my impression was.

One other note is I read it in fits and starts over about a week. It's a much more enjoyable read browsing a chapter or two at a time than trying to read through in chunks. I can't see myself ever reading it straight through again, but it will be on my end table tomorrow during the game and I can easily see myself picking it up whenever I need or want to read more about any non-recent Super Bowl. Recommended for what it is.

Book Review: Houston Oilers: The Early Years

2011-01-23T21:25:00.000-06:00

Short review this time.

In Houston Oilers: The Early Years, Kevin Carroll tells the story of just that, the early years of the Houston Oilers. The book concentrates heavily on that inaugural season of 1960, with the remaining third-plus on the second season of 1961, so when the book says "the early years," it means it. The book is primarily an oral history-not explicitly so a la Going Long, but the content is based heavily on interviews with the living former Oilers (published in 2001, so the number of them is undoubtedly smaller now). The book is divided into a series of chapters covering games and former players, and takes you that the two seasons.

The book is competently done, but I was never particularly enthralled by it and it took me more time to finish it than I expected it would, simply because I never felt myself compelled to read more of it. I was never particularly engaged, and you don't get the same sort of broader perspective in The Early Years you do reading the sections of Oiler Blues covering the same time period. I'd say it's similar to That First Season, only it feels less professionally-done. For Oilers die-hards only, and optional even in that category.

Book Review: Rough Magic

2010-12-31T22:47:00.001-06:00

Another book about college football, another book listed by an ESPN college football reporter as one of his five. Last time, it was Meat on the Hoof, recommended by Gene Wojciechowski, while this time it's Rough Magic: Bill Walsh's Return to Stanford Football by Lowell Cohn, recommended by Ivan Maisel.

In Rough Magic, Cohn tells the story of the 1992 Stanford Cardinal, the first year of Walsh's second tenure as head coach at Stanford. At the time, Cohn was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Walsh granted him almost unlimited access to the team and coaching staff to, well, chronicle the year for the book. Call it another example of the Breaks of the Game model. I was worried Maisel, a Stanford alum, was overrating a book about his alma mater, but thought Cohn did an excellent job of giving a portrait of a coach and his team. Make no mistake, this not a book about a team like John Feinstein tried to make Next Man Up, but instead about a coach and his team.

Full credit goes to Cohn for using his access very well, and to his good fortune Stanford ended up having a good and interesting season. Expectations were fairly low, but the Cardinal ended up going 10-3, including a bowl win over Penn State. Interestingly given Walsh's reputation as an offensive guru, Stanford that year was driven more by its defense than the passing game, as the offensive line struggled to block for QB Steve Stenstrom, who also didn't cotton on as quickly as Walsh hoped to the complicated passing offense.

I really enjoyed reading Rough Magic, but as I think back to it I'm not sure quite how valuable reading it was. I felt like I already sort of knew Walsh from The Genius, in particular, and the impression I got from Walsh was consistent with the Bill Walsh I felt like I already knew. The portrait is definitely more detailed than a full-life bio like Harris's book, but I'm not sure it's interestingly different. That said, I can't think offhand of any other Breaks-style books on a single year of a college team, and Cohn does tell that story as well in a slightly less-complete fashion.

Rough Magic only covers the 1992 season, and does not cover the 4-7 and 3-7-1 1993 and 1994 Stanford seasons when Walsh's less college-oriented background and assistant coaches may have been more of an issue.

Recommended to people who think they'd enjoy it.

Book Review: Meat on the Hoof

2010-12-19T00:14:00.002-06:00

I must admit I was not familiar with Gary Shaw's Meat on the Hoof until I saw that Rex Ryan recommended it (though it was mentioned in this Howie Long profile by Dr. Z). Now that I've read it, I can see why Gene Wojciechowski would include it on a list of the top books on college football.

Meat on the Hoof is the story of Shaw's experience playing (practicing, primarily) for Darrell Royal's University of Texas Longhorns football team beginning in the fall of 1963. The "meat" of the title refers to Shaw and his fellow football players, as they were winnowed out from the opening intake to the smaller number who'd actually see the field for the Longhorns varsity.

That winnowing process was, at least back in those days, the result of a simple numbers game. Texas, per SWC rules, could give out 100 football scholarships. A class like Shaw's would have 45 freshman, of whom 40 would be redshirted. Obviously Texas couldn't recruit and keep 45 players every year with a 100-scholarship limitation. To make room for the new meat, the Texas coaches essentially conducted psychological (and physical) warfare on the players, turning football into a struggle of persistence and will over body. The winners were those who could sublimate physical pain and continue to perform, and the healthy. The losers were those whose desire or physical ability didn't measure up to the coaches' standards, and the injured.

The injured are a particular point of concern in Shaw's book. The clearly seriously injured were perhaps the best off: they went off to do rehab and seemed to disappear from the thoughts and minds of the coaches. Those not clearly seriously injured were the worse off, as a seemingly key part of the winnowing process was systematically denying medical attention to anybody except a varsity first- or second-stringer who'd already passed through the winnowing process. That deaths were not a more regular occurrence was part fortune, part a testament to the durability of the human body, and part the result of players reaching a point where they decided they had to go outside the bounds of the football team to get medical attention.

The situation was even worse for those lower on the depth chart. Slip below the fourth team, and you were excluded from the regular practice and sent to run "shit drills." Keeping in mind the numbers game, players down that far were, in that merciless logic, an active drain upon the football team's scarce resources. They couldn't be simply be cut, by the rules, so the "shit drills" were designed to force them to cut themselves, particularly by running what Shaw describes as drills whose sole intent seemingly was to create injury-causing violent collisions.

However it happened, injured players disappeared from the scene; like those deemed physically or mentally not strong enough, they were removed from the boundaries of the team. The coaches removed them from their universe, and the remaining players, whom the coaches praised and demeaned in what Shaw portrays primarily as psychological motivating tactics rather than critiques of talent and technique, followed their leaders' examples, shunning their former friends.

At the top of the pyramid was the man Shaw refers to as Daddy D, Darrell K. Royal himself. DKR was an Olympian figure to whom the players were simply meat. His personal charm and political skills, and particularly time off the practice field, were reserved for those over whom he did not have complete authority: recruits, parents of recruits and current and former players, and boosters. That authority was exercised at a remove: in seemingly arbitrary shifts of the depth chart, and by the passel of assistant coaches who actually spent time with the players in smaller group settings, almost all of whom were cut from the same mold as the man himself.

Reading Meat, I expected it to end like Scott Turow's One-L, in which the author tells his story but leaves out that he was one of the elite few who triumphed over the others. Shaw does indeed make it farther than most, but not to the end. After missing most of his junior season with a shoulder injury, he returns and is assigned to the thankless task of scout team duties, at which point he decides he's had enough, and joins the more than two-thirds of the rest of his class in leaving the football team before exhausting his eligibility (and generally the university as a whole as well).

While the players officially were entitled to their scholarship for their entire tenure, the numbers game meant the coaches were never eager to remind them of that fact, and so players tended to give up their scholarship and schooling when they left the football team. The psychological work done by the coaches plays a role here as well: many players considered themselves football players first, second, and third, and college students maybe fourth, and without football, being a student wasn't always sufficiently fulfilling.

Shaw did not seem to have a particularly happy adult life after the publication of Meat in 1972, being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and spending a decade on the streets. His main legacy now is the book he wrote, so what should we think of it?

We're now close to a half century removed from Shaw's freshman season, and obviously there have been big changes since then. Players look a lot different: his UT team was all-white, and there aren't many 6', 196-pound defensive tackles playing major college football these days. We may condemn Nick Saban for over-signing, but the 25 man/year and 85-total scholarship limitations mean anything he (and others) do in running off players is small potatoes compared to what Texas (and, to be fair to Royal, other high-profile programs) did. At the same time, though, the cult of manliness still rules college football, and still takes a regular toll. As a non-player, I really can't say one way or the other, but will only note that stories like Shaw's make me as a fan deeply uncomfortable about football as a whole and extraordinarily glad I went to a high school and college where football was not a factor and leave it at that.

Recommended to those who think they'd enjoy it.

Book Review: Da Bears!

2010-11-12T23:49:00.001-06:00

Da Bears! : How the 1985 Monsters of the Midway Became the Greatest Team in NFL History by Steve Delsohn is exactly what you'd expect from the subtitle: a look at one of the greatest teams in NFL history, the 1985 Chicago Bears, a quarter-century after their season.

Unlike my immediately previous book review I don't feel the need to expound at length about the subject covered. Delsohn read all the books he should have, talked to the people he should have who were willing to talk to him, and wrote a light but quite entertaining book about the Super Bowl XX champs.

I didn't notice many nits to pick. The score of the first game of that 1985 season first appears correctly as a 28-17 halftime deficit to the Buccaneers, then later appears incorrectly several times with the Bucs having 24 points. Ditka in his discussion of McMahon refers to a costly interception against the Vikings which probably was actually thrown by Jim Harbaugh in this game-it's fairly famous Bear lore, as Harbaugh audibled into a pick-6 that led to the Bears blowing a 20-0 4th quarter lead and Ditka was fired after the Bears went from 11-5 to 5-11.* Yes, it's Ditka's fallible memory, but it's still Delsohn's fault it's in the book.

Anyway, if you have fond memories of the '85 Bears or what to know what the excitement was all about, Delsohn's book is an engaging and quick read about one of the most memorable teams in NFL history.

*-Obviously, how a team goes from 11-5 to 5-11 is much more complicated than a single interception, but we're talking about lore here.

Book Review: Death to the BCS

2010-11-06T17:06:00.006-05:00

In Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan, in case you weren't clear from the book's title, we learn that the BCS is responsible for virtually all of the problems that plague college football. These include:

1. Teams actually don't make very much money off going to bowl games, partly because teams are required to buy a lot of tickets they often have trouble selling. Partly because of this, athletic departments are not profitable.
2. Bowl games are profitable, partly because teams are required to buy a lot of tickets they often have trouble selling, and don't give money to charity even though they're non-profits.
3. Bowl games would too still continue to exist even after a playoff.
4. The BCS inevitably screws some team.
5. Teams schedule weak non-conference opponents (non-BCS teams and I-AA) because the BCS promotes winning over a competitive schedule and because they want to win 6 games to be bowl eligible.
6. The regular season would too still continue to be really important even after a playoff.
7. The computer rankings as used by the BCS are nonsense math.
8. Poll voters are bad because Harris Poll voters don't necessarily even watch college football and coaches vote in their own interest.
9. Lots more people would totally watch a playoff, partly because ESPN's College GameDay has promoted the sport as a whole.
10. The BCS was created and run by a cartel of the power conferences, which hates non-power conferences.
11. Going back to the old system of bowl tie-ins would be a bad idea.
12. A 16-team playoff, with early round games at home sites, would be a huge money-earner and is obviously the right way to go.

The book is full of righteous indignation, and seems to be addressed to those who have an immediate negative reaction to the BCS. There are a couple chapters, like one on "superfans" and the one on "GameDay" that don't really feel like they add to the argument.

The big issue is, is their argument convincing? Do they make a good case that (a) the BCS should die, and (b) should be replaced by a 16-team playoff? To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, I think the BCS was created and continues as a reasonable compromise designed to address the problems created by bowl lock-in relationships preventing more desirable matchups but still keeping the historic and valued bowl system.

I. The Problem of a "Playoff"
The BCS, as currently constituted, is essentially a two-team playoff with a bunch of trappings. The trappings (the other BCS games) exist because they were needed as inducements to bring together the parties needed to create and maintain without defections a two-team playoff.

Wetzel et al. prefer a 16-team playoff including the conference champions of the 11 I-A conferences (the 6 "Cartel" conferences and the 5 others), plus 5 other teams chosen by a selection committee. They don't explain their proposed playoff in huge detail, but seem to prefer the first three rounds at home sites for the higher-ranked team with a national championship game at the Rose Bowl.*

*-Just to give a flavor of Death, they mention "Even an old Ohio State fan ... sees the allure of Pasadena hosting the national-title game" (184). Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ohio State is a Big 10 member, and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena is where the Big 10 has historically sent its conference champion. If you asked me to pick where a fan of any B10 team would prefer a national championship game, I'd guess at least 95% would say the Rose Bowl. A better, more interesting question is where an SEC fan would prefer the national championship game; my guess is New Orleans, home of the Sugar Bowl, would be the majority call, but Wetzel et al. are content to simply point out our Ohio State fan prefers Pasadena and leave it at that.

The ideal number of teams in a playoff is a question without an obvious answer. Obviously, Division I-AA has a 16-team playoff similar to what Wetzel contemplates. If you look at other leagues, most of them have had different playoff formats over time.

The NHL has had a 16-team playoff for a while, but previously conducted four four-team playoffs for each of its divisions before switching to 8 teams per conference with guaranteed top-3 seeds for the division winners.
Major league baseball previously had two divisions per league, a league championship series between the two division winners (even if one division winner had a worse record than several teams in the other division), and the World Series between the two LCS winners before switchng to its current two leagues, three divisions per league plus one wild card format.
The NFL since the AFL-NFL merger has gone from 4 playoff teams per conference with one wild card to 5 and then to 6, and for 1970-89 had a rule in place that a division winner could not face a wild card from the same division before the conference championship game.
The NCAA basketball tournament has gone from 16 to 65 teams and from conference champions and at large teams not in a conference only to guaranteed berths for conference champions and at large teams from a general pool.

So, obviously, there is no obvious ideal and universal playoff format. These formats do have one thing in common: at the end of the playoff, they crown a champion.

The issue with a 2-team playoff as opposed to a 10, or 12, or 65 team playoff is that the team is guaranteed to be among the N-best teams as determined by the playoff method. I'll get to the method of determining the "best" team later, but the pretty inevitable result of a 16-team playoff is a team not among the 5 "best" teams in the country will win the national championship. A good example of this has been the NFL-the last team rated #1 in DVOA to win the Super Bowl was the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and it's not particularly unusual for a team to make or win the Super Bowl over a team that was clearly far superior to it-the most recent example of this is Super Bowl XLII, when the Giants beat the Patriots and were awarded the championship, even though the Patriots (a) won 6 more games than the Giants did in the regular season, and (b) defeated the Giants on the road in the regular season.

A probably even better example has been the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Despite the last three years, when arguably the #1 team in the country won the championship every year, you only have to go back to 2006 when a team not ranked by the Selection Committee among the country's top 8 won the championship.

In that way, college football's 2-team playoff has been, at least in my eyes, an interesting and pleasant exception: the champion is guaranteed to be among the two best teams in the country according to the selection criteria. Yes, that eliminates the possibility of the enthralling upset, but as I've described it's a trade-off.

Beyond the inevitability of an mediocre champion, the other problem Wetzel's proposed 16-team playoff has is the inability to include every team that could win the championship. W/r/t the NCAA basketball championship, a 65-team tournament and the ability to play 6 games in 3 weeks and 34 at-large teams means every team capable of winning the tournament is in the tournament; I'd estimate that the top 40 teams in the country are guaranteed to all be in the tournament. A 16-team playoff's smaller size, only 5 at-large teams, and conference championship games that may knock out a conference's best team, likely means that between 8 and 12 of the 12 "best" teams in the country would be included in a 16-team playoff.

Wetzel of course uses the 2009 season as proof this is a parade of horribles, and the actual highest-ranked (by AP) team they exclude is #14-ranked BYU. That depends, though, on 8 auto-bids in the top 10, which is not inevitable. A better example may be 2002, when only 5 auto-bids went to teams in the top 12.

The other thing a larger playoff does that Wetzel et al. don't acknowledge is it doesn't stop the debate about which teams should make the playoffs, it merely shifts the debate. The marginal team, instead of Oklahoma over USC in 2003, becomes LSU over BYU in 2009, but the same debates still apply. Unless I missed it, at no point do Wetzel et al. ever acknowledge this point.

II. Bowl Economics
Bowls occupy their privileged place in the college football postseason primarily because of historical inertia. They were initially created as essentially exhibition games, and were typically ignored in the polls until the late 1960's. Because they existed, and provided a valuable data point in comparing teams that were generally tough to compare, pollsters started incorporating them in their rankings. But because the bowls existed, there was never a strong push to create an NCAA-sanctioned postseason the way there was with other sports, simply because the most important teams wouldn't have been better off.

The most effective part of Death was just how much of the money from the bowl games stays with the bowl organizing committees. This is partially the result of a weird economic hybrid-some of the value of the bowl games, especially the more prominent ones, derives from their historical value, but some of it is obviously attributable to the historical ties of the games. Take, for instance, the Rose Bowl: how much of the value of the Rose Bowl brand belongs to the Rose Bowl organizers, and how much belongs to the Pac-10 and Big 10? The right answer here isn't obvious to me, and I think part of their outrage is over the top-a good bit of the Rose Bowl brand value, which belongs to the Rose Bowl and not the competing teams, is a result of the historical value accrued by the Rose Bowl organizing committee, and so it makes sense that the bowl keeps a portion of its provided value. Not that I need to tell you, but this sort of non-obvious nuance isn't to be found in Death.

Actually, probably more effective than how much money stays with the bowl organizing committee is the way payouts really work. This information isn't entirely novel, but essentially a bowl payout of $X includes $Y in expenses for the school. It's possible in some circumstances, depending on the bowl, for Y to be greater than X, especially if you look at it on a team-specific case.* In addition to $Y that's part of $X, schools also $Z in related expenses, like coaching bonuses.

*-Individual teams divide their bowl payout at the conference level, rather than keeping all of it. Wetzel "shows" that Florida's appearance in the 2009 BCS Championship Game only earned the school $47,000, despite the advertised $17.5 million payout. This isn't entirely untrue, but isn't entirely forthright either:
1. All bowl revenues are divided among the entire conference, so UF's revenue isn't bumped by as much as you'd expect from going to the BCSCG.
2. The BCSCG doesn't pay as much as it should based on how valuable it is compared to even the other BCS bowls.
Both revenue distributions are exactly what you'd expect if you were looking at a system designed not to for a single team to perform like gangbusters in its most successful year but rather to be successful for more teams over a bigger number of conferences.

A related point is that Wetzel et al. seem very confused by not-for-profits. To a corporate lawyer, the key difference between not-for-profits and regular for-profit entities is that for-profit entities are under an obligation to maximize shareholder value, while not-for-profits are instead obligated to pursue their mission. There are two points of contention here:
1. The bowls, by talking about their not-for-profit status, make people think they're good and wonderful charitable organizations, but don't give as much money to charity as you'd expect from the impression they give. It's a useful talking point for the book, but I rolled my eyes. Approximately nobody, including all charities, gives as much money to charity and charitable causes, as they talk about.
2. Athletic departments don't maximize profits. Instead, they tend to value more highly the prestige of their sports teams. Among other things, this favors bringing as many people, whether team members, band members, athletic department employees, sponsors, donors, and the like, as your bowl game permits. I'm sure part of the reason Florida only made $47,000 in profit from their BCSCG appearance was because the traveling party was larger and spent more lavishly than would have been the case if they'd gone to, say, the Music City Bowl.

If athletic departments really cared about maximizing revenue, they'd have as few non-revenue sports as they could, lobby the NCAA and the conferences to decrease the number of non-revenue sports they have to have*, and fund sports, especially the non-revenue ones, as meanly as possible. They comprehensively don't do this, in some cases quite the opposite. I'm pretty sure I know some of the reasons why, but Wetzel et al. don't acknowledge any of the unclear priorities. The not-for-profit status of athletic departments also explains why schools aren't completely eager to embrace a higher-revenue 16-team playoff, and why only 12 athletic departments turn a profit, and many others are reimbursed by a school's general fund.**

*-See this WSJ article (PDF) on the differing approaches between Texas and Ohio State.
**-Because they can.

III. Non-Conference Scheduling
Teams schedule non-power conference teams and I-AA teams, we are told, because (i) the BCS rewards teams for winning a lot of games and (ii) getting to 6 wins is important for bowl eligibility. Oddly for a book focused on teams being stupid and money-grubbing, what I see as the most important reason teams do that is never mentioned in the chapter: it's revenue-enhancing for the teams involved and college football as a whole.

Here's a hypothetical example. The dollar amounts are approximates, but the details are generally right and that's all that matters for this example.
Scenario 1: Ohio State plays Toledo, and Texas plays Wyoming.
Ohio State pays, e.g., Toledo, e.g., $750,000 to play one game at Ohio Stadium. Ohio State earns, let's say, $2.75 million off a home game. They pay $750k to Toledo and walk away with $2 million. Texas schedules Wyoming to play one game in Austin, pays them $750k for a home game, earns the same $2.75 million, and walks away with the same $2 million net.
Scenario 2: Ohio State plays Texas, and Toledo plays Wyoming.
Ohio State and Texas decide to play a home-and-away. That's how this normally works. I'm less sure of this works, but let's say to help even out revenue from year-to-year, Texas and Ohio State each give the other $1 million when they go to the other team. Let's say Texas and Ohio State earn a little more in TV revenue, so instead of $2.75 million for the home game, they earn $3 million. Meanwhile, Toledo and Wyoming play each other; I'm not sure what the numbers here quite look like, but let's say it's $750k in revenue and a $250k payment to the other team.

In that case, here's your bottom line financial picture for one year of each series:
Scenario 1: Ohio State earns $2 million, Texas earns $2 million, Toledo earns $750k, and Wyoming earns $750k. Total revenue: $5.5 million.
Scenario 2: Ohio State earns $2 million, Texas earns $1 million, Toledo earns $500k, and Wyoming earns $250k. Total revenue: $3.75 million.
That is your bottom line: it simply does not make financial sense for individual marquee teams to play other marquee teams on a regular basis in non-conference play. The only explanations I can come up with for Wetzel et al.'s failure to mention that in their chapter on non-conference scheduling are: (a) they don't know that and are therefore incompetent, or (b) they do know that and are deliberately withholding that extraordinarily important (to me) fact and are therefore mendacious.

The other problem with this chapter is, well, it's actually wrong. Non-conference scheduling HAS in fact mattered a great deal in making BCS decisions. Oklahoma making the Big XII championship game over Texas (and Texas Tech) in 2008 because they had a higher BCS ranking was partially the result of Oklahoma's superior non-conference scheduling (and actually winning those games). Ditto the Sooners making the title game over Auburn in 2004.

It was at this point in the book (Chap. 9, pp. 91-100) that I threw down Death for perhaps the sixth time and view to stop reading it. I decided, however, that before I declared a trio of national journalists to be either incompetent or mendacious, I should finish reading the book.

IV. Determining the Best Team
One of the recurring problems that Wetzel et al. consistently deal with, but never address directly is the difficulty of determining the best team. The closest they get here is in their chapter on how awful the computer rankings are and the chapter on the Harris Poll voters, but the real problem is something else:

JOURNALISTS ARE BAD AT PICKING THE BEST TEAM, BUT DON'T CARE BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN THE ONES WHO'VE DONE IT.

Okay, that's probably a little strong. Here's the more nuanced story:
1. The national champion in college football has historically been the team ranked #1 in the AP poll.
2. The voters in the AP poll are journalists, most of whom cover a single college football team's games every Saturday. They watch more college football than most people, but less than many hardcore college football fans.
3. When the BCS was created, the powers-that-be (SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer being the main driving force) created a hybrid formula composed of the most famous computer rankings and the human polls (AP and coaches).
4. Any time the BCS formula produced a BCS Championship Game with teams other than AP #1 and #2, the AP pollsters threw a tremendous hissy fit and the BCS formula was adjusted so that in future years that exact case would produce a BCSCG with AP #1 and #2, even though the instant result was never clearly wrong.
5. The flaws of the Harris Poll Wetzel et al. point out aren't really a problem, because of the anchoring effect created by the AP poll. Ditto also the non-problem not solved by not doing the Harris Poll until October; there will still be preseason rankings and in-season rankings done by various people, and until those are outlawed (or fixed, to the extent such a thing may be possible), the Harris Poll cannot be truly fixed.
6. At no point do Wetzel et al. mention all of the well-known problems with the results of polling, most notably poll inertia where teams that win rise and teams that lose fall. An individual weekly poll is almost always the result of poll momentum, not a comprehensive rating of the relative strength of the teams in the poll.

The "solution" they advocate is the creation of a selection committee. This is something I'd advocated myself in the past, because it's a back-door way of creating legitimacy with journalists any time you have a result other than What The AP Poll Says. I'm skeptical this will actually work, given that, as noted above, journalists are incompetent whiners who've been important historically. Why exactly Wetzel et al. want a selection committee and what sort of criteria this selection committee would use is left clear as mud; I have no clue if they recognize just how bad the human polls are, or if they skate around the topic without mentioning it directly because they don't see or believe that the human polls are bad. Without a clear statement that the selection committee should completely ignore the polls the way the men's basketball selection committee does, a selection committee is not in my mind much of an improvement.

UPDATE #2: I realized that I neglected to write in more detail about the BCS's use of the computer rankings. There are two problems here. First, Richard Billingsley's rankings are included because Billingsley's been ranking college football teams since the late 1960's even though Billingsley's ranking system is insane. Second, the computer rankings have been neutered by removing margin of victory because including margin of victory was blamed for producing results other than AP#1 v. AP#2. The BCS isn't interested in good computer rankings because the pollsters are only interested in good rankings if the good rankings agree with the pollster rankings.

V. The "Cartel"
The Cartel is how Wetzel et al. refer to the power conferences that were responsible for the creation of the BCS and are the primary beneficiaries of the BCS.

The power conferences also have the primary allegiance of almost all fans of most college football, had all of the most important bowl tie-ins, perennially have most to almost all of the best 10, 20, and 40 teams, and in short provide substantially all of the value. Death mentions the memorable 2007 Fiesta Bowl game between Oklahoma and Boise State; what they don't mention is that game got horrible television ratings. The TCU-Boise State Fiesta Bowl this year actually had non-terrible ratings (that was the Iowa-Georgia Tech Orange Bowl), but both those teams were undefeated and have had a decent run of recent success. That's the same reason the BCS conferences control the BCS: they've had historical success and the large alumni bases that can deliver television ratings points. That's where the value is, and that's why the control the BCS. Weird how control follows money, though that's maybe the corporate lawyer in me again.

VI. Quick Hits

Wetzel et al. treat the 16-team playoff as though it's a novel concept, even though it's the only feasible playoff if you abandon the bowl system.
The best argument for a 16-team playoff is one they don't make, namely the lack of connectedness in college football and concomitant difficulty in comparing teams across conferences makes it impossible to identify the best teams, so we'll done as well as we can and hope for the best, and that's a 16-team playoff.
Minor bowls would become completely meaningless in a playoff, and sponsors and television would be less willing to pay enough to keep them viable. Some of them, probably 10-25 of the extant 36 or so, would die if a 16-team playoff were implemented.
Individual regular season games would, I believe, see their ratings decline. This LSU-Alabama game I'm watching is a de facto BCSCG elimination game for both teams. If it's not even a playoff eliminating game, which would be quite possible under a 16-team playoff, I'm probably watching stuff off my DVR instead. This underrating of the casual fan most interested in the most important games is persistent throughout Death.
Even the traditional bowl system was less popular than the NFL; this can be seen by comparing even pre-BCS ratings to NFL games played the previous or subsequent day. A college football playoff will not match the ratings of the NFL's playoffs.
Nobody aside from former Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen thinks going back to the old bowl tie-in system would be better than the BCS, and Hansen probably would get rid of the internet and maybe even the telephone as new-fangled inventions of dubious value.
Housekeeping notes: I call them I-A and I-AA and the Big 10 because I want to, and know and don't care that they're officially otherwise ("FBS", "FCS", and "Big Ten" respectively). I-AA is also consistent with Death, not that that's a positive indicator. I also got tired of typing "Wetzel et al.", so read that any time it just says "Wetzel."
The revenue split from a 16-team playoff is not addressed.

Conclusion
Anyway, I've ranted enough. I've hit some topics Wetzel et al. didn't cover quite the same way I did, and haven't hit every topic they did, but I think I've given you a brief overview of my thoughts on why Wetzel et al. have written a bad book you shouldn't read. Emphatically not recommended.

See also the book's website and the book's twitter feed if you want to see more of what they have to say, not that I recommend doing so. See also Joe Posnanski's review, the least bad that I saw. Posnanski also gave BCS executive director Bill Hancock space to respond, not that he uses it particularly well (or could, for political reasons).

UPDATE (11/6 1742 CT): Doing some minor cleanup and proofreading; one point of order: it was pointed out to me that the normal reason for CFB not playing on Jan. 1 was because it was a Sunday, not because of the NFL conflict. Fair enough, so I've revised that bullet point to reflect CFB's lower ratings compared to NFL games the next or previous day.
UPDATE #2 (11/13 0015 CT): I finally made it through and re-read the review with clear eyes, and cleared up a few times where I'd had the wrong word and some grammar/readability issues. I also added a paragraph on the computer rankings in determining the best team (marked UPDATE #2) which I neglected to include in the initial post.
UPDATE #3 (9/1/11 1116 CT): Some numbers courtesy of MGoBlog suggesting the revenue cost of giving up a home came is in the neighborhood of $3.9 million.

Total Titans

2010-10-31T23:05:00.001-05:00

Some catchup on what I've written on Total Titans of late:

Yesterday, I wrote about two myths regarding the Titans' run offense.

I wrote about field position and the Titans' offensive success, which is something I'd written about in the offseason.

I liveblogged the Titans-Jaguars MNF contest.

With today's loss to the Chargers, the Titans now don't play for another two weeks because of the bye. During that time, I plan to write one or more posts at Total Titans covering in some more detail the Titans' struggling run game. Unless I get lazy and don't, which has a small but non-zero chance of happening. I also have a goodly number of bookmarks to sort through, some of which I might blog about at some point during the next two weeks. I'm also continuing to read football books-I should in November finish at least the three I've been averaging over the quarter, with reviews of those appearing at the proper time.

Book Review: God & Football

2010-10-24T00:52:00.001-05:00

For God & Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC, Chad Gibbs decided to undergo a season long tour and see a home football game for every SEC team during the 2009 season. If that sounds slightly familiar, well, it should, since that's exactly the conceit behind Clay Travis's Dixieland Delight, written about the 2006 season.* Of course, Gibbs couldn't just write Dixieland Delight Version 2, By Some Other Guy, which meant he had to find a separate hook.

That hook, as you might guess from the title and subtitle, is that the SEC just happens to be located in the South, where 84% of the population self-identifies as Christian. How do Christians like Gibbs square their devotion to their alma mater's gridiron achievements (or lack thereof, see, e.g., Vanderbilt and Kentucky). For his tour, Gibbs spends his time meeting with students who are part of organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ and speaking with local preachers, many of whom tend to be just as fanatic in their football devotions as Gibbs and just as conflicted as he.

As far as hooks go, I am none too religious by personal avocation, so the conflict Gibbs writes about is one I don't personally feel. Nor, I admit, did I find it deeply insightful into other areas. There are no great answers at the end of this book, which I view as being primarily because there really aren't any great and easy answers, and there shouldn't be.

Given that, how does it compare to Dixieland Delight? Travis's book was much more a tale of drunken debauchery, because that's more who Travis is and not who Gibbs is (at least in terms of their authorial presentation). Like Travis, Gibbs is a generally pretty good writer and God & Football does have some amusing moments, though I recall Dixieland Delight being more consistently funny. I did, however, get cranky at Gibbs occasionally, for joking references to the reader to look things up on the internet if they wanted to know something, or (and yes, I freely admit this may be me being cranky) calling a piece of music the 2001 theme (it's called "Also Sprach Zarathustra", which even a cultural philistine like me knows). Travis's book also benefited from more "recurring" characters, as he tended to travel to games with people he already knew. Gibbs does attend games with his college roommate and his wife, but, as mentioned, he's meeting with the local religious establishment, and they're simply not on stage and don't have enough of a relationship with the author for any sort of distinctiveness to stand out.

Anyway, now is the point at which I tend to say something about who should read the book. Unusually, I don't have what feels like a suitable pithy recommendation and will simply state res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. I guess I should also note I read God & Football as a library rental, and there are a couple typos, only one of which bothered me (Ole Miss QB Jevan Snead is referred to as "Javon" at one point).

For more on Gibbs and God & Football, see his website. He's also on twitter. If you want to read the book and talk about it, he has a list of discussion questions for each chapter posted on that website.

*-Unless I missed it (and I did look), at no point do the phrases "Clay Travis" or "Dixieland Delight" appear in God & Football. I'd be extraordinarily surprised to learn Gibbs hadn't read and been inspired by Travis, and if he didn't know Delight (published in 2007) existed before writing this book, he didn't do his book prep properly.

Book Review: The Ones Who Hit the Hardest

2010-10-20T22:56:00.000-05:00

Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne's The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the Fight for America's Soul is perhaps the least satisfying book I've reviewed on here to date. That's not to say it's the worst book on the list, because it's not, but a book actually on the 1970's Steelers, the 1970's Cowboys, their rivalry, and in the broader context of the U.S. in the 1970's could have been a very interesting book.

Rather, we get about 175 pages on the Steelers of the 1970's, 50 pages on the Cowboys of the 1970's, and 50 pages on the United Steelworkers Association's history of the 1970's, focusing on the election of 1976. I may have thought Perfect Rivals was slanted toward Notre Dame, but Carroll tried to write a book that treated both schools fairly. Coyne and Millman, by contrast, make no such pretense; despite the subtitle, this is book about the Steelers of the 1970's with other stuff thrown in, apparently because people are incapable of reading more than 20 or so pages about the Steelers at a time without digressing into another topic.

The USWA portions are particularly disappointing; they had some interesting challenges, and there can be a real and valid debate as to the extent to which a union can and should cooperate with and challenge the main employer(s). In fact we've seen this debate in the NFLPA, with Gene Upshaw criticized by some sources for being too cooperative with the NFL and Paul Tagliabue. De Smith, at least in rhetoric, has cut a very different image, but how much of that is the uncertain labor situation and how much truly is a different attitude is another question. The problem is, aside from the USWA being headquartered in Pittsburgh, its story is completely separate from the Steelers, the Cowboys, and their rivalry to be the NFL's team of the 1970's.

There's just enough material on the Cowboys to be slightly interesting, at least if you don't really know that much. Given the Cowboys' second banana status in the book, it's probably not too surprising to see much of the Cowboys content focused on Duane Thomas, his impact as a rookie, and then his squabbles with The Powers That Be in Landry and Schramm, plus native western Pennsylvanian (and son of a steelworker) Tony Dorsett.

Even the Steelers portions of the books aren't fully satisfying. The worst crime is the end; the book abruptly ends after the Steelers' third Super Bowl championship in Super Bowl XIII over the Cowboys, and completely ignores that they won Super Bowl XIV the next season. Other facts that don't fit conveniently in the narrative, like the 1977 season, are covered in little detail or elided over in one manner or another. It's a pretty well-told story, but a disappointingly incomplete one.

I'm not sure I regret reading The Ones Who Hit the Hardest, but I am glad that I didn't spend money acquiring it and doubt anybody other than fans of the Steelers of the 1970's will find it any more satisfying than I did. Not generally recommended.

Total Titans

2010-10-18T00:12:00.000-05:00

I haven't been cross-posting my Total Titans stuff here of late, so this'll be a sort of macro-update.

Chase Stuart wrote a post about whether the Titans were potentially lying in the weeds as an elite team, to which I wrote a fairly long response, diving into some FO and other numbers to say I didn't really think so.

I wrote a decently detailed breakdown of rookie corner Alterraun Verner's first start against the Broncos.

Not quite as much detail as I wrote for the Steelers game, but I also did a breakdown of VY's play against the Broncos.

I also answered Ultimate NYG's questions about the Titans as part of our weekly Q&A exchange.

Book Review: Perfect Rivals

2010-10-16T00:06:00.000-05:00

Among the (interminable) number of games billed College Football's Game of the Century, the first I remember was the game that bore another, more distinctive moniker: Notre Dame and Miami's 1988 meeting dubbed "Catholics vs. Conflicts." The two programs bestrode college football almost like juggernauts; Notre Dame with the most-storied history of any program, returning to glory after the Gerry Faust Error, and the brash upstart Miami Hurricanes, super team of the 1980's.

Notre Dame would walk away with a 31-30 triumph after a Miami failed 2-point conversion that October day, and finish an undefeated national champion, while the Hurricanes would otherwise be unblemished and stuck a bridesmaid. The return visit to the Orange Bowl the next year saw a reversal of fortune; the once-beaten Hurricanes (by Florida State) would beat the Irish 24-10 and win a national championship after Notre Dame toppled unbeaten Colorado in the Orange Bowl. The programs would meet again in 1990, but they'd both already suffered a disappointing loss and, well, whatever.

This is the story told in Jeff Carroll's Perfect Rivals: Notre Dame, Miami, and the Battle for the Soul of College Football. Carroll begins his story in 1985 with Miami's 58-7 rout in Gerry Faust's last game as Notre Dame head coach and spends the first chunk of the book setting the stage for the 1988 (and 1989) games. He's a former Notre Dame beat writer (currently a student at mine graduate alma mater, if twitter is to be believed), so the story is somewhat ND-slanted. In fairness to him, ND's story is probably more narratively interesting, as Miami had reached elite status and stayed there, while Lou Holtz was dragging the Irish out of the dregs and building a real team.

The stage duly set, Carroll takes us through the 1988 game, the rest of the 1988 season, then the 1989 season, the 1989 game, and the rest of the 1989 season. The 1990 game is discussed in the book's third part, which features a discussion of Notre Dame's decision to break away from the CFA and sign its own television contract. That's a very interesting issue, but one covered in more detail in Dunnavant's Fifty-Year Seduction and feels out of place here since it didn't really affect the game on the field at all.

Now is the time for me to begin my ritual complaint about how the subtitle vastly overpromises what the book delivers. Catholics vs. Convicts really felt like a big deal, and a big culture clash. In terms of national reputation and fanbase, it was, but in terms of player profiles and whatnot, it really wasn't, or at least if it was you don't really detect it from Perfect Rivals. Rather than a "battle for the soul of college football," it comes across as just a series of games between two very good football teams that ended up being meaningful in terms of its impact on the national rankings.

In case you can't tell from the review, Carroll's book is best described as workmanlike. The events are competently related, the generally right sources properly read, and the major events covered, but the narrative never really rises above the mundane. The book is none too long, only 262 pages including epilogue, but my reading of it dragged because I just never got into it. Carroll's ND slant (though he really did try to be fair) will likely put off some Cane-focused readers as one of the Amazon reviews points out, but didn't really bother me that much. This was a library rental for me, and that's all it was worth to me.

My Football Outsiders Archives

2010-10-06T21:54:00.031-05:00

Most things I've written for Football Outsiders online have been co-authored, so they don't necessarily show up if you click my name on the site. Therefore, this post will be an irregularly-updated repository of links to what I've written for FO that's available online. It will include all columns and any commentary Extra Points I make, but will not include regular extra points.

2011 Season
2012-01-25: Scramble for the Ball: 2011 All-KCW Team (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2012-01-18: Scramble for the Ball: Well-Named Losers (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2012-01-11: Scramble for the Ball: Fantasy All-Stars (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2012-01-04: Scramble for the Ball: Playoff Fantasy Draft (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-12-29: Scramble for the Ball: Best of the Bad Teams (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-12-21: Scramble for the Ball: Rethinking the Machine (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-12-14: Scramble for the Ball: Strength of Schedule (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-12-07: Scramble for the Ball: 2011 Hall of Fame (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-11-30: Scramble for the Ball: Harajuku Suhspension (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-11-16: Scramble for the Ball: Over/Under Update (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-11-09: Scramble for the Ball: Point of Origin (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-11-02: Scramble for the Ball: Comebackery (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-10-26: Scramble for the Ball: Strange Correlations (co-written with Mike Kurtz, except intro)
2011-10-19: Scramble for the Ball: Get Off My Lawn (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-10-12: Scramble for the Ball: The New Losers (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-10-05: Scramble for the Ball: Back to Basics (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-09-28: Scramble vs. Zombie Welker (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-09-21: Scramble for the Ball: P-P-P-Pressure (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-09-14: Scramble for the Ball: Doubt and Regret (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-08-31: Scramble for the Ball: 2011 FO Staff League (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-08-24: Scramble for the Ball: 2011 AFC Over/Unders (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-08-17: Scramble for the Ball: 2011 NFC Over/Unders (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-08-10: Four Downs: AFC South
2011-05-11: Four Downs: AFC South
2011-04-08: 2005 Draft: Six Years Later
2011-02-15: Four Downs: AFC South

2010 Season
2011-02-10: Scramble for the Ball: Super Bowl XLV Commercials (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-02-02: Super Bowl XLV Prop Bet Extravaganza! (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-01-26: Scramble for the Ball: 2010 All-KCW Team (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-01-19: Scramble for the Ball: Smooth Outliers (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-01-12: Scramble for the Ball: Wild Weekend (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2011-01-06: Scramble for the Ball: Second Season (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-12-29: Scramble for the Ball: Fantasy's End (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-12-22: Scramble for the Ball: Holiday Wishes (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-12-15: Scramble for the Ball: QBs, Continued (co-written with Mike Kurtz, except intro)
2010-12-08: Scramble for the Ball: Pretty Good Quarterbacks (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-12-01: Scramble for the Ball: Bad Predictions (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-11-24: Scramble's Turkey Day Showdown (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-11-17: Scramble for the Ball: Robot Snowmen (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-11-10: Scramble for the Ball: Losers and Winners (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-11-03: Scramble for the Ball: Party Tray (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-10-30: Matt Schaub Could Be Big Against Colts (ESPN In$ider piece on HOU-IND MNF game, link to FO thread)
2010-10-27: Scramble for the Ball: Disparity (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-10-20: Scramble for the Ball: Magnificent Losers (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-10-13: Scramble for the Ball: Rules and Regulations (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-10-06: Scramble for the Ball: Powerhouses (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-09-29: Scramble for the Ball: Let Them Score (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-09-22: Scramble for the Ball: Controversial (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-09-15: Scramble for the Ball: Cheesecake (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-09-01: Scramble for the Ball: NFC O/U II and Fantasy Drafts (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-08-25: Scramble for the Ball: NFC O/U I (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-08-18: Scramble for the Ball: AFC O/U II (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-08-11: Scramble for the Ball: AFC O/U I (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-05-26: Breaking Down the American Needle Case (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-05-16: Four Downs: AFC South
2010-03-29: Four Downs: AFC South
2010-02-22: Four Downs: AFC South (wrote JAC and TEN sections)

2009 Season
2010-02-10: Scramble for the Ball: Wrap Party (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-02-03: Super Bowl XLIV Prop Bet Extravaganza! (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-01-28: 2009 All-Keep Choppin' Wood Team (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-01-20: Scramble for the Ball: Warm Fuzzies (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-01-14: Scramble for the Ball: Our Biscuits (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2010-01-06: Scramble for the Ball: Stuck in Your Head (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-12-30: Scramble for the Ball: Ratedness (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-12-24: Scramble for the Ball: The Clutch of Our Lives (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-12-18: Scramble for the Ball: The Winter of Our Discontent (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-12-09: Scramble for the Ball: Playoff Etiquette (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-12-02: Scramble for the Ball: Heck of a Guy (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-11-25: Scramble for the Ball: Coaching Carousel (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-11-18: Scramble for the Ball: In a World ... (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-11-11: Scramble for the Ball: Parade of Losers (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-11-04: Scramble for the Ball: We Were Wrong (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-10-28: Scramble for the Ball: Responsibility (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-10-21: Scramble for the Ball: Keepin' the Faith (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-10-15: Scramble for the Ball: Bye Week Fodder (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-10-07: Scramble for the Ball: Epicure (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-09-30: Scramble for the Ball: Fair Market Value (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-09-24: Scramble for the Ball: Snuggie-licious (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-09-16: Scramble for the Ball: The Beginning of the Beginning (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-09-11: Scramble: 2009 Over/Unders Part II [AFC, our fantasy teams] (co-written with Mike Kurtz)
2009-09-04: Scramble for the Ball: Change Partners Again [NFC, staff league] (co-written with Mike Kurtz)

2007 Season
2007-12-07: Book Review: Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls (guest column)

Site News

2010-10-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

I've stopped posting regular promos of my other work on here, for no very good reason, and that's not likely to change until I start writing actual posts here on a semi-regular basis.

Book Review: Blood, Sweat and Chalk

2010-09-26T21:51:00.001-05:00

Tim Layden's Blood, Sweat and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today's Game is a bit of an unusual attempt. Pretty much every single book on football I've reviewed has been very limited in scope-either about a single person, a single season, or a relatively brief period of time. In Blood, Layden sets out to give a 22-part overview of tactical changes in football over time. Given my love for large-scale topics and books, this should've been right up my alley. Yet, I walk away from it feeling a little disappointed.

There are a couple reasons for this mild disappointment. First, my perennial complaint about the books is that they're not really about football, but rather about the people who play football. Layden, who writes for Sports Illustrated, spoke in a podcast about how one of the things he was trying to do with Blood as talk more about what's really going on on the field. Music to my ears, but alas, I didn't think the book really delivered. The twenty-two chapters, each profiling a separate tactical development, gives us details of that development but also spend time, more time than I would've liked, telling the personal story of the man or men associated with the development. There are clearly cases where this is useful, as a sort of intellectual biography, such as it is, but by the time you've read 4 or 5 coaching histories, you realize that football coaches tend to move around a lot.

The second complaint is that Layden does an inconsistent job of explaining exactly why, tactically, the innovation was so successful and why it disappeared or had to evolve. One of the later chapters is on the no-huddle, focusing on its use first in Cincinnati by Sam Wyche and then subsequently in Buffalo for four seasons. Why were the Bills so successful running the no-huddle? How much of it was a product of an excellent quarterback in Jim Kelly, a great back in Thurman Thomas, a center in Kent Hull who could make the line calls on his own, and an excellent receiver in Andre Reed? Were the Bills really that much more successful than they would have been running the no-huddle than they would have been with a different offense with that talent? Maybe not every QB could call his own plays like Kelly did, but Esiason didn't call his in Cincinnati. Why did the Bills stop running the no-huddle after 1993, as Layden says? Why didn't more teams immediately adapt it, and why don't more run it now? If I wanted to really pick nits, why did Layden mention the Bills as a team that threatened to fake injuries before the AFC Championship Game without mentioning the Seahawks were the team that started that particular counter against Cincinnati? For some of Layden's developments, I can fill in some of those gaps myself, but I can't really say much intelligent about the Wing T and there are plenty of people who know less about football than I do who may pick up Blood.

Mind you, those are reasons why Blood, Sweat and Chalk disappointed me. This could have been a great book, but it's merely a very good one. Strongly recommended for what it is.

EDIT (9/26 2200 CT): Meant to include a direct link to this very good review on Amazon by C.Baker.

Total Titans

2010-09-19T20:53:00.001-05:00

New post up, play-by-play breakdown of VY's day against the Steelers.

Total Titans

2010-09-17T23:00:00.001-05:00

New Total Titans post, customary Friday night post on the final injury report and the potential impact of the reported injuries.

Total Titans

2010-09-16T22:46:00.001-05:00

New Total Titans post, belated thoughts from a trip to Nashville.

Book Review: Bigger Than the Game

2010-09-15T20:29:00.002-05:00

Michael Weinreb's Bigger Than the Game: Bo, Boz, the Punky QB, and How the '80s Created the Modern Athlete is a capsule look at the iconic athletes of the mid-1980's: Bo Jackson, Brian Bosworth, Jim McMahon, Len Bias (focusing on his untimely death), and those Miami Hurricanes teams that faced first a Bosworth-less Oklahoma Sooners team and then a more traditional Penn State team in consecutive bowl games. The stories are all relatively familiar, to a greater or lesser degree, but Weinreb does a good job of relating them and even when I knew a story well, my attention never wavered. Unusually for a sports book, it's well-written and has an index, bibliography, and sufficient endnotes to look up a quote if you bother; I noticed only one error, when the co-author of McMahon's autobiography is identified on consecutive pages as Don Pierson and Bob Verdi (it was Verdi).

The problem, though, is I never thought Weinreb's book lived up to its subtitle. The modalities of fame may have changed, but to the extent that any of the athletes in the book were uniquely famous, Weinreb doesn't really show it. Rather, the book works best as a nostalgia trip. Like Weinreb, I was born in the 1970's (though he was born toward the beginning of the decade and me toward the end) and came of age in the 80's, and had memories of varying degrees of clarity about the figures in the book. In that context, I greatly enjoyed it, and if you're interested in a mid-1980's nostalgia trip, then I will commend Bigger Than the Game to you. If you have no interest in the time period, though, even in a well-done look, then you should feel no regret if you give Weinreb's work a pass.

UPDATE (9/15/10 2031 CT): Link I should have had in the original post: Jonathan Yardley's review in the Washington Post. I didn't find the Reagan stuff as heavy-handed as Yardley did, and that kind of thing normally does bother me. Yardley's point is that the 80's were when the big money sports culture really took off is quite apt, and there's room for a book about that at the professional level (the Sperber books mentioned by Yardley are on my "to read, eventually" list).

UPDATE #2 (9/16/10 2248 CT): A couple more links: Weinreb's website and blog, plus an interview with Gelf Magazine.

Football Outsiders

2010-09-15T19:49:00.001-05:00

The first regular season edition of Scramble for the Ball is now available at Football Outsiders for your reading pleasure.

Total Titans

2010-09-10T21:21:00.002-05:00

New Total Titans post, Titans-Raiders injury report and impact.

Total Titans

2010-09-08T21:21:00.002-05:00

New Total Titans post on season expectations, entitled The Titans Will Go 8-8*, and Other Eve of Season Thoughts. *-Unless they don't.

Book Review: Football Outsiders Almanac 2010

2010-09-07T23:53:00.001-05:00

So, Football Outsiders Almanac 2010. I'm mostly including this for completeness' sake. It's along the same lines as FOA09, Pro Football Prospectus 2005 and PFP08, the previous reviews of the annual put out by the gang at Football Outsiders I've review. Said gang now includes yours truly as a member, viz as author of the chapters on the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Since I'm one of the authors, I'm not even going to try to pretend to be the least bit objective or really to give a review. The PFP08 review is probably the most informative one I did, so read that one if you want more detail on the book. The most important thing included in FOA10 not in PFP08 is more detailed college football content, including projections making use of Bill Connelly's S&P system, the closest thing college has to real DVOA. So, really, you're getting the same book, plus more good content. Hw could you possibly complain about that?

FOA10 is also available as a PDF download through the FO online story, for those of you who like trees and burning electricity.

UPDATE (9/7/10 2357 CT): Just in case it isn't clear, I got my copy of FOA10 for free in PDF form. I did however pay for my print version, albeit with an authorial discount through our publisher CreateSpace.

Book Review: Birth of the New NFL

2010-09-07T23:33:00.000-05:00

Birth of the New NFL: How the 1966 NFL/AFL Merger Transformed Pro Football by Larry Felser tells the story of the 1966 NFL/AFL merger, as you might guess from the subtitle. Felser's primary problem in telling the story is he's working on pretty well-trod ground. Michael MacCambridge's excellent America's Game tells the story of the merger pretty well, and does a very good job of placing the merger in the context of the pre-merger war and the post-merger transition into the combined whole.

Felser's book covers a narrower time-frame and consequently has to either tell the broader story with less gloss or drill down on some of the more topical aspects. He goes with the latter path, only the way he drills down is by writing about the late-season contests that determine the representatives in the Super Bowl. The problem is, these stories aren't very interesting to the broader scope of his story. There's a potentially relatively interesting story, about how things could have been different if, say, the Raiders had won the 1968 AFL title and played the Colts in Super Bowl III, but that's an inherently trickier story than Felser's more straight-forwardly historical narrative.

Beyond that I didn't quite get the value-add of Felser's book after previously reading MacCambridge, Birth second primary drawback is it's not as well-done as MacCambridge's book. I'd expect a book by a veteran journalist (long-time Buffalo News scribe and head of the Pro Football Writer's Association) to be better proof-read and error-checked.

This review probably makes Birth sound worse than it is. It's not that it's a bad book, just that it fails to supersede or improve upon in any real manner an earlier book on the same topic. Read America's Game if you haven't, or re-read it, and feel free to skip Birth of the New NFL.

Total Titans

2010-09-04T16:40:00.001-05:00

New post up at Total Titans, cutdown day open thread, now updated with all Titans cuts and the tentative 53-man roster.

Football Outsiders

2010-09-02T01:08:00.000-05:00

Scramble for the Ball, NFC Over/Unders Pt. 2 and Fantasy Draft Review, including review of the FO Staff League fantasy draft, is up at FO for your reading pleasure. Because of Staff Predictions running in the time slot, no Scramble next week, so we wrote two columns in one to compensate.

We have now decided, though, that 7700 word columns = PAIN. By point of "I can't really believe this" comparison, the most recent Audibles, for the friggin' Super Bowl, was 6100 words. We're really, really not trying to beat our 9300 word first column. The prop bet column I think came closest, at 9046 words. This is what happens when you get attorneys to write stuff, publishing stuff isn't more expensive on a per-word basis, and you don't give them word limits.

Total Titans

2010-09-02T01:01:00.000-05:00

New Total Titans post, some thoughts on blitzing with a focus on some cover-0 stuff the Titans ran in the preseason. Warning: really basic stuff, with no graphics.

Total Titans

2010-08-31T00:23:00.000-05:00

Following up on the data dump, a new post up at Total Titans with more thoughts on Titans-Panthers.

Titans-Panthers comments data dump

2010-08-30T23:30:00.000-05:00

The following is a straight data dump of my comments from the Titans' 15-7 loss to the Panthers in Week 3 of the 2010 preseason. Heavy on abbreviations and generally brief, plus I took greater care with the first half plays (watched 2-5 times, generally) than I did with second half plays (generally not watched more than twice), simply because the Titans didn't play their starters into the second half.

OFF
KOR #1-Damian Williams-catch ball cleanly, run forward
1st play-run-MLB unblocked, Harris?
2nd play-run-Roos seal a little soft, CJ run down from behind
3rd play-pass-Roos turned around, VY pump, should he have thrown ball?
PUNT

DEF
1st play-run-McCourty does job-Ball doubled on edge
2nd play-run-Jason Jones late shift, semi-stunt around C/RG, Griff unblocked run blitz
3rd play-pass-Tulloch lines up deep in Tampa-2 look, lining up too deep?
4th play-pass-Babin quick to QB, no recognition, rest of D does eh
5th play-run-Griff blows his alley and opens cutback lane
6th play-pass-Morgan good outside move as LDE, McCourty soft coverage-unclear why
7th play-run-eh
8th play-pass-max pro, Jarrett outruns Verner!?!, overthrow prevents TD
9th play-pass-Morgan LDE good outside move, forces dumpoff
PUNT

OFF
PR #1-Damian Williams-clean fair catch of wobbler at 8-stood at 10 and backed up
1st play-pass-Stevens in at TE, slightly underthrown(?) but nice corner route
2nd play-pass-shallow out for Stevens, Gamble bailed & changed look at last second
3rd play-run-Cook with weak block, cannot run to his side
4th play-scramble-Cook sole TE, VY scramble, no clue what's downfield
5th play-pass-CAR DE overload right side, Scott whiffs a la Loper, CJ tries to pick up inside guy & fails, outside blitzer w/ free rush, VY screwed, hot for Britt(?)
6th play-draw-Scott got pushed back & destroyed inside lane, CJ tries dancing but can't do squat
7th play-pass-3 man rush & 8 zone in 3&long, Hawk underneath
PUNT

DEF
1st play-run-Ball good at POA
2nd play-pass-McRath late/weak blitz, TEN rushed 6 (Verner?), Curran in good position
3rd play-run-Ball too easily moved by POA, was there an outside defender?, Curran or Witherspoon bad gap play?
PUNT

OFF
PR #2-DWill-failure to field punt costs 25 yards
1st play-run-Harris bulled at POA, forced CJ to string it out
2nd play-pass-deep for Britt, ball underthrown/too far inside?, DPI
3rd play-pass-Harris tries blocking 2 guys, can't, CJ slow to pick up inside blitzer, Stevens can't run away from LBs-shallow drag well defended
4th play-pass-free rusher up middle, scott commits to DT too early?, no help up middle, sitdown for Britt
5th play-pass-dump for CJ, no downfield look
PUNT

DEF
1st play-pass-Morgan overcommits to inside, but Haye recovers on boot and actually well defended
2nd play-pass-smoke w/ McCourty playing off, overcommits outside but has inside help, does he overcommit w/o help? (Mouton v MikeWilliams)
3rd play-pass-Tulloch free blitz, Verner jumps Lafell route, potentially dangerous
PUNT

OFF
PR #3-DWill-short punt and to side, DWill directs players away
1st play-run-couple yards, Harris caught up in trash & can't get to 2nd level
2nd play-run-couple yards, Amano can't move off double to get to 2nd level
3rd play-run-Cook as offset FB, run to his side-Cook doesn't draw defender, Harris beat & DT slides down line
PUNT

DEF
1st play-run-Marks fall down split, disrupts flow, rest of team collapses well
2nd play-run-Tulloch attacks hole on FB give well as Witherspoon blitzes outside
3rd play-draw-Marks pancakes OL, Jones gets penetration playside
PUNT

OFF
PR #4-DWill catches punt to side, runs forward ok but no explosiveness
1st play-Ringer in-run-blah, #94 looks good
2nd play-pass-deep for Hawkins, off target
3rd play-pass-deep out for Britt, pass probably too far, Britt doesn't do a good job of toe tapping
PUNT

DEF
1st play-pass-McRath too early on dumpoff, DPI
2nd play-run-Griff blocked out, McCourty w/ good job coming up to make tackle, Ford taken out by Rosario at POA
3rd play-pass-ineffective blitz by 51&55, McCourty jumps out & breaks it up
4th play-pass-zone blitz w/ Ford dropping off, blitzes not getting home, Lafell open but hard catch & drop
PUNT

OFF
PR #5-DWill-does ok to dodge early hits, but coughs up ball on hat-on-helmet

DEF
1st play-run-blah, penetration by Jones
2nd play-run-Babin outside rush, penetration by Jones, OL thoroughly pwnt
3rd play-pass-short pass w/ no YAC opportunity
PUNT

OFF
PR #6-Mariani-punt dropped at 1
1st play-run-Jared Cook SUCKS, barely bumps DE who runs down line & makes play
2nd play-pas-WR screwup?, designed for quick throw?, ball doesn't come out & VY gets sacked, Stewart beat to inside
3rd play-draw-semi-stunt screws up blocking, Harris can't pick up Brown who blows up play
PUNT-Schommer(??) blew his lane?

DEF
1st play-pass-triple coverage, pass may have been well underthrown, Rosario prevents Hope INT
2nd play-draw-Hope + ATV up to make tackle, Hope good job in run support
2MW
3rd play-pass-Tulloch blitz, Rosario turns Spoon around & Moore w/ good pass
4th play-pass-Verner in good coverage on pass for crappy rookie wideout
5th play-pass-heavy blitz, Moore finds hot, Griff blows tackle but Hope cleans up
6th play-pass-shallow in completed v Verner in man
7th play-pass-Haye with pressure late after loop, ATV slipped, pass to Gettis v McCourty too far
8th play-pass-heavy blitz, tipped at line by Jones
9th play-pass-Fuller beat by Lafell on corner, smash combo, challenged & confirmed
10th play-pass-Griff flagged for DPI for unnecessary bump on Barnidge but picked up, pass overthrown
11th play-pass-short play completed by ATV, Fuller & ATV converge, ATV w/ FF & recovery

OFF
1st play-pass-sitdown for Britt, some YAC
2nd play-pass-VY doesn't see anything & scrambles for more time, sacked by Stewart's man

END OF HALF

KO-Hawk blows outside lane
DEF-2nd string
1st play-run-Keglar sucks
2nd play-pass-CAR miscommunication
3rd play-pass-Rivera good tackle for no YAC 1 yd short
PUNT

OFF-2nd string
PR #7-Mariani-punt dropped at goal line
1st play-run-blah
2nd play-run-blah (holding on #86)
3rd play-draw-blah
4th play-pass-Cook drops it on drag
PUNT

DEF
1st play-pass-hole in zone?
2nd play-run-Brock flagged for offside, 1st of night
3rd play-pass-screen against stunt & blitz, well-timed
4th play-run-blah
5th play-scramble-blah
6th play-pass-ATV in coverage, way overthrown
FG GOOD

OFF
KOR #2-Mariani-clean catch, ok, Kropog flagged for holding
1st play-pass-quick slant to Britt, eh
2nd play-run-good power run by Ringer to outside
3rd play-run-MLB unblocked, not clear who/why
4th play-pass-screen, not well blocked
5th play-pass-good deep comeback for Britt
6th play-run-blah
7th play-pass-KFC too far for Hawk in shallow out, blah
8th play-pass-KFC doesn't see outside blitz, bad on him, RT #69 didn't do well either (Howell?)
PUNT

DEF
1st play-pass-8 yd out to Edwards v Mouton
2nd play-pass-quick hitch to Edwards v Mouton playing off, doesn't attack ball quickly
3rd play-run-Keglar tackle at POA but not until after couple yards
4th play-pass-deflected by Rivera blitzing up middle
5th play-pass-ATV slot blitz, Johnson v Lafell in shallow cross, Johnson gets beat
6th play-run-good gain, Hill/RJohnson playing too far inside
7th play-run-blah, holding
8th play-pass-screen v soft zone
9th play-run-blah, no room
10th play-pass-tipped at line by Joseph
FG

OFF
KOR #3-Mariani 5 yds deep, should take knee, tackled at 17
1st play-pass-Mariani was open deep but manages to adjust to underthrown ball
2nd play-pass-KFC sacked, Kropog's man, KFC doesn't get ball out & tries to move
3rd play-pass-great slant to Mariani & nice RAC, Cover-2(?) safety got sucked too far inside
4th play-run-DO NOT RUN AT JARED COOK, fails miserably on seal v DE Hardy
5th play-pass-seamer to Cook for 6, outruns #25, good throw away from single-high safety
TD

DEF
KO-Bakhtiari & Johnson blow tackle, Sewall & ATV blow their lanes, TD
GF2-stopped

OFF
KOR #4-Mariani-out of EZ
1st play-pass-bootleg, Ryan drops pass after hit
2nd play-pass-KFC rips it in for Cook, Velasco at RG flagged for holding
3rd play-pass-Edison on slant, flagged for OPI
4th play-pass-KFC throwing off back foot throws it to underneath defender, pressure v Kropog
INT

DEF-Jimmah!
1st play-penalty-Jimmah! pulls his RT and TE offside, oops
2nd play-run-blown up by Harrington
3rd play-pass-open on sideline, looked close to pick by underneath defender, Hill playing soft
4th play-penalty-false start
5th play-penalty-false start
6th play-penalty-false start
7th play-pass-short pickup
FG

OFF-Rusty!
KOR #5-Mariani-does ok, takes pop & doesn't cough up ball
1st play-penalty-false start #69
2nd play-run-good hole, Blount attacks it & breaks ankle tackle
3rd play-pass-Rusty pressured, can't quite hit Pfahler on sideline
4th play-pass-slant complete to DWill
5th play-run-Blount for a couple
6th play-pass-quick out to Pfahler, decent move to pick up extra & 1st down
7th play-pass-Rusty airmails seamer, picked by high safety

DEF
1st play-run-blah
2nd play-run-good penetration & tackle by Johnson
3rd play-pass-Barnidge shallow out for a lot after Keglar blows tackle & Mouton blows help
4th play-pass-smoke, Bakhtiari tip at line
5th play-run-OLB sucked in, Rivera can't do contain, Schommer comes up & makes tackle
6th play-run-Winborn slow to edge, holding
7th play-pass-screen, Rivera blows tackle but other guys can get it
FG-missed

OFF
1st play-pass-miscommo/airmail+behind open WR after CAR defensive screwup
2nd play-pass-DWill underneath for a couple
2MW
3rd play-pass-good pocket presence & finding PWill over middle in what seemed like small hole
4th play-pass-good shallow drag for Pfahler, AWFUL move not to get OOB
5th play-pass-Smith strip-sacked, blown block #77
6th play-pass-underneath for Pfahler, reasonably good pass, Pfahler gets OOB
7th play-pass-deflected by underneath defender, Britt can't concentrate enough to catch ball
8th play-pass-Pfahler underneath, not the best choice, Pfahler can't catch it

Football Outsiders

2010-08-28T00:21:00.000-05:00

Eh, late again. Scramble for the Ball, NFC Over/Unders Pt. 1 is available at FO for your reading pleasure.

Football Outsiders

2010-08-24T22:59:00.000-05:00

Failure to plug my own writings: Scramble for the Ball, AFC Over/Unders, Part II went up last Wednesday. Look tomorrow for NFC Over/Unders, Part I, including probably one of the nuttier comparisons in FO history. Other columns like Cover-3 and Walkthrough, those are products of planning and thought; Scramble, at least the way Mike and I do it, is the product of a genuine conversation which will take twists and turns you don't necessarily expect.

Total Titans

2010-08-24T22:55:00.000-05:00

A couple posts up at Total Titans I haven't yet plugged. The first is from Monday, and was a gameday post for the Monday Night Football contest against the Cardinals. Naturally, I just used my twitter page to comment and ignored the game thread. I rounded out the positional analyses by taking a look at the special teamers on Saturday, then mucked around with a couple video breakdowns on Sunday.

Yes, I'll do more of those video things, and yes, if/when I do, it'll be with a slightly more sophisticated setup than an older digital camera sitting on a stack of books on a chair in front of the TV while I speak aloud and make lots of hesitation sounds.

Total Titans

2010-08-18T23:13:00.000-05:00

New Total Titans post, this one the cornerback positional analysis.

Book Review: Take Your Eye Off the Ball

2010-08-14T16:51:00.000-05:00

In some ways, I first decided to get semi-serious about watching football a decade ago, shortly after I'd graduated from college. In some ways, this was a rather odd decision. I'd watched the game growing up when the constraints of life and the fall weekend schedule made it possible, and considered myself a fan of the game, but had never played it beyond the backyard level. So, one of the things I thought I should do was learn more about the game. Being me, I read a couple books about football, of which by far the most valuable was the already somewhat dated Dr. Z's New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football. The primary problem with watching football, though, is you tend to end up with what I think of as ball myopia, following the player in possession of the pigskin and ignoring the panoply of action going on around him. The kind of book I was looking for then, and still haven't found, is the book that told me how to watch football more intelligently.

The latest entry in the quest for that book is Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan and David Seigerman. That sounds like a very promising title, and Kirwan's book follows the same basic organizational patterns of the best books on football, New Thinking Man's Guide, Madden's One Knee Equals Two Feet, and Billick's More Than a Game (which review I plan to get to this month), of going by the team position by position and also chapters on the other big stuff. Plus, Kirwan has worked at the NFL level and now writes for NFL.com after an earlier stint writing for Sports Illustrated, so he would seem to have the requisite experience to write a book like the one I've been looking for.

The problem, though, is the title has almost nothing to do with the content of Kirwan's book. There are a couple things in there that are useful in terms of watching the game, but Kirwan's book is more about the action on the field and what happens a lot out there. That's valuable information, and you can use it to aid your ability to watch a game, but it's not particularly rare.

In some ways, I recognize that seems kind of hypocritical coming from me. The complaint I have about a bunch of those books listed on the sidebar is they're not really about football at all, but rather about people who play football. Let me emphatically note that's not my complaint about Kirwan's book, since it clearly is about the on-field action (leavened, obviously, by Kirwan's personal anecdotes). I can't say too many bad things about a book that tries to bring more sophisticated football content to a broader audience, and I won't rip too badly into a book that has diagrams of a fire zone blitz from both a 3-4 and a 4-3 defensive front.

Still, beyond mostly ignoring its stated title (which would've filled a valuable niche in the marketplace), Take Your Eye's second major fault in my eyes is that it really didn't teach me anything new. Pretty much everything in there I'd picked up by osmosis from simply watching and reading about football. It has most of the stuff you'd expect in there, like a wide receiver route tree, a discussion of the basic differences between 4-3 and 3-4 defensive front (but see infra), and discussions of man versus zone coverage in pass defense (again, but see infra). One thing I was expecting and hoping for but wasn't included is a list of defensive lineman positions listed by technique, since football people. It shows up a little bit in the 4-3/3-4 section, but is one thing that could've used a systematic breakdown designed for the non-technical reader and wasn't included.

The third major fault of Take Your Eye is the list of what I referred to on Twitter as howlers. These include:
1. Kirwan's attributes the origin of zone blocking in the NFL to Alex Gibbs in the mid-1990's. See this piece at FO by Doug Farrar for why that's nonsense.
2. One of the things the book has is little half-page sidebars where Kirwan's mug shows up and answers a question related to the main text of the chapter. One of those is how a team can run the ball effectively without a feature back. In that, Kirwan says the team has to commit to running the football, and mentions the 2009 Bengals as a team that committed to running the football. Now, I question whether or not the '09 Bengals really fall in this category-Cedric Benson was the 4th overall pick in the draft, and was a fairly effective feature back for them. The Bengals also did commit to running the football schematically, by playing lots of 6-OL and heavy sets. Kirwan, though, has two questions for determining whether or not a team is committed to running the football:
i. Are you willing to run the ball on second down after running on first and gaining zero yards?
ii. Will you run the ball when you're down seven points?
Nothing about 6-OL, heavy sets, just some strategic questions so vague as to be indeterminate and blathering about commitment.
3. In his discussion of the 3-4 and the 4-3, Kirwan presents a stark dichotomy between a one-gap 4-3 and a Parcells/Belichick-style two-gap 3-4. He does not, however, mention the one-gap 3-4 of the type run by, for example, Wade Phillips.
4. In discussing the secondary and pass coverage, Kirwan wrote: "Some coaches prefer a man-to-man scheme because it's so easy to see which players are making mistakes. There's no gray area in man coverage the way there is in a zone scheme. You know who got beat." Frankly, that kind of statement strikes me as absolutely incredible in the most literal sense: I cannot find it credible that coaches at the college or NFL level would play man instead of zone because without it they can't tell which of their own players made a mistake.
5. Less of a literal howler than a seemingly systematic error by Kirwan is his presentation of events linked to his past and his friends in an overly optimistic light. One example that stuck out to me was his description of Dewayne Robertson. Kirwan writes that Robertson, the 4th overall pick in 2003, was lost when Mangini came in and immediately converted the Jets to a 3-4 scheme, where he was undersized at defensive end. Problem #1: Mangini's first year as head coach was 2006. In 2006, the Jets, at least officially, still played a 4-3 (PDF link to random gamebook from 2006 (Wk 11 vCHI, to be precise)). PFR's list of '06 Jets starters agrees, showing them lining up in a 4-3. Second, the Jets actually got a little better on runs up the middle from 2006 with Robertson as one of the starting DT's to 2007 with Robertson at NT, moving from a horrid 4.57 ALY to a still horrid 4.50. Robertson then moves on to the 2008 Broncos, who went from 4.09 ALY on runs up the middle to 4.41. Given that Robertson's conventional stats his whole time with the Jets are fairly similar, I have different suggestion for Mr. Kirwan: maybe, just maybe Dewayne Robertson was a bad football player who was ill-suited for both the 3-4 and the 4-3, and if you want to give an example of a guy best suited for one scheme, pick somebody else.
6. Ok, I just can't let this go: Kirwan was with the Jets in 1996 when they took Keyshawn Johnson first overall in the draft. Kirwan wrote that they were concerned about Keyshawn's 4.6 40-yard dash time, which is a slow clocking for a #1 wideout. But they did some research and found that Jerry Rice ran a 4.6 40, too, so they weren't really concerned. As a fan of good decision-making processes, I hope their analysis really wasn't that facile.
7. Last one, just can't resist this one: he writes the Vikings were looking for a playmaking wideout who could play in the slot, return kicks, stuff like that in the 2009 draft. Brad Childress was trying to decide between Jeremy Maclin and Percy Harvin, so they did their due diligence on Harvin, talked to Urban Meyer and his grandmother, and felt comfortable enough with him they chose him with the 22nd pick in the draft. Detail Kirwan leaves out: Maclin was off the board at the point, having gone 19th to the Eagles. The story as it is could've been told without the need to choose between Maclin and Harvin, but instead Kirwan puts Maclin in there, I guess to create conflict, or maybe that's just the way Childress told him the story, but it bugged the heck out of me.

There's no bibliography or index, not that you needed me to tell you that. I don't think a bibliography would've been appropriate, since consulting other books would probably have saved them from some of the howlers, but an index for when he refers to players would've been convenient. The book as a whole probably isn't as bad as I've made it sound in this review, but the howlers were enough of a distraction to me I can't recommend it. And, thus, the search for a book on how to watch football more intelligently continues.

Football Outsiders

2010-08-11T19:17:00.000-05:00

Scramble? Aye, Scramble. Yes, it's the first Scramble for the Ball of the new season, and the first of four over/under columns. Like last season, I am co-writing Scramble with Mike, so it's another year of the same sort of nonsense, only different.

Fun change about this Scramble: lack of last-minute work, as it was primarily written Sunday, my last pass was Monday evening, and it was in the system approved and ready to publish Tuesday. We'll see how long that keeps up.

Book Review: Oiler Blues

2010-08-07T01:02:00.000-05:00

John Pirkle's Oiler Blues is subtitled "The Story of Pro Football's Most Frustrating Team." As, like Pirkle, a fan of the Oilers/Titans, I am inclined to agree. The team starting promisingly enough, winning the first two AFL championships and losing the third in double overtime, though of course they over .500 twice in the next 14 years, including a three year span where they won only 6 games. Then, of course, after three straight playoff seasons, the owner fires the coach and the team finishes under .500 the next six seasons, including ANOTHER three year span where they won only 6 games. Success is finally at hand, at the team makes the playoffs for the next 7 seasons, but, of course, without advancing to a single conference championship game let alone a Super Bowl. A disaster season follows, and the team starts looking to, and eventually does, move shortly thereafter. Fittingly, Pirkle's book ends after the 1998 season, missing the newly-rechristened Titans' trip to the Super Bowl the next season.

The book is structured in very straight chronological order, addressing sequentially the various stages of the offseason, including the draft, free agency/roster moves, and training camp, then the regular season, the playoffs where applicable, and then the almost-inevitable coaching and/or front office changes. I may be underselling the structure a little bit-he will step back briefly where appropriate, such as career retrospectives when a notable coach such as Bum Phillips or Glanville gets the boot (blah, blah, Glanville left on his own, whatever)-but the format is fairly standard and works reasonably well.

What becomes clear from Oiler Blues is just how seriously dysfunctional the team was, and consistently so. Thrice in their first 27 years of existence the Oilers had a span where they had 5 different head coaches in 6 years. Front office personnel turned over nearly as frequently, and only for very brief stretches was there consistency in both places at once. The consistency of the Jeff Fisher era, and the Reese/Fisher era, is incredibly remarkable for Bud Adams' franchise. Heck, the Mike Reinfeldt/Jeff Fisher era is already in the running for the second-longest GM/coach pairing in franchise history. That sort of organizational instability, as Pirkle makes clear, came straight from the top. Bud Adams vacillated between treating the Oilers as a profit-oriented venture that should be making as much money as possible and building a winning football team, with concomitant expenditures. When the team was doing well, he wanted to make sure that he individually got the credit, and wasn't afraid to reach out to a sympathetic media member to make his voice heard.

At least, when he could find a sympathetic media member, though there was normally at least one. Pro Football Chronicle has a list of player-media dustups, and the list of half made up of Oilers players and front office personnel and Houston media. The tone was set early in the team's existence, as the scribes for both the now-defunct Post and the still-extant Chronicle were seemingly disappointed Houston got a franchise in the fledgling AFL rather than the mighty National Football League and decided to hold it against the team, its owner, its management, and some of its players, particularly the starting quarterback du jour. Oddly enough, the one starting quarterback the media seems to have appreciated was Dan Pastorini, who for much of his career posted average or below statistics on a run-oriented team.

More importantly, with the constant coaching and front office changes, the vocal media took on an outsize role in how the team was perceived by the public at large and seemingly how it was managed at times. See, for instance, this comment on the 1993 DVOA Ratings thread at FO, detailing John Henry Mills' place in Oilers history as the tight end who would save everything. As commenter Stravinsky says, "I am not making this up," which could easily be the theme of the Oilers' history in Houston.

One thing I hadn't realized before reading Pirkle's book was just how badly the Oilers had been treated by the City of Houston and particularly the HSA, which ran the Astrodome. From its creation, HSA was continually controlled by the Astros' ownership, from Roy Hofheinz at the start down to John McMullen and then Drayton McLane. The baseball owners, being baseball owners, treated the Oilers like second-class tenant, with terrible lease terms and a stadium horribly-suited for football, with 60% of the seats of the end zone variety. Back when the Astrodome was being built and he was frozen out of the construction process, Bud Adams actually discussed moving the Oilers to Atlanta. I wondered while reading that if Bud now wishes he'd gone ahead with that threat. (I'm guessing he's happy he didn't move to Jacksonville in the late 1980's.)

The book is copy-edited like one of my blogposts, so it's replete with minor errors and typos. Names are seemingly at random spelled properly most of the time, then spelled wrongly for a stretch before being again spelled properly, except that poor Abner Haynes' last name shows up consistently as "Hayes." I don't think it detracts much from his core narrative, and doesn't invalidate that Pirkle clearly spent a lot of effort digging up articles and pulling fun quotes, but those kinds of errors are annoying. Pirkle also engages in the tendentious game of creating ideal drafts, which is tiresome even at its best and incredibly annoying when done repeatedly over the course of a book. Most 4th rounders are average starters at best, so it's neither an act of good faith nor particularly interesting to pick out the one or two guys who were ended up being particularly good.

I could rant on a little more, like about Pirkle's use of misleading conventional statistics (a kick I was on before FO ever existed, thank you very much), the fans' love affair with Bum Phillips and how he destroyed the team, or about how I was too kind to Ed Fowler in my review of Loser Takes All, but I'll stop here. If you can stand bad copy-editing, recommended for Oilers fans and for Titans fans who want to know more about the team's ridiculously dysfunctional history. Fans of other teams probably won't appreciate it nearly as much, and fans of teams that actually get books written about them like the Packers probably won't appreciate a book that doesn't come from a professional writer (Pirkle at least was an attorney), but hey, feel free to give it a read if it sounds like the kind of book you're interested in.

Total Titans

2010-08-06T22:38:00.001-05:00

New Total Titans post, this one on which defender the Titans can least afford to lose. My vote is Tony Brown.

Total Titans

2010-08-04T00:14:00.002-05:00

New Total Titans post, latest positional analysis on the offensive guards.

Books Update

2010-08-04T00:01:00.000-05:00

Because, frankly, the last thing I needed was to buy more books, I went ahead and acquired Pat Kirwan's Take Your Eye Off the Ball, Bill Walsh's The Score Takes Care of Itself, and Richard Whittingham's college football book The Rites of Autumn. I also ordered The Games That Changed the Game by Ron Jaworski and Greg Cosell (and David Plaut), though that isn't due for another couple months, which should give me enough time to whittle away at my now-higher pile again. Also acquired this year were Robert Peterson's Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football, John Maxymuk's Quarterback Abstract, and The Ultimate Super Bowl Book by Bob McGinn. Reviews of all should appear here eventually, which is a term without a legally enforceable meaning.

Currently in progress is John Pirkle's Oiler Blues, and a review will be showing up here once I finish the book-ETA this weekend. Since I'm among the authors, I won't be doing a full review of Football Outsiders Almanac 2010, but I'll probably put up a post on it at some point more or less for the sake of completeness.

Book Review: NFL Record & Fact Book 2010

2010-07-31T22:14:00.000-05:00

Another year, another edition of the NFL Record & Fact Book. I'll point you to my review of the 2009 edition for a basic description. Those of you familiar with the book know about what's there.

For my fellow obsessives who care about such things, I'll note the changes I see from the 2009 edition, good and ill.
1. Well, ok, this isn't a change, but once again the only thing we get about each game the previous season is the final score. The line score, scoring plays, and recap present in 2008 and previous editions is still missing.
2. Individual game scores for Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football are now gone, replaced by a team's record by year and overall for each of SNF and MNF. Thursday individual game scores for past years are gone as well.

I guess the damage isn't too bad compared to last season, though of course that still makes it a lesser publication than it was only a few years ago. And, yes, as I noticed in last year's review, the same information is all or almost all available on the NFL's website and most or all of the stuff is also available online on P-F-R, but I'm sure I'll still keep The NFL Record and Fact Book 2010 on my end table until February and have it near me for quick reference when working on Football Outsiders Almanac 2011 as well.

Book Review: Stagg's University

2010-07-31T21:30:00.001-05:00

Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-Time Football at Chicago by Robin Lester tells the story of intercollegiate football at the University of Chicago from its origin with the origin of the University in the early 1890's until its abolition after the 1939 season. What's remarkable about how the book is just how modern the story seems. The issues of college football we argue about these days are hardy perennials:

Promotion of a football program for the university as a whole;

Exorbitant coaching salaries, linked to the revenues football brings in;

The continual battles between the coaching staff and the admissions staff over whether athletes can be admitted in the first place, and then the challenge of remaining eligible;

The division of faculty members and university administrators among those who support football, those who tolerate it as a necessary evil, and those who see it as detracting from the school's proper mission, and their concomitant reactions to support of the football program and the football players;

The challenge of remaining relevant with an aging coach and a university with declining resources relative to its peer competitors;

The influence of alumni and non-alumni supporters of the football program and their often outsize influence on the program and the university, including a proto-Bobby Lowder who served as a backflow channel for the football coach to the rest of the board of trustees;

Regional differences in perception, as Stagg's Yale pedigree earned early respectability for Chicago and the 1920's series with Princeton was one of the first between true regional powers;

A student body whose attitude towards the football team ranges from wildly supportive to tremendously apathetic to downright hostile to sports' outsize influence; and

The issue of what to do with a flailing football program that refuses to be resuscitated.

Like I said, a true modern story. What wasn't modern, but was instead quite unusual was Chicago's decision to withdraw from football competition altogether. Lester does a good job of laying out why and how such a decision was possible and actually supported by almost every constituency other than those die-hard alumni and non-alumni supporters.

As an alumnus of an undergraduate institution with a mostly flailing football team (Georgetown Univ.), the section on just how UChicago institutionally made the decision to drop football was something I was particularly interested in. It started with a period of long-term irrelevance, as Chicago declined precipitously after 1924 and fell from its national profile. Amos Alonzo Stagg's long coaching tenure ended after 40 years, and successor Clark Shaughnessy, despite being a tremendous innovator, lacked the same history of success and institutional and other support Stagg had enjoyed. Declining attendance had changed the football program from self-supporting and turning a profit to needing support from the rest of the university, which support the rest of the university was hard-pressed to provide thanks to lack of institutional support and declining financial condition thanks to a bad economic environment (including the Great Depression) creating lower enrollment and fewer donations.

In some ways, UChicago's peak from before its decline actually facilitated the dropping of football, as the decline from national champion and regular top 5 program meant the school preferred to drop the sport rather than compete with athletic peers who were its inferiors in terms of national prestige and academic reputation. Plus, of course, its president at that time, Robert Maynard Hutchins, who despite being an occasional tennis player once said "Whenever I feel like exercise I lie down until the feeling passes." Obviously, not the kind of administrator who was going to be hugely supportive of football, though Lester makes a reasonably convincing case Hutchins was not always intent on dropping football but instead was more than happy to do so when the right circumstances permitted it.

Anyway, if that's the kind of thing you're interested in, it's a reasonably interesting story. Stagg's University is an adaptation of Lester's Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, which means it has most of the same pluses and minuses of that genre. There's an index and footnotes (lots and lots of footnotes), both unusual for football books, but which I almost always enjoy. On the downside, Ph.D. dissertations, particularly at UChicago, are not necessarily noted for their extreme readability. Personally, I think "evince" is a greatly underused word and enjoyed Lester's use of it where appropriate, but I know not everybody has the same attitude. Beyond the words (and "evince" is not the only example I could have used, merely the one I enjoyed and noticed the most), it's definitely written in an academic style, replete with complex sentence structure. It bothered me not a whit, but again, I know not everybody likes that, so consider it fair warning. Overall, Stagg's University is probably not of enough general interest that I can wholeheartedly recommend it, but I regret neither purchasing not reading it.

Disclaimer: UChicago Law graduate.

Total Titans

2010-07-31T14:18:00.002-05:00

New post up at Total Titans, the first in what will almost certainly be several roster predictions: the 53 man roster at the start of training camp.

At least one book review post up later today, since I finished Stagg's University.

Total Titans

2010-07-29T22:41:00.000-05:00

New Total Titans post, this one the OT positional analysis. Yes, I'll have my first roster prediction up by the time the first practice of training camp starts on Saturday afternoon.

I also responded to some questions from the SBN Jaguars site, Big Cat Country, about the FOA2010 chapter and what I think of some of the Jaguars players. Yes, too many typos.

Total Titans

2010-07-25T21:45:00.001-05:00

New post up at Total Titans, this one on whether CJ's low success rate in 2009 means bad things for 2010. Likely answer: no, not really.

Expanded Season Revenue: The NFL's Real Math Problem

2010-07-25T17:46:00.006-05:00

Apologies to FO's colleague Doug Farrar, whose article over at Yahoo's Shutdown Corner, inspired the title for this post. Alas, Doug's article didn't answer the question whose answer I really wanted to know: how much more would the NFL make if the regular season was expanded to 18 games and the preseason was cut to 2 games? In fact, I haven't seen an answer to this question anywhere, and I think it's an important one as the CBA is set to expire in March 2011, so I thought I'd take a look at the question myself.

This question is an important one because, if the regular season is expanded, the players would see a reasonable increase in their real workload, one for which they would expect to be compensated. The first blush answer is that they'd be getting 19 paychecks instead of 17. As former Buccaneers defensive end Steve White pointed out, though, this is nonsense: the 19 paychecks instead of 17 is an accounting fiction. A similar argument would be if you went from being paid once a month to twice a month: you'd be getting more checks, but the same amount of money. The only way the players get more money if they're paid 19 times instead of 17 times is if the two additional games actually make more money. So, do they?

Well, let's look at how NFL teams make their money. Thankfully, we have somewhat detailed information on one team's financial revenues, the publicly-owned Green Bay Packers. Let's take a look at the statement of income, and the sources of income listed there:
I. Home games (net) and road games;
II. Television and media;
III. Private box income;
IV. NFL Properties income;
V. Marketing/Pro Shop (net); and
VI. Other-Local Media, Concessions and parking (net).
Let's take a look at each of these categories in turn:

I. Ticket Revenues
I've retitled this "ticket revenues" to try to simplify the category. For fiscal year end 3/31/09, the Packers earned slightly over $47 million in ticket revenue from their 20 games, 4 preseason and 16 regular season. As people have frequently written, NFL season ticket holders pay full price for all 10 home games, including preseason games. Whether or not this is a good business practice for the NFL is a topic for a different post, but unless NFL teams raise ticket prices, they will not see any bump in ticket revenue from season ticket holders in an expanded season. Any bump then will be from an increase in the number of tickets sold.

The NFL in recent years has enjoyed excellent attendance. Per ESPN's figures, total regular season attendance was 17,146,404, for a total of almost 67,500 per game. Per The Official NFL Record and Fact Book 2010, regular season paid attendance was actually 16,651,126, or an average of 65,043 per game. Preseason attendance, thanks largely to those season ticket holders, was also very good: 3,810,074 total, or an average of 59,186 per game once you subtract out the Hall of Fame game. For a 10 game home regular season slate, the average team thus drew 638,720 fans.

For simplicity's sake, I will assume that the average regular season attendance will also be the average regular season attendance for the 2 additional regular season games, and preseason average attendance will also remain the same. The new, expanded regular season slate sees the average team draw a total of 644,577 fans per game, a total of 5,857 additional fans. Using the Green Bay Packers as representative, which they almost certainly are not, they would make an additional $433,505 in ticket revenue from both home and road games from the expanded season. This is a revenue bump of .92%.

II. Television and Media
Ah, the single largest category of the Packers' income. 38.1% of their income from FYE 3/31/09 came in this category, and the broadcast networks should be falling all over themselves for the right to pay NFL teams more money for two additional regular season weeks, right? After all, 19 weeks instead of 17 weeks = 12% bump in revenue, right?

Well, let's not be too hasty. First, who does the NFL make money from? Well, beginning this year, DirecTV is paying $1 billion a year for the NFL. That's an easy 1.12 billion, an extra 117 million in revenue, right? No, almost certainly not. It's not clear how many subscribers there are with Sunday Ticket. Per this article from August 2009, there are about 2 million of us paying something like $300 a year for Sunday Ticket. That's $600 million in revenue, and DirecTV paid the NFL $700 million in 2009 and will be paying that $1 billion this year. Is DirecTV insane?

I guess it's possible, but almost certainly not. DirecTV's Sunday Ticket subscribers pay DirecTV not just that $300 for Sunday Ticket, but also an additional amount of money for regular monthly subscriptions. Some of that $1 billion reflects the weekly operating profit, such as it is, but some of it reflects brand value to DirecTV for the subscriber exclusivity. How much of the $1 billion goes to each figure? I'm really not sure, but I'd estimate at least half is the existence of the subscribers in the first place. The per-week revenue thus looks more like $30 million dollars, so a 2 week bump might move the contract from $1 billion to $1.06 billion. That's a nice extra chunk of change, but only half of the bump in the length of the regular season. That's not too bad, because the other contracts will pay us more, right?

This is, once again, likely overoptimistic. CBS, Fox, and NBC get the right not just to regular season games, but also to postseason games, including the Super Bowl on a three-year cycle. Figuring out how much revenue they get off those games is a difficult exercise, requiring a much more detailed knowledge of ad rates and revenue and ratings than I possess, so I'm going to do some extraordinarily rough approximation. For regular season games, I will ballpark it at 15 million viewers per game, based off this article and this one. For playoffs, I will estimate 25 million viewers for each wild card game, 30 million for each divisional round game, and 45 million for the conference championships, plus 90 million for the Super Bowl. Again, for simplicity's sake, I will assume each viewer is worth the same amount, which probably isn't true. I will also ignore preseason revenue, since it's almost certainly a minuscule part of these contracts.

ESPN is probably easiest. They're paying the NFL $1.1 billion a year, so they're closest to a 12% bump. This is almost certainly still overoptimistic; as with DirecTV, getting ESPN is optional, so they're almost certainly including some brand value in that huge amount. I will conservatively estimate this at maybe $100 million. That's $58.8 million per week, or an extra $117.6 million the NFL might be able to expect from two extra weeks of Monday Night Football.

For CBS and Fox, I'm not including any brand value in my calculation. This is almost certainly wrong in a way that overstates the potential increase in revenues. After all, brand value was why Fox paid the NFL so much money in the first place, since it induced the creation of new Fox affiliates. By now, though, both networks have affiliates all across the country and won't see that sort of big bump, so I'll ignore any value to other shows. Using those viewership numbers, each network draws roughly 550 million viewers a year. That assumes 26 regular season games, 1 wild card game, 2 divisional round games, 1 conference championship, and a Super Bowl every 3 years. With the expanded season, they'd each show 3 additional games (1 double-header, 1 single week), so they'd see an increase to 595 million viewers, or 8.2%. Per this article, Fox and CBS paid an aggregate of about $1.335 billion before signing extensions with increases roughly 4% in May 2009. Post-extension, that amount was $1.388 billion, so an 8.2% increase on that increases the amount to a hair over $1.5 billion.

With NBC, the math is similar to CBS and NBC. After the 2009 extension with a similar 4% increase, they paid roughly $624 million per year. Assuming the same 15 million per game, 25 million per wild card and 90 million per Super Bowl every 3 years, an expanded season increases NBC's total viewership from 335 million to 365 million, an average increase of about 9%. That's an increase of about $55 million in our hypothetical TV contract world.

Overall, adding up those television contracts, we have a total bump from $4.112 billion to $4.459 billion, or 8.4%, far short of the almost 12% bump needed to pay players the same amount per game.

III. Private Box Income
$12.8 million dollars or revenue, or a slightly over 5%. I don't think ticket revenue is included. For realism purposes, I'll assume a regular season game is three times as valuable as a preseason game. An increase from 8 regular season games to 9 thus increases the value of this category about 7.7%. I'm not very confident in that number, but that sounds reasonable, and I don't think it's completely insane.

IV. Licensing Income
I've re-described this as licensing revenue. I think that's where almost all of NFL Properties' income comes from, but (Other NFL income) and the good-size increase in this category of late leads me to believe NFL Network revenue is also included in this category. Estimating the potential increase in this category from an expanded season is difficult. My inclination is to think licensing revenue would expand very little, if at all, from an expanded season, but that NFL Network might provide more revenue, especially if it picks up another regular season game, which seems likely (though, again, there's a brand value issue there). I think a reasonable increase is no more than a 5% bump in this category from an expanded regular season.

V. Marketing/Pro Shop
This is another category where the potential increase is difficult to quantify. In a most optimistic world, I'd assume all of the revenue comes from gameday, and people at regular season games spend an above-average amount, say 50% more than people at preseason games. I doubt this is actually true, but I'm trying to weight this analysis in a way that mildly but reasonably in favor of increasing revenues. In that case, that'd be a 6.1% increase in this category. That's almost certainly much too high, but I'll stick with it.

VI. Other-Local Media, Concessions, and parking
Local media is very difficult to quantify; a true evaluation would require something at least as detailed as the TV contract analysis. It might reach the 12% regular season bump, but probably not. It actually might fall, since it includes the Packers' revenue from televising 4 preseason games. Concessions and parking will probably follow attendance, more or less. I'm tempted to use for this category the same .92% increase I used for attendance, but I will instead very roughly guesstimate it at 2% increase.

Conclusion

All of the above numbers should be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt. All of them also, though, represent my best guess at a reasonable but optimistic estimate of how much additional revenue might be out there from expanding the NFL regular season from 16 to 18 games. Plugging those increases into the actual numbers from Green Bay's financial report gives an estimate total revenue amount of almost $262 million, an increase of 5.67%. On a per-game basis, the players aren't making the same amount, they're making over 6% LESS. Obviously, the owners can offset that by doing things like raising ticket prices, but I don't think they're too too interested in double-digit percentage increases in the current economic climate. The "enchanced" season doesn't look like a winner for the players.

What's really going on?
While in law school, I fell under the baleful influence of a professor who once said that his mantra was, "First, I figure out what's really going on. Then, I figure out what the law should be." Why is Roger Goodell advocating for the players to play less and make less money per-game? Doesn't he know that the NFL won't really make that much extra money from moving to an 18-game season? The question to that is almost certainly yes, so why does he do this?

First, I think he's right (shudder... I hate acknowledging that) that there really is a level of popular discontent over the 4-game preseason, especially from media people and season ticket holders who feel like they're getting screwed. These people, especially the latter, are probably wrong, but as I mentioned way up there, that's a subject for a different post. Proposing an expanded regular season allows Roger Rex to make nice with these people.

More importantly, though, it's a negotiating tactic. By this point, the owner's strategy is clear: they're going to approach the players with their dream offer. This is a revenue pool that's roughly 18% smaller than the current revenue pool, plus an expanded season. The expanded season will enhance the size of the revenue pool, so the players won't make 18% less but maybe 12% less. It's not being presented in quite this manner, but that's what's really going on. The NFLPA's current strategy is trying to present the expanded season and the size of the revenue pool as two separate issues, focusing on what seems like an essential fairness when it comes to playing 18 regular season games instead of 16. What I think they're trying not to do is to draw an explicit linkage between an expanded season and a decrease revenue amount. When they do that, the NFL will then be able to make a relatively persuasive argument that "Ok, we'll drop the 18-game season idea, and give you less money, and you agreed to that." That is what the NFLPA is trying to avoid.

Frankly, I don't think the NFL is, or at least should be, particularly serious about the 18-game season. If my numbers are close to right, it doesn't make anywhere near as much money as you'd expect from a basic 16 to 18 game comparison, and the players really don't like it. It is, instead, primarily a negotiating tactic and media ploy, and should and will be dropped when the labor negotiations get serious.

UPDATE (8/4/10 2031 CT): Thanks to Chris at Smart Football for linking to this. For those coming here directly, see this discussion of the article at Football Outsiders. One of the commenters there brings up a very good point, that I focused on revenue rather than profits. This is quite true, and it's a different calculus from that perspective. Focusing on profit, something like 58% of the $14 million in added revenue will go to player costs. The other question is how much non-player revenue costs increase. Since the NFL would be sticking with the 20-game season, I don't think non-player costs would go up very much if at all. In that case, at least $7 million of that $8 million might be straight profit for the NFL.

If so, then an 18-game season seems much more like a financial winner for NFL owners. If that is indeed the case, then it's possible the NFL might see the 18-game season as much more than the kind of negotiating tactic I thought it was. The problem remains, though, that you have to get the players to agree to it first. To use an example from the FO thread, it's like paying the independent contractor $20/hour to work from 9-5, then asking him to stay from 5 until 6 and paying him $10 for that added hour. 9-6 for $190 might make sense; $10 on top of $180 for that extra hour is a tougher sell.

UPDATE #2 (5/25/11 2246 CT): In January 2011, NFL outside counsel Bob Batterman at a press conference estimated the additional revenue from the move to an 18-game season at $500 million. The numbers I set forth in this post produced additional revenue of approximately $450 million. I don't absolutely trust Batterman's comment to be the absolute best estimate possible, but I don't think it's an indication I wasn't completely down the wrong path.

My thinking on the likelihood and desirability (from a financial perspective) of the 18-game season has changed over time, both before and since I wrote this post. As it currently stands, I believe it's likely to be part of the eventual settlement between the players and owners, but that's a subject for a longer post I have yet to write. I just want to note, though, that I don't necessarily still agree with the analysis in either the post or the earlier update.

Total Titans

2010-07-23T00:37:00.002-05:00

New Total Titans post, this one with some thoughts on Chris Johnson's new deal, featuring some salary cap yap and thoughts on who has leverage in what situations.

Total Titans

2010-07-17T20:16:00.001-05:00

New post up at Total Titans, this one asking just how good Jacob Ford is.

Book Review: Bowled Over

2010-07-12T00:03:00.000-05:00

Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era is the third Michael Oriard book I've "reviewed" on here, after Brand NFL and The End of Autumn. Whereas The End of Autumn was his autobiography, Brand NFL and Bowled Over represent a sort of history of football since Oriard's playing days at Notre Dame in the late 1960's and the NFL in the early 1970's.

Bowled Over is basically two halves. The first half covers the turmoil of the late 1960's, which included both generational change and the rising number and importance of black players. This comes to a convenient narrative end with the introduction of the one-year renewable scholarship in 1973. A couple issues I had with this section. First, race is a tricky subject, and writing about times when you were young and at the forefront of a supposed social revolution (Oriard himself was fairly politically sensitive and participated in anti-war demonstrations while at ND), so it feels like he's exaggerating just how serious and how important the conflicts were.

Second, he emphasizes the change in power relationships with the introduction of the one-year scholarship. When he doesn't mention, though, is that the late 1960's were a pretty anomalous time in college football history. From 1950-65, college football had extremely limited substitutions, and teams essentially operated with a single platoon. Oriard mentions Bear Bryant's Junction Boys, but doesn't mention that Bryant really didn't need the 75 players he ran off, since the 35 that were left were more than he needed for his team, even taking into account injuries. Players who quit the team didn't necessarily have to give up their scholarship, but that's a problem fairly easily solved-don't actually give them the scholarship until they pass through some sort of initiation process. Plus, in the era, teams weren't subject to the 85-man scholarship limitations, and big schools like Alabama regularly had 150 or more players on scholarship at any given time. Also, before the late 1940's, scholarships tended to be informal in nature, the result of boosters paying students for phantom jobs, jobs they could quickly be axed from if they quit the football team. Really, football coaches have had the power for over 100 of the past 110 years of college football, and Oriard seems to place undue weight on that brief historical interlude where it was otherwise.

The second part of Bowled Over is a fairly conventional history of the last 35 or so years of college football history, focusing on the increasing influence of money. Oriard plumbs Dunnavant's Fifty-Year Seduction well, much more than I did in my brief review, and it provides some of his best material, while much of the rest seems to come from John Sayle Watterson's history of college football, which has long been on my to-read risk. Obviously, Oriard seems to decry the purity of this game, but goes farther than most "football people" in thinking seriously about whether or not college football can be saved. Ultimately, he seems to hope some other, outside force will essentially save college football from itself, since the money interests are so entwined with the game, plus CFB's history (in Oriard's view) has always been primarily about money. There's a way I think about this: Then a miracle occurs, and it feels much too much like wish-casting to me.

Ultimately, I found Bowled Over deeply disappointing. It's a well done, scholarly book, with the sort of footnotes and evidence of research you expect from somebody who's a tenured professor, but I deeply disagree with Oriard's viewpoint and analysis too much to whole-heartedly recommend it.

For more, see this interview with Oriard, this post on student demand for college sports, and, hey, what do you know, the Department of Justice is scrutinizing the one-year scholarship.

Total Titans

2010-07-11T21:49:00.002-05:00

New post up at Total Titans, this one on predicting who gets cut to make room for the unsigned draft picks. Alternatively, July NFL blogging can be boring, but it's time for me to come out of hibernation, so I write about what there is.

Self-Publicity

2010-07-10T23:36:00.000-05:00

I just wrote a new post at Total Titans on how much the defense was responsible for the 8-2 finish. That post was the first of several I'll be doing over there on the Titans' team chapter in Football Outsiders Almanac 2010, which was unleashed on the world Thursday. Go buy it from the FO store if you haven't already, dangit, it's the first book that lists my name among the authors.

Site News

2010-06-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

Ok, so my hiatus really wasn't that over. Post planned for tonight delayed for after holiday weekend travel, which is being done sans laptop. Blogging should return with a vengeance for July and August.

Total Titans

2010-06-21T22:21:00.002-05:00

Hiatus: kind of over. I have a new post up at Total Titans, launching off Doug Farrar's article at Yahoo! that's part of his great series on how every NFL team can address one of its biggest weaknesses.

American Needle

2010-05-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

Scramble for the Ball co-author Mike and I co-wrote another column, this one on the Supreme Court's decision Monday in American Needle. As you can see from the comment section, the University of Chicago, and me personally, are responsible for virtually every ill of the past half century. If only I in fact had such power... heck, if only writing for FO was something my employer particularly liked.

That column pretty much took care of everything I planned to write about American Needle here, but there are a couple loose ends and other articles I wanted to note. Guesting for Darren Rovell, Maury Brown wrote about the NFL's guaranteed media deals in 2011 paying them even if there's no football. As is indicated in the "plausible future" section of the column, my view has changed and I now think there will be football in 2011. The question in my mind is now whether it will be all or almost all of the current players, something like 90% with some serving as test cases, or more like half.

At least as far as there will be NFL football in 2011, I seem to be in agreement with Mike Florio, who I think does a good job when he's writing about things he knows. See this piece on the NFLPA's over-the-top rhetoric and also this one on the decertification option. If you want the union line, go ahead and read Lester Munson's article for ESPN; he buys into what they told him hook, line, and sinker.

I believe, though, that Munson gets one thing quite wrong, and that's that the Obama Administration won. When the NFL and American Needle initially filed their cert petitions, the Supreme Court did what it sometimes does and asked the Solicitor General's office whether it thought the Supreme Court should take the case (aka "cvsg", for calling for the views of the Solicitor General). A large percentage of the time (between 75% and 90%, I'd guess, too lazy to look it up), the Supreme Court denies cert if the SG says don't take the case and grants cert if the SG says yes. In this case, the SG said not to take the case, but the Supreme Court granted cert anyway. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised by this, since the case ended up being decided unanimously, but the Supreme Court strongly hinted that the NFL should win on its rule of reason analysis under § 1. Given that the 7th Circuit by its own terms expressly limited its ruling, and that sports leagues are weird hybrids of competition and necessary cooperation that can produce rulings with limited general applicability, I don't think denying cert would have had much practical effect. That the case was heard at all was a sort of defeat for the government.

My old antitrust prof, Randy Picker, had a post on the decision up at the UofC Faculty Law Blog. Reading Prof. Picker's post, you can see he's a law prof and I'm a football columnist.

People really liked me in the FO comments for linking to this post by someone better versed in the economics of organizations. My favorite example of an example of the benefits of cooperation is the DVD patent pool. The reason there was no format war over the DVD like there was for VHS v Beta and HD-DVD v BluRay is the manufacturers all got together and came up with a single standard format. This is a clear § 1 violation, and I'd say there's probably a pretty good chance it loses under a rule of reason analysis. But, of course, the government didn't pursue the case and there was no American Needle to be left out of the pool, so it was never litigated.

Chris at Smart Football also wrote about the decision. We had a minor back-and-forth on twitter a couple weekends ago on the breadth of the 7th Circuit's ruling. See also Michael McCann and Marc Edelman of Sports Law Blog, each writing elsewhere. Andrew Brandt wrote about how getting the decision could spur collective bargaining talks, a position I agree with (the chance of getting any meaningful movement before a decision by the NFL was nil) but I still don't see things getting done. NFL attorney Jeff Pash had a presser, it seems, and noted the case wasn't about labor, which is (a) absolutely true and (b) completely meaningless.

Two other points to ponder, about which I am not about to draw conclusions. (1) For virtually all of its history, MLS has signed at least some players at the league level and then assigned them to teams, either via an entry draft or an allocation process. Is this covered by the nonstatutory labor exemption? Is this collectively bargained? What about before there was an MLS players union? (2) During the 2004-05 NHL lockout, Bain Capital offered to buy the NHL, including all 30 teams. The deal ended up not going through, apparently for several reasons, but could such a deal have passed antitrust scrutiny? Should it? And what effect can and should that have on labor relations when the 30 teams are all clearly part of a single entity?

These will probably be pretty much my final thoughts on American Needle, at least unless and until something interesting (to me) happens at the lower court level.

Self-Publicity Catchup

2010-05-22T23:41:00.000-05:00

Since my last update, posts at Total Titans have appeared on the best Titans/Oilers teams, quick takes on Titans news, and VY on VY. Also going up was the post-draft installment of AFC South 4 Downs, plugged by ESPN AFC South blogger Paul Kuharsky here for the In$ider version and here for the UDFA analysis in the FO-only portion.

Back to the grindstone.

Site News

2010-05-04T23:22:00.000-05:00

Updated some links on the sidebar, removed a blog or two I never read, added a link to the 2007 archive for UFR (I miss that project, now that I'm not doing it) and updated the archive post itself, and just generally mucked around while distracted. Let me know of any problems via comment or email, once I add that back in.