As interim coach of the Indianapolis Colts in 2012, Bruce Arians was remarkable. He was named AP Coach of the Year, as the Colts went 9-3, and 8-3-1 against the spread, under his watch. In his first year with the Cardinals in 2013, Arians went 10-5-1 against the spread, making him one of the best coaches ever by that metric. Then in 2014, Arians again was again named Coach of the Year, as he rode some Pythagenpat Magic to go 11-5 against the spread, bringing his career mark up to 29-13-2 against the wise guys in the desert. And in 2015, Arians started off red hot yet again! A 39-32 victory in Seattle against the defending NFC Champions on Sunday Night Football put the Cardinals at 7-2, and 6-2-1 against the spread. At that point, Arians was 35-15-3 against the spread for his coaching career. That’s a 0.660 winning percentage ATS if you count pushes as half wins and half losses, and an even better .700 winning percentage if you discard all pushes (arguably the better approach, since for wagering purposes, a push just means you get your money back). Nobody can beat the spread 70% of the time, right?

Well, yes. Right. Since then, Arians is 9-15-0 against the spread, dropping from a 70% success rate to a 37.5% rate. And he’s just 6-12 ATS in his last 18 games. That includes a stretch in 2016 where Arians’ Cardinals failed to cover in five straight games and seven of eight contests. And it includes a 12-point loss in week 1 of the 2017 season on Sunday, when the Cardinals were 2.5-point favorites. The graph below shows every game of his head coaching career and how many points his team beat (blue) or were beaten by (in red) the spread: [continue reading…]

Sometimes, the headlines speak for themselves. After last night — the Chargers lost when the potential game-tying field goal was blocked in the final second — Los Angeles nee San Diego has now lost 18 of its last 23 games decided by 8 or fewer points.

For his career, Philip Rivers has a 54-26 record in games decided by more than 8 points, and a 43-54 record in games decided by 8 or fewer points. Read differently, Rivers has lost 28 *more* times in close games than in non-close games. That is (for now) tied with Rich Gannon for the largest spread ever. [continue reading…]

Over the last ten years, no team has had a worse record than the Rams. And two of the last three years have started in particularly ugly fashion: last season, the Los Angeles Rams lost 28-0 as 2.5-point favorites in San Francisco. And two years earlier, the St. Louis Rams lost by 28 points to the Vikings as 3.5-point favorites on opening Sunday (more on this game in a bit). But on Sunday, in the first game with a new coaching staff headlined by 31-year-old Sean McVay, OC Matt LaFleur, and DC Wade Phillips, the Rams walloped the Scott Tolzien-led Colts, 46-9.

The Rams were expected to win because, well, Tolzien, but Los Angeles was only favored by 3.5 points. That means Los Angeles, by virtue of a 37-point win, covered by a whopping 33.5 points.  For some perspective, the only other team to cover by four touchdowns on Sunday was Jacksonville, in game 3 of the Doug Marrone era.  Covering by 33.5 points is a ton: the Rams never did it during the Greatest Show On Turf days although the team did do it three times during the Jeff Fisher era, including… the last time the Rams played the Colts. That game, you may recall, was the, um, Tavon Austin breakout game.

Anyway, covering by 33.5 points is pretty rare, but it’s really rare when it comes in a head coach’s first game with the team. In fact, it’s the largest cover by a head coach in his first game since 1990.  And among all coaches in their first games with a new team (i.e., including coaches in their first stop at a new gig), it’s the third largest cover since 1990.  Take a look at how each coach from 1990 to 2016 did in week 1 with a new team: [continue reading…]

The New England Patriots are 0-1. The Dolphins, due to Hurricane Irma, have had their week 1 game postponed to week 11, giving Miami a week 1 bye. And the Jets and Bills square off in Buffalo today. The winner of that game will therefore be alone in first place in the division. Which is pretty unusual in the Tom Brady era.

The last time that Buffalo was alone in first place in the AFC East was after week 2 of the 2014 season, when the Bills were 2-0 and the rest of the division was 1-1. Before that, the last time was week 3 of 2011, and other than a few weeks during 2008 (the year Miami won the division and Matt Cassel started 15 games for New England), the only other times since 2001 were after the first two weeks of the 2003 season.

For the Jets, it’s been even longer. New York was last alone in first place in the division after week 6 of the 2010 season, when the Jets were 5-1 and the Patriots were 4-1 (a week later, both teams were 5-1). Since 2002, the only times the Jets have been alone in first place were weeks 11-13 of the 2008 season, weeks 2 and 3 of the 2009 season, and weeks 5 and 6 of the 2010 season.

Looking ahead to week 2, the Bills travel to Carolina while the Jets head to Oakland. So there’s a very good chance the winner of the Jets/Bills game will be 1-1 next week, and New England (playing in New Orleans) will either be 1-1 or 0-2. That would allow the Dolphins, with a win over the Chargers in the first NFL regular season game at the StubHub Center, to be alone in first place in the division. The last time that happened? Week 2 of the 2010 season, and before that, week 4 of the 2005 season! Yes, there has been exactly one week in the last 11 years where Miami was alone in first place (in 2008, the Dolphins never achieved that status, despite winning the division on a tiebreaker).

The graph below shows how many games above .500 each team in the AFC East after each week of the NFL season for the 2001 through 2016 seasons. The Bills and the Patriots share blue and red as their primary colors, but that’s not a huge issue in this chart. [continue reading…]

In 1994, the “average” sack came from a player that weighted 266 pounds. Wait, what do you mean by average sack? Well, if you look at all 937 sacks in 1994, and identify the weight of the sacker on each sack, you can calculate the weight of the average sack in each season. John Randle was 290 pounds, and he had 13.5 sacks that year, so he gets 13.5 times as much weight a player with one sack. The graph below shows the weight of the player producing an average sack in each year since 1982. As you can see, it peaked in the mid-’90s, and has declined slightly since.

However, players in general are getting heavier, including in the front seven. The graph below shows the average weight of a player in the front 7 — weighted by the number of starts by such a player — for each year since 1982. That data is in orange; the blue line showing the average sack weight is still included in the chart for reference.
[continue reading…]

Longtime commenter Jason Winter has chimed in with today’s guest post. Jason is a part-time video game journalist and full-time sports fan. You can follow him on twitter at @winterinformal.

As always, we thank Jason for contributing. Note that this was written before last night’s game.

---

If you’re making predictions as to who will win each division on the eve of this 2017 NFL season, you’ve probably got New England to once again win the AFC East. I mean, look at the rest of that division. Seriously.

As for the other seven divisions, how many teams do you have repeating as champions? Or, let me put it to you this way: Suppose I bet you that at least half of the divisions in the NFL – the AFC East included – will have new winners in 2017. So if there are four or more new division winners, I win; if there are fewer, you win. Would you take that bet?

If we’d done that bet every year since the NFL went to its current eight-division format, I’d have won 12 out of 14 times. So you definitely shouldn’t take that bet.

But sure, that gives me an advantage: You win if 0, 1, 2, or 3 divisions have new winners (four outcomes), and I win if 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 do (five outcomes). So fine, I’ll give you an extra chance. I only win if more divisions (5+) have new winners in 2017, so you’ll win if exactly half (4) or fewer divisions have new champions. Now what chance do I have to win?

If we did this every year since 2003, I’d still be ahead in the money, with 9 out of 14 wins. Always bet on chaos.

[continue reading…]

Did you know: the Patriots and 49ers both threw on 54% of their plays last season. Both teams ranked in the bottom five last year in pass ratio, i.e., their percentage of plays that were either pass attempts or sacks. But the teams both passed infrequently for different reasons: New England didn’t want to pass much because they were often playing with the lead and were milking the clock; San Francisco didn’t want to pass much because their passing game was not very good and because both Colin Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert were two of the most run-heavy quarterbacks in football.

San Francisco was undoubtedly a run-heavy team last year, but the Patriots?  Of course not.  No team with Tom Brady is run-happy, but the game scripts incentivized New England to be run-happy.  Regular readers know about Game Scripts, which is simply the average points margin over every second of every game.  New England had a Game Script of +7.7 last year, the highest margin in the NFL.  This means if you were to write down the amount by which New England was leading for every second of every game last year, and calculated the average, you would get a 7.7 point lead.  The graph below shows the Game Script for all 32 teams last year on the Y-Axis, along with their Pass Ratio (pass attempts plus sacks divided by total plays) on the X-Axis. [continue reading…]

The AFC West may be the most competitive division in the NFL. The Broncos and Chargers both have realistic playoff aspirations in 2017, but most observers would still rank the Raiders and Chiefs as the top two teams in the division. But if Oakland is going to win the division, it’s likely going to have to do it by getting an early lead; for the Chiefs, they just need to not fall out of the race before Thanksgiving, because Kansas City should be able to make up ground late. Why? Because while Kansas City and Oakland have similar schedules (the Chiefs draw Houston and Pittsburgh in the two variable games, while the Raiders get the Titans and Ravens), the Chiefs schedule is frontloaded (in terms of difficult games) while Oakland’s schedule is backloaded.

In the first six weeks, the Raiders get the Jets, Ravens, and Chargers at home, along with road games against the Titans, Redskins, and Broncos. Oakland should be able to get off to a 4-2 or 5-1 start against that schedule. The Patriots game comes in week 11 (and it’s a “home” game in Mexico City), but it’s the final four weeks that are scary: Oakland goes to Kansas City and hosts Dallas (on SNF) in weeks 14 and 15, before finishing with road games in Philadelphia (on Monday Night Football) and against the Chargers. A 2-2 mark would be more than holding serve.

Kansas City opens in New England on Thursday night, as tough a game as there is on any schedule. And nearly all the “easy” games for Kansas City come in the final six weeks. The Chiefs host Buffalo at the end of November and face the Jets the following week. The last four games are three home games — the Raiders, Chargers (on Saturday night), and Dolphins — and the final game is in Denver. Kansas City can realistic hope for a 5-1 finish to streak into the playoffs, so the Chiefs just need to get to 5-5 through ten games.

A similar disparity exists in the AFC South: all of those teams have easy schedules (more on this below). But one team with a very favorable early season schedule is the Colts, who… just might need it given the uncertain health status of Andrew Luck. The Colts open up with a road game against the Rams, followed by home games against Arizona and Cleveland. Indianapolis also hosts the 49ers and Jaguars in the team’s first seven games. The Titans have the second easiest schedule in the league, but it’s also really easy late. Tennessee’s December slate? Home for Houston, at Arizona, at San Francisco, home for the Rams, and home for the Jaguars. The Titans are in position to ride a late-season winning streak into the playoffs.

I went ahead and created my own team ratings. You may disagree with them slightly, but the only reason I generated them was to generate SOS ratings. So even if you disagree with some of the ratings, it shouldn’t impact each team’s SOS that much. The ratings below represent how many points each team would beat an average NFL team by on a neutral field. [continue reading…]

Below you will find 38 pairs of numbers. In each case, you tell me which number will be bigger. One point for each correct answer. Most points wins.

Ties — and I expect there to be a nontrivial number of them — go to the side that had fewer votes. For example, here is a pair:

Number of wins by the Lions
Number of wins by the Ravens

Let’s say 49 people take the Lions and 44 take the Ravens. If the Lions and Ravens end up with the same number of wins, then each Ravens-backer will get a point and each Lions-backer will not.  Last year, JimZornsLemma won with 25 correct guesses out of 38; the average was just 19 correct guesses. Thanks to Jeremy De Shetler for an assist on some of this year’s questions.

GRAND PRIZE: the main prizes will be (1) honor and (2) glory. There may also be some sort of trinket to be named later. By the time this thing is over, more than five months will have passed, so that gives me some time to scrape something together. But you probably shouldn’t enter unless honor and glory are sufficient.

MORE RULES:

1. Everyone is limited to one entry per person. This will be enforced by the honor system. If caught breaking this rule, you, your children, and your children’s children will be banned from all future FP contests.

2. I won’t enter the contest myself, which will allow me to arbitrate any dispute impartially. Any ambiguity in the rules will be clarified by me in whatever way causes me the least amount of hassle.

3. While there are quite a few items that refer in some way to the NFL postseason, unless specifically stated, all the items below refer to regular season totals only.

5. You may enter until 1:00 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, September 17th, 2016. However, there’s an incentive to entering early because…

6. In the event that the contest ends in a tie, the winner will be the person whose entry was submitted first.

HOW TO ENTER: PLEASE READ IF YOU WANT TO ACTUALLY ENTER THE CONTEST.

Cut-and-paste the list of questions below into your editor of choice, THEN DELETE THE CHOICES you don’t like (thereby leaving the ones you do like), and then cut-and-paste your 38 answers into the comments of this thread. Please do not edit the text in any way other than deleting half of it. If you want to leave non-entry comments, you are free to do so either at the very end of your entry or in a subsequent comment, but please do not put commentary in the body of your entry. [continue reading…]

The 2017 season will be the 58th season in Jets franchise history. It is also the least anticipated season by Jets fans in that 58-year history. New York went 5-11 last year, and probably wasn’t even that good (the Jets had an SRS of -8.5, 4th worst in the NFL). In the NFL, the way to give a fan base hope is to be good or to make some exciting changes in the offseason. The Jets retained the same general manager (Mike Maccagnan) and head coach (Todd Bowles) from last year’s uninspiring squad, and while New York switched quarterbacks, the addition of 38-year-old Josh McCown somehow feels like a downgrade on Ryan Fitzpatrick.

How bad is it? The USA Today had the Jets going 0-16. Multiple other outlets have spent time discussing that possibility, too. It’s only a question of degree, at this point: everyone assumes that the Jets are going to be horrible.  McCown is a 38-year-old quarterback who has won 8 games since 2006.  The offense is almost certainly the least talented in the NFL ignoring the quarterback position.  And if you were wondering how they got here, well, since the end of 2016, the Jets also said goodbye to:

• David Harris
• Nick Mangold
• Eric Decker
• Brandon Marshall
• Sheldon Richardson
• Darrelle Revis
• Ryan Clady
• Quincy Enunwa (placed on injured reserve)

And again: this team was terrible last year with those players.  So is this really the least optimistic season in Jets history?  Let’s run through things in reverse order, and explain why Jets fans were feeling better on September 1 of every other season than on September 1, 2017.  For brevity’s sake, I’m going to skip seasons where the Jets went at least .500 in the prior year, because, those seasons obviously had more hope than this one. [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I wrote that Charlie Conerly was the oldest starting quarterback in the NFL from 1953 to 1960, an eight-year run that remains unmatched today. Conerly was the oldest quarterback in 1961, too, but he was mostly a backup in his final season. The table below shows the oldest quarterback in each season since 1946, among all players who finished in the top 30 in passing yards (in all leagues combined). [continue reading…]

You probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Charlie Conerly. If you do, it’s probably in the context of his legacy as a borderline Hall of Fame candidate, the man who won a record four TD/INT crowns, or as the best quarterback from Ole Miss to lead the Giants to a title.

But here’s something you probably didn’t know about Conerly: he was the oldest quarterback in the NFL… for eight years.   Sammy Baugh retired after the 1952 season at the age of 38; after Baugh, the oldest two quarterbacks in the NFL were Bob Waterfield and Frankie Albert, each 32, and both of them retired after the season, too. That left a pair of 31-year-olds as the elder statements of the NFL arms race: Otto Graham, born in December 1921, and Conerly, born in September 1921.

So in 1953, a 32 years old Conerly was the oldest quarterback in the NFL, thanks to a three month edge over Graham. The NFL was a young man’s league back then, at least at quarterback: no other starter was in his 30s, and only one other regular starter was older than 27. The gap would only grow over time. Graham retired in 1955; in 1956, Conerly was 35, and the next oldest quarterbacks were all 30 years old: Bobby Layne, Y.A. Tittle, Norm Van Brocklin, George Ratterman, and Harry Gilmer.  In 1960, the oldest four QBs in the league were Conerly at 39, and Van Brocklin, Layne, and Tittle at 34 (yes, no 36-year-old quarterback magically appeared).  In ’61, the three oldest quarterbacks in the NFL were Conerly at 40, and Tittle and Layne at 35; by then, Van Brocklin was coaching the Vikings. Conerly retired after the 1961 season. [continue reading…]

In 1998, Randall Cunningham may have been the best quarterback in football.  Cunningham was 35.4 years old as of September 1st of that season. If it wasn’t Cunningham, it was probably Vinny Testaverde (34.8 years old as of 9/1/98), or  Steve Young (36.9), or Chris Chandler (32.9), or John Elway (38.2).  Troy Aikman (31.8) and Doug Flutie (35.9) also had great seasons, three other quarterbacks — Dan Marino (37.0),  Steve Beuerlein (33.5), and Rich Gannon (32.7) — finished in the top 20 in passing yards.

That means 10 of the top 20 quarterbacks in passing yards in 1998 were 31.8 years old or older as of September 1st of that year.    Thirteen years later, things were very different, as 8 of the top 16 passers in 2011 by passing yards were under 28 years old as of September 1st, with four being under 25: Cam Newton (22.3), Matthew Stafford (23.6), Josh Freeman (23.6), Andy Dalton (23.8), Mark Sanchez (24.8), Matt Ryan (26.3), Joe Flacco (26.6), and Aaron Rodgers (27.7).

I calculated the average age of quarterbacks in the NFL for each season since 1950, using the methodology described here. The short version: calculate what percentage of league-wide passing yards was produced by each player, calculate that player’s age as of September 1st of that season, and that calculate the league-wide age of all passers, weighted by their percentage of league passing yards. The results below: [continue reading…]

The 2008 Giants were very experienced; the 2009 Giants were not.

In ’08, New York had Amani Toomer and Plaxico Burress as the team’s starting receivers; Toomer retired after the year, while Burress shot himself in a nightclub late in the ’08 season and missed all of the ’09 and ’10 seasons.

The top 7 receivers on the ’09 Giants were the other Steve Smith (24 years old in ’09), Mario Manningham (23), Hakeem Nicks (21), Kevin Boss (25), Ahmad Bradshaw (23), Domenik Hixon (25), and Brandon Jacobs (27). Entering the 2009 season, Smith had 637 career receiving yards, Manningham had 26, Nicks had 0, Boss had 502, Bradshaw had 54, Hixon had 601, and Jacobs had 359.  Derek Hagan, who finished 8th on the ’09 Giants with 101 receiving yards, was the most accomplished receiver entering the year by virtue of his 645 career receiving yards entering 2009.

On a weighted average, that means the 2009 Giants receiving group entered the year with just 318 career receiving yards (by reference, the 2008 Giants were at 2,608). What do I mean by weighted average? Well, Smith had 28.7% of the 2009 Giants receiving yards, and he had 637 career receiving yards prior to 2009; therefore, his 637 receives 28.7% of the team weight. On the other hand, Manningham and Nicks had, together, 38% of the Giants receiving yards in 2009, and they had, together, just 26 career receiving yards entering 2009. The table below shows the full calculation, with the result equaling a weighted average of 318 career receiving yards. [continue reading…]

Jessie Tuggle was a Georgia man. He was born in Griffin, Georgia and starred at Griffin High. He went to Valdosta State, in Valdosta, Georgia, and was a three-time All-Conference pick and the Gulf South Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year in his senior season. He went undrafted, so he joined the Atlanta Falcons for training camp in 1987. Tuggle made the team, and proceeded to miss just one game due to injury over his first 12 seasons. Tuggle wound up playing his entire 14-year career with the Falcons, set the Atlanta record for games played by a defensive player, and made five Pro Bowls. And if he hadn’t been on some of the worst defenses of his era, he might be remembered more fondly today.

How bad were the Falcons defenses during the Tuggle era? The graph below shows Atlanta’s defensive DVOA in each year (using estimated DVOA for ’87 and ’88) plotted against the left Y-Axis (and remember, a positive number indicates a below-average defense) and the Falcons rank in points allowed plotted against the right Y-Axis (here, a larger number means a worse defense). In ’87, ’89, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’96, 99, and ’00, the Falcons defense had a DVOA of worse than 10%: [continue reading…]

Four years ago, I wrote about Matthew Stafford and his poor record. At the time, his career mark stood at 17-28 and he had just received a big money extension. In that piece, I noted that his career record was not predictive of much. Well, four years later, and Stafford just received another big money extension. And over the last four years, Stafford has gone 34-30. That’s not great, but it’s not bad, either.

But what’s notable about the Lions offense over the last four years is how reliant on Stafford the team has been. Since 2013, no team has rushed for fewer yards than Detroit, and the Lions also rank 30th in yards per carry. The Detroit offense goes as Stafford goes, and while the former number one pick hasn’t been the best quarterback in the NFL, he’s been pretty valuable.

Stafford became the youngest player to join the 30,000 yard club, which is a function of (1) how young he was when he entered the league, (2) the era he plays in, (3) the pass-happy offenses he has led, and (4) his talent/ability. Stafford played with Knowshon Moreno at Georgia and both were drafted in the first round of 2009. Steve Young didn’t make his first Pro Bowl until his age 31 season. Warren Moon didn’t make his first Pro Bowl under age 32. [continue reading…]

Chris McAlister played 137 games in his NFL career: 135 with the Ravens from 1999 to 2008, and then 2 with the Saints in 2009 (given that he accumulated 0 points of AV with New Orleans, I’m excluding that from the analysis). He was the 10th overall pick in the ’99 draft, and a first-team All-Pro in ’03 and ’04, and a Pro Bowler in ’06. Most notably, he played on very good defenses almost every season of his career. In 10 years in Baltimore, the Ravens defense never ranked outside of the top 10 and ranked in the top 2 more often than not. You can calculate McAlister’s average team’s defensive DVOA by weighting his DVOA in each year (where he received at least one point of AV) by his number of games played that year as follows:

As it turns out, among players with at least 70 points of career AV, his average grade of -18.1% is the highest grade of any player (Jerome Brown is at -18.2% but he had only 48 points of career AV, as his life was cut tragically short). The full list of players below. [continue reading…]

Robert Brazile and Jerry Kramer are the two Seniors Nominees for the Hall of Fame this year. The man known as “Dr. Doom” was a great outside linebacker for the Houston Oilers, and is remembered as the first great pass rusher from the 3-4 position. In fact, it was Brazile who helped create the position that Lawrence Taylor made famous — as Jene Bramel once noted, he was “LT” before Taylor came into the league. The 3-4 defense entered the NFL in 1974, with Bum Phillips in Houston being one of the early proponents.  In 1975, the Oilers used the 6th overall pick on Brazile, who became an instant star. He was a first-team All-Pro by at least one major publication in each year from ’76 to ’80 under Phillips, but there are three reasons why Brazile never made it to the Hall of Fame.

1. Sack totals were not kept during his time, which made it hard to quantify his strong play.
2. He only played for 10 years, which is relatively short for a Hall of Famer.
3. He didn’t play for great defenses.

Thanks to the great John Turney, we do have unofficial sack totals for Brazile.  He had 48 in his career; although that’s not a remarkable number, Brazile was not just a pass rusher.  He was an all-around linebacker with strong coverage skills and was regarded as strong against the run.

The third item is the most interesting one. We know that Bum Phillips was a great defensive coach, at least by reputation.  And we know that the Oilers had not just Brazile, but two Hall of Famers on defense: Elvin Bethea and Curley Culp starred at RDE and NT, respectively, for Houston, and each was 29-34 years of age from ’75 to ’80. That *should* have been enough to produce a great defense, right? Except, it didn’t. The Oilers ranked 11th, 10th, 14th, 17th, 13th, and 5th in yards allowed and 5th, 17th, 14th, 16th, 16th, and 2nd in points allowed during those years, when the NFL had only 28 teams (and 26 in 1975). In terms of estimated DVOA, the Oilers ranked 6th, 10th, 4th, 20th, 4th, and 10th — which isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly notable for a team with three Hall of Famers and Phillips. [continue reading…]

I know what you’re thinking: Chase, you’re at it again with the clickbait titles. Jeff Graham had a good but otherwise unremarkable 11-year career. Drafted by the Steelers in the 2nd round of the 1991 Draft, he barely played as a rookie on a team with veteran wide receivers Louis Lipps and Dwight Stone. So Graham’s career really spanned the decade from 1992 to 2001, and during that time, he “only” ranked 10th in receiving yards in the NFL despite ranking 6th in games played by receivers during that time.

But if his career was unremarkable, as noted yesterday, his season-by-season progression was pretty remarkable.

In 1992, the Steelers offense was centered around Barry Foster, who rushed for 1,690 yards. Neil O’Donnell was the quarterback, and a second-year Graham broke out with 711 yards and 49 catches. Both numbers led the Steelers team, as Graham beat out Stone and Ernie Mills to become O’Donnell’s top target.

In 1993, Graham regressed; even though Foster was injured and O’Donnell passed more frequently, Graham was limited to just 38 receptions for 579 yards. Tight end Eric Green had a monster year, catching 63-942-5, while Stone basically matched Graham’s numbers.

In retrospect, that’s hardly a bad start to a career: Graham rode the bench as a rookie, was the team’s top receiver in his second year on a run-heavy offense, and then came back to earth a bit in year three.  But Pittsburgh used its first round pick on Charles Johnson in the 1994 Draft, so the Steelers traded Graham to the Bears for a 1995 5th round pick a few days after the ’94 Draft. ^[1]With Yancey Thigpen, Johnson, Mills, and Andre Hastings, it’s not as though the Steelers were thin at wide receiver. And that’s when Graham’s career really took off.

Chicago, of course, was a defensive-focused team with Steve Walsh and Erik Kramer at quarterback, and Lewis Tillman and Raymont Harris at running back. But the Bears had drafted Curtis Conway 7th overall in 1993, and together with Graham, the duo excelled over the next two years.

In 1994, Graham led Chicago with 68 catches, 944 yards, and 4 receiving touchdowns, with Conway producing a 39-546-2 statline.

The 1995 season was the year where the passing attacks in the NFC in general — and the NFC Central in particular — exploded. In Green Bay, Robert Brooks had 1,497 yards and Brett Favre was the MVP. In Detroit, Herman Moore had 1,686 yards and 14 touchdowns, Brett Perriman had 1,488 yards and 9 touchdowns, and Scott Mitchell had 4,338 yards and 32 TDs. In Minnesota, Warren Moon had 4228/33, Cris Carter had 122 catches for 1,371 yards and 17 scores, while Jake Reed had 72-1167-9.  And in Chicago? Erik Kramer threw for 3,838 yards and 29 touchdowns, with Graham catching 82 passes for 1,301 yards and Conway putting up a 62-1037-12 stat line.  Graham set the Chicago single-season record for receiving yards, a mark that still ranks 4th in Bears history today.

So after 5 seasons in the NFL, Graham’s career looked like this:

• Sat on bench as rookie
• Led team in receiving yards
• Setback season
• Led new team in receiving yards
• Led new team in receiving yards

An unrestricted free agent after the season, Graham chose to sign with the New York Jets. By doing so, he was reuniting with Ron Erhardt and Neil O’Donnell, his offensive coordinator and quarterback from his days with the Steelers. All three joined the Jets in ’96, with O’Donnell and Graham signing large contracts.

But a funny thing happened on the way to New York. The Jets not only fell apart, but they fell apart everywhere but wide receiver. Two years later, New York would be in the AFC Championship Game with the only pair of teammates to catch 75 passes that year: Keyshawn Johnson and Wayne Chrebet. Back in ’96, Chrebet was a 23-year-old second-year player, while Johnson was a rookie. Still, the duo managed to outshine Graham in both ’96 and then ’97. ^[2]Despite being a terrible 1-15 team, the Jets had four players who would finish their careers with 7,000 receiving yards: Johnson, Chrebet, Graham, and a 32-year-old Webster Slaughter. A fifth player, … Continue reading The Jets traded Graham to the Eagles in 1998 for a 6th round pick.

Unfortunately for Graham, he was joining what would be the worst offense in football: Philadelphia finished last in points, yards, passing yards, passing touchdowns, and net yards per pass attempt in 1998, a remarkable feat possible only thanks to the trio of Bobby Hoying, Koy Detmer, and a 32-year-old Rodney Peete. In 1997, Irving Fryar (at the age of 35) had 1,316 yards for the Eagles with Detmer/Hoying/Pette again splitting duties, but Philadelphia lacked a true number two receiver. In ’98, Graham actually edged out Fryar with 600 receiving yards to Fryar’s 556.

After the season, Graham chose to sign a free agent contract with the Chargers. A few months later, Erik Kramer also joined San Diego, reuniting the duo for one last season. Playing with Kramer and Jim Harbaugh, a 30-year-old Graham beat out 25-year-old TE Freddie Jones and 25-year-old wide receiver Mikhael Ricks to lead the Chargers in receptions, yards, and touchdowns, with a 57-968-2 stat line.

In 2000, Curtis Conway was fed up with the Bears, and re-connected with Graham in San Diego. Together with Freddie Jones, San Diego should have had a pretty good passing game. Instead? Graham endured the second 1-15 season of his career, thanks to Ryan Leaf and a combination of Harbaugh and Moses Moreno. Still, Graham beat out both Jones and Conway to lead the team in receiving yards with 907.

The 2001 Chargers would be Graham’s final season, and boy did he play on a talent-rich team…. just at the wrong time. Those Chargers had Graham, Conway, and Jones, of course, and were quarterbacked by a 39-year-old Doug Flutie. The backup quarterback was Drew Brees. The starting running back was LaDainian Tomlinson. Tim Dwight was the slot receiver. In their primes, Brees or Flutie could combine with LT, Graham/Conway/Dwight, and Jones to form a hell of an offense. Instead, San Diego went 5-11, and Grham finished second on the team in receiving yards to Conway.

Here is the breakdown for Graham’s 11 seasons in the NFL:

• Sat on bench as rookie
• Led Steelers in receiving yards (beating Dwight Stone and Ernie Mills)
• Finished behind Eric Green and Dwight Stone
• Led Bears in receiving yards (beating Curtis Conway)
• Led Bears in receiving yards (beating Curtis Conway) and set franchise record
• Finished behind Keyshawn and Chrebet
• Finished behind Keyshawn and Chrebet
• Led Eagles in receiving yards (beating Irving Fryar)
• Led Chargers in receiving yards (beating Freddie Jones)
• Led Chargers in receiving yards (beating Curtis Conway and Freddie Jones)
• Finished 2nd on Chargers in receiving yards (behind Curtis Conway)

In the 9-year middle of his career, Graham led four teams in receiving yards a total of six times.   In 2002, he signed with the Falcons, but was released in July.  He did not have a remarkable career, and didn’t put up great receiving numbers, but he was usually the best player on a variety of different teams. That means he either was better than we remember, played with bad quarterbacks to depress his stats, or was “lucky” to play with bad receivers to always be his team’s top weapon.

What do you think?

Jerry Rice was really, really good for many, many reasons.  Here’s one: he led his teams in receiving yards a whopping 15 times in his career.  In 1985, Roger Craig led the 49ers in receiving yards during Rice’s rookie season. Then, from ’86 to ’96, Rice led San Francisco in receiving yards every season.  In 1997, Rice tore his ACL and was limited to just two games; as a result, Terrell Owens led the team in receiving.  In ’98 and ’99, though, it was Rice again who led the 49ers in receiving yards, before a 27-year-old Owens outgained a 38-year-old Rice on the ’00 49ers.

In 2001, Rice was in Oakland, and a 35-year-old Tim Brown beat Rice by 26 receiving yards (1165-1139) to lead the Raiders in receiving. But in 2002 and 2003, Rice — at 40 and 41 years of age — led Oakland in receiving. So from 1986 to 2003, Rice led his team in receiving yards in 15 of 18 seasons, with the exceptions being due to a torn ACL, losing out to a future Hall of Famer 11 years his junior, and losing out to a Hall of Famer 4 years his junior by 26 yards. That’s why he’s the greatest of all time.

But Henry Ellard was pretty darn good, too. Ellard played for 16 seasons in the NFL, and other than his rookie season and his final two seasons, he led his team in receiving yards every other year of his career.   During the prime years of Jim Everett’s career — 1988 to 1990 — Ellard ranked 1st, 1st, and 2nd in the league in receiving yards per game.  But he still led the Rams in receiving yards the other years, too, finishing as the leader receiver on Los Angeles each year from ’84 to ’93.  When Ellard joined the Redskins in ’94, he eclipsed the 1,000 yards mark and led Washington in receiving in ’94, ’95, and ’96.  In the process, Ellard became the first and only player to lead his team in receiving yards in 13 straight seasons. [continue reading…]

I love reading old articles, and reading old articles about football history is a particular passion of mine. This is the second installment of a new feature at Football Perspective: reviews of historical articles. Today’s content is four articles in one, all published in the Chicago Tribune on December 3rd, 1985. Hours earlier, the 12-0 Bears lost as 2-point favorites in Miami to the 8-4 Dolphins, 38-24, ending Chicago’s perfect season. You can read all four articles here: I recommend you read them before going on.

The four articles are “Bears squeezed in Miami vise” by Don Pierson, “Only thing Bears lost was hint of immortality” by Bernie Lincicome, “No McMiracle in late show” by Bob Verdi, and “Dolphins roll out anti-blitz offense” by Ed Sherman.

*********************************************************************************

Bears squeezed in Miami vise (Pierson)

The Bears convinced the National Football League they are perfectly human Monday night when the Miami Dolphins ruined their perfect season and preserved history for themselves with a 38-24 victory.

The Bears’ 12-game winning streak and dreams of an undefeated season turned to a nightmare with a 31-point onslaught by quarterback Dan Marino and the Dolphins in the first half.
….
The noisy Orange Bowl crowd of 75,594 counted down the seconds and hailed the 1972 Dolphins as the last unbeaten (17-0) team.
…
Walter Payton got his record-breaking eighth 100-yard game in a row only because the Bears called time out three times in the final minute when the Dolphins had the ball. Payton finished with 121 yards in 23 carries and curiously carried only 10 times in the first half.

“Walter Payton is the greatest football player to ever play the game. Other people who call themselves running backs can’t carry his jersey,” said Ditka.

[continue reading…]

The 2016 Falcons were really good, and were really, really, really close to winning the Super Bowl. The Falcons had one of the most heartbreaking ends to a season in NFL history: at one point, the Falcons had a 499-in-500 shot of winning it all, and still lost. Can they possibly recover from this?

My first thought, honestly, was no. How could they? This was arguably the biggest gut punch in history: has any team, in any professional sport, at any time, been 99.8% likely to win a championship and then fail to do so?

But then I remembered the 1996 Broncos. Do you remember that team? Woody Paige wrote an article previewing the Broncos/Jaguars playoff matchup that well, you can read it for yourself. Suffice it to say, the Broncos weren’t supposed to be challenged. The Broncos clinched the 1 seed early thanks to a 12-1 record, and were expected to ride to the Super Bowl unchallenged. Instead, a shocking upset left head coach Mike Shannahan saying “This is going to hurt and this is going to hurt for a long time.”

The Broncos, having already lost three Super Bowls with lesser teams, were supposed to finally win it all under John Elway. Instead, they had a heartbreaking loss… and responded by winning the next two Super Bowls.

How about the 2004 Steelers? Pittsburgh had gone 15-1 that year under rookie Ben Roethlisberger, and hosted the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots. Pittsburgh, thanks to future New England killer Plaxico Burress, dominated the Patriots during the regular season. The Steelers had already lost AFC Championship Games at home to San Diego (’94), Denver (’97), and New England (’01) under Bill Cowher, along with the Super Bowl against the Cowboys. But with the best quarterback of the Cowher era — and Roethlisberger entered the game with a 15-0 career record– things were supposed to be different.

And yet, for the fourth time in 11 years, Pittsburgh lost at home in the AFC Championship Game, a heartbreaking finish to a season. If not then, when could the Cowher Steelers ever win it all?

Well, the next year, in fact.

The ’87 49ers were the best team in the NFL, and arguably the best team of the 49ers dynasty. But that San Francisco team was stunned in the playoffs:

Sitting through the shock at the bay is how San Francisco 49ers fans will remember a certain playoff Saturday, an occasion that was supposed to have been a walk through Candlestick Park on the way to San Diego and the Super Bowl.

Instead, the 49ers will have to live with the final score and the indignity of the season that was theirs for the taking, or so it seemed.

The Minnesota Vikings, league wild cards and everyone else’s discards, pulled off what others deemed impossible. Not only did the Vikings defeat the 49ers, 36-24, before a crowd of 62,547, they defeated them soundly and advanced to the National Football Conference championship game next week.

San Francisco, admittedly, was different than Atlanta, Denver, or Pittsburgh because the 49ers had already won two Super Bowls (although some of the names had changed). Still, this was a heartbreaking loss, and the team responded by winning the next two Super Bowls.

And how about the Tom Landry Cowboys? In ’66, Dallas lost a heartbreaker in the NFL Championship Game to the Packers (Green Bay went on to win Super Bowl I two weeks later). In ’67, Dallas lost another heartbreaker in the NFL Championship Game — aka, the Ice Bowl — to the Packers (Green Bay went on to win Super Bowl II two weeks later). The next year, a 12-2 Cowboys lost in the playoffs to Cleveland. In 1969, an 11-2-1 Cowboys team lost at home in the playoffs to Cleveland. Then, in 1970, Dallas exercised their playoff demons and made it to the Super Bowl.

In that game, the Cowboys led 13-6 entering the 4th quarter, and Baltimore star Johnny Unitas had been knocked out of the game. With 9 minutes to go, Dallas had the ball and a touchdown lead… and then disaster struck: a Craig Morton interception led to a short touchdown, and another Morton interception led to a last second game-winning field goal. If Dallas couldn’t win it all then, when could they?

The next year, as it turns out. Dallas made it all the way back, and then beat the Dolphins in Super Bowl VI. And it’s worth noting that the Cowboys lost in Super Bowl V to the Colts… a team that two years earlier had their own heartbreak to deal with. [continue reading…]

Antonio Brown averaged “only” 12.1 yards per reception last year, although his great reception, receiving yards, and receiving touchdown totals earned him a third straight first-team All-Pro selection. If Brown wasn’t so good and just 28 years old, you might look at that average and think Brown was on the decline or at least was becoming less of a big play threat.

But that’s not really true: with 22 receptions (in 15 games) of at least 20+ yards, Brown had the third most big plays of any receiver last year, and 21% of his catches went for at least 20 yards. What really hurt Brown’s average was that he also caught a ton of short passes: he had 57 receptions of 10 or fewer yards. Kelvin Benjamin caught 63 passes for 941 yards last year, a 14.9 yards per reception average. But while that sounds good, Benjamin only caught 10 passes — or 16% of his total — for 20+ yards. How did Benjamin average nearly three more yards per catch than Brown? You probably already figured this one out: just 20 of his receptions (32%) went for 10 or fewer yards. Either Benjamin wasn’t running short routes or he wasn’t catching passes on those routes. If it’s the latter, it’s a bad thing; if it’s the former, well, it’s also a bad thing (relative to Brown, at least) that all he was doing was running long routes and Brown still caught more long balls than him!

The graph below shows the top 100 wide receivers and tight ends in receiving yards last season, sorted by number of 20+ yard receptions. In addition, I have included the percent of their receptions that went for 20+ yards, the number of receptions that went for 10 or fewer yards, and that percent as well.
[continue reading…]

We know that Amari Cooper is a better receiver than Kenny Stills, but who is the better big play threat? Or, more specifically, who was the better big play threat last year?

To answer this question, most people would focus on one metric: yards per reception. Most people are wrong. [continue reading…]

I love reading old articles, and reading old articles about football history is a particular passion of mine. As much time as I spend working on era-based adjustments, you can’t beat reading about a player in (his) real time. So I’m introducing a new feature at Football Perspective: reviews of historical articles. Today’s content comes from the great Dr. Z in April 1980, and it covers the retirement of Roger Staubach. I recommend you read the whole article first.

*********************************************************************************

So long, Roger, we gave you a bum deal, kid. For openers, we never picked you All-Pro. That’s we, the writers, the pickers, the guys who vote on the AP and Pro Football Writers ballots. Now that’s a bad call right away, because all you did was end up as the NFL’s top-rated passer—in history, the whole 59 years. Higher than Unitas, than Tarkenton or Jurgensen, than Tittle or Baugh. And you quarterbacked the Cowboys in four of their five Super Bowls, winning twice. And brought the team from behind to victory 14 times in the last two minutes or in overtime, 23 times in the fourth quarter. Hey, what does a guy have to do?

All of those facts are true, of course. Let’s go in order. [continue reading…]

On Thursday, I presented a new way to look at wide receivers, focusing on both how the receiver dominated his teammates (i.e., by getting a large share of the pie) and how much his offense dominated the league (i.e., how much better/worse than average his team’s passing attack was).

Since I presented the full dataset covering the years from 1970 to 2016, I thought we might as well use that information in other ways. For example, let’s say you typed Steve Largent into the search box on that post.  You would see that Largent was a monster when it came to dominating his teammates: in 1978, he was responsible for 33.6% of the Seahawks Adjusted Catch Yards, which ranked 3rd in the league.  In five years — 1980, 1981, 1983, 1986, and 1987 — he ranked 4th in the NFL in percentage of team ACY.  In ’85, he ranked 5th, and in ’79 and ’84, he ranked 6th.  That’s remarkable:

If you calculate his gray ink – which means giving him 10 points for a 1st place finish, 9 for a 2nd place finish, and so on, he had 59 points of gray ink in this category.  Remember, % of Team ACY is simply a measure of what percentage of the pie each receiver was able to devour, and % of Team ACY Rk shows where they rank in the league in a given season.  I would never use this as the only way to rank a receiver (more on this in a second), but it is an interesting way. Why?

Receiving production is based on a lot of things outside of a wide receiver’s control — for example, how good his quarterback is, or how often his team passes.  But this isolates that by only comparing how the receiver fared compared to his teammates.  That’s why I like to use this as a check against other metrics.  Below shows the leaders in gray ink in this category since 1970.  Largent, as you can see, ranks 2nd because you always know who is going to rank 1st: [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I appeared on the Wharton Moneyball Podcast on Sirius XM. It is available on SoundCloud here:

https://m.soundcloud.com/user-780849378/8162017-wharton-moneyball

And Apple Podcasts here: 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/8-16-2017-wharton-moneyball/id1159695411?i=1000391122720&mt=2

We talked football analytics generally, along with a pair of articles I published this week. Give it a listen – my segment starts at the 32:10 mark.

I spent some time discussing Gary Clark’s 1991 season yesterday. It was really impressive in two notable respects: he accounted for a huge percentage of his team’s production, and his team’s production was easily the best in the league.

What was even more impressive? What Gene Washington did in 1970. That year, the 49ers had a phenomenal passing attack: San Francisco averaged 7.6 ANY/A, while no other team was above 6.0. John Brodie was the AP MVP because of his great passing numbers, but what was arguably more impressive is what Washington did that year. Playing for the best passing offense in football ^[1]And along with the ’66 Packers, the only offenses to average at least 7.50 ANY/A from 1961 to 1975., Washington caught 23% of the team’s passes, 37% of the 49ers receiving yards, and 48% of San Francisco’s receiving touchdowns.

If you calculate Adjusted Catch Yards with a 5-yard bonus on receptions and a 20-yard bonus on touchdowns, Washington had 1,605 ACY out of the 49ers 4,620 total team ACY, or 35%. That’s even higher than what Clark did on the ’91 Redskins (33%). On the other hand, WR1s tended to get slightly more attention on 1970 offenses than on 1971 offenses. So here’s what I did:

1) Calculate the ACY for each receiver on each team since 1970. For Clark in ’91, this was 1,890.

2) Calculate the percentage of team ACY for each receiving season since 1970. For Clark, this was 33%; for Washington, it was 35%.

3) Calculate the average percentage of team ACY for the top N receivers in the league each season, with N being equal to the number of teams in the NFL. For 1970, this was 29%; for 1991, it was 27%.

4) Calculate each receiver’s percent over average; for both Clark and Washington, this means +6%.

5) Calculate each receiver’s team RANY/A for each year. Clark’s Redskins were at +3.14, while Washington’s 49ers were at +3.45.

6) Plot those seasons in the graph below. [continue reading…]

The 1991 Redskins are the hipster’s choice for greatest NFL team of the modern era. The team was statistically dominant, but what makes Washington’s case unique is that folks rarely mention the 1991 Redskins as one of the best teams of all time! Well, today I want to talk about that team’s star wide receiver: Gary Clark.

Judging wide receivers is very tough. One way to do that is to look just at their raw statistics, but a receiver’s production is heavily influenced by the environment he plays in — how often does his team pass, how talented is his quarterback, how good are the other targets on his team, etc.  At a high level, it’s easy to assume that the best receivers are playing on the best passing attacks: after all, if a passing game is dominant, the receivers are likely a big part of the reason why.

The 1984 Dolphins, 2004 Colts, 2007 Patriots, and 2013 Broncos all had record-setting passing attacks.  And while Dan Marino, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady were great, but they also each had not one, but two star receivers: Mark Clayton and Mark Duper, Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison (and Brandon Stokley), Randy Moss and Wes Welker and Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker (and Wes Welker!).  That’s generally the rule, not the exception: dynamic offenses almost always have a great quarterback, but they also almost always have multiple top receivers.  The Falcons offense was outstanding last year, and it’s hard for a wide receiver to be better than Julio Jones, but even he only accounted for 28% of the Atlanta receiving yards and 16% of the Falcons receiving touchdowns (Jones also missed two games). [continue reading…]