Sports: NFL

[Tornado]

Kaepernick is a really interesting case as it was neither age(obviously) nor injury that caused his degrade correct? What causes a Super Bowl QB to drop to 1-10?

Please say Harbaugh is great.

[Dad_Scaper]

Could have been decision-making. In the Super Bowl itself, the 49ers were gashing the Ravens on the ground in the second half. The game ended when the 9ers got all the way to the goal line, and instead of trying to run it in, went to the air three times, for three incomplete passes.

I mean, I don't know how that's captured in stats, but I know how that's captured in wins and losses.

This whole Kaepernick situation was much more interesting to me before I realized, in these last few posts, that he played losing football ever since that game. No thanks.

Flacco's been compared over the years to Matt Ryan, who came from his draft class, and to Matt Stafford, from around the same time. Those two guys have had some of the best WRs in the game catching their passes. Flacco, on the other hand, has been (sometimes, though not in the SB-winning year) been complemented by one of the best defenses in football. He's never had a wide receiver on the level of the best of the Lions' or Falcons' stable, but he's normally had a good defense. You get what you get, as quarterback. You might have a good defense; you might have a good fleet of wide receivers; you might have both or neither. The challenge is to lead the team to a win, whether it's through the air or on the ground, and whether it's by putting up 37 or 17 points.

That's why I like wins as a measure of a quarterback's success. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me as a fan. You can always look behind the numbers for a deeper study of what happened in a given season or game, but you can just as easily look behind any other stat to see what happened in a given season or game, as well. As for "QBR accounting for context," I don't care what their eleven secret herbs and spices are. Without knowing what goes into it, I don't know or care what's coming out.

[Tornado]

Then is Stafford good?

0 playoffs wins is not awesome though only one other Lions QB has managed to win one.

[Dad_Scaper]

They've had their share of wins with him. He is skilled. I would take him over Kaepernick. I *know* they've had good players over recent years, but I don't watch them often enough to have any sense of why they don't win more.

I'm just a fan of professional football. Not a scientist of it, and I think the science of it is no fun and not helpful. For instance - again, forgive the Ravens-centric perspective here - I predicted that the Ravens offense would be more aggressive and more productive than it had been in preceding weeks, this past Sunday. And then they hung 44 on the Lions.

Am I a "seer," like one friend told me I am? No. I figured Joe was probably done with his knee brace, which had been hampering him for months, because he'd finished the previous week's game without it. And I believed that the Ravens had played a deliberately conservative style for several weeks now, and they wouldn't try that against the higher-scoring Lions, and I believed that Perriman would likely be a healthy scratch again, and he's a liability at WR.

Joe played without the knee brace, the Ravens came out swinging for the fences, and Perriman sat. None of that shows up in QBR, but those are the things that led me to predict a more explosive Ravens offense. Was it scientific? No. Was I right? Yes. Was I right for the right reason? Who knows. But I'm just a fan; I don't need men in white lab coats to tell me what I'm seeing.

[happyjosiah]

And how do you see the Ravens faring against the Steelers this week?

[Dad_Scaper]

Those are always the best games of the year. Jimmy Smith will be out with his torn ACL, and he had been, when healthy, a dominant cornerback in the league. The Ravens are deep at that position but nobody can be the "next man up" and play at that level. So I expect the Ravens will not shut down the Steelers excellent air attack as they shut down other teams. I expect the Ravens will play more aggressively, as they did against the Lions but not against the Texans or other teams the weeks before. Though I don't expect anything like another 44 points.

It'll depend on the ability of the offense to put up enough points to win. You won't catch me picking against my Ravens, but I expect both offenses to get theirs against good defenses. I would guess both teams will score in the 20's. A lot will depend on the Steelers OL vs. the Ravens front 7. If Ben has all Sunday night to wait for Brown & Co. to get open, I'd expect a Steelers win. If some of the younger Ravens defenders - guys like Willie Henry and Matt Judon - start getting into the backfield opposite Suggs, Pittsburgh will have a problem.

I used to hate the Steelers a lot more than I do now, back when they had guys like Joey Porter and Hines Ward, but the Bengals are now so vile by comparison that the Steelers game is just an excellent rivalry match. More enjoyable now.

edit: I've sneaked a few edits in there. @happyjosiah , what's your expectation?

[happyjosiah]

Seems like good analysis to me.

I hate playing against the Bengals, even though we basically always beat them. Every game seems to just be filled with dirty plays and injuries on both sides, the Steelers play poorly, and then somehow the Bengals blow it. Happens every time. Really hard to find enjoyment in anything about that except the inevitable W.

Even though the 10-2 Steelers haven't looked much like a 10-2 team the past couple games, a home game in primetime against a division rival seems like a chance to gain momentum going into the New England game the following week, which is likely to determine home field for the playoffs.

Despite a decently solid Ravens team, I'd actually guess this one ends up surprisingly lopsided in the Steelers favor. It will be hard for them to feel good about facing NE if it's a nailbiter against Baltimore.

[Dad_Scaper]

I applaud your brave prediction that it will be a lopsided game. In the last few years, those have been quite rare in this rivalry. But the last one was a 26-9 Steelers blowout, so you may be right.

Sounds good. Let's pick this up on Monday.

edit: Just for fun, I'll put a score on my prediction. Ravens, 27-24.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Raider30

That was an interesting video but I gotta ask - what is the point?

I thought it was clear - to dispute the oft-repeated idea that Kaep has not been signed because he is not good enough.

Originally Posted by Raider30

The 90.7 he goes on about, well the year before it was 78.5

If you bothered to look this up, surely you're aware that this was the lowest rating of his career. (You might not be aware that he was playing injured most of the season and was placed on IR.)

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

I’ve always thought the most meaningful stat for quarterbacks is “wins.” I am aware that it makes me look like a simpleton to some.

Yes, because the corrolary of "I can measure QBs by wins" is "Defense, Coaching, and supporting cast are meaningless".

I don't understand why people do this with QBs, almost alone in the team sports. Nobody says Ernie Banks was bad because the Cubs didn't win.

In the case of the 49ers, the entire roster has been a trainwreck for the last three years. This year's team lost their first 9 games and had considerably worse production out of the QB slot than the previous year.

Originally Posted by happyjosiah

Colin Kaepernick is a middle-of-the-pack QB. He'd do better as a starter than the QB that several teams are starting. But it just isn't worth the media circus it would bring.

This is an opinion I can abide. I disagree in the case of many teams - I think the "circus" is really pretty manageable - but it's at least an honest assessment. What bothers me are the fallacious arguments that all those terrible QBs that have gotten starts this year have all deserved a roster spot more than Kaep.

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

This whole Kaepernick situation was much more interesting to me before I realized, in these last few posts, that he played losing football ever since that game. No thanks.

You realize that as of mid-November, Flacco had "played losing football ever since that game"?

Look, I'll happily make fun of you for judging by wins alone, but I'll also freely acknowledge that offensive supporting cast, coaching, and game context all strongly influence QB production. I don't base my analysis of Kaepernick just on the numbers. I also watched him play last year, and I saw a thoroughly decent QB playing behind an awful line and throwing to bad receivers. He's not quite the magician that Russel Wilson is, but he was a solid QB in a bad situation. This is not just my opinion, it's the opinion of multiple different people who know better than me.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by dok

You realize that as of mid-November, Flacco had "played losing football ever since that game"?

Yes, of course I know that. Over his career, Joe Flacco has been a consistently winning quarterback. Not every year, and exactly one year has had more losses than wins. But 1-10???? No. Never.

The Ravens' worst year with Flacco under center was 2015, in which the team went 5-11. Flacco suffered a season-ending ACL injury at the very end of the Week 11 game, which he then finished on his torn knee. Afterward, along with 21 other players on the team by year's end, he went to the IR, having led the team to an unimpressive 3-7 to that point. But I'd take 3-7 over 1-10, and that was the *only* losing season in his 10 year career.

Please, let's not compare Kaepernick's losing - which was far greater than I'd realized - with that of the only quarterback in the history of the NFL to win at least one playoff game in each of his first five seasons. I am aware that Kaep's stats are generally more gaudy than Joe's, but I'll take the winner, as I've said before. I know you see it differently.

[Tornado]

A little insight into the Lions woes.

Not sure where they are this season (87.9, 104.9 last three games) but last year their opponent's average QB rating was around Aaron Rogers level (107.2). Not good.

So that perpetually puts them behind, so Stafford gets to air it out.
Also they have not had a 100 yard rusher in 4 years!

DS, when you were giving all your reasons why you thought the Ravens would do good, the only reason that comes to my mind is that they were playing the Lions.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Tornado

DS, when you were giving all your reasons why you thought the Ravens would do good, the only reason that comes to my mind is that they were playing the Lions.

Heh. I thought one of you Lions fans might respond with something like that. Unfortunately, I don't really follow other teams well enough to feel like I can account for their strengths and weaknesses.

No 100 yard rusher, though? That sounds pretty bad.