Thinking Skins

I just realized / learned that the reason that my wife doesn't want to talk football with me is that she doesn't know ball. Sal these years she's been lying to me. Now I'm sitting here teaching her what downs are. Seriously, I don't know if she's playing a joke in me for laughs or this is serious. I was explaining to my son the concept of a first down and she tried to explain the shot clock. Today's lesson was third down conversations. Maybe I'll make her into a fan.

Really good. People are analyzing that

I was sending emails out all day. They were going to hear from me

Yep G C S TE MLB DT These were all undervalued But recent franchise tags have bright those values up some.

The thing about this is I feel little shame for EB because of the number of TEs off the street that are on NFL rosters. Then there were guys like Logan Thomas who changed positions. And Rogers on our roster. There were a number of former OTs and DTs and DEs who were athletic freaks with hands. The position literally explodes. Plus the number of basketball concerts. But we didn't even sign a UDFA. we could still sign somebody right now but they'd have to learn the system.

Here's that same stat I posted earlier but in clearer format.

I normally live Data Scientist perspectives on QBs but this guy made me really mad to the point where I wanted to prove him wrong. Not Howell prove him wrong. Me prove him wrong. People told me I was being quoted on JP Finlay's show for my tweets showing so the examples showing that people have turned their sack rates around. Then on Craig Hoffman and Chris Russell and Kevin Sheehan for the same reason more or less. Though I've kinda started ignoring the negative DS guys because they're just going to post t what they want to post. But I'm now a part of that community and I'm sharing analytics with them that tell of Howell and different things about his career.

This is before my time but there is a guy who has been called the best pure passer of all time but they didn't want him as the QB because George Allen was a defensive minded coach and wanted Billy Kilmer

So I can comment on this more that we haven't had many leads. Look at the number of sacks on Howell when we were down (26) vs when we were up (9) vs even (6).

Now, here's another one. Lets go sack by sack.

We've been talking about "who is to blame" for the sacks. I thought about looking at in a different light. When is Howell being sacked, not from a down and distance or a time perspective but from a point perspective. That's how they determine blitzes right. So I decided to look at it that way. So analyzing all thoze sacks above, we see that: - Opponents were sacked 4 more times when we were up 2 scores (1 vs 5) - Opponents were sacked 1 less time when we were up 1 score (8 vs 7) - Opponents were sacked 2 less times when the score was even (6 vs 4) - Opponents were sacked 6 less times when we were down 1 score (10 vs 4) - Opponents were sacked 5 less times when we were down 2 scores (9 v 4) - Opponents were sacked 2 less times when we were down 3 scores (3 vs 1) - Opponents were sacked 4 less times when we were down 5 scores (4 vs 0) So that gives a different angle on the sacks.

One thing I like about EBs offense is the change in third down back. Yeah we're still seeing Gibson come in and do that role but because the offense is so pass heavy, both backs are pass catchers. So we're getting to see BRob use his ability to bowl over people in the open field and it'sa thing of beauty. I think as the offense develops we may see more running and more of what Philly did with their two backs Deuce and Westbrook but we're still early. I just didn't like BRob having a defined role of runner and Gibson of catcher where they could both do both.

Ok, I'm going to post why I'm optimistic for the rest of the season. I've already been posting why I'm optimistic about Howell but here comes the defense stuff. Prepare to be amazed. Rush Yards Dobbs - 258 Wilson - 201 Allen - 189 Hurts - 280 Fields - 237 Ridder - 139 Taylor - 98 (3 games) Hurts - 280 ---------- Mac Jones - 68 Geno Smith - 49 Giants - (I dont know who's playing buy both guys are dangerous) Prescott - 104 Tua - 26 Stafford - 68 Z. Wilson - 123 Purdy - 107 Prescott - 104 You see that divide. Previously I've been saying that we were going against former MVPs but maybe its as simple as going against the threat of run. Now we are going up against a bunch of immobile QBs coming up except NY (maybe Jones plays and he may be immobile) and that may spark a run.

This is what I was looking for. Something on the Patriots blitz rate So they blitz a lot but less than new york.

Some are volume stats and some are by design. We run an offense that runs through Sam so he is going to have more attempts. And our defense gives up 30+ points per game so you count that against him? Its not like he's putting up 4 pics a game. He legit had 1 bad game where he threw more than one pic. Other than that his ONLY problem has been the sacks. That has been the only thing that has been keeping him out of the top ten categories in EPA / play ratings every week. And I've been talking to the analytics guys who work at the sites about this stuff because we've been debating whether or not this is correctable or not. Every time I point out a player who went from a high sack total to a low sack total, they say either well Sam is not on that level or but he's a bum. My response is that Sam is 23. We have no idea if Sam is on Elway's level or the Jay Cutler's. We just don't know yet. We do know that he's putting up amazing numbers in just his 9th NFL start and people (media and analysts) are trying to dismiss it. Sure he wasn't there for half the NY game but he was close to winning it. And he almost won both those Philly games. And he almost brought us back to within a TD to Chicago from down 27-3 with 5:14 to go in the 4th. These are not gabage time stats. We were a missed FG away from a comeback. We are not far away. Dotson said it. We are close. We're putting a lot on his shoulders and he's responding. He has some things to correct like the sacks and trying to get the ball to an underneath WR or a checkdown or not always locking onto Terry. But people are being picky.

Am I the only one who thinks they will enjoy playing these games? Like 2019 was a bad year because we had no QB and we were getting BLOWN OUT 2019 27-32 L meh (close loss) 398 yards offense 21-31 L meh (another close loss) 255 yards offense 15-31 L (What's going on here, we're not scoring and we're getting blown out) 356 yards offense 3-24 L (OK, people are talking. THis is getting to be too much. We are just looking bad) 176 yards ofense 7-33 L (OK Something has to happen) 233 yards of offense. Now compare that to 2012 40-32 W surprising win to start the season, started the RG3 era off great 459 yards of offense 28-31 L but look at the number of points we put up on offense. and we also put up 373 yards 31-38 L another L but we put up another 30 points but the Haslett D couldn't stop anybody but we were moving the ball 381 yards 24-22 W and we got 474 yards of offense 17-24 L and we got 316 yards of offense 38-26 W and we got 361 yards of offense 23-27 L and we got 480 yards of offense 12-27 L and only yards of offense 255 13-21 L and we got 337 yards of offense. If you remember going into 2012, there was a lot of grumbling about firing Mike and Kyle because they weren't working and wouldn't fire Haslett (similar to Ron). Then they drafted RG3 and it became to keep them for the sake of RG3. Then we started losing and we were losing and at this point we were like what's wrong. I remember someond on radio (was it Sheehan or Czabe or one of them) was like what's wrong because we thought it would be the rookie QB but it's definitelt not him. Then Mike made his "evaluation mode" comment at a press conference and the team suddenly went on a 7 game winning streak. I compare this year to 2012 because I think the defense is a wash. 20-16 W 248 35-33 W 388 3-37 L 230 31-34 L 365 20-40 L 388 24-16 W 193 7-14 L 273 31-38 L 472 Forget about from the fans perspective how the games played out and whether we came out flat in the first half against Chicago and against NY and Stuff. What I'm saying is that I think it makes it more competitive the fact that they were almost brought back in both thost games, and the Philly games when they had made mistakes. Its like are learning to win games. Dotson said it after Philly. They flinched. And I thought back to 2012 because its just like the first half of that season.

Ok, I wanted to start with a few stats; I'm on the Sam Howell train and i think this game is fundamentally about which QB makes the fewest mistakes. So lets look at the Patriots defense. 10th in yards allowed, but 17th against the pass (vunerability?), and 26th in interceptions. They are 9th against the run though. They have 15 sacks which places them near the bottom (yet again). So thats the basics. There are a lot of questions about where our defense will go. I feel we will be more disciplined this week. fantasy pros has the following stats about Sam Howell vs Mac Jones Poor Passes: Sam Howell - 35, Mac Jones - 39 Now think about that as a ratio with Howell taking 308 attempts and Jones taking 260 attempts and still having more poor throws and it really says something. Sam Howell's Poor Throw Percent is 35/308 = 11% Mac Jones's Poor Throw Percent is 39/206 = 19% People focus on Sam Howell's sacks but I'm saying that the QB with the fewest mistakes wins the game (sacks included). We'll see which QB that is.

This is exactly what I said yesterday and was laughed at. He has the TDs too behing Wilson and Cousins.

Just....just brings a tear to my eye