Kirk Cousins leads NFL in passing yards through Week 8

[RonArtest15]

I have ZERO issue with Kirk being here long term.  He's well on his way to earning it as he's gotten better by the week.  On top of it all, you let him go and you're back to square 1.  I don't know who you'll get to come in and be better...

Also, I asked this last week and it got lost in the shuffle...but why does our former insider LL have so much vitriol towards Kirk?  It's crazy and almost as if Cousins did something personal to dude. 

[zoony]

1 minute ago, RonArtest15 said:

I have ZERO issue with Kirk being here long term.  He's well on his way to earning it as he's gotten better by the week.  On top of it all, you let him go and you're back to square 1.  I don't know who you'll get to come in and be better...

Also, I asked this last week and it got lost in the shuffle...but why does our former insider LL have so much vitriol towards Kirk?  It's crazy and almost as if Cousins did something personal to dude. 

Wish it were something else but boils down to he loves rgiii and happens to be a raging NPD bordering on sociopathy

 

he cannot bring himself to admit he was wrong and never will. See psych profile above. Not even worth talking about him but since you brought it up twice figured I would answer

[RonArtest15]

3 minutes ago, zoony said:

Wish it were something else but boils down to he loves rgiii and happens to be a raging NPD bordering on sociopathy

 

he cannot bring himself to admit he was wrong and never will. See psych profile above. Not even worth talking about him but since you brought it up twice figured I would answer

Appreciate the insight...I just find the manner in which he goes out of his way to criticize or not give credit, a bit odd. 

Quite the fall from grace from someone who I assume was well-respected here on the board.  It's become a side show of sorts and makes it close to impossible to take him seriously. 

[theTruthTeller]

I think most of the sane people on the board want to keep Kirk, but I'm not sure everyone is willing to pay him top dollar, especially if he can't lead the team to the playoffs this year.  In a way, I think we're creating a monster - a QB with gaudy stats, but not big in the scoring category.  He'll hold all the cards at the negotiation - who else is available to play QB next year - except for the $24M franchise tag.  That's not a pretty picture.

[bobandweave]

Pay the man. Never let him walk. Big Cousins fan. This isn't Osweiler, with a tiny sample size we know Kirk and hes worthy of a 100 million dollar deal. Pay him. He's more then a game manager he reads the field well and getting it down now would be an act of faith to him rather then to do it in the off season. He is 2nd overall in passing yards total, tied for 11th with Brady for passing TDs, he's got the 4th best passing yards per game average, he's 7th in completion percentage, and he's doing that one thing he couldn't do last season and beating winning record teams. Pay the man now and avoid a headache later. A headache argument is coming I'm sure of that.  Why?

Viking - 3rd

Packers - 10th
Cowboys - 22nd
Cardinals - 4th
Eagles - 1st
Panthers - 27th
Bears - 18th
Giants - 11th

DVOA rankings against the QB. Lower numbers the best.

Over the next 8 games he's got to go against 5 teams ranked 11th or better at shutting down the passer. Chances are better then not he doesn't have great games against these teams. Yesterday he was up against the 21st ranked Defense against the passer and blew up. We think that the Bengals are a good team but they really are below average against the QB.

If Cousins struggles against the better defenses against the passer is anyone going to be surprised? I won't be but I know many of you will be upset and then argue then he doesn't deserve a big contract. That's short sighted to me so don't do it. To avoid all of that nonsense I'd love to see Cousins ink a big multiple year deal now. He is a good QB, he is young, he is an up and comer, and he's only going to get better from here. If nothing else tamper your expectations of him the next 5 weeks. If he puts up guady stats in the next 5 weeks realize how amazing that really is. If he doesn't just hang tight until the end of the season and he will again.

Even the very best ever struggle against the very best defenses

[Warhead36]

22 minutes ago, bobandweave said:

Pay the man. Never let him walk. Big Cousins fan. This isn't Osweiler, with a tiny sample size we know Kirk and hes worthy of a 100 million dollar deal. Pay him. He's more then a game manager he reads the field well and getting it down now would be an act of faith to him rather then to do it in the off season. He is 2nd overall in passing yards total, tied for 11th with Brady for passing TDs, he's got the 4th best passing yards per game average, he's 7th in completion percentage, and he's doing that one thing he couldn't do last season and beating winning record teams. Pay the man now and avoid a headache later. A headache argument is coming I'm sure of that.  Why?

Viking - 3rd

Packers - 10th
Cowboys - 22nd
Cardinals - 4th
Eagles - 1st
Panthers - 27th
Bears - 18th
Giants - 11th

DVOA rankings against the QB. Lower numbers the best.

Over the next 8 games he's got to go against 5 teams ranked 11th or better at shutting down the passer. Chances are better then not he doesn't have great games against these teams. Yesterday he was up against the 21st ranked Defense against the passer and blew up. We think that the Bengals are a good team but they really are below average against the QB.

If Cousins struggles against the better defenses against the passer is anyone going to be surprised? I won't be but I know many of you will be upset and then argue then he doesn't deserve a big contract. That's short sighted to me so don't do it. To avoid all of that nonsense I'd love to see Cousins ink a big multiple year deal now. He is a good QB, he is young, he is an up and comer, and he's only going to get better from here. If nothing else tamper your expectations of him the next 5 weeks. If he puts up guady stats in the next 5 weeks realize how amazing that really is. If he doesn't just hang tight until the end of the season and he will again.

Even the very best ever struggle against the very best defenses

Cousins already lit the Eagles and Giants up so I'm confident he'll do fine. I think our offense as a whole will be a handful for any team to deal with.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

1 hour ago, Warhead36 said:

QBs arms don't really tire out in football. This ain't baseball pitchers. Cousins will be fine throwing it 800 times over the season if he has to.

He'd be throwing a helluva lot more than just 800 passes, though...count in all the passes he throws during minicamps, training camps, various other practices and the preseason--not to mention the training he does on his own--and it builds to a LOT of action for any QB's shoulder and arm.

 

52 minutes ago, William Barbour said:

QB arms tires during the season? lol.

Sometimes I doubt the validity of some of these posts. 

 

After tiring rookie season, Blake Bortles trains hard to prep for Year 2

From summer workouts to fall practice to the regular season at Central Florida to the NFL combine to his pro day to private workouts with NFL teams to rookie minicamp to OTAs to training camp to the 16-game NFL season, Bortles' days were filled with the same thing. Drop back, plant, throw.

Again and again and again.

By the time he walked off the field after the Jacksonville Jaguars' season-ending loss to the Houston Texans on Dec. 28, Bortles' right arm was tired, sore and badly in need of a break. That's why he spent the first several weeks of the offseason pretty much doing nothing before working with several quarterback coaches to improve the mechanical flaws that dogged him throughout his rookie season with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

"My arm kind of deteriorated during the season," he said on Tuesday afternoon as he and most of his teammates reported for the beginning of the voluntary offseason conditioning program. "It didn't affect anything. It was just, I think, a product of throwing for two years straight without any break.

 

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

Does QB Performance Decline Over A Season?

Overall QBR shows a slight downward trend in both years, with 2014’s being more reliable than 2015’s. The relevant question, of course, is why QBR trends downward throughout the course of a season. Statistically pinpointing the actual causal mechanism of this trend lies beyond the reaches of this article. However, let’s consider some possible explanations for decreasing QBR. 

2) Everyone fatigued.

Admittedly, this explanation is somewhat lazy, as it is basically unfalsifiable with the data I’ve assembled. How exactly one would measure fatigue is uncertain, but it is clear that only a third variable could explain the trends in QBR and Defensive DVOA. Fatigue from the season’s games makes as much sense as any other possible cause. If Defensive DVOA for 2015 turns downward in the next couple of weeks, we may have found the culprit. 

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

Eli’s struggles may be due to “tired arm”

NFL Films guru Greg Cosell mentioned on Friday’s Yahoo! Week Ten preview podcast that Manning’s struggles may be due to a “tired arm,” 318 throws into his ninth NFL season. And not only has it been evident on game tape, but Cosell and ESPN’s Ron Jaworski confirmed with someone in the know that Eli’s arm is tired.

“Ron Jaworski and I were having this conversation this week,” Cosell said. “I looked at Eli on Monday; Jaws looked at Eli on Wednesday. And he made a very interesting comment. It really struck me, and I would defer to Jaws on this because I’ve never taken snaps in the NFL. … It looks to him like Eli’s arm is a little tired. And that he’s not driving the ball at the intermediate and deeper levels the way we’ve come to expect. Because Eli has a strong arm.

“And we even got that sort of confirmed by someone who’s a lot closer to the situation. His arm’s a little bit tired right now. He’s missed some throws that he would normally make.”

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

Trent Baalke says Colin Kaepernick has tired arm, not dead arm

The San Francisco 49ers are dealing with a quarterback conundrum that has been exacerbated by Colin Kaepernick’s arm woes. Adam Schefter said sources described it as a dead arm, but on Wednesday, general manager Trent Baalke said it was tired, not dead.

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

Matt Schaub alerted coaches during camp that his arm was "tired"

"It really came to my attention here after the game," said Olson. "[Schaub] had mentioned to Flip I guess previously that it just felt tired is all, so he had given him some individual time off in Napa. It had been lingering a little bit and it flared up or what have you in the game, so we just decided to take some precautionary measures and let him rest it here."

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

Lambert, tired arms and a challenge

Dean Legge throws out a theory behind the signing of Greyson Lambert I hadn’t thought about.

You see, this is about numbers – not skill. Georgia doesn’t need someone to come in and start – they need to give the guy who is not starting a breather during practice. This is about the wear and tear on shoulders. This is about third-team reps. This is about having the ability to practice.

Georgia, with its three scholarship quarterbacks in the spring, was dangerously close to having one too few signal callers on its roster. Lambert’s commitment solves that problem… at least for a little while.

Now Georgia can enter fall camp with the ability to name a starter, a backup and two guys who can be scout team guys and make throws so that the starter’s arm doesn’t fall off. Remember that Joe Cox, Hutson Mason and Aaron Murray – the last three starters in Athens – all had issues with too much throwing.

That’s something that has to be taken seriously. And it is a major concern if only three men are on campus.

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

PRO FOOTBALL; Free-Agent Deals: There's Still Time

''We've given physicals to the people we've had in. We've tried to get to know them. But tryouts are impractical. Quarterbacks have tired arms after the season."

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

 

Valid enough for you? lol...

[Hooper]

With Kyle Shanahan most likely a HC next year, we are going to have some major competition for Kirk's services. 

We will either have to franchise Kirk again or pay him at least 20 million a year.

The dirty little secret is the Skins and other teams can easily afford to pay their QB that kind of money nowadays without sacrificing anything really. The cap has gone up at a level salaries haven't. And rosters heavily consist of players still on their rookie deals.

 

 

[bobandweave]

26 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Cousins already lit the Eagles and Giants up so I'm confident he'll do fine. I think our offense as a whole will be a handful for any team to deal with.

 

Not going to argue about what neither of us knows is going to happen in the future but I will say this. I play a ton of fantasy draft kings weekly games and there is definitely truth to what I'm saying about this. The expectation that a QB does well against great passing Defenses doesn't happen very often even when it's happened before, if the rankings are worth a crap you don't play QBs against good passing defenses in fantasy because you can't trust them. 

Look how the Broncos Defense hasn't let a single player get 300 passing yards against them this year and last night know that Dak Prescott only completed 40% of his passes against the Eagles and had easily his worst professional game. The Packers yesterday had a bad game. They likely are dropping in the rankings after giving up 288 passing yards to Ryan, however important to note Julio Jones had an awful game against them yesterday 3-29 yards his worst of the year.

The better defenses shut down good offenses, its always been this way - Defense wins championships - and while I hope your right about Cousins since he has been so money for me this year at this point going forward I see him as a tournament only play, meaning I don't trust him week to week against these teams. I wouldn't trust Brady against these teams either. Cousins fast start is going to slow down in the next few weeks. 

The team runs a serious PR risk of exposing the decision to re-sign him to a lot of scrutiny with the schedule coming up. If Cousins slam dunks the schedule like your saying then we're going to pay him more then we would have if we paid him now, if on the other hand he struggles then his camp probably isn't going to give us a discount because who are we going with next year, a rookie? Nate Sudfeld? No one. But if Cousins goes 4-3-1 the rest of the season and ends up being 8-7-1 at the end of the year is everyone going to "Like that" when he gets that money?

By paying him now, we can weather the storm to come with him feeling secured continuing to look towards the future building a winner with him at the helm, and its an act of good faith to do it now rather then to bet on him sucking this half of the year hoping for a discount. That sort of thing harbors bad feelings when a player feels like he's being toyed with financially. My hope is we see him locked up this week

[Hooper]

We can't sign him until after the season. We are literally not allowed to because of the tag.

Just read Mike Jones latest piece in the Washington Post, where he says Cousins needs to show more.

It's getting ridiculous. Clearly a lot of writers and fans are just watching highlights of other QBS. The scrutiny and expectations for Cousins are a joke.

 

 

 

 

[ncr2h]

12 minutes ago, theTruthTeller said:

I think most of the sane people on the board want to keep Kirk, but I'm not sure everyone is willing to pay him top dollar, especially if he can't lead the team to the playoffs this year.  In a way, I think we're creating a monster - a QB with gaudy stats, but not big in the scoring category.  He'll hold all the cards at the negotiation - who else is available to play QB next year - except for the $24M franchise tag.  That's not a pretty picture.

TDs is a pretty bad way to judge QB skill - big TD numbers are often the result of playmakers at the skill positions making things happen after the catch.  Yesterday's game was a perfect example.  The Reed and Crowder TDs weren't anything particularly special that Cousins did.  Those guys just made great plays with the ball in their hands.  Conversely, Kelley's rushing TD came on a drive where Cousins basically drove us the length of the field and then we punched it in with a run.  All of this evens out if given a sufficient enough time frame, but we're talking multiple seasons.  QBs' TD numbers can fluctuate wildly from season to season, which isn't really a reflection of the QB's skill level going up and down, rather than the QB getting less big plays created for him by the skill position players.  Look at Bortles in 2015 vs. 2016 - is he regressing, or was he just a bad QB whose receivers made him look good.  Look at Brady's numbers after Moss/Welker were added, and then when Gronk was added.

This is a great article on that subject: http://outsidethehashes.com/?p=134

The article looks at several important QB stats and tries to determine how big of a sample size we would need in order to be relatively certain of what the QB's baseline rate for that stat is.  In other words, how long until we know that a certain stat line isn't just an aberration.  The key takeaways are that sack rate, yards/att, and completion percentage tend to stabilize first, whereas TD rate doesn't really stabilize until mid-career and INT rate doesn't stabilize until the very end of the career.

Sack rate, yards/att, and completion percentage can be succinctly summarized by the Net Yards per Attempt statistic (yards - sacks, all divided by attempts plus sacks).  The good news is that, for his career, Cousins is tracking just behind Rodgers and Roethlisberger but slightly ahead of Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson in era-adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, and far ahead of consensus up-and-comers Derek Carr and Andrew Luck.  There's a lot more noise in Cousins' numbers due to his short career span and the consensus that he's played with a very good supporting cast, so we'll see how it all plays out.

[wysknz1]

18 hours ago, s0crates said:

Kirk has played well, but it helps your numbers when you have a coach who likes to pass 40 times a game.

Well what would be worse is if the coach called 40 pass plays a game and Kirk was at the bottom.

[William Barbour]

3 hours ago, Califan007 said:

 

I mean, we act like Cousins' arm is bionic or something and will never tire as the season goes on. 

No, because you said season. If you throw 50 times in a game. Yes, your arm can get fatigued because you're whole body can as well. That's logical. 

To say a QB arms will be more tired his first pass in week 16 compared to week 5 is not validated. Unless That's not what you meant by using the word "season".

Also, I'm not going to get logistical about it because it's a silly thing to debate. Coming from personal experience and throwing the ball 40 times a game at a collegiate level. I know this is silly . 

But here is the full comments on Bortles sore arm. he never had an offseason his Rookie year. 

"He didn’t admit it publicly until after the season, but his right arm was worn out after more than a solid year of throwing -- going from his final season to Central Florida, to the NFL combine, to his pro day, to rookie minicamp, to OTAs, training camp and a 16-game season"

So yes, he could probably have a tired arm from throwing everyday as much as a baseball pitcher does. 

Knowing the 1% of athletes able to play QB in the NFL are in way better shape and arm strength then I was. 

Off topic a bit but, could you imagine if Kirk Cousins said he had dead arm around week 14? Fans would want him cut. I guess anything is up for discussion though. we've challenged his mental fortitude , his leadership, tenacity, killer instinct, helmet, slogan, off script playmaking ability, and arm strength.

So I'm not surprised we would debate if he can achieve "dead arm" from throwing 3000(calculated estimate on 20wk season including OTA/TC) footballs in 7 month period. 

Cheers

[bobandweave]

13 minutes ago, Hooper said:

We can't sign him until after the season. We are literally not allowed to because of the tag.

 

Ah hell I didn't know that. Why would they keep players from signing long term deals like that?

Also wanted to point out that Cousins currently is making the 2nd highest base salary in the league today. Some players get paid and play like it, meaning they get paid and there play drops off. Kirk has not shown that so far which at least for me helps me see him worthy of a big money deal. Does anyone have any buyer remorse for the team giving him 20 million this off season yet?

[Cliffmark1]

4 hours ago, justice98 said:

I wasnt arguing the first half.  I was using ESPNs projections for the second half, which is just simple math.  Obviously, he could be better or worse.  But the safe assumption is he'll be what he has been in the first half, rather than assume he'll duplicate the hot streak of last year.

As a data guy thats not true. You pick the model most suited to the data. Anything else is not useful. 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

18 minutes ago, William Barbour said:

No, because you said season. If you throw 50 times in a game. Yes, your arm can get fatigued because you're whole body can as well. That's logical. 

To say a QB arms will be more tired his first pass in week 16 compared to week 5 is not validated. Unless That's not what you meant by using the word "season".

See "Does QB Performance Decline Over A Season?" (answer: looks like it, yep), "Eli’s struggles may be due to “tired arm”, "Lambert, tired arms and a challenge"...actually, see pretty much any of them because the context of the statements are an accumulation of throws over weeks/games--which means over the course of a period of time much longer than a single game or a single practice with a lot of pass attempts.

 

But here is the full comments on Bortles sore arm. He never had an offseason his Rookie year.

See my post about Bortles, where it says pretty clearly ""My arm kind of deteriorated during the season," he said on Tuesday afternoon as he and most of his teammates reported for the beginning of the voluntary offseason conditioning program. "It didn't affect anything. It was just, I think, a product of throwing for two years straight without any break."

"Never had an offseason" was already addressed...Full comments added were unnecessary lol...

 

 

 

[Cliffmark1]

4 hours ago, Califan007 said:

When's the last time a Redskins QB had 321 pass attempts halfway through a season? lol...Averaging 40 pass attempts a game is not good.

 

What? lol...What 'data" says Cousins will improve? He didn't improve in 2014...and I can't think of anything, data or otherwise, to suggest that a QB will mirror his same production arc from the previous season in the current one.

Kirk didn't play all of the last part of 2014 so your point is invalid. I would like to make a wager that my statistical modeling and pattern matching are right (again).  

If I am right and the second half of 2016 is better than the first half you change your signature to something that says "I love kirk cousins, and cliff was right about him" 

[William Barbour]

"It was just, I think, a product of throwing for two years straight without any break."

Basically made my point. Which brings me back to my initial comment.

It's silly.

[Veryoldschool]

As I said a year Cousins Is The Man!  He's having another great year and I think the rest of the team is improving around him probably not fast enough to get a playoff spot but the SM and JG are improving the team.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

16 minutes ago, Cliffmark1 said:

Kirk didn't play all of the last part of 2014 so your point is invalid. I would like to make a wager that my statistical modeling and pattern matching are right (again).  

If I am right and the second half of 2016 is better than the first half you change your signature to something that says "I love kirk cousins, and cliff was right about him" 

You never said what your "statistical modeling" was, though lol...it's incredibly easy to discuss and critique that modeling now. No need to wait until the end of the season.

[ThomasRoane]

20 hours ago, NattyBo said:

Side topic, can the Red Zone issues be fixed?

 

There are two solutions to fixing the red zone issues.  After Fat Rob's performance I think one of those has been fixed.  You need a legitimate threat in the backfield to be good in the red zone.  Otherwise, the defense can drop 7 and play coverage in a condensed space.  A good running threat opens up play action. 

The other issue is a big receiver.  Thought we had that addressed but Doctson can't get on the field!  The coaches know that too though.  The best way to beat a condensed pass defense is to go vertical with a jump ball or fade.  It will be interesting to see if Maurice Harris (6' 3") gets more playing time vs the Vikes.  He came in for D Jax but it's noteworthy that he was on the game day roster over Ross.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

10 minutes ago, William Barbour said:

"It was just, I think, a product of throwing for two years straight without any break."

Basically made my point. Which brings me back to my initial comment.

It's silly.

You missed mine, though lol...which was there was no reason for you to post the rest of Bortles quote as if it was giving more information that I somehow left out. I had already included it.

[justice98]

7 minutes ago, ThomasRoane said:

 

The other issue is a big receiver.  Thought we had that addressed but Doctson can't get on the field!  The coaches know that too though.  The best way to beat a condensed pass defense is to go vertical with a jump ball or fade.  It will be interesting to see if Maurice Harris (6' 3") gets more playing time vs the Vikes.  He came in for D Jax but it's noteworthy that he was on the game day roster over Ross.

AJ Green is great just cuz he's great, but there were several plays where his length and catch radius was simply the difference.  I always envy when teams have that.  Even as great as Jordan Reed is, he's not particularly long and he's our biggest receiver.  

[TheItalianStallion]

Yardage is fine, but I'd like to see a better TD-INT ratio. He's turning it over about once per game, which isn't bad, but it can be improved. And 12 TDs, while respectable, isn't a huge amount relative to his attempts. Not necessarily his fault, though, some of it may be coaching and lack of running game.

[Cliffmark1]

1 hour ago, Califan007 said:

You never said what your "statistical modeling" was, though lol...it's incredibly easy to discuss and critique that modeling now. No need to wait until the end of the season.

You are chicken. Take the wager. If i am wrong i will change my sig to say califan knows about statistics.