Just The Sports

Detroit Tigers: Austin Jackson Will Never Be That Good Again

2011-05-14T10:24:00.004-04:00

With each passing month of Detroit Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson's career, it becomes ever more apparent that the way he tore the cover off the ball in the first month of his career was not representative of the kind of player he actually is. In fact, he has not come close to the heights he reached in the March/April days of the 2010 season.

Over the first 23 games of his career, Jackson probably did not know what the big deal about being in the Major League was all about; professional baseball, even at the highest level, was incredibly easy.

During that time span, Jackson hit .364/.422/.495 with a .410 wOBA, which is the hitting line for an All-Star and a borderline MVP candidate. Jackson's elite production was aided by an absolutely unsustainable .530 batting average on balls in play and a 37.5 line drive percentage.

For the season, Jackson hit .755/.748/1.000 with a .757 wOBA on line drives, further providing proof that line drives are the hits that help a batter the most, and he hit an inordinate amount of line drives in March and April of 2010. Since April 2010, ended, however, Jackson has yet to have a month where his line drive percentage was higher than 28.0 percent so he has not been able to benefit from as many line drives.

Jackson's opening month of his career was so extremely not indicative of his actual talent that his next-best month, which took place in July, represents a 13.7 percent drop in his batting average (.314), a 15.2 percent decrease in on-base percentage (.358), a 6.9 percent drop in slugging percentage (.461), a 12.4 percent decrease in wOBA (.359), an 18.5 percent decrease in batting average on balls in play (.432), and a 31.5 percent decrease in line drive percentage (25.7 percent).

His other months are an even more precipitous drop-off in his hitting ability as he spent just as much time being a below-average hitter as an above-average one. Last season, the average wOBA for a player was .320; for three months, he was an above-average player, and for three months, he was below-average.

Luckily for Jackson, his above-average months outshone his below-average ones so he still finished the season with a .333 wOBA.

Jackson's struggles as a hitter continued over the first month of this baseball season as he hit only .181/.252/.257 with a .232 wOBA. During those 27 contests, Jackson also posted the lowest batting average on balls in play of his career (.265) so it is no wonder it was another mediocre hitting month for Jackson.

With the way in which Jackson's career path is trending, his biggest struggle will not be trying to duplicate the first 23 games of his career. Instead, the biggest battle he will face is not being a below-average hitter more often than he is an above-average one.

New York Yankee First Baseman Mark Teixeira Will Not Have To Play Catch-Up This Season

2011-05-09T09:53:00.005-04:00

For the first time in his three seasons with the New York Yankees, first baseman Mark Teixeira will not have to spend every month of the baseball season after April playing catch-up so he can match his career numbers. Instead, all he has to do for the rest of this regular season is to match the production he had over his great first month of the season.

Over the first month of the season, including a lone game in March, Teixeira posted a batting line of .256/.392/.549 with a .410 wOBA. His .256 batting average and his .273 batting average on balls in play are not as good as his career marks of a .285 batting average and .302 batting average on balls in play, but Teixeira is not letting that keep him from having his best ever opening full month of the season; in 2004 over the course of eight games of a truncated April, Teixeira hit .276/.432/.552 with a .422 wOBA, but there is no certainty that he would have done that for the whole month.

The reason why Teixeira's start to the season has been so excellent has everything to do with his on-base and slugging percentages, percentages that are more indicative of a baseball player's true hitting level than batting average anyway. Riding the strength of a 15.7 walk percentage along with being hit by pitches on three separate occasions, Teixeira has managed to get on base at an MVP-level clip.

In fact, should Teixeira manage to maintain that on-base percentage for the rest of the season, it would give him his third-highest on-base percentage for a season since his career began in 2003.

Teixeira's March and April were also witness to a power explosion, the likes of which he has never experienced over a full March and April. His .293 isolated power is so impressive that should he manage to sustain it, it will be the highest such mark of his career. To sustain his stratospheric isolated power, however, he will need to also keep up a very impressive 20.0 home run to fly ball percentage. Since he has already had a higher home run to fly ball percentage in two previous seasons, 2004 (22.4 HR/FB%) and 2005 (21.2 HR/FB%), it is not outside the realm of possibility that he can do so again.

The 2011 March and April Teixeira put up is a far cry from what he did in his other two seasons as a New York Yankee. In 2009, he started off the season hitting .200/.367/.371 with a .330 wOBA. To get to his season totals, Teixeira had to improve his batting average by 46.0 percent (.292), his on-base percentage by 4.4 percent (.383), his slugging percentage by 52.3 percent (.565), and his wOBA by 21.8 percent (.402).

Last season, Teixeira dug himself an even deeper hole, starting off with a March and April batting just .136/.300/.259 with a .270 wOBA. With such a slow start to the season, Teixeira was required to improved his batting average by 88.2 percent (.256), his on-base percentage by 21.7 percent (.365), his slugging percentage by 85.7 percent (.481), and his wOBA by 35.9 percent (.367). The opening month hole was so deep that even with his stellar hitting the rest of the season, 2010 was his worst hitting season since his rookie year.

As one can see, it has been when Teixeira has put balls in play that he has struggled the most for the Yankees in March and April. Fortunately for him and his team, that has not been a concern this season since he is hitting with such a tremendous amount of power, he will not have to scramble to try to turn an awful start into a productive season.

With the sort of confidence that such a hot start brings with it, we might all be witnessing one of the best seasons Teixeira has had as a professional baseball player.

2011 NFL Draft: Philip Rivers' Big Pass Plays Will Continue With New Target, Vincent Brown

2011-05-06T11:17:00.003-04:00

For three straight years San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers has led the NFL in yards per pass attempt, and his reign at the top of that passing category will no doubt continue with the drafting of former San Diego State wide receiver, Vincent Brown, in the third round. Of course, Rivers will only be able to benefit from Brown's big play ability if Brown is able to replicate what he did in college football, especially his last two seasons.

Over Brown's collegiate career, he provided a decent amount of value to his San Diego State quarterbacks, but he was not overly impressive in his production by any means.

After Brown's wide receiving statistics, which include his receptions, passes on which he was targeted, and receptions, were removed from San Diego State's quarterbacks' passing statistics, the quarterbacks experienced a .9 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 57.0 percent to 56.5 percent), a 5.5 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.3 to 6.9), a 4.7 percent increase in yards per completion (from 12.8 to 12.2), and an 8.3 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 4.8 percent to 4.4 percent).

Brown's career numbers are not as impressive as some of the top wide receivers taken in the draft like Jonathan Baldwin, Aldrick Robinson, Torrey Smith, A.J. Green, or Leonard Hankerson, but the Chargers are not interested in what Brown did over his whole career. They want him to do for them what he did over his last two seasons at San Diego State.

Over his last two seasons, which included 20 games, once Brown's wide receiving statistics are removed from San Diego State's quarterbacks' passing statistics, the quarterbacks underwent a 2.3 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 56.8 percent to 55.5 percent), a 12.9 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 8.5 to 7.4), a 10.7 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 14.9 to 13.3), and an 8.8 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 6.8 percent to 6.2 percent).

While those fantastic seasons still were not better than the best seasons of Baldwin, Robinson, or Smith, they are still extremely valuable and made Brown the fourth-best wide receiver in the draft in terms of value given to his college quarterbacks.

Since Rivers has already proven so adept at gaining huge chunks of yardage per pass attempt, adding a wide receiver of Brown's caliber, who has elite-level ability in terms of aiding a quarterback in that statistical category, will ensure that the Chargers continue to have one of the most dangerous passing attacks in the NFL.

2011 NFL Draft: Pat Devlin Deserves A Legitimate Chance In The NFL

2011-05-04T10:51:00.003-04:00

Based on the quarterbacks who were drafted in the 2011 NFL Draft, the fact that former University of Delaware Blue Hen quarterback Pat Devlin went undrafted shows just how convoluted the NFL's process for selecting quarterbacks truly is. Despite the numerous interviews and the multiple workouts NFL teams put prospective quarterbacks through, most teams have no idea what they should truly look for when trying to predict how a college quarterback will perform in the NFL.

Even though Devlin went undrafted, his college football résumé measures up extremely favorably to every quarterback who was drafted; for the purposes of this article, his college statistics will only be compared to the six quarterbacks taken in the first three rounds of the draft who started at least two seasons of college football.

Accuracy is the most important tool a college quarterback can possess when making the transition to the NFL, and those quarterbacks who have been able to consistently put up excellent completion percentages across multiple seasons are those who are most likely to experience success in professional football.

Under that criterion, it is Devlin and no other quarterback who is best suited to quarterback an NFL team. In his first year as Delaware's primary quarterback (games in which he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most yards) after transferring from Penn State, Devlin completed 64.0 percent of his passes for 7.7 yards per pass attempt. Devlin then followed that up in his second year as a starter by completing 67.9 percent of his passes for 7.9 yards per pass attempt.

Part of his improvement in completion percentage from his junior to senior season is because his yards per completion dropped from an average of 12.1 yards to 11.6 yards. Even so, there is no doubt Devlin has elite accuracy.

It becomes even more elite when compared to the quarterbacks drafted in the first three rounds who started more than one season in college football. Devlin's career completion percentage of 66.0 percent as a primary quarterback is statistically significantly better than Jake Locker's (54.0 percent), Blaine Gabbert's (61.2 percent), Christian Ponder's (62.4 percent), Andy Dalton's (61.6 percent), and Colin Kaepernick's (58.3 percent). Although Devlin's career completion percentage was not statistically significantly better than Ryan Mallett's (60.2 percent) due to Mallett's incredibly inconsistency in his accuracy, it was still much better; in fact, it was 9.6 percent better.

Since no other quarterback in the draft could hold a candle to Devlin in terms of being very accurate across multiple seasons, it is absurd that no team was willing to reward him for his college football career. He should have been at the very least highly drafted. In a perfect world, he would have been the first quarterback chosen.

Devlin's college career is also superior to the career of former Delaware and current Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

For his college career, Flacco completed 63.4 percent of his passes for 7.5 yards per pass attempt, both worse than Devlin's 66.0 completion percentage and 7.8 yards per pass attempt.

Devin also had a higher touchdown percentage than Flacco (5.2 percent to 4.4 percent), which made up for the fact he had a slightly higher interception percentage (1.7 percent to 1.6 percent).

There is not much more a college quarterback could have done to convince the NFL he is worthy of a shot to start than to have a better college career than an NFL starting quarterback than what Devlin accomplished. Devlin did every single thing he needed to do to warrant an NFL team giving him a legitimate shot to be a team's franchise quarterback.

Unfortunately for Devlin, based on the fact he went undrafted, it is improbable that a team will allow him to truly compete for a starting quarterback position. Therefore, the NFL's thinking that he will not succeed in the NFL will become a self-fulfilling prophecy as he will probably never be given a chance to prove otherwise.

Devlin certainly deserves that opportunity, however.

LeBron James And Not Derrick Rose Was The NBA's MVP

2011-05-02T23:16:00.003-04:00

Miami Heat forward LeBron James has proved himself a prophet. By joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in South Beach, James predicted that he was eliminating himself from MVP contention, and that is exactly what has happened. Despite being the most valuable player in the league for the third straight season, he will have to watch as his award goes to a much less deserving player in Derrick Rose.

Even though James was unable to duplicate the efficient production of his two previous seasons, seasons which rival Michael Jordan at his best, James was still the best player to step on the court for the 2010-11 NBA season.

James once again led the league in PER (27.3), offensive win shares (10.3), total win shares (15.6), and win shares contributed per 48 minutes (0.244). By every objective statistical measure, James was the MVP and all the voters who elected not to give it to him are putting their complete ignorance on display.

Rose's MVP campaign was so full of erroneous conclusions that it hid the fact he was not even the second-best candidate for the award. Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, and Chris Paul can all claim to have contributed more total win shares to their teams than Rose. Rose drops to eighth in the league when win shares contributed per 48 minutes are factored in.

There was an award that Derrick Rose did deserve, but the voters wrongly gave the Most Improved Award to Kevin Love instead. It was Rose and not Love that improved the most from last season to this one.

Rose experienced a 26.3 percent decrease in his PER (from 18.6 to 23.5) and a 108 percent increase in his win shares contributed per 48 minutes (from 0.100 to 0.208). Love can only boast a 17.4 percent increase in PER (from 20.7 to 24.3) and a 52.2 percent increase in win shares contributed per 48 minutes (0.138 to 0.210). Just like there was no contest between James and Rose as to who was the league's MVP, there was no contest between Rose and Love as to who was most improved.

Although Rose might take the NBA MVP award home with him, it is not rightfully his. Only James is worthy of that title this season.

Indiana Pacers Might As Well Hire Frank Vogel

2011-05-02T09:33:00.005-04:00

Frank Vogel wants the interim tag removed from his head coaching title, and while he does have a case that he earned a chance to be the Indiana Pacers' head coach, it is by no means an airtight one. The Pacers improved under Vogel, but the improvement was more slight than the increase in winning percentage might lead one to believe.

Before Vogel replaced former Indiana Pacers head coach Jim O'Brien, the Pacers had limped to a 17-27 record, giving the team a .386 winning percentage after the first 44 games. After Vogel assumed the reins, the Pacers went on to win 20 of the 38 regular season contests remaining for a .526 winning percentage.

However, sometimes win-loss records do not tell the whole story, and what those win-loss records do not reveal is by what a small amount the Pacers really did improve.

With O'Brien as their head coach, the Pacers were outscored by their opponents by 1.6 points per 100 possessions, scoring 104.1 points per 100 possessions on offense and allowing 105.7 points per 100 possessions on defense.

Under Vogel, the Pacers increased overall by one point per 100 possessions and were outscored by their opponents by 0.6 points per 100 possessions, scoring 107.1 points per 100 possessions on offense and allowing 107.7 points per 100 possessions.

The Pacers' inferiority to their opponents increased to being outscored by 1.4 points per 100 possessions when the playoff series against the Chicago Bulls is included, but if Vogel is hired, it will probably be because of how the Pacers finished the regular season.

Of course, improving by one point per 100 possessions does not suddenly thrust the Pacers into the conversation of elite NBA teams so if Vogel does have the interim tag removed, do not look for the Pacers to compete for a title next season.

Vogel has already made it very clear that he thinks he deserves a chance to be the team's head coach. His campaign should also be supported by Tyler Hansbrough, Dahntay Jones, Roy Hibbert, A.J. Price, and Paul George.

It is Hansbrough who received the most benefit from Vogel taking over head coaching duties. Hansbrough went from playing 32.4 percent of the Pacers' minutes for O'Brien to 54.7 percent of the Pacers' minutes for Vogel. His role in the offense also increased as his usage percentage went from 21.3 percent to 23.9 percent and the percentage of shots he took for the Pacers while on the floor went from 21.2 percent to 25.0 percent.

Hansbrough rewarded Vogel's confidence by largely maintaining the 53.4 true shooting percentage he had for O'Brien; he posted a 52.7 true shooting percentage over the rest of the regular season under Vogel.

Jones would also have a lot to look forward to from Vogel being retained as head coach. His percentage of team minutes played also increased dramatically from 13.4 percent to 29.2 percent. Additionally, his scoring average improved from 2.7 points per game to 7.2 points per game while his true shooting percentage went from 48.9 percent to 56.6 percent.

Hibbert will also remember his time under Vogel as a time when he played his best basketball even though it took him accepting a different role to do so. After a hot start to the season, Hibbert started playing tremendously poor basketball, and at the end of O'Brien's tenure, he had just a 47.5 true shooting percentage.

For the rest of the regular season, Hibbert posted a 54.5 true shooting percentage helped in part by the fact he was asked to do less on offense. Vogel no doubt realized Hibbert is not a player who is able to carry a high percentage of the offense and so decreased his usage percentage from 24.9 percent to 22.4 percent and the percentage of shots he took from 25.1 percent to 21.8 percent.

Since Hibbert did play so much better, it was a necessary trade-off.

Price and George are in the same boat as they would look forward to a return from Vogel because it would allow them more time on the court. Price's minute percentage increased from 26.3 percent for O'Brien to 33.9 percent for Vogel and George's minute percentage jumped from 33.4 percent under O'Brien to 47.2 percent for Vogel.

With the Pacers' modest mid-season improvement and the support of the five players who all benefited from having him as their coach, Vogel should have a decent chance of getting the Pacers' head coaching position; the Pacers could do a lot worse than Vogel.

NBA Draft: Isaiah Thomas Will Be A Better Pure Point Guard Than Nate Robinson

2011-04-25T09:37:00.003-04:00

Soon there will be another diminutive (by NBA standards) point guard in the NBA that hails from the University of Washington and this one, Isaiah Thomas, has the potential to be a more pure point guard than Nate Robinson, by which I mean that he will be able to do a better job of setting up his teammates for baskets while avoiding turnovers.

Both Robinson and Thomas had very similar career paths in college in terms of both their shooting and distribution of the ball. During each of their three seasons at the University of Washington, they saw their shooting percentages increase while the percentage of the shots they took for their teams decreased.

Robinson's true shooting percentage and percentage of shots taken for his teams went from 52.3 percent and 30.0 percent as a freshman to 55.9 percent and 24.1 percent as a sophomore to 58.7 percent and 22.9 percent as a junior.

Thomas' true shooting percentage and percentage of shots taken for his teams went from 51.1 percent and 28.9 percent as a freshman to 54.0 percent and 26.9 percent as a sophomore to 55.6 percent and 23.6 percent as a junior.

Robinson was a better shooter in college than Thomas and would probably be better off playing more shooting guard in the NBA, but his lack of height pretty much forces NBA teams into playing him at point guard and it is there where Thomas has more potential than Robinson did before he entered the NBA.

Although neither was really asked to be play point guard exclusively in their first two collegiate seasons, as juniors, each was asked to assume more point guard duties. Robinson split distribution duties with teammate Will Conroy as head coach Lorenzo Romar also realized that Robinson was at his best when he was not the team's primary point guard and could better help the team in more of a combo guard role.

Still, Robinson had his best year as a distributor. He averaged 4.5 assists per game and assisted on 23.6 percent of his teammate's shots while on the floor. His 12.7 turnover percentage was also the lowest of his career in college.

Thomas had no teammate with which to share point guard duties in his junior season and it showed as he handled his role as the team's primary point guard extremely well. In that season, Thomas averaged 6.3 assists per game and assisted on 33.5 percent of his team's made field goals while he was on the floor. He also managed to keep his turnovers down to a respectable level with a 16.8 turnover percentage.

If Thomas does elect to remain in the NBA Draft, he will have an advantage that Robinson never experienced. Due to the fact he has already had the experience of running an offense full-time and has shown the ability to do it proficiently, he will enter the NBA more ready to take over a team's offense, which will make his transition a lot easier and set him up to be a more successful point guard.

UNC's Harrison Barnes Still Has Something To Prove

2011-04-20T11:16:00.003-04:00

With Harrison Barnes' decision to return to the University of North Carolina for his sophomore season, he accomplished two tasks. The first was to set up the Tar Heels as one of the top national title contenders for the 2011-12 season and the second was to allow the NBA to find out if Barnes really is as good as he was over the second half of the season.

Although Barnes entered college as a much-heralded player, his Tar Heel career got off to an abysmal start by any measure, especially when it came to his shooting. Over the first 19 games of his 37-game season, Barnes posted a woefully inadequate effective field goal percentage of 42.8 percent and true shooting percentage of 47.0 percent, not what one expects from a supposedly star player.

Barnes also struggled when it came to his handling of the ball as he turned the ball over more than he dished out assists. His 15.2 turnover percentage easily negated his 9.6 assist percentage.

All that changed over the last 18 games of the season, starting with UNC's contest against rival North Carolina State where Barnes netted his first 20-point game as a collegian. From that game onward, Barnes became a statistically significant better player in terms of effective field goal percentage (53.5 percent), true shooting percentage (56.1 percent), and avoiding turnovers (8.4 turnover percentage).

Not only did Barnes shoot better over the second half of the season, but he did so while assuming a larger role in the team's offense. Barnes' usage percentage jumped from 25.0 percent to 28.0 percent and the percentage of the team's shots that he took while on the floor increased from 26.4 percent to 31.7 percent. That combination of shooting well from the floor and taking such a high percentage of UNC's field goal attempts meant Barnes was a legitimate star and go-to player in the second half of the season.

With his expanded role in the offense and his much improved shooting, it should come as no surprise that Barnes' points per game average increased by 66.9 percent from 11.8 points per game to 19.7 points per contest.

The only facet of the game where Barnes did not improve was in his ability to get to the free throw line as he took 4.8 field goal attempts for every free throw attempt over the second half of the season as opposed to 3.3 field goal attempts for every free throw attempt during the first 19 games.

However, that is a minor quibble since he shot so well from the field that a lack of free throw attempts was something with which the Tar Heels could live.

Now all Barnes has to prove is that his exploits over the second half of the season are indicative of how he can really play. If he can accomplish that feat, then he will have earned the high draft pick an NBA team will no doubt use on him.

Carmelo Anthony Has Played His Best Basketball For The New York Knicks

2011-04-19T13:23:00.005-04:00

There can be no arguing that the blockbuster trade that landed the New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony has paid off in the short run. Not only did the Knicks improve as a team after the trade, but Anthony played the best basketball of his career for the franchise.

In the 54 games prior to Anthony's arrival on the Knicks' roster, the Knicks had only outscored their opponents by 0.4 points per 100 possessions, which is the make-up of a team barely above .500. Yet, all that changed after the trade.

Over the next 27 games, the Knicks played a much more efficient style of basketball, outscoring opponents by 2.0 points per 100 possessions; the last game of the season was not counted because Anthony did not appear in it. The Knicks were not playing elite basketball by any means, but they were significantly better than they had been before the trade.

A large part of the reason for the Knicks' improvement was the play of the true target of the blockbuster trade deal, Carmelo Anthony. Anthony easily outpaced what he had done for his previous team, the Denver Nuggets.

For the Nuggets this year in 50 games, he posted a true shooting percentage of 54.7 percent, produced 107 points per 100 possessions, and contributed 0.127 win shares per 48 minutes. Had he continued along that same track for the rest of the season, he would have had the fourth-worst season of his eight-year career.

However, he did not. His true shooting percentage jumped up to 57.5 percent, thanks in large part to him shooting an uncharacteristically high 42.4 percent from the three-point line; for his career, including those 27 games, Anthony has shot 32.0 percent on three-pointers.

Due mostly to his increased shooting efficiency, Anthony produced 114 points per 100 possessions and contributed 0.157 win shares per 48 minutes, which are superior to anything he has ever done over a full season.

Since Anthony's offensive proficiency is unlike anything he has ever accomplished in his career, it will probably be too much to expect for him to continue to play as well in the future as he did over those 27 games for the Knicks, but it has certainly been an extraordinarily good ride for Anthony and the Knicks so far.

Rudy Gay Is Not That Valuable To The Memphis Grizzlies

2011-04-14T12:41:00.003-04:00

Even though Rudy Gay played the best basketball of his career this season in his 54 games before suffering a season-ending injury, there cannot help but be some doubt in the Memphis Grizzlies organization about the decision to award Gay a maximum contract extension. The doubt has surely crept in because of how little the Grizzlies have missed Gay over the past 28 contests. In fact, the Grizzlies have actually played better without Gay in the line-up.

Over the course of the 54 games in which Gay was in the line-up for the Grizzlies, Memphis outscored their opponents by 2.0 points per 100 possessions. Yet, in the 28 games in which the Grizzlies did not have Gay, they outscored their opponents by 3.6 points per 100 possessions, games which include the last two contests of the season where the Grizzlies were not even trying to win.

There was no single statistical category in which the Grizzlies became worse when they played without their second-highest paid player.

The way in which the Grizzlies have easily been able to survive without Gay is reflected in the fact he has been just the fourth most valuable player for the Grizzlies in terms of win shares per 48 minutes behind Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, and Tony Allen.

Despite Rudy Gay playing better than ever before, he has been just another guy for the Grizzlies this season, and maximum contract guys are supposed to be so much more than that.

Shaka Smart's True Coaching Ability Is Still To Be Determined

2011-04-13T10:31:00.003-04:00

North Carolina State should not feel too disappointed that Virginia Commonwealth basketball head coach Shaka Smart turned down a job offer to coach the Wolfpack. In the end, it might be a blessing in disguise because the jury is still out on just how good a coach Shaka Smart truly is.

The excitement that surrounded Virginia Commonwealth's road to the Final Four covered up both the advantages Smart had this season with his team and also where the Rams came up short even with those advantages.

This past season, Smart's Virginia Commonwealth squad enjoyed a roster stability of .81, meaning that 81 percent of the team's minutes were played by players who were on the roster last year. That is the equivalent of losing just one position player and should have set up the Rams to have a better season than they did last year.

Yet, despite having such a veteran squad and winning their five out of their last six games, the Rams were not as dominant as the 2009-10 team. This past season, the Rams outscored their opponents by 7.4 points per 100 possessions, but last season, the Rams outscored their opponents by 14.2 points per 100 possessions.

They might not have had as much national exposure as the 2010-11 team, but they were better over the course of the season. However, even the accomplishments of the 2009-10 roster that went on to win the CBI championship are made a little less noteworthy by the fact that the team also had a lot of experience; the roster stability in 2009-10 was .80.

In his two seasons as a college basketball head coach, Smart has enjoyed an amazingly high level of roster stability, which usually makes a head coach look better because the longer a group of players stays together, the better that group will perform. Therefore, Smart deserves some criticism for the fact Virginia Commonwealth had a less dominant season than last year since the team should have been expected to at least maintain their level of play if not improve due to the overwhelming veteran presence on the roster.

Of course, Smart's luck will run out next year and he will actually have to prove to everyone he can build a winning program across multiple seasons. This season, 54 percent of the team's minutes were played by seniors so for the first time next season, Smart will be working with a team that is not so veteran-laden. How his teams perform over the next couple seasons will go a long way in allowing us to truly gauge his coaching acumen and determining his level of competence in actually building a successful college basketball program.

Smart's situation is very similar to that of current Virginia basketball head coach Tony Bennett. He, too, enjoyed the benefit of having great roster stability his first two seasons as a head coach at Washington State.

His first team in 2007-08 had a roster stability of .85 and outscored opponents by 12.2 points per 100 possessions. His second team in 2008-09 had an astounding roster stability of .98 and outscored opponents by 17.0 points per 100 possessions.

Then, in his third season, Bennett's team's roster stability dropped to .63 and when he needed to coach his best, he was not up to the task. That squad managed to outscore opponents by only 6.5 points per 100 possessions. It was in his third season where we first glimpsed that Bennett was not necessarily that great a coach and was only a product of having such veteran-laden teams in his first two seasons.

The Virginia Cavaliers decided to ignore that glimpse and hire Bennett anyway. They were rewarded by having him coach a team with a roster stability of .90 that outscored their opponents by 5.4 points per 100 possessions, which was an improvement, although an expected one no matter who was coaching the team, over how the Cavaliers had played the previous season.

In this past season, however, with a roster stability of .62, the Cavaliers were outscored by .9 points per 100 possessions, demonstrating once again the fact that Bennett struggles whenever he does not have an abundance of veteran talent on his roster. It is his failure in that aspect that will keep him from being a good coach.

Smart will have to avoid the same fate that has befallen Bennett to truly earn the accolades that have been showered upon him thus far, and we will all have to wait and see just how good a coach Smart really is, starting with next season.

Blake Griffin Should Never Have Defended Former Oklahoma Basketball Coach Jeff Capel

2011-04-11T09:54:00.003-04:00

Blake Griffin can complain about and defend Oklahoma's decision to fire former basketball head coach Jeff Capel all he wants, but that will not change the truth of the situation. Capel's firing was completely warranted for the simple fact that he failed at the most basic aspect of coaching college sports; Capel failed to reload his roster and sustain success.

The best coaches and those who have the most job security are those who are able to replace star players with more star players and maintain a constant level of elite play from their teams across multiple seasons. Those who are fired after a couple of seasons are the ones who are unable to do so.

Capel falls into the latter category because he was never able to duplicate the success he had when Blake Griffin was on the court for him. In the 68 games during which Griffin played for Oklahoma, the Sooners outscored their opponents by 12.0 points per 100 possessions.

In the subsequent 63 games the Oklahoma Sooners have played, they have been outscored by 2.9 points per 100 possessions so his teams have been 14.9 points per 100 possessions worse since Griffin left for the NBA.

The differences between the offensive ratings (from 110.9 points per 100 possessions to 105.3 points per 100 possessions) and defensive ratings (98.9 points per 100 possessions to 108.2 points per 100 possessions) from the Blake Griffin era to the post-Blake Griffin era were both statistically significant ones.

Unfortunately for the Sooners, they forgot both how to score and defend in a proficient manner over the past two seasons.

Even without the decline the Sooners experienced after Griffin left Oklahoma, Capel deserved to be fired because his teams were not even equaling his first year in Norman, Oklahoma. Capel's first-year record of 16-15 was pretty misleading because despite having a record just a little bit above .500, the Sooners still outscored their opponents by 13.8 points per 100 possessions thanks to some really impressive blowout wins. They did not come close to that over the past two seasons.

Although Capel's struggles after Griffin left is the most readily apparent line of demarcation in his coaching tenure at Oklahoma, his last two teams have left a lot to be desired compared to his first Oklahoma team.

No matter what kind of coach Griffin believes Capel is, there is no denying he has been mediocre at assembling a successful basketball program over the past two seasons and deserved to be fired.

UCONN Is Riding More Impressive Winning Streak Than Butler

2011-04-04T14:14:00.003-04:00

Both the Connecticut Huskies and the Butler Bulldogs enter the national championship game with double-digit winning streaks as Connecticut has not lost in 10 games and Butler has won the last 14 games in which it has played. Yet, not all winning streaks are equal and Connecticut's winning streak has been the more impressive one, making them the hotter team.

Over the course of the Huskies' 10-game winning streak, they have managed to outscore their opponents by a very impressive 16.1 points per 100 possessions. That tops the 14.4 points per 100 possessions with which the Bulldogs have outscored their last 14 opponents.

Although the Huskies are owners of the more dominant winning streak, Butler's has come with a little more consistency. The standard deviation for the Bulldogs' offensive rating during their winning streak is 8.1 points per 100 possessions and the standard deviation for their defensive rating is 10.6 points per 100 possessions.

On the other hand, Connecticut's standard deviations for their offensive rating and defensive rating are 12.3 and 12.7 points per 100 possessions, respectively.

The reason behind Connecticut's more inconsistent results is that the Huskies have won in a couple of really big blowouts in addition to playing in more closely contested affairs while Butler has been unable to win in quite the same commanding fashion and has played in a higher percentage of close games.

Ten of Butler's 14 wins have come with a winning margin of fewer than 10 points compared to six of Connecticut's 10 wins being single-digit affairs.

Should Connecticut emerge victorious tonight, the Huskies may very well have the fact that they have played a better quality of basketball during their winning streak than the Bulldogs did during theirs to thank.

Virginia Commonwealth Has Had Easiest Road To The Final Four

2011-04-02T14:03:00.004-04:00

Virginia Commonwealth's improbable run to the Final Four makes for a great story, but the Rams have benefited from having a lucky draw in the NCAA Tournament. Of the four teams remaining, Virginia Commonwealth has faced the least dominant competition.

Before facing the Rams and having their seasons ended, Virginia Commonwealth's four NCAA Tournament opponents combined to outscore their opposition by 14.0 points per 100 possessions, which is the smallest such winning margin of any of the Final Four's NCAA Tournament opponents.

Although Virginia Commonwealth's offense has had to play against the stingiest defenses based on the fact its opponents have held their opponents to only 95.9 points per 100 possessions, Virginia Commonwealth's defense has benefited by having to defend offenses who have scored just 109.9 points per 100 possessions. That offensive rating is the lowest of any of the Final Four's NCAA Tournament opponents.

As for the other teams left, Connecticut and Kentucky have faced almost equally dominant opponents in the NCAA Tournament. Connecticut's tournament foes outscored their opposition by 15.4 points per 100 possessions before Connecticut ended their seasons, and Kentucky's tournament opposition outscored their opponents by 15.3 points per 100 possessions before they played Kentucky and were subsequently sent home.

Unsurprisingly, based on the fact Butler had to play Old Dominion, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, and Florida to make it to the Final Four, the Bulldogs can boast that the road they traveled to make it to the Final Four was the most difficult, making it even more impressive that they made it to Houston. Butler's tournament opponents outscored their opponents by a combined 16.0 points per 100 possessions before they squared off against the Bulldogs.

Teams can only play the teams on their schedule, and Virginia Commonwealth does deserve credit for beating multiple opponents who had better seasons, but if they had had to face the other three teams' opponents, they might not have made it to the Final Four.

Dwyane Wade Is More At Fault Than LeBron James and Chris Bosh When The Miami Heat Lose

2011-04-01T10:46:00.005-04:00

When LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in Miami to join the Heat, they probably never imagined Wade would let them do so thoroughly in the games the Heat lost. Yet, that is exactly what has happened in their 23 losses this season as Wade has been most at fault in those contests.

Wade has a well-earned reputation as a very effective all-around player, but you would not know it based on how he performs in losses in relation to how he has performed when the Heat have won.

There is no part of Wade's game that does not become drastically worse when the Heat lose and it starts with how poorly he shoots in those games. In relation to how he shoots in Heat victories, in losses, his effective field goal percentage experiences a 20.8 percent decrease (from 55.3 percent to 43.8 percent) and a 17.4 percent decrease in true shooting percentage (from 60.8 percent to 50.2 percent). Wade essentially goes from being a supremely effective scorer in wins to a mediocre one in Heat losses.

Wade also finds it difficult to maintain his level of proficiency when it comes to ballhandling. Compared to how he plays in victories, in defeats, Wade sees his assist percentage decrease by 6.7 percent (from 23.8 percent to 22.2 percent). That decrease can be understood as the whole Heat team shoots worse in defeats, but what cannot be understood is Wade's increased penchant for committing turnovers.

In defeats, Wade's turnover percentage increases dramatically by 43.9 percent (from 10.7 percent to 15.4 percent). By turning the ball over so much, he is keeping the offense from playing more efficiently.

Furthermore, in an effort to make sure he does not play well in any aspect, Wade also sees fit to become a much worse rebounder. When the Heat lose, Wade experiences a 38.1 percent decrease in offensive rebounding percentage (from 6.3 percent to 3.9 percent), a 14.1 percent decrease in defensive rebounding percentage (from 14.9 percent to 12.8 percent), and a 25.5 percent decrease in total rebounding percentage (from 11.0 percent to 8.2 percent).

Although Wade struggles the most to maintain his statistics in losses, Bosh and James are certainly not off the hook when it comes to playing poorly in defeats. They just do not play as poorly as Wade does compared to their performances in victories.

Bosh becomes a poorer shooter in defeats as he undergoes an 11.4 percent decrease in his effective field goal percentage (from 50.7 percent to 44.9 percent) and a 9.7 percent decrease in his true shooting percentage (from 57.9 percent to 52.3 percent).

He also has problems with maintaining his rebounding percentage statistics. His 3.0 percent increase in his defensive rebounding percentage (from 19.7 percent to 20.3 percent) is overshadowed by his 22.4 percent decrease in offensive rebounding percentage (from 6.7 percent to 5.2 percent) and a 9.4 percent decrease in total rebounding percentage (from 13.8 percent to 12.5 percent).

However, it is not all bad for Bosh in losses as he takes better care of the ball in Heat defeats. His assist percentage decreases by 2.2 percent (from 9.1 percent to 8.9 percent), but the 16.0 percent decrease he has in his turnover percentage (from 10.0 percent to 8.4 percent) more than makes up for that.

In the case of James, the only thing that truly lets him down in Heat losses is his shooting touch. James undergoes an 11.4 percent decrease in his effective field goal percentage (from 56.3 percent to 49.9 percent) and a 9.1 percent decrease in his true shooting percentage (from 61.3 percent to 55.7 percent).

Yet, in other aspects of the game, James actually gets better when the Heat lose, demonstrating what a talented all-around player he truly is. Compared to how he plays in wins, in defeats, James experiences a 3.5 percent increase in assist percentage (from 34.0 percent to 35.2 percent) and a 1.4 percent decrease in turnover percentage (from 13.9 percent to 13.7 percent) so he becomes a better ballhandler.

Additionally, he still crashes the boards amazingly well. Even with a 6.1 percent decrease in his offensive rebounding percentage (from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent), James still gets 1.8 percent better in total rebounding percentage (11.4 percent to 11.6 percent) thanks to an amazing 13.3 percent increase in defensive rebounding percentage (from 18.1 percent to 20.5 percent).

Even when he is not shooting well, James is still able to make up for that deficiency in other ways.

When it comes to losses, the Miami Heat could be considered Wade's team because, out of Miami's Big Three, it is how he performs that really determines whether or not the Heat win.

Derrick Rose's Poor Shooting Has Been Saved By Free Throws

2011-03-31T10:01:00.003-04:00

This season, much was made of the work Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose put in over the offseason in an effort to improve his jump shooting. Supposedly, his attempt to improve his perimeter game would make him an even more dangerous shooting threat and a more efficient scorer. Instead, all it has seemed to do is lull him into a false sense of confidence and convince him that he is a better shooter than he really is.

If Rose's offseason work had really made a difference in his shooting this year, then we could expect to see an improvement in his effective field goal percentage. The reality is that this season Rose is posting the lowest effective field goal percentage of his three-year career. His .478 effective field goal percentage trails both his rookie .482 effective field goal percentage and last year's .495 effective field goal percentage.

Yet, despite shooting as poorly from the field as he ever has, Rose still has a 54.1 true shooting percentage, which is the highest true shooting percentage he has ever managed. The fact Rose has still managed to post a career-best true shooting percentage has everything to do with his trips to the free throw line, which is the aspect of Rose's game for which he should receive some of the highest praise.

A quick way to judge just how proficient a player is at both getting to the free throw line and converting his free throws once he gets there is to subtract a player's effective field goal percentage from his true shooting percentage. The higher a player's difference, the better he is at converting free throws to get easy points, and Rose's .063 difference is a career-high.

That difference is a direct result of the fact Rose has spent this season taking one free throw for every three field goal attempts. In his two previous seasons combined, Rose took 4.4 field goal attempts for every free throw he shot.

Not only is Rose getting to the line more frequently, but he is also converting his free throws at a higher rate. His .855 free throw percentage is superior to the .776 free throw percentage of his two previous seasons combined.

All praise that might be heaped upon Rose for the work he put into his perimeter shooting should instead be heaped upon him for his improved ability in scoring points from the free throw line. It has been the free throw line and not his jump shot that has resulted in Rose being a more efficient scorer.

Oliver Purnell Will Turn DePaul Basketball Into A Winning Program

2011-03-30T12:48:00.004-04:00

DePaul basketball fans should be comforted by the fact that this season where the Blue Demons only won seven games while losing 24 and were outscored by 12.9 points per 100 possessions will be the worst season the program has while Oliver Purnell is the head coach. Based on what took place at each of his three previous coaching stops, there are only brighter days ahead for DePaul basketball.

It was at Old Dominion, a program Purnell took over in the 1991-92 season, where he first displayed the trend that continues to this day. In his first year as head coach, Purnell led his team to a .500 record of 15 victories and 15 defeats. Purnell then followed that up by coaching his 1992-93 squad to a 21-8 record and his 1993-94 team to a record of 21-10.

Leaving Old Dominion, Purnell took his coaching acumen to Dayton where his team posted a record of only 7-20 in his first season. Never again did the Dayton Flyers have a season where they played as poorly as they did in 1994-95.

After the nine seasons Purnell spent turning Dayton into a consistently winning program to the point where the Flyers went 24-6 in his final season as their coach, Clemson received the benefits of having Purnell roaming the sidelines.

In what has become his modus operandi, Purnell's Clemson squad struggled in his first season, only winning 10 games and losing 18 games. For no other season did Clemson have a record with a winning percentage under .500.

With that sort of coaching track record in turning around previously mediocre programs into winning ones, it is no great leap to expect that Purnell will be able to do the same thing with the DePaul Blue Demons. Of course, it is worth nothing that all the wins Purnell leads DePaul to will not result in any NCAA Tournament success. None of Purnell's teams have ever gotten past the first round of the tournament.

Even with his multiple tournament failures providing the only blemish to his coaching résumé, DePaul certainly hired the right man for the job, and hopefully, DePaul's opponents enjoyed the dominance they had over the Blue Demons this season because it will not be that easy to beat them again while Purnell is their head coach.

New York Giants QB Eli Manning Has Been Left Behind by Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger

2011-03-17T11:01:00.006-04:00

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who was the number one overall pick in the 2004 NFL Draft, is taking the biblical prophecy that the first will be last a little too literally as he has been surpassed by two quarterbacks taken behind him in the first round of the draft.

Both San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger have proven themselves to be much more proficient quarterbacks than Manning, although they were drafted after Manning, and have created a gap so sizable between themselves and Manning that he will likely never catch up.

In Manning's 110 games as the Giants' primary quarterback, games in which he has either attempted the most passes or thrown for the most yards for the Giants, he has completed 58.1 percent of his passes and gained 6.8 yards per pass attempt, 6.2 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 6.1 net yards per pass attempt, and 5.5 adjusted net yards per pass attempt.

Additionally, Manning has thrown 164 touchdowns (4.7 touchdown percentage) and 120 interceptions (3.4 interception percentage), not the kind of touchdown-to-interception ratio that lends itself to great success.

By themselves, Manning's statistics are extremely unimpressive and they pale in comparison to the point of transparency when compared to how Rivers and Roethlisberger have performed when they have been the primary quarterbacks for their respective teams.

After every game week, the Chargers should make it a point to call up Eli and Archie Manning and thank them for forcing the Chargers to execute a draft-day trade that landed the franchise a truly elite quarterback in Rivers. With Rivers, the Chargers' offense is in much better hands than it would be with Manning.

Over the course of his career, which includes 87 games as primary quarterback, Rivers has been statistically significantly better than Manning in completion percentage (63.3 percent to 58.1 percent), yards per pass attempt (8.0 to 6.8), adjusted yards per pass attempt (8.0 to 6.2), net yards per pass attempt (7.2 to 6.1), adjusted net yards per pass attempt (7.2 to 5.5), touchdown percentage (5.3 percent to 4.7 percent), and interception percentage (2.5 percent to 3.4 percent).

There is no facet of being a quarterback in which Rivers has not been superior to Manning, and across the board, every time Rivers drops back to pass, he will gain at least one more yard than will Manning.

Roethlisberger, who was the third quarterback chosen in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft, has not distanced himself from Manning as much as Rivers has, but he is still light years ahead of Manning in most statistical categories.

After 111 games as the Steelers' primary quarterback, Roethlisberger has proven himself statistically significantly superior to Manning in completion percentage (63.0 percent to 58.1 percent), yards per pass attempt (8.0 to 6.8), adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.6 to 6.2), net yards per pass attempt (6.7 to 6.1), and adjusted net yards per pass attempt (6.4 to 5.5).

Roethlisberger also possesses a better touchdown percentage (5.2 percent to 4.7 percent) and interception percentage (3.2 percent to 3.4 percent), but not to the level of being statistically significant.

Even Manning's best season, which occurred in 2009 and is a year he has never been able to duplicate, represents a statistical feat that both Rivers and Roethlisberger have reached multiple times.

During 2009, in his 15 games as primary quarterback, Manning completed 62.3 percent of his passes and gained 7.9 yards per pass attempt, 7.7 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 7.1 net yards per pass attempt, and 6.9 adjusted net yards per pass attempt.

Rivers can boast three seasons that are even better than Manning's 2009 campaign while Roethlisberger has also posted three seasons that compare favorably to Manning's career season.

No matter how you slice it, the Giants ended up with the least desirable quarterback among these three.

Jeremy Shockey: Shockey Will Provide Very Little Value To The Carolina Panthers

2011-03-15T09:48:00.003-04:00

The New Orleans Saints made the right decision in releasing tight end Jeremy Shockey. The Saints have a promising, young tight end in Jimmy Graham and in three years with Shockey on their roster, they found out what the Carolina Panthers will find out the next time football is played, which is that Shockey does little to aid the passing game anymore.

In Shockey's three seasons with the Saints, once his passing statistics were removed from the Saints quarterbacks' numbers, they experienced a .6 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 68.1 percent to 67.7 percent), no change in yards per pass attempt (7.7), a 2.6 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 7.6 to 7.8), a .9 percent increase in yards per completion (from 11.3 to 11.4), a 5.3 increase in touchdown percentage (from 5.7 percent to 6.0 percent), and no change in interception percentage (2.6 percent).

With Shockey on the team, the Saints received only the barest of increases in completion percentage. Other than that negligible change, throwing to Shockey did not benefit the Saints' passing offense and made them worse in other areas.

Even in Shockey's 2009 season, which looked like a return to the form he had early in his career, his out was more a product of the amazing season Saints quarterback Drew Brees had than any newfound ability from Shockey.

That season, once Shockey's statistics were removed, Saints quarterbacks underwent a .6 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 69.9 percent to 69.5 percent), a 1.2 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (from 8.5 to 8.6), a 2.2 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 9.2 to 9.4), a .8 percent increase in yards per completion (from 12.2 to 12.3), a 1.3 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 7.5 percent to 7.6 percent), and a 21.1 percent decrease in interception percentage (from 1.9 percent to 1.5 percent).

Again, the only improvement Shockey made to the Saints' passing offense was the tiny raise he gave to his quarterbacks' completion percentages. They were better off throwing to other players when it came to the other statistical categories.

Shockey's career tells a virtually identical story to his three-year stint with the Saints. Once his statistics were removed, his quarterbacks experienced .2 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 60.9 percent to 60.8 percent), no change in yards per pass attempt (7.0), a 1.5 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 6.5 to 6.6), a .9 percent increase in yards per completion (from 11.4 to 11.5), a 5.3 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 4.4 percent to 4.5 percent), and no change in interception percentage (2.9 percent).

In Shockey's defense, there have been seasons in his career where his presence in the passing game did provide a valuable boost to his quarterbacks in at least three of the six statistical categories listed above. Those seasons occurred in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, and, to a much lesser extent, 2010.

Since Shockey has played 10 NFL seasons, his quarterbacks have received little to no benefit just as often as they have received a good deal of value from throwing in Shockey's direction.

Based on what he has done over his time in the NFL, going forward, it is unlikely that the Carolina Panthers quarterbacks will become better because of Shockey's presence on the field outside of the tiniest improvement he will provide to their completion percentages.

Philadelphia Eagles QB Michael Vick Faces Impossible Task Next Season

2011-03-06T09:52:00.002-05:00

In electing to use the franchise tag on Michael Vick rather than sign him to a long-term contract, the Philadelphia Eagles threw down a very expensive gauntlet. Basically, the Eagles were challenging Vick to prove that his impressive quarterbacking last season was not a one-time fluke and was actually an accurate representation of his ability level now.

To complete the task the Eagles gave him, Vick will have to replicate a season unlike any other he has ever had in his NFL career, making the completion all the more difficult.

During last season in his 12 games as Philadelphia Eagles primary quarterback, games in which Vick either attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards for the Eagles, he completed 61.8 percent of his passes, gained 8.1 yards per pass attempt, 8.4 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 6.9 net yards per pass attempt, and 7.2 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, and threw 22 touchdowns (5.5 touchdown percentage) to seven interceptions (1.7 interception percentage). All of those statistics were career bests.

Even the most ardent Vick detractors have to admit Vick put on a pretty amazing passing display last season, a display made even more impressive and improbable when his other seasons are considered.

In order to determine just how much of a statistical outlier Vick's 2010 was, I compared it to four other seasons in which he was the primary quarterback for at least 12 games. Once that was done, I found that there were statistically significant differences in at least two categories between his 2010 season and every other one.

For his 2002 season, which had been his best season before 2010, Vick's passing was statistically significantly inferior to his 2010 season in completion percentage (55.5 percent to 61.8 percent), yards per pass attempt (7.0 to 8.1), and adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.7 to 8.4).

When his 2004 season was compared to his 2010 year, he was statistically significantly inferior in yards per pass attempt (7.1 to 8.1), adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.2 to 8.4), net yards per pass attempt (5.5 to 6.9), adjusted net yards per pass attempt (4.8 to 7.2), interception percentage (3.7 percent to 1.7 percent), and sack percentage (12.2 percent to 8.4 percent).

In relation to his 2010 campaign, his 2005 season was statistically significantly inferior in completion percentage (55.3 percent to 61.8 percent), yards per pass attempt (6.2 to 8.1), adjusted yards per pass attempt (5.5 to 8.4), net yards per pass attempt (5.3 to 6.9), adjusted net yards per pass attempt (4.6 to 7.2), and yards per completion (11.3 to 13.1).

His 2006 season saw him statistically significantly inferior to his 2010 one in completion percentage (52.4 percent to 61.8 percent), yards per pass attempt (6.4 to 8.1), adjusted yards per pass attempt (5.9 to 8.4), net yards per pass attempt (5.1 to 6.9), and adjusted net yards per pass attempt (4.6 to 7.2).

There is simply no history to support the thinking that Vick will ever again have a season like the one he had in 2010, which is why the Eagles were smart not to commit to Vick for more than one more season. If he is unable to duplicate his 2010 exploits, then the Eagles will be able to release him and move on with a more reliable quarterbacking option. If Vick is able to have another season of that caliber, which seems a virtual impossibility given his track record, then they can move forward with a new contract, but not before knowing for sure what kind of quarterback Vick will be in the future.

Until he proves he can play that well again, however, it is best to treat Vick's season as one would any statistical outlier; that is, with extreme skepticism.

2011 NFL Draft: Torrey Smith Will Not Be A Bust Like Darrius Heyward-Bey

2011-03-05T09:06:00.004-05:00

Torrey Smith is the first highly touted University of Maryland wide receiver to enter the NFL draft since Darrius Heyward-Bey, who so far in his two-year NFL career has contributed nothing but negative value to the Oakland Raiders as measured by Football Outsiders' DYAR and DVOA, but NFL teams thinking of drafting Smith should not worry that having Smith on their rosters will involve a repeat performance of Heyward-Bey's struggles. This lack of concern should stem from the knowledge that Smith is a better wide receiver than Heyward-Bey due to the fact he was a more valuable wide receiver in college.

As I did in two previous articles, I measured value based on how Smith's quarterbacks fared once his statistics are removed from theirs compared to how they performed when his statistics were included in theirs.

For Smith's Maryland career, once his statistics were removed from his quarterbacks', the quarterbacks experienced a 2.6 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 57.2 percent to 55.7 percent), an 8.8 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 6.8 to 6.2), a 6.7 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 11.9 to 11.1), and a 21.7 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 4.6 percent to 3.6 percent).

During Heyward-Bey's Maryland career, once his statistics were removed, his quarterbacks underwent a .5 percent increase in completion percentage (from 60.6 percent to 60.9 percent), an 8.3 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.2 to 6.6), a 7.6 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 11.8 to 10.9), and a 13.5 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 3.7 percent to 3.2 percent).

At first glance, it might look like the two former Terrapins are not far removed from each other in terms of ability and the value they provided to the Maryland passing game. Smith has sizable advantages in completion percentage value and touchdown percentage value, but only a small one in yards per pass attempt value. Heyward-Bey, on the other hand, seems to be able to claim superiority in yards per completion value, which would indicate he is capable of making bigger plays than Smith.

However, their career statistics are misleading because of the polar opposite paths their collegiate careers took. Once that is factored in, Smith distances himself even more from Heyward-Bey.

The only reason why Smith's production does not look even more valuable is because of his freshman year when he was barely utilized, only receiving 3.2 passes per game that season. Due to the small number of times the football was thrown in his direction, once his statistics were removed, Maryland quarterbacks did not experience a change in completion percentage, and they only got 1.5 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 6.7 to 6.6), 1.7 percent worse in yards per completion (from 11.8 to 11.6), and 10.5 percent worse in touchdown percentage (from 3.8 percent to 3.4 percent).

When Smith was allowed a more integral role in the Maryland passing offense and given the opportunity to prove himself as a wide receiver in his sophomore and junior seasons, he was extremely valuable to his quarterbacks.

As a sophomore, once his statistics were removed from his quarterbacks', Maryland's quarterbacks underwent a 4.1 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 58.5 percent to 56.1 percent), a 15.3 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 6.5 to 5.8), a 10.2 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 11.2 to 10.3), and a 22.6 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 3.1 percent to 2.4 percent).

During his junior season, once his statistics were removed, his quarterbacks became 4.6 percent worse in completion percentage (from 56.3 percent to 53.7 percent), 15.3 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 7.2 to 6.1), 10.2 percent worse in yards per completion, and 23.2 percent worse in touchdown percentage (from 6.9 percent to 5.3 percent).

Smith's sophomore and junior seasons top any season Heyward-Bey had at Maryland and are also indicative of a player who got better each season he was in college.

Contrast that to Heyward-Bey, who had his best season as a freshman and got progressively worse over his career in the value he provided to his quarterbacks' yards per pass attempt and yards per completion averages.

In his freshman year, once his statistics were removed, Heyward-Bey's quarterbacks experienced an 8.5 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.1 to 6.5) and a 9.4 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 11.7 to 10.6).

As a sophomore, his quarterbacks underwent a 6.6 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.6 to 7.1) and an 8.5 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 11.8 to 10.8).

During his junior season, his quarterbacks became 5.9 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 6.8 to 6.4) and 5.8 percent worse in yards per completion (from 12.0 to 11.3).

When the Oakland Raiders drafted Heyward-Bey, they were drafting a wide receiver who had spent his entire time in college becoming less valuable as a wide receiver. Based on his career path, it is no wonder he has failed to make his mark in the NFL.

When an NFL team drafts Smith, however, based on how he performed in his sophomore and junior seasons when he was a main figure in the Maryland passing game, the franchise should feel confident they are receiving an impact wide receiver that will provide good value to a passing attack.

Kentucky's Freshmen and Upperclassmen Share Fault When The Wildcats Lose

2011-03-03T08:59:00.007-05:00

John Calipari's second-least inexperienced team of the last four seasons has lost eight games this year, one fewer than Calipari's teams lost over the three previous seasons, but the reason behind their defeats does not lie entirely with their freshmen class. Kentucky's freshman trio of Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones, and Doron Lamb along with the rest of the Wildcats all see a major decrease in their overall statistics in losses.

Collectively, in relation to how the freshmen perform when Kentucky loses to how they perform when Kentucky wins, the freshmen experience a 15.5 percent decrease in effective field goal percentage (from 56.0 percent to 47.3 percent), an 11.2 percent decrease in true shooting percentage (from 58.9 percent to 52.3 percent), a 17.1 percent decrease in assist percentage (from 16.4 percent to 13.6 percent), a 2.1 percent decrease in turnover percentage (from 14.0 percent to 13.7 percent), a 14.6 percent decrease in offensive rebounding percentage (from 4.8 percent to 4.1 percent), a 5.7 percent decrease in defensive rebounding percentage (from 12.9 percent to 12.2 percent), a 13.2 percent decrease in total rebounding percentage (from 9.1 percent to 7.9 percent), and a 1.9 percent decrease in points per game (from 48.0 to 47.1).

The rest of the team when Kentucky loses undergoes a 13.4 percent decrease in effective field goal percentage (from 53.6 percent to 46.4 percent), a 16.0 percent decrease in true shooting percentage (from 56.9 percent to 47.8 percent), an 8.2 percent decrease in assist percentage (from 8.5 percent to 7.8 percent), a 2.9 percent decrease in turnover percentage (from 13.6 percent to 13.2 percent), a 4.3 percent decrease in offensive rebounding percentage (from 9.4 percent to 9.0 percent), a .7 percent increase in defensive rebounding percentage (14.7 percent to 14.8 percent), a 4.1 percent decrease in total rebounding percentage (from 12.3 percent to 11.8 percent), and a 25.8 percent decrease in points per game (from 31.8 to 23.6).

Although Kentucky's freshman trio have a bigger drop-off in their shooting percentages from the field than the rest of the team, they make up for it with their superior conversion of free throws.

In losses, the rest of the team averages 3.5 fewer free throw attempts than they do in victories. The rest of the team also sees a drop in their free throw percentage from 69.4 percent in wins to 64.9 percent in losses.

On the other hand, the freshman trio might take 1.3 fewer free throw attempts when Kentucky loses, but they raise their free throw percentage from 71.9 percent in wins to 77.4 percent in losses. Due to that improvement, Kentucky's freshman trio are only making .2 fewer free throw attempts per game in losses than they make in wins.

Therefore, when it comes to total shooting, Kentucky's freshman trio do a better job of maintaining their shooting statistics.

The struggle the rest of the team has in maintaining its true shooting percentage has a lot to do with its precipitous decline in points per game. Kentucky's offense is most reliant on the freshman trio for its production, but contributions from the other players are still necessary for the Wildcats to be at their best. When Kentucky does not receive those contributions, especially when the rest of the team averages 8.2 fewer points per game in losses, the team is destined to lose the game because while the freshman are very talented, they cannot do it all by themselves.

When it comes to declines in assist percentage, it goes back to poor shooting from the field and since the freshman trio are the ones who have the bigger drop-off in effective field goal percentage, they are the most at fault in this category because it is impossible to get an assist when a teammate misses the shot.

In rebounding, the freshmen are also responsible for most of the team's drop-off, keeping the team from being as efficient as possible on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.

Among the freshman trio themselves, each carries responsibility for Kentucky's poor showing in losses.

Brandon Knight's biggest problems are a result of his inferior shooting and assist percentage to turnover percentage ratio in defeats.

Knight gets 21.0 percent worse in effective field goal percentage (from 57.7 percent to 45.6 percent) and 17.0 percent worse in true shooting percentage (from 61.3 percent to 50.9 percent). In turn, due to his inferior shooting in losses, he sees a 10.4 percent decrease in his points per game average (from 18.2 to 16.3).

As a point guard whose value is so closely tied to his shooting numbers, the drop-off of his shooting percentages in losses is most damaging to his production, but his decreased proficiency as a distributor is almost as damaging.

When Kentucky loses, Knight undergoes a 12.8 percent decrease in assist percentage (from 23.4 percent to 20.4 percent) and a 24.2 percent increase in turnover percentage (from 16.1 percent to 20.0 percent). The decrease in assist percentage is forgivable because the whole team shoots so poorly in losses, but the increase in turnovers is unforgivable.

Terrence Jones is the one freshman who is best at maintaining his shooting statistics across wins and losses. He experiences only a 4.9 percent decrease in effective field goal percentage (from 49.0 percent to 46.6 percent) and a 2.1 percent decrease in true shooting percentage (from 52.8 percent to 51.7 percent).

However, he really comes up short with his rebounding numbers. In losses, Jones becomes 5.2 percent worse in offensive rebounding percentage (from 9.6 percent to 9.1 percent), 14.0 percent worse in defensive rebounding percentage (from 22.9 percent to 19.7 percent), and 15.5 percent worse in total rebounding percentage (from 16.8 percent to 14.2 percent).

Doron Lamb does not do much for Kentucky besides shoot and it is his shooting proficiency that leaves him drastically in Kentucky's losses. Lamb experiences a 20.2 percent decrease in his effective field goal percentage (from 63.4 percent to 50.6 percent), a 14.2 percent decrease in his true shooting percentage (from 64.6 percent to 55.4 percent), and a 6.8 percent decrease in points per game (13.2 to 12.3).

If Lamb does not shoot well, he is unable to help the Wildcats and lessens the chances of the team winning.

When the Kentucky Wildcats lose, they do so as a team as each part of the team contributes in some way to the defeat. The true bellwethers for Kentucky's chances of winning a game are how many points the non-freshmen are contributing, how well Knight and Lamb are shooting, and how well Jones is rebounding. Figure those things out and you will be able to know if Kentucky won or lost.

Andre Iguodala's Improved Play Made It Impossible For The Philadelphia 76ers To Trade Him

2011-03-02T09:32:00.004-05:00

There was a time in the NBA season, a little more than a quarter of a way through the schedule's 82 games, where trading Andre Iguodala made sense. His subpar play even prompted me to write an article detailing why the Philadelphia 76ers should trade him. However, after he came back from his Achilles injury, his improved overall play made it impossible for the 76ers to trade him.

Before I penned the article, Iguodala was on his way to having a disappointing season and it looked like he was going to continue his decline since his best year in the 2007-08 season. A big reason why Iguodala's 2010-11 season looked like a lost cause and unhelpful to the 76ers' chances of winning was because of his poor shooting.

In his 25 games before the article, Iguodala's 47.6 effective field goal percentage and 51.7 true shooting percentage were both well below his career shooting percentages. Additionally, his 108 points produced per 100 possessions were two points produced per 100 possessions below his career offensive rating.

Had Iguodala continued to produce at that level, the 76ers would indeed have been better off without him, but he reversed his downward trend in a big way since returning from injury.

During his 20 games after he returned to the 76ers' line-up and before the February 24th trade deadline, Iguodala posted a 49.1 effective field goal percentage and 55.1 true shooting percentage. His improvement in his shooting represents a 3.2 percent increase in effective field goal percentage and a 6.6 percent increase in true shooting percentage so his biggest jump has been in his increased ability to get to the free throw line as well as convert his chances once he gets there.

For the 25 games previous to my article, Iguodala was taking one free throw for every 2.5 field goal attempts and converting just 66.4 percent of them. For his next 20 games, Iguodala shot a free throw once every 2.2 field goal attempts and made 74.5 percent of his free throw attempts.

Iguodala also improved his assist percentage dramatically, going from a 23.6 assist percentage in his first 25 games to a 28.3 assist percentage in his next 20 games. His turnover percentage also increased, from 11.8 percent to 12.4 percent, but that increase was trumped by his superior assist percentage improvement, indicating he has been a much better distributor of the ball lately.

Now, including the three games since the trade deadline, Iguodala has contributed 0.142 win shares per 48 minutes. If he is able to keep that up, it will be his best season since his 2007-08 one in that regard, and with Iguodala once again playing basketball very near the highest level he is able, it is no wonder the 76ers did not pull the trigger on a trade.

Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets Trade Recap: The Suns Will Get More Value Out Of Aaron Brooks

2011-03-01T09:40:00.004-05:00

When the Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets swapped underachieving point guards Goran Dragic and Aaron Brooks, each team was hoping that the point guard they received would return to an improved shooting form of a previous season. Unfortunately for the Houston Rockets, they are unlikely to actually see Dragic improve his shooting percentages while Aaron Brooks, playing for the Phoenix Suns, is a sure bet to return to his former shooting prowess.

The reason for the prediction that Brooks is the more likely candidate to shoot better for the rest of the season is simple. His shooting performances in his 34 games with the Rockets before being traded to the Suns were very uncharacteristic of him and unlike his shooting in any other season.

In his 34 games for the Rockets, Brooks posted a 40.8 effective field goal percentage and 46.5 true shooting percentage. During his other seasons, Brooks posted a 49.3 effective field goal percentage and 53.5 true shooting percentage in 2007-08, a 47.6 effective field goal percentage and 52.1 true shooting percentage in 2008-09, and a 51.1 effective field goal percentage and 54.9 true shooting percentage.

Brooks' shooting this season for the Rockets had been so dissimilar to his others that both his effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentages were statistically significantly inferior to his shooting statistics last season and were not far off from being statistically significantly inferior to his first two seasons in the NBA.

Since Brooks has 213 games of adequate shooting and only 34 games of poor shooting, considering the sample sizes of the two data sets, the 213 games are more representative of his true shooting ability. Therefore, the Suns can expect him to improve in that department and post a true shooting percentage around 53.0 percent for them going forward.

Meanwhile, in the case of Dragic, it is not this season we should be looking at as not correctly stating his ability as a shooter. In his 48 games with the Suns this year, Dragic had a 46.5 effective field goal percentage and 49.2 true shooting percentage.

Those shooting percentages have a lot more in common with his rookie 2008-09 season where he had a 43.8 effective field goal percentage and 48.7 true shooting percentage than they do with last season's 52.7 effective field goal percentage and 56.6 true shooting percentage.

In fact, Dragic's true shooting percentage with the Suns this season is statistically significantly worse than his last season mark and his effective field goal percentage is right on the cusp of being statistically significantly worse, meaning it is last season of which we should be skeptical when judging Dragic's shooting ability.

The difference between the two data sets, 103 games of poor shooting and 80 games of great shooting, is not as stark as the difference for Brooks' data sets, but Dragic does have more of a history of being a bad shooter. It is his impressive shooting from last year that is the statistical outlier so the Rockets should not expect him to reach those kinds of shooting heights again. They should just prepare themselves to experience a continuation of his season's poor shooting under their watch.

Even if neither point guard's shooting improves with his new team, Brooks will still give the Suns more value than Dragic because he is a better ballhandler. His assist percentage to turnover percentage ratio is vastly superior to Dragic's so he does not have to rely on his shooting as much to be a good point guard.

It is a good thing for the Rockets that the Suns had to send a lottery-projected first-round draft pick along with Dragic since it is incredibly unlikely the Rockets will see the Dragic of last season.

Boston Celtics Trade Recap: Forward Jeff Green Is Not Much Of A Difference Maker

2011-02-25T09:15:00.005-05:00

In the last year of his rookie contract before being owed a qualifying offer of $5.9 million, Jeff Green needed to have a breakout season to convince the Oklahoma City Thunder to include him as a part of their long-term plans. He was unable to do so and the Thunder shipped him to the Boston Celtics, giving the Celtics a player who is not as good as they might think he is.

While Green averaged 15.2 points per game, third on the Thunder, he was not their third most valuable contributor this season. Actually, Green's 0.083 win shares per 48 minutes ranked him eight on the roster among players who have played a significant amount of time for the Thunder this season and last among players who have played at least 1,000 minutes this season.

If Green were to contribute the same amount of win shares per 48 minutes for the Celtics as he did for the Thunder, he would only be above four Celtic players, Luke Harangody, Jermaine O'Neal, Nate Robinson, and Avery Bradley, in that category. Since Harangody and Robinson are no longer with the team, he would only really be more valuable than O'Neal and Robinson without a major turnaround in his production.

This season also marked the third time in Green's four seasons where his offensive rating (points produced per 100 possessions) was higher than his defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions). Green produced 108 points per 100 possessions and allowed 110 points per 100 possessions in 49 games.

Even last season, which was Green's best of his career due to the fact he produced 106 points per 100 possessions while allowing only 105 points per 100 possessions, he was still not as valuable to the Thunder as his 15.1 points per game, third on the team, might suggest. Last year, his 0.105 win shares per 48 minutes tied him for sixth on the roster among players who had received significant and regular playing time.

There has never been a season in his career where Green, despite consistently being one of his team's top scorers, has been more valuable than his sixth place ranking last season due to his disappointing overall play.

Any help Green provides for the Celtics on offense will most likely be undermined by his lack of a defensive presence as his career offensive rating of 103 points produced per 100 possessions and defensive rating of 109 points allowed per 100 possessions indicates.

The Celtics will have to hope that Green is the type of player whose defense fluctuates based on the team's overall defense on which he plays. Last year, which was the only season Green played for a team with an above-average defensive rating was also his best defensive year. Every other year when he played for a below-average defensive team, his defense was also sub-par.

When it comes to Green's value, it is unlikely that adding him will make the Celtics significantly better on both sides of the ball since even in his best season he only produced one more point per 100 possessions than he allowed.

Boston Celtics Trade Recap: The Celtics Are Now Weaker At Center

2011-02-25T00:33:00.004-05:00

If the purpose of trades in sports is to make a team better, then the Boston Celtics failed in that mission with the trades that sent away centers Kendrick Perkins and Semih Erden and brought back center Nenad Krstic. By making those trades, the Celtics weakened what was already their weakest position.

It is on defense, which is the main reason why the Celtics have the best record in the Eastern Conference, where the Celtics will regret their trades the most. Although the Celtics were leading the league in defensive rating, giving up only 99.9 points per 100 possessions, they were not a perfect defensive team and needed to improve in one area: rebounding.

For the season, the Celtics were allowing opponents a higher offensive rebounding percentage than their own, meaning that defensive rebounding was key to making an already stingy defense stingier and ensuring the team continued to have great success; Celtics' opponents were rebounding 25.2 percent of their misses while the Celtics were rebounding 21.6 percent of theirs.

Perkins, in the 12 games in which he had appeared for the Celtics this season, was already starting to correct the Celtics' defensive rebounding woes with a 27.7 defensive rebounding percentage. It is unlikely he would have been able to maintain that, but even with a regression to his career 22.2 defensive rebounding percentage, he would still be a much better defensive rebounder than Krstic.

Krstic has a 14.6 defensive rebounding percentage this season, and a 16.5 defensive rebounding percentage for his career so he is a far inferior defensive rebounder than Perkins, meaning the Celtics are going to get worse in an aspect of the game in which they were already poor.

Even Erden, in only his rookie season and limited time, has a 16.8 defensive rebounding percentage so he is also better than Krstic in the defensive rebounding department.

Both Perkins and Erden also have the advantage over Krstic when it comes to blocking opponents' shots. Perkins' amazing 5.0 career block percentage and Erden's impressive 3.1 block percentage are higher than Krstic's 2.2 career block percentage.

Moreover, Krstic's 1.2 block percentage this season demonstrates he is not even as good a shot blocker now as he used to be. Add that to the fact his defensive rebounding percentage has decreased every season starting with the 2007-08 season and the Celtics are going to be a lot more porous on defense. To make up for Krstic's shot blocking and defensive rebounding inadequacies, the Celtics will now have to rely wholly on the unreliable health of Jermaine O'Neal and Shaquille O'Neal.

Krstic does hold an advantage on the offensive side of the ball, but his edge in offense does not make up for how poor he is on defense, decreasing his overall value. This season is a prime example of that.

Krstic produced 111 points per 100 possessions before being traded to the Celtics, a better offensive rating than both Perkins' 97 points produced per 100 possessions and Erden's 107 points produced per 100 possessions. Yet, Krstic's 0.092 win shares per 48 minutes is barely better than Perkins' 0.090 win shares per 48 minutes and lower than Erden's 0.131 win shares per 48 minutes.

Also, the only reason why Krstic is contributing more win shares per 48 minutes than Perkins is because Perkins has not shot the ball well in his first 12 games coming off his knee injury. Since his 56.8 true shooting percentage is below his career 58.4 true shooting percentage, it is highly likely he will play better on offense going forward and be more valuable at the end of the season than Krstic.

It simply does not make sense to trade away two players to bring in an inferior one, especially when one of them is such a promising rookie. Erden is having a rare rookie season where his offensive rating is higher than his defensive rating (99 points allowed per 100 possessions). Those kinds of rookies should never be given up, and they should especially not be given up for a measly second-round draft pick.

Even if NBA D-League call-up Chris Johnson, who has promising D-League statistics especially in the shot blocking department, plays well, that is no reason one should have so cavalierly traded away a player like Erden. Also, they would not have needed Johnson's shot blocking if they had just kept Perkins.

Due to the inexplicable trades the Celtics made, they have no choice but to go out and sign Troy Murphy, which had better be a done deal. Murphy has a higher career 24.7 defensive rebounding percentage than Perkins, and has been a better overall player so acquiring him would go a long way in making general manager Danny Ainge's latest moves look less incompetent. If the Celtics are unable to come to terms with Murphy, then they have weakened the team unnecessarily with unnecessary trades.

Kentucky Point Guard Brandon Knight Is Unique Among John Calipari's Point Guards

2011-02-24T09:44:00.003-05:00

In point guard Brandon Knight, Kentucky head coach John Calipari has a freshman point guard unlike any he has coached starting with Derrick Rose who played for him in the 2007-08 season. However, that does not mean Knight is any less effective than Calipari's other three point guards.

Before Knight, Calipari's three previous incarnations of one-and-done point guards, Rose, John Wall, and Tyreke Evans, were all capable shooters, but none were of the quality of shooter that Knight has been this season.

After last night's uncharacteristically poor shooting effort from the field against Arkansas where he went 8 of 23 yet made up for some of his off-shooting night by going 9 of 9 from the free throw line, Knight's effective field goal percentage dropped from 56.0 percent to 54.5 percent and his true shooting percentage for the season dropped from 59.2 percent to 58.4 percent, but he is still the best shooting point guard of the four.

Rose's 51.7 effective field goal percentage under Calipari comes the closest of the other three point guards to matching Knight's pure shooting numbers from the field and Wall's 56.2 true shooting percentage comes the closest in matching Knight once free throws are added into the equation. Still, there is a pretty sizable gap between their shooting prowess and Knight's.

Evans brings up the rear in terms of shooting with his 48.9 effective field goal percentage and 52.9 true shooting percentage, making him far and away the worst shooting point guard of the four. Evans did not let that keep him from playing like a go-to scorer, though, as according to kenpom.com, Evans took 32.1 percent of his team's shots when he was on the court, which is the highest such percentage of the four.

It is a good thing Knight holds such a great advantage over the other point guards in shooting, too, since he is the least "true" point guard among the four in terms of dishing out assists and avoiding turnovers.

Rose is the best in that aspect of being a point guard with a 30.4 assist rate and 19.1 turnover rate during his tenure as a point guard for Calipari. Wall ranks second with a 34.8 assist rate and 24.0 turnover rate. Even Evans, whose 30.0 assist rate and 21.6 turnover rate under Calipari are nothing special, has a much better ratio than Knight.

Through February 20, Knight was sporting a very underwhelming 22.4 assist rate and 21.4 turnover rate, meaning he is just barely making more assists than turnovers.

Normally, such a low ratio would be the hallmark of an inadequate point guard, but Knight shoots the ball so well he has only been a less effective offensive point guard for Calipari than Rose was. Knight's offensive rating through February 20 was 109.5, a number that is likely to come down after the Arkansas game, is second only to Rose's 111.8 offensive rating for Calipari.

Knight narrowly edges Wall's 108.0 offensive rating and leaves Evans' 101.0 offensive rating far behind in his rear view mirror.

Since Knight's offensive value is so tied up with his shooting percentages, he will need to continue to shoot well to remain such a good offensive player. As long as he is able to do that, Calipari's most unique freshman point guard will keep being one of his most effective.

Toronto Raptors Forward Amir Johnson Has Improved In One Huge Area

2011-02-23T09:10:00.003-05:00

Before this season, there was only one issue with Amir Johnson's game that would have kept the five-year, $34 million contract he signed with the Toronto Raptors over the past offseason from being a good deal for the franchise, and now that he has corrected that issue this season, the contract he signed now makes him one of the better bargains in the NBA.

The reason why the contract could have come back to bite the Raptors had absolutely nothing to do with Johnson's play for the time he was able to stay on the court. There was never doubting the huge amount of basketball talent he had, even early on in his career.

After the Detroit Pistons unleashed Johnson for a full year on the NBA in the 2007-08 season, he quickly showed himself to be a highly efficient, highly valuable player. According to Basketball-Reference.com, even though he only averaged 12.3 minutes per game, Johnson made the most of every minute.

That season, he produced 115 points per 100 possessions while allowing 95 points per 100 possessions so he was both a potent offensive and defensive weapon, although his 3.6 points per game and 3.8 rebounds per game might have kept people from thinking so.

In addition to being an adept scorer with a 58.4 true shooting percentage, Johnson was a rebounding monster, both on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball; his offensive rebounding percentage was 13.5 percent and his defensive rebounding percentage was 23.2 percent. Johnson was also a prolific shot blocker with a 8.5 block percentage.

The next season, Johnson continued his efficient play in his 14.7 minutes per game. In 2008-09, Johnson produced 120 points per 100 possessions and allowed 105 points per 100 possessions, again easily producing more points on the offensive side than he was allowing on defense.

His defensive rebounding percentage did drop to 17.2 percent and his block percentage dropped to 5.1 percent, but he made up for some of the drop-off in his defensive production, which was still pretty good, by increasing his true shooting percentage to 60.8 percent.

For the 2008-09 season, Johnson contributed 0.142 win shares per 48 minutes, a decrease from the 0.190 win shares he contributed in the 2007-08 season, but still the mark of an incredibly effective player.

Despite the fact Johnson provided so much value to the Pistons, the franchise still decided to trade him away so Johnson took his spectacularly valuable game to the Raptors for the 2009-10 season.

Last season, Johnson produced 124 points per 100 possessions and allowed 110 points per 100 possessions while contributing 0.150 win shares per 48 minutes so it was another fantastically efficient season for Johnson.

As stated earlier, any criticism of the contract could find no fault with the value Johnson provided to his teams. The major issue with the contract was that Johnson found it impossible to stay out of foul trouble.

In all three seasons previous to this one, Johnson committed more than six fouls per 36 minutes so for all his ability, no team could keep him on the floor long enough to experience the full benefits of it.

This season, however, Johnson has begun to correct his problem with committing too many fouls. He leads the league in personal fouls, but for the first time since he became a full-season NBA player, his fouls committed per 36 minutes is below six (5.3 fouls committed per 36 minutes) so he can finally play extended minutes in a team's rotation.

Johnson's 25.9 minutes per game mark a career high, and the increase in minutes is having no adverse effects on his value as he is putting up one of the best seasons of his career.

He is producing 125 points per 100 possessions, allowing 109 points per 100 possessions, and contributing 0.165 win shares per 48 minutes for the Raptors. In addition, Johnson is averaging 10.0 points per game and 6.9 rebounds per game so those caught up mostly in per game averages can also be impressed by his season.

Johnson has been such a valuable player for the Raptors this season that his 5.0 win shares are 2.2 more than the next Raptor, Jose Calderon, who has contributed 2.8 win shares. The Raptors are fortunate enough to be receiving all that value for just $5 million.

As long as Johnson can continue to avoid committing fouls at the rate of his three previous seasons, the Raptors will look like fiscal geniuses because they will have a star on their roster for the price of a role player.

Mark Sanchez, Kurt Warner More Clutch In The Playoffs Than Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger

2011-02-22T09:39:00.007-05:00

Being clutch is the most prized attribute an athlete can possess, and nowhere is being clutch rated more highly than in the postseason. For the purposes of this article, being clutch in the playoffs is measured by how well a quarterback performs in the postseason relative to how he performs in the regular season.

Those quarterbacks who have come up short of their regular season production in games as primary quarterback, games in which they either attempted the most passes or threw for the most yards for their respective teams, will be considered the least clutch while the quarterbacks who have done the best job of raising their level of play in the playoffs and outperforming their regular season output will be defined as the most clutch.

Despite owning three Super Bowl Rings, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is the least playoff clutch of the eight quarterbacks I examined. When he has appeared in the playoffs, Brady has become 2.4 percent worse in completion percentage (from 63.7 percent to 62.2 percent), 12.2 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 7.4 to 6.5), 16.0 percent worse in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 7.5 to 6.3), 13.4 percent worse in net yards per pass attempt (from 6.7 to 5.8), 17.6 percent worse in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 6.8 to 5.6), 10.3 percent worse in yards per completion (from 11.6 to 10.4), and 21.4 percent worse in touchdown percentage (from 5.6 percent to 4.4 percent).

Additionally, Brady has a 4.5 percent higher interception percentage in the postseason (from 2.2 percent to 2.3 percent).

Brady has performed so poorly in the playoffs compared to his regular season production that the differences between his yards per pass attempt, net yards per pass attempt, adjusted net yards per pass attempt and yards per completion are all statistically significant.

Based on his overall play in the playoffs, Brady does not deserve to receive any sort of extra credit for being a clutch quarterback. If anything, he deserves criticism on that front instead because he is not the caliber of playoff quarterback many may believe he is.

Philadelphia Eagles fans should be not be surprised to find that former quarterback Donovan McNabb is the seventh most playoff clutch quarterback of the eight I examined. For his career, McNabb has not been a great regular-season quarterback, and he gets even worse in the playoffs.

In the playoffs, McNabb undergoes a .2 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 59.2 percent to 59.1 percent), a 7.1 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.0 to 6.5), a 13.0 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 6.9 to 6.0), a 9.8 percent decrease in net yards per pass attempt (from 6.1 to 5.5), a 15.0 percent decrease in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 6.0 to 5.1), a 6.8 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 11.8 to 11.0), a 6.7 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 4.5 percent to 4.2 percent), a 38.1 percent increase in interception percentage (from 2.1 percent to 2.9 percent), and an 11.6 percent increase in sack percentage (from 6.9 percent to 7.7 percent).

Exacerbating the problem that his passes by themselves already have less value in the playoffs, McNabb also has a problem with an increased number of interceptions thrown and sacks taken, further weakening the value of his passes. It is no wonder the Eagles lost three straight NFC Championship games with McNabb as quarterback with the way in which he has underperformed in the playoffs.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is an interesting case when it comes to being clutch in the playoffs. Compared to his regular season performances, when Roethlisberger appears in the playoffs, he experiences a 3.3 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 63.3 percent to 61.2 percent), a 3.7 percent decrease (from 8.1 to 7.8), an 11.7 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.7 to 6.8), a 1.5 percent decrease in net yards per pass attempt (from 6.8 to 6.7), a 9.4 percent decrease in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 6.4 to 5.8), a 1.9 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 5.2 percent to 5.1 percent), a 38.7 percent increase in interception percentage, and a 12.4 percent decrease in sack percentage (from 8.9 percent to 7.8 percent).

Even though Roethlisberger is still an above-average quarterback in the playoffs, based on what he has done in the regular season, he cannot be considered clutch under the aforementioned criterion.

The main problem Roethlisberger has in the playoffs, avoiding interceptions, reared its ugly head during Super Bowl XLV and is a huge reason why the Steelers lost. If he can ever figure out his interception problem, Roethlisberger will be a lot more clutch in the playoffs.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning may have two fewer Super Bowl rings than Brady, but he can at least rest easy at night knowing he does not struggle in the playoffs as Brady does. Still, Manning does struggle somewhat.

In the playoffs, Manning has a 2.7 percent worse completion percentage (from 64.9 percent to 63.1 percent), 1.3 percent lower yards per pass attempt (from 7.6 to 7.5), 5.3 percent lower adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 7.5 to 7.1), 2.8 percent lower net yards per pass attempt (from 7.2 to 7.0), 5.7 percent lower adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 7.0 to 6.6), 1.7 percent higher yards per completion (from 11.7 to 11.9), 27.3 percent lower touchdown percentage (from 5.5 percent to 4.0 percent), 7.1 percent lower interception percentage (from 2.8 percent to 2.6 percent), and a 9.7 percent higher sack percentage (from 3.1 percent to 3.4 percent).

For whatever reason, Manning has found it immensely difficult to throw touchdown passes in the playoffs, and that more than anything is the reason he is not more highly regarded as a playoff quarterback. Otherwise, his playoff statistics are not that far off from his regular season statistics.

Brett Favre is the first of the eight quarterbacks whose play largely improved in the playoffs. In the playoffs, Favre experienced a 1.9 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 62.0 percent to 60.8 percent), a 4.2 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (from 7.1 to 7.4), a 3.0 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 6.6 to 6.8), a 6.3 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (from 6.4 to 6.8), a 3.3 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 6.0 to 6.2), a 7.0 percent increase in yards per completion (from 11.4 to 12.2), a 12.0 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 5.0 percent to 5.6 percent), an 18.8 percent increase in interception percentage (from 3.2 percent to 3.8 percent), and a 10.2 percent decrease in sack percentage (from 4.9 percent to 4.4 percent).

Favre's decrease in completion percentage did not matter in the long run as he made up for it with a higher yards per completion average which in turn led to a higher yards per pass attempt average in the playoffs.

It was his increase in interception percentage that truly harmed both Favre and the teams for which he played. The higher interception percentage harmed Favre by decreasing the value of his adjusted passing statistics, and it harmed his teams because on a number of occasions, a Favre interception ended his teams' seasons.

Had Favre just been able to maintain his regular season interception percentage, we probably would have seen him in a couple more Super Bowls.

Favre's successor for the Green Bay Packers, quarterback Aaron Rodgers, has yet to experience any interception-throwing difficulties in the playoffs. In fact, if he can continue on the path he has started in his first five career postseason games, he will be a more clutch playoff quarterback than Favre ever was.

In the playoffs, Rodgers has undergone a 4.8 percent increase in completion percentage (from 64.7 percent to 67.8 percent), an 8.8 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (from 8.0 to 8.7), a 10.8 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 8.3 to 9.4), a 10.0 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (7.0 to 7.7), a 15.1 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 7.3 to 8.4), a 4.0 percent increase in yards per completion (from 12.4 to 12.9), a 33.9 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 5.6 percent to 7.5 percent), a 10.5 percent decrease in interception percentage (from 1.9 percent to 1.7 percent), and a 1.4 percent increase in sack percentage (from 6.9 percent to 7.0 percent).

Rodgers has had his way with opponents in the playoffs and has been an unstoppable passing force in the postseason. The test for him will be in maintaining his clutch playoff play for the rest of his career.

Although Rodgers' playoff career has just begun and still faces the prospect of regression, that is not an issue for the recently retired quarterback Kurt Warner, who will always be a truly fantastic playoff quarterback.

If there is any hesitation among Pro Football Hall of Fame voters to declare Warner a Hall of Fame quarterback, which there shouldn't be considering he was a great regular season quarterback as well, then his performances in the postseason should tip the scales in his favor.

Warner may have lost two of the three Super Bowls in which he played, but that did not keep him from being an incredibly clutch playoff quarterback. In the playoffs, Warner turned in a 1.4 percent higher completion percentage (from 65.6 percent to 66.5 percent), a 7.5 percent higher yards per pass attempt (from 8.0 to 8.6), an 11.8 percent higher adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 7.6 to 8.5), a 12.7 percent higher net yards per pass attempt (from 7.1 to 8.0), a 19.4 percent higher adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 6.7 to 8.0), a 5.7 percent higher yards per completion (from 12.2 to 12.9), a 31.4 percent higher touchdown percentage (from 5.1 percent to 6.7 percent), a 6.3 percent lower interception percentage (from 3.2 percent to 3.0 percent), and a 33.3 percent lower sack percentage (from 6.0 percent to 4.0 percent).

Yet, even Kurt Warner cannot match the clutch playoff heights New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has reached in his first six postseason games. Sanchez might not be the first name a person thinks of when thinking of clutch playoff quarterbacks, but there is no denying how much better he has been in the playoffs then the regular season. The improvement is astounding.

In the playoffs, Sanchez experiences an 11.2 percent increase in completion percentage (from 54.4 percent to 60.2 percent), a 12.1 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (from 6.6 to 7.4), a 38.2 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (from 5.5 to 7.6), a 20.7 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (from 5.8 to 7.0), a 52.1 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (from 4.8 to 7.3), a .8 percent increase in yards per completion (from 12.1 to 12.2), a 72.7 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 3.3 percent to 5.7 percent), a 50.0 percent decrease in interception percentage (from 3.8 percent to 1.9 percent), and a 56.1 percent decrease in sack percentage (from 5.7 percent to 2.5 percent).

If Sanchez could ever translate his postseason statistics to the regular season, then the New York Jets would actually have a real quarterback of the future instead of a ceremonial one.

This is only one way in which to measure a quarterback's clutch playoff proficiency, and along with the surprising fact of how impressive Sanchez's playoff performances have been in relation to his regular season ones, the most important thing one can take away after comparing these eight quarterbacks to each other is just how great a quarterback Kurt Warner was.

The Charlotte Bobcats Would Be Better Off Without Stephen Jackson

2011-02-21T14:49:00.003-05:00

Whatever the Charlotte Bobcats can do to remove forward Stephen Jackson from their roster should be done posthaste. If they can find a team on which to unload Jackson, then that would be wonderful, but failing that, the Bobcats need to either release him outright or just buy out his contract. The Bobcats need to do this because there will never come a time when having Stephen Jackson on the roster will consistently help them win games or become an upper-echelon team. Instead, his presence on the team only hurts the franchise over the long run.

Jackson has made a career out of being a high-volume shooter but inefficient scorer, and this season is no exception as Jackson is playing near to his career statistics.

For the season, Jackson is using up 26.9 percent of the Bobcats' plays while he is on the floor, which is the highest usage percentage on the team. At the same time, Jackson is only producing 100 points per 100 possessions, giving him the 10th worst offensive rating on the Bobcats. For the record, 15 players have played for the Bobcats this season.

The fact that Jackson takes so many shots as if he were a good offensive player, 3.9 more field goal attempts per game than the next closest player, while shooting the ball so poorly from the field means he is a dangerous presence on the Bobcats offense since he is making the whole unit more inefficient than it needs to be. An inefficient offense, like the one the Bobcats currently possess with an offensive rating of 103.4 points per 100 possessions that ranks 25th out of the 30 NBA teams, is the calling card of a mediocre team.

When the team's offensive rating is higher than a player's, that player is a detriment to the team.

Overall, Jackson has only contributed 0.059 win shares per 48 minutes for the season. Again, that ranks him 10th out of 15 players who have played for the Bobcats.

This is actually the second season where Jackson's presence on the Bobcats has been less valuable than the majority of the team. Last season, Jackson again used the highest percentage of the team's plays with a 27.8 usage percentage; actually, he was second to Acie Law's 31.1 usage percentage, but Law only played 33 minutes across nine games for the Bobcats and it is a certainty he would not have used that many of the team's plays had he played more minutes.

Identically to this season, last year, Jackson only produced 100 points per 100 possessions, which was 10th on the 2009-10 Bobcats; I discounted Raja Bell's offensive rating because he only appeared in 5 games for the Bobcats. The entire team's offensive rating was 104.4 points per 100 possessions so having Jackson on offense made the Bobcats worse despite the fact his 21.1 points per game were the highest on the team.

Unsurprisingly, Jackson's 0.085 win shares per 48 minutes were 11th on the team; Raja Bell's statistic in that category was discounted for the same reason his offensive rating was ignored.

During his 126 games with the Bobcats, Jackson has yet to truly help the team and he is incapable of ever doing so, which is why the Bobcats not only do not need him on the roster, but would be better off without him.

The rest of the NBA should take notice of the kind of player Jackson really is in case a team thinks that having him on the roster would give them the missing piece to its championship puzzle. He simply is not because his skill set and approach to the game of basketball are not going to help any team.

Jackson plays the game as if he is a great scoring option, but he is not. His whole career where he has produced 101 points per 100 possessions and allowed 107 points per 100 possessions while contributing just 0.070 win shares per 48 minutes reveals his true nature, that of an awful NBA player.

Toronto Raptors Center Andrea Bargnani Is Most Disappointing Number One Draft Pick Pick Since Michael Olowokandi

2011-02-20T10:20:00.006-05:00

Declaring a player a draft bust is never a venture to be entered into lightly, but 351 regular season games into 2006 number one draft pick Andrea Bargnani's career, without a major turnaround in the efficiency of his play, he will go down in history as the worst number one NBA draft pick since Michael Olowokandi was selected number one overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in the 1998 NBA Draft. As a result of Bargnani's uninspired play, as long as the Toronto Raptors have their future invested in him as their primary scoring option, they will remain mired deeply in mediocrity.

It should be clearly stated that the reason Bargnani could rightly be considered a bust is not because of his scoring average. This season, Bargnani is averaging 22.0 points per game and for his career, he is scoring 14.9 points per game. While those scoring averages give the impression he is a reliably good scoring option, scoring averages in basketball are as misleading as batting averages in baseball.

Whenever confronted with a scoring average, the first question that should be asked is how the player is arriving at that average, and in Bargnani's case, the answer is in a pretty inefficient manner.

Bargnani's career started off inefficiently, a trend that continues today. In his rookie season, Bargnani only produced 99 points per 100 possessions. He then followed that up in his second season by producing 98 points per 100 possessions.

Over his third and fourth seasons, where he produced 105 points per 100 possessions and 108 points per 100 possessions respectively, Bargnani seemed to be improving as a scorer, but that improvement has been completely undone this season.

With the departure of Chris Bosh to the Miami Heat, the burden of being the go-to scorer has fallen upon the shoulders of Bargnani, a task for which he is unsurprisingly unsuited. After four seasons of usage percentages that came in between 22.3 percent and 22.7 percent, Bargnani's 2010-11 usage percentage has jumped to 28.6 percent and his offensive rating has dropped to 103 points produced per 100 possessions.

Bargnani's play this season should serve as a reminder that if a role player is an inefficient scorer, then whenever he is called upon to be the primary scoring option, he will become even more inefficient.

If Bargnani did anything else besides rely on his below-average career 53.9 true shooting percentage, his struggles on offense would not be so crippling to his productivity, but he doesn't. His career total rebounding percentage is an underwhelming 9.6 percent and his career assist percentage is an even more meager 6.5 percent so he is either unable or unwilling to grab rebounds and dish out assists.

Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki has showed us that a 7-foot perimeter-oriented scoring threat can find time out of his busy shooting schedule to grab rebounds and set up his teammates for baskets; Nowitzki has a career total rebounding percentage of 13.0 percent and a career assist percentage of 13.1 percent. Bargnani has no excuse for not doing the same.

Were Bargnani's poor season out of character for him, that would be one thing, but his substandard level of play has been a persistent issue throughout his career. For his career, he has produced 103 points per 100 possessions while allowing 111 points per 100 possessions. Additionally, he has only contributed 0.061 win shares per 48 minutes.

Even in his best season, Bargnani only produced 105 points per 100 possessions while allowing 110 points produced per 100 possessions and contributed just 0.076 win shares per 48 minutes.

It is his extremely low career 0.061 win shares per 48 minutes that explains why Bargnani is the most disappointing number one draft pick since Olowokandi. Only Olowokandi's career mark of 0.009 win shares per 48 minutes is lower among former number one draft picks since 1998 that have played in a couple of seasons; John Wall currently is contributing only 0.041 win shares per 48 minutes, and if he does not improve in that aspect over his career, Bargnani will have some more company on the number one draft pick bust list.

Even 2001 number one draft pick Kwame Brown, looked upon as one of the worst number one draft picks in recent history, has still contributed 0.075 win shares per 48 minutes over his career, and 0.077 win shares per 48 minutes over his first five seasons. Both of those marks are higher than Bargnani's.

The question one must ask is which is worse: a player who will average a lot of points per game but will do so in an inefficient way and provide no value for a team otherwise or a player who is without any sort of offensive prowess but can provide enough in other areas to make up for it and help a team out that way?

For me, I would rather have the more complete player who is not great at anything, but will still help his team win more than a player whose whole game is wrapped up in something he does not do that well. At least then I would not be tricked into building a team around a player who cannot carry it.

The case could even be made that the way Bargnani's career is developing is more harmful to the Toronto Raptors than 2007 number one draft pick Greg Oden's has been to the Portland Trail Blazers.

Oden's major issue was staying healthy; the reason he is looked on as a bust has nothing to do with his actual play on the court. In fact, when Oden did play, he did so fantastically, producing 117 points per 100 possessions and allowing 103 points per 100 possessions while contributing 0.180 win shares per 48 minutes. Should he ever be able to stay healthy, an unlikely occurrence given his track record with injuries, whichever team does retain his services will be pleased with his play.

Since the Trail Blazers know they cannot depend on Oden to stay healthy, they have yet to invest any more money in him and he will be a restricted free agent going into the 2011 season; thus, they will have more money to spend on more reliably healthy players. The Raptors, on the other hand, are under the false impression that Bargnani is a player on which they can rely and gave him a five-year, $50 million contract extension that kicked in this season.

Unless Bargnani becomes a better overall player, he will continue to be an incredibly disappointing number one draft pick even though his points per game average might keep him from receiving too much criticism. As for the Toronto Raptors, until they find a true primary scoring option, their poor performances will mirror Bargnani's.

Matthew Stafford Has Been Outplayed By His Back-Ups

2011-02-18T10:38:00.003-05:00

Quarterback Matthew Stafford's inability to stay healthy should not be the most concerning aspect of his career to his employer, the Detroit Lions. What should trouble the Lions more than the fact the former number one overall draft pick and recipient of $41.7 million in guaranteed money has only been the primary quarterback for the Lions in 12 games over two seasons, games in which he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most yards, is how he played when he has been healthy.

In those twelve games, Stafford struggled mightily. His completion percentage was an extremely poor 53.9 percent and he also performed ineptly in other passing categories. Stafford's passes only netted him 5.9 yards per pass attempt, 4.7 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 5.2 net yards per pass attempt, and 4.0 adjusted yards per pass attempt. When one looks up mediocre passing in the dictionary, a statistical line similar to that is what will be found.

Additionally, in those 12 games, Stafford threw 19 touchdowns (4.1 touchdown percentage) to 21 interceptions (4.6 interception percentage). The touchdown to interception ratio Stafford possessed in the 12 contests is not awful considering many quarterbacks throw more interceptions than touchdowns early in their career, but it cannot make up for his other pedestrian statistics.

Stafford's already middling performances look even worse when one realizes he has been outplayed by the very quarterbacks he is supposed to be better than.

Since Stafford has missed 20 games over the past two seasons, there have been 20 opportunities for one of his three back-up quarterbacks to be the primary quarterback for the Lions, and they have made the most of each opportunity.

When comparing Stafford's statistics to whichever back-up quarterback was the primary quarterback when Stafford was not, Stafford was 9.6 percent worse in completion percentage (53.9 percent to 59.6 percent), 6.3 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (5.9 to 6.3), 11.3 percent worse in adjusted yards per pass attempt (4.7 to 5.3), 7.1 percent worse in net yards per pass attempt (5.2 to 5.6), and 13.0 percent worse in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (4.0 to 4.6).

Stafford holds the advantage in his touchdown (4.1 touchdown percentage to 3.2 touchdown percentage) to interception (4.6 interception percentage to 3.8 interception percentage) ratio, but just like it did not make up for the other deficiencies he had in his overall passing numbers, it cannot overcome the advantages his back-up quarterbacks currently hold over him.

If Stafford were being backed up by elite quarterbacks, then his inferior play could be understood, but he is not. His three back-ups were Daunte Culpepper whose career was in a serious decline when he played for the Lions, Shaun Hill who is never a long-term solution for any team's quarterback problem unless he is playing for Mike Martz, and Drew Stanton who is a former second-round draft pick and a quarterback to whom the Lions never gave a fair shot.

Also, Stafford's back-ups were not even playing well; yet, they still outperformed the supposed franchise quarterback. If a starting quarterback cannot outplay such below-average talent, then he does not deserve to start nor does he deserve to be paid tens of millions of dollars for his paltry efforts.

Perhaps Stafford will discover the ability to make it through an entire season unscathed and outplay his back-ups, but as things stand now, the Lions' already dubious decision to draft Stafford with the number one pick in the 2009 NFL Draft looks even more foolish.

2011 NFL Draft: A.J. Green vs. Julio Jones

2011-02-17T10:16:00.007-05:00

Neither former University of Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green nor former University of Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones is one of the top two wide receivers in the 2011 NFL Draft; that distinction goes to Jonathan Baldwin and Aldrick Robinson. Yet, since most people seem to view Green and Jones as the two premier wide receivers in the upcoming draft, at the very least, they should know which one is the better wide receiver prospect. That way they can avoid overvaluing the wrong wide receiver.

Of the two, without a doubt, Green was the more complete college wide receiver, and the player more likely to find success in the NFL.

Just as I did with Baldwin and Robinson in order to measure the value of their presence in the passing game, I looked at how Green's quarterbacks performed when he was included in their statistics to when he was removed.

Over the course of his career, after Green was removed from their passing statistics in games in which he played and was targeted for a pass, Georgia quarterbacks became 2.9 percent worse in completion percentage (from 59.1 percent to 57.4 percent), 8.3 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 8.4 to 7.7), 4.9 percent worse in yards per completion (14.2 to 13.5), and 10.6 percent worse in touchdown percentage (6.6 percent to 5.9 percent).

Under the same conditions, when Jones was removed from Alabama's quarterbacks' statistics, they experienced a 3.0 percent increase in completion percentage (from 62.9 percent to 64.8 percent), a 3.7 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 8.2 to 7.9), a 6.2 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 13.0 to 12.2), and a 2.0 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 5.1 percent to 5.2 percent).

Although Jones has a slight edge over Green in terms of the value provided to their respective quarterbacks' yards per completion averages, Green blows Jones away in value provided in completion percentage, yards per pass attempt average, and touchdown percentage.

The only explanation for the hype still surrounding Jones has to be because of his freshman season when he exploded on the college football landscape in tremendous fashion.

In that year, when Jones is removed from Alabama quarterbacks' statistics, they underwent a 1.5 percent increase in completion percentage (from 58.4 percent to 59.3 percent), an 11.1 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.2 to 6.4), a 13.0 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 12.3 to 10.7), and a 9.1 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 3.3 percent to 3.0 percent).

If Jones had been able to even come close to maintaining that level of value for the rest of his college career, then he could rightly be considered to be one of the best wide receiver prospects in the draft. Instead, he followed his spectacular freshman season with an awful sophomore year.

During his sophomore season, when Jones was removed from his quarterbacks' statistics, they became 9.4 percent better in completion percentage (from 59.7 percent to 65.3 percent), 6.8 percent better in yards per pass attempt (from 7.4 to 7.9), 3.2 percent worse in yards per completion (from 12.5 to 12.1), and 4.3 percent better in touchdown percentage (from 4.7 percent to 4.9 percent).

An elite wide receiver whose quarterbacks get that much better when not throwing in his direction does not exist because there is no such thing. Jones' sophomore season was representative of a wide receiver with below-average ability.

Jones did improve in his junior season, but he did not come close to the level of value he provided his quarterbacks as a freshman. For his junior season, when Jones was removed from Alabama's quarterbacks' passing statistics, they experienced a .6 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 70.0 percent to 69.6 percent), a 2.1 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 9.7 to 9.5), a 2.2 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 13.9 to 13.6), and a 5.6 percent increase in touchdown percentage (from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent).

Alabama quarterbacks received only the slimmest of benefits when throwing in Jones' direction in the 2010 season, and any NFL team that drafts Jones thinking it will be obtaining an impact wide receiver will be sorely disappointed.

Green's college career was also an inconsistent one, but even at his worst, Green never turned in a season as disappointing as Jones.

Relative to Jones, Green had a minimal impact in his freshman year. After Green was removed from Georgia's quarterbacks' statistics, they became 4.1 percent better in completion percentage (from 61.5 percent to 64.0 percent), 2.2 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 8.9 to 8.7), 5.5 percent worse in yards per completion (from 14.5 to 13.7), and 5.9 percent worse in touchdown percentage (from 6.8 percent to 6.4 percent).

Although Green's career did not start with the bang that Jones' career did, nor did Green's quarterbacks get worse when throwing to Green in his freshman season, which was Green's worst year in college.

Green's best college season took place in his spectacularly valuable sophomore campaign. That season, when he was removed from Georgia's quarterbacks' statistics, they underwent a 10.4 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 54.0 percent to 48.4 percent), an 18.3 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.1 to 5.8), a 9.1 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 13.2 to 12.0), and an 8.9 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 5.6 percent to 5.1 percent).

Green's best season eclipses Jones' best season in overall value. It also eclipses Green's other two seasons as he was unable to duplicate his sophomore exploits and regressed fairly significantly during his junior season. However, even with the regression, Georgia's quarterbacks were still made better by throwing to Green.

As a junior in his suspension-shortened season, when Green was removed from his quarterbacks' statistics, they become 6.2 percent worse in completion percentage (from 61.0 percent to 57.2 percent), 6.7 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (from 9.0 to 8.4), .7 percent worse in yards per completion (from 14.7 to 14.6), and 21.1 percent worse in touchdown percentage (from 7.6 percent to 6.0 percent).

In addition to being a more complete wide receiver, Green's best season in college was better than Jones' best season, and his worst year was superior to Jones' worst year. If a team ignores Baldwin or Robinson and decides to choose between Green and Jones instead, Green is obviously the better option.

Jay Cutler Is Latest Beneficiary Of The Mike Martz Effect

2011-02-16T09:45:00.006-05:00

No matter what kind of quarterback a player was before or what kind of quarterback he will be afterwards, while he is playing in Mike Martz's offensive system, he will have the best seasons of his career in terms of yards per pass attempt and yards per completion. The quarterback may very well have career-high seasons in other areas, but the improvements in yards per pass attempt and yards per completion are the most consistent results of playing for Martz.

The Martz Effect first presented itself in the NFL in the career of Kurt Warner. Martz did not entirely make Kurt Warner as Warner went on to have success with other teams in his career, but Warner never reached the heights in yards per completion and yards per attempt for those teams that he did under Martz.

In his 56 games as primary quarterback under Martz, games in which he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards for the team, Warner posted averages of 8.6 yards per pass attempt and 13.0 yards per completion.

Both of those statistics are statistically significantly better than what he did as primary quarterback for non-Martz offenses where in 74 games, Warner's passes netted 7.6 yards per pass attempt and 11.7 yards per completion.

Playing for Martz, Warner also had his best seasons in terms of touchdown percentage. His touchdown percentage was a statistically significant superior 6.1 touchdown percentage than his 4.7 touchdown percentage playing in other offenses.

However, Warner also had a statistically significant higher interception percentage under Martz (3.8 interception percentage) than he did playing for other coaches (2.6 interception percentage). Since the advantage he holds in touchdown percentage (29.8 percent higher) in lower than the disadvantage he holds in interception percentage (46.2 percent higher), he actually was worse under Martz in his touchdown to interception ratio.

During Warner's tenure as primary quarterback under Martz, there were six games in the 2000 season where Trent Green stepped in as primary quarterback. Even though Green only received those six games as a primary quarterback under Martz, he still put up numbers better than what he did for the rest of his career.

For those six games, Green gained 8.3 yards per pass attempt and 13.8 yards per completion. His yards per attempt average was 10.7 percent better than the 7.5 yards per pass attempt he averaged in his 111 other games as primary quarterback, and his yards per completion average was 11.3 percent better than his 12.4 yards per completion in other games.

Green also threw an amazingly high rate of touchdown passes during those six games, posting an impressive 6.6 touchdown percentage in relief of Warner. That touchdown percentage was 57.1 percent higher than his 4.2 touchdown percentage for the rest of his career.

Despite playing in such a short time span, Green still had his best games under Martz.

Marc Bulger was the next quarterback who benefited from having Martz direct the offense, and like Warner and Green before him, Bulger's yards per pass attempt and yards per completion averages were the best of his career.

During his 42 games as primary quarterback for Martz, Bulger gained 7.8 yards per pass attempt and 12.2 yards per completion, which were statistically significantly better than the 6.7 yards per pass attempt and 11.2 yards per completion he has gained without Martz.

Further cementing the fact that Bulger experienced his best seasons while playing in Martz's offense, his 64.4 completion percentage is statistically significantly better than the 59.7 completion percentage he has had in other offenses as is his 4.6 touchdown percentage statistically significantly higher than his 3.1 touchdown percentage he has posted in non-Martz offenses.

Bulger's 3.5 interception percentage under Martz is also statistically significantly higher than the 2.5 interception percentage he has accumulated in other offenses, but unlike Warner, Bulger still had a better touchdown to interception ratio playing for Martz.

Martz's offensive scheme is so friendly to quarterbacks that even Jon Kitna and Shaun Hill, two quarterbacks who will never be confused for star quarterbacks, also saw improvements while playing for Martz.

For Kitna, the improvement he had in yards per completion was fairly minimal compared to other Martz-coached quarterbacks; the 11.4 yards per completion his passes netted in the 32 games he played as Martz's primary quarterback is only 3.6 percent higher than the 11.0 yards per completion his passes have netted in his 99 other games as primary quarterback in the NFL.

Where Kitna truly excelled under Martz were in a higher completion percentage and a higher yards per attempt average. Kitna's 62.8 completion percentage and 7.2 yards per pass attempt are statistically significantly superior to the 59.2 completion percentage and 6.5 yards per attempt he has produced in his other offenses.

Similarly to Green, Hill played in a limited number of games as Martz's primary quarterback, and in those nine games, he played the best football of his career.

Comparing his time in Martz's system to when he has played outside of it, Hill's completion percentage is 2.3 percent higher (62.8 percent to 61.4 percent), his yards per pass attempt average is 10.9 percent higher (7.1 to 6.4), and his yards per completion average is 8.7 percent higher (11.3 to 10.4). Again, under Martz, a quarterback had his best yards per pass attempt and yards per completion averages.

In his first season playing for Martz, current Martz primary quarterback Jay Cutler has already benefited from the Martz Effect; in his 16 games as primary quarterback for the 2010 season, Cutler's passes gained 7.7 yards per pass attempt and 12.9 yards per completion.

Cutler's yards per pass attempt average under Martz is 6.9 percent higher than the 7.2 yards per pass attempt average he had in his 52 other contests as primary quarterback, and his yards per completion average under Martz is 11.2 percent higher than the 11.6 yards per completion average he had when not playing under Martz.

The rest of the time Cutler spends playing for Martz should result in similar statistics.

With the way in which Martz is able to take any quarterback, regardless of the player's talent level, and elevate his passing statistics, Martz is rightly regarded as one of the preeminent offensive minds in the NFL.

Carson Palmer Is Vastly Overestimating His Worth

2011-02-15T09:09:00.004-05:00

It takes two to tango is an idiom that can extended to the world of sports trades. Just because a team wishes to trade away a player or a player wishes to be traded away does not guarantee there will be a second party willing to facilitate the transaction especially if that player is in the midst of a decline in ability, a fact with which Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer would do well to familiarize himself.

Before Palmer demanded a trade from the Cincinnati Bengals, the best thing he could have done was to perform an honest assessment of his career. If he had, here is what he would have found.

After a good start to his career, the wheels started coming off in Palmer's injury-truncated 2008 season. Even before Palmer was diagnosed with a partially torn ligament and tendon in his elbow, he was on his way to having a disappointing year.

In those four games, Palmer completed only 58.1 percent of his passes, gained 5.7 yards per pass attempt, gained 4.7 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 4.7 net yards per pass attempt, gained 3.9 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, threw three touchdowns (2.3 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (3.1 interception percentage), and was sacked 11 times (7.9 sack percentage).

Unfortunately for Palmer, those four games were not just a minor hiccup in his career before he returned to his previous high levels of production. Instead, they represented the beginning of a downward spiral in Palmer's play.

Including that 2008 season with the following 2009 and 2010 seasons demonstrates that Palmer is but a shell of the quarterback he once was. In those seasons in games where he was the primary quarterback, games in which he either threw the most passes or threw for the most passing yards per the Bengals, Palmer managed to complete just 60.6 percent of his passes, gained 6.5 yards per pass attempt, gained 6.0 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 5.8 net yards per pass attempt, gained 5.2 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, threw 51 touchdowns (4.2 touchdown percentage) to 38 interceptions (3.1 interception percentage), and was sacked 66 times (5.1 sack percentage).

Those numbers measure up poorly to what he did from 2004-2007 where as the Bengals' primary quarterback, Palmer completed 64.1 percent of his passes, gained 7.3 yards per pass attempt, gained 6.9 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 6.7 net yards per pass attempt, gained 6.3 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, threw 104 touchdowns (5.1 touchdown percentage) to 63 interceptions (3.1 interception percentage), and was sacked 97 times (4.6 sack percentage).

Compared to how he performed from 2004-2007, since then, Palmer has been a statistically significantly worse quarterback in terms of completion percentage, yards per pass attempt, adjusted yards per pass attempt, net yards per pass attempt, and adjusted net yards per pass attempt. He has also performed worse in his touchdown percentage and sack percentage.

That sort of precipitous drop-off in production should make Palmer unpalatable to any team interested in winning a high percentage of games and being a championship contender.

If Palmer had had just one down year, that could be forgiven and he could still be regarded as a quarterback a team would wish to have on its roster, but with each pass he has thrown since the 2008 season began, Palmer has made it obvious that he is no longer capable of elite quarterback play.

Expecting him to experience an incredible turnaround and return to the form he had from 2004-2007 is expecting too much, but his decline is only one stumbling block standing in the way of a trade.

His contract is another. Palmer is due to be paid $11.5 million next season and it is unlikely he would take a pay cut, thereby making Palmer the perfect example of the ultimate undesirable player. Not only is he in serious decline from where his career began, but he is still being paid like the franchise quarterback he no longer is.

Why Palmer thinks that at the stage in his career when he is playing his worst football he would be desirable to another team is perplexing. Any team interested in acquiring a below-average quarterback can certainly do so for a fraction of the cost and without giving up any draft picks. Trading for Carson Palmer to accomplish such a goal is unnecessary.

Jonathan Baldwin's and Aldrick Robinson's NFL Prospects: They Are The Next Big-Play Wide Receivers

2011-02-14T09:49:00.006-05:00

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Mike Wallace will soon have company among the NFL's best big-play wide receivers, provided by the presence of future rookies, former University of Pittsburgh wide receiver Jonathan Baldwin and former Southern Methodist University wide receiver Aldrick Robinson.

A wide receiver's first priority is always to make his quarterback better, and the best wide receivers are the ones who can improve their quarterback's passing statistics the most. As a measuring tool for just how much having the wide receiver in the passing game raises the level of a quarterback's play, I compared how the wide receivers' quarterbacks played when the wide receivers' statistics are included in the passing totals to the same quarterbacks' numbers when the wide receivers' statistics are removed.

Under that condition, Jonathan Baldwin is not just the best big-play wide receiver in the 2011 NFL draft class, but he is the best overall wide receiver of the 10 wide receivers whose college careers I examined, a list which includes the more highly regarded former University of Georgia wide receiver and former University of Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones.

For Baldwin's college career, compared to when Baldwin's statistics were included in the Pittsburgh quarterbacks' numbers to when they were removed, Pittsburgh quarterbacks experienced a 4.3 percent increase in completion percentage (from 62.2 percent to 64.9 percent), a 9.3 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.5 to 6.8), a 12.5 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 12.0 to 10.5), and a 19.6 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 4.6 percent to 3.5 percent).

Due to the fact Baldwin's routes are usually of the deep variety, which are the hardest to consistently complete, he will never be a quarterback's completion percentage's best friend, but the increased value he provides in other areas more than makes up for that.

Baldwin was such a valuable big-play wide receiver in college that the decreases Pittsburgh quarterbacks experienced in yards per pass attempt and yards per completion were statistically significant ones, a feat unequaled among the other nine wide receivers.

With that sort of production in college, there is no question Baldwin will be able to have success in the NFL by immediately making a passing offense more potent. Also, since Baldwin stands at 6'5", combined with his big-play capabilities, he can keep the team who drafts him from taking the huge gamble of signing Plaxico Burress. Baldwin is a player who can give a team everything Burress could without the baggage and the risk of decline.

Baldwin might not be the first wide receiver drafted, but he certainly deserves to be.

While Baldwin's name is likely to be familiar to those following the NFL draft closely, Robinson's name may not, which is truly a shame since Robinson was the second-most valuable wide receiver out of the 10 I examined, trailing only Baldwin in how much he helped his quarterbacks.

Compared to how SMU quarterbacks performed when Robinson is included in their passing statistics to when he is removed, the quarterbacks underwent a 2.2 percent increase in completion percentage (from 59.2 percent to 60.5 percent), a 9.2 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 7.6 to 6.9), a 10.9 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 12.8 to 11.4), and a 12.9 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 6.2 percent to 5.4 percent).

Like Baldwin, Robinson is best at raising a quarterback's yards per completion average and better at it than the other eight wide receivers I looked at, solidifying his place among elite big-play wide receivers since the decrease SMU quarterbacks had in yards per completion was statistically significant.

Although Robinson is not nearly getting the recognition he deserves for his play, the team smart enough to draft him will be more than pleased with his ability to stretch the field vertically.

Both Baldwin and Robinson did not just best their fellow future wide receiver rookies in yards per pass attempt and yards per completion value, but they also had more successful college careers than Mike Wallace did in yards per completion value.

During his time at Ole Miss, when Ole Miss quarterbacks had Wallace's production included in their statistics to when he was removed from them, they experienced a .2 percent decrease in completion percentage (from 51.7 percent to 51.6 percent), a 10.1 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (from 6.9 to 6.2), a 9.8 percent decrease in yards per completion (from 13.3 to 12.0), and a 11.5 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (from 5.2 percent to 4.6 percent).

As his college statistics show, Wallace was a slightly more complete college wide receiver, owing to the fact he was more valuable to his quarterbacks' completion percentage and yards per pass attempt than were Baldwin and Robinson. However, as purely deep threats, Baldwin and Robinson were superior to Wallace.

Neither wide receiver may run an official 4.33 40-yard dash as Mike Wallace did at the 2009 NFL Combine, but there should be no question about either's speed. It is impossible for someone without above-average speed to average 18.3 yards per catch as both Baldwin and Robinson did over their college careers. Furthermore, SMU head coach June Jones called Robinson the fastest player he ever coached.

When it comes to big-play receiving threats in the 2011 NFL Draft, no NFL team is going to find two more capable wide receivers than Baldwin and Robinson, which is why they should be the first two wide receivers who are drafted. Even though it is unlikely they actually will be, the NFL teams that retain their services will certainly see their passing offenses become more dangerous and potent.

Sam Bradford Does Not Deserve AP Offensive Rookie Of The Year Honors

2011-02-05T10:00:00.004-05:00

Like with so many other end of the season awards, the AP voters got it terribly wrong when they gave St. Louis Rams quarterback Sam Bradford their Rookie of the Year award. That Bradford won is bad enough, but that he won in such a landslide with 44 out of a possible 50 votes shows an excruciatingly high level of ignorance from the AP voters.

Based on Bradford's college career, eventually he will be a star NFL quarterback, but that time was definitely not in the 2010 season. In the regular season that just ended, Bradford was one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL by multiple measures.

According to Football Outsiders, of the 48 quarterbacks who attempted at least 100 passes in 2010, Bradford ranked 34th in DYAR, which measures total value, with 81 DYAR and 34th in DVOA, which measures value per play, with a -9.1 percent DVOA.

Bradford's negative DVOA had everything to do with his pathetically low 5.95 yards per pass attempt. Not only did Michael Vick and Jamaal Charles have higher yards per rush averages, 6.8 and 6.4 respectively, but of the 31 qualifying NFL quarterbacks, those who attempted at least 14 pass attempts per team's game, Bradford ranked 30th in yards per pass attempt. Only Jimmy Clausen of the Carolina Panthers was worse.

Bradford's Rookie of the Year candidacy was further weakened by the fact he was not even the best rookie quarterback to play in 2010. Even the most ardent Bradford supporter has to admit that Bradford could not possibly be the best rookie in the NFL if he was not even the best rookie playing his position.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy was superior to Bradford in both total value with 235 DYAR and value per play with a 3.7 percent DVOA. The advantages McCoy holds in those two statistics become even greater when one remembers he appeared in eight fewer games and threw 380 fewer passes (246 to 626) than did Bradford; Football Outsiders count sacks and aborted snaps as passes in addition to regular pass attempts.

Even with 60.7 percent fewer pass attempts, McCoy's quarterbacking was still more valuable than Bradford's.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Williams, who received four of the six votes Bradford did not get, was also unworthy of his Rookie of the Year votes because he was outplayed by a fellow rookie wide receiver.

Colt McCoy's former college teammate, current Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Jordan Shipley, had more total value than Williams with 156 DYAR compared to Williams' 65 DYAR and more value per play with 14.1 percent DVOA to Williams' -6.6 percent DVOA.

Shipley put up those more impressive numbers despite being targeted for 54, or 42.7 percent, fewer passes than Williams (74 to 128).

The true Rookie of the Year was New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski was more than just a great rookie. He was the second-most productive tight end in the entire NFL in total value with 249 DYAR and the third-most productive tight end in value per play with 53.2 percent DVOA. Only San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates had more total value, and only Antonio Gates and Green Bay Packers tight end Jermichael Finley had more value per play.

Additionally, having Gronkowski on the field made Tom Brady a better quarterback. Gronkowski's dominant play this season is what one should really be looking for when choosing a Rookie of the Year, and the award should be his.

The fact that the AP voters voted for two rookies, Sam Bradford and Mike Williams, who were completely unworthy of them while at the same time completely ignoring the one player, Rob Gronkowski, who most deserved the Rookie of the Year award essentially eliminates all credibility of the honor this season.

Josh Freeman and Matt Ryan Both Legitimately Improved to Varying Degrees

2011-02-04T11:07:00.006-05:00

Although I am on record as doubting that the complete NFL careers of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Josh Freeman and Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan will justify the first round draft picks used on them, there is no denying that each quarterback improved their play in the 2010 season.

For Freeman, the improvement took place between his rookie year in 2009 and his sophomore campaign in 2010. Freeman's NFL career got off to a pretty rocky start in 2009 in his first nine games as Tampa Bay's primary quarterback, games in which he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most yards for the team.

In those nine games, Freeman played terribly, completing 54.5 percent of his passes, gaining 6.4 yards per pass attempt, gaining 4.3 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gaining 5.8 net yards per pass attempt, gaining 3.8 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, gaining 11.8 yards per completion, throwing 10 touchdowns (3.5 touchdown percentage) to 18 interceptions (6.3 interception percentage), and getting sacked 18 times (5.9 sack percentage).

As a rookie, Freeman struggled with his accuracy, value per pass attempt, and his touchdown to interception ratio, the three most important aspects of a quarterback's play.

Freeman turned all that around during this past season, however, and improved by leaps and bounds over his rookie season. As Tampa Bay's primary quarterback for 16 games in the 2010 season, Freeman completed 61.4 percent of his passes, gained 7.3 yards per pass attempt, gained 7.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 6.5 net yards per pass attempt, gained 6.9 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, gained 11.9 yards per completion, threw 25 touchdowns (5.3 touchdown percentage) to six interceptions (1.3 interception percentage), and was sacked 28 times (5.6 sack percentage).

Compared to his rookie season, in his second year as a starting quarterback, Freeman experienced a 12.7 percent increase in completion percentage, a 14.1 percent increase in yards per pass attempt, an 81.4 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt, a 12.1 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt, an 81.6 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt, a .8 percent increase in yards per completion, a 51.4 percent increase in touchdown percentage, a 79.4 percent decrease in interception percentage, and a 5.1 percent decrease in sack percentage.

Freeman's largest improvement came in elevating his touchdown to interception ratio to elite levels, which was then reflected in his adjusted yards per pass attempt and adjusted net yards per pass attempt statistics. He also did a good job of becoming a more accurate passer, and that, in turn, gave him more value per pass.

When faced with an improvement of such incredible proportions, it is always worth seeing how legitimate it was and whether the new level of play will continue into the future without undergoing too much regression.

One way in which to measure the legitimacy of a quarterback's improvement is to compare his statistics to all other primary quarterbacks who faced the same defenses; in the rare cases where one quarterback threw the most pass attempts and another quarterback threw for the most yards, I combined their statistics.

During his rookie season, Freeman was 7.9 percent worse in completion percentage (54.5 percent to 59.2 percent), 8.6 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (6.4 to 7.0), 30.6 percent worse in adjusted yards per pass attempt (4.3 to 6.2), 6.5 percent worse in net yards per pass attempt (5.8 to 6.2), 29.6 percent worse in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (3.8 to 5.4), and 7.9 percent worse at touchdown percentage (3.5 percent to 3.8 percent) than his primary quarterback contemporaries.

Freeman also threw 80.0 percent more interceptions per pass attempt (6.3 interception percentage to 3.5 interception percentage) and was sacked 1.7 percent more times per pass attempt (5.9 sack percentage to 5.8 sack percentage). There was no difference in yards per completion between Freeman and the other primary quarterbacks.

His rookie year looks even worse when you see how much better other primary quarterbacks played when facing the same opponents.

Just like the improvement between his rookie and second year, though, Freeman underwent a similar turnaround in relation to the other primary quarterbacks who faced the same opponents.

In comparison to the other primary quarterbacks for the 2010 season, Freeman was 4.3 percent better in yards per pass attempt (7.3 to 7.0), 20.0 percent better in adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.8 to 6.5), 4.8 percent better in net yards per pass attempt (6.5 to 6.2), 21.1 percent better in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (6.9 to 5.7), 4.4 percent better in yards per completion (11.9 to 11.4), 35.6 percent better at touchdown percentage (5.3 percent to 3.9 percent), 56.7 percent better at avoiding interceptions per pass attempt (1.3 percent to 3.0 percent), and 1.8 percent better at avoiding sacks per pass attempt (5.6 percent to 5.7 percent).

Identically to the advantage his sophomore season holds over his rookie season, Freeman was much better than the other primary quarterbacks in touchdown to interception ratio. The statistically significant differences between Freeman and the other primary quarterbacks in adjusted yards per pass attempt and adjusted net yards per pass attempt were a direct result of that ratio.

Freeman was not so much better than the other primary quarterbacks in all areas, however, as his completion percentage was .8 percent worse than the other primary quarterbacks' (61.4 percent to 61.9 percent). The other primary quarterbacks certainly benefited from throwing shorter passes as measured by yards per completion, but even taking that into account, Freeman simply hasn't shown any consistently great accuracy over his first two NFL seasons. He is still very much ordinary in that category even with his improvement.

Just how important Freeman's improvement in his touchdown to interception ratio was to his 2010 season is further reflected by the fact that among the 31 qualifying quarterbacks, those who attempted at least 14 passes per their team's games, he ranked 17th in completion percentage, 13th in yards per pass attempt, and sixth in quarterback rating.

If he had not had so much success throwing touchdowns while avoiding interceptions, his quarterback rating would not be nearly so high.

Whether or not Freeman continues to be a productive quarterback seems to have everything to do with that one ratio. If he is unable to maintain it, then his effectiveness will decrease to average quarterback levels.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan also experienced improvements, but to a much lesser degree than Freeman. In Ryan's case, his improvement came between his second season in 2009 and his third season in 2010.

Ryan's 2009 season was the very definition of sophomore slump. After a surprisingly good rookie season, at least in terms of yards per pass attempt (7.9), in 2009 during his 13 games as Atlanta's primary quarterback, Ryan completed a measly 58.3 percent of his passes, gained 6.5 yards per pass attempt, gained 6.1 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 6.0 net yards per pass attempt, gained 5.6 adjusted net yards per pass attempt, gained 11.1 yards per completion, threw 22 touchdowns (4.9 touchdown percentage) to 14 interceptions (3.1 interception percentage), and was sacked 18 times (3.9 sack percentage).

During his 2010 season, Ryan completed 62.5 percent of his passes, gained 6.5 yards per pass attempt, gained 6.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 6.0 adjusted yards per pass attempt, gained 6.2 yards per pass attempt, gained 10.4 yards per pass attempt, threw 28 touchdowns (4.9 touchdown percentage) to nine interceptions (1.6 interception percentage), and was sacked 23 times (3.9 sack percentage).

Only in avoiding throwing interceptions did Ryan truly get better from 2009 to 2010 as he experienced a 48.4 percent decrease in his interception percentage; therefore, he also experienced an 11.5 percent increase in his adjusted yards per pass attempt and a 10.7 percent increase in his adjusted net yards per pass attempt.

His increase in completion percentage (7.2 percent increase) was made almost entirely illegitimate by the fact it came at the expense of his yards per completion average that decreased by 6.3 percent. Even with the higher completion percentage, Ryan still did not have a higher yards per pass attempt.

Neither did Ryan improve in his net yards per pass attempt, touchdown percentage, or sack percentage. It was only a small improvement that Ryan underwent.

Against the other primary quarterbacks in 2009 that faced the same opponents, Ryan was 3.2 percent worse in completion percentage (58.3 percent to 60.2 percent), 5.8 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (6.5 to 6.9), 1.6 percent worse in adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.1 to 6.2), 1.6 percent worse in net yards per pass attempt (6.0 to 6.1), 3.7 percent better in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.6 to 5.4), 3.5 percent worse in yards per completion (11.1 to 11.5), 28.9 percent better in touchdown percentage (4.9 percent to 3.8 percent), 6.1 percent better at avoiding interceptions per pass attempt (3.1 interception percentage to 3.3 interception percentage), and 38.1 percent better at avoiding sacks per pass attempt (3.9 sack percentage to 6.3 sack percentage).

Ryan was superior to the other primary quarterbacks in only two aspects, his touchdown to interception ratio and his ability to keep from being sacked. For a supposedly up and coming elite quarterback, Ryan certainly did not play like it in 2009.

He did not exactly play like it in 2010, either, in relation to the other primary quarterbacks. In this past season, Ryan was 4.0 percent better in completion percentage (62.5 percent to 60.1 percent), 5.8 percent worse in yards per pass attempt (6.5 to 6.9), 7.9 percent better in adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.8 to 6.3), 1.6 percent worse in net yards per pass attempt (6.0 to 6.1), 12.7 percent better in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (6.2 to 5.5), 9.6 percent worse in yards per completion (10.4 to 11.5), 22.5 percent better in touchdown percentage (4.9 percent to 4.0 percent), 50.0 percent better at avoiding interceptions per pass attempt (1.6 interception percentage to 3.2 interception percentage), and 35.0 percent better at avoiding sacks per pass attempt (3.9 sack percentage to 6.0 sack percentage).

The 2010 season was definitely a mixed bag for Ryan. Even though he increased his completion percentage, he paid for it with his dreadfully low yards per pass attempt and yards per completion, meaning he got ripped off in the transaction.

Ryan's yards per pass attempt was so poor that among the 31 qualified NFL quarterbacks, he ranked 27th in that category. Once again, there is mounting evidence that the hype surrounding Ryan does not truly equal the production on the field.

What saved Ryan's season from his disappointing basic passing statistics were his touchdown to interception ratio and the lack of sacks he took. Like Freeman, he will have to rely heavily upon that ratio to continue having success in the NFL. If he is unable to keep it at the level he reached in 2010, he will be doomed to be a below-average quarterback because he has nothing else in his repertoire to make up for it.

While Freeman and Ryan both improved in the 2010 season, they have still not improved enough to outperform their college statistics, which is the main reason why I never believed they would be star quarterbacks in the NFL. It also reinforces just how important a quarterback's college statistics are to the play in the NFL.

While at Kansas State University, in games in which he was primary quarterback, Freeman completed 59.5 percent of his passes and gained 7.0 yards per pass attempt. In the NFL in his time as Tampa Bay's primary quarterback, he has completed 58.8 percent of his passes and gained 7.0 yards per pass attempt. There is no statistically significant difference between the two data sets.

Ryan's statistics tell a similar story. In his games as Boston College's primary quarterback, he completed 59.6 percent of his passes and gained 6.9 yards per pass attempt. For the Atlanta Falcons, in his games as primary quarterback, he has completed 60.8 percent of his passes and gained 6.9 yards per pass attempt. Again, there is no statistically significant difference between the two data sets.

Going forward, we should all be keeping an eye on both Freeman's and Ryan's touchdown to interception ratios because it will be those ratios that provide the most information about how successful they are being in the NFL. They are certainly not going to be able to rely on their completion percentages or yards per pass attempt averages as truly elite quarterbacks would.

Los Angeles Lakers Strongest, Boston Celtics Most Susceptible In Back To Back Games

2011-02-02T09:47:00.007-05:00

Grinding out back to back games is the most grueling aspect of an NBA season, and performance in back to back games provides an excellent barometer for determining which teams are the most consistently dominant.

When it comes to back to back games, most teams perform much better in one game over the other; sometimes it is the first game and sometimes it is the second. It is extremely difficult to play well on consecutive nights, but the teams who manage to do so are the wheat that has separated themselves from the chaff that is the rest of the NBA.

Of the 16 teams I examined, the eight Eastern Conference and eight Western Conference teams that would qualify for the playoffs if the season ended today, only seven of the teams (Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, and New Orleans Hornets) have managed to outscore their opponents per 100 possessions on both nights of their back to back games.

Not all of those seven teams are created equally, though. Very good teams are those who can outscore their opponents by 100 possessions on consecutive nights, but the teams that have the consistent dominance of an elite team are the ones who can perform that feat with no significant drop-off in their performances.

In the Eastern Conference, two teams, the Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls, qualify as the most consistently dominant squads in back to back contests.

The Heat have outscored opponents by 8.5 points per 100 possessions in the first game and by 7.0 points per 100 possessions in the second game. Not only are the Heat handily beating their opponents on both nights, but there is only a difference of 1.5 points per 100 possessions between how they play in back to back games, displaying a high level of consistently excellent play.

The Bulls have also shown themselves to be a consistently elite team in back to back games, although to a slightly lesser extent than the Heat. In their 14 back to back games, the Bulls have outscored their opponents by 5.7 points per 100 possessions in the first game and by 6.9 points per 100 possessions in the second.

While the Eastern Conference is home to the Heat and the Bulls, which are two of the top three NBA teams in back to back games, it is also home to the most Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of all the 16 playoff-bound teams, the Boston Celtics.

Surprisingly, since the Celtics are universally agreed upon to be a championship-caliber team and have the best record in the Eastern Conference with 37 wins and 11 losses, they are the ones with the highest difference between their performances in back to back games, a difference of 13.8 points per 100 possessions. In the first games, the Celtics have outscored their foes by 14.3 points per 100 possessions, but on the second night of back to back games, they are only beating opponents by 0.5 points per 100 possessions.

The Celtics are unbeatable on the first night, but very susceptible to defeat whenever they are having to play their second game in a row. Therefore, no NBA team should fear the Celtics provided the Celtics played just the night before. Under that condition, the Celtics are no better than a .500 team.

Both the Atlanta Hawks and the Orlando Magic are two Eastern Conference teams that also have a difference of more than 10.0 points per 100 possessions between their play in back to back games.

The Hawks have a difference of 12.0 points per 100 possessions between their back to back games, being outscored by 4.4 points per 100 possessions in the first game and outscoring their opponents by 7.6 points per 100 possessions in the second game.

For the Magic, there is a drop-off of 10.2 points per 100 possessions between their back to back games. The Magic outscore their opponents by 11.4 points per 100 possessions in the first contest and only by 1.2 points per 100 possessions in the second. As impressive as the performances in their first games have been, there is a troubling lack of consistency when they have to play the next night.

In the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers are not just the best Western Conference team in back to back games, but they are the best in the NBA in their back to back performances.

The Los Angeles Lakers have outscored their foes by 13.1 points per 100 possessions on the first night of back to back games, second only to the Boston Celtics in first game performances, and have outscored their opponents by 7.7 points per 100 possessions in the second game, second to no one.

For all the criticism heaped upon the Lakers, criticism that only rings true if one is talking about the complete lack of production from the point guard position, they are still elite.

The San Antonio Spurs, which appear elite based on the fact they hold the best record in the NBA this season with a 40-8 mark, are decidedly un-elite in back to back games, placing them squarely in the same boat with the Boston Celtics as a team that is not dominant across all aspects of the game.

In the first games of back to back contests, the Spurs have outscored their opponents by 9.2 points per 100 possessions, but have been outscored by 1.1 points per 100 possessions whenever called upon to play the next day. That difference of 10.3 points per 100 possessions makes the Spurs one of the most inconsistent NBA teams in back to back games, a distinction that certainly tarnishes their stellar record just a bit.

Comfort for the Spurs can be found in knowing that they are not the most inconsistent Western Conference team in back to back games, however. The award for that dubious honor goes to the Utah Jazz with a difference of 12.3 points per 100 possessions between their back to back games. The Jazz are outscored by an astounding 11.4 points per 100 possessions in the first game and manage to just outscore their opponents by .9 points per 100 possessions in the second.

Poor performances in back to back games will not affect the Celtics and Spurs once they reach the postseason, but with seven sets of back to back games left for the Celtics and 10 sets of back to back games left for the Spurs, it could very well play a huge role in deciding seeding in the playoffs and which team receives the ultimate prize of homecourt advantage.

If at the end of the season the Heat or the Bulls sit atop the Eastern Conference and the Lakers have the best record in the Western Conference, it should not be surprising if back to back games are what allow them to overtake the Celtics and Spurs.

Colin Kaepernick's NFL Draft Prospects: The Prestige of Colin Kaepernick

2011-01-31T10:10:00.004-05:00

Nothing does revisionist history or illusion quite like college football's Senior Bowl. In the span of one week that is filled with a handful of practices and one meaningless game, the Senior Bowl can make four years of actual play on the field in meaningful games vanish into thin air and can turn a middling college quarterback like former University of Nevada-Reno's Colin Kaepernick into the next great thing.

However, to paraphrase Cutter from The Prestige, the Senior Bowl's trick in making an ordinary player's talent level look extraordinary by making his college past disappear is only the first two parts of any great magic trick. Since making something disappear is not enough, eventually you have to bring it back, which brings us to the third act, or the prestige, of this trick.

For this particular illusion, the prestige of Kaepernick involves reminding people of the real Kaepernick before they think that the hype and buzz surrounding Kaepernick's abilities is an accurate representation of him as a quarterback.

Last season for the Nevada Wolfpack, Kaepernick completed 64.9 percent of his passes, gained 8.4 yards per pass attempt, gained 13.0 yards per completion, and threw 21 touchdown passes (5.8 touchdown percentage) to eight interceptions (2.2 interception percentage). If Kaepernick had put up numbers like that consistently across his four years at Nevada, then he would be a bonafide NFL quarterback prospect worthy of being drafted, but in his other three seasons, he never came close to having a season like he did his senior year.

In his freshman season, Kaepernick was Nevada's primary quarterback for nine games, games in which he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards for the Wolfpack. During those nine games, Kaepernick completed 54.4 percent of his passes, gained 9.0 yards per pass attempt, and threw 19 touchdowns (7.9 touchdown percentage) to two interceptions (.8 interception percentage).

The reason for Kaepernick's extremely high yards per pass attempt average was due to the 16.5 yards he averaged per completion, but because of his low completion percentage, he was a boom-or-bust quarterback his freshman year, thereby reducing his passing efficiency.

For his sophomore season, Kaepernick played in 13 games as Nevada's primary quarterback and completed 54.3 percent of his passes, gained 7.4 yards per pass attempt, and threw 22 touchdowns (5.7 touchdown percentage) to seven interceptions (1.8 interception percentage).

Even though Kaepernick was throwing shorter passes his sophomore season with 13.7 yards per completion, he could still not improve upon his completion percentage from his freshman season.

While playing in 13 games as Nevada's primary quarterback in his junior season, Kaepernick completed 58.9 percent of his passes, gained 7.3 yards per attempt, and threw 20 touchdowns (7.1 touchdown percentage) to six interceptions (2.1 interception percentage).

It took Kaepernick's yards per completion dropping to 12.4, meaning he was throwing shorter and easier to complete passes, before his completion percentage could increase.

As you can see, Kaepernick increased his completion percentage, somewhat artificially, each year from his sophomore season to his junior season and his junior season to his senior campaign, but he started out with such a low completion percentage that even with the improvements, he can still be described as nothing more than a quarterback with average accuracy at best.

For Kaepernick's career as Nevada's primary quarterback, he completed 58.3 percent of his 1,265 passes, gained 8.0 yards per pass attempt, gained 13.7 yards per completion, and threw 82 touchdowns (6.5 touchdown percentage) to 23 interceptions (1.8 interception percentage).

Although not exactly a dangerous passer in college, Kaepernick was very dangerous as a runner, averaging 6.9 yards per pass attempt; as always, remember that sacks in college count against a quarterback's rushing totals. He was also great at keeping his interceptions to a minimum; it is too bad he could not keep his incomplete passes to the same minimum.

Although Kaepernick's entire career was unexceptional, NFL teams might fall victim to recency effect, where the most recently presented items are remembered best, and overrate what Kaepernick did in his senior season, which was his best overall season in college. However, they should understand what an outlier of a season that was for Kaepernick.

In an effort to find out which season of Kaepernick's four years in college was most representative of his true talent level in completion percentage, I separated each season and compared it to the other three seasons.

There were only two seasons that were statistically significantly different from the other three. The first season was his freshman year, where his completion percentage was 54.4 percent, which barely qualified as being statistically significantly different from his other three seasons where he combined to complete 59.3 percent of his passes.

The other season was his senior one, the one in which his completion percentage was 64.9 percent, where there was absolutely no doubt that it was statistically significantly different from his other seasons where he combined to complete just 55.7 percent of his passes. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Kaepernick would ever be able to complete 64.9 percent of his passes in the NFL over the course of his career.

It was Kaepernick's junior season that painted the most accurate portrait of his accuracy, or lack thereof. Kaepernick's junior completion percentage of 58.9 percent was almost identical to his 58.2 completion percentage in his other three seasons. That is the quarterback an NFL team will be getting if one chooses to draft Kaepernick, and it is a quarterback who does not possess the kind of accuracy that will translate to success in the NFL.

All NFL teams should be wary of the small sample size that one week provides in judging in whom to invest millions. The best method of judging a player's pro potential is to look at his entire college career because that will allow a team to have the most information possible about a player. When one does that for Kaepernick, one discovers that the real Kaepernick is an inaccurate passer, who is destined to struggle in the NFL and whose best season in college was a statistical outlier and unreliable in predicting his future going forward.

Is St. John's Basketball Really Better Off With Steve Lavin?

2011-01-27T11:16:00.004-05:00

Nineteen games into the 2010-11 season and into basketball head coach Steve Lavin's tenure, it certainly does not seem like St. John's is really any better off with Lavin manning the helm, which is surprising given the advantages Lavin has and the history of his current group of seniors.

In his first season as head coach, Lavin has inherited a team with a roster stability of 91.5 percent, meaning that 91.5 percent of the minutes St. John's has played this season have been played by players who were on the team last year. That level of continuity is extremely rare in college basketball and should afford an edge against the majority of the Red Storm's opponents as the longer a group of players play together, the better the team performs.

Lavin is also benefiting from being able to coach a group of seniors who improved over their first three seasons of college basketball and comprise eight of the ten players who have used at least 16 percent of the team's possessions according to kenpom.com.

As freshmen in the 2007-08 season, the current seniors were on a St. John's team that was outscored by 6.6 points per 100 possessions; the offensive and defensive efficiencies I used are unadjusted, which is why they will differ from the ones on kenpom.com. As sophomores, they were on a team that was outscored by 2.5 points per 100 possessions. Last season, as juniors, for the first time in their college basketball careers, the current group of seniors outscored their opponents, something they did to the tune of 2.4 points per 100 possessions.

Between their freshman and sophomore seasons, the current seniors were on teams that improved by 4.1 points per 100 possessions, and between their sophomore and junior seasons, they improved by 4.9 points per 100 possessions.

That level of consistent improvement from season to season calls into question why St. John's felt the need to fire Lavin's predecessor, Norm Roberts, at all. At the very least, he had earned the chance to coach out the seniors' college eligibility since they had continued to get better under his watch.

This season, in 19 games, the Red Storm have outscored their opponents by 3.2 points per 100 possessions, which seems like an improvement over how the seniors performed last year. However, it is not.

Last season, through 19 games, St. John's had outscored opponents by 5.5 points per 100 possessions. The problem St. John's has had over the past three seasons has always been how the team performs once it enters conference play. It is then that the Red Storm usually have a drop-off in their efficiency.

That is a trend that is continuing this season, even though Lavin is supposed to be an upgrade over Roberts. In the first eight Big East games St. John's has played, they have been outscored by 8.7 points per 100 possessions. Contrast that to last season, when in their first eight Big East games, the Red Storm were outscored by 8.3 points per 100 possessions, and one cannot help but assume Roberts could have done just as good a coaching job as Lavin has done this season.

Even if St. John's was having a better season, the team's success would have to be attributed first and foremost to roster stability and the fact the seniors were simply continuing their natural progression. Since the Red Storm have not really improved at all, though, it does call into question Lavin's coaching acumen. He certainly does not seem to be such a great coach based on the fact his senior-laden team is no better than they were last season when they were juniors.

Maybe going forward, Lavin will be able to bring to St. John's a higher quality of player than Roberts ever could have, which his 2011 recruiting class that is ranked second in the nation by Rivals.com does seem to indicate, and St. John's will become a nationally prominent college basketball program under his tutelage, but based on the first 19 games of his tenure, St. John's has yet to receive any advantage from having him as their head coach in a season where the team's composition suggests it should be playing better.

UCLA Football Needs to Put Rick Neuheisel On Notice

2011-01-26T10:53:00.005-05:00

The usual instances that lead to a college football program hiring a new coach are if the former coach retires voluntarily, if the former coach leaves and takes a coaching job somewhere else, if the former coach is fired, or if the former coach is forced to resign.

In the first two instances, provided the former coach was a successful one, the university should expect his successor to field teams that at least match his predecessor's squads. If the former coach can accomplish this task, then his tenure is considered a success. It is under these conditions that explain why Les Miles' reign as LSU's football coach should garner more praise.

In the other two instances, the university should expect the new head coach to surpass all of his predecessor's achievements. Otherwise, there would have been no point in replacing the former coach. This is the expectation UCLA no doubt had when they fired Karl Dorrell and hired Rick Neuheisel to take over his place.

In his three years as UCLA's football head coach, Neuheisel has failed to live up to expectations. Instead, Neuheisel's UCLA teams have performed worse than Dorrell's UCLA teams.

It is on offense where Neuheisel's teams have failed the most to even reach the level of Dorell's UCLA offensive units, let alone surpass them. Of the eight statistical categories at which I looked, Neuheisel's offenses were statistically significantly worse in four of them, in three of them his offense was just worse, and in only one category has Neuheisel's teams performed better than Dorrell's teams did.

Compared to Dorrell's offenses, Neuheisel's offenses have been statistically significantly worse in yards per completion (10.9 to 12.5), yards per pass attempt (5.9 to 6.9), touchdown percentage (2.4 percent to 5.0 percent), and points per game (20.0 to 26.6).

Neuheisel's teams have just been worse than Dorrell's teams in completion percentage (54.2 percent to 55.5 percent), yards per rush (3.6 to 3.9), and interception percentage (4.0 percent to 3.6 percent).

Only in avoiding sacks (7.0 sack percentage to 7.4 sack percentage) can Neuheisel's quarterbacks say they are better than Dorrell's quarterbacks, a meaningless advantage since it has not translated to greater proficiency in any other areas.

The decline in offensive production from Dorrell's teams to Neuheisel's teams should not be looked at in the same way as going from Mount Everest with an elevation of 29,029 feet to K2 with an elevation of 28,251 where at the end of the day, you are still incredibly high up. It is more like stepping from the bottom rung of a ladder with 100 rungs to the ground.

Dorrell's teams sported some pretty anemic offenses, with the exception of the 2005 squad. The fact Neuheisel's offenses have been even worse is a pretty big indictment against him.

Defensively, the difference between the two coaches' tenures is not as dramatic as it is on offense, but the edge still goes to Dorrell's teams. Dorrell's teams hold the advantage in completion percentage allowed (56.7 percent to 58.3 percent), yards per pass attempt allowed (6.4 to 6.7), yards per completion allowed (11.3 to 11.5), yards per rush allowed (4.0 to 4.5), touchdown percentage allowed (4.3 percent to 5.1 percent), sack percentage (6.6 percent to 6.3 percent), and points per game allowed (25.1 to 26.7).

Neuheisel's defenses have been better at intercepting passes than Dorrell's defenses were (3.6 interception percentage to 3.1 interception percentage), but the increase in interception percentage (16.1 percent increase) is less than the increase in their higher touchdown percentage allowed (18.6 percent increase), which means that Dorrell's defenses had a better ratio in touchdown passes allowed to passes intercepted.

Overall, Neuheisel's teams have been outscored by 6.7 points per game; Dorrell's teams outscored their opponents by 1.5 points per game.

Neuheisel has not only failed to live up to the expectations UCLA should have for him, but he has also failed to live up to the expectations he created for himself. After accepting the UCLA football head coach position, Neuheisel foolishly appeared in an ad created by the UCLA athletics marketing department proclaiming that "The Football Monopoly In L.A. Is Officially Over," which is another way of saying that under Neuheisel, UCLA was going to field teams that would equal rival USC's teams.

Since making that ad and taking over at UCLA, Neuheisel's teams are 0-3 against USC and have been outscored by 56 points. UCLA has also failed to match USC when the two universities are not facing off against each other.

As bad as Neuheisel's offenses look against Dorrell's, they look even more incompetent when compared to the offenses USC has fielded over the last three seasons. Of the eight statistical categories at which I looked, USC offenses hold a statistically significant advantage in seven of them and they are better than Neuheisel's teams in the other category.

USC's offenses have been statistically significantly better in completion percentage (62.4 percent to 54.2 percent), yards per pass attempt (7.8 to 5.9), yards per completion (12.5 to 10.9), yards per rush (5.1 to 3.6), touchdown percentage (6.6 percent to 2.4 percent), sack percentage (4.2 percent to 7.0 percent), and points per game (31.7 to 20.0).

The one category where USC's offenses have not been statistically significantly better is in interception percentage (3.3 percent to 4.0 percent), but combined with their domination in the touchdown percentage department, they are still showing themselves to be much better passing teams.

In comparing the Neuheisel's defenses to USC's defenses, USC holds a statistically significant advantage in yards per rush allowed (3.6 to 4.5) and points per game allowed (18.5 to 26.7). USC's defenses are simply stingier than Neuheisel's defenses in completion percentage allowed (54.9 percent to 58.3 percent), yards per pass attempt allowed (6.1 to 6.7), yards per completion allowed (11.1 to 11.5), touchdown percentage allowed (3.7 percent to 5.1 percent), and sack percentage (6.5 percent to 6.3 percent).

Neuheisel's defenses hold a slight advantage in interception percentage (3.6 percent to 3.4 percent), but that slight advantage is rendered moot by the huge disadvantage they have in touchdown percentage allowed.

Unless the definition of monopoly has changed over the past three years, the football monopoly in L.A. is very much alive and thriving. USC certainly has no reason to feel threatened by Neuheisel and UCLA.

Since Neuheisel's teams have performed so poorly, he has resorted to playing the blame game by getting rid of his assistant coaches. First, he fired defensive coordinator Chuck Bullough and wide receiver coach Reggie Moore in December, and more recently on January 23rd, he fired offensive coordinator Norm Chow.

Firing coordinators and assistant coaches are the last-ditch efforts of any coach seeking to deflect blame for a program's failure to succeed from landing at his feet.

However, if things continue to go as they have gone over the past three seasons, UCLA will have no choice but to fire Neuheisel or risk being called hypocrites for allowing Neuheisel to field worse teams than his predecessor who was fired.

The Orlando Magic Are A Better Team Since Their Trades

2011-01-21T09:30:00.007-05:00

So far, 16 games after the trades, in which the Orlando Magic acquired Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson, Gilbert Arenas, and Earl Clark, and shipped out Mickael Pietrus, Marcin Gortat, Rashard Lewis, and Vince Carter, were finalized with the players each suiting up for their new teams, the Magic are a better team.

In the 26 games the Magic played before their roster overhaul was complete, the Magic were outscoring their opponents by 4.2 points per 100 possessions, a rate not commensurate with an elite team.

Since then, the Magic have outscored their opponents by a more impressive 7.5 points per 100 possessions, a point differential more in line with how one of the best teams in the NBA would perform. Most of the outscoring of their opponents that the Magic have done over the last 16 games occurred in their nine-game winning streak where they beat their foes by 14.7 points per 100 possessions.

The two biggest differences in play between the Magic before the trade and the Magic since are in their improved assist rate (assists per 100 possessions) and shooting percentages.

The increase in the assist rate from 15.2 to 17.5 and the decrease in turnover rate (turnovers per 100 possessions) from 12.0 to 10.9 have everything to do with Hedo Turkoglu. In his playmaker and distribution role on offense, he is truly excelling. Turkoglu has not just returned to his level of play for the Magic since before he left after the 2008-09 season, he is playing better than he ever has for the franchise.

Turkoglu's 27.3 assist percentage and 15.2 turnover percentage comprise the best such ratio he has ever had over the course of his career. Also, his 0.159 win shares per 48 minutes are superior to anything he had done previously while wearing a Magic uniform.

The increases in shooting percentages, including boosts in effective field goal percentage from 51.9 percent to 53.4 percent and true shooting percentage from 55.2 percent to 56.9 percent, have been in large part due to three Magic players.

Jason Richardson is the first player that deserves mentioning. Richardson was secured from the Phoenix Suns to replace Vince Carter, a task he has completed most admirably.

For the Magic, Richardson has a 56.0 effective field goal percentage and a 57.9 true shooting percentage, superior to Carter's 52.1 effective field goal percentage and 55.7 true shooting percentage. The advantage Richardson holds over Carter in effective field goal percentage is due to his 39.8 three-point percentage; Carter's three-point percentage was 34.6 percent for the Magic this season.

With his 17.1 assist percentage, Carter was much better at setting up his teammates for baskets than Richardson (7.8 assist percentage), but with Turkoglu on the roster, the Magic only need Richardson to be an efficient shooter for the team, and he has performed so well in that singular role, his 112 points produced per 100 possessions top the more well-rounded Vince Carter's 110 points produced per 100 possessions.

The improvements the Magic have made on offense since the trade are not the result of just the new players on the roster. Two role players, J.J. Redick and Ryan Anderson, are also big reasons why the Magic's offense has been able to score at a more efficient clip, owing to the fact each player is sporting a spectacular 63.1 true shooting percentage in that time frame. They are also averaging 12.1 and 12.6 points per game, respectively.

Over the first 21 games of the season in which Redick played before the roster overhaul, he had a 57.9 true shooting percentage and averaged 8.9 points per game so he has increased his offensive output in a major way. Redick's improved shooting over the last 16 games is the major reason why he has been able to produce a team-leading 119 points per 100 possessions.

Ryan Anderson has also seen a great leap in production, but not necessarily because of the trade. Anderson was plagued by injuries before the trade occurred that limited his minutes and effectiveness. In the ten games he played before receiving new teammates, he managed only a 52.5 true shooting percentage and 4.7 points per game.

Since Anderson's return to healthiness over the past 14 games, he has continued the upward trend he has established over his three-year career. His true shooting percentage and offensive rating have increased from 53.2 percent and 108 points produced per 100 possessions as a rookie in 2008-09, to 57.4 percent and 112 points produced per 100 possessions, and finally to 60.6 percent and 123 points produced per 100 possessions this season.

We should not be surprised by Anderson's superb play this season. We should expect it.

Not everyone has participated equally in the Magic's elevated offensive efficiency, though. Gilbert Arenas, who was thought to be a major piece of the Magic's trades, has taken away from the offense's efficiency with his mediocre performances.

In fact, Arenas is accomplishing a feat I thought would be nigh impossible; in his 16 games with the Magic, he is actually playing worse than in his 21 games with the Wizards earlier this season where he was abysmal.

With the Wizards, Arenas's true shooting percentage was 50.5 percent and his offensive rating was 95 points produced per 100 possessions, which are the statistics of a completely ineffective offensive player. With the Magic, Arenas's true shooting percentage and offensive rating have dropped to 44.8 percent and 90 points produced per 100 possessions, respectively.

Arenas's horrendous shooting coupled with his too-high 26.3 usage percentage, second-highest on the team, is so detrimental that even with a perfectly respectable 30.6 assist percentage and 17.3 turnover percentage, he is the worst offensive player among the eight players who now receive consistent minutes for the Magic. Having Arenas on the floor damages the team's chances of winning.

Even with Arenas, who plays more like a saboteur than a teammate, the Magic have still been a better team since their new roster was finalized because of an improved offense. The new roster has been so good together that if they continue to perform at the same rate for the rest of the season, then they will certainly be a contender to win the Eastern Conference championship come the playoffs.

Jake Locker's NFL Draft Prospects: Don't Waste Your Draft Pick

2011-01-20T10:09:00.003-05:00

Along with trying to determine the meaning of life, one of our civilization's greatest mysteries is how anyone could still think former University of Washington quarterback Jake Locker is a viable NFL quarterback prospect. If Locker's actual mission before he started his college football career had been to spend the next four seasons proving just how unsuitable he is to play quarterback in the NFL, or in college for that matter, he could not have done a better job.

Right away, Locker started his college career with a troubling whimper as the hype surrounding him simply did not match his actual play on the field. His hype has tried again and again to cover up his deficiencies for his entire four years at Washington, but it is time to pull back the curtain and reveal the true Jake Locker.

In his freshman season, Locker completed an astonishingly horrendous 47.5 percent of his passes in his eleven games as Washington's primary quarterback; he actually threw more incomplete passes than complete passes, which is an amazing feat. Locker also only managed to gain 6.5 yards per pass attempt, and threw 14 touchdowns (4.5 touchdown percentage) to 15 interceptions (4.8 interception percentage).

Locker apologists may attempt to explain away Locker's truly awful freshman season by saying he was still raw and unpolished, but there is no denying Locker was a terrible quarterback as a freshman.

Out of the 117 FBS qualifying quarterbacks in 2007, Locker was 114th in completion percentage and 83rd in yards per pass attempt. The idea that someone who ranked so low among his college contemporaries would one day be good enough to start for an NFL team is nothing short of ludicrous.

During Locker's truncated sophomore season due to a thumb injury suffered against Stanford, he only played three games as Washington's primary quarterback. He did not play well during those three games, though, since he could only complete 53.6 percent of his passes and gain 5.5 yards per pass attempt.

The 12.8 percent increase in his completion percentage from his freshman season to his limited sophomore season is negated by the 15.4 percent decrease he experienced in yards per pass attempt.

Locker came back healthy for his junior season to a new head coach, Steve Sarkisian. Sarkisian had had success with college quarterbacks before taking over the Washington football program so if anyone was going to turn Locker into a decent college quarterback, it was going to be Sarkisian.

Sarkisian's tutelage seemed to pay off for Locker in 2009 as he had his best season as a collegiate passer; for an actual elite quarterback, the season would have been an embarrassment, but for Locker it was a marked improvement.

In 2009, Locker completed 58.2 percent of his passes, gained 7.1 yards per pass attempt, and threw 21 touchdowns (5.3 touchdown percentage) to 11 interceptions (2.8 interception percentage).

The term best is relative because even though Locker played as well as he could, he was still 71st out of 115 qualifying FBS quarterbacks in completion percentage and 69th out of 115 in yards per pass attempt. Yet again, it was a below-average passing season for Locker.

Locker then spent his senior season showing everyone the improvement he made his junior season was only a mirage by regressing to even further below-average levels. For his 2010 season, Locker completed only 55.4 percent of his passes, gained 6.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 17 touchdowns (5.1 touchdown percentage) to 9 interceptions (2.7 interception percentage).

Compared to the 115 other qualifying FBS quarterbacks, Locker's completion percentage ranked 101st and his yards per pass attempt ranked 75th.

For Locker's entire Washington career as the team's primary quarterback, he completed a measly 54.0 percent of his passes, gained an embarrassingly low 6.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw 53 touchdowns (4.7 touchdown percentage) to 35 interceptions (3.1 interception percentage).

No quarterback who played that poorly in college is worthy of even being on an NFL team's practice squad, never mind starting a meaningful game for one.

No matter what or how many physical tools Locker may possess, they cannot begin to mask the ugliness of his college passing statistics, numbers that should really keep Locker from even being drafted.

For committing the cardinal sin of ignoring a player's production on the field in favor of largely meaningless intangibles, whichever NFL team does waste a draft pick on Locker deserves to lose all the games it no doubt will if it ever lets him start any games.

Ryan Mallett's NFL Draft Prospects: Will The Real Ryan Mallett Please Stand Up?

2011-01-19T02:49:00.005-05:00

Like his quarterback colleague Cameron Newton, former University of Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett's collegiate career raises more questions than it provides answers, and before any NFL team drafts Mallett, that franchise must first figure out just which Ryan Mallett is the true one.

The first Ryan Mallett the college football world saw after his transfer from the University of Michigan was the 2009 vintage. That Ryan Mallett completed a very inaccurate 55.8 percent of his passes, but his season was saved by his 9.0 yards per pass attempt, thanks to an average of 16.2 yards per receptions, and his 30 touchdowns (7.4 touchdown percentage) to 7 interceptions (1.7 interception percentage).

Based on his passing profile where he had a low completion percentage paired with a high yards per attempt average, the 2009 version of Mallett could best be classified as a boom-or-bust quarterback. As the name suggests, a boom-or-bust quarterback is not the kind of quarterback on which a team should want to rely.

While a boom-or-bust quarterback will net his team some big plays, he will almost as often, as Mallett's 55.8 completion percentage can attest, throw an incompletion, thereby robbing the offense of consistency and efficiency.

A lack of consistency was the hallmark of 2009 Mallett's season. The standard deviation, which is a great tool for measuring consistency, of Mallett's completion percentage was a remarkable, in a truly terrible way, 0.187. The standard deviation for most quarterbacks' completion percentages is around 0.100; anything too high above that is the sign of a very inconsistent passer, of whom you cannot be too sure about.

From an NFL standpoint, what teams should focus on is not the gaudy yards per pass attempt or stellar yards per completion. As research I did a few years ago turned up, yards per pass attempt and yards per completion in college have no bearing on what the same quarterback's yards per pass attempt and yards per completion will be in the NFL.

It is a college quarterback's completion percentage that corresponds most to his NFL career as it is the very rare NFL quarterback whose NFL completion percentage is statistically significantly better than his college mark.

Ryan Mallett's 2009 season speaks to a quarterback whose issues with inaccuracy are too great to predict he would be very successful in the NFL since he was below both the median completion percentage of 59.3 percent for qualifying FBS quarterbacks in 2009 and the median completion percentage of 60.7 percent of qualifying NFL quarterbacks in 2009. By any measure, Mallett's 2009 completion percentage was a below-average one.

Mallett's accuracy problem is one it would seem the 2010 version of Mallett solved, but just how representative his 2010 completion percentage is of his true passing talent is almost impossible to determine. In the season that ended only a couple of weeks ago for Mallett, he completed 64.6 percent of his passes, gained 9.5 yards per pass attempt, and threw 31 touchdowns (7.8 touchdown percentage) to 12 interceptions (3.0 interception percentage) in games where he was Arkansas's primary quarterback.

Compared to his 2009 season, Mallett's completion percentage increased by 15.8 percent, an improvement so drastic one has to question just how sustainable it really is. Some of the increase in his accuracy has to do with the fact his yards per completion dropped to 14.7 so he was not throwing as many deep, harder to complete passes, and there is a correlation of -0.276 between Mallett's yards per completion and his completion percentage.

The negative correlation shows there is a inverse relationship between the two data sets where as his yards per completion decreased, then his completion percentage increased, but the correlation is not strong enough to explain the entire incredible leap in passing accuracy.

No one can definitively say without a shadow of a doubt that Mallett is now a 64.6 percent passer because still lurking in the background is his 2009 season where he was amazingly erratic as a passer.

The first impulse is to give added weight to his 2010 season because it happened most recently, but plenty of athletes' most recent seasons are not characteristic of their true ability.

However, there is no denying that he did make some legitimate improvement so his 2009 season probably should not be given more weight, either. Therefore, it is most likely that Mallett's true accuracy lies somewhere in the middle, but just where in the middle is the question.

Perhaps Mallett's true accuracy is smack dab in the middle since his career completion percentage at Arkansas is 60.2 percent; his career yards per attempt average is 9.3, his career touchdown percentage is 7.6 percent, and his career interception percentage is 2.4 percent. If Mallett really is only capable of being a 60.2 percent passer over his NFL career, NFL teams should not be fighting each other to have him on their rosters because that would only make him a league-average passer in terms of accuracy.

Perhaps his accuracy is closer to 55.8 percent than it is to 64.6 percent or perhaps it is reversed and his accuracy is closer to 64.6 percent than 55.8 percent.

Then again, with his career completion percentage's extremely high standard deviation of 0.151, the one thing we do know for certain is that Mallett is too inconsistent to be considered an elite quarterback.

Of course, trying to figure out Mallett's true accuracy might all be a moot point if he is nothing more than a product of his head coach Bobby Petrino's offensive system. Petrino is known to have an offensive scheme that is very friendly to quarterbacks, and if we are to compare Mallett's career to two other college quarterbacks who played two seasons under Petrino, we find that Mallett does not compare favorably.

Former University of Louisville quarterback Stefan LeFors was the first college quarterback to have Petrino as a head coach. During LeFors's two seasons under Petrino in which he was Louisville's primary quarterback for 28 games, he completed 66.0 percent of his passes, gained 9.3 yards per pass attempt, and threw 34 touchdowns (5.7 touchdown percentage) to 13 interceptions (2.2 interception percentage).

LeFors's career yards per pass attempt matches Mallett's, and his completion percentage blows Mallett's away. It is not quite statistically significantly better than Mallett's, but it is not far away, either. Also, LeFors's completion percentage's standard deviation of only 0.100 shows him to be a much more consistent passing quarterback.

Despite playing in the same offensive system and having a college career that is better than Mallett's because of the superior completion percentage, LeFors is now a free-agent quarterback after failing to stick in the Canadian Football League.

Former University of Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm is the other college quarterback who spent at least two seasons under Petrino. During Brohm's 22 games as Louisville's primary quarterback in that time frame, he completed 66.2 percent of his passes, gained 9.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw 36 touchdowns (5.7 touchdown percentage) to 10 interceptions (1.6 interception percentage).

Brohm actually has a better yards per pass attempt average than Mallett, and like Lefors, Brohm is clearly superior in completion percentage and accuracy. Brohm was also incredibly more consistent during his time under Petrino as his completion percentage's standard deviation is only 0.089. There is no question Brohm was a better college quarterback for Petrino than Mallett was.

Brohm is now a back-up quarterback for the Buffalo Bills.

If two quarterbacks who played better for Petrino than Mallett did cannot even become full-time starters in the NFL, it calls into question whether Mallett is capable of being a successful NFL quarterback; that is on top of the other questions his career raises.

Not only is there no telling which of the two Ryan Malletts, the 2009 version or the 2010 version, is a more accurate portrait of the kind of quarterback he is, but he is not even the best college quarterback his coach ever coached.

Based on those two aspects, NFL teams would be smart to stay away from Mallett and let some other team find out how good or bad he really is. There is simply too much uncertainty surrounding him to risk investing a great deal of money into such an inconsistent and possibly mediocre quarterback.

Cameron Newton's NFL Prospects: Are We Sure He Is Even That Good?

2011-01-17T10:44:00.009-05:00

There is no denying that former Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton turned in a fantastic 2010 college football season, one well deserving of a Heisman Trophy. In his 14 games this season, Newton completed 66.1 percent of his passes, gained an extraordinary 10.2 yards per pass attempt, and threw 30 touchdown passes (10.7 touchdown percentage) to only seven interceptions (2.5 interception percentage). For good measure, Newton also had 264 rush attempts for 1,473 rush yards and a 5.6 yards per rush average that is made more impressive when one remembers that sacks in college count against a quarterback's rush totals.

Newton's fine quarterback play was the main reason why Auburn's offense was so incredibly dominant this season and ended up winning the BCS title. However, one great season in college football is never good enough for anyone to definitively say a quarterback will be a good pro because it fails to eliminate question marks about a player's true talent.

Having one excellent season as a college quarterback is no great feat as plenty of quarterbacks before Newton have done it and most have gone on to either fade into football obscurity or football mediocrity.

Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy in 2009, his first season as Alabama's primary quarterback, which is attempting the most passes or throwing the most passing yards for his team, completed 60.2 percent of his passes, gained 7.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw 17 touchdowns (5.2 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (1.2 interception percentage). Alabama won a BCS title with McElroy as a quarterback, but his first season as a starter was nothing extraordinary.

Just this past season, however, McElroy improved dramatically, completing 70.9 percent of his passes, gaining 9.5 yards per pass attempt, and throwing 20 touchdowns (6.4 touchdown percentage) to five interceptions (1.6 interception percentage). McElroy's season was every bit as great as Newton's, and yet no one is talking about him as a top quarterback prospect because there is no certainty about which season is more representative of his ability. McElroy is just one quarterback who put together a great season.

Southern Methodist sophomore quarterback Kyle Padron exploded on the college football scene last season as a freshman. Over the last seven games of 2009, Padron completed 67.2 percent of his passes, gained 9.6 yards per pass attempt, and threw 10 touchdowns (5.0 touchdown percentage) to 4 interceptions (2.0 interception percentage).

In the season that just ended, Padron's numbers fell off precipitously, and he completed only 59.4 percent of his passes, gained just 7.5 yards per pass attempt, and threw 31 touchdowns (6.1 touchdown percentage) to 14 interceptions (2.8 interception percentage). Think how foolish it would have been if after Padron's freshman campaign, which was every bit as good as Newton's 2010 season, we would have anointed him as a top quarterback prospect. Padron's one excellent season now does not seem indicative of his true talent.

Current Carolina Panthers quarterback and former Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen also had one excellent college football season. In his junior year, which turned out to be his last collegiate season, Clausen completed 68.0 percent of his passes, gained 8.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 28 touchdowns (6.6 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (.9 interception percentage).

Clausen's extremely efficient junior season came out of nowhere based on the fact he was a below average to average passer in his other two seasons at Notre Dame. His freshman season, in games as Notre Dame's primary quarterback, Clausen completed 58.0 percent of his passes, gained a pathetic 5.3 yards per pass attempt, and threw seven touchdown passes (5.5 touchdown percentage) to four interceptions (3.1 interception percentage).

Clausen's sophomore effort was little better as he completed 60.9 percent of his passes, gained 7.2 yards per pass attempt, and threw 25 touchdowns (5.7 touchdown percentage) to 17 interceptions (3.9 interception percentage).

Before Clausen's excellent junior season, he had spent more time being a mediocre quarterback, but that still did not keep him from being great for one magical season.

Despite Clausen's impressive junior season at Notre Dame, based on his play this season for the Panthers, when it looked most of the times as if he had never played quarterback before in his life, it is obvious Clausen has more mediocrity in him than excellence.

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback and former LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who many consider as the biggest draft bust in NFL history although he never should have been selected so highly in the first place, also had one great season as a college football quarterback. His junior season was one in which he completed 67.8 percent of his passes, gained 9.2 yards per pass attempt, and threw 28 touchdowns (8.2 touchdown percentage) to eight interceptions (2.3 interception percentage). Again, that season is comparable to Newton's 2010 year.

Russell, however, was not nearly so good in his other two seasons as LSU's primary quarterback. In his freshman season, Russell was pretty awful, as he completed a lousy 50.3 percent of his passes, gained 7.5 yards per pass attempt, and threw nine touchdowns (7.0 touchdown percentage) to two interceptions (1.6 interception percentage).

Russell's sophomore season was better than his freshman one, but still not one that even whispered that here is a future star NFL quarterback. In 2005, Russell completed only 60.5 percent of his passes, gained 7.9 yards per pass attempt, and threw 15 touchdowns (4.8 touchdown percentage) to nine interceptions (2.9 interception percentage).

Once again, Russell's college career proves that even a quarterback who is average at best in his other seasons can put it all together for one great season.

Current Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and former University of Houston quarterback Kevin Kolb is another quarterback whose ordinary seasons did not prevent him from having one great year.

Kolb spent the first three seasons of his collegiate career displaying middling accuracy. As a freshman, Kolb completed 60.9 percent of his passes, gained 8.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw 25 touchdowns (7.0 touchdown percentage) to six interceptions (1.7 interception percentage). For his sophomore year, Kolb's completion percentage dropped to 56.1 percent, he gained 7.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 11 touchdowns (3.1 touchdown percentage) to six interceptions (1.7 interception percentage). As a junior, Kolb completed 60.5 percent of his passes, gained 7.8 yards per pass attempt, and threw 19 touchdowns (4.5 touchdown percentage) to 15 interceptions (3.6 interception percentage).

While none of Kolb's first three college seasons were anything other than average, he still managed to have one great college football season.

If those examples are not enough to convince you of how unimportant having just one great college football season is in determining how good of a quarterback a player really is, ask Mark Sanchez and the New York Jets if they would not both be better off had Sanchez spent another year at USC honing his quarterback craft.

In Sanchez's one year as a starting quarterback in college, he had an extremely effective season, completing 65.8 percent of his passes, gaining 8.8 yards per attempt, and throwing 34 touchdowns (9.3 touchdown percentage) to 10 interceptions (2.7 interception percentage).

Since that year, in his two seasons as the New York Jets starting quarterback, Sanchez has not come within a marathon's worth of miles of matching any of those college statistics for an extended period of time, and has actually been one of the worst passing quarterbacks in the NFL.

If you look at the college careers of the current elite crop of quarterbacks, be it Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, or Drew Brees, you will find quarterbacks who started at least two years in college and put together consistently excellent seasons with no great difference between any two seasons. What you will not find is just one great season with no other seasons of equal production to back it up.

Not only does Newton only have one year of starting experience, but he was only asked to throw 20 passes per game, 280 pass attempts over 14 games, during that one year so he does not even have the experience of truly carrying an offense with his arm; those 280 pass attempts are the epitome of a sample size that is too small to gauge a college quarterback's pro prospects. No NFL team is going to have great success throwing only 20 times a game, which is all Newton is familiar with.

In addition, there were slight negative correlations between Newton's number of pass attempts and his completion percentage (-0.122) and also his number of pass attempts and his yards per pass attempt (-0.208) so there is some evidence that the more times Newton was asked to throw, the worse he got as a quarterback.

For all of his athletic ability, Newton is not special enough that he should not be examined less rigorously as a quarterback simply because he won a Heisman Trophy and a national championship in the same year or because he is 6'6 and has a very strong arm. Under such rigorous examination, the only thing that can surely be said about Newton is no one knows how good a quarterback he really is.

NFL franchises should never draft a quarterback, let alone using a high draft pick on one, based mostly on a player's potential; leave drafting mostly on potential to the NBA. Instead an NFL team should know exactly what kind of quarterback they will be getting. With Newton, that level of certainty is an impossibility, rendering him unworthy of a high draft pick.

NFL Playoffs: Predicting Upsets Using Teams' Home And Road Splits

2011-01-14T17:17:00.007-05:00

Due to the NFL playoffs' single elimination format, even more so than in the regular season, how well a team performs at home or how well a team performs on the road can be the determining factor in which teams win and advance and which teams lose and go home. As we enter the divisional round of the playoffs, now is as good a time as any to utilize the remaining teams' home and road splits to help in predicting which match-ups are most liable to result in an upset.

Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers hold the distinction of being the only playoff team with home-field advantage this weekend that plays better on both sides of the ball when playing at home, although the additional yards the offense gains at home do not lead to more points.

The Steelers experience a modest increase in offensive production when playing at Heinz Field. Compared to when playing on the road, they have a 3.2 percent lower completion percentage (61.3 percent to 63.3 percent), but they gain 2.5 percent more yards per pass attempt (8.2 to 8.0), 3.8 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt (8.3 to 8.0), 2.9 percent more net yards per pass attempt (7.0 to 6.8), 4.4 percent more adjusted net yards per pass attempt (7.1 to 6.8), and 5.5 percent more yards per completion (13.4 to 12.7). The Steelers' increase in yardage per play is not limited to passing plays as they also gain 9.3 percent more yards per rush (4.3 to 3.9).

Additionally, despite a decrease of 16.0 percent in touchdown percentage (4.2 percent to 5.0 percent), the Steelers' also have a slightly better touchdown to interception ratio due to a 34.8 percent decrease in interception percentage (1.5 percent to 2.3 percent). It is also more difficult to sack a Steeler quarterback at home as the Steelers' sack percentage decreases by 11.4 percent (7.8 percent to 8.8 percent).

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, none of their improvements on offense translate into more points for the team; in fact, the Steelers score 2.9 percent fewer points at home than on the road (23.1 to 23.8). The difference is not great, but it is there.

On defense, the Steelers maintain their point differential at home by allowing 9.8 percent fewer points at home (13.8 to 15.3). They also allow a 2.6 percent lower completion percentage (60.9 percent to 61.5 percent), 6.2 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (6.1 to 6.5), 10.9 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (4.9 to 5.5), 5.4 percent decrease in net yards per pass attempt (5.2 to 5.5), 10.9 percent decrease in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (4.1 to 4.6), 5.7 percent decrease in yards per completion (10.0 to 10.6), and 27.6 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (2.1 percent to 2.9 percent).

The most important improvement the Steelers make on defense when playing at home is in keeping opposing quarterbacks from throwing touchdowns, something they do without intercepting more passes. The Steelers defense's interception percentage at home is slightly less than what it is on the road by a decrease of 2.8 percent (3.5 percent to 3.6 percent).

The Steelers also allow a 22.2 percent increase in yards per rush allowed (3.3 to 2.7), but that difference means little since allowing only 3.3 yards per rush is still playing incredibly stingy run defense. It just so happens they clamp down even more on running backs on the road.

Overall, the Steelers have a 9.3 point per game advantage over opponents at home compared to an 8.5 points per game advantage over opponents on the road. No matter where you face the Steelers, you are facing a fearsome opponent.

If the Steelers were playing any of the other three teams, they would not have to worry about being upset, but they are not just facing one of their most heated division rivals in the Baltimore Ravens. The Steelers are also facing the best road team playing on the road this week and the road team that has the best chance of winning this weekend.

For the season, which includes last week's wild card win against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Ravens have outscored their opponents by 6.0 points per game on the road.

Why the Ravens win has little to do with their offense, however. It would be more accurate to say the Ravens win on the road despite their offense's best efforts.

On the road, the Ravens' passers, which is really just Joe Flacco as he has thrown all but two of the Ravens' passes this season, are 1.8 percent better at completion percentage (63.9 percent to 62.8 percent), but that increase in accuracy is undone by a 17.0 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (6.8 to 8.2), a 26.7 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.6 to 9.0), an 11.8 percent decrease in net yards per pass attempt (6.0 to 6.8), a 23.0 percent decrease in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.7 to 7.4), an 18.3 percent decrease in yards per completion (10.7 to 13.1), a 20.7 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (4.6 percent to 5.8 percent), and a mind-boggling 188.9 increase in interception percentage (2.6 percent to .9 percent).

At least Flacco can say his sack percentage is 24.4 percent (6.8 percent to 9.0 percent) lower on the road.

The Ravens' running backs not wanting to feel left out of the offense's ineptitude have gained 21.4 percent fewer yards per rush on the road (3.3 to 4.2).

For all the Ravens' poor offensive output on the road, they still only have a 6.0 percent decrease in points per game (22.1 to 23.5), thanks to a Ravens defense that generates turnovers and sometimes converts those turnovers directly to touchdowns.

Every time the Ravens play on the road, the Ravens' offense should be thankful for Ray Lewis and the Ravens defense that is the embodiment of the old adage that defense travels better than offense. No defense playing on the road this week travels like the Baltimore Ravens do.

The Ravens on the road force opposing offenses to complete 14.8 percent fewer passes (53.7 percent to 63.0 percent), gain 13.4 percent fewer yards per pass attempt (5.8 to 6.7), gain 34.9 percent fewer adjusted yards per pass attempt (4.5 to 6.3), gain 17.7 percent fewer net yards per pass attempt (5.1 to 6.2), and gain 32.8 percent fewer adjusted net yards per pass attempt (3.9 to 5.8) than they do when playing at home.

They also limit opponents' touchdown percentages, forcing opposing quarterbacks into a 32.6 percent lower touchdown percentage (2.9 percent to 4.3 percent). At the same time the Ravens are limiting opposing quarterbacks' touchdown percentages, they are increasing the same quarterbacks' interception percentages by 40.0 percent (4.2 percent to 3.0 percent) so it is virtually impossible to throw a touchdown on the Ravens before throwing an interception.

Also, the Ravens defense has a 44.7 percent increase in sack percentage (5.5 percent to 3.8 percent) so it is an incredibly difficult feat for a quarterback to have a good game while facing the Ravens.

Where you can find fault with the Ravens defense is in the 1.9 percent increase they allow in yards per completion (10.9 to 10.7) and a 13.5 percent increase in yards per rush (4.2 to 3.7).

As a team, the Ravens allow 2.4 percent fewer points per game on the road (16.1 to 16.5). If the Ravens defense plays its usual ferocious road defense against the Steelers, that could definitely be enough for the Ravens to notch another road playoff victory.

Green Bay Packers at Atlanta Falcons

It should come as no surprise that the Atlanta Falcons play well at home. Much has been made of quarterback Matt Ryan's 20-2 record at home, helped by a 7-1 record this season that saw the Falcons outscore their opponents by 9.4 points per game.

That Matt Ryan receives most of the credit for the Falcons' stellar home record is as it should be because the Falcons offense leads the way for the team when it plays at home.

Playing in the Georgia Dome this season as opposed to when the Falcons have played on the road, they complete 13.1 percent more passes (66.4 percent to 58.7 percent), gain 8.0 percent more yards per pass attempt (6.7 to 6.2), gain 19.6 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.3 to 6.1), gain 12.5 percent more net yards per pass attempt (6.3 to 5.6), gain 25.5 percent more adjusted net yards per pass attempt (6.9 to 5.5), and gain 8.1 percent more yards per rush (4.0 to 3.7). The Falcons do see a 2.9 percent decrease in yards per completion (10.2 to 10.5), but their increase in completion percentage and yards per pass attempt more than make up for that.

Where Matt Ryan, who has thrown all but six of the Falcons' pass attempts this season, really excels is in improving his touchdown to interception ratio. Not only does he improve his touchdown percentage by 15.6 percent (5.2 percent to 4.5 percent) at home, but more importantly he also cuts down his interception percentage by 52.3 percent (1.0 percent to 2.1 percent), which is reflected in his adjusted passing statistics and makes him a more effective quarterback.

Ryan also gets sacked less at home with a 23.3 percent decrease in sack percentage (3.3 percent to 4.3 percent).

The Ryan-led Falcons manage to score 7.2 percent more points per game when at home (26.8 to 25.0).

The Falcons defense also does its job to protect home field, but to a lesser extent, and by deploying a bend but do not break philosophy. The Falcons defense at home gives up a few more passing yards as evidenced by the fact the unit allows opponents a .3 percent increase in completion percentage (65.1 percent to 64.9 percent), a 1.5 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (6.9 to 6.8), a 3.4 percent increase in adjusted yards per attempt (6.0 to 5.8), a 3.3 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (6.2 to 6.0), a 5.9 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.4 to 5.1), and a 1.0 percent increase in yards per completion (10.6 to 10.5). The Falcons are a tiny bit better against the run at home by 2.1 percent in yards per rush allowed (4.6 to 4.7)

The Falcons also allow a 2.4 percent increase in opponents' touchdown percentage (4.2 percent to 4.1 percent), a 7.3 percent decrease in interception percentage (3.8 percent to 4.1 percent), and a 22.0 percent decrease in sack percentage (4.6 percent to 5.9 percent).

At the end of the day, though, the Falcons give up 6.5 percent fewer points per game (17.4 to 18.6) when they play at home so the extra yards for their opponents are not becoming extra points.

The Atlanta Falcons' opponent this weekend, the Green Bay Packers, are the second best road team of the four road teams, outscoring their road opponents by 3.5 points per game. The Packers have managed to post a positive point differential despite the major regression the offense undergoes on the road.

At home, the Packers passing offense is so outstanding it makes the passing production of the team on the road seem like it is bad even though the Packers on the road are a perfectly good passing team and sport a level of production most NFL teams would love to have.

Still, when the Packers are on the road, they complete 3.3 percent fewer passes (64.2 percent to 66.4 percent), gain 14.0 percent fewer yards per attempt (7.0 to 9.3), gain 27.8 percent fewer adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.0 to 9.7), gain 20.2 percent fewer net yards per pass attempt (6.1 to 8.4), gain 30.7 percent fewer adjusted net yards per pass attempt (6.1 to 8.8), gain 22.1 percent fewer yards per completion (10.9 to 14.0), and see their touchdown percentage decrease by 41.0 percent (4.6 percent to 7.8 percent).

The Packers' rushing attack picks up some of the slack, increasing by 13.9 percent in yards per rush (4.1 to 3.6). Also, on the bright side, the Packers have a 12.0 percent decrease in interception percentage (2.2 percent to 2.5 percent) and an 11.3 percent decrease in sack percentage (6.2 percent to 6.9 percent).

Unfortunately, the Packers' points per game still decrease by 40.0 percent when they are on the road (18.3 to 30.5).

Even when the Packers offense only looks ordinary on the road, the Packers defense does a good job of keeping the offense in the game by not regressing as sharply.

Defensively on the road versus when they are at home, the Packers allow opponents a 1.6 lower completion percentage (55.7 percent to 56.6 percent), 6.3 percent higher yards per pass attempt (6.8 to 6.4), 41.9 percent higher adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.1 to 4.3), 3.7 percent higher net yards per pass attempt (5.6 to 5.4), 47.1 percent higher adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.0 to 3.4), 7.0 percent higher yards per completion (12.2 to 11.4), 4.4 percent higher yards per rush (4.7 to 4.5), 20.6 percent lower touchdown percentage (2.7 percent to 3.4 percent), 57.8 percent lower interception percentage (2.7 percent to 6.4 percent), 6.3 higher sack percentage (8.4 percent to 7.9 percent), and 2.9 percent more points per game (21.1 to 20.5).

For some reason, and it keeps the Packers from being more effective defensively on the road, they are much worse at intercepting the ball. Otherwise, the Packers defense is almost as good on the road as at home and should keep the Packers into the game against the Falcons.

Furthermore, the Packers offense should not have any great difficulties moving the ball against the Falcons as the Falcons defense allows at home basically what the Packers offense gains yardage-wise on the road so the Packers and Falcons game looks to be a closely contested affair with Packers having a good shot to win.

Seattle Seahawks at Chicago Bears

The next home playoff team, the Chicago Bears, is also the worst home team playing this weekend as they have been outscored by 0.5 points per game at home.

Do not blame the offense for the team's home woes, though. The Bears are a much better team offensively at home than they are on the road, with a 5.4 percent decrease in completion percentage (57.7 percent to 61.0 percent), a 28.6 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (8.1 to 6.3), a 43.1 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.3 to 5.1), a 42.6 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (6.7 to 4.7), a 63.9 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.9 to 3.6), a 35.6 percent increase in yards per completion (14.1 to 10.4), a 2.6 percent increase in yards per rush (4.0 to 3.9), a 36.6 percent increase in touchdown percentage (5.6 percent to 4.1 percent), a 4.3 percent decrease in interception percentage (4.4 percent to 4.6 percent), a 16.2 percent decrease in sack percentage (9.8 percent to 11.7 percent), and an 11.1 percent increase in points per game (22.0 to 19.8).

The problems arise when the offense leaves the field and the defense takes over and undermines all the offense has done. Unlike the Bears' offense where except in completion percentage, the unit improves in every category when playing at home, the Bears' defense allows opponents to get better in every category except yards per rush allowed.

The Bears at home, compared to when on the road, allow opposing offenses to post a 4.9 percent higher completion percentage (63.8 percent to 60.8 percent), a 12.7 percent higher yards per pass attempt (7.1 to 6.3), a 26.6 percent higher adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.4 to 4.7), a 22.2 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (6.6 to 5.4), a 51.2 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.9 to 3.9), a 17.3 percent increase in yards per completion (11.2 to 10.4), a 7.7 percent decrease in yards per rush (3.6 to 3.9), a 66.7 percent increase in touchdown percentage (3.0 percent to 1.8 percent), a 30.2 percent decrease in interception percentage (3.0 percent to 4.3 percent), a 47.9 percent decrease in sack percentage (3.8 percent to 7.3 percent), and a 69.2 percent increase in points per game (22.5 to 13.3).

Ordinarily with home splits like that, the Bears would be the team most susceptible to an upset, but they are going to be playing the Seattle Seahawks, who are an absolutely horrendous road team, having been outscored by 12.5 points per game on the road. Looking at the way the Seahawks have played on the road over the course of the season, it looks very unlikely they will be able to beat the Bears in Chicago for the second time this season.

When the Seahawks are on the road, the offense does several things better than when playing at home. On the road, the Seahawks have a 4.3 percent higher completion percentage (61.0 percent to 58.5 percent), a 6.3 percent higher yards per pass attempt (6.8 to 6.4), a 3.6 percent higher adjusted yards per pass attempt (5.7 to 5.5), an 8.9 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (6.1 to 5.6), a 4.2 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.0 to 4.8), a 1.8 percent increase in yards per completion (11.1 to 10.9) and a 10.5 percent decrease in interception percentage (3.4 percent to 3.8 percent).

They also do a few things worse on the road, gaining 16.7 percent fewer yards per rush (3.5 to 4.2), posting a 50.0 percent lower touchdown percentage (2.1 percent to 4.2 percent), and posting a 3.4 percent higher sack percentage (6.1 percent to 5.9 percent).

Due to the precipitous drop in touchdown percentage, the few outweighs the several and the Seahawks have scored 30.3 percent fewer points per game (16.8 to 24.1) on the road than they have at home.

On the other hand, the Seahawks on defense on the road do one thing well, getting a 67.4 percent increase in sack percentage (7.2 percent to 4.3 percent). Everything else, the Seahawks do very poorly.

The Seahawks when playing defense on the road as opposed to at home allow opponents a 5.6 percent increase in completion percentage (60.4 percent to 57.2 percent), a 35.5 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (8.4 to 6.2), a 51.7 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (9.1 to 6.0), a 29.8 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (7.4 to 5.7), a 45.5 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (8.0 to 5.5), a 28.4 percent increase in yards per completion (14.0 to 10.9), a 2.4 percent increase in yards per rush (4.2 to 4.1), a 71.8 percent increase in touchdown percentage (6.7 percent to 3.9 percent), a 36.4 percent decrease in interception percentage (1.4 percent to 2.2 percent), and a 26.3 percent increase in points per game (29.3 to 23.2).

It is asking too much of the Seahawks to expect them to exceed their season totals enough to knock off the Chicago Bears.

New York Jets at New England Patriots

In the last game of the weekend, when the New England Patriots take the field, they will be doing so as the most dominating home team of the four home teams. This season at home, the Patriots have outscored opponents by 14.4 points per game.

They have dominated opponents because their offense, while being outstanding on the road, is even better in Gillette Stadium. The Patriots experience a 5.3 percent increase in completion percentage (67.1 percent to 63.7 percent), a 14.1 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (8.9 to 7.8), a 17.4 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (10.1 to 8.6), a 15.5 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (8.2 to 7.1), a 17.7 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (9.3 to 7.9), an 8.1 percent increase in yards per completion (13.3 to 12.3), a 26.3 percent increase in yards per rush (4.8 to 3.8), a 17.9 percent increase in touchdown percentage (7.9 percent to 6.7 percent), a 27.2 percent decrease in interception percentage (.8 percent to 1.1 percent), a 12.0 percent decrease in sack percentage (4.4 percent to 5.0 percent), and a 10.4 percent increase in points per game (34.0 to 30.8).

Basically, at home, the Patriots are unstoppable on offense.

Like the Atlanta Falcons, the New England Patriots on defense at home employ a bend but do not break style of defending. Against the pass, the Patriots, despite giving up 3.5 percent fewer yards per completion (11.0 to 11.4), allow opponents a 5.5 percent increase in completion percentage (65.2 percent to 61.8 percent), a 1.4 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (7.2 to 7.1), a 10.3 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.4 to 5.8), a 3.2 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (6.5 to 6.3), a 13.7 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.8 to 5.1), a 45.5 percent increase in touchdown percentage (4.8 percent to 3.3 percent), a 9.3 percent decrease in interception percentage (3.9 percent to 4.3 percent), and an 11.9 percent decrease in sack percentage (5.2 percent to 5.9 percent).

Against the run, the Patriots allow 11.1 percent fewer yards per rush (4.0 to 4.5).

Still, despite their more porous pass defense at home, the Patriots only give up .5 percent more points per game at home (19.6 to 19.5), negating the extra yards they give up.

The Patriots' divisonal playoff opponent, the New York Jets, has one item of good news and three items of bad news.

The item of good news is that their offense plays much better on the road. The Jets complete 15.6 percent more passes (58.7 percent to 50.8 percent), gain 15.0 percent more yards per pass attempt (6.9 to 6.0), gain 10.5 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.3 to 5.7), gain 27.5 percent more net yards per pass attempt (6.5 to 5.1), gain 22.9 percent more adjusted net yards per pass attempt (5.9 to 4.8), gain 2.3 percent more yards per rush (4.5 to 4.4), post a 5.7 percent increase in touchdown percentage (3.7 percent to 3.5 percent), post a 65.3 percent decrease in sack percentage (2.6 percent to 7.5 percent), and score 16.3 percent more points per game (24.2 to 20.8) when playing on the road.

However, there is one major downside to the Jets offense when playing on the road. The offense has a 30.4 percent increase in interception percentage (3.0 percent to 2.3 percent) away from the Meadowlands.

The first item of bad news for the New York Jets is that although their offense does improve on the road, the passing offense has been so bad at home that it only looks like they are good on the road. In reality, the Jets passing offense on the road is not a potent one. It is just not completely mediocre.

Second on the bad news item list is that instead of head coach Rex Ryan and the Jets spending so much time this week trash talking the Patriots and posturing, they should have been figuring out why the Jets give up so many yards and so many points on the road like it is going out of style because when the Jets lose this weekend, it will be because they could not stop the Patriots offense.

Defensively, when playing on the road as opposed to at home, the Jets allow a 17.6 percent higher completion percentage (55.4 percent to 47.1 percent), a 27.6 percent increase in yards per pass attempt (7.4 to 5.8), a 74.5 percent increase in adjusted yards per pass attempt (8.2 to 4.7), a 30.0 percent increase in net yards per pass attempt (6.5 to 5.0), an 87.1 percent increase in adjusted net yards per pass attempt (7.3 to 3.9), an 8.9 percent increase in yards per completion (13.4 to 12.3), a 50.0 percent increase in yards per rush (4.2 to 2.8), an 83.4 percent increase in touchdown percentage (5.7 percent to 3.1 percent), an 82.1 percent decrease in interception percentage (.7 percent to 3.9 percent), a 16.0 percent decrease in sack percentage (6.3 percent to 7.5 percent), and a 76.9 percent increase in points per game (23.7 to 13.4).

Looking at how woefully the Jets play road defense makes all the comments from them this week laughable. There is no reason for the Patriots to fear the Jets, which brings me to the third item of bad news for the Jets; there is no way the Jets can defeat the Patriots this weekend.

In the games this weekend, based on the teams' home and road splits, the game with the most chance of an upset, which would be the road team winning, is the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Baltimore Ravens, the one with the second highest chance of an upset is the Atlanta Falcons versus the Green Bay Packers, the third best chance of an upset will be between the Chicago Bears and the Seattle Seahawks, and the most unlikely upset will be in the game between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets.

Blaine Gabbert's NFL Prospects: What Kind Of Pro Quarterback Will He Be?

2011-01-12T12:05:00.003-05:00

To borrow a scene from Anchorman, when former University of Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert declared he would forgo his senior season to enter the 2011 NFL draft, I thought he was kidding and that it was all a joke. I even wrote in my diary that Blaine Gabbert told a very funny joke today and I laughed about it later. However, as time passes and Gabbert remains committed to entering the draft, I am left with no other option but to take his intentions seriously and predict just what kind of NFL quarterback he projects as.

Gabbert's play in his two years as starting quarterback for the Missouri Tigers provides strong indicators that if an NFL team uses a high draft pick to select him, it will be both a waste of a high draft pick and a waste of a large amount of money, and if he is ever given the chance to start for an NFL franchise, he will play poorly.

Gabbert's 2009 sophomore season, his first year as a starter, was one in which he completed 58.9 percent of his passes, gained 8.1 yards per pass attempt and 8.2 adjusted yards per pass attempt, and posted a 5.4 touchdown percentage (24 touchdowns) and 2.0 interception percentage (nine interceptions).

A college quarterback in a pro-style offense who only completes 58.9 percent of his pass attempts is bad enough, but for a quarterback playing in a passer-friendly spread offense, that completion percentage can best be described as atrocious. Gabbert's completion percentage was also only good enough to rank 61st out of the 115 qualifying FBS quarterbacks, meaning he was below-average in accuracy.

Gabbert's only saving grace his sophomore season was his 8.1 yards per pass attempt, which ranked him 24th out of the 115 quarterbacks. Unfortunately for Gabbert, yards per pass attempt do not translate to the NFL game as well as completion percentage so the import of his impressive yards per attempt mark is lessened.

Following up his less than stellar first year as a starter, Gabbert actually regressed as a quarterback in 2010. Right away, NFL teams should question his decision-making ability. Any player who thinks the right time to play in the NFL, a far more difficult level of football than college, is after he has shown himself to be getting worse as a quarterback should not be trusted to lead a team.

In his second year as a starting quarterback, Gabbert did manage to improve his completion percentage to 63.4 percent (a 7.6 percent increase), but he did so artificially. A legitimate improvement in accuracy would have been an increase in a quarterback's completion percentage while maintaining or increasing his yards per pass attempt.

Gabbert's yards per pass attempt, however, fell in 2010 to 6.7 (17.8 percent decrease) and his yards per completion fell from 13.7 to 10.6 (22.6 percent decrease). The only reason Gabbert's completion percentage increased is because this season he was throwing shorter, easier to complete passes and even with those easier passes, his increase in completion percentage could not match the decrease he experienced in yards per pass attempt and yards per completion, meaning he had a worse passing season.

Additionally, Gabbert became less proficient at throwing touchdowns with his touchdown total dropping to 16 and his touchdown percentage dropping to 3.4 percent (37.0 percent decrease), a fact made worse by the fact his 1.9 interception percentage is almost identical to his 2009 mark.

Even if one were to judge Gabbert's career solely by itself, it is not the resume of a player any NFL team should wish to have on its roster, but Gabbert's play becomes decidedly more unacceptable when one takes into account the play of his predecessor, Chase Daniel.

Daniel and Gabbert both played in the same offense at the University of Missouri and if Gabbert were truly an NFL-caliber quarterback, it is not too much to expect he would have put together a better career than someone who was not even drafted.

Instead, it is Daniel who blows away Gabbert in quarterbacking proficiency. Daniel completed 68.5 percent of his passes as Missouri's primary quarterback, gained 7.9 yards per pass attempt and 8.1 adjusted yards per pass attempt, and posted a 6.5 touchdown percentage and a 2.5 interception percentage. All of those numbers, except for Daniel's interception percentage which he makes up for with a higher touchdown percentage, are superior to Gabbert's career 61.2 completion percentage, 7.4 yards per pass attempt, 7.4 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 4.3 touchdown percentage, and 2.0 interception percentage.

Daniel's advantages in completion percentage and touchdown percentage are actually statistically significant ones.

Daniel was a much better pro prospect for the 2009 NFL draft than Gabbert is for the upcoming 2011 NFL draft and the fact he was not regarded as such was a major oversight; the reasons why he was overlooked are the exact reasons why some foolish NFL team will draft Gabbert despite his middling college career statistics: height and arm strength.

Gabbert stands 6'5, four inches taller than Daniel, and supposedly has a stronger arm that is able to make all the NFL throws, which is what far too many think is all a quarterback needs to play in the NFL; although in Gabbert's case, he will not make those throws accurately. Almost every single NFL quarterback is tall and has elite-level arm strength and yet, there are still terrible quarterbacks. If height and arm strength were really so important, then quarterbacks of equal height and equal arm strength would have equal careers, but that is not how it is.

Accuracy, as measured by completion percentage, is what should be used to distinguish quarterbacks more than anything else and Gabbert does not possess enough of this attribute to warrant getting a chance to start for an NFL team, or even make an NFL roster.

Gabbert is destined for a very undistinguished, brief, and insignificant NFL career because college quarterbacks who in their better season were not even top 30 in production and were below-average in their other season do not perform well against the best football players in the world.

Auburn Tigers Will Win BCS Title And Here Is Why

2011-01-08T22:50:00.005-05:00

Most would agree that the Auburn Tigers and the Oregon Ducks are the two best college football teams in the nation. Yet, besides just knowing these two teams are the best, it is also worthwhile to take a truly comprehensive look at just how dominant these teams have been in their games and which team has been more dominant than the other. By dominant, what I mean is how well each team performed against their opponents in comparison to how well their opponents played in every other game besides the ones where they were facing Oregon or Auburn; in simpler terms, it is gauging how poorly a team makes its opponents play.

On the offensive side of the ball, Oregon completed 62.1 percent of their passes, gained 7.9 yards per pass attempt and 8.7 adjusted yards per attempt, averaged 6.1 yards per rush, accumulated 12.7 yards per completion, had an 8.2 touchdown percentage and a 2.0 interception percentage, and were sacked on 1.9 percent of their pass attempts.

In every game besides the ones in which they played Oregon, Oregon's opponents allowed their opponents to complete 59.5 percent of their passes, gain 7.2 yards per pass attempt and 6.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt, average 4.4 yards per rush, accumulate 12.0 yards per completion, post a 5.1 touchdown percentage and 3.0 interception percentage, score 49.3 points per game, and they sacked opposing quarterbacks on 6.7 percent of their pass attempts.

That means that when facing Oregon, due to the Ducks' high-powered offensive attack, teams allowed a 4.4 percent higher completion percentage, 9.7 percent more yards per pass attempt, 27.9 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt, 38.6 percent more yards per rush, 5.8 percent more yards per completion, a 60.8 percent higher touchdown percentage, and 84.0 percent more points per game. Oregon's opponents were also 33.3 percent less likely to intercept a pass from an Oregon quarterback and 77.6 percent less likely to sack an Oregon quarterback than they were to intercept and sack a quarterback in other games.

There are a couple of things that should immediately jump out at you after looking at these statistics. The first is how much the Oregon offense relies upon their vaunted rushing attack led by LaMichael James. They depend on their ground game's domination much more than they do upon quarterback Darren Thomas' ability to throw the ball efficiently.

The second noteworthy conclusion to draw is that Thomas is not the kind of quarterback who should strike great fear in the hearts of any defense. In terms of passing accuracy and value of his passes as measured by yards per pass attempt and yards per completion, Thomas is really not that much better than any other quarterback Oregon's opponents have faced. Actually, Thomas has only completed 60.7 percent of his passes, which is not indicative of an elite quarterbacking talent.

Where Thomas is dangerous as a passer is in his knack for throwing a high number of touchdown passes relative to his pass attempts and barely throwing any interceptions. He is also virtually impossible to sack.

If Auburn wants to shut down Oregon's offense, the Tigers should do all they can to make Thomas beat them with his arm. It is unlikely he would be able to do so.

As dominant as Oregon has been on offense this season, what Auburn has put together on offense makes Oregon's look almost pedestrian in comparison. During games against Auburn, Auburn's opponents allowed a 18.5 percent higher completion percentage (66.7 percent to 56.3 percent), 50.0 percent more yards per attempt (10.5 to 7.0), 85.7 percent more adjusted yards per pass attempt (11.7 to 6.3), 67.6 percent more yards per rush (6.2 to 3.7), a 141.3 percent higher touchdown percentage (11.1 percent to 4.6 percent), 37.8 percent lower interception percentage (2.3 percent to 3.7 percent), and 85.7 percent more points per game (42.7 to 23.0) than in games where they faced anyone else. Auburn quarterbacks, however, were 1.4 percent more likely to be sacked than other quarterbacks.

Not only has the Auburn offense been more dominant than Oregon's offense in every category except interception percentage, but it is also a harder one to stop because the Tigers can run and pass at almost the same dominant level. Unlike Oregon where there is a pretty sizable drop-off between their proficiency in running the ball and passing, Auburn experiences no such difficulties.

Try to bottle up Auburn's rushing game and Cam Newton and his receivers will just hurt you with big pass plays. Focus solely on stopping the big pass play and Auburn will just run the ball at will.

Despite the Herculean task stopping Auburn's offense is, Oregon's defense will be charged with just that task Monday night, and the defense should be able to keep Auburn from running and passing roughshod over it and completely embarrassing it. Although Oregon's offense is the one getting all the publicity, Oregon's defense has been equally dominant, if not more so.

Compared to how opposing offenses performed against Oregon as opposed to the other teams on their schedules, they experienced a 10.4 percent decrease in completion percentage (59.7 percent to 53.5 percent), 19.7 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (7.1 to 5.4), 38.2 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.8 to 4.2), 10.9 percent decrease in yards per completion (11.9 to 10.6), 21.4 percent decrease in yards per rush (4.2 to 3.3), 44.2 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (5.2 percent to 2.9 percent), 46.7 percent increase in interception percentage (3.0 percent to 4.4 percent), 4.5 percent decrease in sack percentage (6.7 percent to 6.4 percent), and 46.2 percent decrease in points scored per game (26.6 to 18.4).

As you can see, the Oregon defense is equally adept at stopping opponents' rushing and passing attacks as long as you do not expect them to sack the quarterback. However, even with their excellent defensive statistics, if they play in the same dominating fashion against Auburn, Auburn's offense is still potent enough to move the ball well enough to score points.

Auburn's defense, too, has seen its opponents struggle to move the ball against them although they have been not nearly so outstanding as the Oregon defense. Still, Auburn's opponents underwent a 12.7 percent decrease in yards per pass attempt (7.9 to 6.9), 9.2 percent decrease in adjusted yards per pass attempt (7.6 to 6.9), a 15.4 percent decrease in yards per reception (13.0 to 11.0), 16.9 percent decrease in touchdown percentage (5.9 percent to 4.9 percent), 12.1 percent increase in sack percentage (5.8 percent to 6.5 percent), and 20.7 percent decrease in points per game (30.9 to 24.5) compared to their statistics in all other games.

On the other hand, opposing quarterbacks have experienced a 2.8 increase in completion percentage (61.0 percent to 62.7 percent) and a 36.4 percent decrease in interception percentage (3.3 percent to 2.1 percent) relative to their performances in other games. If there is going to be an interception thrown in the game, it is much more likely to be thrown by Cam Newton than Darren Thomas.

Auburn's defense's greatest strength is in its ability to stop the run, which will come in handy since Oregon's offense's greatest strength is running the ball. Where Auburn is susceptible on defense is when the Tigers are called upon to defend the pass, which should surprise no one who has watched any of their games. Luckily for Auburn, where they are weaker is also where Oregon's offense is weaker.

The matchup between Auburn's defense and Oregon's offense will pit strength against strength and weakness against weakness and Auburn's defense is a lot more equipped to stop Oregon's offense than Oregon's defense is to stop Auburn's offense.

So far, Oregon and Auburn have been compared as if they both faced competition of equal ability, but that is not the case. With only two exceptions, Oregon's opponents' defenses were better at containing yards per completion (12.0 to 12.4) and Oregon's opponents' offenses were better at avoiding interceptions (3.0 interception percentage to 3.3 interception percentage), Auburn faced a better quality of opponent. Therefore, the two team's statistics have to be adjusted in order to determine how they compare to each other on an equal level.

After the adjustment, the advantage Auburn already has on offense becomes even more pronounced. They increase their already superior dominance over Oregon's offense in completion percentage, yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt, yards per completion, yards per rush, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and points. There are not enough compliments that can be heaped upon the Auburn offense to describe how incredible their production has been this season.

Oregon's offense is still much better at avoiding sacks, but that one advantage is nothing compared to Auburn's multiple ones.

Defensively after making the adjustments, it is Oregon who has proven themselves more adept than Auburn at stopping opponents. Oregon's defense has been a lot better than Auburn's defense in yards per pass attempt allowed, adjusted yards per pass attempt allowed, completion percentage allowed, touchdown percentage allowed, interception percentage, and points allowed.

It is not all bad news for Auburn's defense, though. The Tigers' defense is better than Oregon's defense in yards per completion allowed and sack percentage and equal to Oregon in stopping the run.

The advantage Oregon holds on defense, however, does not mean as much as the advantage that Auburn holds on offense because Oregon is just proving themselves to be better than the weaker part of Auburn's team. Auburn is even better by a vast margin than the stronger part of Oregon's team.

Plus the Oregon defense will not be playing against the Auburn defense; it will be facing the Auburn offense that has shown itself to be nonpareil this season as they have put up amazing numbers against what were otherwise stingy defenses. As dominant as Oregon's defense has shown itself to be even after the adjustments for quality of opponent, Auburn's offense is more unstoppable. It will be asking too much to expect Oregon's defense to contain Auburn as much as it will need to for the Ducks to emerge victorious.

On the other hand, it will not be asking too much for Auburn's defense to contain Oregon's offense since Oregon's offense is fairly one-dimensional and will not be able to effectively attack Auburn's defense where it is weakest; namely, against the pass.

When the Auburn Tigers square off against the Oregon Ducks Monday night, because of their extremely dominant offense, they will have the best unit on the field on either side of the ball and that should be enough for the Tigers to win the game.

Georgetown Hoyas' Offensive Efficiency Is Not Predicated Upon Tempo

2011-01-07T21:28:00.004-05:00

SI.com's Luke Winn is a great college basketball writer. He does copious amounts of research, has a great understanding of advanced basketball statistics, and comes up with interesting topics to discuss in his articles. Unfortunately, Winn has also been the recipient of misleading information.

In his December 16th college basketball power rankings, Winn quotes an assistant coach from an opposing team who scouted the Georgetown Hoyas and had this to say:

"I honestly think, because their guards [Chris Wright, Austin Freeman and Jason Clark] are so talented and skilled, that the faster they play, the better off they are. Because the more chances you give those three guys to make decisions on the fly and create shots, the better off they're going to be."

Immediately upon reading this, red flags went off for me because in my experience, the tempo at which a team plays has very little to do with just how efficient they are offensively. A team that plays at a slow pace has just as much chance of being a great offensive team as one who treats every possession like a fast break opportunity.

If it were actually the case that the Georgetown Hoyas would be a better team if they played at a faster tempo, then it would be reflected in their play this season. Luckily, finding out such is an easy task as all one has to do is run a correlation between Georgetown's possessions and their offensive efficiency, points per 100 possessions.

As it turns out, through their 15 games this season, the Hoyas have a .374 correlation between their number of possessions and their offensive efficiency, indicating there is some truth behind the assistant coach's proclamation. The correlation, which is fairly strong, does reveal that the faster the Hoyas have played, the more efficient their offense has become.

However, in the grand scheme of what comprises Georgetown's offensive efficiency, the speed at which they play is less important than a number of other categories.

The most important factor in determining how efficiently the Hoyas have played on offense should come as no surprise; it is how well they have shot the ball. No matter which shooting statistic you choose to look at, be it field goal percentage (.857 correlation), true shooting percentage (.832 correlation), or effective field goal percentage (.799 correlation), how well the Hoyas shoot is an incredibly more powerful and reliable indicator of their final offensive efficiency.

Additionally, the Hoyas' assist rate (.582 correlation), turnover rate (-.525 correlation), offensive rebounding percentage (.400 correlation), and turnovers per possession (-.430) all have more to do with their offensive efficiency than their tempo does.

Instead of advocating that the Georgetown Hoyas play at a faster pace to maximize their offensive potential, the opposing assistant coach should have advised the Hoyas to shoot better from the field, make sure all passes are leading to field goal makes for their teammates, limit their turnovers, and grab as many offensive rebounds as they can. All of those pieces of advice would benefit the Hoyas more in the future than simply playing faster so they can acquire more possessions.

Kellen Moore Is Latest Excellent Boise State Quarterback; Chance To Be The Best

2011-01-05T14:01:00.007-05:00

Few may think of Boise State as such, but it has quietly turned into a factory that consistently manufactures excellent college quarterbacks. For all the exploits of Kellen Moore over the past three seasons, he is simply the latest above-average Boise State quarterback to play for Chris Petersen, who first arrived in Boise State in 2001 as offensive coordinator before taking over the head coaching reins in 2006.

The Boise State quarterbacking tradition began with Ryan Dinwiddie, who was Boise State's primary quarterback, either attempting the most passes or throwing for the most yards, in 33 games spanning 2001-03. Dinwiddie's 62.8 completion percentage during that time frame is not overly impressive, but passing accuracy is not the reason why he is rightly considered by most to be the best quarterback to ever play for Boise State.

Why Dinwiddie's collegiate career should be remembered as an historically great one begins and ends with the fact that he gained 10.1 yards per pass attempt and 10.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt. Those ridiculously superb statistics mean that every time Dinwiddie dropped back to pass, Boise State was virtually guaranteed a first down.

Dinwiddie was also very proficient in throwing touchdowns while avoiding interceptions as his 8.2 touchdown percentage and 2.0 interception percentage indicate, meaning his pass attempts were a little more than four times as likely to end up being a touchdown as an interception.

Even though he is not talked about as such, Dinwiddie should be regarded as one of the best college quarterbacks ever.

The next in line to take over the Boise State quarterback mantle was Jared Zabransky, who put up elite numbers in two of his three seasons at Boise State although he could not quite match Dinwiddie's career. Zabranksy played in 38 games as Boise State's primary quarterback from 2004-06. Over his Boise State career, Zabransky completed 62.6 percent of his passes and gained 8.4 yards per pass attempt and 8.0 yards per pass attempt.

While Zabransky's numbers were impressive, they could have been much better had he not regressed so mightily in 2005, his second season as the Boise State starting quarterback. That season, Zabransky posted his lowest completion percentage (59.1 percentage), yards per pass attempt (7.5), and adjusted yards per pass attempt (6.6) of his Boise State career; in addition, Zabransky's 2005 season was the worst season a Boise State quarterback has had under Chris Petersen.

In his other two seasons, Zabransky was one of the best college quarterbacks of his era. His combined numbers for the 2004 and 2006 seasons were a 64.6 completion percentage, 9.0 yards per pass attempt, and 8.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt. Those two seasons were indicative of the kind of outstanding quarterback Zabransky could be when he was at his best.

However, Zabransky did have one major flaw that makes him stick out like a sore thumb among the four Chris Petersen-coached quarterbacks; he threw far too many interceptions in relation to how many touchdowns he threw. Zabransky's career 6.0 touchdown percentage is the lowest for a Chris Petersen-coached Boise State quarterback and his 3.7 interception percentage is the highest.

After Zabransky graduated, Taylor Tharp was given the keys to the Boise State passing offense for the 2007 season. Although Taylor Tharp is probably not a name even the most ardent college football fan remembers now, he played extremely well in that one season, completing 68.3 percent of his passes, gaining 7.9 yards per pass attempt, and gaining 8.1 adjusted yards per pass attempt.

His 68.3 completion percentage ranked him eighth among the 115 FBS quarterbacks who had at least 14 pass attempts per their team's games and his 7.9 yards per pass attempt, despite not being as valuable as Dinwiddie's or even Zabransky's marks in that category, was still good enough to place him 19th among the aforementioned 115 FBS quarterbacks.

Tharp was also quite adept at taking care of the ball with a 7.1 interception percentage and 2.6 interception percentage so he was 2.7 times more likely to throw a touchdown than an interception.

Then came current Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore. If Kellen Moore never throws another pass for Boise State, only Ryan Dinwiddie can claim a more valuable career, and if he repeats his 2010 season in 2011, then there will be an equally correct answer to who is the best Boise State quarterback ever.

Moore's 68.2 completion percentage to this point continues an accurate passing trend started by Zabransky in his senior season in 2006 (66.3 completion percentage) and continued by Tharp in 2007 (68.3 completion percentage), and his 8.9 yards per pass attempt and 9.9 adjusted yards per pass attempt give his passes value only surpassed by Dinwiddie.

In terms of touchdown and interception percentages, Moore's 8.1 touchdown percentage trails Dinwiddie only slightly and his 1.6 interception percentage is the best of the four quarterbacks, giving him the best touchdown to interception ratio since Chris Petersen arrived at Boise State.

Assisting Moore in his quest to equal Dinwiddie's Boise State's career is the 2010 season he just finished cobbling together. In his 13 games, Moore completed a spectacular 71.3 percent of his passes, gained 10.0 yards per pass attempt and 11.2 adjusted yards per pass attempt, and posted a 9.1 touchdown percentage and a 1.6 interception percentage.

It is the only season since Dinwiddie left Boise State that has been able to equal Dinwiddie's career production despite the fact they arrived at that equal production via different avenues. Moore got to his 10.0 yards per pass attempt through pinpoint accuracy; meanwhile, Dinwiddie got to his career mark of 10.1 yards per pass attempt through stretching the field vertically with 16.0 yards per completion. Two different ways, but equally effective.

With the exception of Jared Zabransky's 2005 season, no matter the name of the Boise State quarterback, he has given Chris Petersen excellent production out of the quarterback position. This run of unprecedented above-average play from Petersen's quarterbacks is the main reason why Boise State continues to be one of the nation's winningest college football programs.

Garrett Gilbert and John Brantley Demonstrate How Not To Follow A Legend

2011-01-04T11:00:00.002-05:00

Following a legend is no easy feat as University of Texas quarterback Garrett Gilbert and University of Florida quarterback John Brantley can now attest to after equally disastrous seasons. Gilbert and Brantley were tasked with replacing Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow, respectively, who were two of the most prolific and efficient passing quarterbacks in recent history and failed miserably at doing so. In fact, Gilbert and Brantley played so poorly that not only does it solidify McCoy's and Tebow's greatness as college quarterbacks, but it also calls into question whether or not Gilbert and Brantley should be allowed to continue in their roles as starting quarterback.

After Colt McCoy was injured in the first quarter of the 2009 BCS National Championship game, Garrett Gilbert received his first opportunity to be the Longhorns' primary quarterback and he completely squandered it. Gilbert only completed 37.5 percent of his 40 pass attempts (15 of 40), gained a measly 4.7 yards per pass attempt, and threw twice as many interceptions (four) as touchdowns (two), but he had built-in excuses of having only thrown 26 collegiate passes before that game, being a true freshman quarterback who had not planned on playing in the game, and going against the best defense in college football.

There was prevalent thinking that under more favorable quarterback conditions where Gilbert was the unquestioned number one quarterback and would be able to prepare fully to play that he would be a very good college quarterback. However, Gilbert's play over the course of the season disabused people of that notion, as he completed just 59.0 percent of his passes, gained a paltry 6.2 yards per attempt and 4.9 yards per attempt, and threw 17 interceptions (3.9 interception percentage) to 10 touchdowns (2.3 touchdown percentage). Compared to Colt McCoy's time at Texas, Gilbert's already abysmal statistics look even worse.

Former University of Texas quarterback Colt McCoy completely spoiled Longhorn fans during his four years as the starting quarterback. In games where he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards, McCoy completed an otherworldly 70.2 percent of his passes, gained 8.0 yards per attempt and 8.2 adjusted yards per pass attempt, and posted a 6.8 touchdown percentage and a 2.7 interception percentage, establishing himself as the best quarterback to ever play for former Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis.

McCoy also set an almost impossible standard for his successor, but one would have expected Gilbert to come closer to matching McCoy than he did. Instead, he forced Longhorn fans to witness a passing game that decreased dramatically, and statistically significantly, in production. The transition from McCoy to Gilbert saw the Texas passing game decrease by 16.0 percent in completion percentage, 22.5 percent in yards per attempt, 40.2 percent in adjusted yards per attempt, and 66.2 percent in touchdown percentage; in terms of interception percentage, Gilbert was 30.8 percent better at throwing interceptions than McCoy. In every positive category, Gilbert was incredibly less proficient than McCoy and in the one negative category, he showed himself to be much more proficient, which is the opposite of what you want to see from a quarterback successor.

Gilbert could not even match Colt McCoy's worst season, his sophomore campaign, as a starting quarterback for the Longhorns. During that season, McCoy completed 65.1 percent of his passes, gained 7.8 yards per attempt and 6.9 adjusted yards per attempt, and threw 22 touchdowns (5.2 touchdown percentage) and 18 interceptions (4.2 interception percentage). McCoy's completion percentage and yards per attempt were still impressive, but his high number of interceptions kept the season from being as valuable as it could have been.

Even so, Gilbert's season represented a decrease of 9.4 percent in completion percentage, 20.5 percent in yards per attempt, 29.0 percent in adjusted yards per pass attempt, 55.8 percent in touchdown percentage, and 7.1 percent in interception percentage. Gilbert was better than McCoy at avoiding interceptions, but does not even come close to making up the advantage McCoy had over him in touchdown percentage.

The decrease in production from McCoy's career to Gilbert's season was so drastic Greg Davis no longer has a job as an offensive coordinator. That is the danger when your team transitions from the best quarterback to ever play for you to one where if he were to continue the trend he set this past season would be the worst quarterback you ever coached.

The nightmare Texas football experienced as Gilbert took over for Colt McCoy was mirrored at another football powerhouse university, the University of Florida, as John Brantley replaced Florida's favorite son, Tim Tebow. As much as Tim Tebow was revered for the value he provided to the Florida offense, Brantley might be equally reviled for the value he did not provide for the Florida Gators.

John Brantley had a reputation as an effective pocket passer, an attribute never bestowed upon Tebow, and even I was guilty of thinking Brantley would put up even better passing numbers than Tebow. Instead, Brantley posted paltry numbers across the board, completing 60.8 percent of his passing, gaining 6.3 yards per attempt and 5.4 adjusted yards per attempt, and throwing nine touchdowns (2.7 touchdown percentage) to 10 interceptions (3.0 interception percentage).

Contrast that to what Tim Tebow did over his tenure at the University of Florida in games when he either attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards for his team as he completed 66.6 percent of his passes, gained 9.4 yards per attempt and 10.4 yards per pass attempt, and posted a 8.7 touchdown percentage and a 1.5 interception percentage.

The statistically significant difference between the years Florida fans enjoyed with Tebow as the primary quarterback and what the Brantley-led passing offense just subjected them to was a decrease of 8.7 percent in completion percentage, 33.0 percent in yards per attempt, 48.1 percent in adjusted yards per pass attempt, and 69.0 percent in touchdown percentage; Brantley was 50.0 percent better than Tebow in interception percentage, not a feat of which any quarterback should be proud.

As Tebow was remarkably consistent over his time as Florida's primary quarterback, there was no season where he was definitively at his worst so Brantley cannot even gain a reprieve by claiming he was at least better than Tebow at Tebow's worst since he was not.

With Charlie Weis arriving as the new offensive coordinator for the University of Florida with what Brantley should hope is an offense more suited to his strengths, there is a good chance that he could see an improvement in his production. It would certainly be difficult for him to play any worse.

Even if Garrett Gilbert and John Brantley had arrived on their respective campuses at different times, times where two great college quarterbacks had not just finished wrapping up their careers, their seasons would still have been disappointments due to their meager yards per attempt averages, but they might not have been viewed as the unmitigated disasters they are in light of what we have come to expect from the Texas and Florida football programs over the past few seasons.

That is what happens when you attempt to follow a legend and their inability to do so led to coaching changes at each university.

Les Miles Has Virtually Matched Everything Nick Saban Did At LSU

2010-12-18T10:41:00.005-05:00

The next time someone questions LSU Tigers head football coach Les Miles' coaching acumen, he should ask them what else they expect from him. Miles might not be the greatest college football head coach to ever walk the planet, but under his tenure, his LSU teams continue to be nationally prominent and perhaps most importantly, in multiple statistical categories, Miles' LSU teams (2005-present) have either surpassed, matched, or come very near to matching the performance of Nick Saban's LSU teams (2000-2004).

Nick Saban is generally agreed upon to be one of college football's best two or three head coaches and for good reason, since he has won two BCS championships. Therefore, it is no great leap to draw the conclusion that another head coach who was able to largely match what Nick Saban did with a school's football program must be a pretty good head coach in his own right.

Offensively, Miles' LSU quarterbacks have been statistically significantly better in completion percentage with their 58.9 completion percentage, bettering the 56.0 completion percentage Saban's LSU quarterbacks had; Saban's LSU quarterbacks have been statistically significantly better in yards per completion (13.8 to 12.6). Saban's LSU quarterbacks can also claim superiority in avoiding sacks with a 5.2 sack percentage; Miles' LSU quarterbacks have not been as proficient in avoiding sacks as their 6.5 sack percentage indicates.

Other than in those three categories, there are really no great differences between the two coaches' passing offenses. Despite having that extra 1.2 yards per completion in their pockets, Saban's LSU quarterbacks have only the slightest edge over Miles' LSU quarterbacks in yards per pass attempt (7.7 to 7.4). Also, the two different sets of quarterbacks have been identical in touchdown percentage, with Saban's LSU quarterbacks and Miles' LSU quarterbacks both posting a 5.9 touchdown percentage, and virtually identical in interception percentages as Saban's LSU quarterbacks have a 3.2 interception percentage to Miles' LSU quarterbacks' 3.1 interception percentage.

For all that is made of the recent struggles of Jordan Jefferson and Jarrett Lee, it is important to remember that Saban's LSU quarterbacks struggled just as mightily and never set the world on fire with efficient passing.

When it comes to rushing, Miles' offenses and their 4.4 yards per rush are only incrementally better than Saban's offenses and their 4.3 yards per rush.

As a complete team, Miles' LSU squads have scored 30.8 points per game, almost two points per game better than Saban's LSU squads' points per game average of 28.9.

Defensively, it is almost the same story with the two coaches' teams nearly matching each other step for step. The biggest difference is in favor of Miles' LSU teams. They have been statistically significantly better in sacking opposing quarterbacks; their 8.1 sack percentage on opposing quarterbacks is a big improvement over Saban's LSU defenses' 6.4 sack percentage.

In other categories, the two teams are remarkably similar. They are most closely identical in completion percentage, with Saban's LSU defenses allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete 50.0 percent of their passes compared to Miles' LSU defenses allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete 50.5 percent of their passes, and also yards allowed per pass attempt, with Saban's teams allowing 6.0 yards per pass attempt and Miles' teams allowing 5.9 yards per pass attempt. Miles' teams have a small edge in yards allowed per completion (11.6 to 12.1).

The two coaches' teams have also nearly duplicated each other in touchdown-to-interception ratio. Saban's defenses have allowed a 4.0 touchdown percentage and 3.9 interception percentage so they have come very close to intercepting as many pass attempts as they allowed to be turned into touchdowns (85 touchdowns to 82 interceptions). Miles' defenses have a 3.6 touchdown percentage and 3.6 interception percentage as they have intercepted as many passes as they have allowed to turn into touchdowns (86 touchdowns to 86 interceptions).

Saban's teams and Miles' teams are mirror images of each other when it comes to yards per rush allowed; each coach's teams have allowed 3.3 yards per rush.

In terms of points allowed, Sabans' LSU teams have allowed opponents to score 17.7 points per game, slightly better than the 18.3 points per game that Miles' LSU teams have allowed. Still, Miles' LSU teams have a small advantage in overall point differential since they have outscored opponents by 12.5 points per game; Saban's LSU teams outscored opponents by 11.2 points per game.

When it comes to only SEC games, the same differences in the same categories that occurred in their overall statistics exist, with the exception of yards per rush for the two coaches' offenses and overall point differential.

Miles' LSU quarterbacks still have their statistically significant advantage in completion percentage (58.0 percent to 55.2 percentage) and are still within spitting distance when it comes to yards per pass attempt (7.2 to 7.6). Saban's offenses continue to have a statistically significant advantage in yards per completion (13.9 to 12.3).

Both coaches' quarterbacks get sacked more in SEC games and Saban's quarterbacks continue to get sacked less (5.6 sack percentage to 6.9 sack percentage). Also, Saban's quarterbacks have a small advantage in touchdown percentage (5.6 touchdown percentage to 5.3 interception percentage) while Miles' quarterbacks have a small advantage in interception percentage (3.4 interception percentage to 3.6 interception percentage) so it basically evens out in the end.

Against SEC teams, Saban's running backs still averaged 4.3 yards per rush just like they did against all teams. Conversely, Miles' running backs have seen their overall yards per rush drop from 4.4 per carry to 4.0 per carry.

Defensively, Les Miles' LSU teams and Saban's LSU teams see their defensive performances continue to exhibit more similarities than differences. Miles' defenses maintain their statistically significant edge in sack percentage (8.9 sack percentage to 6.1 sack percentage), but in all other areas, the differences are minimal.

With Les Miles' LSU defenses' statistics listed first, here are how the two coaches' teams stack up against each other defensively in SEC play: completion percentage allowed (51.3 percent to 50.8 percent), yards per pass attempt allowed (6.4 to 6.4), yards per completion allowed (12.4 to 12.6), touchdown percentage allowed (4.4 percent to 4.5 percent), interception percentage allowed (3.9 percent to 3.9 percent), and yards per rush (3.5 to 3.6).

Nick Saban's teams do have a tiny lead in overall SEC point differential; they outscored their SEC foes by 6.7 points per game while Miles' teams have outscored their SEC opponents by 6.0 points per game. Still, that is no great discrepancy by any means.

With what Les Miles has done during his tenure at LSU, either matching, surpassing, or almost matching virtually everything Nick Saban's LSU teams did, he deserves a lot more credit for his coaching ability from all college football enthusiasts.

Steve Johnson and Jacob Tamme: Why Their NFL Production Should Not Surprise Anyone

2010-12-16T22:19:00.004-05:00

Seemingly out of nowhere, former University of Kentucky teammates, Buffalo Bills wide receiver Steve Johnson and Indianapolis Colts tight end Jacob Tamme, have exploded onto the NFL landscape this season. After receiving very little playing time his first two seasons in the NFL, Johnson is currently 8th in DYAR (226) and 15th in DVOA (13.3 percent) among the 82 wide receivers who have been thrown at least 45 passes. Tamme had also been little used during his first two seasons, catching only six passes over that time frame, until an injury to Dallas Clark forced him into the Colts' starting lineup. Once there, he acquitted himself quite nicely and despite only being targeted by Peyton Manning in seven games, Tamme still ranks 10th in DYAR (97) and 17th in DVOA (13.7 percent) among the 47 tight ends who have been thrown at least 21 passes.

Whenever two players like Johnson and Tamme have breakout seasons, it is always worth delving into their pasts and seeing if there were not hints that they were capable of such levels of production. Then, armed with that knowledge, we should be able to better predict what other players would be valuable assets if only given playing time.

Unsurprisingly, in both players' college careers, they put up numbers that they have largely carried over into this season.

Steve Johnson started his college football career at Chabot College before transferring to the University of Kentucky, arriving on the campus for the 2006 season. That year, Johnson was barely used. He was only targeted for 20 passes that season, as most passes for the Kentucky football team headed in the direction of Keenan Burton and Dicky Lyons, and caught 12 of them for 159 yards for a catch rate of 60.0 percent, 13.3 yards per catch, and 8.0 yards per pass target. For a receiver playing in such a limited capacity, the Kentucky Wildcats could not have asked for much more.

His senior season in 2007 was really when Johnson came into his own. Johnson did not lead the Wildcats in receptions with his 60 grabs because that honor went to Keenan Burton and his 66 catches, but Johnson did lead Kentucky in receiving yards (1,041), yards per catch (17.4), receiving yards per game (80.1), and touchdowns (13). Additionally, Johnson posted a 59.4 percent catch rate and Kentucky quarterbacks enjoyed 8.4 yards per pass attempt whenever throwing in Johnson's direction.

For his Kentucky career, Johnson caught 59.5 percent of the balls thrown in his way, had an incredible 16.7 yards per reception, and gained an impressive 9.9 yards per pass target.

Compared to his current NFL season totals of a 59.5 percent catch rate, 13.2 yards per reception, and 7.9 yards per pass target, there is not much difference between Johnson in a Kentucky Wildcats uniform and Johnson in a Buffalo Bills uniform. He is catching passes at an identical rate; only the fact his routes for the Bills are not as deep keep him from exactly duplicating his Kentucky production.

Disappointingly, the play-by-play data for Kentucky's games in 2004 and 2005 are either non-existent or unreliable so I was unable to examine Tamme's catch rates, yards per reception, and yards per pass target for his entire freshman and sophomore seasons. For those interested, Tamme caught 45 passes for 412 yards those two seasons.

The two seasons, 2006 and 2007, for which there are reliable play-by-play data, Tamme produced at a very efficient rate. Tamme was targeted 123 times and had 88 receptions, giving him an amazing catch rate of 71.5 percent. Since he accumulated 1,005 yards on those 123 targets, Tamme gained 8.2 yards per pass target and 11.4 yards per reception, very productive numbers for a tight end; he had a 10.9 yards per reception when his freshman and sophomore seasons are included.

For the Colts this year, Tamme has a 67.6 percent catch rate (46 receptions on 68 targets), 6.6 yards per pass target, and 9.8 yards per completion. When compared to just his junior and senior seasons, it seems as if Tamme has come up pretty short of equaling his production at Kentucky, but it could very well be that the numbers he is currently putting up for the Colts are even more similar to what he did over his entire Kentucky career.

This looks especially likely when considering that for the 12 of the 22 games he played his freshman and sophomore years for which I do have reliable play-by-play data, Tamme's catch rate was only 60.5 percent, his yards per catch was 10.7, and his yards per pass target was 6.5.

When those games are added to his junior and senior seasons, his catch rate drops from 71.5 percent to 68.9 percent, his yards per pass target drops from 8.2 to 7.8; we already know his career yards per completion without play-by-play data so there is no need to mention it here. Those numbers are closer to what he is doing for the Colts so it is more than likely that with all the play-by-play data, we would see that Tamme is basically producing at the same rate for the Colts as he did for the Kentucky Wildcats.

How Steve Johnson and Jacob Tamme have performed this season for their respective NFL teams in relation to how they performed while in college demonstrates once again just how much more valuable actual performance on the field is than any type of measurable such as the 40-yard dash when trying to predict how a college athlete will play as a pro. By using their college numbers, we should have been better able to project their NFL ability, which would have made seasons that seem like breakouts completely ordinary and expected, especially when one considers the fact that Steve Johnson and Jacob Tamme are not doing anything this season they have not already done in their football past.

Matt Cassel and Dwayne Bowe's Flourishing Relationship is Key to Kansas City Chiefs' Offensive Success

2010-12-15T19:06:00.005-05:00

The Kansas City Chiefs' vast improvement on offense that has the team currently sitting atop the AFC West standings has arrived via two avenues, one expected and one less expected but extremely promising for the future.

The improvement in the Chiefs' rushing proficiency was to be expected considering how their main running back, Jamaal Charles, performed in the second half of the 2009 season. Last season, the Chiefs' rushing DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) of -3.0 percent ranked 21st out of the 32 NFL teams, but it was only that poor because the Chiefs spent the first half of the season overly relying on Larry Johnson, who was one of the worst running backs in 2009 by every conceivable measure.

As the guys at Football Outsiders noted in their Football Outsiders Almanac 2010, once the Kansas City Chiefs unleashed Jamaal Charles in week 10, Charles was second in the league behind Chris Johnson with 968 rushing yards, led the league with six yards per carry, and was also first in the league in the second half of the season with 196 DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement). Charles finished the season fourth in the league with 233 DYAR and second in the league with a 20.3 percent DVOA; DYAR measures a player's total value and DVOA measures a player's value per play. Due to Charles' breakout performance, the Kansas City Chiefs were fifth in rushing DVOA over the second half of the season.

This season, the Kansas City Chiefs are seventh in rushing offense with a 7.1 percent DVOA, and Charles, individually, is second in the league with 299 DYAR and first in the league with a 30.3 percent DVOA. Taking the way in which the Chiefs ran over the league in the second half of last year into consideration, the Chiefs are merely continuing a trend of elite rushing prowess so no one should be surprised by what the Chiefs have accomplished with their rushing attack.

What is pretty surprising is the leap the passing game has made for the Chiefs, going from 25th in the NFL in passing DVOA (-14.5 percent) in 2009 to 11th in the league this season in passing DVOA (29.7 percent), thanks to Matt Cassel going from a quarterback who was below average in every statistical category, both standard and advanced, and almost the worst NFL quarterback in the league to a quarterback who is only still below average in terms of completion percentage and above average in all other areas.

Really driving the passing game's performance has been the flourishing relationship between Matt Cassel and the Chiefs' best wide receiver, Dwayne Bowe. Last year, Cassel and Bowe played in 10 games together, but their relationship was nothing to get too excited about. On passes targeted to Bowe, Cassel had a .524 completion percentage, gained 6.7 yards per pass attempt and 6.9 adjusted yards per pass attempt, threw for 12.8 yards per completion, had a 3.3 touchdown percentage, and had a 2.7 interception percentage. Throwing to all receivers during that 10-game time frame, Cassel's numbers were a .562 completion percentage, 6.3 yards per pass attempt, 5.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 11.2 yards per completion, 3.3 touchdown percentage, and 2.7 interception percentage.

On Cassel's throws to other receivers besides Bowe, he had a .574 completion percentage, 6.2 yards per pass attempt, 5.4 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 10.8 yards per completion, 3.2 touchdown percentage, and 3.2 interception percentage.

As you can see, outside of the differences, which are not even that sizable, between yards per completion and adjusted yards per attempt, Cassel experienced no great advantage when throwing to Bowe.

That all changed this season, however. This year, Cassel is a much better quarterback when throwing in Bowe's direction. In the twelve games in which they have played together, Cassel's overall passing statistics are as follows: .599 completion percentage, 7.1 yards per pass attempt, 7.9 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 11.8 yards per completion, 6.5 touchdown percentage, and 1.1 interception percentage. On his passes thrown to Bowe, Cassel has a .574 completion percentage, 8.5 yards per pass attempt, 10.8 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 14.8 yards per completion, 13.9 touchdown percentage, and 1.0 interception percentage. Take Bowe out of the equation, on attempts to other receivers, Cassel has a .609 completion percentage, 6.5 yards per pass attempt, 6.7 adjusted yards per pass attempt, 10.7 yards per completion, 3.6 touchdown percentage, and 1.2 interception percentage.

There has been a marked improvement in the advantage and increase in production Cassel has experienced when throwing to Bowe compared to when he is throwing to anyone else. The added value of their relationship is extremely important to the Chiefs since Bowe is the only above-average wide receiver on the roster. Therefore, Cassel leans upon Bowe heavily in the passing game, as evidenced as their extremely high correlations to each other.

This season, the correlations between Cassel's overall statistics and when he is targeting Dwayne Bowe are 0.553 for yards per completion, 0.701 for yards per pass attempt, 0.705 for adjusted yards per pass attempt, 0.641 for completion percentage, 0.789 for touchdown percentage, and .354 for interception percentage. All correlations except the one for interception percentage would be high on their own, but when you compare them to last year's correlations of 0.112 for yards per completion percentage, 0.346 for yards per pass attempt, 0.008 for adjusted yards per pass attempt, 0.141 for completion percentage, 0.070 for touchdown percentage, and 0.219 for interception percentage, you can really see just how inextricably linked the two have become this season.

As one goes, so goes the other. Fortunately for the Chiefs, they have been producing at above-average rates so their extreme interdependence has benefited the team greatly.

That the relationship between Matt Cassel and Dwayne Bowe is resembling greatly the relationship between a quarterback and a true number one wide receiver is promising for the Chiefs' future. The franchise already knew it could depend upon Jamaal Charles and the running game; perhaps now they will be able to depend upon Matt Cassel, Dwayne Bowe, and the passing game to share an equal burden of the offensive load.

Chris Paul vs. Deron Williams: Ending the Debate Once and For All

2010-12-11T11:30:00.002-05:00

Asking who is the best point guard in the NBA is no different than asking in which direction the sun rises or how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights or how many eggs does it take to make up a dozen. There is a single solution to all those questions and the answers are not up for debate. In the case of who the best point guard in the NBA is, the answer is indisputably Chris Paul with no basis for arguing any differently. Every time the question of who is the best NBA point guard is asked and the answer given is not Chris Paul, it is both an insult to Paul and a display of ignorance by the answerer. Since the erroneous answer most often given to the point guard question is Deron Williams, the time has come to show why thinking such is ridiculous.

From the time Chris Paul and Deron Williams entered the NBA in 2005, there has never been a season where Williams put up better total statistics than Paul. True, there have been times where Williams has bested Paul in one category during a season, but Paul always emerged as the superior player when looking at the season as a whole.

In the 2007-08 season, Williams's .595 true shooting percentage and 0.6 block percentage were better than Paul's .576 true shooting percentage and 0.1 block percentage. However, Paul was better than Williams when it came to PER (28.3 to 20.8), offensive rebounding percentage (2.4 percent to 1.4 percent), defensive rebounding percentage (10.3 percent to 8.3 percent), total rebounding percentage (6.2 percent to 4.9 percent), assist percentage (52.2 percent to 43.6 percent), turnover percentage (12.1 percent to 17.7 percent), steal percentage (3.9 percent to 1.5 percent), offensive rating (125 points produced per 100 possessions to 118 points produced per 100 possessions), defensive rating (103 points allowed per 100 possessions to 110 points allowed per 100 possessions), offensive win shares (13.2 to 8.9), defensive win shares (4.6 to 2.3), total win shares (17.8 to 11.3), and win shares per 48 minutes (0.284 to 0.177). Since Paul led the entire league in assist percentage, steal percentage, offensive win shares, total win shares, and win shares per 48 minutes, it is safe to consider that season a win for him over Williams.

Last season, Deron Williams was better than Chris Paul when it came to block percentage (0.5 percent to 0.4) percent, offensive rebounding percentage (2.2 percent to 1.3 percent), offensive win shares (7.4 to 5.7), defensive win shares (3.0 to 1.5), and total win shares (10.3 to 7.3). Unfortunately for Williams, his advantage in win shares is negated by the fact he appeared in 31 more games than Paul. Based on Paul's superior win shares per 48 minutes (0.204 to 0.177), had he played an equal number of games and kept producing at the same rate, there is no question he would have surpassed Williams's totals.

Despite the advantages Williams had over Paul in those categories, Paul still had the better PER (23.7 to 20.6), true shooting percentage (.584 to .574), defensive rebounding percentage (11.9 percent to 10.4 percent), total rebounding percentage (6.5 to 6.4), assist percentage (45.4 percent to 44.5 percent), turnover percentage (13.5 percent to 16.9 percent), steal percentage (2.9 percent to 1.8 percent), offensive rating (122 points produced per 100 possessions to 116 points produced per 100 possessions), and defensive rating (109 points allowed per 100 possessions to 107 points allowed per 100 possessions).

Also, keep in mind their two seasons were only that close in production because last year was an injury-plagued one for Paul. Whenever both are equally healthy, Chris Paul always surpasses Deron Williams in complete production.

This season, Deron Williams is leading Chris Paul and the entire NBA in offensive win shares with 3.2. Chris Paul's retort to that is to lead the NBA in PER (27.0), steal percentage (4.9 percent), total win shares (4.5), and win shares per 48 minutes (.288). Even at Deron Williams's best, Chris Paul is better.

With the exception of block percentage, over their careers, Chris Paul is leading Deron Williams in every advanced statistical category. To understand just how much more valuable Chris Paul has been to his teams than Deron Williams has been to his, remember that Paul leads Williams in career win shares by 23.0 despite playing in 43 fewer games.

Chris Paul is more than just the NBA's best point guard and a superior player to Deron Williams; he should be regarded as one of the two or three best players in the league. Anything less than that is to do him a disservice.

Brad Childress Is Wrong; The Minnesota Vikings Are Not Better Off

2010-12-10T10:46:00.003-05:00

One can only hope that former Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress did not truly believe himself when he said he is leaving the Vikings in better shape than the franchise was when he arrived in 2006. If he really does believe such a farcical notion, then he is suffering from serious and troubling delusions. Actually, the Vikings are in the exact same position as they were when Childress became the head coach in 2006. The team did not have a viable quarterback option for the long-term future then and they do not have one now.

Why the Vikings, after almost five seasons under Childress's tenure, have failed to identify and develop a quarterback who can be an above average player speaks directly to Childress's poor understanding of what makes a good NFL quarterback prospect. Childress is on record as saying that he drafted Tarvaris Jackson because he wanted a "developmental guy" and a quarterback who was a "diamond in the rough." Childress probably drafted former University of Alabama-Birmingham quarterback Joe Webb for the same ludicrous reasons since Webb possesses the same attribute as Jackson (i.e., athleticism) and also the same deficiency (i.e., inaccurate passing).

The problem with feeling the need to draft such a quarterback is there is really no need to do so. All college quarterbacks are going to spend at least three years at their respective universities with most quarterbacks NFL teams consider worthy of a roster spot spending at least two seasons as a starter. That provides all franchises with plenty of data on which to base conclusions about how good a college quarterback will be as a pro. There is no need to try to outsmart the system; a team just needs to know what to look for.

More than anything else, be it arm strength, vertical leap, 40-yard dash time, or emotional make-up, the rate at which a quarterback completes his passes is the most important tool in determining just how good a player he will be. Give a team a college quarterback's career completion percentage, the number of games he started, and provide the proper context in which to understand those statistics, and any NFL team should be able to predict with a high degree of certainty the amount of success he will have on the pro level. Childress failed to do so and the Vikings are left with a quarterback who will be a below-average passer for his entire career being backed up by a quarterback who will also be a below-average passer for his career.

Looking at Tarvaris Jackson's statistics while at Alabama State, it becomes obvious fairly quickly he was never cut out to be an NFL starting quarterback. Jackson's college career bears more than a passing resemblance to Tyler Thigpen's. Like Thigpen, Jackson played in the Football Championship Subdivision, only completed 55.0 percent of his pass attempts, and had a statistical outlier of a season his senior year.

For Jackson, his senior season was one in which he completed 61.1% of his passes and gained 9.0 yards per pass attempt. In his other two seasons combined, Jackson only completed 52.0 percent of his passes and gained 7.4 yards per pass attempt, production that should not scream to any team that here lies a future second-round draft pick, especially since he was playing in a lower quality division. Is it any wonder then that in games, including the playoffs, where he has attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards for the Vikings, he has only completed 57.6% of his pass attempts and does anyone really expect him to complete passes at a much better clip if he is allowed to be a full-time starting quarterback? Jackson had been a below-average quarterback in terms of accuracy his whole footballing life; it only makes sense that he will continue to be one.

Jackson's greatest strength during his tenure at Alabama State was in his touchdown to interception ratio and he has not been able to carry that ability with him to the NFL. In college, Jackson threw 63 touchdowns and just 23 interceptions, a 2.7:1 ratio. However, so far in his NFL career, in games fitting the aforementioned criteria, his 22 touchdowns have been matched by 22 interceptions.

Jackson's lack of passing ability precludes him from being a quarterback the Vikings can depend on to win a sizable majority of games. As does Joe Webb's if he is ever given a chance to start.

Not even Joe Webb thought he was worthy of being an NFL quarterback as evidenced by the fact he worked out as a wide receiver on UAB's pro day. Webb was right to have such a low opinion of his future as a signal caller. Over his career, he completed 59.8% of his passes and had 7.5 yards per pass attempt. Those numbers are not terrible and he is actually a better collegiate passer than Tarvaris Jackson was, but neither are they incredibly impressive. In his 2008 and 2009 seasons when he was UAB's only starting quarterback, his completion percentage was right around the median for all qualifying FBS quarterbacks. Average college quarterbacks do not magically become franchise quarterbacks.

What makes Brad Childress's decision to keep Webb on the roster as a quarterback even more foolish is that it eliminates Webb from playing in roles where he could actually provide real value to the team. Webb might not be a great passer, but he is great at running the ball. His 5.4 yards per rush in college and 2,612 rushing yards look even more amazing after one takes into account that sacks count against a quarterback's rushing numbers in college football. The Vikings' already potent running attack could only be helped by giving Webb a couple of carries a game.

Webb could also help the team as a wide receiver. In his eight games in 2007 where he played the position, he caught 30 balls for 459 yards, good for 15.3 yards per reception. His 46.2 percent catch rate on those receptions looks horrendous at first glance, but that had more to do with the quarterback throwing him the ball than a lack of receiving talent on Webb's part. The quarterback in question, Sam Hunt, completed only 46.5 percent of the throws he threw to his other receivers so Joe Webb did the best he could with what he had to work with. Webb definitely has more potential to evolve into a wide receiving threat than a passing threat.

Without an above-average quarterback on the roster, no NFL team is going to win a great percentage of games and the Vikings have one below-average passer in Tarvaris Jackson and one quarterback who would have more value if he played other positions. So no, Brad Childress, you have not left the Vikings better off.

Raymond Felton Is Among NBA's Most Improved As Well

2010-12-09T21:18:00.004-05:00

There was a tremendous oversight on my part while compiling my list on the ten most worthy candidates for the NBA's Most Improved award. My list of ten should have included an eleventh, current New York Knicks point guard Raymond Felton.

Raymond Felton was the third point guard chosen in the 2005 NBA draft behind the Utah Jazz's Deron Williams and the New Orleans Hornets's Chris Paul and during his time in the NBA, Felton has lagged behind them both in production by a pretty considerable margin. While Deron Williams and Chris Paul have emerged as top-tier point guards, up to this season, Felton had been nothing more than a middling to mediocre point guard.

One of Felton's main problems was he never shot particularly well from the field, especially over his first four seasons in the NBA; his highest true shooting percentage during that time frame was a measly .500, which is pretty terrible for any player, let alone a point guard. Felton's poor shooting is one reason why in his first five seasons, he only had one, last year's, where his offensive rating was higher than his defensive rating.

Felton's poor shooting in his first four seasons looks like it has become a thing of the past, however, as he is continuing to improve on the improvement he made last year when it comes to converting his field goal attempts. Felton's current .588 true shooting percentage through twenty-three games represents not only a career-best mark for him, but is also far above the league-average .538 true shooting percentage for point guards.

The increased proficiency in Felton's shooting is largely a result of his shooting in two areas of the court. The first area in which Felton is shooting well is at the rim; Felton is attempting 3.6 shots per game at the rim and is converting 62.2 percent of them, the highest rate of his career. Felton is also shooting extremely well from 16-23 feet, so well that a regression to the mean is exceedingly likely. On 2.9 field goal attempts a game from 16-23 feet, Felton has a .490 field goal percentage, .100 percentage points higher than his next best shooting season from that distance.

Due to his excellent shooting this season, Felton has seen a jump in his PER from the 15.2 of last season to this year's 20.3 and in his offensive rating from 107 points produced per 100 possessions in 2009-10 to 115 points produced per 100 possessions in the current year.

All is not coming up roses for Felton this year, though, since even with his improvement, he still carries in his game one major flaw. Felton has never shown any great ability to keep his turnover percentage down relative to his assist percentage and this season has been no different in that regard. His 35.9 assist percentage is a career high, but so is his 18.6 turnover percentage, giving him a ratio that continues a disturbing trend. For the fifth time out of Felton's six NBA seasons, his assist percentage is less than two times as high as his turnover percentage, subsequently limiting his effectiveness as a point guard.

Felton's improvement as a shooter this season should not be undervalued and he is playing the best he ever has, but he also has more improvements to make, most notably in his ballhandling abilities, before he can be considered an elite point guard.

Clemson should have let Kyle Parker quit on the team

2010-12-01T12:53:00.005-05:00

If Kyle Parker really did contemplate leaving the Clemson football team before their bowl game and concentrating solely on baseball this month, the Clemson coaching staff and players should have helped him pack his bags, thanked him for his sub-par quarterbacking play, and told him not to bother to return. Despite what Kyle Parker, Clemson football officials, sports media, and far too many football fans may believe, he has no future in football for the simple fact that he is a bad college quarterback.

Last year, the first thing anyone mentioned when discussing Kyle Parker was how he hit twenty home runs for the Clemson baseball team and then followed that up by throwing twenty touchdown passes for the Clemson football squad. Yes, that was an impressive feat for a dual-sport athlete, but it should not overshadow what else occurred during Parker's first year as Clemson's starting quarterback, namely his below-average passing ability.

In his freshman season, Parker only completed 55.6% of his passes and had 6.8 yards per pass attempt. There is never a circumstance where such paltry numbers are indicative of elite quarterbacking play and the 2009 season was no exception. Of the 115 FBS quarterbacks who attempted enough passes to qualify (average of 14 pass attempts per team game), Kyle Parker ranked 95th in completion percentage and 80th in yards per pass attempt, far below the median .593 completion percentage and 7.3 yards per attempt.

Parker was not just a below-average quarterback his freshman year; he was downright abysmal as a passer.

Perhaps you are thinking that Parker's freshman season was a year of growing pains as he adjusted to the college football game and that he would make a leap as a passer as a sophomore. Actually, the opposite is true since Parker has regressed as a passer in a couple of ways. While he did improve his completion percentage slightly, completing 57.1% of his passes, his yards per pass attempt dropped to 6.4, meaning there has been less value per pass attempt in his sophomore campaign.

Also, his twenty touchdowns in his freshman season were a thing of the past as Parker has only thrown twelve touchdown passes in twelve games. His decreasing ability to find the end zone through the air is reflected in a decline in his touchdown percentage, the percentage of touchdowns thrown when attempting a pass. Parker's freshman season saw him with a .054 touchdown percentage; as a sophomore, he has only managed a .037 touchdown percentage.

Since his interception percentage, the percentage of times intercepted when attempting a pass, has remained basically the same (freshman year: .033 interception percentage; sophomore year: .031 interception percentage), his drop in touchdown production is even more harmful to Clemson.

Furthermore, Parker has continued his mediocre play as a sophomore when he is compared to his peers. There are 114 FBS qualifying quarterbacks for the ongoing 2010 season, and Kyle Parker ranks 80th among them in completion percentage and 92nd in yards per pass attempt. The median marks in those categories are a .603 completion percentage and 7.2 yards per pass attempt.

One poor statistical season can be forgiven if it is then followed up by at least two excellent statistical ones, but with two abysmal quarterbacking seasons on his resume, there is simply no getting around the fact Kyle Parker is not cut out for a long-term career in football.

Lastly, Parker actually does have a bright professional future in baseball so there is actually no reason for him to continue to play football, a sport he has struggled at anyway. In his baseball career at Clemson, especially in his freshman and junior seasons, Parker has shown elite ability in both getting on-base and hitting for power, two skills that will ensure him success in his baseball future.

The best thing he could do for the Clemson football program is to quit wasting its time with his shoddy play, thereby allowing them to move in a new direction and give Tajh Boyd a chance to begin life as the starting quarterback. Mediocre quarterbacks like Parker are eminently replaceable so it is not as if Clemson will even feel his absence that greatly.

The Miami Dolphins still need to find their quarterback of the future

2010-11-27T20:12:00.003-05:00

I sincerely hope that the Miami Dolphins do not think their franchise quarterback or quarterback of the future currently resides on their roster. Chad Pennington would be the best option, but his inability to stay healthy combined with his age eliminate him from any quarterback of the future discussion. Chad Henne, while he has an above-average .639 completion percentage this season, has an annoying propensity to throw more interceptions than touchdowns, a turnover habit the Dolphins have to be getting tired of.

Since the Dolphins have already seen what Pennington and Henne have to offer and have not found themselves pleased with the results, they may be tempted to turn to Tyler Thigpen. By doing so they would be making a grave error because while Henne is never going to be anything more than an average quarterback over the course of his career, he will still give them more value than anything Thigpen will provide.

To be fair to Tyler Thigpen, he really has no chance to succeed in the NFL because he was an extremely mediocre college quarterback during his time at Coastal Carolina University. As a four-year starter, in games where Thigpen either attempted the most passes or threw for the most passing yards, he only managed a .554 completion percentage.

For a quarterback playing in the football bowl subdivision (FBS), a completion percentage that low is incredibly poor, but for someone playing in the inferior football championship subdivision (FCS), it is almost embarrassing and should kill any NFL prospects. A truly elite quarterback, one who is ready to play for the NFL, would have completely dominated such lesser competition. That Thigpen not only failed to do so, but performed so miserably, is an enormous indictment against his talent.

Another strike against Thigpen, as if he even needed any more, is that his career college completion percentage is only that high because of his senior season's .640 completion percentage. NFL teams should always be wary of a quarterback who has one season that is so far above what he has done in other ones, which is what Thigpen's senior season represents.

This season was so out of character for him that the .640 completion percentage he posted his senior year is statistically significantly better than the .497 completion percentage he managed in his other three years. None of his other seasons were outliers in the same vein. As with all outliers in statistical samples, Thigpen's senior season should be discounted.

He is certainly not that accurate a passer, which he has already shown with his career .545 completion percentage. Given the chance to play in more games, that is about the level of accuracy which any team that employs Thigpen should expect. Such an inability to throw the ball accurately would make Thigpen one of the worst NFL quarterbacks.

For the rest of the season, given their options, the Dolphins really have no choice but to start Henne for the rest of the games and hope they can find an elite quarterback in the NFL draft next year.

As the game progesses, O'Neal's production declines

2010-11-23T12:34:00.002-05:00

The next time Shaquille O'Neal scores a quick six or eight points in the first quarter, his opponent should be comforted by the knowledge that whatever heights O'Neal reaches in the first quarter are not indicative of how he will play for the rest of the game. Instead, through the nine games O'Neal has participated in, there is an inverse proportional relationship between O'Neal's impact on a game and its length. As the game progresses, O'Neal experiences a rather steady decline in production.

It is in the first period of play during which O'Neal does most of his damage. Even though the first quarter constitutes only twenty-five percent of a game, more than half of O'Neal's statistics are acquired over the course of the first twelve minutes.

In the first quarter, O'Neal has totaled 60% of his field goal attempts (36 of 60), 57.8% of his field goal makes (22 of 38), 54.2% of his points (51 of 94), 57.9% of his offensive rebounds (11 of 19), and 36.8% of his defensive rebounds (14 of 38).

The second quarter is O'Neal's second most productive quarter, narrowly edging out the third quarter for the honor. O'Neal has scored twenty-one of his ninety-four points in the second quarter by way of shooting 8 of 13 from the field and 5 of 7 from the free-throw line and also has pulled down eighteen of his fifty-seven rebounds (six offensive rebounds and twelve defensive rebounds). His thirteen second-quarter field goal attempts are also the second-most of the four quarters.

O'Neal's third quarter play continues the trend in that it represents his third-most field-goal attempts (8), field-goal makes (6), points (17), and rebounds (11; 1 offensive and 10 defensive). Interestingly enough, the third quarter is his best in one area: free throw attempts. In no other quarter has O'Neal bested his twelve third-quarter free throw attempts, which is not to say he has exactly taken advantage of his more frequent trips to the charity stripe; O'Neal has only made five free throws in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, O'Neal has barely put up any numbers, only scoring 9 points and having 3 rebounds. Not all of his lack of production in the fourth quarter is his fault, though, considering the Celtics have built up big enough leads in a couple of contests to keep O'Neal from even seeing the floor in the fourth quarter, which would naturally lessen his statistical impact.

What these data simply further confirm is that O'Neal is no longer able to have a dominant presence for an entire game. This should be news to no one since he is in the twilight of his career, but what should be remembered is that even though O'Neal is no longer at his peak, he is still able to dominate at times, most notably to start the game.

Even his dominance in a short period of time provides value to the Celtics as his 0.189 win shares per 48 minutes illustrates. This is the highest win shares per 48 minutes mark he has posted since the 2004-05 season.

The 2010-11 Heat are not far off from the 2007-08 Celtics

2010-11-22T15:04:00.002-05:00

As the Miami Heat have gotten off to a shaky 8-5 start, which is made worse by the lofty expectations heaped on them before the season , it has become too easy to ridicule the Heat for not being able to win every single game they play. However, it is important to remember that the Heat are not far behind the pace set by the Boston Celtics thirteen games into their 2007-08 championship season.

Of all the teams in recent history, it has always made the most sense to track and grade the Heat's season based on how closely they performed in comparison to the 2007-08 Celtics. Like the Heat, the Celtics, too, added two star players to complement the star player they already had, radically changing the composition of the franchise.

Such a roster overhaul resulted in the 2007-08 Celtics having a roster stability percentage of .495, meaning less than half of the players who were on the roster during the championship season were on the roster the previous year. Since there are five positions in basketball and each position comprises 20% of the team's minutes, the Celtics were replacing two and a half position players.

Yet, despite having to incorporate so many new pieces into a functional unit, the Celtics went on to post the most dominant regular season since the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls decimated their foes by 12.0 points per 100 possessions. During the season, the Celtics outscored their opponents by an astounding 11.3 points per 100 possessions, basically running roughshod over the league.

The Heat are also suffering from limited roster stability with only 52.0% of the team's minutes having been played by players who wore a Heat uniform last season. Their roster stability percentage will no doubt get even smaller after Mike Miller fully recovers from right thumb surgery and begins to play starter-type numbers.

Still, the Heat are doing pretty well for themselves, outscoring opponents by 10.6 points per 100 possessions, which is only slightly worse than what the Celtics did in the first thirteen games of the 2007-08 season when they outscored their opponents by 12.4 points per 100 possessions, indicating the Heat could be in for a championship run of their own.

Moreover, the Heat's record of 8-5 underrates how well they have played. Based on how many points they have scored and allowed, the expected win total for the Heat is actually 10.4 wins, which rounds down to ten, giving them an expected win-loss record of 10-3.

In the 2007-08 season, after thirteen games, the Boston Celtics' expected win-loss record stood at 11-2. Again, the Heat are nipping at the heels of the team they are most similar to.

On another note, expecting the 2010-11 Heat to come out playing like the 1995-96 Bulls who won seventy-two games in the regular season was a bit ludicrous considering those Bulls had a roster stability percentage of .808 with Dennis Rodman, a role player with a highly specific skill set, as their only major acquisition from the year before.

The Idol and the Idolater

2010-09-07T10:46:00.002-04:00

Troy Tulowitzki has never made a secret about his extreme admiration for Derek Jeter. He plays shortstop like Jeter, wears the number 2 jersey in honor of Jeter, and his teammates teased him about his man-crush on Jeter to the point where Tulowitzki bought them all Jeter's Driven cologne as a joke. There is probably nothing about Jeter that Tulowitzki would not want to emulate so it stands to reason that he would also want to match Jeter's production on the field.

Through 530 career games, there is one hitting category in which Tulowitzki has already passed Derek Jeter, but in others he is still chasing his idol. It should come as no surprise that Tulowitzki has a higher slugging percentage than Jeter did in his first 530 career games (.484 to .456). There are a lot of things Jeter does well as a hitter, but hitting for power is not one of them. On the other hand, Tulowitzki has true power hitting capabilities.

When it comes to on-base percentage, Jeter has been statistically significantly better, posting an on-base percentage of .383. to Tulowitzki's .362. Since their walk percentages (percentage of plate appearances that end in a walk) are so similar (Tulowitzki .097;Jeter .091), the main difference between their on-base percentages comes on balls they put into play.

There, Jeter has a sizable advantage with a .364 BABIP to Tulowitzki's .322 BABIP. Jeter's advantage in batting average on balls in play is a direct result of the kind of hitter he is. Groundballs are more likely than fly balls to turn into hits so Jeter benefits from being an extreme groundball hitter while Tulowitzki is more likely to hit a fly ball.

Jeter also has a large advantage in wOBA (.390 to .372).

Once home splits are taken into consideration, Tulowitzki closes the gap, but that has more to do with his extremely hitter friendly home ballpark, Coors Field, than anything else. There, Tulowitzki has hit .309/.382/.523 with a wOBA of .393; Jeter hit .310/.381/.449 with a wOBA of .385. In their respective home ballparks, Tulowitzki's power advantage becomes even more evident.

However, on the road, Jeter re-establishes himself as a better hitter through their first 530 games for the same reasons as in the overall comparison. Jeter has a higher batting average (.318 to 274), on-base percentage (.384 to .346), batting average on balls in play (.373 to .309), and wOBA (.395 to .353). Jeter also has a slightly better slugging percentage (.463 to .449), but that is because of his higher batting average; Tulowitzki's isolated power is still greater (.175 to .145).

As it stands now, Tulowitzki is not as good a hitter as Jeter was to start his career, mainly because of the inability for him to hit as well on the road. Jeter had no such problem and to equal his idol, Tulowitzki will need to come up with a solution for his road hitting woes.

Even though he might be slightly behind Jeter in the hitting department, Troy Tulowitzki can always be proud himself for being a much better fielder. Tulowitzki is a pretty good and above-average defensive shortstop according to ultimate zone rating (UZR) while Jeter is one of the worst defensive shortshops in the majors.

US Basketball Only Has Two Legitimate Challengers

2010-09-04T22:38:00.004-04:00

As the FIBA World Championships has entered the knockout stages, the United States need only concern itself with two other countries in its quest to win its first world championship title since 1994. Even though it has been popular among the media to talk mostly about what the United States cannot do, they are still in the pole position of the tournament and should be considered a favorite to walk away with the gold medal.

During the group play, the United States won their five games in the most dominating fashion of the tournament field, defeating their opponents by 32.6 points per 100 possessions.

Their extremely large margin of victory is slightly better than the country who is the United States' biggest challenger to the title. The host country, Turkey, has also completely manhandled every opponent they have faced so far. In their group play games, Turkey has outscored their opponents by 31.5 points per 100 possessions, only trailing the United States by 1.1 point per 100 possessions.

The way in which the FIBA bracket is set up, Turkey and the United States would only play each other in the championship game, which would be the best match-up of the tournament.

The second best match-up of the tournament would see the United States pitted against Serbia, who is the second-most dangerous opponent the United States could face. Serbia outscored their group play opponents by 29.1 points per 100 possessions, demonstrating they too are able to dominate. The better a team is, the more able the team is to demolish lesser competition.

Fortunately for the United States, the way in which the FIBA bracket is set up means only facing either Turkey or Serbia and not both as Turkey and Serbia would play each other in the semi-finals if both continue their winning ways.

Although Spain and Argentina are also seen as major threats to the United States, their play in the group stages cannot match what the United States, Turkey, and Serbia did. Argentina was undefeated, but only outscored their opponents by 9.5 points per 100 possessions, which means the Argentinians are not as great a team as they are made out to be.

Spain was the fourth most dominant team in the group stages, outscoring opponents by 17.0 points per 100 possessions, but still not approaching elite level. Also, Spain is in the half of the bracket with Turkey and Serbia so based on the luck of the draw, the United States will only have to play one of the top teams to win the gold medal.

The toughest path to the FIBA World Championships title for the United States would include a championship game against either Turkey or Serbia. Any other opponent and the United States should be able to win fairly easily.