The LiveBall Sports San Diego Chargers Season Preview

Checking in on the 32 NFL teams, continuing from the bottom

What we said about the Chargers prior to the 2012 season

2012 was the first season in which LiveBall Sports really predicted a true decline for the Chargers.  This prediction was only kind of correct.  If we rewind to five years ago, the San Diego Chargers had as much talent as any organization in pro football.  It’s one of the reasons that they fired head coach Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 record in the 2006 season.  The Chargers knew they had a nice window opening to capitalize on that talent.

So we posed the question last year: why hadn’t the Chargers been to the postseason since 2009?  This is the AFC West, for crying out loud.  Lots of things happened while the Chargers were inventing new ways to miss the playoffs.  The Raiders climbed out of the JaMarcus Russell era, put together 2 non losing seasons in a row, then fell back to the bottom of the NFL.  The entire Tim Tebow saga in Denver: from draft pick, to ridiculed preseason performances, to winning the division and a playoff game, to being shipped out of town in favor of Peyton Manning.  The Chiefs actually won the AFC West during Scott Pioli’s tenure, somehow.  Every one of these crazy twists happened while the Chargers were a strong pre-season favorite in the AFC West every year.

The 2012 Chargers did not have the talent of the 2008, 2009, or 2010 Chargers, and their were holes all over the roster.  Denver appeared to have a lot of the same talent issues, though, and that meant that the 2012 AFC West race was going to come down to Peyton Manning’s performance off of career-threatening neck surgery against Philip Rivers’ performance in the prime of his career.  Both teams would have to deal with a playoff-level Chiefs defense, but it was fair to reason that the Broncos and Chargers would fight it out for the division title last year.

What should we have known with hindsight?

The Chargers got off to a good start in 2012, winning three of their first four games, although they did not outscore their opponents over the first quarter of the season.  They did take a 24-0 lead over the Broncos to the locker room at half time, and were poised to take a two game lead in the AFC West race in October.  The Chargers would not have exactly been a lock for the playoffs at that point, but even an average team can hold a two game lead in the division over a great team if they can handle their business.  But the Chargers did not hold the lead, the Broncos came back to win by 10 (!) points, and would not lose again the rest of the regular season.

The Norv Turner era effectively ended at that point, as for the first time since he was head coach, the team simply wasn’t good enough to keep things interesting in the division race (something that really isn’t Norv’s fault, to be fair).  Philip Rivers had a true decline season at the worst possible time, to the point where it is fair to wonder if the $100 million dollar quarterback is still a quality NFL starter as he heads into his 30’s.  The arm strength is declining, and even his most outstanding traits such as his ability to effectively use the pocket are now in question as his offensive line has struggled to keep him upright.

The Chargers are going to try to salvage Rivers’ career in 2013, but with a new regime in town, he’s not necessarily going to get 16 full games to prove himself worthy of the most expensive years of a massive contract.

Where does the organization appear to think it is at?

The new front office is headed by GM Tom Telasco, formerly of the Colts organization.  He replaces AJ Smith as general manager.  Smith deserves much of the blame for the decline of the San Diego roster, but Smith also put the talent in place via the draft.  Smith was not a consistently good drafter, and that’s what did him in.  Under Telasco, the Chargers will attempt to get back to building through the draft.

The Chargers did not show a clear plan to tear down and rebuild the roster, nor did they go all out on the free agent market trying to turn their cap dollars into quality players.  They appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach with their roster.  Given how talent-deficient the roster is, such a path appears to simply be wasting a year.  Only two players on the Chargers roster have giant contracts: safety Eric Weddle, and Rivers.  Weddle is one of the very best players at his position.  Rivers still might be good, but he just isn’t the elite player he was two or three years ago.  The extremely passive approach taken by the Chargers seems to feel a bit formulaic, not dissimilar to the patience being shown by the new front offices in Jacksonville and New York (Jets).

But the challenges for the Chargers are different than what the Jets are facing.  Telasco isn’t taking over a disaster zone with tons of guaranteed dollars tied up in young-ish talent like Reggie McKenzie in Oakland or John Idzyk in New York, and trying to fit a new scheme to his talent.  He would have come in knowing whether or not Rivers was a good fit for what he was trying to build, so this approach seems like a bit of a waste of time, or at least a compromise based on a lack of strong QB options out there.

How did the team improve in the draft and free agency?

The Chargers targeted accomplished college players at premium positions: they grabbed right tackle D.J. Fluker in the first round from Alabama, MLB Manti Te’o from Notre Dame in the second, and Keenan Allen from Cal at receiver in the third.  All three players have strong pedigrees, but are below average athletically for the position.  It’s not a bad idea to grab low upside franchise cornerstones in your first draft so that you have something to build on, but if Telasco were to proceed systematically drafting based on BPA, the entire roster would be made up of low-upside talent.  For every low upside player that AJ Smith grabbed, he also got his fair share of high-risk athletes such as Shawne Merriman and Antonio Cromartie.  This is something to keep an eye on with the new Chargers regime.

San Diego also let both of its cornerbacks — Quentin Jammer and Antoine Cason — walk in free agency.  Although the Chargers did sign Derek Cox from Jacksonville, who has no. 2 CB type upside, the position is a total war zone.  Also; this team plays Peyton Manning twice this season.  The pass rush is also a major question mark, as 33 year old Dwight Freeney takes the place of injured 2012 first round pick Melvin Ingram in the lineup.

The offense upgraded in the offseason.  The Chargers picked up Danny Woodhead from the Patriots, who will fit into HC Mike McCoy’s scheme of position versatile talent: Woodhead might be both the best RB and slot reciever/third down back on the roster.  Either Max Starks or King Dunlap should improve the Chargers LT situation over Mike Harris, who started last year as an undrafted rookie, but the line is still a cause for concern.

What is the team’s outlook for the 2013 season?

The Chargers enter 2013 with an incomplete and lacking roster, and given how little help Philip Rivers has, the Chargers might have been better off just moving him in the offseason.  But you can look out there and see Antonio Gates in the twilight of his career, Malcom Floyd at the end of his run with the Chargers, Eddie Royal and Ryan Mathews fighting relevance, and just accept that the Chargers veterans are going to decide how far they can go this season.

San Diego has been passed by the Kansas City Chiefs.  They aren’t quite as lacking in talent as the Oakland Raiders, but they are also a year further behind in rebuilding.  They still play Peyton Manning twice a year.  The Chargers are an interesting darkhorse to pick first or second in the NFL draft next season.  While an awful season might be in the best long term interest of the franchise, Philip Rivers is probably not as bad as he showed last year, Mike McCoy is probably going to improve the team’s coaching, and Antonio Gates may very well have another good season left in him for the Chargers to be truly awful next season.

This is likely going to be a bad defensive team in 2013, but it will not be a terrible offense, and the Chargers should be able to win 5 or 6 games and be relevant into early December.  Again, every qualification about being an AFC team applies here: 8 wins makes a playoff contender, and Philip Rivers has directed 8-win (above replacement) passing games in the past.  There’s enough receiving talent for the Chargers to trend towards the top of most offensive categories if everything breaks right and Rivers plays up to his contract.

The Chargers playoff odds are under 20%, but that’s probably true of teams like the Steelers, Jets, and Colts as well, and those teams have tasted the postseason more recently.  It’s not that the Chiefs or even Broncos are a juggernaut that the Chargers simply can not beat, but those franchises are better positioned to handle the Chargers in the present…and in the future as well.

Previously: Kansas City Chiefs, Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, Tennessee Titans,

NFL Top 10: the 10 best players in the NFL under the age of 24

All I want in the NFL Draft this year for my team is a player who instantly jumps onto this list.

Honorable Mention: LaVonte David, LB, Tampa Bay Bucs (23) The Bucs went from the bottom of the league in run defense in 2011 to the top of the league in the same category in 2012, and David was one of the main additions that allowed them to make that move.  He could have easily been rookie of the year this year with just one or two more big plays, which are pretty random things.  I ended going up with some more experienced guys between 5-10 on this list, so David barely missed the cut.

Interestingly enough (to me, anyway), no team has multiple players in the top ten.  Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that much, because it is my list, but I was half-expecting to find one team ahead of all the others in collecting young talent.  But the draft does a pretty good job of distributing it.

10. Corey Liuget, DE, San Diego Chargers (23) Liuget broke out in 2012 as the Chargers best defensive lineman after a weak rookie season.  He’s now the cornerstone player on a Chargers defense that will have to be rebuilt.

9. Kevin Zeitler, G, Cincinnati Bengals (23) A really good pickup by the Bengals looked even better when Steelers first round guard David DeCastro got hurt in the preseason, but when Zeiter was arguably the Bengals best offensive lineman as a rookie, the pick looked even better.

8. Marcel Dareus, DT, Buffalo Bills (23) Dareus has had a quiet start to his career after being the third overall pick in 2011, one of the curses of playing in Buffalo.  But he also plays on a defensive line that, while having underachieved a year ago, features another awesome interior player in Kyle Williams, and an edge rusher in Mario Williams who…probably isn’t completely done as a player.  Dareus has either turned into a really good player in Buffalo, or already was a really good player coming into the league, depending on your perspective.  Linemen who can play 800 high efficiency defensive snaps are rare.

7. Josh Gordon, WR, Cleveland Browns (22) While the Browns’ management has publicly voiced complaints about Josh Gordon’s maturity, I think maybe the Browns don’t quite realize what they have here: receivers typically don’t have seasons at age 21 like Gordon just did.  It’s a short list, and one that’s got all sorts of talent on it.  The worst player in NFL history to do what Gordon did at age 21 is probably Jeremy Maclin, which is a pretty nice floor.  Also: Randy Moss, Larry Fitzgerald, and Hakeem Nicks are on this list.

6. Bobby Wagner, LB, Seattle Seahawks (23) The tackling machine probably got overshadowed in defensive rookie of the year voting, but Wagner is an excellent example of the modern linebacker: he’s got all the skills.  Wagner can get after the passer, he’s got awareness in coverage, and hes a good player against the run.  And he’s doing it all while people his age are still putting up with college classes.

5. Tyron Smith, LT, Dallas Cowboys (23) The crown jewel of the last two Cowboys draft, Smith is an elite offensive tackle in development who projects better down the road than his college teammate Matt Kalil does at the same position in the NFL.  The Cowboys paid a stiff price to get him in the 2011 draft, taking him with the 9th overall pick, but Smith has already proven to be worth that price tag.

4. Randall Cobb, WR, Green Bay Packers (23) In Cobb’s first ever pro game against the New Orleans Saints, he used his incredible balance to break a tackle and return a kick for a touchdown.  That play put him on the map, but quietly, he has become the number one receiver in the NFL’s most explosive offense, and the most dangerous weapon on the field nearly any time he lines up.

Also: after Cobb and Rueben Randle were drafted with the last pick in the second round in consecutive drafts, it’s left me wondering why teams who have the first 62 picks can’t figure out how to get these guys.

3. Luke Kuechly, LB, Carolina Panthers (22) The player that actually did win the NFL defensive player of the year last year (and perhaps more prestigious honor, was my top rated defensive player in last year’s draft), everything about Kuechly screams he’s a rare breed.  Kuechly may have the body of a linebacker, but he looks a lot older than a player who was one of the very youngest talents in the draft a year ago, and he has kind of an unassuming, non-jock demeanor to him.  He’s also probably the next Brian Urlacher in the NFL, and there will not be a better inside linebacker prospect for a decade.  The Panthers are going to win a heck of a lot of games with Kuechly and Cam Newton, whenever they want to get themselves out of cap hell and start building towards the future with two cornerstone players will be fine by Panther fans.

2. Patrick Peterson, CB, Arizona Cardinals (23) The NFL’s modern day PrimeTime is not marketing gimmick Leon Sandcastle: it’s Patrick Peterson.  A true threat to both prevent points by the opposing offense while providing most of Arizona’s point scoring, he’s the desert’s answer to the recent success of San Francisco and Seattle.  Can and has played on the offensive side of the ball.  A shutdown corner heading into his third year, and an absolute steal at fifth overall in the 2011 draft.

1. Robert Griffin III, QB, Washington Redskins (23) Robert Griffin led the national football league in yards per carry last year.  Eat your heart out, Adrian Peterson.

Hey remember when Michael Vick had that MVP level 2010 season and got an $100 million dollar contract?  Turns out, Robert Griffin just had that same season at age 22.  In fact, the only stronger “dual-threat” season in the history of the NFL stronger than Griffin’s rookie year was Steve Young’s 1992, when he was in the lineup in relief of Joe Montana.  Young’s offensive coordinator that season was…Mike Shanahan.  Honorable mention here to Cam Newton’s 2011, where his 14 rushing TDs by a QB will not be touched for a very long time. And yes, that is a challenge, Johnny Manziel.

Draft Reaction: San Diego selects DE Melvin Ingram

We are about five or six years removed from those mid-2000’s draft where the San Diego Chargers looked like they knew something the rest of the league did not.  And now in 2012, the Chargers are declining in terms of overall talent and are in desperate need of a shot in the arm.  They can only hope that Melvin Ingram will provide them that.

The problem I see here is whether Ingram can play outside in the Chargers’ 3-4 scheme.  At his pro day, he did everything he could to prove he has the athleticism to play on the edge in the Chargers scheme.  But with Nick Perry sitting out there, and as a more natural fit for this scheme, I’m not sure that they’ll get as much use out of this pick as they maybe could have.

This is certainly not an overdraft and this will have to work out in the end for A.J. Smith to maintain his job as Chargers GM.  Melvin Ingram has the physical ability to dominate in this league.  But as a Charger, it’s hard to see Ingram landing in a spot where he’ll have more to prove and even more responsibility than he’ll have with the Chargers.

San Diego Chargers Process Points: 3

FNQB: Brady, Eli and the top 25 QBs of All-Time

This Super Bowl 46 edition of Friday Night Quarterback focuses on the Hall of Fame standard for quarterbacks.  There are 25 quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame.  I made an off-handed remark the other day that Eli Manning is certainly going to end his career as one of the 25 greatest quarterbacks of all time if only because there are fewer all-time great quarterbacks than it seems like.  When I have done some deeper digging, that may not be entirely accurate.

Eli Manning is certainly a better quarterback than some who are in the Hall of Fame already, but to be one of the 25 best ever to play the game, Eli might need to rank better than some of his peers in the modern game.  Ben Roethlisberger is not going to retire as one of the 25 best ever to play.  There’s an argument to be made for Eli over Big Ben, but not such a convincing one that Eli Manning can easily be placed among the top 25 QBs of all time, while Roethlisberger is given no chance to someday make that list.

Quickly now, I want to sort out the already Hall-of-Famers to determine the quickest path into the brotherhood of hall of fame passers:

The Group of Peyton Manning/Tom Brady comparables is as follows: Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana.  It seems for certain that at the end of their careers, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will make this a list of seven (maybe eight, when Drew Brees is done) of the greatest passers of all time.

The top half Hall-of-Famers is a group that really isn’t realistically in the conversation of “greatest to ever play”, but clearly is a step above the rest.  Dan Fouts and Steve Young are right at the top: they could go in the next group up if they had any case — beyond the outdated passer rating statistic — of being the G.O.A.T.  Then after that, Norm Van Brocklin and John Elway come up, along with Sonny Jurgensen, Sid Luckman, Roger Staubach, and Fran Tarkenton.  Finally, I’ll put Len Dawson here because he doesn’t fit neatly into any classification with other Hall of Fame quarterbacks.  Brett Favre, when he is finally eligible, belongs in this group.  Philip Rivers will likely someday belong with this group as well.  To make a case for a non-active player in the Hall of Fame, they really have to be able to neatly fit in this group to be considered a true “oversight.”  Kenny Anderson is close to this group, but hasn’t been able to get in.

The legacy picks might be the easiest way for a guy like Big Ben Roethlisberger or Eli Manning to get into the Hall of Fame: win multiple super bowls.  It worked for Terry Bradshaw and for Troy Aikman, who headline this group, though Jim Plunkett is still waiting on his hall-call.  Joe Namath belongs in this group.  Bart Starr belongs here.  Y.A. Tittle was good at football for a very long time, and should get the nod here.  And Bob Griese definitely belongs with this group, though he might have been the best quarterback of the four.  Bob Waterfield belongs here because of the era he played in: he was no better a quarterback than Daryle Lamonica was 20 years later, but helped revolutionize the position.  The fifth and final member of the legacy picks class is Warren Moon, the most recent inductee of the group.  Warren’s statistical totals at the end of his career were largely unmatched, as is Warren Moon, nine-time pro bowler.  Moon’s rate stats though say “consistently above average for the better part of 20 years.”  I don’t see how that is any different from Namath though.  This is the group where Donovan McNabb or Kurt Warner has their best case for the Hall of Fame.

Timing picks: Bobby Layne and Jim Kelly strike me as two guys who made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of fortunate timing.  Both were excellent players in their time, and multiple time pro bowlers, but I think if they had come eligible in other years, they easily could have been subjected to more of a debate, and then who knows what would have happened to their cases.  Kelly went in on the first ballot.  Len Dawson was on the ballot for seven years before he got in.   Then there is the case of George Blanda, who is by far the least qualified quarterback in the Hall of Fame.  If he had come eligible this year, he’s not even a finalist.

So the breakdown of 25 HoF quartebacks is as such, according to me: 5 in the discussion for greatest ever, 9 in the “top-half”, 8 in perhaps more on their historical legacies than their statistical accomplishments or performance levels, and 3 who might not have been famous or accomplished enough to make it in in a present day vote.  Not a perfectly normal distribution, but it is close.

And while Brady ranks first or second on anyone’s active QB list (for career value), Eli Manning doesn’t rank higher than fifth or sixth on most people’s lists of active players with Hall of Fame cases.  In fact, there are people who — if he fails to win on Sunday — would put him behind guys with no legitimate case such as Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck, and Tony Romo.  To make the Hall of Fame, Eli is going to have to separate from guys like Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Schaub, and maybe Aaron Rodgers, and spend the next three years along with Philip Rivers and Drew Brees and Brady as the game’s elite quarterbacks.  If Eli can retire a top ten quarterback in some meaningful statistical categories, then two (or even one) super bowl titles is enough to give him a solid Hall of Fame case.

This post is more concerned with him as one of the 20 to 25 greatest quarterbacks ever.  There are 18 quarterbacks, either active or recently retired, who would qualify as all-time greats, a distinction that separates quarterbacks from merely being Hall of Famers or many-time super bowl winners.  John Elway and Brett Favre are considered by the authorities of this blog to be all-time greats.  Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman are hall-of-fame greats, at least in part to the seasons they had that resulted in titles.  There is a distinction to be made.

Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Aaron Rodgers are clearly not yet all-time greats of the game the way Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady already are.  But can the be considered among the greatest 25 quarterbacks in the history of the NFL?  That is a little bit hazier.  Let’s continue this activity with a couple of blind resumes.  In all cases, the comparison is between one of the group of four quarterbacks above, and someone from the list of Hall of Fame quarterbacks.

Parenthesis represent a figure relative to league average

Group 1

Player A 7 twenty TD seasons, 58.4% career completion percentage, 5.9 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 4.7% career sack rate, 2 years QB rating > 90, 4 years QB rating > 80

Player B 6 twenty TD seasons, 56.9% career completion percentage, 5.6 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 6.6% career sack rate, 2 years QB Rating> 90, 7 years QB rating > 80

Group 2

Player C 7 twenty TD seasons, 60.1% career completion percentage, 5.9 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 6.3% career sack rate, 2 years QB rating > 90, 8 years QB rating > 80

Player D 3 twenty TD seasons, 63.1% career completion percentage, 6.4 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 8.7% career sack rate, 6 years QB rating > 90, 7 years QB rating > 80

Group 3

Player F 4 twenty TD seasons, 65.4% career completion percentage, 7.6 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 7.0% career sack rate,  4 years QB rating > 90

Player G 3 twenty TD seasons, 57.0% career completion percentage, 5.7 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 9.6% career sack rate, 3 years QB rating > 90, 5 years QB rating > 80

Group 4

Player H 6 twenty TD seasons, 63.5% career completion percentage, 7.2 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 5.3% career sack rate,  4 seasons QB rating > 90, 6 seasons QB rating > 80

Player J 1 twenty TD season, 61.5% career completion percentage, 5.7 career adjusted net yards per attempt, 5.2% career sack rate, 2 seasons QB rating > 90, 8 seasons QB rating > 80

***answers below the jump***

NFL regular season postmortem: Teams most likely to be back in the postseason in 2012

Twenty NFL teams are already out, with history suggesting that 12-14 of those 20 teams will also fail to make the playoffs next season as well.  The NFL may have great parity, but one-third of the NFL is blissfully unaware of it.  This article is not about those teams.

This article is about teams that saw their season end on Sunday, but already have a leg up on their competition and perhaps even including teams in the playoff field.  There are a couple teams on this list that are obvious, but a couple that you may not be considering as playoff contenders.

The problem with preseason projections at this early juncture is not their lack of accuracy, but that I’m regressing everything in my system so much that a vast majority of teams come out looking average.  Which is a perfect representation of how the NFL works: most of the league heads into the offseason projected for 7 or 8 wins and has to do stuff to separate themselves from the pack.  Again, this article is not about those teams.

San Diego Chargers/Philadelphia Eagles

I combined these two teams because there’s just not that much to say.  Both teams underachieved this year.  The Chargers, of all teams, actually won some games in September and October to obscure that things were going wrong behind the scenes, which became painfully obvious when they went on a six game losing streak that lasted from before Halloween until December.

The Eagles were a pretty good team this year.  They were a mistake prone team that struggled with turnover differential in the first half of the year.  They corrected those issues in the second half, just in time to lose Michael Vick to injury and trudge through a 1-2 record with Vince Young that dropped the Eagles to 4-8.  That season had anything and everything.

Philip Rivers (and his protectors and receivers) deserves plenty of blame for what went wrong this season, but he also conclusively proved at the end of the year that he’s one of the best quarterbacks in football and the Chargers can not win games without him.  Rivers played well enough down the stretch to save Norv Turner’s job and to save GM A.J. Smith’s job.  While that is enough to make some Chargers fans sick, the Chargers will open 2012 as the overwhelming favorite in the AFC West.  Again.

The Eagles will almost certainly open 2012 as the favorite in the NFC East.  They have quarterback questions: if it’s not Mike Vick’s health, it’s his abilities, but he does happen to be at the controls of the most dominant offense in his division.  This may not be a dream team, but it’s a team that has Michael Vick, LeSean McCoy, Brent Celek, Jason Peters, Todd Herremans, Evan Mathis, Cullen Jenkins, Trent Cole, Jason Babin, Nnamdi Asomugha, and Asante Samuel on the same roster.  That’s pretty good.

Seattle Seahawks

The Seahawks, not the 49ers, are the best bet for first place in the NFC West next year.

It starts at the quarterback position, where although it is unclear what the Seahawks will do to improve on Tarvaris Jackson (who had a pretty good season), it’s clear that so long as they have Jackson, I would expect them to be stronger at quarterback than the 49ers.  Alex Smith did have a great season.  He threw an interception once every 91 passes.  But with as stripped down to the basics as Jim Harbaugh’s offense was, there’s an element of beginners luck going against those teams that see him twice a year.  This is not a difficult offense to scheme for, and furthermore, the formula relies on dominant defense to be successful.

It’s a formula run by many coaches with limited passers over the years and any coach that had a defense that wasn’t one of the five best units in football hasn’t won many games and hasn’t been able to avoid turnovers.  There’s at least a decent chance that the Seahawks will have the best defense in the division next year as well.

Furthermore, the Seahawks are loaded with talent at receiver and have mastered Tom Cable’s zone blocking attack to become one of the most bruising, physical running games in football.  While it’s too early to discuss the rebuilding Seahawks as a super bowl contender, it’s not at all too early to project them as the favorite in the NFC West next season.

Kansas City Chiefs

This may be premature because of the quarterback questions on the Kansas City roster.  Matt Cassel?  Kyle Orton?  Someone else?  It’s not too early however to fire up the Jim Zorn redemption tour, the way he coached Orton down the stretch in Kansas City.

The Chiefs won seven games after losing all those players to injury.  Their defense probably had an overrated season, all things considered, but the unit was playing well at the end of the season (particularly against the run), and only the safety level remains a weakness.  Getting Eric Berry back next season will help.

But the biggest difference is that the Chiefs developed Dexter McCluster as an offensive weapon and they will be getting Jamaal Charles back from injury.  Charles’ effectiveness coming off an ACL injury is going to be a big story next year, but he will be just 26 years old next year, and he should be a quality runner throughout the duration of his extension with the Chiefs.

And obviously, the fact that the Chiefs and Chargers are going to be very good teams next year is really bad news for the Raiders and the Broncos.

Tennessee Titans

Whether the Titans go with Jake Locker next year at quarterback or go with Matt Hasselbeck again to open the season, they are a team that sets up nicely to make noise in the AFC South.  The Titans just barely missed the postseason and have only themselves to blame for dropping a game to the Colts.  The Titans actually went just 2-4 in division play, the same record posted by the 2-14 Colts.

Where they really proved that they had the answers this past season was on defense, with one of the better secondaries in all of football.  And while Locker remains unproven, we know how much Hasselbeck struggled to move the ball in Seattle before coming over and having a re-birth in Tennessee.  This offense is set up for the quarterback to succeed.

Somehow, someway, the Titans will need to answer questions about their running game.  This is a pass blocking line that doesn’t open up holes, and Chris Johnson is being paid a whole lot of money to tiptoe towards the sideline.  Locker’s mobility and ability to bring college spread plays to the Titans if they are so inclined could help to split the defense for Johnson in 2012.

Still whether by a small decline from the Texans or by seizing a wild card if/when the Steelers/Ravens/Bengals decline, the Titans should be back in the postseason in 2012.

Carolina Panthers

The scariest thing about Cam Newton is how mortal he actually was as a 22-year old rookie.  This wasn’t like Andy Dalton who spent half a season for the Bengals playing over his head.  Newton had some bad games along the way while putting together amazing accomplishments.  In 2012, Newton will try to prove he is a generational quarterback prospect in the way that his division competition (Matt Ryan and Josh Freeman) never were.

The Panthers will need to find some solution on defense to keep Newton in games.  They were ravaged by injury early last year, but Ron Rivera is not a lazy slouch of a head coach: he has long been able to identify defensive talent, and the Panthers went through a long rebuilding project on that side of the ball this past season.  They went through rebuilding on offense as well, but Newton was so sensational that the rebuilding didn’t last long.

There will still be challenges.  This team needs to get Newton some receivers.  And all-world offensive coordinator Rob Chudzynski was so good with Newton this year that he likely earned himself a look as a head coach elsewhere.  But the Panthers have the trifecta of: a great coaching staff, a sensational young quarterback, and a competent supporting cast for that quarterback.  Now they just need to get the defense.

Nothing is wrong with Philip Rivers, and why that should scare Chargers fans

Lets play the blind resume game.  I’m going to give you four statlines, and you try to identify the players.  These are 2011 NFL season statistics.  Answers will follow immediately after the jump.

• Quarterback 1: 378 passing attempts, 62.4% completion, 6.7 yards per attempt, 15 TDs, 12 INTs, 6.2 NYPA
• Quarterback 2: 383 passing attempts, 61.9% completion, 7.9 yards per attempt, 15 TDs, 17 INTs, 7.1 NYPA
• Quarterback 3: 365 passing attempts, 60.0% completion, 7.9 yards per attempt, 12 TDs, 15 INTs, 7.1 NYPA
• Quarterback 4: 314 passing attempts, 58.0% completion, 7.4 yards per attempt, 13 TDs, 7 INTs, 6.4 NYPA

Three of these quarterbacks have shown a strong interception tendency this season while the other has a notable interception tendency over his career.  Which one is the best?  I’d say Quarterback 4 has been the most effective but his play has been significantly less sustainable than the others on this list, and that his numbers are probably based heavily on having a strong supporting cast.  As for the best quarterback, you’d want to go with one of the other three.  If I had to typecast solely on statistics, I’d say that QB2 and QB3 are younger, high-upside talents who will be at the apex of their craft someday while QB1 seems to be doing whatever he can to win with a limited supporting cast that makes his job difficult.  And I’d say that Quarterback 2 is having the best season on the list by a hair over QB3.

The Denver Broncos are in Oddly Strong Position in the AFC West

The Denver Broncos have beaten one good team this season: the Cincinnati Bengals.  They beat the Bengals with Kyle Orton, not Tim Tebow, at quarterback.  Despite the limited resume, the Denver Broncos put together two timely wins with Tim Tebow that make the Broncos a team that, very realistically, controls their own destiny in the AFC West.

This article is not a prediction that the Broncos can make it in the AFC West.  It is an acknowledgement that the Broncos and Tebow are very, very relevant down the stretch.  They play five of their final seven games against AFC teams who are still battling for a playoff berth.  They have a strong chance to hold tiebreakers against the Broncos, Chiefs, and Raiders at the end of the season.  And quite honestly, the Broncos need only to finish 9-7 to be in very good position to win the AFC West.

Of course, that would require a 5-2 (and by extension, 7-2) finish by a team starting Tim Tebow at quarterback.  But with Tebow, the Broncos have figured out that they can run the football on any team in the league.  They can run it on the Jets, they can run it on the Chargers, they can run it on the Patriots.  And Tebow’s arm then goes from a liability to a luxury once you consider that the base of the Denver offense is the read option.  Offensive Mike McCoy seems to be incredibly comfortable calling a spread offense.  And that makes Denver very, very dangerous.

The Broncos defense is a big liability that must be overcome by it’s offense, which is a very heavy weight to put on Tim Tebow’s shoulders.  Also on Tebow now: the loss of running backs Willis McGahee and Knowshon Moreno to injury.  The Chiefs got it together for the most part with Lance Ball as a primary runner, with Tebow needing to hurt the Chiefs deep with his arm in order to provide the difference in the game.

The most fascinating thing about Tebow is that for weeks all we heard about is the integration that would be required with the pro style offensive concepts and with new receivers in the wake of the Brandon Lloyd trade, and that Tebow was putting his offensive line in bad situations by not seeing the field and holding the ball too long.  Now, the complete opposite appears to be true: the Broncos will be a very young offense the rest of the way, and the team can look to Tebow as a stabilizing force.  The offense runs through Tebow now and it does so by using college concepts which fits the mentality of a very young team whose primary experience is college football.

It’s a fascinating case study made possible by the fact that the Broncos have adapted to their talent and they are winning instead of losing.  Because the ability to win appears to be legitimate, flawed opponents like the Jets and Chargers are going to have a tough time defending the Broncos.  Now, their season becomes a large game management puzzle.  They have a team that is difficult to play, though outtalented by even mediocre opponents.  The Broncos do not need to win every game, but they need to finish strong.  The plan here should be obvious: stay with a base gameplan of what got you here, and diversify.

In reality, the Broncos really aren’t playing out the rest of the season for themselves: even at 4-3, too many things would need to go right to put the Broncos into the playoffs.  But they can ruin the AFC playoff field for any number of teams.  And whoever has to play the Broncos the rest of the way has to make the difficult decision of how many Tebow-centric strategies they really want to work on during the week in order to beat a sub .500 team.  The Jets have a big problem: the game is three days and one practice away, and they just spend the last week preparing every waking hour from the Patriots.  The Jets really need to handle their business this week, and I’m just not sure how much of their business they really control.

First place could be on the line this week for the fighting Tebow’s  If they get this one, they have 11 days to get ready for the Chargers, a game that could knock the struggling Chargers out of playoff contention entirely.  I don’t think the Broncos can roll through December and get through that schedule untouched.  The Bears don’t figure to have much of an issue with this team, and frankly, I’m not sure the Vikings are going to struggle all that much with them.  But with the Jets and Chargers reeling, I have to point out that having Tim Tebow at the helm of a 6-5 1st place team is far more interesting than anything else in the NFL.  That’s a lot to ask of Tebow these next two weeks, but if he gets the job done, I think he’ll have established himself as an NFL player of some capacity.

I don’t think there is anything Tebow can do this year to be the Broncos quarterback of the future, but I think he’s in a good spot: Tebow’s expectations are relatively low, but he’s in the middle of the public spotlight and has a really good shot to succeed in the short term.  Success in the short term is not success in the long term, but it is the start of a long career.  That’s what’s at stake for Tebow in the rest of November.  As for the Broncos?  We’ll see.  They’re relevant right now, even with major roles being played by guys like Lance Ball and Cassius Vaughn.  Are they a playoff team?  Not yet, but they are well positioned to make noise in the AFC West this winter.

NFL Teams that are in trouble after three weeks

This is not going to be an examination of teams off to poor starts, record-wise.  Rather, after looking at some game tape early this week, I am going to comment on teams that may have had some injuries and just have no real chance of living up to expectations this seasons.  If I had done this list a week ago, the Baltimore Ravens may have found their way onto it.  But there’s no better way to excuse yourself from a list of teams that have problems than to go on the road and blow the other team off their home field.  Likewise, I won’t be commenting on how screwed the Colts are because we knew about that a week ago.  This is a list for teams who have expectations that may exceed their ability to meet those expectations.

San Diego Chargers

I can not explain the 2011 San Diego Chargers to you.  It’s a team that looked so good on paper before the season.  Clearly though, TE Antonio Gates hasn’t been right, WR Vincent Jackson isn’t there quite yet, and with WR Malcolm Floyd looking old and the rest of the receiving depth being ravaged by free agency, the result is that QB Philip Rivers has looked very pedestrian this September for the first time in his career.

It’s not that shocking that the defense has totally regressed this season after being down from 2008-09.  It’s also not shocking that their special teams unit is still quite awful, and that kicker Nate Kaeding is out for the season.  The offense though is just difficult to explain.  Rivers has to take a lot of the blame here: he’s just not that comfortable out there.

It would be easy to point the finger at Norv Turner and suggest that this is just a Norv coached team playing like a Norv coached team.  But the truth of the matter is that in the first four years of his tenure in San Diego, the Chargers played like a team that was roughly 15% better than an average team, which they were.  Four consecutive non-losing seasons and three division titles does not sound like a team that underachieves every season.

Now though?  I’m not so sure.  There is a big difference between losing games in various fashions at the beginning of a season; the dreaded “slow start” that the Chargers have come to exemplify, and actually performing poorly.  For the first time in Norv’s tenure, the Chargers are playing like a bad team.  They took 0-3 Minnesota and 0-3 Kansas City to the wire at home.  That’s just not very good.  The Chargers are a good bet to rebound, but average is still a ways away.  This could be a seven win season rather easily.

New England Patriots

Are the Patriots really in trouble after just one loss?  Look, they’re probably going to go to the playoffs, and given a whole season, they should win their division, and they’ll be competitive for the title in the playoffs, etc.  The Pats are still a model organization.  But the Aaron Hernandez injury exposed a major flaw in the Patriots: the fact that their depth is just not at all what we believe it to be.

The Pats defense is bad.  Very bad.  They effortlessly won their first two games with a great offense that no one seems to be able to scheme against.  Only, it’s just that: the Pats lost Hernandez, and the Bills, who gave up 21 points in the first five Patriots drives, and who also have no defense to speak of, had no issue scheming against the Pats.

At the risk of over-simplifying, the Pats drafted two TEs in 2010 (Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski), and those two spearheaded a historic seven game run in the second half of 2010 after the Pats offense really wasn’t that good in the first eight games.  They had great bit players in Danny Woodhead, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, and Deion Branch.  Wes Welker was the center of the offense.

But throw out just one of the real weapons, and suddenly Wes Welker gets targeted 21 times in one game.  When the Patriots throw 21 passes to Welker against a defense that just isn’t that good, it’s hard to miss the elephant in the room: the Patriots do not have a lot of ways to move the ball when they can’t beat you with formations.  Tom Brady got picked off 4 times in a Pats road loss: unlucky, but not without correlation to the offensive struggles.

The Pats are in trouble because their defense is really bad, and in the games where Tom Brady looks like merely a top ten NFL QB instead of the best QB who hasn’t yet been elected for the hall of fame, the Pats may struggle to even compete this year.

With that said, the Patriots should still beat all weak opponents, and coast to ten wins.  But 1-3 against the Jets and Bills this year is a reasonable possibility.  And at that point, the division title could be in doubt.

New York Jets

The Jets situation is just screaming out for someone to notice that it will be a flat out struggle to win games this year.  The Jets can’t run the ball.  They can’t protect the passer.  Their receivers have looked good against two ravaged secondaries (defined as two or more injuries to corners or safeties during the game), but this is not a team strength overall.  Just like we commented on how the Pats are going to struggle to overcome the loss of Aaron Hernandez, the Jets just lost their second “formation” TE, Jeff Cumberland, to a ruptured Achilles.

The Jets have been trying to scheme around Mark Sanchez’ crappiness for years.  This is probably the year where he gets badly exposed.  Sanchez ranks 27th in ESPN TQBR after three weeks.  Dustin Keller is a nice target in the middle of the field as is Plaxico Burress to the outside.  But for the most part, teams that are smart enough to take Santonio Holmes out of the game turn the Jets into a second rate offense.

Now even though the Raiders made them look bad, I think the Jets defense is going to be fine.  But without the ability to run the ball and control the clock, even decent defensive teams are going to expose Sanchez, and once the luster there wears off, there’s not much meat and potatoes on this roster.  It’s a strong defensive front with a couple of very good LBs and an elite corner.  That’s better than some teams have.  But they remind me of another team: the Cincinnati Bengals.  Right now, the difference between the Bengals and the Jets is simply: special teams.

The Jets have a winning record because they got a critical punt block TD and scored to beat the Cowboys.  That’s the difference between the 2-1 Jets and 1-2 Bengals right now.  Quarterback?  Now you’re splitting hairs.  I’ll expound on this difference (or lack thereof) this Friday.

Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys sit right where their fans expected them to sit after their first three games at 2-1 with a road victory over San Francisco.  It’s the way they got there that suggests the Cowboys won’t be competitive this year.

The offense is just not very good.  They can’t run the ball.  The Redskins missed enough assignments in the second half to make the Cowboys look proficient at scoring field goals, but against a disciplined unit, the red zone offense the Cowboys displayed with zero short yardage ability is truly representative of their ability.

The ability of the Washington Redskins to stifle Tony Romo most of the game to the point where he was publicly lauded for converting a single 3rd and 21 on yet another blown assignment from the Redskins is a better sign of the times than the fact that the Cowboys ultimately did win the game.  Now, the Cowboys defense actually looks like a strong unit under DC Rob Ryan, and if they can simply keep Romo in games, the Cowboys will have a shot at being above .500 this year — meeting their expectations.  But I don’t know if even getting Miles Austin back really does that much for the Cowboys at this point.  They have no offensive line, their quarterback is hurt, and their running game is non existent.  Tony Romo and Jason Witten are the offense in its entirety.

If Detroit goes into Dallas this week and knocks the Cowboys flat on their back: something that figures to be much easier for them than it was for Washington, I’m not sure the Cowboys ever recover.  If Dallas can get to 3-1 at home this week, they’ll be sitting pretty in the weakened NFC East.  But with a loss to a Matthew Stafford on their home turf, a 2-2 Cowboys team is probably who we thought they were.

Philadelphia Eagles

The 1-2 Eagles have already recorded a loss to a team (Atlanta) whose only victory came over the Eagles.  The Giants loss is a little more defensible on it’s merits, but even the Giants came in a mediocre team, and left favorites in the NFC East.  This is problematic for an Eagles team many expected to compete for the super bowl.

The problem for Philadelphia is: where do you go from here?  What exactly are your assets?  Michael Vick can’t be an asset if he’s always hurt.  DeSean Jackson, typically not one for catching a high % of footballs thrown to him, isn’t even catching half of footballs thrown to him, a number of those were cold drops.  Jeremy Maclin and LeSean McCoy have been awesome, but even Brent Celek isn’t a good player anymore.  They can’t protect the passer, which is more problematic if Mike Kafka has to play than it is for Vick.  Their defense just hasn’t been very good despite a number of players that would be good in any defense.

With Vick not at all playing well, this is a reality check for the Eagles.  The Eagles are not a very good team.  There’s not a whole lot they can do during the week to become a really good team.  They simply need more out of their quarterback, and they don’t have a lot of help they can dig up to give him.  This is still quite a good receiving corps, and the offensive line is good enough to open gaping holes for Shady McCoy, and basically the Eagles need Vick to play better, and they need their defense to play better.

If neither of those two things happen, we’re talking about a 6 or 7 win team here.  We’re talking about design flaws in Howie Roseman’s dream team.  We’re talking about the end of Andy Reid in Philadelphia.  We’re talking about a disaster season.

Atlanta Falcons

Along with the Jets, I pegged the Falcons for a major decline season this year, and they’re off to a disappointing 1-2 start complete with a blowout loss, and plenty of blown opportunities at Raymond James Stadium this past weekend, combined with a narrow victory at home over a disappointing Eagles team.

The Falcons offense has been dreadful.  The story of the season pretty much boils down to Matty Ice’s ridiculous efficiency in the red zone against Philadelphia pretty much earning the team a win, while that efficiency totally abandoned the Falcons in Tampa.  The truth is that what we saw against the Eagles is probably the only time we’ll see that from the Falcons this year: this is an awful offensive line with a highly overrated group of backs and receivers.  Like I said in the Dallas comment, Michael Turner took advantage of blown assignments by the defense to create big plays and it needs to be pointed out that they’ve gone 1-2 against a slate of three defenses that do not rank in the top 20 in DVOA DESPITE PLAYING THE FALCONS this year.

Matt Ryan’s supporting cast is catastrophically bad this year.  I know people are hot for Julio Jones after he went for 100 yards last week going against the corpse of Ronde Barber, but he’s a rookie receiver, and he’s simply not in A.J. Green’s class, no matter how much the Falcons spent for him.  If Jones move is going to pay off, it’s going to pay off later, not in the here and now.

The Bucs game was one the Falcons needed, and now that the Saints enjoy a one game lead, I don’t expect them to look back this year.  The Atlanta Falcons will not make the playoffs.

Data Dump: Observations about the 2011 Season, Part II

I wrote up four observations about the 2011 NFL season on Wednesday.  Here are six more:

5) Is Matt Ryan obscuring the overall age/talent issues of the Atlanta Falcons (FO: +14.9%, 8th; ANS: 0.46, 21st; SRS: 6.1, 7th)?

Subjectively, I think the Atlanta Falcons may have the best coaching staff in the entire NFL.  Is Mike Smith the best head coach?  He might be in the top five.  But I think defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder is going to be a head man in the NFL sometime soon, and I think offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey has long been one of the tougher offensive guys to scheme against.

In the big picture, the Falcons are pretty likely to have a winning record for the fourth straight season.  Will they make the playoffs in back to back seasons for the first time in team history?  The problems are multi-fold: the Falcons were incredibly clutch on offense last year (and not quite as productive in measurements of “skill”, such as yards per play), their defense leaves a lot to be desired beyond John Abraham, who is aging, and there is a team wide problem once you regress for age.

Matt Ryan and Roddy White are in their primes, although White’s receiving average per target (YPT) has actually declined as Matt Ryan has developed.  Michael Jenkins looks like he’s at the end.  The end could be a lot closer than it seems for RB Michael Turner, who was simply never a contributor in the passing game to begin with.  Julio Jones is years away from being an every down contributor, if that’s even his peak level of performance (I have my doubts).  Tony Gonzalez has not shown obvious signs of slowing down, but he’s 35 years old.  The average NFL linebacker is seven and a half years younger that that.  And while this may not qualify as “obvious”, Gonzalez’ yards per catch average was below 10 for the first time in his career in 2010, no doubt hurting Ryan’s numbers.  He will start at TE again this year.

Atlanta is going to have to work quick to save three impending free agents on their OL, the only three above average performers: Harvey Dahl, Tyson Clabo, and Justin Blalock.  But even beyond the contract issues, Matt Ryan simply can’t take the next step in 2011 without improvement from his teammates.  Even looking deeper down the roster, it’s hard to see where the production is going to come from.  Brian Finneran?  Probably not.  Harry Douglas hasn’t developed.  The Falcons gave up on the incredibly promising Jerious Norwood, who was on IR last year and is eligible for free agency.  Is Eric Weems ready for prime time?

The Falcons aren’t going anywhere without improvement in their back seven, and I just can’t see anything but a step back for their offense.  Even if Matt Ryan is the best player in the NFL in 2011, and can replicate his 2010 stats with no contribution from the rushing attack, the Falcons are still going to struggle to put up long drives on offense.  This team has age issues everywhere, and absolutely no elements on the team — beyond pass rushers John Abraham and Jonathon Babineaux — that projects to help Matt Ryan and Roddy White win games this year.  Julio Jones best grow up quickly.

6) The AFC South hasn’t been this weak in years

Last year, the Indianapolis Colts — not a bad team by any stretch (FO: +3.0%, 15th; ANS: 0.57, 9th; SRS: 2.9, 10th) — had to win at least three out of their last four games to make the postseason.  They won all four, winning the division at home in Week 17 in a tough fought game over the Titans, just as the Jaguars finished their collapse into oblivion against the Texans, rendering the Colts’ finish moot.  The Jaguars’ full collapse took until the seasons’ final week in which way they bested both the Titans and the Texans, who imploded much, much earlier.

The statistical systems saw the Texans (FO: +3.7%, 13th; ANS: 0.56, 10th; SRS: -1.8, 22nd) and Titans (FO: +7.7%, 11th; ANS: 0.54, 12th; SRS: 1.0, 14th) both as equals (at least) of the Colts, but these “equals” managed to finish four games back, beyond a margin that can reasonably be considered pure chance.  Jason Babin and Jason Jones were among the most valuable Titans last year, and both players completely mailed it in after week 12.  The Titans had the league’s top defense through a 5-2 start, then dropped to a hard-luck 5-6 behind incompetent offense and merely passable defense, then rebounded offensively under Collins while the defense totally gave up.  Losing your best contributors to indifference is a poor way to go out, Jeff Fisher.  The offensive problems on the Titans begin with the interior line and end with the quarterback.  The defensive problems appear to be about effort and scheme design.

It’s easy to forget that the Texans offense still features a bunch of players in their primes, but that’s because the team has become a classic underachiever under Gary Kubiak.  It’s not for lack of desire or effort: it’s simply because of poor decision making by the coaches through the week and into game day.  16 games has proven too long a season for Kubiak to not shoot his own team in the foot.  It just so happened that 2010 was the first Texans team that was classically (and non-repeatably) unlucky.  The Texans were screwed hard by the schedule, and will deal with a much easier one in 2011.  They will not be allowed to shake more “professional” teams like the Titans and Colts and Jaguars.  The Texans will be much closer than 6-10 this year.  And it won’t matter.  Because when it comes down to it, they will do something nonsensical at the end of a game to lose to a good opponent in November, and they’ll be chasing in December.

The Colts may not get back to 10 wins.  They have to play the entire NFC South and AFC North.  But despite a bit of early pressure from the Texans and Titans, the Colts can safely plan for the playoffs again this July.

7) The many dues the Detroit Lions (FO: -1.4%, 18th; ANS: 0.43, 22nd; SRS: 1.9, 13th) still have to pay

If you’ve seen the early-season schedule for the Lions, you can absolutely expect this team to be off to a hot start.  And it won’t entirely be a mirage.  And the Lions’ wild card aspirations are legitimate: after all, it’s the NFC we’re talking about.  Anything can happen in the NFC.  And I don’t think the Lions are all that far behind the Bucs in where they are as an organization on the rebound.  This is all very much positive for the Lions and Detroit fans.

But two things are very clear about the Lions.  They built their reputation on the strength of their offense.  It’s an offense designed to come away with touchdowns, not field goals.  And under Shaun Hill, it was able to do so.

But aside from the oft-injured nature of Matthew Stafford’s career, Stafford’s actual on-field play has left plenty to be desired.  First round pick Jahvid Best didn’t flash much of anything as a rookie behind one of the worst, offensive run blocking lines in football.  That line returns in it’s entirety.  It likely won’t be much better for this year’s first round RB, Mikel Leshoure.  There are still no holes for the Lions to run through.  And even if they can get opponents to respect the threat of the run, the Lions passing game is still very much a work in progress.

The ultimate product looks incredibly promising.  But Bryant Johnson, who is likely to make the team out of neccessity, is still one of the worst receivers in football.  The Lions aren’t sure what TE Brandon Pettigrew brings, outside of a dominant blocker.  Calvin Johnson catches much of what is thrown to him, and he’s an advanced route runner, but he doesn’t play the game at quite the speed at which he’s been timed at.

Being talent rich is one thing, and the Lions certainly are that, at least on one side of the ball.  It’s just not apparent that all the right parts are in place.  In some cases (Bryant Johnson) it’s so obviously apparent that other help is needed.  This offense never profiles to be as versatile in creating mismatches as the New England Patriots.  Like most Scott Linehan offenses, the personnel packages are going to define what plays can be called.  And so the Lions, at the peak of their performance, are simply going to have to out-execute the competition.  And 2011 is just too early to be able to do that.  The only reasonable hope this year is that they can continue to move in the right direction.

8. Time is ticking on the Ravens defense (FO DEF: -7.9%, 4th; ANS DEF: 5th; DSRS: 5.5, 3rd), but the Steelers defense (FO DEF: -18.5%, 1st; ANS DEF: 1st; DSRS: 7.7, 1st) is set to dominate beyond the era of Dick Lebeau

Ray Lewis and Ed Reed will return for the 2011 season, and the Ravens will once again be in the running for the super bowl, if not the favorite in the AFC North.  Baltimore is going to overgo some turnover in its secondary.  They are expected to lose S Dawan Landry, CB Josh Wilson, and CB Chris Carr in free agency.  Landry will be replaced internally with the combo of Tom Zbikowksi and Haruki Nakamura.  The Ravens are getting Dominique Foxworth back off of IR to start at CB.  It is their hope that Lardarius Webb, a third year player, can be the other starter.  The loaded Ravens will be fine, of course.  As long as Reed and Lewis are in the lineup, the remarkable, unbelievable consistency of the Ravens defensive unit will remain.  And Lewis and Reed will be in the lineup in 2011.

However, we’re now dealing with those two stars on a year to year basis.  Terrell Suggs is the third star on this defense, and though he’s entering his 8th season, he’s still just 28 years old.  Haloti Ngata may be the most important player in the entire defense (if not the most important defensive player in the NFL).  Ngata is just 27.  On these four foundations, the Ravens can pick and choose the talent that best fits its scheme.  With that said, the 2009 and 2010 drafts (Paul Kruger, Sergio Kindle, and Terrence Cody) look wildly overrated in terms of total return.  27-28 year olds are young by the standards of being a defensive superstar in the NFL, but the younger Ravens (25 and under) don’t offer much hope for superstardom.  Webb has maybe the best chance, but Jameel McClain and Brandon McKinney profile as role players.

Basically, the Ravens defense is dominant, but that era is running out of time to produce a second superbowl.  They had a really great opportunity in 2010, but it fizzled away in a dreadful second half against the Steelers in the AFC Divisional playoffs.  They really need Joe Flacco to move up into the same stratosphere of efficiency that Big Ben Roethlisberger has been playing in the last two years.

The Steelers, meanwhile, don’t offer any obvious reason to believe that 2011 is going to be the crowning year for their franchise.  It is just understood that they will be around.  Lawrence Timmons is just 25 years old.  Lamarr Woodley is 26.  James Harrison is on the wrong side of 30, though he figures to play longer than Ed Reed will.  Same deal for Troy Polamalu, who is 30.  Ryan Clark won’t be around forever, but the Steelers have plenty of time to replace him.  Same for James Farrior.

The immediate concern for the Steelers is on the defensive line, where it’s not clear if they can afford the oft-injured, but incredibly valuable Aaron Smith.  They’re hoping for more out of 2009 first rounder Ziggy Hood.  They now have rookie Cam Heyward in the fold.  And although veteran Brett Keisel is clearly the best player on the unit, nose tackle Casey Hampton is in obvious decline.  There are pieces on that unit, but it’s not obviously clear how the Steelers can best use that personnel in 2011.  And that may hurt them early in the season.  However, when I say “that may hurt them”, consider that the three metrics available have Pittsburgh as the best defense in the league last year.  Regression of some degree was inevitable.  And who knows, they may be better on the other side.

2011 definitely seems like it should be Baltimore’s year.  But if Flacco, Lewis and the Ravens don’t bring home the hardware this year, it’s unclear exactly how many seasons the Baltimore defense has left before the one year where absolutely everything goes wrong.

9) As much went right for Mike Vick’s Eagles (FO: +21.8%, 5th; ANS: 0.62, 7th; SRS: 4.2, 8th) last year as went wrong for Eli Manning’s Giants (FO: +14.6%, 9th; ANS: 0.68, 5th; SRS: 2.1, 12th).  The roles will be completely reversed this season

Symbolically, I can link to a YouTube clip of DeSean Jackson’s Miracle in the Meadowlands II and even though that play featured neither Vick nor Manning, I can rest my case.  Vick was the more valuable player of the two in 2010, but not so much in terms of easily repeatable skills.  It’s Manning who consistently attacks defenses where they are week, racking up the big passing yards and touchdown totals despite a horrifically depleted receiving corps.  To a degree, Manning will always struggle with tipped pass interceptions because when Manning misses, he’s usually high.  But Manning’s league leading 25 interceptions probably obscured the fact that he completed 63% of his passes for the second straight season, and threw for 4,000 yards for the second straight season and exceeded 7.0 net passing yards per attempt for the second straight season.

What category does that put Manning in?  Here are the other NFL passers who hit all three of those qualifications in 2009 and 2010:

• Philip Rivers

*Aaron Rodgers would have made the list if he had not missed three halves with a concussion in 2010.  Tom Brady missed 4000 yards for the second straight year by about 100 yards.

While a lot of passers are suffering declining NYPA figures, including both Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, Manning is hitting those figures because his completion percentage is consistently higher than it was earlier in his career.  The interceptions will regress, and the New York Giants are likely to have the leagues’ best or second best passing offense in 2011.  It also means that Eli Manning is a top five fantasy quarterback this season, and is a darkhorse candidate for 40 passing TDs.

But what about Vick, who is certain to be on the NFL Top 100 list inside the top 20 (Eli Manning didn’t make the list)?  Well, Vick did pretty well in those categories that Manning excelled at too.  But Vick is not particularly durable (Manning has the second longest active consecutive starts streak in the NFL, just about 6.5 years shy of big brother Peyton), and is going to see his interception rate regress in the other direction.  When that happens, Vick is unlikely to grade out as a top ten quarterback, statistically, however as long as he’s healthy, he should remain in the 6-10 range as a fantasy quarterback.  You can pretty much lock Vick in for another 20 to 25 TD season.  However, 12+ INTs seems like a bare minimum, assuming Vick hits 400 passing attempts this year.  15 INTs are pretty likely.

As fascinating as it may be to watch Ahmad Bradshaw and LeSean McCoy try to out-do each other’s numbers, ultimately, the gap in passing production is going to decide the division decisively in favor of Big Blue.

10) It’s going to be now or never for Norv Turner and the San Diego Chargers (FO: +17.1%, 7th; ANS: 0.81, 1st; SRS: 4.8, 7th)

The San Diego Chargers may be the favorites to win the AFC this year based on having a highly rated offense and a highly rated defense last year.  Despite a dreadful special teams unit that could not be overcome, the Chargers managed to be the same exact team each of the last four years under Norv Turner.  It is highly probable that the Chargers employ the league’s best quarterback.  They do not compete in a particularly difficult division.  They play in a division in which you can start 4-8, get serious, and finish in first place.  The Chargers are a consistently very good team under Norv Turner.  But this is year five.  And the Chargers have never sported a DVOA rating over 20% for a full year.

The concept of standard deviation isn’t going to explain why the Chargers start so terribly every season (that seems to be, objectively, luck-related since the Chargers don’t actually perform worse to begin a season).  But it will explain why, over a sample of four years, the Chargers win almost exactly two thirds of their games, including a .500 record in the playoffs under Turner (3-3).  The Chargers lie a single standard deviation above the average NFL team in the last four years, at least based on DVOA.  The win distribution of the NFL follows the bell curve very closely.  It can be assumed, following these premises, that the expected W-L of the Chargers assuming a league average schedule is about 2/3rds of all games.  Their actual winning percentage under Turner is 64%.

The Chargers have played up to expectation over the last four years based on a very consistent DVOA rating.  This is year five of Turner and year six of Rivers as a starter.  With all the historical advantages that scheme continuity and quarterback dominance gives an NFL organization, this has to be the best season in recent Chargers memory.  They don’t have to win 13 games like they did in 2009, but 11 is a bare minimum and they really need to be the highest rated Chargers team, at least since the 2006 team that went 14-2 under Marty Schottenheimer.  If they are the same team again, the Chargers probably owe it to themselves to turn over their front office and coaching staff while Rivers, et al are still in their primes and can win a championship.

FNQB: Having No Quarterback is Not an Excuse for Lack of Offensive Improvement

This article is about the Washington Redskins and the Cincinnati Bengals, but really, it’s about 17 different NFL teams.  This is about teams that try to win without established play from the quarterback position, and why its imperative to realize who is and isn’t being hurt by the inability to develop a quarterback.

The trends in the game strongly show that the “haves” in the game get production out of their quarterback position, while the “have nots” often do not.  The correlation isn’t as perfect as some would lead you to believe, but it’s there and it’s at least very clear.  The NFL’s have nots in the last decade have included the Lions, Redskins, 49ers (post-Garcia/Owens), Cardinals (pre-Warner/Fitzgerald), and the Vikings in the NFC, and the Raiders (post-Gannon), Texans, Bills, Dolphins, Browns in the AFC with the Bengals as sort of a weird Rorsach test.  The evidence shows that even the most moribund of franchises come out of the doldrums with a good QB year (such as 2007 Anderson, 2008 Warner/Chad Pennington, 2009 Favre).

But far too often, we mess up the cause and effect of quarterback play and team performance.  The Lions and Redskins both endured some of their worst seasons (2006, 2009 for Washington; 2004, 2008 for Detroit) with some of the best QB play in recent memory by either franchise.  The problem here is that good but not great QB play is almost not correlated at all with wins and losses, but where wins are, we find ways to inflate the true performance of the QB.  What was the difference between Kyle Orton and Josh Freeman’s 2010 seasons?  I think Freeman was a bit better in the pocket, but one QB won 3 games and lost 10 (and his job), and the other won 10 games and lost 6.  And Freeman was, at best, marginally better (though the *promise* of future dominance is a big concern here).  Freeman ended up on the Top 100 list of NFL players in 2011, and Orton is possibly going to lose his job to either Tim Tebow or Brady Quinn.  Is that outcome really following all the available evidence?  Not until wins and losses are included, it isn’t.

There have been “have nots” with very efficient QB play in recent years: the Redskins under both Mark Brunell and Jason Campbell, the Bengals under Carson Palmer, the Vikings under Daunte Culpepper, then Brad Johnson, and later Brett Favre, and the Dolphins under Chad Henne.  The Rams had a lean period from 2004-2006 with Marc Bulger still playing well.  Meanwhile, teams win all the time with below average QB play.  The Jets have taken Mark Sanchez to the AFC Championship game in consecutive years.  Ignoring future development potential (a major consideration, I admit), the Jets would have been better off (and were with Favre and later Brunell) with any of the names listed in this paragraph above over Sanchez.  They won though, making this a moot point and Sanchez a cult hero.  The Giants won a bunch of playoff games including the greatest team of all time (not to win the big one), the 2007 Patriots, simply because a developing Eli Manning stopped throwing picks in the playoffs.  Like people feel can happen with Sanchez, Manning DID develop.  The Cowboys made it into the playoffs in 2003 with Quincy Carter at the helm.  Jake Delhomme and Michael Vick both won enough games to take the AFC South in 2003-2005.  The last decade of Bears and Ravens teams featured many, many playoff runs with zero year to year consistency at the QB position (Flacco may, finally, be a keeper).  Getting Jay Cutler to be the franchise QB hasn’t exactly gotten the Bears any closer to the goal of winning the super bowl.  They still knock on the door every year.  Kurt Warner, very possibly, isn’t a hall of fame caliber quarterback if he doesn’t join the NFC West division just as it enters the leanest period since realignment.  And look back on Donovan McNabb’s career through the prism of his 2010 season, and consider how long he may have lasted if the NFC East wasn’t such a pushover division before Eli Manning and Tony Romo and Joe Gibbs.

The quarterbacks who played for the “have not” teams didn’t fail to win because of any personal flaw in there game, perhaps short of simply not being transcendent players.  Throughout Vince Young’s career, the relationship between his performance and playing time has been inverse.  Young actually was a transcendent college player, and the more he developed in the NFL, the larger of a pain in the ass he became.  For Cutler, at least it’s the opposite: he’s a pain in the ass when he’s not playing well, but a good face of the organization when he is.  Matt Leinart hasn’t played…at all.

The factors at play here don’t obviously have a lot to do with the quarterbacks themselves.  It seems to have more to do with the organizations.  A couple specific types of organizations have failed.

Organizations that lack overall resources to succeed

You probably didn’t realize that this made any difference in the NFL where every team can spend to the salary cap if it so pleases, but a number of orgs simply don’t have a lot of their own resources.  The Cincinnati Bengals, the Buffalo Bills, the Minnesota Vikings, and to a lesser extent, the Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and San Diego Chargers (and for a very long time, the New Orleans Saints — though the environment there may have permanently changed for the better) simply have a bottom line that affects their football decisions.  None of the teams that have won with poor quarterback play over the last decade (the Bears, Ravens, Giants, Jets) have any sort of resource problem what-so-ever.  Those organizations more or less print money.

But think of the three or four most financially insoluble franchises of the last ten years.  The Bengals had the first overall draft pick once and picked Carson Palmer.  The Bills have never had the first overall pick.  The Vikings have never picked higher than 7th in the last decade.  The Raiders picked 2nd overall in 2004 taking Robert Gallery and 1st overall in 2007 taking JaMarcus Russell.  And think how frequently impaired these rebuilding projects have been:

• After winning 11 games in 2005, the Bengals tried to build up a competent defense through the draft exclusively.  While they were eventually successful, the 2009 playoff version of the Bengals was dealing with a damaged goods Carson Palmer at QB, losing TJ Houshmandzadeh  in free agency, a declining Chad Ochocinco, and having to rebuild the entire OL on the cheap (making a rare sign-ability pick in OT Andre Smith in 2009).  More directly, the Bengals have long tried to find a Moneyball-style market niche in players that other teams avoid due to character concerns.  These moves haven’t often paid off.  The approach has cost them their franchise QB to retirement.  This does NOT happen to franchises with resources.
• The Buffalo Bills have never picked higher than third in a recent NFL Draft, and never once were able to offer anything resembling a trade up to position themselves for a quarterback since 2004, when they traded their 2005 first round pick to draft…JP Losman.  The 2004 Bills were the best Bills team since the Jim Kelly days, so they ended up trading the 20th overall pick in the 2005 draft, which could have easily been Aaron Rodgers.  Since Losman busted, that’s really not all that relevant.  Here’s who the Bills HAVE passed on since 2004 at QB: Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler, Brady Quinn, Joe Flacco, Josh Freeman, Jimmy Clausen, Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, and Christian Ponder.  Would any of those players have prevented the Bills from being another resource-limited franchise that cannot develop a QB?  Each player on that list outside of Quinn and Gabbert would have been considered a reach when the Bills selected, and the Bills have done a good job of being selective regarding their quarterback in the current market conditions.  They just haven’t drafted well enough to improve outside of the QB position.
• The Minnesota Vikings push the limits of the salary cap every year, which they can do because of revenue sharing, and has allowed them to maintain a number of defensive superstars such as Kevin Williams, Jared Allen, and Antoine Winfield, while still drafting very good players on that side of the ball such as Chad Greenway and EJ Henderson.  DC (now HC) Leslie Frazier has generally made very good decisions on his side of the ball.  But the limited resources of the Vikings — which includes a sale of the franchise and the inability to land a new stadium — have cost them offensive stars such as Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper, who actually have been adequately replaced in the short term with Nate Burleson and Brad Johnson.  Then those guys left and what was left was some sort of bastardized west coast offense build by Brad Childress that both featured and refused to feature Tarvaris Jackson at quarterback.  The Vikings should have been dominating the NFC North between 2005 and 2009, between the primes of Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, but the Chicago Bears in many ways just out-resourced the Vikings for that opportunity.  There’s no other logical reason that the team with the best offensive and defensive players in their division in 2007, 2008, and 2009 won the division just twice and won just a single playoff game.
• There are no question the Oakland Raiders often acted erratically under Al Davis over the past decade, and rarely have they built anything positive, but the Raiders have done a far better job of resource-limited franchises of spending to win based on their scheme.  Even the Raiders, however, departed from wise spending during the Lane Kiffin era, not allowing Kiffin to pick his QB in the 2007 NFL Draft, and then unjustly spending on defensive players Kiffin asked for to save a job in 2008 that Davis was hardly committed to.  The Russell mistake is well documented, as is the Randy Moss error, but why did the Raiders go after DeAngelo Hall and Gibril Wilson in 2008 free agency when the team had done nothing but draft players in the secondary over the drafts leading up to this one?  And worse, when the Raiders released Hall after jettisoning Kiffin, they moved back to a man coverage scheme where Hall could have excelled.  The Giants could have overcome such a waste, but the Raiders just are right now.  The Raiders regathered their resources after that season and have seemed to have gotten it right: no team in the NFL is loaded like the Raiders are now, although to this day, the Michael Huff pick in the 2006 draft is going to set the franchise back as much or more than the JaMarcus Russell pick as the team passed on a transcendental DL in Haloti Ngata who fit the Raiders scheme.

Meanwhile in 2009, the Lions and Bucs both started streamline rebuilding projects that have produced far improved organizations who use their resources wisely.  The Chargers, for all the crap that general manager AJ Smith takes, have been doing this for years and are still a model organization.  The point is that you can win with limited resources in the NFL, but conventional wisdom is almost always designed to get teams off track.  And as the next section proves, even having resources doesn’t ensure success once a team has a quarterback

Organizations that are Poorly Managed

This is where it makes sense to introduce the cases of the Washington Redskins, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Miami Dolphins.  Even when these organizations hire good people (Bruce Allen, Marvin Lewis, Bill Parcells), they cannot seem to sustain any sort of meaningful gain from it.  Because for these three organizations, hiring good people is the abberation, not the rule.  And so short term gains remain just that, short.

Parcells, prior to leaving the Miami Dolphins, was able to restock his team’s roster at quarterback by picking up Chad Pennington and adding Chad Henne in the draft, and doing so in a manner that allowed him to add Jake Long with the first overall pick in 2008 to bookend Vernon Carey as the AFC’s top offensive tackle tandem.  Ignoring the high efficiency backs that Miami already possessed, the Dolphins were flat handed the structure of an elite offense and an attacking 3-4 defense that had all meaningful parts in place, could develop talented, low-cost role players, such as Cameron Wake, and had high efficiency receivers in Davone Bess and Brian Hartline who went undrafted, and provided punch to the Dolphins offense without cost.

So you tell me: how did that team end up closer to the resource-less Bills in overall results than the AFC playoff bound New York Jets?  After the sale of the team from Wayne Huizenga to Stephen Ross, and the departure of Parcells (who wouldn’t have helped the ‘get over the hump’ process anyway), the Dolphins have managed to sink to one of the worst run organizations in football.  Sparano has voluntarily taken the ideal QB situation of Pennington-Henne and has added Tyler Thigpen to the mix, not-so-inadvertently (but completely unnecessarily) making QB a question mark in 2011.  The team traded for Brandon Marshall in 2010, who cost them two second round picks — which the Dolphins treat like candy on Halloween anyway — and Marshall hasn’t done anything to improve the offense while undermining his quarterback.

The Dolphins have at least managed to not sabotage their infrastructure: that defense looks like the early favorite for the best in 2011.  But the offense is a mess despite every advantage one could possibly have, and I can’t see the Dolphins winning in 2011 even if they feature the leagues best defense.  It will all be put on Henne, but the criticism belongs higher up.  On Ireland and Ross.

The Cincinnati Bengals have something to prove in 2011, that they can win without Carson Palmer at quarterback.  But they’re not just fighting common perception that teams can’t win in the NFL without an established quarterback, they’re also fighting their own organization.  It is possible that the Bengals turned over a new leaf starting with the 2011 NFL Draft, picking AJ Green and Andy Dalton with their first two picks.  But the team is proving unwilling to turn it’s most valuable asset, Palmer, into picks and players that can help the Bengals win in future season.  Meanwhile the team is all too ready to do exactly that what it won’t do with Palmer with star receiver Chad Ochocinco, but Ocho has virtually no value as a trade piece.

It’s very clear looking at the Bengals roster that they plan to rebrand themselves as a ground-first team, which is a good idea, but it also seems like the team is just waiting for the end of the lockout to make 28 year old RB Cedric Benson the highest paid player on their offense, which is a terrible idea for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that Benson is a 28 year old RB.  The team may not be able to afford Jonathon Joseph at corner, who is an impending free agent.  The resource limited Bengals are just poorly managed enough to seriously consider spending the balance of those resources on Benson.  They may be able to win in 2o11 behind a strong offensive line and a renewed passing game, but I don’t know if the trigger man of the offense can be either Jordan Palmer or Andy Dalton this year.  I think they need a third party.  And I don’t know if the Bengals have a plan to win in 2011.  Which is expected, because these are the Bengals.

Remember: the Bengals did not win when they had a quarterback (and a passing game).  As good a pick as AJ Green is, keep that in mind when evaluating the career potential of Andy Dalton in Cincinnati.

Really though, this point is about the Washington Redskins.  It’s about Mark Brunell and Jason Campbell.  It’s also about Donovan McNabb, Rex Grossman, and John Beck.  It’s about Dan Snyder, Vinny Cerrato, Jim Zorn, Mike Shanahan, and Bruce Allen.  It’s about the quarterback “excuse.”  The defeatist Dolphins complain that not having a quarterback is holding them back, and have for a decade, save 2008.  The Bengals have their finger on the button, ready to pull the same excuse.  But no team has been worse than the Washington Redskins at pulling the quarterback excuse to place the blame anywhere but on themselves.

Like the Dolphins, an ownership sale really did hurt the team’s ability from a resources perspective to lock up that quarterback situation.  The year was 1998, and the Redskins — for a couple of critical months, at least — were resource limited.  The quarterback in question was Trent Green, who signed in St. Louis as a free agent, and followed around Dick Vermeil for the rest of his career.  So the Green thing fell apart for the Redskins because of a resources situation.  And as written above, teams should get a pass, within reason, for being resource limited.  And it cost the Redskins Green.

What then, is the excuse for: Brad Johnson, Patrick Ramsey, Mark Brunell, Jason Campbell, and Donovan McNabb?  Because it’s now 2011.  And the Redskins are still using the same “quarterback barren” excuse that died after Johnson replaced Green in 1999 twelve years later.  And five physically capable quarterbacks have walked through the doors in Washington, enjoyed a successful-mini career, and mind you, the Redskins organization is in no better shape than the day they brought Jeff George in to “solve” the problem that never existed in the first place.  Johnson, Ramsey, and Campbell all cost the Redskins first round picks.  McNabb cost a second and a fourth.  Brunell cost a third and a fourth.  None were apparently worth a commitment.  And the product of those ten years were a lot of losing, three playoff games, and an offseason debate as to whether John Beck or Rex Grossman is more deserving of succeeding McNabb.

You could argue that no team has had more resources than the Redskins under Dan Snyder, and it’s almost inarguable that no team has done less with it’s available resources than the Redskins.  This proves that while teams lacking resources are always struggling to sustain, teams with resources will be no less likely to fail if managed poorly.  I’m trying to think of any other team that has the sheer quantity of quarterbacks come through that would either go on to enjoy more wins (Johnson, Campbell), or had come from very successful programs with no real success (Brunell, McNabb).  Tampa Bay, maybe?  They had Freeman, Garcia, Johnson, and…Griese/Gradkowski?  Chris Simms is too much of a stretch.  What about Denver?  Griese, Plummer, Cutler, Orton, Tebow?  The Giants had Kerry Collins and Warner, and culminated with Eli Manning.

It is somewhat fitting that the 2010 Washington Redskins’ front office was comprised of the personnel guys for the only two other teams not able to establish quarterbacks with a comparable level of talent coming through the organization at the position.  It’s fitting really.  And it leads me to the big point: under no circumstance is instability at the QB position ever a good excuse for not making offensive improvement.  It never is.  Good quarterback play, by itself, never solves organizational issues.  Organizations that turn themselves around typically do it with the combination of good quarterbacking and something else.  If the Saints, perhaps the most recent example of an organization that turned itself around, had made the NFC Championship game in 2006, but failed to hire Gregg Williams in 2009 and had languished any further on defense, it’s not clear if Sean Payton would still have a job and if Drew Brees would still be worth an enormous salary.  The Saints found offense, but they also controlled the next step in becoming a super bowl champion when the organization stopped shooting itself in the foot.  The Jaguars, who did not bother to retain Williams after the 2008 season, have declined on defense since.

I would almost be wasting my time to remind you that when the Redskins made the playoffs twice in three years in the middle of this decade, Williams was calling their defense, and the Redskins were using their considerable resources to get him pieces.  Unfortunately, a poor year by the defensive unit in 2006 caused the Redskins to…get this…blame it on the quarterback (Brunell), and make a change there.  The Redskins blew up shortly after Williams left as an organization, and Jason Campbell was left with the task of picking up the pieces.

Teams that have resources, in particular, should win.  The Redskins should win.  The Dolphins should win.  The Cowboys should win.  The Bears should win.  The 49ers should win.  The Titans should win.  The Broncos should win.  The Texans should win.  It’s the natural order of professional football.  Whether these teams have a quarterback or not, or are simply in between quarterbacks, it’s not an excuse.  Twelve teams make the playoffs each year, and not all of them do it with great quarterback seasons.  However, for organizations that don’t do very much well, they typically find fault with the QB position very quickly relative to other positions.  But having an abundance of resources means that if you address all your issues at once, there is enough time and money and coaching and scouting to go around to create a winner.  Teams like the Bucs and the Chargers have to streamline operations specifically because there aren’t enough resources to do everything at once like a large market team can do.  But when teams like the Redskins and Dolphins push past a decade of incompetent decision making, despite the ability these teams have to error and recover quickly, you do have to glance over and chuckle when people want to point out that the quarterback situation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.