Packers-Niners. Just the mention of those teams conjures images of California-cool quarterbacks kneeling down at the end of games. If sometimes you toy with the notion that every game that has ever been won in the National Football League has been won by one of these teams, you wouldn’t be toying alone. And yet why does this game have the feeling of anticlimax?
Could it be that it’s because it’s been done better in real life? The bookend Packers-Niners playoff games – the Packers’ win in the rain in 1996 and the Niners’ down-to-the-wire win two years later – have everything you could want in a football game, including bratwurst and large, inexpensive beers. If they don’t include every player on each all-time team they include a more-than-representative sampling, especially in the Niners’ case.
But enough dealing with reality. Let’s jump back into the unreal world and take a hard look at these two make-believe teams. The Niners have a HOFer everywhere, but not always multiple HOFers. The Packers have multiple HOFers everywhere. Advantage Packers. But in certain key areas the Niners’ HOFers are better than the Packers’ HOFers. Would you rather have Joe Montana, Steve Young and Y.A. Tittle or Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers? Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens or Don Hutson and James Lofton? Ronnie Lott and Jim Johnson or Herb Adderly and Willie Wood (and Charles Woodson)? Advantage Niners.
However, in the lines and at running back, those brutal locales not too dissimilar from eastern Colorado, the Packers dominate. Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo, Cal Hubbard, and Mike Michalske trump Bob St. Clair et al. Leo Nomellini and the interchangeable pack horses of the Bill Walsh era, Dana Stubblefield and Bryant Young cower in the massive shadows of Willie Davis, Henry Jordan, and Reggie White. Joe Perry and Hugh McIlhenny (and the criminally underappreciated Roger Craig and Rickey Watters) are strictly second-tier guys compared to Hornung, Taylor, Clarke Hinkle, Johnny Blood, Tony Canadeo, and Arnie Herber. And sorry Bill Walsh, but Vince Lombardi, Curley Lambeau, and Mike Holmgren take you down.
But it’s close. It’s very close. When you run the two-deeps on a continuum and cut off the top 15 players, they’re virtually identical. But when you get to players 47 and 48, it’s clear that the Packers have better talent.
So let’s do it that way. Let’s take the two-deep starting lineups of both teams, put them on continuums, and then see how the bottom tiers of both look.
Using a combination of Pro Football Reference’s Weighted Average Value and Elo Rater scores, here are the players scoring more than 100 on a combined index where the lower the score, the better the player:
Niners Packers
Roger Craig Dave Robinson
Bob St. Clair James Lofton
Harris Barton Jerry Kramer
Hugh McIlhenny Charles Woodson
Billy Wilson Donald Driver
Joe Perry Chad Clifton
Gene Washington Fred Carr
Brent Jones Hawg Hanner
Bruce Bosley John Anderson
Abe Woodson Bobby Dillon
Keena Turner Sterling Sharpe
Tommy Hart Lionel Aldridge
Ken Willard Mark Tauscher
Cedrick Hardman Ken Ellis
John Taylor Aaron Kampman
Dana Stubblefield Gale Gillingham
Merton Hanks Paul Coffman
Roland Lakes Mike McCoy
Guy McIntyre Willie Buchanon
Frank Nunley
Ken Norton Jr.
Eric Wright
Dwight Hicks
Forrest Blue
Woody Peoples
Kermit Alexander
Tim McDonald
Monty Stickles
Bruno Banducci
Howard Mudd
Hacksaw Reynolds
These lists don’t lack for good players, but they point up the problem with the Niners: there’s more bottom, and it goes deeper. Ken Ellis, Aaron Kampman and Gale Gillingham (and what is it with Gillingham getting nothing from history? I know the guy just died and we’re all rosy-eyed about his worth as a football player, but he was absolutely the best thing about the Packers after Lombardi left, and was every bit as good As Jerry Kramer, who gets plenty of forearm shivers from the football cognoscenti as-is) are very comparable to Hacksaw Reynolds, Tim McDonald (another head-scratcher as far as history goes), Forrest Blue, and Woody Peoples. But where the Niners offer up Bruno Banducci and Merton Hanks the Packers counter with Buckets Goldenberg and Jug Earpe – different, but better different. In this world, where a replacement-value guy is a five-time All-Pro, the Packers have better players.
Okay, so we’ve beaten that particular dead horse to death. Talent wins most but not all of these games. How does talent fare here?
Pretty well.
It’s a different sort of game, a little like a modern-day Jets-Patriots game minus the chubby guys in hoodies. The Niners want to throw it all over the field and worry about defense when they get there, while the Packers want to pound the ball and play defense and keep Brett Favre staked to the ground, Gulliver-style, on the sideline. (and yes, Aaron Rodgers is in charge of the little hammer.)
The result is much like the recent Jets-Patriots tussles, where the Patriots get the best of the stat sheet but the Jets win. In this case, as the snow swirls around Lambeau and the in-ground turf heaters create a surface of a consistency similar to those things they called “steaks” you used to get at Ponderosa, the Niners take the opening kickoff, run it out to the 47 courtesy of a great Abe Woodson return, march it down to the 24, and miss a field goal. The Packers stumble out to the 32 and punt. The Niners run the punt out to midfield, run and pass it down inside the 15, and throw an interception (Bobby Dillon). The Packers run back the interception to the 21, pound it out to the 24, and punt. The Niners take a penalty on the runback that lands them at their own 33 and fly down the field to the Packer 42, where the drive stalls and the Niners punt it into the end zone. When the quarter ends at this point it’s a mercy-killing.
Perhaps energized by the Packer band’s version of “Ride My Seesaw” at the quarter break, the Packers mount a drive … actually, they get a first down. Overwhelmed by this display of offensive prowess, Abe Woodson fumbles the ensuring punt and the Packers recover at the San Francisco 38. The Packers don’t do much with the field position; a Starr-to-Hutson square-out takes the ball down to the Niners’ 19 before the demi-drive stalls. Chester Marcol doesn’t miss, however, and the Packers take a middlingly late 3-0 lead.
At this point San Francisco has 87 yards, two turnovers and no points. The Packers have 30 yards and three points.
And the beat goes on. The Niners roll up 53 yards on a drive that ends in a field goal blocked by Fred Carr and Ted Hendricks. The Packers go three-and-out. The Niners roll up 31 yards and punt. The Packers go five-and-out. The Niners roll up 40 yards before two penalties and a sack end their drive. The Packers get the ball on their own 32 with 1:53 left in the half.
Finally, some semblance of offense. A 13-yard Tony Canadeo scamper is followed by a Starr-to-Lofton post pattern that takes the ball down to the San Francisco 22. A flare pass to John Blood McNally takes the ball down to the 5, and that’s close enough for Jim Taylor to bash it into the end zone in three tries. Marcol’s extra point makes it 10-0 Packers as the halftime gun fires.
The Niners can’t be expected to stay down forever, and they don’t. After another Green Bay three-and-out to start the second half, Steve Young enters the game in relief of Joe Montana and immediately catches fire. He hits Jerry Rice for 19 yards and Terrell Owens for 23, scrambles for 11 and hits Hugh McIlhenny on a swing pass that goes for 18 yards and a score. Tommy Davis’ extra point (at last! Something through the uprights!) makes it 10-7.
At this point, the lid is officially off and the game is officially not the game of the first half. Starr begins to click hisownself. On a 77-yard drive Starr hits Lofton for 22, Hutson for 31 and Sharpe for 11 and a touchdown. Young answers with a 73-yard drive that culminates in an eight-yard Brent Jones TD strike. On the Packers’ ensuing series, Starr audibles out of a dive play to Jim Taylor and calls an option pass. Cecil Isbell hits Sharpe in stride from 57 yards out, and suddenly it’s halfway through the fourth quarter and 24-14 Green Bay.
The Niners make it interesting. Young alternates Perry runs and passes to Rice and Jones on a 65-yard drive that takes the ball down to the 8 – field-goal range for Tommy Davis. Now it’s 24-17 and a seven-point game.
With six minutes left the Niners kick off to the Packers. The Niners get the ball back with 47 seconds left in the shadow of their own goalposts.
They don’t go gentle into that good-and-cold eastern Wisconsin night. Young’s bomb in the direction of Terrell Owens draws a pass-interference penalty, bringing the ball out to midfield. Two more passes, and the Niners are inside the Packer 30 with 25 seconds left.
With no timeouts left Young rolls right, Reggie White hot on his trail. Young underestimates White’s closing speed one last, fatal time. White closes the gap, flings a huge paw around Young, drives him to the turf and refuses to get off the quarterback until the clock reads triple zeroes. The gun fires, the game ends, and the Packers survive.
“Survive” is the operative word. The Packers are outgained by 85 yards, 462 to 377. Surprisingly, no one runs much, not even the Packers. Jim Taylor gains 71 yards in 15 carries, Canadeo 19 in six, Hinkle 14 in three, and Ahman Green 11 in one. McIlhenny gains 37 yards on six carries, Joe Perry 22 in 12, Craig 21 in three, John Henry Johnson five in three, and Young 24 on two scrambles.
Starr throws for 306 yards and two TDs, but his numbers are eclipsed by the combination of Montana (174 yards, two interceptions) and Young (179 yards, two touchdowns).
The Packers came in feeling like they had to run to win, and they won it by passing. Football is funny that way.
Determining who is best positioned to win a game is a question of talent. Actually winning a game is something else altogether.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Lions and Bears: Get your "Oh, My"'s Elsewhere
The Bears win; you know that. It’s like watching a movie with the Rock. There is a 100 percent probability that when things really get down to the stove bolts the Rock will cold-cock Charlemagne with a short, sweet right, sweep Nefertiti in his arms without dislodging a single sacred hair of that funky Kid ‘n’ Play ‘do of hers, and vine-swing from tree to tree until he reaches the battlestar. It’s inevitable. Moviegoers expect the Rock to save Timmy from the well and toss June Lockhart over his shoulder (okay, and pet Lassie) and they’re going to go all Arab Spring on you if he doesn’t.
So for the Lions to somehow beat the Bears? My God, it would be like Shirley Temple taking down the Rock, flipping his batteries and getting him to play house and have tea parties, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 2. In an alternate universe maybe, where the sun orbits the earth and Herman Cain makes sense, but not here.
Fine, but let’s run the matchup anyway. Quarterback is a nonfactor with these teams. You could stick a lump of pot cheese back there and the result would be about the same. The Bears haven’t had a truly great quarterback since Sid Luckman, and the Lions haven’t had one since Dutch Clark, which means they haven’t had a quarterback since a quarterback was a quarterback and not a running back playing a position called quarterback. (see Tebow, Tim.) The Bears have the greatest running back ever and so do the Lions, only the Bears have Gale Sayers too and the Lions have … well, they have Dutch Clark again, or Doak Walker, who was Dutch Clark 2.1.1.
Both teams also trot out meh-level receivers – Harlon Hill and Bill Hewitt for the Bears, and Herman Moore and Calvin Johnson for the Lions. The Lions have the more productive receivers no doubt, and you can’t even draw the Bears wideouts into the what-if-he-played-today game you can play with a Don Hutson. Too many variables. Too many bad quarterbacks. And Harlon Hill? However, both teams have HOF tight ends -- blocking tight ends, naturally -- of roughly the same vintage.
So far so good on the matchups, so let’s move to the lines. The Lions have three HOFers (assuming Dick Stanfel gets in) and a couple of borderline guys. The Bears have nine.
Nine? Oh.
On the other side of the ball, the Lions have one HOFer in the front seven and a couple of maybes. The Bears have eight to 10, depending on how many guys you want to play both ways.
Cue the ominous Emimem music from the Chrysler ad, but leave the Baptist choir out of it.
It would matter that the Lions have an all-HOF secondary if the Bears threw the ball, but they have four HOF running backs and nine HOF O-linemen, and Harlon Hill as their best deep threat. You really think they’re gonna throw?
And herein lies the problem with the Lions against the Bears. The Lions are strong where it doesn't count against a team built to live by a lake, chew mud and spit snowflakes and pound the ball between the tackles. Lions-Colts would be fascinating. Bears-Lions not so much. Bears-Colts would – (spoiler alert) will – be interesting. It would also make a difference in this game if the Lions could do things that the Bears might have trouble stopping – throwing the ball, for instance. Once out of the hotel bar, Bobby Layne never scared no one as a passer.
In fact, this is one of those football games that makes you wonder why football is the titular American pastime. The only stat worth keeping is how many horsecollar tackles Night Train Lane makes. (Answer: nine.) The only person breaking off yardage in adult-size chunks is Gale Sayers, and most of those come on punt returns. And there are plenty of punt returns.
There are 13 punts all told in this game, seven by the Lions, who never seem to be on the side of the 50-yard line where the touchdowns are.
So you can figure out how it goes. Punt-punt-punt-punt-field goal-punt-punt-punt-touchdown pretty much sums up the first half. The touchdown comes after a 43-yard Sayers punt return took the ball inside the 20, setting up seven brutal plays (including a fourth-and-one conversion) culminating in a four-yard Walter Payton TD. The field goal comes after a 37-yard Sayers return and an eight-yard drive.
Up 10-0, the Bears come out in the second half and do the unthinkable: They throw a pass... and naturally it’s intercepted by Lem Barney, who returns it 19 yards to the Chicago 16. Three plays later Layne throws an end-over-end jump ball in the direction of Calvin Johnson, who comes down with the ball in the back corner of the end zone.
After that it's punt-punt-field goal-interception-fumble-punt-punt-interception-missed field goal-punt-ballgame. Sayers sets up the field goal with another 30-plus-yard scamper off of a punt (and even the presence of all those great D-backs on special teams does little to take the edge off of Sayers' mad dashes), putting the capper on a day spent lazing in an offense as poorly suited to his skills as the current Bears' desired game is to modern-day Sayers Matt Forte.
Layne's day is mean, nasty, brutish, and not nearly short enough: 13-for-31, 174 yards, a touchdown and two picks. Barry Sanders runs for a subpar (for Barry Sanders) 113 yards on 21 carries, but 174 plus 113 doesn't equal victory.
Luckman's numbers are virtually identical to Layne's save for the highs and lows: 15-for-24 for 187, null and zed. Running back is strictly by committee; Payton runs for 82, Sayers 63, McAfee 51, Grange 44, and Nagurski 39. More rushing yards don't always equal victory, but it's a good start. Especially if you have a D-line full of HOFers backed by the game's definitive linebackers.
So the Bears move on, completely unsurprisingly and without a caveat in the world save for this: If the Bears would ever play a hotshot passing team this all might be different.
Not now, but soon ...
So for the Lions to somehow beat the Bears? My God, it would be like Shirley Temple taking down the Rock, flipping his batteries and getting him to play house and have tea parties, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 2. In an alternate universe maybe, where the sun orbits the earth and Herman Cain makes sense, but not here.
Fine, but let’s run the matchup anyway. Quarterback is a nonfactor with these teams. You could stick a lump of pot cheese back there and the result would be about the same. The Bears haven’t had a truly great quarterback since Sid Luckman, and the Lions haven’t had one since Dutch Clark, which means they haven’t had a quarterback since a quarterback was a quarterback and not a running back playing a position called quarterback. (see Tebow, Tim.) The Bears have the greatest running back ever and so do the Lions, only the Bears have Gale Sayers too and the Lions have … well, they have Dutch Clark again, or Doak Walker, who was Dutch Clark 2.1.1.
Both teams also trot out meh-level receivers – Harlon Hill and Bill Hewitt for the Bears, and Herman Moore and Calvin Johnson for the Lions. The Lions have the more productive receivers no doubt, and you can’t even draw the Bears wideouts into the what-if-he-played-today game you can play with a Don Hutson. Too many variables. Too many bad quarterbacks. And Harlon Hill? However, both teams have HOF tight ends -- blocking tight ends, naturally -- of roughly the same vintage.
So far so good on the matchups, so let’s move to the lines. The Lions have three HOFers (assuming Dick Stanfel gets in) and a couple of borderline guys. The Bears have nine.
Nine? Oh.
On the other side of the ball, the Lions have one HOFer in the front seven and a couple of maybes. The Bears have eight to 10, depending on how many guys you want to play both ways.
Cue the ominous Emimem music from the Chrysler ad, but leave the Baptist choir out of it.
It would matter that the Lions have an all-HOF secondary if the Bears threw the ball, but they have four HOF running backs and nine HOF O-linemen, and Harlon Hill as their best deep threat. You really think they’re gonna throw?
And herein lies the problem with the Lions against the Bears. The Lions are strong where it doesn't count against a team built to live by a lake, chew mud and spit snowflakes and pound the ball between the tackles. Lions-Colts would be fascinating. Bears-Lions not so much. Bears-Colts would – (spoiler alert) will – be interesting. It would also make a difference in this game if the Lions could do things that the Bears might have trouble stopping – throwing the ball, for instance. Once out of the hotel bar, Bobby Layne never scared no one as a passer.
In fact, this is one of those football games that makes you wonder why football is the titular American pastime. The only stat worth keeping is how many horsecollar tackles Night Train Lane makes. (Answer: nine.) The only person breaking off yardage in adult-size chunks is Gale Sayers, and most of those come on punt returns. And there are plenty of punt returns.
There are 13 punts all told in this game, seven by the Lions, who never seem to be on the side of the 50-yard line where the touchdowns are.
So you can figure out how it goes. Punt-punt-punt-punt-field goal-punt-punt-punt-touchdown pretty much sums up the first half. The touchdown comes after a 43-yard Sayers punt return took the ball inside the 20, setting up seven brutal plays (including a fourth-and-one conversion) culminating in a four-yard Walter Payton TD. The field goal comes after a 37-yard Sayers return and an eight-yard drive.
Up 10-0, the Bears come out in the second half and do the unthinkable: They throw a pass... and naturally it’s intercepted by Lem Barney, who returns it 19 yards to the Chicago 16. Three plays later Layne throws an end-over-end jump ball in the direction of Calvin Johnson, who comes down with the ball in the back corner of the end zone.
After that it's punt-punt-field goal-interception-fumble-punt-punt-interception-missed field goal-punt-ballgame. Sayers sets up the field goal with another 30-plus-yard scamper off of a punt (and even the presence of all those great D-backs on special teams does little to take the edge off of Sayers' mad dashes), putting the capper on a day spent lazing in an offense as poorly suited to his skills as the current Bears' desired game is to modern-day Sayers Matt Forte.
Layne's day is mean, nasty, brutish, and not nearly short enough: 13-for-31, 174 yards, a touchdown and two picks. Barry Sanders runs for a subpar (for Barry Sanders) 113 yards on 21 carries, but 174 plus 113 doesn't equal victory.
Luckman's numbers are virtually identical to Layne's save for the highs and lows: 15-for-24 for 187, null and zed. Running back is strictly by committee; Payton runs for 82, Sayers 63, McAfee 51, Grange 44, and Nagurski 39. More rushing yards don't always equal victory, but it's a good start. Especially if you have a D-line full of HOFers backed by the game's definitive linebackers.
So the Bears move on, completely unsurprisingly and without a caveat in the world save for this: If the Bears would ever play a hotshot passing team this all might be different.
Not now, but soon ...
Friday, September 30, 2011
Colts-Cowboys: Battle of the (Cartoon) Network Stars
Maybe the greatest appeal of football to men is this: It’s so linear.
You either have talent or you don’t. Either the talent performs or it doesn’t. If the talent doesn’t perform the team loses. If the team loses the coach gets fired. The switch is on or it’s off. It’s broken or it’s fixed. It’s brats or burgers.
What’s more, the product is standardized. There’s a recipe for throwing and general agreement on how to catch, how to run, and how to tackle. You don’t find a lot of knuckleballers in football. The Greenwich Mean Time of football is the 40-yard dash. You run against the clock, and the clock doesn’t keep a supply of graphite oil inside its belt.
Compare this to baseball, which is a women’s sport if ever there was one. Ichiro is arguably the greatest baseball talent of the modern age – Americans only saw the down side of his career, remember – but he is more idiosyncratic than a stop-motion David Byrne, he makes positive contact with the ball one-eighth of the time, and even if he makes positive contact there’s no guarantee of a positive outcome. And it’s all discussed incessantly by everyone involved. I was watching the season finales on Wednesday, and for all the inherent drama I mostly felt like I had just wandered into the narthex of the local Lutheran church after a Sunday-school teacher’s meeting.
Really, baseball couldn’t be more feminine if it were lavender-scented.
The ultimate lesson here is that in football talent wins more often than not, even in these fanciful made-up games I’ve been documenting over the last several months. Cachet, that certain something behind a good 70 percent of the Yankees’ world championships, doesn’t really come to play in this sandbox.
All of which is a preface to saying this: the Cowboys lose.
Now, the Cowboys have nothing if not cachet. Of all the cartoon characters football fans have created to personify their team, the Cowboys’ character is the most pervasive: The 100 percent Amurrican as wild-west cowboy, rootin’ and tootin’ and shootin’ up the town, daring the law-abiding citizens to make him stop.
Oh, and he’s short. Like five-foot-two short. And his cowboy hat falls down over his ears to such an extent that all you see of him besides his hat is a pair of cowboy boots. It’s Jerry Jones in caricature as L’il Jerry, Amurrican hero, and one way or another L’il Jerry always wins. The Cowboys oeuvre is a topsy-turvy everything’s-bigger-in-Texas act for the new Texas, where they sell more Hyundais than F-150s, and it’s custom-made for all the brawn-over-brain galoots who have secretly rooted for Yosemite Sam to blow up Bugs Bunny just once.
If the Cowboys were a baseball team they’d be the Yankees; it’s been said more than once because it’s true. The Cowboys would hit you over the head with their stadium and pitch Herschel Walker in game one, Peyton Manning would lose a fly ball in the sun, the ‘Boys would bring in Deion Sanders to close, and it’d be all over before Pat Summerall realized they were playing baseball.
However, the Cowboys’ inherent Yankeeness returns to bite them in this stadium of the mind, where the numbers throw fastballs and reality runs the 40. Dallas’ success has been self-perpetuating, often in excess of the talent producing the results. The Cowboys have won 57.6 percent of their games, just a tick behind the Bears, yet their best quarterbacks have been Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach – Hall of Famers more renowned for managing talent than displaying outlandish skills. The ‘Boys running backs are unimpeachable – you gonna argue with TD and Emmitt, despite their iffy skills as pass-catchers? – but the wide receivers aren’t difference-makers and their offensive line toils in well-deserved obscurity. The D-line is stout and the linebackers are solid, but like a lot of good teams there’s work to be done in the defensive backfield. They’re just a team, in other words, like a lot of other teams. They don’t run out Hall of famers two-deep like the Bears or have a HOF-caliber QB as the fourth-stringer, like the 49ers and Rams. They put their pants on one leg at a time, and they set no records doing it.
When you assemble a team with consistent winning as a goal, this is what you get. When you assemble a team with less coherent goals, the best-case scenario is the Colts.
Make no mistake: the Colts have won 53 percent of their games over the last 59 years – nice, but hardly exemplary. However, the Colts have only been good half that time. The other half of the time they have been so bad that it’s a surprise they’ve only moved twice in their existence. The Frank Kush years were so execrable that the Colts could have been forgiven for pulling up stakes in week 12 and resettling in Shreveport or Toledo.
To be intensely bad half of your life and still be on the plus side of the glass must mean periods of sustained brilliance, and the Colts have delivered. The Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning teams have been among the greatest teams in football history, and if the all-time Colts steal heavily from them, what of it? Do you really want to trot out Steve Emtman in the interest of equal representation?
The bottom line for the Colts is that their quarterbacks are two of the best ever, they have four HOFers at running back – a scary combination of thunder (Eric Dickerson) and lightning (Lenny Moore and Marshall Faulk) and out-of-the-backfield pass-catching ability -- and three at wide receiver, they have one HOF tight end and maybe two, their O-line sports a current HOFer and a couple of gonna-bes, and their defense is predictably strong in the front line and less strong at linebacker and D-back. Plus, they have two HOF coaches already, with perhaps the best coach (Tony Dungy) in the wings.
That’s not much more than the Cowboys, but it is more. And in the inexorable, ultimately linear game of numbers that’s being played here, slightly more wins.
Here’s how. The Cowboys take the opening kickoff and pound the ball down the field, alternating Smith and Dorsett and setting up a 38-yard Rafael Septien field goal. The Colts go three-and-out, with a Peyton Manning sack, but then the Cowboys are bottled up and the Colts get untracked. Three straight Manning completions move the ball into field-goal territory, but three straight incompletions result in an Adam Viniateri miss from 46.
No matter. A Gino Marchetti strip results in a Dorsett fumble, Dwight Freeney recovers and the Colts get a short field to work with -- bad news for the ‘Boys, as Manning finds Mackey down the middle to give the Colts a 7-3 lead.
The ‘Boys keep pounding the ball, and use a rare bomb to Bob Hayes to set up an Emmitt Smith TD as the first quarter ends. The TD hardly dings the Colts’ momentum, though. Manning deftly works the short passing game to set up a patented fade pattern to Reggie Wayne, and the Colts regain the lead 14-10.
The rest of the first half follows a similar pattern. Dallas uses the running game to lengthen its possessions; the Colts use the passing game and a no-huddle offense to speed down the field. Both teams wring a field goal out of their possessions, giving the Colts a 17-13 lead at halftime.
After the Kilgore College Rangerettes high-step at halftime and L’il Jerry dances on the star at midfield comes the game’s biggest break: The Colts get the second-half kickoff.
Bang! Sixteen yards to Ray Berry. Bang! Eleven to Marvin Harrison. Bang! A nine-yard draw play to Edgerrin James. Bang! A 23-yard screen pass to Marshall Faulk. Before the ‘Boys can react, a no-huddle onslaught rocks Dallas onto its heels, and by the time their heads clear Dickerson has galloped into the end zone and the Colts have extended their lead to 24-13.
With the pressure on Dallas to quickly move the ball, the team folds up like a Quizno’s franchise. Ted Hendricks picks off Aikman and returns it to the Dallas 19. A nine-yard pass to Berry makes it 31-13. Roger Staubach relieves Aikman and delivers a 37-yard scoring strike to Michael Irvin, but the Cowboys are unable to turn a Bob Lilly strip of Peyton Manning into points, and Manning makes them pay by firing a 43-yard bullet to John Mackey.
With the outcome in hand, the Colts put the offense on Eric Dickerson’s shoulders, and he burns more than enough clock. A late Dorsett score can’t change the ultimate reality (in a made-up sort of way): 41-27 Colts.
Peyton Manning is masterful, completing 27 of 42 passes for 342 yards and four scores. Aikman and Staubach combine to go 16 for 29 for 274 yards and two scores. Smith and Dorsett combine for 143 rushing yards, but the Colts’ four backs lay down 132 – not exactly what Dallas had in mind.
So while the cartoon embodiment of the Cowboys sheds big pooling tears on his artificial turf, the cartoon embodiment of the Colts moves on to the next challenge.
And that cartoon embodiment of the Colts is … haven’t you heard? It’s Captain America.
You either have talent or you don’t. Either the talent performs or it doesn’t. If the talent doesn’t perform the team loses. If the team loses the coach gets fired. The switch is on or it’s off. It’s broken or it’s fixed. It’s brats or burgers.
What’s more, the product is standardized. There’s a recipe for throwing and general agreement on how to catch, how to run, and how to tackle. You don’t find a lot of knuckleballers in football. The Greenwich Mean Time of football is the 40-yard dash. You run against the clock, and the clock doesn’t keep a supply of graphite oil inside its belt.
Compare this to baseball, which is a women’s sport if ever there was one. Ichiro is arguably the greatest baseball talent of the modern age – Americans only saw the down side of his career, remember – but he is more idiosyncratic than a stop-motion David Byrne, he makes positive contact with the ball one-eighth of the time, and even if he makes positive contact there’s no guarantee of a positive outcome. And it’s all discussed incessantly by everyone involved. I was watching the season finales on Wednesday, and for all the inherent drama I mostly felt like I had just wandered into the narthex of the local Lutheran church after a Sunday-school teacher’s meeting.
Really, baseball couldn’t be more feminine if it were lavender-scented.
The ultimate lesson here is that in football talent wins more often than not, even in these fanciful made-up games I’ve been documenting over the last several months. Cachet, that certain something behind a good 70 percent of the Yankees’ world championships, doesn’t really come to play in this sandbox.
All of which is a preface to saying this: the Cowboys lose.
Now, the Cowboys have nothing if not cachet. Of all the cartoon characters football fans have created to personify their team, the Cowboys’ character is the most pervasive: The 100 percent Amurrican as wild-west cowboy, rootin’ and tootin’ and shootin’ up the town, daring the law-abiding citizens to make him stop.
Oh, and he’s short. Like five-foot-two short. And his cowboy hat falls down over his ears to such an extent that all you see of him besides his hat is a pair of cowboy boots. It’s Jerry Jones in caricature as L’il Jerry, Amurrican hero, and one way or another L’il Jerry always wins. The Cowboys oeuvre is a topsy-turvy everything’s-bigger-in-Texas act for the new Texas, where they sell more Hyundais than F-150s, and it’s custom-made for all the brawn-over-brain galoots who have secretly rooted for Yosemite Sam to blow up Bugs Bunny just once.
If the Cowboys were a baseball team they’d be the Yankees; it’s been said more than once because it’s true. The Cowboys would hit you over the head with their stadium and pitch Herschel Walker in game one, Peyton Manning would lose a fly ball in the sun, the ‘Boys would bring in Deion Sanders to close, and it’d be all over before Pat Summerall realized they were playing baseball.
However, the Cowboys’ inherent Yankeeness returns to bite them in this stadium of the mind, where the numbers throw fastballs and reality runs the 40. Dallas’ success has been self-perpetuating, often in excess of the talent producing the results. The Cowboys have won 57.6 percent of their games, just a tick behind the Bears, yet their best quarterbacks have been Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach – Hall of Famers more renowned for managing talent than displaying outlandish skills. The ‘Boys running backs are unimpeachable – you gonna argue with TD and Emmitt, despite their iffy skills as pass-catchers? – but the wide receivers aren’t difference-makers and their offensive line toils in well-deserved obscurity. The D-line is stout and the linebackers are solid, but like a lot of good teams there’s work to be done in the defensive backfield. They’re just a team, in other words, like a lot of other teams. They don’t run out Hall of famers two-deep like the Bears or have a HOF-caliber QB as the fourth-stringer, like the 49ers and Rams. They put their pants on one leg at a time, and they set no records doing it.
When you assemble a team with consistent winning as a goal, this is what you get. When you assemble a team with less coherent goals, the best-case scenario is the Colts.
Make no mistake: the Colts have won 53 percent of their games over the last 59 years – nice, but hardly exemplary. However, the Colts have only been good half that time. The other half of the time they have been so bad that it’s a surprise they’ve only moved twice in their existence. The Frank Kush years were so execrable that the Colts could have been forgiven for pulling up stakes in week 12 and resettling in Shreveport or Toledo.
To be intensely bad half of your life and still be on the plus side of the glass must mean periods of sustained brilliance, and the Colts have delivered. The Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning teams have been among the greatest teams in football history, and if the all-time Colts steal heavily from them, what of it? Do you really want to trot out Steve Emtman in the interest of equal representation?
The bottom line for the Colts is that their quarterbacks are two of the best ever, they have four HOFers at running back – a scary combination of thunder (Eric Dickerson) and lightning (Lenny Moore and Marshall Faulk) and out-of-the-backfield pass-catching ability -- and three at wide receiver, they have one HOF tight end and maybe two, their O-line sports a current HOFer and a couple of gonna-bes, and their defense is predictably strong in the front line and less strong at linebacker and D-back. Plus, they have two HOF coaches already, with perhaps the best coach (Tony Dungy) in the wings.
That’s not much more than the Cowboys, but it is more. And in the inexorable, ultimately linear game of numbers that’s being played here, slightly more wins.
Here’s how. The Cowboys take the opening kickoff and pound the ball down the field, alternating Smith and Dorsett and setting up a 38-yard Rafael Septien field goal. The Colts go three-and-out, with a Peyton Manning sack, but then the Cowboys are bottled up and the Colts get untracked. Three straight Manning completions move the ball into field-goal territory, but three straight incompletions result in an Adam Viniateri miss from 46.
No matter. A Gino Marchetti strip results in a Dorsett fumble, Dwight Freeney recovers and the Colts get a short field to work with -- bad news for the ‘Boys, as Manning finds Mackey down the middle to give the Colts a 7-3 lead.
The ‘Boys keep pounding the ball, and use a rare bomb to Bob Hayes to set up an Emmitt Smith TD as the first quarter ends. The TD hardly dings the Colts’ momentum, though. Manning deftly works the short passing game to set up a patented fade pattern to Reggie Wayne, and the Colts regain the lead 14-10.
The rest of the first half follows a similar pattern. Dallas uses the running game to lengthen its possessions; the Colts use the passing game and a no-huddle offense to speed down the field. Both teams wring a field goal out of their possessions, giving the Colts a 17-13 lead at halftime.
After the Kilgore College Rangerettes high-step at halftime and L’il Jerry dances on the star at midfield comes the game’s biggest break: The Colts get the second-half kickoff.
Bang! Sixteen yards to Ray Berry. Bang! Eleven to Marvin Harrison. Bang! A nine-yard draw play to Edgerrin James. Bang! A 23-yard screen pass to Marshall Faulk. Before the ‘Boys can react, a no-huddle onslaught rocks Dallas onto its heels, and by the time their heads clear Dickerson has galloped into the end zone and the Colts have extended their lead to 24-13.
With the pressure on Dallas to quickly move the ball, the team folds up like a Quizno’s franchise. Ted Hendricks picks off Aikman and returns it to the Dallas 19. A nine-yard pass to Berry makes it 31-13. Roger Staubach relieves Aikman and delivers a 37-yard scoring strike to Michael Irvin, but the Cowboys are unable to turn a Bob Lilly strip of Peyton Manning into points, and Manning makes them pay by firing a 43-yard bullet to John Mackey.
With the outcome in hand, the Colts put the offense on Eric Dickerson’s shoulders, and he burns more than enough clock. A late Dorsett score can’t change the ultimate reality (in a made-up sort of way): 41-27 Colts.
Peyton Manning is masterful, completing 27 of 42 passes for 342 yards and four scores. Aikman and Staubach combine to go 16 for 29 for 274 yards and two scores. Smith and Dorsett combine for 143 rushing yards, but the Colts’ four backs lay down 132 – not exactly what Dallas had in mind.
So while the cartoon embodiment of the Cowboys sheds big pooling tears on his artificial turf, the cartoon embodiment of the Colts moves on to the next challenge.
And that cartoon embodiment of the Colts is … haven’t you heard? It’s Captain America.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Browns-Rams: Pretending To Pretend
This is all fiction; that’s the only disclaimer you’re gonna get.
And because it’s fiction, and because I’m the bloke making it up, I can do what I darn well please – especially because this is a blog that at last count is being read actively by .000001 percent of the planet. So if your team doesn’t come out on top in this particular match, please don’t come crying to me. Realize this is nothing but falsehoods from invented start to faked-over finish, with players who will never elsewhere play together playing together on a pretend field, running plays cobbled together out of whole cloth, scoring points that are even more apropos of nothing than the points that are usually scored in games, and delivering a wholly made-up outcome essentially to you and no one else. Really. It couldn’t be more personal if you just sat down and thought it. So relax and let it happen. It’ll be over in about another 850 words, and you can go back to more tangible pursuits, like playing Angry Birds.
I screed because I’m looking at this particular matchup, the all-time Cleveland Browns versus the all-time Los Angeles Rams. (And they are the Los Angeles Rams, darn it, no matter what anyone in St. Louis says or thinks. In fact, I think L.A. should just claim them under eminent domain, stick them back in the Coliseum, and change the colors back to blue and white. There still may be a clown car full of wackos running for the White House, but at least one thing will be back in balance.) It’s virtually impossible to pick a winner because the talent levels are so close. Up until now there was a disparity in talent somewhere that could be exploited, on a purely academic level, solely for the entertainment of the reading audience, but not between the Rams and the Browns. They could be the same team, if the Browns’ uniforms weren’t so historically ugly. The only time they looked even remotely appropriate for a football team was when Marion Motley’s helmet matched the color of the ball – white. And that was when the AAFC played night games and no one could see anything. So the only time the Browns have dressed like a football team was when they played in the dark, whereas the Rams have always looked somewhat like a football team, even when they were fighting off Georgia Frontiere's urge to dress them like cheerleaders.
The all-time records are close. The Browns have been in existence 11 fewer years and have won 25 fewer games, so they’ve been better more often, not that that means anything. The Dolphins have been betterer oftener and they’re on the sidelines because they lack talent. It may be harder to lose with talent than to win without it, but not here.
The starting lineups similarly approximate each other. The lines are strong, the linebackers less so, the offensive backfields more so, and the defensive backfields – well, both teams hope it never comes to Erich Barnes or Ed Meador saving the day.
Let’s look at those lineups in detail.
Cleveland | Position | L.A. |
Willis | DL | Olsen |
Ford | DL | Jones |
W. Johnson | DL | Jack Youngblood |
Sherk | DL | Brooks |
Houston | LB | Baughan |
Matthews Jr. | LB | Richter |
Michaels | LB | Greene |
Minnifield | DB | Meador |
Scott | DB | Lane |
Paul | DB | Irvin |
Barnes | DB | Cromwell |
Cleveland | Position | L.A. |
Graham | QB | Waterfield |
Brown | RB | Dickerson |
Kelly | RB | Faulk |
Lavelli | WR | Hirsch |
Speedie | WR | Fears |
Newsome | TE | Bruce/Holt |
Groza | OL | Mack |
McCormack | OL | Harrah |
Hickerson | OL | Matheson |
Schafrath | OL | Slater |
Thomas | OL | Saul |
You look at that and think, "Oooh, the Rams' D-line is going to roll like an M-1 tank over the Browns' line" – until you look at the Browns' line, comprised as it is of three HOFers (rightly or wrongly, not my decision to make – particularly because of the fact that they are HOFers is just that, and all my stuff is just neurons acting up), an oughta-be and a will-be. And then you look at the Rams' O-line and think, "Well, that's not going to get 'er done" (I suppose you really do talk like that), and then you look across and see that they're blocking Jerry Sherk, and you realize there's more than enough there. And every "Whoa – Jim Brown!" is met with a "Man – Marshall Faulk!", until you throw up your hands at the futility of the pregame and decide to play the damn game.
(By the way, this is one huge advantage a made-up-in-the-head game has over a non-made-up game. If Howie Long runs out of things to say about a Bengals-Chiefs game five minutes into a 20-minute segment he has to keep talking – not a huge sacrifice for Howie I know, but oh, the humanity.)
And the game turns out to be a laugher.
The deal is this: Speed kills. The Rams' wideouts are some of the fastest of their respective eras. That goes double for Marshall Faulk and third-down types like Ollie Matson. Outside of Lavelli, the same cannot be said of the Browns. Their running backs are run-you-over types, and the linemen are road-graders – and the Rams go around them like they're orange-crowned brown pylons.
It's like watching the Packers in their first game this year, against the Saints. The Packers were running an American Basketball Association fast-break offense, and the Saints, no slouches in the speed game themselves, simply couldn't keep up.
The game starts with Ollie Matson running the kickoff deep into Cleveland territory. Three plays later Bob Waterfield bombs one to Elroy Hirsch and it's 7-0.
The Browns move the ball to midfield but are forced to punt. Don Cockcroft pins the Rams down at their five ... and this time it takes four plays for the Rams to score. A short Dickerson run is followed by a bomb to Fears, who takes it inside the Cleveland 10. A fade pattern to Isaac Bruce goes for six, and the Browns are down by 14 with scarcely six minutes gone in the first quarter.
Cleveland gamely sticks to the running game and pushes it down the field enough for Cockcroft to bang through a 36-yard field goal, but then Matson cracks off another long return, Waterfield hits Torry Holt in stride, and caps it by connecting with Marshall Faulk on a 29-yard screen pass that's good for a third TD.
It's 21-3, and you don't need to know any more other than Norm van Brocklin plays most of the second half and drills Turkey Joe Jones in the solar plexus with a two-yard bullet, just because.
Oh, and the final. 38-17 Rams.
The numbers are staggering. L.A. rolls up 483 yards of offense to Cleveland's 297. Waterfield and van Brocklin combine for 370 yards passing and four scores, two to Hirsch. The running game generates 113 from a combination of Dickerson, Steven Jackson and Lawrence McCutcheon. The Browns run for 161, 113 of it from Jim Brown, but it's largely meaningless. The Rams are faster, and every bit as good. What looks equal is actually quite unequal.
Could the outcome have been different? Of course not. Sorry; I meant to say, "What a foolish question." There are only a billion ways it could have been different, and about 425 million of them have the Browns winning.
If you feel differently, let me suggest that you get the remaining 6.775 billion people on the planet to read this and weigh in with their opinions – and even then I'm not changing anything.
After all, it's just pretend.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Returning With The Rest Of Round Two
I realized I haven't followed through with the Battle of the All-Time-Great Teams, so with no further ado, here are recaps of the remaining round-two games.
Dolphins-Rams: Call it art imitating life or what you will, but no-name defenses don’t win all-time-greats matchups. When the playing field is 8-1/2 by 11, talent carries the day. This is a bad thing for the Dolphins, who have almost always been greater than the sum of their parts. Blame it on the coaches; the great ‘Fins coaches, Don Shula and Bill Parcells, have been so ungodly good at wringing every last drop of play from their charges that the personnel guys (sometimes the coaches themselves) feel bulletproof enough to say, “I don’t care; give me that guy with the elevator cleat.” Go figure: the Dolphins have an all-time winning percentage of .576 and trot out Manny Fernandez, Jason Taylor, Bill Stanfill, and Bob Baumhower in their all-time best-ever defensive line – and the whole defense is like that. The linebackers are Bob Brudzinski, Bryan Cox, and the prototypical Dolphins defender, Zach Thomas, who turned short, unathletic, and quintessentially overachieving into a multiyear All-Something career. The secondary includes Patrick Surtain, Sam Madison, Jake Scott, and Dick Anderson – solid guys, but gird your loins with them and step into the ring with Steve Young, and let’s see how you do.
Compare this with the Rams, which have always been about squandering great talent the way a Hummer squanders liquefied dinosaurs. They flash Bob Waterfield and Tom Fears and Elroy Hirsch and Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce and Norm van Brocklin and Jack Youngblood and Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones, Inventor of the Sack. The Dolphins fire back impotently with Dan Marino, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield, Larry Czonka, and a handful of linemen. Larry Little, indeed.
All the good coaching in the world can’t save the Dolphins in this one. The Rams outrun and outpass the outflanked Dolphins, who set the tempo for exactly three minutes in the first quarter. A 10-3 game at the end of one balloons to 24-6 at halftime and 37-13 by the final gun. Waterfield throws for 419 and three scores, Hirsch catches six for 125, and Faulk and Dickerson rush for a combined 156.
While the Rams move on, the Dolphins can console themselves with this: No NFL team has historically done more with less. The unfortunate thing is that less is ultimately less.
Titans-Lions: Believe it or not, but the Titans have the better all-time record and home field for this matchup, but like we’ve mentioned before, a team only needs about three four-year periods of goodness to supply enough players for a decent all-time-greats team. The Lions make it up to two and a half, and that’s enough to take down the Toilers.
Houstennessee makes it really close, though. Warren Moon plus Earl Campbell just about equals Barry Sanders, and the Oilans throw in Chris Johnson, Elvin Bethea, Ken Houston, and a really good offensive line to counteract Joe Schmidt, Alex Karras, Roger Brown, and a cast of a thousand tough D-backs.
However, this game pivots on a matchup: Moon versus the Lions’ defensive backfield. The Lions’ historical secondary is the best in NFL history, and it’s deep. Moon, a short, impatient quarterback, is perfect cannon-fodder for Jack Christensen, Lem Barney, Night Train Lane, Yale Lary, Dick LeBeau, and Don Doll. The result: four interceptions, one pick-six, and two short fields that the Lions turn into 10 points.
Moon’s plenty productive when he’s not throwing to the other team – 328 and a TD – and Campbell and Johnson are a dynamite Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside duo, but it doesn’t matter. Despite Barry Sanders outgaining Bobby Layne (Sanders 146 rushing yards, Layne 139 passing yards), the Lions prevail 20-17.
Packers-Chargers: A replay in spirit of Super Bowl I. Despite some gaudy numbers coming in, the AFL quarterback can’t throw, the AFL running backs can’t run, and the Packers jump on early and never let up. Green Bay 27-7.
Browns-Seahawks: In the current milieu it’s hard to believe this game is even being played. In the all-time-great milieu it’s a stretch, too. The game starts out fairly evenly, as the Seahawks’ skill players and defensive stars hold their own, but it fades fast thanks to an overdose of Jim Brown and a stiff shot of Otto Graham. A surprisingly stout Browns’ defense delivers, too. In the end Brown rushes for 117 and a TD, Marion Motley adds 83 and two scores, Graham waltzes in on a naked bootleg and the Browns advance 31-10.
Recap: The final eight teams in the all-time-great-team showdown have been determined. The matchups are:
• Bears-Lions in Chicago. Four quarters of ouch, guaranteed.
• Browns-Rams in Cleveland. The Rams go back to their roots, assuming the ground’s not too frozen.
• Packers-49ers in Green Bay. The latest installment of a classic playoff matchup.
• Cowboys-Colts in Dallas. A rivalry that ought to be but has never been takes center stage.
Stay tuned for the game stories and results.
Dolphins-Rams: Call it art imitating life or what you will, but no-name defenses don’t win all-time-greats matchups. When the playing field is 8-1/2 by 11, talent carries the day. This is a bad thing for the Dolphins, who have almost always been greater than the sum of their parts. Blame it on the coaches; the great ‘Fins coaches, Don Shula and Bill Parcells, have been so ungodly good at wringing every last drop of play from their charges that the personnel guys (sometimes the coaches themselves) feel bulletproof enough to say, “I don’t care; give me that guy with the elevator cleat.” Go figure: the Dolphins have an all-time winning percentage of .576 and trot out Manny Fernandez, Jason Taylor, Bill Stanfill, and Bob Baumhower in their all-time best-ever defensive line – and the whole defense is like that. The linebackers are Bob Brudzinski, Bryan Cox, and the prototypical Dolphins defender, Zach Thomas, who turned short, unathletic, and quintessentially overachieving into a multiyear All-Something career. The secondary includes Patrick Surtain, Sam Madison, Jake Scott, and Dick Anderson – solid guys, but gird your loins with them and step into the ring with Steve Young, and let’s see how you do.
Compare this with the Rams, which have always been about squandering great talent the way a Hummer squanders liquefied dinosaurs. They flash Bob Waterfield and Tom Fears and Elroy Hirsch and Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce and Norm van Brocklin and Jack Youngblood and Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones, Inventor of the Sack. The Dolphins fire back impotently with Dan Marino, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield, Larry Czonka, and a handful of linemen. Larry Little, indeed.
All the good coaching in the world can’t save the Dolphins in this one. The Rams outrun and outpass the outflanked Dolphins, who set the tempo for exactly three minutes in the first quarter. A 10-3 game at the end of one balloons to 24-6 at halftime and 37-13 by the final gun. Waterfield throws for 419 and three scores, Hirsch catches six for 125, and Faulk and Dickerson rush for a combined 156.
While the Rams move on, the Dolphins can console themselves with this: No NFL team has historically done more with less. The unfortunate thing is that less is ultimately less.
Titans-Lions: Believe it or not, but the Titans have the better all-time record and home field for this matchup, but like we’ve mentioned before, a team only needs about three four-year periods of goodness to supply enough players for a decent all-time-greats team. The Lions make it up to two and a half, and that’s enough to take down the Toilers.
Houstennessee makes it really close, though. Warren Moon plus Earl Campbell just about equals Barry Sanders, and the Oilans throw in Chris Johnson, Elvin Bethea, Ken Houston, and a really good offensive line to counteract Joe Schmidt, Alex Karras, Roger Brown, and a cast of a thousand tough D-backs.
However, this game pivots on a matchup: Moon versus the Lions’ defensive backfield. The Lions’ historical secondary is the best in NFL history, and it’s deep. Moon, a short, impatient quarterback, is perfect cannon-fodder for Jack Christensen, Lem Barney, Night Train Lane, Yale Lary, Dick LeBeau, and Don Doll. The result: four interceptions, one pick-six, and two short fields that the Lions turn into 10 points.
Moon’s plenty productive when he’s not throwing to the other team – 328 and a TD – and Campbell and Johnson are a dynamite Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside duo, but it doesn’t matter. Despite Barry Sanders outgaining Bobby Layne (Sanders 146 rushing yards, Layne 139 passing yards), the Lions prevail 20-17.
Packers-Chargers: A replay in spirit of Super Bowl I. Despite some gaudy numbers coming in, the AFL quarterback can’t throw, the AFL running backs can’t run, and the Packers jump on early and never let up. Green Bay 27-7.
Browns-Seahawks: In the current milieu it’s hard to believe this game is even being played. In the all-time-great milieu it’s a stretch, too. The game starts out fairly evenly, as the Seahawks’ skill players and defensive stars hold their own, but it fades fast thanks to an overdose of Jim Brown and a stiff shot of Otto Graham. A surprisingly stout Browns’ defense delivers, too. In the end Brown rushes for 117 and a TD, Marion Motley adds 83 and two scores, Graham waltzes in on a naked bootleg and the Browns advance 31-10.
Recap: The final eight teams in the all-time-great-team showdown have been determined. The matchups are:
• Bears-Lions in Chicago. Four quarters of ouch, guaranteed.
• Browns-Rams in Cleveland. The Rams go back to their roots, assuming the ground’s not too frozen.
• Packers-49ers in Green Bay. The latest installment of a classic playoff matchup.
• Cowboys-Colts in Dallas. A rivalry that ought to be but has never been takes center stage.
Stay tuned for the game stories and results.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Consistency Rules, Or No Cialis In The Shotgun
Forget Emerson; this is football.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, as every good 85-year-old grammar-school graduate knows, wrote that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of young minds" ... so go forth and be inconsistent, I guess.
Consistency in football is a curious quality, not altogether foolish but in the same area code. Teams strive to be unpredictable from play to play yet consistent in the amount of yards gained by those plays, because they can coach to that. Imagine the plight of a coach whose team rolls up 500 yards in offense and 85 plays in one game, and 200 yards and 55 plays in another. Is he really better off than the coach of a team that's good for 275 every game?
Probably not. The coach of the 275-yards-a-game team takes the hand that's dealt him and maximizes it through ball control, special teams and defense. The coach of the up-and-down team spends more time trying to maximize an offense that can't be maximized, only made less maddening.
Furthermore, the idea that teams are unpredictable from play to play is a conceit, as we’ve established many columns ago. There are only so many plays in a game, and only so many yards that can be gained on those plays. The successful offensive teams do what they do best more often in order to maximize the number of yards gained per play and the number of plays run in a game -- cf., the Indianapolis Colts. If the Colts wanted to be unpredictable they’d run Joseph Addai 40 times a game, and that just plain ain’t happenin’.
The springboard for this discussion is fantasy football. One of the neglected realities of fantasy football is that most of what’s done in real football works against fantasy football. The Eagles are a better team with Ronnie Brown, but his presence makes LeSean McCoy a worse fantasy running back. A healthy Jermichael Finley takes fantasy points away from James Jones, Greg Jennings, Ryan Grant, and James Starks.
However, one thing is true in fantasy football and real football: Production vs. consistency is a conundrum. In fantasy football, do you want a player who's good for 15 points one week and 45 the next, or do you want a player who averages 25 points a game? A combination of the two isn't bad, but given the lady-vs.-tiger conundrum, which do you choose?
There's a definite case to be made for consistency, a predictability that can be managed to, and for that we return to real football. Looking at the standard deviations of NFL teams in all offensive categories over the last five years, the most consistent teams have been three of the league's most successful teams … and two mediocre teams.
As I was putting my research together, I asked many of my football-loving friends to name the successful teams. To a man they guessed the Patriots as one of the most consistent teams. And to a man they were wrong.
While the Pats are the epitome of a successful NFL team, they have not been one of football's most consistent offensive teams over the last five years for some very simple reasons. Reason No. 1: The running game. Reason No. 2: Randy Moss. Randy Moss is a walking inconsistency. Let me rephrase that: Randy Moss is a jogging-at-half-speed inconsistency.
Rather, the successful teams have been the Eagles, the Giants, and the Colts.
The Colts’ offense has been operating at near-peak efficiency for the last five years. Last year was a bit of a down year because of injuries, but basically there is no more up for the Colts’ offense. They run more plays than any other team year after year, they gain more yards than just about anyone, and they are the league’s most consistent team in the number of yards gained per play. Any individual gains are going to be mere internal reallocation. Can Pierre Garcon catch more balls this year? Sure – but so could Austin Collie or even – gasp! – Anthony Gonzalez, and it’s going to come at the expense of the other receivers. There is no more production to be wrung from this offense.
Philadelphia, the league’s most consistent team in terms of yards gained and first downs, also has a system-based story. Ever since Andy Reid has been the coach, the Eagles have built their offense around an athletic quarterback, a versatile running back, and playmaking wide receivers. The differences between the Vick version and the McNabb version are in the details. McNabb favored the tight end. Vick favors the wideouts.
The Eagles' dedication to the system extends to the role players. When Kevin Kolb (who was never a good fit for the system) was traded to Arizona and the Eagles needed a backup quarterback, they looked at their system, looked at the available talent, and signed the second-best QB for their system – Vince Young. Similarly when the Eagles looked for a backup running back they found a fit for their scheme in Ronnie Brown.
The Giants have a system too, albeit one that's less exciting and more dysfunctional than the Eagles' system. It relies on runs and lots of them, coupled with mid-range passes to wide receivers and particularly the tight end.
The biggest loss of the offseason may have been Kevin Boss. The Giants lost a huge component of their offense and came up with nothing to replace it.
It should also be noted that two other system-heavy teams, the Packers and Steelers, are extremely consistent in certain aspects of the offensive game. Green Bay completes roughly the same number of passes game after game and season after season, while the Steelers are the league’s most consistent team in points scored. You bet the games in Vegas? The Steelers are your team to play.
A lot of this research really points up the value of special teams to bottom-line offensive production. If you average 62 and a half plays a game, which is what the league averages, and you gain slightly more than five yards a play, if you start your drives from your own 40 and have an eight-play drive you’re going to score significantly more points than if you start those drives on your 20. And the Eagles, as long as DeSean Jackson returns kicks, are in a good position to score on more of its drives than other teams.
Why do you think the Packers drafted a return guy in the second round and signed the nation’s leading punt returner as a free agent? Because if your average drive is eight plays and thirty-some yards, you need to be starting more of those drives on your own 40 or better if you want to score points.
Moving on to the consistently mediocre teams, we find Jacksonville and Buffalo. Well, of course we do. Why are Jacksonville and Buffalo two of the league’s most consistent offensive teams over the last five years?
Jacksonville’s case is easy. Jacksonville has been consistent because they’ve had the same mediocre quarterback throwing to a bunch of sub-mediocre wide receivers for the last five years, and they’ve had a great running game to enable that. In the words of that famous fantasy-football guru Ke$ha, they are who they are. And they’re not very good. However, they are very consistent at not being very good. And this year they have what they had last year: David Garrard for three or four games, Blaine Gabbert the rest of the way, Maurice Jones-Drew, Marcedes Lewis, and a mess of terrible wide receivers led – led, mind you – by Mike Thomas. I would rather have Rick Perry DJ my going-away party than be the offensive coordinator in J’ville.
You hear Jack Del Rio whinny a lot about how next season is going to be better, but why would it be? What has really changed? I say move the team to L.A., sign Kobe Bryant, and see what happens.
Buffalo’s story is not quite the same. The Bills throw approximately the same number of interceptions each year and gain the same number of rushing yards. This happens when your quarterback position is a revolving door and Dick Jauron is your head coach. Six starting QBs in five years is a recipe for a baseline passing game, especially when three of the six are Trent Edwards, Brian Brohm, and J.P. Losman.
What would need to happen for the Bills to improve offensively, and break out of their offensive rut? Four things: Stability at quarterback, improved production at running back, more talent at wide receiver, and a significant upgrade in the offensive line. Which do you do first? Actually, Buffalo has decided it would rather work on the defense, and to that end traded lone legitimate deep threat Lee Evans, let Donte Whitner walk, and cut Aaron Maybin. And for this they want Ralph Wilson in the Hall of Fame.
I say move the team to Toronto, sign Andrea Bargnani, and see what happens.
Another fallacy this research points up is the fallacy of taking it to the next level. Over the last five years, only one team has really taken it to the next level: Houston, and that’s because their previous level came up to Michelle Bachmann’s kneecaps. Also, David Carr is in New York. Along the way two teams switched emphasis from rushing to passing, or vice versa – Oakland and the Jets – and Arizona regressed down to Tim Pawlenty’s kneecaps. But that’s it. One team in five years moves to a higher level. Everyone else essentially swaps numbers.
In the greater Green Bay area we hear a lot about how Aaron Rodgers is going to take it to the next level, but I have news for all the dudes in their hand-painted green-and-gold pickup trucks: This is the next level. Over the course of this season the Packers offense, if it is absolutely cooking on all cylinders, will run one two more plays a game than it did last season. That’s roughly 11 more yards a game. If a team is lucky, that will mean one more TD. If a team is really lucky, that means two more TDs. If Aaron Rodgers throws for 50 TDs, he takes those two TDs and six or seven from the running game, and maybe one or two from the defense or the return game. (Oops. This is the Packers. They have no return game.)
But that one or two more plays a game really gets diluted when you try to spread it among Aaron Rodgers’ weapons. Their numbers change fractionally, if at all. Greg Jennings is still going to get his 85, Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson, and James Jones are going to split 175 receptions, the League of Exceptional Tight Ends (Green Bay has six of them that are going to make a roster somewhere south of Saskatchewan) are going to get 60 or 70, and James Starks and Ryan Grant are going to divvy up about 1,400 rushing yards. There are not really a lot more numbers to be had in Green Bay. What you have is what you have.
People as a rule don’t like to be told about the limits to offensive production because it puts their game in a can, and tells them that if their team suffers from OD (Offensive Dysfunction) there is no Cialis-in-the-shotgun for them. They also are suckers for double-reverses and option passes and anything short of wide receivers tumbling out of clown cars that they classify as unpredictability.
All things considered, I’d rather strive for the brand of predictability found in Indy and Philly: maximizing plays, maximizing yards, hitting the same number of first downs year after year, and keeping the point totals within a narrow range.
Heck, I’d bet even Jack Del Rio could win with that.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, as every good 85-year-old grammar-school graduate knows, wrote that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of young minds" ... so go forth and be inconsistent, I guess.
Consistency in football is a curious quality, not altogether foolish but in the same area code. Teams strive to be unpredictable from play to play yet consistent in the amount of yards gained by those plays, because they can coach to that. Imagine the plight of a coach whose team rolls up 500 yards in offense and 85 plays in one game, and 200 yards and 55 plays in another. Is he really better off than the coach of a team that's good for 275 every game?
Probably not. The coach of the 275-yards-a-game team takes the hand that's dealt him and maximizes it through ball control, special teams and defense. The coach of the up-and-down team spends more time trying to maximize an offense that can't be maximized, only made less maddening.
Furthermore, the idea that teams are unpredictable from play to play is a conceit, as we’ve established many columns ago. There are only so many plays in a game, and only so many yards that can be gained on those plays. The successful offensive teams do what they do best more often in order to maximize the number of yards gained per play and the number of plays run in a game -- cf., the Indianapolis Colts. If the Colts wanted to be unpredictable they’d run Joseph Addai 40 times a game, and that just plain ain’t happenin’.
The springboard for this discussion is fantasy football. One of the neglected realities of fantasy football is that most of what’s done in real football works against fantasy football. The Eagles are a better team with Ronnie Brown, but his presence makes LeSean McCoy a worse fantasy running back. A healthy Jermichael Finley takes fantasy points away from James Jones, Greg Jennings, Ryan Grant, and James Starks.
However, one thing is true in fantasy football and real football: Production vs. consistency is a conundrum. In fantasy football, do you want a player who's good for 15 points one week and 45 the next, or do you want a player who averages 25 points a game? A combination of the two isn't bad, but given the lady-vs.-tiger conundrum, which do you choose?
There's a definite case to be made for consistency, a predictability that can be managed to, and for that we return to real football. Looking at the standard deviations of NFL teams in all offensive categories over the last five years, the most consistent teams have been three of the league's most successful teams … and two mediocre teams.
As I was putting my research together, I asked many of my football-loving friends to name the successful teams. To a man they guessed the Patriots as one of the most consistent teams. And to a man they were wrong.
While the Pats are the epitome of a successful NFL team, they have not been one of football's most consistent offensive teams over the last five years for some very simple reasons. Reason No. 1: The running game. Reason No. 2: Randy Moss. Randy Moss is a walking inconsistency. Let me rephrase that: Randy Moss is a jogging-at-half-speed inconsistency.
Rather, the successful teams have been the Eagles, the Giants, and the Colts.
The Colts’ offense has been operating at near-peak efficiency for the last five years. Last year was a bit of a down year because of injuries, but basically there is no more up for the Colts’ offense. They run more plays than any other team year after year, they gain more yards than just about anyone, and they are the league’s most consistent team in the number of yards gained per play. Any individual gains are going to be mere internal reallocation. Can Pierre Garcon catch more balls this year? Sure – but so could Austin Collie or even – gasp! – Anthony Gonzalez, and it’s going to come at the expense of the other receivers. There is no more production to be wrung from this offense.
Philadelphia, the league’s most consistent team in terms of yards gained and first downs, also has a system-based story. Ever since Andy Reid has been the coach, the Eagles have built their offense around an athletic quarterback, a versatile running back, and playmaking wide receivers. The differences between the Vick version and the McNabb version are in the details. McNabb favored the tight end. Vick favors the wideouts.
The Eagles' dedication to the system extends to the role players. When Kevin Kolb (who was never a good fit for the system) was traded to Arizona and the Eagles needed a backup quarterback, they looked at their system, looked at the available talent, and signed the second-best QB for their system – Vince Young. Similarly when the Eagles looked for a backup running back they found a fit for their scheme in Ronnie Brown.
The Giants have a system too, albeit one that's less exciting and more dysfunctional than the Eagles' system. It relies on runs and lots of them, coupled with mid-range passes to wide receivers and particularly the tight end.
The biggest loss of the offseason may have been Kevin Boss. The Giants lost a huge component of their offense and came up with nothing to replace it.
It should also be noted that two other system-heavy teams, the Packers and Steelers, are extremely consistent in certain aspects of the offensive game. Green Bay completes roughly the same number of passes game after game and season after season, while the Steelers are the league’s most consistent team in points scored. You bet the games in Vegas? The Steelers are your team to play.
A lot of this research really points up the value of special teams to bottom-line offensive production. If you average 62 and a half plays a game, which is what the league averages, and you gain slightly more than five yards a play, if you start your drives from your own 40 and have an eight-play drive you’re going to score significantly more points than if you start those drives on your 20. And the Eagles, as long as DeSean Jackson returns kicks, are in a good position to score on more of its drives than other teams.
Why do you think the Packers drafted a return guy in the second round and signed the nation’s leading punt returner as a free agent? Because if your average drive is eight plays and thirty-some yards, you need to be starting more of those drives on your own 40 or better if you want to score points.
Moving on to the consistently mediocre teams, we find Jacksonville and Buffalo. Well, of course we do. Why are Jacksonville and Buffalo two of the league’s most consistent offensive teams over the last five years?
Jacksonville’s case is easy. Jacksonville has been consistent because they’ve had the same mediocre quarterback throwing to a bunch of sub-mediocre wide receivers for the last five years, and they’ve had a great running game to enable that. In the words of that famous fantasy-football guru Ke$ha, they are who they are. And they’re not very good. However, they are very consistent at not being very good. And this year they have what they had last year: David Garrard for three or four games, Blaine Gabbert the rest of the way, Maurice Jones-Drew, Marcedes Lewis, and a mess of terrible wide receivers led – led, mind you – by Mike Thomas. I would rather have Rick Perry DJ my going-away party than be the offensive coordinator in J’ville.
You hear Jack Del Rio whinny a lot about how next season is going to be better, but why would it be? What has really changed? I say move the team to L.A., sign Kobe Bryant, and see what happens.
Buffalo’s story is not quite the same. The Bills throw approximately the same number of interceptions each year and gain the same number of rushing yards. This happens when your quarterback position is a revolving door and Dick Jauron is your head coach. Six starting QBs in five years is a recipe for a baseline passing game, especially when three of the six are Trent Edwards, Brian Brohm, and J.P. Losman.
What would need to happen for the Bills to improve offensively, and break out of their offensive rut? Four things: Stability at quarterback, improved production at running back, more talent at wide receiver, and a significant upgrade in the offensive line. Which do you do first? Actually, Buffalo has decided it would rather work on the defense, and to that end traded lone legitimate deep threat Lee Evans, let Donte Whitner walk, and cut Aaron Maybin. And for this they want Ralph Wilson in the Hall of Fame.
I say move the team to Toronto, sign Andrea Bargnani, and see what happens.
Another fallacy this research points up is the fallacy of taking it to the next level. Over the last five years, only one team has really taken it to the next level: Houston, and that’s because their previous level came up to Michelle Bachmann’s kneecaps. Also, David Carr is in New York. Along the way two teams switched emphasis from rushing to passing, or vice versa – Oakland and the Jets – and Arizona regressed down to Tim Pawlenty’s kneecaps. But that’s it. One team in five years moves to a higher level. Everyone else essentially swaps numbers.
In the greater Green Bay area we hear a lot about how Aaron Rodgers is going to take it to the next level, but I have news for all the dudes in their hand-painted green-and-gold pickup trucks: This is the next level. Over the course of this season the Packers offense, if it is absolutely cooking on all cylinders, will run one two more plays a game than it did last season. That’s roughly 11 more yards a game. If a team is lucky, that will mean one more TD. If a team is really lucky, that means two more TDs. If Aaron Rodgers throws for 50 TDs, he takes those two TDs and six or seven from the running game, and maybe one or two from the defense or the return game. (Oops. This is the Packers. They have no return game.)
But that one or two more plays a game really gets diluted when you try to spread it among Aaron Rodgers’ weapons. Their numbers change fractionally, if at all. Greg Jennings is still going to get his 85, Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson, and James Jones are going to split 175 receptions, the League of Exceptional Tight Ends (Green Bay has six of them that are going to make a roster somewhere south of Saskatchewan) are going to get 60 or 70, and James Starks and Ryan Grant are going to divvy up about 1,400 rushing yards. There are not really a lot more numbers to be had in Green Bay. What you have is what you have.
People as a rule don’t like to be told about the limits to offensive production because it puts their game in a can, and tells them that if their team suffers from OD (Offensive Dysfunction) there is no Cialis-in-the-shotgun for them. They also are suckers for double-reverses and option passes and anything short of wide receivers tumbling out of clown cars that they classify as unpredictability.
All things considered, I’d rather strive for the brand of predictability found in Indy and Philly: maximizing plays, maximizing yards, hitting the same number of first downs year after year, and keeping the point totals within a narrow range.
Heck, I’d bet even Jack Del Rio could win with that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)