BlogsI'm looking at every sack reel of inside guys around the whole league," Foster said. "I just want to see what moves are more beneficial to the inside guys. I just really broke down film a lot."
Eric Foster, who has been modeling his game after former Vikings great John Randle. Colts d-line coach John Terrlick coached Randle in Minnesota.
Know Your Colts History: My, How Times Have Changed
by JakeTheSnake
on Jul 3, 2009 5:00 AM EDT
4 comments
Back in the 1950's and 60's, there was a game show called "What's My Line?" where a panel of celebrity judges tried to guess the occupation of a guest. On one night in 1958 (no, not that night) one of the guests was a professional football player that you might be familiar with. Here's how his TV appearance went:
There's so many great things in this video that you would never see happen nowadays. Let's try and recap some of the best ones:
- The man was able to spell out his whole name and not have people automatically know that he was a star wide receiver on an NFL team. Marvin Harrison wouldn't even get to the letter v before someone could identify him, and he's one of the most anonymous star players the game has ever seen.
- While in the NFL, Raymond Berry was a member of an army reserve unit. I repeat, Raymond Berry, one of the top players in the NFL, was a member of an army reserve unit while he played in the NFL. You will never see this happen again.
- The whole Q&A would be so absurd nowadays that it would be borderline insane. Just imagine if Terrell Owens had to deal with these questions:
Do you now work for a profit-making organization?
Baby, I am a profit-making organization.
Do you deal in services?
What?!? Do you have a TV?
Is there anything entertaining or amusing about what you do?
No seriously, do you have a TV?
Are you engaged in any sport?
I'm 6'3, 225. Does this look like the body of an IT specialist?
Is it a sport which entails a team rather than going it on your own?
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER THAT?
Is it team which has fewer than 11 members?
Let's see, there's me, myself, I, T.O., Terrell, #81, Mr. Owens, The Showstopper, I love me some me, Mr. Popcorn, and Terrell Owens. That's 11, right?
- Near the start of the video, Raymond Berry says that he's from the town of Paris, Texas. Paris is also the hometown of Robert Van Winkle. You might know him better as the lead man in this video:
Oddly, I feel older watching that Vanilla Ice video from the early 90's than I do watching the Raymond Berry video from 1958.
4 comments | 0 recs
Writer mgrex03 gets some love from Football Outsiders
Bill Barnwell, stat guru at the stat-tastic football Mecca that is Football Outsiders, gives our own mgrex03 some love. Of course, it's only natural that DVOA whore shake n bake is extremely jealous of the laurels FO has bestowed on mgrex03.
1 day ago
BigBlueShoe
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Luke Links: The annoyance with another Colts blog edition
by BigBlueShoe
on Jul 2, 2009 10:58 AM EDT
in Analysis
33 comments
I hope everyone enjoyed last night's little podcast, which (truth be told) was little more than a glorified test of Blog Talk Radio's features. I hadn't touched the site in over two years and needed a little test drive before I start making higher quality podcasts. And a special thank you to Indy Lori for the kind words about my radio voice. I must admit, i come in a distant second to JasonB, who has the best radio voice of anyone at SB Nation. Listen to his podcasts (which are the best of any SB Nation podcasts, period) and you'll know I'm speaking the truth.
Now, onto the good stuff (and today, it will truly gooooooood):
- Second year DE Marcus Howard expects to make more of an impact in 2009. In limited play, Howard was impressive last year. Seeing as Indy only has five DEs on the roster, that indicates to me that Caldwell and Polian are very confident Howard and Curtis Johnson can step in should Dwight or Robert get hurt.
- Speaking of Dwight Freeney, he has a rather impressive workout routine, which is a combination of martial arts and weight training. Note to self: Never get in a fight with Dwight Freeney.
- Stayign with defense, lefpsydhas a FanPost up talking about a nice article on new starting LBer Philip Wheeler.
- So, it seems 18 to 88 didn't like our bashing of the Indianapolis Star and their horrid coverage of the Colts. Apparently, it is "classless" on our part to demand the Star (a major metropolitan newspaper) provide the same coverage of the Colts (12-4 last year, best QB in football) that the Green Bay Press-Gazette (smaller city, smaller paper) provides to the Green Bay Packers (6-10 last year, no Brett Favre). At 18 to 88, such demands are "classless" and "unfair." Part of the reason 18 to 88 thinks this is because to them "off-season chatter" is not enjoyable. This is, of course, regrettable seeing as 18 to 88 is a (supposed) dedicated Colts blog and almost 75% of a team's calendar year is spent in the off-season. Maybe that's why almost half of 18 to 88's content has nothing to do with the Colts. No offense, but no one really cares what 18 to 88 thinks about racing, soccer, or the completely irrelevant Cincinnati Reds. They either need to re-brand the site as a general Indiana sports site, or stop wasting our time with content we don't care about. Love those dudes to death, but if they have this kind of negative attitude towards off-season coverage of the Colts, it sends a clear message to readers that for eight of the twelve months in a year people should ignore 18 to 88.
- It's now been 20 days since the Star wrote an article on the Colts. The Green Bay Press-Gazette (Gannett-owned, just like the Star) posted a Packers article two days ago. They also did a live-chat with one of their writers recently; a weekly occurrence during the off-season. Yep, the Star pretty much still sucks.
- Another Austin Collie article from out west. He's a popular guy out there, it seems.
- Yahoo and National Football Post thinks Bob Sanders is the key impact player for the Colts in 2009. I agree, he is one of many key players, but not the key. Sadly, writer Matt Bowen doesn't know what he's talking about when he elaborates:
I’m picking Sanders for the Colts because when he isn’t on the field, their defense suffers.
Um, Bob Sanders hardly played at all last year, and the Colts still very much competed for their division. They would have won the division if Peyton Manning hadn't started the season playing on one leg. Matt Bowen would know this if Matt Bowen actually watched Colts football games. He'd know that Melvin Bullitt more than filled in for Bob last year....
If he plays an entire season, the Colts will compete for the division title.
- Nice chat with DT Eric Foster, the Colts most under-rated player (and possibly the toughest). The kid was a rookie last season playing all his games as the starting nose tackle while weighing only 270 pounds. Tough, tough player out of Rutgers.
- FOOTBALL IS BACK... in Canada. The CFL opened their season yesterday. The Saskatchewan Rough Riders (and their best running back, Kenton Keith) open their season tomorrow. Another CFL-Colts connection involves the CFL's champions last year: The Calgary Stampeders. The head coach of the Stampeders, John Hufnagel, used to be Indy's QB coach back in 2001. He was replaced by Jim Caldwell in 2002.
Now, before I close up the Luke Links for this week, let me state that I love 18 to 88 and I enjoy reading their stuff. My annoyance with their latest post and their choice of content stems from my desire (as a loyal 18 to 88 reader) to read more of their opinions about some of the very subjects they seem to loath covering; chief among those subjects is the Colts in the off-season. Supposed "hand-wringing" over the roster, analysis of players, opinions on this and that while games are not getting played... that is what NFL blogging is. One of the major reasons people reads blogs at all is because they are willing to talk about this kind of stuff while newspapers (like the Star) take two month vacations and sit on their hands.
If 18 to 88 truly dislikes off-season blogging, then what the hell are they doing covering the Colts? As stated earlier, 75% of a Colts blogger's job is writing about the off-season.
So, I'm not ranting here because I hate those guys, think they suck, or feel we Colts fans should ignore the site. Far from it. My annoyance is with their assumption that when supposedly "nothing" is happening, nothing should be covered.
Um, no. There is no real "off-season" in football anymore.
If fans aren't talking about the draft or free agency during the off-season, they're talking about who will win what job and how well they'll do at that job. They're talking scheme changes, coaching changes, and player changes. They're talking rookies, free agents, and veterans.
That is Colts blogging.
If that doesn't appeal to 18 to 88, then they really should blog about something else (general Indiana or Midwest sports, maybe). If not, their site title and description are misleading, and (as an avid 18 to 88 reader) it annoys me that one of the only reasons I'd ever go to 18 to 88 (analysis of the Colts during the off-season) is something the writers there say they don't like doing. I hope they change their mind and start re-focusing more on the central subject of their blog. They've lost their way a little bit, in this reader's opinion.
33 comments
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Finding the Winning Factors - Drive Success Rate
by mgrex03
on Jul 1, 2009 11:53 PM EDT
in Winning Stats
10 comments
This week in the Finding the Winning Factors series, let's take a look at a not-so common Football Outsider stat: Drive Success Rate. The FO website didn't give a full definition on their website, but said to refer to Pro Football Prospectus 2005, where it was introduced. The Public Library came to the rescue, and I found exactly what they meant:
Drive Success Rate (or more precisely, series of downs success rate), or DSR, measures the likelihood that a team's offense will get another first down (or a touchdown, which the official NFL statisticians also count as a first down) in a given set of downs. And the equivalent defensive number measures how often a defense will allow another first down.
It confused me at first, as I thought they considered a drive "successful" with just 1 first down. But after reading this, it looks at each time a team has a first down, how often do they earn another one. My next challenge was to figure out the easiest way to calculate this. After thinking about for way too long, the simple answer finally came to me:
(First Downs + Pass TDs + Rush TDs) / (First Downs + Drives)**
**I don't know if this is the formula FO uses, because they didn't have that on their site. But it's the formula I used (and the numbers came out very close), so we're going with it.
I went back to 2001 to see how teams do. That means I'll be looking at 4,080 games over the past 8 years. I did this calculation for every game, then found the overall average for a game. I then went back and compared every game to this average, and found wins/losses based on being above or below average.
Let's get to the numbers:
- The Overall Average Drive Success Rate over the past 8 years is 69.1%. Does this mean that offenses are just really good at getting first downs, or the defenses aren't that good at stopping them?
- The Colts blow away the competition in this, with a DSR of 77.3%. The usual suspects are also high up there (Patriots, Chiefs, Chargers, and Broncos), making the top 5 teams in this category all teams from the AFC. Dominance anyone?
- Defensively, the Ravens are #1 again (they really have been as dominant on defense as the Colts have been on offense), with a DSR of only 63.5%. Even the best team can only stop an offense 36% of the time. The Colts come in at 30th, with a DSR of 71.6%. If the Colts can get back to "average", they'll have a scary good team.
- So how often do teams win when they are Above Average on Offense? 1308-658-1, which is 66.5%. That's the 2nd best record we've seen so far. DSR is looking really good for predicting games. Having an Above Average defense produces a record of 1381-729-3, which is 65.4%, which is a little worse than the offense. We haven't seen numbers like this since we looked at Adjusted Net Passing Yards / Attempt. Fantastic.
- When both the Offense and Defense are Above Average, their record is 742-90-1, or 89.1%. This ranks 1st out of 11 stats so far, which is unbelievable. I didn't think we could get better than ANPY/A, but we did. I guess those guys at FO know what they are doing, huh?
- The best game since 2001? Week 11 in 2007, where the Patriots had a DSR of 97.4% against the Bills. I remember that game, and it was ugly. Best game for the Colts offense? Week 4 in 2007 against the Broncos, where they had a DSR of 92.1%, 5th best game overall. Of the top 35 games, 11 are Colts games. Also, the top 42 games were all wins (the first loss was a Jaguars loss to the Colts, Week 13 of 2007), and those teams averaged 40.5 points / game.
-
The worst game since 2001? Week 16 in 2006, where the Vikings had a DSR of 20.0% against the Packers, a 9-7 loss. Tavaris Jackson at his best, and no Adrian Peterson. Only 104 total yards. Yeah, I'd say that was a bad, bad game. The Colts worst game (with Manning)? Week 12 in 2001, a 39-27 loss to the Ravens, where they had a DSR of 56.3%.
- The Colts have only had 21 games where they were below average in DSR, and were 11-10 in those games. This is by far the lowest number of games below average (the Patriots were 2nd with 37 games). That Manning guy is good.
- Two teams haven't lost since 2001 when their offense and defense are above average: the Falcons (22-0) and the Titans (19-0). Included in that Titans stat is the final game of 2007, when Kerry Collins put them in the playoffs against the Colts 2nd and 3rd team.
- I mentioned above that if the Colts could get to "average" on defense, this team would be scary good. How do they get there? They need to make just 2 stops / game to get back to 69.5%. That's it, only 2. The offense will be above average at least 12 games. If the defense can do the same, the Colts will win, period.
So what did we learn today? Drive Success Rate is the best stat we've looked at so far, and leads to a whole lot of wins. We also learned the Colts (like many of the other stats) are really good on offense, and really bad on defense.
I promised a table of all the stats we've looked at so far, and those we still have to look at. Here goes:
| Statistic | Average | Off Win% | Def Win % | Off/Def Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ANPY/A | 5.085 | 70.6% | 70.2% | 88.6% |
| Yds/Play | 5.095 | 62.2% | 61.6% | 77.4% |
| RZ Eff | 65.6% | 59.3% | 60.6% | 69.7% |
| RB Success | 45.6% | 54.8% | 54.5% | 59.0% |
| Yds/Drive | 28.36 | 63.2% | 63.6% | 81.5% |
| ToP/Drive | 2:39.3 | 65.4% | 65.3% | 79.6% |
| DSR | 69.1% | 66.5% | 65.4% | 89.1% |
| Yds/Carry | 4.125 | 52.8% | 52.2% | 55.0% |
| 3rd/4th Down | 39.1% | 62.6% | 61.8% | 75.1% |
| Turnovers | ||||
| Avg Start Pos | 31.20 | 65.0% | 62.8% | 72.9% |
| Plays/Drive | ||||
| Net Punts Yds/Game | ||||
| Penalty Yds / Play | ||||
| First Downs/Drive | ||||
| 3 & Outs | 3.92 | 58.8% | 57.4% | 69.9% |
After the jump you'll see the offensive and defensive numbers for each team, as well as Win/Loss records when going above/below the league average. Click on the headers to sort. Here's a link to the last 5 years worth of data. There's not much of a difference, especially since it only took out 3 years worth of data.
10 comments
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Stampede Blue Radio: Take Two-- Open Thread
by BigBlueShoe
on Jul 1, 2009 5:51 PM EDT
in Horse Bucket
45 comments
Last night, we ran into a few snags. Tonight, we do this for real! Stampede Blue Radio begins at 6pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio. Please bare with me as I work through a few likely technical issues.
This is your open thread to ask questions and make comments about the show.
Listen to the podcast on the flip...
45 comments | 0 recs
2009 Colts Training Camp: Third Running Back
by BigBlueShoe
on Jul 1, 2009 4:23 PM EDT
in Training Camp
14 comments
We established the key training camp battles for 2009. Now, with nearly 30 days left until camp, we'll tackle two camp battle evaluations a week, giving insight and analysis on who is competing for the job, what they offer, and our estimation as to who will win.
As we always say around here, camp competition is one of the building blocks of making a championship caliber team. Regardless of contracts, singing bonuses, and all that garbage, players earn their starting spot in camp. If not, if they are just handed the job because they were drafted high or signed some kind of big contract, then you are cheating your football team. This is especially true if another player is better in camp, as was the case in 2006 when a 7th 6th round rookie (Antoine Bethea) was better in camp than an established veteran that was well paid (Mike Doss). Bethea beat out Doss for one of the starting safety positions, and was a big part of the Colts winning the Super Bowl that year.
Yes, broken record on this point, I agree. But, it's what we believe in as bloggers, and it is a tried and true way to building a great team. Today, we focus on the players competing for the third running back spot on the roster.
14 comments
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WR stats, best 8 year totals
by shake n bake
on Jul 1, 2009 1:00 AM EDT
in Analysis
23 comments
My last post gave the best and worst single seasons, now here are the best and worst of the whole 8 year span.
23 comments
| 1 recs
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