Realistically what is this supposed to prove? If you took away Josh Allen's ability to throw, say, regressed to the mean, he wouldn't be anywhere near as good. What analysis benefits from that sort of arbitrary reduction?
There's an overall belief that the Jags collapsed last year as some kind of failure of talent/Trevor randomly falling off a cliff. In truth, it was a defensive collapse caused by poor coaching and a quarterback that got hurt.
There's a lot of things that went wrong last season, and I think it's more telling that everyone hated the offensive production when we were 8-3 last year. So the team was doing poorly on one side of the ball and we were still blowing past all the mid-range teams with relative ease.
The defense did not fall apart until week 12 vs SF. The game starts off slow, with the Niners offense being held relatively in check (I say relatively given their proclivity to score, as we all know). The game is 13-3 at the half.
Well, I don't know when he figured it out but he goes back to his old play-action principles and it works wonders. Our defensive coordinator, Mike Caldwell, was a Bowles disciple. If you don't know, the Bowles system places a lot of strain on the linebackers to be correct all the time. Well, when you don't have the guys up front to consistently stop the run on the inside (our relatively dependable nose tackle suffered a back injury in the preseason and was never the same all season), you can't cheat towards the pass. Our defensive scheme has been fucking terrible against the play action since Caldwell took over. Go look at all the big gains from 2022 made on us; most of them involve some form of a fake.
Suddenly every team (minus the Panthers, who straight up didn't have the personnel to beat us) is running play action to great effect. Baker Mayfield. Joe Flacco. John Browning. Ryan Tannehill. It all keeps working. That's why the dude got fired; his preferred style of play had a massive weakness that was exploited for two years in a row. Doug made frequent comments about the D in 2023, often because the offense had to be spectacular to dig us out of holes. It wasn't lack of talent that did us in.
The other half of the equation is the quarterback, and I wrote a massive info-dump on Trevor earlier last month. I think the idea that he's mid is stupid and largely pushed by people that don't know what they're talking about, or box score scouts that I think are frankly stupid.
Going forward, I think it's really funny we're projected as a 9-ish win team when we were dark house superbowl candidates last year. A lot of that had to do with the idea that Calvin Ridley would be the guy we drafted BTJ to be. The consensus from a lot of people I'm seeing is that everything is going to go right for the Colts and Texans while we're left twiddling our thumbs because things fell apart last year. Really hypocritical analysis.
Shanahan consistently schemes up ways to make his offensive line look better. Miami's is fucking atrocious but they still manage a more-than-functional offense as a direct result of playcalling.
Verdict: Not amazing by any measure, but good for a rookie, very promising going forward.
Considering this was his first year playing right tackle, I'll take it.
Jimmy Smith will probably never make it into the hall of fame because of his coke addiction, and the Jacksonville tax, but stats-wise he deserves it.
The Athletic did an article comparing receivers across eras and you can find Jimmy Smith sitting snugly tied for 12th with Terrell Owens and right above Calvin Johnson and Michael Irvin.
Here's another piece from 538. In all likelihood he'll never make the Hall of Fame. I think he actually deserves it more than his teammate Fred Taylor, who has managed to push his way into finalist partially because he complains that he isn't a hall of famer every single year they don't put him in, quite vocally.
Smith has kind of settled into a quiet retirement, and it's a shame he'll never get the kind of recognition he deserves because of where he played. His statistical output was up there with the best of them, before the offensive explosion that happened right as he was ending his career.
EDIT: I forgot to mention he didn't log his first reception as an UDFA until he was 26. Dude carved out a HoF-worthy career after getting cut multiple times. Here's some highlights.
I think Steven Ruiz said that Lawrence and Herbert play the same way, only Lawrence will try to rifle a ball through a pinhole to win while Herbert will play as safely as he can while trying to lead his team to a W.
I didn't agree with his overall assessment but there's definitely something to Herbert being less aggressive than a lot of dudes.
EDIT: and I know there's a lot of stupid people that get irrationally upset at the comparison between Lawrence and Herbert, which Ruiz was making. You need to understand, it's a stylistic comparison, so you don't need to get your panties in a twist defending Herbert's honor by comparing him to the no good very bad Jaguars QB.
They skated by for so long on "Hey you know John Cumquat? Well we signed him and he's our CB2 now". That's about where a lot of people stop their critical thinking and just assume knowing a player means they're good.
I have noticed a pattern of Colts players being extrapolated outward as pro bowlers. PFF in particular loves everything they do. They never seem to pass the film test, though.
My favorite example from last year or the year prior was safety Nick Cross, who is currently their.. third string safety? I recall hearing on a few different instances in podcasts that he was lined up to break out as a prospect and then fell flat on his face. Or maybe Alec Pierce, who likewise did nothing. Maybe you're feeling the constant Micheal Pittman hype train that never leaves the station?
I think the hype stems from their head coach getting the most out of Gardner Minshew and less to actually do with Richardson, who has played 4 games and gotten hurt in all of them.
Honestly from my perspective it seems backwards, because it looks as though Richardson kept getting hurt because his head coach kept trying to treat him like Jalen Hurts.
Some of these, like Germany and Australia, are actually higher than I would've expected tbh
I know propaganda technically means information put forth to persuade people, but I get the feeling you're using it in the negative connotation.
I mean first of all, it's not misinformation that the government has fighter jets or whatever.
Second, "our nation is strong militarily" is a fine message to try and instill in people, imo.
I watch games like this, I look up the PFF grades, and then I wonder why people say Derwin James is so great.
But luckily I don't need to wonder too hard because PFF will come out on their pod and make every excuse in the book for him. The sun was too hot that day. He had a cold. The refs cheated. I don't get it, man. Greatest player of all time, apparently.
In case anyone wonders, we switched to a more man-heavy scheme, which Williams is generally considered too small to be reliably good in.
Come sail away really is Styx's We Built this City. Meanwhile, Man in the Wilderness is just sitting there as their Jane. Fuckin' love that song.
Sometimes, when I remember, I like to hunt down those little local accounts (on Twitter) that are beating the drums for whatever bullshit party they support and just pretend like I support the opposite for flagrantly stupid reasons. Many times I'll tell them I voted twice at some specific voting location.
Getting them riled up is so fucking funny. I don't care about English politics at all.
Meanwhile Mike Garafolo is distantly related to Jimmy G.
For as much as this is a good deal for us, I don't like the notion that the Jags need to justify paying him the money he was given. That's how the market has always worked. Go look up the top contracts by AAV and then cross every name off that isn't Patrick Mahomes because anyone above him doesn't deserve it.
Of course, they (the people whining) don't do that because everyone already knows how stupid the argument is. It's really just an excuse for rock-munching dumbfucks to talk about how they think Lawrence is overrated on account of their inability to understand quarterbacking.
Trevor Lawrence earned his contract according to the market. If you don't think a dozen other teams would've offered the same or more, you're deluded.
The subreddit has been better since all the political crazies got bored and fucked off.
Yeah the jury is out because it's only year 3 but the early returns are quite promising.
I know I'm late to this, but his response to pressure has fallen off a cliff. I dunno what happened but man watching him as the starter for the Colts when we obliterated him was eye-opening.
He also doesn't have the kind of arm strength you need at an NFL level to make all the throws.
Would be interesting to see how vegans react to this news
What the drop statistic fails to account for is specificaly errors on Ridley's part. Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong but I recall many times him fucking up a route and it getting us into trouble.
Even on the PFF pod, the reason his numbers sucked so much was because they didn't like his run-blocking.
Of course, that was most of their analysis because they basically said fuck all about him.
[Jackson Kreuger Sports]What's to make of Anton Harrison for the Jacksonville Jaguars?
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