The not-so-triumphant return

Hey there. Been a while.

I won't get too heavily into what's been keeping me away from here. Don't worry, it's nothing drastic -- I'm not dying, I'm not in prison, I'm not getting married. I've just been busier at my job than ever before and I just didn't have the energy to try and keep up a blog when I went home in the evenings. I can't guarantee that I will now, but I'd like to still post occasionally, when the mood strikes me, which has been rare as of late. Just don't expect three to four posts per week, like I used to do.

In the meantime, if you're new here, or relatively new, you might have missed out on some of my crude attempts at analysis over the past few years. Now that fantasy football season is nearly upon us again (and I actually work for a company that produces fantasy sports magazines, though not in that department), all the tired old theories are being trotted out again as to why a player will have a better/worse season in 2010. So I thought I'd take a little time to refresh you on what I think on such matters, backed up by more than just selective memory and wishful thinking.

Here are my two most significant findings for you to keep in mind this fantasy football season:

1) The running game has virtually no effect (statistically, at least) on the passing game and vice versa. Don't believe it when someone says, "Running back X will have a great season now that quarterback Y is on his team!" This is often quoted when a RB does have a good year when a new QB arrives (or an old QB does well) and never mentioned when a RB has a bad year with a good QB (or a QB has a bad year with a good RB). For the statement to be true, it must apply in a majority, if not all cases. I got into it a little bit with someone on the PFR blog lately but decided to bow out since my research was a little crusty and spread out.

And here is that old, crusty research! Enjoy!

http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/06/can-brett-help-adrian.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/06/brett-adrian-part-2.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/06/you-cant-un-learn-things.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/07/non-statistical-opinion-on-great-debate.html

If you can only read one, read the second one. It contains most of the significant data.

2) A wide receiver's performance has nothing to do with other wide receivers on his team. Larry Fitzgerald will probably see his numbers drop this year, but it won't be because Anquan Boldin left. The absence of Kurt Warner will have a much bigger effect. A complimentary wide receiver (or good-hands tight end) has little to no effect on a player's stats. I covered that concept here:

http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-great-fantasy-receiver-need-2.html
http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/07/revisiting-receivers.html

When it comes to premises like these, I still think it's a case of people just trying to sound smarter than they are or, in the case of fantasy football, trying to make it seem like they're getting a great or emergent player as a great draft pick. Don't buy into it. Remember, Matt Forte was supposed to have an awesome year once the Bears landed Jay Cutler.

Oh yeah, speaking of Jay Cutler...

http://jasonwinter.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-broncos-are-6-0.html

And here's one last fun little Cutler/Kyle Orton comparison:

Broncos' #1 QB passer ratings:
2008 (Cutler): 86.0
2009 (Orton): 86.8

Bears' #1 QB passer ratings:
2008 (Orton): 79.6
2009 (Cutler): 76.8

Still think that was a good deal, Bears fans?

Why the Broncos are 6-0

The simple answer is, of course, "Their amazing defense and a really lucky play against Cincinnati." But consider the following two quarterbacks, each with the same number of pass attempts:

Quarterback A: 4,526 passing yards, 25 TDs, 18 Interceptions, 86.0 passer rating, 6.8 adjusted yards per attempt

Quarterback B: 3,937 passing yards, 24 TDs, 16 Interceptions, 79.6 passer rating, 6.0 adjusted yards per attempt

Which one is better? Quarterback A, but not by a large amount.

Now, suppose my team has quarterback B. I'll trade him to you for quarterback A. Not a good deal for you, but, depending on circumstances, maybe one you would make...

Oh, and I'll also throw in two first-round draft picks and a third-rounder. Can you toss me a fifth-rounder, maybe, just to even things out a bit?

I bet you're taking that deal.

Quarterback A's stat line belongs to Jay Cutler in 2008. B's stat line is Kyle Orton's stat line in 2008, adjusted to have the same number of attempts as Cutler. The reason Cutler's numbers looked better in 2008 was solely because of his high number of attempts. Plug Orton in for another 200-odd attempts in 2008, and his numbers start to look like Cutler's.

When the deal was made, I was skeptical of both sides. The conventional wisdom of Cutler as a franchise quarterback still lingered in my brain, despite my certainty that his "big numbers" were more the result of his number of pass attempts. Orton, meanwhile, while not great, was reasonably efficient in 2008, few people could dispute that he enjoyed a better receiving corps (Brandon Marshall and Eddie Royal) in Denver than Orton did (Devin Hester and Greg Olson/Matt Forte) in Chicago.

(The Vikings also were supposedly interested in Cutler, and he probably would have been an upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, but I was hoping we wouldn't give up the house to acquire him.)

Admittedly, we're only looking at one season's worth of stats here, but that's about all we can do. Orton was awful in his rookie year, starting for the Bears in place of the injured Rex Grossman, and played sparingly in his second year. For Cutler, one year looks pretty much like the other. I'm too lazy to compute all sorts of advanced stats, but his passer rating his first four years in the league (counting this one) are 88.5, 88.1, 86.0, and 86.9. Decent, but not something I'd want to give up three high draft picks and a reasonable quarterback for.

So far, Cutler's performed reasonably well (the opener in Green Bay aside), but he's still looking like about the same passer he was in Denver -- willing to put it up all the time, but interception-prone. Meanwhile, we do harp on Denver's defense, and it's amazing, but Orton has nine touchdowns versus just one interception and a passer rating over 100. I don't think he's that good, but far too many people were just thinking of him as subpar, if not outright bad, going into this season.

But hey, look at how much Cutler is helping the Bears' running game. Matt Forte's 3.4 yards per carry is clearly the result of improved quarterback play.

So the next time you hear someone say Denver's just having a good season because of their defense, know that that's just part of the story. For years, it seemed like the Broncos could make any running back into a 1,000-yard back. Nowadays, maybe they can make any quarterback into a Pro Bowler...

Vikings 34, Bears 14

OK, so maybe I was a little premature in my consideration of Kyle Orton as future quarterback of the Vikings. The Vikings defense dominated Orton and the Bears for most of the game, forcing three interceptions and putting up an amazing goal-line stand in the 34-14 win. The three Bears turnovers resulted in 17 Vikings points, but it was the stop at the Vikings one that resulted in the most exciting play of the game -- if not of the season.

When the Vikings took over inside their own 1, I thought, "A pass might not be the worst thing in the world here." After being harassed much of the first quarter, Gus Frerotte had received decent protection the last few drives, so a safety wasn't much of a concern. When he launched the ball deep down the near sideline, my only thought was "Just complete it." When I saw Bernard Berrian running free, I thought, "Can he catch up with it?" When he caught it in stride and kept going, I leaped out of my chair and, if they were sleeping, I woke up the neighbors. 99 yards later, and the game had completely changed in just a few plays, and the Bears never recovered.

How big a turnaround was it? Before that play, the Bears had 171 yards of offense to the Vikings' 117. After that play, the Bears managed just 94 yards the rest of the game. The Vikings outdid that on the next play and amassed 268 total yards the rest of the game.

How did the Vikings stuff the Bears so completely in the second half, limiting them to just 6 yards on 7 plays in the fourth quarter? Would you believe by running the ball? Yes, Brad Childress finally appears to have figured out that it's good for the Vikings to run the ball, exclusively when they have the lead. The Vikings' play calls in the fourth quarter? Two passes against 16 runs, including 15 handoffs in a row to close out the game. Overall, in the second half, the Vikings ran 23 times while putting it up only 9 times, the perfect formula for sitting on a team's throat and throttling them, especially with the talent the Vikings have on offense.

The defense wasn't too shabby either, picking off Orton three times and limiting the Bears to just 228 yards of total offense. Nearly a third of that yardage came on one play, the quick slant that Devin Hester took 65 yards for a touchdown (which even John Madden called as being Darren Sharper's fault, further indicating that he's likely done with the Vikings after this season). Though Matt Forte ran the ball surprisingly well (22 carries for 96 yards), the goal-line stand will be what people remember from this game from the defense.

So, what does this leave for the Vikings now? The good news is they're at 7-5, a full game up on 6-6 Chicago and two up on 5-7 Green Bay. The bad news is that the Vikings clearly have the toughest schedule remaining of the three teams. After a visit to 0-12 Detroit, the Vikings travel to 7-5 Arizona, followed by home games against 8-4 Atlanta and 11-1 New York (which, hopefully, will have everything sewn up and can rest some of its starters). The Bears have three straight home games, and all of their opponents are under .500, while the Packers' only .500 or better opponent down the stretch is Chicago -- and they get to play Detroit again, too. Then there's the Kevin Williams/Pat Williams suspensions, which the league is expected to come to a decision on Tuesday, though it's said that the players could ask for an injunction against the suspension, allowing them to continue playing.

But that's all in the future. For now, let's just bask in the glow of another win over a division rival, a one-game lead in the division, and a league-record-tying 99-yard touchdown pass. It was about as complete a win as a Viking fan could hope for, so let's not spoil the moment.

Your 2009 Minnesota Vikings QB

Yesterday, I proposed that, while neither were who I'd want leading my team, Gus Frerotte really isn't that much better than Tarvaris Jackson. It's almost a certainty that the Vikings will look elsewhere for QB help in the off-season, and there are several intriguing choices out there. True, we've still got five games left in the 2008 regular season, and a lot can happen in that time, but everyone else is speculating about who the Vikings will put under center, so why not me?

Donovan McNabb. The most obvious choice, and the one that's gained a lot more momentum in the wake of his recent falling out with the Eagles -- and I can't really understand why. Yeah, he's had a lousy game and a half, going back to the Cincinnati game. But that's just six quarters! He's still got an 81.1 passer rating and, if you take out his last two games, that number jumps up to 91.3. Even with his recent struggles, he's only thrown interceptions on 2.2% of his career passes, third among active players (behind the very inexperienced David Garrard and Jason Campbell, both of whom will come back down to earth), and if there ever was a team that just needed a QB who didn't turn the ball over and relied on his defense and running game, it was the Vikings.

Naturally, you can't just ignore a few games though. McNabb has thrown five interceptions in his last two contests, and the Eagles are a mediocre 5-5-1. However, in the team's five losses, they've given up 23, 24, 36, 36, and 41 points -- hard for any quarterback to win those games. The 13-13 tie (and Donovan's lack of knowledge of the NFL rulebook) is unfortunate, but hey, sometimes guys just lay eggs. He's got exactly three games in his career with three interceptions, and that was one of them. Meanwhile, he's thrown for zero or one interception in 109 of 127 games played. He's a good player, even if Philly doesn't believe it and, even at 32, has been mostly healthy the last two seasons.

Donovan McNabb represents probably the best short-term fix for the Vikings at the quarterback position, and hopefully would come fairly cheap in terms of compensation (say, a 2nd-round draft pick). But there are other options...

Kyle Orton. Don't laugh. Another possible target for McNabb is Chicago, and if that happens, both Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman will be free agents. Orton's had a very solid 2008, throwing just four interceptions and, yes, I don't like talking about quarterback records when it's obvious the rest of the team is what won the game, but he did take the 2005 Bears -- an all-running, all-defense team -- to a 10-5 record as a rookie, while accumulating some awful numbers. I'm willing to think that means that, even as a rookie, he was able to not make the deadly mistakes to cost his team the game, and he's only improved through the years. And he'd likely be a much cheaper free agent than...

Matt Cassel. With back-to-back 400-yard passing games, Cassel's suddenly on everybody's radar. He'll be a free agent next season and, despite the rumor I've heard that says the Pats might try to trade Tom Brady and keep Cassel (which I also wouldn't be completely against), I think Cassel tests the free-agent waters this off-season, and should have plenty of takers.

I just don't think the Vikings should be one of them. The question I ask is, "It'll be nice to have Cassel, but does he come with Randy Moss and Bill Belicheck?" Even with them, his passer rating is an OK-but-not-spectacular 90.5, and he only has 13 TD passes in 11 games. He's surprisingly mobile (53 carries for 199 yards) but has been sacked a league-high 34 times at an 8.7% clip. And his 400-yard passing games come in contests where he's thrown 51 and 43 passes, Buyer beware. Beware a lot.

And then there's that other guy. You remember him, don't you?

Michael Vick. Someone is going to take a chance on Vick in 2009, but I don't think it should be the Vikings. Putting aside the PR nightmare, consider this: Vick wasn't actually that great of a quarterback with the Falcons and he hasn't played in two years. How good do you think he'll be for his first year or so back in the league? He's simply not a good choice for a team that's trying to content immediately, but I wouldn't be surprised if he surfaces with a rebuilding team in need of a spark like Kansas City or Detroit. In fact, I think he's a perfect fit for the Lions, who can't sink any lower, can they? And they need a draw at the gate to avoid more home blackouts. Imagine Michael Vick and Daunte Culpepper on the same field together. Heck, even I'd pay to see that.

These are, naturally, just a few of the options out there to fill the QB position in 2009 for the Vikings. John David Booty will still be around, waiting for his shot, and who knows what the draft will bring? The Falcons and Ravens have shown that you can succeed with a rookie quarterback right out of the gate, if you have a pretty good team supporting him, so maybe the Vikings will go that way with their first pick, now that they're not as worried about hurting poor Tarvaris Jackson's feelings. And with Brad Childress and Darrell Bevell hopefully out of the picture, the sky could be the limit for the Vikings quarterback in 2009, whoever he is.

Even if it's Kyle Orton.