The Price of Randy Moss

Here's a quick guess at what a third-round pick -- which was apparently the going rate for one of the best WRs in history -- is worth.

Here are all third-round draft picks from 1991 to 2000. It can be assumed that all of these players have completed their careers or, in a few cases, we've seen enough of them to get a reasonable idea of how successful they've been. We can use PFR's Approximate Value as a guideline, sorting by CarAV to see who the best third-round picks were. The top five are:

Terrell Owens - 116
Jason Taylor - 115
Ronde Barber - 110
Aeneas Williams - 104
Curtis Martin - 101

If the Vikings actually gave up a player of that caliber for a few years late in Randy Moss' career, then it was a bad move, for certain. (I'll ignore the 7th-rounder the Vikings got from New England.) But those are just five players, out of 323 3rd-round picks, or about 1.5% of all picks. Sorted by AV, here are the number of players, and their percentage of all 323 picks:

100+: 5 (1.5%)
80-99: 5 (1.5%)
60-79: 9 (2.8%)
40-59: 27 (8.4%)
20-39: 65 (20.1%)
0-19: 212 (65.6%)

That means that about 2 out of every 3 3rd-round picks are essentially valueless -- players who achieve a career AV of less than 20. The 20-39 isn't much better, and the 40-59 tier hardly represents players you would regret not having on your team; the high end of that bracket gives us players like Ray Buchanan, James Jones, Brian Griese, and Darrell Jackson -- useful, but not overly significant.

Here's another way of looking at it: Coming into this season, Randy Moss has averaged about 14 points of AV per year, and that includes his hideous years with Oakland. Assuming the Vikings have him for three years, and assuming some decline in his skills -- with years of 12, 10, and 8 AV, that would give him 30 points of AV, which would make him better than 255 of the 323 3rd-rounders (78.9%) in our sample. So, you could say that there's about a 4-in-5 chance that this was a good deal for the Vikings and a 1-in-5 chance that the player the Pats get -- which will, we hope, be a late 3rd-rounder -- will be good enough to offset the loss of Randy Moss.

I'm happy with those odds.

Super Bowl XXXIII redux

I've been playing around with the NFL SimMatchup on WhatIfSports.com lately, where you can match up any two teams in history and play a simulated game with them, just to answer the question: If Denny Green (and not Gary Anderson) hadn't lost the 1998 NFC Championship Game for the Vikings, how would they have fared in the Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos? Better than the Falcons, who got hammered 34-19 in a game that wasn't even as close as the score indicated.

It's easy to set up and sim games (if you're setting up this particular game, set 1998 Denver as Away, 1998 Minnesota as Home and select Pro Player Stadium at 70 degrees), and my first result was this 24-17 Denver win.

All right, so that's not very encouraging. But at least it was a far more exciting game than the real result, with Denver scoring the go-ahead TD with just five seconds remaining.

Still, small sample size, blah blah blah, so I ran nine more sims to get a full 10-game sample to play with. The results were:

Denver 24-17
Minnesota 18-13 (six Gary Anderson field goals)
Minnesota 23-16 (Cris Carter TD catch with 0:25 left)
Denver 24-21
Denver 27-20 (24 of game's 47 points in the fourth quarter)
Minnesota 28-17
Minnesota 23-17
Denver 54-41 (!!!!)
Denver 44-24 (Terrell Davis 239 yards rushing)
Minnesota 17-14

That's five wins apiece for each Denver and Minnesota, with an average score of Denver 25, Minnesota 23.2. And nearly all of them exciting, close affairs.

A few more notes on that insane 54-41 game:

* The game started off slowly, with Denver leading just 7-0 after the first quarter. The single-quarter scores after that were Minnesota 17-13, Denver 14-3, and Minnesota 21-20.

* Terrell Davis ran for 292 yards, which would have been an NFL single-game record at the time, and three touchdowns.

* Randall Cunningham countered with 396 yards passing and 3 TDs, 141 of it going to Randy Moss.

* Total offense: Denver 567, Minnesota 493, for a total of 1,060 yards.

* In a game like this, you'd have expected to see a few turnovers and long returns setting up or outright creating scores, but there were no turnovers and didn't appear to be any TD returns on kicks or punts.

* In a show of poor sportsmanship (which can probably be chalked up to the game algorithm just trying to score as much as possible), Denver kicked a field goal on the final snap of the game while already possessing a 10-point lead, to inflate the final score from 51-41 to 54-41. Boo, Dan Reeves!

Anyway, this is just one of the cool things you can do with the SimMatchup, and thanks to the guys at the Pro-Football-Reference blog for pointing it out to me. They've got their own interesting application for the SimMatchup planned, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll definitely be rooting for the 1998 Vikings!

Play of the Day

Some people will tell you that the play of the game from yesterday's rout of the Rams was Jared Allen's fumble-recovery-TD. But astute fans who stuck around until the end know that the most improbable, the most unbelievable, the most "How on earth did that happen?" play was, in fact...

Naufahu Tahi's 32-yard catch and run in the late fourth quarter.

Let's put this into perspective. Going into Sunday's game, Tahi had a career 52 yards on 19 receptions, a stellar 2.7 yards per reception. With his 32-yard gain, his career numbers explode to 84 yards on 20 carries, with a Randy Moss-like 4.2 yards per catch!

I know that adding Brett Favre was supposed to help the passing game (and that it was actually Tarvaris Jackson who threw the pass to Tahi -- work with me here), but if his mere presence can even turn Naufahu Tahi into a receiving "threat," then the Vikings are nigh-unstoppable.

Does a great fantasy receiver need a #2?

Like to the running back conundrum I questioned last year, another fantasy football paradox popped into my head over the weekend as I was wondering what effect the departure of T.J. Houshmanzadeh might have on Chad Johnson in 2009. (I really need a life.) Viking fans will also recall that, for all the hubbub on what effect losing Cris Carter would have on Randy Moss, Moss went on to have his best season, yardage-wise, in 2003. I've often heard two lines of argument about drafting wide receivers:

Situation A: A #1-caliber receiver has no good #2 on his team
"He's all they've got! They have to throw to him! He'll have a great year!"

Situation B: A #1-caliber receiver has a good #2 on his team
"Opposing defenses have to cover #2, as well! #1 will have a great year!"

Yeah, I'm gonna have to look into that.

So I spent an inordinate amount of time on pro-football-reference.com looking at all receivers for the last 10 years with at least 1,200 yards receiving and looking at their "#2" receivers in that season, so see if there was any correlation between great receiving seasons and particularly good (or bad) seasons by complementary receivers. There were 95 seasons that matched this criteria -- 93 by wide receivers and two by Tony Gonzalez. The reason I limited it to 10 years was because, frankly, I would have to look up each player's "#2" on his team's page for that season, which took long enough as it was. 95 seasons is probably enough to give us a reasonable sample size, and by limiting the study to the last 10 years, I keep it firmly rooted in the "modern" NFL with its oft-explosive passing game.

I use "#2" in quotation marks because, several times, a team had more than one player with 1,200 yards receiving, meaning that one player's "#2" receiver actually racked up more yards than him. Specifically, there were 24 such pairings (twice counting 12 different sets of players) from 1999 to 2008, from Torry Holt (1,635 yards) and Isaac Bruce (1,471 yards) in 2000 to Jimmy Smith (1,213 yards) and Keenan McCardell (1,207 yards), also in 2000.

I took the 95 pairs and sorted them by the total yards for the #1 receiver. I then split the #1 receivers' seasons into three parts, of 32, 31, and 32 players. The top 32 had the best seasons, the middle 31 had the second-best, and the bottom 32 had the third best. If there is a correlation between great seasons by #1 and great or not-great seasons by #2, we should see some sort of significant difference in their corresponding #2's yardage totals. Here's what I got:

	Avg. #1 Yds.	Avg. #2 Yds.
Top 32	1,495	958
Mid 31	1,336	932
Bot 32	1,241	950

Doesn't seem like much of a difference between the three categories. The correlation between the two sets of numbers is -0.06, which also indicates that there's virtually no connection between yardage totals for #1 and yardage totals for #2.

A few other interesting stats...

Greatest difference between #1 and #2: 1,122 yards (Steve Smith/Ricky Proehl, 2005, 1,563 to 441)

Smallest difference between #1 and #2: 4 yards (Hines Ward/Plaxico Burress, 2002, 1,329 to 1,325)

Most frequent #1-#2 pairing: Torry Holt/Isaac Bruce (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004)

Most 1,200 yards seasons, 1999-2008: Randy Moss and Marvin Harrison (6 each)

And Terrell Owens, in his five 1,200 yard seasons, has had a different #2 in each one: Jerry Rice, J.J. Stokes, Tai Streets, Brian Westbrook, and Jason Witten.

Now, this study isn't perfect. Sometimes, a #2 puts up poor numbers not because of a lack of talent, but due to some other reason, such as injury. For 2008, Anquan Boldin is a perfect example. Had he not missed four games, he almost certainly would have cracked 1,200 yards in his own right (he had 1,038), thus altering not only Larry Fitzgerald's numbers in my data but adding a new point of his own. Calvin Johnson losing Roy Williams after just five games also might have had some impact on his numbers. (Shaun McDonald's 332 yards receiving for the 2008 Lions -- fittingly -- makes him the worst "#2" in my data.) Still, it could also be argued that Fitz and CJ put up their good numbers without a solid #2 for part of the season (and no, I don't count Steve Breaston), even if you could theoretically add together the yardage numbers for several receivers and paint a more accurate picture of their "#2 receiver."

Another thought is that a #1 receiver, especially one who's having a great season, is going to get a lot of balls thrown his way (similar to the argument in situation A) and the #2, by default, isn't going to get as many passes thrown his way and, therefore, have worse numbers. There might be something to that, but I think the effect is minimal.

Still, when it comes to trying to pick a wide receiver, at least for fantasy football, I believe it comes down to not thinking too hard: Pick the best guy, period. You can take QB and best offensive philosophy (a la the current Patriots or Cardinals or the early-2000s Rams) into account, but don't overly concern yourself with his other receiving teammates, either for the positive or the negative.

You thought PEDs were a problem...

How come more superheroes aren't professional athletes in their secret identities?

Consider Peter Parker. Super-strong, great leaping ability, the stickiest hands you'll ever see...don't you think he could make a lot more money as a wide receiver than as a freelance photographer?

Wolverine may not have the height, but he'll never spend a day on the disabled list or injured reserve. Line him up at tailback and watch him go! (Of course, his pit-fighting scene in the first X-Men movie would seem to make him a natural for MMA-style action.

And imagine a mind-reader like Charles Xavier as your head coach. "Peyton, they're going to blitz on this play. The corner's got a bad ankle that he's trying to hide, so Reggie should be wide open."

And this is ignoring obvious concepts like The Flash running the 100-meter dash or Clark Kent doing, well, just about anything.

Does it seem a little underhanded and dishonest for "heroes"? Maybe. So why shouldn't the villains get in on the action? Sure, some are just psychos who want to take over/blow up the world, but making $10-$20 million a year as a top-tier athlete and having a decked-out crib must beat robbing banks and living in a secret underwater lair.

Of course, they couldn't go all out in their athletic endeavors (as Dash's race at the end of The Incredibles shows us), but they'd easily be better than any "normal" athlete.

(And yes, I know about Spider-man/Peter Parker no longer having a secret identity and Wolverine doesn't technically have one...just hang with me, here.)

Then again, how do we know this hasn't already happened? Barry Sanders and Randy Moss, I'm looking at you.

Vikings' Best Possible Draft, 1998

One of the earliest posts on my revitalized blog was about the 1997 NFL Draft and the picks the Vikings could have made instead of the ones they did make, using 10 years' worth of hindsight. I called it the BPD, or Best Possible Draft. Here's a bit of the description of the system from that post:

In other words, if the top of my draft looked like this:

1: Troy Aikman (DAL)
2: Tony Mandarich (GB)
3: Barry Sanders (DET)

And I was figuring the Packers' BPD, I'd probably say they pick Sanders, who was available with their #2 pick, but not Aikman, who was off the board. In general, your best pick will fall between your current pick and your next pick, though this wasn't always the case. And, of course, evaluation of players' abilities and the success of their careers is completely at my whim.

I didn't take a team's positional needs at the time of the draft into account, but I also didn't give them a completely implausible draft (like 6 running backs). Even though the 1997 version of the draft presented below is largely defensive, it's at least realistic.

So, without further ado, let's fast-forward a year to the 1998 Draft and see how the Vikings fared and how they could have done if they'd had a crystal ball (or at least, access to a Vikings-loving time traveler):

Round 1, Pick 21
Actual: Randy Moss, WR
BPD: Randy Moss, WR (picked 1-21)

Hard to argue with Moss here. OK, you can argue, based on how things went off the field, but I always felt that Moss was fine as long as he had someone to control him a bit. In the early days, that was Dennis Green and Cris Carter. When Carter left and Green lost whatever disciplinary skills he may have once possessed, things went downhill. Then we have Mike Tice and, with Oakland, Norv Turner and Art Shell, and Moss is a "problem child."

Then "Bam!", send him to Bill Bellichek and everything's rosy. Who would have thunk it? Well, me for one.

Anyway, there are some good players between this pick and the Vikings' next, including Alan Faneca, Flozell Adams, and Patrick Surtain. But I'll stick with the Vikings' real pick.

Round 2, Pick 51
Actual: Kailee Wong, LB
BPD: Olin Kreutz, C (3-64)

Wong was wrong for the Vikes, turning in four unremarkable seasons before going to Houston in the expansion draft in 2002. Assuming I'd know everything about the 1998 draft in advance, it's a tough choice between Kreutz and Ahman Green, and even Jeremiah Trotter seems a decent choice. Of course, the Vikings did draft a center in this draft -- but we'll get to that later.

Round 3, Pick 80
Actual: Ramos McDonald, DB
BPD: Hines Ward, WR (3-92)

Easy selection here. Yes, this overloads the Vikings a bit at WR (they would at this point have Carter, Moss, Ward, and Jake Reed) but provides the team with a good young core to overtake the aging Carter and the inconsistent Reed. Plus, with those wide receivers -- all of them great blockers -- Robert Smith might not have seen the need to retire after the 2000 season.

OK, probably not.

Round 4, Pick 110
Actual: Kivuusama Mays, LB
BPD: Jason Fabini, T (4-111)

Mays had a cool name, but that was about all he had going for him. As for Fabini, it's a toss-up between him and guard Benji Olson (Titans), picked in the fifth round. We'll get to why I went with the tackle in a moment. We've already got a center and a tackle, so next, of course, we'll have to pick...

Round 5, Pick 144
Actual: Kerry Cooks, DB
BPD: Matt Birk, C (6-173)

...another center? Well, maybe. Remember back in the early days of Birk's career, when he was one of the league's rare pulling centers? Imagine and offensive line of Kreutz at center, Birk at guard, and Fabini at tackle. Remember, in those days the Vikings still had Todd Steussie, Randall McDaniel, and Korey Stringer, though all would be gone by the 2001 season (Stringer, unfortunately, for good).

Yeah, I know we don't have any defensive picks at this point. But man, what an O-line!

Round 6, Pick 173
Actual: Matt Birk, C
BPD: Matt Hasselbeck, QB (6-187)

And taking Birk a round early frees us up to select Hasselbeck here, meaning the Vikings take a good pick away from both Chicago (Kreutz) and Green Bay (Hasselbeck). Brilliant!

Round 7, Pick 208
Actual: Chester Burnett, LB
BPD: Nate Wayne, LB (7-219)

Pickings are understandably thin at this point, but Wayne at least was a decent starter for a few years for the Pack. And that's yet another pick "stolen" from an NFC North foe.

Round 7, Pick 225
Actual: Tony Darden, DB
BPD: Pat Tillman, DB (7-226)

Nuff said.

Vikings get Berrian (oh, and Tapeh)

The Vikings made another big free-agent splash this weekend, inking Bernard Berrian, probably the top wide-receiver available in free agency, to a six-year, $42 million dollar deal, with $16 million of it guaranteed. This is the deal so far in free agency and it will, for better or worse, make a major impact on the team for years to come.

As I mentioned in Friday's post, Berrian is the top wide receiver available despite not yet registering a 1,000-year season in his career. Also, at 27, he's a touch older than one would like and may not have the durability to finish out his contract in productive fashion. And he's only had three 100-yard games in his career yet will be paid like one of the top wide receivers in the league.

Now I'll find some good news. First of all, Berrian will be a major improvement over any of the wideouts the Vikings currently employ, though that's not too difficult. His 71 catches last year are 17 more than the top Viking receive (Bobby Wade) from 2007 and even his 51 grabs in 2006 would have nearly put him at #1 on the Vikings' 2006 squad (Travis Taylor, 57). And all this comes with a quarterback situation that, at the least, was as confused and disjointed as the Vikings' over the last two years.

And Berrian has speed. His career 14.6 yards per reception for his career shows that, and, even though he only managed 13.4 last year, that still would have ranked him #1 on the 2007 Vikings among players with at least 20 catches. I know what you're saying now: "Hey, wasn't Troy Williamson fast?" Yes he was, to the tune of a 13.5 yard-per-catch average, a full yard less than Berrian. And, while I can't comment on precisely how good Berrian's hands are, I don't recall seeing too many highlights (or lowlights) of him making crucial drops on easy passes. In his three years with the Vikings, Williamson made 79 catches, only 8 more than Berrian had in 2007 alone.

There's little question that Berrian is good; the debate centers around on whether he's that good. Is he worth $7 million/year? On the bright side, this is the NFL, so there's always wiggle room on that front. Only $16 million of the deal is guaranteed, so, if Berrian flops, the team won't be on the hook for too much money. Plus, the team had the cap room, so why not use it?

Finally, it could be argued that no team needed a big-time wide receiver than the Vikings. Berrian won't transform the team into the next coming of the Greatest Show on Turf but if teams have to respect his speed and deep-play threat, that should open up more holes for Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor and teams won't be able to crowd the box to stuff either player. It's still questionable as to whether Tarvaris Jackson will be able to get the ball to Berrian with any consistency, but it sure beats throwing deep to Williamson and Robert Ferguson.

In the end, the Vikings probably did overpay for Berrian's services. Even if he plays out his entire contract, he's unlikely to put up Pro Bowl-caliber numbers for much of that stretch. But by addressing the team's #1 off-season weakness while not significantly impacting the team's ability to pursue other free agents (and sign draft picks), Zygi Wilf and the rest of Vikings management has to be applauded for at least taking what appear to be the right steps.

* In less splashy news, the Vikings also signed former Golden Gopher fullback Thomas Tapeh, late of the Philadelphia Eagles, to a five-year, $6 million deal on Friday. Tapeh will probably take over lead-blocking chores from Tony Richardson, who is an unrestricted free agent. Tapeh, who used to open holes for Marion Barber in college and for Brian Westbrook in the pros, is also eight years younger than Richardson and, while not the same caliber of receiver, might actually be a better runner and blocker, at least at this stage of their respective careers.

I like this move. It giving the team a hometown talent (sort of -- Tapeh was born in Liberia) for the fans to cheer and pairs Adrian Peterson up with a man who can (hopefully) serve as his "bodyguard" for years to come, like Lorenzo Neal and LaDainian Tomlinson of the Chargers. While consistency on the offensive line is important, I think that the camaraderie of a fullback and tailback is often overlooked in the NFL. For the tailback, it helps to know what the man in front of you is capable of and how he'll block for you, and for the fullback, it helps to work with the same kind of back, day in and day out, so you'll know when he likes to cut it in, when he likes to bounce it outside, and so on. The Vikings needed to find a replacement for the aging Richardson and in doing so, found a very good blockade-runner for their most valuable player, at a reasonable price.

* And in case you missed it, Randy Moss is entertaining offers from anyone -- and wants to reunite with Daunte Culpepper. The Bears are minus their top two wide receivers (Berrian and Muhsin Muhammed) and don't have any long-term plans at quarterback. Do ya think? Nahhhh...

Vikings' have several wide-receiver options

It's no secret that the Vikings' passing game in 2007 was subpar. Certainly, Tarvaris Jackson was in over his head most of the year, but one can't ignore the inadequacy of his wide receivers, as well. With Coach Brad Childress seemingly committed to keeping Jackson under center, and most potential free-agent replacements probably coming at too high a price (Donovan McNabb) or being not much of an improvement (Rex Grossman), Jackson will probably be the Vikings' quarterback going into 2008. Even if the Vikings spend a high draft pick on a QB, it's unlikely that such a player would be ready to start until at least mid-season, if that early.

Wide receiver, on the other hand, is a different story, both in terms of available veterans and in terms of potential rookie replacements, not to mention the team's probable willingness to replace what they've got at the position already. Of the team's top three receivers from 2007, only Sidney Rice appears to have a long-term future with the team. Robert Ferguson and Bobby Wade were short-term fixes, Aundrae Allison seems better suited to kick-return duties, and the less said about Troy Williamson the better. So, how can the Vikings best bolster their wide-receiving corps?

Some draft boards have Cal's DeSean Jackson going to the Vikings with their #17 pick in the first round. He's fairly small (6', 172 lbs) but has game-breaking speed, which might be a good fit for the Vikings. Jackson could hit him on short passes and watch him turn five-yard gains into 30 yards. Other mock drafts have us taking Malcolm Kelly of Oklahoma with that pick. While not quite as fast as Jackson, he's got great size (6'4", 217 lbs), and his 40 times at the combine could radically alter his draft stock. If the Vikings wait until the second round or later, there are lots of good prospects, like Limas Sweed (Texas), Mario Manningham (Michigan), and Harry Douglas (Louisville), all of whom would look good in purple and definitely bolster a weak receiving corps.

For more immediate help, though, the Vikings will have to turn to free agency or, in one interesting case, a trade. Here are some of the top free-agent wide receivers out there and one non-free agent who's received a lot of talk recently:

Randy Moss (New England). Let's be realistic. Randy Moss is going to get a huge payday, and it won't be from Minnesota. And it probably wouldn't be worth it, considering our quarterbacking situation.

Bernard Berrian (Chicago). Despite not yet owning a 1,000-yard receiving season, Berrian is probably the top free-agent WR on the market the Vikings can realistically expect to land. He's a deep threat (14.7 yards per catch career) and a bit old (27) but represents the best option for an immediate upgrade to the position.

Bryant Johnson (Arizona). Johnson's an interesting case. He's lived in the shadows of Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin for most of his career as a Cardinal but has been very consistent, with seasons of 35, 49, 40, 40, and 46 catches. He would probably put up solid numbers as a starter and might even qualify as the #1 receiver in the Vikings' offense.

Patrick Crayton (Dallas). Crayton emerged as a solid complement to Terrell Owens in Dallas this season, taking over for the injured Terry Glenn. Granted, Tarvaris Jackson is no Tony Romo, and nobody will cover the Vikings' other receivers the way defenders shadowed TO, so if Crayton gets his payday somewhere other than in Dallas, he probably won't put up numbers like he did in 2007 (50 catches, 697 yards, 7 TDs).

Chad Johnson (Cincinnati). Here's the wild card. Does Johnson want to be traded or doesn't he? If he does, I think the Vikings would be wise to inquire about his price. Yes, he's arrogant and at times immature, but the offense could probably benefit from a character like Johnson and, even if Jackson can't get the ball to him regularly, defenders will have to respect his ability, and that will open holes for Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor. His age (30) is a concern, and who knows if he'd be willing to suit up for a run-oriented offense like the Vikings', but at least one part of his transition would be smooth -- the Vikings don't have anyone on their roster who wears ocho-cinco.

There are, of course, other free-agent wide receivers to be had, like Muhsin Muhammed, Andre Davis, David Patten, and Drew Carter, but they don't offer much of an improvement over the team's current crop of wideouts. Nearly every season, the team has made one big free-agent splash, from Antoine Winfield to Darren Sharper to Chester Taylor to Fred Smoot, and with room under the cap (as usual), hopefully they'll take a shot at refreshing a badly depleted wide-receiver corps that's in desperate need of a playmaker to take the pressure off the running game.

(Don't forget to answer poll to the right!)