We shouldn’t be surprised by the Thunder collapse last night. And where is Kevin Durant? We’re ok with the $50,000 fine for Noah’s slur, but is the NBA becoming too much “Real World?” Tyler’s sticking with my Heat pick. And don’t be fooled: Lance did PEDs. I rant on ESPN.
Follow the Half Assed Sports Podcast onTwitter #halfassedsports
Tyler and Jeff discuss the wisdom of the Panther’s pick at #1. Will there be another season of Jimmy “Eat” Clausen, or will Cam Newton be under center in Charlotte?
Taking Cam Newton at #1 can’t be that bad right? Tyler and Jeff discuss the 15 worst personnel moves in sports, music and movies.
The NBA Playoffs are in full swing. What’s the biggest surprise so far: Tim Duncan looking like he could collect Social Security, Pau Gasol looking like Glass Joe from Punch Out, or James Harden’s Amish beard?
Follow #halfassedsports on Twitter.
First off, the quick thoughts
Alright, I’m glad to get that out of the way. Moving on…
I had a passing thought during the game last night about Michael Meyers Roethlisberger – were we watching one of the worst QB performances of all time in a Super Bowl? Thanks to BleacherReport.com for setting me straight.
10. Super Bowl XXXI, Drew Bledsoe, New England Patriots: 25-48, 253 yards, 2 TD, 4 INT
9. Super Bowl XVII, David Woodley, Miami Dolphins: 4-14, 97 yards, TD, INT
8. Super Bowl XXIV, John Elway, Denver Broncos: 10-26, 108 yards, 2 INT
7. Super Bowl XXXVII, Rich Gannon, Oakland Raiders: 24-44, 272 yards, 2 TD, 5 INT
6. Super Bowl VII, Billy Kilmer, Washington Redskins: 14-28, 104 yards, 3 INT
5. Super Bowl IX, Fran Tarkenton, Minnesota Vikings: 11-26, 102 yards, 3 INT
4. Super Bowl XX, Tony Eason, New England Patriots: 0-6, 0 yards
3. Super Bowl XXXV, Kerry Collins, New York Giants: 15-39, 112 yards, 4 INT
2. Super Bowl III, Earl Morrall, Baltimore Colts: 6-17, 71 yards, 3 INT
1. Super Bowl XII, Craig Morton, Denver Broncos: 4-15, 39 yards, 4 INT
My personal favorite was the Tony Eason 0 yard performance in Super Bowl 20. Hate I missed that one (technically, i was 4).
So, that’s what we’re up against. Michael Myers Roethlisberger was actually not so bad if you look at the #s. 25 of 40 (62%), 263 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT, 77.5 QB rating, but it just doesn’t tell the whole story. One of the interceptions was at midfield, one of them was returned for a touchdown; in super bowl history, a team had never returned a interception for a touchdown and lost. Mystifyingly, the fact that a touchdown is returned for an interception is not included in the QB rating calculation. If you’re interested, you can see the full calculation, but basically, it’s a numerical formula that uses touchdowns, interceptions, passing yards and completions per attempt.
Actually, Roethlisberger was much worse in his first Super Bowl, Super Bowl 40. His line: 9-21, 123 yards, 2 INT. That gagging sound you’re hearing is his Hall of Fame candidacy. For those too lazy to do the calculation, that’s a 22.6 QB rating, the worst ever to win a game.
So what does all this mean? It means the Steelers are really good. They survived a terrible Roethlisberger game in Super Bowl 40 and nearly survived another in Super Bowl 45 last night. In 2010-2011, they had the best scoring defense in the NFL and in 2005 they had the 3rd best. The best defense in 2005 was also the team with the 4th worst scoring offense or 2005 may have looked a little different.
Last night, aside from a Ben Roethlisberger TAINT (touchdown after INT), the Steelers defense held the Packers offense under it’s scoring average for the season (24.2) and made a critical stop in the last 2 minutes, holding the Packers to a field goal, and gave the Steelers a chance to win the game with their franchise QB at the helm.
Here was my summary on Twitter last night. Think it sums things up nicely
Super Bowl preview with Tyler and Billy “The Beard” Steele. I brought the best of the Super Bowl prop bets and picks against the spread. Billy gave us his updated Beard of Steele Power Rankings. And Tyler wondered why nobody is picking the Steelers
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tylerashworth/2011/02/04/half-assed-sports-show–super-bowl-xlv
Bears (-3.5) over Packers
So much for that “Seattle will be able to run the ball on the Bears” comment I made last week. I let my vision get in the way of the stats. Seattle had 12 carries for 34 yards.
Let’s break down this Green Bay matchup. Chicago has the 28th ranked passing offense and 22nd ranked running offense and they’re facing the Packers 5th ranked pass defense and 18th ranked rush defense. Green Bay’s 5th ranked pass offense and 24th ranked rush offense will face the Bears 20th ranked pass defense and 2nd ranked rush defense. Seems the pass offense of the Packers and pass defense of the Bears is the matchup to watch. The Bears are good at stopping the run, but the Packers don’t really run the ball, and Chicago doesn’t really do anything well on offense.
These teams met twice this season – the Bears winning in Chicago by 3 in week 3 and the Packers winning in Week 17 in Green Bay by 7 in possibly the worst game of all time (since the Panthers ran the wildcat for an entire game). These games essentially fell into the home differential (3 points in Vegas) and thus don’t provide a lot of data. It’s worth mentioning that the Game 1 loss by the Packers also featured 18 penalties totaling 152 yards by the Packers, obviously enough to swing a tight game. I’d say it’s unlikely we’ll see a similar performance from the Packers this week.
This Vegas line has the Packers as favorites in Chicago, which is a little scary. I feel confident in a Packers win, but these games have been tight and ugly and the Bears, while not an elite pass defense are an excellent scoring defense. The Packers are also an excellent scoring defense. I think this will be an ugly slug fest. The Bears will probably cover on their home field, but I think the Packers win the game.
Steelers (-3.5) over Jets
These teams already met in Week 15 in Pittsburgh and the Jets won 22-17. It was a pretty clean game by both teams and featured a kickoff return by Brad Smith. Pittsburgh has the 14th ranked pass offense and 11th ranked rush offense and they’ll be facing the Jets 6th ranked pass defense and 3rd ranked rush defense. Advantage Jets. The Jets are the 22nd ranked pass offense (yikes) and the 4th ranked rush offense and they’ll be facing the Steelers’ 12th ranked pass defense and 1st ranked rush defense.
The Jets were able to run the ball in the last game but didn’t exactly blow it out. They had 27 carries for 106 yards and the Sanchize was ineffective but efficient with the pass. The Steelers actually dominated this vaunted Jets defense offensively but couldn’t translate that into scores.
These teams are virtually equal in scoring offense, but the scoring defense of the Steelers is the best in the league (14.5 ppg) to the Jets 6th ranked scoring defense (19 ppg).
I think that’s your difference in the game here. The Steelers are the better defensive team, both scoring and yards per game and they have Big Ben. I love the Sanchize but he ain’t Big Ben.
Greg Aiello, Senior VP of PR for the NFL, had an op ed for ESPN.com this week where he responded to the players union positions on the NFL negotiations for their next collective bargaining agreement. One standout quote: ”The status quo means players continue to keep 60 percent of available revenue, in good years or bad, in a good economy or one with 10 percent unemployment, and no matter how much costs have risen for the teams. Player compensation has doubled in the past decade, and the union says NFL team payrolls rose 6 percent this year. Meanwhile, other costs for teams have risen dramatically.” Unfortunately, Mr. Aiello chooses to hide behind the dubious “costs” and does not choose to disclose actual numbers on these “costs” and thus attempt to win the public opinion battle. His argument to the public seems to be “look at these greedy players, what jerks!” Interesting stance given that the NFL is approximately 65% black and the owners are nearly all white. The NBA has chosen this tactic as well in the past, the basic “we don’t need to explain ourselves, look who we’re up against” (shaking my head) Anyway, we’re not here to talk about race or Greg Aiello wants you to think, we’re here to talk about what actually is.
For the unitiated, the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a negotiated document between the players union and the owners (ie the league). Players union membership is conferred upon any player that joins a team in the NFL. The last CBA has been in place since 1993 with the last amendment in 2006. The contract was supposed to expire in 2012, but the league chose to opt out 2 years early (they had the option) and thus, the agreement ends in March of this year.
The current CBA, as Aiello states, the CBA says that the players gets 59.5% of the projected league revenue for the year. In 2008, it was $116 million per team and 2009, it was $127 million per team. That’s a 9 percent increase over those two years – the NFL is making money hand over fist. The overall league revenue projected for 2009 was a hardy $6.83 billion. Forbes quoted the operating profit for the league at 1.03 billion for the 2008-2009 season. Revenue was projected at 6.23 billion, so these “expenses” added up to about $5.2 billion. Of that $5.2 billion, the salary cap counted for $3.7 billion. So, essentially, Aiello’s argument is that $1.03 billion ($32 million per team) in profit is not enough.
Let’s compare this to other leagues. NBA commissioner David Stern claims that the NBA lost $400 million in the 2009-2010 season. The best figures I could find listed the operating income at $233 million (revenue at $4 billion), a figure of about $7.8 million per team (where is this loss Stern is talking about? Taxes?). MLB listed revenue at $6.8 billion for 2010. Their operating income (2009) was $522 million ($17.4 million per team) and their revenue at $6.8 billion. If these figures are accurate, the NFL is doubling up MLB profits and quadrupling NBA profits. They’re the king of money making in professional sports in the US. Just for the record, the average valuation of an NFL team is $1 billion, more than twice the value of any other pro league in the US.
One huge source of NFL income is television contracts where they hold far more sway and generate far more money than the other sports. They currently have independent deals with CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN and DirectTV with these contracts generating about $3.8 billion dollars a year, over half of the NFL’s revenue. Part of the reason for wanting to renegotiate the CBA is that the NFL hopes to renegotiate these contracts before their 2013 expiration and thus wants to change how the league operates. A work stoppage in 2012, shortly before the television negotiations, might give the networks a strong negotiating position whereas a work stoppage now will give the NFL two strong years to stabilize their position.
By the way, the TV deals don’t even include the recent $720 million contract ($180 million/year) with Verizon, their deals with radio companies including Sirius ($31 million a year), as well as the additional deal with CBS for sportsline coverage ($24 million a year).
One of the main ways that the NFL proposes to boost the income of the TV negotiations is adding 2 games to the regular season and shortening the preseason by 2 games. No big deal, right? Not so fast. Fewer preseason games equals fewer opportunities to physically prepare for the season, higher incidents of concussion, and shorter careers. The current average career in the NFL is 3 and a half years and the average NFL salary is $770,000, and if you multiply those numbers together you’ll have the average NFL player income for a career at $2.7 million. Sounds great, but let’s break it down a little further.
Let’s assume that the average NFL career is actually 56 games. If you include 2 more full speed games every season, the average NFL career is slightly over 3 seasons. This matters because in order to qualify for the NFL pension (currently about $77,000), you must play a minimum of 4 seasons. A change in the number of games in a season would decrease the number of players getting pension (and decrease the owners cost to pay said players). With 50 years of retirement from their chosen profession and the NFL being much more debilitating than working in an office, this money could end up being much more consequential than you might think. Throw in the fact that many of these people receive this money in their early 20s, a time when research has shown that young people have not developed the ability to understand the full consequences of their actions, many of them have misspent their money. Think back to your own early 20s, were you fiscally responsible? The difference between them and you is that their major earning power is going to QUICKLY disappear, yours likely will not. Also at issue is the retirement insurance, which would fall into the same issue as the retirement plan itself. In some ways, the insurance plan is more critical, especially as concerns over concussions and dementia have taken center stage in recent months.
It’s interesting to hear Roger Goodell talk about his goal of multiplying league revenue by 3 to $25 billion by 2027 (requiring adding $1 billion per year to revenue). I have to wonder at what cost this will come to in player safety and long term player salaries.
From looking at the numbers, it seems like the people with the most to lose here are the players, both in terms of injury, incapacitation, and losing a very strong revenue stance as the NFL tries to multiply it’s revenue. Many of the changes seem to be looking at multiplying the value on that TV and media deal, already the central money making force in the NFL machine and yet, the owners don’t seem to want the players to make that kind of money and for everyone to benefit mutually.
I encourage you to see this looming NFL lockout for what it is. Rich owners of billion dollar NFL teams, making more money by far than any other professional league in the US, making a greedy move while sacrificing player safety and long-term player viability. (oddly enough, this sounds a little like the Terrelle Pryor situation doesn’t it? Things that make you go hmmm).
I can’t help but wonder if the extreme hubris that ownership is showing won’t be their undoing. There is already a movement against football with parents not allowing their children to play for fear of injury and concussion and a backlash against the violence and concussions that are a part of the game. If these things become more prevalent as ownership tries to squeeze more dollars out of a very profitable product, could the NFL’s undoing ultimately be of it’s own hand? Time will tell.
Half Assed Sports Show – NFL Playoffs Divisional Round
This show was epic. 2 Hours of Sports Talk with myself, @tylerashworth, @wmsteele and John joined us with a call-in. We talked NFL Divisional Round Playoffs and made our picks. Billy gave his beard power rankings for the week. We debated the greatest QB of all time (looking more and more like it’s Tom Brady). And, of course, we aired our grievances, mine was with the NFL owners (more on this in a blog post soon).
All lines are latest lines courtesy of bodog.com
Pittsburgh (-3) over Baltimore
Pittsburgh lost at home to the Ravens in Week 4 but won in Baltimore in Week 13; both games had a margin of 3. Tough call. The Ravens are pretty anemic on offense (20th in passing, 14th in rushing) but the Steelers are not much better (14th in passing, 11th in rushing). The Steeler defense is clearly superior (12th against the pass, 1st against the rush) to Baltimore’s (21st against the pass, 5th against the rush). Pittsburgh has the second best turnover differential in the league and doesn’t kill themselves with penalties. But the most important piece of information is that that week 4 baltimore win in pittsburgh was Charlie Batch at QB and not Ben Roethlisberger.
Green Bay (+3) over Atlanta
I have struggled all week with this game. Atlanta beat Green Bay 20-17 at home in Week 10. Both QBs were stellar, but Green Bay had no running game and Aaron Rodgers led the team in rushing. Green Bay appears to have fixed this problem with the emergence of James Starks (23 carries, 123 yards last week). If you break down the offensive stats, Green Bay is 5th ranked in passing and 24th in rushing while Atlanta is more balanced being 15th in passing and 12th with the rush. Green Bay’s defense is 5th against the pass and 18th against the rush, while Atlanta’s D is 22nd against the pass and 10th against the rush. I think Green Bay has finally gotten healthy and found a runner to replace Ryan Grant (at least temporarily), and I think they should be ready for the Georgia Dome atmosphere.
Seattle (+10) over Chicago
Seattle actually beat Chicago in Week 6 in Chicago by 3, so I’m a little confused by this line. I do believe Seattle can win outright, as they already have this season, but I think it’s highly likely they will cover. Seattle is anemic in every category, but last week saw at work the highly important “nobody believed in us” mentality with Matt Hasselbeck’s “we saw something special on the way” discussion in his postgame interview. I think Pete Carroll’s rah-rah mentality will ride the Seahawks one more week. The stats are actually more neutral than people might think. Seahawks are 19th in passing and 31st in rushing, the Bears are 28th in passing (the cutler effect) and 22nd in rushing. On defense, the Seahawks are 27th against the pass and 21st against the rush, and the Bears are 20th against the pass and 2nd against the rush. So, the question is, can Marshawn Lynch get off against the Bears like he did against the Saints? The Seahawks had 111 yards in the 1st game against the Bears in Week 6, so I believe they can do it again.
New England (-9) over New York Jets
The Jets beat New England in Week 2, when the Pats featured the disgruntled Randy Moss. When they met again in Week 13, the Patriots decimated the Jets by 42. Frankly, I think Brady wants to decimate this Jets team. The weak point for the Jets is their passing offense (22nd in passing), and the Patriots are 30th in the league in defense against the pass. In every other statistical category, these teams are the top 11 in the league. The Patriots lead the league in turnover differential by a lot and are among the least penalized in the league. They’re efficient. And I think they’ll run up the score here.
The NFL Playoffs were changed in 1990 to the current 12 team system, so my analysis is only going to go back that far. My question is related to the strange seeding system of the NFL Playoffs. The current alignment has 4 divisions per conference. Currently, 6 teams make the playoffs, with the 4 division winners being seeded 1-4 in order of record and the 2 wild cards being the teams with the best record in football that didn’t make the playoffs. Most years, this year included, you will get a 4th seeded team with the same or a worse record than the 5th seeded team, and thus a team that is theoretically “worse” hosting a playoff game (the 4th seed team gets to host a playoff game). Theoretically, the 3rd and the 4th seeded team could have worse records than the 5th and 6th seeded team given the fact that the two wild card teams are most likely to come from the divisions that were won by the top 2 seeds.
Since 1990, there have been 40 wild card round playoff games. Here’s the breakdown of which seeds won which games (bear in mind that the 3rd seed hosts a home game against the sixth seed and the 4th seed hosts a game against the 5th seed)…
So, of 40 games between the 4th and the 5th seed, the most likely to have a team with a better record playing on the road as the lower seed, the 4th seed has won 27 of 40 times (67.5%). And with 40 games between the 3rd seed and the 6th seed, the 3rd seed has won 26 of 40 games (65%).
Just for the record, the lower seed is slightly more likely to win in the NFC, historically, even though I don’t think it’s a highly relevant stat. The average seed of the winning team in the wild card round is 3.98 in the AFC and 4.4 in the NFC.
There are two conclusions that could be drawn of the fact that the top seeds have won predominately. You could conclude that the 4th seed team is actually good, but played in a division with tremendous parity, thus pulling all their records down. Or you could conclude that the home field advantage is tipping the odds in favor of the 3rd and 4th seeds.
Vegas typically advantages the home team by 3 points on betting lines. Average margin of victory in these games since 1990 is 12.44 (13.25 in the AFC and 11.63 in the NFC). This is all well and good, but there have been a fair number of blowouts as well as 7 overtime games (essentially margin of victory zero).
The game that seems to be at the center of my question is the 4 seed versus 5 seed matchup. The average margin of victory in these games is 11.48 points. But in games where the 4 seeded home team won the average margin of victory is 12.3 points (st dev 9.8) and in games that were won by the 5th seeded team the average margin of victory is 9.77 (st dev 6.77). Maybe Vegas is on to something with that 3 point home advantage. 14 of the 27 (51.8%) games won by the 4th seeded home team were decided by 7 points or less and 6 of the 13 (46.2%) won by the 5th seeded team were by 7 points or less. Regardless, 20 of 40 games were decided by 7 points or less. These games tend to be tight. However, when it is a blowout, it tends to favor the 4th seed, surprisingly. The 4th seed has won 6 of 7 games that were decided by 20 or more.
These wildcard games are clearly won more often by the upper seeded team. They’re more likely to beat down the lower seeded team and more likely to win close games, even though the close games are probably more related to the fact that they’re the home team against a team with fairly equal talent.
One factor that we always have to think about in sports isn’t represented by the data though. With many of these 4th seeded teams (as with the Seahawks this year), they’ve likely faced a fight in the last week of the season to get into the playoffs, they see themselves as a champion since they did win their division, and are very capable of getting into the “nobody believes in us” frame of mind. For those of us who watched the games this weekend, you heard it in Matt Hasselbeck’s comment about “something special” was there for them this weekend.
So, if you’re a 5th seed, with possibly a better record than the 4th seed, and you’re going into their home field to play a playoff game, be on the lookout. You’re likely facing a team with a chip on it’s shoulder, a crowd at it’s back and a team that’s historically likely to beat you.
While I was drowning my sorrows about my Carolina Panthers not being able to draft Andrew Luck (idiot), I started discussing other options for the pick. They could definitely go with Wide Receiver AJ Green, then him and Steve Smith could team up to kill Jimmy Clausen. But I wasn’t sure a wide receiver had ever been taken #1. NFL.com has the answers!
Since 1936, four WR’s were taken #1 in the NFL draft, making them the 5th most popular position to select. Of course, in 1st were 28 QB’s, not shocking given it’s the most important position. Second was running back, with 21 selected. Third was defensive end with 7 selected and fourth was defensive tackle with 6 selected.
So, I became curious about the actual value of these picks, since I became convinced the Panthers would screw this up and take a defensive tackle or defensive end since there are a few in this draft and this seems to be a common move.
Since 1936, the #1 pick has an NFL career that averages about 8 seasons (with a huge sample size, i’d say this is pretty accurate), and they make an average of 2 Pro Bowls. TWO PRO BOWLS. YIKES.
The monetary investment in these picks is insane. Sam Bradford, last year’s first overall, will serve as the guide for how much this year’s #1 pick will make. Twice shoulder-injured Sam Bradford, who incidentally played very well this year for a much improved Rams team, pulled down a $50 million contract before he ever took an NFL snap with $24 million coming as soon as he signed the contract. And folks, that money is guaranteed. That’s a lot of money for someone who, on average, will only make two pro bowls in his career.
The real values in the NFL are not at the #1 where the stakes are multiplied, but in the middle of the first round and the 2nd/3rd round where the money is considerably less, but the talent, while not game-changing, is still very good.
For those who are curious, the teams that have had this pick the most (#1 overall) and thus have had the opportunity of minimizing their own value are in order: Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But if you go all the way back to 1936 and include all the previous team names, the Patriots have had the #1 pick a whopping seven times out of 80 or a whopping 9%. That’s a legacy of perpetual putridity. Maybe this run with Tom Brady has been the karma from a legacy of stink.
Let’s dig into the numbers by position now. 28 Qb’s were taken and their average career is 8.78 years (st dev 5.5) and average pro bowls is 1.75 (st dev 2.83). 21 Rb’s were taken and their average career was 6.28 years (st dev 3.099) and 1.62 pro bowls (st dev 1.84). 7 defensive ends were taken and their career averaged 10.1 years (st dev 4.75) and 3.42 pro bowls (st dev 3.91). And finally, 6 defensive tackles were taken with their careers averaging 9.5 years (st dev 3.14) and 1.5 pro bowls (st dev 3.21). All other positions were left out due to small sample size.
Rb’s are, not surprisingly, the least likely to have a long career. One standard deviation out from the average is a RB career of 3.19 years (essentially the same as the QB), but the high end of the QB spectrum makes them more likely to have a long career than RB’s. Defensive tackles are the most likely to have a longer career.
Defensive tackle is hardly a shoo-in for the pro bowl, boasting the lowest low end on the first standard deviation – the numbers were essentially skewed by Buck Buchanan, who went to 8 Pro Bowls. QB’s are a major gamble on the pro bowl end of things, of the 28 selected, 16 never went to a pro bowl; if not for Peyton Manning and John Elway, this might be our least likely position to land in the pro bowl. Defensive End is the best bet (even though these numbers are skewed by the great Bruce Smith and his 11 pro bowls).
So, what’s the moral of the story? Even with the first pick, it’s incredibly difficult in 2010 to predict superstar NFL success and career longevity. The #1 overall pick tends to skew towards Qb, even though based on previous picks, 57% of them will never play in a Pro Bowl. With the #1 pick, talent should be more important than career longevity. Given the choice, I would definitely stay away from a QB and maybe look at a defensive tackle.
However, I personally subscribe to the view that the best pick may be an offensive lineman. Unfortunately, NFL teams have only chosen to select an offensive lineman 4 times in the history of the draft. With the offensive line, there are 4 positions that the young man could play, so even if he is not good enough to be a blind side tackle (generally considered the hardest position on the line), he can still be a good tackle on the other side or one of the two guard positions. And that’s really what it seems folks are not taking into account here, to quote Nassim Nicholas Taleb, we are incredibly terrible at predicting the future and often refuse to acknowledge the randomness and chaos inherent in our decisions. I think the reason people don’t draft lineman (or trade down to maximize dollar for value spending), the clearly smart decision, is that it’s a lot more fun and exciting to try and land the big fish, the superstar quarterback or running back. But in all likelihood, it’s not going to pan out.
NFL Update 11/16/2010 – Tyler Ashworth | Internet Radio | Blog Talk Radio.
After a long hiatus, we return with a mid-season NFL Update. Two new segments: “What’s the Deal?” and “Airing of Grievances.” We take a look back on everything this season and ultimately amend our Super Bowl picks. Other topics include football in LA, concussions, and the possibility of no football in 2011
Ridiculous Things 8/31/2010 9/2/2010 – Tyler Ashworth | Internet Radio | Blog Talk Radio.
