Point Blank – October 4
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL #4…It was just Matt and Julio, down by the schoolyard…Tonight’s starters bring a “wild” in Wild Card…
It isn’t just time to review the NFL here today but also to begin delving into the MLB playoffs, and it really is a “wild” setting in Toronto, where we know that Marcus Stroman will throw the first pitch to begin the game, and Chris Tillman the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning, but how long they go is a major question.
I will get to that matchup in the Rogers Centre in a moment but on autumn Tuesday’s it is the NFL as the lead, including a little curry with those box scores, and with multiple topics to sort through the jukebox will be plugged in to help you glide along. If you were watching when the Falcons had the ball on Sunday it looked ever so easy for that passing game, almost literally “Matt and Julio down by the schoolyard”, improvising like it was a sandlot affair, so how about a little Paul Simon on this day, with some great work by Stevie Wonder in accompaniment -
Item: Matt Ryan and Julio Jones made it look easy
Sub-Item: Did the Panthers underestimate Josh Norman after all
Extreme results in the NFL usually bring two contributors – one team doing something well and another matching up poorly against it, and that was the case in the Georgia Dome on Sunday. A resurgent Matt Ryan had one of the best games of his career, and Julio Jones showed just how dynamic he can be. Ryan threw for 503 yards and four TDs, with Jones accounting for nearly half of the receptions (12 of 28), and 300 of the yards. The Falcons had TD drives of 99, 98 and 92 yards.
To get some perspective for those numbers note that in two games against Carolina last year the Falcons scored 20 points over eight quarters, with Ryan throwing for 530 yards and one TD, and Jones getting about half of the yards (266) that he had on Sunday. Because we know how good Ryan/Jones are, the focus today goes to how bad the Panther pass coverage was because there is a significant difference now – Josh Norman is gone, replaced by a revolving cast of characters.
Let’s start with Jones, and his take on that defense - “To put a one-on-one on me, we took advantage of it today and made some explosive plays. They put the young corner on me man-to-man. If they would have two-manned me or cheated a safety over to me, Matt (Ryan) would have made great reads and hit the other guys who were open. They singled me out today, one-on-one, and Matt made some great decisions.”
Which begs the obvious question, just what in the hell were Ron Rivera and DC Sean McDermott thinking? They started Colin Jones ahead of Tre Boston at CB, ended up playing Bene Benwikere at an outside CB spot after James Bradberry injured his toe, and new safety Michael Griffin, who practice with the team for the first time on Wednesday, was on the field for 34 of the 67 snaps. The group was a mess, but the mess was made worse by often being in single coverage vs. Jones.
This was from McDermott, in the aftermath - “He (Jones) had help over the top at times and help underneath other times. We tried some different things. Obviously it was his day, and he and Matt were in sync. That’s a big reason why they’re the No. 1-ranked offense in the league. Having said that, if you’re not on your A game – and we weren’t – you’re going to get exploited.”
“I’d be naive to think that that wouldn’t have been the case. That’s the case every year where you have players at new positions, particularly in the secondary where there’s a lot of communication that goes on. It happens over the years. I’ve been in this league a long time and sometimes unfortunately this happens. I woke up last night on the hour just about every hour and had to talk myself back to sleep. ... Welcome to life in the NFL.”
The Panther pass defense numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt – they got to open against Trevor Siemian in his first start, then faced Blaine Gabbert in only his second game in the Chip Kelly playbook (and on a short prep week), and then Sam Bradford’s second Viking start. Those games were all weighed towards the defense playing well, and those numbers may have hidden a secondary that may well be a major problem area.
Item: How do the Chargers get air back in their tires?
Back on the summer tour across the NFL teams a key focus on San Diego was how well the Chargers would be able to keep their heads in the game, with the distraction of Measure C coming up. Now the psyche of the team gets challenged even more off of a frustrating opening in which a potential 4-0 has only managed to bring 1-3 to the standings, a series of big leads getting away as they got beaten 51-19 in the fourth quarter.
You can get some perspective on where those failures place the team historically from the folks at 538, and there is some numbers crunching to be done. One of the problems in terms of finishing games is not having enough weapons, and without Keenan Allen, Danny Woodhead, Antonio Gates and Manti Te’o the cast is limited. That was exacerbated by King Dunlap missing as well on Sunday, and Orlando Franklin getting injured during the game. There can be a genuine question asked about whether these have been end-game failures, or if the team had been over-achieving by getting those leads in the first place.
I believe the key is not how the handicapper answers that question, but rather how the players themselves do, and as such Sunday’s late sequence may be particularly difficult to recover from. The Chargers had the ball and a 13-point lead to begin a possession at 6:50, when Melvin Gordon fumbled on the first play. The Saints only had to go 13 yards for a TD. On the first play of the ensuing series Philip Rivers completed a pass to Travis Benjamin, who fumbled at the 31-yard line. New Orleans took advantage of another short field for a TD. Yet even then the San Diego offense got the ball back at 1:57, only needing to get into field goal range to win the game. The possession was a horror show, Rivers being sacked on first down for a loss of five yards; fumbling the shotgun snap on second down for a loss of seven more; throwing an incompletion on third down; and then finally a desperation interception on fourth-and-22.
So in terms of the heads of the players, consider those last three possessions. In six snaps they lost four yards and turned the ball over three times, although the final INT was a forced that gets graded a little more kindly. That is why I’ll be charting their individual takes almost as much as the team stats.
Rivers - “You try to laugh to keep from crying, literally. You kind of throw your hands up and say, ‘What in the world just happened?” WR Dontrelle Innman - “It is surreal, sur-real, how this season is going so far. I thought last season was bad. This is even worse. We have a great team, great chemistry and I don’t know. We’ve just got to find a way. Are we cursed in the fourth quarter?
And of course Mike McCoy, who may have his job on the line soon - “There’s a certain amount of time in every game we’ve played this year where you say, ‘That’s some darn good football.’ And then there’s some span in each game that it’s like, ‘That’s awful,’ and you make a mistake like with the two fumbles. You look at it, and you’re sick. It makes it hurt even more because you look at the way we’ve lost games and the mistakes we’ve made and how hard you work on a weekly basis, the time you put in.”
In true football reality the team may have played above expectations, not just losing those front-line starters but also expected contributors like Stevie Johnson and Brandon Oliver. But if the collective psyche of the Chargers reaches a low point, they may forget the things that they have done well. Setting the best Power Rating on San Diego will require going beyond the numbers, and that happens to be the case with a particular defensive player as well…
Item: Aaron Donald finally got a sack* (* - but he was damn good before then)
Donald came into Sunday’s game vs. Arizona with numbers that some folks might have labeled as a disappointment, in particular because he had yet to record a sack. He finally did break through in that category, and spent a big part of the game harassing either Carson Palmer or Drew Stanton.
But Donald had been quite good before then, and in order to better understand where the Rams are at 3-1, something not easy for many in the marketplace because of that shockingly inept showing in the fishbowl of an opener vs. San Francisco, one needs the proper placement of the showing of their star DT. So how about this – the good folks at Pro Football Focus have him pegged as the NFL’s best overall player so far this season, and that does provide some key food for thought.
As do those Cardinal QBs that he was knocking around…
Item: What now for the Cardinals at QB
Sub-Item: What now for the 49ers at LB
The struggles of Carson Palmer became a focus point here last week, and his mobility was an issue again vs. the Rams. Let’s go back to the guys at Pro Football Focus –
Palmer exits late after being under duress all game
QB Carson Palmer left late in the fourth quarter with a possible concussion after being pressured all game by the Rams’ stout defensive front. He was under pressure on 14 of his 26 drop backs, was sacked three time as well as being hit four times. He was beat up all game but found success while he had some time in the pocket as he completed 18 passes for 218 yards. Palmer was inconsistent and inaccurate at times throughout the game, forcing some throws into tight coverage and could’ve been burned once more on top of his lone interception, as Trumaine Johnson jumped an out route intended for John Brown but was unable to make the fingertip catch.
Note the accuracy problems that have been noted here previously remaining an issue – one of the most better passers in the sport is losing his way in that category because he is not getting set properly in the pocket, which is the prime issue. Now it is likely that the concussion protocol will keep Palmer out of Thursday’s game at San Francisco, and while Bruce Arians has stated that a decision will not be made until Wednesday, might the best thing for the team in the long run be to start Drew Stanton in the game? That may be Arians’ intent anyway, using his time at the podium to keep the 49ers off balance in their game planning, but some extra time off for Palmer might help, with the pass rushes of the Jets and Seahawks ahead.
There remains a question about Stanton’s upside, and he struggled badly vs. the Rams, an ugly 4-11 for 37 yards with two interceptions, the latter of which gets downgraded a bit because it was forced. Stanton may have a low ceiling, but he is more mobile in the pocket, and the Cardinals do have some weapons surrounding him in that offensive huddle.
The task for that Arizona offense is made easier this week because the biggest impact injury in this game is not to Palmer, but instead Pro Bowl LB NaVorro Bowman for the 49ers. It isn’t just a case of replacing him for the long haul, which is difficult enough, but patching things together on a short practice week. Joe Staley sets the tone - “It stinks. It’s really, really bad. NaVorro is one of team leaders. We have to have a guy step up and that’s a huge role to fill. You can’t really replace a guy like NaVorro.”
The 49ers were leading 17-14 with 5:52 remaining in the third quarter when Bowman was injured, and Nick Bellore, mostly a special teams guy, had to replace him (ordinarily that would have been Ray-Ray Armstrong, but he is on IR). The Cowboys drove 67 yards on eight plays for a TD after Bowman left, and in the fourth quarter also put together an 11-play drive that netted three points.
The San Francisco defense may be a mess on this short week, and I will have more to say on that in a moment…
Item: Now your nice clean Patriots stats database is mostly worthless
OK, so you probably knew that this was coming, but it is time to begin parsing the New England statistics. I am tossing the games vs. the Texans and Bills completely, but keeping the first two, because the offensive game plans with Jimmy Garropolo at QB were not too far away from what I expect to see with Tom Brady back at the helm.
Where you will not see this done is the vast Sports Mediaverse, and in particular the broadcast teams. It will be week after week of the base-line counts such as “The Patriots are #8 in pass offense”, or some-such, because most of those announcers will only have the official league stats in front of them.
There is a way for those of you that use Excel to still keep all of those games in, so that you can be checking your numbers against the league stats to make sure they have been in-putted properly – set up a column to weigh each game outcome. The overwhelming majority of games would rate as a “1”, but for something like Patriots/Bills you can reduce it to a .1, or even lower. That still gives you overall counts that you can check against the official stat tables, but you don’t have to attach much meaning to the junk.
Item: Will the Bell toll for opposing DCs?
Let’s do some follow-up from the weekend edition, when the Steelers ended up “In the Sights…” as the markets dropped the line vs. KC into the play range. In detailing that game there was a take on how different the Pittsburgh offense would look with Le’Veon Bell returning, and I will reprint a coupe of key quotes in terms of that dynamic -
Roethlisberger: “Listen, we’re not going to put him at wide receiver and use DeAngelo at running back, but we will, I think, have them both on the field and move them out of the backfield. We’re not going to take RB off the front of [Bell’s] name and put WR, but I definitely think he is one of our best receivers.”
Bell: “I want to be a player for all aspects of the game. I want to catch short passes, down the field, whatever it may be. Run after [the catch], everything. I think this year we started in camp and OTAs running [deep patterns] a lot more. Obviously the offensive coordinator trusts you, the head coach trusts you and Ben trusts you. Now they all put a lot more trust in me so we’ll see a lot more.”
The numbers obviously speak for themselves – Bell had 178 yards of total offense. But the distribution is intriguing – Bell caught three passes before having a single carry from scrimmage, before getting most of his rush attempts in the second half vs. a worn down defense. Might this be the way for Todd Haley, going uptempo and throwing to Bell early, and then making him a battering ram for the latter stages? There may be a lot to see here, not just how well this Steeler offense can flow, one that forces the defenses to cover both sideline-to-sideline and deep down the field, but also impacts their tactical preparation because so many options can be thrown at them.
Item: O’s/Jays get “Wild”
There really is a “wild” in tonight’s Orioles/Blue Jays Wild Card matchup – how long starters Chris Tillman and Marcus Stroman are going to be out there. Both get the opening nod tonight despite having had struggles against this particular opponent, but there have also been indications by Buck Showalter and Jim Gibbons that there could be quick hooks on the way. I’ll go to Showalter for the details from his end -
“You know, we had probably three options and Chris (Tillman) is one of those good options. There’s not much separator there. We’d feel good about any of the three guys, including Dylan (Bundy). And they all three may pitch in the game. I think we look at a certain finality with the starter, but these games usually have a lot of things going on with them, that everybody gets to play a big part in it, if it’s a competitive game. Just because someone’s not starting a game doesn’t mean they can’t be real impactful.”
As such, this one may set up better for In-Running than anything prior to first pitch, although at +140 or better the Orioles do bring a pinch of value off of the base numbers. Here is the gist – while Tillman threw a couple of decent games at the Rogers Centre this season his career tallies from this mound are 2-6/7.01. Meanwhile Stroman had four starts against the Orioles this season, and toiled to a 1-2/7.04, with 33 hits allowed vs. only 12 strikeouts. But how much weight do they actually carry in this overall equation?
Tillman will start, with Ubaldo Jimenez and Dylan Bundy in the bullpen ready to go. Stroman will start, with Marco Estrada and Francisco Liriano ready to go. This ain’t the Bumgarner/Syndergaard showcase set for Wednesday night. As such while the current price would qualify for a mild Baltimore flyer I will instead let the In-Running unfold – should the Orioles stay in the game early there has been a big edge down the stretch in the end-game bullpens, including a 1.70 vs. 4.80 ERA gap between the relief corps’ since September 1st, and in that particular dealing Showalter holds the far better hole cards.
(And before you ask “does having all of those starters ready make for a lower-scoring game?” the difficulty is that those guys are being put into different roles, and there is no guarantee that they handle the transitions well.)
In the Sights, Thursday NFL…
Time to get out into the market and begin shopping for #303 Arizona (8:25 Eastern), since some reasonable -3’s can be found for Thursday’s game in the morning marketplace, with this one good up to -3 at -125. The opportunity to play the far superior team, and one with the proper focus, is a good fit here whether Palmer can play or not – I see a vulnerable 49er defense that can be exploited.
Chip Kelly is not a defense-friendly coach, which was noted in a lead topic here last Tuesday. The Eagles have made the biggest upgrade in the league on that side of the ball without changing personnel all that much, but by simply not being worn down through the tempo that damaged them in 2015, when they were on the field for nearly 100 more plays than any other defensive unit. Now some of that same toll is already in play for the 49ers, who go in to this short work week off of 226 snaps over the last three games, eight plays per game above league average, and now have to adjust to life without Bowman. By the way, in each of those last three games the opposition rolled for over 400 yards.
As noted earlier, Armstrong would ordinarily be the replacement for Bowman but he is out, and it isn’t just that particular position but the entire interior of the defense – NT Ian Williams was lost before the season, and first-round pick DeForest Buckner is in a walking boot and unlikely to play. I expect a sluggish showing from a unit that faces physical and tactical issues to play well here. Meanwhile the Cardinals bring a sophistication from their own defense that can disrupt Blaine Gabbert and a rather feeble 49er attack; the ability of the Arizona cover guys to handle the San Francisco WRs one-on-one opening up all of those blitz packages.
Vegas: Monday with the Review-Journal NFL box score page
Since a big part of understanding the numbers behind the various movements that make up a sporting event is to grasp those elements that are rather basic, yet ever so important, it would only be fitting that one of my NFL box score Monday’s would lead to one of the most deceptively simple plates in Las Vegas -
That is the Pork Katsu Curry from Japanese Curry Zen, with brown rice specified, yet what looks like a simple Japanese gravy is anything but that. This is the work of Takaya Zenbayashi, who is in that special culinary penthouse when it comes to integrity of product – this is what he does, this is what he cares about (through the years I have never paid a single visit in which he was not in the kitchen), and the end result is something special.
A proper curry is a dining marvel, a combination of spices that bring a zing to each bite, and on his website Zenbayashi lays them all out, a complex mix of All Spice, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Chili Pepper, Cinnamon, Clove, Coriander, Cumin, Fennel, Garlic, Ginger, Laurel, Nutmeg, Paprika and Turmeric. What is unique is that you feel good eating it, since so many of the taste buds get touched, but even better afterwards, with so many elements of that blend good for the system. And over time the balance on the plate has been perfected – by the time you are done maneuvering around with your spoon, you will have found just enough curry for every grain of rice to have its share.
Zenbayashi has been successful enough to now have two properties, the original on 5020 Spring Mountain, where he rules the roost and is in my regular rotation, and at 7835 South Rainbow, a place I have not been. The consistency of the product is a tribute to how much respect he has for his craft, and you will find that down to the standards of service as well – efficient, courteous, and always with a smile.
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