Point Blank – December 15
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL #14…Another PB Christmas Classic…
The NFL Week that was, one with a key injured player returning (Rob Gronkowski), and others going out (Andy Dalton and Thomas Rawls), while the Indianapolis Colts threatened hard to go down as having played the worst half of football in memory, only two months after I thought Houston had wrapped up the 2015 award securely vs. Miami.
Item: Could this be a Wally Pip scenario in Cincinnati?
The Sports Mediaverse did not take long to jump out with the Monday headlines about how the Bengals promising season will now go south, Andy Dalton being lost at least for the final three games (since he will not need surgery, there is an outside chance of a playoff appearance). I get a different take. Might this be along the lines of Lou Gehrig replacing Wally Pip, or Tom Brady replacing Drew Bledsoe? And no, it is absolutely not to suggest that A. J. McCarron will be anywhere near the levels of Gehrig or Brady. Instead it is to bring up a key point – might he actually have a higher ceiling in the NFL than Dalton? And with a little playing time, might he be an even better fit for the Cincinnati offense?
There is a lot to absorb here, along with a multitude of other topics, so that means a little musical background will be needed to guide you along. This Tuesday we continue through the vault of PB Christmas Classics, songs for this special season that you likely have not heard before, but should add to your own playlists. Today the message takes a different twist than usual, which is often the case when Tom Waits is the messenger, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” -
There is a lot to takeaway from this, even if the audience was a bit unprepared, likely a lot of first time listeners chuckling a bit through what is actually a poignant composition. For each of us it can be that reminder that while the Christmas Holidays may be very special for us, filled with both warm memories and the ability to create new ones from the present, for others it can be a time of disenchantment, one in which unfortunate memories are brought alive again, along with current realities that bring little to celebrate. If we can take a moment to be extra sensitive to those around us that have been put into such positions, and reach out to them through this time, then we will have contributed one of the greatest gifts of all. My schedule this week, before heading East to be with my family, has a few of those moments penciled in.
Now back to McCarron. He is bigger than Dalton and has as stronger arm, which can help to stretch the field given the tremendous talent the Bengals have in the skill positions, and while some NFL teams balked pre-draft because there was a cockiness that rubbed a few GMs the wrong way, it came from someone that went 36-4 as a starter at Alabama, winning a pair of National Championships, and finishing second to Jameis Winston in the 2013 Heisman vote. At the time, I thought the falling of McCarron down the draft boards was a remarkable story, and that the Bengals may have fallen into one of the better bargains in memory. Now let’s see how it plays out.
On the field it was a mixed bag on Sunday. McCarron had a pair of INTs, one returned for a TD by William Gay, but he also completed 22-32 passes for 280 yards and two TDs. The Cincinnati offense actually rated second in the league in yards-per-play this week at 6.9, just a tick below the 7.0 the Panthers put up in their domination of Atlanta. Now becomes the fascinating part – Hue Jackson has already stated that the playbook will not change for the Bengals down the stretch since McCarron brings the physical tools, so if he plays well, might this throw the Cincinnati QB spot into an open competition in training camp next July? Or if McCarron shows well enough might Dalton become trade bait? He has been having a career season, so the value may never be higher, and there are a lot of teams out there badly in need of help at the position.
One of the genuine questions about Dalton, even in his strong showing this autumn, is whether or not he may already be at his ceiling. I believe that is the case, and that McCarron’s upside may be higher. It makes for some intriguing opportunities in the marketplace going forward, especially since this Sunday the Bengals get to line up against a team that was inept on both sides of the ball this week. More on the 49ers in a moment…
Item: Russell Wilson has 16 TD passes and 0 interceptions over the last four games
Sub-Item: Can the Seahawks patch these RBs together (2.3 per carry from Harris/Jackson, welcome back Bryce Brown)
OK so it’s all good in Seattle again. Russell Wilson has just had an amazing passing cycle, the defense is back on its’ game, and Pete Carroll is so happy about all of that he was dancing on top of lockers at Baltimore.
But it isn’t all good; only mostly. The Seahawks lost Thomas Rawls for the remainder of the season with a broken ankle, his valuable 2015 contributions ending at 830 rushing yards, at a superb 5.6 per carry, and nine pass receptions for 76 more. With the status of Marshawn Lynch remaining up in the air it just may well be a critical blow, although one that will not get in the way of them beating Cleveland this week.
Here is the issue – if you watched DuJuan Harris and Fred Jackson manage only 57 yards on their 25 carries at Baltimore, you see how little there is left. So little, in fact, that Bryce Brown was signed yesterday.
Here is something to consider. While Rawls was managing that nifty 5.6 per carry, all other Seattle RBs, including Lynch, are at 3.6 over 156 attempts. That is a significant gap. Wilson’s play has been spectacular, helping to make up for that young OL that is still trying to find their way, but when the going gets tougher in a few weeks, is there going to be the kind of ground game that can beat playoff opponents? That is certainly a consideration at a time in which Seattle has become extremely popular again in the Future’s markets.
Item: Green Bay showed a full commitment to running the ball
There was a lot of talk among the Sports Mediaverse about Mike McCarthy taking over the play-calling for the Packers, and while that might not have seemed like a big deal it was. You will read takeaways about the increased role for Eddie Lacy, which is indeed true, but what is important to file away is that it marked an increased focus on the entire ground game, Lacy merely being one of the cogs as he rambled for 124 yards on 24 attempts. There were also 11 carries for James Starks, and even three for Randall Cobb, with McCarthy finding various ways to attack the Cowboy defense. But there was another statistic that may have been the most telling of all, yet one you will not easily notice.
FB James Kuhn was on the field for 44 snaps. For perspective, in the first 12 games he had only played in 140, or 11.7 per outing. He only carried the ball once, and only caught one pass, but his contribution was valuable from two keys areas – blocking and tempo. Blocking is rather obvious, tempo not so much. What incorporating Kuhn back into the mix allowed was a lot more no-huddle, since the Packers could stay with the same personnel grouping. That mattered – one of the issues that has been written about here multiple times is that the WR corps was under-performing, with no real rhythm developing in the three-WR sets even this late in the season. What McCarthy did to put the Cowboy defenders on their heels was to go no-huddle through a 10-play TD drive in the second quarter, one capped by a pass from Aaron Rodgers to Starks, and note that Kuhn was in the lineup at FB for every one of those plays, the base personnel group not changing.
Some of the Sunday result could be blamed on the Dallas defense being a bit fatigued, off of the short practice week and road trip. There is also the issue of being caught off guard by the changes McCarthy made. But for now I will consider this to be a positive step for the Packers, in particular playing a style of football that can matter come January.
Item: The Bills were a Rex Ryan team (again…)
There was much discussion in last week’s threads about Buffalo/Philadelphia, much of it stemming on how well Rex Ryan can motivate a team, in particular their stated focus of wanting to win the game for LeSean McCoy in his return to the City of Brotherly Love. And indeed the Bills did play hard, bringing the kind of passion Ryan can inspire. In the end, they also brought the kind of sloppiness that is often a condition of that passion. A team that has struggled to play with poise all season was penalized 15 times, 10 more than the Eagles, and that is a difficult deficit to overcome in a game between two even teams.
Let’s let the grading from Tyler Dunne in the Buffalo News be an appropriate post-mortem –
COACHING
D - Penalties, penalties and more penalties. Fans on social media were not thrilled to see Rex Ryan and Dennis Thurman irate with officials on a video captured by WKBW, and for good reason. Buffalo really has nobody to blame but itself for leading the NFL in total penalties and ranking No. 2 in accepted penalties. This game, the offensive line was caught grabbing and clutching. Other games, personal fouls have been the problem. Maybe more than anything – any injury, any scheme change on “D,” any QB question – undisciplined play is why the Bills will likely stay home in January again.
Item: The Saints were a Drew Brees team (still...)
Brees may not have the arm strength to get the ball downfield the way that he once did, but he can still read a defense and manage a game as well as anyone. Sunday was a clinic, and it bears filing away, with a soft New Orleans closing schedule cycle ahead that does bring the opportunity to win out and get back to .500.
What is the best way to deal with the fact that your defense is weak? Keep them off the field. Brees did just that at Tampa Bay, with the Saints holding the ball for 78 plays and 37:14 of possession time, despite not having much of a ground game to work with in the first game without Mark Ingram. Tim Hightower toted the ball 28 times, but managed only 85 yards, and as a team it was 2.5 per attempt. But it was the ability of Brees to continually find holes in the Buccaneer Cover-2 schemes that dictated the game – he completed 31 passes, and while only two of them went for more than 20 yards, the chains kept moving. New Orleans was a remarkable 12-17 on third-down conversions, including a perfect three-for-three on the final drive, when the remaining 4:13 of the clock was burned off.
Item: The Jets offense doesn’t deserve a 69-yard TD, but the Titan defense does (more on adjusting game grades)
There is a lot of talk about grading on this page each week, especially in terms of how much to weight a given game, or even down to a single play. But how about times in which a play gets weighted differently, based on which side of the coin one is examining? Such a case took place as the Jets broke it open early vs. the Titans on Sunday.
Already leading 20-0, the Jets had the ball at their own 31-yard line with 1:44 remaining, most likely only looking to get into FG range before halftime. Yet for whatever reason the Tennessee defense did not have a single member of the secondary on the same side of the field as Brandon Marshall, and the result was as easy of a 69-yard TD pass as there can be.
Do the Jets as a team, Ryan Fitzpatrick as a QB, or Marshall as a receiver, deserve the statistical credit that this play brings? No. In truth, they do not deserve any real credit at all, not having done anything positive schematically, and with no pressure at all on the throw. But do the Titans deserve the punishment? Hell yes.
So what happens? In terms of play-by-play grading, I give the Jets credit for a completion for the league average of 6.4 yards for a net pass attempt (yes, net including sacks, because the Titan botch also eliminated any chance for a sack to take place, which was not anything that the Jets did right). That is all. But Tennessee gets the full penalty, and while there is a part of me that would like to penalize the defense with something worse than 69 yards, that number probably suffices.
Of course, that was only one play. The Colts were that bad for nearly a full half…
Item: The Colts have had runs of 39-0 and 42-3 against them the last two weeks
Sub-Item: About those Jacksonville points
Games do not turn around much faster than the Indianapolis demise at Jacksonville on Sunday, nor much bigger. With 1:11 remaining in the first half the Colts led 13-3, and had a first-down at the Jaguar 34-yard line. It meant plenty of time to get a TD to make it 20-3, and they were already in FG range to make it 16-3. Since they were also going to get the ball to open the second half, there was a chance to break the game wide open.
Instead just 3:12 of football time later it was 23-13 Jacksonville. When the clock stopped ticking, it was 51-16. Somehow the mediocre Jaguars went on a 42-3 run to close out the game, so just when I was ready to certify the 41-0 Miami domination of Houston in the first half a while back as the most inept showing by a team this season, Indy brings a challenge.
Naturally there was some shell-shock to set it off, with Jacksonville scoring on a 49-yard fumble return, 80-yard pass play, and 73-yard punt return over that 3:12 span to break it open. But instead of fighting back the Colts caved, allowing four more TDs to hit the scoreboard. Now it is a major crisis time for a team that can still win the available AFC South, yet is being haunted by the talk of Chuck Pagano’s lack of job security, and may also be down to Charlie Whitehurst at QB (it looks like it will be Whitehurst vs. T. J. Yates this week, with first place on the line, you kind of thing you just cannot dream up). In back-to-back games a bad cycle has snowballed, and while it is one thing for that to happen against the explosive Steelers, it is another matter entirely when Jacksonville is the opposition.
That also matters in the opposite direction, because before you get excited about the Jaguars, who are just one game out of first place, note that their 51 points came despite only 380 yards. For more fun on just how little they actually did to produce so much, here is a take on the Blake Bortles outing that you can have some fun with.
Of course, the Jaguars might be able to build off of that because coming up next is Atlanta. And…
Item: Matt Ryan looked 40 years and three weeks old vs. Carolina
Just to keep following up here, on a theme that started a month ago, when it was stated that Ryan looked 40 in an ugly loss to the Colts. Over the last four games he has completed 99-156 passes, for 1,003 yards, with seven interceptions vs. only five TD passes, while also losing a pair of fumbles. That gives him a Passer Rating of 73.7 for those games (the fumbles don’t count). For comparison, Colin Kaepernick’s 2015 season is recorded at 78.5.
Item: What was worse, the San Francisco OL or DL?
OK guys, you tell me what was worse –
A. Isaiah Crowell and Duke Johnson entered Sunday averaging a combined 51.3 rushing yards per game, at 3.1 per carry. They sliced through the 49ers defensive front for 223 yards at 6.8, more than doubling their per-game and per-rush standards.
B. The Cleveland defense entered Sunday sacking opposing QBs on 4.1 percent of drop-backs, with 17 in total, which rated #30. In whipping San Francisco they got Blaine Gabbert to the ground a shocking nine times, or 24.3 percent of attempted 49ers passes.
Considering the opposition, the play by the 49ers in the trenches was shockingly bad. It may not get better on offense, with Jim Boone lost for the remainder of the season with a knee injury. But here is the head-scratcher concerning the defense, a post-game comment from Cleveland HC Mike Pettine that keeps echoing like a gong - "We felt good about the run plan and the matchup. There were some things schematically we thought we could take advantage of, especially in some of the spread run game. . . .We recognized a weakness and exploited it."
A team that entered the game dead last in the NFL in rushing thought they had an opponent they could exploit. Now just what the hell does that say about the state of affairs in San Francisco? It says that we can get in play…
In the Sights…
Since you have likely assumed by reading this far that #329 Cincinnati could be near the top of the list this week, let’s go ahead and get active with the Bengals. That means plenty of time to shop around, and while those -3.5’s did not last long yesterday, there is still some -4 to be found. That is the “go” price for now, the markets having over-reacted to the Dalton injury, and if anything there can be a positive in terms of focus this week – had Dalton not been hurt, this would have been a potential flat spot after the showdown vs. the Steelers. That will not be the case now, and McCarron does not have to be special at all for Cincinnati to grind out a win by six or seven points, while if he plays well the margin cold get into double figures.
Vegas: Monday’s with the Review-Journal NFL box score page
As noted at the start this week, the period surrounding Christmas is a time for warm thoughts, for many of us the best memories of our lives coming from this stretch. Las Vegas is anything but a sentimental city, but there are a few spots for when those moods strike, and that helped to make the Monday choice an easy one – as a respite in between a slew of rich Holiday meals something simpler, yet good, was called for, and also a way to remember what the last 27 years have been like here, before I head East to be with my family. That meant another trip to the Coffee Shop at Jerry’s Nugget, among the few Las Vegas places that can be properly called iconic.
Jerry’s Nugget has been around for 51 years, now under the third generation of the Stamis family, and not much has changed, which for some of us is a good thing. You can visit Mark Dufty in the Sports Book, one of the precious few independents left, and also take advantage of some of the highest parlay card payouts to be found anywhere. And then there is the Coffee Shop.
While various places around town can hit the taste buds in special ways when something particular is called for, the time for heading to Jerry’s is easy - you go when you are hungry. And you will not leave that way. Call it classic diner fare, but with good execution, featuring generous portions of quality ingredients. And yes, you have to walk past those two pastry cases both on your way in and your way out, which means that you will likely be taking something home with you (the number of calories from your lunch will preclude having dessert on the premise). This visit brought one of the board specials, a Turkey-Bacon Sourdough Melt, hitting the right notes in between what has been on the plates over the past week, and what is coming up next, while spiced ginger cake was the seasonal choice to bring home, for the second half of Giants/Dolphins. And for at least one day in a rather cold and calculating city, I could actually feel that the Holidays were approaching, with a sense of warmth from both past and present, Jerry’s Nugget being one of the few local places to have bridged that expanse.
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