Point Blank – October 25, 2016
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL #7
I have to be a little cruel to begin this week’s NFL review, putting the ugly cadaver that was Seahawks/Cardinals on Sunday night back up on the operating table, after many of you spent Sunday evening watching that ugly grinder proceed. But the aftermath of such a game does bring some key handicapping considerations, so a deeper look is required. I will have a separate column up this morning to cover the World Series, and while there is some intrigue in the Tuesday NBA matchups, I will not bring that Association front-and-center until tomorrow.
Because the quality of play was rather wretched across the league again this week there is artistic dignity needed in the background to pick things up, and as the Bob Dylan tribute continues we can reach back for something special, Jimi Hendrix with Like a Rolling Stone, live from Winterland in 1968. We are lucky as hell there was any kind of recording going on in the first place, and even more so that it has survived to this day (there is a garbled moment early on; don’t worry about that being your computer).
Item: Seahawks/Cardinals in the aftermath
OK, you don’t want to have to revisit the game, and all of the various twists that had to take place for 75 minutes of NFL to flow without a touchdown being scored (a guy at CGT here in Nevada won $10K on a 100-1 “No TD” ticket, and forgetting the notion that he had lousy value, imagine the roller coaster of a sweat that he went through). A lot of that was not sloppiness, it was simply very good defense between two of the best units in the game, and the result of one QB lacking mobility through injury (Russell Wilson), and another lacking it because of the distance between his date of birth and the present (Carson Palmer). The game will best be remembered for the ending, but there was a lot to process over the duration.
Our key here is what happens next, in terms of measuring the impact on the teams as they move forward, and it gets a little tricky. The usual notion is to project fatigue, and that gets magnified by each team having to travel East this week for early starts. But is that an automatic? Fatigue adjustments begin with defense, because energy spent by the offenses is more efficient, the players moving in a designed way on each play, whereas defenders have to instead react, and have a more circuitous path to maneuver. That is where we begin, and also where the plot twist emerges.
There should be no question about the Seattle defense getting downgraded a bit this week – the Seahawks had to face 90 plays over a draining 46:21 on the field. Then add the flight home, and the upcoming flight to New Orleans that are a part of this week’s cycle. So I’ll begin with the way that Pete Carroll described the performance of that unit after the game, but also his Monday assessment of the reality going forward -
“Incredible. It was incredible all night long. It starts right up front, they ran a million plays right in the freaking ‘A’ gap and they tried to stuff it at you and we just kept slugging it out. It was just an incredible display of who they are and what they’re all about. These guys have been fighting together for a long time and you can tell. It means the world to them. They fought like that until there was no time to play.”
And then - “You’ll see some names and things for different reasons to make sure our guys are bouncing back because right now it’s about recovering. We didn’t get banged up much, but there will be a recovery mode here that we have to be in and make sure we get out of it and come out strong and fast and ready to play next weekend.”
Exacerbating that is a Sunday challenge against Drew Brees and a Saints offense that is not only good, but plays at the league’s #3 tempo, so there will be need to be some power ratings adjustments made. But what about the Cardinals?
The Arizona defense came out of Sunday night at far different counts – even with the full overtime cycle they were only on the field for 28:39 and 57 plays. The latter is about a full possession less than a normal game. Is it proper to simply consider that as having been business as usual, despite playing deeper into the night and the intensity of the final drives? That is the way that I am treating it for now, but I will be reading between the lines closely for comments from the players and coaches during the week.
Item: The Ravens fired Marc Trestman because he didn’t call enough running plays
Sub-Item: The Ravens ran the ball 10 times in 57 snaps at New York
Baltimore has lost four straight games for the first time ever under John Harbaugh, and what leads to an exasperation is that those defeats came by a combined total of 20 points, each game within the Ravens grasp. The problem was that they didn’t seize those moments, largely because they literally don’t have a grip as to who they are offensively. They led the Jets 16-14 at halftime, and then managed only 42 yards on 27 snaps over the final two quarters, not managing a trip to the red zone the entire game.
What will jump out at you from the box score is the rushing tally, the official measurement being six yards on 12 attempts, but with a pair of those for Joe Flacco it meant that RBs only carried the ball from scrimmage on 10 of 57 snaps. And this is from the offense that fired Trestman a few weeks ago because he did not run the ball enough. How did that play count get so out of balance? Let’s go right to Harbaugh -
"You've just got to look at the circumstances of the game. We wanted to run the ball even though they have a very good run defense. We were trying to run the football. Even in the third quarter, we came out and wanted to run the ball and we got nothing out of it. And by the time the fourth quarter came around, you're not just going to keep pounding your head into a wall and keep running the ball there. You're going to go at their weakness, and we thought we had a chance to do some good things throwing the football."
Pretty much coach-speak, wasn’t it? But that is better than saying “Look, we don’t know who we are on offense yet”, though that may indeed be the reality. Because of injuries at QB/WR/TE/RB the past two seasons this is a team that has had an unsettled rotation, and given that 2015 was Trestman’s first season, there have been playbook adjustments to work through with an unsettled cast. This bye week may be coming at an opportune time for the offense to go back to square one and try to build a foundation, which is not an easy thing for a coaching staff to admit is necessary this late in a season. There is plenty to follow on that front.
Item: Both the Miami OL and Jay Ayaji have been great
Last week a focus point here was on the outstanding showing by the Miami OL in the first game that all hands were on deck, Branden Albert, Laremy Tunsil and Mike Pouncy all having missed previous time. Perhaps I should have weighted more of that to Jay Ajayi as well, because that combination went out and did it again Sunday, turning a good Buffalo defensive front into blocking sleds in running for 256 yards at 6.1 per attempt. 214 of those yards belonged to Ajayi, who joined Earl Campbell, O.J. Simpson and Ricky Williams on the short list of RBs that have had back-to-back 200-yard games.
So now let’s sort through properly. The OL is an interesting group, which means carefully evaluating the weighting of earlier games into the overall equation. In the first two outings with that full unit there Ryan Tannehill has been sacked once; in the two games prior to that the count was 11 (from the QB - “When you have time to go through progressions and you’re able to move around a little bit, you’re going to see explosive plays and good things happen.”) And as for Ajayi, give him due props because he now rates #1 in the league in yards after contact, from the folks at Pro Football Focus. But now things also change tactically going forward.
Adam Gase came to Miami with a fast-paced short passing game in mind, hoping to mold the skills of Tannehill into a fit. Now Gase has to tweak based on what his team is showing him, hence another group that I will be following closely, even though they don’t play this week. Here was his take in Sunday’s aftermath, and it is something refreshingly honest and candid for a coach to admit -
"I keep reminding myself to stay with him, because he seems to find the right hole and pops it, and it becomes a 10- or 12-yard gain. That's my biggest challenge. Sometimes it's just easier to start throwing it around, because the yards come quicker. But staying with him and letting him get in a rhythm is critical for us. … I’m sure Pouncey dropped by about 25 times and said keep running it, so that might have gotten in my head a little bit.”
Now from Monday after deeper consideration - “We’re going to go back, reassess some things that we’ve been doing. I kept trying to reach for formations and we were making some stuff up there, just trying to figure out a way to disguise some of the stuff we were doing. I feel like they pretty much knew what was coming a lot of the time, so we’ll have to go back through and make sure we’re putting our guys in a good position.”
There is a lot to see there. In other words, the Dolphins weren’t running well because of their schemes, but that the OL and Ajayi executed quite well out of vanilla packages. Now there is an opportunity to play to the strengths with the added practice time. And also don’t neglect one added factor – because of how well the offense has run the ball, the Miami defense has only been on the field for 107 plays the past two weeks. To have done that, and add a bye week into the mix, could have their batteries charged to a much higher level than defenses usually are as November approaches.
Item: Here comes Joey Bosa (a rare addition for the Chargers, after all of the subtraction, though there is yet even more subtraction)
San Diego has managed to play back from an abyss into playoff contention with those wins over the Broncos and Falcons. But because they are the Chargers there had to be bad news thrown into the mix, DE Caraun Reid tearing his ACL against the Falcons, the fifth player to be lost for the season because of that particular injury. In holding together through all of the losses it has been a tribute to Mike McCoy and Philip Rivers patching the remaining cast together, but there is also now a particular upside that needs to be factored into the equations – Joey Bosa.
Bosa has recorded four sacks over his first three games, the first player to do that since Elvis Dumervil in 2006. And while the sample size is small, and must include the fact that opposing offenses have lacked an ability to see him on film and game plan accordingly, how about this little gem – according to the folks at PFF, Bosa leads all NFL edge rushers in generating pressure on opposing QBs. He checks in at making an impact ever 4.7 pass attempts, with #2 Von Miller at 5.2. It isn’t just his ability to rush the passer – Bosa has a run-stop percentage of 9.7, which also puts him in the Top 10 at his position.
Much like the adjustments that have to be made with the Miami OL, the San Diego defense will require some tweaking, and it has to be particularly frustrating for Bosa, management and McCoy – when you consider how close those three defeats were in games that Bosa did not play, the Chargers being out-scored by jut five points in regulation, might his presence alone been enough to swing one or two of them?
Item: How big is this Thursday night for the Jaguars (is it last call for Gus Bradley)?
The spotlight of playing on Thursday night is a bright one for NFL players and coaches, and for all of the struggles that there have been in Jacksonville in the Bradley era, now down to an ugly 14-40, the nature of Sunday’s defeat raises serious questions about whether this team can handle the tactical aspects of preparing on a short week, and also if they have the poise and stability.
Some of the quality aspects behind the ugly loss to Oakland aren’t necessarily news – the Raider defense is allowing more yards per play than any in the NFL, yet it took the Jaguars 10 drives before they could reach the end zone, that come when trailing 26-9 in the fourth quarter. Blake Bortles may have the physical tools, but his ability to think through a game at this level may not be there, and for now he is wasting a pretty good supporting cast.
This week may not be about quality, however, it may go directly to their mental state. I will start with Bradley, both in reviewing Sunday and trying to set the stage to clean it up, before going to the players, where there is some harsh honesty. From Bradley - “During the game, it’s proven — we lost our poise. We became frustrated that things didn’t go exactly as we had planned and some things took place on the field. You need to keep your poise and keep your composure. It ended up affecting us.”
So how does he expect to fix that on a short week - “It’s a fine line. It’s, ‘Hey, we’re going to stick to it and believe it’s going to come.’ And there’s also the insanity definition. There are things you really stay on it and keep going. There are other things you obviously have to shake up.”
It may be too late for Bradley to save his job by shaking things up – the extra couple of days after playing on Thursday would make a proper transition point should management choose to fire him. And given the state of affairs when viewed by the players, that fix may not happen.
Let’s star with veteran TE Mercedes Lewis - “I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. As one of the leaders on this team, I have to be stronger for them and do my part. We can’t point fingers. We all have a part in this. I could sit here all day and make a list of things. It all comes down to being accountable.”
But now for a real jolt of honesty from Paul Posluszny, after Malik Jackson and Jalen Ramsey were both ejected in the fourth quarter, part of the Jaguars running up 122 yards in 13 penalties –
“Have you ever seen a mess like that before? Am I overreacting or …I think it’s terrible. We need to act like professionals at all times, regardless of what happens. To have guys get thrown out, multiple penalties over and over again, that’s not who we are and we can’t tolerate that moving forward.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before. That’s unacceptable on a lot of different levels. Fans don’t want to see that, you guys (media) don’t want to see that and we don’t want to be a part of it. Just from a higher standard of playing in the NFL, we can’t have that.”
Jacksonville has a lot to solve in a short week. But part of the reason why the team is in such a state is because of an inability to fix things.
An even bigger fix is required in San Francisco, and the scary part for the 49ers is that it might get worse before it gets better…
Item: Has the 49er defense already let go of the rope
Chip Kelly’s game management has been a topic almost every week here, his insistence on playing fast with a roster not designed for it causing problems on both sides of the ball. On Saturday the San Fran offense snapped it at a brisk 23.8 SPS clip, and the result was an ugly 34-17 blowout loss to short-handed Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers winning the YPP battle by a significant 7.0 to 4.1.
Calling the Bucs short-handed is the key, with Vince Jackson and Doug Martin both sitting out. Yet they had their best offensive game of the season, including running for 249 yards at a 6.1 clip. It takes the San Francisco count for the two games without Navorro Bowman to 561 rushing yards allowed at a 6.6 clip, both among the worst counts you will ever see from a defense over a two-game stretch.
Part of this is naturally being short-handed, and being forced out on the field too long. But where the close reading should come into play is how much is also a lack of effort. As noted here late last season, the Philadelphia defense rebelled against Kelly’s tactics and played without heart down the stretch; the question is whether the 49ers have already reached that stage.
Now there is an awkward bye on tap, in part because of how bad the team is playing, but also the fact that it is being portrayed openly by the Bay Area media that both Joe Staley and Torrey Smith are available for trades. That does not help the focus of players who want to win now, rather than being part of some rebuilding project. As for the defense, here was the terse exchange from Kelly with the local media following the ugly loss to Tampa Bay -
-Q: You have a bye coming up. Will you consider any changes to the defensive coaching staff?
-KELLY: No.
-Q: Do you think you need to spend more time with Jim O’Neil during the week?
-KELLY: No we spend time together during the week. We carve out time in terms of how we watch film and what we do… good communication going on. It’s not like I don’t know what’s going on on the defensive side of the ball.
San Francisco is not on the schedule this week, but what the 49ers will be doing remains squarely in view.
Vegas: Monday with the Review Journal NFL box score page
Some particular Mondays are going to be a matter of routine each season – when it is time for the final Don Best Football Schedule, and the first of the Basketball season, a trip to Gamblers Book Club is in order, also to see if there is anything new and worthy on the NBA front (not this season), and if the Blue Ribbon books are in (not yet). That also means a lunch spot that is in the regular rotation year-round will have its own October box score Monday set aside, a visit to Viva Las Arepas, and the food of Felix Arellanes.
Felix is another of the uplifting success stories being featured here this season. He started with a small cart on Las Vegas Boulevard in the parking lot of Dino’s Bar, serving hand-made arepas, a Venezuelan specialty that was introduced to may taste buds when spending a lot of time in Caracas back in the early days of this millennium, when a consortium wanted to bring sports betting parlors into the country.
The episode in Venezuela rates as among the favorite periods of my life, Caracas a vibrant city with a lot of character, but those were also the early days of the Chavez regime, and portents of what was to come were becoming rather clear (we could have written a lot of business and made a lot of money there, especially in baseball seasons, but would have had the damnedest time trying to get it out). The fondness for arepas never left me, however, a stuffed corncake that is about halfway between a taco and a sandwich on the food spectrum. The twist here is that while the majority of times things eaten away from their point of origin are not as good, these are better, with Felix having access to higher-quality ingredients, and also accepting the mores of U.S. food culture by stuffing more into each arepa than would be the norm in his country of birth.
In another case of hard work and integrity paying off, Felix has turned his first location into a full restaurant, with an outdoor seating area, instead of a merely being an arepa shop. The menu goes far beyond, with the mixed grill (all cooked over open wood fire, which helps to create the flavor) often ordered as a carry-out for game viewing later that evening. Felix has also helped to develop Art of Flavors, a gelato shop, right next door, and is in the process of opening his second Viva Las Arepas, over on West Charleston. And yes, the food cart is still there, just a block away, as he produces another Venezuelan classic, the over-stuffed sandwiches of Pepito Shack. Those are a true guilty pleasure…
Monday’s visit brought my particular favorite, the Pabellon (shredded beef, black beans, plantains and cheese), and also the Perico (scrambled eggs, ham, onion and tomato). One will suffice most appetites, allowing you to intentionally save room for some gelato, but these are busy work-days, the NFL and NCAA only in mid-season; the World Series beginning tonight; and the NBA tipping off; so I needed to make sure that I had the proper sustenance.
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