saintswhodi

I was watching the Eagles-Falcs game, and they mentioned how Vick was the most sacked qb in the league outside of David Carr. And I found that interesting since a huge argument people tend to use for AB is the play of the line and he has no time to throw. Well, Carr, Vick, and Culpepper were sacked more than Leon. Two of the 3 were in the playoffs(one the NFC champ game) and Carr is on an expansion team that had the same record as us. Marc Bulger was sacked the same amount of times as Brooks, but he missed two full games or it would have been more as well. Again, in the playoffs. And if we add in the sacks Chandler took while Bulger was out, Rams qbs were second in the league in being sacked. Here's the stats:

http://www.nfl.com/stats/playersort/...r?&_1:col_1=13

All of them also had better qb ratings than Brooks, except Vick, but we know the extra factor he brings to the game.

So then I decided to look at rushing stats. Now this is with the fact in mind that Deuce missed two games and played hurt in several others. Falcons led the league, but most of that is Vick, the extra factor I talked about earlier. Houston was 12th, Minnesota 18th, and the Rams one spot better than us. Not one of them had a dominating run game. In the Rams case, they were equally as bad.

So that leaves the defense and penalties. Oakland has the most offensive penalties and we are second, and the Rams right behind us. Amazingly Philadelphia is right there after them. Now these are not broken down into penalties for delay of game by the qb or holding and what not so I can't get an accurate assessment of what they are all for. That is just number of penalties though. In penalty yards per game we are FIFTEENTH. Worse than us, Indy, Green Bay, Minny, Denver, St. Louis, New England, Seattle, Philly, San Diego among playoff teams. Amazingly enough, they all have strong play from their qbs.

Lastly we have defense. We know we were last. But Indy was 29th. Minny was 28th, Seattle, 26th, Green Bay, 25th, Houston 23rd. All in the playoffs except Houston, again a 4th year expansion team with the same record as us. And the difference between 32nd and 23rd is a mere 42 yards per game. Wow.

Now with the help of BMG, I have already weighed in on the mis-leading dropped passes stat. Seems like bad passes are a much bigger factor for our team than drops. So someone explain to me why these are made to be the reasons why we can't make the playoffs when other temas do it and why there isn't more blame for Brooks? Just good discussion.



[Edited on 23/1/2005 by saintswhodi]

JKool

Nice work Whodi. This should prove interesting.

(1) By your argument, our OLine is as good as several that made the playoffs (e.g. Minnesota and Atlanta, as well as probably the St. Louis). We all know that is not the case. Thus, I conclude that there is an error in evaluating the line based on sacks allowed; I don\'t know what, but something.

(2) Before we evaluate how much work AB had to do to avoid the sacks, we must also acknowledege QB hurries. How many times were these other QBs, who were sacked more often hurried? If we don\'t know that we cannot evaluate the pass protection that was provided.

(3) As for dropped passes, I agree that wasn\'t much of an issue. However, missed passing attempts can occur for many reasons that have little to do with the QB - e.g. WRs on bad routes, good sideline coverages, throwing the ball away to avoid sacks, etc. While I really like your argument, it is hard for me to conclude that missed pass attempts were all on the QB using the aggregate stats you listed.

(4) People who are against Brooks are happy to cite WHEN and WHERE turnovers occured matter A LOT in evaluating him. How come they don\'t admit that when and where a penalty happened or a sack was allowed by the OLine matter a lot in evaluating the blame on the QB.

(5) Also, according to those who want to see Brooks go, Passer Rating is not a good way to evaluate a QB. Notice that no one likes when people point out that Brooks QB rating is better than Vick or Bledsoe, so why do we suddenly get to use it against him. When Brooks is allowed to \"just play\" in the fourth quarter, his passer rating is phenomenal, but it doesn\'t get to count for a reason to keep him. I see no reason to think this stat really tells us much of anything.

(6) I\'m going to have to disagree with you that 42 yards a game isn\'t very much. That is a huge difference in offensive out put allowed. Also, our defense stank and was on its way to being the WORST EVER in the NFL. Again, when and where the defense sucked it up is relevant to the play of our QB. When we are behind by a lot, the QB is asked to do even more. Our D left us in terrible position where the O is asked to do more and more. We both know that matters.

Don\'t get me wrong, I\'ll continue to think about your argument. It is very compelling. However, the stats you are using, IMO, are far too coarse-grained to provide a good analysis of what is going on. Also, some of the points you use seem to defend Brooks as much as impune him - if it matter when he threw a pick, then it matters where we took a penalty or allowed a sack or called a pass when we should have run, etc.

Everyone agrees that Brooks shares in the blame. All people seem to disagree about is how bad he is - that is the degree of blame he should take. IMO it is around 5% (quite a bit for a team that is usually composed of about 30 regular players) and coaching, play calling, our, lets face, shiznity defense, and our poor, poor, poor, OLine (just ask Duece what he thinks about the blocking he got this year) are considerably more than that.

Not only that if you are going to compare us to Minny in terms of making the playoffs - we didn\'t make because Brien missed a FG instead of made it. I don\'t see that they are any better than us in any relevant way.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

ScottyRo

As if Brooks could be blamed MORE?

Your logic is bent. Are just gonna look at stats now and ignore the painfully obvious fact that the o-line did not give Brooks an adequate time to read and make throws.

I mean there are so many holes in your \"since these other teams have more sacks, their o-lines must have been worse\" argument, it\'s just silly. Maybe Bulger holds the ball longer than AB or Carr faced better secondaries. Maybe AB threw the ball away before getting sacked more often and thus lowered the sack total.

I\'m basically just taking issue that you are ignoring the truth that for most of the season the o-line sucked so that you can find another reason to blame AB for the Saints not making the playoffs.

You spend an auful lot of time and energy trying to prove what many (most?) of us already recognize: AB probably needs to be replaced.

JK, I wish I had spent as much time responding as you did. Nice response.

[Edited on 24/1/2005 by ScottyRo]

saintswhodi

Hhhmmm, what else am I gonna do with the postseason? We aren\'t in the playoffs AGAIN, and I find Leon to be a prime reason. Maybe you don\'t Scotty, bully for you. I applaud you, but if others can rant about how much they want to have Brooks here, I can rant about how much I don\'t, correct?

JKool, I know for a fact our line is equal to if not better than the Rams line. So no we don\'t all know that is not the case. The Rams line is terrible, TERRIBLE. Minny\'s not much better. And we ignore the fact that Brooks backs into the rush also. I didn;t even put that in there. If that happened even 5 times on the year and he got sacked, and that is 5 out of 16 games, there are about 5 more teams that would be above us in times sacked. So yes I am gonna say these lines were worse than ours. Rams and Houston for sure, Minny is close.

Also, Deuce rushed for over 1,000 yards after missing two games and being hurt like I said. Our line must be doing something right. He isn\'t blocking for himself.

And I am not saying penalties don\'t happen at inopportune times nor have I ever, but red zone turnovers hurt a lot more than a 5 yard false start in 1st and 15 at the 30 doesn\'t it? It does to me.

Also cool, stands to reason if you are getting sacked a lot, you are also being hurried. I would find there would be very rare instances in the NFL where a qb who is sacked a lot isn;t hurried.

On the passer rating deal, you got the wong guy. Onr of my biggest arguments always has been Brooks\' pathetic passer rating for years. If it is 80, it is barely 80. You would have to speak to others who don\'t wanna use that, it is very important to me.

And you are of the opinion the D has hurt the O, but I am of the opinion that a team that can\'t score in the first quarter AND turns the ball over hurts the D. That goes 3 and out giving the other team 3 and 4 possessions in the first quarter hurts the D. We can\'t evaluate when the D let down the O, but we can evaluate when the O let down the D, and that is every first quarter of at least 14 games.

Again Scotty, I have to diagree with you. You can dance around a lot of excuses as to why PLAYOFF teams have qbs sacked more than ours and more negative penalty yards from their offense and defenses just as terrible, but I am through rationalizing that. Again, if we can rant FOR Brooks, why is noone allowed to rant against him?

ScottyRo

I\'m certainly not saying you cannot argue for whatever inane thing you want to here. I\'m not a mod, nor will I ever be a mod. It seems to castrate some of the better members to a degree. WD.

Anyway, my main point - which I might have gotten away from - was that using the sack stat was not enough to claim that AB is the major reason we didn\'t make the playoffs rather than the o-line. The o-line sucked and I think that is undisputable.

That being said there are MANY other reasons why you and I can blame AB for not getting us into the playoffs. I do blame him to the degree I feel is deserved. There is MUCH blame to go around. Until I see a valid alternative to AB being our starting QB, I\'m not going to call for his replacement everyday .

JKool

Easy there big fella. You know I love you.

I\'m sticking to my claim that aggregate stats will not prove too many points; though I was very impressed with your work. Stats can be helpful in making some points, but we both agree that what happened is as important as the stats (consider the CB who no one throws at because he is that good - no stats but those watching the game can see his effect). I am, however, interested in still discussing some of these issues, so I\'ll get over that.

(1) Ok, lets say those lines are so terrible (having not seen them play very often, I\'ll take your word for it), how did they make the playoffs? On the strength of the rest of their team, I\'m willing to bet. It certainly wasn\'t just their QB, which seems to follow from what you\'ve said. Your argument is that these teams\' OLines are as bad as ours - conclusion QB is the reason they\'re in and we\'re not. Are you telling me that Culpepper and Bulger are THE reason that these teams made it and we didn\'t? (Ignore the fact that Minny made it on the \"strength\" of O\'Brien\'s leg - the only difference between them and us I can see with respect to the playoffs.) I\'m inclined to think not. Certainly other things played a role. Here are my guesses, in no particular order: (1) QB, (2) WRs, (3) RBs, (4) TEs, (5) OLine, (6) DLine, (7) LBs, (8) DBs, (9) Coaching, (10) Play calling, (11) Personel, (12) Talent, (13) Reffing, (14) Weather conditions, (15) any thing I forgot in the first 14.

(2) Duece is a top five back. Thus, he should perform well, even when the line doesn\'t; think of all those years Barry Sanders (and don\'t start with me on how there is no way to compare, because there is - they\'re both top five backs) produced with what appeared to be a pretty shakey OL. Now, I\'ll grant you the fact that he got so many yards says that our OL can RUN block, at least some. However, we both watched those games and saw guys like Holland plain wiffing on DLinemen. In fact, our pass blocking is somewhat sub-par.

(3) As for the hurries, my point wasn\'t that those other guys didn\'t get hurried. What I meant was this: total number of sacks plus total number of hurries would be more relevant to making your point than just sacks alone. It is possible that Brooks was hurried more often than Carr or Bulger and not sacked, as he is more elusive than either of those other two.

(4) Look, the point about penalties and turn overs is that where and when they happen is more important than how frequently (though that matters too). Thus, I will not grant that point to you. Agreed that your example is right, but a false start penalty on the other teams 20 yard line when we just tossed a TD is pretty bad too! Many people on this board will agree with this point; I\'m pretty sure you do too. The point here isn\'t that you\'re wrong about the penalty issue, it is just that the simple stats you gave are inconclusive on this point.

(5) I don\'t remember anyone ranting FOR Brooks for some time. I think that the strongest argument for keeping Brooks is that there is no one else as good available who isn\'t a risk. We disagree on the \"Devil you know point\", and I don\'t see that any argument will change peoples\' mind on that. If Brees becomes available, I say take a look. Otherwise get over the unproven guys; I don\'t see an argument for that at all. Brooks has proven he can win 8 games a year. Improve the defense and we\'ll one or two more and make the playoffs. He doesn\'t have to be great, he just needs to be himself to get to the playoffs. I\'m not going to cry if we get someone better than him, but if we waste our time on that instead of improving our LBs and OTs, I am going to go ballistic.

(7) I don\'t think passer rating counts for much. I\'d have to hear an argument for why it should really be a stat at all; there was a good discussion, here at B&G, of this at about midseason as I recall. There are good QBs with poor passer ratings (e.g. Drew Bledsoe) and poor QBs with good passer ratings (e.g. Brian Griese). Furthermore, I was merely pointing out that people who would generally agree with your argument would NOT agree with this premise. It was just a point for discussion; it was not aimed at you - just for the record.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

Saint_LB

:sleeping:

saintswhodi

Kool, nothing but love for you. And I would continue the dance, but it appears you can\'t make a statement on here and have a decent disagreement without people being rude if they disagree, not meaning you. What happened to, hhhmm, I don\'t like this thread, I will IGNORE it. Hell ignore me. I am gonna rant regardless. But if you don\'t wanna see the argument, don\'t read it. Plain and simple.

But since you took your time to rebut Kool, I will reply in kind. When Iw atched the Saints play, being that I live in San Antonio, I have to go to a sports bar. Fast Eddie\'s inthis case who has Sunday ticket and shows all the games on big screens. I have seen many teams play many times, including the Rams. Their line is worse than ours. Truly. And don\'t let what Minny did to us when we played them fool you, their line is bad, as well as the Texans. And I related these teams to us in regards to defeense and penalties and NONE of them were that much better. So we can look at all the factors, which is what I did, tied them together initially. I took into account the line, penalties, and defense for us, the Rams, Minny and the Texans. Seemed pretty even.

Now on your point about Brien, I agree. If not for his leg, we woulda been in. But look at it like this, the Rams, who are no better than us, beat Seattle twice. The Vikes, who are barely better than us, beat us. We lost to two winless teams. Had we taken care of a semblence of business in any one game early on, we woulda been in with no need for help. But we didn\'t.

You know I am gonna call shenanigans on the Deuce Barry point. Not that they can\'t be compared, but they are such different backs. It is like comparing Jerome Bettis to Warrick Dunn. Deice is a power runner who has some speed. He is not gonna dance in the backfield and skirt around people like Barry did. Deuce is a good inside runner who can occasionally turn the corner. Barry could make 3 guys miss in the backfield. So since Deuce\'s yards come mainly from plowing ahead, the line must have been decent there. Not great, decent.

I couldn\'t find a place to get hurry stats. Can you? I would be willing to look at that. Now you and I agreed before the center-qb exchange looks slow on our team and at points Brooks backs into the rush. So consider these factors and we STILL weren\'t the worst in the league at giving up sacks, there is some credence to that argument. Now we do know AB is capable of thrwoing the ball backwards and under-handed to LBs to avoid sacks, so maybe that\'s why the total is lower. See if you can find those hurries so we can add them.

Gumbo( I know I know) rants for Brooks frequently. Also, if you are in the crowd of(we can\'t get anyone with his \"talent\" if we let him go,\" you are pulling for Brooks. My thing is, we don\'t make the playoffs with him so what\'s the difference?

On to Bledsoe, I don\'t think he is a good qb so thus his poor passer rating is correct to me. I also think Griese is a hell of a lot more competent than Brooks so his decent passer rating speaks to me. It\'s all in how you like at it. He definitely has LESS talent around him on O, so if he has a good passer rating, speaks volumes to me about our qb.

The thign is, you say Brooks is able to win 8 games. To me, he is getting worse. He definitely hasn\'t gotten better. So if there are no changes in a qb in 5 years,and he makes the same mistakes and dumb reads and bad throws, don\'t you think opposing teams can see this and plan for it? He thinks he\'s great. so why would eh change anything? That is a disadvantage to me already before going into the next season. We will have to see if he can win 8. He only plays well in abou 3 of the 8.

Scotty, I don\'t knwo if you don;t see it, but I am not the only one who calls for Leon\'s head every day. I guess it is just more convenient to only reply to me cause I try to give a better argument than just \"he sucks.\"

JKool

Whodi, I\'ve been waiting for your reply buddy.

Nice work. Here is a quick response, since I have to go teach shortly - I didn\'t want to leave you hanging though.

(1) We don\'t agree on Griese and Bledsoe, but that is ok with me for now. Other people can judge the argument on the basis of this premise for themselves. I\'m not convinced by this one.

(2) Yeah, I don\'t understand why people try to control the board by saying what they think is boring or stupid or repetitive. They should just move on and not mess up other peoples\' discussions. If they\'re interested in something else, they should post it. I, for one, thought your argument was interesting and interesting in what I count as its flaws.

(3) I\'ll take your word for the other teams\' lines - as I noted before, I haven\'t seen them play, you have and I trust your views (most of the time).

(4) Agreed on the factors that did/did not get us close to the playoffs. My point there is that saying those teams made the playoffs the way you did made it sound like they ruled despite having sucky OLs and sacked QBs - which we will both agree is not the case. Thus, I was arguing that your point sounded better than it was on this dimension.

(5) I knew you\'d disagree on the Barry Duece thing, but I too believe they are very different. We agree that a decent line AT RUN BLOCKING is all that is needed for Duece (and that was secretly my point). Thus, Dueces running stats are hard to relate to how bad the line was and how bad it was at PASS BLOCKING.

(6) I can\'t find the hurry stats either. But heck, I can\'t find \"thrown to\" stats anywhere either. Blah.

(7) I\'m sticking with this: Brooks can win 8 games with no OL and no Defense and Duece. We cannot say that about any of the guys who keep getting tossed about as possible replacements (except maybe Brees). If we improve the OL and the D, we will make the playoffs. Brooks other flaws aside, I see no reason to think this argument is false. With more pressing needs on D and OL, I see no reason to waste time getting a new QB; if one falls in our lap, hey, I\'m not gonna complain...

Cheers.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

baronm

I\'m just not sure that even with the patriots or colts offensive line brooks would be much bettter.

However, as you said there is no one much better without more risk...

I think the key with brooks is accountability and having to earn his keep. he\'s got the talent, he\'s just lazy -IMO