NFL WEEK 1

[boberot]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

To continue the earlier hypotheses on the Monday night games, this was clearly the NFL's catchup code at work...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the game engine decided the outcome first, then just backfilled the rest of the stats.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Logan

Pretty sure that was Brandon Merriweather, who ultimately got the ball out and really grabbed for it immediately.

The great play by Merriweather and Pierre Woods got kind of lost in the crucifiction of McKelvin. The Pats have had an unbelieveable series of silly wins where luck has played a huge part (this whole decade really), but there's almost always a great individual or team performance in there to help make that luck.

They were lucky McKelvin gave them the opportunity, but forcing a fumble when everyone knows you need to force a fumble is very impressive.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Yeah, definitely don't wan to take away from the Pats' players who caused the fumble, that's a crucial and great play by them.

Epi 862 -

I'm 100% certain I'm not letting announcers and/or sports talk radio dictate my thoughts on this one. My roommate (huge Bills fan) was making so much noise at the time, I have no idea what they even said, and since I live in the Bay Area, no one is giving the Bills the time of day on the radio over here. I also make it a point to watch as little of ESPN as humanly possible. I know that you specifically said that you weren't calling me out for this, that you were discussing people in general - but the logic behind this (my) argument stands.

The point is this - McKelvin had exactly ONE thing that he had to avoid doing at all costs - DO NOT TURN THE BALL OVER. Getting the clock to the two minute warning is a bonus, but not required. Yes, random shit happens in games, and yes, it can happen at bad times. The focus isn't necessarily on the hands team - the hands team are just a contributing factor as to why the decision to run it out of the endzone may not have been the best idea. A hands team is not comprised of people who are skilled in blocking - therefore McKelvin is going to be at greater risk to be hit by multiple players. The main point is that McKelvin had about fourteen different ways he could have completely avoided any chance at a fumble - from taking a knee in the endzone, to falling down at first contact, to sliding off the bat so there WAS no contact, to running it up the sideline and stepping out instead of taking contact, etc. He decided a bunch of different things:

1) I'm going to take the ball out of the endzone.
2) I'm going to run it up the middle of the field.
3) I'm going to try to keep running even though I just got my bell rung and I've been stood up straight.

My original argument was actually in support of his decision to run it out of the endzone. I still stand by that argument - I think that running those 6 seconds off the clock and burning NE's "4th Timeout" is a huge strategic factor in the game. At some point during his return though, he went into normal kickoff-return mode. That was the bad decision, and due to the complete avoidability of the mistake, I think it's worthy of criticism. I don't think this particular play falls under the "random crap happens" umbrella - every defensive player on that team was going to try to pop the ball out if given the opportunity, and McKelvin HAD to be aware of that.

The Bills have routinely had (one of) the best Special Teams units in the league for the past few years, and McKelvin was statistically the very best kickoff return man in the league last season. Do I think he should be cut? Of course not. Do I think he should be running a billion extra laps in practice this week? Hell yes.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by TroyF

Bishop,

277 sounds good. The reality is it was far worse.

1) The Bills offense sucks. And they were missing a huge weapon on top of that.
2) Edwards had a QB rating of 114.1.
3) The Bills averaged 4.7 yards a carry.
4) Two Bills drives ended essentially because of penalties. Not penalties the Patriots forced. Two illegal formation penalties took away 31 total yards and two huge first downs that killed drives.

The reality is that defense is pretty brutal. If Mayo is out for any length of time, it's really brutal. The Patriots are going to have to win a lot of games 42-38 this year. Don't get me wrong, they'll do it. But this team doesn't look a lot different than some of those Colts teams of yesteryear. Brady will lock this team into 11-12 wins himself (as Manning did for the Colts)

If I don't see a big improvement out of the defense, it'll end just like those Manning teams. With an exit in the playoffs after someone contains their offense and exposes the defense.

That's pretty much exactly what I said. I was disagreeing with the latter statement by Molson that we should throw downfield more. In addition to taking what the defense gave us instead of forcing deep throws into double coverage, that ball-control short passing offense (which we've really used for 4-5 years now) is what led our defense to only give up 277 yards despite looking (and being) pretty poor all night.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I think there's three things we can reasonably conclude from McKelvin's unfortunate mistake:

1. NFL players are relentlessly drilled to do specific things in specific situations and it's difficult to operate against that training (i.e. he's drilled to fight for yards, not hit the deck upon first contact).

2. Having said that, the ability of the average NFL player to adapt to new information and new situations isn't all that great (potentially what makes a great NFL player?)

I think these are two GREAT points that we all overlook, both in this discussion and just in general when watching games. it's easy for us to say "oh this one time you should have thought enough to do X instead of Y" but the players can't and don't.

So then part of the strategy becomes putting the opponent into a position where the only way to succeed is to adapt to something new+different because 95 out of 100 times they won't be able to.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

I think these are two GREAT points that we all overlook, both in this discussion and just in general when watching games. it's easy for us to say "oh this one time you should have thought enough to do X instead of Y" but the players can't and don't.

But part of it is coaching. The special teams coach should have told him "just take the touchback if possible, and if not get DOWN." But honestly on any given return that extra yard you get from fighting is almost never worth it. We're not talking about a running back or receiver trying to make the first down or goalline, we're talking about a returner whose job is to get his team the best reasonable field position he can. A returner should definitely be jinking and juking, but protecting the ball is pretty much always much more important than gaining an extra yard on a return.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

But part of it is coaching. The special teams coach should have told him "just take the touchback if possible, and if not get DOWN." But honestly on any given return that extra yard you get from fighting is almost never worth it. We're not talking about a running back or receiver trying to make the first down or goalline, we're talking about a returner whose job is to get his team the best reasonable field position he can. A returner should definitely be jinking and juking, but protecting the ball is pretty much always much more important than gaining an extra yard on a return.

valid point in this situation.

i was speaking in more of a generality though, probably didn't make that clear enough. i was talking about during the normal course of a game in general.

[flere-imsaho]

How many NFL teams, though, really understand the concept of expected value, which is what you're describing? I'd argue that clearly the Patriots do, but as Gregg Easterbrook points out in pretty much every single TMQ column, most of the league doesn't get it, and doesn't get it badly.

Edit: This was in response to Greg specifically, not DT.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Maybe that IS a valid point. I guess I underestimate how difficult it is to change the routine from something that has been drilled repeatedly to the point of insensibility.

Thinking of my own job specifically (I'm a meter reader for the local utility company), there are plenty of times where I just auto-pilot my way to something that I need to backtrack for (I read thousands of meters per week - I average about 15,000 meters read per month).

The disconnect I have here, though, is that this isn't just a random routine play that he just has to do something different on. This is the whole game, down to one play - do we honestly think that the coach didn't say something specifically to him during the lead-in to the kickoff? Or that he didn't realize that he had to be especially careful? Perhaps he WAS being especially careful with the ball and it simply didn't occur to him to go down, or he thought he didn't need to.

To continue my meter reading analogy - if I see a meter that is coded for a Bad Dog, I immediately stop and take special care of the situation. The last thing I want is to get bit by a dog. Once I am alerted to the possible presence of a dog, I have yet to make a mistake (knock on wood). I can't imagine that this scenario - end of the game, protecting a lead, don't turn the ball over - would do anything other than make protecting the football the automatic priority for anyone, even without the coaches giving a reminder.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Dola - assuming we can never be certain of the actual cause for his decision making process, which would be the more concerning error?

A) McKelvin knew he needed to protect the ball, decided to run it out anyways, and decided to fight for extra yards while doing it.

B) McKelvin went on auto-pilot and by reflex did what he had been trained to do - fight for as many yards on the kickoff return as possible.

[flere-imsaho]

Probably A, because he consciously made a wrong decision.