Or you can recognize how badly the team played in the first six weeks and how that anchor is being raised with each passing week (weighted DVOA rank of 22nd at the end of the season and presently 17th).
2018 AFCCG: Jags v. Pats (Non-Brady Edition)
- Thread starter Red Averages
- Start date
Jesus, I really hope that's just "reporter" speak. "Expected to play barring a setback" does not sound great at all. 3 days to heal and see how it feels come Sunday.
Of course I expect him to play. But I was really hoping this was just lingering from the late in the season report about the hand. Not a new injury. Color me concerned.
We’ll have to see his status at practice tomorrow. If he’s a DNP, yeah let’s panic. I expect he’ll be limited every day and listed as questionable or probable.
Fyi,the Jags run defense was 7th best in yards per attempt after the Marcell Dareus trade over the last 9 weeks. Not saying it is amazing but I would not call it bad anymore.
It was terrible the first 7 weeks which skews numbers....
He would likely go to doubtful at some point. I would bet a very large amount there is zero chance, absolute zero that Brady is a DNP.
The more superstars and injuries don’t happen the more useful DVOA is. This year it has been admittedly less useful and it’s usefullness is already questionable. Pats were 31st overall in defensive DVOA for the regular season. Their weighted rank though is 17th. What DVOA says matches what I’ve seen; the Pats had a bad start to the season but righted the ship and when everyone not on the IR is healthy they are an average unit with the potential to be slightly above average. They can also play below average but the floor performance expectation after say week 4 vs now? I expect a below average floor now after week 4 I expected a dumpster fire as the floor.
He strikes me as the type of guy who would expect to play with a bloody stump at the end of his right arm.
Starting QB hurts throwing hand on helmet of lineman prior to Pats playoff game with the Jaguars. Where have we heard this before?
Dion Lewis led the NFL in rushing for the second half of the season. Think on that for a second. On a team with the NFL MVP at QB, on a team whose OLine has generally been thought of as a weakness, on a team whose best OLineman from last year (Pro Bowler) hasn't played since early in the year, a 5'-8" RB led the NFL in rushing over the last 8 games of the season. The cold part of the season. The "Smashmouth/Old-Time/Separate the men from the boys" part of the season. More yards than Bell, than Gurley, than anyone.
I think it is safe to say that the Patriots do NOT have a mediocre running game.
I think it is safe to say that the Patriots do NOT have a mediocre running game.
Weighted defense is 22nd, which seems about right to a touch light to me.
Not sure why you wouldnt think the Pats are a good running team. Lewis grades very well by statistical and subjective measures. Even if you dont believe in DVOA as a bit of a black box (and it does historically tend to overrate the Pats running game IMO) or the #1 rating in adjusted line yards, they come out as average to very good on more discrete/objective measurements like power success, stuffed percentage, etc. They're 16th in pass/run ratio. They're a good running team, maybe as good as a Pats team has been at running since '04.
KC was 4th in DVOA in no small part due to Kelce. The Titans didnt really slow down the Chiefs when Kelce was in the game.
Yards per carry is a flawed metric (every metric is, really), but let's ignore that. Was it Dareus? Or was it the schedule? The correct answer is probably a little bit of both. These are the teams they played over those last 9 weeks, and their ranking in rushing yards per carry:
Bengals - 29th
Chargers - 26th
Browns - 6th
Cardinals - 31st
Colts - 28th
Seahawks - 21st
Texans - 16th
49ers - 17th
Titans - 15th
One team in the top third of the league (though it's the Browns, which.... c'mon). Three teams in the top half of the league (though the two non-Browns teams are the two lowest ranked teams in the top half). Five teams in the bottom third of the league, including 4 of the worst 7 teams in the league.
Contrast that to their first 7 games:
Texans - 16th
Titans - 15th
Ravens - 19th
Jets - 20th
Steelers - 25th
Rams - 7th
Colts - 28th
One team in the top third of the league. Three teams in the top half of the league (though again, with two as low as you can get and still be in the top half). Two teams in the bottom third of the league.
Jacksonville sure played a lot of shitty rushing offenses, huh? And yet, they still finished with bad rushing defense stats. Seems like a salient point.
While we're at it, let's look at the passing offenses they've faced, and their rank in net yards/attempt:
Texans - 20th
Titans - 17th
Ravens - 32nd
Jets - 21st
Steelers - 6th
Rams - 7th
Colts - 29th
Bengals - 22nd
Chargers - 2nd
Browns - 31st
Cardinals - 23rd
Colts - 29th
Seahawks - 15th
Texans - 20th
49ers - 18th
Titans - 17th
Three top-10 passing offenses, four middling passing offenses, and a bunch of teams in the bottom third of the league. So they played a lot of shitty passing offenses too. (Which is a point I've made a few times throughout this season: Jacksonville has beat up on a bunch of bad offenses. Hey, you can only play the team in front of you. But let's see this defense do it on the road in Foxboro.)
Bringing it back to the running game: the Patriots will be the best rushing team they've faced outside of the LA Rams. Those Rams finished 7th in yards per attempt, 8th in rushing yards, and 9th in rushing DVOA. Pats finished 12th in rushing yards per attempt, 10th in rushing yards, and 3rd in rushing DVOA. Gurley finished with 116 yards on 23 carries, in case you were wondering.
The Steelers made the mistake of coming out empty set, trying to spread the Jags out and throw the ball against the best passing defense in the NFL. I don't think the Patriots will make the same mistake. I don't think they'll be afraid to throw it (take another look at that schedule the Jags played). But I don't think Brady will be throwing the ball 50+ times again unless something went horribly wrong and they have to play catch-up. The running game should be a big part of the offensive plan.
Is this ESPN's way of whipping the Jags into a "they're disrespecting us" frenzy? Or are these ratings complete and utter BS? Because it would seem that the Jags defense is pretty good, and the offense put up 28 on PIT this past week.Oh great, (TB12 willing) another asterisk for the Pats
FiveThirtyEightVerified account @FiveThirtyEight 30m30 minutes ago
The Patriots’ Super Bowl path is the easiest in modern NFL history.
Saturday, 35 of 53 for 327 and a passer rating of 102.5.
So when did this happen ... Brady’s last series?
I had heard, but have not been able to find, that Jerry Thornton reported a “broken hand “ BEFORE the Titans game. Which struck me as curious because you’ll never find a Pats loyalist stouter than Jerry, and a hand injury to Brady was never listed IIRC. In that connection, consider this:
https://operations.nfl.com/media/2683/2017-nfl-injury-report-policy.pdf
A few hours ago, Thornton was asked whether today’s report involved what Thornton was talking about. He said he’d look into it, and an hour later joked that Brady’s “strain” was caused by his SB rings.
https://mobile.twitter.com/jerrythornton1?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
Who the fuck knows at this point?
Karen G, reportedly. Practice injury:
https://mobile.twitter.com/kguregian?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https://cdn.rawgit.com/s9e/s9e.github.io/master/iframe/twitter.min.html#953763467273654273
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At practice today. Check out the last 20 posts or so.
Actually, maybe 25. Near end of last page.
Who cares anyway? They earned it by getting the 1 seed. That’s the whole concept of seeding.
Exactly. People getting salty that they had an easy path are missing the point. A SB is a SB. I'll take it however it comes.
I’d say Brady throwing left handed against the league’s best D makes up for it anyway.
The issue with DVOA (and really, any rate stat) when it comes to the Patriots running game is that they are a gameplan team that runs a lot in advantageous matchups and does not run in disadvantageous matchups. So when they play the Ravens, they might run the ball 10 times and throw it 50; against the Colts, they run the ball 40 times and throw 20. It looks like they're awesome running the ball because the overall efficiency is very good, but the numbers are skewed because they don't run against teams when they can't.
There is something of that effect going on this year - they ran for 190+ yards in both meetings with the Bills, who were 31st in rushing defense DVOA, but I think you're right and they've shown more ability to run against top Ds. They went 29 for 99 against Denver (#2 rush D DVOA), 19 for 80 against Carolina (#6), 25 for 118 and 38 for 147 in two meetings with the Jets (#11), and most recently, 27 for 102 vs the Titans (#7). So they've run the ball fairly often and with reasonable effectiveness against just about anybody.
If the books thought it was a real question if brady was going to play, the line would be OTB. That would concern me a hell of a lot more than a line moving.
It doesn't seem like there's much question that he'll play. The question is how much will this affect his performance.
The Patriots aren't going to give us any clue, so we get to spend three days reading tea leaves.
The Patriots aren't going to give us any clue, so we get to spend three days reading tea leaves.
I’m not a doctor but wouldn’t an x-ray for a cut suggest it was deep enough to be concerned about tissue or nerve damage? X-rays aren’t usually done for your average cut.
More likely it there was both a cut and impact and they were making sure the impact didn’t break anything. I have no idea how a minor collision during a handoff could cause a deep gash.
It’s always somethin’.
And,
If he cut his hand and there was any swelling, or pain, they are taking an X-Ray.
So you remember when we couldn’t have nice things. That was so preposterous and yet so representative.
Man I love this scene. First you mention Joe Gibbs, now this. As Peter King would say, “weird”.
http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2018/the-secret-to-beating-the-jaguars-pass-defense
This article presents pages and pages of analysis detailing how the Jaguars had a noticeable weak spot in their defense this year and the Patriots are perfectly positioned to take advantage.
(The author is the guy who wrote the awful deflated ball fumble-rate analysis during Deflategate, btw).
This article presents pages and pages of analysis detailing how the Jaguars had a noticeable weak spot in their defense this year and the Patriots are perfectly positioned to take advantage.
(The author is the guy who wrote the awful deflated ball fumble-rate analysis during Deflategate, btw).
