AKC

Let's see- they rank Bledsoe the #21 NFL Quarterback in the world- and your interpretation of that is that Bledsoe was "ineffective"- but their rank of Moulds as the 45th best receiver qualifies him for a big hug from you! Don't let me interrupt your shoveling duties!

Thank you for confirming EXACTLY my point. You'll cite some "analysis" as the truth when it suits you, then ignore it when another of your arguments is blown up in your face by exactly the same methodology. Among other words for it: Hypocrisy

Speakin' of the birds- how has Garza been developing in the interior line? He had very good fundamental athleticism coming out, I figured he'd stay at OC in the pros but the Falcons have used him at OG- has he gotten big enough to play the Guard spot well?

Might be hard to even call his '03 campaign "developmental". He apparently impressed the staff so little in week 2 against the Raiders that he never saw the field in a game until week 13 in Miami and a few snaps in the Pitt game. On the other hand Edwards was for the most part very impressive in his role as a passing down gap splitter. How that translates to duty in the 1st and 2nd and long defense remains to be seen, the one thing for sure is that Krumrie had him going in the right direction all season. Williams over Jennings for sure, Williams is a far better fit in our D than Jonas is in our O, and Jonas should find a number of offenses where his superior pass blocking skills should pay him a BIG premium in FA.

I see- you embrace the BCS/Football Outsiders "system" for one thing and discard it wholly when it comes to their "analysis" of Eric Moulds, their 45th ranked receiver. You and CT will have to sh-- or get off the pot at some point- your continued refusal to admit that even YOU don't believe in their formulas gives you zero credibility in a discussion where you introduced them in the first place. The two of you exemplify exactly the type of fan I contemplated in the original post- willing to dishonestly embrace a portion of a manipulated set of statistics while pretending as if the balance of the manipulated stats don't exist. It's Jim Rome fandom- I see no reason to accept it without pointing it out.

Your problem is the most basic mistake neophytes make when discussing football analysis- you've found a source who supports you in ONE of your postions with their formula for VOA, a contrived system developed and used by them exclusively. It's no different than the BCS, another contrived statistical system used to "determine" the best college teams. There are those who would argue the BCS is a perfect system that is "weighted" to find the best college teams, the vast majority would disagree. On the other hand I've chosen to use pure statistics without any manipulation. I've refused to accept the "BCS" style formula that you've adopted ( but you've adopted it, of course, only to the degree that it supports your position). I've chosen irrefutable stats- Total Defense based upon yards allowed and Total Offense based upon yards gained. Based upon the rank of NFL teams in those categories our offense faced a more difficult schedule than our defense by over 29%. There's no refuting it, anyone can look it up. In fact it's official. But for your argument here's your formula and the tortured explanation for it: Football Outsiders BCS Style Formula The totally disingenuous thing about your position is that although you like PART of what you get from your manipulated statistical anaylisis you refuse other parts of the same system! Your manipulated system rates Drew Bledsoe as the 21st best Quarterback in the NFL while they rate Eric Moulds the 45th best receiver. Moulds is slated to earn more than Bledsoe next year. Are you willing to participate honestly in this conversation by adopting ALL the results of your BCS style stat system and ask for Moulds to be cut or will you continue your selective and dishonest use of a flawed and manipulated statistical analysis that you obviously only embrace when it suits your immediate position? I'll guess you'll continue to "praise" your BCS formula when it leads to your team getting a bowl nod and whine and B word when it doesn't. I on the other hand will just stick to the facts ;-)

Only for Jarheads- for us Squids it's Diego Garcia-

I haven't checked the Police Blotter since I left him in a Carlsbad bar about 4 weeks ago with 3 "full stack" waitresses and a bucket of wings?

'Nawlins is the place to forget any Doctors orders or New Year's resolutions that deal with food. New York and Frisco are monolithic in comparison with NO for exceptional food at every level- whether you're buying a sausage off a street cart, a Ferdi at Mothers or putting on a button shirt to find out what God orders at Delmonico or The Commander's Palace- it seems like every single person involved in food, from the cooks to the wait staff to the bus persons all are proud to be serving you the absolute tastiest sumbitch you've ever had.

It is true. Elway was booed in Denver by a noisy-ass fraction of fans who complained because he was the most sacked QB in history- just before he won 2 Super Bowls.

Here's how you do it- add the final rankings based upon the established statistical measures used by the NFL of our opponents O's and D's and match the numbers against each other. You'll probably want a little help with the math though ;-)

Actually you're completely wrong. I opened with the fact that fans were ignoring the official stats that proved our offense faced a tougher year in '04 than our defense. There's zero weighting of the stats to that position.

The level of competition our offense faced was 29% more difficult based upon the statistical strength of our opponents using the factual and unmanipulated measures of total offense and defense as measured by the NFL. If you don't like it maybe Coach Tuesday can find you your own manipulated stats- just be careful because based on his Eric Moulds is gone next year.

Everything I said in that post is an absolute fact- what is it about facts that you find troublesome other than the fact that they don't support your flawed theory? Oh, and thanks for the admission!

You require manipulated stats to support your faulty conclusion at the onset- and now you desperately try to hide it behind false representations of my original post such as: "YOU are the one who insists that the D got a "free pass," Show me where at any time I said it or suggested it. Anything short of that will be an admission that you are willing to admit falsehoods to support your flawed argment.

And at what point in your life did it become absolutely clear that "my brain is bigger than yours" was an obvious disqualifier for your participation?

"Weighted" means manipulated, the stats from the NFL are pure listings of exactly where O's and D's ended up. Why can't you debate with unmanipulated facts?

Your perspective from the seats is far superior to what I can get from network coverage- mostly the short WR coverages. Moulds will get attention from his rep and there are games where he definitely was smothered, giving ops to Evans that Evans took advantage of. The thing that kills me about Eric is simply his dropping easy catches, and I believe it's infinitely fair to bring that flaw to the top since we're discussing flaws on the team. And I haven't said I want to dump Moulds, I've exclusively said that if you talk objectively about dumping the QB for the reasons obssessively given you MUST also consider whether the dollars/performance ratio of Moulds make him exactly the same type of liability.

I'd hardly call the official NFL stats "bogus", but coming from a guy who enlists stats that directly contradict all his positions maybe it should be no surprise! Here's the best defenses in the league-but I should inform you that they are the, "ahem"- bogus official NFL Stats! Official NFL Stats- Total Defense And for the bogus NFL Offensive stats: Official NFL Stats- Total Offense

Actually it made me recognize that the good teams have at least 2 good ones. I like Campbell a lot, but we fall off a precipice after that and obviously have no depth.

I'll be reprising the TBD Tijuana excursion on the Friday before the game. If you like cheap 3rd world strippers, cheap Tequila and cheap Mexican beer this might just be the one for you. BTW- this venture was hardly just a "singles" trip last time- in fact I'd say the Buffalo wives were the most generous tippers of the female entertainment!

Doesn't the fact that we have to carry 6 WRs and we use 2-5 at any time on any play support the notion that this is the biggest piece of dead weight on our roster?Since we both realize "restructuring" means he won't take a paycut, doesn't his falling value (45th league-wide) mean we should probably be discussing him as the starting point for improving our salary/performance ratio before we ever get to the QB?

Open competition in Pre-season is good for any team. Prima-Donnas are rarely good leaders. Aiken got their attention right now and due to his good work in other areas I'd expect to seen his continued increased time with our primary schemes on offense. He had one credited drop but a decent ratio of caught targets. One more off-season might be the breakout for him- he looks like a guy that might catch on with that additional time in offense and become a bigger contributor than anyone suspects. I think the TE situation is paramount to becomeing a good team. Campbell has become a very good player in our scheme but he'd be best sharing time with another good blocker who is a superior receiver. I haven;'t seen anything from Euhus that makes me believe he'll ever fit that role in the immediate future- he plays small and looks small, not good for this O and our reliance on the run. I agree Smith just doesn't have the feet to play the way they want our guys moving around, and Tucker is very marginal in the same area. I won't be surprised at all if we see some movement there in FA. Edwards was an enigman until this season, where Krumrie seemed to get in his head and raise his adrenaline level. He's not as sure a tackler as our straters and he still gets a little high sometimes, but he clearly can split gaps and beat doubles in the middle and there's not a lot of reserves who can do the same. The question is whether he can play a full time role and what effect that will have on our run stopping, plus the Tim Anderson question, a possibly promising rookie who saw almost no playing time this year.

Using your selected measure of the "Football Outsiders" analysis you'd play the #45 WR in the league but bench the #21 QB? Help me out here- do you believe in their stats or not, and if you don't why in the world are you quoting them?

Of course I agree our defense is a much better unit. And consistently I'm sure you'd agree that if you face a team like Pitt, with the #1 D in the league while having an offense in the middle of the field, it's likely your Defense walks off the field with an inordinate advantage in "how they looked" over your Offense that faced the best in the league. And the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from that is that if you face more good D's than O's (like we did in '04), your defense is liekly to appear better than it actually is while your offense is likely to appear not as good as it is, both on the field and in the books.