Champ Bailey vs Clinton Portis: Who Came Out Ahead?

Cafe Society
1

Ok it is a little easier to say Denver now that Portis is out for season, but up until he got hurt, who came out ahead in the Bailey/Portis trade? The cases for each:

Portis: 2 (04&05 regular) season average with washington of 1641 yards from scrimmage and 9 touchdowns. In games where he gained over 100 yards from scrimmage, the redskins went 15 & 7. Just 6 fumbles lost.

Bailey: Widely regarded as the best corner in football today. 2 (04&05 regular) season average with denver of 72.5 tackles, 12 passes defenced and 5.5 ints. 2 ints for touchdowns in 05.

Verdict?

2

It’s no small factor to note that the second-round pick that Washington gave up turned into Tatum Bell, a fairly promising runner in his own right.

3

This year at least, Bailey is shutting down half the field, and with the dearth of that type of corner in the league right now, and the plethora of quality RB’s, I’d say Denver came out on top; not that Washington got screwed, though.
Did I punctuate that right?

4

Definitely Denver. Bailey has been a big part of Denver’s D being rated #4 (+/-). Plus, Portis is a showboat. That’s not really the midwest’s style.

5

[QUOTE=Snooooopy]
It’s no small factor to note that the second-round pick that Washington gave up turned into Tatum Bell, a fairly promising runner in his own right.
[/QUOTE]

Woah woah.

Washington threw in a 2nd round pick?

That turns it from “pretty bad deal” to “astoudingly bad deal”

Not even close. A talented RB that can put up lots of yards in a very run friendly system isn’t nearly as rare or valuable as an elite corner. I thought Washington was stupid from the moment I heard about the trade years ago - and I don’t even recall the 2nd rounder part.

6

Denver got the better end. It’s MUCH harder to find a shutdown cornerback like Champ Bailey than it is to find a good running back, let alone a running back that can run in Denver.
Hell, I could run for a few yards. Ron Dayne ran for a few yards in Denver!

7

[devil’s advocate]So no one thinks the fact that Portis will touch the ball 20-30 times a game while Bailey will have an impact 5 or so times a game makes any difference? You really think Bailey was worth more wins to Denver than Portis was to Washington? I’ll concede that Bailey is fantastic, but overall I think a top running back is worth more than a top cornerback. They just have the ball more.[/da]

8

The Ravens won with Trent Dilfer as their quarterback.

Take that, Hobostew!

9

I’ve always thought (and still do, to some degree, though he has been playing extremely well this year) that Bailey was a little overrated. Portis, also, has been an elite RB to this point in his career, not just an above-average one.

However, any chance that the trade was “even” is thrown out the window by the second-round pick that, as was mentioned, became Tatum Bell. Given what draft picks are worth in the NFL, it’s pretty astounding that Denver managed to get that pick included in addition to Bailey.

10

Personally I think Trent Dilfer got a raw deal. He was a superbowl winning QB, then the following summer he won the quarterback skills competition, and he was still shown the door. And Ray Lewis thinks white QBs have it easy…

11

[QUOTE=HoboStew]
[devil’s advocate]So no one thinks the fact that Portis will touch the ball 20-30 times a game while Bailey will have an impact 5 or so times a game makes any difference? You really think Bailey was worth more wins to Denver than Portis was to Washington? I’ll concede that Bailey is fantastic, but overall I think a top running back is worth more than a top cornerback. They just have the ball more.[/da]
[/QUOTE]

I would contend that a corner as good as Bailey is is rare right now, and while Portis is better than most backs, “dime-a-dozen” comes to mind. Bailey edges out Portis, but that 2nd-rounder gives the Broncos a better deal.

Think of it this way: I, as a 49er fan, would give up Frank Gore for Champ Bailey, but never would I take Portis over Gore, never.

12

HoboStew - A player’s impact, whether they be a running back, cornerback or quarterback, is measured in much more than just how many plays they are directly involved in. Those are just the easy ones to see. A good corner can completely neutralize the top receiver and completely change how the other teams distributes the offense. A good running back could force a defense into bringing extra players up to the line and open the passing game. A good player will make plays. A great player will change the way another team plays.

13

So the question in my mind is this: Would you trade a top 10 running back for the #1 cornerback? Obviously dopers say yes. Me, I’m not so sure… I think i running back has overall more impact on the game than a corner. Its hard to quantify though. Tough call for me.

14

We discussed it the day -& a few after - it happened here

I think what I said then:
*
The 'Skins couldn’t/wouldn’t match the crazy $$ he was asking - they needed to get real value for him. Straight up it is an awesome win-win for both teams. Throwing in (away) the 2nd round choice? I’m not crazy about it… It favors Denver, but its not a steal or deal breaker. (snip)…but Champ is special. Reall*y.

is basically right. The skins choice Lose Bailey for nothing and gain someone like Tatum Bell or get Portis. They made lemons out of lemonade, but of course it favored Denver - it was a damage control move by the Skins that was partially successful.

15

I was also going to link to the older thread.

I thought then, and still think, that it was a ridiculous trade for the Redskins to make (obviously, I think they should have just paid the man). Running backs aren’t hard to find; there’s no reason at all to trade an irreplaceable commodity just because one of them is especially shiny. Yes, Portis is a great player, but there are lots and lots of great running backs; a featured back is probably the easiest thing in football to find. It’s harder to get one as good as Portis, but not hard enough to make it a good idea to give up one of the elite defensive players in the league and a high draft pick. You can “trade” a second rounder even up for a great running back any given year. If you pay attention, you can usually get them much later than that. Rudi Johnson, Willie Parker, Chester Taylor, Brian Westbrook, Priest Holmes, and a bunch of others were available in their respective drafts to anybody who wanted them, way later than the pick the Redskins gave up just for the pleasure of getting Portis for Bailey.

And I don’t think Bailey is even a little bit overrated. Anybody see the Patriots - Broncos game this year? Brady threw the ball, what, 55 times? I didn’t see Bailey involved in a single one of them. He had one assisted tackle, and nothing else. And the Patriots couldn’t score. That’s, I think, why it’s hard to see exactly how good Bailey is if you don’t make it a point to watch for it – he’s so good that unless the quarterback’s an idiot or makes a hurried decision, Bailey’s invisible as far as statistics. Brady threw away from Bailey the entire game. That’s a huge deal, because it basically allows the defense to say, here, offense, here’s the plays you can run, and here’s the plays you can’t run. Against most defenses you have whatever options you want to have, and then the defense will probably try to take something away from you. Against the Broncos, you have Bailey taking away his side of the field, then the rest of the Broncos taking away whatever else they want to take away. That’s definitely a more profound effect than the difference between Portis and Tatum Bell. It only leaves you, as an offense, with two chances – have such great players that you can enforce your will on them, or execute so well that it doesn’t matter what they try to limit you to (like the Colts did).

Basically, to restate HoboStew’s question, what this comes down to is, would you rather improve your running game 20% or cut the other team’s passing game by 50%? I don’t think it’s that hard a question.

16

[QUOTE=HoboStew]
[devil’s advocate]So no one thinks the fact that Portis will touch the ball 20-30 times a game while Bailey will have an impact 5 or so times a game makes any difference?

[/quote]

I disagree with the characterization. A good corner can have a positive impact on the majority of defensive plays - he doesn’t just become useful when the ball is thrown his way, but does something useful every time it isn’t (in addition to run support, if he’s good for that)

RBs in general make a bigger impact to their team than a CB. However, you have to consider their talent levels relative to other people at their position. There are a dozen, maybe two dozen Portis-quality RBs in the league. There are maybe 3 to 5 Bailey-quality cornerbacks.

17

[QUOTE=HoboStew]
And Ray Lewis thinks white QBs have it easy…
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that was pretty funny. Yes, the Tennessee Titans, the team that selected McNair over Kerry Collins, had McNair as their franchise QB for almost a decade, and selected a black quarterback as his successor, institutionally hate black quarterbacks.

18

re: Bailey, I want to start with a FootballOutsiders article from the beginning of last season. In particular, this quote from KC Joyner most of the way through the article sort of describes my opinion on Bailey:

[QUOTE=KC Joyner]
Bailey isn’t a shutdown corner the way that Ty Law is, or even as a lot of other top level CBs are. He’ll give up some big plays and get big penalties called on him. He was also beaten at times on shorter routes more often than you might expect. I’m not trying to say that Bailey isn’t a top notch CB, or that he isn’t a shutdown corner. He simply doesn’t dominate the same way the top level CBs do.
[/QUOTE]

(emphasis added)

That isn’t the clearest choice of language in the world, but the gist of the quote (and the article) is that Bailey is a very good CB, but probably doesn’t deserve his reputation as the best in the league. Of course, this was written in September 2005, and I in fact think that his current season is probably his best so far as a pro - though as you’ll see in the second half of the next paragraph, 2005 may have just been more ammunition. Also of note in the article is that in 2003 and even more in 2004, teams were actually targetting Bailey on deep routes, because it was a major hole in his game.

re: that Pats game, that’s a little misleading for two reasons. First, I think he may be in Brady’s head a little because of the 100 yard pick return in last year’s playoffs (which was a jump-the-crappy-pass play, albeit a good one by Bailey). Second, it’s really, really easy for the Pats to not throw at the best CB on the other team because they don’t have a #1 receiver. It makes sense to avoid the other team’s best CB when you don’t really have a different in quality when you switch receivers; same reason Indy didn’t really have to throw to Harrison when they could just abuse the other CB on Wayne. Even looking at 2005 (after the article was written), when you look at the teams Denver played against that had a #1 that Bailey was presumably on at all times: Giants, Burress, 6/84/TD; Philly, Owens, 3/154/TD; Buffalo, Moulds, 9/110 in one of his only good games of the year; Oakland, Moss, 6/87/TD and 5/72 in two meetings; Branch, 8/153 in the playoff win; Ward, right on his season averages of 5/59/TD in the playoff loss. I mean, Bailey may not have been the cover guy on all of those receptions, but those are all the guys you expect him to be out there covering on the other team on almost every play, and he wasn’t really shutting them down. If I were cherry picking those it’d be one thing, but I’m not - pretty much every team with a decent passing attack showed the numbers. Even this year he’s given up 7/80 to Holt and 7/127 to Ward - though as I said, I think he’s played extremely well on the whole this season, quite possibly at the highest level of his career.

He’s a good cornerback. He makes a lot of plays, and opposing teams will avoid him if it doesn’t take them out of their offense. It’s also worth noting that he picks up a healthy number of INTs; though that’s often a misleading stat, it’s generally a Good Thing. What he isn’t, however, is some sort of panacea that cures any ills you might have against the opposing #1 guy when you put him on him.

19

Sorry, can I hijack for a second? I’m not surprised Football Outsiders and I are on opposite sides of something. I… don’t like them. I don’t mean to dismiss your cite; I’ve just been very disappointed with those guys. I bought their book on, I think, VarlosZ’s recommendation, and I don’t get it. Their predictions suck, and they seem to gloss over really obvious points without touching on them, and I can never tell whether they’re trying to hide them, or they just don’t see them, or what. Like, for instance, they hold up the “plays” statistic as something important, and note that Bailey’s was high for an elite corner. Then they say that might not necessarily be a problem, and name some other guys with high “play” totals… and they never point out the glaringly obvious fact that the majority of “plays” are tackles, and every single one of the guys is a cornerback who makes a lot of plays against the run, and that they don’t distinguish between run-support tackles and you-just- got-beat-tackles, which, if you think about it, kind of invalidates the premise of these numbers as good at evaluating pass defenders. Then they say:

Which, look, if you’re going to make fun of yourself, don’t do it and then go back to being serious.

And, I mean, for god’s sake:

[QUOTE=article]
Joyner’s number of attempts and completion percentage for Bailey is different than the STATS, Inc numbers cited by Pompei in part because he is including playoff games, but also because Joyner keeps his own statistics and is a bit prone to error, as most of his numbers gravitate a little high or low.
[/QUOTE]

Ah. So, the guy basically runs numbers for a living… and the numbers are wrong? So how many go routes did Champ Bailey really get beat on, KC, somewhere between 0 and 20? Besides, what makes that article anything more than an opinion piece? Seems to me that their own statistics don’t even agree with them, and they failed to really do anything but hint at reasons why that might be the case:

“Here’s our numbers, which incidentally indicate that Bailey’s really, really good. But those numbers don’t mean anything, and you’re an idiot for bringing them up, even though we brought them up. And here’s some other numbers that say he’s an awful player, which even we aren’t trying to say. And anyway, if Bailey is so good, why is Denver’s defense not good against the pass? Incidentally, we rate Denver as 4th against the pass, which doesn’t matter. Idiot.”

I wonder, are these numbers online somewhere in some kind of searchable format? I’d be interested to see who their numbers indicate is the cream of the crop; all those really low rankings for Bailey do surprise me, and they do fly in the face of how good I believe he is.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Obviously you didn’t bring up the article so I could go all foamy at the mouth. I can certainly accept that you think he’s overrated – who am I, after all? And I’m not going to argue with the numbers you cited, because except for the Eagles game (I seem to recall Bailey had a bum hamstring at the time and couldn’t tackle TO on like a 90 yard screen) I don’t know anything about what went on in those games; for all I know Champ was getting torched. I think either way, the fact that he’s at least a very good cornerback makes the deal better for Denver, and the fact that I personally think he’s an awesome corner makes the deal seem way skewed towards Denver, even without considering Bell.

20

I want to echo Kiros - at least re Bailey’s time in D.C. Was he “a special corner”? you bet. “Big Play guy?” Heck ya. “Capable of taking to the house on any INT?” Uh-huh “Perennial Pro-Bowler” I’ll buy that

But the things people are saying “Shut down Corner” “Cutting off 50% of the Field” … Nope. Not even close. He wasn’t Deon. Certainly even last year in Denver there was grumbling about his coverage as he was burned by TO, Porter and Ward (maybe no help in the middle I dunno - but still not the stuff of a “shut down CB”)

I understand this is his best year ever - I haven’t seen more than a peice of a Broncos game, things change -OK. just saying Love him but it is a little early to start dusting off his place in History with Unitas, Brown and Montana