I confess I didn’t watch the video. Did it address the onside kick?
In the “close the barn door after the horse has escaped” department: after being beat up last night (nine sacks), the Browns have announced that Baker Mayfield is, indeed, being shut down, to have surgery on his shoulder, so he can be ready for next year.
The Bucs haven’t cut Antonio Brown, I assume they don’t want to have another team (Cowboys?) pick him up and then face him in the playoffs.
So Bruce Arians was full of crap? Big surprise from “Sheriff” Kangol.
Here’s an article from Fox talking about it:
This part made me chuckle…
Arians was asked earlier Monday during his media availability about the logistics of cutting Brown, and he appeared to pass the buck to the front office.
Hehe, “pass the Buc”.
Yes, the onside kick is mentioned. Iirc, he noted that while it does add drama to end of close games, it is an ugly and bizarre thing from an athletic point of view and is rarely successfully executed.
I’m someone who kind of laments the way the NFL has been removing kickoffs from the game for the last few years, but that video is totally persuasive.
This article states that, as of December 14 of last year, six of 39 onside kicks have been successful thus far into the 2021 season. That’s a 15% success rate, which is higher than I would have guessed.
The article doesn’t state how many of those attempts were in late-game situations, and how many were a surprise tactic.
Eliminating the kickoff would essentially mean that if a team is behind by two scores with under two minutes to go and out of time outs, that team loses, even if they manage to score a TD or kick a FG.
One option I’ve heard to replace onside kicks is to give the scoring team the option to take the ball 4th and 12 on their own 35 instead. This gives roughly the same field position & chance to retain the ball, and you can tweak the spot and the yards-to-go to give a different chance if you like.
In the video that @keeganst94 linked to (and which I just watched), the presenter notes that (through 2016, when the video was made), the conversion rate for “surprise” onside kicks (those made in the 1st through 3rd quarters) was about 25%, while the conversion rate for 4th-quarter onside kicks was only about 5%.
The presenter also talks about a proposal which coach Greg Schiano developed, which would abolish the kickoff, while still allowing for late-game comebacks.
- After a team scores, they are given possession of the ball again, at their own 30 yard line, but rather than it being a 1st down, it is treated as a 4th down, with 15 yards to go.
- They can choose to punt (which is what would happen in nearly all cases), but punts are both not as likely to result in injuries as kickoffs, and (in the opinion of the guy in that video) lead to more interesting returns.
- Or, they can run an offensive play, attempting to get the first down, and retain possession; the conversion rate on a 4th and 15 is about 22%.
- The “surprise onside kick” would effectively be replaced by running a fake punt on this play.
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2012/schiano-rule
I’m inclined to agree with dalej42 on this; the Bucs may be keeping Brown under contract until the end of the season because they are afraid that somebody else will sign him. The Cowboys would be the number one concern, I imagine; Michael Gallup tore his ACL on Sunday, and Jerry Jones is desperate enough to sign a certified nut like Brown (probably over the objections of every other person in the organization, up to and including the groundskeepers).
Good point. They still have Trysten Hill on the roster, who is a known dirty player; he was even suspended this year for punching a Raider after the Cowboys lost to them. I also remember one game where he intentionally twisted a player’s knee (and was criticized all over the league for doing an “alligator roll”) and also hit a QB in a late helmet-to-helmet. (He was fined for each, again both were in the same game.) They’re willing to put up with having bad apples on their team. I wouldn’t be shocked if they would put AB on the team to give Dak another weapon, regardless of how it looked or whatever disruption it caused.
I found it persuasive too. The high rate of concussion on these plays was surprising.
This is weird.
I was wrong upthread. I keep tabs on playoff odds on Football Outsiders, where it gave the Ravens 0.0% of a chance. So I assumed that every possible scenario would keep them out.
This was apparently rounded down to zero, because they are still in it, holding tiebreaks with the Chargers AND Colts. But need to win, then those other two to lose, AND the Dolphins to also lose (apparently because the 4 way tie which would result would get someone else in; they lost to Miami note, but the 'Fins truly don’t have any shot even if they do win).
Apparently the odds on all 4 of those happening (multiplied together) are so miniscule as to round down to zero (FO lists the odds out to 1 decimal point on the percentage). Yeah knew the Colts have like 9-1 odds against the Jags, but still, weird. Huh.
Edit: The NYT gives them 3%.
As long as there is one or more scenarios that the Ravens make the playoffs, their chances must be something more than zero. So something like ‘less than 0.01%’ would have been more appropriate.
TJ Watt’s performance last night has probably put to rest the idea of Micah Parsons getting Defense Player of the Year.
He’s on the verge of breaking Strahan’s sack record. That’s gotta be worth DPOY.
I despise the Stealers but want to see Strahan’s record broken because his record sack consisted of Favre lying down for him.
Sorry, messed up the second link. Here you go.
Thanks – that gives a better view of that play, particularly in the replay from the end zone camera.
Under the NFL rules as they stand now (as we discussed earlier), that play wouldn’t have been a touchdown if it occurred today. It looks like the ball did bounce on the goal line, and then at least once again in the end zone, before being recovered by the Jets – under the new rules, once it touched the ground in the end zone (and the goal line is considered to be part of the end zone), having not been touched by a member of the Bills, it would have been a dead ball, and a touchback.
If it’s 2nd and 6 or more, you can be 100% sure they’ll run an empty set. It drives me crazy. There’s no threat of play action what so ever. And play action is something Baker actually does really well. But anyway, yeah, this season was unfortunately a huge waste for the Browns. We don’t know what we have in a coach or QB. Which year was the fluke? 2020 or 2021?