Well, that’s one way to get a meeting with Roger Goodell. I’ll set the over/under for number of games suspended at 3. Think I’d give him 4 games.
It is true that teams don’t throw his way. However, the relatively few times QBs threw his way they were remarkably successful, so it’s fair to wonder if he’s slipped or not.
I would point out that Antonio Cromartie could be said to have slipped, too, but he was great in man to man and then struggled when SD switched to a zone defense. Jets play man to man, so it’s reasonable to expect him to return at least somewhat to his previous stellar form. I don’t know if the same is true for Asomugha; maybe he’s a man to man guy forced into a zone role and struggled. Who knows? (Any knowledgeable Raiders fans want to chime in?) In any case, here are the two major stats for many of the premiere CBs in 2009:
Team Player Targets Rating
---- --------------------------- ------- ------
NYJ Darrelle Revis 111 32.3
Cin Leon Hall 97 51.7
GB Charles Woodson 76 51.8
Was DeAngelo Hall 64 54.2
NE Leigh Bodden 90 59.3
Den Champ Bailey 92 63.3
Cin Johnathan Joseph 104 64.9
KC Brandon Flowers 93 65.0
Arz Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie 120 67.4
SD Quentin Jammer 82 70.8
SD Antonio Cromartie 79 70.9
Phi Asante Samuel 67 80.0
Dal Terence Newman 94 80.9
Oak Nnamdi Asomugha 28 98.2
As is clear, nobody throws at Asomugha. 28 attempts is a number you’d expect to see for a nickleback, not the #1 corner. Teams weren’t shy about attacking Revis, for example, with well over a hundred targets. (And the 32.3 passer rating against he posted is historically great, by the way. Almost superhuman.)
Some may argue the passer rating’s effectiveness at rating passers, but most would agree it’s an excellent measure of a CB. Lower is better, obviously. Asomugha’s rating is putrid, but I suppose one could argue his incredibly low number of targets reduces the reliability of his rating against. Small sample size and whatnot.
EDIT: Oops, forgot the cite.
Those numbers are quite strange. The efficiency against Asoamdgadgh is very high, yet no one attempted it. And no one could complete a pass against Revis, yet they tried more than 4 times as often.
Edit: Maybe they’d only throw at Asomdagagh if the coverage broke down somehow, hence few attempts against but most of those were big passing plays. When he was properly covering the target, they didn’t attempt it. I would say that having the team only throw to their #1 receiver (assuming their defensive scheme calls for putting him on the best receiver) 28 times all year is proof of his value. Revis more perplexing, though - why did they keep trying?
I wonder if the scouting report on Asomugha is very specific in what types of passes to throw at him. Maybe he plays way off guys on 3rd and long and all those 28 targets were completed underneath him where he made the tackle for a stop. Perhaps he concedes certain routes in certain situations leading to the high rating against. Maybe he give a lot up when the Raiders called a particular defensive package, maybe he can’t play Cover 2 and he gets exploited then.
With numbers that divergent you have to figure there’s a specific reason for it.
The low target numbers may also reflect how Og-awful the Raiders run defense is. No team was run against more than the Raiders, and no team was thrown against less than the Raiders.
I can’t explain the Asomugha numbers, though I could buy into the kind of logic Omni was brainstorming.
But I can explain Revis, and it’s simple as it gets. The Jets left him on an island against the #1 receiver pretty much all year long. No matter what corner is out there, when you get Randy Moss / Andre Johnson / etc… matched up in single coverage, you throw to him. Period. Revis was just a god this year, shutting down the premiere receivers in the league consistently and virtually without help.
Anytime you get your #1 guy in single coverage, that’s going to be your primary read.
Well, it looks like this is pretty much a certainty and it looks like the Bears will get nothing in return for him. This is a baffling turn of events. It’s almost as if the Bears are trying to antagonize both the fans, media and locker room.
I suppose you can make a case that at $5M for the next 2 seasons that he’s overpaid and I wouldn’t argue too much, but he’s not overpaid by a lot. And he brought some intangibles to the field that will be nearly impossible to replace. There’s certainly a log jam on the D line and moving Brown would allow the rookies a chance to play and let Peppers move around the line but in the short term this introduces a ton of risk. For a defense that was already shaky losing the only steady influence seems like they are playing with fire.
If they end up cutting him, and it seems almost certain they will have to, this will be a colossal fuck up. This guy has to be worth a 4th or 5th round pick at least in an uncapped year, maybe come draft day someone will agree.
Wasn’t the Bears defense shaky moreso from an LB and DB standpoint than the DLine, though? If the coaches deem the dline a strength, then surely they want to spread the wealth elsewhere. The Bears used to have a feared secondary. Now, not so much.
No, it was pretty much the exact opposite. The only positions that played well last year were LB and CB to a degree. We lost 2 starting LBs and the backups all stepped up and played well enough, they lost some of the explosiveness and playmaking ability but they were very steady and reliable. The CBs struggled a little compared to past years but still held their own considering how little help there was to be had in the form of a pass rush and at the safety position.
DL and Safety were by far the weakest positions on the entire team. They only got 23 sacks from their entire DL and no player had more than 6.5, which is worse that it sounds when you consider the Tampa 2 scheme they run almost wholly depends on getting pressure from the front 4. It’s no accident that they broke the bank for Peppers after all.
There’s a log jam on the DL but it’s a log jam of draft picks and underperformers. They need to get playing time for Jarron Gilbert and Henry Melton, two guys who simply haven’t earned it. Tommie Harris and Mark Anderson were great for a very short stretch 3-4 years ago and neither has done a damn thing since. They’ve got some steady depth on the inside in Harrison, Adams and Idonije but none of those guys rush the passer that well and Lovie keeps jerking Idonije around and expects him to move to the outside once again this year. I love Izzy but the guy isn’t worth pushing Alex Brown aside for and was at his best as an interior pass rush specialist. He’s not an outside speed guy nor a every down player.
In the end the loss of a slightly above average player like Brown probably shouldn’t be such a big deal, but it’s indicative of everything that’s wrong with the management of this franchise.
Perhaps, if they really want him. However, if teams know the Bears will eventually cut him, they may wait until that happens and try to sign him without giving up a draft pick.
Yeah, I’m sure he’ll end up getting cut. No one wants to trade any picks this season. I think Brown would be the best DE available in free agency should he be released and with Kampman and Vanden Bosch getting close to $7M/year his price tag shouldn’t be too prohibitive, maybe a DE starved team that struggles to lure FAs might step up. Oakland? Buffalo? Ironically, Carolina? A guy can dream.
I just want to go on record that I think the Raiders are only a QB away from being a legitimate contender in the AFC, and if they get McNabb via trade and he actually reports they will win at least one playoff game this year.
They have a good defense when the players feel they have any chance at all to win a game. Under JaMarcus Russell everyone quits, but put any other QB back there and the defense plays tough.
They have a good enough offensive line, pretty good running backs, and young receivers hungry for any QB who can get them the ball. Plus a solid pass-catching TE.
Seriously, put McNabb back there and I swear they become a real team. I’d really like to see that, which is kinda freakin’ me out. I hate McNabb, and I hate the Raiders for all the times they bounced the Jets from the playoffs in the early 2000s. But even though I hate both, I’m starting to feel bad for both and am actually rooting for a redemption story. I can’t explain it, but there it is.
They have an awful defense - look at the team stats and rankings here.
They gave up 150+ yards a game and 4.5 yards per carry (28th in the league) on the ground last season. Their passing defense wasn’t ranked badly (7th based on yards allowed), but that’s only because nobody had to throw the ball against them - they faced more rushes and fewer passing plays than any other team. When opponents did throw, the Raiders gave up 7 yards per attempt (27th in the league). Their biggest problem is that they just can’t tackle.
Unfortunately, the NFL considers my city to be part of the Bay Area market, so I watch the Raiders a lot more often than I’d like to. McNabb would be a big improvement over Russel, but I doubt he’d get them over .500.
But how much of the season did Russell start? I’m saying that when Russell started the whole team basically gave up during the coin toss, meaning the defense barely even tried. When they took Russell out and started anyone else, the defense felt like they had a realistic chance and played tough. Russell started most of the season, which will kill any season totals.
This is my hypothesis; I’m not stating fact. I’d love any feedback to either support or refute this idea.
The Raiders went 5-11 overall. Russell started 9 games, he went 2-7 before getting yanked.
When he didn’t start, the team was 3-4, and 2-2 when he didn’t play at all. That would support your hypothesis.
Points against: in those four, no-Russell games, the defense gave up an average of 22 points, 381 yards, and 167 rushing yards. Those yardage numbers are both higher than the Raiders season averages (passing yards were also higher than average).
In the seven games Russell didn’t start, the defensive yard total goes down, but it was later in the season, when teams knew they didn’t have to throw against the Raiders at all. Defensive rushing yards jumped up big time, 178.4 compared to the season average of 155.5. The passing yards allowed over the seven-game stretch (177.7) were lower than rushing yards, which is insane.
Even if the defense didn’t play better without Russell dragging them down, Russell himself played better coming off the bench, although by “better” I mean improving his passer rating from 47.7 to 61.3.
The team just isn’t good, with or without Russell, but he’s really, really bad.
I added up numbers for pass attempts, sacks, and rushes; then divided sacks by that total. His sack rate was an astonishing 11.11%. It’s not just a bad O-line — compare Russell to 6.15% and 5.21% for Gradkowski and Frye, respectively. Of ten semi-randomly-selected QBs I chose for comparison*, only Roethlisburger’s 8.39% gets even close. Average was 6.37%.
If you divide total turnovers by the total touches, Russell gets 5.72%. Frye and Gradkowski were at 4.17% and 3.35%. Of the comparison QBs, only Delhome was higher at 5.82%; average was 3.37%.
If the Raiders can’t work out a deal for McNabb, I would suggest they package their 2nd-round pick to trade up in the event either Suh or McCoy fall to 4. As bad as Russell is, they need more help on the defensive front.
*: Carson Palmer, Alex Smith, Joe Flacco, Mark Sanchez, Kurt Warner, Ben Roethlisburger, Aaron Rodgers, Jason Campbell, Jake Delhome, and Matt Cassell. I have too much time on my hands.
I’ll just echo what garygnu said. They’re a bad, bad football team. McNabb would make them better, but they’d still be a far cry from good.
I was going to pipe up but I really can’t improve on garygnu’s summary. The Raiders do have a glimmer of talent on offense and adding McNabb could really generate some punch. I think they have some guys at the skill positions who could really explode with a decent QB who understands the concept of running an offense and is at least marginally accurate. I don’t know if McNabb would be willing to go to Oakland and who knows how much off the field grief that he would run into with Al Davis and that crummy staff, but on paper it actually looks pretty appealing. It might be the best possible landing spot for him after Minnesota sans Favre (though I’d be really curious to see what he did in Shanahan’s offense).
Defensively that team sucks though. And it’s not about effort. Aside from Seymour and Asomugha there might not be a single player that could start on another NFL team not named the Lions or Rams. The only other guys who were halfway decent, Kirk Morrison and Greg Ellis, are gone and there doesn’t seem to be any plan to replace them.
To continue my ongoing Chicago Bears stream of consciousness, supposedly Seahawks OG Rob Sims is on the Bears radar as a potential trade target. He’s tendered at a 4th round pick I believe and him and Alex Brown share the same agent. I’m not really sure how good Sims is but the pundits seem to like his ability and it’s tough to argue he’s not better than the Bears options at OG in house. At least he’s a true Guard and not another poorly converted OT. Alex Brown would be immediately the best DE on the Seattle roster and they probably aren’t a team that’s going to be too shy about money in the short term so the pieces line up.
Another idea floated on the Waddle and Silvy show and in and around other media outlets speculates that the release of Alex Brown could be used to free up some money to make a strong offer for St. Louis’s OJ Atogwe. For as down on the Bears as I have been, I’d get behind this move strongly. Brown at $5M/year isn’t making a huge difference on this team, signing a stud Safety for 5 years at say $5M/year would be a godsend. Frankly they could probably sign Atogwe and trade Brown for Sims, Sims is cheap at about $1.5M and if OJ takes less than what Brown is due it could be a salary wash.
Seems unlikely to me though, were they planning on bringing in Atogwe they probably would have done it already, but if this Brown move allows them the freedom to improve at FS and/or OG I’ll change my tune in a hurry.
Well it looks like Brown is officially cut now. I wonder if the Lions will throw a line at him. They have put a fair amount into upgrading the D-line already this year, but they can always use more.
Yup, looks like the news broke as I was composing my little scenario. So weird. Things seem pretty icy between the Bears and Brown for unknown reasons. Supposedly Brown’s agent approached the Bears about an extension in February and they essentially told him to go scratch, supposedly they were considering asking him to take a pay cut. For whatever reason they really don’t believe in the guy it seems. Reporters love Alex Brown because he always talks to them and is always there for a quote and a frank assessment of the team. While he never really threw the team or management under the bus and never pointed fingers, the powers that be don’t seem to like anyone talking to the media at all. You have to wonder how much of this decision has to do with things besides playing ability.
It’s awfully frustrating that they are releasing him now. There doesn’t seem to be any upside at all to that. I suppose Brown’s camp prefers it, but if relations are icy I don’t know why the Bears would sacrifice any leverage for the guy. They might as well worked the trade mill and stretched it out to the draft in hopes someone would swing a deal for him. There’s no harm in that from a team perspective, and if Brown got traded he’d almost certainly make more money than what any potential new deal will be worth so he has incentive for a trade too.
Dumb move Bears, you better not pocket that money.
Shaun Rogers was arrested at an airport for having a loaded handgun in his luggage!
Jesus…didn’t he get the memo about post 9/11 air travel?