2014 NFL Draft: Running Backs

"Momma's don't let your kids grow up to be running backs".

That's the new in vogue phrase for football. But considering even the lowest paid running backs in the NFL make more money in one year than the average American will make in six, I don't think growing up to be a running back is such a bad thing.

They are the unwanted children of football right now though. As the game shifts to an ever more pass orientated format, and with the NFL commissioner and the competition committee doing everything within their power to keep it that way, the value of running backs has declined.

The simple fact is this; player salaries are defined by the rules of economics. Economics is founded on the principle of supply and demand. The demand for running backs is not that high, while the supply of quality running backs is. Such is life.

Johnny Manziel Pro Day

Today the hype machine went into utter overdrive as Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel held his pro day.

There was music. There was a former US President. There was general managers and head coaches galore. There was... a jersey and helmet that looked like it had been saved from the trash. Nike devoted a page of its website to flogging merchandise that was only somewhat related to Manziel ($145 for a pair of "combat tights" anyone?).

Oh, and he threw a few balls around apparently.

NFL Draft 2014: Quarterbacks

See, I told you I was going to do it again for real this year!

So this is my rundown of most of the main quarterbacks who are eligible for the 2014 draft. If there is anyone missing who you think should be on here then leave a comment and I may come back and do a part 2 at a later point. Chances are though that if they're not on this list then they're unlikely to be drafted at all.

Let's dive right in then. Oh, before that, just remember that this list is not a "Top Ten" etc format. The players are listed in the order that they are because that's how the list I'm working from is organised. You'll have to read my comments about each specific player if you want to know what I think of them.

The return for 2014

It's 2014 and I'm about to jump back on the football saddle. For real this time.

I've already had a wander through the 2014 draft class and plan to start going through them position by position very shortly. Just in case this does unexpectedly become my only post of 2014, I'd just like to say on the record that Blake Bortles is awful, Teddy Bridgewater is kind of ok, that A.J. McCarron from Alabama is the quarterback I would want to take in the first ten picks if I was in desperate need of a quarterback, and that Isaiah Crowell strikes me as the best running back of this draft class.

Considering I called Russell Wilson and Nick Foles back before the 2012 draft, I'm happy to take my own assessment of the quarterback class over most of the mainstream outlets.

Before I go into that though, I just want to get my personal beef with the Raiders staff out of the way. And I don't even like the Raiders.

See free agency is about filling holes. It's about teams that are already pretty good adding additional personnel to their roster, usually at a premium price, in order to make a push for the Superbowl. See the Broncos and their acquisitions, designed to support Peyton Manning and try to win a Superbowl within the narrow window that is left in his career. 

What free agency is not about is rebuilding your football team. Generally free agents only end up as such because 1) their team hasn't got the cap space to keep them, 2) their team isn't prepared to pay the players salary demands or 3) because the team doesn't think the player is that good and as such worth keeping. It should be noted that 1 and 2 are effectively just round about ways of saying 3, because if someone is really that good then you would find the cap space for them.

That's not a huge problem for good teams with established players. They can live with overpaying a free agent a little if it helps them complete the puzzle of winning the big one. But if you're the Raiders, a team that is in catastrophically bad shape at most positions, then you really shouldn't be pouring money down the drain on free agents that are on the tail end of their careers.

Justin Tuck for example.

Now don't get me wrong, Justin Tuck is a good player. He is still playing at a level where he can be a difference maker. The trouble is that by the time the Raiders have rebuilt their franchise Tuck will be probably another 3 years older and will have most definitely reached the cliff of his career. All they're doing is throwing money (and cap space) at a player who is not going to be around when the team has finally gotten back on its feet. 

You're not going to win now by signing Justin Tuck and Matt Schaub. This is not going to bring Oakland a Superbowl. It's just delaying the inevitable moment when they sit down and realise that they need to start completely from scratch. Oakland has a huge amount of cap space, with almost 50% of the entire cap being available at the start of free agency. This was their perfect chance to lock down key young players like Lamarr Houston and Jared Veldheer, while taking the cap hit now to release expensive players who are not going to be of long term use. It was an ideal situation.

And yet the Raiders somehow blew it. In the past we would have blamed it on Al Davis. That is no longer an option. It just seems to be a disease of mediocrity that the Raiders can't seem to cure themselves of. 

Still, they could always improve in the draft if they can just stay away from physically gifted but technically and mentally impoverished prospects...

... Yeah you're right, they're screwed.

2013 NFL Draft

So it's draft time again. And yes, this blog has been left abandoned and desolate for a while now. I frankly haven't had the time, because of work and other projects. But as the sun finally starts shining again for more than a few hours here in the UK, the buzz of football is luring me back in.

Clearly I don't have the time to assess the 2013 class before the draft happens, but instead I'm thinking I'll go through them over the coming summer. The success of my analysis of last years players, like Russell Wilson (only one person I know of publicly tagged him as a "should have been a first rounder", and that was me) has given me the drive to get back on the horse again.

So far I've only had a look at two players, Geno Smith and Mike Glennon, and even that was just two games each. Smith was not exactly setting the world alight from what I can see, which doesn't bode well for a draft where Smith is considered the top QB prospect. Glennon I was more impressed with, which means this could be another classic draft where all the top touted talents do average in the pros and the players that fall through the cracks (except on blogs like this, see Wilson above) end up going on to have the better careers.

We'll see. Good luck to all the teams, but of course, especiall the 49ers!

Preparing for the 2013 NFL Draft

It's been a few hours now, so I'm slightly over my rage at the result of the Super Bowl (I hate the Ravens). Now that the Super Bowl is out of the way it's on to the 2013 Draft. I'm quite busy at the minute, but I expect to start looking into the quarterbacks this weekend.

And so the cycle of seasons resets and repeats.

Oh wait, first I wanted to do that review of my 2012 draft "scouting", if that's what you want to call it. So that first, then on to the 2013 draft. I have a feeling this year is going to see a lot more activity and enjoyment on this blog than 2012 did, at least from my perspective.

ProIdiotTalk

I said I was going to wait until after the Super Bowl to start up again with more articles. I broke that promise once and then made it again. And now I'm breaking it again. Because I saw something incredibly stupid on ProFootballTalk.com the other day. Which is a bit like saying that you've found straw in a horses stable. When doesn't PFT have stupid s**t posted on their site?

In this case it was about Bill Belichick, and the sheer level of stupidity in the article was astounding. Basically it was a criticism of Belichick for punting to the Ravens in the AFC Championship game, on fourth down and 8, leading to an 87-yard TD drive by the Ravens.

The argument was that a field goal attempt was only 52 yards. But the conditions were poor and Belichick obviously decided it wasn't going to happen. It's what the writer said next that cracked me up; "but it’s surprising that he didn’t just go for it instead of punting the ball back to the Ravens. And punting the ball back to the Ravens turned out to be a mistake".

Regardless of whether you read "go for it" as meaning to try the field goal or to attempt to throw it, neither option is better than punting unless you pull something special out. Do you now how hard it is, even for a team like the Patriots, to complete a pass on a 4th and 8? When the opposition can sit back and give you all the short stuff because it doesn't matter if you get 7 yards when you need 8 or you turn the ball over.

And if you miss the field goal or you miss the first down, both of which are more likely than making them under those conditions, then what do you do? I'll tell you what you do, you give the ball back to the Ravens on downs, with much less than 87-yards to drive for the score.

So you're telling me the Ravens scored from 87-yards out, but if they'd only been say 60 odd yards out, then they wouldn't have scored? That would have been better than giving them another 20-30 yards to drive? What? On what planet does that make sense?

Answer: Planet PFT. Where idiocy reigns supreme.

This is another part of what I was writing about in my last post. It's the whole god damn statistics culture that has sprung up, where people think it's trendy to call head coaches idiots because they make decisions based on their experience and knowledge of the game, and their judgement in the moment of the conditions, instead of putting a bunch of numbers of incredibly dubious reliability into a spreadsheet that supposedly makes "perfect" decisions.

I don't always agree with coaches and I often call them stupid, but I at least respect the fact that they're making the decisions on the fly in the heat of the game, and that they often achieve better results than what the statistics people suggest they should.

It's "cool" right now to suggest that everyone should go for it on 4th down, regardless of the distance and the quality of the opponent it would seem. And I'm sick of seeing this crap pop everywhere.

Still, the 49ers are in the Super Bowl, so that's a consolation.

John Fox and "that" kneel down

I hadn't planned to write a new post until after the season was done, but I feel compelled to now because of something that happened this weekend in the Broncos/Ravens game, and the reaction of both fans and the media to it.

Yes, we're talking about the Broncos decision to take a knee on their 20 yard line with 31 seconds left on the clock and two timeouts remaining.

A new post?

How rare is this? A new post!! Just to say that once the season is over I'm going to do a review of my early predictions regarding this years draft class. Suffice to say I hit a certain number of nails bang on the head, including one which I'm ridiculously smug about. And probably will be for many years to come.

Check back after the Super Bowl.

Andy Reid and Robert Griffin III

It's been a long time since I last posted on this blog. I just haven't had the time so much these days. But two things have truly been nagging at me so much that I just could not let them lie any longer. After months of inactivity I've basically been compelled to post, driven by two stories that are prevalent in the NFL right now; the situation with the Philadelphia Eagles and the career of Robert Griffin III.