When you put it in that context, yes. I read it as determining how good a team is in a literal sense. But at the end of the day, 4-13 means you couldn't win the close games, so how good a team are you really? But if you're talking about better than the record indicates, then yes, I agree.
IMO Hackett has to at least start opening the offense up more. He doesn't have to do it all at once, and probably wouldn't anyway due to his conservative nature, but at the very least he can't keep being so predictable with his play calling, and he has to let Zach take more shots downfield and into the EZ.
Not necessarily. It could mean that the two teams they blew out were very bad or had bad days, and the other teams are simply better since they consistently lost. The odds are that if the Cowboys were a better team, they wouldn't be 4-13. In that scenario, the expected reason for the Cowboys losing so many games would be that they lost a lot of key players to injury. It doesn't matter with which players a team starts a season, only which players they have for the majority of the season and at the end of the season. Then the Cowboys might have been the better team with everyone healthy, but due to injuries, the Cowboys were no longer the better team. One also needs to take into account strength of schedule. If the Cowboys lost to a lot of teams that they should have beaten, then they aren't a better team than their record showed. As Bill Parcells said, "You are what your record says you are." If it wasn't injuries, then it was poor coaching, poor game plans, or perhaps the CS lost the team.
The partial quote lift is where it comes down for me. The Jets have consistently failed to have above average QB play in the last thirty years. Pennington, in my view, is the only QB we drafted in that period who was good to above average. But no-one would consider him genuinely elite and he was made of biscuits. I think the mistake being made time and again is in the evaluation of 'so-called' mental awareness intangibles. I would love to know how our previous scouting staffs have taken prospects through football intelligence, reading the defence, understanding coverage, adjusting to it, checking down, pocket poise, competitiveness and leadership. I think we keep drafting QB's who do not demonstrate a high level of competence in these areas. They may (or may not) look the part, have a decent highlight reel, have good arm strength but Sanchez, Clemens, Smith, Petty, Hackenfuck, and Darnold were all over-valued if not busts. That said, we are not completely alone with this. I can't give any rational explanation why everyone was wrong about Rosen at the time, or how SF spent three 1st round picks in addition to their own 1st and a 3rd on Trey Lance only to trade him after two seasons for a 4th. Then the fuckers got dog lucky drafting Purdy with the last pick a year later. How do professionals make these misjudgements? Makes me believe in MoneyBall. If we are going to be optimistic, in the spirit of this thread, then Wilson may yet work out. He is currently trending in the bottom 25% of just about every NFL measured performance stat for his position. He has undoubtedly, to his great credit, shown improvement this season. I feel he is in a better scheme and, here's a coincidence, has spent the off-season learning from Rodgers who is elite by any measurement. AR8 wishes no credit for Zach's improvement although I don't buy this for a moment. An arguably elite defence will keep us in all remaining regular season games. I am hoping Zach is able to give NYJ average QB play for the remainder of the season and that may well be enough for a play-off berth. I'm not counting on it but it is all we have to go on really. I will continue to watch every game live and in full even when they are overnight on work days in the UK and will never lo-ball my support for The Jets. It's the hope that kills you.
i'd argue you are a worse team. finding ways to win close games is what the good teams do, while finding ways to lose them is what bad teams do. winning a couple of blowouts doesn't make a team good.
you are totally correct about points differential. It might be too early to use it though after only 6 games
That being true doesn't disprove that point differential is usually a better measuring stick for how good a team is than simple W-L. Close game outcomes are largely random and regress to the mean. Blowing teams out is not random. http://www.optimumscouting.com/news/nfl-s-close-game-analytics-how-lucky-wins-or-losse https://jaydpauley.medium.com/an-an...mes-on-a-teams-record-in-the-nfl-d299ad30665d
it could be looked at either way. I do get the point mad in those articles but at the end of the day, typically good teams win games and bad teams lose them. a good defensive team with a subpar offense may have a small point differential but be a good team while a bad team with an explosive offense may go off for a few games and have a higher differential and then lose a bunch of close ones. however, I do understand making a case for overall point differential being a good barometer for how good a team is. because you can make the case a team who is 5-1 with a +100 differential is likely better then a 6-0 team with a +10 differential.
lol I can't say becuase I don't want to jinx it. I was 99% sure we'd lose to the eagles and look what happened so in that case i'm gonna say jets lose 10-9 lol
According to your link the 2 teams with the biggest point differential if wins the following year had as many blow out wins as they did close wins…
I think the other aspect related to what you say, actually the root cause, is that it's easier to break something than to build it. Defenses break what offenses try to create - all the "D" has to do is interrupt the timing just a little bit to break a play. And no, I'm not saying that defense is simple, just that it's easier to accomplish its objective. I also think the NFL is swinging the pendulum back away from encouraging wide open offense and looking to get more balance. And yes, they use the officials to accomplish a lot of this rather than trying to create or change the rules, they just have the officials emphasize or de-emphasize them.
What you said about the seeming inability of teams to properly assess and evaluate these key aspects of QB is spot on. I've been saying this for years. But I don't think it's an unresolvable problem, I think it's more of they choose to not address it. The NFL - like all leagues - is a copycat league, and teams emulate what they see other successful teams do. They also don't spend money unless they're sure it will pay off, so investing time and money into a whole new - unproven - way to evaluate QBs isn't something they'll do until one team does it has success...and that success is attributed to this new way of evaluating QBs. All that said, you can measure for the things you listed and take the QB who scores the highest, but if he doesn't also score very high in the traditional measurements: arm strength, accuracy, size - he probably won't succeed either. You mention Pennington who did measure high in those "intangibles", but was fragile so that worked against him. And BTW: I put "intangibles" in quotes because I don't think they're immeasurable as the word implies. I think the NFL just chooses to not measure them. With respects to Zach, I think he would measure fairly high in these areas, although maybe not to the elite level. But combined with his elite physical traits he should've succeeded better than he has. But as I just posted again today in response to @cval's comment that linked to Conklin's video where he talks about the importance of coaching, coaching is one of the most - if not THE most - important aspects of developing QBs and their ongoing success. This is why I place the majority of blame for his his struggles on LaFleur, as well as Saleh and Douglas for setting up that situation and allowing it to go on for two years. And the damage from that failure, may well have caused irreparable harm to Zach's development, although what he's shown these last three games gives me hope that isn't the case. Getting back to your original point, when teams decide to invest in ways to test and measure these "intangibles" they'll find themselves much better at finding good QBs.
This is why relying on stats doesn't prove anything, or even help you to truly predict what will happen. All they can do is give you trends, but trends are always variable and influenced by things other than what you're measuring.
On D it's tougher because 1 mistake often leads to a TD given up where on offense 1 mistake is most likely a loss of down and yards or still a positive play. I think D's are being less aggressive and trying to make offenses work for points instead of trying to stop them and giving up big plays.
