Full on team building mode theory thread.

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  • Yubaking
    Registered Charger Fan
    • Jul 2013
    • 3661
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    Originally posted by Steve View Post
    The salaries of pass rushers, or any other position is NOT driven by their production. It is driven by their future production. So, if there are some teams (really just 1) out there that is desperate enough to think he can be a 16 sack a year guy (Woirlds got 8 sacks in basically 8 games), then he will get the big money. And since desperation leads to self delusion, I am willing to bet he gets a ton of money. And since there is no one else who is going to be a FA pass rusher, the supply and demand thing works for him. He can afford to be picky, because as far as Woirlds goes, he only needs one of them.

    Word out of Washington is that the Redskins current offer to Orakpo is similar to the franchise tag, which would go up a bit to about $10 million a season if he signs the tag. They are trying to get him the bonus and such, but the Redskins seem content with signing him to the franchise tag. They really like the idea of having him opposite Kerrigan.

    Again, you think his hurries are crap, but hurries are really the stat football guys follow. A single guy rushing the QB often doesn't get sacks. The QB can just step away. But that doesn't mean that a rusher wasn't being effective.

    And I don't care how effective Soliai is. He can be the most effective NT in all of football, it is not going to help us win a ton of games. It takes an entire front 7 to play run D. Having a NT can help makes some of the other players around them. But who really cares?

    espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/total/sort/rushingYardsPerGame/position/defense

    Check out the stats. First the only one that really matters is points per game (right side). Then check out the ranking if you click on yards per game. It isn't a perfect association, but generally yards per game is about the same as points allowed (not perfectly correlated, but close). Then hit run D. The points allowed is fairly weakly correlated, much more so then total yards. There is some association, but not really very close. Then watch the pass D. Again, not perfect association, but closer then the run D. For the morbidly curious, fire up excel or openoffice, plug in the stats, and the thing that really helps is giving up less yards overall.

    So, to improve the D the most, we need to improve our pass D. It will lead to fewer points allowed. So spending millions on a NT might help a bit (we can all understand that) it doesn't mean the improvement would be dramatic. However, a small outlay in more assets (CB, pass rushers...) means a small outlay in the chargers assets will probably lead to a larger improvement. And if you do any regressions, there is a far high association between pass D and total points. And how many yard you give overall is pretty much driven by how good your pass D is.

    Just for the record, I am not suggesting we keep Johnson or Freeney once their contracts expire. They are older guys who are losing their effectiveness. Using them only buys us time. And I understand that there is good chance that they will not be productive this season. But what are the odds that a rookie is going to come in and be MORE productive? It is not nearly as good. Rookie OLB and DE (which is what our OLB are), usually struggle. Some are productive, most aren't. So, keeping them this season is about having good role models, some production and some help. But long term, we need to make sure we don't committ ourselves to guys who are not the answer. draft younger guys and develop them, but don't tie up resources long term. Don't trade draft picks. Don't tie up salary cap space on FA who are not going to produce.
    As we are all saying, nobody wants to overpay for Worilds, not even me, so if he gets $8M per season, hopefully it will not be from us.

    My only point about Orakpo is that he will likely get the most money of all OLBs, even if it is from his own team. I understand your point about supply and demand and agree that that could increase the amount paid for Worilds.

    All I can say about Freeney's hurries is that they were largely worthless for us. Previously, I think it was you that made an interesting point about a possible synergistic effect being created with both Ingram and Freeney on the field (which we have yet to see). I don't know if that will be the case or not. All I can say with certainty is that we had a huge percentage of hurries/pressure early in the season this past year, but we had zero turnovers and QBs were torching us. Freeney's statistical hurries did nothing for us.

    The stat is defined by having a QB reset his feet. That often means nothing. QBs slide their feet all the time without losing anything in terms of focus and passing mechanics. Freeney's time with us this past season absolutely proved that point--lots of pressures, minimal positive team defensive results.

    Regarding pass and run defense, I have already performed the exercise you have suggested. Neither run defense, nor pass defense presents a great correlation because you usually need both because teams will exploit your weakness if you only have one. Additionally, you keep focusing on total rush yards. That does not tell us who defends the run the best. YPC against is a much more telling stat. The run defense of a team might be sensational, but they might give up more total rushing yards because their pass defense is comparatively worse or their team's offense is comparatively worse, creating more rushing opportunities for their opponents. The greater yards against isn't an indication of a worse rushing defense in those instances.

    Further, you have been all over this thread talking about FA OLBs being overpriced. Now you are saying that we need to focus our assets on OLBs and CBs.

    I want to draft those two positions as a general rule because there is not the positional scarcity that there is with the NT position. The positional scarcity at NT dictates getting good ones when you can. You have to understand that the drop off between the #1 NT available and the #2 NT available is huge in both FA and the draft, whereas the drop off between any one OLB or CB and the next best one is much smaller at every level. So get the good NT and the very slightly worse CB/OLB as opposed to getting a barely better CB or OLB and a much worse NT. That way you have the best combined group of players.

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    • Yubaking
      Registered Charger Fan
      • Jul 2013
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      Originally posted by Steve View Post
      Teams are stupid when they go for pass rushers. Almost every team overpays for them. That is the point. They are far more stupid with pass rushers then almost any other position. There are so few who become FA, which was the point I was going for.

      Some team with a stupid amount of cap space could easily take a flyer, or at least teams do have in the past. And it will probably be driven by some owner, trying to sell tickets.

      But if you were a OLB, or RB or anything, why would you necessarily pick the Chargers unless they are going to pay? Every team is looking for the "bargin" FA types, so why would we necessarily get them? We can try, but AJ was a big fan of bargin FA and yet how many did we sign?
      And yet teams get bargains for one reason or another all the time. We got Woodhead, Dunlap and Rinehart. The Broncos got Phillips.

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      • Beerman
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        • Jun 2013
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        Originally posted by Yubaking View Post
        And yet teams get bargains for one reason or another all the time. We got Woodhead, Dunlap and Rinehart. The Broncos got Phillips.
        Of course teams get bargains, but it's generally flawed players. No one wanted Dunlap last offseason. Shit we signed him to be a backup OT. Woodhead was generally thought to be a product of the system and many thought he would stink outside of NE, not to mention the size issue. Rinehart can't stay healthy as he exemplified again this year.

        Not all players will turn up flowers like Dunlap.

        It would be awesome if we get bargain players, but we aren't going to get a bargain FA OLB that's coming off his rookie year and a somewhat productive year. It's those average players that get paid like superstars that burn teams since they never develop into what was expected of them.

        Like I said, Telesco can sign all the 1-2 year deals he wants. It should be his standard method to acquire FA's. If they produce, extend them. Signing players to 4-5 year deals should be outlawed.

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        • Stinky Wizzleteats+
          Grammar Police
          • Jun 2013
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          Seatle signed some thing like 28 new players year one under the new gm head coach, 24 year two, and 15 this year iirc. Sometimes you can fund a piece to the puzzle if you look hard enough.
          Go Rivers!

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          • Steve
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            • Jun 2013
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            • South Carolina
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            Originally posted by Yubaking View Post
            As we are all saying, nobody wants to overpay for Worilds, not even me, so if he gets $8M per season, hopefully it will not be from us.

            My only point about Orakpo is that he will likely get the most money of all OLBs, even if it is from his own team. I understand your point about supply and demand and agree that that could increase the amount paid for Worilds.

            All I can say about Freeney's hurries is that they were largely worthless for us. Previously, I think it was you that made an interesting point about a possible synergistic effect being created with both Ingram and Freeney on the field (which we have yet to see). I don't know if that will be the case or not. All I can say with certainty is that we had a huge percentage of hurries/pressure early in the season this past year, but we had zero turnovers and QBs were torching us. Freeney's statistical hurries did nothing for us.

            The stat is defined by having a QB reset his feet. That often means nothing. QBs slide their feet all the time without losing anything in terms of focus and passing mechanics. Freeney's time with us this past season absolutely proved that point--lots of pressures, minimal positive team defensive results.

            Regarding pass and run defense, I have already performed the exercise you have suggested. Neither run defense, nor pass defense presents a great correlation because you usually need both because teams will exploit your weakness if you only have one. Additionally, you keep focusing on total rush yards. That does not tell us who defends the run the best. YPC against is a much more telling stat. The run defense of a team might be sensational, but they might give up more total rushing yards because their pass defense is comparatively worse or their team's offense is comparatively worse, creating more rushing opportunities for their opponents. The greater yards against isn't an indication of a worse rushing defense in those instances.

            Further, you have been all over this thread talking about FA OLBs being overpriced. Now you are saying that we need to focus our assets on OLBs and CBs.

            I want to draft those two positions as a general rule because there is not the positional scarcity that there is with the NT position. The positional scarcity at NT dictates getting good ones when you can. You have to understand that the drop off between the #1 NT available and the #2 NT available is huge in both FA and the draft, whereas the drop off between any one OLB or CB and the next best one is much smaller at every level. So get the good NT and the very slightly worse CB/OLB as opposed to getting a barely better CB or OLB and a much worse NT. That way you have the best combined group of players.
            You are right that Freeney's hurries didn't help much. Pass rushing is a group activity. Freeney did his part, no one else did theirs. If the QB moves, there has to be someone there to either prevent them from moving away from the rusher or to flush him back to the rusher. No one was going to get sacks in our early season games, because it would just be one guy. Any one who thinks one guy can get sacks on his own, needs to go back and actually watch a football game. The point of having Freeney and Ingram rushing is to push the QB up into the rush of Reyes and Liuget. It takes all of them to get after the QB. If there is not push from outside on both side and inside the pocket, the QB just slides away. That is always a truth of the defense. So not having Freeney means not having a consistent pass rush, and we let the QB slide out of the pocket. Unless you think English can do it. So the only other choices are Orakpo or Woirlds, which I think everyone agree is too much to pay.

            As far as the stats go, WTF? The correlations are pretty strong. I am not going to get into a long winded discussion, but I do stats for a living (climatology) and for real world examples, the correlations are pretty strong for total yards and pass yards. My assertion is the same. Improve our run D, it really doesn't add much to our D, even if we jump to being a top 5 run D. But even a modest improvement in our pass D (be it coverage or pass rush) would add dramatically to our points allowed.

            There is no single stat that does indicate the true strength of a run D. Rushing yards is often the best indicator, since if a team continues to run play after play, it proves that you didn't stop them. They sustain drives and keep moving. You seem fixated on just one measure of run D. In the end our run D had little to do with how few points we gave up. Do your own multiple regression analysis suggests it, but I leave that to the reader.

            We need to focus our assets on OLB and CB, but the key is to do it via the draft. We got good miledge out of FA last year, but we aren't going to continue to. I think Fa is a mistake for the most part, it always has been. If you track the majority of FA signing, most are a mistake. They rarely justify the price, they often are just complete mistakes, not to mention the cost of roster spots tied up and money not used to resign players. It rarely turns out well. Better to not repeat the mistakes of AJ and Norv and let the vets stick around one more year, draft well, and then if we want them resign them later to more reasonable contracts. But going out and signing guys to come in and be busts? It doesn't work because you don't get the same guy who was at some other place. Often the teams screw it up, sometimes the player, sometimes injury... but it is usually a mistake.

            The big things that are starting to piss me off is how about answering these three questions:
            1). Did the rushing yards we gave up come from rushing yards allowed from the NT or the DE? You keep claiming that it is the NT that is the big fix, but the NT was not the root of our woes, it was our DE.

            2). Since the NT is not even going to be on the field that much (nickle/dime 60-70% thing) how do you figure that the NT even really contributes to how good the run D is? You seem to be assuming that our nickle and dime magically runs on the field when a team decides to pass, but really they play on all kinds of downs, and play the run and pass. But when other teams go 3 WR, we have to match up, so we pull the NT, how is it a good use of money to spend it on a player who they can neutralize that easily?

            3) And since most NT, including the ones in this years draft and Soliai are terrible pass rushers, how does the NT help on the pass rush? You seem to assume that the NT is just going to magically make our D better because of better down and distances, but some other posters this year pointed out how we seemed to give up a 3rd and really long every game (it seemed like a lot more than that to me)? Playing the base D with a classic NT just removes another potential pass rusher from the base D. How are we not better to play a DE type guy at NT, and then get some more push from the 4th rusher (2 DE, 1 OLB and the NT). Or are other teams so stupid that they wouldn't pass on our run stuffing NT?

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            • Beerman
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              • Jun 2013
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              You make it seem like the NT is completely worthless. He isn't. He isn't worth 7-8 million a year like some of the posters want, but he sure as hell is worth a decent draft pick if he warrants it based on his grade. I know he doesn't play more than 50% of the snaps in a game, but he does play quality snaps and we need someone to anchor the middle on short yardage plays. It may not be the ideal pickup, but this isn't an ideal draft for our team needs.

              Another big issue for why our DE were also getting pushed off the LOS is that they were playing too many snaps on run downs. A legit NT allows Lissemore to properly rotate at DE and get those guys off the field and a few snaps off of playing run defense every game. Pagano tried doing this with Lissemore and Guy coming on for the base D, but it wasn't always very effective since Lissemore isn't the strongest anchor, nor did he command many double teams.

              I agree we shouldn't spend in FA on a NT, but we need to acquire someone that's competent at the position and will actually force the offensive line to double team him. Most importantly though, our short yardage defense is a joke. We have to have someone that can clog the middle and not get blown off the LOS. He doesn't need to be expensive, but he needs to be available and capable.

              If I had my choice, I would get a guy like Brandon Mebane who plays for the Hawks. The guy has a massive lower body and plays with great leverage. He's not 340-350, but plays at about 320 and can still move a bit. He just needs to play contain and collapse the pocket. Don't need him penetrating or shooting gaps.

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              • Beerman
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                The football outsiders metrics ranked us as the worst run defense line last year. We were particularly bad up the middle ranked 30th at 4.6 adjusted yards.

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                • thelightningwill
                  Go Aztecs and Pads
                  • Jul 2013
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                  Originally posted by Beerman View Post
                  http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/dl

                  The football outsiders metrics ranked us as the worst run defense line last year. We were particularly bad up the middle ranked 30th at 4.6 adjusted yards.
                  I didn't check out other teams' defensive lines (well, except for the Cardinals), but it doesn't surprise me to find out somebody thinks we have the worst one in the league. I think Reyes, Liuget, and even Thomas can be good players one day, but I didn't think they were good this past year. They each had moments, even games, even a couple weeks in a row, in which they played well. But they had more games than not that they played pretty shitty.

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                  • thelightningwill
                    Go Aztecs and Pads
                    • Jul 2013
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                    Originally posted by Beerman View Post
                    Of course teams get bargains, but it's generally flawed players. No one wanted Dunlap last offseason. Shit we signed him to be a backup OT. Woodhead was generally thought to be a product of the system and many thought he would stink outside of NE, not to mention the size issue. Rinehart can't stay healthy as he exemplified again this year.

                    Not all players will turn up flowers like Dunlap.

                    It would be awesome if we get bargain players, but we aren't going to get a bargain FA OLB that's coming off his rookie year and a somewhat productive year. It's those average players that get paid like superstars that burn teams since they never develop into what was expected of them.

                    Like I said, Telesco can sign all the 1-2 year deals he wants. It should be his standard method to acquire FA's. If they produce, extend them. Signing players to 4-5 year deals should be outlawed.
                    This year, if we sign free agents who seem shitty, I'll keep my mouth shut. I thought King Dunlap was a terrible choice (my Eagles-fan friend spent all of the previous season screaming at how bad Dunlap was - he made it seem like Dunlap was worse than Norv and Clary put together). And, based on what I read, I thought Cox was, well, not a good choice, but only a bad choice because he was injury prone - not because he couldn't play cornerback.

                    This next year, when I make comments, I'm going to go with what I see and not with what I read or hear.
                    Okay, let me amend that.
                    This year, I'm going to make comments based on what I see when I'm sober. I spent all season thinking Woodhead was a shitty blocker - that was based on my drunken visions. A couple posters on here had to set me straight.

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                    • Formula 21
                      The Future is Now
                      • Jun 2013
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                      • Republic of San Diego
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                      So Steve, if Nix is there at 25, would you consider taking him?
                      Now, if you excuse me, I have some Charger memories to suppress.
                      Let’s win one for Mack.

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                      • bonehead
                        Undrafted
                        • Jul 2013
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                        Originally posted by Formula Two One View Post
                        So Steve, if Nix is there at 25, would you consider taking him?
                        .....at this point I'm inclined to think Steve would prefer a long snapper to NT
                        Forget it Donny you're out of your element

                        Shut the fuck up Donny

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                        • Steve
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                          • Jun 2013
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                          It really depends who else is available and/or can we trade down. But I think it is a far better to get a late round NT and/or UDFA and let them develop, I am not particularly fond of him. He would not be an impact player for us. I would rather pick a DE and play them out of position at NT, at least then we would have a 3rd DE in the rotation. But I can't believe a CB, S or OLB (Ealy) wouldn't be a good fit there. I would rather draft the other ND DE and move him inside, even though that is not his position.

                          As far as PFF, I have no idea how they do that, so what does it really mean. Say on an inside zone play, where the whole line goes one way or the other a gap or two, does that count as an inside play, since the gaps moved or not? And since on so many of those plays the NT held his gap to only have the RB cut off the De, does it really say anything about the NT? Or for what seemed like the thousand times that Reyes and Liuget charged hard upfield on the outside edge of the OT to get walled off, so that the RB cut upfield inside the weak block that shielded them? That would seem to be an inside run, but the only reason it was inside was the DE. PLus, since we don't even have a NT on the field for 60-70% our snaps, does that stat really mean anything. To me, outside, inside, it means our DE (DT in the rush line) are not doing their job. But the stat itself means very little without the context of how it was determined and you really need to break down the base D vs the nickle. But lumping them all together, it is not very meaningful. I tend to base my opinions on re-watching games on NFL rewind. You don't need stats to infer what is going on if you see the guy actually getting pushed around. The stats don't provide insight into that.

                          Again, I point back to the Redskins game. They had about 40 carries against us. On 20 of them, we played them fine, 0, 1 or 2 yard or short losses. But on the other half of the carries, the Redskins RB were able to cut off of players defending the wrong gaps and destroy us. And that is what cost us the game. And it was a lot of other teams at that time of year too. Pagano alluded to that prior to the game, in an interview I think someone on 1090 asked him why we had not allowed any scores and he pointed out that when our players had made mental mistakes the other teams hadn't taken advantage of them (this was in reference to the 10 quarters or so where we didn't give up a TD that ended in washington). It happened in a lot of other games, but Washington was where it was probably at it's worse. And we started to come back against Washington when they took Reyes and Liuget out, and let Thomas, Lissemore and Guy play in the 3rd quarter, into the 4th.

                          People were yelling and screaming about our run D against Den, which was OK, but the NT wasn't even on the field against Den (any of the 3 games). If nothing else, maybe that tells you how important drafting a NT to play behind our DE is going to be. IF we draft a great NT, if he cannot rush the passer well enough to be part of the rotation, he is a part time player. Should we use the 1st round pick on a guy who is not going to see the field? Better to take a big De who can run, and force a squarish peg into a roundish hole and get more out of him. But Nix is not fast enough or enough of a pass rusher to be on our rush line.

                          But a guy like Ealy, who some teams think might not be a good OLB. I don't even begin to understand how that is an issue. He can't drop into coverage? So what. All that says is he will never be one of the guys who gets introduced at the beginning of games. But he can put his hand on the ground, rush the QB as a situational rusher, and play run D in our nickle D and get more playing time. Mike Mayock keeps blasting Sam on NFL network because he is a tweener. I am not disagree with his assessment of Sam as a player, but who cares if the guy is not a real LB, or a true DE. If he is a guy who can rush the QB, and play in our nickle or dime (or any other tweener like that), how is that player not at the top of our draft day wish list. And I don't care about Sam one way or the other, but there are always a lot of tweener, and we need pass rushers, so we need to be taking a hard look at any of them and forget how they don't look the part and just focus on whether they can play or not.

                          The real issue about discrimination is excluding a player because of some perceived stereotype. And everyone is focused on Sam this season. But the stereotype that we need to get over has nothing to do with sexuality, it has to do with starting vs situational players and how much are they really on the field, and what our needs. The real issues with that guy are can he shed blocks well enough against guys the size of an NFL tackle? Can he close well enough on the QB to finish his rush? Can he run well enough to stay in front or pursuit a outside zone play? And if we give him a leverage advantage as a rusher in the base D or the nickle, can he maintain contain and turn the play back inside? (those are the same questions for all DE types).

                          If we have to, we can always do what Seattle does. They call their 34 D a 43 by just asking their ROLB to play with his hand in the dirt and they call him a DE. We did much the same thing with Leslie O'Neal, or the old 49ers did with Charles Haley. The other OLB always dropped into pass coverage, and then on passing downs, a situational guy came in and we moved our coverage guy to play ILB, the situational rusher played 43 DE and the NT came off the field. But so what if we have a guy on the outside who can't drop into pass coverage. JJ, Keiser, Walker can all drop. We have that part covered. But they can't get good solid pressure rushing the QB.

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