The Browns Don't Need More Microbes

A fan called Adam Caplan and his partner on NFL Radio to suggest that the Eagles would trade Sam Bradford to the Browns and draft Carson Wentz.

Adam barely restrained himself as he explained that the people who had pursued Bradford prior to 2015 were gone from the Browns, and that the new guys were very intelligent.

While he was very patiently explaining to the caller why this idiotic trade would never happen, Adam revealed some stuff I hadn't known (he mentioned more than one source, and is himself rated by me as reliable and fairly accurate):

Adam said that there was a four person committee which voted on these major decisions.  One was Jimmy Haslam, another Ray Farmer, and I missed the other two, but I presume Mike Pettine was one of these.

Anyway, I'll take you back there:  Sam Bradford was a Ram who had spent possibly more time in surgery and rehab than on the football field for the duration of his massive contract.

He was in the last year of that contract, had refused to renegotiate it, expressed disdain for the Cleveland Browns, would refuse to renegotiate or extend a contract with the Browns, and was at the time yes...rehabbing from injury.

I hope that Jimmy Haslam voted no.  If Pettine or Farmer were in favor of this trade, they should have been fired for that alone.

If that trade had transpired, Josh McCown would have had to be part of it, and probably a second round pick.  Maybe more, since if you're dumb enough to want to rent this jerk for one season, then lose him for nothing for sure, you're dumb enough to overpay for him.

McCown played at least as well last season, for roughly as many games, is still here, is pretty cheap, and the Browns kept all their draft picks.

And no, Virginia:  The analytical Harvard guys are not interested in Sam Bradford whatsoever.

In fact, however much you might doubt these guys, you can trust them not to be IDIOTS or to panic.

But Caplan, like most football pundits, doesn't fully grasp the football applications of analytics.

Adam talks about how much simpler baseball analytics are: It's mostly pitchers and hitters, whereas football players are all mixed together eleven vs eleven in organized chaos.

You can't measure heart, or leadership, or instincts etc etc.

That last part is generally true.  You can't quantify intangibles.  But you CAN compare a unit or team's performance with or without this player.  You can list positive and negative comments about various traits by coaches, opponents, team mates, etc (while estimating the relative values of each).

Everybody says you can't rely exclusively on analytics.  That's correct.  A guy like Hue Jackson needs to look people in the eye, as well.

But as for the team aspect, he is wrong.  Each player has an opposite number.  A wide receiver faces a cornerback.  A tackle faces a defensive end or linebacker.

It's a more complex formula, but these individual performances can be broken down into numbers, absolutely.

The simpler things are the quarterback who is much less accurate throwing to his right than his left, the guard who gets bull-rushed when fatigued, the tight end who can't get off the line when engaged by a big linebacker or defensive end.

It gets a lot deeper than that, though.  Adam Caplan and even Terry Pluto don't seem to have any idea just how deep this gets.

The guys at Football Outsiders do a great job, but you can count on DePodesta going deeper than they do.  Several fathoms deeper.

Take Wentz and Goff.  A major category might be "arm".  Sub categories are strength, accuracy, anticipation, release, etc.  Under accuracy, that is measured by how often a receiver needs to slow down, how far he has to reach; if he had to dive, was his pattern disrupted-was he late?  These are in turn separated by depth of drop, depth and location of receiver, weather, surface...and we're just scratching the surface here, in one sub-category.

ALL of it can be analyzed to emerge with reliable projections for each player.  Yes it can.  But Hue Jackson still needs to talk to them.  Check.

Now, the draftniks who keep mocking small wide receivers to the Browns don't get this, and I have to repeat it: 

Microscopic receivers can be eliminated as perimeter threats by most defenses, and are much harder to hit with deep passes.  A cornerback trailing a Hawkins or Benjamin running vertically makes a super-accurate bucket pass the only possible way to hit them deep.

Such passes hang in the air a long time.  They're blown around by the wind.  Defenders have time to converge.

On the sidelines, all a cornerback needs to do is wall the microbe off from the cross or slant, and "accidentally" bump and jostle him off-balance and toward the sidelines.

Travis Benjamin is about as good as he will ever be as a wide receiver.  He did most of his damage between the hash marks and with intermediate catches.

A Josh Gordon or a TERRELL PRYOR DAMMIT don't need bucket passes and can't be walled out or pushed around.  Cornerbacks don't even dare try to trail them unless they have help deeper.

The Browns have Hawkins and Jennings, and will probably have another unknown little shrimp after this coming draft.  They don't need more little guys DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

The new Browns are all set with slot receivers and Barnidge (and Duke, for that matter).  The quarterback will have targets between the hashes short and intermediate.

But an offense with only these threats can be muffled by most defenses.  Hue said it wrong, but meant to say that you need two skyscrapers outside to threaten the rest of the field for a passing offense to work consistently.

You don't even necessarily need a true number one.

Rodney Hartlinefield is a massively underrated chain-mover down the sidelines.  He's not as physical as you'd like, and he only has average speed, but he makes contested catches and exploits single coverage consistently.

Gordon was mia last season, but really should be back and ready to go.  You can keep pretending Pryor won't be ready til he retires, but you're wrong.

I'm analytical, so I get this.  I know that the Harvard guys will get it too.

Hue?  Yeah I think he will, too.  Right now, the Harvard guys are just estimating with Gordon and Pryor.  Hue will need to see them running around vs coverage before he can figure out what he'll have by game one, game eight, etc.

All of them, for now, are compelled to treat these two as unknowns.

Thanks to King Roger, Gordon isn't allowed to show Hue Jackson anything.  Maybe that's part of it.

You know, it's always seemed like everybody hated the Browns, but I've never allowed myself to believe that.  But this bullcrap with Josh is unmistakably screwing the Browns up, and I can't help but think that's deliberate.

Look at how this gaping rectum is appealing the appeal on Deflategate, after a half-fudged vaguely hinting report on Brady's possible involvement in some alleged unspecified way.

And taking a first round pick away from the Patriots really?  

If they hate the Patriots, I guess they can hate the Browns.

Anyway you stand corrected.