I like Mike Carrucci, who used to cover the Browns and now covers the Bills.
But I'm bugged by both him and Terry Pluto after things they said and wrote this past week.
Mike described what Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta are doing as virtually indentical to "moneyball". On that premise, he and a majority of other pundits and NFL front office people feel this can't work in football as it did in baseball.
If you accept this premise, they are correct. But the premise is false, so they are wrong.
They all say that there is a lot more to football than raw numbers. They are referring to instincts, work ethic, toughness, heart, etc.
Well, in the first place, many of these elements are actually quantifyiable in numbers. PFF gets pretty deep into specific matchups, situations, etc., but that's not all there is.
Paul DePodesta could have founded PFF. He no doubt used their stats and ratings as a baseline, but played football himself, worked briefly in football, and today in conference with football professionals is building his own, deeper system.
Let's take a defensive end/linebacker hybrid. Paul asks staff scouts, Ray Horton, assistant coaches, and other professionals to describe their ideal player (weighting Horton's opinion most heavily, since it's his system).
They will tell him. In Horton's case, he might have said "He needs to be able to bull rush. That's more important than speed. He has to shed blocks, not run around them. He has to be quick off the ball to get on the lineman before he can set up. Coverage matters, but (blahblahblah)"
DePodesta can break ALL of this down into numbers. Nor is he doing this part in a vacuum. He has scouts and coaches watching films with him. "No that wasn't his fault. He was following orders." "No that wasn't his guy" etc.
Everything Mike Mayock looks at yes, can be fitted into a unique, complex mathematical formula per position, including level of competition, situation, type of matchup player, specific role in defense, and on and on.
How it works: Scouts say "takes plays off" about a guy. Browns bosses tell the Quality Control guy to go over tapes for the last two seasons and compile those in which even a clueless dumbass could have seen this.
They get maybe 32 plays. Now, how many were late in games? How many plays had the player run? Were the plays in question clustered together, indicative of an undisclosed injury or illness? Was he holding up a guy as part of a scheme? Was it a running or stationary quarterback?
Now, a REAL analyst gets a picture. As often as not, this "takes plays off" label is bogus, but could point to lack of physical conditioning, which in turn could question his dedication or work ethic. And/or, it could be scheme and situation related: ie doing his job.
All of this is measurable.
To be clear, that's not all DePodesta does, or even his primary role with the team. Really, with the same guidance from the real professionals, a lot of math guys can build these formulae.
And they've been quite clear about this stuff themselves: Sashi Brown is nominally in charge of personnel, but he's not going to override the coach. Hue Jackson himself seems glad to have somebody else taking the grunt work off his hands so he can do what he likes and does best.
DePodesta said that he didn't view Carson Wentz as a top twenty quarterback. I assume he went back to the drawing board, because boy, was he fulla crap! Wentz could well fall back into the pack over time, but I can't believe that he'll ever get into the twenties. And by the way, it was a really dumb thing to say.
It doesn't mean that his embryonic methodology is unworkable. He said when he came here, it would take time, and that he wouldn't even have a lot to do with the first draft of his tenure. His system was a penciled in rough draft at that time.
You need to trust me on this. To beat another dead horse, analytics is a big word, but it's ultimately just the deepest and least subjective form of analysis. It uses all the same information Bill Belichick, Mike Mayock, and scouts use to flag players for a specific system and team. The difference is, it doesn't fall in love, or miss anything.
The Browns also made it quite clear that they would NOT rely exclusively on analytics!
Now, Mike Carrucci has an open mind, but for now he says "it doesn't look good" for the Browns and analytics.
But Mike himself stipulates a significant amount of real talent, and that this is the youngest team in the NFL. Mike himself says that a bunch of these players will make a big jump coming back from the off season.
He likes the overall draft. He likes Jamie Collins. So why does Carrucci, in the next sentence, say "I don't think it's working."?
Well, no doubt trading away from Carson Wentz was part of it. But here again, Mike declares that jury still out, since the Browns did get some very talented players out of that deal.
I would add that criticisms of Wentz are identical to those of Cody Kessler: Nickel and dime passes, and sometimes overlooking open receivers.
Oh well. Mike's not a computer program. He is a subjective human being...see?
Terry Pluto is afraid that Jimmy and Dee Haslam will fire Hue Jackson.
Hue was the first choice. Hue is the first guy he didn't inherit or didn't have to settle for. The first guy since Mangini (who was in place when he bought the team) with Head Coaching experience.
In Cincinnatti, they can't figure out why the team is having problems. Well, losing Marvin Jones and Mohammad Sanu are part of that, but losing Hue Jackson is probably the biggest part.
Terry is a worry-wart. The Haslams meant what they said. Jimmy's statements imply a minimum 3 year window. Not to reach the Superbowl, but just to become above average.
Terry and others keep insulting the Haslams with these admonitions for him to be patient. Because he dumped the last two guys so quickly, they see him as a spoiled brat who expects instant gratification.
But he had tangible reasons for these terminations. This time, the whole team is essentially brand new, the players love Hue, they are fighting, and Hue Jackson is part of a Pilot (pun intended) experiment to see if there is a better and more predictable way to build and sustain a contender FROM THE GROUND UP DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
So Jimmy Haslam won't change anything for several seasons except...well there's Ray Horton. Dawgs by Nature mentions resistance to his hiring in the organization, and as I wrote, I had doubts as well. Hue insisted. My own favorite was Jim Schwartze.
Rhona LaCanfora and other gossip-mongers describe the Haslams as control freaks micromanaging everything. This is assenine, and no doubt based on the fact that both Hue and Sashi report to him, rather than the Coach having to go through a General Manager.
Dawgs by Nature correctly calls this another reach by Rhona, and quotes what Hue Jackson said about it. People like LaCanfora never, ever, believe any public statements by anybody. The possibility that any of it could be sincere never occurs to them.
Ray could be in trouble, but only him.
No comments:
Post a Comment