State of Football Address - NFL Edition

Essentially, my goal for this post is to simply weigh in on a few issues that I think are important that are going on in the NFL right now. It’s week 12 and with five weeks remaining in the regular season, there are currently 21 teams within two games of first place in their division and that doesn’t even include the 6-5 Dolphins who are three games behind the Jets and Patriots. Parity is ruling supreme as seven teams are either 9-2 or 8-3 and another four teams are 7-4. I am willing to bet that home field advantage is going to play a much bigger role this postseason than it has in the past few years. Currently, four teams are undefeated at home (the Chiefs, Ravens, and Patriots are 5-0 while the Falcons are 6-0) while only the New York Jets have yet to lose on the road (5-0), although the Steelers aren’t far behind at 5-1.

So what is troubling me this season? Who the MVP will be? Nope, Phillip Rivers has a fantastic inside track at that award given that the Chargers have begun their late season push and he’s putting up phenomenal numbers. Whether or not someone will pass for 5,085 yards? Not really. Rivers and Orton are both on pace to come close but as Rivers has shown in recent weeks, winning and huge passing numbers don’t necessarily go hand in hand. History has shown time and time again that the easiest way to have success in the NFL is with a balanced offense and a strong defense. Balanced usually does not equal record breaking.

VICK

One of the two issues I want to address is Michael Vick. He has been a feel good story for some this year and for others, he is still public enemy number one. Personally, I don’t care about the things that he has done personally to rehabilitate his image and get back in the good graces of the NFL, the numerous sponsors, and most importantly, the American criminal justice system. As the owner of one of the cutest, happiest 30 pound dogs that exists on the face of this earth, I will never forgive Vick for the things that he did and the things that he stood by and watched happen. The details of his case were sickening to me and thinking about those details while my puppy stared into my eyes happily, I was nearly brought to tears.

However, I do not believe that he should be kicked out of the NFL forever. In the eyes of the law, he is back to square one (at least I think he is, I’m not sure if he’s still on probation or anything like that). He has paid his debt to society and he is doing everything he can to become a functioning part of society once again so he can regain the fortune that he lost. My biggest issue anymore is that for the disgusting animal cruelty that he allowed to happen and participated in, I believe his sentence was far too light. This is not Michael Vick’s fault. It is the fault of the lawmakers and as I read somewhere, apparently 30 different laws have been passed making the penalties for dogfighting much more severe and because of the high profile nature of this case, apparently more reports of dogfighting are being received by police. If that’s the case, then maybe there is a silver lining that isn’t stained with the blood of defenseless dogs.

There is a flip side of the coin to all of this and that is Michael Vick the player. At some point in the last several years, something clicked. In his first 6 years in the National Football League, Vick completed just 53.7% of his passes with a quarterback rating of 75.9 and a win-loss record of 38-28-1, a good record by any mark but when you take out his 2004 season that record drops to 27-24-1. Maybe he is more mature now and realizes that in the long run his legs won’t be able to sustain him in this league as long as his arm will. Whatever clicked inside his head, it has made him into the player that defensive coordinators have always feared he would become; he is now a threat to throw as well as run.

Thus far this season, he has completed 63.4% of his passes and while that doesn’t rank amongst the league’s best (12th best in the NFL), it’s a huge step for a guy who has 419 rushing yards and is averaging 6.5 yards per carry. His QB rating of 106.0 is not among the league’s best; it is the league’s best. An even better indication of his maturity as a passer this year is the fact that he has thrown 13 touchdowns and has been intercepted just 1 time.

While I have very little respect for Michael Vick the person, I have gained an immense amount of respect for Michael Vick the player.

BLACK QB’S

On November 23rd, Jemele Hill wrote a nice piece (here is the link, definitely worth a read: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=hill/101123) about the role that race plays when it comes to quarterbacks in the NFL and it was a very well written, thought provoking piece. So much so that I feel the need to weigh in.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am Caucasian, or as Chuck Lorre once wrote on a vanity card, beige. I have tried very hard over the course of my life to be sensitive to issues of race while trying very hard to ignore them. It sounds like an interesting dichotomy but in the immortal words of Dr. King, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

At no point during this article does Hill imply that race had anything to do with fishy decisions to bench black quarterbacks that have all had varying degrees of success in their respective careers. I’m not saying that these benching were or were not racially motivated but I have a hard time believing they are so what I’m going to do is I’m going to put forth my opinions on them and take them with a grain of salt for the only information that I have is what is printed by the media.

#1 – Donovan McNabb

Benching McNabb in the fourth quarter of a game where the Redskins were trailing by less than a touchdown was very odd. Mike Shanahan’s explanations of the benching were even more mystifying. First he said he felt he had a better chance with Rex Grossman because of the better handle on the ‘Skin’s two minute offense (and if he had such a good handle on the two minute offense, wouldn’t he still be a starter in this league?) and then Shanahan called out McNabb’s fitness level. Yes, McNabb has to learn a new system after spending eleven years under Andy Reid and yes, it’s not the first time that his fitness has been called into question (though be careful believing whatever Terrell Owens says). It still seems odd to bench a guy that has a history of leading game-winning drives in the fourth quarter (as Hill points out).

My personal theory is that this league has become the ultimate example of “what have you done for me lately?” and Mike Shanahan took this way too far. In his career before this year, McNabb has a QB rating of 86.5 and he was coming off of a 2009 season where his rating was 92.9, the third highest of his career. So far this season with the Redskins, his rating has been 76.0, which would be the lowest of his career excluding his 216 attempt rookie season. He has posted a rating higher than 80.0 just twice this season while having four games below 70.0 and one below 60.0.

Is it possible that Shanahan is feeling a little frustrated that they brought in a guy they were hoping to be a franchise quarterback and so far, his passer rating is below the league average (83.8)? Is it possible that he is feeling so pressured to win games with “Chainsaw” Dan Snyder signing his paychecks that he’ll do anything to jumpstart his team to a victory? Absolutely. Is it possible that this decision was racially motivated? Of course it is, but while this is the one of these three benchings where that seems to be the most plausible explanation, I just don’t see it.

#2 – Jason Campbell

At first glance, this one makes very little sense. They gave up a draft pick to get Campbell and then they’ve turned to Bruce Gradkowski at a moment’s notice multiple times this year. However, this is the one that seems to me to be the least racially motivated.

Jason Campbell has been a solid starting quarterback in the NFL thus far but this year, he has been a complete Jekyll and Hyde. He’s had three games with a rating over 100.0 and he’s had two games where if he had let every pass fall incomplete, his rating would have been higher than what he actually did. His overall rating (75.8) isn’t too far off of his career mark (82.3) or at least it’s close enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

However, I think that consistency is an extremely valuable asset in professional life, not just in professional sports. So which would you rather have, a quarterback that has a passer rating of 85.0 every single game or a quarterback who has a passer rating of 65.0 one game and 105.0 the next? Personally, I will always choose the former because that way, you can gameplan around him knowing that his performance will be on a fairly even keel. These have been Campbell’s passer ratings this year in games he’s played in (sorted by rating).

127.9
120.9
117.6
76.5
69.7
42.9
26.2
10.7

Three fantastic games, two below average games, one bad game, and two abysmal games. Is that what the Raiders were hoping for when they traded for him?

Which brings us to the other factor at work with Campbell; the Raiders. Last year, while JaMarcus Russell was having his worst professional season, Tom Cable started inserting Bruce Gradkowski in at quarterback and not only did he play well for a back-up (80.6 QB rating), the offense responded to him and they starting moving the ball down the field. So when Jason Campbell played horrifically against the Steelers (7-19 for 70 yards and two interceptions for a rating of 26.2) and the offense stagnated, was it completely unreasonable for Cable to think that perhaps Gradkowski could jumpstart the offense? Of course not because it had worked before.

While we’re on the subject of the Raiders, it’s also possible that Cable is open to just about anything because he’s not too worried about long term job security with Al Davis as the owner… I’m just saying. Hill also mentions that JaMarcus Russell was a black quarterback and received similar treatment from Cable and she only goes as far as saying that Russell was a “draft bust”.

His quarterback rating in his two full seasons was 66.2 and he went from 77.1 in his first full season to 50.0, a truly atrocious rating for any quarterback, and he wasn’t just any quarterback, he was a former #1 overall pick making millions of dollars. The league average for QB rating in those two years? 81.4.

#3 – Vince Young

This is by far the most intriguing because Young was not struggling as a quarterback this year. On his way to a QB rating of 98.6, he had shown flashes of brilliance with moderate struggles along the way. In other words, he was progressing as a passer, minimizing his mistakes while figuring out how to make plays. How you feel about this particular benching depends on what you think of Vince Young and what you think of Jeff Fisher. Was Vince Young playing well enough to remain the starting quarterback? Presumably, excluding the thumb injury that he suffered that eventually sidelined him for the rest of the season. Was Young mature enough to handle the starting job? That is the real question.

Hill brings up that Fisher has had contentious relationships with quarterbacks in the past and that he perhaps hasn’t shown the faith in Young for him to thrive at this level. Given the type of gameplan that Fisher puts forth, my guess is that he didn’t want a QB in Young’s mold and I don’t think race had anything to do with it. He wanted a game manager and his owner fell in love with the one of a kind playmaker and I think that is where a lot of friction originated. I really hate to say it quite this bluntly, but if that is the case I have only one message for Vince Young; grow up.

How many times has Peyton Manning’s shoulder pads ended up in the stands after being pulled from a game? I don’t think I need to answer that one. How many times has Tom Brady said, in front of teammates, that he was walking out on Bill Belichick, even though it’s no secret that one of Belichick’s trademarks is watching game film and serving out healthy portions of “humble pie” after a game, win or lose?

My point is that it seems to me that Young entered the NFL and expected to be a starting quarterback from the word go and hasn’t been able to adjust to actually having to work for the job. Maybe there is something going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about but maybe there isn’t. Jeff Fisher may be partially to blame but for Vince Young to accept no responsibility for his behavior would be astounding for a guy who has been in the NFL for five years.

It’s not the head coach’s job to stroke the ego of his young star. It’s his job to win games.

COMPARISONS

In her article, Hill compares these quarterbacks to one of the best QB’s of all time in Peyton Manning and I don’t find this to be a fair comparison to either Manning or any of the aforementioned quarterbacks.

Coming into this season, Donovan McNabb, Vince Young, and Jason Campbell had combined for a 138-94-1 record, 50,576 yards, 303 touchdowns, and 177 interceptions as starting quarterbacks in the NFL.

Peyton Manning, by himself, had a 131-61 record, 50,128 yards, 366 touchdowns, and 181 interceptions.

At the point of their benching (or in Manning’s case, right after his last drive and comeback killing interception against the Patriots), this is how these four quarterbacks had done.

Name
Rating
Completions-Attempts-Yards-TD-INT

Vince Young
107.6
12-16-165-0-0

Donovan McNabb
75.7
17-30-210-1-1

Jason Campbell
26.2
7-19-70-0-1

Peyton Manning
96.3
38-52-396-4-3

In other words, one quarterback wasn’t performing too well, one was performing terribly, one was potentially injured and then threw a tantrum, and the last had thrown for nearly 400 yards and four touchdowns and had brought his team to the brink of a victory after trailing 31-14. I just don’t see that comparison. Peyton Manning doesn’t get criticized as much by the media because he isn’t a controversial figure. He doesn’t take his shoulderpads off and throw them in the stands and if anything, he is more critical of the way he plays than anyone else is.

Is the NFL prejudiced against black quarterbacks? Possibly, but before you answer that, answer this. Who are the ten most polished quarterbacks in FBS football right now and how many of them are black? Not all that many, but that still isn’t where it starts. If you are a high school football coach and you have a world class black athlete who can play quarterback, is that necessarily the best use of his talent? Maybe, but if the average high school receivers can’t catch the balls he throws to them, you’re not getting the most of his physical ability. Instead, you have an average kid play quarterback and have your outstanding athlete play running back or wide receiver where he can make plays to compensate for the lack of physical ability in his teammates.

So at the age of 14 or 15, an outstanding athlete gets moved from quarterback to running back to help the team win games and it’s possible he never switches back to QB. Is that the NFL’s fault? Nope, it’s the same thing that keeps cropping up; our obsessive need to win.