Tampa Bay Buccaneers trade CB Eric Wright to the San Francisco 49ers

July 19, 2013 stevenlourie 49ers, Buccaneers, Uncategorized

Trade for Tampa Bay: When the Buccaneers signed Eric Wright to a 5-year, 37.5 million dollar contract this off-season, it looked like an absolutely ridiculous deal. Wright was one of the worst starting cornerbacks in the NFL the prior two seasons (just ask Cleveland and Detroit fans). There was a reason he was available for a 1-year deal the previous off-season before the 2011 season. In 2011 with the Lions, he ranked 105 of 109 eligible cornerbacks by ProFootballFocus last season, allowing a completion percentage of 62.5%, 7.0 YPA, 5 touchdowns, and 4 interceptions, all while ranking below average against the run. He was actually thrown on more than any cornerback in the league except Jabari Greer, being thrown on 120 times. It was a move that reeked of desperation for a team with no defensive back talent and plenty of cap space to burn.

In 2012, he graded out below average on 518 snaps before the best possible thing that could happen for the Buccaneers happened: Wright got suspended for 4 games for performance enhancing drugs. That suspension voided all the guaranteed money on Wright’s deal and gave them all the leverage in the off-season, as they restructured his contract down to 1 year and a non-guaranteed 1.5 million for the 2013 season (rather than just cutting him outright). However, he was arrested again for DUI earlier this month (he had a previous arrest last off-season) and that was apparently the last straw for the Buccaneers, who would have cut him outright (penalty free) and owed him no money, if they couldn’t find a trade partner. Given that, credit them for actually getting something for him, even if it is just a conditional late round pick.

They won’t really miss Wright. Obviously they have Darrelle Revis, but they also have Jonathan Banks and Leonard Johnson. Banks, a 2^nd round rookie, will step into the starting lineup for Wright and while he’s unproven, he has much more upside. Johnson, meanwhile, could be a diamond in the rough as the 3^rd cornerback. He went undrafted in 2012 after running a 4.71 40 at 5-10 196, but played well as a rookie, grading out above average on ProFootballFocus. He’s a good press cornerback and will probably move Banks to the slot in 3-cornerback sets.

Grade: A

Trade for San Francisco: This is a pretty low risk trade for the 49ers because they aren’t giving up much (late round picks have a hard time making their roster because of their depth) and because he doesn’t have any guaranteed money, but he’s still not a great talent and there’s a chance he could be facing another suspension after another off-season DUI (last year’s was a felony and this was a misdemeanor, so that’s progress). He’ll compete with Nnamdi Asomugha and incumbent Chris Culliver for the 3^rd cornerback job, which gets a lot of action in San Francisco’s defense. Whoever wins that battle will line up opposite Tarell Brown with Carlos Rogers (who led the NFL in slot snaps played last season) on the slot. Wright is probably the favorite and could be the most talented of the bunch. He’s a good fit for the 49ers’ coverage scheme and their front 7 could make him look better than he is.

Grade: B

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New York Giants 2013 NFL Season Preview

July 19, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 NFL Season Previews, Giants, Uncategorized

Introduction

The Giants won the Super Bowl in 2011, but failed to make the playoffs in 2012. What happened? Well, nothing really. Their win total didn’t change at all, but while 9 wins allowed them to sneak into the playoffs and eventually take it the distance in 2011, 9 wins had them on the outside looking in last season. It was as I predicted before the season and just a reminder that the Giants were not an elite team, but rather a good team capable of getting hot and going the distance (as they’ve done on 2 occasions). In fact, in 9 seasons of the Eli Manning/Tom Coughlin era, they’ve surpassed 10 wins just twice. If they had made the playoffs in 2012, they would have been one of the scarier teams in the post-season on their sheer level of unpredictability, but, at the end of the day, they didn’t.

You could actually argue that they played better in 2012 than in 2011, at least regular season wise. They scored more and allowed fewer points in the 2012 season than in 2011, as they improved their offensive output from 24.8 points per game to 26.8 points per game and improved their defense from 25.0 points per game allowed to 21.5 points per game allowed. While they had a Pythagorean Expectation of 8 wins in 2011, allowing roughly the same amount of points as they scored, in 2012, they had a Pythagorean Expectation of 10 wins, 9^th best in the NFL and behind only Chicago in terms of non-playoff teams. They also ranked 7^th in DVOA.

Usually that is a predictor of a future increase of wins and on top of that, they did so despite a lot of injuries, ranking 25^th in the NFL in adjusted games lost. However, there are a few reasons why they won’t have a big wins increase. For one, while they suffered a lot of injuries last year, none of them were to key contributors, which the exception of Hakeem Nicks and Kenny Phillips, the latter of whom is no longer with the team.

They didn’t lose anyone like Jason Pierre-Paul to injury, but that’s a real concern for them going into 2013 as, in June, JPP had the same back procedure that everyone is freaking out that Gronk had. He’s in doubt for the first month of the season and, unlike Hakeem Nicks, his absence can’t be masked by Eli Manning and strong receiving depth. After Manning, JPP is their most indispensible player and they already have concerns about his health and the season hasn’t started yet. They also had the oft injured William Beatty healthy last season and playing well at the all-important left tackle position, but that might not continue considering he played just 1261 snaps in his first 3 seasons combined due to injury.

They also were really reliant on winning the turnover battle in 2012, with a +14 turnover differential. That tends to be inconsistent on a year-to-year basis, however. For example, teams with 20 or fewer turnovers on average turn the ball over 25.5 times the following season, while teams that turn the ball over 35 or more times turn the ball over 28.1 times the following season. Teams with 20 or fewer takeaways take the ball away an average of 25.3 times the following season, while teams with 35 or more takeaways take the ball away an average of 27.3 times the following season. Teams with a turnover differential of +15 or higher have a turnover differential of +3.6 the following season, while teams with a turnover differential of -15 have a turnover differential of +1.5 the following season.

Winning the turnover battle was a big part of the reason why they were able to rank 12^th in the NFL in opponent’s scoring, allowing 21.5 points per game, despite serious issues in their defensive back 7. Those issues haven’t really been fixed this season and things could be even worse if JPP has to miss significant time with injury. They’ll be a better team than they were last season and I don’t doubt they’ll be able to match the 26.8 points per game they scored last season, especially if Nicks can stay healthy, but their issues defensively could keep them out of the playoffs in the absolutely loaded NFC. Their chances of winning the NFC East, the NFC’s weakest division, might be better than their chances of winning a wild card spot.

Quarterbacks

Eli Manning proved he’s an elite quarterback by winning his 2^nd Super Bowl, but as far as elite quarterbacks go, he’s on the lower end of the spectrum. He rarely posts huge regular season numbers like Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, or his brother Peyton, or huge win totals, and the Giants have only once ranked in the top-5 in scoring offense.

In 11 years as a starter, Tom Brady has missed the playoffs once and won a playoff game in all but 3 years. Peyton Manning has missed the playoffs just twice in his 14 season long NFL career, though he has suffered 8 exits without a postseason win. Aaron Rodgers, though more inexperienced than the quarterbacks already mentioned, has missed the playoffs once in his 5 year NFL career and won at least won playoff game twice in those five years, the same amount as Eli Manning has in 9. Eli Manning has had two incredible six week stretches in his career, leading to those 2 Super Bowls, and I’m sure the Giants wouldn’t trade 2 Super Bowls in 5 years for anything, but there’s something to be said for consistency and consistent excellence.

He’s a very good quarterback capable of getting hot and taking a team the distance and he’s incredibly scary because you never know what you’re getting from him, he makes throws that are near impossible, more so than maybe any other quarterback in the NFL, he can come back from any hole, and he’s at his best when he’s doubted.

He’s also a big part of the reason why the Giants have frequent 2nd half swoons. Since Tom Coughlin took over in 2004, the same season as Eli Manning became the starter, the Giants are 53-19 in the first 8 games of the season and 30-42 in the second 8 games of the season. Eli Manning is not completely to blame, but his numbers are noticeably worse in the 2nd half of the season. His completion percentage drops about 3%. His YPA drops about 7/10ths of a yard per attempt. And his touchdown to interception ratio goes from 111/61 to 100/83.

This year, he completed 62.6% of his passes in the first half of the season, as opposed to 56.6% in the 2nd half, while averaging 7.8 YPA to 6.8. Only his touchdown to interception ratio (12/8 to 14/7) was improved in the 2nd half of the season. He once again had a strong season overall and you can’t really blame the Giants’ failure to make the playoffs on him, but he didn’t drag the Giants into the playoffs like the aforementioned trio has in the past.

Grade: A-

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

One of the reasons why, in 2012, Eli led the Giants to the most points he’s ever led the Giants to in his career is his strong receiving corps. Even with Hakeem Nicks essentially missing 4 games and being limited in others, playing just 683 snaps and catching just 53 passes for a career low 692 yards and 3 touchdowns, the Giants still surrounded Eli with good receivers. Everyone knows about Victor Cruz. He didn’t match the 82 catches for 1536 yards and 9 touchdowns he had in 2011, but it would have been unreasonable to expect him to do that. He still caught 86 passes for 1092 yards and 10 touchdowns and he could do even better than that this season. His one issue last season was his 12 drops.

In Nicks’ absence, Domenik Hixon, Rueben Randle, and Ramses Barden combined for 72 catches for 1085 yards and 5 touchdowns. Hixon is gone, but Randle should be improved as the clear #3 receiver in his 2^nd season in the NFL, after going in the 2^nd round in the 2012 NFL Draft. Louis Murphy and Barden will serve as solid depth receivers. Randle will give them 3 talented wide receivers with Cruz and Nicks, assuming the latter can stay healthy. Remember, he averaged 78 catches for 1122 yards and 9 touchdowns per season in 2010 and 2011 despite missing 4 combined games in those 2 seasons. He’s never played a full 16 game set and I wouldn’t expect that to change this season, but I like his chances to get back over 1000 yards and give the Giants two 1000 yard receivers.

Tight end Martellus Bennett is gone and he was one of the better all-around tight ends in the NFL last season, but they’ve signed Brandon Myers to replace him and he should be able to do so coming over from Oakland. The Raiders had one of the least talented rosters in the NFL last season thanks to a decade of poor drafting and recent salary cap hell. One of several positions without a clear proven starter for the Raiders last year was tight end. When 4th year tight end Brandon Myers, a 2009 6th round pick, won the starting job, he was described as a decent blocker and little else and for good reason.

He had just 32 career catches in his 3 year career to that point, including just 7 in 5 starts in place of an injured Kevin Boss the year before. He wasn’t a premium draft pick, going in the 6th round and he didn’t have special athleticism. After not being invited to The Combine, he ran a 4.79 40 at 6-3 250 at his Pro Day in 2009, with a 31 inch vertical and 17 reps of 225.

However, Myers really surprised as a pass catcher, catching 79 passes for 804 yards and 4 touchdowns, leading the team in receiving ahead of bigger names like Darrius Heyward-Bey and Denarius Moore. He did this on just 101 targets, a very impressive 78% catch rate, and he was sure handed, dropping just 6 passes. He ranked 8^th among eligible tight ends in terms of yards per route run.

While he managed just 10.2 yards per catch, and 3.6 yards after the catch per catch, both towards the bottom of the league, he did break 8 tackles and, because of his high catch rate, the Raiders actually averaged a very impressive 8.0 YPA throwing to Myers last year, over a full yard over the 6.8 YPA Raider quarterbacks averaged on the season. Overall, Raider quarterbacks had a 100.7 QB rating when throwing to Myers, well above their overall 82.5 rating.

Surprisingly, the one area Myers really struggled with was blocking, both pass and run blocking, which was supposed to be the only thing he was good at. No tight end graded out worse as a run blocker on ProFootballFocus than Myers, which actually led to him being the 2nd worst rated overall tight end, despite his great play in the passing game. However, it was revealed after the season he played most of last year with a sprained AC joint in his left shoulder, which really effected his blocking. With an off-season to heal, he should do a better job of blocking in 2013.

Myers hit the open market this off-season and did not command a big deal, signing for just 2.25 million over 1 year in New York with the Giants. One of the things that is noteworthy is that Giants tight end coach the legendary Mike Pope requires his tight ends to be great blockers to get on the field so the fact that they signed him and are listing him as a starter is a good sign for his ability to bounce back as a blocker.

One other thing about New York and tight ends that is noteworthy is that Giants tight ends always seem to be productive in the passing game, regardless of who they are. Mike Pope is a big part of the reason for this, as is the offensive system and Eli Manning’s tendency to throw to the tight end. The Giants took Jeremy Shockey in the 1st round in 2002 and turned him into one of the league’s best tight ends.

Injuries didn’t allow him to play a full 16 game set in 6 seasons with the Giants, but he averaged 70 catches for 796 yards and 5 touchdowns per 16 games, back before the days of tight ends really putting up huge numbers. For his efforts, he was named to the Pro-Bowl 4 times in 6 seasons. However, when he got hurt down the stretch in their eventual Super Bowl winning 2007 season, a no name rookie named Kevin Boss took over and did well enough for the Giants to win without Shockey.

Boss ended up driving Shockey out of town that off-season, as the Giants got a 2nd and 5th round pick for him from the Saints, a good haul. The Saints, however, would not get what they paid for, as Shockey last just 3 years in New Orleans, averaging 59 catches for 615 yards and 3 touchdowns per 16 games despite Drew Brees throwing him the ball. He spent a final nondescript season in Carolina in 2011 before being forced to retire (technically he hasn’t retired, but if you’ve been out of the league for at least a year, you’re essentially retired) at age 31, due to lack of interest in his services around the league.

Boss, meanwhile, did a solid job filling in for Shockey, averaging 39 catches for 527 yards and 6 touchdowns per 16 games in 3 years as a starter, despite being just a 5th round pick in 2007. He earned himself a multiyear deal in Oakland and lasted just one year before getting cut. He then went to Kansas City, where the same thing happened and now he remains a free agent at just age 29, after 31 catches in the last 2 years combined.

Boss was replaced by Jake Ballard, a similar player, a blocker first that put up surprising pass catching numbers in 2011, catching 38 passes for 604 yards and 4 touchdowns. After he tore his ACL in the Giants’ Super Bowl victory, the Giants waived him and replaced him with Martellus Bennett. Bennett was a former 2^nd round pick of the Cowboys, but largely a blocker first who had caught just 85 passes for 848 yards and 4 touchdowns in 4 seasons. Bennett nearly matched those numbers in his one year in New York, catching 55 passes for 626 yards and 5 touchdowns, before signing a multiyear deal with the Bears, only to be replaced by Myers on the cheap.

Myers now comes to New York as the most NFL proven tight end they’ve brought to the team in at least over a decade and he should be able to continue to get his in the passing game as the 3rd option after Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks. Assuming he also bounces back as a blocker, by the end of the season, we may be able to call Myers one of the most complete all-around tight ends in the NFL. Not bad for a 6th round pick with limited athleticism. Even if Nicks misses some time again, Eli has plenty of players to talented players to throw to.

Grade: A

Running Backs

One of the other things that led to the Giants scoring a bunch of points in 2012 was the rebirth of their running game. In 2012, at least in the regular season, they ranked dead last in rushing yards and yards per carry, thanks to injuries Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs playing through injuries. However, in 2012, Bradshaw turned things around and power back Andre Brown emerged as a good complement to Bradshaw. Bradshaw is gone now, but 2012 1^st round pick David Wilson will take over his old role and split carries with Brown.

Brown rushed for 385 yards on 73 carries and also scored 8 times as the short yardage power back. He should get more carries this year because the coaching staff doesn’t 100% trust David Wilson yet and because Brown is the better passing down back. Brown could get double digit touchdowns this season, though Wilson will probably lead the team in rushing yards. Wilson showed a lot of explosiveness as a rookie, especially on special teams, but he only got 71 carries. That should be closer to 200 this season. Brown and Wilson will serve as a strong complement to the passing game.

Grade: B

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Offensive Line

The Giants really improved their offensive line play in 2012. After ranking 32^nd on ProFootballFocus on pass protection, 25^th in run blocking, and 32^nd in pass blocking efficiency in 2011, they ranked 18^th in pass protection, 4^th in run blocking, and 26^th in pass block efficiency in 2012. There were several big differences. One of the best differences was William Beatty staying healthy at left tackle. As I mentioned in the opening, Beatty, a 2009 2^nd round pick, played just 1261 snaps in his first 3 seasons in the NFL, but he put it all together in his contract year in 2012, playing all 16 games and graded out as ProFootballFocus’ 12^th ranked offensive tackle. I have questions about whether or not he can keep that up, especially now that he has long-term security with a 5-year contract.

Meanwhile, at left guard, Kevin Boothe had a breakout season in his first full season as a starter, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 20^th ranked guard. He’s already going into his age 30 season though and had never done anything like that in the past, struggling in limited action as a reserve throughout his career. Let’s see if he can do that again. Center David Baas and right guard Chris Snee also had much improved seasons in 2012. Snee’s poor 2011 season looks like the outlier in his career and, going into his age 31 season, he should once again be an above average starter. Baas, meanwhile, has been up and down in his career, playing both center and guard. He’s an average interior offensive starter at best.

Right tackle was the only spot on the line where they struggled last season, with Sean Locklear and David Diehl splitting time. In order to fix this problem, they drafted Justin Pugh in the first round. Pugh is a very accomplished collegiate left tackle, but was expected to fall out of the first round because of short arms. The Giants took him anyway and insisted they didn’t believe his short arms caused a problem on tape. They won’t be as big of an issue on the right side, but he may still end up at guard long term. Overall, it’s a talented offensive line, but it has a lot of questions and they should play somewhere between where they played in 2011 and 2012. They’ll once again score a bunch of points in 2013.

Grade: B

Defensive Line

I mentioned how Jason Pierre-Paul is the Giants 2^nd most indispensible player after Eli Manning. The common belief is that he had a down season in 2012, when he had 7 sacks, after having 16 in 2011. However, that’s the trouble with just looking at sack numbers. He wasn’t really worse as a pass rusher at all with 4 hits and 43 hurries on 523 pass rush snaps, to go with those 7 sacks, a 10.3% pass rush rate. In 2011, he had those 16 sacks, but just 14 hits and 26 hurries on 580 pass rush snap, a pass rush rate of 9.7%. In terms of pass rush efficiency (sacks + .75 hits + .75 hurries per 100 snaps), he was at 8.4 in 2012, better than the 8.2 he was at in 2011. He was also a better run stopper in 2012 than 2011. He was good in 2011, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 5^th ranked 4-3 defensive end against the run, but he led the position in that aspect in 2012.

Overall, he was ProFootballFocus’ 6^th ranked 4-3 defensive end in 2011 and 4^th ranked in 2012. If he misses more than a couple of games, they’ll really miss him and it will really hurt if he doesn’t come back at 100%. They have a lot of defensive end depth because that’s GM Jerry Reese’s thing, but JPP’s potential absence will compromise their ability to run their signature 3 and 4 defensive end sets, where JPP and/or Justin Tuck line up inside at defensive tackle.

After Jason Pierre-Paul, they have Tuck, Mathias Kiwanuka, and Damontre Moore. Tuck has had back-to-back down regular seasons after grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 10^th ranked 4-3 defensive end in 2010 and he didn’t carry his strong 2011 post-season into last season. He’s really been around a league average player over the past 2 seasons, last season grading out slightly above average against the run, but slightly below average rushing the passer, with 4 sacks, 8 hits, and 20 hurries on 390 pass rush snaps, 8.2%, and only playing 662 snaps overall. Injuries have sapped his abilities and going into his age 30 contract year, I don’t see him getting much better. This might be his last season with the team.

Osi Umenyiora is gone, but he was really a league average player as well of late. Mathias Kiwanuka, a tweener linebacker/defensive end, will move back to the defensive line this year full time, playing there on all downs, rather than just passing downs. His passing down role won’t change and he had 3 sacks, 5 hits, and 14 hurries on 246 pass rush snaps, a mediocre 8.9% rate. On running downs, he could really struggle on the line. Despite his size at 265, he was a below average run stopping linebacker last season and moving to the line won’t help that. For what it’s worth, he was great as a run stopping linebacker in 2011, but his best role will be as a situational rusher and nothing more.

Moore is a 3^rd round pick rookie. At one time, he was seen by the draftnik community as a top-5 pick as 20-year-old coming off an incredibly productive season at Texas A&M, but off the field concerns, character concerns, and athleticism concerns sunk his stock all the way to the 3^rd round. He’ll be a pure sub package rusher as a rookie, but he could have to see significant snaps early in the season if JPP misses any games.

Because of how often their defensive ends move inside to defensive tackle, the Giants’ defensive tackles don’t play as many snaps as most teams’ defensive tackles. That being said, they still have a good one in Linval Joseph, a 2010 2^nd round pick. Joseph has graded out above average in the last 2 seasons as a starter, ranking 21^st among defensive tackles in 2012. Opposite him, they had issues last season. Chris Canty was limited to just 9 games with injuries and the 33-year-old Rocky Bernard played above average on 396 snaps, 2^nd most among Giant defensive tackles.

Canty and Bernard are gone and have been replaced with two former Eagle veterans. The first is Cullen Jenkins, who is going into his age 32 season. He gets washed against the run, but had 4 sacks, 1 hit, and 25 hurries on 388 pass rush snaps, a 7.7% pass rush rate. He’ll be best in a rotational role and he’s not getting any younger, but he’ll be an asset for them. The other one is Mike Patterson, who was limited to 136 snaps last season because of brain surgery. He was ProFootballFocus’ 20^th ranked defensive tackle in 2011, but going into his age 30 season, his best days should be behind him. He’ll be a rotational player as well.

The Giants also have a pair of recent 2^nd round picks in the mix, giving them 3 recent 2^nd round picks at defensive tackle (including Joseph). Johnathan Hankins is a 2^nd round pick rookie who will play a situational role stopping the run at 319 pounds as a rookie. Marvin Austin is the other one, but for a variety of different reasons, he’s played just 109 snaps in the last 3 seasons, dating back to his final season at North Carolina, when he was suspended for the whole season. He might be on the roster bubble.

The Giants were once known as one of the best pass rush teams in the NFL, but last year they were just ProFootballFocus’ 14^th ranked pass rush team and they could be even worse this season if Jason Pierre-Paul misses significant time with injury. He’s really the only above average player on this line (with the exception of maybe Linval Joseph), though he is a true blue chip stud when healthy and they have a lot of decent rotational players.

Grade: B+

Linebackers

With Mathias Kiwanuka moving to the defensive line and Chase Blackburn and Michael Boley both gone, the Giants are returning none of their three starting linebackers from 2012. That’s not such a bad thing. They didn’t play that well (there’s a reason Boley is still a free agent and Blackburn is a reserve/special teamer in Carolina). Kiwanuka and Boley ranked 38^th and 41^st out of 43 eligible 4-3 outside linebackers last season and Blackburn ranked 43^rd out of 53 eligible middle linebackers. However, none of the 6 candidates for the 3 open spots are that good either.

Keith Rivers is the most experienced of the group. A 2008 1^st round pick, he was once a solid linebacker in Cincinnati, but injuries derailed his career (he missed 29 games from 2008-2011) and the Bengals sent him to the Giants for a late round pick last off-season. He graded out negatively on 238 snaps last season as a reserve with the Giants last season. Aaron Curry is another former 1^st round pick linebacker. He struggled mightily with the Seahawks for 2 ½ years before being sent to the Raiders for a late round pick. After a mediocre half season there in 2011, he played just 18 snaps with them last season thanks to injuries.

At middle linebacker, Dan Connor was a reserve in Carolina for 4 seasons and did well in limited action when injuries struck. He was signed by the Cowboys to a multiyear deal to be a starter last off-season, but lost to Bruce Carter in the battle for the job in the pre-season and barely played before being cut this off-season and snatched up by the Giants. He’ll battle Mark Herzlich for the starting job. Herzlich had his collegiate career derailed by cancer, which is the only reason why he went undrafted in 2011, but he’s cancer free and he’s done well to stay on the Giants roster over the past 2 seasons, though he did grade out negatively on 176 snaps last season.

The other two linebackers are Jacquian Williams and Spencer Paysinger, both from the 2011 draft class, Williams as a 6^th rounder and Paysinger as an undrafted free agent. Paysinger has played nondescript 187 snaps as a reserve in 2 seasons and, while Williams made a few starts as a rookie, he’s graded out negatively on 814 career snaps. These 6 will do battle for 3 spots and I’d be surprised if more than one took a starting job and did even an average job. It’s a group without a lot of talent.

Grade: C

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Secondary

Things aren’t much better in the secondary as they had ProFootballFocus’ 110^th and 111^th ranked cornerbacks out of 113 eligible last season. Corey Webster was #110, allowing 59 catches on 96 attempts for 988 yards, 8 touchdowns, and 4 interceptions, while deflecting 7 passes and committing 6 penalties. Jayron Hosley was #111, allowing 33 catches on 47 attempts for 467 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 1 interception, while deflecting 2 passes and committing 4 penalties.

Webster has been better in the past and could be better this season, but he’s also going into his age 31 season so his best days are probably behind him. Hosley was a 3^rd round rookie and could be better in his 2^nd season in the league, but he might not be. After all, he was just a 3^rd rounder and 3^rd round picks turn into starters just about 30% of the time, so I don’t have huge expectations for them.

With Webster slipping, Prince Amukamara has been the de facto #1 cornerback. In his first full season as a starter after missing most of his rookie year with injuries, Amukamara played pretty well in 12 games (he missed 4 with more injuries), grading out about league average, allowing 33 catches on 63 attempts for 375 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception, while deflecting 4 passes and committing 4 penalties. Going into his 3^rd year in the league, the 2011 1^st round pick could have his best year in 2013, but he needs to stay healthy first. Webster and Amukamara will start with Hosley once again serving as the 3^rd cornerback, focusing on the slot.

Hosley could see more playing time than the 465 snaps he played last season because he’ll probably be the sole nickel back. Last season, when Kenny Phillips was healthy, Antrel Rolle would play there on passing downs, allowing the Giants to get 3 safeties on the field. Rolle played better in that role down around the line of scrimmage rather than back as a safety, but with Phillips now in Philadelphia, he’ll probably focus on being more of a true safety this year. After ranking in the bottom 10 among eligible safeties in 2010 and 2011, Rolle “improved” in 2012 and ranked 63^rd out of 88 eligible. He’s an overrated and overpaid player who especially struggles in coverage. Going into his age 31 season, things won’t get better and they’ll probably get worse considering his past.

Stevie Brown served as the 3^rd safety with Rolle and Phillips (who played incredibly well whenever he was healthy) last year and when Phillips got hurt, Brown stepped up big time as a starter in his absence. He’ll be a full time starter this year. He probably won’t repeat the 8 interceptions he had last season (remember how inconsistent turnovers are) and it’s important not to grade players purely on what they do on 8 snaps, but Brown graded out above average on 846 snaps last year, excelling in coverage, struggling a bit against the run and not committing a penalty in his first season of real action. We’ll have to see if he can keep it up. Will Hill is also in the mix and could serve as the 3^rd safety, moving Rolle to the slot on passing downs, if they feel the need to do that. Hill has a checkered past, but graded out positively on 218 snaps as an undrafted rookie last season.

Overall though, it’s a very poor back 7. They ranked 31^st in the NFL allowing 8.1 yards per attempt this season and I don’t know why they’d be much improved over that this season. They also won’t force as many turnovers as they did last season, which they were really reliant on to get stops last season. This figures to be a worse defensive team than they were last season and that’s what will stop them from having a big win improvement.

Grade: C+

Head Coach

Tom Coughlin is one of the longest tenured Head Coaches in the NFL and the Giants have largely taken on his identity. While he’s often been written off by the media as someone who will be fired after the season after yet another late season swoon, he always comes back and the Giants have always had solid seasons under his leadership, including the two Super Bowls which have probably earned him job security for life. It’s tough to lead non-elite regular season teams all the way to a Super Bowl victory, getting the team to believe in the seemingly impossible, but Coughlin has done so twice. This season should be no different for him. They’ll be a solid team that competes for a playoff spot and they may have a stronger 1^st than 2^nd half. If they get in the playoffs, they’ll once again be scary.

Overall

I’ll predict the Giants season in two halves since they pretty much always fade in the 2^nd half of the season. They have 3 divisional games in the first half of the season, both games against Philadelphia and a game in Dallas. They should win both Philadelphia games, but a trip to Dallas will be tougher, though they’re actually a better road team than home team. They should go 2-1 or 3-0 in those 3 games. Outside the division, they host Denver and Minnesota, two games they should split. They also have trips to Carolina, Kansas City, and Chicago. Those are 3 good teams, but they’re a good road team so I’ll give them 2 wins in those if I have them at 2-1 (or 1 win if I have them at 3-0) in the 3 divisional games and 1-1 in the other 2 games, putting them at 5-3 going into a conveniently placed week 9 bye.

After the bye, they have a home game against Dallas and both games against Washington in the division, and I think they’ll go 1-2 in those 3 games, putting them at 3-3 or 4-2 in the division. They host Green Bay, Oakland, and Seattle. Oakland should be a win and they should split the Green Bay/Seattle games. Seattle isn’t a good road team and that’s an early start. That puts them at 8-6 with games in San Diego and Detroit. I think they could win both of those games, which puts them at 9 or 10 wins, which sounds about right. I have them just below Dallas in the division and losing out in a tough Wild Card battle in the NFC.

Projection: 9-7 2^nd in the NFC East

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Dallas Cowboys 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

July 17, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 Fantasy Football Preseason, 2013 Team Fantasy Football Previews, Cowboys, Uncategorized

QB Tony Romo (Dallas)

In his career, Romo has completed 64.7% of his passes for an average of 7.9 YPA and 177 touchdowns to 91 interceptions, good for a career QB rating of 95.6, 5^th highest all-time behind Aaron Rodgers, Steve Young, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning. The 19 interceptions he threw last season, which led the league, tied a career high and was the same amount he threw in his last two full seasons combined. The Cowboys might not throw 658 times in 2012, which was 3^rd most in the NFL and 90 more attempts than any Cowboy team in the Tony Romo era. However, this is more and more becoming a passing league and while they’d probably prefer not to have to pass that many times in 2013, they’ll still be a pass heavy team that should throw the ball at least 600 times.

Projection: 4450 passing yards for 29 touchdowns 15 interceptions 50 rushing yards 1 touchdown (275 pts standard, 333 pts 6 pt td leagues)

RB DeMarco Murray (Dallas)

DeMarco Murray might be a little overrated off of the 25 carry/253 yard performance against St. Louis in his first NFL start as a 3^rd round rookie in 2011. That was a completely hapless Rams defense at the time and if you take out that game, he’s averaged just 4.4 yards per carry in his career. Last season, he averaged 4.1 yards per carry and since his first 4 starts, he’s managed just 866 yards on 225 carries, a 3.8 YPC clip. He’s not as proven as people think. He’s also been hampered by numerous injuries, missing the end of his rookie season in 2011 and being limited to 161 carries in 2012. Injuries can not only keep a running back off the field, but also sap his explosiveness and Murray has injury issues dating back to his collegiate days at Oklahoma. There’s a reason he fell to the 3^rd round.

Projection: 200 carries for 840 rushing yards and 7 total touchdowns 37 catches for 290 yards (155 pts, 192 pts PPR)

WR Dez Bryant (Dallas)

Bryant has always had all the talent in the world and, as is often the case with wide receivers, he finally put everything together in his 3^rd year in the league in 2012, catching 92 passes for 1382 yards and 12 touchdowns and playing in all 16 games for the first time. He also closed 2012 incredibly well, catching 50 passes for 879 yards and 10 touchdowns in his final 8 games. This off-season has actually been his first without any sort of off the field distraction so he could be even better in 2013. He finally seems to have turned a corner.

Projection: 94 catches for 1440 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns (216 pts, 310 pts PPR)

WR Miles Austin (Dallas)

Miles Austin caught 66 passes for 943 yards and 6 touchdowns last season, rebounding from an injury plagued 2011 season. He might never produce the kind of numbers he had in 2009 and 2010, when he averaged 75 catches for 1181 yards and 9 touchdowns per season, because of Dez Bryant’s emergence and Jason Witten’s presence, and his final 8 game production from 2012 is concerning (25 catches for 306 yards and 2 touchdowns), but he’s only 29 and you can do a lot worse.

Projection: 55 catches for 840 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns (120 pts, 175 pts PPR)

TE Jason Witten (Dallas)

Witten is one of the most dependable players in the NFL regardless of position. He hasn’t missed a game since his rookie year in 2003, signing a waiver to play through a ruptured spleen week 1 of last season and his worst season since his rookie year was 2006, when he still caught 64 passes for 754 yards and 1 touchdowns. Since 2004, his 2^nd season in the league, he’s averaged 86 catches for 956 yards and 5 touchdowns per season and only going into his age 31 season coming off a career high in catches, I see no reason why that wouldn’t continue.

Projection: 88 catches for 980 receiving yards and 5 touchdowns (128 pts, 216 pts PPR)

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Dallas Cowboys 2013 NFL Season Preview

July 17, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 NFL Season Previews, Cowboys, Uncategorized

Introduction

When the Cowboys signed Tony Romo to a 6-year, 108 million dollar contract extension with 55 million dollars guaranteed this off-season, it got a lot of criticism, as could be expected. After all, Romo is the media’s favorite whipping boy, for whatever reasons. And, yes, when you compare it to the contracts of other top flight quarterbacks, it looks like an overpay.

However, I say about that extension the same thing I said when the Ravens paid Joe Flacco: if the Cowboys hadn’t kept him, teams would have been lining up to “overpay” him. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind Romo could have gotten that kind of money on the open market. Just ask fans of the Bills or the Cardinals or the Jaguars or the Browns how much they wish it could be their team paying Romo that kind of money to play quarterback for them. Because, at the end of the day, there are two types of teams in the NFL, teams with quarterbacks you can win with and teams without and, because of Romo, the Cowboys are the former.

In his career, Romo has completed 64.7% of his passes for an average of 7.9 YPA and 177 touchdowns to 91 interceptions, good for a career QB rating of 95.6, 5^th highest all-time behind Aaron Rodgers, Steve Young, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning. He has a career record of 55-38 and while he has a reputation for not being clutch, he has led 18 4^th quarter comebacks in those 55 wins and he has a career record of 19-19 in games decided by a touchdown or less. He also has the highest 4^th quarter QB rating of any active quarterback. He may only be 1-3 in the post-season in his career, but, like with Matt Ryan, it’s not fair to judge a quarterback’s entire career on 4 games. I don’t understand why he takes the type of criticism he does.

Romo has a reputation for being someone who throws a lot of interceptions, but his career interception rate of 2.8% is barely higher than Peyton Manning’s 2.7% career interception rate (Drew Brees is also at 2.7%). In fact, the 19 interceptions he threw last season, which led the league, tied a career high and was the same amount he threw in his last two full seasons combined. Eli Manning led the league with 25 interceptions in 2010 and his 2011 turned out to be pretty good. Romo’s interception total should regress to the mean in 2013.

Turnovers were an issue overall for the Cowboys in 2012 as they had a turnover differential of -13 and managed just 16 takeaways. That tends to be inconsistent on a year-to-year basis, however. For example, teams with 20 or fewer turnovers on average turn the ball over 25.5 times the following season, while teams that turn the ball over 35 or more times turn the ball over 28.1 times the following season. Teams with 20 or fewer takeaways take the ball away an average of 25.3 times the following season, while teams with 35 or more takeaways take the ball away an average of 27.3 times the following season. Teams with a turnover differential of +15 or higher have a turnover differential of +3.6 the following season, while teams with a turnover differential of -15 have a turnover differential of +1.5 the following season.

They should be better in that aspect this season and for that reason a better team. They actually have a good deal of talent on both sides of the ball so as long as they don’t get in their own way turnover wise or continue struggling to produce takeaways defensively, they should be an improved team in 2013. Of all the divisions in the NFC, theirs is the weakest and the most up for grabs. They should contend for the division title and the trip back to the post-season that would come with it.

Quarterback

I talked extensively about Romo in the opening and I’m not going to repeat myself. Just know that you can win a Super Bowl with Romo as your quarterback and that the media criticism of him is incredibly unfounded. The Cowboys haven’t had the supporting cast to complement him in a while, but I think this might be their most talented team in years.

Grade: B+

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

What really helps Romo is the development of #1 wide receiver Dez Bryant. Bryant has always had all the talent in the world and, as is often the case with wide receivers, he finally put everything together in his 3^rd year in the league in 2012, catching 92 passes for 1382 yards and 12 touchdowns and playing in all 16 games for the first time. Among eligible wide receivers, only Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker had higher quarterback ratings when thrown to than Bryant, as Romo completed 67.2% of his passes for an average of 10.1 YPA, 12 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions when throwing to Bryant, a QB rating of 123.2.

He closed 2012 incredibly well, catching 50 passes for 879 yards and 10 touchdowns in his final 8 games and while you never like to see a receiver drop 11 passes in a season, 7 of those came in the first 7 games of the season. This off-season has actually been his first without any sort of off the field distraction so he could be even better in 2013. He finally seems to have turned a corner.

Romo also has one of the best tight ends in the NFL as Jason Witten led all tight ends with 110 catches for 1039 yards last year, to go with 3 touchdowns. Witten and Bryant were one of just five receiver duos in the NFL to each have 1000 yards receiving and the only one to feature a tight end. Witten is one of the most dependable players in the NFL regardless of position. He hasn’t missed a game since his rookie year in 2003, signing a waiver to play through a ruptured spleen week 1 of last season and his worst season since his rookie year was 2006, when he still caught 64 passes for 754 yards and 1 touchdowns.

Since 2004, his 2^nd season in the league, he’s averaged 86 catches for 956 yards and 5 touchdowns per season and only going into his age 31 season coming off a career high in catches, I see no reason why that wouldn’t continue. He’s also a phenomenal run blocker who has graded out significantly above average in that aspect on ProFootballFocus in each of the last 5 seasons. There’s a reason he was their #3 ranked tight end last season.

Miles Austin almost made it 3 receivers with over 1000 yards last season as he caught 66 passes for 943 yards and 6 touchdowns, rebounding from an injury plagued 2011 season. He might never produce the kind of numbers he had in 2009 and 2010 again, when he averaged 75 catches for 1181 yards and 9 touchdowns per season, because of Dez Bryant’s emergence and Jason Witten’s presence, and his final 8 game production from 2012 is concerning (25 catches for 306 yards and 2 touchdowns), but he’s only 29 and as your 3^rd option, you can do a lot, lot worse.

The Cowboys have a great top receiving trio. All of their receiving numbers might be a little inflated because the Cowboys passed the ball 658 times in 2012, which was 3^rd most in the NFL and 90 more attempts than any Cowboy team in the Tony Romo era. However, this is more and more becoming a passing league and while they’d probably prefer not to have to pass that many times in 2013, they’ll still be a pass heavy team that should throw the ball at least 600 times and you can’t deny their receiving talent.

The Cowboys also spent 2^nd and 3^rd round picks adding to this receiving corps, which was a need considering the only other player after their top 3 who had more than 262 receiving yards was Kevin Ogletree, who is now in Tampa Bay. 3^rd round pick Terrance Williams will compete with 3^rd year pro Dwayne Harris, a 2011 6^th round pick who caught all 17 of his career receptions in the 2012 season, for the #3 wide receiver job. Williams appears to have the upper hand in that battle and should be able to win it. Williams is a straight line speedster who was incredibly productive at Baylor, but needs to work on his route running. Whoever wins that job will line up outside and push Austin to the slot in 3-wide receiver sets, which they ran on 51% of offensive snaps in 2012.

That number could be lower in 2013 though. In 2011, they used two-tight end sets much more frequently than in 2012 and the reason for that was the loss of Martellus Bennett, following the 2011 season. Bennett was a 2^nd round pick of the Cowboys’ in 2008 and while he was trapped behind Witten on the depth chart, he was secretly one of the best #2 tight ends in the NFL and saw the field frequently. There’s a reason he turned into one of the better all-around tight ends in the NFL once he got a starting job in New York in 2012. However, with John Phillips as the #2 tight end in 2012, they just weren’t able to do the same sort of things. Phillips played just 342 snaps, fewer than Bennett had in any season and he too is also gone as a free agent this off-season.

Seeing the opportunity to upgrade that spot, they used a 2^nd round pick on Gavin Escobar, from San Diego State, and he should see the field plenty as a rookie. He’s not the same type of inline blocker than Bennett was, but he’s a more fluid athlete and pass catcher. He’ll be used more as a move tight end with Witten able to block inline and he’ll allow the Cowboys to get back to the two-tight end sets they love. Williams and Escobar add to this receiving corps’ depth and allow them more versatility and it really is overall one of the best receiving corps in the NFL.

Grade: A

Running Backs

One of the reasons why the Cowboys passed so much in 2012 was because they couldn’t get anything going on the ground. They averaged just 3.6 yards per carry, tied for 2^nd worst in the NFL, rushed for just 1265 yards, 2^nd worst in the NFL, and ran the ball just 355 times, also 2^nd worst in the NFL. DeMarco Murray might be a little overrated off of his 25 carry/253 yard performance against St. Louis in his first NFL start as a 3^rd round rookie in 2011. That was a completely hapless Rams defense at the time and if you take out that game, he’s averaged just 4.4 yards per carry in his career. Last season, he averaged 4.1 yards per carry and since his first 4 starts, he’s managed just 866 yards on 225 carries, a 3.8 YPC clip. He’s not as proven as people think.

He’s also been hampered by numerous injuries, missing the end of his rookie season in 2011 and being limited to 161 carries in 2012. Injuries can not only keep a running back off the field, but also sap his explosiveness and Murray has injury issues dating back to his collegiate days at Oklahoma. There’s a reason he fell to the 3^rd round. In Murray’s absence last year, the Cowboys rushed Felix Jones, Lance Dunbar, and Phillip Tanner, who combined to rush for 538 yards on 157 carries, a pathetic 3.4 YPC.

Seeing the need for an insurance policy behind Murray, the Cowboys used a 5^th round pick on Joseph Randle out of Oklahoma State, who will see carries should Murray get hurt or struggle. He has a good chance to see action, but I don’t know how effective he’ll be. He was just a 5^th round rookie and he’s a one speed back who did most of his work in open space in college and his measurables, 4.63 40 at 6-0 204, don’t impress.

Grade: C+

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Offensive Line

Part of the reason why they’ve struggled on the ground of late has been their poor offensive line play, though they are a better run blocking offensive line than pass blocking, ranking 26^th on ProFootballFocus in terms of pass protection and 23^rd in pass blocking efficiency last season. Seeing the problem, they spent a first round pick on an offensive lineman.

The problem is they reached for Wisconsin’s Travis Frederick, a self-proclaimed “2^nd or 3^rd round offensive lineman.” While I don’t have much doubt Frederick will be a solid starter in the NFL, the time for drafting solid starting interior offensive linemen isn’t the 1^st round. That being said, he will be an upgrade for them on the offensive line, though it’s unknown where he’ll play. He has the versatility to play both guard and center and they need help at both spots.

Right guard is the position where they need the most help. They signed career backup Mackenzy Bernadeau to be their starter at right guard last season for some reason and it went exactly as you’d expect. Bernadeau graded out well below average at right guard and was even worse in 2 starts at center. At center, Ryan Cook actually did a solid job in 13 games, but it’s going to be hard to count on the career backup long term. Cook was only out there because Phil Costa was hurt.

Costa, who will start at center if Frederick plays guard, graded out above average last year on 126 snaps before getting hurt, but he was ProFootballFocus’ 30^th ranked center out of 35 eligible in 2011. Frederick will be able to plug one of these holes, but not both and I don’t think he’ll be a big time impact player. At left guard, Nate Livings actually played pretty well, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 16^th ranked guard in 2012, but in 2011 he was 52^nd out of 78 eligible and 2012 was the first season he graded out above average, so I don’t know how reliable he can be.

Things aren’t much better at right tackle. After a strong 2010 season, the Cowboys rewarded left tackle Doug Free with a 4 year, 32 million dollar contract with 17 million guaranteed, even though he was only a one year starter. He proved to be a one year wonder. He struggled at left tackle in 2011 and was moved to right tackle this year, in hopes of turning things around.

He didn’t turn things around. In fact, he was worse. He was one of the worst tackles in the league, allowing 6 sacks, 4 quarterback hits, and 42 quarterback hurries, while committing a league leading 15 penalties. He split time with Jeremy Parnell down the stretch, who didn’t impress either. Free ranked 66th out of 80 eligible tackles on ProFootballFocus. He restructured his contract this off-season to stay with the team and will compete with Parnell, who graded out below average on 267 snaps in his first serious playing time since going undrafted in 2009. They’ve been linked to free agent right tackle Eric Winston, who would be a tremendous upgrade, but they won’t meet his asking price. If it comes down, which it could if he’s remains unsigned in 2 weeks’ time, he could be a Cowboy.

Their best offensive lineman is left tackle Tyron Smith. Smith was their right tackle in 2011 and played so well, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 3^rd ranked offensive tackle, that he got to move to the blindside for 2012. He didn’t play as well, committing 11 penalties and struggling some in pass protection, but he run blocked incredibly well, 8^th among offensive tackles in terms of run blocking, and overall graded out above average. The 9^th overall pick in 2011, he is only 22 (23 in December) so he still has plenty of upside and could emerge as an above average blindside protector this season. Their offensive line has plenty of issues still though.

Grade: C+

Defensive Line

The Cowboys actually have a lot of defensive talent, but didn’t really play like it last season, allowing 25.0 points per game, 24th in the NFL. Part of this had to do with their inability to force turnovers, which should be better in 2013, as I mentioned earlier. However, a lot of the blame could fall on Rob Ryan, their Defensive Coordinator at the time. He has since been fired and replaced with Monte Kiffin.

Kiffin is an odd fit in Dallas because of cornerbacks Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne. They spent big resources on Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne last off-season, but both fit a man press scheme better than Kiffin’s signature Cover 2. Kiffin says he won’t force the scheme on the cornerbacks, but why hire Kiffin if you aren’t going to run the Tampa 2? Kiffin is a good coordinator, but this is a weird fit and it looks like Jerry Jones only did it for the attention and his big name.

That being said, Kiffin will move their front 7 to a 4-3 alignment, which fits their personnel much better. DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer will move from rush linebacker to defensive end. They were among the best pass rushing duos in the NFL last season. Spencer, who was franchised for the 2^nd straight off-season this off-season, actually graded out as ProFootballFocus’ top ranked rush linebacker last season. While last season was the first season he had big time sack numbers, he’s always gotten consistent pressure and been one of the best run stopping rush linebackers in the NFL. He’s been in the top-13 at the position in each of the last 5 seasons, grading out above average in all 5 seasons. Last season, Spencer had 11 sacks, 2 hits, and 27 hurries on 318 pass rush snaps, a 12.6% pass rush rate.

Ware, meanwhile, has the bigger name, but was the inferior overall player last year. He rushed the passer really well, grading out 3^rd at his position only behind Clay Matthews and Aldon Smith, producing 14 sacks, 13 hits, and 32 hurries on 454 pass rush snaps, a 13.0% pass rush rate. However, his struggles against the run, in coverage, and his position leading 9 penalties can’t be ignored.

He’s only going into his age 31 season and from 2008-2011 he was in the top-4 at his position on ProFootballFocus. Both are among the best edge rushers in the league and while neither has ever played in a 4-3, I don’t have too many concerns about how they’ll adjust, especially considering nickel and dime packages in a 3-4 and a 4-3 aren’t that different. They are, however, the lightest defensive end duo in the NFL, so they could have some issues against the run. Tyrone Crawford, a 2012 3^rd round pick, will be the 3^rd defensive end. He graded out positively on 303 snaps as a rookie and at 274 pounds, he’ll help against the run in certain situations. He can also line up inside on passing downs.

Inside at defensive tackle, Jay Ratliff and Jason Hatcher will start. Ratliff will be a better fit in a 4-3 than he was in a 3-4 because he’s at his best when he’s penetrating and getting up the field, rather than playing nose tackle. The issue is he’s going into his age 32 season and coming off a season where he played just 269 snaps due to injury. After restructuring his contract this off-season, he’s unlikely to be back in 2014 and beyond, but from 2008-2011 he was a top-11 defensive tackle on ProFootballFocus in all 4 seasons despite playing slightly out of position, so there’s some hope for a strong year from him in his new position.

Hatcher, meanwhile, might not be as good of a fit for the scheme. At 6-6 285, he’s undersized for a defensive tackle, but not quick enough to play defensive end. In a 3-4, this “tweener” was a perfect fit as a 5-technique because of his combination of size, speed, and length, but it’s unclear how he’ll fit in a 4-3. For what it’s worth, he was incredible last season, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 4^th ranked 3-4 defensive end, but that was really the first season he had ever done anything like that, though he had always been good in limited action. They’ll have to hope he can be even close to that good in their new scheme.

Sean Lissemore will serve as the 3^rd defensive tackle. Like Tyrone Crawford, his role will be more as a run stopper than anything. All across their starting defensive line, they have great pass rushers who are undersized and going to struggle stopping the run, but that’s how Monte Kiffin’s defensive lines usually are. They’re built on size and pass rush, as opposed to size and physicality. They were ProFootballFocus’ 8^th ranked pass rushing team last season and have a chance to be even better than that this season.

Grade: B+

Linebackers

Despite their small defensive line, they might not struggle to stop the run. That’s because they have two excellent linebackers. Sean Lee and Bruce Carter are also a little smaller than the average linebacker, but they’re so fast and sticky that they are very hard to engage in the running game and they’re both excellent fits for Monte Kiffin’s new scheme. Injuries are the only issue here.

Lee has a history of injury issues dating back to his collegiate dates at Penn State, part of the reason why he fell to the 2^nd round in 2010. As a reserve as a rookie, he played incredibly well on 169 snaps. In 2011, in his first full season as a starter, he was ProFootballFocus’ 14^th ranked middle linebacker. In 2012, he was off to an incredible start before getting hurt and missing 10 games with a toe injury, but he was still ProFootballFocus’ 6^th ranked middle linebacker despite playing just 336 snaps. He absolutely has the potential to be one of the top-3 middle linebackers in the league, especially in this new scheme, should he stay healthy. At his best, maybe only Patrick Willis is better than him.

Bruce Carter will play outside as an every down linebacker alongside Lee. When the Cowboys selected Bruce Carter in the 2nd round of the 2011 NFL Draft, they were taking a real chance. Carter had first round ability, with legitimate 4.4-4.5 speed at 6-1 241 and great weight room strength, throwing up 25 reps of 225 at The Combine, but was widely expected to go on day 2 because he had torn his ACL in the prior November. Not only would he likely not contribute as a rookie, he was a real question mark going forward. He couldn’t run the 40 at The Combine and it was a question whether he’d ever be able to regain that same explosiveness.

The Cowboys didn’t wait long into the 2nd day to take him, taking him 40th overall with the 8th pick of the 2^nd round, doing so despite having 3 established middle linebackers ahead of him, Keith Brooking, Bradie James, and Lee and also despite running a 3-4 scheme that Carter didn’t seem to be a natural fit for. He’d be playing 3-4 middle linebacker, a position more focused on size and strength, coming up to plug the run, rather than speed, instincts, and athleticism, making plays in space. His sideline to sideline speed would not be best utilized in that scheme.

Carter predictably barely played as a rookie, but in his 2nd year in the league in 2012, with Brooking and James gone, Carter beat out free agent signee Dan Connor, widely perceived as the favorite for the job after landing a multiyear deal in free agency. Carter eventually became an every down linebacker at middle linebacker after injuries knocked out Sean Lee for the season, but once again, injuries found Carter when he dislocated his elbow on Thanksgiving and had to be put on IR. Still, despite only playing 625 snaps and despite playing out of position, Carter graded out as ProFootballFocus’ 15th ranked inside linebacker out of 62 eligible, with only 3 players ranked higher than him that played fewer snaps than him.

Now going into his 3rd year in the league, Carter is healthy again, but more importantly the scheme has changed. Carter will be moving outside to weakside linebacker, where he will play every down in the role that Derrick Brooks thrived in with the Buccaneers for so many years under Kiffin. Carter’s skill set fits that role perfectly as his natural athleticism, instincts, and range will be allowed to shine. Provided he stays healthy, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Carter emerged as one of the best outside linebackers in the NFL this season.

The 3^rd linebacker will be Justin Durant. He’ll primarily be a run stopper and come off the field in passing downs for an extra defensive back. He’ll be a perfect fit for this role. He’s not a well-rounded player at all, but in the last three years, he’s graded out as ProFootballFocus 1^st (2010), 7^th (2011), and 8^th (2012) ranked 4-3 outside linebacker on ProFootballFocus. Barring injury, this is one of the best linebacking corps in the NFL. I like this front 7 a lot as a whole.

Grade: A

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Cornerbacks

Brandon Carr is their #1 cornerback. He’s an overrated player who wasn’t worth what they paid him last off-season. He played pretty well in Kansas City when he had Brandon Flowers to cover #1 receivers opposite him, but he had his worst season since his rookie year last season as Dallas’ #1 cornerback. Still, he graded out as a league average player, allowing 51 catches on 87 attempts for 644 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions, while deflecting 8 passes and committing 3 penalties.

What would really help Carr is if Morris Claiborne could develop into a #1 cornerback. The 2012 6^th overall pick certainly has the upside, but he struggled as a rookie, grading out below average and allowing 48 catches on 69 attempts for 571 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 1 interception, while deflecting 7 passes and committing 8 penalties. He should be better in his 2^nd season in the league, but he might be a year away from developing into a top flight cornerback, if he’s ever going to.

Orlando Scandrick will be the slot cornerback and with Mike Jenkins gone, he should see more than the 339 snaps he played last season. He graded out about league average, allowing 20 catches on 39 attempts for 222 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions, while deflecting 3 passes and committing 3 penalties. He never developed into the player they expected him to be when they prematurely gave him a “forward thinking” 5 year, 25 million dollar contract with 10 million guaranteed two off-seasons ago. Owed 3.5 million in 2014, this could be his last season with the team, so the Cowboys drafted BW Webb in the 4^th round. Webb will be their 4^th cornerback this season.

The Cowboys may use 4 cornerbacks more than most teams, like they did last year with Jenkins, because of their lack of talent at the safety position. It could be even worse this season. They’ve essentially got 5 guys competing for two spots and none of them are very impressive. Barry Church started last year as a starter before tearing his Achilles. He’s only played in 399 snaps in his career since going undrafted in 2010 and hasn’t played very well, but he should win one of the starting jobs because of his salary. In yet another “forward thinking” extension by Jerry Jones, the Cowboys extended him for 4 years, 12.4 million last year after he tore his Achilles, even though he had another year left on his contract.

Will Allen, a career backup and special teamer going into his age 31 season, is another option. He graded out about average on 432 snaps with the Steelers last season. Danny McCray, who played in Church’s absence last season, graded out as ProFootballFocus’ 77^th ranked safety out of 88 eligible despite playing just 658 snaps. Matt Johnson is an inexperienced 2012 4^th round pick who didn’t play a snap last season. JJ Wilcox, meanwhile, is a 3^rd round pick rookie who is incredibly raw. There’s not a lot to like here at safety and it’s really the weakness of their defense. However, they still have a lot of defensive talent and barring major injury or major issues adjusting to the new scheme by some of their premier players, they should be an improved defensive group next season and they should force more takeaways as well.

Grade: B-

Head Coach

Jason Garrett gets a lot of criticism, but unlike Tony Romo, he does deserve a lot of it. His Cowboy teams have largely underachieved over the years, doing so last year while committing 118 penalties, 3^rd most in the NFL. His name has been thrown around as a coach who could potentially get fired and if they don’t make it back to the playoffs this season, this could be it for him. He’s already had play calling duties taken away from him.

Grade: C+

Overall

As I said in the opening, the NFC East is really wide open. Washington won the division with 10 wins last year and they could easily not match that because of Robert Griffin’s health questions and because of the ridiculous fumble luck they had last season. The Giants are obviously a candidate to bounce back, but they still have major questions in their defensive back 7. Philadelphia, meanwhile, remains a mystery. The Cowboys could easily go 4-2 or better in divisional play.

Outside of the division, they host St. Louis, Denver, Minnesota, Oakland, and Green Bay. Denver and Green Bay will be tough games, but they could win one of those games and they should win the other 3. On the road, they go to Kansas City, San Diego, Detroit, New Orleans, and Chicago. New Orleans should be a very tough one and Detroit and Chicago won’t be easy, but Kansas City and San Diego will be easier and they should win 2 or 3 of those games. They should be able to win the 10 or 11 games it will take to win this division.

Projection: 11-5 1st in NFC East

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

July 16, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 Fantasy Football Preseason, 2013 Team Fantasy Football Previews, Buccaneers, Uncategorized

QB Josh Freeman (Tampa Bay)

The Buccaneers are an incredibly inconsistent team. It’s no surprise they’re this inconsistent when their quarterback is this inconsistent. It wasn’t just last year. They went 3-13 in 2009, 10-6 in 2010, and then 4-12 in 2011 as Josh Freeman posted 10/18, 25/6, and 16/22 touchdown to interception ratios in those 3 seasons respectively. Last year, he started the year with a 5/4 TD/interception ratio in their first 4 games, then had a 16/3 ratio in their next 6, and then a 5/9 ratio on that 5 game losing streak, before having a decent game against Atlanta. In wins, he had a 97.6 QB rating, which is comparable to Tom Brady’s and Ben Roethlisberger’s. In losses, that rating was 71.4, which is comparable to Chad Henne and Mark Sanchez. He’s an inconsistent QB2, who might not keep his job all season. Look elsewhere.

Projection: 3650 passing yards, 22 touchdowns, 18 interceptions, 200 rushing yards, 1 touchdown (224 pts standard, 268 pts 6 pt td leagues)

RB Doug Martin (Tampa Bay)

While Martin did catch 49 passes as a rookie, the most impressive thing he did, by far, is rush for 1454 yards and 11 touchdowns on 319 carries, emerging as a true, complete feature back from the word go. As is the case with all running backs, his ability to replicate that in 2013 is dependent on whether or not he stays healthy. He does have a history of injuries from his days at Boise State, but he was still an incredible find with the 31^st pick of the 2012 NFL Draft, after the Buccaneers traded back into the first to grab him, jumping ahead of the Giants, who were ready to take him one spot later.

Projection: 300 carries for 1350 rushing yards 12 total touchdowns 50 catches for 450 rushing yards (252 pts standard, 302 pts PPR)

WR Vincent Jackson (Tampa Bay)

The Buccaneers signed Vincent Jackson to a 5-year 55.5 million dollar contract last off-season that appeared risky at the time. Jackson, who had previously held out 10 games because he wanted to get paid, appeared to just be chasing the money going to Tampa Bay and could have easily just coasted. He was also going into his age 29 season so he was on the downside of his prime and probably wouldn’t get any better. However, Jackson somehow turned in the best season of his career, catching 72 passes for 1384 yards and 8 touchdowns.

Projection: 65 catches for 1200 receiving yards 7 touchdowns (162 pts standard, 227 pts PPR)

WR Mike Williams (Tampa Bay)

Jackson’s presence reinvigorated Mike Williams, who no longer had to deal with opponent’s #1 cornerbacks. Williams himself also deserves credit for getting himself back into shape after a miserable 2^nd season in the league in 2011. All of this led to the 2010 4^th round pick totaling 63 catches for 996 yards and 9 touchdowns opposite Jackson. Williams was 4 yards away from giving the Buccaneers two 1000 yard receivers, something only Denver (Thomas/Decker), New Orleans (Colston/Moore), Atlanta (White/Jones), and Dallas (Bryant/Witten) could also say.

Projection: 65 catches for 1000 receiving yards 8 touchdowns (148 pts standard, 213 pts PPR)

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Atlanta Falcons 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

July 16, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 Fantasy Football Preseason, 2013 Team Fantasy Football Previews, Falcons, Uncategorized

QB Matt Ryan (Atlanta)

Dirk Koetter’s arrival in Atlanta led to Matt Ryan attempting a career high 615 passes last season, which led to a career high in completions (422), yards (4719), and touchdowns (32). He was also the most efficient he’s ever been on a per play basis, ranking 5^th in the NFL with a 99.4 QB rating, a career high. Also a career high was his 68.6% completion percentage and his 7.7 yards per attempt were the 2^nd highest of his career. While he did throw 14 interceptions, his interception rate of 2.3% was actually right in line with his career average. He could see inferior production this season as a result of a tougher schedule, though not a lot inferior.

Projection: 4500 passing yards 30 touchdowns 15 interceptions 100 rushing yards 1 touchdown (286 pts standard, 346 pts 6 pt td leagues)

RB Steven Jackson (Atlanta)

Steven Jackson can’t be worse than Michael Turner, but Falcons fans might not be getting the guy they’re expecting. He turns 30 in July and has 2395 career carries. He’s 26th all-time in rushing yards at 10,135, but the average top-25 all-time running back has his last 1000 yard season in his age 30 season at 2602 carrier carries. And after players have their drop off, they average just 169 carries per season at 3.5 yards per carry and just 5 touchdowns, so they’re really a non-factor as a back. He should have one more good year in him, but there are no guarantees at this point in his career.

Projection: 200 carries for 860 rushing yards 8 total touchdowns 30 catches for 250 rushing yards (159 pts standard, 189 pts PPR)

RB Jacquizz Rodgers (Atlanta)

With Jackson coming in, it’s unclear what role Rodgers will have. Rodgers did well in 2012, catching 53 passes, to go with 94 carries, but Jackson is also a good pass catcher and unlike Turner will stay on the field in passing downs. Rodgers should go back to being a true backup and he’ll be insurance in case father time finally beats Jackson. Jackson doesn’t have a ton of explosive burst at this point in his career so Rodgers’ speed will serve well as a complement.

Projection: 110 carries for 480 rushing yards 3 total touchdowns 40 catches for 300 receiving yards (96 pts standard, 136 pts PPR)

WR Julio Jones (Atlanta)

Julio Jones is heading into his 3^rd year in the league, a year when receivers tend to break out, as if a receiver who caught 79 passes for 1198 yards and 10 touchdowns in his age 23 season could break out any more. I expect him to be their leading receiver though.

Projection: 80 catches for 1240 receiving yards 10 touchdowns (184 pts standard, 264 pts PPR)

WR Roddy White (Atlanta)

Roddy White is heading into his age 32 season, so some statistical drop off is to be expected. He’s already noticeably less explosive than he was in his prime and he averaged just 3.6 yards average catch per catch last season. He’s much more of a possession receiver than anything else at this point in his career, though a very good one at that.

Projection: 85 catches for 1200 receiving yards 7 touchdowns (162 pts standard, 247 pts PPR)

TE Tony Gonzalez (Atlanta)

Projection: 70 catches for 770 receiving yards 6 touchdowns (113 pts standard, 183 pts PPR)

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New Orleans Saints 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

July 16, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 Fantasy Football Preseason, 2013 Team Fantasy Football Previews, Saints, Uncategorized

QB Drew Brees (New Orleans)

There was concern about how Brees would do without Sean Payton last season, but he did fine, completing 63.0% of his passes for an average of 7.7 YPA, 43 touchdowns, and 19 interceptions, while leading the NFL’s #3 ranked scoring offense. He’s now thrown for 5000 yards in 3 of the last 5 seasons, including the past 2, the first quarterback in NFL history to do so. Since 2008, he’s completed 2114 of 3134 (67.5%) for 24730 yards (7.9 YPA), 190 touchdowns, 83 interceptions.

Projection: 5000 passing yards 39 touchdowns 16 interceptions 50 rushing yards 0 rushing touchdowns (329 pts standard, 407 pts 6 pt td leagues)

RB Mark Ingram (New Orleans)

Mark Ingram will once again be the lead back and hoping to get things together in his 3^rd year, after going in the 1^st round in 2011. He’s averaged just 3.9 yards per carry since and had just 278 carries, struggling through injuries. He could breakout this season though and the Saints seem confident in him, trading away their top insurance option in Chris Ivory.

Projection: 200 carries for 880 rushing yards 8 total touchdowns 12 catches for 100 yards (146 pts standard, 158 pts PPR)

RB Darren Sproles (New Orleans)

Darren Sproles is essentially more of a slot receiver than a running back. He’s had 135 carries and 161 catches in the last 2 seasons and is a threat to score at any time, scoring 17 touchdowns. I don’t know why his role would change this season.

Projection: 60 carries for 300 yards 8 total touchdowns 77 catches for 670 receiving yards (145 pts standard, 222 pts PPR)

RB Pierre Thomas (New Orleans)

Pierre Thomas is the primary backup and has done a good job, rushing for 4.8 yards per carry in his career, though he’s maxed out at 147 carries. He’s also been a big part of the passing game as well, catching 188 passes in 66 games in the past 5 seasons.

Projection: 100 carries for 460 yards 4 total touchdowns 40 catches for 340 receiving yards (104 pts standard, 144 pts PPR)

WR Marques Colston (New Orleans)

Marques Colston gets a reputation for being injury prone and he has had a bunch of knee surgeries, but he’s only missed 10 games in 7 seasons and he’s been nothing if not reliable. With the exception of 2008 (when he played a career low 11 games), he’s caught 70 passes for 1000 yards and 7 touchdowns in every season of his career. Last season, he once again had big time production, catching 83 passes for 1132 yards and 10 touchdowns while not missing a game. He’s only 30 and he has great chemistry with Drew Brees so he should once again be Drew Brees’ top receiver.

Projection: 80 catches for 1070 receiving yards 8 touchdowns (155 pts standard, 235 pts PPR)

WR Lance Moore (New Orleans)

Lance Moore had 1000 yards last year, catching 65 passes for 1041 yards and 6 touchdowns. He’s an underrated receiver who has the talent to be an incredibly productive receiver when he has an opportunity and the starting job opposite Colston is all his, but he’s had a history of injuries, so that’s a concern.

Projection: 60 catches for 880 receiving yards 7 touchdowns (130 pts standard, 190 pts PPR)

TE Jimmy Graham (New Orleans)

Jimmy Graham was the Saints’ leading receiver in 2011, catching 99 passes for 1310 yards and 11 touchdowns, but injuries led to a league leading 15 drops in 2012 and he “only” caught 85 passes for 982 yards and 9 touchdowns in 15 games in 2012. He should get back over 1000 this season though.

Projection: 82 catches for 1020 receiving yards 9 touchdowns (156 pts standard, 238 pts PPR)

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Carolina Panthers 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

July 16, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 Fantasy Football Preseason, 2013 Team Fantasy Football Previews, Panthers, Uncategorized

QB Cam Newton (Carolina)

Newton was noticeably better in the 2^nd half of last season, with 1964 passing yards, 13 touchdowns, and 4 interceptions, all while rushing for 394 yards and 4 touchdowns. Heading into his 3^rd season in the league, it’s very possible he’s turned a corner permanently. There’s immense upside here.

Projection: 4000 passing yards, 25 passing touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 750 rushing yards, 8 touchdowns (359 pts standard, 409 pts 6 pt td leagues)

RB DeAngelo Williams (Carolina)

8/20/13: With Stewart possibly starting the season on the PUP, Williams gets a stock up. He had 173 carries last season with Stewart missing time and could see even more this season as the Panthers want to have a little bit more of a traditional running game. Cam Newton and goal line back Mike Tolbert will still steal a bunch of touchdowns and Newton is still a good bet to take off a bunch of times on his own though and Williams just isn’t that talented anymore.

Williams did average 4.3 yards per carry on 173 carries last year, but only because of a random 210 yard/21 carry performance in week 17 against a laughable New Orleans defense. Before that, he was averaging just 3.5 yards per carry. Going into his age 30 season this year, things aren’t going to get better.

Projection: 180 carries for 720 rushing yards 6 total touchdowns 18 catches for 130 receiving yards (121 pts standard, 139 pts PPR)

RB Jonathan Stewart (Carolina)

8/20/13: Stewart is the more talented of Carolina’s two backs, but he can’t stay healthy. After missing 7 games with injury last season, Stewart is a candidate to start the season on the PUP, which would cost him the first 6 weeks of the season, this according to Head Coach Ron Rivera. Stewart had 93 carries in 9 games last year. He might not exceed that by much this season.

Injuries limited Stewart to just 3.6 yards per carry and 93 carries, but he’s only 26 and had only missed 2 games in the prior 4 years, when he averaged 4.8 yards per carry. Provided he’s healthy, he should be able to be a solid starting running back this season and keep the aging DeAngelo Williams off the field as much as possible.

Projection: 100 carries for 440 rushing yards 4 total touchdowns 15 catches for 100 receiving yards (84 pts standard, 99 pts PPR)

RB Mike Tolbert (Carolina)

Tolbert rushed for 3.4 yards per carry on 54 carries while scoring 7 touchdowns as a short yardage back, which is impressive considering his role. He should be able to do the same again in 2013. Tolbert also is a good pass catcher, leading Carolina backs with 27 catches and serving essentially as a move tight end in certain situations.

Projection: 60 carries for 210 rushing yards 5 total touchdowns 30 catches for 270 yards (78 pts standard, 108 pts PPR)

WR Steve Smith (Carolina)

Steve Smith remains the #1 receiver, catching 73 passes for 1174 yards and 4 touchdowns, but it’s unclear how much longer he can do that for, as he’s going into his age 34 season. Over the next 2-4 years, Smith can be expected to go from top flight receiver to complementary player to gone. That’s just what happens to receivers around this age. Even the average top-20 receiver (in terms of yardage all-time) has his last 1000 yard season at age 34-35, averages 48 catches for 594 yards and 3 touchdowns for 2 more seasons after age 34-35, and is done playing by age 36-37.

Projection: 62 catches for 1020 receiving yards 5 touchdowns (132 pts standard, 194 pts PPR)

WR Brandon LaFell (Carolina)

Their other starting receiver is Brandon LaFell, a marginal pass catcher. He’s a borderline starting receiver at best though and will never be a long term #1 wide receiver. He could see career high numbers, though that wouldn’t be saying a lot.

Projection: 50 catches for 750 receiving yards 5 touchdowns (105 pts standard, 155 pts PPR)

TE Greg Olsen (Carolina)

Greg Olsen was a 1^st round pick in the 2007 NFL Draft and finally came into his own last season, catching a career high 69 passes for a career high 843 yards and 5 touchdowns, serving as a very good secondary receiver for Cam Newton, including 35 catches for 448 yards and 4 touchdowns in the 2^nd half of the season. With Smith expected to decline a little and Newton expected to improve, Olsen could even surpass last year’s numbers.

Projection: 71 catches for 880 receiving yards 8 touchdowns (136 pts standard, 207 pts PPR)

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2013 NFL Season Preview

July 16, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 NFL Season Previews, Buccaneers, Uncategorized

Introduction

The Buccaneers had the 31^st ranked pass defense in the NFL in 2011, allowing 8.2 YPA. In order to fix this problem, they signed cornerback Eric Wright to a big contract last off-season and used the 7^th pick in the draft (after a trade down) on Alabama safety Mark Barron. However, that barely improved things, as they ranked 29^th in 2012, allowing 7.9 YPA. Wright proved not to be worth his contract on the field and also got himself suspended for 4 games for drug use. Aqib Talib, previously their #1 cornerback, was shipped to New England at the deadline as a pending free agent and an all-around bad apple in his time in Tampa. Barron wasn’t bad, but he reminded fans on several occasions that he was, in fact, just a rookie.

To solve the problem, the Buccaneers threw more money at the problem this off-season, signing the market’s top safety in Dashon Goldson to a record contract and trading a 1^st round pick to the Jets for Darrelle Revis, who they signed to essentially a 6-year series of 1-year, 16 million dollar contracts. They restructured Wright’s contract, holding all the leverage after his suspension voided the guaranteed portion, and will bring him back to play opposite Revis.

Barron and Goldson will serve as the safeties and they also added Jonathan Banks in the 2^nd round of the draft to be their nickel back, meaning that in 2 off-seasons they’ve effectively overhauled their entire secondary, doing so with high draft picks and big money contracts. Credit them for recognizing the issue and addressing the problem. The Buccaneers have been big spenders in general in the past 2 off-seasons, also signing Vincent Jackson and Carl Nicks to large contracts on the offensive side of the ball. However, unfortunately for them, they play in a loaded division in a loaded conference and they have a quarterback who has a lot of issues.

The 2012 season must have felt like 4 different seasons for Buccaneers fans. They started 1-3, after losing their last 10 to finish 2011, and it looked like more of the same. However, after the bye, they ripped off wins in 5 of 6 games and looked like a potential playoff team. They lost a close one at home to Atlanta and then in Denver, but those were two of the best teams in the league so they still looked like they were in good position. That was until they lost at home to the lowly Eagles, and then got blown out by the Saints and Rams, to push their losing streak at 5. They finished out their season with an impressive win in Atlanta in a game that didn’t really matter.

Quarterback

It’s no surprise they’re this inconsistent when their quarterback is this inconsistent. It wasn’t just last year. They went 3-13 in 2009, 10-6 in 2010, and then 4-12 in 2011 as Josh Freeman posted 10/18, 25/6, and 16/22 touchdown to interception ratios in those 3 seasons respectively. Last year, he started the year with a 5/4 TD/interception ratio in their first 4 games, then had a 16/3 ratio in their next 6, and then a 5/9 ratio on that 5 game losing streak, before having a decent game against Atlanta. In wins, he had a 97.6 QB rating, which is comparable to Tom Brady’s and Ben Roethlisberger’s. In losses, that rating was 71.4, which is comparable to Chad Henne and Mark Sanchez.

Overall, his stats are solid. His career quarterback rating of 79.8 is nothing special, but it’s not terrible either. But, it must be so maddeningly frustrating for Buccaneers fans to have no idea on a game to game basis what they’re going to get when their quarterback takes the field. It seems to have frustrated the organization as well as Head Coach Greg Schiano has publicly put Josh Freeman on notice on several occasions this off-season and they also used a 3^rd round pick to select Mike Glennon to not just be Freeman’s backup, but an alternative option should Freeman continue to not impress.

Freeman is in a contract year in 2013, so it’s going to be a huge year for him. In 2014, he could be anything from a well-paid starting quarterback for the Buccaneers to a backup elsewhere. Furthermore, he might not even last the season as the starter. Obviously switching quarterbacks mid-season would essentially be this team waving the white flag, but if they’re sitting there at 3-6 midway through the season they might want to see what the rookie has with Freeman heading into free agency so they can determine whether or not to use a higher pick on a quarterback in a much stronger 2014 quarterback class. A lot of different things could happen for the Buccaneers at the game’s most important position and that’s what makes it so tough to predict their season.

Grade: C+

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

The Buccaneers have done a good job of building the offensive supporting cast around Freeman. They signed Vincent Jackson to a 5-year 55.5 million dollar contract last off-season that appeared risky at the time. Jackson, who had previously held out 10 games because he wanted to get paid, appeared to just be chasing the money going to Tampa Bay and could have easily just coasted. He was also going into his age 29 season so he was on the downside of his prime and probably wouldn’t get any better.

However, Jackson somehow turned in the best season of his career, catching 72 passes for 1384 yards and 8 touchdowns. He turned out to be a perfect fit for Josh Freeman, a natural deep ball thrower, and his presence reinvigorated Mike Williams, who no longer had to deal with opponent’s #1 cornerbacks. Williams himself also deserves credit for getting himself back into shape after a miserable 2^nd season in the league in 2011. All of this led to the 2010 4^th round pick totaling 63 catches for 996 yards and 9 touchdowns opposite Jackson. Williams was 4 yards away from giving the Buccaneers two 1000 yard receivers, something only Denver (Thomas/Decker), New Orleans (Colston/Moore), Atlanta (White/Jones), and Dallas (Bryant/Witten) could also say.

However, it was an incredibly top heavy receiving corps. Their 3^rd leading receiver was actually the running back Doug Martin, who had 472 receiving yards. Tight end Dallas Clark, who is still unsigned of this writing, had 435. 3^rd receiver Tiquan Underwood had 425. And no one else had more than 165. In an effort to fix this, they brought in Kevin Ogletree from Dallas to push Underwood for the 3^rd receiver job, which should help a little bit.

However, they still have nothing at the tight end spot. The aged Clark is gone, which isn’t a huge loss, but now Luke Stocker will have to take on more receiving duties, in addition to just being a sound blocker. The 2011 4^th round pick has just 28 catches in 2 seasons and doesn’t possess natural receiving ability. This probably will just be a spot they won’t get a lot of production from and finding a tight end to complement Stocker will then be a big focus of their 2014 off-season. If they hadn’t traded for Revis, they reportedly would have drafted tight end Tyler Eifert with the 13^th pick in the 2013 NFL Draft.

Grade: B+

Running Backs

I mentioned running back Doug Martin in the receiving group; he’s also a big part of their offensive supporting cast and not just for his strong work in the passing game. While he did catch 49 passes as a rookie, the most impressive thing he did, by far, is rush for 1454 yards and 11 touchdowns on 319 carries, emerging as a true, complete feature back from the word go.

As is the case with all running backs, his ability to replicate that in 2013 is dependent on whether or not he stays healthy. He does have a history of injuries from his days at Boise State, but he was still an incredible find with the 31^st pick of the 2012 NFL Draft, after the Buccaneers traded back into the first to grab him, jumping ahead of the Giants, who were ready to take him one spot later. He should once again give them one of the better running games in the NFL and he has already emerged as one of the best running backs in the NFL. The one minor concern is that his backup is 6^th round rookie Mike James. They may add a veteran if they don’t like what they see from him in Camp.

Grade: A

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Offensive Line

I mentioned the large contract the Buccaneers gave guard Carl Nicks last off-season in the opening; he signed a 5-year 47.5 million dollar contract that was, on a per season basis, the richest contract ever signed by a guard, but he isn’t their only highly paid guard. In the off-season after the 2011 season, the Buccaneers gave a 7-year 52.5 million dollar extension to guard Davin Joseph. However, both guards missed significant time with injury last season, with Joseph missing the entire season and Nicks going down for the season after 7 games.

Both will return this season. Nicks’ presence will be huge. He was on his way to another fantastic season before getting hurt in 2012 and he was a top-4 guard on ProFootballFocus in every season from 2009-2011. He’ll certainly be an upgrade over Ted Larsen, who took over at center when Nicks’ injury forced Jeremy Zuttah back from center to left guard.

Joseph, meanwhile, is an overpaid and overrated player. In 2011, when he graded out slightly below average, that was actually his best season grade wise of the past 4 seasons. In 2008, he graded out as ProFootballFocus’ 57^th ranked guard out of 74 eligible. In 2009, he graded out 75^th out of 84 eligible and in 2010, before he got that ridiculous extension, he was dead last among eligible guards. Going into his age 30 season coming off a major injury probably won’t help matters. He’ll probably be better than the Ted Larsen/Jamon Meredith train wreck that split time at right guard in his absence in 2012, but he won’t be a significant improvement or anything.

In between Joseph and Nicks, Zuttah will start at center. A guard throughout his pro career, Zuttah was shifted to center to make room for Carl Nicks by Greg Schiano, who was actually Zuttah’s college coach at Rutgers. He made 7 starts at center before having to move back to left guard and he was pretty much as he has always been, an average starter at both positions. I don’t expect anything different from him this year in what should be his first full season at center.

Starting at left tackle will once again be Donald Penn. Penn made news this off-season for reportedly failing to meet most of the weight clauses in his contract and angering management. It was a plausible report. He’s had issues with his weight before. However, Penn and management both refuted the report, Penn doing so angrily, and his on the field performance in 2012 certainly didn’t suggest he was out of shape. It’s likely that was a false report. He’s graded out 16^th and 24^th respectively in 2011 and 2012 on ProFootballFocus and is an above average left tackle. He’s also never graded out negatively in 5 seasons. He’s a better run blocker than pass protector, but he’s good in both aspects and only committed 5 penalties last season. He also hasn’t missed a game in over 5 seasons. Though he’s heading into his age 30 season, he should be dependable once again.

Bookending Penn at right tackle will be either DeMar Dotson or Gabe Carimi. Dotson should get the nod as he was above average in his first season as a starter, only struggling with penalties (10), while Carimi has been largely a bust since going in the first round in 2011, with the exception of a few starts at right guard late last season. There’s a reason the Bears let him go for pretty much nothing. He’ll be better served as a reserve guard in case something happens to Nicks or Joseph again.

Grade: B

Defensive Line

Defensively, the big acquisition was Darrelle Revis. One of the very powerful things he does is he can lock down one side of the field and allow the players around him to blitz more often. He also forces coverage sacks. That’s good news because the defensive line has plenty of questions, particularly about their ability to get to the quarterback. That’s because the Buccaneers lost their top pass rusher Michael Bennett this off-season.

Bennett is incredibly versatile and well rounded, lining up at two positions and grading out well above average both against the run and as a pass rusher. In 2011, he graded out as ProFootballFocus’ 7th rated 4-3 defensive end in a more limited role, excelling against the run at 6-4 274, but also accumulating 4 sacks, 6 hits, and 28 hurries on 338 pass rush snaps.

In 2012, he led the defensive line in snaps, grading out 7^th among 4-3 defensive ends again. Along with Cameron Wake and Greg Hardy, he was one of three 4-3 defensive ends to grade out in the top-10 as a run stopper and pass rusher and he accumulated 9 sacks, 14 hits, and 48 hurries on 600 pass rush snaps. His versatility was incredibly valuable because it allowed him to move to defensive tackle on passing downs and essentially get 3 defensive ends on the field at one time. He’ll be missed, especially for a team that managed just 27 sacks last season.

Fortunately, the Buccaneers will get Adrian Clayborn and Da’Quan Bowers back. Clayborn, their 1^st round pick in 2011, had a decent rookie year, contributing big time as a pass rusher with 8 sacks, 10 hits, and 32 hurries on 434 pass rush snaps, an 11.5% rate, but his terrible play against the run cancelled all that out and earned him an overall average grade. In 2012, he played poorly in the first 3 games of the season and before he could get things turned around his tore his ACL and missed the rest of the season. He’s got talent and he’s going into a crucial 3^rd year, but he might not have all of his explosiveness back.

Bowers, meanwhile, got hurt in the off-season and returned after 6 games on the Physically Unable to Perform list, but was unable to play more than limited snaps, playing just 292 on the season and grading out just above average. In 2011, as a 2^nd round rookie from the same draft class as Clayborn, he graded out slightly below average on 505 snaps. He’ll be healthier in 2013 though. There’s definitely some upside here, but they’re also definitely unproven. They also lack depth, which could be a big concern considering they’re coming off serious injuries and have histories of injuries. The 3^rd defensive end is Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, who stopped the run alright, but managed just 4 sacks, 4 hits, and 18 hurries on 432 pass rush snaps last season, a pitiful 6.0% rate. It’s an area of concern for sure.

Their most dependable pass rusher is probably going to be defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, who had 5 sacks, 12 hits, and 37 hurries on 635 pass rush snaps, a 8.5% pass rush rate, very impressive considering his inside position. He was ProFootballFocus’ 4^th ranked pass rushing defensive tackle last season and could lead this team in sacks. He’s also well rounded and joined Geno Atkins and Kyle Williams as the only two defensive tackles to rank in the top-5 in pass rushing and run stopping among defensive tackles on ProFootballFocus and he only committed 3 penalties as well. Overall, he graded out as their #2 defensive tackle. The 2010 3^rd overall pick always had talent and flashed whenever he had a chance in his first 2 years in the league, but injuries kept him off the field often. Last year’s performance was probably not a fluke, but his injury history can’t be ignored. That’s the one concern here.

At the other defensive tackle spot, Gary Gibson and Akeem Spence will probably split snaps. They’ll replace the departed Roy Miller, who played the run alright, but did little else. Gibson, like Miller, is purely a run stuffer, who doesn’t generate much pass rush. He’ll probably come off the field on passing downs for Spence, a 4^th round pick rookie who specializes in getting to the quarterback. Still, things are pretty bleak as far as pass rushers go so their secondary will have to play really well. It is a defensive line that plays the run well though, thanks in large part to McCoy, as they ranked 1^st in the NFL in stopping the run on a per carry basis in 2012. Bennett’s absence will hurt in that aspect as well, but not too much.

Grade: B-

Linebackers

The play of their linebackers also had something to do with their strong run play. The most important player in this unit was Lavonte David, a 2^nd round rookie who played every down from the word go and played them well. He was ProFootballFocus’ 5^th ranked 4-3 outside linebacker and should have gotten serious consideration for Defensive Rookie of the Year even against linebackers like Bobby Wagner and Luke Kuechly. He excels in coverage and stops the run well.

Middle linebacker Mason Foster, however, struggled last year, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 38^th ranked middle linebacker out of 53 eligible. The 2011 3^rd round pick would be best suited as a 3^rd linebacker who specializes in stopping the run, but the Buccaneers don’t have another linebacker to take his spot at middle linebacker. That 3^rd run stopping linebacker will be either Adam Hayward or Dekoda Watson, who essentially split the job after the now departed Quincy Black got hurt. Whichever player wins that battle won’t matter all that much as it’s a largely unimportant position. The winner will come off the field on passing downs for a 5^th defensive back.

Grade: B-

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Secondary

Because of all the resources they’ve put into it, the Buccaneers’ secondary has actually become the strength of their defense. However, not everyone they’ve brought in has been worth what they’ve spent on him. Dashon Goldson was signed to the richest deal a safety has ever signed this off-season, but that was largely out of desperation. He’s nowhere near that kind of player. San Francisco’s supporting cast merely masked his flaws really well over the past 2 seasons. Remember, he had to settle for a one-year contract 2 off-seasons ago.

In 2011, he was actually ProFootballFocus’ 64^th ranked safety out of 87 eligible, but made the Pro-Bowl because of what he did on 6 snaps, as he had 6 interceptions. Being on the 49ers vaunted defense also didn’t hurt. However, he was generally torched in coverage. In 2012, he was better despite just 3 interceptions, grading out 20^th and fixing his issues in coverage, but he still didn’t deserve to make the Pro-Bowl, which he did largely on name recognition, team recognition, and the uncanny ability of the San Francisco Bay Area to stuff the voter ballots for professional sport All-Star games. He definitely doesn’t deserve this kind of money the Buccaneers have given him. He’ll be an asset as long as he doesn’t get complacent now that he’s been paid, but he actually graded out lower at his position than incumbent Ronde Barber, a long-time great who is now retired.

Eric Wright obviously wasn’t worth what they paid him either. That’s clear now, but it was pretty clear even when they gave him that ridiculous 5 year, 37.5 million dollar deal. He was ProFootballFocus’ 104^th ranked cornerback out of 109 eligible the season prior. Last year, he graded out below average on 518 snaps before getting suspended.

They’re incredibly lucky that happened because it allowed them to restructure his contract down to 1 year and a non-guaranteed 1.5 million for the 2013 season. He might be a decent starter opposite Revis, but it’s hard to count on him and the value of a cornerback like Revis is lessened if opposing quarterbacks can easily through away from him. He doesn’t have Antonio Cromartie opposite him anymore. Perhaps Jonathan Banks can unseat Wright for the starting job. He wasn’t a mistake as a 2^nd round rookie or anything, but it’s going to be tough to count on him this season as well. Leonard Johnson, who actually played pretty well in the absence of Talib and Wright last year as an undrafted rookie, is the other option. The 5-10 202 pounder could also be a natural fit on the slot.

Mark Barron, the other youngster in the secondary, was also a mistake with the 7^th overall pick in 2012. The safety position is just not important enough to spend that high of a pick on someone unless they’re a truly elite prospect and Barron, while a solid prospect, was reached for because of the draft class’ extreme dearth of safety prospects. He graded out below average as a rookie, struggling in coverage and while he should be better this season, I don’t expect big things from him, despite the fact that he was a high pick.

Darrelle Revis is really the saving grace of all their recent secondary moves. It’s not that they’ve brought in bad players, but I don’t like the prices they’ve paid. For Revis, however, a 1^st round pick and a series of 1-year 16 million dollar contracts is definitely the right price, if not a bargain, considering the type of game changer he can be when healthy.

Revis was ProFootballFocus’ top rated cornerback in 2011, a title he held in 2009 also. He was ranked 3rd in 2008 and his “down year” in 2010, when he ranked 8th, was due to an extended holdout and lingering injuries. Including last year, when he played just 1 ½ games thanks to injury, Revis has allowed 153 completions on 371 attempts (41.2%) for 1946 yards (5.2 YPA), 8 touchdowns, 18 interceptions, while deflecting 62 passes, and committing 13 penalties over the past 5 seasons. That’s a QB rating allowed of 45.3.

No one else even comes close to that and he does it despite shadowing the opponent’s #1 wide receiver on every snap, something that most #1 cornerbacks don’t do anymore. Apologies to Richard Sherman, but he’s the only cornerback in the NFL who, when healthy, you can legitimately build your defense around. Sherman is a safer bet at a younger age with less of an injury history, but at his best, no one is better than Revis.

Players like him are almost never available and when they are, they are usually sold for a price that doesn’t meet their value because that’s simply not possible. It was a perfect storm that led to the Jets trading him, the cornerback equivalent of Peyton Manning being available last off-season. Antonio Cromartie’s emergence as a legitimate #1 cornerback in his absence last year, Revis’ pending free agency (his original contract was set to expire after the 2013 season), the Jets’ awful cap situation, and the fact that they weren’t going anywhere with or without him actually made it make sense for the Jets to move him and the Buccaneers are definitely the beneficiary of that situation, of course, provided he’s healthy. He’ll be 11 months removed from the ACL tear week 1 so I don’t have too many concerns.

Grade: B+

Head Coach

It may have just been that the 2011 Buccaneers under Raheem Morris were arguably the worst coached team of all-time, but Greg Schiano’s presence in his first year as the Head Coach of the Buccaneers made a noticeable difference. They only improved 3 wins at the end of the day, but they went from missing the most tackles a team has ever missed since that became an official stat to blitzing on end of the game kneel downs. You might not agree with his methods, but he at least he has a pulse, unlike Morris, and you can’t deny he’s changed the clubhouse culture in a big way and fast.

Grade: B+

Overall

The Buccaneers are a very tough team to predict because you don’t know what they’re getting out of their quarterback position. Darrelle Revis’ presence makes this a better defense that it was last season, even with other losses, but if Freeman plays the way he did last season, I don’t think that it will be enough to improve their record considering how rough their schedule is. He’ll have to elevate his game and I don’t know if he’s capable of that.

Furthermore, if Freeman struggles to start the season, the coaching staff might just pull the plug on him as the quarterback completely, which would essentially be a white flag and derail their season. Teams that bench their quarterback for reasons other than injury almost never make the playoffs and I don’t think this team is talented enough to make the playoffs in the NFC regardless. All 3 of their divisional foes are better than they are and they’ll be lucky to go 2-4 in the division. I have them at 1-5.

Outside of the division, they host Arizona, Philadelphia, Miami, Buffalo, and San Francisco. The former 4 games won’t be that tough, but the San Francisco game should be close to unwinnable. At best, I have them winning 3 of these games as they won’t win all 4 of those first 4 games. They also have trips to the Jets, New England, Seattle, Detroit, and St. Louis. They might win in New York and won other, but I have them winning 6 games total and finishing at 6-10. When you compare them talent-wise to the rest of the NFC, they’re no better than the 10^th or 11^th best team.

Projection: 6-10 4^th in NFC South

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Atlanta Falcons 2013 NFL Season Preview

July 16, 2013 stevenlourie 2013 NFL Season Previews, Falcons, Uncategorized

Introduction

The Falcons won 13 games last year, but largely did so with smoke and mirrors and in a way that won’t be sustainable into 2013. 7 of those 13 wins came by a touchdown or less as they went 7-2 in games decided by a touchdown or less, something that tends to even out in the long run. While they did outscore opponents by a total of 120 points on the season (not unimpressive, though it was surpassed by San Francisco, Seattle, New England, and Denver), they actually outgained opponents by 57 yards total on the season. For example, while they ranked 5^th in the NFL allowing 18.7 points per game, they were 20^th in the NFL in YPA allowed, 29^th in YPC allowed, and 24^th in total yards allowed. On a per play basis, they were actually outgained on the season, allowing 5.9 yards per play, as opposed to just 5.8 yards per play gained.

A lot of this had to do with their superb turnover differential as they had 13 more takeaways than giveaways. That tends to be unsustainable on a year-to-year basis. For example, teams with 20 or fewer turnovers on average turn the ball over 25.5 times the following season, while teams that turn the ball over 35 or more times turn the ball over 28.1 times the following season. Teams with 20 or fewer takeaways take the ball away an average of 25.3 times the following season, while teams with 35 or more takeaways take the ball away an average of 27.3 times the following season. Teams with a turnover differential of +15 or higher have a turnover differential of +3.6 the following season, while teams with a turnover differential of -15 have a turnover differential of +1.5 the following season.

Turnovers and takeaways are incredibly hard to predict on year-to-year and even a game-to-game basis (teams with a turnover differential of +4 or higher and teams with a turnover differential of -4 or lower both average a turnover differential of +0.0 in the following game). Just look at safety Thomas DeCoud, who led the Falcons with 6 interceptions last season. In his previous 3 seasons as a starter, he had 8 interceptions total. We’re talking about what players do on a tiny fraction of their snaps so it’s going to be inconsistent.

While I don’t expect Matt Ryan to see his interception total suddenly balloon, it’s very unlikely that the Falcons lose just 4 fumbles all season in 2012. It’s also unlikely that the Falcons recover 64.3% of fumbles that hit the ground next season. The Falcons also face a tougher schedule in 2013, which should help neutralize that turnover advantage.

In 2012, the Falcons faced just 2 playoff teams in the regular season. While they did defeat both of them, they did so by a combined 13 points and both games came in week 5 or earlier. They beat Denver in Peyton Manning’s 2^nd game back and Washington in a game that Robert Griffin got hurt with a lead. Once in the playoffs, they drew Seattle, a West Coast team at a 1 PM ET start and a team that was 4-5 on the road to that point in the season (they would have been 3-6 if Griffin hadn’t gotten hurt against them the previous week) and they still only won that game by 2. The following week, they were eliminated at home by San Francisco, easily their toughest opponent of the season.

This year, they draw the NFC West (arguably the best division in football) and the AFC East rather than the NFC East and the AFC West, as they did last year. They trade out games against Arizona and Detroit for games against Washington and Green Bay and all 3 of their division foes are better than they were last season.

Simply put, if they want to win 13 games again or even 10-12 games, they’ll have to play better than they did last season. In terms of DVOA, which does a fantastic job of normalizing NFL team’s play regardless of their raw win-loss record, the Falcons actually ranked 10^th in the NFL last season and they were 13^th in terms of weighted DVOA, which weighs games later in the season more heavily.

I liken the 2012 Falcons to a 4 or 5 seed in the NBA that has a 13-3 stretch, not uncommon for that caliber of a team, but not indicative of the team’s level of talent. A significant decline in wins wouldn’t even be inconsistent with history as 13-win teams, on average, win 9.5 games the following season, but I think everything I’ve mentioned so far suggests that they could be even worse than that, in the neighborhood of 8-9 wins. The NFC is a loaded conference and there might not be room for them in the playoffs.

Almost every year, a team goes from a 1^st round bye to out of the playoffs and I think of the 4 candidates from 2012 (Denver, New England, and San Francisco), Atlanta is the most vulnerable. Denver and New England are pretty much guaranteed playoff spots in their crappy conference barring injuries to Brady or Manning. Meanwhile, San Francisco, as they showed last season, is simply a more talented team than the Falcons, maybe more talented than any team in the NFL.

Quarterback

Grade: A-

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

One thing that really helps Matt Ryan is his great receiving corps. The best way to describe his receiving corps would be to call them top heavy, meaning it’s 3 guys who are superb and then little else. No team in the NFL had their top 3 receivers play a higher percentage of possible snaps than Roddy White, Julio Jones, and Tony Gonzalez, who played a combined 2823 of a possible 3219 snaps, 87.7%. They also received 386 of Matt Ryan’s 592 “aimed” pass attempts, 65.2%, caught 264 of Matt Ryan’s 422 completions, 62.6%, totaled 3479 of Matt Ryan’s 4719 yards, 72.7%, and 25 of his 32 touchdowns, 78.1%, all most in the NFL. Ryan completed 68.4% of his passes for an average of 9.0 YPA, 25 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions when throwing to that trio and they only dropped 15 passes between them.

All three return for this season with minor concerns. For one, Roddy White is heading into his age 32 season, so some statistical drop off is to be expected. He’s already noticeably less explosive than he was in his prime and he averaged just 3.6 yards average catch per catch last season. He’s much more of a possession receiver than anything else at this point in his career, though a very good one at that.

Tony Gonzalez, meanwhile, is even older, heading into his age 37 season and his 2.7 yards after catch per catch were even less than White’s. His mere 10.0 yards per catch also shows a lack of explosiveness and while he was a great possession receiver last year, he did have 13 fewer catches the year before and 23 fewer two years before that. I think it’s much more likely that his production falls off drastically than White’s and he also can’t run block at all. Fortunately, Julio Jones is heading into his 3^rd year in the league, a year when receivers tend to break out, as if a receiver who caught 79 passes for 1198 yards and 10 touchdowns in his age 23 season could break out any more. I expect him to be their leading receiver though.

After them, however, no one else had more than 402 receiving yards and the player who had those 402 receiving yards was backup running back Jacquizz Rodgers. Harry Douglas, the #3 receiver, was largely inefficient with 396 receiving yards on 420 routes run, 4^th worst in the NFL on a per route basis. Part of that is just that there weren’t a lot of balls to go around after the aforementioned trio, but part of it is on him too and he graded out as ProFootballFocus’ 95^th ranked wide receiver out of 105 eligible.

At tight end after Tony Gonzalez, the player with the next most snaps played in 2012 was Michael Palmer, who played just 180, as the Falcons used two-tight ends the least out of any team in the NFL. That could change in 2013 though with the addition of Levine Toilolo in the 4^th round of the draft. Toilolo is the exact opposite of a seam stretcher, but he can block at an NFL level and at 6-8 he’s a real threat as a possession receiver down around the goal line. He’s not Tony Gonzalez’ future replacement or anything, but he can at least be someone like Scott Chandler and he should surpass those 180 snaps played.

Grade: A-

Offensive Line

One of the reasons the Falcons were able to win despite barely winning the yardage battle in 2012 was their lack of penalties. Including special teams, they were penalized a league low 68 times in 2012 and their history in the Mike Smith era suggests that’s no fluke. They were the least penalized team in the NFL in 2010, the 3^rd least in 2009, and actually the least penalized team in the league over the past 5 seasons. That’s something that, unlike record in close games and turnover differential, is sustainable. However, some personnel changes on the offensive line may negatively affect that because of a lack of continuity.

Since Sam Baker took over at left tackle in 2009, 4 of the 5 spots have been the same for the Falcons on the offensive line in all 4 seasons, with the exception being right guard and I think that has a lot to do with why their offensive line committed just 15 penalties last season. Sam Baker, Justin Blalock, Todd McClure, and Tyson Clabo have been together for 4 seasons and last year they missed a combined 24 snaps in the regular and post-season combined.

However, while Baker was re-signed for 6 years this off-season and Blalock remains, center Todd McClure retired after 14 seasons with the Falcons, while right tackle Tyson Clabo was a cap casualty. In McClure’s place, Peter Konz will shift from right guard to center, with Garrett Reynolds taking over at right guard. Meanwhile, Lamar Holmes will start at right tackle.

Konz and Holmes were their 2^nd and 3^rd round picks respectively in the 2012 NFL Draft and the Falcons, who haven’t had a lot of draft picks of late because of the Julio Jones trade, really need them to pay dividends. Konz was a steal in the 2^nd round and, while he struggled mightily as a rookie at right guard, grading out as ProFootballFocus’ 76^th ranked guard out of 81 eligible, he should be better in his 2^nd season in the league at center, his natural position. Holmes, however, is much more of a question mark. On top of that, Reynolds, the new starter at right guard, was ProFootballFocus’ 64^th ranked guard out of 78 eligible in 2011, despite making just 11 starts. The right side of the offensive line is a concern, not just in pass protection and run blocking, but penalty wise as well.

Fortunately, things are much more familiar on the left side. Sam Baker has, more or less, been the starter at left tackle for 4 seasons now, but he hasn’t always been good. In 2009, he was a league average starter. In 2010, he was ProFootballFocus’ 69^th ranked tackle out of 78 eligible. In 2011, 60^th out of 76 eligible despite making just 8 starts due to injury.

He got everything together for his contract year in 2012, when he graded out as the 27^th ranked offensive tackle and he was rewarded with a rich 6-year contract this off-season. The Falcons will obviously be hoping that’s not a mistake, but it could be if Baker’s past struggles or injury woes rear their heads once more. Alec Savoie, an undrafted free agent, is listed as the backup left tackle, though reserve right tackle Mike Johnson is likely to be the game day swing tackle.

The most reliable starter on the offensive line is Blalock at left guard, who hasn’t missed a snap, post-season or otherwise, in any of the last 5 seasons. He’s been an unspectacular player, grading out most recently just barely below average, but he doesn’t commit penalties or miss snaps and in 2010 he was ProFootballFocus’ 12^th ranked guard. Overall though, there are plenty of concerns on this offensive line. They ranked 14^th in the NFL in pass block efficiency last season. They may be in the bottom half in 2013.

Grade: B-

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Running Backs

The Falcons didn’t run block that well in 2012, but it might not have mattered as Michael Turner was probably the worst starting running back in the NFL last season. There’s a reason he doesn’t have a job as of this writing. Turner averaged just 3.6 yards per carry, broke off a run of 20 or more roughly once a month, struggled in short yardage situations, caught just 19 passes, and got arrested for DUI. He simply didn’t have any NFL level skills. While he led the team in carries, he actually played fewer snaps than “2^nd string” running back Jacquizz Rodgers, who was a valuable change of pace and pass catching back.

Steven Jackson, who was brought in to replace Turner, can’t be worse, but Falcons fans might not be getting the guy they’re expecting. He turns 30 in July and has 2395 career carries. He’s 26th all-time in rushing yards at 10,135, but the average top-25 all-time running back has his last 1000 yard season in his age 30 season at 2602 carrier carries. And after players have their drop off, they average just 169 carries per season at 3.5 yards per carry and just 5 touchdowns, so they’re really a non-factor as a back. He should have one more good year in him, but there are no guarantees at this point in his career.

Grade: B-

Defensive Line

The Falcons may run more different fronts on a regular basis than any team in the NFL under Defensive Coordinator Mike Nolan, so the best way to categorize their front 7 players is into interior defensive linemen, edge rushers, and non-pass rushing linebackers. Starting with their interior defensive linemen, they used a rotation of 4 guys last season and would frequently play 3 at the same time. They lost one of that foursome, Vance Walker, to free agency and he was actually the highest rated of the bunch last season. This means that Jonathan Babineaux, Peria Jerry, and Corey Peters will have to play more snaps this season and that the inexperienced Travian Robertson will move into the rotation. There have also been rumors about them signing Richard Seymour, but for now I will only discuss the guys actually on their roster.

While the departed Walker was their best interior defensive lineman last season, Jonathan Babineaux is probably the most talented of the bunch. While Walker had one good season in 2012, Babineaux has graded out above average in each of the last 5 seasons, topping out as ProFootballFocus’ #1 rated defensive tackle in 2009 and their #13 rated defensive tackle in 2011, and he’s led their defensive line in snaps played in 4 of the last 5 seasons. Last season actually might have been his worst season in the last 5 years, as he graded out just above average, struggling against the run, but managing 6 sacks, 4 hits, and 20 hurries on 566 pass rush snaps. He turns 32 this season so that’s a concern.

Jerry and Peters, meanwhile, both graded out well below average last season. Peters was the worst offender as only one defensive tackle graded out lower than him last season and no one had a worse run stopping grade at his position. Jerry was better, but only by default, grading out 64^th out of 85 eligible. Robertson, meanwhile, was a 2012 7^th round pick who only played 47 regular season snaps so it’s tough to count on him. Walker will be missed.

Someone else who will be missed is John Abraham. Abraham is going into his age 35 season this year, doesn’t play the run well, and was on a snap count, but there’s something to be said for being an incredibly efficient pass rusher and that’s what Abraham was last season, though he did completely fade away in their post-season games and not record a single pressure. However, in the regular season, he was ProFootballFocus’ 5^th ranked 4-3 defensive end both overall and rushing the passer and he had 10 sacks, 8 hits, and 36 hurries on 436 pass rush snaps, a 12.4% rate. They technically could still bring him back if they wanted to as he’s still available thanks to his ridiculous asking price, but all reports say that the bridge between Abraham and the Falcons is burned. For a team that only had 30 sacks in 2012, 33 if you include the post-season, he’ll be greatly missed.

They brought in Osi Umenyiora to replace him, but he’s not the same. Once a very good pass rusher, Umenyiora has been a league average player for the most part in the 4 seasons since returning from a torn ACL suffered in 2008 and he’s heading into his age 33 season. He doesn’t play the run well nor does he rush the passer well enough to make up for it, with 6 sacks, 7 hits, and 32 hurries on 422 pass rush snaps last season, a 10.7% rate. He also doesn’t have any experience in a 3-4 so he probably won’t play in any packages that require edge rushers to rush from a standing position and potentially drop into coverage.

Kroy Biermann, meanwhile, is expected to be the other starting edge rusher. He is more comfortable playing a rush linebacker position than Umenyiora, but he’s also shown a startling inability to get to the quarterback since a mini breakout season in 2010, grading out well below average in that aspect in each of the last 2 seasons. The Falcons also have a stable of young, inexperienced pass rushers on the roster as they’ve taken Malliciah Goodman (4^th round in 2013), Jonathan Massaquoi (5^th round in 2012), Cliff Matthews (7^th round in 2011), and Stansly Maponga (5^th round in 2013), in the late rounds in the last few drafts. It’s tough to count on them for much though, so pass rush is really going to be hard to come by.

Grade: C+

Linebackers

Poor defensive line play was a big part of the reason why the Falcons ranked 29^th in the league, surrendering 4.8 yards per carry, but poor linebacker play was also part of it. Sean Weatherspoon, a 2010 1^st round pick and a breakout star of their 2011 season, inexplicably had a poor year in 2012, grading out below average overall and struggling massively against the run. No 4-3 outside linebacker had a worse grade in that regard last season, though good coverage ability and consistently impressive blitz ability helped make up for that somewhat. He was ProFootballFocus’ 5^th ranked 4-3 outside linebacker in 2011 and he did have a bit of a knee problem last year, so maybe that was it, but it’s still tough to know what they’re going to get from him.

Stephen Nicholas, meanwhile, is the other non-passing linebacker. He was the opposite of Weatherspoon, grading out above average against the run, but struggling mightily in coverage. He should really be only a two-down third linebacker who comes off the field in base packages, but the Falcons don’t have enough depth at linebacker for him to serve in that role.

Their 3^rd linebacker will once again be Akeem Dent, though they rarely use 3 linebackers, coming out in sub packages more than any team in the league besides Green Bay and San Francisco and also frequently using 5 defensive lineman (3 interior guys and 2 edge rushers). Dent graded out slightly below average on actually 504 snaps, though that was more due to injuries than his role actually being in demand for this team. Their tendency to use 5 defensive backs also likely contributed to their poor play against the run.

Grade: C+

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Secondary

For a team that used an extra defensive back so often, you’d think they’d rank higher than 20^th against the pass in terms of yards per allowed. San Francisco and Green Bay ranked 2^nd and 8^th respectively. However, you can blame their pass rush a lot for that. Their best defensive back was actually the nickel back Robert McClain, who had the highest grade in their secondary and actually their 2^nd highest grade overall defensively behind Abraham, which speaks a lot to the lack of talent they have on this side of the ball.

McClain, coming into the lineup for an injured Brent Grimes, was ProFootballFocus’ 12^th ranked cornerback last season. Only 6 players allowed a lower QB rating when thrown on while covering the slot and only 3 allowed fewer yards per slot cover snap. The Falcons used a 1^st round pick on Desmond Trufant to insure that McClain could stay on the slot. Trufant will replace Dunta Robinson, a good tackling cornerback, but a stiff cover man who won’t be missed that much. Still, it’ll be tough to rely on a rookie cornerback, especially in the first half of the season.

The other starting cornerback is Asante Samuel. Samuel was really Robinson’s opposite last year, covering well, but in typical Asante Samuel fashion missing numerous tackles, leading all cornerbacks with 18. He allowed just 41 catches on 77 attempts for 596 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions, while deflecting 7 passes and committing 2 penalties, which is impressive, but he’s now 32 years old and won’t age that well considering his game is built on quickness, jumping routes, and taking chances. The Falcons drafted another cornerback, Robert Alford, in the 2^nd round to be his eventual successor in 2014 and beyond, but for now Samuel, Trufant, and McClain will be their top-3 cornerbacks and see the field together often. It’s not an untalented bunch, but there are questions and lack of pass rush will hurt.

Thomas DeCoud will man one safety spot. I mentioned the 6 interceptions he had in the opening, but as I said, takeaways are very inconsistent. It’s important not to judge a guy on what he does on 6 snaps and overall DeCoud was a below average player last year, covering pretty well, but missing 21 tackles, 2^nd most in the NFL among players at any position. Ironically, he graded out better in 2011, though not by much, when he had just 4 interceptions. He’s an average starter.

William Moore is the other starter at safety. He was given a 5-year contract this off-season, but he’s struggled to stay healthy thus far in his career, playing in just 42 of a possible 64 regular season games since being taken in the 2^nd round in 2009. Ironically, his healthiest season, 2010, was his lowest rated season, but he’s graded out above average in each of the last 2 seasons, grading out as ProFootballFocus 11^th and 18^th ranked safety in 2011 and 2012 respectively despite limited playing time. As long as he’s on the field, he’ll be an asset.

Overall though, I find it very hard to believe that the Falcons will have another top-5 scoring defense. The schedule will be harder, their talent level is lower, and they were 24^th in terms of yards allowed last season. I like Mike Nolan a lot and I think he’s one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL and he won’t allow them to be awful, but if they do, in fact, miss the playoffs, it’s going to be much more on their defense than their offense.

Grade: B

Head Coach

Mike Smith doesn’t get his name mentioned among the best Head Coaches in the NFL, but that probably has more to do with the fact that his name is Mike Smith than anything. He took over a team in shambles following the Michael Vick arrest, the Bobby Petrino resignation, and the Joey Harrington playing quarterback fiasco and has taken them to the playoffs in 4 of his first 5 seasons in the league, with the one exception being a season in which what Matt Ryan missed 3 games. His regular season numbers are on par with John Harbaugh, though Harbaugh has the ring.

Smith’s Falcon teams have almost always had very few penalties, won a high percentage of their close games, and won the turnover battle. While the latter two tend to be unsustainable, Smith’s Falcon teams are almost at the point where we can consider them an outlier and the former is very sustainable, though with personnel turnover that will be tougher this season and he may overall have his work cut out for him if he wants to make it 5 playoff appearances in 6 seasons. He does have help from two great coordinators in Dirk Koetter and especially Mike Nolan.

Grade: A-

Overall

Overall, the Falcons have an above average offense and a below average defense and their offense is better than their defense is bad, if that makes any sense. However, they’re nowhere near the 13 win team they were last season and they have a brutal schedule in the loaded NFC South, facing a 1^st place schedule in the loaded NFC, and also taking on the loaded NFC West in their non-divisional games.

Inside the division, I think 4-2 is the best case scenario, which 3-3 being more likely. They could also go 2-4. Even last year, they were 3-3 in the division. Every team in the division is improved. Carolina, who beat them easily once and could have done so a 2^nd time, should be able to win at least one game against them and the same goes for the Saints.

Outside of the division, they host St. Louis, the Jets, Seattle, Washington, and New England. They do rarely lose at home and they luck out by getting to play Seattle at 1 PM on the East Coast, but, with the exception of the Jets, that’s a tough schedule and they won’t win all of those games, with New England being the most likely loss. They also go to Miami, Buffalo, Arizona, Green Bay, and San Francisco. Green Bay and San Francisco will likely be losses and any of the other 3 games could be trap games considering that this isn’t a very good road team. Overall, it looks like 8 or 9 wins, but for the sake of parity, I’ll call it 8. Either way, I have them on the outside looking in with the 7^th or 8^th best record in the NFC. If they were in the AFC, they’d be an 11 win team, but that’s not the case.

Projection: 8-8 3^rd in NFC South

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Month: July 2013

Tampa Bay Buccaneers trade CB Eric Wright to the San Francisco 49ers

New York Giants 2013 NFL Season Preview

Dallas Cowboys 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

Dallas Cowboys 2013 NFL Season Preview

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Atlanta Falcons 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

New Orleans Saints 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

Carolina Panthers 2013 Fantasy Football Projections

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2013 NFL Season Preview

Atlanta Falcons 2013 NFL Season Preview