QB Corner: Ryan Tannehill vs. Jake Cutler (Week 7)

2014 has been kind to Ryan Tannehill. His Dolphins may sit only 3rd in a crowded AFC East, but at 4-3, the team is performing at a higher level than the Bills (beset by injuries) and already have a win over the 1st-place Patriots under their belt. I watched most of that Week 1 win and came away impressed with Miami's young signal caller. I noticed tangible improvement over my analysis from 2013, and was curious to see if that would continue.

My primary concerns from that previous piece were A) a high sack figure (9.0% of dropbacks), B) a highly conservative scheme that averaged only 6.7 yards/attempt (one of the lowest in his cohort), and C) a mediocre completion % for someone who ran such a conservative offense. He was inconsistent handling pressure and could get stuck on reads, which explained the sack issues. That also explained the low yards/attempt, as he missed numerous open receivers downfield.

I like to look at a QB's film against a good defense, one that can generate 4-man pressure as well as play different looks. Unfortunately, the Bears are not a good defense, beset by a litany of injuries and an inability to reload at linebacker. They're 14th in pass DVOA and 18th in run DVOA (per Football Outsiders). But the buzz about Tannehill after this game was too much to ignore. Most of the time, when you hear superlatives heaped upon a player, the truth is somewhere in-between, and I wanted to diagnose this case with my own eyes.

A second interesting thing about this game is the now well-known Bears locker room incident regarding the offense's poor showing. Chicago QB Jay Cutler was playing a tough Miami defense (4th in overall DVOA, 5th in passing, 9th in rushing), but Jay received a lot of criticism, especially for turnovers. I wanted to see what, if anything, Cutler could have done differently.

This film analysis won't be a fair comparison since I'm trying to objectively analyze Tannehill's game while seeing what went wrong with Cutler (introducing an element of bias). Still, I enjoyed comparing the two QBs in my Locker vs. Dalton piece, especially when taking game flow and situations into account. Let's start with Tannehill on the Dolphins' first possession:

Kevin Love, Part 2: Is Love Even Good?

If you missed Part 1, of my Kevin Love triple-header, click here to see why the Minnesota Timberwolves lost their franchise player to begin with.

An interesting thing happened in the weeks leading up to the Love trade. The trade became a culmination of peoples' opinions on love, a referendum of sorts. This makes sense - it was fans' way of inserting themselves into the trade, figuring out what Love is worth, and what assets they would demand (or give up, from various suitors' perspectives) for the All-Star. What I didn't expect was an outpouring of disdain mixed with disappointment, and maybe even hostility, from some Timberwolves fans. These fans, pointing to the zero times a Love team has made the playoffs, seemed to cast doubt on Love's stature as a franchise player, with some indicating the franchise might be better off without their star.

This reaction caught many other basketball writers off guard as well. This launched a whole series of articles either trying to gauge Love's value or coming to his defense (here, here, here). ESPN's David Thorpe even posted a cryptic article directed at supposed Kevin Love "haters."

I don't want to add mindlessly to a growing list of articles evaluating Love's skills, but wanted to provide some context using numbers. We hear all the time how Love is a fantastic rebounder, 3 point shooter, passer, etc., but how good is he really compared to his peers?

QB Corner: Jake Locker vs Andy Dalton (Week 3)

Welcome to the 2014 NFL season! My plan for QB Corner (#QBCorner) this year is to first review film of the starters I examined in 2013, starting with the ones that struggled. Nobody is replacing Andrew Luck in Indy; that may not be true of a guy like Jake Locker. After doing so, I'll turn my attention to what second-year starters are left (Manuel - gone, Glennon - maybe gone).

The first game I chose was a Week 3 Titans @ Bengals contest which allowed me to watch two QBs, Jake Locker and Andy Dalton. Andy is clearly outplaying Jake this year, with a 7.99 ANYPA that would be elite over a full season; Drew Brees only hit 7.51 last year. Locker, not so much: 5.21 ANYPA is worse than last year and the result of declines in almost all passing stats. Oh, and he's still an injury risk. Locker was the last QB whose 2013 film I looked at, and it wasn't pretty. I wrote concluding:

There are just too many things to fix... With his injury history, I can't justify the Titans investing further in their young QB

I don't mean to be harsh; I know I could never play the position. But it seemed clear from the film that Locker couldn't either. So I started watching this film against the Bengals, a game that would end in a Cincy blowout, looking for ways that Locker was throwing the game away.

And you know, what? It surprised me. I originally wasn't even going to use this film, because performance, playcalling, and tactics by both teams changes when the score gets out of hand (the game would end 33-7). But the more I watched the film, the more I realized that the score was a by-product of some really fluky stuff. I'll explain through the post below.

The YMTC Football Rant

This is a free-flowing blog post that may occasionally touch upon controversial subjects. Reader discretion is advised.

Bill Simmons had his rant and was taken off the air, figuratively. I am the chief executive of You Make the Calls and cannot be banned (YMTC – is that as good an acronym as ESPN? Do you even know what ESPN stands for? How about Entertainment Sports Programming Network? Not so sexy, eh? The major issue with YMTC is a litany of youth musical theater, youth muslim teen, and other groups that already use #YMTC). This diatribe will depart from the mostly analytical nature of most of my posts. If you do not want a highly opinionated column based on subjective information, please move on. I’ll cover a broad range of on- and off-field subjects.