|
Four Downs with Dang & Doc
by Brian Davis and Paul Hopkins
22/1/2010
This week, with the Divisional Playoffs in the book, Dang and Doc ask whether the unfancied Jets can keep their run going and overcome the Colts this Sunday. But where do the team they beat the Chargers go from here? And a lot of team’s troubles seem to come from the kicking positions why is that? Finally, there appears to be a bit of unease about whether the UK will get a second game in 2010, but are fans worrying too much?
 The Jets will beat Indianapolis this Sunday to claim the AFC.
 DANG FICTION !. They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but before Super Bowl III, Jets Quarter Back Joe Namath guaranteed victory for the New York Jets, they duly delivered, beating the then Baltimore Colts 16-7 in an upset victory.
When the Jets squeezed into the playoffs 2 weeks ago, a now fully confident Rookie Head Coach Rex Ryan, who had previously cried about the season being over, laid out a day by day guide through the playoffs, all the way to the Jets Super Bowl victory parade, stating that he wanted to paint a picture for the players to make sure they are aware of what is in front of them.
Depending on your loyalties to the Colts it’s almost a rematch of that very day. Don’t let Stockers hear me say that though!
I hate to write them off at this point after seeing what Arizona did last year and after the Jets beat the Colts last month and we’ll talk about the Chargers shortly, but the Bengals had ran completely out of steam by the time they faced off in the Wild Card game and Rex out coached Norv, which in the playoffs, is quite easy!
The Colts rested up players in the last two weeks of the season and that decision looked justified as they buried the ghost of losing after bye weeks in the playoffs, easily disposing of Baltimore last weekend and also when you see guys like Wes Welker going down to massive injuries, it’s hard not to see it from a coaches point of view as to why players are rested when they really don’t need to be out on the field. I’d certainly take a 14-2 season and have all my players ready for the playoffs, than to go 16-0 and have 2-3 vital cogs banged up and unavailable.
The Jets won’t be able to bring out all of their Blitz packages, because Manning and the Colts will have the perfect game plan to pick them off and beat their secondary and linebackers to take advantage of it. The Jets will have to be very clever in disguising what they’re doing, changing it up at the line and keeping Manning on his toes, because Manning himself at times this season, has shown himself to be human, by having multiple pick games. The Jets will have to have him have another one here to stand a real chance of doing it.
It’s going to be won and lost in the trenches, no doubt about that. Can the Jets deal with the Colts pass Rushers? Can the Colts hold off the Jets Blitzes? The Jets match up well, but I’m still taking Peyton in this one.
If you want a prediction then I’m saying Colts by 4. 20-16.
DOC FACT ! Go on, I’ll say it. They’re going to do it. This is a team full of belief, full of confidence and on a roll. This defense is proving to be stifling anyone and everything in its wake. Even when they do give up some yards on the ground like they did with Cedric Benson on wild-card weekend, they still find a way to put a stop to it and then grind it out on offence. Mark Sanchez is playing effective and controlled football, which is not spectacular but is enough. If Braylon Edwards was able to play up to his obvious potential then they’d be frightening. Dustin Keller too I called him as a breakout player when we did our 2008 Draft picks, has become an integral part of the offence. I can see him having a critical role to play again. The offensive line is excellent, anchored by the best in the business in Nick Mangold, and they should be able to handle Freeney, giving Sanchez enough time to do what he needs to do to keep them ticking over. But then this team is all about its defense and its running game. Jones and Greene are able to grind it out, and explode when they need to be. How good might they have been if Leon Washington had not suffered the injury he did? The Colts have not been hanging lots of points on teams and against a defense that is shutting down everything in sight these days; I can see Sunday being a repeat of the Jets win over the Chargers. It won’t be pretty to watch but I can see them doing this.
 Who was more to blame for the Chargers loss on Sunday? The coaches or the players?
 DANG NORV TURNER, of course! The Jets put together the perfect game plan, they used their strengths of the Offensive line to dominate the running game, they limited Sanchez’s passing and risk taking, Revis had another shutdown day, (5 passes I believe were thrown his way, hence Jackson and Gates’ inflated stats as Revis didn’t stay with one guy) the Jets defense looked as good as they’ve looked all season and they took advantage of Norv’s questionable game calling once again.
How many chances can this guy get, I mean seriously, come on?!?! And just why was Marty Schottenheimer sacked again? Oh yeah, that’s right, for losing, in the PLAYOFFS! Norv screwed up, again. He’s screwed up everywhere that he’s coached at when it’s really mattered and his reward? An extended deal until 2013! As Chris Kamara might say, it’s unbelievable Jeff! Why call the onside kick when they did, they still had a Timeout in their pocket, force a three and out and get the ball back.
Norv then doesn’t get help himself, when one of the league’s most consistent kickers ever, misses three Field Goals, 2 from under 40 yards where he had made the last 69 kicks of that distance or less, and his team gives away some big 15 yard penalties at crucial times. He only ran Darren Sproles 3 times, persisting with Tomlinson who on his 12 carries had 24 yards, almost abandoning the run game full stop in the second half, that’s terrible game management, Sproles showed he had something going on with his carries, yet Norv simply ignored him in the running game. It’ll be a sad way out of San Diego for LT if this was his last game.
Norv is a great Offensive Coordinator, but as a Head Coach he’s a bottler. They dominated the First half, yet only had 7 points to show for it, with the Jets stuck on a big fat zero. To highlight this point, only one other Wild Card team in history has ever won a road playoff game after scoring no points in the first half.
Kaeding Chocked, Turner Chocked, San Diego choked, the Jets took advantage. Norv has a talent laden roster and no idea how to use it correctly, he reminds me of a good friend of mine, all the gear, no idea!
DOC NORV TURNER And again the Chargers stumble and fall in a game they probably should have won, and most people expected them to; again falling short of getting the team heralded by many (including me just a few weeks ago) as the team to beat. When they look back at what happened on Sunday we can’t forget Nate Kaeding’s continued nightmare in the post-season but the Chargers still looked timid, almost shell-shocked at times on offence and unable to come up with anything to respond to what Rex Ryan and the Jets defense threw at them. I’ve said before what a big fan of Philip Rivers I am, and I still believe in his ability to lead this team deep into the post-season every year. And it has to be said that Norv has done a sterling job with him, but he always was a brilliant OC, just an average Head Coach. Norv has now had several years there now, and doesn’t appear to be the man to take them to the place that A.J. Smith and the Spanos family expect. How and why they’ve given him a three-year extension is insane to me. Of course, it’s a redundant question now but if they did get rid of him the question will come of who will do better than Turner. But at the same time, it has to be asked whether a fresh face and fresh approach would be the catalyst to get over the hump, which Norv seems unable to do. If you ask me, now is as good a time as any. It probably should have been time to have a mini-reshuffle in San Diego. They just better hope they’re not in the same situation in a year’s time.
 The standard of kicking in the NFL right now is as poor as it’s ever been.
 DANG FICTION !, and I have the Stats to back it up and Jose Cortez isn’t around, so it can’t be that bad right?! Seriously though, it’s been bad when it’s mattered and that’s the difference. It’s not like we’ve seen the old vets with tiring legs pushing the odd attempt wide or short, these are Pro Bowl quality kickers missing gimme’s, week after week; Shayne Graham, Nick Folk, Nate Kaeding, Neil Rackers. When they’ve had the chance to make a real difference in games, they’ve blown it from regulation distances.
Another reason why the kicking looks so bad this year; is because the kicking last year, was so good!
Take a look at the stats:
In 2005 the success rate was 80.9% overall
In 2006 the success rate was 81.4% overall
In 2007 the success rate was 82.8% overall
In 2008 the success rate was 84.5% overall
In 2009 the success rate was 81.3% overall
So we saw a peak in 2008 that that was notably higher than previous seasons, a 3% drop is a significant drop in success rates.
2008 also saw peaks in recent years in Field Goals from 20-29 Yards (98.1%), 40-49 Yards (74.5%) and a staggering leap in successful conversions of Field Goals over 50 Yards with 63.4% of kicks made, which when you look at previous seasons 2005 was 52%, 2006 was 47%, 2007 was 47% and 2009 at 52.8% is a phenomenal leap in terms of averages. There were the same amount of kicks from 50 yards plus, attempted in 2008 as there were in 2009 (104).
Kicks from 30-39 yards in 2009 were on a real downward turn, only 83.6% were converted, against 2008’s 89.1% and 2007’s 90.6%.
Extra Points were also at a recent low, with 98.3% successful, a drop from last year’s 99.5% success rate where only 6 kicks were missed all year, 20 were missed in 2009 from 15 more attempts.
In Playoff football, this year’s 57.7 % success rate; is the lowest since the NFL went to a 12 team playoff system in 1990 with the lowest success rate occurring in 1991 with 65.2%.
To summarize though, despite the percentages notably dropping in 2009, we’re only back to where we were in 2006 and better than 2005, the notable thing for me was kicking in the clutch, this is where it went wrong for a whole lot of kickers in 2009. If they can get themselves re-focused, re-build the confidence and mentally prepare correctly, deal with the nerves of big game kicking and also take a look at how they’ve achieved in recent seasons, I see no reason why we can’t get back to 2008 numbers.
Maybe when people look at this year, then look at what Vinatieri did in 2 Super Bowls, then maybe we can appreciate just how tough their job is. I’ll revisit this topic very shortly though, because it’s been really interesting rooting out all of the stats and Kickers are people too!
DOC FACT ! Well, ok maybe it’s not a fact. But right now, there appears to be a dearth of kickers that you can rely on and rely on in the clutch. We’ve always had one or two good for that Mike Vanderjagt might have gone on US chat shows proclaiming himself to have the best percentage record in the regular season, but in the post-season he flat out stunk the place up. Nate Kaeding will now find he will also always be tarred as a playoff choker, following this week’s 0-3 record. And poor Nick Folk, thrown out at 25, just a year from being a Pro Bowl kicker and as close as automatic you can get in the NFL. That one I can’t explain. Neil Rackers, once considered automatic missed woefully in the wildcard game against the Packers. Fortunately his defense bailed him out. And there are other examples out there. Its inexplicable what happens, but just shows that unlike drills for the offensive line and defensive lines etc, there is absolutely nothing that can prepare you for kicking when it matters most with everyone’s eyes watching you. Look at Shaun Suisham’s miss when he had the chance to topple the Saints for the first time. Look at Nick Folk’s miss when he could have put the Cowboys-Saints game beyond New Orleans. It probably isn’t a case of kickers being poor, or their being a dearth of talent but more that they need to start thinking about how to improve their big match ability to overcome the inevitable nerves and do what they do everyday repeatedly. I guess this just shows how good Adam Vinatieri really was, and worthy of his inevitable (in my mind) Hall of Fame place.
 The increasing uncertainty of a second Wembley game in 2010 does not bode well for the future of the international series.
 DANG FICTION !. I don’t think the future is uncertain, but I do believe the NFL and NFLuk should have maybe kept the 2nd game talk quiet until they had 2 firm agreements to come and play here. Maybe Jacksonville’s owner last week stating that they wouldn’t be coming to London was a blow to our chances of hosting a second game here? I don’t know the facts, so I can’t comment fully, but I’m guessing that could have been what happened, but nobody really cares about Jacksonville, even in Jacksonville, they should have every home game as a road game to see if they can drum up some support in a different Football State or Country even and then relocate!
Maybe it’s the Jets? Maybe their unexpected run into the playoffs has given them different priorities to look at right now, whereas three weeks ago they were probably looking at this as almost the #1 priority? Just a bit of speculation for you guys!
Personally, I’m a big fan of having the international fixtures for all teams over the course of the season, within, a 17 game season. The NFL seems dead set on heading down this road of keeping the International fixtures coming, so is our International Series in jeopardy? Absolutely not. Am I happy to have a game here, yes. Am I a little frustrated that after a promise of 2 games, the talk is now of still being worked on slightly, but we’ll see what pans out, I certainly won’t be losing any sleep over it, or ranting away on message boards that NFLuk are incompetent. Personally, I’d like both games to be announced before I attempt to purchase my Club Wembley seats for the 49ers game, to allow me to get both games tickets in one go, to avoid 2 morning’s of non-production at work frantically trying to get tickets! Hopefully then, they might get a special deal for people buying tickets for both games.
DOC FICTION ! I think everyone is over-reacting to this personally. We’ve just had the Broncos at the Forty-Niners announced for Halloween at the tail end of last week, and now everyone seems to be very nervous about the possibility of the second game following Alistair Kirkwood’s appearance on Sky on Sunday evening. Granted, there did seem to be an element of confidence, if not more that we were locked on having two games in the UK in 2010 but it was never announced formally. And even so, while Sunday sounded more cautious there’s not be a definite ‘no’ coming out of New York has there? So why the fuss everyone? Its complex, these negotiations take forever. Alistair Kirkwood explained Sunday night all the considerations that are at play in and around this second game the who’s, what’s, why’s and so on. And once it happens, then things will move quickly. Look at how long it’s taken for the first game to be announced longer than usual, so it’s not anything sinister or the NFL hastily retreating away from the international series idea. It will just be logistics, and I am sure that it will happen very soon and we’ll all deciding whether it’s both or which one. One good thing is does show is the insatiable appetite for information that leads me to conclude that we’ll easily sell both of these games out if we end up with two.
Don’t forget you can leave feedback for Dang and Doc and keep up to date with all the latest news from the Diner on Facebook and Twitter feed
|
