AlNFL19

Some Colts fans really booed Luck as he walked off the field. Disgusting. How could you boo the nicest man in the game after all he’s given for your team? Come on, Colts fans!

Wow.

Starters in bold. QB (2): Tom Brady, Jarrett Stidham I think Stidham is developing nicely and Hoyer might not be worth the roster spot as just a maybe slightly better right now insurance policy. RB (5): Sony Michel, James White, James Develin, Damien Harris, Brandon Bolden Sony looked great against Carolina, and White and Develin are both studs. Harris is a lock, and between him and Bolden I don't know if Burkhead offers anything unique to the team. WR (7): Julian Edelman, Josh Gordon, N'Keal Harry, Phillip Dorsett, Jakobi Meyers, Matthew Slater*, Gunner Olszewski* The last two make it mainly for special teams. I really think Gunner played very well Thursday returning punts. I still think Meyers is a lock with his preseason production. The rest are pretty close to locks. TE (2): Matt LaCosse, Ryan Izzo LaCosse starts as TE#1, and Izzo is carried as the No. 2 until Watson gets back. OL (9): Isaiah Wynn, Joe Thuney, David Andrews, Shaq Mason, Marcus Cannon, Dan Skipper, Ted Karras, Hjalte Froholdt, James Ferentz No surprises here I think except Skipper, who's looked impressive in practice lately. DL (9): Michael Bennett, Deatrich Wise Jr., Lawrence Guy, Chase Winovich, John Simon, Derek Rivers, Adam Butler, Byron Cowart, Mike Pennel I think this is a good lineup. Winovich probably should start if he's as good as he looks. I like Simon as a rotational guy, as well as Butler and Cowart, and I think they hang on to Pennel at this point. LB (5): Ja'Whaun Bentley, Dont'a Hightower, Kyle Van Noy, Jamie Collins, Christian Sam* This gets me excited. Bentley is a stud, Hightower is a stud, Van Noy is a stud, etc. I think Sam has a chance to beat out Roberts because he's a better special teamer. CB (6): Stephon Gilmore, Jason McCourty, J.C. Jackson, Joejuan Williams, Jonathan Jones, Duke Dawson Good luck to offenses throwing on that crew. They've got a guy for every matchup there. Whether it's Gilmore-JMac-Jackson or Gilmore-Williams-Jones or really any grouping, this unit could be fun to watch. I don't think they can give up quite yet on Duke Dawson - maybe he can fill in for Chung a bit if Bill benches him. S (5): Devin McCourty, Patrick Chung, Duron Harmon, Obi Melifonwu, Nate Ebner* Again, not really many surprises. I think Obi makes it with Chung's status made a little murkier by the incident. ST (3): Stephen Gostkowski, Jake Bailey, Joe Cardona Guys above with asterisks also probably end up as mainly special teamers. No competition for any of these guys. Guys I think start the season stashed on some injured list: OT Yodny Cajuste, LB Brandon King, WR Maurice Harris, WR Demaryius Thomas Suspended: TE Ben Watson, TE Lance Kendricks (although I think they'll probably cut him)

Little hasty there, don't you think? I haven't seen enough from him to guarantee he gets a spot at this point.

You have to think at this point there’s no way Meyers would clear waivers though, right?

Why would the NFL fix itself to make the Patriots better when they’ve already won so much that 90+% of NFL fans are sick and tired of it, and would probably literally pay to have them suck?

LET'S GOOOOOOOOO

I believe so. Don't know how severely.

They have a good team. I think if Luck misses a couple games Brissett (who I'm a fan of) could lead them to a decent enough record (say, for example, 1-2) to still be in position to go like 10-6 as a whole when Luck gets back. I don't think he'll miss too much time, but I guess we'll see.

This play was awesome this year: https://mobile.twitter.com/NFL/status/1074428540072775680?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-3972256466995094435.ampproject.net%2F1907301630320%2Fframe.html

Tolzien? Is he really that bad?

Pretty good for a rookie in his first game. He's made mostly good decisions and has shown a decent command of the offense. He's also showed off that he's got a pretty decent arm and can be pretty accurate. His placement has been spotty at times, either behind guys or whatnot. Also, he hasn't sensed pressure as well as you'd like, but that can be improved. Overall pretty good work, seems like there's a foundation there to build off of.

Again, keep in mind to take this with a big grain of salt because the model is not built on or for late-round draft picks. As a result, it might slightly inflate their projections because draft position is only one variable. D. Walker, OLB, Georgia Statistic Figure Projected AV 3.47 Bust Chance >99.9% PB Chance <1.00% Projected Stat Line: 28 tackles, 5 TFLs, 3 sacks For a fifth-round pick, this would be a good projection, but it's obviously going to be even less accurate than the ones above because the model isn't supposed to work that way. Also take the bust chance with a grain of salt because, for a fifth-rounder, 3 or 4 AV is fine sometimes.

Kind of arbitrary because obviously there's no number that signifies a bust by itself, but I'd consider the statistical outputs of players in the NFL who reach 4 AV or 5 or whatnot to be around that threshold, whereas the PB one is pretty close to the actual average for a Pro Bowl player. What is the correlation coefficient? It seems to me that your model is heavily weighted on physical attributes. Notice your top 5 guys are 6 feet tall, near 200 pounds, and run 4.5 or faster 40s at the combine. If it were that simple, the draft wouldn’t be such a crap shoot. I agree to a degree with this. It does weight physical attributes highly, but that's because just with on-field statistics there isn't much that correlates well to NFL AV, whereas there's more to go off of (that has done a better job in some regards) with physical attributes. But obviously, this means it's not perfect - no statistical model will be, especially with something as random as football, but I think it does a decent job. It isn't that simple to project player success, obviously, but just in terms of what has worked better or worse in the past, physical attributes are important. Furthermore, your features are redundant and not independent. Waldo’s formula, speed score, and combine numbers all boil down to the same features - combine numbers. Okay, I should have clarified this. The combine results that are included in Waldo's formula or in speed score aren't themselves included as individual variables. For example, the 10 yard split is included separately, while the 40 and the jumping events are included only as part of Speed Score and Waldo's Explosive Power formula, because those formulas correlated better to NFL AV than the events on their own. DeAndre Baker isn’t the biggest or fastest corner, but he won the Jim Thorpe award for a reason - he’s a darn good corner on the field. The reports from camp have been nothing but positive and he’s already listed as a starter. I will concede this as a bottom line, however: it's a model that could be improved, and it's not perfect the way it is. Among all the ones I've done, this one isn't the one I'm the most confident in, but I think it does a decent job, especially when considering that to be seen as "good," with NFL war rooms not hitting that much themselves on corners, the bar isn't that high. We'll see as the next few years pass, but I still think it's a decent model, although I'd certainly say that I have other models, like my WR one, that I'm more confident in.

Football tomorrow!