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Carson Palmer and what his career may tell us about Andy Dalton


theJ

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I posted this in another thread in NFL Gen about Marvin Lewis, but felt it deserved some discussion here.

We've bashed Andy for years now on his performance in big/night games, and some people have even given him corresponding nicknames (Solar Andy comes to mind).

The question is, is it really Andy?  Or was it the coach and how he manages the team?

Here are some striking splits from Carson Palmer's career, courtesy of Pro Football Reference.  I had to do some copy/paste and spreadsheet work to compile this, so you won't find this listed plainly on his stat sheet.

The following splits are from late games only (presumably 8 PM EST starts, since PFR lists early (1PM) and afternoon (4PM) games separately)

Cin: 207/379, 55% comp, 11 TD/8 INT, 5.9 YPA, 186 YPG, 4 W-8 L

Ari/Oak: 346/541, 64% comp, 25 TD/10 INT, 7.8 YPA, 282 YPG, 8-6-1 (W-L-T)

Palmer played way under his career averages with the Bengals in night games, and consistently at his career averages for Ari/Oak in night games.  We've seen Andy play consistently under his career averages in night games under Marvin Lewis.  

Question of the day - will we see him play consistently at his career averages in night games under a new regime?

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44 minutes ago, footbull3196 said:

We’ll have to wait longer than next year to find out the answer.  I don’t see the Bengals getting more than 1 game on national TV next season

Very true. The one TNF game. Outside chance for a Sunday flex if they come out of the gates hot, contrary to the popular belief. 

I think it's more likely they stick with one though. 

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As the creator of said "Solar Andy" moniker, I've always also said that it's more on Marvin Lewis.  He plays tight in big games.  You literally can see it on his face.  He's jovial on the sidelines during Sunday afternoon games, talking and laughing with players on the field in warm ups.  On the night games, and playoffs, he's way more intense looking.  The players feed off of that energy, or lack thereof.

But part of this is still on Andy.  Palmer won a fair share of night games.  They were competitive in losses.  But Andy plays much tighter than Palmer did with the lights on.  he makes more poor decisions, forces more passes, and flat out misses others more regularly.   He was abysmal in the San Diego playoff loss.  That one was all on him and Bernard for the late first half fumble, then the defense collapsed.  But how much of that is tied to the way Lewis prepares the team to take the field in those situations?  It has happened with both QBs.  Some of it has to do with the competition you face in prime time.  Some of it is bad calls that affect the game.  

 

In the end, we shall see if Andy can play differently under Taylor.  Even without the lights this year, he has a chance to play better against the big boys (NE, Pitt, LAR)

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Tightening up and falling apart in big games was definitely a Marvin Lewis staple.  Everyone always wants to lay it at Dalton's feet, but those games were typically a team effort in failure.  The only guy that consistently was there to play in the last few playoff games was Burfict. Other than that,  there was plenty of  deer in headlights to go around.  I'm hoping a culture change will eliminate some of that. 

Of course,  Dalton may just not be a guy who can play games.  Just because Marvin was inept on the biggest stage,  doesn't mean he was the whole reason.  I look forward to finding out this year. 

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I don't see how your coach prevents you from even hitting a 70 rating in 4 playoff games.

His rating in 30 games against the Steelers and Ravens is about 78.1

His easy wins against the Browns are gone since they are improving.

  • His high point of 2015 was a 13 game season where he still got his 2 Cleveland games (143 rating)
  • He was still 8-3 with a 101.2 rating outside of those 2 games, but that puts him 6th instead of 2nd and closer to the pack of guys like Tyrod Taylor's 99 rating
    • The league average was 90.2 and even McCaron put up a 97.
  • So sure, 2015 was a good year for him, but no reason to ignore the rest of his career.

They can get out of his contract with no dead money.

They should move on.

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1 hour ago, SkippyX said:

I don't see how your coach prevents you from even hitting a 70 rating in 4 playoff games.

Oh it definitely has an effect. Ol Marv was about the worst big game coach out there. He's the reason they couldn't ever beat the Steelers. Every single one of those games was a big game, and he had the whole team playing tight.

The question is whether it was just Marv, or Marv and Andy. I'm inclined to think some of both, but we won't really know until we get a good sample size under the new regime. 

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20 hours ago, SkippyX said:

I don't see how your coach prevents you from even hitting a 70 rating in 4 playoff games.

His rating in 30 games against the Steelers and Ravens is about 78.1

His easy wins against the Browns are gone since they are improving.

  • His high point of 2015 was a 13 game season where he still got his 2 Cleveland games (143 rating)
  • He was still 8-3 with a 101.2 rating outside of those 2 games, but that puts him 6th instead of 2nd and closer to the pack of guys like Tyrod Taylor's 99 rating
    • The league average was 90.2 and even McCaron put up a 97.
  • So sure, 2015 was a good year for him, but no reason to ignore the rest of his career.

They can get out of his contract with no dead money.

They should move on.

They will move on after this year I believe. Especially if 2019 is another poor year 

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