Can a Case be made for Keenum...?

[JDBrocks]

But you wouldn't know that the season was going to play out the way that it did. That's why it makes sense.

[Worm Guts]

2 minutes ago, JDBrocks said:

But you wouldn't know that the season was going to play out the way that it did. That's why it makes sense.

 

Sure, but Klomp just said he would make the trade again.  Obviously you can't make that trade hindsight, even if it made sense at the time.

[JDBrocks]

I often think Cian Fahey is overly critical and picks strange takes to go to battle over, but this article does a great job (with .gifs!) of explaining a lot of the reasons that I am bracing for impact with Keenum. The supporting cast has made Keenum look a lot better than he has made the supporting cast look. 

[Purplexing]

On 11/26/2017 at 1:47 PM, Krauser said:

1. The evidence that Keenum will eventually turn back into a pumpkin is his entire career to date, which is a bigger, and therefore statistically stronger, sample than the last 3 or 4 games. The best way of predicting future performance is to consider past performance as a whole. That won't give absolute certainty ("enough evidence to think") of what will happen next, but it's a more accurate indicator than extrapolating from the last month alone.

Players do improve, and can regress, so recent trends do have some relevance. But the history of the NFL doesn't show a single other example of such a dramatic, late improvement. Keenum came into this year 29 year-old with 24 NFL starts under his belt, and had lost his starting job in every previous situation. There was no market for his services. The Vikings signed him 3 weeks into free agency, and there was no bidding war. So he comes into this year with that kind of baseline. 

Here's a link to Keenum's game-by-game career stats: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/K/KeenCa00/gamelog/

Passer rating is a bad stat, but even by that measure, this season has been Keenum's best ever, especially the last month. He now has 10 career games with a PR >100; 5 of them were this year, 3 of them since the bye week. He's never had 3 games in a row with a PR >90 until this month.  

The question is whether Keenum from December 2017 onward will look more like Keenum from 2013-17 (ups and downs and overall mediocre/bad, not a viable long-term starter despite a few good games) or Keenum from November 2017 (one of the best QBs in the league). There isn't absolute certainty about either possibility, but that doesn't make it a 50/50 even chance between them. Maybe he'll do something unprecedented in his career, and in NFL history to date. But if you're setting your expectations as fan, let alone choosing a starting QB for the rest of the year and beyond, it would be foolishly optimistic to expect the hot streak to continue forever.

2. Teddy still looks pretty mobile to me. 

Teddy is younger today than Keenum was for his first start in 2013. He was more effective as a 21-23 year old starter in 2014-15 than Keenum was until last month. It's weird but somehow the same people who want to imagine that the 29 year-old has suddenly turned from a frog into a prince aren't more curious to see what the 25 year-old who was the unquestioned franchise QB until his injury can do, now that he seems to have recovered well from that injury. 

Who knows how it will turn out, but it's hard to imagine the Vikings and Zimmer won't at some point give Bridgewater another chance to start. 

3. No one disputes Keenum had to play, or that he's playing well. 

Starting QBs who go out with injury usually get their jobs back once they've recovered from that injury, or at least fairly soon after. 

From what we know, it seems Teddy's recovered from his injury.

 

 

I have to be brief, due to time constraints.

1. Thanks for the NFL stats.  I agree to review ALL available stats, but don't agree to weight them in any specific manner.  So, why did you weight the 3 Vikings QBs collegiate stats at 0%?

Passer rating isn't a BAD stat.  It is a simplistic stat, which is incomplete and flawed in some regards. It doesn't reflect any type of thorough statistical assembly of the 4 or so factors included through subjective weightings of a panel of 'experts' back in the day it was synthesized by NFL statisticians.  Regardless, you seem to weigh it at 0%, implying using it for comparison purposes is invalid, and giving preference to your choice of stats.  So be it; that's your right.  I only consider, and use, passer rating or QBR as a useful, readily available, commonly used stat which needs to be supplemented, not discarded, for a more thorough review. 

2.  I don't see any DL chasing TB in that vid.  I believe I could replicate that video, albeit at a slightly slower speed, at more than twice his age.  Mobility may have been a poor choice of words on my part.  Let me substitute 'mobility / elusiveness' for 'mobility'.  Mea culpa.  We all saw SB didn't have elusiveness in his last game, vs. Chicago.

3.  'Usually' is a trivial point that is understood by all because the backup is on the bench for a reason; i.e. didn't perform as well in training camp or in games.  But there are instances where a gem is found due to injury (Bledsoe / Brady, and Stabler/Lamonica/ Blanda) or an awful performance by the starter (Shaw/Tarkenton).  The current situation is different; there was no 2017 TC competition because of TB's injury and rehab period, and no 2016 TC decision due to the same reason. 

[Purplexing]

On 11/26/2017 at 3:40 PM, gopherwrestler said:

Really they dropped them because they knew they could find better.

Can we find better than Case Keenum? Probably.

Agree that some QBs are likely to be better.  What will it cost to do so?  But, are we sure current roster QBs will be better under Shurmur?

Rick 'Pickumulator' Spielman and Brzezinski have some tough choices ahead.  

I'm not sure K Sloter is the future backup... but if he is, both he and TB need to be tested in game situations this year.  SB, too, if he recovers soon enough.... i.e. can I talk about playoffs no without risking a cliche reply vid by Jim Mora?    

[Krauser]

44 minutes ago, Purplexing said:

I have to be brief, due to time constraints.

1. Thanks for the NFL stats.  I agree to review ALL available stats, but don't agree to weight them in any specific manner.  So, why did you weight the 3 Vikings QBs collegiate stats at 0%?

Passer rating isn't a BAD stat.  It is a simplistic stat, which is incomplete and flawed in some regards. It doesn't reflect any type of thorough statistical assembly of the 4 or so factors included through subjective weightings of a panel of 'experts' back in the day it was synthesized by NFL statisticians.  Regardless, you seem to weigh it at 0%, implying using it for comparison purposes is invalid, and giving preference to your choice of stats.  So be it; that's your right.  I only consider, and use, passer rating or QBR as a useful, readily available, commonly used stat which needs to be supplemented, not discarded, for a more thorough review. 

2.  I don't see any DL chasing TB in that vid.  I believe I could replicate that video, albeit at a slightly slower speed, at more than twice his age.  Mobility may have been a poor choice of words on my part.  Let me substitute 'mobility / elusiveness' for 'mobility'.  Mea culpa.  We all saw SB didn't have elusiveness in his last game, vs. Chicago.

3.  'Usually' is a trivial point that is understood by all because the backup is on the bench for a reason; i.e. didn't perform as well in training camp or in games.  But there are instances where a gem is found due to injury (Bledsoe / Brady, and Stabler/Lamonica/ Blanda) or an awful performance by the starter (Shaw/Tarkenton).  The current situation is different; there was no 2017 TC competition because of TB's injury and rehab period, and no 2016 TC decision due to the same reason. 

1. You should read more carefully. I didn't weight passer rating at 0%, I used Keenum's passer rating to show he's never performed as well in his career as he did over the past 3 weeks. The idea being that this is a hot streak, not indicative of his true talent level. 

College stats are much, much less relevant once we have NFL performance to judge instead. 

In Keenum's case in particular, his college stats had more to do with his situation (starting 57 games over 5 years, still in college when he was nearly 24 -- older than Teddy was in the playoff game vs Seattle, and playing in an Air Raid offense under Kevin Sumlin) than his talent. Most of the best QBs leave college earlier (and younger) than Keenum did. Throwing for the most career yards in NCAA history is way less impressive when the rest of the top 5 goes: 2. Timmy Chang, 3. Landry Jones, 4. Graham Harrell, 5. Ty Detmer. 

2. I will send you (by PayPal or the payment method of your choice) 100 US dollars if you post a Youtube video to this forum in which you try to "replicate that video, albeit at a slightly slower speed, at more than twice his age". This wouldn't prove or disprove your point; it would be purely for my own amusement. You can follow that up with trying to copy some of Teddy's locker room dances. Maybe get a channel going, find some subscribers who're into pedantic but reasonably athletic middle aged men. 

(Note for those with reading comprehension issues: the paragraph above is a joke. Don't post a video, I'm not sending you money)

The point is that Teddy seems to have recovered fully from his injury.  Multiple observers have said so. He's certainly moving much better than Bradford did in practices/warmups before the  Chicago game. Maybe he'll show some hesitation in game situations, and maybe he'll be somewhat less agile than he was before the injury, but he's moving well enough to play again and see how it goes. 

3. Keenum was surpassed at one point in training camp by Heinicke. He also started games for multiple teams from 2013-16 and never kept his job. It's not like he never got his chance. He is already almost 30. So it's not like Brady, who was a 24 year old 2nd year guy who'd never started before Bledsoe got hurt.

As far as I know, there are zero prior cases of QBs with comparable histories to Keenum heading into this year (including age, previous opportunities to start, and lack of career success up to that point) who've gone on to become successful franchise QBs. Keenum would have to be the first. It's not literally impossible that it could happen, but it's unlikely. 

Meanwhile, there are multiple cases of QBs Teddy's age who've improved their play compared to their 1st/2nd years, and become long-term starters. His injury makes that harder to predict, but the main risk was that he wouldn't recover from it, and it seems he has recovered from it. I'm considerably less confident in his long-term success than I was before the injury, but I think he's still a better bet than Keenum for the future.

[vike daddy]

2 minutes ago, Krauser said:

(Note for those with reading comprehension issues: the paragraph above is a joke. Don't post a video, I'm not sending you money)

dammit, i was going to chip in a hundred bucks too.

[Worm Guts]

14 minutes ago, Krauser said:

As far as I know, there are zero prior cases of QBs with comparable histories to Keenum heading into this year (including age, previous opportunities to start, and lack of career success up to that point) who've gone on to become successful franchise QBs. Keenum would have to be the first. It's not literally impossible that it could happen, but it's unlikely

Rich Gannon was probably more successful than Keenum to this point in his career, but he did go from borerline starter to 1st all-pro in his 30's.

[The Gnat]

With Gannon I think that was a year with Tim Brown and Jerry Rice, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, Diggs/Theilen are good, but I'm not quite ready to put them at that level yet.

[Worm Guts]

11 minutes ago, The Gnat said:

With Gannon I think that was a year with Tim Brown and Jerry Rice, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, Diggs/Theilen are good, but I'm not quite ready to put them at that level yet.

Brown was 34-35 at that point, Rice was pushing 40.  They were still good, but far from the peak of their powers.

[Klomp]

2 hours ago, Purplexing said:

But, are we sure current roster QBs will be better under Shurmur?

This is the big key going forward though.

Keenum is seeing this first-time success under Shurmur. No other OC has catered to him in a way that he's played this well. So if Shurmur goes elsewhere (which is a very real possibility), we should not lock ourselves into the idea that Keenum is absolutely the guy going forward (especially with the possible name-your-price idea floating out there).

[Klomp]

3 hours ago, Worm Guts said:

Sure, but Klomp just said he would make the trade again.  Obviously you can't make that trade hindsight, even if it made sense at the time.

I'm not looking at the results and assuming we'd play 50 offensive linemen during the season like we did last year, as you seem to be doing.

I'm saying when the injury happened, and seeing the pieces we had on the roster and the potential the group had going into the season, I would absolutely make the trade again. Bradford wasn't the reason the team went 3-8 down the stretch.....losing half the team to injury was.

[Klomp]

Was looking at Shurmur's wikipedia and found this interesting:

In McCoy’s first season with Shurmur as his coach, the former University of Texas standout posted the best season of his professional career to date in 2011, throwing for 2,733 yards and 14 touchdown passes in 13 games.

Add in the fact a guy like Sam Bradford has had 3 of his 4 best seasons under Shurmur, or the success Shurmur had with Nick Foles in 2013 (27 TDs, 2 INTs).

None of these guys have been able to replicate their success without Pat Shurmur on staff, so I think it's a bit foolish to think a 29-year old has found success that will continue on for the rest of his career.

[perrynoid]

29 minutes ago, Klomp said:

Was looking at Shurmur's wikipedia and found this interesting:

In McCoy’s first season with Shurmur as his coach, the former University of Texas standout posted the best season of his professional career to date in 2011, throwing for 2,733 yards and 14 touchdown passes in 13 games.

Add in the fact a guy like Sam Bradford has had 3 of his 4 best seasons under Shurmur, or the success Shurmur had with Nick Foles in 2013 (27 TDs, 2 INTs).

None of these guys have been able to replicate their success without Pat Shurmur on staff, so I think it's a bit foolish to think a 29-year old has found success that will continue on for the rest of his career.

Shouldn't this make him all the more attractive as a head coaching candidate though?  Especially in a QB-driven League?

[Klomp]

2 minutes ago, perrynoid said:

Shouldn't this make him all the more attractive as a head coaching candidate though?  Especially in a QB-driven League?

I don't know. I'm only speaking to Keenum's possible future without him (this is the Keenum thread, after all)