NFLN Top 100 Players of 2020

[VanS]

On 8/16/2020 at 11:01 PM, Yin-Yang said:

For someone who prides themselves on thinking your own thoughts and adamantly defending obviously wrong opinions, you sure do cave to groupthink as soon as it becomes convenient. Who’d have thought.  

That point of that statement was to show you that the concept of future events impacting how people look at the past is not new.  You spent half this thread acting like I created it out of thin air.  I was simply making the point that what I am saying isn't a novel concept.  People routinely engage in it.  You can disagree but you cannot deny it.  And FTR even a broke clock is right twice a day.  So while I do not usually follow the herd, there are times they will be inevitably be right.  

On 8/16/2020 at 11:01 PM, Yin-Yang said:

Nah. You’re attempting to change the argument - hard pass. I’ll stick to Josh Allen being outperformed by his defense in 2019, along with leading an offense that was poor in giving his defense rest.

How am I changing the argument when from the start I said that Josh Allen's impact on the 2019 Bills offense is not being captured properly by the statistics because of how poor his supporting cast was?  I've already ceded to you that there is no objective measure to support Allen outperforming the defense.  The numbers are on your side.  My contention is he actually put up a herculean season last year given the circumstances.  My proof for this is how he plays over the next couple of years as the talent around him improves and the numbers finally start of catch up to his talent.  

If all you want to do is compare the stats from 2019 then go ahead.  I already told you I value the eye test over numbers when evaluating players.  If you disagree then so be it.  I never waste my time in the interim trying to convince people to accept my views.  I just state them and let the future decide who is right.

On 8/16/2020 at 11:01 PM, Yin-Yang said:

It was about how Josh Allen did in 2019. No amount of great play or bad play in the future changes what’s happened in the past, it just doesn’t work that way. But we’ve had that talk already, it’s just based on hopes.

This is why I want to know how good you think Josh Allen is cause what you're saying here makes no sense to me.  Just play along with me on this hypothetical:  Lets say you think Josh Allen was an average or below average QB in 2019 (as his numbers suggest).  Then in 2020 he has a season like Lamar Jackson and wins MVP.  Do you think he went from a below average QB to the best player in the sport overnight?  Or was the truth of his 2019 season not quite as apparent as the numbers suggest?  

This is where we have a fundamental difference of views.  There is always variance in players performances from game to game and season to season.  But guys don't make huge improvements overnight.  They don't completely transform.  Players are more or less who they are from year to year with only incremental change until they age. The huge divergences we see in performances can be attributed moreso to the factors around them than their own latent abilities.  You want us to believe guys can go from below average to the best player in the sport overnight.  I don't.  I think if Josh Allen does have a Lamar Jackson-esque season in 2020 then that's who he was all along.  He doesn't just become great.

 

[Soko]

9 minutes ago, VanS said:

That point of that statement was to show you that the concept of future events impacting how people look at the past is not new.  You spent half this thread acting like I created it out of thin air.  I was simply making the point that what I am saying isn't a novel concept.  People routinely engage in it.  You can disagree but you cannot deny it.  And FTR even a broke clock is right twice a day.  So while I do not usually follow the herd, there are times they will be inevitably be right.  

People commit logical fallacies all the time too - guess we should just be cool with that. 

9 minutes ago, VanS said:

How am I changing the argument when from the start I said that Josh Allen's impact on the 2019 Bills offense is not being captured properly by the statistics because of how poor his supporting cast was?  I've already ceded to you that there is no objective measure to support Allen outperforming the defense.  The numbers are on your side.  My contention is he actually put up a herculean season last year given the circumstances.  My proof for this is how he plays over the next couple of years as the talent around him improves and the numbers finally start of catch up to his talent.  

You’re hilariously attempting to force me into taking the opinion that Josh Allen is trash and will always be trash, when I pretty clearly stated that my issue was with your statement on him being the driving force of them playoff run. So yeah - you’re trying to change the discussion.

9 minutes ago, VanS said:

If all you want to do is compare the stats from 2019 then go ahead.  I already told you I value the eye test over numbers when evaluating players.  If you disagree then so be it.  I never waste my time in the interim trying to convince people to accept my views.  I just state them and let the future decide who is right.

Keep acting like I posted his passing stats and used that as a proof for his lack of impact on the team. 

9 minutes ago, VanS said:

This is why I want to know how good you think Josh Allen is cause what you're saying here makes no sense to me.  Just play along with me on this hypothetical:  Lets say you think Josh Allen was an average or below average QB in 2019 (as his numbers suggest).  Then in 2020 he has a season like Lamar Jackson and wins MVP.  Do you think he went from a below average QB to the best player in the sport overnight?

IN YOUR HYPOTHETICAL: Quite literally, not overnight. In an offseason. That’s pretty much what Lamar did himself - he made some massive strides as a passer, got more comfortable as a runner (/NFL player in general), the offense got tailored around him a little bit more, and a bunch of other players played well to boot. Was a perfect storm. 

In your hypothetical, I’ll assume Allen did the same (since obviously we have nothing to go off of other than your statement). 

9 minutes ago, VanS said:

Or was the truth of his 2019 season not quite as apparent as the numbers suggest?  

We’ve been over this and I almost used your hypothetical word for word. If Allen gets on a HOF track in 2020, that doesn’t mean he was the driving force of the team in 2019. It means he played well in 2020 - that’s it.

9 minutes ago, VanS said:

This is where we have a fundamental difference of views.  There is always variance in players performances from game to game and season to season.  But guys don't make huge improvements overnight.  They don't completely transform.  Players are more or less who they are from year to year with only incremental change until they age. The huge divergences we see in performances can be attributed moreso to the factors around them than their own latent abilities.  You want us to believe guys can go from below average to the best player in the sport overnight.  I don't.  I think if Josh Allen does have a Lamar Jackson-esque season in 2020 then that's who he was all along.  He doesn't just become great.

It’s not overnight. It’s an offseason. Guys make jumps all the time.

Was JJ Watt a DPOY in his rookie season? Was Aaron Donald? Was Mack? Was Darrelle Revis a shutdown CB in year 1? What about Alex Smith? Or Julian Edelman? They all had potential but acting like that potential was fully realized as a rookie? Joke worthy. 

And congratulations - you’ve successfully side tracked me. Because the quality or play of a player rising or falling from any given season does not change how Josh Allen impacted the 2019 Bills.

[diamondbull424]

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

*And how to apply it*. 

If I say “2015 wasn’t just another year for Russ”, that isn’t a straw man. That’s just a statement I made. If that were a straw man, then you saying “Joe Flacco hasn’t received enough credit” is also a straw man (it’s not though). 

The statement with Flacco was brought up as an analogy to Josh Allen’s situation of a QB that may not have hypothetically received enough credit in 2019. Thus it did not directly misrepresent any points you had made to that point. “Tbqh he reminds me of Joe Flacco (from a passing standpoint) but with enhanced wheels and less accuracy. Joe hasn’t received enough credit, even now, for his ability to stabilize our offense.” 

So the point of the statement, in context, is if Josh Allen breaks out with enhanced offensive weapons in 2020 and becomes an elite QB statistically, it would lead credence to the point that he was carrying his 2019 weapons and making them look far better than the end results for the offense had represented. It wouldn’t make 2019 Allen elite (that’s far too big a leap), but it would provide enhanced value to his 2019 accomplishments. This argument is consistent with an no different than me arguing that if Tannehill is elite in 2020, we would view his 2019 in a new light and it would potentially also influence our perception on the fact that his situation in Miami with Gase was toxic enough to not allow him to best present his true value. Further we might all then wonder if Darnold’s situation with Gase might also be misrepresenting his value... meaning we would wait for a coaching change before truly judging his talent. This would also provide additional context to just how much of the success for the 2013 Broncos offense should go to his involvement and how much should simply be attributed to the brilliance of Peyton Manning.

Notice this isn’t me arguing for Josh Allen, it’s me arguing for the potential future scenario of Allen breaking out influencing the validity of past narratives that perhaps we all overlooked.

Whats more notice this isn’t me actually caring to argue about Josh Allen, but is instead me arguing the point about how future context can allow us to adjust our insight on past events... because of the supplied context... this is the only reason Josh Allen is mentioned in this post because of his relevance to the potential for context to change or have us question past narratives.

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Down the rabbit hole we go...

2019: Chiefs (31) over Niners (20) - Offense.

2018: Pats (13) over Rams (3) - Defense. 

2017: Eagles (41) over Pats (33) - Offense.

2016: Pats (34) over Falcons (28) - Offense. 

2015: Broncos (24) over Panthers (10) - Defense. (Defensive score got them above the requisite points; which I will award credit to the defense here, even though this would be applying context and thus removing the “vacuum” effect.)

Your logic is flawed. I FIFY. The average PPG in an NFL season over the last 5 seasons has fallen in between 21.7 and 23.3 PPG; these numbers are including your rare occurrence of defensive scores and STs scores.

Thus in the SBs noted the offenses all ensured that the opposing offense would have had to score above the seasonal average PPG in order to beat them. In the other two games the opposite were true. Which shows a 1.5x advantage for the offense (3 wins) vs the defense (2 wins) in SBs.

But perhaps that’s not enough evidence for you, so let’s add another five years to the bucket. The average PPG during this time period is in between 22.0 and 23.4 PPG.

Patriots (28) over Seahawks (24); Offense
Seahawks (43) over Broncos (8); Offense
Ravens (34) over 49ers (31); Offense
Giants (21) over Patriots (17); Defense
Packers (31) over Steelers (25); Offense

Edit: So in the past 10 seasons, teams whose offensive scoring output went above the leagues PPG average the Super Bowl went in their favor.

Only in three scenarios did we see great defense decide the winner of the Super Bowl.

So in 7/10 Super Bowls, having a great offense decided the winner.

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

I don’t like WAR, especially for an offense vs defense discussion, but thanks for posting it because it proves my statement true. 

”Playing the most important position does not inherently give you the most credit, especially when the unit you’re leading isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders”

Your statement there is irrelevant. Because my argument that you contested in the beginning was Thus I think attributing Allen and the offense he led with 50% of the credit, even if it didn’t always look pretty or statistically was represented in the best light, is fair. It’s hard to quantify just how much value that is worth. Perhaps it’s worth 45% but perhaps it’s worth 55%.

Your statement above isn’t disproving my the statement here. The WAR stats I posted connote that an offense is worth 1.6x as much value as a defense. But where exactly can we find that 1.6x differential? Could a 20th ranked offense be as important as the 10th ranked defense? I’m not a mathematician, I’m sure someone who is, could create a roadmap to finding out how to best measure that difference and where on the football field it best applies.

What’s more if the offensive talent is 30th ranked and the QB elevated that depressed talent to a 20th ranking... what does that say about his value to the team success in comparison to the defense? Does that make him as valuable to the team success as that defense being as good as it is when comparing the value a below average defense might provide in comparison to a below average QB substituted in the place of said QB.

Notice how I said it COULD BE a fair statement, not that I agreed with it. I would personally credit the defense. But someone making a great argument for that QB using context from other seasons along with impact on 2019 isn’t something I’m willing to rule out. Your above statement doesn’t refute any claim that I’ve made in my argument. Thus it’s not relevant to my argument. Perhaps it’s relevant to your debate with the other poster, but not to me.

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Yeah, so this is going to reinforce the whole “you call me dense, and then say this” statement. Unless it’s a joke/another factoid, then whoosh. If not, think it’s pretty clear that within the scope of mankind, the earth’s shape has been pretty constant. 

It’s both sarcasm and a factoid. You tried playing the whole “the Earth is constant but a player’s season is not constant“ card.

Yet in such you did not account for the fact that the Earth, in fact, is not constant. Even in just the time of humanity as you’ve stated above, Mountains and Valleys and asteroid craters that have taken place over time all prove the Earth is not constant, just as a players individual season may have valleys and mountains and craters within it over time.

Whats more those mountains, valleys, and craters that took place over time, along with the changes to the night sky, were the first clues that provided ancient scientists the means to eventually conclude that the Earth was not, in fact, flat. They then went about proving it as fact over hundreds if not thousands of years via the best minds humans had to offer.

Same way over time football scientists/mathematicians have gone about incorporating more and more numbers (stats/advanced stats) to go about best comparing and contrasting players over individual seasons as well as over careers. With more study and analysis, the more accurate the numbers are able to provide conclusions and predictions. Given hundreds of years with the best minds working on football, there likely would also be enough breakthroughs that we might be able to deem all statistical observations as “fact”.

So this portion of my post as well as the above is both a creative means of me being intentionally dense, while also defending the correctness of my analogy as previously provided. Thus my being dense serves a strategic purpose to my argument and therefore makes it relevant

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Those new pieces of information are information pertaining to 2019 (Dak/Mahomes examples), not just future seasons. Learning that Garrett sabotaged Dak in 2019 is different than Dak just playing well in 2020. One is a new piece of information that directly pertains to the past - and thus ought to change your outlook on said past - and the other is new information (performance) that ought to change your outlook on the present. It’s different. 

If a book comes out and tells us things we didn’t know about a given player or team, then we can retroactively change our views on the past. But that is incredibly different from a guy playing well in the upcoming season, and then changing your view on the past based on that. 

So let me break this down for you. What you are essentially saying is that Player A in 2019 was provided X value, let’s say X = 8/10. Now what you are saying is that new context from 2019 would essentially be X + Y; let’s assume that Y = 1 here. This would now attribute Player A with 9/10 value. I don’t disagree with this notion. But this only works in a perfect universe where all information is perfect outside of the one additional point of context not included.

So what I am saying is that if Player A in 2019 was attributed X value by the masses; again this is 8/10. Yet specialized parties have attributed that same player with Z value. The popular opinion would prevail with X value. But popular opinion is not factual. It is only our best attempt at creating a “correct” outlook. Thus if in 2020 Player A has Z value conclusively, it is fair for us to re-evaluate the 2019 conclusions drawn. If in that analysis we find that X value didn’t properly account for Y, yet those specialized parties did account for such... then we need to rethink our previous groupthink. There are specific issues we can’t talk about on this forum that I would love to use here as a better analogy but instead the groupthink of the Earths shape in history will have to do as a proper analogy instead.

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

I think this paragraph here is a good point to highlight the separation we have. 

You are correct - if Tannehill lights it up in 2020, 2021, etc., then we can probably say his leap started in 2019. As opposed to if he tanks, then we can look at 2019 and say it was a flash in the pan. I agree with you there. 

But his impact on the 2019 Titans was, we can probably agree, substantial. If Tannehill lights it up in 2020, his impact on the 2019 Titans would still be static and substantial. If he bombs, his impact on the 2019 Titans remains the same.

So our perspective on him as a player can change, but what they did and the impact they had on a team in any given season, do not. That’s the difference in what we’re saying here. I agree with what you’re saying but I think our discussion branches into two paths.

 

And I don’t disagree with the fact that a players impact does not change.

Quote

and I’m simply positing that it’s quite possible that Allen is more correctly a top 12-15 type of QB, but his unorthodox method of providing that type of impact (may) not be fully understood until later, in which case some/many will apply a correction. Perhaps if he’s a Matt Ryan level QB next season people will then suppose that perhaps they didn’t “give him enough credit the previous season” and thus in turn apply him with what appears to be a “correction” but in reality was simply his true value finally being truly understood. So it’s less rewriting history and more aligning history with what was unexplainable at the time.

I Hope I’ve made myself and my point at least somewhat clear and understood here. It’s simply that QBs improve, sure. But sometimes their improvements are mired under a false conclusion of a supposed truth... and it’s not until more information becomes available that we realized our mistakes. More simply put, to use a completely unrelated field; did the world go from flat to round... or was it always round and we simply corrected our understandings based off of the newfound logic that was always there but was just not previously understood. Many times with players their true values don’t reveal themselves to the masses until a specific amount of an improvement threshold is reached before the masses will challenge their opinions to understand that some of those improvements were already there and simply hadn’t yet been recognized until well after they had happened.

As you can see I’ve stated time and again in this post that the players impact and value does not change. What changes is our understanding of that value and their impact. That sometimes our groupthink conclusions are wrong and corrected to conclusions that more accurately reflect a conclusion with more truth.

You then seemingly disagreed with the concept that a players impact and value is not constant; contrary to what you stated in your most recent post. I stated three times that the context was in reference to a players true value and true impact. You then responded with this...

On 8/16/2020 at 1:53 PM, Yin-Yang said:

The Earth example doesn’t really work because the earth is constant - our perspective on it was not. Players aren’t constant. 

I then responded by attempting to correct your lack of understanding as to a player’s impact being constant within a defined period of time.

On 8/17/2020 at 6:12 AM, diamondbull424 said:

No, clearly you don’t understand. So I’ll repeat it. The Earth shape is constant just as a players seasonal production and career production is constant once complete.

Cam Newton can’t jump back into 2015 and change his production from that season. His 2015 production is constant. His MVP win is constant.

Whats not constant is the ideas that people have regarding that season. Just like the ideas as to whether the Earth was round or flat have changed over time.

So now we can both agreed that a players impact is indeed constant. And we can both agree that our perspectives on the player are the things that change, now we can get to the only other part that is not now in agreement: human groupthink being fallible. 

The example about the Earth as shown in that post is in reference to the fallibility of human groupthink. How humans as a group once thought the Earth to be flat, yet that groupthink was incorrect. That information within the groupthink then needed to be corrected based on new information. Which in turn is what makes the metaphor in fact exact and relevant to my argument. If human groupthink can be flawed, then our understanding of a players season could be flawed.

So when the first physicist or philosophers, those with the most accurate information, tried to convince those in the groupthink of the world being flat, to the group they were incorrect, but in reality... those individuals were correct.

So just as a specialized party might claim a particular player deserves more credit for their value in x season, and groupthink finds his interpretation of events to be incorrect, that does not mean the specialized party was wrong; he could be wrong, but it could also means the group may not have had enough information at the time when it made its previous conclusions.

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

So all the way in 2020, with him being as great as he is - hasn’t changed what I believed him to be in 2012 or 2013. So yeah, we can correct ourselves with new info when we’re wrong, but A) I don’t believe most people were wrong to point out how strong some aspects of those teams were, and B) I don’t believe calling Russ an athletic game manager (that can make clutch throws, SB not withstanding) is shortchanging him early in his career.

Which now we come to the other point of my argument. How we DEFINE value to a team. For many, including you, Russell as an athletic game manager from 2012-2014 cannot also be elite. Because “elite” isn’t supplied until we know a player can “carry a passing attack” (not quoting you, but the groupthink of the masses.)

I disagree. I think a hyper athletic game manager can be elite and that young Wilson was near, if not, it; he simply didn’t have the length/track record to make such a claim “comfortable”. Similar to how 2019 Tannehill doesn’t have such a track record even if his impact was extensive. 

I think it’s irrelevant if a player can carry a passing attack as long as they can carry an offensive attack; which Wilson showed he could do as a rookie and beyond.

The Seahawks under Pete Carroll in 2011 with Marshawn Lynch and similar enough offensive components went from 24th in TDs/drive (15.5%) to in Wilson’s first season up to 6th (26.5%).

Lynch went from a probowl back to an All Pro back via Wilson’s dual threat impact opening up space for him to thrive.

So if in 2025 or 2030 they come up with a future stat akin to what Passer Rating meant to QBs from the 80s-00s that better weighs the impact that a dual threat QB has on an offense... and such a stat retroactively calibrates Wilson to “elite” impact numbers as a rookie, it would not surprise me.

Because before Wilson NFL groupthink was that a dual threat QB could not thrive and last in the league for a long time and thus stats to tally the impact of a dual threat QB weren’t properly cultivated.

Thus our lens of what an “elite QB” looks like is too tied to a player displaying an ability to carry an offense’s passing attack and not simply overall offensive impact.

Your arguments against Wilson being elite early in his career stem from him “relying on his rushing attack to help him.” Yet the season where you acknowledged he entered elitedom was the season that Marshawn Lynch went down with an injury and Wilson simply did what he did all along, carry the offense... only without Lynch his shouldering of the offensive burden came in the form of more passing numbers. Prior to 2015 he showed he could lead a prolific offense, but it wasn’t until given the opportunity that he showed he could lead a prolific and efficient passing attack, same as what he did at Wisconsin.

So I agree I don’t think being an athletic game manager short changes a player either. I disagree however with groupthink that believes said player can’t also be elite (or be possessed of more value than what was provided at the time).

18 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Like I said, that’s new information (or discoveries, theories, whatever). You can obviously use new information to correct misinformation. But we’re not getting new information out of the 2019 season (or, since we’re keeping this on Russell Wilson, the 2012-2016 seasons). Future seasons of great player (or bad play) is not new information on what’s happened in the past. Breaking stories or tell-all’s might do that, but not future performance.

Or new advanced stats, perhaps?

A tell all is just a new way to perceive the same information. The Last Dance doesn’t provide new information as to Jordan’s on court performance, it simply provides off court context. New NFL advanced stats won’t provide new information as to on field performance, but it could provide greater clarity as to the impact of a player.

And with greater clarity, just as in a tell all book, it provides us with additional context in how we understand the values and impact from events (a players season) that have already happened.

Edited August 19, 2020 by diamondbull424

[ET80]

8 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

People commit logical fallacies all the time too - guess we should just be cool with that. 

You’re hilariously attempting to force me into taking the opinion that Josh Allen is trash and will always be trash, when I pretty clearly stated that my issue was with your statement on him being the driving force of them playoff run. So yeah - you’re trying to change the discussion.

Keep acting like I posted his passing stats and used that as a proof for his lack of impact on the team. 

IN YOUR HYPOTHETICAL: Quite literally, not overnight. In an offseason. That’s pretty much what Lamar did himself - he made some massive strides as a passer, got more comfortable as a runner (/NFL player in general), the offense got tailored around him a little bit more, and a bunch of other players played well to boot. Was a perfect storm. 

In your hypothetical, I’ll assume Allen did the same (since obviously we have nothing to go off of other than your statement). 

We’ve been over this and I almost used your hypothetical word for word. If Allen gets on a HOF track in 2020, that doesn’t mean he was the driving force of the team in 2019. It means he played well in 2020 - that’s it.

It’s not overnight. It’s an offseason. Guys make jumps all the time.

Was JJ Watt a DPOY in his rookie season? Was Aaron Donald? Was Mack? Was Darrelle Revis a shutdown CB in year 1? What about Alex Smith? Or Julian Edelman? They all had potential but acting like that potential was fully realized as a rookie? Joke worthy. 

And congratulations - you’ve successfully side tracked me. Because the quality or play of a player rising or falling from any given season does not change how Josh Allen impacted the 2019 Bills.

[Soko]

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

The statement with Flacco was brought up as an analogy to Josh Allen’s situation of a QB that may not have hypothetically received enough credit in 2019. Thus it did not directly misrepresent any points you had made to that point. “Tbqh he reminds me of Joe Flacco (from a passing standpoint) but with enhanced wheels and less accuracy. Joe hasn’t received enough credit, even now, for his ability to stabilize our offense.” 

So the point of the statement, in context, is if Josh Allen breaks out with enhanced offensive weapons in 2020 and becomes an elite QB statistically, it would lead credence to the point that he was carrying his 2019 weapons and making them look far better than the end results for the offense had represented. It wouldn’t make 2019 Allen elite (that’s far too big a leap), but it would provide enhanced value to his 2019 accomplishments. This argument is consistent with an no different than me arguing that if Tannehill is elite in 2020, we would view his 2019 in a new light and it would potentially also influence our perception on the fact that his situation in Miami with Gase was toxic enough to not allow him to best present his true value. Further we might all then wonder if Darnold’s situation with Gase might also be misrepresenting his value... meaning we would wait for a coaching change before truly judging his talent. This would also provide additional context to just how much of the success for the 2013 Broncos offense should go to his involvement and how much should simply be attributed to the brilliance of Peyton Manning.

Notice this isn’t me arguing for Josh Allen, it’s me arguing for the potential future scenario of Allen breaking out influencing the validity of past narratives that perhaps we all overlooked.

Whats more notice this isn’t me actually caring to argue about Josh Allen, but is instead me arguing the point about how future context can allow us to adjust our insight on past events... because of the supplied context... this is the only reason Josh Allen is mentioned in this post because of his relevance to the potential for context to change or have us question past narratives.

 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Your logic is flawed. I FIFY. The average PPG in an NFL season over the last 5 seasons has fallen in between 21.7 and 23.3 PPG; these numbers are including your rare occurrence of defensive scores and STs scores.

Thus in the SBs noted the offenses all ensured that the opposing offense would have had to score above the seasonal average PPG in order to beat them. In the other two games the opposite were true. Which shows a 1.5x advantage for the offense (3 wins) vs the defense (2 wins) in SBs.

But perhaps that’s not enough evidence for you, so let’s add another five years to the bucket. The average PPG during this time period is in between 22.0 and 23.4 PPG.

Patriots (28) over Seahawks (24); Offense
Seahawks (43) over Broncos (8); Offense
Ravens (34) over 49ers (31); Offense
Giants (21) over Patriots (17); Defense
Packers (31) over Steelers (25); Offense

Nah, I was using your DVOA. 2019, Chiefs had the the better offense and worst defense - advantage offense. In 2018, the Pats had a better defense and the Rams had a better offense - advantage defense. The Eagles had a better defense and worst offense - advantage defense. Pats had a better offense and worst defense - advantage defense. Broncos had a better defense and worse offense - advantage defense. 

That’s just based the DVOA you presented for me. In most of those games, the teams with the better defense won. 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Your statement there is irrelevant. Because my argument that you contested in the beginning was Thus I think attributing Allen and the offense he led with 50% of the credit, even if it didn’t always look pretty or statistically was represented in the best light, is fair. It’s hard to quantify just how much value that is worth. Perhaps it’s worth 45% but perhaps it’s worth 55%.

Your statement above isn’t disproving my the statement here. The WAR stats I posted connote that an offense is worth 1.6x as much value as a defense. But where exactly can we find that 1.6x differential? Could a 20th ranked offense be as important as the 10th ranked defense? I’m not a mathematician, I’m sure someone who is, could create a roadmap to finding out how to best measure that difference and where on the football field it best applies.

You latched onto my passing comment on offense vs defense, but my initial comment was about Allen vs the defense. So if you want to do what you did, add up the WAR, then the defense is higher. And as you said, that’d be assuming Allen was a top 10 QB, which I don’t think most do. 

I thought we weren’t talking about Allen anymore?

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

So this portion of my post as well as the above is both a creative means of me being intentionally dense, while also defending the correctness of my analogy as previously provided. Thus my being dense serves a strategic purpose to my argument and therefore makes it relevant

Lmao. If you think so...

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

So let me break this down for you. What you are essentially saying is that Player A in 2019 was provided X value, let’s say X = 8/10. Now what you are saying is that new context from 2019 would essentially be X + Y; let’s assume that Y = 1 here. This would now attribute Player A with 9/10 value. I don’t disagree with this notion. But this only works in a perfect universe where all information is perfect outside of the one additional point of context not included.

So what I am saying is that if Player A in 2019 was attributed X value by the masses; again this is 8/10. Yet specialized parties have attributed that same player with Z value. The popular opinion would prevail with X value. But popular opinion is not factual. It is only our best attempt at creating a “correct” outlook. Thus if in 2020 Player A has Z value conclusively, it is fair for us to re-evaluate the 2019 conclusions drawn. If in that analysis we find that X value didn’t properly account for Y, yet those specialized parties did account for such... then we need to rethink our previous groupthink. There are specific issues we can’t talk about on this forum that I would love to use here as a better analogy but instead the groupthink of the Earths shape in history will have to do as a proper analogy instead.

I’m not partaking in groupthink, though (I mean, basically everyone does implicitly on some level, but for these topics we’ve gone over, I am not). I get what you’re saying, but it becomes less viable as we use real world examples. Is Y, in your example, the Mahomes/Dak hypotheticals? Or is Y, an MVP season by Allen (in this example)? 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

And I don’t disagree with the fact that a players impact does not change.

As you can see I’ve stated time and again in this post that the players impact and value does not change. What changes is our understanding of that value and their impact. That sometimes our groupthink conclusions are wrong and corrected to conclusions that more accurately reflect a conclusion with more truth.

You then seemingly disagreed with the concept that a players impact and value is not constant; contrary to what you stated in your most recent post. I stated three times that the context was in reference to a players true value and true impact. You then responded with this...

I then responded by attempting to correct your lack of understanding as to a player’s impact being constant within a defined period of time.

So now we can both agreed that a players impact is indeed constant. And we can both agree that our perspectives on the player are the things that change, now we can get to the only other part that is not now in agreement: human groupthink being fallible. 

Nah, you mistook that quote about “players aren’t constant”. By that, I mean themselves, not the impact. First year starter Brady was not 07 Brady - he’s not constant. From season to season, players aren’t constant in their ability for the most part. But first year starter Brady’s impact is constant because it happened in the past. 

So yeah, we agree on that stuff. Just a misunderstanding.

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Which now we come to the other point of my argument. How we DEFINE value to a team. For many, including you, Russell as an athletic game manager from 2012-2014 cannot also be elite. Because “elite” isn’t supplied until we know a player can “carry a passing attack” (not quoting you, but the groupthink of the masses.)

Correct, I do not believe Russell Wilson was an elite QB in those years.

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

I disagree. I think a hyper athletic game manager can be elite and that young Wilson was near, if not, it; he simply didn’t have the length/track record to make such a claim “comfortable”. Similar to how 2019 Tannehill doesn’t have such a track record even if his impact was extensive. 

I think I’d have a hard time finding anyone who fits the bill of game manager as also an elite quarterback, but I’m sure there are select examples otherwise. I think most use “game manager” to describe ability, when in fact it should be used to describe their role. While the term elite is used more of a term describing quality. 

So I do believe there probably are examples of elite game managers, but as a general rule, I do not think great game managing QBs are elite QBs. I’m not sure it entirely has to do with whether or not they’re carrying the team, I think for me it has more to do with their ability. Guys who are deemed game managers usually aren’t asked to consistently do the tough things that’d put that ability on display, so that’s where I think maybe they could have that ability but just not be asked to show it. 

Russ might fit that bill, but in my opinion there wasn’t enough evidence of his ability in the first few seasons to really justify the term. 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

I think it’s irrelevant if a player can carry a passing attack as long as they can carry an offensive attack; which Wilson showed he could do as a rookie and beyond.

Eh. Being able to sustain drives is a valuable trait to have for a QB, but being asked to sustain drives and being asked to carry them is different.

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

The Seahawks under Pete Carroll in 2011 with Marshawn Lynch and similar enough offensive components went from 24th in TDs/drive (15.5%) to in Wilson’s first season up to 6th (26.5%).

Lynch went from a probowl back to an All Pro back via Wilson’s dual threat impact opening up space for him to thrive.

No debate that Russ presented a big margin of improvement over past Seattle QBs. 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Because before Wilson NFL groupthink was that a dual threat QB could not thrive and last in the league for a long time and thus stats to tally the impact of a dual threat QB weren’t properly cultivated.

Think that hurt RGIII’s reputation more than it did Russ’. Russ wasn’t a guy that was going to fall off the face of the earth if he lost his athleticism, he didn’t take the big hits, and knew when the play was over. 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Thus our lens of what an “elite QB” looks like is too tied to a player displaying an ability to carry an offense’s passing attack and not simply overall offensive impact.

Disagree here. I think a player’s impact is independent from their ability, and elite to me is a term used to describe ability - not impact. Dont’a Hightower for example, as the leader of NE’s front 7, has a huge impact in his leadership, signal calling, and ability in both pass/run defense. But he is not an elite LBer, he’s not Bobby Wagner out there, even if what he does for the defense is invaluable. 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Your arguments against Wilson being elite early in his career stem from him “relying on his rushing attack to help him.” Yet the season where you acknowledged he entered elitedom was the season that Marshawn Lynch went down with an injury and Wilson simply did what he did all along, carry the offense... only without Lynch his shouldering of the offensive burden came in the form of more passing numbers. Prior to 2015 he showed he could lead a prolific offense, but it wasn’t until given the opportunity that he showed he could lead a prolific and efficient passing attack, same as what he did at Wisconsin.

That is a misrepresentation of my stance. I said in his early seasons, he was helped by a strong run game, great coach, and all-time defense. That is 100% true, and not a shortchange, because that’s indisputable IMO. 

Also - it’s true Lynch did not shoulder the load that season, but the run game did not suffer much with Christine Michael and Thomas Rawls. The rush attack was still 3rd in yards and 7th in YPC. Slightly down from a season prior, but definitely still effective. The offense as a whole improved in yards and points, though. 

I believe Russ’ ability improved. 

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

7 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Or new advanced stats, perhaps?

A tell all is just a new way to perceive the same information. The Last Dance doesn’t provide new information as to Jordan’s on court performance, it simply provides off court context. New NFL advanced stats won’t provide new information as to on field performance, but it could provide greater clarity as to the impact of a player.

And with greater clarity, just as in a tell all book, it provides us with additional context in how we understand the values and impact from events (a players season) that have already happened.

Correct, if we get new stats or new pieces of info, we can change perspective. 

But as was the case with Russ and is the current case with Allen - simply performing well is not new information on 2019 (or in Russ’ case, playing well in 2015 is not new information about what happened in 2012-2014). 

[diamondbull424]

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Nah, I was using your DVOA. 2019, Chiefs had the the better offense and worst defense - advantage offense. In 2018, the Pats had a better defense and the Rams had a better offense - advantage defense. The Eagles had a better defense and worst offense - advantage defense. Pats had a better offense and worst defense - advantage defense. Broncos had a better defense and worse offense - advantage defense. 

That’s just based the DVOA you presented for me. In most of those games, the teams with the better defense won. 

Please explain to me how a H2H matchup “is in a vacuum”?

Because those seasonal rankings is what produced the best teams in any given season, I only cut it to top 4 and not playoff teams at large because I do have other things to do with my time. Kind of like how you have not yet used your time to response to some of the outright questions I’ve asked you in supporting your opinions.

So again your representation of my stats are applying the context of a game. You stated the importance of this being tied to a vacuum. In a vacuum we can take a look at the pure notion of what constitutes a “good” offense and what constitutes a “good” defense. From there we would have to measure if the preceding teams used are representative of a good offense or a good defense. Which is why you can’t use DVOA in a H2H scenario as that would require context and could not exist within a vacuum. Thus your logic was flawed as I said before. And technically I even utilized context of a defensive score in one of those games to “give” a game to “good defense”, otherwise it would have been 8/10... if I were a cold scientist who only registered the numbers independent of their context. So if I failed at anything here, it was failing at that. I was too sympathetic in my presentation.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

You latched onto my passing comment on offense vs defense, but my initial comment was about Allen vs the defense. So if you want to do what you did, add up the WAR, then the defense is higher. And as you said, that’d be assuming Allen was a top 10 QB, which I don’t think most do. 

I thought we weren’t talking about Allen anymore?

Well we have receipts available. Regardless of what you feel I latched onto, you somehow latched onto the fact that I was comparing Allen alone to the defense alone. When I said in my opening monologue on Allen that I was comparing his ability to stabilize the offense. That’s not just his talent independent, that’s referring to what his talent has allowed the offense to look like in comparison to what it looked like prior to this season (when it wasn’t stable).

Quote

So I think it would be fair to attribute the Bills success perhaps equally or slightly less to Allen. I’ve seen great Ravens defenses finish with 5 and 6 win seasons because the QB position wasn’t stabilized. Thus I think attributing Allen and the offense he led with 50% of the credit, even if it didn’t always look pretty or statistically was represented in the best light, is fair. It’s hard to quantify just how much value that is worth. Perhaps it’s worth 45% but perhaps it’s worth 55%. Him improving as a QB I anticipate should happen. And him improving doesn’t add to what Allen would have accomplished this season, however it can lead to a natural historical correction of information to suppose that perhaps Allen wasn’t this bottom 10 QB that he looked like statistically speaking when in reality we didn’t truly understand and therefore quantify his impact correctly.

Quote

So in attributing credit, what does that look like? Is it attributing wins? Notoriety (Prestige was the word I was searching for but notoriety could be used as negative credit is also a think- as it’s called blame)? It’s ambiguous. If it’s (prestige), then sure the Bills defense easily deserves the credit. But if it’s wins, the QB position wasn’t completely stabilized in 2018 and the Bills 2nd ranked defense finished with 6 wins. Allen stabilizes the position in 2019, the defense regresses to 6th, yet the team wins 4 additional games. It’s a fair point to administer equal credit to the impact Allen had on stabilizing that offense to how near elite that defense was.

As you can see I compared Allen’s impact on stabilizing the offense with the impact of an elite defense... and asked how do we quantify that in the term of “credit”.

I then further stated that credit is an ambiguous term. If it involves wins, the Bills won 6 games in 2018 with an elite defense, yet won 10 games in 2019... with arguably a slightly worse defense. Is such a slight regression worth a game? (Probably not) Are all those 6 wins only credited to the defense in 2018? Is Allen improving the offense worth 4 games of “credit”? 

I asked you to clarify credit yet you have/did not. It was not simply rhetorical.

Because if we know how credit is assigned, if Allen balls out in 2020 and the Bills defense is similarly elite but the team only wins 9 games and misses the playoffs... then we’d have to question how we then assign the blame to the team in a regression of wins, the defense? Because they got the credit before or Allen because “he’s the QB playing the most important position” (quoting groupthink, not you).

Or does credit not get assigned based off of wins but rather based on the greatest component of team prestige? Because if it does than sure the 2019 Bills defense certainly deserves the credit as it was the most relevant component of the 2019 team. But an ambiguous term such as assigned credit, in a team sport with 22 starters, isn’t a catch all term for everyone.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

I’m not partaking in groupthink, though (I mean, basically everyone does implicitly on some level, but for these topics we’ve gone over, I am not). I get what you’re saying, but it becomes less viable as we use real world examples. Is Y, in your example, the Mahomes/Dak hypotheticals? Or is Y, an MVP season by Allen (in this example)? 

I agree that everyone engages in groupthink because we have to. If I have yet to ever watch, for example, Kyler Murray play... yet others on the forum have watched him and said he was a bottom 10 QB and ESPN lists him as a bottom 10 QB, I would without having watched a single game of his assume him to be a bottom 10 QB. Even if I’ve watched one game of his where I found him to be amazing... I would have to assume that perhaps my one game watched was an outlier.

However if having watched every game (or at least most games) of Kyler Murray and determined him to be a top 10-15 level QB, I could then confidently drop my groupthink opinion and subscribe to my own. But how many people watch every single NFL game in a season. Heck how many of the “expert” talking heads watch every single NFL game?

Back on topic, as the above was mainly exposition in reference to your aside.

What Y represents in that scenario is the new/unknown information, or to use your references the Mahomes/Dak hypotheticals. I was just crudely taking those hypotheticals and converting them into a place holder because they could be representative of any new information.

x = seasonal impact
y = unknown information

I prefer to call the information unknown because while a Mahomes hypothetical would be new information to us, it would not be exactly “new” information... if that makes sense.

Another example of this to remove QBs from the equation. Ray Lewis in his last playoff run while not at the same elite level of his prime, was definitely a machine and mostly played well.

In the Super Bowl however, I noticed that he was not nearly as good as he had been in the playoff games preceding it. I then noticed he was (basically) complete trash in the second half of that Super Bowl, a strong reason for the 49ers comeback.

A year or so later (can’t remember exactly when the story was told) Ray Lewis then came out and mentioned that the night before the SB he re-tore his bicep (doing push-ups I believe) and was in incredible pain. That he couldn’t even tell the team or else they wouldn’t allow him to play. Suddenly the narrative of what Ray meant in that final game increased dramatically. His on field impact was the lowest of that playoffs by far, but had he not played the morale blow not having your leader playing in the game could’ve sent to the team might have caused them to lose the game (mentally) before they had even played. Suddenly that additional context further boosted my admiration and respect for just how great of a leader Ray Lewis was and how vital it was to that SB squad.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

I think I’d have a hard time finding anyone who fits the bill of game manager as also an elite quarterback, but I’m sure there are select examples otherwise. I think most use “game manager” to describe ability, when in fact it should be used to describe their role. While the term elite is used more of a term describing quality. 

So I do believe there probably are examples of elite game managers, but as a general rule, I do not think great game managing QBs are elite QBs. I’m not sure it entirely has to do with whether or not they’re carrying the team, I think for me it has more to do with their ability. Guys who are deemed game managers usually aren’t asked to consistently do the tough things that’d put that ability on display, so that’s where I think maybe they could have that ability but just not be asked to show it. 

Russ might fit that bill, but in my opinion there wasn’t enough evidence of his ability in the first few seasons to really justify the term. 

Cool beans. You’re finally understanding what I mean by impact and what I’ve been referring to with regard to how stats are just our attempts at defining it. How as we’ve gotten better at noticing impact, we’ve added more stats to qualify it over time (sacks, TFL, pressures, ANY/A, DVOA, etc.)

Currently we’re just now seeing more and more QBs that qualify as dual threat QBs that are legit franchise players; Russ, Lamar, Watson, Murray, etc. In the past guys like Vince Young flamed out too soon, or were forced (unfairly?) to fit the “pocket passer” mold because the NFL refused to adjust. Anyways point here is that because the representation was low, their wasn’t great demand to better quantify the impact of what a dual threat QB has on an offense.

I don’t watch enough of Josh Allen to determine that he‘s unquestionably not a top 12-15 QB currently but is held back offensively. What I’ve seen has not inspired me to believe he is necessarily such a QB, but I won’t rule it out... because he is a dual threat QB and perhaps I’ve undervalued his additional impact that another has properly valued... I also don’t intend to watch every Josh Allen game to discover if there is an error in my analysis. This parallels to how I didn’t watch enough of Russell Wilson in 2012 and 2013 to determine that he wasn’t providing elite impact to that offense; though what I saw of him did sure look like elite impact at the time. I thought he was doing things that I’d only seen Big Ben do (with extending the passing window to make clutch plays) while also make plays with both his feet and his arm.

Anyways I agree that a game manager is more of an offensive role. IMO It’s a guy who is being asked to not consistently take dangerous chances and doesn’t turn the ball over. I think Tom Brady for a quality portion of his career (until 2007) had largely been a game manager. I think MVP Lamar was a supercharged game manager. And I think young Russ was an incredibly mobile game manager. Yet in all three examples, I feel those guys were elite (at least by 2004 and on for Brady, I can’t recall exactly when I felt he was elite... as it’s been too long ago) because they provided elite offensive impact.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Eh. Being able to sustain drives is a valuable trait to have for a QB, but being asked to sustain drives and being asked to carry them is different.

Fair point. I just don’t know how we can separate between sustaining and carrying. If a guy takes what used to be a bottom 10 type of offense (not simply referring to Wilson as it could be referring to anyone) and transforms them into a top 10 unit... with few changes outside of his spot, I would probably qualify that as “carrying” while someone else might disagree. Outside of “the eye test” it would be difficult to prove or disprove that position. For example Ryan Tannehill most would assume he sustained drives and Henry carried them... but could Titans fans argue that Tannehill carried them and have a quality argument, that Tannehill in 2019 was elite? Speaking of I think he’s probably another guy that could be in that elite game managing realm IMO.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Think that hurt RGIII’s reputation more than it did Russ’. Russ wasn’t a guy that was going to fall off the face of the earth if he lost his athleticism, he didn’t take the big hits, and knew when the play was over. 

Let me clarify as I think you misunderstood my point below. I’m not referring Russ or RG3, I’m referring to the time before either of them. Guys like Vince Young, Mike Vick, Randall Cunningham, etc. 

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Disagree here. I think a player’s impact is independent from their ability, and elite to me is a term used to describe ability - not impact. Dont’a Hightower for example, as the leader of NE’s front 7, has a huge impact in his leadership, signal calling, and ability in both pass/run defense. But he is not an elite LBer, he’s not Bobby Wagner out there, even if what he does for the defense is invaluable.

I think this is getting into the realm of semantics now. “Impact” and “ability” aren't necessarily unrelated concepts. As a players ability is related to his skill and that skill is what influences his overall impact. Bobby Wagners ability (Innate talent) combines with his knowledge and experience to create his skill. That skill is then applied within a game and allows him to impact the game at a 9/10 level. While Hightower’s skill ultimately allows him to impact the game at an 8/10 level (arbitrary number values) thus if we define elite impact as 9/10... all that matters ultimately is the impact. Or rather the final product that is revealed on the field.

Potential is something that hasn’t happened but could; ability is something that can happen (because it’s exists innately and has been displayed); skill is a combination between knowledge (experience) and ability that allows for more consistent results; impact are those results after they have actually happened. All very similar in meaning with semantics providing the minuscule differences in terminology.

So when I say Russell supplied elite impact, I say his play on the field inspired what I qualify to be elite results... considering the context of the situation he was placed within (quality of offensive talent around him). But impact, skill, and ability I feel can be interchangeable terms depending on the context of the sentence and whether people are thinking too hard on the semantics within.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

That is a misrepresentation of my stance. I said in his early seasons, he was helped by a strong run game, great coach, and all-time defense. That is 100% true, and not a shortchange, because that’s indisputable IMO. 

Also - it’s true Lynch did not shoulder the load that season, but the run game did not suffer much with Christine Michael and Thomas Rawls. The rush attack was still 3rd in yards and 7th in YPC. Slightly down from a season prior, but definitely still effective. The offense as a whole improved in yards and points, though. 

I believe Russ’ ability improved. 

I don’t know how it’s misrepresented, I simply paraphrased the most relevant portion of your statement. “He had a strong rushing attack that helped him” and I agree that he did have a strong rushing attack. I didn’t include the defense and coaching because it’s not IMO relevant to his on field offensive impact being elite or not elite.

Just like having Greg Roman as an OC doesn’t mean Roman’s the reason for Lamar’s impact. Or Kyle Shanahan as great a mind as he is, was the reason for MVP Matt Ryan. The job of the coordinator is to put the player in the best position to win. The Seahawks did that, but I didn’t find it relevant to Russ’ on field offensive impact as we were discussing it. Would them not doing their job somehow make his on field impact more relevant? And if he’s performing on the field how would we categorically know that his coaches aren’t properly doing their job or aren’t good? Adam Gase has looked below average everywhere else he’s been, but with Manning he looked like he knew what he was doing and thus became a hot commodity. Manning’s elite impact seemingly covered up for the below average offensive mind of Gase. Brian Billick was supposed to be a great offensive mind as well, yet Baltimore never had an elite offense under his tenure. Outside of BoB’s ineptitude with Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins, I don’t know how we can conclude Russ wasn’t the arbiter of that offensive impact regardless of the quality of his coaching (which I agree was good).

Anyways all my point was attempting to say is that the season you acknowledged Wilson becoming elite was also the season where he was forced to shoulder more of the offensive load by virtue of the passing attack, coincidence or not.

Sure the other RBs were present but they had roughly 20-25 less attempts than his first few seasons with Lynch and that led to 50 or so more passes. His efficiency was up, too... but upgrading (was it) Zack Miller for an elite TE like Jimmy Graham, also helped in that regard. It also helped that Wilson hadn’t had a redzone threat like Graham since his rookie season when he could toss it up to Sidney Rice. There’s plenty of context there IMO. He showed more for sure, but he also had more weapons and didn’t have to worry about finally losing opportunities to Marshawn Lynch because the coaches, outside of one play in the SB, seemed to trust Lynch more and wouldn’t let Wilson unleash himself.

4 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

Correct, if we get new stats or new pieces of info, we can change perspective. 

But as was the case with Russ and is the current case with Allen - simply performing well is not new information on 2019 (or in Russ’ case, playing well in 2015 is not new information about what happened in 2012-2014). 

Then we’re in agreement. My point about Allen and Russ is that unless we’ve all watched every game of these guys at those points in time, our information may be limited in scope.

For example if Ravens fans (mostly) were all in agreement that Lamar in 2018 provided a great offensive impact and was far superior to Flacco, even with Lamar’s grip issues, the limited nature of that bye week offense, and vast inconsistencies in Lamar’s passing mechanics. If Warren Sharpe analytics has Lamar as they most accurate 21 year old QB based off of 2018 and that opinion was universally panned prior to the 2019 season because prevailing opinions of people who did not watch every snap of every game that had him as comparable to Josh Rosen or out of the league within two years and such... those groupthink opinions should be altered based off of Lamar’s 2019 season.

To go back to our earlier example of Player A with value X. Lamar is Player A with let’s say a 5 value, based off groupthink perception. However specialized parties such as Ravens fans and Sharpe analytics are attributing to Lamar a 7 value. Lamar’s 2019 season of a 9.5/10 value should logically force groupthink to question their narratives and align with the 7 value vs maintaining that it was a 5 value and Lamar just improved all the way to a 10.

I use Lamar as a real world example of how information may not be “new” but may be “unknown” to unspecialized parties. I’m not a particularly specialized party when it comes to most any team outside of the Ravens and most of the AFCN squads. If I can’t name every starting player (without searching) for a team, then I don’t particularly find myself to be specialized (for shame... there used to be a time when I knew every player on the Ravens roster and most every player on the rosters of every divisional foe, though I don’t have such time to devote anymore).

Edited August 19, 2020 by diamondbull424

[Soko]

@diamondbull424 You see, this is why I called for shortened responses in the beginning. I post from my phone and without fail, I type up a big response only for it to get erased. I’ll get to it again, just...not tonight.

[diamondbull424]

10 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

@diamondbull424 You see, this is why I called for shortened responses in the beginning. I post from my phone and without fail, I type up a big response only for it to get erased. I’ll get to it again, just...not tonight.

True. I’ve feared the same. I’ve taken to saving my responses in my notes whenever it starts getting too long.

[VanS]

On 8/18/2020 at 12:19 PM, Yin-Yang said:

Was JJ Watt a DPOY in his rookie season? Was Aaron Donald? Was Mack? Was Darrelle Revis a shutdown CB in year 1? What about Alex Smith? Or Julian Edelman? They all had potential but acting like that potential was fully realized as a rookie? Joke worthy. 

And congratulations - you’ve successfully side tracked me. Because the quality or play of a player rising or falling from any given season does not change how Josh Allen impacted the 2019 Bills.

I never watched those guys closely as young players so I can't speak on them.  I did however watch a guy like Alvin Kamara closely from his sophomore year at Tennessee and could see elite talent just waiting to explode.  Then he goes to New Orleans, gets with the right coach that can utilize his skills and he's a superstar in the NFL after being a backup in college.  Try to explain that one?  Did Alvin get better going from an inferior level of football (college) to be a superior level (the NFL)?  Or did his circumstances change and it took him going to the right situation for his true talents to show?  I know it was the latter because I called it before the fact.  

With regard to some of the names you mentioned (Lamar, Donald, Mack, and Watt), they all made huge jumps from their rookie to sophomore season.  The jump from Year 1 to Year 2 is very common with young players.  Its routinely when players make their biggest leap.  Not so much as they got better but rather they become more comfortable in their new enviroment.  A similar phenomenon happens in college with the jump players make from their freshmen to sophomore season.  When a trend like this is so universal then obviously its something as simple as a player getting more comfortable in a new enviroment than him improving that much as a player from one year to next.  Obviously all the players who explode in their sophomore years had that exact same ability as rookies. 

Circumstance and factors around a player have a far greater impact on their performance from a year to year basis.  A player does not improve that much in terms of talent over a career.  You're either a baller or you ain't.  J.J. Watt was a DPOY caliber guy from the start.  He just needed to get that first year in the system down before his true ability showed itself.  He didn't go from average player to Hall of Famer in an off-season.  

Edited August 21, 2020 by VanS

[GSUeagles14]

On 8/21/2020 at 4:26 AM, VanS said:

I never watched those guys closely as young players so I can't speak on them.  I did however watch a guy like Alvin Kamara closely from his sophomore year at Tennessee and could see elite talent just waiting to explode.  Then he goes to New Orleans, gets with the right coach that can utilize his skills and he's a superstar in the NFL after being a backup in college.  Try to explain that one?  Did Alvin get better going from an inferior level of football (college) to be a superior level (the NFL)?  Or did his circumstances change and it took him going to the right situation for his true talents to show?  I know it was the latter because I called it before the fact.  

With regard to some of the names you mentioned (Lamar, Donald, Mack, and Watt), they all made huge jumps from their rookie to sophomore season.  The jump from Year 1 to Year 2 is very common with young players.  Its routinely when players make their biggest leap.  Not so much as they got better but rather they become more comfortable in their new enviroment.  A similar phenomenon happens in college with the jump players make from their freshmen to sophomore season.  When a trend like this is so universal then obviously its something as simple as a player getting more comfortable in a new enviroment than him improving that much as a player from one year to next.  Obviously all the players who explode in their sophomore years had that exact same ability as rookies. 

Circumstance and factors around a player have a far greater impact on their performance from a year to year basis.  A player does not improve that much in terms of talent over a career.  You're either a baller or you ain't.  J.J. Watt was a DPOY caliber guy from the start.  He just needed to get that first year in the system down before his true ability showed itself.  He didn't go from average player to Hall of Famer in an off-season.  

For one, he was a stud and very productive at UT, im confused on your point. A very good college player became a very good pro player? Or is this you trying to brag about how you saw this a mile away? If we really, really stretch and say man, only you could see this vans, and boy did you nail it. 48 ridiculous claims and misses makes it seem like you just say random stuff and hope something hits eventually.

[ET80]

2 hours ago, GSUeagles14 said:

For one, he was a stud and very productive at UT, im confused on your point. A very good college player became a very good pro player? Or is this you trying to brag about how you saw this a mile away? If we really, really stretch and say man, only you could see this vans, and boy did you nail it. 48 ridiculous claims and misses makes it seem like you just say random stuff and hope something hits eventually.

[SkippyX]

I am kind of dizzy trying to follow these Jefferson and Adams letters but at least ET's dunking videos add pictures. 😎

 

Josh Allen is following the typical arc of a very good NFL QB who came from a small time college program and needed to learn a lot.

• Almost every single quantifiable number was better from year 1 to year 2.
• He's also a star with his legs to the tune of 17 TDs in 2 years.
  • The elite Alvin Kamara, spotted at Tennessee by a great NFL scout as mentioned above, had 22 rushing TDs in his first 2 years.
  • Cam Newton also had 22 in 2 full seasons.

20 TDs to 9 picks with an additional 8 rushing TDs is pretty amazing for year 2.

The Bills had 10 wins last year and Allen had 5 GWDs / 4 4QCs. To say he was not a big reason for those wins is foolishness.

• He outplayed Dak Prescott in Dallas on Thanksgiving
• Three of his nine picks came when that Patriots D abused him in career start #15 like they abused the rest of the league.
  • Take a look at how he improved in the rematch in New England.

Add in a 3rd year with more growth and a better receiving core and I'd expect him to take over the AFC East, win 10 or 11 games again, and have a chance at 30 TDs and 5 rushing TDs.

[GSUeagles14]

15 minutes ago, SkippyX said:

I am kind of dizzy trying to follow these Jefferson and Adams letters but at least ET's dunking videos add pictures. 😎

 

Josh Allen is following the typical arc of a very good NFL QB who came from a small time college program and needed to learn a lot.

• Almost every single quantifiable number was better from year 1 to year 2.
• He's also a star with his legs to the tune of 17 TDs in 2 years.
  • The elite Alvin Kamara, spotted at Tennessee by a great NFL scout as mentioned above, had 22 rushing TDs in his first 2 years.
  • Cam Newton also had 22 in 2 full seasons.

20 TDs to 9 picks with an additional 8 rushing TDs is pretty amazing for year 2.

The Bills had 10 wins last year and Allen had 5 GWDs / 4 4QCs. To say he was not a big reason for those wins is foolishness.

• He outplayed Dak Prescott in Dallas on Thanksgiving
• Three of his nine picks came when that Patriots D abused him in career start #15 like they abused the rest of the league.
  • Take a look at how he improved in the rematch in New England.

Add in a 3rd year with more growth and a better receiving core and I'd expect him to take over the AFC East, win 10 or 11 games again, and have a chance at 30 TDs and 5 rushing TDs.

Sure, Allen can continue to improve. I actually hope he does as Im a fan. however, if he does improve, you cant retroactively go back to years past and say "see, he was always this good". Which is where ( i think) the disagreement is coming from.

[VanS]

2 hours ago, GSUeagles14 said:

you cant retroactively go back to years past and say "see, he was always this good". Which is where ( i think) the disagreement is coming from.

You do know that for most of Michael Jordan's first 7 years in the NBA people were saying he was just a selfish scorer who was not as great as Magic and Bird because they were winners.  Then Jordan finally got an all-star teammate next to him and went on to win 3 straight titles.  So was Jordan inferior to Magic and Bird in the 80s or was his supporting cast just not that good but he was actually as great as he was later in his career from the start?

I'm of the opinion that guys don't just transform over time.  You don't go from average to superstar in an off-season.  You are what you are.  If everyone doesn't see your all-world talent early on then that's on them for not seeing it.  We didn't need to see 2019 to know Lamar Jackson was an elite football player.  In the same regard, if Josh Allen blows up this year like Lamar did last year then he didn't just become elite over this off-season.  He was always this good.  He just needed the pieces around him to come along to the point his talent could be fully utilized.

Edited August 27, 2020 by VanS

[VanS]

6 hours ago, GSUeagles14 said:

For one, he was a stud and very productive at UT, im confused on your point. A very good college player became a very good pro player? Or is this you trying to brag about how you saw this a mile away? If we really, really stretch and say man, only you could see this vans, and boy did you nail it. 48 ridiculous claims and misses makes it seem like you just say random stuff and hope something hits eventually.

You gotta love the revisionist history here.   First of all, Alvin went in the 3rd round.  If he was universally viewed as a "stud" then how does he fall that low in the draft with no character flaws (as was the case with Joe Mixon and Dalvin Cook who both still went ahead of him in the 2nd round)?  And its funny that you now claim he was "very productive" at UT when his production (or lack thereof) was one of the biggest criticisms against him leading up to the draft.  Are you conveniently forgetting the "he never had more than 18 carries in a game" stat that being used against him?  I had to deal with people criticizing his lack of big time stats especially in comparison to the likes of Fournette, Cook, and McCaffery.

Its funny how after a guy becomes a superstar in the NFL for a couple of years history is completely rewritten.  Mahomes is getting similar treatment.  Before the 2017 draft almost nobody was that high on him.  He was being viewed as just another air raid QB.  And now everyone wants to act like they knew he would be the next big thing from the start.  You might not have been on this site (or its predecessor) before the 2017 draft so you might not know this but I was criticized just as much for having Alvin Kamara as my #1 rated RB before the 2017 draft as I was criticized for having Josh Dobbs as my #1 rated QB.  If Alvin was as highly thought of before that draft as you are now claiming then my Josh Dobbs take should've been the only one that had posters going crazy.  But it wasn't.  It was both Kamara and Dobbs.  Alvin just destroyed the league from the jump so everyone conveniently forgot their criticisms of him before the draft.  We're seeing a similar phenomenon right now with Lamar Jackson.