2009 Fantasy Football Player Lists With A Twist

It is late preseason, and if you can’t find a list ranking players for Fantasy Football then you aren’t looking too hard.

Fantasy lists vary from site to site, but PossessionPoints.com likes to look at things a bit differently. Our player lists contain an “expected value” next to the player’s name. This expected value helps Fantasy participants gauge if there really is a difference between the No. 4 and No. 5 players on the list.  Of course, this “expected value” is based on one particular scoring system, which we list at the end of this article for your reference. Depending on the Fantasy game you may play, this expected value may vary some, but it still gives you a relative difference between players.

When you look at most lists, look to see if they are they giving you a list for the best player next week or for the remainder of the season?  Can you even tell? Fantasy can get complicated, so you have to know what your list is telling you.

Over the last three years, we have found that many Fantasy players have the most fun when they can actively manage their team. To accommodate this management need, we provide three lists for each player position: an Expected Value for Next Week, an Expected Value for the Next Four Weeks, and an Expected Value for the Remainder of the Season. We give you a sneak peak at these lists later in this article.

If you are someone who wants to set your roster and only make changes when injury or something like that forces you to, then look at the Remainder of the Season charts. You’ll have your up and down weeks, but in the end, we think the top players on this list will serve you best.

However, if you are like most Fantasy players, you will want to know what to expect from your players this week and who on your roster to sit or play.  For this type of game involvement, you need the Expected Value for Next Week chart.

Four weeks into the NFL season completes a quarter of the season, so even if you only adjust your roster a few times a season, you may want to look at the next quarter of the season to see where your players stand. That’s why we have the Next Four Weeks list.

See for yourself below how the lists can vary by looking at just the top five in each player position.

Quarterbacks:

It would seem that it is hard to go wrong with any of the top five QBs for the season: Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Romo and Rivers. Tony Romo is one that we struggled with as far as any offseason adjustments. He lost a top target, Terrell Owens, but perhaps team chemistry will make the difference here.

If we had him on our fantasy team, we would keep a close eye on how he performs the first few weeks. We expect he will be with the leaders the first week, and the first 4 weeks. However, if he underperforms early, perhaps you might want to see if you can upgrade as there is a pretty good chance he will fall short of being a top five for the full season.

Running backs:

Let’s see: Adrian Peterson, Adrian Peterson and Adrian Peterson. Anybody surprised by that? Of course not, but some of the other players on our lists surprised us a bit.

DeAngelo Williams isn’t on the “Next  4 weeks” chart, mostly because he has a bye in week Four. This shows what every Fantasy player knows, and that is you have to manage carefully for bye weeks. Our full lists also highlight in what week players have byes. It looks to us that Matt Forte, Clinton Portis and Maurice Jones-Drew may have a better first quarter of the season than they will the remainder of the season.

Wide Receivers:

Larry Fitzgerald is tops on our Expected Value for the Remainder of the Season chart, but his bye in week four keeps him off the “Next 4 Weeks” chart.  Greg Jennings is fifth on the season chart, and we really think the Rodgers to Jennings combination could be as potent as the Brady to Moss combination.

Calvin Johnson will be a top target for whoever is the starting QB in Detroit. However, the biggest variable with Calvin Johnson will be the Lions themselves. If, as a team, they improve over last year, then he will be a top, if not the top Fantasy receiver this year. For Calvin Johnson to become the top receiver in week one depends on whether or not the Saints have improved on defense. If in your draft you have the choice between Calvin Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald, nobody would be the least bit surprised by a selection of Fitzgerald.

Tight Ends:

Similar to the other lists, nobody will be surprised to see Witten, Gates, Clark or Gonzales on the top of these lists. Where the lists get interesting is seeing Shockey at number two for the first week. We guess we he can attribute this to the fact that the Saints open up against the Lions in Week one.

Defense / Special Teams:

Defenses that can generate turnovers and score are featured on these lists. The Ravens, Steelers and Titans all fit that description. We are a little worried that we may not have made enough adjustments to the Eagles’ defense from last season, and that they won’t live up to our expected values. They have a new defensive coordinator and have already lost their starting middle linebacker for the season. However, Asante Samuel appears primed to have a big season in the turnover department. If he can convert a few of his picks into touchdowns, the Eagles should have a top five defense.

Kickers:

Kickers are typically taken in the later rounds of the draft, and with good reason. If you get one of the good ones, there isn’t that much difference over the course of the season. So draft a top kicker, and forget about him, as long as he doesn’t get hurt, he should contribute.

 

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For completeness, the scoring system on which our Expected Values are based is:
Touchdown is 6 points – passing, receiving, rushing or Kick return (a passing TD the QB and receiver get 6pts. Kick return points go to player not DEF/special teams)
Passing: 0.03 points per yard passing, -3 points for an INT
Rushing: 0.1 points per yard
Other: -2 points for a fumble, 2 points for 2 Point conversion.
Kicking: 3 points for FG, +1 if over 39 yards, +0.1 point each yard over 40, 1 point for PAT, -1 point missed PAT or FG under 30 yards
Defense/special team: 6 points TD (not kickoff or punt returns), 2 points safety, 2 points INT, 2 points fumble recovery, 2 points blocked kick (FG, punt, PAT), 1 point QB sack, 12 points if No Points are allowed, -0.5 points for each point allowed.

NFL Preseason In Full Swing: Yea, But…

Preseason in the NFL started last week, and the games in weeks 2 and 3 are typically better than the games in week 1. Optimism abounds in just about every NFL city, and discussions pop up in offices, bars and barbershops around the country. Many of these discussions result in volleys of phrases that start ‘Yea, but’.

 

In the spirit of preseason fun, we, at PossessionPoints.com, decided to take a break from our number crunching and toss out some of the discussions we’ve heard:

 

Did you hear the Eagles signed Mike Vick?

–         Yea, but he won’t be able to play at least the first quarter of the year?

o       Yea, but when they do put him in, think about the wildcat offense they will be able to run.

§         Yea, but the wildcat offense won’t be a surprise to anyone. Everyone in the league is practicing a defense for it.

 

Did you see the Raiders beat up the Cowboys?

–         Yea, but that wasn’t nearly as exciting as trying to figure out who on Oakland’s coaching staff is beating up whom.

o       Yea, but football is a violent sport, and would we expect anything different or less dramatic from Al Davis and the Raiders’ organization? 

§         Yea, but this Commissioner isn’t letting anything slide. Who knows what he is going to do here? Does Plaxico need a roommate?

 

Did you see the Lions win last week?

–         Yea, but it is preseason.

o       Yea, but it gets their mind off their 0-16 season last year

§         Yea, but they went 4-0 in the preseason last year, where did that get them?

·        Yea, but they have that Miracle Man, Matt Stafford. He could be better than Flacco or Ryan.

o       Yea, but it’s the Lions, When was the last time they were really good even when they had good players?

 

That little volley that took place about the Lions going 4-0 in preseason and then 0-16 in the regular season got us to wondering about the significance of preseason wins and losses. So, we also took a look at some teams from last year I know that we said we were not going to numbers crunch. Yea, but we lied.

 

Believe it or not, the Lions were the only 4-0 team last preseason, but there were two 0-4 teams. The Patriots and Browns were both 0-4 in 2008. In the regular season, Tom Brady got hurt in the first game, and they still went 11-5. The Browns went 4-12.

 

Until we looked at the Browns, we were thinking maybe it was better if a team lost rather than won its preseason games. The Browns set us right on that thought.

 

What about last year’s Super Bowl teams? Well the Steelers went 3-1 while the Cardinals were 2-2. Nothing conclusive there. Their championship game opponents? The Ravens were 1-3 and the Eagles were 2-2.

 

Here we go again, Yea, but, except for the Steelers, all those teams had fewer than 12 wins in the regular season. They played some of their best football in the postseason.

 

How about the teams that won 12 or more in the regular season? Of course, there were the 13-3 Titans who were 3-1 in the preseason. The 12-4 Panthers and 12-4 Giants who both went 2-2 in the preseason. While the 12-4 Colts were 1-3 (1-4 if you count the Hall of Fame game), nothing of significance showed up one way or another.

 

To paraphrase former Cardinals coach, Dennis Green: The preseason is what we thought it is. It is a tryout for the regular season.

 

Coaches tryout players and plays to see what works and what doesn’t work. They don’t care about winning, and they take risks like  going for a two-point conversion after a touchdown late in the 4th quarter when their team is down by one. They win or lose on that one play.

 

In the regular season 99.9% of the time, a coach would opt to kick the extra point and go for overtime.

 

So, there are two and a half more weeks of tryouts, and like the coaches, we won’t pay any attention to wins or losses. We will pay much closer attention to how individual players perform, and how the teams performed in terms of execution.

 

We also know fans are looking to the preseason to see a glimpse into how their favorite team will perform. To that we say, “Yea, it may be football, but guess what? It isn’t real football yet”.

Looking Forward To a Full Season of Mike Singletary

As pre-season camps get ready to get underway around the NFL, we find it is time to get rolling on our Pre-Season Preview issue. In this issue, PossessionPoints.com examines all teams’ off-season moves and upcoming schedules. We use this information to make forecasting adjustments for the upcoming season.

 

Coaching continuity is one key factor we use for forecasting adjustments. For last season’s winning teams, we place greater weight on coaching continuity than we do on last season’s losing teams.  

 

This season, we find ourselves more concerned about the Indianapolis Colts than we do about the St. Louis Rams. Although the Colts have replaced Tony Dungy with his appointed heir, Jim Caldwell is still an unknown commodity in the head coach position.  

 

The question mark around the Colts’ new coach makes it difficult to automatically keep the team at a high level of performance; it prompts us to give a neutral to negative adjustment to the Colts in our assessment.

 

Even though Caldwell has been with the Colts’ organization, it’s hard to quantify his leadership abilities, chemistry with players, and game-day decision in this new position until he performs as a head coach.

 

Conversely, the Rams hired Steve Spagnuolo, who comes in with a good reputation that was built as the Giants defensive coordinator. Since the Rams have struggled in the past seasons, their performance in the upcoming season will most likely improve. In our calculations, a new coach in this situation becomes a neutral to positive adjustment.   

 

The 49ers are an interesting case. They have Mike Singletary, who took over after the seventh game last season.

 

When we look to forecast the 49ers’ upcoming season, we need to decide if we want to base our calculations on their full season 2008 data or just the nine games Singletary coached, in which San Francisco went 5-4.

 

The chart below shows the 49ers’ season split into the pre-Singletary and post-Singletary periods:

 

 

Their overall PossessionPoints performance improved 109 percent under Singletary: that overall improvement was driven by the 40 percent improvement in their defense.

 

The other consideration that comes into play is the team’s ’09 schedule. Based on last year’s “overall” PossessionPoints numbers, the 49ers’ ’09 schedule is the 26th hardest or 7th easiest, depending on how you want to look at it.

 

We realize that when a coach takes over in the middle of the season, there is a limit of what he can change. For Mike Singletary to have the effect he had makes for some potentially high expectations next season.

 

Let’s face facts: the 49ers are not in the toughest division in football. If we get to December and they are contending with the Cardinals and Seahawks for the division title, we would not be surprised.

What Is the Toughest Division in the NFL For 2009?

As each season looms, the debate over which division is the toughest intensifies.  We, at PossessionPoints.com, are no strangers to this debate and love to participate in it as well. Here is our preliminary overview of the NFL divisions. We hope it might help you decide who you think should be known as the “Toughest Division in the NFL”.

 

This year, we feel there are surprises on the horizon as the parity between NFL teams is on the increase.  For many people, parity is a bad word meaning mediocrity, but we view it as a positive. We believe fans will see more teams playing up or raising the bar in performance which could lead to some interesting game results down the road.

 

As of now, we still look at the NFC East and the AFC South as the division strongholds.  Most of the NFL experts and analysts seem to view the Giants and the Eagles as formidable threats on both offense and defense, and many of these experts have one of these teams taking the division and possibly going to the Super Bowl.  

 

While we do not argue this point, we do not want to count out Dallas or the Redskins. Both teams had their struggles last year, but both teams managed a .500 or better season. An injection of talent and the elimination of some team distractions may be enough to hoist one or both of these teams into the playoff arena.  With so much potential, this division definitely rates a vote as the toughest in the NFL.

 

In recent years, the AFC South has also become a force to be reckoned with.  It would not surprise us in the least to see the Colts, Titans or even the Texans make their way into the heart of the playoffs.  We know that the Colts have adjustments to handle with the retirement of Tony Dungy and offensive coordinator Tom Moore. However, their new head coach, Jim Caldwell, who has worked for Dungy since his Tampa Baydays, was the first choice of Dungy, and the Colts are trying to bring back Moore as a consultant for the team.  So, the adjustments may not be too difficult to handle.

 

As for the Jaguars, we look at them as a team that has to prove a bit more before we list them in the same class as their division opponents.  However, they take nothing away from the threat that this division holds as they were a playoff team in 2007. If the Jaguars can forget 2008 and return to their 2007 form, the AFC South could well be the toughest division.

 

There is a sound argument to also view NFC South, the AFC East and the NFC South as contenders for the toughest division crown.  With the Panthers, Falcons and Saints in the NFC South, this division may be ready to let loose this season as they did last season. All the teams in the NFC South also had a .500 or better record in 2008.  

 

Now, Bucs’ fans, do not get upset, but we think it is Tampa Bay that may have a tough time bringing this division home.  The Bucs could find themselves playing a very long season this year.  

 

The AFC East gets a boost from the return of Tom Brady to the Patriots’ roster.  If the reports about his strength and agility are true, there is no doubt that the Patriots can be viewed as potential Super Bowl contenders.  We also assume that the Dolphins have the ability to repeat or beat their 2008 performance. Only the Bills at 7-9 were below .500 in this division last season.  

 

If the Patriots’ return to their 2007 dominance, they can make it more difficult for other teams in their division to get to a .500 or better season.

 

The Jets may join the club of teams that start rookie QBs with a new head coach. It worked for Atlanta and Baltimore last season, so why not this season? With so much potential waiting to be unleashed from these AFC East teams, this division might turn out to be the toughest of all.

We have to admit that we think the toughness of the NFC North is compromised by the presence of the Detroit Lions.  Yes, they have the No. 1 draft pick and yes, their future looks brighter.  But it is a long road from 0-16 to the playoffs, no matter what you are paying your new quarterback.  We do look for the Lions to improve, but we are doubtful of their ability to make the playoffs.  

 

With that said, the NFC North has some of the toughest competition around with the Bears, Packers and Vikings who are all capable of bringing home a division championship. The most likely suspects for the division title for us at this point are the Vikings or Bears who will no doubt benefit from the addition of Jay Cutler.

 

So, as of now, we see that five out of the eight divisions have a clear shot at winning the “toughest” moniker, but let’s see how the remaining three divisions – the AFC North and the AFC and NFC West fare.

 

We know that the AFC North includes not only the Super Bowl Champs, the Pittsburgh Steelers, but their strongest opponent, the Baltimore Ravens as well.  Both of these teams will most likely be playoff bound again. However, when your division includes the Bengals and Browns who both have a ton to prove this season, it’s hard to seriously see this division as the toughest. 

 

The AFC West has many questions to answer this year.  We do believe that this division is the Chargers to lose.  We do see improvements with the Raiders and Chiefs but these improvements are probably not enough to make this division the toughest in the NFL.  

 

The Broncos are now without Jay Cutler, and they also have a new head coach in Josh McDaniels. It is hard to tell if a team will gel with a new quarterback and a new head coach.  So, while we see a great deal of potential in this division, we think it is premature at best to say that this division is the toughest.

 

Last but not least is the NFC West.  Okay, the Super Bowl runner-up, the Arizona Cardinals are in this division, but we have to consider the Seahawks, who were perennial champs prior to last season, as a team to consider for the division crown.  We said before last season started, that the coaching situation would undo the Seahawks’ season and that proved true.  However, with Jim Mora on the sidelines for all of last year, the transition for this team should be complete.  We are looking for the Seahawks of old to make a return. 

 

In the NFC West, we also are anxious to see how the 49ers perform in their first complete season with Mike Singletary.  Will his high-motivation coaching tactics continue the success he saw with the 49ers last season?  Another team that could be on the upswing are the Rams.  If their new head coach Steve Spagnola can work the wonders with the entire Rams team as he did with the Giants’ defense, who knows what lies ahead?

 

Well, that is our preliminary look at the divisions and the positive and negative components of each.  Again, what surprises us the most about this season is the increase in parity that exists throughout the league.  In our view, parity can only add to the excitement of the game. We are anxious for the 2009 season already.

 

(If we were to rank the divisions in 2008 based on how teams did in our Performance Ranking the final ranking would be:

NFC East

AFC East

NFC South

AFC South

AFC North

NFC North

AFC West

NFC West)

NFL Power Rankings: An Alternative View

Now that the draft is over and mini-camps have started around the league, the next onslaught of information coming your way will be the never-ending stream of “NFL Power Rankings.”

In some ways, PossessionPoints.com is no different than other information outlets in that we will be presenting our own version of Power Rankings weekly during the season.  However, that is where the similarity ends.

We believe that when people look at the lists of Power Rankings they want to see how their favorite team fares in the eyes of those who construct these Power Rankings and if their team has a chance of making it to the playoffs or the Super Bowl.

We would like to state right off the bat that a team’s talent is just one of the factors that determines a team’s win-loss record and a possible playoff berth.

In this article, we would like to highlight four factors that contribute to a team’s final win-loss record.

Those factors are randomness, schedule, home field advantage, and team quality (traditional Power Ranking if you will). We have provided a lot of the background information for this article on a page on our site.

 

Randomness

We know that over the course of a season, a team’s final win-loss record is more than random luck. Much of a team’s success does depend on talent.

However, imagine if you will, a scenario where all 32 teams are completely equal in the talent department and there is no such thing as a home field advantage.  If these conditions existed, what kind of records do you think you would see?

Do you think that almost all teams would have win-loss records between 7-9 and 9-7?

We put together a quick little spreadsheet and used the 2009 schedule to come up with random results for all 256 games on the schedule.

We posted some of the “random season” results on our site, and the results surprised us in that typically, the top teams had 12-4 records, and the bottom teams finished around 4-12.

It may seem strange, until you consider the fact that the chance of winning or losing 12 out of 16 coin tosses is about one in 36, and 11 wins or losses of 16 coin tosses is about one in 15.

So, applying this same principle with 32 teams each season, it does make sense that just by random chance, some teams would go 12-4, and some would go 4-12.

We always expect extremes to be rare, and the odds of a random 16-0 or 0-16 record are around 1 in 65,000. As we were working with our spreadsheet, we did see this extreme occur, and it happened on our spreadsheet to the NY Jets.  

We did not purposely focus on the Jets. It could have been any of the teams, and we could have used any season schedule to get similar results.

We will grant you that the football sometimes takes funny bounces, and this can be a factor in some games during the season making luck or chance a legitimate portion in a team’s win-loss record.

It is a totally unpredictable factor, and therefore, it cannot be incorporated into analysis and forecasting equations.

Since equations are our thing, we do not want to spend that much time talking about randomness, but we also do not want you to dismiss the fact that it can affect a team’s win-loss record.

Schedule:

Take any ranking system.  We do not care if it is an expert’s Power Rankings or last year’s win-loss rankings. You can pick whatever. Play these rankings against this year’s schedule, and you may be surprised at what you find.

To illustrate this point, we took a look at some 2009 Power Rankings that have already been published. For what we are doing in this article, it does not matter if you accept this order as realistic or not. In the example we chose to focus on, the 32 teams were ranked:

We played these rankings against this year’s schedule neglecting home field advantage or any randomness.

In this scenario, if a team plays a higher-ranked team, the lower-ranked team gets the loss while the higher-ranked wins. 

When we played these rankings against the 2009 schedule in this manner, it was no surprise that the top nine teams would become playoff teams.

However, the No. 10 Dolphins would miss the playoffs with a record of 9-7 while the No. 11 Vikings would also miss the playoffs with a record of 10-6.

The next playoff team this list for the 2009 season would be the No.12 Eagles who play 11 teams that rank lower than the Eagles and only five teams that rank higher. This would give the Eagles an 11-5 record and a wild-card playoff spot.

Based on these rankings and their schedule, the No. 13 Packers, like the Vikings, would also miss the NFC playoffs with a 10-6 record.

The No. 14 Cardinals and No. 15 Chargers would win their divisions and make the playoffs with 9-7 and 10-6 records respectively.

One would like to think that the 12 best teams make the playoffs each year, but that just is not possible with the way the NFL schedule works, even if every team plays perfectly to its capability each week.

 

Home Field Advantage

Now, we are going to get a little more complicated (yes, it is true) but stay with us. To be able to work with home field advantage variations, this we had to quantify how much better one team was relative to another.

To keep this as simple as possible, we assumed the difference between each team was a constant.

So, the top ranked team was assigned a +8 (just our own statistical yardstick), the second team a +7.5, the third team a +7. Each team was graded 0.5 away from the one next to it, and the value of 0 was skipped so the bottom team had a -8.

With this tight a ranking in our system, very small changes in the value of home field make a big difference.

Now, we can start modifying how much home field is worth and observe what happens to win -loss records and playoff scenarios.

In the extreme adjustment of home field advantage, all teams would be 8-8, wining all their home games and losing all their road games. This would be boring. Who wants the home team to always win?

Once again, we used the same example rankings. When we made the home field advantage factor worth just one percent, the playoff picture changed very little.

The No. 12 Eagles fell into a tie for the final NFC wild-card playoff spot as they saw their record fall to 10-6. However, it was not the No. 11 Vikings with whom they tied. It was the No. 13 Packers.

When we bumped up home field to two percent, the Packers’ record rose to 12-4, and they tied the Bears for the division. The Vikings remained behind them with a record of 10-6.

At this level, the Eagles miss the playoffs with a 9-7 record. The Cardinals would still win the NFC west but now with an 11-5 record. The AFC playoff picture would remain unchanged.

At the four percent level, the Bears, Vikings and Packers all make the playoffs with 11-5 records. The Panthers and Falcons would tie for the NFC South title with 10-6 records.

The only point of this little exercise is to illustrate what many people take as a given. Schedule combined with a home field advantage does play a role in a team’s season and win-loss record.

Yet, many Power Rankings omit these factors. Even with the constant distribution of team quality that we used, you can see how the value of home field can change win-loss records and the playoff picture.

 

Team Quality (Traditional Power Ranking)

Most “Power Rankings” authors are trying to enumerate teams in order of quality. In other words, best teams are ranked highest and the not-as-talented teams are ranked at the bottom.

The question we always come up with is: How much better is the No. 1 team over the No. 2 team or even the No. 10 team?

An even distribution like we used in the “home field” analysis above is not a very realistic distribution.

The top team may be well ahead of the remainder of the league, as it was with the 2007 Patriots, or the top five teams may be very close together like last season was by our measure.

The same is true at the bottom. By our measure, the 2008 Lions fell well below the rest of the league.

To illustrate this, we took the same rankings and gave the top 12 teams relative performance grades between 34 and 45 (Again, our statistical yardstick).

The bottom 12 teams got values between -34 and -45 while the middle eight teams were given values between 4 and -4.

Of course with no home field advantage, the records are the same as we described in the “schedule” section.

We need to vary home field by larger increments now since the separation between the 32 teams is much greater being between 45 and -45 as opposed to 8 and -8 in the example above.

At a four percent adjustment, the Chargers no longer make the playoffs and are replaced by the Broncos who had a “Power Ranking” of 18. The Bears and Vikings make the playoffs while the Packers do not.

At a 15 percent adjustment, the Chargers are back in with a 9-7 record while the Broncos fall out with an 8-8 record. The Packers move back into contention for a playoff spot as their record equals the Vikings at 11-5. A tie breaker would determine who made the playoffs.

 

So What?

You are probably thinking, “So what, if you play with numbers enough you can make them say anything you want.”

Well, not really, even given their relatively low power ranking of 14 there was virtually nothing we could do to make the Cardinals miss the playoffs. The NFC playoff picture fluctuated much more than the AFC playoff picture did.

Even if an all-knowing supernatural NFL power provided a perfectly ordered list of best to worst teams, the chances that the top 12 teams on this list make the playoffs would be very slim for the reasons we have explained.

 

A Different List

As we said at the start of the article, we also publish a list that resembles the “Power Rankings” list. We call it our “Performance Rankings” because it is based on how teams perform in our PossessionPoints stat.

We are not going to explain all that goes into our stat in this article because we would bore you to death, but the end result is a positive or negative number we call the “Relative Performance Measure” or RPM.

Our RPM list is just the ranking of teams from the largest RPM to the smallest. But with the RPM, you can see how close one team is to another.

In fact, two adjacent teams may either be a fraction or several numbers apart. Typically the 32 teams will be spread over a 90-point or more range.

Below is a Performance Rankings chart. The last column, on the right shows the final RPM from last season (with one exception we will talk about later).

It should be no surprise to note that the Steelers are on the top of the RPM list, and the Lions are on the bottom. Where some teams fell in the middle might be a surprise to some fans, but that is where the stat put them.

Some of you might be thinking, “Last year is history, why are you showing this now?”

 

 

Well, if you look at the chart and each team’s win-loss record, you will note that these records are not the win-loss records from 2008. 

What these win-loss columns show is a projection of each team for 2009 if each of the teams played their 2009 schedule at the same RPM level as 2008.

Do Not Panic!  This is at best a partial look at what’s ahead.  We have not made our modifications for off-season trades and drafts.

The one adjustment we talked about comes into play here. The Panthers’ 2008 RPM was not good. We adjusted them so they would fall with the leaders up at No. 7, within 8 points of the top ranked Steelers.

Even with that adjustment, when we played the Panthers revised RPM against their schedule with a four percent home field adjustment, Carolina ends up with a 9-7 record. (Four percent home field adjustment is the best historical adjustment for our RPM).

Conversely, look at the No. 17 Cardinals. They had an RPM of 10.93 (the Super Bowl brought them down some). However, when we play that RPM against their 2009 schedule, we project a 12-4 record.

We could find a lot of interesting facts in this chart, but we are just going to focus on one more. The No. 13 Falcons and the No. 14 Saints are in the same division and had very similar 2008 RPMs of 12 and 14.

Yet, if the No. 14 Saints play at the same level of their 2008 RPM in 2009, we project that they would have a 10-6 record while the No.13 Falcons would go to just 8-8.

Our list ranks teams based on how they perform in our stat. History has shown us that this is a pretty good way to look at which teams can ultimately win in the playoffs. Our list would be sorted much differently if we sorted teams just by projected wins.

In a nutshell, we believe that Performance Rankings are more than just opinion-based lists. Factors such as home field advantage and strength of schedule have to come into play as well if fans are going to get a real feel for how their team’s chances at success.

This season we will add “Projected Win-Loss Records” to the RPM value when we publish our weekly rankings. This way readers will get a feel for relative quality from the RPM number as well as how it would appear to project to wins and losses. 

(For more background on how the RPM shows itself in the Playoffs you may want to read an article we wrote during last year’s playoffs “NFL Playoff Upsets: What Upsets?”)  

Should Mark Sanchez Be the New York Jets’ 2009 Starter?

What can Jets’ fans expect this season from rookie QB Mark Sanchez? With all the hype and exposure surrounding the “new” New York Jet, we, at PossessionPoints.com, wanted to try to keep our expectations as grounded as possible.

We decided to look at the top 10 quarterbacks of last season (by QB rating) and see how their immersion into NFL play prepared them for success. Which quarterbacks got to wade into the professional football waters slowly, and which ones were thrown off the pier without much notice and expected to swim? 

Here they are:

Philip Rivers – 2008 QB Rating:  105.5

In the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Rivers only appeared in two games, and he only attempted 30 passes.  These stats put him in what we call the “let’s let him get used to the water slowly” category.

 

Chad Pennington – 2008 QB Rating: 97.4

In 2000, Pennington appeared in one game, and in 2001, he appeared in two. He attempted only 25 passes in the two years. With these numbers, Pennington is also another toe dipper in the NFL waters. 

 

Kurt Warner – 2008 QB Rating: 96.9         

Warner’s NFL career started late. Although signed as a free agent out of Northern Iowa by the Packers in 1994, Warner never saw opening day. He was released in the preseason. Stints in Europe and the Arena Football League preceded his final arrival into the NFL.

Even though Warner had vast football experience behind him before he put on a Rams’ uniform, Warner still played in just one game in 1998 and attempted only 11 passes. He, like Pennington and Rivers, is also a slow wader.

 

Drew Brees – 2008 QB Rating: 96.2

Drafted by the Chargers in 2001, Brees played in just one game and attempted 27 passes in his first season. In his second season, he played in all 16 games for the Chargers. After an impressive 4-0start, Brees ended his second season with a mediocre 8-8 record and a QB rating of only 76.

The Chargers benched him during the 2003 season after he played in 11 games in favor of veteran Doug Flutie. The combined efforts of these two QBs gave San Diego a miserable 4-12 record. Brees’ QB rating sat at 67 for those 11 games. 

For us, Brees fell into the “you can throw him in the water, but better give him a life preserver to survive.” category.  After his near drowning in San Diego, a change of scenery put Brees on the path to quarterback success.

 

Peyton Manning – 2008 QB Rating: 95

In 1998, Peyton Manning was drafted No. 1 for the Colts and proceeded to play 16 games while attempting 575 passes. His QB rating was the lowest of his career at 71. We categorize Manning as a quarterback who was thrown off the pier and expected to excel. While he has excelled, his first year was his worst and the Colts ended their season with a horrible 3-13 record.

 

Aaron Rodgers – 2008 QB Rating: 93.8

In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Rodgers played in a total of seven games. He attempted just 59 passes in those three seasons prior to his starting in 2008 in place of the relocated Brett Favre. Rodgers is definitely another toe dipper in the NFL quarterback pool.

Rodgers is like many NFL quarterbacks who appear to thrive after two-to-three seasons of sitting.

 

Matt Schaub – 2008 QB Rating: 92.7

In 2004, 2005 and 2006, Schaub attempted a total of just 161 passes for the Falcons. In 2008 alone, he attempted 380 for the Texans. Schaub, a three-year backup QB to Michael Vick, is another example of teaching a QB to swim before putting him into action.

 

Tony Romo – 2008 QB Rating: 91.4

Signed as an undrafted free agent with the Cowboys in 2003, Romo did not throw a pass for them until three years later in 2006.  Yes, Romo only held a clipboard for his first three years, but his slow immersion gave him the confidence and skills to succeed.   

 

Jeff Garcia – 2008 QB Rating: 90.2

Does anyone not appreciate Jeff Garcia’s trek to the NFL?  Garcia played in Canada for four years prior to his NFL experience. In his first NFL season, he did play in 13 games and attempted 375 passes.

We really have a tough time putting him in the “just throw him in the water and see if he stays afloat” category as he seems to have swam pretty well up North. So, we are going to say that his four years in Canada is the equivalent of the three years as an NFL backup.

 

Matt Cassel – 2008 QB Rating: 89.4

Our vote for “Cinderella Quarterback”.   As a backup from 2005-2007, Cassel attempted just 45 passes in three years. We all know about 2008 and what fate dealt to both Tom Brady and Matt Cassel.

For Cassel, who also served as the backup at USC, he might have easily assumed that his NFL uniform would always include a pair of headphones and a clipboard. 

However, he learned well in those three-plus years and proved himself when given the opportunity.  We will mercifully put him in the toe dipper category, but to be honest, he probably falls more into the “stuck on the beach and watching everyone else have a good time” category. 

 

That’s the top 10 from 2008. If you notice, the big rookies who made all the headlines last year are not in that list. So, how did they perform?

While not in the top 10, Matt Ryan came close and ranked No. 11 with a QB rating of 87.7.  Impressive for a rookie who we feel literally had the fate of the Falcons faithful on his young shoulders.

His coach had little choice but to start him from the beginning, since they also traded away Matt Schaub. However, head coach Mike Smith did give Ryan breathing room by supplying him with a copious number of running plays especially in the earlier part of the season.

Not in the top 10 and sitting at 22 with a QB rating of 80.3 is Joe Flacco of the Ravens.  In the preseason, few thought Flacco would be the starter, but injuries and strange virus that sidelined Troy Smith, put Flacco from wader to jumper. Give him credit for accomplishing what he did.

The Ravens formidable defense was Flacco’s life preserver.    

What we take from our little study is this: If Rex Ryan follows conventional QB development philosophy, he will start veteran Kellen Clemens and leave Sanchez carrying a clipboard for a year or two.

Ryan may believe that he can have the same success with Sanchez as the Falcons have with Ryan and the Ravens have with Flacco. Hopefully, somewhere in his coaching strategy is the knowledge that even the most gifted rookie quarterback cannot carry a team.

In our view, the Jets’ success or lack thereof is more dependent on Rex Ryan than it is on Sanchez. If Ryan does start Sanchez and puts him in a position where he makes mistakes that cost the Jets wins, we would put the blame on Rex Ryan and his staff..

One more note, you may ask why we focused on Sanchez and the Jets instead of on Matt Stafford and the Lions. The answer is simply this: The Lions can only go up from that 0-16 record.

Stafford could start, without setting the NFL on fire, and still improve the Lions. We think Stafford should be fine as long as Detroit’s coaching staff keeps him away from excessive sacks which could affect his confidence and future performances.

Optimism Justified for Minnesota Vikings

At this time of year, all teams are optimistic about the upcoming season and why not? Off season trades and the NFL draft infuse new blood into sometimes tired rosters giving even the most desperate teams a feeling of hope.  While we at PossessionPoints.com admire the positive attitudes that all teams have, we believe that there are some teams, more than others, who deserve to hold on to those high hopes and optimism.  For us, the Minnesota Vikings are one such team.

 

The Vikings are coming off a season where they ranked ninth in offense, fourth in defense and fifth overall according to the PossessionPoints statistic. While our rankings may differ from the traditional total yardage-type rankings, they do display a high correlation to winning. For example, we projected the 2008 Vikings would go 9-7 and take the division title.  We were a little off in that they won the division with a 10-6 record.

 

Based on those PossessionPoints rankings, we would have expected to see the Vikings work on offense first in the draft. So, we were not taken aback when they did exactly that drafting wide receiver Percy Harvin from Florida and offensive tackle Phil Loadholt from Oklahoma. These selections, coupled with their upgrade at backup QB with the acquisition of Sage Rosenfels (maybe starter after preseason), have prompted us to make an upward adjustment of at least five percent to Minnesota’s offensive numbers from last year.

 

For reference purposes, a five percent adjustment either positive or negative is considered a small adjustment in PossessionPoints. An average adjustment would range between 10 and 15 percent up or down, and a significant adjustment would be 20 percent or more in either direction. 

 

Minnesota’s three remaining draft picks went to the defensive side of the ball, and we are not yet sure if they got any impact players. With this in mind, we are most likely to forecast that their defense will be about the same as last year. There is certainly room for improvement with the Vikings in defense since they were 22 percent behind the league-leading Ravens. However, given that they ranked fourth in defense last season by our statistic, an unchanged forecast is not all that bad. Even if they remain unchanged in PossessionPoints, they should still easily be a top-10 defense next season.

 

There is another factor that gives support to our belief that the Vikings should be a tough team again in 2009. By our stat from last season’s performances, the Vikings have the second easiest schedule in 2009.  The difficulty is pretty balanced between home and road games as Minnesota has the fifth easiest home and the fifth easiest road schedules. (Having the Lions twice on their schedule does help).

 

We are long way from making our adjustments to all the teams in the league, and when we do complete the adjustments, the picture may change drastically. For instance, a significant upward adjustment in the Lions’ projected performance could spell trouble for teams who have to face a new Detroit team twice. As we get closer to the season, we will draw more a more concrete picture.  As of now, our outlook for the Vikings in 2009 remains positive and hopeful.

 

Pioli, Haley, and Cassel: The Perfect Storm for the Kansas City Chiefs?

Is a Perfect Storm circling over Kansas City? Well, if you are a Chiefs fan, you are hoping that the storm not only hovers, but makes landfall as well. 

In the upcoming season, Kansas City will experience a triple force: a new general manager, a new head coach, and a new franchise quarterback. For many experts, a change in one of these positions sends up a red flag, but we at PossessionPoints.com think that this triple whammy may spark the beginning of a new and dynamic Chiefs team.

It is true that only Matt Cassel has actual experience in his new job. As starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, Cassel proved his physical and mental prowess when he stepped in for Tom Brady last season. 

Scott Pioli has a great deal of experience in the front offices around the league, including stints in Cleveland, Baltimore and New York, but this is his first GM position.  With that said, Pioli was a key factor in building the Patriots into the dominating force that ruled the NFL in recent years.

Although new to head coaching, Todd Haley has paid his dues in the coaching world, holding positions with the Bears, Jets, Cowboys, and Cardinals. Haley was instrumental in all teams making the playoffs while he was with them. His most recent success came as offensive coordinator for the Cardinals who, as we all know, got to the Super Bowl.   

Why do we bring this all up?  Because we love historical parallels, and we try to learn from them. In 2008, the Dolphins also made the risky triple change when they brought in Bill Parcells as head of football operations, Tony Sparano as head coach, and Chad Pennington as starting QB.

When we did our Preseason Preview issue for the 2008 season, we adjusted our estimated performance of the Dolphins up by 10 percent, which is generous for us, but not outlandish. The result of this 10 percent was that we still expected Miami to have another losing record.

However, in our 2008 Preseason Preview we also said, “Actually, the computer does give hope if the Dolphins can improve their performance 15 percent more on offense and defense. If we up their improvement to 25 percent in each category, their projected record actually vaults all the way to 10-6. Could the Dolphins be a team—we color “Red” —that makes the playoffs?”

 

We didn’t expect the Dolphins would improve on both offense and defense by 25 percent. That is an exceptional improvement. Truth be told, Miami improved by 30 percent on offense and 28 percent on defense, and as you know, they went 11-5 and made the playoffs. 

 

In hindsight, maybe we should not have been so stingy with our upwards adjustment.  We didn’t take the arrival of their “perfect storm” as seriously as we should have.

 

The parallels between the 2008 Dolphins and 2009 Chiefs do not end with their personnel changes. For example, there is the non-football coincidence, in that Bill Parcells is Scott Pioli’s father-in-law.  (Can you imagine the holiday dinners in that family?  We’re guessing football is a big part of that table conversation.)

 

Although this is an unscientific statement to make, we think that some of Bill Parcells’ magic has to rub off on Pioli.

 

There are other more technical parallels as well. The 2007 Dolphins ranked 20th in possession points offense with a 79 (the higher the number the better). The 2008 Chiefs ranked 24th in possession points offense with an 83. This is very close statistically.

 

The 2007 Dolphins ranked 32nd in possession points defense with a 122 (the lower the number the better) while the 2008 Chiefs ranked 29th in possession points defense with a 122.

 

To give you an idea of the significance of the number range, the 2007 Patriots were the best possession points offense in the last two seasons with a value of 163 (about double the Dolphins/Chiefs number), so both teams would need to improve by 100 percent to get to the Pats’ level. The 2008 Ravens were the best defense in the last two seasons with a value of 54, which is less than half of the value posted by the Dolphins and Chiefs in 2007 and 2008.

 

Well, no one owns the crystal ball that says for sure that the Chiefs will transform themselves into a playoff team just as the Dolphins did. However, history can and often does repeat itself, and that perfect storm that landed in Miami in 2008, could very well be making its way to Kansas City this year. 

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