Tag: Bill Polian

How LSU’s improved special teams can impact the offense

An improved special teams unit could come with a scoring boost for LSU’s offense.

LSU special teams were a mess last year.

We saw it in the opener against Florida State and issues persisted through the SEC title loss to Georgia.

LSU will handle this unit differently this year. [autotag]Bill Polian[/autotag] is out as special teams coordinator and the staff will take a committee approach.

LSU was good enough to overcome some of the issues on its way to a 10-win season. But the struggles kept LSU from reaching its ceiling.

Bad special teams put the entire team in a rough spot. Field position is worsened and momentum is stifled. LSU’s average starting field position ranked 105th in college football last year.

LSU still managed to average 34.5 points per game, which is more than any other team ranked outside the top 100 in field position. Teams outside the top 100 averaged 24.6 points per game. On the flipside, teams in the top 25 percentile averaged 32.6 points per game.

Based on expected points and points per game, only four offenses overperformed their field position expectation more than LSU.

That’s good news. LSU sustained drives and was one of the most efficient teams in the country. But you don’t want the offense to be in that position every week. You can win 10 games doing that, but you won’t make the playoff.

LSU’s average yards to go mark on a drive that ended in a touchdown was 69.6 yards. On drives that resulted in just a field goal, that number rose to 75.2 yards. And on punts and missed field goals, the average yards to go was at 77.04.

This is an area of the game where the smallest margins matter.

If LSU even manages to improve its average starting field position by a yard, its expected points per drive rise about half a point. Over the course of a season, that’s enough to swing one or two games.

LSU expects to have an improved return game. Transfer [autotag]Aaron Anderson[/autotag] can be a playmaker back there. He’s the type of player LSU missed last year. And again, he doesn’t need to rip off a big return every week. But a few yards here and a few yards there add up.

In a year where LSU expects to be strong on offense and defense, it can’t afford to give games away on special teams.

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Alabama transfer Aaron Anderson to return kicks and punts, other special teams notes from Brian Kelly

It’s no secret that LSU was held back by its special teams in 2022.

You didn’t have to watch much LSU football last fall to gather that execution on special teams was a limiting factor.

Those issues reared their head early and often as the Tigers lost in Week 1 against Florida State as the result of a blocked extra point in the final seconds.

After a coaching change (coordinator [autotag]Bill Polian[/autotag] was replaced with [autotag]John Jancek[/autotag], though [autotag]Bob Diaco[/autotag] is currently filling the role), LSU hopes it has those issues fixed in 2023.

Kelly addressed the special teams on Tuesday, announcing that speedy Alabama transfer [autotag]Aaron Anderson[/autotag] will return kicks and punts. True freshman running back [autotag]Kaleb Jackson[/autotag] will be the off-ball returner.

Coach [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] said avoiding miscues will be key for the returners this fall.

“They’ve got to field the ball, they’ve got to be able to do the little things the right way,” Kelly said Monday.

Kelly had positive things to say about the unit in general. Placekicker [autotag]Damian Ramos[/autotag] has apparently had a good camp and seems likely to hold on to his starting spot again. Punter [autotag]Jay Bramblett[/autotag], who was named to the preseason watch list for the Ray Guy Award, also received praise.

“We think special teams should and can be a positive for us and influence games,” Kelly said.

If that ultimately proves to be the case, it would be a major boon for an LSU team that was held back by shoddy special teams play in an overall good campaign last fall.

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Contact/Follow us @LSUTigersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Louisiana State news, notes, and opinions.

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Ryan Leaf called out former Colts GM Bill Polian for ‘embellishing’ his NFL Draft story: ‘I’ve never met Bill’

The all-time draft bust has had enough of people piling on.

By now, most who follow the NFL are probably intimately familiar with the story of the 1998 NFL Draft. It’s the class that saw one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Peyton Manning, go No. 1 overall to the Indianapolis Colts and one of the biggest draft busts ever, Ryan Leaf, go to the then-San Diego Chargers.

With the 25th anniversary of said draft happening this week, the crew at Good Morning Football had Leaf on as a guest to discuss his experience. As a result of his bust status, Leaf has struggled with his mental health and lived with that unfortunate label for a long time. In 2021, he even emotionally called out the NFL for not caring about its players.

But that wasn’t the point of contention of Leaf’s discussion here. No, no. Here, he called out former Colts general manager Bill Polian for embellishing the story of what led to Leaf’s draft bust.

Among the more notable tidbits?

In a recent video with The 33rd Team, Polian said Leaf’s pre-draft meeting with the Colts went horribly. But there’s one problem: Leaf clarified he’s never actually met Polian. This explanation followed a Tuesday Twitter post where Leaf first touched upon this “huge [expletive] lie.”

Ruh-oh.

 

If Polian has indeed embellished details about what led to Leaf’s bust, that’s not great, especially when — as Leaf talked about — the former quarterback has had to contend with being an individual laughingstock in football circles for a quarter-century. When people think of “draft bust” in conversations, his name usually pops up first.

So, of course, he’s not going to take those allegations — ones that Polian may have gotten wrong — lightly.

Giants training camp: 8 takeaways from Day 5

The New York Giants returned to practice on Monday — this time with pads on — and here are 8 quick takeaways from the day’s action.

The New York Giants returned to practice on Monday as the second week of training camp got underway. And for the Giants, it will also be the final week without football until next year.

As they traditionally do, things kicked off with head coach Brian Daboll conducting his daily press conference. He put a bow on the team’s first week and then began outlining what lay ahead.

Here are eight quick takeaways from Day 5 of practice.

Former Panthers GM Bill Polian: Sam Darnold and Joe Burrow are ‘universes apart’

Wait. Sam Darnold isn’t nearly as good as Joe Burrow? Dang. Well, someone should really alert the Panthers of this.

The Carolina Panthers are having a really tough time trying to find themselves a quarterback. So there’s no need to shove their noses in it.

But, Bill Polian did it anyway.

As part of his comparison between the Panthers and the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday, Joseph Person of The Athletic gauged the opinion of the Pro Football Hall of Fame executive. And Polian — who served as Carolina’s general manager from 1995 to 1997 — said the team’s current quarterback in Sam Darnold is “universes apart” from AFC champion Joe Burrow.

“The quarterback’s the most important guy,” Polian said. “He handles the ball on every play. And if you look at Joe Burrow, he makes up for a multitude of sins because he gets the ball out of his hands so quickly, processes so quickly, he’s so accurate.”

Although he might’ve been a bit off a time or two on his quarterback evaluations, Polian does know about timely roster construction. After all, he did build the Panthers into the NFC Championship game in just their second year of existence.

Unfortunately, though, he probably doesn’t see the Panthers getting anywhere close to that run as long as Darnold is under center.

“And now you see against Kansas City some mobility that most people didn’t know was there,” he also said to Person. “So he makes up for the sins of an offensive line that gets him sacked nine times. Plus, to say nothing of being tough as nails to survive that. The Panthers’ quarterback doesn’t have any of those attributes, or at least not to the level of Joe Burrow.”

Seeing as though one is a few days away from playing in the Super Bowl and the other is at home after a 5-12 season, there are definitely different levels to this.

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Most embarrassing moments from Bears Chairman George McCaskey’s press conference

From insulting Olin Kreutz to George McCaskey’s mom being ‘very, very disappointed,’ the most embarrassing moments from McCaskey’s presser.

The Chicago Bears fired head coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace on Monday morning, which left Bears fans feeling uncharacteristically hopeful that things might actually change.

But much like Nagy’s second-half collapses, Monday went from great to hopeless once Chairman George McCaskey took center stage later that afternoon.

McCaskey met the Chicago media for roughly an hour, where he addressed everything from Nagy and Pace’s firings to the search efforts for a new head coach and GM. But with McCaskey, even a routine end-of-year press conference always seems to develop into an absolute disaster.

While many didn’t think it could get worse than last year’s press conference, it’s right up there with it.

Here’s a look at some of the most embarrassing moments from McCaskey (and Phillips) during their press conference:

Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Bill Polian will assist Bears as they begin GM, head coaching search

Remember the guy who thought Lamar Jackson should be converted to a WR? He’s now helping the Bears find their next head coach and GM.

The Chicago Bears fired head coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace on Monday, which left Bears fans with some hope that perhaps things might actually change for the better.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last.

Remember the guy who thought Lamar Jackson should be converted to a wide receiver? He’s now in charge with spearheading the search for Chicago’s next head coach and GM.

Bears Chairman George McCaskey announced that Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian will help him conduct the search for the team’s next head coach and GM.

And, yes, President/CEO Ted Phillips will also be part of those searches, although he is no longer in charge of football operations.

There’s an eerie sense of deja vu as this situation is reminiscent of 2015, when the Bears consulted Ernie Acorsi to help in their head coach and GM search after firing Marc Trestman and Phil Emery. That searched ended with Pace and John Fox, and we saw how well that went.

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Bill Polian: 68 percent of all first-round QBs fail

Polian broke down the misses between 2009 and 2016

There is a lot of interest in the Detroit Lions selecting a quarterback in the first round of the NFL draft, either in 2021 or the near future. It’s a very risky proposition, with the high risk highlighted by longtime NFL GM Bill Polian.

The Pro Football Hall of Famer summarizes it succinctly in a recent spot on “Late Hits” on Sirius XM NFL Radio,

“Why would you take a quarterback in the first round when 68 percent of the time, he fails?”

Polian noted that it was a rhetorical question and “some of it is tongue-in-cheek”, but he emphatically reiterated the point,

“The historical data is clear, 68 percent of first-round quarterbacks between 2009 and 2016 failed.”

Polian and co-host Alex Marvez then broke down the qualifications and stages of failure. The talk turned to “red flags” on the failures, which Polian broke down:

  • Arm strength
  • Play processing speed
  • Speed of delivery
  • Work ethic
  • Accuracy/ball placement
  • Pre-existing injury history

They were speaking in the context of Carson Wentz, who is not considered a failure. Nor was either QB involved in the pending Lions-Rams trade involving Matthew Stafford (No. 1 in 2009) and Jared Goff (No. 1 in 2016). Those year parameters were used because none of the 22 players selected in that frame are still with the teams that drafted them.

 

Washington hires Chris Polian as new Director of Pro Personnel

Washington announced another front-office move on Monday, hiring Chris Polian, the son of Bill Polian, to direct Pro Personnel.

The Washington Football Team has made another front office move, announcing the hiring of Chris Polian as the new director of pro personnel with the team.

For anyone who thinks that name sounds familiar, Polian is the son of Hall of Fame NFL executive Bill Polian, who was a general manager in the league for years, most notably with the Indianapolis Colts.

Chris Polian worked in the front office for the Jacksonville Jaguars for the better part of the last decade, and has a lot of scouting experience. Polian will now serve in the role that was vacated by Eric Stokes once he got promoted.

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Tyrann Mathieu had a great answer for resurfaced video of Bill Polian’s awful draft-day analysis

Tyrann Mathieu proved him wrong.

Seven years ago, the Arizona Cardinals took a chance on Tyrann Mathieu in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft. Mathieu was a former Heisman Trophy finalist who had been dismissed from LSU due to a violation of the school and team’s substance-abuse policy.

But his talent was undeniable, and the NFL already had a long history of giving players with troubled pasts — players with actual violent offenses — chances in the league. Yet, former Colts general manager Bill Polian said Mathieu didn’t deserve to be on a team’s board.

Polian said in the recently resurfaced video, “He’s proven to be irresponsible and continues, in my mind, to show some degree of irresponsibility. That makes him a poor teammate and a poor risk. I don’t know why you’d want him at any price.”

Fast forward seven years, and Mathieu is coming off a Super Bowl win with the Chiefs. He’s been named first-team All-Pro twice and has been recognized for his work in the community with the Tyrann Mathieu Foundation … and in the locker room by earning multiple captaincies.

Mathieu saw the video on Monday and had an answer for Polian, choosing to focus on the positives his NFL career has brought.

Well said, Tyrann.

It’s fair to say that Mathieu proved Polian, who also thought Lamar Jackson should be a wide receiver, wrong here.

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