Tag: Football Outsiders

Have Raiders upgraded from any ‘worst of the worst’ starters from 2022?

Several Raiders starters were named ‘worst of the worst’ by Football Outsiders. Have they upgraded at those spots?

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We knew the Raiders were bad last season. How bad? Well, four starters named ‘worst of the worst’ bad.

Back in February, Football Outsiders put together their list of the worst at every position group in the NFL and the Raiders were quite well represented on that list.

In case you’re wondering, Derek Carr got a brief mention for playing so poorly he was benched to prepare for moving on from him. A few other QB’s were mentioned in passing (so to speak), but it was Russell Wilson who was the worst of the worst at the position.

The Raiders actually did move on from Derek Carr, cutting him and signing former 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo. Whether he’s an upgrade remains to be seen.

Even aside from Carr, the Raiders had four players who stood out as being *the* worst of the worst of their respective position group. Think of it as the anti-All Pro squad.

That begs the question as to whether or not the Raiders have either moved on or upgraded from any of those starters. Well, let’s take a look.

Alex Bars was named the worst double-digit starting interior lineman in the NFL, noting he had an astounding 38 blown blocks last season.

“He really shouldn’t be a starter; he lacks the quickness and the timing you would like from an every-game starter. But lacking other options, the Raiders gave him 14 starts and, well, there were moments where he was just completely blown off the field. While he generally improved over the course of the year, he still hadn’t reached competent starter levels by the end; Chris Jones blew him away to the tune of eight pressures and a pair of sacks in Week 18. You can live with Bars as a spot starter or a bench guy, but he was the worst lineman to start double-digit games in 2022.”

Bars was re-signed this offseason, but the team has to be hoping that one of the other linemen as competition at right guard can outplay him to take the job. Competitors include recent signing Greg Van Roten, former Broncos practice squad signee Netane Muti and undrafted rookie McClendon Curtis.

Moving across the line, the Raiders have plenty more issues. Namely with their top free agent signings of last offseason. Two made the list too as a “big free-agent signing, little production.” First up was DT Bilal Nichols who signed a two-year, $11 million deal and was a complete non-factor last season.

“Nichols was brought in to Las Vegas to provide some semblance of an interior pass rush, which never materialized—just 1.5 sacks and 18 hurries on the year. That might be OK if Nichols was solid against the run, but Nichols didn’t provide much of an impact there either, routinely getting pushed around or creating a seam and a running lane. Honestly, the best way to word Nichols’ impact on the 2022 season is “non-existent”; not exactly what Las Vegas was hoping for from their second-biggest free agent acquisition of the year. Hey, how did that biggest acquisition work out again?”

That biggest acquisition was Chandler Jones who signed a three-year, $17 million deal and for much of the season was basically invisible.

“One three-sack game against the Chargers in December saved Jones’ year from being a complete bust, but 4.5 sacks is still the lowest sack total for Jones in a year he played more than five games, and his 15 quarterback hits are the fewest since he left New England in 2015. Jones had a pressure rate of just 10.3%, which was 92nd out of 270 players with at least 100 pass-rushers, per SIS charting. There were some potential warning signs from 2021 in Arizona, in retrospect—his hurry rate had fallen dramatically, and his pressure rate had dipped too, even if the sacks were still there—but for Jones not even to hit five sacks? For Jones to have 12 games where he didn’t reach the quarterback once? Almost unthinkable. . . He has $16 million in guaranteed money next season, so the Raiders are stuck hoping that the 33-year-old can figure out a way to make things work next year.”

Yeah, the Raiders are stuck with Jones for this season. Best case scenario is rookie top pick Tyree Wilson can rotate in and keep Jones fresh, hopefully getting the most out of him.

As for Nichols, the Raiders are seemingly hoping for the emergence of one of the DT’s they have drafted the past two years. The highest drafted being Byron Young who was selected at pick 70 in the third round this year. The other is Matthew Butler who was selected in the fifth round of the 2021 draft.

The wild card here could be former Chargers first round pick Jerry Tillery who was claimed off waivers midway through last season, but didn’t do much outside of the one game against his former team.

And finally, there’s the safety spot where Tre’von Moehrig made an appearance. After a decent rookie season in 2021, Moehrig fell off a cliff in his second season.

“Moehrig looked lost in the Raiders’ secondary, over-thinking and reacting late. Moehrig allowed a 137.5 passer rating in coverage and was possibly just asked to do too much. He was going to be the centerpiece of Patrick Graham’s secondary; instead, he constantly found himself out of position or just making the wrong decision.”

It would be surprising if the Raiders were to give up on Moehrig after a down season. The Jim Thorpe Award winner was the team’s pick at 43rd overall in the 2020 draft. Granted that was the previous coaching staff, but you’d have to think they will give him at least part of this season to see if he can step up.

The team added Marcus Epps to start at the strong safety spot. They also signed Jaquan Johnson, drafted Christopher Smith II in the fifth round, and have 2022 undrafted safety Isaiah Pola-Mao who showed some potential as a rookie last season.

So, the answer is they have not moved on from any of these starters. They brought in competition at each position, but no clear upgrades. So, in each case they’re either they’re hoping for someone else to step up or for that player to improve.

ESPN believes the Vikings should sign this free agent

The Vikings could go a multitude of ways in free agency and getting a starting cornerback is a key part of that

Going into free agency, the Minnesota Vikings have quite a few needs. The biggest of those is cornerback. They have only three cornerbacks on the roster and getting a veteran starter should be a priority.

Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz wrote an article for ESPN and believes the Vikings should sign a cornerback and did so with New England Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones, a player that Brian Flores knows all too well.

Three of Minnesota’s top four cornerbacks in snap count are now free agents, so they are going to need some additions to the secondary. Last year’s second-round pick Andrew Booth Jr. is probably ready to join the starting lineup across from Cameron Dantzler, but that leaves the slot.

Jones is an excellent veteran addition who has excelled in the slot but also played well outside last season. He ranked 17th among qualifying cornerbacks in coverage success rate.

Pro Football Focus projects Jones to get a two-year contract worth $11 million. That’s a fair, yet bargain price for a starting cornerback.

The Vikings will be playing a much more aggressive style of football this year and getting a star cornerback who both knows the system and thrives in man coverage is a smart way to go.

Football Outsiders says Dennis Allen was one of the least-aggressive coaches in 2022

Football Outsiders research says Dennis Allen was one of the least-aggressive head coaches in 2022. The Saints must improve in this area to survive in 2023:

There’s one easy area to point to as a criticism of Dennis Allen’s first year as New Orleans Saints head coach: a lack of aggression on fourth downs. No offense attempted fewer fourth-down conversions than Allen’s offense last year (11). Whether he trusted his defense too much or didn’t trust his quarterbacks enough, Allen chose to kick the ball away whenever given the opportunity.

But this lack of aggression went under the microscope in an article from Football Outsiders analyst Aaron Schatz, who used FO’s Aggressiveness Index to rank every decision-maker from around the NFL. This tool has been in use since 2006, which Schatz describes as: “The goal was to find a way to rank coaches based on their tendencies on fourth downs in a manner that was easy to understand but accounted for the different rates at which the average coach will choose to ‘go for it’ in different situations.”

And Allen ranked 30th out of last year’s 32 head coaches. Only New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and New York Jets coach Robert Saleh were less aggressive. Belichick has reversed his tendencies on fourth downs from earlier in his career, when the league was more conservative on average — and no one seems to quite understand what prompted that decision. Saleh was dealing with an even more fraught quarterback situation than the Saints last season, so it makes sense that he didn’t roll the dice in high-leverage situations.

Still, that’s not where you want to see the Saints ranking. Allen had the benefits of a veteran quarterback under center in Andy Dalton and some talented weapons like Alvin Kamara, Chris Olave, and Juwan Johnson at his disposal. Pete Carmichael deserves some blame too for taking Taysom Hill out of the playbook. Hill only had two rushing attempts on fourth down all season while remaining highly effective in short-yardage situations. He averaged 7.9 yards per carry when the offense needed 3 yards or fewer, converting 17 first downs on 26 attempts (65.4%).

Hopefully the Saints can improve in this area. Maybe it means more carries for Hill on fourth down, but that alone isn’t going to fix the problem. Allen needs to act more aggressively and give his team more opportunities to win a game with the ball in their hands than with their backs against the wall.

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Football Outsiders sends intriguing center prospect to Vikings in latest Mock Draft

Football Outsiders’ latest mock draft had the Minnesota Vikings selecting a center in the first round, but not the one you’d expect

The Minnesota Vikings have a lot of needs this offseason, but one that isn’t being talked about enough is the need at center. Garrett Bradbury is an impending free agent, and there is no certainty the Vikings will bring him back. This would leave a hole the Vikings would need to fill.

On Tuesday, Benjamin Robinson’s mock draft on Football Outsiders helped the Vikings fill that void if they move on from Bradbury by selecting Wisconsin center Joe Tippmann.

“Garret Bradbury is slated to be a free agent and on the way out of Minnesota, and Wisconsin’s Joe Tippmann would be a major upgrade at a position group whose performance as a unit is most often impacted by its weakest link. Tippmann is the top center in the class, and he would fit seamlessly into an offensive line room that includes cornerstones at tackle, promise at guard, and now a top talent at center.”

Tippmann is not considered a first-round prospect by many experts, but that doesn’t mean that the Vikings wouldn’t take him if they felt he was the best player available. If the Vikings move on from Bradbury, there will be a need at the center position, but taking Tippmann here would be a disappointment for a lot of Vikings fans.

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How do advanced metrics equate to strength of schedule?

Advanced metrics have not been kind to the Vikings this season, but how does it equate to strength of schedule?

You’ve heard it all before: the Minnesota Vikings are lucky and aren’t nearly as good as their 12-3 record would indicate. In fact, there are plenty of analysts, in both good and bad faith, that would tell you just that.

We’ve heard it all at this point. The astounding NFL record in one-score games at 11-0, the NFL record eight fourth-quarter comebacks and the “luck” they have had in such games, most notably the Josh Allen fumble. There is, however, more to projection than just talking about the underlying advanced metrics. There is a lot of context that needs to be taken into account when having such nuanced discussions.

One metric that a lot of people like to mention is DVOA from Football Outsiders. It’s a metric that tries to project forward based on how you have played thus far. One thing that is interesting is how the top teams in DVOA have had a weaker strength of schedule.

Now, DVOA as Akash mentions in the next tweet is a weighted metric that grades your performance based on who your competition is. What is really intriguing is that two of the top three are in the bottom three for strength of schedule while four and five have an SOS of 23rd and 27th.

How do the Vikings fare in comparison? They rank 25th in total DVOA at -9.4% with their SOS being at 14th at 1.1%.

What can we read from this? I think the biggest thing to read from this is that the Vikings, outside of their two massive duds, play to the level of their opponent. It’s why the Vikings have played so many one-score games this season and that explanation makes total sense.

That, and creating their own luck by outscoring opponents by 75 points after the third quarter.

ESPN identifies weakness of Kirk Cousins, 31 other starters

Cousins’ weakness might surprise you

The quarterback position is one that is both incredibly important and also heavily scrutinized. Nobody knows that better than Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.

Ever since he was a fourth-round pick of the Washington Commanders in 2012, he has been overlooked and analysts have been more critical of him than is warranted at times.

This season is no different. He has arguably played his best football but his stats have taken a dip. They are arguably his worst as a Viking but the team is winning and a lot of it has to do with Cousins.

ESPN and Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz was tasked with finding a weakness for all 32 starting quarterbacks and he deemed Cousins’ is zone coverage.

Cousins has problems with zone coverage — and has consistently had these problems for years. This has actually been less of an issue in 2022 than in the past couple of seasons, although that’s less because of strong performance against zone and more because Cousins’ QBR against man coverage is his lowest since the ESPN database of coverages began in 2016. Take a look at his year-by-year splits:

2022: 56.3 QBR vs. zone, 60.3 QBR vs. man
2021: 41.5 QBR vs. zone, 80.8 QBR vs. man
2020: 43.8 QBR vs. zone, 78.3 QBR vs. man
2019: 62.4 QBR vs. zone, 65.5 QBR vs. man

It’s hard to debate that Cousins has been poor against man coverage this season, as his receivers struggle to separate outside of Justin Jefferson, but to see his rating against zone be so low is a tad surprising.

A breakdown of where the Vikings units rank after 11 games

The Vikings are still a very divisive team so we took a look at how their units rank across the league

The Minnesota Vikings sit at 9-2 going into week 13 and they are feeling really good about their chances down the stretch.

Not everybody shares that sentiment, however. A lot of analysts believe that the Vikings are not what their record says they are. In my opinion, that narrative isn’t fair and is a relatively lazy one at that.

To further get a better sense of what this team is and how they rank, I took a look at how their units rank across the league.

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What advanced stats like DVOA, EPA say about the Saints going into Week 6

What advanced stats like DVOA, EPA and ANY/A say about the Saints and Andy Dalton going into Week 6:

The New Orleans Saints cut their losing streak off at three with a badly-needed home win over the Seattle Seahawks, and some of the growth they’ve displayed in recent weeks can be found in advanced stats like DVOA, EPA, and ANY/A. Things are far from perfect, and there are multiple areas of concern, but some points are beginning to trend in the right direction. Here’s what we’ve learned after Week 5:

What advanced stats like DVOA, EPA say about the Saints going into Week 5

What advanced stats like DVOA, EPA, and ANY/A say about the Saints going into Week 5:

It’s too soon to say the New Orleans Saints have figured anything out or fixed their problems, and we won’t be able to say that until they’ve leveled out the win-loss column. But what we can do is acknowledge the growth they’re making in some areas while continuing to focus on where they can improve. And though they did lose Week 4’s game with the Minnesota Vikings, there are some positive takeaways when you look through the advanced stats like DVOA, EPA, ANY/A, SCIA, and XLRA (okay, those last two were made up). Here’s what we’ve learned:

What advanced stats like DVOA, EPA say about the Saints going into Week 4

What advanced stats like DVOA, EPA, and ANY/A say about the Saints going into Week 4:

We’re almost into Week 4, and things are rough for the New Orleans Saints, which is reflected in the advanced metrics you’ll find orbiting around the NFL. Whether you prefer DVOA, EPA, ANY/A, or something else entirely, we’ve got it collected for you here. Let’s see where the Saitns rank among their peers on offense, defense, and at quarterback: