Tag: Lamar Jackson

What we know about Colin Kaepernick’s NFL workout

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, out of pro football since 2016, has potential path back to NFL employment.

The long tug-of-war between the NFL and Colin Kaepernick might actually be reaching a state of détente.

As first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the league itself has arranged a workout for the ex-49ers quarterback, who hasn’t played in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season. It will be held on Saturday at the Falcons’ facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia. The league sent out a memo about the workout to all 32 teams, and all teams have been invited to attend. There will be an on-field workout and an interview.

“Earlier this year, we discussed some possible steps with his representatives, and they recently emphasized his level of preparation and that he is ready to work out for clubs and be interviewed by them,” the memo said, in part. “We have therefore arranged this opportunity for him to work out, and for all clubs to have the opportunity to evaluate his current readiness and level of interest in resuming his NFL career.”

The workout will be run by Jeff Foster, the president of NFL Scouting, who is also responsible for determining which draft prospects will attend each scouting combine. Former head coaches Hue Jackson and Joe Philbin will help out; both coaches have a long track record of working with quarterbacks.

Per ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, the workout will start at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. There will be a preliminary workout to start, with measurables presumably taken. At 4:00 p.m., there will be scripted passing drills with receivers. A videotaped interview will take place before the workout; this and video of the workouts will be given to all 32 NFL teams so that they can determine Kaepernick’s readiness to return to the league. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that the Falcons will provide an equipment person, a trainer, and a videographer.

The NFL has not provided Kaepernick with a list of the receivers the league might make available for the workouts, so there is a possibility that Kaepernick will bring his own receivers. Generally speaking, for any pro day, combine, or mid-week workout, a quarterback will at least have a basic idea of the receivers he’ll be throwing to.

Last February, the NFL and Kaepernick’s representatives reached a settlement in the collusion grievance filed by Kaepernick and current Panthers safety Eric Reid. Both players believed that they had been effectively blacklisted from the league for their practice of kneeling for the national anthem before games to protest police brutality and other civil rights violations. Reid and Kaepernick played together in San Francisco from 2013 through 2016; Reid was subsequently signed by the Panthers in September 2018 and later signed a three-year contract extension.

Kaepernick, of course, hasn’t played at all since 2016, though there has been middling interest from a few teams. In his last NFL season, he threw 16 touchdowns and four interceptions for a 49ers team led by Chip Kelly that featured one of the poorest offensive rosters in the league. He also helped the 49ers reach Super Bowl XLVII at the end of the 2012 season, replacing Alex Smith halfway through the season after Smith suffered a concussion. Kaepernick was highly effective through the end of the 2014 season, as head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman devised a series of schemes that made it difficult to defend him as a runner or passer.

Beyond the NFL’s possible desire to save face, the similarities between Kaepernick’s peak tenure in San Francisco and what’s currently going on in Baltimore might be a primary reason for the dam breaking now. Roman is now the Ravens’ offensive coordinator and the prime mover behind an offense that has Lamar Jackson throwing dimes all over the field and on pace to break Michael Vick’s single-season rushing record for a quarterback. That John Harbaugh, Jim’s brother, is presiding over it all? That just makes it more interesting.

“Yeah, to a degree,” John Harbaugh said last month when I asked if he’s talked to his brother (now the University of Michigan’s head coach) about the inner workings of the San Francisco offense. “I mean, he’s pretty busy, as you know. Over the course of the last year, we talked a little bit about those kinds of things. Jim is a great resource for that and a lot of other things, too. He’s a great coach, and I lean on him quite a bit.”

Perhaps the NFL, unable to figure out how to stop Jackson, would like to create a duplicate version that has already been proven to work?

The other option here — and given the NFL’s history in this matter, it must be discussed — is that this is a show to save face. Should Kaepernick look rusty after almost three years out of the league, or if he doesn’t answer questions the way coaches and executives prefer, it will be easy enough to say, “Hey, we gave him a shot. It didn’t work out, and it’s time to move on.”

Hopefully, Kaepernick will get a fair opportunity to show whether he’s still good enough to be an NFL quarterback. That’s all he’s asked since his status as an NFL quarterback was abruptly canceled.

Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar has also covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”

Week 11 EPA Power Rankings: Cowboys knocked from top-offense perch

Cowboys force-feed Zeke in Week 10 despite data showing he isn’t near the most effective backs in the NFL this year.

The NFL was full of upsets this week.  Heading into Monday Night Football, seven underdogs had come away with a victory, including the Cowboys loss to the Vikings, the Titans over the Chiefs, and the Falcons taking down the Saints.  It was only fitting that it should end with another one as the Seahawks took down the previously unbeaten 49ers in an overtime thriller.

That being said, this single week’s games weren’t enough to change much in each team’s Expected Points Differential.

Expected Points, the foundation of many analytical arguments, uses data from previous NFL seasons to determine how many points a team is likely to come away with on a given play based on down, distance, time remaining, and field position. The difference in expected points at the start of a play and expected points at the end is referred to as expected points added, or EPA.

A play with a positive EPA means it put the offense in a better position to score, while negative EPA implies the offense is in a worse position.

Note: There was a bug within the program that scrapes all the NFL play-by-play data that affected the EPA on plays with challenges, which has since been fixed.  There was some slight movement in team EPA totals because of this, but nothing too major.

The top two teams stayed put this week despite San Francisco going home with a loss.

Cowboys QB Dak Prescott performed better than either QB from these teams, netting a total of 24 EPA across 47 plays, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a rough day on the ground for Ezekiel Elliott.  The underlying numbers for Dallas, however, still make them look far better than their 5-4 record suggests.

Pittsburgh and Oakland were the biggest climbers this week, moving up five and four spots, respectively.  The Steelers’ offense isn’t very inspiring with Mason Rudolph at the helm, but their defense ranks third in the NFL in total EPA allowed, trailing only New England and San Francisco.  Rookie linebacker Devin Bush has proven he was worth the trade-up, while in-season acquisition Minkah Fitzpatrick has picked off more passes than anyone in the NFL since moving up north from Miami.

We’ve got a new leader in total offensive EPA this week, as Lamar Jackson’s huge day put him in the top spot this week among offensive players.  Jackson’s 1.14 EPA/play more than doubled the amount of second-place Prescott (0.51 EPA/play).  Yes, the Bengals are bad, but nobody else has done that to them this season.  The next best performance against Cincinnati was Jimmy Garoppolo’s 0.66 EPA/play way back in Week 2.

Lamar Jackson has been an above average passer, ranking seventh in raw EPA/pass, but it’s his rushing success that has catapulted him to stardom.  Jackson now has started 16 games in his career, and if they were all in one season, he’d break Michael Vick’s single-season rushing yards record for quarterbacks.  He’s playing like 2013 Colin Kaepernick, if Kaepernick doubled his rushing yards and completed about 10% more of his passes.

Moving away from quarterbacks, let’s take a look at how running backs are doing in 2019 with their carries.  A few weeks ago, I found that teams are seeing more rushing success to the outside than they have been in the past decade, with the exception of short yardage situations.  With the help of NFL’s Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Focus, we can zoom in a bit more on specific running back performance.

What jumps out to me here is the 49ers stable of running backs.  Raheem Mostert, Matt Breida, and Tevin Coleman are all seeing above average loaded box counts, and yet Mostert and Breida are first and fourth in yards per carry.  Coleman, who sees more loaded boxes than anyone but Frank Gore, is still league average in YPC.

We can glean a better measure of effectiveness of the run game by using EPA/carry in this same fashion.

Coleman surpasses his teammates here even with the lower yards per carry mark because he’s seeing more work in short yardage situations.  Coleman has seen the 10th highest percentage of his carries in short yardage situations (3 or fewer yards to go) as well as the fourth highest touchdown percentage in the league.  Touchdowns and first downs are generally the biggest positive EPA plays, so it’s no wonder he looks better here.

Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook both appear near the top here, as expected, but the surprise might be that they are joined by Aaron Jones and the duo of Mark Ingram and Gus Edwards.  Ingram is the leader in EPA/carry this year despite seeing more 8+ man box counts than either McCaffrey or Cook.  The threat of Lamar Jackson keeping the football on any given play coupled with a scheme that might even see Robert Griffin III receive a pitch is proving to be enough to run over anyone, even when they are prepared to stop the run.

On the other side of things, last year’s top performers (Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamara, and Todd Gurley) are all seeing below average loaded box counts and still only producing at a near average rate.  Elliott has been the best of this bunch so far, even with his tough day last weekend.

If we really want to break down running back performance, we need to look for places a running back can separate himself from his team’s coaching decisions and run blocking performance.  For that, let’s take a look at Pro Football Focus’ yards after contact.

It appears that the 49ers backs are helped more by scheme than by running backs breaking tackles.  The best back by this measure is Seattle’s Chris Carson, who is gaining more yards after contact than anyone in the league, and yet is still below average by EPA.  This is a good reminder that EPA evaluations are often indicative more of team performance rather than individual performance, especially when we’re looking at rushing.

The Ravens and the 49ers are great reminders that rushing can be effective in the modern NFL, and the situations in which teams choose to run the ball tend to have a larger impact on rushing success than the specific ball carrier.

Elliott can be an effective piece for the Cowboys offense, but it’s crucial they continue to focus his efforts on the ground against lighter boxes, which he’s seeing more than the average back in 2019.  His yards after contact is only just above league average, while his quarterback happens to be one of the most efficient in the league.  Let’s hope Dallas only feeds Elliott in optimum situations going forward, because when the light boxes are there, he can eat.

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Bengals had Andy Dalton attempt to emulate Lamar Jackson with scout team

Let’s just say it didn’t work.

How bad are things for the winless Cincinnati Bengals?

Former starting quarterback Andy Dalton worked with the scout team last week in an effort to help the defense prep for Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson.

It didn’t exactly work.

“He’s been a pro. He’s been great. It’s a difficult personal situation for him,” offensive coordinator Brian Callahan said, per Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “It’s not how he saw this going. But neither did we. But it’s kind of where we’re at and he’s embraced the role and he’s done everything we’ve asked. He’s a true professional in that regard and we all appreciate that from him. I know Ryan appreciates that from him…”

The sentiment Dalton has been a huge help for rookie starter Ryan Finley is great — anyone who has tracked Dalton’s career knew he would step in and handle it with professionalism.

But the results on the field didn’t look good. The Bengals got dropped in 49-13 fashion while that defense Dalton helped prep surrendred 223 yards and three touchdowns to Jackson through the air, as well as 65 yards and a score (9.3 average) on the ground.

Dalton was known for running a good read offense in college and running when asked. But nobody is emulating Jackson.

Even despite Dalton’s best efforts as he likely suits up for his final games as a member of the team, this defense simply doesn’t seem to be moving the needle in the right direction. Some opponents like Jackson will merely highlight it more than others.

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NFL Week 11 Power Rankings: Upsets rule, and a new team at the top

In the wake of an unlikely trio of upsets, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar assesses the hierarchy of the NFL’s 32 teams.

Some weeks in the NFL, a series of things surprise you. In Week 10, three 1-7 teams posted victories, giving hope to fans of some much-maligned squads.

The Jets beat the Giants, 34-27, as safety Jamal Adams became the sixth player since 2000 to record two quarterback sacks, two forced fumbles and a touchdown in the same game. The Dolphins won their second straight game after an 0-7 start, besting the depleted Colts and proving that, at least to head coach Brian Flores and his players, any talk of tanking was pure bunk.

Then, the Falcons improbably whupped up on the Saints, sacking Drew Brees six times and holding New Orleans under 10 points in New Orleans for the first time since 1973.

None of these teams have realistic playoff hopes this season, but the ability to get your game together for even a short part of the season can provide some compelling narratives.

Here’s how all 32 teams stand in out Touchdown Wire’s Week 11 power rankings:

32-25 | 24-17 | 16-9 | 8-1

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Mark Ingram led ‘MVP’ chants for Lamar Jackson from the sidelines

In Cincinnati!

Lamar Jackson had himself quite the day in the Ravens’ 49-13 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. The second-year quarterback threw for three touchdowns and a perfect passer rating. He also broke out the signature touchdown run of his young career.

It was such an impressive performance that Jackson had his own teammate playing cheerleader from the sidelines.

The official Ravens Twitter account shared video from late in Sunday’s game as running back Mark Ingram led actual “MVP” chants from the sidelines. This game was in Cincinnati, but plenty of Ravens fans made the trip — enough to make the MVP chants audible from the field.

Ingram was so pumped that his efforts were successful. The entire video was great.

Jackson, in particular, was appreciative of his running back and hype man.

That’s one way for Ingram to get over Alabama’s loss to LSU on Saturday.

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MythBusters: Yes, Lamar Jackson is a pocket passer

Just because Lamar Jackson is fast, doesn’t mean he can’t throw from the pocket. Doug Farrar takes one analyst to task for this assumption.

It’s a common assumption when evaluating running quarterbacks that those quarterbacks are better on broken or designed plays in which they leave the pocket and go “schoolyard,” making things up as they go along. Sometimes it’s true, but other times, it’s an automatic label that doesn’t hold water.

Lamar Jackson is one of the most dynamic running quarterbacks in NFL history. He’s on pace to break Michael Vick’s single-season record of 1,039 rushing yards by a quarterback, set in 2006. And there’s no doubt that what Jackson does when he tucks and runs is explosive, spectacular and highlight-worthy. This 47-yard touchdown run on Sunday in Baltimore’s 49-13 thwacking of the Bengals is one of the better examples.

But to assume Jackson can’t throw from the pocket just because he can scald defenses with his feet is something we should be past when we look at quarterbacks of Jackson’s type. Whether it’s Vick later in his career or Randall Cunningham later in his career, or any number of quarterbacks in the modern day who are competing for the 2019 Most Valuable Player award, we are clearly in an era where quarterbacks of a certain stripe can actually do more than one thing to bring value to their teams.

But there was a reach back to the old days in the CBS broadcast of the game. Color announcer Rich Gannon, generally one of the more astute members of his profession, had this to say with 12:18 left in the first quarter, right after Jackson led his team downfield with more than one nice throw from the pocket, and finished it off with a 2-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mark Andrews:

“The Ravens do such a good job changing the launch point for Lamar Jackson. He rarely throws the ball from the pocket. They get him out on the edges, they cut the field in half, and he throws the ball so well and so accurately on the move.”

To be clear, this wasn’t Gannon slamming Jackson in any way. But when we look at the stats, we see that the “he rarely throws the ball from the pocket” statement is quite incorrect. Per Sports Info Solutions, Jackson has attempted 240 passes from the pocket this season, completing 134 for 1,611 yards, 10 touchdowns and five interceptions, and a passer rating of 95.9. This season, Jackson has more attempts from the pocket than Kirk Cousins, Mitchell Trubisky or Josh Allen.

Furthermore, Jackson isn’t one of the league’s more prolific out-of-pocket passers, probably because when he’s out of the pocket, he’s most likely running. Here’s a short list of the quarterbacks who have more passing attempt outside the pocket than Jackson’s 34: Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Gardner Minshew, Carson Wentz, Josh Allen, Derek Carr, Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford.

So maybe we shouldn’t assume what we have always assumed. The intention here is not to go after Gannon specifically — if we’re going to go after anyone for their Lamar Jackson takes over time, it would always be Bill Polian — but it is a kind request for announcers and analysts to watch what Lamar Jackson is doing, and to understand and communicate that it’s not at all like the historical stereotype.

Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar has also covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”

Ravens hitting their stride at the right time

The Ravens are hitting the point of the season where championship-caliber teams differentiate themselves, and they’re only getting better.

The Baltimore Ravens were supposed to beat the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 10. With Cincinnati winless and having a rookie quarterback getting his first NFL start, it seemed obvious that Baltimore was going to move to 7-2. But the beating the Ravens put on the Bengals proves they’re hitting their stride at the best possible time.

Before kickoff, I noted that this could be a trap game for Baltimore. While they were clearly the superior team on paper, we’ve seen the Ravens embarrass themselves previously under similar circumstances. In fact, it’s a familiar hole they’d fallen into too many times under coach John Harbaugh right as they looked to be on a roll and near the top of the league. But not this week and not this season apparently.

Baltimore’s offense got off to a quick start and never relented, finding room on the ground and through the air against the hapless Bengals. Quarterback Lamar Jackson had another brilliant game, going 15-of-17 for 223 yards, three passing touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating. He also torched Cincinnati on the ground to the tune of 65 yards and a touchdown, including his highlight-reel 47-yard run. It was a finely tuned game from the starting offense that saw them hang five total touchdowns before putting in backups in the fourth quarter.

The defense got in on the action as well, shutting down the Bengals offense. They pressured quarterback Ryan Finley, largely held running back Joe Mixon down and made two big plays, returning an interception and a fumble for touchdowns. What had been the worst unit on the team earlier this season has quickly turned around into an explosive and dangerous defense.

And that’s really the look of the entire team right now. They’ve gotten better with each and every game. They’re stronger than they were in Week 3 and far more dynamic both on offense and defense. They’ve beaten up on the top teams in the league and are now destroying the teams they should be beating. For as easy as that sounds in theory, look at how the Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles Rams, Buffalo Bills, New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs all lost in Week 10 to teams with no better than a .500 record.

This is the point where championship-caliber teams start to differentiate themselves. Injuries have piled up on all 32 teams, and there’s more than enough game film to establish weaknesses and mismatches. Yet Baltimore is the only team actually getting better right now.

With everything coming together on defense and opponents having no answer for Jackson and this unique offense, Baltimore is unquestionably one of the best teams in the league right now. And considering they’re built for cold-weather football, the Ravens are looking really scary. If they can keep this level of play up, there’s no reason to think Baltimore shouldn’t be a front-runner for the Super Bowl.

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3 big takeaways from Ravens’ 49-13 win over Bengals in Week 10

Here’s what the Ravens’ Week 10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals taught us about Baltimore entering the second half of the 2019 season.

The Baltimore Ravens avoided falling into a trap after their upset win over the New England Patriots, easily taking care of business against the Cincinnati Bengals with a 49-13 win. The team has risen to 7-2 atop the AFC North. With their Week 10 win over the Bengals, we know quite a lot more about where Baltimore sits entering the second half of their season.

Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Ravens’ Week 10 victory:

1. Baltimore is hitting its stride

AP Photo/Frank Victores

The Ravens got off to a hot start, going 2-0 with Lamar Jackson looking unstoppable. But then they lost the next two games with a defense that was frequently picked on and an offense that was struggling at times. Baltimore looked like it had patched up some of its weak spots in weeks 5 and 6 but still didn’t look like a real Super Bowl threat.

Then the Ravens went into Seattle and dominated the Seahawks in Week 7. It continued in Week 9 with an even more dominant over the previously undefeated Patriots. Both the offense and defense have been playing at a high level in recent weeks, and it has the Ravens well on their way to their second straight AFC North title.

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Cassius Winston found peace on the court after brother’s tragic death

On a difficult night, and finding a way forward.

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Cassius Winston played basketball Sunday night, scoring 17 points and dishing out 11 assists, a day after finding out that his younger brother Zachary had stepped in front of an Amtrak train and died.

It was a typical early season basketball game — Michigan State easily beat an outmatched Binghamton — suddenly imbued with emotion. Winston and his head coach, Tom Izzo, fought back tears during a moment of silence. Big Ten Network’s cameras captured Cassius and his youngest brother, Khy (a teammate of Zachary’s at Division III Albion), embracing courtside before the game.

I’m not here to tell you that basketball helped heal a hurting soul last night. Or even that Cassius Winston and his family were buoyed by the love and support of the Michigan State team and fans. I can’t fathom what they’re going through or how they’re feeling. A 19-year old apparently choosing to end his own life leaves behind questions that will forever be unanswered. It stirs pain that none of us could come close to comprehending. Thinking about that level of grief absolutely crushes me.

Yet I certainly saw the way that the game helped Cassius, probably the best point guard in college basketball, find his way. If only for a few moments. Going through the routines, hearing the thud of basketballs and the screech of fresh Nikes cutting on hardwood … I’m guessing that brought him about as close to his brother as he could get.

Steve Kerr played basketball after his father, Malcolm, was assassinated by a terrorist in Lebanon. I spoke to some of his teammates about the night they were awakened by the news, and they all recalled how chaotic it felt. Kerr was a freshman at Arizona then, sitting in his dorm room, with players and coaches coming and going. It was, in fact, eerily calm in so many ways — except that nobody felt normal about anything. Until they got on the court again.

When I got word earlier this year that my father had died, after a life wracked by alcoholism and mental illness, I was throwing ground balls to a line of rambunctious 5- and 6-year olds on a small field tucked behind an elementary school. They mostly played in the dirt, or chased each other, as I exhorted them to get their gloves down. To step and throw. To get to the back of the line and cheer on your teammate.

A call came to my phone and I stepped away to hear the news. I couldn’t think of what to do next, so I returned to what I’d been doing. My father and I weren’t particularly close but he would, when I inevitably begged on most afternoons, have a catch. He would tell me to get my glove all the way down, to point my toe where I wanted the ball to go, to calm down and not rush. Those words filled my head, and I did my best to share them.

That was peace. Fleeting, but meaningful. I hope Winston can find it, too, in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Sunday’s big winner: Lamar Jackson

David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

Y’all saw that run, right? And his final stat line: 15-of-17 for 223 yards, three touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 rating. Turns out the the guy who should’ve switched to wide receiver can really throw. Turns out a QB can be athletic and fun and also good at passing — if a coaching staff will just let him be. Turns out the people who were so quick to doubt Jackson were doing so because they were in fact the people upholding the old stereotypes of what makes a good QB in the first place.

The Ravens have the Texans and Rams to get through before hosting San Francisco on Dec. 1, but it’s hard not to look ahead to that game. The Niners defense, according to Football Outsiders’ DVOA, is in a stratosphere along with the Patriots far above the rest of the league (New England is at -33.9, San Fran is at -31.4 and the Broncos, Rams and Steelers are next at …. -8.8.) Should be fun.

Quick hits: Do the Dak! … Enough Don Cherry … Denny Hamlin gets another shot … A Michael Jordan gambling and drinking story

— Mark Ingram thinks President Donald Trump is to blame for Alabama losing to LSU. Sure, why not.

—Andrew Joseph took a look at a field goal block that irked Chiefs fans. Man, it must be so hard to be an official and make these calls in real time.

—Dak Prescott can dance. To anything. Seriously. Play any song and he will be in rhythm to it. Go ahead. Try.

—LSU recruits are savage … and I love them for it.

—Don Cherry’s racist blabbering has gone on long enough. The hockey commentators’ bigoted comments toward immigrants were abhorrent.

—On Friday, Michelle Martinelli brought you an insightful look at Denny Hamlin’s quest to shed the title of Best Current NASCAR Driver Without A Series Championship. On Sunday he won a race to become one of four drivers with a shot at winning it all next weekend.

—Penny Hardaway doesn’t need college basketball … which is why he might be the biggest threat to college basketball. Memphis’ decision to defy the NCAA and go to court could change everything.

—Yes, Antonio Brown is still around. Yes, he’s still saying things. No, it’s not going well for him.

—Michael Jordan. Gambling story. As told by Jeremy Roenick. Click.

(The incomparable Andy Nesbitt will be back tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter at @chriskorman.)