Week Twelve: Detroit Lions (9-1) @ Indianapolis Colts (5-6)

[Motown Bombers]

Remember, Goff was driven out of LA in large part because McVay didn't think Goff could push the ball downfield. 

[RedRamage]

43 minutes ago, Jason_R said:

Scrambling is like the mystery box of QB evaluation. Do you want the boat or the mystery box? I’ll take the mystery box because it might be a boat.  

Goff leads the NFL at 9.2 yards per attempt. Josh Allen is 14th at 7.2. Mahomes is 23rd at 7.0. Would either of them operate the Lions offense better than Goff? We will never know but he is running it as close to perfectly as we’ve ever seen. 

Football is one area where I think stats can very easily paint the wrong picture. Between the short season and the heavy dependence of each facet of the game on the others, it's never as simple as Player A = bigger number than Player B, therefore Player A better.

I don't think there's a football fan out there who would argue that Goff is a better runner/scrambler than Mahomes. Why is Mahomes lower then in yards per attempt? Lions OL is better... opposing defenses plan more for Mahomes to run... Mahomes gets sacked more (22 vs. 18)... There are all obvious factors and combined with a sprinkle of random chance of a short season and it's not shocking that Goff might have better ypa running.

Now, just to be 100% abundantly clear: I am NOT saying that Mahomes is a better QB than Goff or that I'd prefer Mahomes or that I'm questioning Goff or any other nonsense. 

[oblong]

I know this is nothing new to all of you but I wanted to see it for myself... going back to just over 2 years ago in 2022.... 29-6.

 

[RedRamage]

37 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Remember, Goff was driven out of LA in large part because McVay didn't think Goff could push the ball downfield. 

I read somewhere that Goff's passer ratings are somewhat negatively effected because much of his passing yards are YAC. To quote myself from just above: If true this is an incomplete picture because football is so inter-dependent. If you have great receivers who can tack on massive YAC each game, you don't need to throw as many passes overall. If you have a great offensive scheme that gets you large early leads so you're more conservative with plays later in the game, you don't necessary get as many deep ball chances.

Anyone know if there's a place that keeps stats of JUST the yards through the air?

[RandyMarsh]

The problem with QB evaluation particularly coming out of college is it is hard to gauge the mental aspect that players bring to the table and their ability to properly read defenses when to audible who to throw to etc. and these are all things Goff excels at. Its much like in baseball where teams fall in love with the pitcher with the raw stuff but doesn't possess the command or "art of pitching", teams will take their chances and assume that either A. that stuff will be enough or B. they can teach those things and more often than not that doesn't end up being the case. 

Just one example of this with Goff that comes to mind is that long St. Brown TD against Minny, Goff audibled into that cause he read the defense properly which in turn led to an easy St. Brown TD. The pundits just look at the physical aspect and dont give a lot of credit to Goff since it was an "easy" throw but in reality it wouldn't have been an easy throw if the QB didn't properly diagnosis the play and check into it accordingly. 

Edited November 19, 2024 by RandyMarsh

[RedRamage]

4 minutes ago, oblong said:

I know this is nothing new to all of you but I wanted to see it for myself... going back to just over 2 years ago in 2022.... 29-6.

 

Yep... Campbell is now has the 8th most wins of any Lions head coach with the 6th highest winning percentage (minimum of 10 coaches games)

[RedRamage]

2 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

Its much like in baseball where teams fall in love with the pitcher with the raw stuff but doesn't possess the command or "art of pitching", teams will take their chances and assume that either A. that stuff will be enough or B. they can teach those things and more often than not that doesn't end up being the case. 

The obvious difference being that in baseball you draft ~15 pitchers per year and they spend 3-5 years working their way through the minors and the average fan only really hears or cares about <5 of them who show some promise and they forget about the other 10+ who flamed out.

In football you don't load up on 3-5 QBs per year and spend the new few season developing them.

[Motown Bombers]

Are we ever going to see a QB like Goff drafted #1 or very high again? An old school, strictly pocket passer with limited mobility and ability to create? Are colleges even producing those kinds of QBs anymore? 

[RandyMarsh]

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

Are we ever going to see a QB like Goff drafted #1 or very high again? An old school, strictly pocket passer with limited mobility and ability to create? Are colleges even producing those kinds of QBs anymore? 

I don't see it mainly for the 2nd reason you mentioned. In college you can get away with raw athletic ability and being a 1 read passer(see Justin Fields) so that is what teams will continue to recruit and start.

[RandyMarsh]

JT Barrett is probably the closest thing to a pocket passer to get drafted early in recent memory and even he has more athletic ability and mobility than he was given credit for. He played with great WRs and had plus mental capabilities so he was one of the few great college QBs that didn't have to depend on just scrambling everywhere to produce big numbers. 

[RedRamage]

4 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Are we ever going to see a QB like Goff drafted #1 or very high again? An old school, strictly pocket passer with limited mobility and ability to create? Are colleges even producing those kinds of QBs anymore? 

Assuming football is around for the next 20-30 years, I'd say yes we will. I think there's always a lot of shifting in philosophies and strategies and honestly any sport has a lot of copy cats. If you see a team being super successful doing X, lots of teams will copy that.

Eventually Pocket Passers will come back in vogue.

[Motown Bombers]

I just don't see another Peyton Manning, Rivers, Goff etc. coming out of college and being a top pick any time soon. Those QBs are going the way of the 7 foot back to the basket big men in the NBA. 

[Jason_R]

I think we will see more guys like this, but those guys don’t grow on trees. 

I’m more interested in seeing whether teams continue to fall all over themselves to pick projectable players like Trey Lance and Anthony Richardson. 

[Motown Bombers]

The 49ers are starting to feel the effects of the Lance trade now. They basically wasted three 1st round picks and now have and aging roster and haven't been able to add good cheap players because they had no 1st round picks. They got lucky that Purdy turned out to be decent. 

[Motown Bombers]

There’s still 7 more games. 

[RandyMarsh]

Speaking of completion percentages I was just looking at St. Brown's game log and during this 8 game win streak Goff is 51/54 when throwing to him for a preposterous 94.4 completion percentage. If memory serves me right atleast 1 of those misses was just an intentional throwaway at his feet in the Houston game as well. 

Edited November 19, 2024 by RandyMarsh

[Hongbit]

57 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I just don't see another Peyton Manning, Rivers, Goff etc. coming out of college and being a top pick any time soon. Those QBs are going the way of the 7 foot back to the basket big men in the NBA. 

The NFL scouting machine has it all wrong and it’s why they miss so often on QB.  

They get obsessed with the ability to make all the throws.   They should be focused on the ability to make all the right throws.   

[NYLion]

On 11/18/2024 at 3:17 PM, Motown Bombers said:

Actually he did have a role with Anzalone out. They could have went with a 3 safties and used Melifonwu as basically a linebacker since he's a good blitzer and good against the run. 

Yeah, Iffy played in the box a lot last season and was the blitzing safety so there was the possibility of him maybe playing an OLB role, he was great on the blitz last season, so it's a bit of a loss. Hopefully Long can somewhat fill this role, he's been a good player in this league albeit more of a run defender than pass rusher.

[NYLion]

3 hours ago, Shinzaki said:

Signing Long could be one of those sneaky under the radar move that pays nig dividends 

Agreed, could be like the Patrick signing, a guy that fell out of favor with his previous team but has a history of being a good player in the league. Put him in this system and he could thrive, still fairly young too.

[chasfh]

On 11/18/2024 at 2:56 PM, lordstanley said:

For sure. And the network pundits on Monday morning. 

"They're the class in the National Football League, that's what they are. They are the best team in the NFL, the Detroit Lions. They have made 100% a reality what the coach said when he first introduced himself ...smart, stout, relentless, heartless. How many times have the Lions been curb-stomped in their time? They are absolutely taking decades of curb-stomping and throwing it back at the NFL".

 

So who's the lady at the end of the two bottom videos? Is her breaking into NFL videos a known thing I'm just now learning about?

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Motown Bombers said:

There’s still 7 more games. 

I have a Football 101 question here: just how legitimate is the idea of Goff, or any other quarterback, having a "perfect game" based on QB rating?

I get that Goff had a rating of 158.3 this past Sunday, and that's "perfect", but is it really perfect? Sure, he threw for a lot of yards and a bunch of touchdowns, but what makes it "perfect", other than an arithmetic calculation? After all, he didn't complete all his passes. In fact, when you review the list of all the QBs who have had "perfect games", which has now happened 86 times, literally every one of them had at least one incomplete pass, and a couple of them whiffed on seven of their passes. And Rich Gannon was said to have had a "perfect game" in 1992 against the Lions, when he went 8-for-10 for 146 yards and 2 TDs. Doesn't seem like quite a standing ovation-type of performance.

This isn't so much me asking for help understanding how the calculation works, or why the calculation came to be what it is. My real question is, do you buy the idea of "perfect" in this case?

[CMRivdogs]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I have a Football 101 question here: just how legitimate is the idea of Goff, or any other quarterback, having a "perfect game" based on QB rating?

I get that Goff had a rating of 158.3 this past Sunday, and that's "perfect", but is it really perfect? Sure, he threw for a lot of yards and a bunch of touchdowns, but what makes it "perfect", other than an arithmetic calculation? After all, he didn't complete all his passes. In fact, when you review the list of all the QBs who have had "perfect games", which has now happened 86 times, literally every one of them had at least one incomplete pass, and a couple of them whiffed on seven of their passes. And Rich Gannon was said to have had a "perfect game" in 1992 against the Lions, when he went 8-for-10 for 146 yards and 2 TDs. Doesn't seem like quite a standing ovation-type of performance.

This isn't so much me asking for help understanding how the calculation works, or why the calculation came to be what it is. My real question is, do you buy the idea of "perfect" in this case?

And yet when Geoff went 18 for 18 against the Seahawks earlier this season it wasn't a "perfect rating"

Stupid stat

[RandyMarsh]

Without looking at the all 22 film and breaking down every single play I think it's hard to say if a QB truly played a perfect game even if they don't throw an incompletion. I think to truly be perfect you would have to see if they missed any would be open receivers that were better options in favor of a lesser option. 

Like if you complete a 6 yard pass but missed a guy streaking wide open for a would be 70 yard TD. Sure you made the completion but the "perfect pass" would've been to hit the guy for the TD. Also on completions you'd have to check and make sure the ball placement was put in a spot to maximize the YAC and overall yards gained. 

Splitting hairs here but if you want to use the "perfect game" almost literally I think that's what you would need to do to quantify it. Basically look at every play and see if the play you made was the realistic best outcome on said play. I say realistic cause the best outcome would be a TD every time but every play and route isn't designed for that. 

Edited November 19, 2024 by RandyMarsh

[Longgone]

3 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

I just don't see another Peyton Manning, Rivers, Goff etc. coming out of college and being a top pick any time soon. Those QBs are going the way of the 7 foot back to the basket big men in the NBA. 

I don’t think being a great athlete is all that important  to play quarterback in today’s nfl. If you can read defenses and get the ball out quickly, accurately and on time, you can be successful. If you depend on running, you just get hurt. The problem is those traits are hard to evaluate in college.

[Jimbo]

I actually think Goff is a great athlete as well is Stafford, Manning, Brees, Brady,......etc.  None of them would of had a chance to compete in track and field although what defines an athlete is very broad.  Its OK to say that if you gave me a chance to have Mahomes (or even Allen, Burrow, or Jackson) over Goff, I would take them in a heartbeat.  Now that doesn't mean Goff isn't a great QB or that things change with each teams roster.  The brilliance of Holmes is he has done an unbelievable job of putting together a roster that accommodates Goff.  I still am not sure the Lions were sold on Goff being their franchise QB when they traded for him.  Would they of taken Goff's contract if the Rams didn't make him part of the trade?  As much as I think Holmes is playing chess when other GM's are playing checkers, I don't think he thought he would be as good as he has been.  I do think they wanted to give him the opportunity to be the QB he ended up being and to Goff's credit he ended up blowing away expectations.

 

With the way the Lions have been playing lately, its good to assume they are going to blow away the Colts although the Colts have not gotten blown out all season.  Lions are the best team right now although the most they have lost all year was by 10 to the Bills.