forever in debt to mo lewis Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 im sure most of you have heard of him by now...im sure there was probably a topic or two about his book when it was mentioned in dr z's column...interesting stuff.... bringing a more detailed approach to statistical analysis, footballs version of "moneyball" looks like hell be a regular at espn.com..although it will probably mostly be on on insider...not sure if hell be providing the same stuff on his own site or not but heres his first piece... The performance of the Eagles' passing game this season will depend just as much on how the team fills Todd Pinkston's role as it will on how it responds to Terrell Owens' antics. Before you say I'm crazy, let me explain why. One of the statistics I track for receivers is the depth of the passes thrown their way as measured on an NFL passing tree. There are short passes (primarily quick routes under 10 yards), medium passes (usually deep in or deep out routes ranging from 15-18 yards) and deep passes (most of which are go, post and corner patterns and are 20-plus yards or more). Let me show you how this relates to Pinkston and the Eagles by giving you an excerpt from my book, "Scientific Football 2005," written before Pinkston's season-ending injury: Todd Pinkston was the Eagles' third leading receiver in '04. Take a look at Pinkston's totals column for a moment and see if you see the two stats that just don't seem to go together. OK, I'll tell you. Pinkston's 52.4 percent completion rate [which is average] and his 10.2 yards per attempt [third best in the league]. When a player has that high a variance in those two columns, it's usually an indicator of one of two things. The first is that the receiver caught a high percentage of his deep passes. That isn't the case with Pinkston, as he ranked 67th in the league in deep-completion percentage. The other thing is that he caught a very high percentage in one of the other depth columns, and that fits him to a tee. Pinkston caught two-thirds of his medium passes (tied for 11th best) and more than three-quarters of his short passes (ranked 10th). Those are terrific numbers, but what is surprising about them is how relatively few short and medium passes Pinkston was thrown. Pinkston ranked 57th in medium pass percentage [the percentage of the total attempts he had that were in the medium range] and 72nd in short pass percentage, even though those routes were obviously the ones he was most effective on. He also ranked sixth in deep pass percentage, despite being very unproductive on those routes. Remember in the intro [of the book] when I said the Eagles could really use one of their backups to develop so they could open up other options in their passing game? Pinkston's performance last year is a perfect illustration of how this would help. If one of the other receivers could become a viable vertical target, the Eagles could concentrate on using Pinkston on the short and medium routes in which he excels. He is good enough to rank in the top 10 in the NFC in receiving if the Eagles are able to use him properly. Coming into this season, Greg Lewis was targeted to fill that vertical role. Last season, Lewis showed signs that he is on the cusp of being a very good deep threat, but he was hard pressed to do anything else. Nearly half (48 percent) of the 50 passes thrown to Lewis in 2004 were in the short range, but only seven of the 24 short passes thrown to him were routes on the move (i.e. slant, cross, WR screen, etc.). That could be because Lewis doesn't catch those types of passes well -- he caught only two of the seven for eight yards. Only five of the 50 passes thrown to Lewis were medium routes, and he caught only two of those, tied for 76th in the league in that category. He is very good on deep routes, as he caught nearly 40 percent of the deep passes thrown to him last year, ranking 29th in that category. The problem for Lewis and the Eagles is that he is currently being slotted as the starter opposite Owens. He already is showing signs that this is too much for him. In the preseason opener against the Steelers, Lewis was thrown five passes. One of those was the miscommunication on the first offensive play and led to an interception return for a Steelers touchdown. Of the other four routes, two were short, one was medium and one was deep. One of the short passes was a quick hitch against a defender who was 9 yards off the line. On the deep pass, he was very well covered. And though he did gain 21 yards on the medium pass, it has to be discounted a bit because he was being covered by a linebacker. Lewis has the physical skills to get open deep, but as his performance metrics clearly indicate, he lacks the ability to effectively run routes on the entire passing tree. His best role is still as a vertical No. 3 receiver in the mold of Brandon Stokley or Javon Walker. You might say that Owens will be able to fill Pinkston's role if he gets his head in the game, but the metrics also clearly indicate that the medium role isn't a good fit for Owens, either. Owens had only 17 medium passes thrown to him last year, comprising just 11.7 percent of his total passes -- the 82nd-lowest percentage among wide receiver qualifiers. Owens caught only 35.3 percent of those 17 medium passes, which also ranked him 82nd. His role in this offense has been as both the short receiver (60.7 percent of his passes in 2004, 17th highest in the league) and deep receiver (24.1 percent, tied for 35th), and that likely won't change. The most effective passing offenses are usually the ones that can beat you at all depth levels with consistency. And it's not as though the Eagles' medium-route shortcomings can be blamed on QB Donovan McNabb. While he threw medium passes only 11.9 percent of the time in 2004, a percentage that ranked him 31st in the league, he completed 56.9 percent of those passes, which ranked him in a tie for 11th. The Eagles had the most medium-route success in 2004 when they threw to Freddie Mitchell and Pinkston. Between Owens, Lewis, Reggie Brown and Billy McMullen, the Eagles don't have anyone who can replace the departed Mitchell or the injured Pinkston. If they don't develop or acquire a medium option, that will be a big Achilles' heel for them this year. And that is why the real story coming out of the Eagles' camp should be why Pinkston's injury will do more damage than almost anything Owens can do. ..also, heres another link to provide some background info...not sure if this was already posted http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?id=2141179 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grits and Shins Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 You have chosen to ignore forever in debt to mo lewis. View this post · Squeeze me a little harder forever in debt to mo lewis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muck Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 ...interesting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spain Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 Lots of number crunching that basically says nothing of note, but can be intepreted to mean whatever the author wants. Speculative garbage... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSab Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 BullShiat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CowboysDiehard Posted August 25, 2005 Share Posted August 25, 2005 Just on a general level, that's pretty cool stuff. How many receivers are there out there? My offseason just got busier, so much for golf! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billay Posted August 25, 2005 Share Posted August 25, 2005 Heard from a hotel regular (and Philly guy) the the eagles are talking to Levens again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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