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Important questions for the Giants, Cowboys, Skins and Eagles
By Sean McCormick
Football Outsiders
Football Outsiders continues its Plugging the Holes series, in which it targets the offseason issues facing each team in the NFL by division.
Previous editions: AFC West | NFC West | AFC North | NFC North | AFC East
Dallas Cowboys: Can the team keep up its run of injury luck?
In a very real sense, Dallas' season ended at 7:23 in the second quarter of its divisional-round game against the Minnesota Vikings when left tackle Flozell Adams came off the field with a strained calf muscle. The Cowboys had been struggling to block the Vikings' talented front four from the opening gun, but that task went from difficult to impossible once Adams left the field. On the very next play, Minnesota's all-world defensive end Jared Allen ran over a speed bump by the name of Doug Free and dropped Felix Jones in the backfield. On second down, Dallas lined up Jason Witten on the left side of the line to give Free some help, but Allen simply blew past Witten on his way to a strip-sack of Tony Romo. The turnover resulted in a Ryan Longwell field goal that pushed Minnesota's lead to 17-3 and effectively ended the competitive portion of the game.
It's ironic that Dallas' season was derailed by a crippling injury, because throughout the course of the 2009 season, very few teams stayed healthier. The Cowboys were 30th in the league in adjusted games lost, Football Outsiders' metric for determining how much a team's performance was impacted by injured starters. (It measures both players who miss games and those who play injured.) The average team's AGL in 2009 was 53.9, which is roughly equivalent to losing three starters for the entire season. Dallas, however, lost only 22.5 games' worth of starter production. Normally that would be a bad sign, as teams with an unusually low or high AGL number tend to regress to the mean the next season, but the Cowboys have turned staying healthy into something of an art form.
Aside from 2008, when the team suffered through a league-average rate of injury, the Cowboys have been among the healthiest teams in football for the past five years. With a roster that is largely weighted toward star players at the expense of depth, the pressure is on lead trainer Jim Maurer to keep Dallas' starters on the field for another potential Super Bowl run in 2010.
New York Giants: Can Perry Fewell fix this defense?
The conventional view of the Giants' season is that the defense feasted on cupcake opponents such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs in the first few weeks of the season. Then the eventual Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints finally exposed the Giants' defense as a unit that could not cover -- particularly between the hashmarks -- and was surprisingly indifferent to its run responsibilities.
In this case, the conventional wisdom is correct: According to Football Outsiders' advanced defense-adjusted value over average stats, the Giants' defense was 26.5 percent better than an average defense in Weeks 1-5, then 14.5 percent worse than average for the rest of the season. Against quality passing attacks such as Philadelphia, New Orleans and Minnesota (not to mention the Matt Moore-led Panthers), the Giants were helpless. First-year defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan tried to continue the aggressive playcalling of his predecessor, Steve Spagnuolo, dialing up big blitzes with six or more rushers on 14 percent of pass plays, but there wasn't much creativity in the blitz design.
After firing Sheridan at season's end, the team moved quickly to find a replacement, targeting deposed Buffalo Bills interim coach Perry Fewell. Fewell chose to accept the Giants' job over a job with the Chicago Bears, despite his close personal relationship with Lovie Smith; at first glance, it seems like a strange decision. Fewell is a Cover 2 disciple, and for his defense to work properly, he requires undersized linebackers who can flow to the ball and drop into coverage. Aside from Michael Boley, who is coming off a very disappointing season, no one on the roster remotely fits this job description. The Giants do have some young players such as Clint Sintim, Jonathan Goff, Bryan Kehl and Chase Blackburn, but they were drafted with a more traditional 4-3 in mind and may not fit what Fewell wants to do.
On the other hand, there are signs that Fewell might do well. He relies heavily on a four-man rush, and the Giants have the personnel to provide it -- even in a down season, their 6.7 percent adjusted sack rate was no worse than middle of the pack. Fewell is also considered one of the premier secondary coaches in the league. Buffalo was fourth-best in the league at covering No. 1 receivers, and the Bills were able to keep their performance up even as their secondary was ravaged by injuries.
That's good news for a team that was torched by DeSean Jackson, Steve Smith, Sidney Rice and just about every other No. 1 receiver who showed up on the schedule. Fewell has a talented pair of starting cornerbacks to work with in Corey Webster and Aaron Ross, but he needs Ross to start playing up to his potential. He'll also need to do more than tweak the scheme to improve the safety play -- the Giants need some new players, particularly if Kenny Phillips takes a long time to work his way back from microfracture surgery.
Philadelphia Eagles: Which direction should the team go at QB?
It wouldn't be February in Philadelphia without people agonizing over the state of the Eagles' quarterback position, but what makes this year different is that for the first time there is some real uncertainty about who will be under center for the team next season.
Donovan McNabb is entering the final year of his contract, and while Kevin Kolb technically would remain a restricted free agent in 2011 under the current collective bargaining agreement rules, it seems unlikely that the team would extend McNabb's contract now and then turn around and do the same for Kolb the following season. It is possible that the Eagles will put off the decision by letting McNabb play out the final year of his deal, but it is more likely that the team strikes while the iron is hot and trades either McNabb or Kolb. The question is, which one will stay?
Conventional wisdom would suggest the answer depends on how Eagles coach Andy Reid and GM Howie Roseman view the roster. If they think the team is on the brink of a Super Bowl, they will hold on to McNabb and let him take his shots until the window officially closes. Otherwise, they'll throw in the towel and rebuild around the younger Kolb. This past season, Kolb's 15.9 percent DVOA rating was higher than those of promising young signal-callers Chad Henne and Joe Flacco, and even a little higher than McNabb's 9.2 percent DVOA. Although all the usual caveats about small sample size apply, there's no question that Kolb flashed ability, and his accuracy on short-to-intermediate throws might return some of the consistency to an offense that at times was overly dependent on the big play to move the football.
Philadelphia has stayed competitive because it has been willing to let go of longtime veteran players such as Brian Dawkins, Jeremiah Trotter and Hugh Douglas a year too soon rather than a year too late, and with McNabb likely to fetch something between a late first- and early second-round pick, a McNabb trade seems the likeliest decision. At the same time, if the Eagles opt to stay with what they know and extend McNabb, Kolb could be an attractive chip to a younger team like the Cleveland Browns. New Browns GM Tom Heckert drafted Kolb when he was in Philadelphia, and he might be willing to package picks and perhaps a desirable veteran like Shaun Rogers to bring Kolb to Cleveland.
Washington Commanders: What type of situation did Mike Shanahan walk into here?
Just when it seemed as if the Commanders had turned into Oakland East -- a storied franchise that no one wanted to work for thanks to an overweening owner -- the team landed the big fish by signing Mike Shanahan to become the new coach. Signing a two-time Super Bowl-winning head coach with a 146-98 record would immediately set off celebration in Detroit or Buffalo, but the enthusiasm was a bit more guarded in Washington.
You can forgive Commanders fans for thinking that they've seen this act before, as big-name signings and bad football have gone hand in hand for much of the Daniel Snyder era. Snyder began his tenure by throwing money at washed-up former greats such as Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith. He burned through famous coaches such as Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier and Joe Gibbs. It's been just 12 months since he signed Albert Haynesworth to a $100 million contract and was rewarded with a 4-12 season for his troubles. What reason is there to think that Shanahan will be different?
Start with the fact that while the Commanders might be picking fourth in the 2010 draft, they weren't close to actually ranking as one of the four worst teams in football according to Football Outsiders' play-by-play analysis. Washington finished with a -5.3 percent DVOA in 2009, good enough for 21st in our rankings. It ranked ahead of teams that were still in the playoff race until December, such as the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars, and was far ahead of eight teams with DVOA ratings below -20 percent.
In a draft with two elite quarterback prospects in Jimmy Clausen and Sam Bradford, as well as blue-chip left tackles such as Oklahoma State's Russell Okung and Maryland's Bruce Campbell, the Commanders are likely to have their choice of offensive players. Should the team opt for a quarterback -- and it sounds as if Shanahan does not regard Jason Campbell as a long-term solution -- it can rest easy in the knowledge that its coach has had a great deal of success culling offensive linemen and running backs from the middle and late rounds of the draft.
Washington's defense was one of the best in the league at generating pressure last season, posting a 7.5 percent adjusted sack rate, fifth in the NFL. But despite that pass rush, the defense was terrible at taking advantage of offensive mistakes. The Commanders ranked 30th in turnovers per drive, one of only three defenses (the Browns and Raiders were the other two) that didn't even manage one takeaway per 10 drives. Part of this can be attributed to players such as LaRon Landry and Carlos Rogers having poor instincts when the ball is in the air, but part of it is likely bad luck. If new defensive coordinator Jim Haslett can keep the pass rush going, the odds are that more hurried throws will end up in the hands of Commanders' defensive backs in 2010.
Sean McCormick is an author for Football Outsiders.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/news/story?id=4917846
By Sean McCormick
Football Outsiders
Football Outsiders continues its Plugging the Holes series, in which it targets the offseason issues facing each team in the NFL by division.
Previous editions: AFC West | NFC West | AFC North | NFC North | AFC East
Dallas Cowboys: Can the team keep up its run of injury luck?
In a very real sense, Dallas' season ended at 7:23 in the second quarter of its divisional-round game against the Minnesota Vikings when left tackle Flozell Adams came off the field with a strained calf muscle. The Cowboys had been struggling to block the Vikings' talented front four from the opening gun, but that task went from difficult to impossible once Adams left the field. On the very next play, Minnesota's all-world defensive end Jared Allen ran over a speed bump by the name of Doug Free and dropped Felix Jones in the backfield. On second down, Dallas lined up Jason Witten on the left side of the line to give Free some help, but Allen simply blew past Witten on his way to a strip-sack of Tony Romo. The turnover resulted in a Ryan Longwell field goal that pushed Minnesota's lead to 17-3 and effectively ended the competitive portion of the game.
It's ironic that Dallas' season was derailed by a crippling injury, because throughout the course of the 2009 season, very few teams stayed healthier. The Cowboys were 30th in the league in adjusted games lost, Football Outsiders' metric for determining how much a team's performance was impacted by injured starters. (It measures both players who miss games and those who play injured.) The average team's AGL in 2009 was 53.9, which is roughly equivalent to losing three starters for the entire season. Dallas, however, lost only 22.5 games' worth of starter production. Normally that would be a bad sign, as teams with an unusually low or high AGL number tend to regress to the mean the next season, but the Cowboys have turned staying healthy into something of an art form.
Aside from 2008, when the team suffered through a league-average rate of injury, the Cowboys have been among the healthiest teams in football for the past five years. With a roster that is largely weighted toward star players at the expense of depth, the pressure is on lead trainer Jim Maurer to keep Dallas' starters on the field for another potential Super Bowl run in 2010.
New York Giants: Can Perry Fewell fix this defense?
The conventional view of the Giants' season is that the defense feasted on cupcake opponents such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs in the first few weeks of the season. Then the eventual Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints finally exposed the Giants' defense as a unit that could not cover -- particularly between the hashmarks -- and was surprisingly indifferent to its run responsibilities.
In this case, the conventional wisdom is correct: According to Football Outsiders' advanced defense-adjusted value over average stats, the Giants' defense was 26.5 percent better than an average defense in Weeks 1-5, then 14.5 percent worse than average for the rest of the season. Against quality passing attacks such as Philadelphia, New Orleans and Minnesota (not to mention the Matt Moore-led Panthers), the Giants were helpless. First-year defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan tried to continue the aggressive playcalling of his predecessor, Steve Spagnuolo, dialing up big blitzes with six or more rushers on 14 percent of pass plays, but there wasn't much creativity in the blitz design.
After firing Sheridan at season's end, the team moved quickly to find a replacement, targeting deposed Buffalo Bills interim coach Perry Fewell. Fewell chose to accept the Giants' job over a job with the Chicago Bears, despite his close personal relationship with Lovie Smith; at first glance, it seems like a strange decision. Fewell is a Cover 2 disciple, and for his defense to work properly, he requires undersized linebackers who can flow to the ball and drop into coverage. Aside from Michael Boley, who is coming off a very disappointing season, no one on the roster remotely fits this job description. The Giants do have some young players such as Clint Sintim, Jonathan Goff, Bryan Kehl and Chase Blackburn, but they were drafted with a more traditional 4-3 in mind and may not fit what Fewell wants to do.
On the other hand, there are signs that Fewell might do well. He relies heavily on a four-man rush, and the Giants have the personnel to provide it -- even in a down season, their 6.7 percent adjusted sack rate was no worse than middle of the pack. Fewell is also considered one of the premier secondary coaches in the league. Buffalo was fourth-best in the league at covering No. 1 receivers, and the Bills were able to keep their performance up even as their secondary was ravaged by injuries.
That's good news for a team that was torched by DeSean Jackson, Steve Smith, Sidney Rice and just about every other No. 1 receiver who showed up on the schedule. Fewell has a talented pair of starting cornerbacks to work with in Corey Webster and Aaron Ross, but he needs Ross to start playing up to his potential. He'll also need to do more than tweak the scheme to improve the safety play -- the Giants need some new players, particularly if Kenny Phillips takes a long time to work his way back from microfracture surgery.
Philadelphia Eagles: Which direction should the team go at QB?
It wouldn't be February in Philadelphia without people agonizing over the state of the Eagles' quarterback position, but what makes this year different is that for the first time there is some real uncertainty about who will be under center for the team next season.
Donovan McNabb is entering the final year of his contract, and while Kevin Kolb technically would remain a restricted free agent in 2011 under the current collective bargaining agreement rules, it seems unlikely that the team would extend McNabb's contract now and then turn around and do the same for Kolb the following season. It is possible that the Eagles will put off the decision by letting McNabb play out the final year of his deal, but it is more likely that the team strikes while the iron is hot and trades either McNabb or Kolb. The question is, which one will stay?
Conventional wisdom would suggest the answer depends on how Eagles coach Andy Reid and GM Howie Roseman view the roster. If they think the team is on the brink of a Super Bowl, they will hold on to McNabb and let him take his shots until the window officially closes. Otherwise, they'll throw in the towel and rebuild around the younger Kolb. This past season, Kolb's 15.9 percent DVOA rating was higher than those of promising young signal-callers Chad Henne and Joe Flacco, and even a little higher than McNabb's 9.2 percent DVOA. Although all the usual caveats about small sample size apply, there's no question that Kolb flashed ability, and his accuracy on short-to-intermediate throws might return some of the consistency to an offense that at times was overly dependent on the big play to move the football.
Philadelphia has stayed competitive because it has been willing to let go of longtime veteran players such as Brian Dawkins, Jeremiah Trotter and Hugh Douglas a year too soon rather than a year too late, and with McNabb likely to fetch something between a late first- and early second-round pick, a McNabb trade seems the likeliest decision. At the same time, if the Eagles opt to stay with what they know and extend McNabb, Kolb could be an attractive chip to a younger team like the Cleveland Browns. New Browns GM Tom Heckert drafted Kolb when he was in Philadelphia, and he might be willing to package picks and perhaps a desirable veteran like Shaun Rogers to bring Kolb to Cleveland.
Washington Commanders: What type of situation did Mike Shanahan walk into here?
Just when it seemed as if the Commanders had turned into Oakland East -- a storied franchise that no one wanted to work for thanks to an overweening owner -- the team landed the big fish by signing Mike Shanahan to become the new coach. Signing a two-time Super Bowl-winning head coach with a 146-98 record would immediately set off celebration in Detroit or Buffalo, but the enthusiasm was a bit more guarded in Washington.
You can forgive Commanders fans for thinking that they've seen this act before, as big-name signings and bad football have gone hand in hand for much of the Daniel Snyder era. Snyder began his tenure by throwing money at washed-up former greats such as Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith. He burned through famous coaches such as Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier and Joe Gibbs. It's been just 12 months since he signed Albert Haynesworth to a $100 million contract and was rewarded with a 4-12 season for his troubles. What reason is there to think that Shanahan will be different?
Start with the fact that while the Commanders might be picking fourth in the 2010 draft, they weren't close to actually ranking as one of the four worst teams in football according to Football Outsiders' play-by-play analysis. Washington finished with a -5.3 percent DVOA in 2009, good enough for 21st in our rankings. It ranked ahead of teams that were still in the playoff race until December, such as the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars, and was far ahead of eight teams with DVOA ratings below -20 percent.
In a draft with two elite quarterback prospects in Jimmy Clausen and Sam Bradford, as well as blue-chip left tackles such as Oklahoma State's Russell Okung and Maryland's Bruce Campbell, the Commanders are likely to have their choice of offensive players. Should the team opt for a quarterback -- and it sounds as if Shanahan does not regard Jason Campbell as a long-term solution -- it can rest easy in the knowledge that its coach has had a great deal of success culling offensive linemen and running backs from the middle and late rounds of the draft.
Washington's defense was one of the best in the league at generating pressure last season, posting a 7.5 percent adjusted sack rate, fifth in the NFL. But despite that pass rush, the defense was terrible at taking advantage of offensive mistakes. The Commanders ranked 30th in turnovers per drive, one of only three defenses (the Browns and Raiders were the other two) that didn't even manage one takeaway per 10 drives. Part of this can be attributed to players such as LaRon Landry and Carlos Rogers having poor instincts when the ball is in the air, but part of it is likely bad luck. If new defensive coordinator Jim Haslett can keep the pass rush going, the odds are that more hurried throws will end up in the hands of Commanders' defensive backs in 2010.
Sean McCormick is an author for Football Outsiders.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/news/story?id=4917846
