Is 'effective in an understated way' the new 'game manager?'

I wonder about Colston. There must be some reason that EVERYONE passed on him, beyond just the small school thing. I wonder if he's tearing it up now by running on the desire to prove everyone wrong. There's nothing wrong with that, but players who feed off that sort of thing often lose their edge when someone drops phat cash on them. I wonder if he won't flame out once someone shows him the quan.

Everybody passed on Colston because he was projected as a TE and was too small for that. Nobody has yet satisfactorily explained why we wasn't projected as a WR.

I don't think 20-27 is *that* bad of a record for playing the backup at the most important position on the field. What should you expect from a backup QB, especially when the position is so thin around the league? I think that winning percentage is better than a handful of starting QBs as well...

3 Didn't you know he lack the dep speed to get separation from NFL corners? That was the scouting report. Nice looking reciever without enough speed for the NFL, so have him bulk up to TE weight and teach him how to block, cause he will beat tight ends.

Seems like his speed in pads was ok, or maybe he just trained really hard?

I really think this is once again the scouts "measurables" bias rearing its ugly head again.

thats supposed be be "beat linebackers", not "beat tight ends".

Human piñata, I like that... only I thought Drew Bledsoe was the one and only human piñata.

What signs point to greatness for Vince Young? His high draft status? Those statistics don't look "odd" - they look bad. I don't watch the Titans, but from what I've seen and heard he's had some nice runs and other than that hasn't really done much. Someone feel free to correct me if Young actually looks really good.

I also thought the criticism of the Yorks for trying to use "Moneyball" ideas was really dumb. There are lots of things to criticize the Yorks for, but trying to find places where the market in players is undervaluing some traits or types of players is not one of them. Go after them for the long-time cheapness with regard to free agents, the simply terrible PR, and the unwillingness to develop a good scouting department. Or hiring Dennis Erickson. But hiring Paraag Marathe and trying some new ideas isn't one of the reasons to criticize the Yorks.

2 - Also, during one of the more public workouts (the combine, maybe? - I don't know), he dropped just about everything thrown his way.

IIRC, and FWIW, Draft Daddy had Marques Colston ranked as one of the top 10 WRs in the draft - I know they did at one point at least. They were the one site I remember really singing his praises.

I've got my money on Colston pulling a Clayton and turning a scintillating rookie season into a fat contract and middling play.

That said, it's kind of interesting how tenths of a second in extremely artificial circumstances are given such credence in the NFL. It's a concept that has been beaten to death every draft-article season, but 40 times aren't the final word on how much seperation a receiver is going to get on a cornerback. There is far too much value placed on that statistic when a more analytical, sabermetric approach is appropriate.

How does Al Davis not rank on the list of worst owners? I'm not a Raiders fan, but it has always seemed to me that the Raiders struggles have stemmed from Davis's reluctance to give his coach final say on any major decisions. When he dictates everything, the Raiders are awful. The few times Davis has had a good coach and the Raiders have been good (e.g. Shannahan, Gruden) he's driven them out of town and the Raiders have lapsed into monumental suctitude.

MJK, I'm wondering about Al Davis as well. Reno is basically part of Raider Nation and here at work the fans I've talked to all seem to have the view that Davis is the problem and the Raiders won't really recover as long as he owns the team.

God knows what the anti-Moneyball exec thinks teams should do. Give players contracts as rewards for past performance?

"I loved it when they were talking about using all those ‘Moneyball' ideas to evaluate players and do contracts.' It just showed how out of touch [John York] is with how the NFL works."

Because evaluating defensive tackles based on on-base percentage is just dumb. It's not like Moneyball was about finding inefficiencies in the market and exploiting them.

#14 - no, they would just keep picking wide receivers with their 1st-round draft pick.

Re: Colston, here's what Bill Simmons said in today's column. Take it for what it's worth:

"I have a friend that we'll call Someone Who Knows These Things. Let's just say he's connected with the league. I asked him how Marques Colston could slip to the seventh round last year and, apparently, SWKTT said that he would have gone higher but he feuded with his Hofstra coaches and they apparently bad mouthed him to all the NFL teams. This stuff happens more than you would think before the draft."

The Vikings are in trouble because they refused to give Brad Johnson a raise (good move), but therefore refused to bring in any backup that would make more money than Johnson (bad move). That's why we're down to Brooks Bollinger and Tarvaris Jackson as choices for a clearly washed up QB.

Re #8
As a Titans watcher and VY fan, I'll yammer my yap a little. First, he's had very little help this year. The Titans WRs range from mediocre to bad--they have difficulty gaining separation, and frequently have trouble catching the ball. As an extreme example, I counted 7 drops in the first half against Jacksonville alone. Second, he's starting because he outplayed Kerry Collins as a QB. Third, the team looks crisper and more inspired when he's in there, as opposed to when Collins was in there--this indicates VY's reported leadership qualities are real and work in the NFL. Fourth, he's shown the capability to make some very good throws--putting throws over the LBs on a seam route or deep in, or throwing into triple coverage and hitting the WR in the chest.

Coming into this year, I didn't think he should see the field as a starter at all, and particularly not as early as he did. But I've been impressed by his play since he's been in there. He has made mistakes, particularly ones that helped the Jacksonville and Dallas games turn from losses to blowouts. Further, he needs to work on developing NFL-style accuracy and adapting to NFL game speed--what counts as open in college, in terms of separation from the defender and what other players you have to keep an eye on, isn't necessarily open in the NFL. Finally, consistency, making the same throw in precisely the right place every or almost every time. I believe he can and will develop these capabilities, and once he does, he will be a very good to excellent NFL quarterback.

I took a detailed look at every throw VY made against the Colts in Week 5. Click my name for the link.

12 - Don't want to defend Davis so much here, but it's certainly a questionable claim to call the Raiders 'good' in the 8-12 Shanahan era. I think the criticism that Shanahan screwed up their defense is pretty damn fair.

Re: News to Tom: VY makes a good throw against the blitz, and Bobby Wade f---ing drops it. F---ing Bobby Wade. You f---ing suck.
LOL

What the hell. His evidence directly contradicts his hypothesis.
"You're screwed when you go to your backup QB, that's why Huard went 5-3. Woops, uh ok Romo is 2-1, saving the Dallas season. Oh wait, well if your backup is a rookie 6th rounder then you go ONLY 2-3". Meanwhile it's pretty obvious that Walter and Leinhart and Young are not the problems for their teams. I would have thought the Hawks were screwed going to Wallace but he's pretty decent.

I agree with ABW about York. There are so many juicier targets.

Obviously the Patriots are far too well managed to ever try and get value for their money like Moneyball suggests.

How is the Falcon's owner so bad?

What is there record the past few years?

Are they profitable?

I don't see the problem.

Re: 8 and 19
To add to Tom's excellent assessment - VY has done a good job thus far, the stat sheet notwithstanding. Is he in the same league as say Ben Roethlisberger in his rookie year? I would say "Yes".
He's made the throws, he's made the runs. His blitz pickup isn't stellar and he has also made rookie mistakes like locking onto his intended target which has caused INTs. But for the most part he's done what Norm Chow has play-called.
The Titans have been taking the early lead on VY's throws and then playing keep-away football with Travis Henry's runs. I expect the play-book to open up for VY over the next 2-3 games as his chemistry with the WRs improves (and hopefully they stop dropping balls).

Granted, I tend to look at things through DVOA-tinted glasses (especially with the tastefully-named DAVE statistic), but I'd have to say no, Young isn't in the same league as Ben R., not anywhere close.

What's interesting to me is that his DVOA as a runner is horrible - well, maybe not horrible, but it's bad enough that it makes Losman look decent as a runner. I thought maybe that part of his college ability would translate tolerably to the pros. Not perfectly, what with the faster pursuit and all, but I thought it would be easier to tuck and run than to read pro-style defenses all season long (as opposed to just when they played a pro-style DC in college).

Now, that's certainly not all his fault, and Pittsburgh in 2004 had a much better supporting cast than Tennessee does now, but I still think Ben was considerably better than VY is now. (I do think the motorcycle accident has affected him, though, so Young might catch up to him in a year or so.)

I think what Sunil is referring to is that VY is being used in a way similar to what BenR was used, as a "game manager" with the primary onus of responsibility on the running game and operating with a limited playbook with fewer decisions to make than you'd expect from an experienced QB. Within that limited role, Ben (a) was better positioned for success, with a better defense, running game, offensive line, and pass catchers, and (b) had more success, even accounting for (a).

I agree the rush DVOA for VY is surprising. It seems VY's runs operate largely on a boom-or-bust model, where a run will go for either no gain at best or maybe a loss of 3-6, or for 10+ yards. His 5 carries on Sunday for 50 yards (yeah, small sample size) went for 11 on 2&10, -2 on 2&12, 20 on 3&14, 12 on 3&10, and 9 on 1&10. The 3rd down conversions, in particular, highlight his special ability to find a lane and escape against a pass rush. The -2 shows that designed runs with him don't work very well. The breakdown isn't always that neat, but I think that's the general rule.