Regarding Cam Cameron

Fans around the country might not be aware, but Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron is a controversial figure. The Ravens still, 4 years into the Harbaugh era and 4 full seasons after drafting a "franchise quarterback", still win their games with defense and controlling the football. Ravens discussion boards are wallpapered with calls for him to be fired each close nailbiter of a win. The furor when they lose is almost unbelievable.

The below is a reply to an email from Chris on this subject.

Chris wrote:

Flacco had a down year this year. ...
I feel like the Ravens passing game should be way more productive than it is.
... and I can't figure out where the blame belongs.

For the record, I basically agree that Cam needs to be replaced. To me it's not a matter of "fault" or him clearly sucking. It's a more pragmatic, amicable split: it's been 4 years, and it mostly hasn't worked, so a change has to be made. I can make a case for continuity; but I do have to make the case for it, and you also have to keep the confidence of the locker room. I wouldn't be mad, like most fans on the Ravens board, if the Ravens kept Cam. Especially after this weekend's game. But I recognize a change is probably necessary.

But what happens if we observe that the Ravens passing game should be more productive than it has been, and go thru the exercise of assuming that none of the problems were Cam's fault? This is a logic game like something you might use if you were trying to debug a computer system. Assume that one piece is working perfectly, even if you have reason to suspect it's not, so that you can capture other contributing errors in the other interacting pieces. We can use this game to make a list of the other issues affecting the offense, and see how convincing it is.

First, a description of the issue. Joe Flacco's yardage and TD numbers went down this season, on 53 *more* attempts than last year. His productivity rates declined: completion pct, yards-per, and TD pct. Yet the coaching staff maintained that Joe was having his best season as a pro, and it wasn't close. (Reported in interviews, I think mostly by gameday announcers.) Jaworski said he studied Flacco's plays vs the Texans in the divisional round, and found only 3 plays where he would give Joe a negative grade. Cameron, perhaps a harsher grader, said he found only 6. Both guys are professional graders of QBs, and both say Flacco played very well – on a day when he completed less than 52% of his passes for less than 7 yards-per, took 5 sacks and fumbled once. Just as the Ravens coaches are saying Joe played better this year, even thought he stats don't reflect it.

What are these guys seeing? Is it possible to play *better*, and have your completion pct and yards-per and TD pct all drop?

Well, sure.

• First, we can see some residue of improvement in the stats. I've mentioned this all year, but it's worth repeating. Joe cut his sack pct by almost a third in 2011, setting a new personal best in that category. He was also on pace for a new career low in INT pct, which he has been steadily cutting every year since he got into the league, until he threw 2 picks against the Chargers in game 14. He still finished the season with the second-best INT pct of his career, right between his number for 2009 and 2010.
• I assume that much of the other improvement the coaches are talking about have to do with things that fans can't really measure, like getting into the right play and making the right read and so forth. Let's just assume that Joe was better in these areas than he's ever been before -- I think it's probably a safe assumption, but we can't check it either way.

Ok, so if Joe was playing the quarterback position better than he ever had before, and if we operate under our test assumption that Cam was not the problem, then what have we seen that could have caused the overall productivity to drop?

• Youth of the receiving corps.

This was undoubtedly an issue. The Ravens unloaded Joe's favorite targets, two extremely sure-handed receivers, and replaced them with inexperienced players. Derek Mason and Todd Heap could really catch the ball. Torrey Smith and Ed Dickson are faster, but they did not catch as well. Mason was also probably one of the best route-runners in the game, and Torrey Smith isn't. At the very least this impacted Joe's completion pct. I wonder if this ramified also. Did the Ravens have to stick with simpler formations and route combinations, to keep the offense manageable for Smith & Dickson? I don't know.

• No offseason to work with the young receiving corps.

We said all season that the offenses that would handle the lockout well would be those on teams where the QB and receivers had already worked well together. It sounds like a fairly stupid thing to say: the QBs who would be good this year were the ones who were already good. This might not be a "strong finding", since it's what we'd normally expect to see. But the top 8 in passer rating were basically "the usual suspects" plus Stafford (Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Romo, Schaub, Eli, Matt Ryan). And Stafford had Calvin Johnson to throw to. Alex Smith snuck into the next spot on this list, but he did it on few attempts and avoiding INTs; then it's Big Ben and Rivers. That's EVERYBODY in the league with a rating over 88. There weren't anymore. The two rookies who had magnificent rookie seasons did not crack the top 14 or post a rating over 85. Ryan Fitzpatrick had high volume numbers, but a rating below 80.

The passing offenses who weren't already established as efficient prior to this season, did not crack the top third in efficiency this year. That's a non-finding, but it can be read to support the idea that teams needed the offseason to get their passing offense in sync if it wasn't already. The three most notable counter-examples might be Cam Newton, Andy Dalton and Fitzpatrick. I'm not sure they invalidate the idea, because first of all it's not like they did any better than "average". "Average" constituted a stunning improvement for those squads, but it's not the same thing as greatness. And secondly, there might be extenuating circumstances in all three cases. Newton might be the Ultimate Weapon, Dalton is unusually skilled & composed for a rookie and has a tremendous receiving corps, Fitzpatrick wasn't that good taking the season as a whole.

Anyway: Ravens tried to integrate a young receiving corps in a year with no offseason. It didn't come together. Ultimately that doesn't seem shocking.

• Lee Evans injury.

Huge. The Ravens turned this into a positive, by giving increased opportunity to Torrey Smith, and Smith really delivered. But Evans is a veteran receiver who presumably would have run better routes than Smith and had better hands, at least early in the season. The loss of Evans probably did away with much of the Ravens planned use of 3-WR sets. Additionally, if there was any effect of "keeping the offense" simple for Smith, that's a consequence of the injury to Evans.

Evans came back and was terrible. So terrible, it's hard for me to believe that's really his actual level of performance. Remember he looked like a revelation in preseason; and even in game 1 vs the Steelers when he didn't register a catch, all the post-game reportage said he played a key role by drawing coverage etc. I choose to believe that late in the season Evans was dealing with after-effects of the injury all season. I might even find a way to forgive his TD drop, in time.

Remember, when all the writers harp on the Ravens failing to use 3-WR sets, they didn't have 3 WRs most of the year. Their #2 WR missed half the season with injury (and was horrible when he was back). Who were the Ravens supposed to trot out there? David Reed fumbled away the coach's confidence. LaQuan Williams got some snaps, looked like he could become a player but didn't really produce as a rookie. For almost the whole season, there weren't 3 solid WRs for the Ravens to use.

• Anquan Boldin's knee.

Boldin had surgery late in the year, to clean out the torn cartilage in his knee. He said it had been bothering him all season. He was observably less explosive than in previous years, except for the game vs the Cardinals. Did this cartilage issue slow him all season? It's easy to believe the answer is yes. He made plays when he came back from the surgery.

• Ben Grubbs injury.

The left side of the O-line was terrible when Grubbs was out, and it led directly to at least one loss (vs Jax, I think). He missed six games. That's a large chunk of the season. I haven't matched it up perfectly, but there was a stretch of games when Joe was getting pressured terribly and the running game wasn't working either. Does anything derail an offense worse than problems on the line? (other than a QB injury)

• Personnel package issues, with a fullback on the field.

I wrote to you about this last week, that the Ravens reliance on a FB adversely impacted the passing game. Bill Walsh always used 2 backs in the backfield, and to great effect. So it's not like a FB has to cripple the passing offense. But Walsh's guys could all catch and run. Vontae Leach caught about 55% of the passes thrown to him (stats from Football Outsiders), which is terrible for a back, and gained a measley 4.6 yards per reception (2.6 yards per pass attempt). He was not a positive in the passing game. And his presence on the field kept another good receiver, like Pitta (or theoretically Evans) off the field. But he had to stay in the game: he was one of the Ravens best players, and a key to the running game. We as fans insisted the Ravens run the damn ball; Leach was a key to that.

You linked the Greg Cosell comment about "isolation routes, no bunch sets or rub routes." I wonder how much of that is a factor of the personnel package. Can you even run bunch sets with a FB on the field? Say you want to do trips right. So who are the three receivers in the bunch? Boldin, Smith, and – Dickson? That seems ok; but then do you line up Leach at TE, with Rice the lone setback? Does Leach have the size to block inline like that? Do you leave Dickson at TE, put Rice in the trips formation, and leave Leach in the backfield to block? Won't defenses key on the bunch including Rice, and ignore the run?

FO wrote this about the Ravens offense:

"In this era of multiple receivers and shotgun spreads, the Ravens actually run a fairly conventional, old-fashioned offense. Our charting lists the Ravens using two wide receivers on 56 percent of plays, the highest rate in the league. They run more often than they pass on first down. They like their play-action passes..."

I'd be curious to know what Rice's rushing numbers were with Leach in and out of the formation. If the Ravens could only run effectively with Leach on the field, and he's a liability in the passing game and should come out when they want to throw; well that would seem to be a big tip-off to the defense.

* * *

Let me take a timeout to reference the AFCC.

The New England game was the clearest example I've ever seen in my life of what coaches are talking about when they say an offensive game plan is "designed to win the game" rather than "designed to score points".

That requires some explaining. I usually find it an oxymoron, to try to draw that distinction. I think we all agree that the best thing an offense can usually do to help a team win is "score points". The more the better. But we also know that there is a persistent school of thought that when you're playing against high-octane offenses, you want to "control the ball" and "control tempo" and "not get into a shootout", etc. It's a conservative brand of coaching that survives because it is fundamentally sound and works at all levels. It's "the right way to play" at the lower levels, and we've all seen teams win in the NFL with it. Even win Super Bowls; coaches as diverse as Bill Parcells and Brian Billick and Bill Cowher have won Super Bowls that way. The spokepeople who have to defend those offenses (including the coordinators who speak to reporters) all say that they weren't trying to look pretty or win style points. The offense was "designed to win the game".

The Ravens very clearly went into New England with a team-wide game plan to "keep the game close and win in the 4th quarter". The Ravens players & coaches obviously had a healthy respect for Tom Brady, Bill Belichick et al. So defense, spec teams, and offense were all geared to playing THAT game. On offense that meant a game-plan that did NOT stress a lot of throwing to attack the Pats weakness in pass defense. That would tend to increase the number of possessions in the game and contribute to a shootout. Instead the gameplan stressed balance and sustained drives.

Do you intentionally limit the number of points you yourself score? It seems crazy in football, but it's definitely true in basketball. In basketball, you score the most points by running the fast break, and maybe also pressing full court. But that picks up the tempo of the entire game. The other team scores more points too; the whole game is faster. The phenomenon should not be directly transferable to football, because every offensive possession has an isolated beginning. There's no fluid continuation of play. But football coaches always act as if there is a transfer; as if picking up the tempo on your own offense will have the effect of picking up the tempo for the other team's offense. I want to stress that I don't understand how that could possibly be true, BUT it is an observable fact that coaches act as if it's true: as if going "uptempo" in the passing game will have the effect of increasing the other team's tempo as well, and will tend toward "getting into a shootout".

So the Ravens went into the New England game with a clear plan to "keep the game close", and that includes prescribing a certain style on offense, which could/would have the effect of scoring fewer points than they might otherwise score. And the team executed that plan. And dammit if the plan didn't work! At least on offense. Flacco made one mistake, the D bailed him out, and Flacco in a one-score game threw the game-winning TD pass in the final 30 secs. Which didn't actually win the game, but that seems beside the point when looking at it from a planning & strategic perspective.

If you believe that there CAN BE such a thing as an offensive game plan that is "designed to win the game" rather than "designed to score points" – I'm not sure I believe it, but I have a lot more respect for that view after the AFCC than I did before – then Cam Cameron looks like an extremely capable tactician. You can start to see how the Ravens brain trust inside the building might value Cam and his gameplanning very highly, more highly than fans do.

End timeout.

* * *

That's a strong list.

Let's say this is all true:

• your #1 receiver is slowed by chronic injury
• your #2 receiver misses half the season with a knee injury, and is terrible when he gets back, basically worthless the whole year
• your #s 3-4-5 receivers are all rookies and inconsistent (or fumblers and locked in the doghouse)
• your top 2 TEs are 2nd-year players getting their first big playing time, and inconsistent
• your FB is a terrible receiver
• your O-line has major holes in pass-blocking for six games (and is not really that great the rest of the time)

If you're the coordinator in charge of generating a productive passing game out of that, what the hell do you do?!?

It seems to me that this list is quite sufficient to hold back the passing game. We don't need the assumption that Cam Cameron sucks. Do you see? If that list is largely true, then your coordinator could be Sean Payton or any other annointed genius you'd like to name, and we'd still see less-than-awesome numbers coming out of the passing game.

There may even be an additional allowance made, depending on how you stand on the notion of "game-planning to win" rather than "to score".

In real life, what Cam Cameron did with that situation is, he rode his RB to the league lead in yards-from-scrimmage, he developed his talented rookie #3 receiver into a quality deep threat, he got decent "possession receiver" numbers (a thousand-yard pace) from his dinged-up #1 receiver, and he leaned on his young & inconsistent TEs for 930 combined yards and 8 combined TDs. The Ravens improved to 12th in scoring, from 16th last year.

That's a strong result, in light of the issues listed.

It's also worth noting that the Ravens played 7 games vs teams who finished in the top 10 in defensive DVOA. Only 2 games (reg season) were against teams in the bottom 10. That's another boost to the idea that the Ravens offensive coordinator did a pretty decent job in 2011.

Flacco has actually produced in several half-ending 2-min drive situations, the last couple years. He's won the game in Pittsburgh on those drives each of the last 2 seasons. I put the AFCC as another plus in Flacco's column, even though the result wasn't there. When you talk about performance in the passing game, that situation is disproportionately important. Flacco seems to deliver when called upon. That's another boost to the idea that the Ravens OC is gameplanning well, possibly "to win games" rather than "to score points", but with good situational effectiveness.

* * *

As I said before, I see the argument for pushing Cam out the door. He's had 4 years, there's been an investment in the offense, and there still seems to be very little explosiveness or efficiency. Sometimes you have to make a change. Plus they do seem rather plodding when you watch them play. There are an awful lot of 3-and-outs.

But there is a case to be made for keeping Cam, and it's not insane. I would not be spitting with rage if Cam were retained, at all. It seems a reasonable option.

By the way, one argument is frequently made, I think by accident or out of laziness. People write, "Cam's offense has sucked for 4 years," or variations like that. Let's not forget that Cam looked AWESOME in 2008. He was an important part of the train we rode to the AFCC.

I might feel more strongly that dumping Cam was an utterly necessary move, if (a) we weren't so noticeably weak on the left side of the O-line, or if the tackles as a pair played better; (b) if the TEs could block better; and (c) if there weren't so goddam many drops by the receivers, on PERFECTLY thrown passes! It is no exaggeration to say that the team would be in the Super Bowl if not for a receiver failing to make the play on a perfectly thrown pass that hit him right in the chest. I'd be very interested in the drop rate of Flacco's receivers vs those of other QBs this year. I don't know what Drew Brees or Philip Rivers has to deal with; it feels to me that if Flacco got "normal" catch rates on his most accurate passes, the Ravens would have gone about 14-2 and hosted the AFCC. And Cam Cameron would look a whole lot smarter, to Ravens fans.

* * *

Random note: Dilfer and the guy who writes those "Five Things We Learned" columns for the Sun (Kevin Van Valkenburg) both brought up Aikman as an interesting comp for Flacco. Aikman also played for winning teams that emphasized the running game, and he NEVER threw more than 23 TDs (in his 4th season, in fact). And he's in the Hall of Fame.

My respect for Aikman grew as his career went on. He became a helluva passer; deadly in the 2-min.

* * *

Last note, here's another excerpt from FO's AFCC preview.

"...there are some interesting first half/second half trends when it comes to the Ravens receivers. In the second half of the season, Flacco threw to his tight ends less often but had more success when he did. Ed Dickson and Dennis Pitta went from 10.6 targets per game in Weeks 1-9 to 7.5 targets per game in Weeks 10-17. However, together their catch rate improved from 60 percent to 72 percent, and their DVOA improved from -1.9% to 29.1%. The other split to note is that since midseason, the Ravens have ended up using Ray Rice more as a safety valve for dumpoffs than on planned passing routes. His catch rate has gone from 68 percent before Week 10 to 79 percent since Week 10, but his receiving DVOA has dropped from 51.0% to 6.2% and yards per reception have dropped frmo 10.9 to 7.6."

That whole piece is worth a read.

* * *

I like the Caldwell hire.

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Brain bank examines athletes' hard hits

Another good article in our tradition of educating about concussions.

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Diagnosing a Ravens offensive series

I just finished charting the second half of the Texans at Ravens playoff game, and I want to go through the series in which the Ravens scored their final FG.

As a season ticket holder, I attended the game in person. I have been very critical of Cam Cameron, as have most other fans I sit with. Cameron has taken a lot of criticism for this game, in particular the final two plays of this series. But after charting it, I’m not so sure he deserves the heat he’s taken. Were some of the play calls questionable? Could be. But after a long look, it’s now clearer why some of those calls were made, and I don’t think Cameron deserves the heat he’s taken over them.

The Set-Up
At this point in the game the Ravens offense was ineffective. The running game was getting between zero and five yards almost every carry. Joe Flacco was under a lot of pressure. To this point in the second half alone, there were a half dozen QB pressures or sacks by the Texans, and I charted eight blown blocks on Ravens drop-backs.

The Ravens take the ball over at their own 29 with 7:21 in the fourth quarter and a 17-13 lead. TJ Yates had just thrown his second interception.

1st and 10 @ Ravens 29 – I will abbreviate these plays as follows: 1-10 @ R29

The Series
1-10 @ R29 – Rice off left tackle is stuffed for a two yard gain.
2-8 @ R31 – From a run formation, JJ Watt comes off Oher’s attempted block to pressure Flacco, who steps up in the pocket and finds Pitta wide open in the middle of the field for a first down.

1-10 @ R44 – This is an important play, so I’m separating it. The Ravens are in an I-formation with Torrey Smith to the right, covered by Jonathan Joseph. The Texans are in a standard 3-4 formation. With the clock running, the Texans run blitz, throwing seven guys into the OL. The Ravens block with seven, which leaves single coverage with a deep safety. Before the pocket collapses, Flacco hits Smith on a quick slant for nine yards. The Texans sold out, Flacco read it and did a great job delivering the ball.

2-1 @ T47 – Hand off to Leach gets the one yard needed to pick up the first down.
1-10 @ T46 – Another run formation, another 1st down run, another stuff by the Texans, who are consistently beating their Ravens counterparts on the line.

2-9 @ T45 – The second important play. Here, the Ravens line up with three receivers, a classic pass formation. But the Texans don’t respond with the typical nickel defense; they’re still lined up in a 3-4 and clearly expecting run as they run blitz yet again. This time it’s six rushers (a seventh comes eventually, but not before the ball is out) on six blockers. Flacco again reads the rush and gets a very fast quick slant out to the right side, this time to Boldin.

The Ravens are now close to if not in field goal range. With the clock ticking, it will be just over 3:00 in the game by the next offensive snap. The Texans are clearly selling out on the run at this point, not even bothering to match up with the Ravens personnel on the prior play. And probably most importantly, the corners are giving the receivers the inside slant route, which Flacco has hit twice, both times before an overloaded rush can even apply pressure.

1-10 @ T31 – Rice rushes into the middle, this time for a gain of five yards. Houston takes its first time out at 3:04, clearly signaling they are going to make a stand here.

This is where the heat Cameron takes begins. Fans in the stands grumble that Cameron “better not get too tricky.” I agree with them. Everyone wants to see two runs. Bleed the Texans final two time outs, work to pick up five yards; if you do it, the game is virtually sealed, and if you don’t, you kick the FG and let Yates try to drive into the end zone which he’s only done once before.

But what I think we as fans miss is this probably isn’t the best way to play it. The first down actually holds great importance because it bleeds the clock. Assume each play takes just five seconds. With two time outs left, that puts the clock at 2:54 after the Texans take their last time out. If the Ravens don’t pick up the first, they kick on fourth down, kick off, and the Texans are getting the ball with 70-80 yards to drive, and likely between 2:30 and 2:45 to play.

But if the Ravens pick up the first down, even on this play, it changes the time significantly. There’s a time out on the first down at 2:59. A running play on first down, then another time out at 2:54, and the Texans are out of time outs. Two plays later after third down, the clock is at the two minute warning. And not just that…because of how close the clock is to 2:40, you actually can afford to run a passing play on either second or third down (as long as you run the other down), and still get the clock to the two minute warning. These open options make offense much easier to play and improve the odds of another first down, which ends the game. And if they don’t get the first again, they kick the FG, kick off and force Yates to drive 70-80 yards with between 1:40 and 1:55 to play.

2-5 @ T26 – The Ravens line up in a run formation, seemingly playing into the Texans yet again. The Texans blitz with six pass rushers, Ravens blocking with seven. The play is yet another quick slant to the right, the same that had worked twice previously. This time, however, Kareem Jackson did a great job getting up and jamming Boldin on the line. This knocked Boldin off the route, and the pass fell incomplete.

3-5 @ T26 – The Ravens line up with two receivers and two TEs. But just before the snap, Rice goes into motion wide to the right, leaving an empty back-field. Rice trips on his route, and the pass falls incomplete. This play likely works and comes close to, if not picks up, the first down if Rice doesn’t fall.

I want to cover the third down play first a moment. The situation is that the Ravens need to pick up a first down, or else the clock will be stopped with around 2:55 to play no matter what, and the Texans will still have at least one time out plus the two minute warning. This gives the Texans the ball plus 2:45ish to score a TD. While Cameron takes a lot of heat for this call not being a run, at this spot in the game, it actually makes little sense to me to not open up the play book and try whatever possible to get the first down. Perhaps he (or Flacco, if Flacco called/audibled to it) can take heat for the particular passing play being a fourth quick slant in seven plays. But running here actually makes less sense to me than passing, given the Texans’ dominance at the line of scrimmage.

The natural fan reaction becomes “It never should have gotten there! If you run on second down, you can run on third to pick up the first down or bleed the time outs!”

Thinking this through more, there are actually a lot of problems with this. First, with how great the Texans controlled the line, there’s no guarantee you can run on third down to have a high likelihood of picking up the first down. If Rice gets stuffed and it’s 3rd and four or more, a run is a very low percentage play, and you’re forced to pass anyway. Second, bleeding the time outs with almost three minutes to play actually carries very little value. They need more than a field goal, so they won’t need a time out to get the unit onto the field. And three minutes with the two minute warning is an eternity to drive the field.

Meanwhile, you have to look at how the game was going at the time. At this point, Rice had rushed the ball 19 times. He was averaging just under 2.7 YPC and had only three runs of more than five yards with his biggest a rush of eight. And the Texans were selling out on the run. Meanwhile, Flacco had just thrown two successful quick slants against a ferocious rush.

Suddenly it becomes understandable why those plays were called. The quick slant on second down seems in fact to be a pretty high percentage play. And there’s really little incentive to bleed time outs with so much time left.

With less than two minutes to play, I think it becomes a much different story. But in that situation, I actually think the play calling was solid if not very good. And considering it took me a day of thinking about it and an hour and a half to chart it to come to that conclusion, it shows why I sit on my couch writing amateur articles for no pay, while the experts make the big bucks to come to these conclusions inside of the 120 seconds they have before the play-call has to go in.

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It's Time for Sweeping Changes

It’s time to use your imagination.

Let’s first rewind to Thanksgiving. You’re sitting, watching the Packers at Lions game; it’s first and ten at the Lions 40 with just over 12 minutes left in the third. Rodgers drops back to pass on a drive that could put them up by two scores. But instead of completing a pass to Greg Jennings for 19 yards, Suh beats his offensive lineman and crushes Rodgers. Rodgers holds his head, is taken to the sideline, shows signs of a concussion, and sits the rest of the game.

Three weeks later, Rodgers still doesn’t have any insight into when he can return. The season strolls on. The Packers lose two or three games down the stretch. They make a playoff appearance, but cannot overcome his loss. Rodgers, inexplicably, cannot make it back from his concussion, and no one knows why he can’t shake his symptoms, or when he’ll be able to return.

Fast forward a year from now. Rodgers didn’t play in mini-camps or the pre-season. He was only cleared for contact in August. But we’re in the first week of October before he sees his first action. Out he comes to rousing cheers! One of the best young quarterbacks in the league is back! He has a coming out party his first game, completing 80% of his passes, throwing for 450 yards and five touchdowns.

Three weeks, 1,200 yards and 11 TD passes later, Rodgers limps off the field toward the end of the game after taking a big shot. The Packers are already up by four scores in the fourth quarter, so they sit him just in case. And then on Monday, it’s revealed he has more concussion-like symptoms. He’s no longer cleared to play, out indefinitely.

After having sat his first three seasons, Rodgers isn’t exactly a spring chicken. But it’s safe to say that people still think of him as a fairly young QB. Compare him to Brady, Manning and Brees – all in their 30s – and he still seems to be from that “next” generation. Roethlisberger is only a year older than he is, but has nearly 60% more attempts than Rodgers because he was the primary starter his first three years, and suffers several bone-jarring hits himself. When fans think of Rodgers, I believe they tend to think of him as having a shelf-life five to seven years, maybe more, beyond what these other four guys have.

But think about this scenario. He’s been a Superbowl MVP. He’s got the active and all time highest career QB rating. He’s streaking toward an auto-entry into the Hall of Fame and making people question whether we could be seeing the guy destined to be called the Greatest of All Time.

And just one year from now, Rodgers’ career suddenly looks to be in jeopardy from concussions.

How would this change the game? What would it do to fans’ mind-sets? We witness the oncoming of one of the greatest players we may ever get to see play; and without warning, his career is swept out from under him. The game would survive, of course. But how would that impact the way you think about the game? How would it impact your emotions, losing such a great player?

How big a story would it be?

The ramifications of it would likely be huge. We’ve seen single players alter the course of the game before. David the Deacon Jones got the head-slap outlawed in 1977 after perfecting the technique and becoming one of the greatest pass rushers of all time. Tom Brady took a season-ending shot to his knee, causing the implementation of a rule where defenders on the ground cannot hit a quarterback below the waist. It only makes sense to think that the threatening of one of the greatest player in America’s most popular sport would be cause for big changes. And it makes just as much sense to think that the story would be the headline story in the sports world, not just for a day or two, but for weeks. It’s a story that would rock the sports world, and likely result in a major change of direction.

This is the story of Sidney Crosby, and the potential tragedy the NHL now faces. The only difference is, Crosby is a far younger star than Rodgers is, and he’s more meaningful to his sport than Rodgers is to his.

Like him or hate him, Sidney Crosby’s greatness cannot be denied. Though he’s five-and-a-half years into his career, he’s only 24 years old. But in those six seasons, he’s won the league’s scoring title, been the league’s MVP, won the Stanley Cup and scored the game winning goal in the Olympic gold medal game. At this time last year, Crosby was the league’s scoring leader again and on a pace for an easy MVP award on a major Stanley Cup challenger.

In the Winter Classic on Jan 1, ’11, Dave Steckel and Victor Hedman hit Crosby in the head. He suffered concussion-like symptoms, and found himself out of the game for nearly a year. He returned to action Nov 21st, scoring four points and immediately sparking discussion of whether he could worm his way into contention for the scoring title by the end of the season. Less than a month later, he’s back on the bench, out indefinitely with more concussion-like symptoms.

It’s a truly tragic story for hockey fans. We face the prospect of losing what appears to be one of the greatest players of all time in his sport. Crosby seemed to be capable of challenging The Great One himself. Now, instead of wondering how many MVPs and Stanley Cups he’ll win in his career, we’re left to question whether he should retire now. And we’re left to wonder whether the game should undergo massive, sweeping changes, in the hopes that we can ensure that if Crosby can overcome this, we don’t lose him forever, and that if we do, we ensure we minimize the risk of the same thing happening to the next great player to come along, or any of the current greats we have playing the game.

This story should be bigger than it is.

It’s here where I need to note that it’s a shame that hockey isn’t even half as big or as popular in this country as football is. The story of Aaron Rodgers would dominate sports headlines for a long time. The story of Sidney Crosby is a bi-line, falling behind the ESPN recap of the 2-11 Rams losing to the 6-7 Seahawks as well as two other non-NFL related stories that night.

The true shame of this reality is that if the story were as big as it should be – if it were of the magnitude of an Aaron Rodgers-like injury – the attention it would bring to the problem of violence in these sports would likely bring about important, necessary changes. I’m hopeful that the NHL will finally begin to take a serious look at how violent the sport is, and how risky it is for all their players, including their potential all-time greats, and that it will lead to significant changes for the better. But I’m even more hopeful that we can reach that point in both of these sports prior to losing anyone beyond those that have already been lost.

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Angles on Niners - Ravens

Would be nice to have Ray Lewis back.

I think the Niners might be the most physical, bullying team in the league. I think Jim Harbagh knew exactly what he wanted to emphasize. The Steelers or Ravens are usually "that guy", but I think this year it is San Francisco. The Niners are playing better than Pittsburgh or Baltimore is, certainly better than Baltimore. Weighted DVOA says so, and so do your eyes. I'm sure the Niners are younger at some key positions – Patrick Willis has been faster than Ray Lewis for some years now – and Aldon Smith, Ahmad Brooks & Justin Smith can really rush the passer. Whereas, in addition to Ray-ray's toe issue, Haloti Ngata has been wrestling with a thigh injury for a couple weeks now.

Also, the Ravens kick coverage units have been terrible this season. They have given up big play after big play. Ted Ginn is super dangerous.

So, you know, I'm worried about this game. The Ravens have been unraveling a bit on defense over the last couplefew weeks, and it's a powerful team coming in. Plus I looked at the Steelers remaining schedule, and I think they go 5-1 the rest of the way, the loss coming in San Francisco. That means the Ravens will have to win 5 more games to win the division, and they still travel to San Diego and to Cincinnati this season. They need to win this game.

A few points that might benefit the Ravens:

• They are at home. The Ravens have been very difficult to beat at home over the last dozen years – I think they have one of the league's 3 best records over that span. They have thumped good opponents this season in Baltimore (Pittsburgh, NYJ, Houston). What are the Niners impressive road wins? @ Cincinnati week 3, @ Philadelphia week 4, @ Detroit week 6. (The win over the Giants was in San Francisco.) Those are good teams, but Cincy & Philly were still working out some kinks early in the season.

• No matter how well he's managing the games for them right now, the Niners QB is still Alex Smith. I have a hard time believing he will beat the Ravens defense. Frank Gore is a beast, but one-dimensional teams do not typically do well against the Ravens.

• The Ravens are used to playing in "that game". I'm assuming a certain style of hard-hitting slugfest. Have these Niners ever played in "that game"? The Ravens play it twice a year vs the Steelers, often three times a year. Plus their games against Cincy often go that route as well. Whatever quality of nerve and poise it takes to shake off a bad sack or a bad turnover, and stay in "that game" all the way until the final minute, the Ravens have demonstrated they have it. Flacco might be a lock to commit 1.5 dumb turnovers per game, but he has come right back with solid performances in the remainders of those tight games, and given the Ravens chances to win.

• As wildly inconsistent as it has been, the Ravens offense still has more weapons with Flacco, Ray Rice, Boldin & Torrey Smith & Lee Evans, Dickson & Pitta, than the Niners offense has. The Niners have dangerous offensive players in Gore, Crabtree and Vernon Davis, esp Davis, but the Ravens have more.

So, I dunno. I feel that there's a risk of the Niners defense and spec teams overwhelming the Ravens, scoring points off turnovers and returns. Big number for the Niners, in that case. If that doesn't happen, and the game settles in to a knock-down drag-out battle, then I see the Ravens offense eking out a TD here and a few FGs there. I don't see the Niners offense getting much of anything. Ravens 16-6, in that case.

I think some in the Baltimore media will see this game as a referendum on how much the Ravens want to sacrifice for John Harbaugh. By "some in the media" I mean Preston. He has consistently written that Harbaugh does not connect well with the team, they find him corny etc etc. I have usually found Preston unconvincing on this issue. Not "wrong" necessarily. There are 50+ guys on a football team – the number is probably well over 60 when you factor in the practice squad and guys who are out with injury but still around the facility rehabbing and participating in meetings. Sixty guys do not agree on anything. Probably any head coach "connects well" with some of the guys, is ignored by others, etc. The Ravens as an organization pay more attention to issues of personality than most teams do (they go out of their way to assess how coachable a player is, draft team captains, etc), but there is zero chance that no one on the roster rolls his eyes when he hears about "Mighty Men" etc. So, I think on any squad it would be pretty easy to find ~5 guys who are sarcastic about the head coach and his motivational tactics. Even starters. So I don't think Preston is necessarily wrong, but that he is misinterpreting or blowing out of proportion.

But that's easy for me to say. He's actually met the players and been in the locker room. What if he's right? In that light it will be interesting to see how hard the Ravens play, what kind of determination they show late in the game, and how they celebrate with Harbaugh toward the end if they win. Suggs has already said that he can't wait for the post-game handshake between the coaches. I'd be really touched if a lot of guys are hugging Harbaugh and dunking him with Gatorade etc.

Does Jim Harbaugh remind you at all of Cowher?

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Lionized

I have a persistent morning amnesia. When I wake it takes me a minute or more to recall significant events from the prior day, a physiological equivalent of booting up.

Usually this is a positive experience, however today it was soaking up the memory of the Tigers losing last night. A game I barely paid attention to after a 9 run barrage by the Rangers in the third inning. An outcome I had no immediate emotional investment in and a bitter disappointment that really only set in this morning.

I've read some fan posts in a couple of places about how proud we should be of this team and how happy they would have been before the season if the Tigers had gotten this far. I guess in theory this makes sense but opportunities lost are opportunities lost. This team was every bit good enough to compete for the world championship, especially after chopping down the Yankees and seeing the Phillies fall in the National League. But they are much too hurt, too slow, really not good enough defensively. They couldn't make the key hits that would have gotten them past Texas and so the season is over.

Of course, this isn't about that but more about my current state of mind.

Jim encouraged me to write about the Lions a couple of weeks ago when they were 3-0 and I promised to write about them when they reached 4-0. Well, now they are 5-0 and going into their toughest game to date. I hate the idea of writing this after they lose their first game, and this has been brewing in my head for weeks.

Lionized. It's a term coined by Lions fans cleverer than me, with it's genesis in Rod Marinelli's ridiculous press conferences. "We will keep digging, we have to keep our shovels sharp". We heard some flavor of this theme week after week when there was no better explanation for a team with the worst roster and the worst record marching to an historically bad season. Perhaps my favorite quote to come out of the 2008 mess came from Rob Parker who asked Marinelli 'do you ever wish your daughter had married a better defensive coordinator?' A nod to Marinelli's love of nepotism, both in his coaching staff and in his team which evolved into a collection of ex-Buccaneers who were no longer good enough to even play in Tampa, a team that had problems of its own.

Marinelli's pressers were eerily similar to what we had heard before, from Mariucci, Mornhinweg, and Ross before him. Speculation would start almost as soon as a coach was hired, 'how long until he's Lionized?' How long until we start hearing these stultified and repetitive cliches? Usually it would take about a season and a half. Ultimately it would result in bizarre decision making. Choosing to kick in overtime. Hiring a 300 pound quarterback and starting him with two days practice. Abandoning the team's nascent franchise quarterback after only 2 weeks on the job in favor of a third stringer acquired from the Browns (Mariucci/Harrington). The list goes on.

This brings us to Jim Schwartz. I loved the hire. This isn't saying a ton, because I also loved the hire of Marinelli for different reasons, but I did love that the Lions hired Schwartz. His pedigree was flawless with extensive experience working with both Bill Belichek and Jeff Fischer, along with their waves of coaches who now represent about a significant fraction of head coaches and coordinators in the league. I loved that he had a head for analysis beyond orthodoxy. And at the same time I hated that he would probably fail. That the roster was so lacking in talent that it was probably impossible for him to succeed within any time frame that would allow him to keep his job, that like his predecessors he would become lost and confused long before the tunnel's end showed any light.

Sure enough, his career in Detroit did start as predicted. 2-14 his first year with the #1 overall quarterback equally ineffective and hurt. His second season starting 2-10 with the franchise quarterback appearing to play much better but at the same time even more brittle than his rookie season.

The one thing that never happened though, was the Lionization of Schwartz. Who knows, maybe he was only a week or two away from starting to appear vexed and lost and confused like we had seen so many times before. Certainly there was cause. There was the 'complete the process' game against the Bears which rhymed with so many experiences that Lion fans have had in the past. There was the overtime loss to the Jets where Stafford was lost for the year and where the team was unable to preserve a 7 point lead in the last minute. I doubt though that Schwartz was ever that vulnerable, that close to succumbing, because it is clear that the team never lost faith, that there were never any cracks in the veneer that would have foreshadowed the wall caving in.

And then they won.

It was a weird win. 7-3 against the eventual champion Packers. A game where things that typically happened to the Lions happened to the other team instead. The star quarterback got knocked out, the star wide receiver inexplicably dropped the game winning touchdown. The Packers missed on scoring chance after scoring chance even while leading 3-0 for 3-and-a-half quarters. A game that nearly ruined the Packers' season.

And then they won again, in a game that Tampa Bay needed and lost. A win that would nearly have secured a playoff spot for the Buccaneers who ultimately stayed home for the playoffs. A game where the Lions gave up a 4th quarter lead but came back to tie in the closing moments only to win in overtime. This win broke their NFL record 26 game road losing streak

And they won again and again, the last without Calvin Johnson. What in the name of the Wide Wide World of Sports was going on around here?

And today here we are. 5-0 with an NFL best 9 game winning streak. A team that has won this year with consecutive 20 point comebacks, the most in NFL history. A team that demolished an inferior opponent 48-3. A team that battled cramps and fatigue to beat the Buccaneers on the road for the second time in 5 games. A team that got held in check by a good Bears defense even while the crowd forced false start after false start during a national coming out party on Monday night.

I am intensely proud of this team and the city. I am intensely proud that the fans never lost faith.

and yeah, I don't want it to end

Detroit is probably the most misunderstood city in the country. Any national coverage highlights the decay, the open fields where neighborhoods once stood depicted like scars with the downtown as a backdrop. Coverage invariably discusses the auto industry, the unemployment, the crime rate.

We know. WE KNOW!

What you almost never hear is how loyal Detroiters are to Detroit. How people who move here, often reluctantly, grow to love this city. As dysfunctional as the city had to be for decades, as much infighting between the city and the suburbs which often resembles pitched battles, we always have a unified front against usurping press that tries to reshape our story, to only highlight the bad.

And for so many years the Lions were simply representative of the city. A bizarrely inept franchise representing a depressingly inept city.

If that's the story though, we are also seeing that story change. Young people with no memories of the racial tension that marked the late '60s and early '70s are rebuilding the city from the inside out. Grass root businesses are springing up, lofts are getting renovated and occupied. New construction is continuous for the first time in decades. While this is the hidden inward story, the Lions are an outward face. A resurgent franchise that appears poised to join and surpass the league giants.

So here I am. Deeply disappointed in a Tiger season that didn't go long enough. A season that maybe ended in the worst possible way. Even so, hope remains. While the seasons change and we march toward winter, it is a figurative spring for the Lions.

And maybe they can continue to change the language. Maybe Lionized will take on a whole new meaning.

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Al Davis

So wow. Al Davis dead.

There was a time when I would have felt qualified to eulogize this man. He was both great and terrible, both Peter and Ivan. There was a time when the hallowed grounds of the NFL quaked beneath his footfalls. We can argue about his impact but we certainly cannot deny it.

There are a lot of internet entities that understand him better and will have more lucid things to say about Davis than I would.

But for my part I will simply retire his name. Not that we won't talk about him and not that we won't potentially talk about other prominent footballers named Al Davis. Really, it's just an honorary retirement, a tiny shout out to this man we both admired and ridiculed.

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Troy Polamalu and the Steelers 2011

I wrote this article after the Ravens win over the Steelers, but never posted it. Still think it's pretty relevant, so I'm dropping it in here now.

After week one’s performance in which the Ravens controlled the Steelers on both sides of the ball, a few things jumped out at me. First and foremost, it’s unlikely any team will thrash the Steelers this season as badly as the Ravens did. I have to believe a large part of why the Ravens were able to do what they did was due to an emotional outburst, taking out four years of frustration in one three hour stretch.

Second, the Steelers offensive line is very bad. After charting the second half of that game, I counted nine blown blocks and three unblocked rushers applying pressure or making plays in the backfield out of 37 total plays. That’s a near 30% failure rate, when the league average in 2010 was under ten percent. While this may be a statistical aberration, the Steelers OL is a weakness. To make matters worse, Willie Colon was placed on IR this week due to a torn triceps. While it’s unlikely that this line will play that poorly all year, it is likely the performance of the line will hold back their offense from being as great as it can be with their strong players at the skill positions.

But third and probably most importantly, Troy Polamalu looked old and slow. This was evident watching the entire game, but no play demonstrates it quite as clearly as Ed Dickson’s 3rd quarter TD catch. To be fair, the throw and catch were both great, placed where no DB would have a play on it. But notice how badly Polamalu gets burned on this play. It’s not about Dickson getting behind him. It’s that after Dickson was already behind him, Dickson – a tight end, not a receiver – pulled away from him.

Last year, I wrote a blog article arguing that Polamalu should be the league MVP. The premise was that over the previous two seasons (we were only 14 games into the ’10 season when this was written) the Steelers defense has been far more effective with him playing than without. Refreshing the numbers by adding in the five games played at the end of the season doesn’t change much.

(Apologies for the format, I still don't know how to do tables on this thing...)

                  With Polamalu     Without Polamalu
Avg Pts Allowed        15.9               21.5             (35% increase)
Avg Yds Allowed        280                301              (8% increase)
Avg Def DVOA           -21.8%             -0.2%
Avg 1st downs          16.8               17.0             (1.5% increase)
Avg Turnovers          2.2                1.0              (54% decrease)
W/L Record             17-5               6-7
Win %                  .772               .462

This data includes all 2009 and 2010 games
* This figure does not include the Superbowl, for which I didn’t have defensive DVOA (which would almost certainly cause the -21.8% to go down, but should not impact it enough to come close to the -0.2%)

And so I believe it’s fair to at least raise the question, “What happens to the Steelers defense if Polamalu is no longer able to play at the level he once did?” It is of course not fair to assume that the Steelers defense will be as bad in 2011 as they were in week one, even if Polamalu turns out to be a shell of his former self, or misses significant time due to injury. People don’t call week one “National Overreaction Week” for nothing.

But Polamalu has suffered several injuries over the last few years. Eight seasons of launching your 220 pound body into opposing offensive players like a missile will tend to wear down many people. Polamalu has missed games due to injury in four of the last five seasons. So while it wouldn’t surprise anyone to find that this game was nothing but a fluke and he performs at the high level we all expect for the rest of the year, it would probably be just as unsurprising to find that he truly has lost a step.

So what happens if you take a sure-fire Hall of Fame player out of a defense and replace him with an average over-the-hill player?

In the Football Outsiders Almanac, the age of the Steelers defense was specifically discussed. “Eleven of the 12 oldest defenses since 2000 had defensive DVOA below zero percent. There’s virtually no correlation between average age and defensive DVOA.” They point out that any slight trend seen tends to favor older defenses. Increasing age does not automatically result in decreasing productivity.

However, they too pointed out that the Steelers defense was far different without Polamalu than with him. And while his leadership, intelligence and play recognition will always mean he will be capable of making plays, a loss of his overall talent could be difficult for the defense to overcome.

The numbers above don’t lie. The Steelers defense is certainly not as bad as it looked this past Sunday, when the Ravens averaged 6.3 yards per play and scored 35 points with a 29.4% Steelers VOA on defense (ranked 27th in the league). But if the defense is missing the Polamalu the league is used to seeing wreak havoc, and the Steelers are fielding an average defense as a result, then the Steelers are likely closer to fighting for a Wildcard berth than they are the Super Bowl contenders that many believed them to be just before they stepped onto M&T Bank stadium’s turf last Sunday afternoon.

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Head Trauma And ALS

One of our ongoing themes here at OS is a running commentary on football and head trauma. I remain proud that in our tiny corner of the internet we were doing this before it got cool.

Steve Gleason recently revealed he has ALS. He's a folk hero in New Orleans (I had no idea about this before this morning) and will be the honorary captain for today's game. It is difficult to reconcile our great passion for football with the terrible costs that the game incurs.

Six months before Gleason's diagnosis a team of researchers from Boston University reported a link between an ALS-type disease and the repetitive head trauma suffered by some athletes.

Some peers say the study's sample size -- two former football players and a former boxer -- is insufficient to draw accurate conclusions, but evidence shows ALS strikes athletes in far greater numbers than the general population.

A 2005 paper found that Italian professional soccer players had developed the disease at rates about six times higher than normal.

The disease strikes about two in 100,000 people, which means only two or three NFL players since 1970 should have been afflicted. BU researchers identified 14 former NFL players since 1960 as having been diagnosed with ALS, a total about eight times more than what would be expected among U.S. men of similar ages. Perrin said his research shows Gleason would be the 27th former NFL player identified with the disease.

Most experts believe brain trauma is not solely responsible for diseases like ALS or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE. Those afflicted probably have genetic factors leading to susceptibility, with concussions serving as a catalyst.

"You have people in both camps," Gleason said. "But it's getting harder and harder to say that there are no repercussions from head trauma in the NFL or in football. You can't say that anymore."

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Who's Built To Win?

I keep trying to write this post and I keep changing the title and then changing the content and then deleting the whole thing altogether.

Built to win. One of the cliches that we see, particularly in football I think. Ridiculous to think of the alternatives. Built to lose. Built to tie.

I sort of have an argument that I trot out every spring and summer that every team is improving every year. Mostly it's a rhetorical argument. Fans get so myopic about the progression of their own team that they forget about the progression of others. So yeah, teams are always getting better, but they are also always getting worse. The teams who can outrun attrition ultimately improve. The teams who can't don't.

Not sure what this has to do with anything. Originally this post was going to be about Pittsburgh failing to outrun attrition, but after looking at them a bit more I decided that they hadn't, or at least I was not sure that they had. Yeah, James Harrison and Troy Polamalu are past peak. James Farrior and Casey Hampton are simply old. On the other hand though, LaMarr Woodley is the next man up in the Steeler pantheon and it seems likely that others are poised to join him. They have Lawrence Timmons who some in Steelerland are already calling a star, although to me it's premature. They have Ziggy Hood and Cameron Heyward and Jason Worilds, each at varying levels of development and each players who appear to be highly regarded in Pittsburgh. So are the Steelers outrunning attrition? Is there really any way for us to know?

A couple of years ago I thought I had stumbled on a pretty simple formula to identify a champion. Give me a team with a great quarterback and a star at each level of defensive depth; defensive line, linebacker and defensive back, and this is a team who will compete for Super Bowls. I still think this is a pretty good model, but unfortunately reality intruded and teams started winning Super Bowls without all of these great defensive players. Or maybe they didn't. Sometimes it is hard to tell.

Two years ago New Orleans won with Darren Sharper being named All Pro and Jonathan Vilma and Roman Harper Pro Bowlers. While this sort of validates the model, my gut says that Vilma's and Harper's tickets to Hawaii were gifts, that the real strength of that defense was Gregg Williams and a defensive line that was deep and talented. Really, that team had good players everywhere. Jabari Greer was probably the best of the back seven, but he was hurt for a good chunk of the season. Sometimes teams just come together. Things work. Championships are won.

Football Outsiders informs us that it is easier to build a consistent offense than a consistent defense, which is why you've seen so many recent champions win from an offensive philosophy. If you can build an offense that can score on anyone then maybe once in a while your defense will hold opponents down enough for your team to win. Indianapolis won one championship doing this, and they made another Super Bowl with an even weaker defense.

Going back five years, Indianapolis had the 2nd ranked offense and 23rd defense, the Giants the 14th offense and 17 defense in their fluky run. In 2009, the Saints had the number 1 offense and 20th ranked defense, bolstered by opportunism that forced turnovers in all but two games (both losses) including 5 in the NFC championship game. If you've been counting though, you'll notice I skipped 2008, the last time that Pittsburgh won. That year they had one of the most dominant defenses of all time, finishing 1st in scoring, total yards, passing yards, and second in the NFL in rushing yards against. This against an offense that finished a more pedestrian 20th overall.

So built to win? Again, I'm not sure what that means any more. I thought I knew once, but now teams are learning that they can overcome defensive deficiencies with greater offense. The NFL appears to be getting in to an arms race. Looking at the current contenders, all appear to be making receiving options a priority. The Falcons had one of the best running backs and one of the best wide receivers in football. No matter. They traded half their draft to go up for Julio Jones.

I was clicking back through some of the quarterbacks of the '90s earlier and was startled to realize how common it was for these guys to have completion percentages in the low 50%s. Not just run-of-the-mill guys but Pro Bowlers. Steve Young was an aberration, not just because he was the only guy hitting 65%, but because he was one of the very few who would even hit 60%. Now since the NFL liberalized the passing game even further with their reinterpretation of pass defense in 2007, one wonders if there is really any room left for a running game at all.

The Lions openly admit that they aren't prioritizing development of a running attack. For their purposes 3 yards per carry is as good as 4. Sure, the more, the better but the main goal is to tie defenders to the line, at least a little. The Lions are going to take their yards in chunks, not by running through the tackles 16 times on a 9 minute drive. You can just look at how they've built the team in three years, how they've surrounded Stafford with guys who can catch. It's easy to forget that only Calvin Johnson was on the team when Stafford showed up. They drafted Pettigrew that year, signed Burleson a year later. Traded for Scheffler, drafted Best and then Titus Young this year. That's a loud statement on how the offense is going to run, and now that Stafford is healthy, it appears that the strategy is reaping huge dividends.

The Lions of course aren't the only ones. The Ravens have transitioned to a pass heavy attack. So are the Jets. The Patriots have always been one. The Eagles were among the first to adopt the strategy with Andy Reid's handoff-phobia.

The most exciting game today was Buffalo's 38-35 win over Oakland with both teams scoring down the stretch as the Bills came back. It was exciting for the flow of the game, but equally improbable considering the participants. Buffalo? Oakland? Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jason Campbell? Really? Last week Chad Henne passed for 400 yards. Cam Newton has passed for 400 plus in 100% of his NFL starts - and lost twice.

What we often see in football is the development of a trend by innovators, and then me-too adoption. At this point, it appears to have gone to an extreme.

So what's the next innovation? Probably some kind of Parcellsian strategy to haul the NFL back to a game of running and defense and field position.

The team who figures out how to do this?

That team will be built to win.

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