Tuesday, August 26, 2008

No. 2

It was always my favorite number growing up, but now it stands mostly for crap. Unfortunately, by that I mean the Colts backup QB situation. Don Banks ranks all the backups in the league, and Jim Sorgi comes in at a generous 23rd. We were going to discuss the issue in the podcast, but Demond's 20 month old isn't taking well to having a new baby in the house, and the chaos meant we couldn't get it done last night. Maybe tonight.

At any rate, the disaster that has been Jim Sorgi this preseason has only been eclipsed by the ugliness that is Jared Lorenzen and Quinn Gray. I was sure there was no way Lorenzen could make the roster after the first half on Sunday. Then Gray went out and threw 4 picks. Awesome. The best thing that ever happened to Sorgi was getting hurt. Giving the fans a look at the alternatives has definitely quieted the calls for his head.

I know that Kyle Orton isn't the greatest arm out there, but I honestly doubt our ability to beat ANY team in the NFL without Manning behind center.

By the way, with Peyton practicing today (and looking good, thank God), don't get excited until tomorrow. Marvin practiced on a lot last year (or at least ran), but couldn't go the next day. If Manning participates fully on consecutive days, then we'll have our answer as to a week from Sunday.

LINKS: ESPN the Magazine profiles the Manning boys.

FO goes over the best TE seasons and careers. Two Colts make the lists frequently, but Dallas Clark isn't one of them. Kenny Dilger was better than most realized, as was Marcus Pollard, who will soon join Dilger as a Classic Colt as soon as he retires.

Adam Dunn? He's doing just fine in AZ. He's having a good influence on everyone around him. Reds fans who hated Dunn were morons. I may never get over that deal.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had thought Rushing solidified his spot as kick returner, but now he's on IR. I think Courtney Roby is the guy now. What do you think?

Deshawn Zombie said...

I agree about tj. Garçon had the best returns but muffed two balls. He's going to make the team anyway so he's my bet

HeatherRadish said...

New baby? Doesn't that deserve a post? :) Congrats!!

Deshawn Zombie said...

It had one last week!

Anonymous said...

Of all the FO stats, the receiver stats are among the most worthless. What does catch rate measure? Should have been caught? Dumped in the general direction? Overthrows? Blatant drops?

Note, in that article, they climb all over a TE for a loss of 3 on 3rd and 5 in the red zone. So perhaps a throwback screen play got blown up -- and that means the TE sucks?!

Bottom line -- As a Colt, Pollard dropped a lot of passes. He had a tendency to frustrate 18 a lot. I suspect he screwed up his route conversions by misreading coverage. BTW, where is the FO stat that measures blown conversion routes?

FO is an intersting effort to provide objective data on football. But sometimes they just try to slice it way too thin.

Stan

Bob M. said...

Stan,
Agreed about your last sentiment on FO, but the game charting experiment measures many things more finely than any other source of stats. QB hurries? Very valuable IMO, but not published anywhere (presumably individual tems measure those stats).
So I'll accept their measure of targets and catch percentage as probably better than other data I find "out there" until I see better. I assume that catch rate in the past couple years and moving forward comes from game charting, which can assess "catchable/versus uncatchable" balls, whereas from prior years it's based on the NFL play by play feed that goes somethign like this: "Manning 10 yd pass incomeplete (Pollard)" and there's no qualitative way to tell what happened.
Was the QB rushed and he chucked it? Was it essentially a spike at the receiver's feet to avoid pressure/grounding/an INT? Did the receiver drop it? Did the receiver make the wrong cut and the ball ended up behind him as a result of his own mistake? As you say, no qualitative data to tell for old stats. But so long as EVERYBODY is burdened by the same flaws and limitations, it's probably as fair as we can hope for.