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@Skooby could you post this http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11547672/ranking-league-based-25-talent-nba
Thanks
Thanks
@Skooby Could you post this article, good looks http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/stor...-nfl?ex_cid=InsiderTwitter_Monson_PlayerDrops
Players who have regressed most
We are three weeks into the new season already, and while things will start to shake themselves out, there are some concerning trends emerging for certain players who we were used to seeing better things from in 2013.
Some of the drop-offs have been influenced by scheme; some by a change in venue and some appear to be just a player struggling in a funk of poor form. The question we are left with, though, is can they turn it around or is 2014 going to be more of the same?
Here are the five players who have experienced the biggest drop-offs in their Pro Football Focus grades through three games, and our analysis for whether they will turn things around or continue to struggle.
Haden
Joe Haden, CB, Cleveland Browns
The offseason was full of talk about the best cornerbacks in football and the impact of tracking or shadowing receivers on that debate. Richard Sherman, Patrick Peterson and Haden were the three players to earn big-money contract extensions over the offseason, and of the three, only Haden has been tracking receivers to start this season. Sadly for him, it has not been going well. Only two corners have a worse PFF grade after three games and he already has been beaten for two scores.
Haden has been targeted 17 times and allowed a catch on 13 of those balls, failing to break up a single one directly and yielding a passer rating of 155.3 when tested, just three points shy of a perfect score.
Can he turn it around?
This run of form has come somewhat out of the blue for Haden. He is the only big-name, top-level corner to start the season tracking receivers, but this is not a new task for Haden, who did it well a year ago. Though he has been badly beaten up over three weeks, he has too much ability for that to last over the course of the season.
Kalil
Matt Kalil, OT, Minnesota Vikings
Regardless of what they admit to in public, the Vikings must be concerned about the form of Kalil, whose performances have gone steadily downhill since his rookie season. Last year, while not exactly dominating, Kalil ranked 41st in PFF's OT rankings (out of 62 starters) and had a minus-6.0 grade overall during a season of plenty of ups and downs. This year there has been no up but plenty of downs. He already has doubled the negative grade he achieved all of last season through three ugly performances, and has surrendered three sacks compared to four in all of 2013.
What is even more concerning for Minnesota is that he has allowed more pressure each week -- two total pressures in the opening game, six in the second week and seven this week against the Saints.
Can he turn it around?
There is no doubt that Kalil has talent. He was a high draft pick (No. 4 overall in the 2012 draft) for a reason and we saw some fine form in his rookie year as he hit the ground comparatively smoothly. This year he has been a major problem and the Vikings have circled the wagons to defend him rather than admit the issue. Norv Turner's offense can ask a lot of tackles at times, and Mike Zimmer has given hints that Kalil is a confidence player. With his confidence in the gutter at the moment, this poor form could run for a while.
McCown
Josh McCown, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
This one had the feeling of inevitability about it. McCown was out of football in 2011 after working his way through six NFL teams and the Hartford Colonials of the UFL before signing with the Bears. His career to that point never really suggested that he was a legitimate starting option that had been somehow misused, but coupled with a head coach in Chicago nicknamed "the quarterback whisperer" (Marc Trestman), McCown played some fantastic football in 2013.
He graded inside the top 10 despite playing just 427 snaps, trailing only Peyton Manning in passer rating for the season and actually leading the league in adjusted accuracy percentage while under pressure. He had a fantastic year and that convinced some this offseason (including the Bucs) that he was a viable starting option for 2014. So far he has been unable to replicate that form.
Can he turn it around?
It is no coincidence that removed from the presence of Trestman, McCown's performance has resembled far more closely that of the journeyman who found his way to the UFL than it has the guy from a year ago with the fancy numbers. I think unfortunately for Tampa Bay fans that this is the guy to expect the rest of the season -- or until Mike Glennon is handed a shot.
Revis
Darrelle Revis, CB, New England Patriots
There was no bigger marquee signing during the offseason than Revis in New England. It wasn't a long-term deal, but the pairing of Revis with the defensive creativity of Bill Belichick was a tantalizing prospect. Sadly it has yet to live up to the hype. While he hasn't graded badly, he has been entirely average in a year where he was supposed to re-stake his claim to being the best shutdown corner in the game. Revis Island appears to have developed a ferry port and light aircraft terminal.
Can he turn it around?
A year ago he was coming off a bad knee injury and was trapped in an ill-suited, zone-heavy scheme in Tampa Bay, yet Revis was still PFF's top-graded corner overall and top-five in coverage grade alone. The Patriots aren't asking him to do what he did for the Jets, but his situation is better than a year ago. I see no reason he can't play to last year's standard at least, so expect him to improve.
Watt
J.J. Watt, DE, Houston Texans
OK, hang in there with me on this one. Watt has still been pretty ridiculous. In fact, he still leads PFF's 3-4 defensive end rankings (by a fraction over Calais Campbell -- the same order as a year ago), but while Watt has been up in another stratosphere of grading and performance under the old attacking one-gap defenses Houston has employed in the past couple of seasons, this year he has looked a little constrained -- almost human. Over the past two seasons Watt has averaged a single-game PFF grade of around plus-6, but over the past two weeks he has averaged just plus-1.35 and earned his first negative grade in a year of play.
Can he turn it around?
There was a concern in the offseason that Romeo Crennel was too rigid a disciple of traditional two-gap 3-4 defense to make best use of Watt's talents -- his speed and ability to penetrate the line of scrimmage and disrupt plays. Over the past two weeks he has looked far less inclined to attack than in the past, and that is like applying a speed restrictor to a performance car. Watt can still be one of the best defensive players in the game, maybe even the best, if that continues, but we just might not see the Watt we've gotten used to seeing the past two seasons.
@Skooby can you post this article on the niners TIA
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/stor...ers-1-2-start-different-season-be-trouble-nfl
and this article too
http://insider.espn.go.com/college-...78/could-pac-12-left-college-football-playoff
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/stor...ers-1-2-start-different-season-be-trouble-nfl
and this article too
http://insider.espn.go.com/college-...78/could-pac-12-left-college-football-playoff
49ers could be in trouble
The San Francisco 49ers have been here before and lived to tell about it. Just last season, they turned a 1-2 start into a 12-4 record that would have won the NFC West in any other season since divisional realignment, and an eventual trip to the NFC Championship Game. On the surface, there's no reason for panic.
The 49ers are five-point favorites against the Philadelphia Eagles this week, and will likely be favored against the Kansas City Chiefs and St. Louis Rams thereafter. Winning those games to reach 4-2 would shatter the doom-and-gloom scenarios that can take hold prematurely after a couple of defeats.
Unfortunately for the 49ers, their problems run deeper this season. The warning signs are more acute, threatening a championship window the team has worked hard to keep open against lengthening odds. The stakes are also higher as coach Jim Harbaugh works through the fourth year of his five-year contract, and with the team not completely locked into keeping Colin Kaepernick as its starting quarterback beyond the 2015 season (more on both of those later). This is a potentially combustible situation, one that deserves a closer look as the 49ers approach their Week 4 home game against unbeaten Philadelphia.
There is no single fundamental flaw with the 49ers. The question is whether they can overcome the cumulative weight of many factors aligned against them at once. It's also worth considering the potential bigger-picture fallout if the season falls apart.
ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer finished his career with the 49ers and maintains ties to the organization. I found it telling the other day when he summed up the team's problems this way in a conversation with Colin Cowherd: "I think the team is worse -- significantly worse [than past seasons]. Not from a talent standpoint; they're still a very, very talented team. They lack discipline. They've lost it. They've lost what makes really good teams good. That's playing for one another, that's playing a high level of discipline in situations. [They] don't have the same energy."
Warning signs
• Questionable discipline: Seattle won the Super Bowl last season after leading the NFL in most penalties, so we shouldn't make too much of the 49ers' league-high total (41) through three games. Excessive penalties can still be a sign of questionable discipline. Off the field, the 49ers suffered from a league-high 10 player arrests over a 32-month period entering this season. The nine-game suspension for top pass-rusher Aldon Smith was costly. Penalties and arrests aren't related, of course, but both contribute to perceptions that the 49ers could use a course correction.
• Too many key injuries: San Francisco's strength on the offensive line has underwritten its offensive success in recent seasons. A hamstring injury has prevented right tackle Anthony Davis from playing. Tight ends Vernon Davis and Vance McDonald missed the team's most recent game, also affecting the line. Third-round pick Marcus Martin, drafted to help with depth on the line, was lost to injury. On defense, the 49ers used a smaller rotation in past seasons because their inside linebackers were dominant three-down players. NaVorro Bowman's injury has changed the dynamic. Losing Glenn Dorsey also hurt.
• Players underperforming: Guards Mike Iupati and Alex Boone have struggled to this point in the season, which wouldn't mean as much if the team weren't already playing without Davis at right tackle. On defense, outside linebacker Ahmad Brooks has made little impact, which wouldn't matter as much if Smith were playing. "Brooks was hot and cold in the past, but he played his butt off, and now he is not playing as well," a personnel director said.
• Roster attrition: Good teams must make difficult choices about the players they can afford to sign and re-sign. The 49ers have been making those tough choices for a few seasons now. They haven't lost any must-keep players, but they've invested considerable draft capital replacing players such as Dashon Goldson, Delanie Walker and Donte Whitner.
• Aging of the team: The 49ers went into Week 3 with the third-oldest starters in the league by average age. That isn't necessarily bad. New Orleans, Carolina, Arizona and Denver are also in the top 10. Jacksonville has the third-youngest starters and isn't very competitive. Still, age can be an indicator as to where a team stands in its life cycle. Is the window closer to closing than opening in San Francisco? Note that Seattle has the NFL's second-youngest group of starters.
• Low impact from draft picks: The 49ers have gotten 15 starts this season from the 40 players they drafted beginning in 2011, Harbaugh's first season. That is the lowest figure in the league and seven below the average. A strong roster has made it tougher for some rookies to factor, but that is only part of the story. Bowman's injury and Smith's suspension have hurt the total. The 2012 draft featured high-profile misses in A.J. Jenkins and LaMichael James.
• Taxing three-year grind: The 49ers won 76 percent of their regular-season games during Harbaugh's first three seasons, but each one of those seasons ended in crushing fashion. We rightfully give the early 1990s Buffalo Bills credit for continually bouncing back from Super Bowl losses. That team had a philosophical and intellectual leader in head coach in Marv Levy. The 49ers are wound tighter, which leads into the next item.
• Volatile head coach: Harbaugh's critics think his abrasive, hard-charging style carries a shelf life, and that once things go bad, they'll go really bad. We've touched on this one before, and there's no point in belaboring it. Only time will tell.
• Coach-GM dynamic: Team CEO Jed York has called the tension between Harbaugh and general manager Trent Baalke a creative one, casting it as a situation where two highly competitive professionals sometimes butt heads in pursuit of the greater good. York also has denied that the team nearly traded Harbaugh to Cleveland last offseason. Whatever the case, there are certainly unanswered questions about the long-term sustainability of this alliance.
Potential fallout
The 49ers have so far hedged their bets on Harbaugh and Kaepernick, raising the stakes for how the season unfolds from here. Contract talks with Harbaugh haven't gone anywhere in the past, but there hasn't been a deadline yet, either. He says he wants to stay and has no other aspirations. Talks will become a leading subject again in the offseason whether or not the team finishes strong. If the season falls apart or again ends in heartbreak, we'll find out just how sustainable the relationship between Harbaugh and the 49ers remains.
Change at the top could affect every level of the organization, including the outlook at quarterback. Kaepernick's contract makes him a strong favorite to remain the starter for years to come, but if a new coaching staff wanted to go in another direction, the deal allows the team that flexibility.
If Kaepernick stays, as expected, his contract is scheduled to count between $15 million and $19 million per season, making it tougher for the 49ers to maintain their roster to keep open their championship window. Meanwhile, the contracts for Frank Gore, Michael Crabtree, Chris Culliver and Iupati are expiring. Justin Smith turns 35 this month and it's tough to know what the future holds for Aldon Smith.
These far-off thoughts won't matter so much if the 49ers can replicate their 2013 reversal. If they can, Harbaugh can make an even stronger case he deserves top dollar. But with so many factors working against him, including strong competition from within the division, it's not going to be easy.
Notes
• Rookie QB evaluations: We're conditioned to think young quarterbacks need time to realize their potential, and it makes sense. However, there is some evidence suggesting QBs never deviate too much from what they show during their first season starting, health permitting.
Bill Polian and I covered that ground for a column back in April, and his conclusion has implications for Teddy Bridgewater and Blake Bortles, the two 2014 first-round picks recently installed as starters.
"The QBs who do well ultimately, do well as rookies or in their first season of starting -- they show you," Polian said. "If they are not above a certain threshold after their first 16 games, the odds are pretty good that they will not be a franchise quarterback. The odds are even stronger that they will wash out completely."
• Getting the ball out quickly: Sometimes you'll hear a coach explain his team's low sack total by saying the opponents are making a special effort to get the ball out quickly. Jeff Fisher alluded to this after his St. Louis Rams headed into their bye week with one sack in three games. The Rams averaged 3.3 sacks per game last season, third most in the NFL.
Was Fisher on point? Yes. The Rams' opponents have passed the ball 2.36 seconds after the snap on average, the sixth-lowest figure in the league. That is down from 2.49 seconds last season and 2.54 in 2012, Fisher's first season as head coach.
Some quarterbacks get the ball out quickly regardless of the opponent. Some hold the ball much longer in general. Baltimore's first three opponents (Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Cleveland) have gotten rid of the ball after just 2.16 seconds on average, fastest in the league. Opponents for Miami (2.21), Kansas City (2.24), Indianapolis (2.3) and Tennessee (2.35) round out the top five.
• The leading edge: Last season, the Washington Redskins ran a league-low 115 offensive plays while holding a lead on the scoreboard. They have already run 91 plays while leading through three games, the eighth-highest number in the league. Tampa Bay (five plays) and Green Bay (15) are at the other end of the spectrum this season. How much can the Packers lean on Eddie Lacy if they're almost never leading?
• Wilson-Luck revisited: I asked a personnel director what he thought about Denver Broncos cornerback Chris Harris' recent contention that Russell Wilson is better than Andrew Luck.
His answer: "The Broncos have faced both teams, and they struggled a bit more with the last guy [Wilson], and that hands-on experience tells him that of the two guys they faced, one played extremely well or above and beyond better. I would say he has a legitimate claim. It could be [credible] since he has faced them both and dissected them both and had on-the-field experience."
Why Pac-12 could miss playoff
The Pac-12 entered the season with as much momentum as any Power 5 conference. Returning 10 of 12 starting quarterbacks, the league was ready to make the case that it had unseated the SEC as best in the nation, with the potential to place not one, but two teams into the inaugural College Football Playoff.
The top teams in the Pac-12, however, have started slow. Oregon's defense showed weaknesses at Washington State. UCLA's offensive line still appears to have holes and USC's and Stanford's hopes for undefeated seasons are already over. All six Pac-12 teams that began the season ranked in the top 25 of ESPN's Football Power Index have fallen at least four spots.
It is still early, and no one quite knows what the selection committee will value most. But a deeper dive into the numbers makes one thing clear: the Pac-12's place in the playoff is not set in stone.
Based on early-season results, there are three playoff spots that already appear likely:
The winner of the SEC
Entering the season, many believed at least one team from the SEC -- winner of seven of the past eight national championships -- would make the playoff. After four weeks, there's absolutely no reason to abandon that belief. The SEC is 31-3 in nonconference games and has seven teams ranked in the top 15 of the AP poll. The conference also has the top four teams in FPI, which is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward. So it's fair to assume that at least one of those four (Alabama, Texas A&M, Auburn or Georgia) will make the playoff.
The winner of Baylor at Oklahoma on Nov. 8
The Big 12 has the best chance (79 percent) of any Power 5 conference to finish the season with a champion that has one loss or goes undefeated, according to FPI's projections. That likelihood is high not only because the Big 12 does not have a conference title game, but also because its top two teams, Oklahoma and Baylor, have been extremely dominant thus far. And considering that our projections find it unlikely that more than one Power 5 team will finish the season undefeated, one loss for the Big 12 champ shouldn't keep it out of the playoff.
Excluding Baylor, FPI gives the Sooners at least a 70 percent chance to win each of their other conference games, and the same goes for the Bears, although FPI gives BU only a 37 percent chance against OU. While nothing is a given, there is a good chance that whoever walks out of Norman unscathed will have an easy path to the playoff.
The Florida State Seminoles
After watching Florida State struggle at home against Clemson, a seed of doubt about whether the Seminoles are one of the four "best" teams in the country may have been planted in the minds of the committee. But if the Noles run the table -- FPI gives them the fourth-best chance in the nation, behind BYU, Marshall and Oklahoma -- it will be impossible to leave them out of the playoff. Florida State's toughest games are projected to be against Notre Dame and Florida, but the Seminoles host both of those and should be favored in each.
There are definite concerns -- the defense can't get off the field on third down (110th in the FBS), and the rush offense is averaging almost 100 fewer yards than last year -- but expect the team to bounce back with Jameis Winston under center. Much of FSU's struggles against Clemson were merely a result of Sean Maguire failing to get rid of the ball on time and check the Seminoles into the right plays.
These outcomes leave a fourth spot up for grabs. At this point in the season, there are three options: The Pac-12 champion, a second SEC team (likely from the West) or Michigan State, whose only loss came at Oregon. While there are other possibilities -- BYU, Notre Dame, Nebraska -- these three seem most plausible.
Should Oregon finish undefeated or with one loss and win the Pac-12, the decision for the committee would be easy. However, based on 10,000 simulations of the season using FPI, there is only a 31 percent chance that the Ducks finish with one loss or go undefeated. Their most likely outcome is 11-2. Similarly, UCLA, USC and Stanford each has less than a 7 percent chance to finish with one loss or undefeated.
Last year, Stanford won the Pac-12 with two losses, and had there been a playoff, the Cardinal would have been fighting for the fourth spot. This season, FPI projects that the most likely outcome (65 percent) is a Pac-12 champion with at least two losses. The SEC, Big 12 and ACC each has a better chance of finishing the season with a one-loss champion.
Whether the committee would select a two-loss Pac-12 champion over a one-loss SEC team, or a one-loss Big Ten champion, is unknown. Frankly, it is not worth trying to read the minds' of the committee members before their first rankings are even released on Oct. 28.
But it is worth asking the question: Could the depth of the Pac-12 -- which was praised heading into the season -- end up hurting the conference's playoff chances? After UCLA takes on Arizona State on Thursday night, another preseason Pac-12 contender will have a loss. That will leave three of the initial top five teams entering the season with a setback. As witnessed by Washington State's near upset of Oregon last Saturday, there is not a big difference between the top and the bottom of the conference -- which may ultimately be its demise in the playoff era.
Ritzy Sharon
Don't Make Me Pull The Oud Out
Are we sleeping on Denver?
Does Brian Shaw think we're sleeping on his Denver Nuggets?
"Yeah, I do," Shaw said. "I understand because of the season we had last year. We won 36 games, but I still feel like we had a pretty good season based on all the things we had to deal with ... I'm not making any excuses. We had the injuries, but we did the best we could do. I'm looking forward to having the guys back."
At this time last year, the Nuggets appeared to be a solid playoff team, but injuries derailed everything. The win total sank from 57 to 36, and the Nuggets never contended for a playoff slot. According to the injury data compiled by Kevin Pelton, the Nuggets lost 10.1 wins because of player unavailability, more than all but two teams.
The wounded are returning, and once J.J. Hickson and JaVale McGee get on the floor -- Shaw says they are "very, very close" -- the Nuggets' roster will be as deep as the one that won all those games. Former Nugget Arron Afflalo is back thanks to an offseason trade, and Shaw calls rookie Gary Harris "probably our best perimeter defender already." The Nuggets should field a 15-man roster chock full of legitimate NBA players.
The narrative seems simple. Team wins 57 games. Team is wrecked by injuries. Team bounces back. Yet the ESPN Summer Forecast slotted the Nuggets 11th in the West.
There are objective reasons for the downturn in expectation. The Nuggets' big three of Kenneth Faried (No. 42 on #NBARank), Ty Lawson (No. 45 on #NBARank) and Danilo Gallinari are fine, with a collective forecast every bit as good as 2012-13. While Faried isn't a star scorer, he still offers Denver's best chance of featuring a player with star value. One believer in his game is Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau, who helped coach Faried on Team USA.
"The things that he does are all winning things," Thibodeau says. "Great energy, great rebounding, great screening, great ability to run the floor, great multiple effort, and better offensively than you think. He's a terrific player."
Faried's big three counterparts are as good or better than two years ago, with obvious injury-recovery caveats applying to Gallinari. Lawson's baseline (.569) is several ticks above his 2012-13 mark of .529, while Gallinari (.544) is projected to retain his previous level of efficiency.
However, down the roster, the Nuggets' deep cast must prove as adept as the role players were in 2012-13. Afflalo emerged as a primary scorer in Orlando, much to the detriment of his bottom-line value, and thus his forecast for .446 pales to the .521 Andre Iguodala put up two years ago. Center Timofey Mozgov's .440 projection falls well short of Kosta Koufos' .536, and the story extends to the bench, where only Randy Foye is projected to match his 2012-13 counterpart, Andre Miller. The depth is as deep, but it's not as good.
The return of Gallinari boosts the offense. So too could the return of the Denver version of Afflalo, who once put up a .620 true shooting percentage in a low-volume role for the Nuggets. The Denver attack last season was right in line with its predecessor in offensive rebounding and foul-drawing, but fell off in shooting. Continued improvements from Faried and Mozgov should help, and while Afflalo isn't likely to match Iguodala in efficiency around the basket, he does offer another long-range option, as does Harris.
"You have to account for Gallo out on the perimeter, so hopefully that opens things up for our big guys as well as our guards to be able to penetrate," Shaw said. Also, with more weapons and continuity around him, Lawson can swing his volume/efficiency pendulum back toward the latter, distributing to more stable cast of weapons.
"I trust him to make whatever reads that are out there," Shaw said. "If he needs to be aggressive and score on certain nights, that's what we need him to do. Other nights, he'll be a distributor."
Still, while Shaw can hope for his offensive issues to work themselves out, the spotlight will be on the defensive performance of his club. The Nuggets slipped 10 spots on that end last season even though they ranked in the same slot in defending shots (13th) and improved from 27th to 15th in defensive rebounding. The missing defensive trait is the big one for any team playing its home games in Colorado: pressure.
"Defense [is the key]," Faried said. "We're going to score the ball. We're going to get up and down. We've got the most [home] advantage in the NBA. We're going to run you ragged. We just have to play better defense.
"[Turnovers] are part of it. Part of it is also mental. Guys that want to buy in and play defense on every possession. Take it personally, not just when your guy scores, but when any player scores."
Denver fell from third to 23rd in steal percentage. There was less switching on defense, and generally less chaos for opponents. More than anything, that's just not Nuggets basketball. Successful Denver teams always have played fast in the thin Rocky Mountain air, and they've always forced turnovers. Of the 13 most successful Nuggets teams since it moved over from the ABA, 11 have ranked ninth or better in opponent turnover percentage. Some coaches don't emphasize steals or turnovers, but in Denver, that's not an option.
"I'd like to see us create turnovers and get out and get easy opportunities offensively," Shaw said. "The team that I inherited, we didn't have Andre Iguodala, the best defensive player on that team. We lost Corey Brewer, one of the better defenders. We didn't have the rim protection that JaVale McGee provides, or the length of Gallinari.
"With the addition of Gary Harris, Arron Afflalo, getting JaVale back, the length of Gallo, the addition of Alonzo Gee ... there was some thought that we get defensive-minded players to help us in that area."
We saw the possibilities for a while Monday, when the Nuggets rolled out their preferred starting lineup for the first time since March 27, 2013. The Nuggets forced seven early turnovers against the Bulls' projected starting five. That led to seven fast-break points and nine points off turnovers, and Denver led 30-19 after one quarter. Then the Nuggets' second unit came on and outplayed its Chicago counterparts, extending the lead to 21. Depth and chaos: It was like 2012-13 all over again.
"That's going to be a big part of us," Shaw said. "We have a lot of depth. If we get everybody back, we'll be two and three deep, so there shouldn't be a drop-off. We should be able to keep that momentum and pressure on teams."
Alas, this is 2014, not 2012. Denver collapsed after the fast start in Chicago, giving up 29 points in the last five minutes of the first half and eventually lost by 20.
Still, we at least got a glimpse of what a fully functioning Nuggets squad might look like: One that feeds off an energized, pressure defense. So, are we sleeping on the Nuggets?
"Let them sleep," Faried said. It was all he needed to say.