Week 4: Living on a Prayer--Bucs v Skins @ Bucs @ 4 somethin

Post #1 » by **W. Unseld** » Fri Sep 28, 2012 4:25 am

Questions:
Will the defense find a steady pass rush or a secondary? They are due for a decent game (no jinx)

Can the offense keep it up (they're due for a let down but then the Bucs just lost one of their best pass rushers)

Will Pierre Garçon play & will anyone ever explain the specifics of his foot injury?

Will RG3 be put needlessly at risk?

Answer:
Why Ryan Grant over Hightower? B/c Hightower suffered a setback in his rehab.

Nivek · Post #2 » by **Nivek** » Fri Sep 28, 2012 1:42 pm

Apparently Hightower just had his knee scoped. I wonder if he's on COBRA or something to pay for that.

Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats posted his version of a power rating. Skins ranked 32nd overall.

To summarize what Burke's numbers are saying: The Skins have played the league's weakest schedule so far, but rank just 18th on offense and 32nd on defense. Plus, they fumble a lot and they have the league's highest penalty rate.

Post #3 » by **LyricalRico** » Fri Sep 28, 2012 2:04 pm

Holy cow, Kev! The pre-existing problems, plus the thought of Vincent Jackson against our secondary, makes me increasingly doubt the Skins chances the closer we get to Sunday. I'm sure the Bucs are looking at the game as their chance to get their season back on track.

Nivek · Post #4 » by **Nivek** » Fri Sep 28, 2012 6:46 pm

Burke does "game probabilities" every week for the New York Times. Basically, he runs the numbers and gives the odds of each team winning for every game. His results have been terrific for the several years I've been following him. Anyway, he gives the Skins a 26% chance of winning against Tampa Sunday.

Nivek · Post #5 » by **Nivek** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 5:57 pm

My game preview over at the blog.

To summarize: I think it's going to be high scoring, and I think the Skins will lose, 34-31.

On the bright side, I'm 0-3 picking Skins games this year. Hopefully 0-4 by 7:30 tonight.

closg00 · Post #6 » by **closg00** » Mon Oct 1, 2012 12:10 am

Cundiff is a goner

Nivek · Post #7 » by **Nivek** » Mon Oct 1, 2012 12:19 am

I actually wrote about their kicker decision. Basically, they cut Gano to sign an older version of Gano. Cundiff is maybe a little better on kickoffs. The move made little sense. Cutting him would be an over-reaction.

Post #8 » by **Rafael122** » Mon Oct 1, 2012 1:43 pm

He almost made one from almost 60 yards out. That one I don't really count, if he made it, great, if not, we were up anyway. The other two where chippy's and the sad thing is, if they were maybe 2-3 yards further out, he probably would have missed. It was hooking left.

Our secondary played okay up until late in the 3rd quarter. No clue what started to happen there, maybe they played prevent defense?

Alfred Morris is looking like a steal right now. Right now. He's still a rookie, and I'm sure he will hit a wall at some point, but at worse, he's going to be a very capable back up.

Higga · Post #9 » by **Higga** » Mon Oct 1, 2012 3:12 pm

Robert Griffin III: they call him Superman.

Post #10 » by **W. Unseld** » Mon Oct 1, 2012 9:39 pm

Someone needs to remind me for kharma purposes to start the next game thread though it probably won't matter against Atlanta.

RG3 trade looking pretty freaking sweet barring serious injury
Morris looking like a steal
Hankerson looking like a poor man's Rod Gardner

On Cundiff I don't see the Gano comparison but I'm totally eye-balling it. I see Cundiff as being great for all things 46 yards and under (at least until this week) and Gano as being more of a wild card with a stronger leg. No clue what happened ot Cundiff this week. I remember hearing either the Giants or the Bears used to open the bottom doors of the stadium to create different wind patterns. I'd call it farfetched but then Red Auerbach did actually used to change the nets at half time to slow down fast breaks.

Post #11 » by **Rafael122** » Mon Oct 1, 2012 11:29 pm

Gano has a cannon leg but his accuracy was horrific. You really didn't know what you were getting from the kid week to week.

Nivek · Post #12 » by **Nivek** » Wed Oct 3, 2012 6:08 pm

I looked up info on kickers:

I wrote:Since 2000, 30 NFL kickers have at least 50 field goal attempts in their first three seasons. Gano ranks 26th in accuracy -- in a virtual tie with guess who...Billy Cundiff. In his first 3 seasons, Cundiff converted on 55-74 FGA -- 74.3%. Gano was 59-80, 73.8%. In effect, the Redskins swapped Gano for an older version of himself.

And, just worth mentioning, Cundiff really hasn't gotten more accurate: his career average after 8 seasons is 76.7%.

Not linking to it, since it's to the old blog and they haven't been able to migrate the content over yet.

I also have this from the previous preseason:

I (in 2011) wrote:According to Pro-Football Reference, over the past 10 seasons, 29 kickers age 25 or younger had at least 25 field goal attempts in their first two seasons. Gano is 24, is entering his third season, and has 39 career FGA. (Note: I limited the search to the last 10 years because kickers have become far more accurate in recent years. If I revisit this subject, I'll likely develop a method to compare kickers of different eras.)

For his career, Gano has made just 71.8% of his kicks, which ranks 23rd. That's low on the list, but here are a few guys who were even less accurate through their first two seasons:

- Kris Brown -- ended up with a 12-year career, including being voted 1st team All-NFL in 2007 by the Pro Football Writers.
- Neil Rackers -- 11 seasons; made the 2005 Pro Bowl, was 1st team All-Pro in 2005, and was named 1st team All-NFL in 2005 by AP, Pro Football Writers and the Sporting News.
- Rian Lindell -- 11 seasons; career FG% of 80.6%

Within three percentage points of Gano's FG% (in other words, if Gano had made one more kick) are guys like:
- Shayne Graham -- 3rd most accurate kicker in NFL history
- Billy Cundiff -- Pro Bowl last season, and AP's 1st team All-NFL

Other players with similar starts to their careers include guys who didn't go on to major success like Aaron Elling, Dave Rayner, Jeff Chandler, and Seth Marler.

TGW · Post #13 » by **TGW** » Thu Oct 4, 2012 6:48 pm

So what you're saying is...we should have kept Gano. Looking like that would have been wise, because Cundiff is terrible.

Nivek · Post #14 » by **Nivek** » Fri Oct 5, 2012 12:36 am

TGW wrote:So what you're saying is...we should have kept Gano. Looking like that would have been wise, because Cundiff is terrible.

Well, Cundiff isn't terrible -- he's not bad. But, he's not any better than Gano. If you have two guys -- both of whom have strong legs and are likely to make ~75% of their kicks -- you might as well stick with the younger one, or the one who's already on the roster.

Replacing Gano with Cundiff is one of those moves that maybe feels kinda good when you make it, but ultimately means nothing in terms of helping the team win.