jerryp said:
Speaking of team efficiency ratings, what do you think about VOA at this point saying the Cards have only a league average defense as opposed to the "good" defense most around here seem to think?
Also the general theme the VOA rankings seem to be showing now that we have three years of data to work with is that passing offense and passing defense are much more important than running offense/defense. There's some articles on there somewhere (they just redid the site and I can't find them) that basically showed there is no correlation between rushing yards and winning like conventional wisdom suggests. Given this, what do you think about us drafting a running back first next year?
First of all, 40year is being ignorant, willfully or not, if he thinks that FootballOutsiders doesn't have the single best statistical analysis of NFL stats in the country, if not the world. Tuesday Morning Quarterback has been pimping these guys for two years, and they're awesome. It may be the worst holistic resource comparing individual and team performance, but it's also better than all the other ones, including individual stats (ypc, TDs, etc.) which, as we all know, can be misleading. Personally, one of the most interesting stats from them looking back to last season was that Anquan Boldin only rated 15 in DPAR and a stunning 37 in DVOA.
Now, on the defensive question, I think that they might be right. The Cardinals have done a pretty good job at keeping opponents out of the end zone, but they're giving up massive swaths of yardage. 13th in the league in passing and 21st in the league in rushing doesn't make for a Top 5 defense, when you look at what a team like Jacksonville has accomplished.
Until last week, the Cards' D has done very little to provide the offense with short fields to work with, nor halted opponents' drives soon enough that the offense can maintain a rhythm. People seem to have forgotten in the euphoria of the defensive performance at the Georgia Dome how brutal the Cards were against St. Louis and ineffective they were against New England. Did the Cards force INTs against the Rams? Yeah. But Marc Bulger throws picks. That's what he does. Did the Cards keep it kind of close against the Pats? Yeah, but the Pats don't ever blow anyone out, either, and the Cards never really had momentum.
As for the question of the running backs, I'm not sure. Personally, I think that this is a cyclical thing. Was it two seasons ago that the teams with Top 10 runningbacks all failed to qualify for the playoffs? Right now, WRs have a size and speed advantage over 90% of the DBs.
Of course passing teams are going to have more success than running teams. On the other hand, the running teams in the NFL (San Fran last year, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans, etc.) just seem to have a hard time getting QBs into a rhythm, because they're constantly handing the ball off.
I do wonder if there is a corellation between rushing first downs and winning.
As to your question, I don't know if it's appropriate to draft a RB #1. I think that history suggests that first-round RBs are a bit of a crapshoot. Because of the spread offenses in the NCAA, they're not developing as many great prospects, and they just kind of get bunched into that late-first-to-early-third round area. Just look at the last couple drafts.
I think that the Cards should probably take the best among QB, TE, and CB in the first round of the 2005 draft. Then look for RB value in the second and/or third rounds. I think Denny knows
exactly what he wants in a runningback, and won't just take the highest-rated player on his board (as Mac did when he took Thomas Jones, and then did nothing to figure out how he's best used--Mac would have been better off choosing Ron Dayne for the way that he used TJ). I think that you could see Green do what Parcells and the Cowboys did with Julius Jones, just shift around until you can take the guy you want, and pick up value.