SB Nation User Blog: Tucker Fredrickson

Football Outsiders Previews The Giants

Tucker Fredrickson — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:08:58 -0000

For anyone interested in the stat guru's take on the Giants' 2008 season and their analysis of what to expect for 2009 there's a free download available at http://footballoutsiders.com/ramblings/2009/foa-2009-preview-new-york-giants .

There's interesting analysis on the Giants' performance without Burress. The offense actually improved, especially the passing offense,although the running game was less effective. The biggest problem in the passing game was Steve Smith's lesser performance over the last several games. But, the reduction in sack rate over the last several games seems to have been the main culprit in the late season skid, as many of us have theorized. What's really interesting is that the numbers show that Spags' zone blitzes were not effective and that the team played its best defense when they rushed four and dropped 7 into coverage. The biggest concern was the lack of quality reserves on the offensive line.

Anyway, it's interesting stuff.

Who's better, Domenik Hixon Or Desean Jackson

Tucker Fredrickson — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:50:45 -0000

Living in Philly, I hear as much about the Eagles as I do about the Giants. Everybody in Philly is super high on young receiver Desean Jackson. When I mention Domenik Hixon, however, they tend to be dismissive. Even a fair number of Giants fans don't see Hixon as a budding star the way the Eagles see Jackson. This inspired me to take a closer look at the numbers the 2 receivers put up last year. Hixon had 43 catches for 596 yards and Jackson had 62 catches for 912 yards. So Jackson did have the better year, right? If you look a little closer, however, you'll see that Jackson's yards per catch(14.7) were only a little higher than Hixon's (13.9). So it looks like Jackson had more catches and more yards because he had more opportunities, not necessarily because he's better. That's not surprising, because the Eagles attempted 115 more passes than the Giants last year and Jackson was a starter in all 16 games. Digging even a little deeper, the numbers show that Hixon caught 59.7% of the passes where he was the target and Jackson only 51%. That's actually a pretty big difference. My conclusion was that both receivers are good young receivers with a lot of upside, but that the perception that Jackson is a star in the making while Hixon is just a fill in that needs to be replaced is not accurate.

What Does The Choice Of Beckum Tell Us?

Tucker Fredrickson — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:39:04 -0000

I think all Giant's fans are going to be interested to see how Travis Beckum does this year. He looks like a player that can make some real contributions on offense. As I've been rehashing the draft in my mind, it seems like that selection, more than any other, will give us some insight into the the Giant's draft thinking. Beckum was one of a big group of tight ends who have the same relative skill set (Including Ingram, Cook and Casey and I think there were one or two more), good receivers, bad blockers. The Giants reached out and took Beckum with the last pick of the third round. Tight end wasn't a position of need and we'd already taken 2 receivers, so he must have been the player the Giants had rated most highly at that point, and they clearly preferred him to the other similar players who were all available at that point. The other tight ends that had similar ratings didn't go until the mid to late 5th round. It could be argued that the Giants pulled the trigger on him too early and could have taken somebody else, and still gotten Beckum in the 5th round. It will be interesting to see how Beckum's career stacks up to those 5th round picks. If he proves to be substantially better than the others, then Reese really is an amazing talent evaluator. But, if he isn't head and shoulders above the others, maybe we'll have to acknowledge that Reese is not perfect.

Hixon v. Smith

Tucker Fredrickson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:42:37 -0000

There's been a lot of debate recently about whether it would be better for the Giants to give up Hixon or Smith if necessary to complete the oft rumored Braylon Edwards trade. Generally speaking the sentiment seems to be that people would prefer to keep Smith. I thought it might make sense to look at the numbers before jumping to conclusions. Hixon had 43 receptions and a very good 13.9 yard/reception average. His long was 41 and he had 2 TDs. Smith led the team with 57 receptions, but had a below average yds/reception average of 10.1. His long was 30 yards and he had 1 TD. Although Smith had 14 more catches, they yielded 20 less yards than Hixon's 43. Additionally, Hixon had two rushing attempts for 26 yards, and did a good job on punt returns.

I understand that statistics can be deceiving, and I'd like to know which receiver was on the field for more plays, and how many balls were thrown to each. My gut tells me that Smith had more opportunities, but I can't back that up with numbers. Smith was healthy all year and was the number three receiver in every game. Hixon saw major action in the games Burress missed, but only spot duty in the games when Plax played.

People remember Hixon missing that long pass in the Eagles game and they remember Smith making a lot of third down catches to get first downs. Overall, though, I think the numbers suggest that if we had to part with one of the two (and I hope we don't have to) Smith is more expendable.