SB Nation User Blog: hal41605

Steve McNair Found Shot to Death

hal41605 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:42:59 -0000

Steve McNair Found Shot to Death

The title says it all. A couple other fanposts have already popped up, but I wanted to get something up on the Front Page. Preliminary details are that another woman was found dead as well in a condo on 2nd Ave. South in downtown Nashville. This post will be updated as details become available. I am watching the local news as well as searching the web. Feel free to use the comments section to share your thoughts on this tragedy or to point out any links you find or details you hear on tv or radio.

The thoughts and prayers of the entire MCM community go out to the family of Steve McNair, especially his wife Mechelle and his four sons Junior, Steven, Tyler, and Trenton.

UPDATE (4:13): Some rumors are beginning to swirl that this might have been a murder-suicide involving McNair's wife. Its needs to be said loud and clear: Right now that is pure speculation which contradicts what police are saying. Metro Police have clearly labeled this, at least right now, as a double homicide. They also have not been able to properly notify the female victim's next of kin and are therefore withholding her name for now.

UPDATE: (4:45) per MCM user MrNorhtNashville
McNair's agent said on ESPN that his wife was NOT involved and is in fact in Mississippi with the rest of the McNair family.

UPDATE: (6:05) News Channel 5 is now reporting on air that Steve McNair was indeed renting the apartment where the shooting occurred.

UPDATE: (10:15) Metro Police Spokesman Don Aaron just gave a second press conference. The Tennessean has all the latest news.

I will not speculate about what all this evidence points to, but it's pretty obvious that there are more than likely some hurtful details yet to come. I think it's important to point out that regardless of what was going on in his private life, McNair was a community giant, not just in Nashville, but also in his native Mississippi, his first NFL home, Houston, his latest NFL home Baltimore, and also post-Katrina New Orleans. The circumstances of his death, whatever eventually comes out, will never change who was to the thousands who benefited from his philanthropy or to the millions of people who learned about greatness, toughness, and class by watching him on Sundays. The world was a better place when Steve was still with us.

NFL Opens Tampering Investigation on the Redskins Over Big Al

hal41605 — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:22:27 -0000

NFL Opens Tampering Investigation on the Redskins Over Big Al

Shouldn't mean anything to the Titans, but could hurt the 'Skins.

Late Round QB a Must for Titans

hal41605 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:21:25 -0000

Given VY's current residence in purgatory and the distinct possibility that he gets cut after this season, we need a new young guy to be developing for the future.

This story is about Mike Reilly from Central Washington. He apparently broke all of John Kitna's school passing records, and most impressively, set the NCAA All Divisions record of 46 consecutive games with a TD pass (as in, every game he played).

But the most impressive part about his resume and what has led me to campaign for Reilly here on MCM is contained in the following two paragraphs:

"It really was different all four years I was there," he said. "I played for three head coaches, three offensive coordinators, and three quarterback coaches while I was there. We kept winning, and our coaches kept getting offers to coach bigger schools. My first three years were pretty similar in that I was under center about 80 percent of the time. I didn't really ever get into shotgun until my junior year, but I was pretty much under center the whole time. It was more traditional -- one tight end, two running backs or vice versa -- but we never got too much into the spread offense. Even in those heavier sets, we still threw the ball quite a bit. We would throw the ball 30 to 35 times a game -- a little pass-happy, but nothing like you see from Texas Tech or Hawaii, where they're throwing the ball 60 times a game.
"In my senior year, we switched to about 80 percent shotgun under a new coach. So, I have exposure to both styles, which I think is a big asset. There are a lot of guys who really don't know how to take a snap under center. Especially in my junior year, my coach harped on that -- 'Hey, if you want to play in the NFL, you need to know about taking snaps under center.' Getting into different drops -- we worked a ton on that. It's been a big benefit to me."

He's a hard worker with tons of verstility and coachability, and bit of a chip on his shoulder coming out of D-II. He was the most successful QB in school hostory, despite being jerked around by 3 different coaching staffs, which tells me that, mentally, he is tough as nails.

If Vince doesn't do something this season, he's gone unless he and the Titans decided to do a major renegotiation where he takes a 60-70% pay cut over what he would receive next year under his current deal---very unlikely. We need to have another guy in development this year, so that if VY slinks out of town after this season, we are already set with Kerry's successor.

With the First Pick in the 2009 NFL Draft

hal41605 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:12:41 -0000

With the First Pick in the 2009 NFL Draft

The Deeeeeetroit Lions will select Matthew Stafford. $41.7 mill in guaranteed money!! Rookie contracts are insane. Good luck to Jim Schwartz & Co.

Devil's Advocate: Anquan Boldin

hal41605 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:00:51 -0000

So I know the conventional wisdom in Titans Nation is that Boldin would be a brain-explodingly amazing pick up for the Titans via trade. In an effort to stir things up, I submit this article for those of you with ESPN Insider. It's a little piece by the guys at Football Outsiders which should serve to bring at least a little rain to the current pro-Boldin love parade. For those without the WWL's pay service, keep reading and I will lay out some of the issues raised.

Injuries, age, draft picks and cash money dollar bills after the jump.

Injuries

The first big red flag on Boldin is that he has only stayed healthy for 2 full seasons out of 6, and only 1 of the last 5. He has missed 8 regular season games over the past 2 seasons. No one is ever going to question his toughness after his bionic face display this season, but many injuries, especially in the legs, simply can't be "toughed out". Boldin is renowned as a guy with no fear going up for the ball in traffic, but this is the NFL, and sometimes you pay a price for that kind of fearlessness. A guy who has issues with staying on the field when he is in his 20's generally doesn't make it too far into his 30's. And that brings us to the next issue...

Age

Boldin will turn 29 during this coming season. This statistical survey from several years ago suggests that "old" for a WR is 30. Granted, the sample appears to only cover 1998-2002, so it's not cold hard fact, but the article shows how about 50% of WRs perform better at 29 than they did at 28, and again, about half of 30 year-olds improve from what they did at 29. Then the improvement rate drops off a cliff. Only 24% of WRs were more productive at age 31 than they were at age 30. This suggests that regardless of where he is next year, Boldin's time as an elite WR in the NFL is coming to a close.

Fear and Trembling

These two issues combine in a fairly unsettling way. We know Boldin has had issues in his youthful years of 23-28 with staying healthy. We also know he is coming up on the age where most WR's begin a fairly steep decline. The third thing we know is that this guy wouldn't even be on the market if he weren't looking to get paid in a big-$10 million- way. And lastly, we think we know that a 1st and 3rd round pick are going to be the minimum asking price for Boldin.

So the question becomes, given these troubling indicators, is betting the farm on Boldin, sacrificing most of our remaining cap space, a chance to pick another Michael Griffin or Chris Johnson, and the ability to resign some of our own guys, worth it? Griff and Johnson together next year won't earn $10 million, and neither have even hit their peaks yet. Boldin has shown no signs of decline at this point, but things happen fast in the NFL, especially to WRs.

Boldin has 2 years left on the current deal that has him discontented in AZ. He would turn 31 the season after that contract expires. Knowing what we do about age trends, it becomes fairly clear why Boldin is so insistent on a new deal, and even clearer why no one has stepped up to the plate and made an offer yet. In fact, stringing Boldin out "listening to offers" is probably the smartest thing the Cards can do. They can try and placate him (pretend to negotiate or shop him) for the next two seasons, milk the remainder of his prime, and then let someone over pay him in 2 years.

Verdict

I didn't expect to convince people suddenly that Boldin is a bad idea for the Titans. I just wanted to point out why this is not a slam dunk, and perhaps explain why no team has made an offer yet. Imagine this scenario last year at this time. If we had made a similar move for Boldin, we would have no Crazy Legs, and probably would have had to forsake at least a couple of the sweetheart long term deals we inked with Roos, Stewart, and Finnegan. Can anyone tell me a single WR, in Tennessee's offense, is worth all that? I say you can't.

So my final verdict is this: The combination of new salary and draft picks that have been mentioned in the media for Boldin simply aren't worth it to this Tennessee Titans team. If they can get him to agree to something in the 6-7 mil range, it becomes more feasible, but 10 mil a year for a WR is just plain stupid in a run first scheme with a game manager @ QB.

Given our current GM's 2 for 2 home run rate on 1st round picks, the cost in draft picks alone might be too high when you consider that a really good draft pick could have 6-10 years of high level success whereas Boldin will most likely begin to decline within the next 2-3 years. If there was any way to not send our 1st round pick, that would change everything in my mind, but I don't see any way that we pull that off. Lendale and/or Scaife come to mind as players I would like to see us shop, but how much they would want either of those guys, I have no idea. Perhaps those two guys + a 2nd or 3rd rounder? Who knows.

The bottom line with sports deals/trades is this: you always want to make sure you are not paying for a player's past performance, but rather wisely gauge their future output. With Boldin, the past is stellar, but the future is dubious. The only way this deal is going to happen is if the Titans step up and decide to pay for his past performance to the tune of $8-10 mil per year and a 1st round pick. I simply do not think that is the smart thing to do.

Nobody Wants Q?

hal41605 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:40:23 -0000

Nobody Wants Q?

So apparently no one is falling over themselves for a chance to throw first round picks and more at the Cardinals for Boldin. I bet there is some buzz about him being moved come Draft Day, but ultimately I think he stays in AZ another year.

Football Outsiders Mock Draft

hal41605 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:09:43 -0000

Football Outsiders Mock Draft

Really interesting stuff, they have the Titans picking Rey Maualaga, MLB from USC.
This is quite odd for two reasons. First, because there is basically no way in my mind that he falls to us and second, I really don't see why we need to replace Tulloch at this point, especially when you look at our glaring depth issues at corner and o-line.
Anyways, here it is for what it's worth. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Albert receives lovely parting gifts

hal41605 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:14:24 -0000

Albert receives lovely parting gifts

From the Metro-Nashville DA's office, a couple of misdemeanors for that accident in December where the girl was seriously injured. Put THAT in your $100 million pipe and smoke it!

Matt Jones back in the slammer

hal41605 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:56:25 -0000

Matt Jones back in the slammer

Violation of probation for admitting to drinking. Also booked on possession of an unknown controlled substance. Obligatory rehab announcement in 5...4...3...

Who is Nate Washington?

hal41605 — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:23:08 -0000

[Site Note- Hal has agreed to be our "stat geek" here at MCM. I felt that Hal was the right candidate for the job, especially after I found out that he is graduating from a little school called Harvard, ever heard of it?, this spring. -Jimmy]

As everyone has likely heard, the Titans signed free agent WR Nate Washington to a 6 year, $27 million contract with $9 million guaranteed. Everyone out there has been waiting for the Titans to finally pay some attention to the receiver position, especially after letting Brandon Jones walk last week, so just the thought of signing a quality WR undoubtedly appeals to most Titans fans. Barring another (highly unexpected) major acquisition at the position, Nate should come in and start immediately opposite Justin Gage this fall.

However, the relevant question at this point in the offseason, with more free agents to be had and the draft still more than a month away, is what does Washington's arrival do to the state of our perpetually downtrodden group of wide receivers? Is he the big play savior we have all been waiting for? Is he an overpaid backup with a troubling tendency for the dropsies? Perhaps something in between? Who is Nate Washington?

After the jump, I will explore what the Stat Wizards over at Football Outsiders have to say about him, as well as other, more conventional stats.

When you look at what the voo-doo statisticians over at Football Outsiders have to say about Nate Washington, it raises some interesting issues. There are two important FO stats to consider with Wide Receivers. First is Defense-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR). The Second is Defense-Adjusted Value over Average (DVOA).

First, DYAR:

This stat estimates how many yards per season a WR will gain compared to a hypothetical "replacement" player (i.e. your average 1st sub at the position across the NFL). For the purposes of last season, the closest thing to the physical embodiment of the "replacement" WR would be Bobby Wade of former Titans fame, judged by his -7 DYAR, which means he gained 7 yards less last year than that theoretical replacement player. DYAR is an aggregate measure of value. It does not take how frequently the receiver is used into account when determining his value, but just provides a normalized overall value for the player for that season. DYAR is simply a more nuanced way to compare a WR's performance across a given season. WRs who are used less often will naturally have lower scores than if they had performed at the same level more often. To give you a range of DYARs, among receivers who were thrown to (targeted) at least 50 times last season, Andre Johnson had the best DYAR at 489 and, unsurprisingly, our own Justin McCareins had the worst at -101.

Second, DVOA:

DVOA is an attempt to find a player's value as opposed to the league average for that position (not to be confused with average replacement.). This is based on how a person performs on a play by play basis, adjusted for the situation and the opponent. For WRs, this can be most plainly summed up as their value, per play when they are targeted (thrown to) by the QB, as compared to the average WR's value in the same situation. The average WR last season according to their measure was approximately Chris Chambers, who had a DVOA of 0.3% (0 is the average). The best player last year (min 50 "targets") by DVOA was Devery Henderson, with a score of 34.5%. The worst was...(pause for suspense)... Justin McCareins with a -31.5%.

*One major caveat with using these stats in reference to WRs is that it does not adjust for QB play. This means, obviously, that WRs who have better QBs throwing to them will have a better ranking in both of these statistical views. However, any statistical measure which tell us that McCareins was, hands down, the worst regularly used WR in the NFL last year has to at least be on the right track, no?

Now, onto Mr. Washington.

Nate Washington's DYAR last season was 65, good for 50th in the league. The first thing that jumps out, in light of our other (non)moves this offseason, is that Brandon Jones had a DYAR of 75 (47th overall). Nate's DVOA was also lower than Jones's (-.9% [44th] vs. 3.2% [32nd]). Later, I will look at the respective price tags on these two guys, because these two statistical breakdowns make our decision to acquire Washington and jettison Jones seem rather curious. Here comes my attempt to explain why the Titans acted this way, using normal stats.

These are the pure stat lines for each guy:

Jones- 41 Receptions/62 targets (66% catch) for 449 (10.2 yds/comp), 1 TD

Washington- 40 Receptions/78 targets (51% catch) for 631 (15.8 yds/comp), 3 TDs

In terms of DVOA, you have to adjust for how the WR was used. Remember, DVOA is a measure of value per play targeted. Nate, for several reasons, was unsuccessfully targeted more often than Brandon. More failed targets means a lower DVOA, regardless of why they are incomplete, whether it be drops, bad throws, pass defense or simply because longer throws are more difficult to complete than short ones. The main reason I see for his sagging DVOA is that Nate was obviously used for pass attempts of much greater length than Jones, which inherently are more difficult to complete. His yards per completion were roughly 50% higher than B. Jones's. For further proof of this effect, I would submit to you that Randy Moss only recorded a DVOA of 0.5% last year, barely above average and lower than both Jones and Justin Gage. Unsurprisingly, his catch % was only 55%.

If you look at WR's who scored plus or minus 2% from Washington in DVOA, you will find that he is in the pleasant company of several other big time deep threats who suffer from low catch %: Randy Moss, Amani Toomer, Chad Johnson, Patrick Crayton, and Chris Chambers. The one thing you can say about Nate that you can't really say about anyone on this list is that he is young and he has never had the chance to be a starter. I'm not sure any sober Titans fans would say we couldn't use any of the guys I just listed.

Even more generally there are a lot of good WR's who didn't set the world on fire in DVOA last year. Toomer, Ocho Cinco, TO, Santana Moss, Crayton, Brandon Marshall, Santonio Holmes, Mark Clayton, Marvin Harrison, Devin Hester, Roy Williams and Braylon Edwards all scored lower in DVOA last year than Nate Washington.

As far as the DYAR measure, Jones and Washington are close enough to be virtually be a wash. However, remember what I said about DYAR being an overall measure of value regardless of how frequently used. Essentially what their respective DYARs shows is that the two were almost equally valuable to the cause of winning. Remember though, Jones was a starter last season, and Washington was stuck behind Holmes and Ward. That means that last year, Washington made a positive contribution to his team's chances of winning that was essentially as valuable as the one Jones made, yet he did it with much less field time. This says that if you put Washington on the field as often as Jones was, he should be significantly more valuable.

Now, to get away from some of the more head-spinning stats I want to look at the primary criticism which I have read and heard about Washington: Drops.

The most consistent criticism that I have read about Nate Washington is that he is prone to drops. The NFL does not publish drops as an official statistic, so finding this information can be tricky. One statistic that you can look at, however, is the catch percentage. As mentioned, Washington was thrown to 78 times last season but only caught 40 passes, for a catch percentage of %51.3, which is not good. However, this method does not take into account good defense or bad throws. It simply give you an idea of which receivers act as reliable possession targets in their system and which act as big play threats-Washington is certainly the latter.

Though any estimation of drops as a statistics is just that- an estimation, who's to say which uncaught passes were inexcusably dropped?- I was able to find one Pittsburgh website which had the rest of his stats correct, and it credited him with 4 drops last season. If that estimate is credible, 5.1% of the passes thrown his way were drops. Here's a list of some notable players who had a higher drop % last season (there are many, many others):

Anthony Gonzalez (8.9%), J. Gage (8.1%), TO (7.1%), Laveranues Coles (7%), Dallas Clark (6.5%), Hines Ward (5.5%)

So to me it seems like the drop thing is getting over played. I think it's especially interesting to point out Coles, since I know a few folks around here have expressed interest in him.

So far this season, the net effect on the WR corps has been to lose Brandon Jones and pick up Washington (the sooner we all forget about McCareins the better). Jones went to San Francisco for a new 5 year, $16.5 million deal with $5.5 million guaranteed, roughly 60% of what we are going to pay Washington. The natural tendency for some will be to consider this as a de facto swap. I think that is a false conflation, but even if you look at it that way, it should tell you two things:

First of all, the Titans decided Brandon Jones "is who we though he was", which is to say, an extremely mediocre slot receiver. His deal with San Francisco was a tiny contract, considering the guy was our 2nd best option last year, so it's pretty obvious they don't think he is going to improve much over the rest of his career

Secondly, the Titans see something special in Washington. Brandon Jones has a better NFL resume stat-wise than Nate Washington. So for the Titans to decide he is nearly twice as valuable long term than Jones says that they are really expecting him to take off once he sees more playing time. The DYAR figures back this up, showing that even with far fewer plays on the field, Washington still had a positive net effect equivalent to Brandon Jones.

The purpose of this post, as relayed by the title, was to try and figure out just what kind of player we are getting in Nate Washington. It has been said by others, and the stats confirm, that Nate Washington is a young, talented receiver who can stretch the field effectively and make big plays when given the opportunity. If that isn't what the Titans have been looking for, I don't know what is. Washington will absolutely punish any teams that try and put 8-9 men in the box to stuff the run, and just that threat is almost as valuable to the Titans as anything he does catching the ball.

Some may try and criticize the choice to spend a lot more for Washington than we would have had to in order to keep Jones. While I think valid criticisms can be made of the decision to let Jones walk to such a small contract, I would hope that this post will help people realize that Washington is not Jones and that such comparisons are inappropriate. Nate has a different skill set entirely, and it is a skill set which has been regretfully absent from our roster for as long as I can remember. Jones has been a Titan for 4 years and had plenty of chances to distinguish himself, yet has done nothing to show he is anything but a mediocre possession receiver. Washington, on the other hand, has never been a starter and still has a lot left to show the NFL.

If Washington blossoms on the Titans' roster, they will have a 25 year old deep threat locked up for the next 6 years at less than $5 million per season. If he is a dud, there is only $9 million in guaranteed money in his deal. The way I see it, the Titans just got a guy with heaps of potential at a position of dire need for a deal that isn't at all risky, and would be a true steal if he becomes even a very good WR over the next few years. He is by no means a silver bullet. Rememeber, he was only the 44th most valuable WR per play target last year by DVOA, and even slightly below average, so a good deal of improvement on Nate's part is being assumed by the front office. The Titans still have a very weak WR group from top to bottom that I think still deserves a 1st or 2nd round pick. But Nate Washington should add that final, down the field dimension to our offense which will open things up all around for runners, as well as other receivers.