SB Nation User Blog: taiko

Optimism and the 49ers

taiko — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:10:28 -0000

Optimism and the 49ers

We've seen some really off-the-wall optimistic things written from Niners Nation -- if you want to crown 'em, crown they ass, as Denny Green would say. But this article / novella from Florida Danny is actually a very reasoned, insightful read. Still a little optimistic in the outcome, but a strong analysis of what makes teams "leap" from non-playoff to playoff teams.

Football Outsiders: "Made, and not Born"

taiko — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:38:58 -0000

Football Outsiders: "Made, and not Born"

First of all, skip the first part of the article completely. I'm not sure how serious he's trying to be, but it reads as though he's literally throwing darts. Skip to this line: "Scouting Reports of the Past" and keep reading, and you'll find one of the very best pre-draft articles of the year.

Blueprint for Rebuilding: the 1999 Rams?

taiko — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:35:17 -0000

In the comments of my first "Blueprint for Rebuilding" on the 2008 Dolphins, JordansDad raised a pertinent question:

Rams?
isnt what they did in 99 considered a rebuild? or is it just a turn around? going from 4-12 to 13-3

Here's my response: The '99 Rams are definitely worthy of a look back, but we all know that story by heart, don't we? ;)

But it's funny, it's actually a very different type of rebuilding scenario than the situation we face right now - they had 90% of the foundation players, they just needed to acquire the skill players and change in coaching philosophy to get it to click. Prior to January, none of the 2008 Rams matches up position-for-position with any of the returning starters that the 1998 Rams had. (Perhaps Chris Long vs. Grant Wistrom will be a push. But Wistrom set a pretty high bar in 1999, so we'll see.)

Key foundation players (pre-1999):

WR Isaac Bruce
LT Orlando Pace
LG Fred Miller (moved to RT)
WR Ricky Proehl

MLB London Fletcher (backup most of 1998)
DE Kevin Carter
DE Grant Wistrom (backup most of 1998)
LB Mike Jones
LB D'Marco Farr
LB Roman Phifer
CB Todd Lyght

That's not a bad foundation, they were just screwed by the complete void at QB and RB. Of course, they had this rawboned journeyman quarterback named Warner under contract, playing in Amsterdam. Might as well invite him to camp, right?

A rough timeline of key changes:

1998: Rams sign Kurt Warner and assign him to the World League of American Football. (importance: 0 stars at the time, 5 stars later)

Coaching changes:

January 1999: Vermeil is politely urged by John Shaw and company to overhaul his staff and his coaching philosophy. Vermeil realizes his job may be on the line, and takes heed. (importance: *** ... I give some credit for the last smart move the old front office ever made, both sticking with Vermeil and lighting a fire under him.)
January 1999: Offensive coordinator Jerry Rhome is replaced with Mike Martz. (importance: ***** ... though I could be just grading the difference in effectiveness.)
There might be others? I couldn't find very good archives (thanks for nothing, STL Today!) going back this far. I believe they already had Jim Hanifan, John Bunting, Wilbert Montgomery, etc.

Free agent acquisitions:

The Rams' offense in 1998 was downright putrid, as bad as any team Rich Brooks ever coached. Banks simply had to go. The running back situation had been unsettled and unproductive since Bettis left town. The offensive line was weak, but had a foundation player in Pace to build around.

February 1999: Rams sign Trent Green to replace Tony Banks. (importance: **** ... even though he didn't play a snap in the regular season, Green was the prototype quarterback for the Martz offense.)
February 1999: Rams sign a young Adam Timmerman away from the Packers. (importance: **** .... this nasty run-blocker solidified an offensive line that certainly contributed to the lack of rushing attack, and helped make up for a lack of strength over center.)
Spring 1999: Rams trade a 2nd and 5th-round pick to Indianapolis for Marshall Faulk. (importance: *****(*) ... without Faulk, the Rams do not make the postseason in '99. No question. And yes, that's six stars on a scale of 1 to 5.)

The 1999 Draft

Again, the Rams did not focus on core players here, as their core was already pretty well solidified. But they did hit on two perimeter players, one on offense and one on defense.

April 1999: Rams draft Torry Holt in the first round (#6 overall), the first WR chosen. Ironically, the Colts took Edgerrin James at #4 overall, to replace Faulk. If the Faulk trade had not happened, it's conceivable those picks might have been reversed. (importance: **** ... Holt's talent, swagger and refreshing attitude helped transform the culture of the team and its fans in St. Louis.)
April 1999: Rams draft Dre Bly in the second round. (Importance: **)

Luck

Or, call it Destiny? Teams don't plan for stuff like this, they just happen and the team rides the karmic wave up or down.

August 1999: Trent Green is sacked, lost for the season. Kurt Warner takes over at quarterback. (Importance: *** ... don't get me wrong, Warner played out of his mind and was indispensable in the playoffs, but in my opinion the Rams would have made the playoffs, and a dramatic turnaround from 3-13, with Trent Green at QB as well.)

The Statement Game

Week 4, a 42-20 victory over San Francisco at the Dome. The Rams had lost I think 17 in a row to the 49ers prior to this game. (edit: Wikipedia says 17 of their previous 18.) The new-look Rams had started 3-0 over the season with pretty convincing wins over Baltimore, Atlanta (who went to the Super Bowl in 1998), and Cincinnati, but still hadn't proved anything to their long-time nemeses. All the Rams did was score touchdowns on their first three possessions, take a 28-10 first half lead, and then put their foot on the Niners' throats in the second half. Warner had five TD passes in the game.

The rest you all know by now....

Blueprint for Rebuilding: the 2008 Miami Dolphins

taiko — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:13:49 -0000

With the NFL Draft looming, VanRam suggested that I pursue the idea of looking at recent rebuilds in the NFL - how did teams suddenly jump from misery to respectability to contention? Examples include the 2008 Dolphins and Falcons, the 2002 John Fox Panthers, the 1996 Tony Dungy Buccaneers, maybe even the San Diego Chargers' brief rise to glory under Bobby Beathard and young Billy Devaney in the early 1990s... if I get that many done between now and the draft.

We have reasons to hope for a speedy turnaround -- the NFL is perhaps the most friendly professional sports league in the world, in terms of allowing teams to rapidly reinvent themselves. The combination of uber-rich TV contracts and a weak players' union makes for a high salary cap and relatively flexible rosters from year to year. And, it's been done before by a few lucky teams.

The first one I'm going to focus on is the 2008 Miami Dolphins.

What Went Wrong in 2007?

How about a simple answer: everything.

The year started when Nick Saban abruptly gave up on professional ball and bolted to Alabama. This sent owner Wayne Huizenga on a widely-publicized two week coaching search, taking him as far as Costa Rica to woo USC coach Pete Carroll. Thwarted, he settled on one of the league's "hot coordinators," Cam Cameron of the Chargers.

It didn't work.

They started the season 0-13. They won their only game on a miracle play in overtime by quarterback Cleo Lemon, defeating the then-downtrodden Baltimore Ravens.

Lemon, John Beck, and Trent Green formed a triumvirate of suck at the quarterback position, combining for a 69.57 QB rating, with only 12 touchdown passes on the year.

Rather than fix the offense, Cameron openly feuded with his team's best player, Jason Taylor.

GM Randy Mueller simply gave up on the season before October's leaves started turning, trading their top two receivers, Wes Welker and Chris Chambers, for a sackful of pretty shells and a dashboard hula dancer. (Actually, two second-round picks and a 7th-rounder.) Replacing these two in the rotation was the colossally over-drafted Ted Ginn, Jr., and a warm body from the 2006 draft, Derek Hagan.

Meanwhile, Ricky Williams was on some sort of spiritual quest, taking a brief time out to carry the ball 6 times for 15 yards. Their one bright spot, offensively, was rookie RB Ronnie Brown, and that light went out as his season was forcibly ended in Week 6 by injury.

The once-mighty Fins defense, already long in the tooth, became toothless. Miami dropped to 30th in the NFL in points allowed, worst in franchise history.

Bottom line: this was a team with no reliable skill position players, an aging core, a clueless GM, and an overmatched coach. This was a franchise in complete, utter ruin.

Starting the Rebuild

Change has to start at the top. However, Huizenga didn't want to be the hatchet man himself.

So in early December, he hired perhaps the best in the business -- Bill Parcells -- to fill the empty position of "Executive VP of Football Operations." (This was a position originally created for Dan Marino back in 2004, a position which he held for all of three weeks before deciding he'd had enough.) Ironically, Parcells was in the midst of negotiating with the Atlanta Falcons, another team badly in need of a top-to-bottom housecleaning, when the Dolphins got him.

The new pecking order in Miami was simple: Parcells would answer to Huizenga, and everyone else in the organization would answer to Parcells. And in less than a month, they did, in a series of quick, decisive moves.

GM Randy Mueller was fired the day after the regular season ended, replaced by a player personnel expert in Dallas, Jeff Ireland.

Coach Cam Cameron was let go shortly after, and the Dolphins were able to hire the Dallas Cowboys hot coaching prospect ~~Jason Garrett~~ Tony Sparano on the first day he became available. (i.e. after the Cowboys extended their sad streak without a playoff win to ten years.)

Following these and a host of other changes to the coaching ranks, the team parted ways with their two most recognized, and most-laurelled players: Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas.

As these stalwarts were shown the door, everyone waited for the other shoe to drop, the day when Parcells would take Ricky Williams out into the woods and gently, but mercilessly, put an end to his indifferent NFL career. But throughout his tenure as coach, he has shown a tendency to keep one jackass on his roster -- just one -- as long as they had talent and could be cowed by his superior will. So rather than cut Williams and get nothing but pyrrhic satisfaction, he put a charge in him and got half a pro-bowl-worthy rushing tandem.

Step 2: The 2008 Draft

By virtue of their 1-15 record, the Dolphins had first pick. But the 2008 draft turned out to be a chaotic mess, featuring no sure-fire first-pick talent, no WRs chosen in the first round, and a record 34 draft-day trades. With absolutely nothing behind center, a quarterback would have been an easy choice. And as #3 pick Matt Ryan showed, he would have been a good one. Or, they could have chosen to replace Jason Taylor with edge-rusher Chris Long, and remake their trademark defensive ferocity. But Parcells and Ireland handed coach Sparano, an offensive line specialist, a premier left tackle in Jake Long.

It was a simple matchup: a player who "had no question marks" according to pre-draft analysis, with a coach who was best positioned to get the best out of him.

Here's how the entire Dolphins day 1 draft shaped up:

1	OL Jake Long (Michigan)	started all 16 games, went to Pro Bowl
2	DE Philip Merling (Clemson)	backup player, started one game
2	QB Chad Henne (Michigan)	pick acquired from San Diego. slated for opening day competition.
3	DE Kendall Langford (Hampton)	pick acquired from Detroit. no longer listed on depth chart.

Clearly, the Dolphins' draft-day interest was in building strength up the middle. But they didn't rely on first-year players to carry them forward. Rather, they added low-cost depth with hidden gems on the Dallas roster.

Prior to the draft, Miami dealt two second-day picks to the Cowboys for three players who would step in and make immediate contributions: LB Akin Ayodele, NT Jason Ferguson, and TE Anthony Fasano. No household names, but each played significant contributions, starting at least 13 games each. Fasano surprised the league by catching 7 touchdowns, third most in the NFL among tight ends, and three more than the celebrated Jason Witten.

The Dolphins also found two gems among the undrafted: kick return specialist Davone Bess, and their eventual starting place kicker, Dan Carpenter.

Step 3: Luck

After the personnel moves of Spring, this team was a lot younger, and a lot deeper, but still lacking proven talent or any semblance of on-field leadership. The Dolphins appeared to be fine with this, preferring to give room to the younger players on the roster to compete, grow and potentially blossom under the new coaching staff. But then, one of their division rivals would unwittingly put the perfect Parcells player on the free agent blocks.

On August 7th, the Jets completed a trade for the suddenly unretired Brett Favre, and released Chad Pennington.

On August 9th, Pennington signed with Miami and reunited with his old coach.

If Pennington cared that he wasn't wanted in New York, if he cared that there were already two weeks gone in training camp, he didn't look it. The 31-year-old took over this Dolphins team and put up unbelievable numbers, passing for career highs in yards, and numbers he hadn't seen in six years in touchdowns and QB rating.

It was the ultimate low-risk, high-reward move. It should be the headline gamble for the 2008 Dolphins, and would be except for one game in Week 3:

Step 4: The Surprise (aka the Wildcat)

The Dolphins started off 0-2, and had to travel to New England for Week 3. Even without Tom Brady, the Patriots were 13-point favorites to win. But the Pats' defense was old and slow, especially when moving laterally. And the Dolphins' offensive line was young and athletic, and had two monstrous running backs behind them. And with absolutely nothing more to lose, Sparano ordered up some back-to-high-school misdirection football plays, and beat the living shit out of their chowder-eating nemeses.

Ricky Williams rushed for 98 yards on 16 carries. Ronnie Brown did even better, with 116 yards and an eye-popping 4 TDs rushing, and tossed a fifth TD on a halfback option pass. Chad Pennington had probably his easiest day ever against New England, completing 17 of 20 passes without a sack.

The Wildcat was never as significant a factor again in the season, but their success -- and the fact that they caught the mighty Belichick off guard with it -- made it the "in" phenomenon of the league. More importantly, it made Miami harder to gameplan against. The Wildcat gave them a mystique that made them actually feared as opponents.

With the tone-setting win, the 2007 Dolphins entered the bye week and disappeared forever, to be replaced by the 2008 Dolphins, who would win 10 of their next 13 games and steamroll into the playoffs, one year after being toe-tagged and put on a slab.

That's how they did it, in part at least. What will the Rams do?

Game tapes from 2008?

taiko — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:17:10 -0000

This is an open question for the group. I'd like to go back and get some sort of game tape from last season, preferably something that had a video clip of every play of every game, including penalties. I see that iTunes sells "highlights" from each game... (But if all they were showing were Rams highlights, we'd get the Dallas game, the press conferences announcing Zygmunt's firing, Devaney's hiring, Spagnuolo's hiring, and that's about it.) Has anyone tried these? Is it worth 25 clams? If not, is there another source out there?

The St. Louis Rams have the second pick, and though everyone expects them to take a left tackle,...

taiko — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:04:53 -0000

The St. Louis Rams have the second pick, and though everyone expects them to take a left tackle, general manager Billy Devaney said this to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Curry was the first guy we put (tape) on, and we were like, 'Wow! This guy is special.' He is really good on tape. And then we started talking about the intangibles, and to a man, everybody said he's top of the line."

Doug Farrar of Football Outsiders, writing for the Washington Post: Aaron Curry, Safe at Home (Part 2)

Mike Peterson signed by Falcons

taiko — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:13:00 -0000

Mike Peterson signed by Falcons

Just a minor note - one of our referred stopgap options at MLB has been snapped up by the Falcons, filling the hole left by Keith Brooking.

Yet another reason to draft Curry?

Explain to a hockey idiot: "playing like the russian red army"

taiko — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:16:21 -0000

Hey Gametimers, I'm emerging from the shadows of long time lurk-dom to ask what the fuck Andy Murray is talking about in the post-game wrap of that thrashing of the Avs:

"During the first period, we tried to play like the Russian Red Army team,'' Blues coach Andy Murray said. "During the last two periods, we played our game."

I really like watching the Blues but have absolutely no bred-in hockey knowledge, having grown up in Florida in the 70s and 80s when the only professional sports in America's dong was the University of Miami's football team. So I appreciate any help in parsing these kind of cultural references.

Go Blues!

"I might be kicking myself that I wasn't able to pull the trigger with this thing."

taiko — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:48:50 -0000

"I might be kicking myself that I wasn't able to pull the trigger with this thing."

Scott Linehan says no to the Offensive Coordinator's job with the 49ers.

Wow. If I'm the Niners, I don't know whether to be relieved or insulted by being rejected by Linehan.

The Haslett Interview, by Joseph Conrad

taiko — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:55:32 -0000

Haslett has that thousand-yard stare of a man who has seen too much, and the curiously drawn mouth of a man who cannot talk about what he has seen. It's his job to keep the suffering inside, so that it doesn't hurt the rest of us. I picture this interview taking place in a dark shanty in Singapore, surrounded by shadowy nameless refugees of human failure.

Billy Devaney arrives in a sparkling white suit, no one knows how he has found Haslett but he has, and he's determined to bring the full light of judicial inquiry against him. But he sees some shred of humanity in Haslett's eyes, and decides to spare him the shame of the light of day, so he sits town to join Haslett in his den of hiding. However, Billy won't spare him the sharpness of his questions, and by the end they hurt almost as much to ask as to answer.

"Why did the Rams lose their last ten games?"

Haslett knows that this question was coming, but it is not the one he is running from. He looks up from his tankard of dark ale.

"We did a terrible job, all of us, the players and the coaches the same. But you're wrong about the losing. We didn't lose em all like that, all at once.

"The losing wasn't just one kind of losing. There's so many ways to lose in this game, and we nearly hit them all. Trying to coach up this team was like trying to hold a parachute up off the ground all by yourself. No matter if we got one corner up in the air, another would come collapsing down, and there was no use in getting mad because it was just its nature to fall.

"By the end of it, we damn near had it turned the right way. We were winning the battles on the field. We had our quarterback and his linemen awake and breathing God's air like a normal human being -- you don't know how much work that was all by itself, turning these corpses, these gutless boneless bags of shit and piss, back into players. And we had games that we'd won. We're winning these games, the turnovers, the scoreboard, we're winning 'em. Sure we ain't playing Ray Nietzche's Packers or nuthin but we're playing like an honest-to-goddamned football team and winning these last few games. Seattle. Frisco. Atlanna. The last one a playoff team..."

Haslett drains his tankard, and looks morosely into the bottom of it for several long seconds, then looks up again, focusing on the shiny new ribbon on the front of Devaney's uniform, signaling his promotion to the admiral's position of the St. Louis franchise. He turns and spits, but somehow doesn't convey disrespect in the gesture. He continues in a low guttural whisper.

"The last one a playoff team. But it was just foolish pride. It's nothing to win three quarters of a football game. It's nothing to look like a football team. That fourth quarter is the fiery hell that a man has to walk through head-up or get his soul burnt alive. And the secret.... the secret of the matter is that you can't do it alone. No man can, but each and every one of our lily-lovin sons a bitches would forget their fellows and try to win the goddamned game by themselves. A sorry bunch of free-lancing dandies we were in those final minutes."

Devaney picks up the thread, and asks:

"After that, how do you feel you can be successful as the team's head coach?"

Haslett's gaze burns a hole through Devaney's chest for a moment, then looks up with a dull gloss over his eyes. "I might be the only man who could. But who's sayin' I would want to?"

At this point, the matronly barmaid brings over a new ale for the coach, and gives Devaney a short questioning look. "Just a sparkling water, if you please, madam." She shrugs diffidently and walks away.

Devaney turns back to Haslett, his voice cold and clear, as he tries to clarify the testimony.

"So, many of the games featured a lopsided score by half-time, but down the stretch the Rams were blowing leads. How do you explain this?"

Haslett sneers, and says bitterly, "Look, I got one player who thinks he's goddamned Superman, John Wayne and John Shaft all rolled up into one. And the rest of my team believe him. When he's playing like a bat out of hell, these cheap followers suddenly gets some wind in their sails, you follow? But when it turns out that this guy gets a ding in his iron suit, he sits out four weeks in his fortress of damned solitude and the rest of the team gives up faster than the French in dubya-dubya-two.

"It wasn't their fault. Ain't a one of them has as much backbone as a snail. We tried whipping them like dogs, cursing them like whores, we even tried, god help us, some 'positive imagery.' " With this, he spits in disgust.

"None of it worked until Superman in gold tights got back on the field, and then we started playing those close ones that you saw. Buncha sheep, that's all. And the ones who actually have a sack ain't got the brains God gave a flea."

"Richie Incognito," says Devaney, knowingly.

Haslett nods his head slowly, then gestures across the table to an abandoned corner of the dimlit room, where a fish-fleshed heap of a man lies sprawled in his own filth, with what looks like a freshly tattooed obscenity on his forehead.

"I've never had an albatross of a player like that man there," he says, between long swallows. "I'd sooner marry my only daughter to the Devil himself, or to that coward Aaron Brooks even, than spend another minute trying to coach up that heap."

At the mention of the star-crossed former Saints quarterback, one of the stone-faced lumps at the bar looks up sharply, with shoulders hunched and a baleful glare, giving Devaney a shiver of horror. A blink later and the lump is contemplating his drink again and the white-suited admiral has to shake himself. Realizing that he sits surrounded by failure and misery, Devaney has to check the impulse at the animal center of his brain to turn heel and run as fast as he can.

"What players do you see as problems, or simply as unable to play at this level?"

"Look, all of 'em to a man can play some football, exceptin' some of the old men like Glover and Chavous. And that Bulger who might wake up 50 years old one of these days, who knows if he's got another season in him.

"All of 'em can play, and there's only a few out-and-out 'problems.' But ain't one of them takes a hit and got the spine necessary to sit up and ask for one more."

Haslett stands abruptly, shoving the table edge into Devaney's midsection as he arches toward him, and plants one raw-boned hand on the table and the other square in Devaney's chest. Each stares unblinking into the other man's face, then Haslett growls plaintively.

"If you want a coach, I... I'll be your coach. Just... just bring me some iron to work with."

He punctuates the statement with a slight head tilt and a pained smile, then straightens himself slowly. Turning toward the back stair, Haslett continues muttering into the shadows, "A man can't build what has no iron to build with..."