Anyone have ESPN insider? Post KC Joyner's article on CJ and TO?

[coup000]

Supposedly shows some statistical evidence that we won't be much better in the pass game this year.

[bengaled]

[quote name='coup000' date='29 July 2010 - 11:19 AM' timestamp='1280416742' post='900476']
Supposedly shows some statistical evidence that we won't be much better in the pass game this year.
[/quote]

yeah, when carson is looking for, begging for, targets to get open, it will be just like last year....no options available. what a bunch of dumbasses.

[coup000]

Exactly why I'd like to see what "evidence" he is presenting. Sounds like crap to me but who knows...

[oldschooler]

How T.O. fits with Bengals
The numbers reveal that Owens won't be very effective this year

Joyner By KC Joyner
ESPN Insider
Archive

When it comes to building a strong set of pass-catching personnel, there is one irreplaceable element: the matchup-busting wide receiver. An offensive coordinator can attack weaknesses in defensive schemes or target defensive backs that are coverage liabilities only so often. Eventually the game plan will require throwing passes against a top-quality cornerback, and when that happens, the matchup-buster is a necessary solution to the problem.

One might think the Cincinnati Bengals would be good shape on this front with the combination of Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens. Ochocinco made the Pro Bowl last season and Owens received the same honor as recently as 2007. Neither of them is quite as good as he was in his prime, but they should give the Bengals a 1-2 matchup-busting punch, right?

Not exactly. The numbers don't just disagree with this assessment; they do so vociferously.

The metric that offers the strongest evidence against the idea of Ochocinco and Owens being matchup-busters is yards per attempt (YPA) against red-rated cornerbacks. I did a study for my 2010 fantasy football draft guide that looked at how well receivers did when facing cornerbacks that allowed less than seven yards per attempt in the 2009 season. That level of performance typically places a cornerback in the upper third of the league in YPA and thus rates them as among the best at their position.

Ochocinco and Owens fared equally poorly here, as their 3.9 YPA ranked tied for 77th lowest against red-rated cornerbacks. To put it another way, there were only nine wide receivers that fared worse in this metric in 2009.

These two also didn't hold up well when facing yellow-rated cornerbacks (defined as allowing between 7-9 YPA). Ochocinco's 7.6 YPA mark here ranked tied for 51st and Owens' 7.5 YPA mark ranked tied for 53rd.

All those metrics are bad news on their own, but the news gets even worse when taking a closer look at the Bengals' 2010 schedule. Ochocinco's lineup matchups include eight games when he is due to face a cornerback that posted a YPA of less than seven yards last year. He also has seven games against yellow-rated cornerbacks.

If Owens starts opposite Ochocinco, his schedule will not be that much easier. Six of his games would include matchups against red-rated cornerbacks and seven would be against yellow-rated cornerbacks.

This might not be a huge problem if the Bengals' 2010 opponents had weaknesses at the nickel cornerback position. If that were the case, all offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski would need to do is move Ochocinco or Owens around to line up against that matchup.

However, since Cincinnati is due to face a red-rated nickel cornerback in six games this season -- as well as three games against yellow-rated nickel cornerbacks -- it means the potential for high-impact targeting here is rather limited.

So what can the Bengals do to beat difficult matchups in 2010? The answer is simple -- hope that Antonio Bryant can get over his knee injury to become the go-to guy for the matchup-busting wide receiver position. Bryant had a down season in many ways in 2009 but he stepped up his game when facing red-rated cornerbacks. His 8.7 YPA ranked tied for 14th-best in the league.

Bryant's total looks even better when it is compared against wideouts that saw at least 20 targets against red-rated cornerbacks (Bryant had 24). In that case, the 8.7 YPA mark moves up to being tied for sixth-best among the 44 wideouts who met this criterion last season.

When Cincinnati brought in Bryant, they were taking a chance that he would give them off-field headaches in exchange for the on-field aspirin his metrics said he was capable of bringing. In the case of Owens, those off-field headaches are just as much of a concern, but the numbers say he isn't going to deliver the aspirin the Bengals need when it comes to beating top-level competition.

KC Joyner, aka the Football Scientist, is a regular contributor to ESPN Insider. He also can be found on Twitter @kcjoynertfs and at his website. He is also the author of "Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts."





But here is what he wrote about TO back in March ...



[url="http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/news/story?id=4964461"][color="#000000"]Still a good vertical target[/color][/url]


Owens' 2009 vertical receiving totals weren't the best of his career, but before we write him off as washed up in this regard, let's put these stats into some perspective.





Owens tallied 530 vertical yards on 51 vertical attempts -- for a 10.4 vertical YPA total. That ranked 44th in the league out of 86 qualifying wide receivers, but it fared quite well against [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=2584"][color="#225fb2"]Chad Ochocinco[/color][/url] (81, 824, 10.2 YPA) and [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=5528"][color="#225fb2"]Larry Fitzgerald[/color][/url] (66, 680, 10.3 YPA). If those weren't enough, Owens also outplayed his speedster Bills teammate, [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=5538"][color="#225fb2"]Lee Evans[/color][/url] (42, 408, 9.7).





In other words, Owens may still be a headache off the field, but if a team is looking for some downfield help on the field, he's still got enough burst to offer ample assistance in this area.






[b]Owens is the only formerly elite veteran wideout worth pursuing[/b]




At one time, [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=2600"][color="#225fb2"]Chris Chambers[/color][/url] and [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=1757"][color="#225fb2"]Torry Holt[/color][/url] were both considered to be in Owens' league, and their 2009 totals show that is absolutely still the case.





Let's start with Holt. The [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/clubhouse?team=jac"][color="#225fb2"]Jacksonville Jaguars[/color][/url] cut him after what they obviously thought was a subpar season from No. 81, but Holt's 8.1 overall YPA was actually higher than Owens' 7.6. It was also higher than Braylon Edwards (7.7), Larry Fitzgerald (7.6), Brandon Marshall (7.6), [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=8442"][color="#225fb2"]Roddy White[/color][/url] (7.5) and [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=10447"][color="#225fb2"]Calvin Johnson[/color][/url] (7.5). Holt did have fewer attempts than any of these pass-catchers, but his 93 targets still ranked 33rd in the league, so he wasn't terribly lacking in this area.





Chambers' numeric argument is actually stronger than Holt's. His 8.4 overall YPA stacks up even better against those big names than Holt's 8.1, but his vertical performance for the [url="http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/clubhouse?team=kan"][color="#225fb2"]Kansas City Chiefs[/color][/url] is even more notable. He gained 384 yards on 30 vertical passes after he changed to an Arrowhead Stadium address in midseason. That is a 12.8 vertical YPA, a total that would have ranked 23rd in the league if it had been posted over an entire season. That Chambers did this in the Chiefs' vertically challenged offense says even more for the performance and also says he should be highly pursued when the free-agent bidding starts on Friday.

[eva4ben-gal]

Didn't read the whole article but here's a couple facts I doubt he took into consideration.
Chad had Coles as his "help" on the other side. When your No. 2 can't get open (or the QB can't see him) and your No. 3 seems to be only able to catch a pass when it is clutch time, that's not going to give your No. 1 many good chances to work 1-on-1 throughout the course of the game.
TO had Fitzpatrick throwing him the ball. From what I remember his intermediate accuracy sucks. He either has to throw it short or heave it up and let a WR make a play.
AB also had an inaccurate QB, but Freeman sucked at shorter throws, meaning if AB wanted to get a catch it would need to be on a longer throw that gives the WR time to get in position to make a poor throw into a reception.

[bengaled]

[quote name='eva4ben-gal' date='29 July 2010 - 01:08 PM' timestamp='1280423314' post='900533']
Didn't read the whole article but here's a couple facts I doubt he took into consideration.
Chad had Coles as his "help" on the other side. When your No. 2 can't get open (or the QB can't see him) and your No. 3 seems to be only able to catch a pass when it is clutch time, that's not going to give your No. 1 many good chances to work 1-on-1 throughout the course of the game.
TO had Fitzpatrick throwing him the ball. From what I remember his intermediate accuracy sucks. He either has to throw it short or heave it up and let a WR make a play.
AB also had an inaccurate QB, but Freeman sucked at shorter throws, meaning if AB wanted to get a catch it would need to be on a longer throw that gives the WR time to get in position to make a poor throw into a reception.
[/quote]


exactly, you'd think a "professor" would be smart enough to realize that numbers aren't everything. sometimes you have to look inside the numbers to get the true gist of what's going on. very disappointing that he didn't even attempt to address that, at least as an addendum to his article. as if the numbers tell all, and there's no disputing the reasoning of his system. some professor! sounds like a professor of bullshit, to me.

[|Bunghole|]

Also neglected is the fact that we will have more guys on the field in passing situations than just TO and Chad! If they get blanketed, there's always going to be some combination of Gresham, Bryant, Shipley, Caldwell, Coffman, etc out there to throw or check down to. If a defense devotes its best DB's and any additional coverage trying to bottle up TO and Chad, then someone else [i]will[/i] be open. There's just not going to be a way to cover them all. Opposing defenses are really going to have to be careful and pick their poison with us. Sell out and blitz us, then someone definitely will be open or we rape them with screens/draws/delays. If they try to keep their defense back in pass coverage all day, we will pound the rock on them on the ground mercilessly.

Barring major injuries, our offense should be a juggernaut this season.

[Oldcat]

[quote name='Bunghole' date='29 July 2010 - 10:40 AM' timestamp='1280425204' post='900547']
Also neglected is the fact that we will have more guys on the field in passing situations than just TO and Chad! If they get blanketed, there's always going to be some combination of Gresham, Bryant, Shipley, Caldwell, Coffman, etc out there to throw or check down to. If a defense devotes its best DB's and any additional coverage trying to bottle up TO and Chad, then someone else [i]will[/i] be open. There's just not going to be a way to cover them all. Opposing defenses are really going to have to be careful and pick their poison with us. Sell out and blitz us, then someone definitely will be open or we rape them with screens/draws/delays. If they try to keep their defense back in pass coverage all day, we will pound the rock on them on the ground mercilessly.

Barring major injuries, our offense should be a juggernaut this season.
[/quote]

Even if the new guys are just as poor at getting open as Coles, Foschi, and Coats were (unlikely), just catching the balls they dropped or fumbled away and falling down would probably net another thousand yards for Carson.

[mullichicken25]

another thing thats not being taken into consideration is that teams can not afford to forget about cedric benson

all the analystis have their eyes on the passing game now, but people need to remember that Benson is an animal. If defenses dont pay enough attention to the run game he will eat them alive

[F.Cleveland]

Comparing what they do against a certain CB would have value if they were in a vaccum. However, the NFL has these things called safeties that also cover WR's. His analysis does not account for the top being taken away from evey play and no attention being paid to the other corner. A comparison of each of these guys against the 2nd and 3rd corners of each team might show a little better picture because that is who each of them will line up against this year at one point, with no double coverage. You can't double all three or even 2 any more. Most defenses will have to put a nickle in on every play we run a 3 WR set, which will take the ability to double competely away. Add the safety to Gresham and everyone has single. Roll the safety over the top and you have a minimum of Gresham and the RB on LB's coming off the linewith the line having to pass block one on one if no one drops. More than likely they will end up playing a good amount of zone and we can do like we used to and pick it apart by hitting the open spots in the zone or going over the top with play action.

This guy has no clue that this is not the NBA or MLB. So much has to happen for a pass to even be completed, crediting a CB with 100% responsability for their yards per catch is fucking retarded.

[coup000]

Yeah, crap analysis, sorry I asked for it to be posted.

[|Bunghole|]

[quote name='coup000' date='29 July 2010 - 06:07 PM' timestamp='1280441255' post='900672']
Yeah, crap analysis, sorry I asked for it to be posted.
[/quote]

Don't be. Its typically a slow time of the year and we need to keep discussion going! Its articles like these where we get to bash ignorant reporters and have our little fun!
[img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif[/img]