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I agree with this way of thinking. I don't know how we all know so much more than Coach Lewis.Lewis did a brilliant job his first year as head coach and now, the doubters feel that he'll throw in a green quarterback.
I would. That's what SOS means to me. This has nothing to do with Carson Palmer (check my first post--I said I was neither high nor low on him).
I think it's the "etc." part that people are disputing. Especially in conjunction with things like this:
I think that is a large part of why defenses are hard to predict. Defenses like Baltimore were good because they were good. That's not so hard to predict (although it's not trivial). But defenses like the Jets were good because they landed in a tiny window of "good because they're bad, and because they were helped by a bad offense, but not so bad that they're worse than their run D." There were just a lot of extraneous factors working together to make the Jets a "good" passing D last year. Will those same factors align again this year? That is hard to predict.Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, New England, I'll give you (although I'll wager that at least one of those teams will be below average against QBs this year). And that does add up to a fair amount of games that figure to be tough. It is enough to slide him down a few notches. But I'm not too worried about the Jets, Browns, Steelers, "etc."
Yes, in more ways than one.
Fair enough Doug....but I don't know if those defenses are any harder to predict, than say supporting cast.Yes, Holmes/LT/Deuce/Ahman are studs...but at least one of those won't be top ten this year is a decent bet too.
Sure. As I said, it does look like a tough schedule, and it probably is reason to drop him a few notches. I don't think I've ever advocated ignoring SOS, just recognizing that it comes with lot of uncertainty.[i'm ducking your supporting cast comparison until I've thought about it some more]
That's fine--to be fair, I came up with the "supporting cast" theory about three hours ago.I think SOS is a tool--you can't draft off it, but it has benefits.I think for mediocre players, it's extremely important.I think we could use more statistics from anyone out there, including myself. I'll throw this one out there:According to my FBG book of stats
Doug Johnson's 9.2 FP/G against Med Def was 34th best.Doug Johnson's 9.3 FP/G against Good Def was 24th best.Brad Johnson's 20.9 FP/G against Bad Def was 9th best.Brad Johnson's 18.1 FP/G against Good Def was 4th best.Jake Plummer's 18.2 FP/G against Bad Def was 13th best.Jake Plummer's 18.3 FP/G against Med Def was 7th best.Basically, it seems that it's not so impressive to do the same thing against a Bad D as it is against a Good D. This is because it's harder to score FPs against Good Ds, and thus why we don't want our QBs to play them in a QBBC sense (this is how this all started--for my QBBC).I believe with the right way of ranking the Ds (which I feel I've done), I can get a good grip on the schedules. Because of this I can recommend a QBBC, and I can see that Kitna/Palmer/whoever's schedule is EXTREMELY difficult.There's no arguing that playing a good D is bad for your QB. Just because it's not easy to predict Ds doesn't mean you should avoid it.
Pittsburgh was pitt-i-full last year with their passing D, but I think they'll be much improved this year. LeBeau is back, Washington is gone, Troy P has another year under his belt, Colclough is in the house--and the Stillers will probably try to get back to a ball controlling offense.That said, Cinnci always seems to have at least one good game against the Black and Gold, but can Palmer, in his first season, have the skills and saavy-ness to capitalize on this trend? I'm not sure.
I for one certainly am not putting Kitna in the same class as Manning or Culpepper. But Marvin Lewis seems willing to put him in the same class as John Kitna.when was the last time a rookie or 1st year starting qb averaged 224 pass yds and 1.625 tds a game? culpepper?, manning?thats what he needs to post kitna-esque(first time for that word) #s from last season. are we putting palmer in the same class as future HOFers culpepper and manning already?iam notat least let him tear it up in the preseason
Just for the record, Kitna also put up 274-3-0 on the Ravens in a game last year. Not bad putting up 3 TDs (and no interceptions with over 200 yards) at least once against all three of your division opponents.However here are his numbers in their other division games
it @ cin 157-1-1 cle @ cin 175-0-1 cin @ bal 214-1-2 (with 3 fumbles for good measure) So who knows what to expect.
Palmer looks like a great QBBC candidate. Just draft P. Manning or Culpepper in a mid-late round to start every game but two. Then pick Palmer in the final round to cover the bye week and for week 16 at home against the Giants for your fantasy championship! Actually, you may want to get Palmer in the next to last round, and then Kitna in the last round, since he'll probably be the starter in week 16.
I'm really sure that Chase did this last year, so maybe he can give us the results from then. Either way it's something of value to consider if you can't decide between two QB's. Even if SoS is overrated I'd still rather have the guy w/ the best schedule as opposed to Palmer if both are in similiar situation.
Hey BF...there's quite a few ways to twist the stats, you know that.But to say Tennessee was 30th in pass D last year (because of a great run D) then disregard the Jets and Browns being very tough against the pass last year (because of a bad run D) doesn't look consistent to me.
Drafting the top QB in FFL and starting a guy twice all year doesn't look like a QBBC scenario to me. More of a spot starter.That was my original point. I just don't see how you can justify Palmer as a QBBC candidate. We can debate all day whether Palmer should rank 14th or 24th, but in most leagues it doesn't matter--if you just start one QB. If you go with a stud QB, you're never starting him (except on a bye or injury). My point is, most of the other guys in his area you can use in a QBBC scenario--Palmer looks MUCH less attractive to me there.
Hey pigskin...I don't think I did a good job of explaining what I meant.By showing those numbers (FP/G and rank), something is very obvious:ON AVERAGE, QBs score best against bad Ds, and worst against good Ds. That's an irrefutable fact. What I'd like is someone to show me how predicting Ds HAS to be less accurate than predicting QBs (or offenses or whatever).Here's my question:Why upgrade someone based on the level of talent in his offense (three good WRs, stud RB, great OL) but then not downgrade him based on the defenses he plays? Both have NOTHING to do with him, yet we're only using one of them to make a ranking.I expect most people will argue that the reason is supporting casts are easier to predict. I'm not saying that's right or wrong (I'm really not positive either way). I'd love to hear some proof or even reasons behind this.
Sorry Chase that wasn't my intention at all. I had originally typed up some wrapper around that but it doesn't look like I actually posted it. My point isn't that the SOS is easy. My points is that, with a few exceptions, almost any of these Ds could be good matchups by the time the season rolls around.
I am CERTAINLY not upgrading Palmer. I think that his situation is amazingly similar to the one that Kitna had last year: similar cast, similar schedule. Yet, Kitna was very consistent, and a viable QB1 last year. I would not upgrade Palmer any more than that = he should have a "Kitna-esque" year = a poor QB1, great QB2. Can you share your defensive rankings prior to last season, so we can see how well you fared in predicting them? I did see that you had Oakland's offense predicted to be the best offense in your DBBC article last year. No fault of yours, just revealing as to how hard it is to predict offense and defense success prior to a season (I'd argue it is much more difficult to predict defense success).
Chase, you hold the answer to this. Compare how well you predicted offense rank last year to how well you predicted defense rank. The correlations should tell the tale!
Unfortunately, I've yet to do this before. I will say that the metrics I used tend to predict defensive success fairly well the following year.The Raiders point is a good one. Just because we can't predict QBs accurately, doesn't mean we don't spend hours deciding between Rich Gannon and Donovan McNabb. And look how wrong we could have been.If I can ever get away from this thread, I can finish my QBBC article.
Because we study it more. How many of the threads on the first page of the shark pool have to do with defenses?If people paid as much attention to team defenses as we did to offenses, we'd be a lot better at it. Unfortunately, most fantasy football players don't study defenses, and thumb rules like "year n scoring is an invalid predictor of year n+1 scoring" miss the boat by a mile because they ignore things like changes in defensive talent and changes in offensive schedule. Even IDPers look at defensive players as individual entities instead of defensive teams as a whole.
SEP. 12 at New York Jets, 1:00 pm 12 SEP. 19 Miami, 8:30 pm 4
It turns out the schedule was harder than I thought, but a lot of the teams that I thought could be bad were good, and a few of the teams that I thought were going to be very good (Philly, New England) were middle of the pack. Now let's look at what turned out to be the more accurate predictor of his success - how late it was in the season, when he finally put it together.
To be fair, Palmer ended up with 18 TDs in 13 games, so you have to figure he'd be better than 20th in end of season numbers had he finished out the season.
Maybe Cleveland had given up, but I think we saw Palmer come into his own over the last four games. Certainly the Cleveland game was his best of the bunch, but his numbers against New England, Baltimore and Pittsburgh were all better than his averages, too.
Like I said before, I don't want to throw that game away, but to me that Cleveland game wasn't really indicative of much. As for the other three...I'm really not sure. I suppose I could rationalize those games away. For example:
Ok, I'll give. How do you use it appropriately?
Well, there is a lot to that. And it is really situation specific. So I guess I'll go through each of the situations.Gates' 2nd half in '03 wasn't just a case of inflated stats. If you watched Gates in those games it was obvious he had sick talent. Combine that with the depleted WR corps in the '04 preseason and it was obvious you had a "talent + opportunity" type of situation. Had Gates not thrown up those stats in the second half of '03 not many would have noticed him. As it was, Gates was around the consensusFBG and messageboard #8 pick or so, but he was my #4-link to my 2004 player rankings in signature.
Stokely's second half in '03 contained less data, but given that Stokely wasn't on anybody's radar in '05, all I had to do was bump him 10 spots and I was still higher on him than 99% of the fantasy world. I got him for 1 buck in FBG survivor II...with the esteemed competition of Member #1 and Ken Maxwell. I took him in several other leagues on the cheap as well. So in summary, I believe second half stats can be a terrific indicator of breakout candidates. I may not have noticed all three of these guys had it not been for their second half stats. In the case of all three I think it showed an increased trust by OC/QB in those players.
How do you know when to use them and when not to use them?
Both of you make good points. But in reality, there is no sure fire lock making projections. LHUCKS makes a good point in saying that this is one way to find value. True they don't always pan out. Often injuries to that player or to other players on their team effect the outcome. But just the same I find this method effective in identifying value and players that demonstrated improved play as the year went on or their opportunties were presented to them.As for Palmer, very few first year QB's have performed as effectively as he has. The implication is that he could be huge in '05. The onlt reason to have any reservation about him would be the Balt/Pitt games as their D's are very good. But Palmer did demonstrate an ability to play well against them as well. With all that's going for him there is absolutely no reason not to think he could be a top 5 QB next year. I think he will be at least 7 next year unless CJ or the Oline is dealing with numerous injuries.
Two TDs in the Pittsburgh game was as good as he'd done all year. You're right, it wasn't a huge game in and of itself, but it may have signalled the start of something bigger. The more I think about it, the Cleveland game showed that Cleveland was just bad on defense. When they got into a shootout against the almost-as-bad Cinci D, there was lots of passing. But generally, teams just ran on Cleveland and beat them the more conservative way. The thing is, you have to give credit to Cleveland for having a top 5 pass defense, because over the course of 16 games, there were very few QBs who had good games against them.
As have you my friend. Between you and Maxwell, I'm in danger of losing my Jets badge. I agree with you on Palmer, I was mostly playing devil's adcovate. But as I posted above, I'm not in the business of throwing out the first half if a player's second half was good. Palmer's second half was impressive, especially considering his opponents and his age. I'm really excited to work on my projections soon, and to see where he ends up. I will say this--he's got some of the best WRs in the league, and that's very good. However, don't fall into the "Tommy Maddox" trap.
This is good stuff and I would like to comment on the Maddox analagy. There was a unique situation with Pitts. People should of seen this coming.First, we all know Pitts is a running team. When Maddox threw for those yards that year Pitts D (usually a rock) was off and teams were passing and scoring on them like we're not used to seeing. That forced Pitts to throw the ball to keep up. Additonally, the Oline wasn't up to snuff so they weren't as effective running either.
Agreed. However, even if the Pitt D remained poor I'm not sure how high Maddox' ceiling truly is. Without production from either your RBs or TEs, and without the ability to produce fantasy points yourself (i.e., run), I think Palmer's fantasy ceiling is fairly limited.
I'm not so sure. Look at KC. Very little impact from the recievers and the RB's play only a small role in the passing game yet Green is usually around 4000 yards and 22-24 TD's.As for Pitts, they have one of the best RB's that can catch in Staley. For some reason they chose not to use him last year in the passing game.
The RBs have avearged 897 receiving yards each of the past four years. I'd say that's fairly significant. That's 556 more yards than Palmer threw to his RBs. If you added 556 yards to Palmer's total last year, he'd move from ranking 20th to ranking 16th.
You should always consider 2nd half stats but you should temper them based on the situation (did the player learn the system/get injured in the 1st half and get more playing time in the 2nd half) and strength of competition (McGahee/K. Jones/DD all had great 2nd halves and all benefitted greatly by whipping on bad defenses). I think strength of competition is the biggest consideration in evaluating 2nd half stats. While I think DD, McGahee and KJ are all good rb's I think their 2nd half stats vs. some of the worst defenses will result in them being drafted higher than they probably should (IMO).
