Letters to the Editor
Ilanin
Published Letters: 27 Editor's Choice: 10
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Since Football Outsiders got mentioned yesterday...
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm going to use their stats to point out that Daunte Culpepper versus Charlie Batch is nowhere near as open-and-shut as you make it out to be, based on last year.
Culpepper was involved in 249 pass plays (including sacks) whereas Batch only ran 36 whilst fililng in for Roethlisberger last year, but using FO's advanced metrics Batch had more overall value (DPAR, or Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement 6.5 vs -6.9 for Culpepper) and more value per play (DVOA, or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average of 27.9% vs -19.8% for Culpepper). Sure, Batch's numbers would probably regress towards the mean over a longer period as starter, but in his limted action last year, Batch and the Steelers were a heck of a lot better than Culpepper and the Vikings. OK, so you can say that Culpepper has been better in previous years, but why is he magically going to improve now? He does seem to have lost some mobility (or alternatively Mike Mularkey isn't calling scrambles; note that whilst Mularkey supposedly likes pocket passers he was the OC for one of Kordell Stewart's better seasons in Pittsburgh, so it isn't necessarily this), and his recievers aren't exactly Randy Moss - Chambers has talent, but doesn't catch as many balls as he should.
Now, Culpepper hopping on one leg versus Tommy Maddox, on the other hand, you'd be right. But Turnover Tommy has been cut, and adios.
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Kelly Holcomb?
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Um, don't you mean Kerry Collins? I believe Holcomb is still in Buffalo, presumably to be Losman's backup for as long as it takes the Bills to remember how terrible he is.
Also, I'd like to take this oppurtunity to point out that I told you so with respect to Charlie Batch. Nyerrr.
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The hottest passer in the NFL?
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Come on, King. Vick had a reasonable - not great, just reasonable - game against a Pittsburgh team which kept lovingly presenting him with short field situations and lost their Pro Bowl NT and with it much of their ability to stop the run in the second half. Then he had a good game against the Bengals, but he still threw and ran *combined* for only one more yard (346) than Peyton Manning put up on the Broncos (345), who are just a bit better on D than the Bengals are (I neither no nor care what the NFL's official rankings are, but in DVOA the Broncos are 11th (and had been higher prior to being Manninged) and the Benglas are 20th). Tom Brady threw for 372 yards past Minnesota, Donovan McNabb leads the league in yardage. Heck, Ben Roethlisberger threw for more yards than Vick did, though this would be an excellent example of why yards are a really bad metric for quaterback performance.
He's playing well - well enough to give the Falcons reason for optimism about a playoff run this year. But the hottest passer in the game? There's two guys who'll be playing in New England who'd like a word with you about that.
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Something else Shapiro wrote...
[Read the article: A wave in the "coal mine"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If woefully underfunded Democratic challenger Carol Shea-Porter is somehow running neck-and-neck with Rep. Jeb Bradley, it could mean that virtually every Republican in the Northeast will be going glub-glub-glub in the Democratic tide before the night's over.
Well, with 37% of the vote in, she's actually (barely) ahead of the incumbent. High tide, is it?