Welcome back to The Coach Clarahanson Show!!! "If you're not too careful, you just might learn something." - Bill Cosby In Coach’s Humble Opinion: Roger Goodell should not be part of the NFL draft. Well, at least the virtual fans on the flatscreen behind Commissioner Goodell still had the common decency to boo him when he introduced himself before announcing that Cincinnati was officially on the clock. Bizarrely, these were actually FAKE fans, garbed in officially licensed NFL merchandise, of course, and split apart on a 15-position Brady Bunch checkerboard screen behind the commissioner. I’m not sure if you picked up on it, but regardless of the team, it was always the same fans in the 15 video shots. The NFL multimedia consultants only changed the location of the squares on the video checkerboard, chameleoned the colors of “fans” virtual face paint, and replaced pom-poms and banners to that of the team who just got their pick in for announcement. I found that lame attempt to fool us a bit insulting. I think Goodell is starting to lose it, too. He’s slurring his words, he can’t pronounce the players’ names without tying up his tongue, and he misstates obvious things like saying Las Vegas will get to “host the draft again next year in 2020” (when actually he was supposed to say THE YEAR AFTER NEXT, 2022). It was like watching Joe Biden, only I didn’t feel sorry for Goodell. Wait, is this old-man-losing-cognitive-function becoming a cool look now or something? Maybe 'ol Coach should try his luck at the strip clubs when they open back up! I wonder what that might actually look like now, though... Anyways... Why do we watch this draft crap, glued to the TV for hours? Are we that starved for sports? I mean, what’s next? …Watching speed walking? …Or soccer? We could at least spice things up during the draft. I say have Lindsey McCormick write out on a large NFL Team card the name of the player they just drafted, and then maybe have a Hooters girl parade it around on display overhead like showing the Round Number in a prize fight. Now THAT would be draft coverage worth watching! ...at least, in my humble opinion. Create A Seam Here – X’s & O’s about the game or a scheme "Gutekunst has completely blown it!" Oh, what a shocker…there is controversy about the draft!! Gutekunst didn’t get a Wide Receiver in the 1st round! He has thrown Rodgers under the bus by taking a QB! {In a truly comical moment of irony and reflected self-pity 15 years later, Brent Favor says Rodgers has been “disrespected”.} The Packers did nothing like what The Lame Stream Media propagated in their prognostications! What an affrontery*! (*Note, this is a completely valid while obsolete spelling of effrontery.) Coach’s reaction to all of the post-Draft kerfuffle is a simple “Lighten up, Francis.” Coach reminds you that the debate is so intense because the stakes are so low and that the loudest voices are generally the least informed. The factors that Gutekunst is balancing are extremely complex and well beyond the computational capacity of the local Oracle of ESPN. No matter how hard you bang on the keyboard, your opinion does not matter to Gutey (thank goodness). So before you try to end your self-inflicted misery by throwing yourself off of the dog house, let Coach break it all down for you and give you some encouraging news. The job is not as simple as fixing the problems from last year. The GM is obviously planning for the 2020 Season (if there is one), but for the Draft he has to look over the horizon and project the next several Seasons. The GM needs to plan like Feldmarschall von Clausewitz; he needs to plan for the next war, not the last one. Coach reminds you to remember:
Coach is gonna breakdown how this year’s Draft Class will impact the 2020 Season farther down in this episode of The Show!!! (see We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ below), but first we’re going to look at two things…the structure-and-method behind Gutey’s three drafts, and secondly, a whole new way to think about securing franchise QB’s. Gutekunst is in the middle of building his third Roster as the Packers GM. Coach reminds you, the erudite and pulchritudinous reader, that the cupboard was nearly bare when Gutey took over in 2018. We all love TT, but let’s face it, his last really good draft was 2013 (Lacy, Bahktiari, Tretter, Franklin* & Hyde). *Franklin looked great as a 3rd down RB during his rookie year, but was lost due to a severe neck injury in Wk 12 against the Queens. Method to Gutey’s Madness? So Gutey had to rebuild the Team without publicly admitting what he was doing because the Team President knew that it would reflect poorly on his competence and total mismanagement of the Ted Thompson / Melissa McCarthy regime. With three Drafts in the books, Gutey’s plan is becoming obvious. His approach to the Draft and Free Agency so far has been: 2018 Building Depth across the Roster 2019 Focus on Defense 2020 Focus on Offense Because the odds are that most guys never make it in the NFL, a key factor in rebuilding a team is making as many Draft Picks as possible. On this score Gutey has done pretty well, turning the “normal” 21 picks into 28 picks (3 years x 7 picks/yr). He has also been extremely balanced on picking between Offense and Defense, with an overall balance of 13 picks each. Has it all been perfect? Most assuredly not! He wasted two picks on Special Teams in 2018, netting a below average long snapper and a punter who does well when the game day weather is like Alabama in September. He has also traded up a couple of times which drives Coach crazy. Most of the League is still using the outdated Jimmy-Johnson-mid-90’s-trade-value-chart and it always costs too much to trade up, especially in the 1st round. And…there is no guarantee that the guy you traded up for will be any better than the two (or three) guys you would have had with your other picks. In another year or so we can start to evaluate how good Gutey is at actually picking the ponies, but on balance it’s hard to argue with the positions he has drafted. Overall Grade B (+/-) 100 years of NFL History on a bar napkin
“The Field Balance Theory …through his time in the AFL, Gillman expanded his passing game horizontally as much as he did vertically. More specifically, he did so geometrically. In 1964 Sid Gillman sent assistant coach Tom Bass to a coffee shop to meet with a San Diego State math professor to discuss geometry in general—specifically, potential geometry of routes. Gillman had the notion that every route could be perfectly explained and executed with a pre-planned set of angles: the angle of the route to its breaking point when the receiver cuts, the angle of the route after the cut, and the angle from the quarterback’s release point to the point of the catch. “We thought about it, and if you look at [passing] patterns, they are all geometrically designed,” Bass told the (South Carolina) Post and Courier. “Basically, the only objective we had was to try to make sure when we ran the pass routes that the ball was in the air the same amount of time so that we could time out our passing game.” Well, that wasn’t the only objective. Timing was one part of it, but rhythm was an equal and crucial component. If the quarterback and his receivers understood the exact depth and length of routes, and the quarterback had all those different depths in his head, he could rely on the game plan and trust his timing. The quarterback could throw with more anticipation, passing the ball to a spot where the receiver hadn’t yet traveled, and that level of trust would set up a rhythm of completions in the quarterback’s head. “We really wanted to make the quarterback throws all the same,” Bass said. “If you are at the left hash mark, and the throw is to the right sideline, that is the toughest throw. The ball is in the air quite a while. But if you bring the right-side receiver in four yards closer to the center of the field, the flight time of the ball is almost exactly the same [as a throw to the receiver on the left side].” Gillman and Bass put the angles” — The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL by Doug Farrar, Louis Riddick So Sid made the Passing Game Precise, much like Lombardi made the Running Game Precise. Precision takes practice, precision takes experience, precision takes veterans. Is there another way to win? Contemporaneously with Gilman and Lombardi, the AFL’s KC Chiefs’ Coach Hank Stram was trying to overcome precision with athletic, but inexperienced, young players. Hank developed the concept of confusion and masking. Lombardi would hand you the schematic of The Sweep and challenge you to stop it; Stram tried to confuse the crap out of you before the snap and let the athleticism of his players overcome mistakes and win the play anyway. Lombardi, Gilman and Stram…all the concepts they taught are the Ying and the Yang of the NFL today. We have the most precise passer in the history of the NFL. He would have been fantastic with Sid Gilman and now he’s paired with a young coach aspiring to be the next Hank Stram. The challenge in Green Bay is that Rodgers is naturally coming to the end of his career. Can we find another Super Man? If we do, can we afford him? Do we need to have another Rodgers to win another SB? Defense Wins Championships & QB’s Cost Too Much Coach has hammered repeatedly on the need to field a top defense (since 1980 the Super Bowl winner has had a median Def Points ranking of #3, with over 50% of the winner having the #1 D). The challenge is how do you pay everybody? How do you allocate enough money to the Defense to accumulate and retain the players you need while still paying a top QB? You cant. Using a combination of many univariate regression models, we identify that the positions at which it is worth investing in elite players are quarterback, guard, defensive tackle, and free safety. Additionally, we consider the possibility that markets are not actually efficient through separate regressions and detect that the optimal way to take advantage of inefficiency is through skilled drafting to find players who can provide significant win contributions early in their careers (since they are being paid the relatively low salaries of rookie contracts). The academic paper referenced above is likely a “no shit, Sherlock” moment for you. There have been many articles and books written in the last few years how QB’s salary’s are killing their teams. They absorb so much of the Salary Cap that the team can’t pay enough other good players to consistently win. Note: Robert Kraft has repeatedly credited the Patriots success to Tom Brady taking a lower-than-market salary. Russel Wilson & Patrick Mahomes won the SB on “low cost” rookie contracts. That’s the model. Going into the Draft, 57% of the Packers Salary Cap Spending was on the Offense, with the biggest single chunk for Rodgers. Rodgers’ Salary History 2005: Five years, $7.65 million 2008: Six years, $63.52 million ($7 million guaranteed, including $20 million injury guarantee) 2013: Five years, $110 million ($62.5 million guaranteed, including $35 million signing bonus) 2018: Four years, $134 million ($100 million guaranteed, including $57.5 million signing bonus) We love Rodgers, he’s great. But he’s not worth the money. We should have traded him for a bucket full of draft picks and admitted we were rebuilding (Coach said so at the time). We have been bad on Defense for a long time, basically since Rodgers record breaking contract in 2013. So we need a Superstar QB on a Rookie Contract. How do you do that on a sustained basis? Let’s assume that you have a good team year-in-and-year-out and that your Draft position is always somewhere between 17 & 32. After lots of study on this question, Coach concludes that if you draft a QB between 17 & 32 you roughly have an even chance of: Grade A (1) - 25% “Franchise QB” Grace B (2) – 25% OK starter / great backup Grade C (3) – 25% Decent athlete / Wildcat QB Grade D (4) – 25% Complete Bust Basically it’s the same as rolling a 4-sided die. Now let’s consider a few more things:
Coach’s conclusion: Draft a QB in the 1st Round every year. OK, so this strategy doesn’t work if all 32 teams try to do it, but hang with me here. The table below is an odds chart for rolling a 4 sided dice. On the first roll you have a 25% chance of getting Mahomes or Wilson or Rodgers. By the 3rd roll there is a 58% chance and by the 5th roll there is a 76% chance. So how would this work? You continue drafting QB’s in the 1st Round from this point forward. After a couple of years you have a stable of QB’s who were picked in the 1st Round. There’s no guarantee of an “A” right away, but there will be great athletes in there that you can trade for more draft picks (think big body DL). As an example let’s use Love, maybe he won’t be an “A”, but he will no doubt be talented enough to use in other roster slots (think Slash with Pittsburgh) or as trade bait. After a couple of Drafts you will have at least an “A” or “B” QB, on a Rookie Contract, to lead the Team. Why do you think Philadelphia picked Jalen Hurts in the 1st Round this year when they already have a very good QB? Hurts is there so they don’t have to sign Wentz to a big contract (Wentz was the 2nd overall pick in 2016). Do you suppose Favre also thinks that Carson Wentz was “disrespected”? I guarantee you that Favre’s former backup and current Eagles Super Bowl winning HC Doug Pederson doesn’t give a shit about Wentz’s feelings. When your 1st Round superstar gets to year 4 (possibly 5), you have to say goodbye to the cute puppy and go drown him in the creek (trade him away for a truck-load of draft picks). If Hurts pans out, look for Wentz to be on the trading block. Here’s the point – an “A” QB on a Rookie Contract leaves money to pay the rest of the team. So one of the key missions of the GM is to get that guy and have money to build the rest of the Team. Is this what Gutey is doing? Coach doesn’t know for sure, but he sure as hell hopes so…Grade A to Gutey for selecting a QB in the 1st Round, whether or not Love pans out! WTF – Coach’s take on football news that’s messed up McCarthy Needs New Suit Frisco, TX – It was overtly apparent during the NFL draft that former Packers head coach Mike McCarthy fell victim to COVID-19 closures of non-essential businesses in Dallas; specifically, The Men’s Wearhouse. McCarthy could barely fit his rotund face into the television screen, rivaling close-ups of Minnie Driver from Good Will Hunting. McCarthy struggled to get his portly button-popping fill into the suit-in-a-bag he purchased at TJ Maxx in Grand Chute last year. Of course, no video of a Cowboys draft pick is possible without a split-screen of McCarthy’s sugar daddy, Jerry Jones, who in contrast appeared unsurprisingly thin and neat. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s hard to fault McCarthy for his suit choice, though. The Lone Star Herald reported that, in an 11th hour decision, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones called an audible and changed his suit from what was communicated the day prior – thereby forcing McCarthy, per contractual obligation, to scramble through his closet for a matching ensemble befitting of explicit devotion to Jones in front of a national television audience. NFL Combine to Discontinue Rhythmic Gymnastics NEW YORK—much ado is made each year when Coaches and GM’s from all 32 pro football teams descend upon Indianapolis to watch 335 of college football’s best prospects showcase their skills at the NFL Combine. It is understandable why teams might be interested in how accurately a quarterback can throw, or how high a wide receiver can jump, but NFL scouts have increasingly suggested that many of the combine drills don’t have anything to do with football at all. The first casualty of these more questionable Combine events, the Rhythmic Gymnastics competition, has officially been eliminated. Most would agree that twirling a ribbon in nylon long johns is probably not a key indicator of how well a guy will perform on game day. Even mildly-retarded Bears GM Ryan Pace asserted, “Maybe if they were doing it in pads it would mean something, but – as is? …no way. Perhaps there was a time when you’d want to see the range of agility that a player has by observing his coordination in open space, but the game now is all about strength and speed.” It is doubtful the floor exercise performances even made much of a difference to the scouts in attendance, as they probably were just going to rely on the game tape anyway. In the 2008 Combine, Chris Johnson scored an eye-popping 78.993 in his floor routine, but ended up getting injured. And for what? Everyone already knew he could leap; did we really need to see him do it through a hoop? There’s just no correlation between executing a compilation of gymnastics ballet maneuvers and success on Sundays, and the NFL has finally recognized that. So rhythmic gymnastics has officially been pulled from the Combine skills agenda, answering the prayers of defensive linemen and the physicians obliged to comfort their high ankle sprains and inner thigh chafing. The Bears Still Suck – Coach has proof Bears Fans Attend ProBowl Game Winter Park, FL—Several Bears fan showed up in Orlando this past January for the ProBowl to cheer on players from other teams who were sufficiently skilled to qualify for the event. A special barrier was erected to segregate the Bears enthusiasts from decent people. A sympathetic ZaDarius Smith from the Packers stopped by to visit for a moment with the lonely bunch. “I felt sorry for them,” Smith said as he choked back tears “I try to give back to those less fortunate, so I went over there and signed their shit. One of them said, ‘Hey that’s the guy from Green Bay that pummels our quarterback,’ and then there was like a mix of some boos with mostly cheers. Weird scene, man. Just weird.” Udder Stuff – Commentary from the Badger Underground Badgers go for Basketball-Football repeat combo as 2020 virtual National Champs Fresh from their darkhorse, bracket busting March madness victory, AD Barry Alvarez expressed high hopes amid barely subdued confidence that the Badgers football team would have a similar result this Fall, with the COVID-19 pandemic putting the 2020 college season in doubt. In his weekly Zoom presser from the Union Terrace band stand, Barry said, “Hey, we know there are a couple asterisks behind our surprising accomplishment in March, but we will take what we can get this Fall. We like our chances with the virtual season and ad hoc flips of a coin to decide statistical ties.” It turns out that the mathematical model used for the virtual NCAA BB Championship was based on a model developed in 1965 by renowned statistician George Box and his then doctoral student Bill Hunter. Purely coincidentally, these two guys developed their model at none other than University of Wisconsin. Badger Underground hopes we can enjoy Bucky playing some actually football this Fall and we are REALLY looking forward to the scheduled October 3rd Lambeau night game against Notre Dame. We have been longing for this match up for decades and think The Fighting Irish belong in the Big Ten, much more so than say Maryland or Rutgers. It will be depressing if this game is cancelled or played with no Lambeau hoopla. JUMP AROUND would just not be the same this year (Click On Link). On the Coronavirus front, one of the many casualties of the COVID pandemic is this year’s Mifflin Street Block party, and the accompanying appearance of an over-served Badgers football player on the police blotter. Just when you thought the days of Booker Stanley and Montee Ball were behind us, two former players were recently charged with separate murders. Former tight end Craig Appleton was charged in East St. Louis and former receiver/kick returner Marcus Randle El was charged in Janesville for a double-murder, exceeding his number of receptions as a Badger. We’re Gonna Kick Your @$$ – predictions for the upcoming game Did the Packers blow it in the Draft? Well, certainly most of the mock drafts had the Packers going for a WR, a Tackle, a Cornerback, a Tight End, an Inside Linebacker and a Defensive Tackle, similar to how Sporting News predicted below… Coach has a hardy chuckle every time he hears the knuckle-heads on local talk radio talk about the draft. “We have to draft a Wide Receiver in the 1st Round” is an example of the current simplistic view of how to address the Offense. Do we really need a Wide Receiver? LaFleur’s offense worked really well last year when Davante Adams missed 4 games due to injury. There are several factors contributing to this result. The most obvoius one is that when Adams was not available, Rodgers could not hold the ball and run-around knowing that his security blanket Adams would get open. The ball came out faster and the offense moved and scored more points. So the answer is getting rid of Adams? No, of course not, the question is how to get Rodgers to run the offense more consistently. You can say than in 2019 we finished one game short of the SB, but for the 2019 Season we finished 14th on Offenive Points Scored and 9th in Defensive Points allowed and we never passed the eye-test. Statistically we were a 9-7/10-6 team, for 2020 we need to be a much better team if we want to do more in the Playoffs. The solution for 2020? Let LaFleur run his Offense. To do that he needs two things:
So now we have a legitimate rookie QB to put pressure on Rodgers, just as Rodgers did to Favre (Will LaFleur have the balls to sit AR after a mistake and give Love a series or two? We can only hope.) We also picked up Dillion, an Eddy Lacy/Jerome Bettis type to pound between the tackles and Deguara, a TE/FB/”H-Back” to block and catch the occasional pass. We probably spent higher draft picks than needed, but the selections make sense anyway. Offensive Roster The receiver position is really interesting. Let’s assume LaFleur gets his run-first plan working. That opens up the play action and takes the pressure off of pin-point-precision-passing downfield. This also means that won’t need two top 10 receivers for AR to run around and look for. With Adams, Lazzard and Kumerow all coming back, Coach thinks we are just fine at receiver to enter the Season. But wait! For big-body-extra-outside-guys we have both ESB and MVS back healthy and we signed DQF as a Free Agent. Funchess is a former 2nd Round pick from Michigan so check the high draft pick box for him. Between the three of them, one will emerge as another legitimate outside WR for sure. In the “Quick Slot Guy” category we have Darrius Shepherd coming back and Reggie Begelton coming in from the CFL. Shepherd is talented, but just wasn’t ready for the jump for ND State to the NFL and Begelten tore up the CFL and was the Calgary Stampede’s unanimous Most Outstanding Player in 2019. Similarly, one of them will emerge as the “Quick Slot Guy”. Coach wishes we had more picks, but Gutey couldn’t fix patch every hole with the Draft. The middle of the D got exposed several times last year, so where are we now? Defensive Roster Defensive Line – Kenny Clark is a stud and Lowry and Lancaster are both “just-a-guy”. The big question is if Montravious Adams (3rd Round bust so far), Kingsley Keke or newly signed journeyman Treyvon Hester (he blocked the Bears Double-Doink Kick in the 2018 Playoffs) have the ability play at a higher level. Coach’s take? Gutey will be working hard to bring in additional bodies here. Inside Linebacker – Gutey signed oft-injured Christian Kirksey as a Free Agent replacement for Tackle’m-5-yards-downfield-Martinez and we still can hope for Oren Burks to emerge. One wild card is last year’s draft pick Ty Summers. He played like AJ Hawk during 2019 PreSeason, so who knows, maybe he can help. Similarly Gutey will be working this one hard. And never-say-never, maybe CMIII returns to play ILB. OLB/CB/Safety – basically last year’s guys. They were pretty good last year, and now 2nd Round talent Josh Jackson has finally healed from his debilitating injury that made him mostly one-legged last year, so keep your fingers crossed that they all can stay healthy. Coach’s Prediction for 2020 A much better Offense than 2019 (Top 10 Points Scored) and a similar Defense (Top 10 in Points Allowed). Coach thinks that the Packers will look much better on the eye-test, and statistically we will make substantial improvement. The record will likely be around 11-5(ish) considering the top-tier teams a Final Four contender must face the following year, and we’ll make the Playoffs without being considered “lucky” to be there like the 13-3 record-with-an-asterisk last year (note few injuries, and fortunate-ball-bounce wins in several close games). Chevon McNuggets – G.O.A.T. facts to chew on JB – Packers you forgot about, but stories you’ll remember about them You probably remember the 1978 draft like it was yesterday. Coach thinks one of the more intriguing players from that draft class was Willie “Wild Man” Wilder. Considered big for his position in the day, the 6’-0” 201-lb speedster was one helluva running back out of the University of Florida. Willie was the 2nd selection in the Packers 5th round, and probably only dropped that far in the draft owing to his abrasive attitude and reckless off-the-field behavior. Willie famously coined the phrase “I like fast cars, and fast WOMEN!” at Mark’s East Side in Appleton on a bender his first weekend of rookie training camp. Always in search of the next big adrenaline rush, Wilder charted a lifestyle that cost him an opportunity to play in the NFL and, very recently, cost him his life. After quickly partying his way out of Green Bay, the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League scooped “Wild Man” up to take advantage of his skill toting the rock. Wilder managed to show enough gridiron talent for 4-years in the CFL that the Tampa Bay Bandits of the upstart USFL took a chance on him in 1983. There he quickly struck up a friendship with local resident / celebrity Richard Pryor, with whom Willie shared several common interests. Alas, in the end it was too difficult for Wilder to both tote the rock and toke the rock, and his football career quickly flamed out unspectacularly. Not surprisingly, the loss of competitive football in Willie’s life left him in search for other means to provide an adrenaline rush. After some soul searching “Wild Man” Wilder eventually quit drugs and moved out West, becoming a self-styled explorer and daredevil bent on proving that the earth is flat. According to recent headlines, however, Willie sadly was killed when his homemade rocket crashed in the California desert. “Willard ‘Wild Man’ Wilder tragically passed away today during an attempt to launch his homemade rocket,” the Science Channel, which was planning to feature him on an upcoming series called “Homemade Astronauts,” said on Twitter. “It was always his dream to do this launch and Science Channel was there to chronicle his journey,” the network said. Video footage of the incident appears to show the launcher attached to the back of a truck, and the rocket failing shortly after take-off in the Mojave Desert. “Wild Man Wilder just launched himself in a self-made steam-powered rocket and crash landed,” said an unidentified cameraman immediately after recording the tragedy. Well, let’s just hope "Wild Man" was knocked unconscious during take-off so (A) he couldn't see the world at a high enough elevation to realize that the world is, in fact, round and his life's passion was a sham, and (B) so that he didn't have to experience what was likely an excruciatingly terrifying death plunge into the desert lake bed at high speed. Willie Wilder, we salute you as the Packer draft pick from 1978 who truly lived up to his nickname (and likely influenced Mike "Mad Dog" Douglas to basically rip off his nickname from you after you got cut). Coach will be back just before kick-off of the regular season, but now it's time for me to go stow the ice auger and hook up all my new electronics (deemed "essential purchases") for my boat. Maybe I'll see ya on the water or at Ray Nitschke Field in August (or at The GBD after practice ... and, as always, Coach is buying the next round).
0 Comments
|
Author"Coach" is the insightful collective brain and funny bone of a few legendary Packer fans who provide everything you need to know (and what Packers beat writers often plagiarize) about the Green & Gold, plus a weekly guest appearance by The Badger Underground. Archives
November 2022
Categories |