The AFC is Broken

The AFC’s competitive balance is embarrassing. For the eighth straight year the New England Patriots appeared in the AFC title game. For the third straight year the Patriots won that game and will appear in the Super Bowl. The AFC is broken.

This isn’t an NFL problem. The last three NFC teams to face the Patriots in the Super Bowl showed they can be beaten. The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Patriots. The Atlanta Falcons should have beat the Patriots. Instead they had an historic melt down. The Seattle Seahawks battled them to the last second only for an amazing defense play to bail out the Patriots. Eli Manning and the New York Giants beat the Patriots twice. Obviously the Patriots can be beaten.

Bill Belichick is an amazing coach probably the best ever. Tom Brady is a good quarterback. However, Belichick has been coaching in New England for 19 years. Teams should be able to figure him out eventually. He does make mistakes and he never actually plays on the field. Tom Brady is 40 years old and completely immobile. He isn’t an MVP quality player anymore. The Patriots have a distinct advantage with these two men in the organization, but they aren’t invincible. They can be beaten.

The problem is the AFC. It is broken. The other 15 teams are unable to compete effectively against the Patriots in the playoffs. Some clicks and teams fall apart. It makes the AFC boring because you know the outcome before the season starts. Hopefully something fixes this hex soon otherwise we will be watching the same old show for another 5 or whenever Brady finally retires.

Thoughts on the Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks’ season has been a fairly typical one for a Pete Carroll coached team. They started out of the gate slow, kept every game close,  built and identity and started really rolling in November and December. I haven’t had time to write an in depth thoughts on the team this year (life gets busy and blogging for fun gets pushed to the back burner.) So, instead of a bunch of longer more researched and crafted posts here is a list of my thoughts of the season thus far.

• Pete Carroll truly is a defensive master mind. His team fired their d coordinator, lost four Ring of Honor caliber players (Sherman, Chancellor, Bennett, and Avril) during the off-season, have had two expected key contributors miss the majority of the season from injury (Wright, and Thomas) and yet still is playing at a very high level. This is probably his best coaching job ever in Seattle. He should get serious consideration for Coach of the Year.
• Chris Carson is a Locomotive. When he runs he is full of power and always gets positive yards. The guy never goes down without a fight. He is tons of fun to watch and a great running back for the Seahawks brand of football. I do worry about his style of running leading to a short playing career, even by running back standards. Carson takes a lot of contact and often gets gang tackled. Both usually lead to injuries. But while he healthy and here in Seattle I love watching him play. 
• Tyler Lockett has become the big play guy. I questioned the teams decision to pay him this last offseason. He has delivered in 2018. He has 9 TD in 13 games. He makes acrobatic catches and  bails out Wilson at least once a game. The team was right to pay him.
• Russell Wilson is good but not great. He has struggled at critical points this year. He continues to hold the ball too long and doesn’t throw it away when he should. He needs to use his legs as an offensive weapon and run more. That said he throws a beautiful deep ball. At least once a game he puts one deep right where a receiver can snag it. He is calm and collected and doesn’t let mistakes phase him. He is probably the sixth or seventh best QB in the league. He has a new contract coming up soon and the team needs to pay him. They also need to realize his limitations and paying him accordingly. They should not handicap themselves with a massive contract that keeps them from getting the rest of the roster filled. He isn’t Tom Brady or Drew Brees. He can’t win a Super Bowl on his own.
• D.J. Fluker is the offensive MVP for Seattle. As soon as he came back in week three the team started running and running with authority. When you watch a run you can see his presence. He is a bull dozer out there. He just flattens defenders and makes way. He is probably the best lineman signing of Pete Carroll’s tenure. I wish he was younger and healthy so he could demolish D lines for the next ten years.
• The team’s starting cornerbacks are young and talented. The Legion of Boom May be gone but Tre Flowers and Shaquill Griffin could be starting something special. They are both fast and cover well. There have definitely been growing pains. Both players have been burned. Both have gotten tagged for critical penalties. Those are things that should get better as they both get experience. Next year those two guys could be amazing.

The AL West is Too Good

After 14 years of futility and mediocre to bad baseball the Mariner’s are finally having a good season. They are 61-41, 20 games over .500. The team is on pace for 97 wins and that should surely mean a post season appearance. Everything should be good in Seattle baseball, except for the freaking Oakland A’s.

The A’s have won 7 of their last 9 and in July they have gone 15 and 5. The team is on a crazy good run and has catapulted up the standings. They are only 1 game back of the M’s and are threatening to cruise right past them. It is like a repeat of 2002 all over again.

What the hell?! We already suffered through missing the playoffs with 90+ wins, twice (2002 nd 2003.) Can’t the M’s finally catch a break? The team has served their time. They have changed their approach and signed good young players. They have a great mix of veterans and club controlled players. They can hit and pitch well enough (9th in team wRC+ and 14th in team ERA) and they are scrappy. They have one of the best closers in baseball. This should be their year. They should be fighting for a division title. Not battling to hang onto the second wild card.

Instead they are stuck in second place behind the best team in the majors (the Astros are 1st in team ERA and 2nd in team wRC+) and barely in the second wild card spot because between them the Yankees and Red Soxes have essentially locked down the first wild card. This could be another year that the Mariners win 90+ and miss the playoffs because the AL West is too good yet again.

The Sounders’ Offense is Broken and Needs Help

The Sounder's offense is pathetic. They are just downright bad. The team has scored 10 goals in 13 games. They have been shut out eight times this year. They are third to last in the Western Conference standings (somehow San Jose and Colorado are doing worse.) Watching the team play it is obvious that they just don't have the skill required to create, let alone convert, scoring chances. The Sounders are in desperate need of offensive help. What the team really needs is a player like Chad Barret or Obafemi Martins. 

During his two years in Seattle Barrett scored 12 goals, while averaging about 36 minutes per game. Barrett's role on the team was to sub in late and bring an intense energy to the attack and he did exactly that. Whenever Barrett substituted into a game you knew that he was going to find the ball and make things difficult on the opposition. He was a player that truly sparked an offense with his arrival. 

The Sounders current roster doesn't have anyone like that. There most frequently go to is Lamar Neagle who doesn't bring confidence to any fan when he enters the game. He has managed one shot on goal in 109 minutes this year. Usually the Sounder's late subs disappear into the fray. You essential forget they are even out there. The Sounders need someone they can bring into a close game late that will harass the opposing defense and motivate the rest of the squad. They need someone that can elevate their game with their energetic presence. They need a player like Chad Barrett.

Probably the most creative and talented offensive player the Sounders have ever had was Obafemi Martins. The Nigerian player was able to execute brilliant inventive moves to beat defenders regularly. He scored at a highly efficient rate and powered the Sounders attack to amazing heights. His partnership with Clint Dempsey was magical. He was able to anticipate and read Dempsey like they had been playing together since grade school.

The Sounders could obviously use a player like Martins, every team in the league could, but his kind of talent is special and rare. More realistically what they need is a player with creativity and ball skills in the vein of Oba. They need someone that can dribble at a defender head on and beat them once and a while. They need someone that can instinctively know when to shoot from a crazy angle and when to flick it on for someone else to score. The current roster just has no one that can create . They have no one that can dribble past a defender. They rely entirely on crossing and earning free kicks. The Sounders offense needs someone like Obafemi Martins.

The Sounders’ current offense is broken. They lack the energy and talent to create scoring chances. The team needs different players to improve the attack. They need a player that can ignite an attack late and force a tired opposing defense into mistakes. They need a player with creativity and ball skills that can attack the center of the defense. They need a player like a and Barrett or Obafemi Martins, or even better both.

The Seahawk's Drafts have Regressed to a More Sustainable Level

Recently a lot of people have been criticizing the Seahawks last four drafts. They point to the failure of the team to draft any regular Pro-Bowlers or even regular starters. They hold 2010-2012 up as the standard for the team. Those years were amazing. They drafted 14 players that would significantly contribute (defined by my subjective opinion) to the team. The results set an impossible standard that we shouldn't judge them against.

The Seattle Times did a good job breaking down some of the reasons why the results of the Seahawk's drafts have gotten worse. Probably the most important reason was what The Times called regression to the mean. To summarize basically no teams are ever consistently good at drafting. They may have a few good drafts, but it is mostly luck. Teams just can't consistent determine which players will succeed and which will fail. The Seahawks got really lucky over 2010-2012. No team can consistently draft huge numbers of starters year after year. 

The Seahawk's recentdrafts (2016 excluded) aren't as terrible as people seem to say. They have picked players that contribute, just at closer to two a year instead of four or five. The team's current struggles aren't because of bad drafting as much as injuries and natural aging of their stars. The team has picked quality players, just not at the crazy rate of 2010-2012.

To highlight these impact players let's start in 2013 and work our way through all the drafts up to 2016. I am going to include 2017 because those players have only had one professional year and it is early to judge them, although I think it has a lot of promise with Naz Jones, Shaquill Griffin, Chris Carson, and Ethan Pocic.

First up is 2013, which will always be remember for the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl and not for who they drafted. This year the Seahawks picked eleven players, including four in the seventh round. The Seahawks did draft Christine Michael in the second round. The running back was shock to many when he was drafted and ended up a big disappointment during his tenure with the Seahawks. The two players that have had the biggest positive impact on the team are Jordan Hill and Luke Willson.

Jordan Hill was definitely never a star for the team, but he did play an important role. His promising rookie season was cut short because of injury. 2014 was a good season for the big defensive tackle. He recorded 5.5 sacks and played in 13 games for a team that would make it to the Super Bowl for the second year in a row. Hill played one more adequate year in Seattle before moving on to Jacksonville.

Over his five year career with the Seahawks Luke Willson players in 72 of the possible 80 games. Although he was never a big threat in the passing game he did often produce when called upon. The whole time he was in Seattle Willson was stuck behind Jimmy Graham on the depth chart. Although not his fault this definitely suppressed his stats. 

The next draft to review is 2014. This year the team drafted nine players. Three of these men have had noteworthy careers with Seattle, Paul Richardson, Justin Britt, and Cassius Marsh.

Richardson show a lot of potential at wide receiver, but he struggled to stay healthy. He has blazing fast speed, that should let him get separation downfield. It took him until last year, 2017, when he gained 703 yards and caught 6 touchdowns to put it all together. Richardson won't be in the Ring of Honor, but he wasn't a busted draft pick.

Since he was drafted Justin Britt has started 63 of a possible 64 games. He was frustrating to watch his first couple of seasons, but he has since turned a corner. Last year Britt was the best offensive lineman for the Seahawks. His play at center was the only position that was even adequate until the arrival of Duane Brown.

It might be a surprise to some people that I included Cassius Marsh as an impact player. His stats certainly don't paint him to be one. However in 2015 and 2016 Marsh was a regular in the defensive line rotation and provided quality play when he was on the field. He pressured the quarterback and took up blockers allowing other players to make tackles. Marsh was by no means a super star, but he was a solid contributor for the Seahawks for two seasons before being traded to the Patriots.

2015 landed the Seahawks two impact players out of the eight they drafted. Interestingly 2015 was the third year in a row the Seahawks didn't draft in the first round. It has led to a running joke in Seattle about the Seahawks brass preferring seventh rounders over first rounders. Anyways, the two players of note from 2015 were Frank Clark and Tyler Lockett.

Whether or not you like Frank Clark as a person he has been a net positive on the football field for the Seahawks. After getting used to the NFL in 2015, Clark has recorded 19 sacks over the last two seasons. There are games when he disappears, which is frustrating, but overall Clark gets pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

Tyler Lockett had a truly exciting rookie campaign. He gained 664 yards receiving and caught 6 touchdowns. He started to develop a real chemistry with quarterback Russell Wilson. Lockett was even better in the return game. He returned a punt and a kickoff for a touchdown. To recognize his achievements he made the Pro-Bowl has a returner. Unfortunately Lockett hasn't been able to repeat the feats of his rookie year. His average punt return yards shrank in each consecutive season and he has never taken his receiving to the next level. Even so, Lockett is still a good and young player.

As I mentioned above 2016 was the one exception to my argument that the Seahawks drafts haven't been that bad. 2016 was essentially a complete miss for the team. They drafted 10 players, including Germain Ifedi, their first first round selection since 2012. Despite the large number of picks and the high rounds, the Seahawks just were unable to find quality players. Alex Collins appears he might be a good NFL running back, but the Seahawks cut him and now he plays for the Ravens. The one guy that I would count as a positive impact for team is Jarran Reed. He has played a very solid defensive tackle for the Seahawks in 30 of 32 possible games. He is definitely a contributing member of the rotation and is able to record tackles and assist on others at a satisfactory rate.

Between 2010 and 2012 the Seahawks set a standard for the quality of their drafts that is impossible for them to repeat. Even the most brilliant football minds of all time would struggle to replicate the amount of talent the Seahawks snagged over those three years. The team's subsequent drafts have looked bad by comparison, but in reality they are passable. That isn't to say there haven't been mistakes (see Christine Michael), but there have also been successes. The Seahawk's Front Office isn't bad at drafting now, they are just doing it at a more sustainable level of quality.

Drafting Running Backs

On Wednesday afternoon on 950 KJR Softy Mahler was talking about all the quality college running backs that are available in the NFL draft this year. That got me thinking about the success NFL teams actually have in drafting rushers. Over the last several years the conventional wisdom has settled on the idea that only the most outstanding can't miss running backs should ever be taken first round of the draft and even those guys should probably be in the second round. The reason being the position is very dependent on the play calling of the coaches and the blocking of the offensive linemen. Very few athletes are able to be game changers without a high quality group of linemen in front of them. So teams should focus on blockers and then find someone to run behind them. Additionally running back is a position with high risk of injury so investing a lot of resources into the position doesn't have a high enough potential return. I wanted to know if this thinking is actually playing out with the players being drafted at running back. Then on Thursday the Seahawks went and took Rashaad Penny from San Diego State University with the 27th pick of the first round and I really had to know.

During the five seasons between 2013 and 2017 there were 54 instances where an individual player rushed for 1000 or more yards (see Figure 1). 34 different players recorded one of those 54 seasons. The distribution of the round the player was drafted in looked pretty conventional with the 1st round being the most common followed by the second round and so on. Figure 1 shows the distribution. Interesting there were 4 seasons where a player that recorded 1000 yards rushing was an undrafted free agent. C.J. Anderson, LeGarrette Blount, Chris Ivory, and Arian Foster are the four men that achieved this feat. This data points towards that conclusion that a player that records a 1000 yard season is more likely to have been drafted highly. However, this doesn't tell the whole story. If there are just a few highly skilled first rounders continuously racking up big yardage seasons it would skew he data. It could be that a high percentage of 1st rounders never pan out then actually perform well in the NFL.

Figure 1: Running Backs to rush for 1000 yards are more likely to have been drafted in the earlier rounds.

I looked at all the running backs drafted between 2013 and 2017. A total of 122 running backs were drafted over the course of the five drafts. On average 24 running backs were taken in the draft. The high was 2017 when 30 running backs were taken and the low was 2014 when only 21 were taken. Assuming that each player has had a chance to achieve 1000 yards equal to the number of seasons that have happened since they were drafted there have been 356 possible 1000 yard season. Realistically not every player has a chance at 1000 yards because they can't all start. So if we assume there are 32 possible 1000 yard seasons each year, one for each team, there were 160 possible chances. Of all these chances a running back drafted between 2013 and 2017 has recorded a 1000 yard season 19 times. 13 unique players achieved this feat. Additionally there were 16 Pro-Bowl appearances by 12 of those players over this time. 

There is a pretty consistent trend of the percentage of 1000 yard seasons and 160 carry seasons achieved compared to possible chances. Players grouped by the year they were drafted hold the percentages in a narrow band (See Figure 2). For 1000 yards seasons it goes from 4-10% and gets lower the long ago that the draft took place. This makes sense considering those players drafted in 2013 have had much longer to get cut, hurt, or retire than those drafted last year. For 160 carry seasons the data sits between 12-17%. It spikes in the middle and is low in 2013 and 2017. Again this makes sense as players from 2017 have most likely not established themselves yet to earn all those carries nd players from 2013 have been cut, hurt, or retired.

Figure 2: The percentage of times a running back achieved a milestone in all the possible chances.

In both 2013 and 2014 no running backs were taken in the first round. Between 2015 and 2017 five running backs were taken in the first round. They were Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, Ezekiel Elliott, Todd Gurley, and Melvin Gordon. Of these five men only McCaffrey has not yet recorded a 1000 yard rushing season.  He is also the only player to not get at least 160 rushing attempts each season. In his only season McCaffrey rushed 117 times for 435 yards.

For the five drafts I reviewed 13 running backs were selected in the second round.  They have a much more spotty record than the first rounders. Le'Veon Bell leads the group with three Pro-Bowl seasons in five chances. Bell is widely regarded as one of the most talented running backs in the NFL. There are also two very notable busts in Montee Ball and Bishop Sankey.  Neither player ever recorded 160 or more carries in a season and both topped out around 550 rushing yards gained in a season. Another interesting second rounder is Christine Michael, who was drafted by the Seahawks in 2013. At the time I was confused by the pick because Michael had a limited playing history in college. It seemed to be a real reach pick. Although Michael never had a good season in the NFL, he never rushed 160 times or gained over 600 yards rushing, he has managed to stick around. He played in four seasons and is still on the Colts roster. Somehow Michael's time in the NFL just doesn't want to end.

If for each round you sum up all the times that a player drafted reached 1000 yards rushing, carried the ball at least 160 times, or made a Pro-Bowl, it becomes obvious that players drafted in earlier rounds are more likely to reach these milestones. The first and second rounds are the highest totals for all three metrics (see Figure 3). The second round looks better by count, but that is because more players were drafted, 47 compared to 10, so they had more opportunities than first rounders. To try and account for this looked at the percentage of times a player reached these milestones compared to the available opportunities.

Figure 3: Running backs selected in the first round achieved a milestone at a much higher rate than those drafted in other rounds.

For 1000 yard rushers the first rounders reached the yardage 50% of the available time. For second rounders is was only 13%. For rounds three and below it topped out at 5%. Basically if a running back is drafted in the first round they are much more likely to rush for a 1000 yard season than someone drafted in the second round and extremely more likely than someone in the third through seventh rounds.

Another metric to consider if someone is a productive NFL running back is the number of carries they get during a season. 160 carries means they averaged 10 per game. Looking at this metric by round shows a similar picture. Rushers drafted in the first round reached 160 attempts 90% of the possible opportunities. Second rounders only achieved this 38% of the time, while later round players maxed out at 12%.

For Pro-Bowl appearances the percentages are in line with the other metrics. First rounders were selected to the Pro-Bowl 40% of opportunities compared to at most 9% for the other rounds. Le'Veon Bell and Devonte Freeman made up 5 of the 12 Pro-Bowl selection for later round players.

Admittedly the percentages for first rounders should be way higher because the number of players is much smaller, so one great player can have a larger impact. For example there were 46 running backs taken in the sixth and seventh rounds, and only Latavius Murray has made a Pro-Bowl or rushed for 1000 yards. Also players drafted in those rounds are expected to bust more frequently because teams don't evaluate them as worthy of a higher pick. The teams drafting them don't expect much by taking them so low. It can also be argued that if first round players truly did bust at a higher than normal rate we should see the percentages drop and be much closer to the other round, which we don’t see. Instead we see the opposite. Players taken in the first two rounds have much higher percentages of successful seasons as measured by 1000 yards gained rushing, 160 rushing attempts, and Pro-Bowl selections.

Looking at all these stats doesn't disprove the conventional wisdom that NFL teams shouldn't draft running backs in the first round unless they are a generational talent, but it does make me question it more. Of the ten players taken in the first round only one hasn't reached the 1000 mark in a season yet, and he has only played one season. It is possible that all ten first round backs were exceptional generational talents, but it seems unlikely ten of these players would have shown up in five years. Those taken in the second round of the NFL are also generally very productive. So if a team is confident that a player is capable of making it in the NFL they should spend the pick. They have a good track record of evaluating college rushers and drafting accordingly.

Sources: Pro Football Reference

Someone is Going to Score Eventually

With the Sounders current scoring drought, they have failed to score a goal in all three 2018 MLS matches, I decided to looked back at the team's leading scorer each of their nine seasons. The table is an interesting one. All of the names on it are iconic members of the Sounders short but highlight filled history. Two main things stood out to me, the 2013 scoring leader was very low and Obafemi Martins was very good.

The Leading Scorer for the Seattle Sounders for Each Year of Their Existence

It wasn't that the Sounders struggled to score goals in 2013. They scored 42 goals in 34 regular season games, amounting to 1.24 goals per game. That is a bit low, but not terrible. For comparison's sake last year's squad scored 52 goals and the 2016 team scored 44 goals. In 2017 Sporting KC scored 42 goals, ranking them 7th of 10 in that category. The thing about 2013 was no one player really pulled away and did anything special.

Eddie Johnson scored 9 goals in 21 games, which is equivalent to 14.5 over a 3 game season. That is a solid number for a complete season. Obafemi Martins and Lamar Neagle both scored 8 goals. All told the Sounders had 11 players score at least one goal in 2013. Really what prevented anyone from scoring double digit goals was the lack of consistency on the pitch. The Sounders only had three players appear in 30 (90%) of their MLS matches. 2013 just didn't produce any kind of special memorable goal scorers.

When it comes to goal scoring players 2014 and 2015 were completely unlike 2013. Obafemi Martins dominated the league. In 2015 he scored a ridiculous 15 goals in only 21 games played. That is a rate of .71 goals per game or equivalent to scoring 24 goals over a 34 game season. That is how many goals league leader Nemanja Nikolic scored for Chicago last season (and he played in all 34 games coincidently).

Another way to look at Martins' scoring prowess is his scoring percentage (the number of goals scored over all the shots taken). In 2015 Martins took only 42 shots to score his 15 goals, which is an even crazier 35% success rate. For comparison last year Nikolic took 118 shots to score his 24 goals, meaning he scored only 20% of the time he shot.

Martins 2014 season was also incredible. He scored 17 goals and also notched up another 13 assists. He was talked about for league MVP, although didn't end up winning the award. On the field Martins partnered beautifully with forward Clint Dempsey, who scored 15 goals and assisted on another 10. The Sounders used this powerful attack to capture the Supporters Shield, given to the team with the best regular season point total.

Looking at the Sounders top goal scorer in each of their MLS seasons reminds us that they will score a goal this year. They might not (probably won't) have a prolific scorer such as 2014 or 2015 Obafemi Martins when the year finishes, but someone will score goals. Even in 2013 when no one player dominated the goal scoring table the team managed to score 42 goals over their 34 games.

Sources: MLSSoccer.com