Stafford

[tomdalton22]

This thread needs to be high jacked..

what do you mean?

 

[mhughes0021]

Pretty solid, man...i dont mean to highjack the thread but heres my squad.

QB - Cam Newton
RB - LeSean McCoy
RB- Matt Forte
WR - Randall Cobb
WR - Eric Decker
TE - Fred Davis
F - Antonio Brown
K - David Akers
D - Lions

Bench

QB - Michael Vick
RB - Shane Vereen
RB - Johnathan Dwyer
WR - DHB
WR - Michael Floyd
RB - BGE
WR - Brian Hartline

Took the Lions with my last pick...lol. Defenses are week to week for me

ppr league with a lot of bonuses...

dang that's a solid ppr lineup. McCoy and forte are both going to catch a lot of passes I think. ESPN was estimating cobb to catch like 98 passes this year. good luck!

 

[Mitchrapp]

what do you mean?

:shrug:

 

[tonyballs]

dang that's a solid ppr lineup. McCoy and forte are both going to catch a lot of passes I think. ESPN was estimating cobb to catch like 98 passes this year. good luck!

Thanks, bro! I really like my team. If guys stay healthy, i should do well.

I still have 2 more money leagues to go too (4 total)...lol. Talk about overkill, told myself i would just limit it to 2 but like Al Pacino in 'The Godfather 3'....'just when you think you're out, they PULL you back in!!'

Needless to say, my wife is not impressed...bah.

 

[kdp80]

Didnt watch any of the game last night. Stafford 1 of 6. I read Burleson had a pass go off of his hands and get intercepted. What happened on his other throws? Kinda bothers me that Stafford is looking like garbage in the preseason, while Hill is making it look easy

 

[kdp80]

Id like to think Stafford is just fucking with teams in a meaningless game. But it doesnt seem to be case.

 

[sggatecl]

Didnt watch any of the game last night. Stafford 1 of 6. I read Burleson had a pass go off of his hands and get intercepted. What happened on his other throws? Kinda bothers me that Stafford is looking like garbage in the preseason, while Hill is making it look easy

He over threw Patrick Edwards on deep balls TWICE. But the slappies on this board will blame it on vanilla play calling making him over throw it.

 

[kdp80]

Stafford stuck around all offseason and did what exactly? I dont see anything showing hes ahead of other players in terms of preparation for the season. All I gotta say is....prove me wrong #9

 

[wheels002]

Nate just posted to his Twitter that for every drop he has this season he is donating $100 to a local elementary school. If Pettigrew did that he would be broke.

 

[mhughes0021]

last paragraph is the most telling for me. Its all those little moves that lose value, draft picks, etc that cause little to no depth and allows for all these excuses to be littered all over this article. Injuries blah blah blah 1 play here 1 play there blah blah blah...and my favorite one....BAD LUCK! lol. NFL is a bottom line business and the bottom line is 1-23 blows.


Stafford's woes against good teamsHas it been the QB, or a lot of back luck?Updated: August 30, 2013, 12:12 PM ETBy Scott Kacsmar | Football Outsiders Recommend7Tweet15Comments1EmailPrint

AP Photo/Duane Burleson
Matthew Stafford has not had great results playing against teams with a winning record.
Two seasons ago, quarterback Matthew Stafford was the savior Detroit Lions fans had been waiting for since Bobby Layne manned the position in the 1950s. He was certainly prolific, with 5,038 yards and 41 touchdown passes. He was also clutch, with four game-winning drives. He led the Lions to the postseason just three years removed from an 0-16 campaign in 2008.

But after a 4-12 record in 2012 and just 20 touchdown passes, Stafford's three-year extension for $53 million has some questioning if 2009's No. 1 overall pick is the right guy to lead the Lions to glory.

Some of that stems from this concerning fact: Stafford is 1-23 (.042) against teams who finished the season with a winning record.

It took Andrew Luck four professional starts to notch a second win over a winning team. Joe Flacco had seven such wins in 2012, including four straight in the postseason. A total of 22 teams won multiple games against teams with winning records in 2012 (playoffs included).

It gets worse.

Scott Mitchell, an infamous Detroit disappointment, led the Lions to three wins against winning teams in his first season with the team and he only started nine games. Even JaMarcus Russell went 3-9 against winning teams for Oakland. Something seems off here.

Stafford's 1-23 record includes the 2011 NFC wild-card loss in New Orleans. His 90.9 QBR in that 45-28 loss is the highest by any losing quarterback in the playoffs since 2008. Clearly not all of the losses were Stafford's fault. Adjusting for circumstances like blown leads, midgame injuries and missed field goals, you could argue Stafford had the Lions in position to go (at best) 8-16 in these games. That's still not good, but it looks much better than the eyesore that is 1-23 with the only win coming narrowly over Seattle in Week 8 last season. Stafford started 0-16 against this level of competition before that first win.

How can a team expect to beat three or four playoff teams on its way to a Super Bowl if it cannot beat more than one such team in four years? It could be called an even more problematic question when you consider that the NFC is currently the deeper conference.

So is it really the QB? When dealing with a record that sits so far on one extreme -- pure dumb luck alone should produce a better record than 1-23 in any sample of two dozen NFL games -- we must dig a little deeper.


When a quarterback is drafted high in the first round like Stafford was, he is expected to be the savior of a team coming off a bad season. This is just sort of a rule -- the team picking No. 1 rarely has competent QB play pushing them to that position. This can prove to be very difficult when the team is likely filled with many holes. The Lions were 0-16 before drafting Stafford and 2-14 in his rookie year. Then again, he is 1-16 against winning teams since 2011, which is the time he's been healthy -- the offense has watched him drop back a two-season record 1,512 times -- and the team had better talent around him than during his first two injury-plagued years.

Some quarterbacks just progress more slowly than others, so we wanted to look at first-round picks since 1970 with at least 30 regular-season starts in their first four seasons. That produced a sample of 52 players to study. What we focused on were games started (including playoffs) against teams with a winning record.

These players combined to produce a record of 394-817-4 (.326) with a 71.3 passer rating. Not great numbers, but that's to be expected -- winning teams often have top defenses, which presents a bigger challenge. If not a top defense, then they have a top offense, which means you have to outscore them. Elite teams are great on both sides of the ball.

Sure enough, Stafford's 1-23 record was the worst of all 52 players. The next worst belongs to J.P. Losman, who was 1-16 in Buffalo (2004-07) and finished his career 1-18 as a starter against teams with winning records.

The best record was Jim McMahon's 12-6 mark, helped immensely by Chicago's defense in 1982-85. Only three other players were above .500 and they are listed in the following table, sorted by descending winning percentage and featuring both active quarterbacks and a few noteworthy players from the past.


First-Round QBs vs. Teams with a Winning Record (First Four Seasons)
Players Starts Record Att. Comp. Pct. Yards YPA TD INT Rating
B. Roethlisberger 30 19-11 803 505 62.9 6,386 7.95 48 31 91.5
Dan Marino 27 16-11 982 583 59.4 7,930 8.08 72 39 93.1
Philip Rivers 15 8-7 455 258 56.7 3,313 7.28 21 20 76.7
Joe Flacco 40 20-20 1,230 731 59.4 8,347 6.79 45 36 79.9
John Elway 26 13-13 835 442 52.9 5,569 6.67 29 32 69.6
Jim Kelly 33 15-18 1,087 628 57.8 7,895 7.26 48 45 78.0
Drew Bledsoe 35 15-20 1,492 805 54.0 8,677 5.82 45 54 66.3
Matt Ryan 28 12-16 1,015 590 58.1 6,438 6.34 30 26 76.1
Terry Bradshaw 22 9-13 503 244 48.5 3,092 6.15 20 35 52.4
Michael Vick 16 6-9-1 414 215 51.9 2,694 6.51 12 10 72.1
Mark Sanchez 29 11-18 849 472 55.6 5,429 6.39 26 31 70.1
Vince Young 17 6-11 455 252 55.4 2,808 6.17 10 18 64.8
Carson Palmer 23 8-15 683 420 61.5 5,229 7.66 34 19 90.2
Eli Manning 33 11-22 1,108 608 54.9 7,046 6.36 47 42 72.7
Jason Campbell 16 5-11 567 330 58.2 3,334 5.88 15 13 74.3
Troy Aikman 28 8-20 801 465 58.1 5,035 6.29 29 37 69.5
Jay Cutler 25 7-18 821 504 61.4 5,557 6.77 37 35 78.7
Peyton Manning 36 10-26 1,315 787 59.8 8,884 6.76 58 54 77.7
Sam Bradford 17 4-12-1 636 379 59.6 4,062 6.39 18 15 78.0
Josh Freeman 27 7-20 927 537 57.9 6,026 6.50 33 34 74.0
Cam Newton 15 3-12 493 277 56.2 3,609 7.32 16 22 71.6
Alex Smith 15 3-12 386 201 52.1 2,113 5.47 10 17 58.6
David Carr 30 5-25 841 497 59.1 5,422 6.45 22 27 73.5
Matthew Stafford 24 1-23 1,020 597 58.5 6,812 6.68 36 29 78.6

No one shined more early on than Dan Marino, who had the best passing statistics, averaged the most points per game (27.6) and had the third-best winning percentage (.593) among the 52 players.

While not a guarantee for long-term success -- Jim Everett (13-16) and Byron Leftwich (10-12) had two of the better records -- it certainly helps to get off to a good start. Most of the quarterbacks with bad records did not have successful careers, including Rick Mirer (6-20), Joey Harrington (4-24) and Dan Pastorini (2-21).

A positive for Stafford could be that Peyton Manning was just 10-26 (the most losses by any of the 52 quarterbacks) after four years with the Colts. That included two seasons and 20 losses with the league's worst-scoring defense. He turned out just fine.

However, record is hardly the best indicator of how the quarterback played. Stafford's 78.6 passer rating in these games is the eighth highest on the list, though that's inflated due to the era in which he plays. What's more telling is that the Lions have averaged 20.1 points per game in these 24 contests, which ranks 13th.



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Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images
Jim McMahon knows firsthand that a top-flight defense is key to success against other top teams.
On the other hand, the Lions have allowed 28.7 points per game to winning teams. That's the third worst among the 52 quarterbacks. Losman (28.4) is right above Stafford, while Cam Newton (28.9) is next to last. McMahon had the best record (12-6) because Chicago allowed a study-low 12.9 points per game. So while Stafford and Losman have similar records, Stafford had far superior stats and led his offense to 7.7 more points per game.

Detroit has only allowed fewer than 20 points in two of the 24 games. Both were games against Chicago, including one in 2010 that became known for the "Calvin Johnson Rule" game. Stafford left early that day with an injury.

For the studied quarterbacks, 66.3 percent of their starts saw their team allow 20 or more points. For Stafford, it has been 91.7 percent, which is only outdone by Jeff George (95.0 percent), who went 3-17 in 20 starts, with his team allowing at least 20 points all but once.

The other oddity helping to produce the 1-23 record is that Stafford is the only quarterback among the 52 to play all of his games against teams with 10-plus wins. He's never played a 9-7 team, which is how some quarterbacks were able to juice their records. For example, Trent Dilfer's 11-19 record included six wins over 9-7 teams.

Eighteen of Stafford's 24 games came against teams 11-5 or better.

When you are playing very good teams and not getting help from your defense, it's hard for any quarterback to win. There have also been unique losses like Luck's last-second touchdown pass to Donnie Avery last season, the Thanksgiving loss to Houston with the challenge fiasco, and the six touchdowns thrown by Matt Flynn in 2011 in Green Bay's 45-41 win. Stafford left two games in 2010 (Bears and Jets) with the lead, and the Lions blew it both times.

Change one play in those games and we are looking at a 6-17 record, which would still stand out, but not nearly in the same historic fashion.

When Stafford missed games in 2009-10, the Lions went 2-9 against winning teams. That's better than Stafford's record, though backup Drew Stanton deserves little credit in a 7-3 win over the 2010 Packers in a game in which Aaron Rodgers was knocked out in the second quarter with a concussion.

Again, unique circumstances create unique results. Detroit's misfortune has more to do with the 1-23 mark than Stafford's play does. The record does mean he is 16-6 (.727) against teams .500 or worse, which is good news. Stafford also has five wins over teams who finished 8-8, which prevented those teams from going 9-7 (and counting in this study).

As Stafford begins his fifth season, he should have no shortage of opportunities to prove his worth against good teams. Football Outsiders projects the Lions to have the sixth-toughest schedule in 2013, with 10 games against the AFC North and NFC North. The Lions will also play the competitive NFC East.

Should the Lions continue to lose these big games at a historic rate, the attention will soon shift away from Stafford and back to a Detroit team incapable of building a winner in the Super Bowl era. It takes many factors and lousy luck to go 1-23, but being a bad team has a lot to do with it. Stafford must get better, but Detroit as a team has even farther to go to start competing at the highest level.

 

[Mitchrapp]

We have a great team that would win most divisions. What happened last year won't happen again, with the fumbles and INT plus we had more injuries than anyone in history. I have no doubt we go 12-4 this season and get to the Super Bowl. We're just too good, no weak part on offense and defense.

Holy crap that was hard to say..

 

[Mitchrapp]

Way to step up Nate, NOT. He dropped one pass last season. I'm sure than the kids will get new computers with a C note.

 

[inkfreq]

I never thought I would hope kids don't get a single dollar... but I would also hate to be rooting for Nate to drop passes.