Football Outsiders: 49ers #1 team by a mile

I'm still trying to figure out why a website that wants to have any credibility would call themselves "outsiders".

power rankings don't mean shyt

There was an interesting point made in the comments section about our special teams. The poster is replying to a post about special teams being worse because of the loss of Costanzo. This is a point I hadn't considered, but it makes a lot of sense.

by bravehoptoad :: Tue, 10/09/2012 - 8:45pm

Also they're missing Colin Jones, another special-teams ace, and they released Rock Cartwright, a guy brought in primarily for his special-teams ability.

In their place, the 9ers have a slew of skill-position players who make no contribution to special teams whatsoever.

In short, they seem to have redirected a lot of resources from special teams to offense. I'm wondering if they didn't make a conscious investment in special teams last year because it's a cheap and easy way to improve one of your units without needing an entire off season to install. Now that the team has a year of familiarity with their complex offense, and an entire off season, I'm thinking offense would be a more attractive investment.

So, "reversion" on special teams might be something they've consciously done to some extent. I'm wondering if some of the volatility of year-on-year special-teams performance is because it's rare for special teams units to remain constant. They are usually stocked with bottom-of-the-roster guys, after all.

At any rate, this site certainly was not the only advanced-statistics site predicting regression for the 9ers for all the same reasons.

costanzo and jones were our biggest losses this offseason, no question.

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
costanzo and jones were our biggest losses this offseason, no question.

Why did the 49ers trade Colin Jones for a mere 7th round (practically a camp fodder) pick?

Originally posted by ChazBoner:

costanzo and jones were our biggest losses this offseason, no question.

This I think if they kept either one they would have been fine. But I would guess every STs tackle one if not both of them were in on it.

Originally posted by fastforward:

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
costanzo and jones were our biggest losses this offseason, no question.

Why did the 49ers trade Colin Jones for a mere 7th round (practically a camp fodder) pick?

no idea. Doesn't make sense. Jones was always one of the first ones to make contact on kick offs.

Originally posted by ChazBoner:
no idea. Doesn't make sense. Jones was always one of the first ones to make contact on kick offs.

Because Jones isn't a functional safety and Costanzo isn't a functional LB