Colin Kaepernick Thread

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
His position appears to be that this particular website puts too much emphasis on run blocking and too little emphasis on pass blocking. That inherently involves an opinion as to how heavily each kind of blocking should be weighted. That is subjective. Get it?

OK...let me try to make it more clear. If a guy (Iupati) has a rank of #4 in run blocking and #39 in pass blocking, should he be rated the 11th best OG in football? No, I would say that pass blocking should be treated equally. PFF has Pass, Run and Screen blocking columns. Iupati was ranked 46th in screen blocking. So if you want to take an average of his placements it would be 4 + 39 +49 divided by 3 which equals 30th. But PFF weights each category. The highest number for screen blocking is 4.5, high # for pass blocking is 18 and run blocking is 26.4. This skews the overall ranking toward run blocking. It means NFL linemen are much better at run blocking than pass and screen blocking, which is absurd if you are comparing one to the others...which a ranking system is doing.

Originally posted by 9moon:

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:

Originally posted by Jakemall:

Originally posted by 9moon:
Steve Young was a great prospect coming out of BYU.. in fact, he was not even recruited as a QB, he really was a FS until Mike Holmgrem saw him throwing the football around on a pick up game.. he bacame like the 6th stringers..

and no way Young coulda been a great QB already at Tampa Bay, he left that team too soon..

.. and while we're at this QB and Coaches...

.. Are you saying that Walsh made Joe Montana great????

He played QB in high school and was recruited as a qb in college..even if it was 6th string. Where did you hear he was a FS?

Looks like moon been eating his space cakes again

I've read it in 49ers Report (newspaper) back in the 90s.. that he was such a great athlete that BYU had him at the FS position.. until Mike Holmgrem saw him playing pick up games and how he threw the ball..

if you guys were too young back in the 80s or still poppin your black/white heads, then do your own search and KNOW YOUR ROLES "JABRONIS" !!!

Originally posted by 9moon:
He never was because Mike was convinced that he can play QB that's why he never became a FS.

So what is it Moon

You said Steve young was a FS in college , then you say he never was ?

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:
So what is it Moon

You said Steve young was a FS in college , then you say he never was ?

I think it means he could have been if he had been but even though he wasn't it was discussed so it was a fact that it could have been...but wasn't. Something like this.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
His position appears to be that this particular website puts too much emphasis on run blocking and too little emphasis on pass blocking. That inherently involves an opinion as to how heavily each kind of blocking should be weighted. That is subjective. Get it?

OK...let me try to make it more clear. If a guy (Iupati) has a rank of #4 in run blocking and #39 in pass blocking, should he be rated the 11th best OG in football? No, I would say that pass blocking should be treated equally. PFF has Pass, Run and Screen blocking columns. Iupati was ranked 46th in screen blocking. So if you want to take an average of his placements it would be 4 + 39 +49 divided by 3 which equals 30th. But PFF weights each category. The highest number for screen blocking is 4.5, high # for pass blocking is 18 and run blocking is 26.4. This skews the overall ranking toward run blocking. It means NFL linemen are much better at run blocking than pass and screen blocking, which is absurd if you are comparing one to the others...which a ranking system is doing.

It is an interesting observation about the statistics, but my point is that your criticism is not based on an objective, universal truth. Much like PFF's balancing of the categories is subjective, your opinion of how they should be balanced is also subjective. To whatever extent you criticize their methodology, they would likely criticize yours.

If you then take that subjective criticism and devalue certain stats while emphasizing others, it becomes far messier. It begins to look like gamesmanship or cherry-picking.

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:

Originally posted by crake49:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:

Originally posted by PhillyNiner:

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
Uhm Joe Staley has been a very good pass blocker for the better part of 7 yearsatleast. And ADAVIS was very decent as was Goodwin and Boone before this past bad season.

Not sure what stats you are using but according to PFF Davis had the following rating in pass blocking.

Davis
2010: 70th
2011: 60th
2012: 29th
2013: 24th
2014: did not play

Boone's ratings--
2012: 30th
2013: 54th (Adam Snyder was rated higher)
2014: 23rd (not terrible--so so)

Goodwin was rated well below Kilgore last year--37th compared to 10th.
2014: 37th (w NO)
2013: 22nd
2012: 23rd
2011: 34th

queue post about how stats done matter "cause eye test" in 3...2...1...

People were awfully dismissive of PFF in the Depth Chart thread. Curious how that works.

My complaint with PFF is their weighting line play heavily in favor of run blocking. Iupati listed as a top OG when he is very mediocre to bad in pass blocking...just doesn't make sense to me. This is especially true in a league trending toward more passing.

Are you saying that you choose which stats to emphasize based on your feel for the game, such as your opinion of how run and pass blocking should be weighted? That seems to introduce a lot of ambiguity for an argument based on statistics.

No, he's saying he has a problem with how they place too much emphasis on run blocking when they rank offensive linemen. Why is that hard to understand? Assuming you were actually watching games last year, did you think Boone or Davis did okay in pass blocking? PFF rated them poorly in pass blocking, but still had them ranked high overall. Get it?

His position appears to be that this particular website puts too much emphasis on run blocking and too little emphasis on pass blocking. That inherently involves an opinion as to how heavily each kind of blocking should be weighted. That is subjective. Get it?

There is a inherent level of subjectivity in any Oline pass protection rating system.

There are several advanced metric NFL rating websites out there but PFF's ratings get used exclusively here which leads me to believe that it's the most skewed in favor of the poster's narrative.

It would be good to see the ratings of several systems for comparison.

Originally posted by aTx49er:
There is a inherent level of subjectivity in any Oline pass protection rating system.

There are several advanced metric NFL rating websites out there but PFF's ratings get used exclusively here which leads me to believe that it's the most skewed in favor of the poster's narrative.

It would be good to see the ratings of several systems for comparison.

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
It is an interesting observation about the statistics, but my point is that your criticism is not based on an objective, universal truth. Much like PFF's balancing of the categories is subjective, your opinion of how they should be balanced is also subjective. To whatever extent you criticize their methodology, they would likely criticize yours.

If you then take that subjective criticism and devalue certain stats while emphasizing others, it becomes far messier. It begins to look like gamesmanship or cherry-picking.

Not really. I have no problem with them comparing players and saying player X is a better run blocker. My problem is that a player who allows the QB to be killed every third pass play should not be considered a great OG just because he can drive block well. When you give one area more points than another area you are weighting in favor of that area...I disagree with saying run blocking is more important than pass blocking. I would rather have a guy who is dependable in every area...even if he wasn't great at any.

Iupati was not a good screen blocker. That means the team couldn't depend on using screen plays effectively, which limited the offense. It's an interesting discussion because while many blame the lagging offense totally on Harbaugh and Roman I don't think it's that simple. They inherited an OL that was built for power blocking, which seemed ideal for their scheme, but because they couldn't depend on pass or screen blocking it greatly impacted Kaepernick's growth and the overall productivity of the offense.

I'm not even sure how bad Iupati and Davis are in pass blocking because much of the problem could be due to scheme and/or lack of coaching. I know that the line wanted to be a power run line and many indicated a reluctance to talk about pass blocking. That was telling. If players don't respect or care about part of their responsiblities...ouch!

Originally posted by crake49:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
His position appears to be that this particular website puts too much emphasis on run blocking and too little emphasis on pass blocking. That inherently involves an opinion as to how heavily each kind of blocking should be weighted. That is subjective. Get it?

Why don't we cut the crap - did you think the pass blocking on the Niners was acceptable last year?

no,, and it has not been for four years in my opinion

Originally posted by aTx49er:
There is a inherent level of subjectivity in any Oline pass protection rating system.

There are several advanced metric NFL rating websites out there but PFF's ratings get used exclusively here which leads me to believe that it's the most skewed in favor of the poster's narrative.

It would be good to see the ratings of several systems for comparison.

I signed up for PFF and like their overall site. Not sure what your point is about a narrative, but if you have another site that would add to the discussion I would appreciate if you would post it here rather than assuming and criticising other posters motives.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
It is an interesting observation about the statistics, but my point is that your criticism is not based on an objective, universal truth. Much like PFF's balancing of the categories is subjective, your opinion of how they should be balanced is also subjective. To whatever extent you criticize their methodology, they would likely criticize yours.

If you then take that subjective criticism and devalue certain stats while emphasizing others, it becomes far messier. It begins to look like gamesmanship or cherry-picking.

Not really. I have no problem with them comparing players and saying player X is a better run blocker. My problem is that a player who allows the QB to be killed every third pass play should not be considered a great OG just because he can drive block well. When you give one area more points than another area you are weighting in favor of that area...I disagree with saying run blocking is more important than pass blocking. I would rather have a guy who is dependable in every area...even if he wasn't great at any.

Iupati was not a good screen blocker. That means the team couldn't depend on using screen plays effectively, which limited the offense. It's an interesting discussion because while many blame the lagging offense totally on Harbaugh and Roman I don't think it's that simple. They inherited an OL that was built for power blocking, which seemed ideal for their scheme, but because they couldn't depend on pass or screen blocking it greatly impacted Kaepernick's growth and the overall productivity of the offense.

I'm not even sure how bad Iupati and Davis are in pass blocking because much of the problem could be due to scheme and/or lack of coaching. I know that the line wanted to be a power run line and many indicated a reluctance to talk about pass blocking. That was telling. If players don't respect or care about part of their responsiblities...ouch!

I agree with a lot of what you're saying and appreciate your thoughtful approach. However, I disagree with the notion that your version of balancing (assigning the factors equal weight is a form of balancing, after all) is somehow better than PFF's version of balancing. Both are inherently subjective and, therefore, inherently problematic. Those posters who dogmatically rely on stats to the exclusion of all other factors miss the point.

Edit: I'm not trying to say that you are dogmatically relying on stats (in fact, you are doing the opposite). That was a global comment.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
It is an interesting observation about the statistics, but my point is that your criticism is not based on an objective, universal truth. Much like PFF's balancing of the categories is subjective, your opinion of how they should be balanced is also subjective. To whatever extent you criticize their methodology, they would likely criticize yours.

If you then take that subjective criticism and devalue certain stats while emphasizing others, it becomes far messier. It begins to look like gamesmanship or cherry-picking.

Not really. I have no problem with them comparing players and saying player X is a better run blocker. My problem is that a player who allows the QB to be killed every third pass play should not be considered a great OG just because he can drive block well. When you give one area more points than another area you are weighting in favor of that area...I disagree with saying run blocking is more important than pass blocking. I would rather have a guy who is dependable in every area...even if he wasn't great at any.

Iupati was not a good screen blocker. That means the team couldn't depend on using screen plays effectively, which limited the offense. It's an interesting discussion because while many blame the lagging offense totally on Harbaugh and Roman I don't think it's that simple. They inherited an OL that was built for power blocking, which seemed ideal for their scheme, but because they couldn't depend on pass or screen blocking it greatly impacted Kaepernick's growth and the overall productivity of the offense.

I'm not even sure how bad Iupati and Davis are in pass blocking because much of the problem could be due to scheme and/or lack of coaching. I know that the line wanted to be a power run line and many indicated a reluctance to talk about pass blocking. That was telling. If players don't respect or care about part of their responsiblities...ouch!

I have a problem with them (or anyone) comparing players to one another, using their rating system, and saying "this player is better than that player". There is a gigantic factor that PFF leaves out that makes comparing players invalid - quality of competition. The NFL plays an unbalanced schedule and no two players go head to head against the same opponents.

If Staley dominates the backup DE from JAC, he will get a nice grade. If Okung (SEA's LT) goes up against Aldon and gets an average grade, which player was better? Without knowing who the backup DE for JAC is, I'd say Okung played better because he held his own against a premier player in Aldon. This is lost in the PFF rating system. It should only be used in a vacuum. Which player had the better season, based on who he went head to head with? Players cannot be compared to across teams because they play against different opponents.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
It is an interesting observation about the statistics, but my point is that your criticism is not based on an objective, universal truth. Much like PFF's balancing of the categories is subjective, your opinion of how they should be balanced is also subjective. To whatever extent you criticize their methodology, they would likely criticize yours.

If you then take that subjective criticism and devalue certain stats while emphasizing others, it becomes far messier. It begins to look like gamesmanship or cherry-picking.

Not really. I have no problem with them comparing players and saying player X is a better run blocker. My problem is that a player who allows the QB to be killed every third pass play should not be considered a great OG just because he can drive block well. When you give one area more points than another area you are weighting in favor of that area...I disagree with saying run blocking is more important than pass blocking. I would rather have a guy who is dependable in every area...even if he wasn't great at any.

Iupati was not a good screen blocker. That means the team couldn't depend on using screen plays effectively, which limited the offense. It's an interesting discussion because while many blame the lagging offense totally on Harbaugh and Roman I don't think it's that simple. They inherited an OL that was built for power blocking, which seemed ideal for their scheme, but because they couldn't depend on pass or screen blocking it greatly impacted Kaepernick's growth and the overall productivity of the offense.

I'm not even sure how bad Iupati and Davis are in pass blocking because much of the problem could be due to scheme and/or lack of coaching. I know that the line wanted to be a power run line and many indicated a reluctance to talk about pass blocking. That was telling. If players don't respect or care about part of their responsiblities...ouch!

I have a problem with them (or anyone) comparing players to one another, using their rating system, and saying "this player is better than that player". There is a gigantic factor that PFF leaves out that makes comparing players invalid - quality of competition. The NFL plays an unbalanced schedule and no two players go head to head against the same opponents.

If Staley dominates the backup DE from JAC, he will get a nice grade. If Okung (SEA's LT) goes up against Aldon and gets an average grade, which player was better? Without knowing who the backup DE for JAC is, I'd say Okung played better because he held his own against a premier player in Aldon. This is lost in the PFF rating system. It should only be used in a vacuum. Which player had the better season, based on who he went head to head with? Players cannot be compared to across teams because they play against different opponents.

Good point. I find this discussion really interesting...this forum reflects a huge range of opinions with regard to how valuable stats are in the absence of context.

Originally posted by Young2Rice:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:

Originally posted by Lutch57:
I feel like this is what it looks like every time Tom Brady snaps the ball, perfect pocket multiple guys open. Maybe he's just that good he makes it look that easy.

Its Brady's EXCELLENT anticipation and pocket awareness of presnap read and blitz hot read pick up. Some guys got it and some guys it takes LONGER and hopefully Kap picks it up.

Anyone with a pocket can be a surgeon , he sucks really bad under pressure

Kap has had more All pros blocking for him the last 3 years then Brady has had the last 10 years.

Brady is a HOFer. Kap isn't near there yet. For now he needs protection. Brady had some good lines earlier in his career.

Having watched every college game Kap has ever played, when he lost confidence in his offensive line (no one made the NFL from his OLs - Bitonio came later) he bailed (early?). I saw this last year from him for the first time in the NFL. If the OL can't pass block this year I don't think you will see noticeable improvement.
I think for him to be excellent he needs quality pass protection (and no not every QB is with decent protection). But, I also find the bashers using Manning, Brady and Young (all HOF level) a little over the top in talking about Kap. Notice how they don't use Newton, Locker, Ponder, Gabbert and Dalton to bash him. They all were drafted before him. Or even the over-hyped RG3?

And isn't Kap 4-0 against Brady and Rodgers with decent blocking?

Originally posted by VinculumJuris:
Good point. I find this discussion really interesting...this forum reflects a huge range of opinions with regard to how valuable stats are in the absence of context.

PFF has done some very decent analysis and are the first to do so and I think are OVER used to support someone's point. While one person points out all DEs aren't the same which would make PFF more meaningful, they don't separate "game on the line" plays versus "garbage time" plays.

I thought our defense benefitted from this last year. When the game was on the line, we most often couldn't stop offenses. But, when the game was out of reach we seemed to rack up the stats. Anthony Davis pass protection doesn't show dreadful on PFF stats, but in important situations his pass blocking seemed to me the worse.

Originally posted by thl408:
I have a problem with them (or anyone) comparing players to one another, using their rating system, and saying "this player is better than that player". There is a gigantic factor that PFF leaves out that makes comparing players invalid - quality of competition. The NFL plays an unbalanced schedule and no two players go head to head against the same opponents.

If Staley dominates the backup DE from JAC, he will get a nice grade. If Okung (SEA's LT) goes up against Aldon and gets an average grade, which player was better? Without knowing who the backup DE for JAC is, I'd say Okung played better because he held his own against a premier player in Aldon. This is lost in the PFF rating system. It should only be used in a vacuum. Which player had the better season, based on who he went head to head with? Players cannot be compared to across teams because they play against different opponents.

True that variables can never be completely exhausted in research or analysis but if you take the rankings for what they are...flawed...it is a way of seeing how players are generally playing. Over a season you hope that the rankings are somewhat meaningful. So as I take them for what they are worth, my only problem is when they add an extraneous variable that seems illogical...run blocking is worth six more points than pass blocking. On a pass heavy team run blocking may be less important. So on the face of it the rankings should at least treat these areas with equal weight.

In your scenario you can add that Staley may have played against Matthews when the latter had a migraine, while Okung played him at his best. You can't see a migraine but I can guarantee it impacts a persons ability to maximize effort. Also, if a QB releases the ball withn a three second average, but QB two averages four seconds...another variable that would skew the results.

Interpreting numbers is another matter. When you explain why you are critical of various comparisons, acknowledging flaws, the discussion can be interesting. If you just spew numbers with no context...not so useful.