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Howard Balzer
<a class="postlink" href="http://101sports.com/category/hbalzer-blogs/20120106/Looking-Below-the-Surface/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://101sports.com/category/hbalzer-b ... e-Surface/</a>
[wrapimg=left]http://101sports.com/images/authors/medium/hbalzer.jpg[/wrapimg]With the regular season concluded and the playoffs underway, it’s worth reflecting on one of the strangest seasons in NFL history. Scoring was up. Quarterbacks went crazy. Injured reserve lists had record numbers.
And superficial analysis was king again. What do I mean by that? Here’s one example, and it relates to the lockout. It’s inarguable that the impact of having no offseason affected teams, some more than others. Certainly, teams that had been together over a long period of time would be less affected than others.
What’s stunning is to hear some teams actually say they might have underestimated its impact, especially those attempting to change systems. Seriously? You couldn’t figure out that having no offseason program, no OTAs, no control over rehabbing injured players, and then suddenly starting training camp, and not allowing newly signed players to practice for the first week would be potentially detrimental? Plus, there were new rules in the CBA that cut back on padded practices and two-a-days.
After the Eagles finished 8-8 and out of the playoffs, owner Jeffrey Lurie was revisiting the decision not only to change defensive coordinators, but to make offensive line coach Juan Castillo the new one.
With numerous new players and extremely young linebackers, the Eagles’ defense was awful for the first half of the season, but then came together and played well down the stretch.
Said Lurie, "I think maybe there was a miscalculation in implementing big scheme changes in a lockout situation. I would've thought we would've been able to, during the abbreviated training camp and preseason, adapt to some of those schematic changes. They were bold changes. But clearly, the team was not gelling and maximizing those scheme changes in the first half of the year."
It’s shocking he was shocked. So, what’s the superficial analysis, you ask? Well, there is a certain segment of fandom and even the media that never wants to hear why things happen.
If a team doesn’t win games, fire the coach. If an offense or defense isn’t productive, it must be the coordinator. It doesn’t seem to matter if there are personnel issues or devastating injuries. It must be the coach. That’s not to say that sometimes it is, but often it isn’t.
Yet, if injuries are cited, the coach-haters scream, “Don’t make excuses” and then say, “Every team has injuries.”
Well, yes they do, but not to the same extent. The Jacksonville Jaguars ended the season with just two practice-squad players because they had 25 players on injured reserve and teams can’t have more than 80 players under contract, including the practice squad. Think that affected the Jaguars?
The Rams played one game all season with quarterback Sam Bradford and running back Steven Jackson together and healthy. Interestingly, in all the examples I cited during the season regarding how roster attrition affected the Rams, that was one that escaped me. It was provided by Rams executive Kevin Demoff of The Bernie Miklasz Show this week.
Yet, in the same excellent conversation, Demoff said things just didn’t work with the Billy Devaney-Steve Spagnuolo combination. In reality, it appeared to be working when the Rams showed progress and won seven games in 2010. We’ll never really know if it would have worked had this past season only produced a somewhat normal injury situation and if the new offense had offseason time to learn it rather than the rushed and limited practice time in training camp.
It’s certainly the organization’s prerogative to make the changes it did and go in a different direction. But let’s not pretend that what happened was simply limited to the coach and general manager.
The next superficial comment is usually, “Well, look at a team like the 49ers. They had a new head coach and they won 13 games. First, and obviously, every game has a winner. When teams affected by the lockout play each other, each can’t lose. And, just because some teams managed to win despite the lockout, that doesn’t preclude other teams from having been affected by it.
In addition, in the case of the 49ers, they were a veteran team with an excellent defense that had been the universal pick to win the NFC West in 2010. But an 0-5 start doomed then, yet even amid some of the dysfunction that existed, they managed to win six of their last 11 games.
Plus, the 49ers lost only one starter all season to injured reserve (receiver Joshua Morgan) and they had 30 players participate in all 16 games.
It is always the way it is in sports that coaches pay with their jobs many times when there are circumstances well beyond their control. Yes, some things never change; that’s just the way it is. But sometimes, it doesn’t make it right.
Speaking of Spagnuolo: After being fired by the Rams, it has been widely assumed he might return to the Eagles, where he coached eight years before becoming the Giants’ defensive coordinator.
However, with the defense starting to play better at the end of the season, a change to Spagnuolo would mean changing the defense again, back to what it was when Spagnuolo was there working under coordinator Jim Johnson.
Safety Quintin Mikell, who left the Eagles for the Rams this season and played for Spagnuolo in both places, spoke to the coach after he was fired.
"He said he wasn’t sure if that was in the cards," Mikell said, while adding, "At the end of the day I feel he's a really good head coach, but I think he missed being involved in the play-calling. As the head coach, you're not as involved. It’s a different type of job. Maybe he wants to get back to play-calling."
Well, quite frankly, that will probably be his only choice
How good is Fitzgerald? To say that Arizona wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is a perfectionist would be an understatement. Always striving to be the best he can and working at it, Fitzgerald had an interesting reaction when he heard a stat that said he had just one dropped pass all season ion 153 targets.
Fitzgerald tweeted, “1 too many.”
He routinely makes acrobatic catches in games, which never surprises his teammates. After several highlight-film catches in the season finale against Seattle, center Lyle Sendlein said, "We're spoiled Monday through Saturday because we see it every day (in practice). We come out here on Sundays and it's just another day. And we watch it on film and it's, 'Oh, there's Larry being Larry again. Move on to the next play.'"
Said rookie cornerback Patrick Peterson, "I've seen him make a catch with two fingers."
By the numbers: In the debate over whether Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees should be league MVP, one aspect of Brees’ game can’t be overlooked: He played 11 games inside, including nine of the last 10 games of the season.
In eight home games, the Saints set an NFL record with 329 points (41.1 per game). That topped the previous record of 292 set by the Rams in 2000. The Saints outscored their opponents, 329-143, an average margin of victory of 23.3. Aiding the record, of course, was a 62-7 win over Indianapolis on Oct. 23.
<a class="postlink" href="http://101sports.com/category/hbalzer-blogs/20120106/Looking-Below-the-Surface/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://101sports.com/category/hbalzer-b ... e-Surface/</a>
[wrapimg=left]http://101sports.com/images/authors/medium/hbalzer.jpg[/wrapimg]With the regular season concluded and the playoffs underway, it’s worth reflecting on one of the strangest seasons in NFL history. Scoring was up. Quarterbacks went crazy. Injured reserve lists had record numbers.
And superficial analysis was king again. What do I mean by that? Here’s one example, and it relates to the lockout. It’s inarguable that the impact of having no offseason affected teams, some more than others. Certainly, teams that had been together over a long period of time would be less affected than others.
What’s stunning is to hear some teams actually say they might have underestimated its impact, especially those attempting to change systems. Seriously? You couldn’t figure out that having no offseason program, no OTAs, no control over rehabbing injured players, and then suddenly starting training camp, and not allowing newly signed players to practice for the first week would be potentially detrimental? Plus, there were new rules in the CBA that cut back on padded practices and two-a-days.
After the Eagles finished 8-8 and out of the playoffs, owner Jeffrey Lurie was revisiting the decision not only to change defensive coordinators, but to make offensive line coach Juan Castillo the new one.
With numerous new players and extremely young linebackers, the Eagles’ defense was awful for the first half of the season, but then came together and played well down the stretch.
Said Lurie, "I think maybe there was a miscalculation in implementing big scheme changes in a lockout situation. I would've thought we would've been able to, during the abbreviated training camp and preseason, adapt to some of those schematic changes. They were bold changes. But clearly, the team was not gelling and maximizing those scheme changes in the first half of the year."
It’s shocking he was shocked. So, what’s the superficial analysis, you ask? Well, there is a certain segment of fandom and even the media that never wants to hear why things happen.
If a team doesn’t win games, fire the coach. If an offense or defense isn’t productive, it must be the coordinator. It doesn’t seem to matter if there are personnel issues or devastating injuries. It must be the coach. That’s not to say that sometimes it is, but often it isn’t.
Yet, if injuries are cited, the coach-haters scream, “Don’t make excuses” and then say, “Every team has injuries.”
Well, yes they do, but not to the same extent. The Jacksonville Jaguars ended the season with just two practice-squad players because they had 25 players on injured reserve and teams can’t have more than 80 players under contract, including the practice squad. Think that affected the Jaguars?
The Rams played one game all season with quarterback Sam Bradford and running back Steven Jackson together and healthy. Interestingly, in all the examples I cited during the season regarding how roster attrition affected the Rams, that was one that escaped me. It was provided by Rams executive Kevin Demoff of The Bernie Miklasz Show this week.
Yet, in the same excellent conversation, Demoff said things just didn’t work with the Billy Devaney-Steve Spagnuolo combination. In reality, it appeared to be working when the Rams showed progress and won seven games in 2010. We’ll never really know if it would have worked had this past season only produced a somewhat normal injury situation and if the new offense had offseason time to learn it rather than the rushed and limited practice time in training camp.
It’s certainly the organization’s prerogative to make the changes it did and go in a different direction. But let’s not pretend that what happened was simply limited to the coach and general manager.
The next superficial comment is usually, “Well, look at a team like the 49ers. They had a new head coach and they won 13 games. First, and obviously, every game has a winner. When teams affected by the lockout play each other, each can’t lose. And, just because some teams managed to win despite the lockout, that doesn’t preclude other teams from having been affected by it.
In addition, in the case of the 49ers, they were a veteran team with an excellent defense that had been the universal pick to win the NFC West in 2010. But an 0-5 start doomed then, yet even amid some of the dysfunction that existed, they managed to win six of their last 11 games.
Plus, the 49ers lost only one starter all season to injured reserve (receiver Joshua Morgan) and they had 30 players participate in all 16 games.
It is always the way it is in sports that coaches pay with their jobs many times when there are circumstances well beyond their control. Yes, some things never change; that’s just the way it is. But sometimes, it doesn’t make it right.
Speaking of Spagnuolo: After being fired by the Rams, it has been widely assumed he might return to the Eagles, where he coached eight years before becoming the Giants’ defensive coordinator.
However, with the defense starting to play better at the end of the season, a change to Spagnuolo would mean changing the defense again, back to what it was when Spagnuolo was there working under coordinator Jim Johnson.
Safety Quintin Mikell, who left the Eagles for the Rams this season and played for Spagnuolo in both places, spoke to the coach after he was fired.
"He said he wasn’t sure if that was in the cards," Mikell said, while adding, "At the end of the day I feel he's a really good head coach, but I think he missed being involved in the play-calling. As the head coach, you're not as involved. It’s a different type of job. Maybe he wants to get back to play-calling."
Well, quite frankly, that will probably be his only choice
How good is Fitzgerald? To say that Arizona wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is a perfectionist would be an understatement. Always striving to be the best he can and working at it, Fitzgerald had an interesting reaction when he heard a stat that said he had just one dropped pass all season ion 153 targets.
Fitzgerald tweeted, “1 too many.”
He routinely makes acrobatic catches in games, which never surprises his teammates. After several highlight-film catches in the season finale against Seattle, center Lyle Sendlein said, "We're spoiled Monday through Saturday because we see it every day (in practice). We come out here on Sundays and it's just another day. And we watch it on film and it's, 'Oh, there's Larry being Larry again. Move on to the next play.'"
Said rookie cornerback Patrick Peterson, "I've seen him make a catch with two fingers."
By the numbers: In the debate over whether Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees should be league MVP, one aspect of Brees’ game can’t be overlooked: He played 11 games inside, including nine of the last 10 games of the season.
In eight home games, the Saints set an NFL record with 329 points (41.1 per game). That topped the previous record of 292 set by the Rams in 2000. The Saints outscored their opponents, 329-143, an average margin of victory of 23.3. Aiding the record, of course, was a 62-7 win over Indianapolis on Oct. 23.