Random thoughts on the Denver preseason game

[Scottemojo]

What is it with stats? If Bronson doesn't have butter fingers, Pryor is 10-15 with a touchdown. I guarantee you Pete isn't going to decide between TJ and Pryor over completion percentage.

IF you think he doesn't have the skills, great. But I don't think anyone needs the math on his performance Thursday to make up their minds.

First the pass was high and behind him, even the announcers aid while it was catchable is was not good, and guess what Rw had a drop too it is part of the game and does not change the facts Pryor was not that good. You are right cmplt % alone is not what PC will decide on, but it will matter. As to the rest sorry but stats matter deal with it

Who cares what announcers said? The pass to Bronson was just fine, he dropped it.

Listen, I don't like Pryor as a QB, never have. I don't like his footwork, I don't like his predictability, and I don't like his accuracy. I think he stinks passing to the redline, and I am not really impressed by by the rip he puts on passed down the middle of the field. I think every QB should be at his best passing right down the middle, it takes the least amount of footwork. But he did good things. He used the pocket, and while his scrambling was as predictable as rain, he didn't take a ton of sacks behind some bad pass pro. He even made multiple reads.

I have no idea why you want to compare him to Russell. He is fighting Tarvaris for a job. Not Russell.

 

[Anthony!]

I don't see the big negatives with Pryor threw a bad pass at the end. Time was running out and he forced it. Otherwise, I thought he played fine. Many other quarterbacks would have likely taken sacks from this bad offensive line. Pryor made positive plays out of nothing. Given time to throw, he was more accurate than I anticipated he would be.

56% is more accurate?

Give him the blatant drop and he's at 61%. Hell, give him the screen at the goal line and it goes up even more and he wins the game. He looked fine to me too. I'd rather watch Pryor lead the Seahawks than I would Tarvaris.

66%. Without the drop, he doesn't throw the INT that followed. One less pass attempt.

I don't mind stats as a tool, .

I state facts you are staying what ifs, if they had not dropped it. If it s big word that means little in reality. The fact period it 56%, and he was bad period. Tj was better the facts and stats show it, as well s the eye test.

 

[Scottemojo]

I state facts you are staying what ifs, if they had not dropped it. If it s big word that means little in reality. The fact period it 56%, and he was bad period. Tj was better the facts and stats show it, as well s the eye test.

When Russell and Flynn were fighting for a job, Pete said clearly that in team assessments, they counted a dropped touchdown as a caught touchdown for Matt Flynn. So, uh, what if's DO matter. To coaches, anyway.

And of course TJ was better. TJ has been doing this hella longer. Pryor has 10 career starts to get his paltry 56% passing numbers you love to quote. In TJ's first 14 starts he was a shining 58%. Both had kinda meh YPA numbers as well. TJ is a slightly better playmaker, but neither is great in that area.

I don't hate stats. I just don't trust them to tell the narrative as it truly is.

 

[rideaducati]

:34853_tinfoil:

Tarvaris is known to throw interceptions in those exact situations. The difference being that Tarvaris would have thrown his near the 50 yard line or would have thrown the ball out of bounds on a fourth down earlier in the drive. We already know that no team would give Tarvaris a chance to compete for a starting job because they all had a chance to pick him up last year. The wasted roster spot is occupied by Tarvaris.

If Tarvaris is so good, why do they keep bringing in supposed scrubs to compete with him? Answer: He isn't good, he just knows the system. Any QB they bring in that can pick up the system will likely be better.

Tarvaris Jackson has been in the NFL for a long time and his minimum salary for what he offers has all but priced him out of the league. Pryor is an upgrade.

We are talking about a back up, TJ showed he has guts, playing with a torn pectoral. TJ has shown he knows and can run the offense and has the resect of the locker room. TJ has more tds than Ints unlike Pryor, Pryor has shown nothing. Pryor is not an up grade based on his performance at all.

Wow, he played through pain...I'm not impressed. He plays below average in a system that he has been in for 9 years. Being a great guy and being respected does not make him a good QB...if it did, he would be a good QB, but he's not a good QB. He has got to be the slowest decision maker that I have ever seen play the position. It seems to take him a full second longer to pull the trigger on a pass than it takes others. If he didn't have such a strong arm that bails him out of a few of his slow decisions, he wouldn't be in the league.

Pryor has every bit of the arm that Tarvaris has, but makes quicker decisions and can run if needed. Neither one of these guys are among the best decision makers. I already know what one of these guys can do and it isn't good. I'd rather rely on the unknown than I would go with what I know is just not very good.

 

[Scottemojo]

:34853_tinfoil:

Tarvaris is known to throw interceptions in those exact situations. The difference being that Tarvaris would have thrown his near the 50 yard line or would have thrown the ball out of bounds on a fourth down earlier in the drive. We already know that no team would give Tarvaris a chance to compete for a starting job because they all had a chance to pick him up last year. The wasted roster spot is occupied by Tarvaris.

If Tarvaris is so good, why do they keep bringing in supposed scrubs to compete with him? Answer: He isn't good, he just knows the system. Any QB they bring in that can pick up the system will likely be better.

Tarvaris Jackson has been in the NFL for a long time and his minimum salary for what he offers has all but priced him out of the league. Pryor is an upgrade.

We are talking about a back up, TJ showed he has guts, playing with a torn pectoral. TJ has shown he knows and can run the offense and has the resect of the locker room. TJ has more tds than Ints unlike Pryor, Pryor has shown nothing. Pryor is not an up grade based on his performance at all.

Wow, he played through pain...I'm not impressed. He plays below average in a system that he has been in for 9 years. Being a great guy and being respected does not make him a good QB...if it did, he would be a good QB, but he's not a good QB. He has got to be the slowest decision maker that I have ever seen play the position. It seems to take him a full second longer to pull the trigger on a pass than it takes others. If he didn't have such a strong arm that bails him out of a few of his slow decisions, he wouldn't be in the league.

Pryor has every bit of the arm that Tarvaris has, but makes quicker decisions and can run if needed. Neither one of these guys are among the best decision makers. I already know what one of these guys can do and it isn't good. I'd rather rely on the unknown than I would go with what I know is just not very good.

Duc, TJ playing through a torn pec was a big deal to his teammates.
I trust TJ not to lose games with idiocy, even if he doesn't win games with being a great playmaker. Which is how a backup should be at the minimum. I can't say I trust Pryor not to screw up at critical moments.

 

[rideaducati]

I don't see the big negatives with Pryor threw a bad pass at the end. Time was running out and he forced it. Otherwise, I thought he played fine. Many other quarterbacks would have likely taken sacks from this bad offensive line. Pryor made positive plays out of nothing. Given time to throw, he was more accurate than I anticipated he would be.

56% is more accurate?

Give him the blatant drop and he's at 61%. Hell, give him the screen at the goal line and it goes up even more and he wins the game. He looked fine to me too. I'd rather watch Pryor lead the Seahawks than I would Tarvaris.

You are welcome to your opinion, I would not. By the way both Rw and TJ had blatant drops too. In fact in 2011 it was a drop by one of our Wr that cost a game but everyone blamed TJ. The fact is Pryor was 56 % complt period and that is his career number as well which is not good. Based on his performance He is behind TJ.

Tarvaris has a career completion percentage of 59% with a lot more games played. He was also on pretty good teams. Each time he rightfully lost his job, the guy that took over won a lot more games with similar talent.

I will NEVER understand the love for a bad QB like Tarvaris.

Pryor was in Oakland with how many different coaches and coordinators? Yet, he comes into Seattle and plays just as well as a guy that has been in the system for his entire nine year career. If Pryor can outplay Tarvaris after only a couple months, which he did, give him another month and it'll be even more obvious.

 

[rideaducati]

:34853_tinfoil:

Tarvaris is known to throw interceptions in those exact situations. The difference being that Tarvaris would have thrown his near the 50 yard line or would have thrown the ball out of bounds on a fourth down earlier in the drive. We already know that no team would give Tarvaris a chance to compete for a starting job because they all had a chance to pick him up last year. The wasted roster spot is occupied by Tarvaris.

If Tarvaris is so good, why do they keep bringing in supposed scrubs to compete with him? Answer: He isn't good, he just knows the system. Any QB they bring in that can pick up the system will likely be better.

Tarvaris Jackson has been in the NFL for a long time and his minimum salary for what he offers has all but priced him out of the league. Pryor is an upgrade.

We are talking about a back up, TJ showed he has guts, playing with a torn pectoral. TJ has shown he knows and can run the offense and has the resect of the locker room. TJ has more tds than Ints unlike Pryor, Pryor has shown nothing. Pryor is not an up grade based on his performance at all.

Wow, he played through pain...I'm not impressed. He plays below average in a system that he has been in for 9 years. Being a great guy and being respected does not make him a good QB...if it did, he would be a good QB, but he's not a good QB. He has got to be the slowest decision maker that I have ever seen play the position. It seems to take him a full second longer to pull the trigger on a pass than it takes others. If he didn't have such a strong arm that bails him out of a few of his slow decisions, he wouldn't be in the league.

Pryor has every bit of the arm that Tarvaris has, but makes quicker decisions and can run if needed. Neither one of these guys are among the best decision makers. I already know what one of these guys can do and it isn't good. I'd rather rely on the unknown than I would go with what I know is just not very good.

Duc, TJ playing through a torn pec was a big deal to his teammates.
I trust TJ not to lose games with idiocy, even if he doesn't win games with being a great playmaker. Which is how a backup should be at the minimum. I can't say I trust Pryor not to screw up at critical moments.

Tarvaris may not lose a game by screwing up, but he has had a lot of bonehead plays that gave away the opportunity to win games. I think Pryor will offer what Tarvaris has as a minimum but with much more potential to actually win a game too.

 

[volsunghawk]

Exactly. Both teams will be subject to the rules. And if you're concerned that your kicker can't hit a 33 yard XP try, just go for 2. Honestly, the success rate for the "new" XP distance is still hovering around 90%. It's not like they're asking kickers to now make bank shots. It just turns something that once was an actual football play (and not a tradition/formality) back into an actual football play.

My point is this, do you like the idea of a game being decided by a PAT? I think that's really the core of this debate. If you do, that's your opinion and you probably won't mind this change. My opinion is shaped by my experience. I am thankful that it is a rare occurrence and I would prefer it to stay as rare as possible.

I think it's a punch in the gut whenever a game is decided by a single point, no matter how that point was gained. But if a game has to be decided by a single point (as they sometimes are), I'd rather it be on a competitive play and not a gimme afterthought.

The odds of a game being decided by a PAT will still be low. But it will be 10 times higher than before. I'd prefer to keep it freakishly rare.

I don't like arbritrary stuff deciding games. Imagine if they asked Lillard to make a free throw to prove it after sinking his dramatic three in game six? If he misses the free throw, it ruins a magical moment.

Here's the thing. Basketball doesn't have extra points. We're not talking about a change THAT drastic. There's nothing magical about a PAT. There is, however, something magical about a dramatic blocked kick returned for a TD. You're coming at this ONLY from the point of view of a team scoring and failing to get the PAT to tie the game. What if we're the team that gets scored on and the TD ties the game? Wouldn't you rather have the PAT be a play that our special teams could actually CONTEST? Maybe block and return for a game-winning score? Or at the very least, add in the chance that the game goes to OT instead of a gimme kick ending it?

What if Hauscha misses the extra point after Sherman's pick six against Houston? Or after Baldwin's late TD to tie up against Tampa? Two great football games would ultimately be decided by a PAT, and moreso, it could have altered Seattle's 2013 season entirely.

What if the Seahawks had gone for 2 earlier and didn't need an extra point after the pick six? What if Houston had decided to avoid kicking PATs because of their terrible kicker and gone for 2 each time they scored, and our D had stopped them? What if Tampa had missed their PATs? See where I'm going with this? It affects both teams. So those hypotheticals do nothing for the argument, I don't think.

You could have a game where two teams each score a two TDs and two FGs, and the game is decided because one team had the sorry random luck to roll snake eyes and miss on an extra point. That 10% chance for bad luck cost the team a game. I think if anything we should be looking for ways to eliminate randomness from games, not exacerbate it. One of the things I love about football is that compared to sports like baseball there is less randomness and the game is more of a meritocracy.

It's not luck or lack thereof to miss on an extra point. It's the skill of the kicker. Wouldn't this move make having a good kicker more valuable? This move would increase difficulty, but not introduce randomness. If you want a meritocracy, you should want it from all positions... not all positions except kicker.

I think with these rules you'll have a few games lost by extra points this season, and a few would-have-been-amazing comebacks will be thwarted by this new rule. It's not an unfair rule, but all the same it could hurt the game.

And you'll have a few amazing comebacks succeed because coaches decided to go for 2 instead of kicking a longer XP. There's no way this "hurts the game." It will likely only hurt teams with exceptionally poor kickers (or coaches who don't trust their kickers and fail on a 2pt conversion).

 

[kearly]

wrote stuff

I basically view a TD as being worth 7. If a team is down by six and they give up a TD, they didn't lose because of the chipshot extra point. They lost because a TD is worth a little more than 2 field goals. For this reason, I am okay with just eliminating the PAT and having an automatic 7 point TD.

Teams aren't going to change the way they play the game because of this rule, I don't think. Even at 90%, coaches will try for the PAT unless they need to go for 2. We've seen this in the preseason, teams aren't going for two anymore than they did before, they are just attempting the 33 yard PATs.

What this change does do is that it adds more randomness to the game, randomness that could come up very big in big moments in games.

You keep arguing like I am saying the rule is unfair. It's fair, it impacts both sides. I have never said it was unfair, that's never been my argument. I'm just saying that I don't like the randomness factor. I don't like games being decided by arbitrary luck any more than necessary, and this would make those occurrences more frequent, and worse yet, it would be on a play that had previously been an afterthought.

Replacement refs hurt both sides equally, and they made the game more interesting to be sure. But when fans saw their teams losing games because of this change, the outrage was volcanic. It's one thing for a team to lose a game by a mistake they made, it's another to lose a game because of bad luck, especially when the source of that bad luck is an arbitrary rule change. Unless teams find a kicker who can make almost 100% of these kicks, he's still going to miss some (probably 10%), and the timing of those misses is totally luck based.

If anything, I think this rule could be a clever scheme from Goodell to gain traction for eliminating the PAT completely in a couple years. Fans will be pissed off by this new rule when they get burned by it, and at least a few teams will lose a game at the last moment from this change out of a sample of 256 regular season games. After losing a game because of a 33 yard PAT, fans will be much more sympathetic to eliminating the PAT altogether.

I appreciate the intellectual way you view this issue, but to me football is also an emotional game, and there are certain ways to lose that are worse than others. For example, the pain of SBXL was so unique and awful because the officiating decided the game more than either team did. The Colts loss sucked extra because they were extremely lucky with calls and breaks. In both those cases, the losses hurt extra bad because the better team got very unlucky and the difference in luck decided the game. Longer PATs are fair, but I don't like how they increase the odds of a game being decided on luck for an arbitrary play.

Two point conversions are fun, but making or missing them is also heavily luck based (if one team goes 1/3 on 2 pointers and the other team goes 2/2, it probably has as much to do with BABIP type luck than skill in those situations). I think football would be worse off if teams went for two every time because it would insert more randomness into games. It would be fun, but it would muddy the game and allow teams to steal more wins with lucky performances than before. If the Seahawks are bad, I am less concerned with them getting lucky wins than I am with good Seahawks teams suffering unlucky losses. Ultimately, it would be nice if luck decided as few games as possible.

(The Lillard example was not meant to be taken literally, only to illustrate the emotional impact of "robbing" a team of a game winning play over an arbitrary extra hurdle. A 33 yard extra point makes every TD feel like it requires a follow-up "prove it" score. Which is fair, I'm just saying there are situations at the end of games where it could be deflating and ruin the ending to a game.)

 

[themunn]

Wow, he played through pain...I'm not impressed. He plays below average in a system that he has been in for 9 years. Being a great guy and being respected does not make him a good QB...if it did, he would be a good QB, but he's not a good QB. He has got to be the slowest decision maker that I have ever seen play the position. It seems to take him a full second longer to pull the trigger on a pass than it takes others. If he didn't have such a strong arm that bails him out of a few of his slow decisions, he wouldn't be in the league.

Pryor has every bit of the arm that Tarvaris has, but makes quicker decisions and can run if needed. Neither one of these guys are among the best decision makers. I already know what one of these guys can do and it isn't good. I'd rather rely on the unknown than I would go with what I know is just not very good.

You can talk about 9 years in the NFL, but in reality he's played 1 full season as an NFL QB (and another with 12 games in his sophmore year).

He's a bit like Josh McCown in that respect, who came in for the Bears and tossed 13 TDs to 1 INT in relief of Cutler, and helping them to win a few games in his absence. And before McCown came in last year for the Bears his career looked worse than Jackson's in almost every single facet of the game.

 

[Anthony!]

I state facts you are staying what ifs, if they had not dropped it. If it s big word that means little in reality. The fact period it 56%, and he was bad period. Tj was better the facts and stats show it, as well s the eye test.

When Russell and Flynn were fighting for a job, Pete said clearly that in team assessments, they counted a dropped touchdown as a caught touchdown for Matt Flynn. So, uh, what if's DO matter. To coaches, anyway.

And of course TJ was better. TJ has been doing this hella longer. Pryor has 10 career starts to get his paltry 56% passing numbers you love to quote. In TJ's first 14 starts he was a shining 58%. Both had kinda meh YPA numbers as well. TJ is a slightly better playmaker, but neither is great in that area.

I don't hate stats. I just don't trust them to tell the narrative as it truly is.

I never said stats alone was all I use, by even in the eye test TJ was better

 

[kearly]

I never said stats alone was all I use, by even in the eye test TJ was better

For sure. I think (most) of us would agree that Tjack is better.

Scotte's point is that you probably shouldn't rely on preseason stats to judge a QBs performance, but by the context of how he played and the kinds of plays he was making. In that sense, it's okay to credit a QB with a pass that should have been caught. He wasn't withholding credit from Tjack, in fact you can see him debating someone else in this thread where he says that Tjack is clearly better than Pryor.

I watched a preseason game last year where Nick Foles faced Carolina and left the game with a 60 passer rating. But I knew he was going to have a great season, because he passed at will against a young, elite defense (a single bad pass tanked his rating in a small sample size). I think Foles surprised a lot of people because they didn't watch him actually play. Pryor is not good yet, but when you break down what he does you see why Seattle likes him.

 

[kearly]

He's a bit like Josh McCown in that respect, who came in for the Bears and tossed 13 TDs to 1 INT in relief of Cutler, and helping them to win a few games in his absence. And before McCown came in last year for the Bears his career looked worse than Jackson's in almost every single facet of the game.

Good comparison.

 

[Scottemojo]

I never said stats alone was all I use, by even in the eye test TJ was better

For sure. I think (most) of us would agree that Tjack is better.

Scotte's point is that you probably shouldn't rely on preseason stats to judge a QBs performance, but by the context of how he played and the kinds of plays he was making. In that sense, it's okay to credit a QB with a pass that should have been caught. He wasn't withholding credit from Tjack, in fact you can see him debating someone else in this thread where he says that Tjack is clearly better than Pryor.

I watched a preseason game last year where Nick Foles faced Carolina and left the game with a 60 passer rating. But I knew he was going to have a great season, because he passed at will against a young, elite defense (a single bad pass tanked his rating in a small sample size). I think Foles surprised a lot of people because they didn't watch him actually play. Pryor is not good yet, but when you break down what he does you see why Seattle likes him.

Remember the idiot poster on here who wanted Tebow so bad, and kept talking about his 75 percent completion percentage in 2012? But would always leave out that he was 6 of 8?

 

[Hasselbeck]

Keary....this place needs your random thoughts posts, period. It's what a lot of posters, and lurkers like myself, look forward to. Not for your insight alone, but the others that piggyback off of these posts. The dude with Al Bundy as his avatar seems to only posts via replies, and he's a VERY smart and underrated poster.

After any game I look for your random thoughts posts....first thing. These posts are as much a part of my personal fandom as Sunday Ticket is. It's a tradition and key cog in the community.

XOXO,

Derreck Fenner

That's... that's... OMG that's pehawk's music! (Jim Ross voice)

 

[rideaducati]

Wow, he played through pain...I'm not impressed. He plays below average in a system that he has been in for 9 years. Being a great guy and being respected does not make him a good QB...if it did, he would be a good QB, but he's not a good QB. He has got to be the slowest decision maker that I have ever seen play the position. It seems to take him a full second longer to pull the trigger on a pass than it takes others. If he didn't have such a strong arm that bails him out of a few of his slow decisions, he wouldn't be in the league.

Pryor has every bit of the arm that Tarvaris has, but makes quicker decisions and can run if needed. Neither one of these guys are among the best decision makers. I already know what one of these guys can do and it isn't good. I'd rather rely on the unknown than I would go with what I know is just not very good.

You can talk about 9 years in the NFL, but in reality he's played 1 full season as an NFL QB (and another with 12 games in his sophmore year).

He's a bit like Josh McCown in that respect, who came in for the Bears and tossed 13 TDs to 1 INT in relief of Cutler, and helping them to win a few games in his absence. And before McCown came in last year for the Bears his career looked worse than Jackson's in almost every single facet of the game.

It's not so much the games played, it's that Tarvaris plays as bad as he does after being in the same system for all nine of his seasons. If Tarvaris could get anywhere near a 13/1 ratio, I would eat my words, but that will never happen for him as a backup. It took him a full season to get 14 touchdowns and he throws just as many ints when he plays more than mop up duty.

Pryor looked pretty good with two months in the system that Tarvaris has been in for nine years. The way I see it is that if Pryor can look just as good in only two months, and he offers as much potential as he does, it's a lot closer competition than the Tarvaris supporters want it to be.

I'm pulling for Pryor because I already know Tarvaris is awful.

 

[rideaducati]

Wow, he played through pain...I'm not impressed. He plays below average in a system that he has been in for 9 years. Being a great guy and being respected does not make him a good QB...if it did, he would be a good QB, but he's not a good QB. He has got to be the slowest decision maker that I have ever seen play the position. It seems to take him a full second longer to pull the trigger on a pass than it takes others. If he didn't have such a strong arm that bails him out of a few of his slow decisions, he wouldn't be in the league.

Pryor has every bit of the arm that Tarvaris has, but makes quicker decisions and can run if needed. Neither one of these guys are among the best decision makers. I already know what one of these guys can do and it isn't good. I'd rather rely on the unknown than I would go with what I know is just not very good.

You can talk about 9 years in the NFL, but in reality he's played 1 full season as an NFL QB (and another with 12 games in his sophmore year).

He's a bit like Josh McCown in that respect, who came in for the Bears and tossed 13 TDs to 1 INT in relief of Cutler, and helping them to win a few games in his absence. And before McCown came in last year for the Bears his career looked worse than Jackson's in almost every single facet of the game.

It's not so much the games played, it's that Tarvaris plays as bad as he does after being in the same system for all nine of his seasons. If Tarvaris could get anywhere near a 13/1 ratio, I would eat my words, but that will never happen for him as a backup. It took him a full season to get 14 touchdowns and he throws just as many ints when he plays more than mop up duty.

Pryor looked pretty good with two months in the system that Tarvaris has been in for nine years. The way I see it is that if Pryor can look just as good in only two months, and he offers as much potential as he does, it's a lot closer competition than the Tarvaris supporters want it to be.

I'm pulling for Pryor because I already know Tarvaris is awful.

 

[acer1240]

Late to this party but just wanted to chime in on the "Random Thoughts" issue. Kearly, I literally stay up late waiting for your write-ups. You have a following larger than you think I believe. Please reconsider.

Many thanks from this long time fan of your writing.

 

[Russ Willstrong]

Kip. The PAT doesnt have to be automatic to be fair. Its due for a change probably because the league wants to replace the drama on special teams play..
Remember kickers are always among the top scorers on any given team. A serviceable kicker averages a million/year and pretty much stays on the periphery of a team. We made their jobs easier by moving kickoffs to the 35. By doing this we've just about eliminated the distance-kicking specialists and reduced the big kick return plays. The new rules may serve to create more exciting plays as many were lost following rule changes due to the concussion policy.

 

[seedhawk]

Kip. The PAT doesnt have to be automatic to be fair. Its due for a change probably because the league wants to replace the drama on special teams play..
Remember kickers are always among the top scorers on any given team. A serviceable kicker averages a million/year and pretty much stays on the periphery of a team. We made their jobs easier by moving kickoffs to the 35. By doing this we've just about eliminated the distance-kicking specialists and reduced the big kick return plays. The new rules may serve to create more exciting plays as many were lost following rule changes due to the concussion policy.

If you want to start a discussion on how rules effect scoring, and kickers, how about when they narrowed the hash marks?
Basically no true "wide side" for an offense to exploit, or a D to defend. In the name of making it better for fans, they basically screwed up something inherent in the game.