Top NFL Teams Separated By Merely a Play

Look at the fates of the NFC’s best teams in the month of January.

• Detroit loses to Dallas after a pass interference flag is announced and walked off by the game official and then ludicrously picked up. (Has anybody yet given an explanation of this?)
• Dallas  loses to Green Bay after a Dez Bryant catch – a spectacular catch – is deemed a non-catch by one of the more ludicrous rules in the NFL rulebook. (And in my opinion a gross misinterpretation of that rule.)
• Green Bay loses to Seattle with a ludicrous late-game collapse featuring a tight end dropping an onside kick that hit both of his hands and his face.
• Seattle loses to New England with the worst play-call in the history of professional football, asking a non-pocket passer to pocket pass a tight-window slant route on the goal line, at the death. (And do so with the league’s most physical runner just, you know, standing around.)

In all four of these games a serious argument can be made for the losing team deserving victory. That’s how close the league has become at the top.

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There was a popular refrain sung on social media about midway through the 2014 season, denigrating General Manager of Christmas Past Phil Emery for building a fantasy team on offense. The connotation of this accusation seemed to be that the Bears offense was a collection of talented individuals who somehow did not work as a unit. The string quartet brought together two brilliant violins, a heartbreaking cellist and virtuoso violist but their  performance lacked cohesion.

Now, unless fantasy football has changed drastically since I last played (Marshall Faulk won me a fantasy title in my last year involved), the object of the game is production. Productive players equal fantasy points equal victories equal a nice pile of cash men can hide from their wives to use at strip clubs with oddly vague names like Sensations.

Only Chicago Bears fans, who’ve had maybe six great skill players in the organization’s history, could wage the complaint “We’ve got too many productive players on offense!”

Phil Emery made mistakes as Bears GM, most notably hiring the worst head coach in team history.

But Emery deserves nothing but praise for this assemblage of offensive talent. The Bears, the damn Chicago Bears, have two top receivers, a top tight end and two top guards. (Yes, Matt Slauson is a top guard. His absence was THE major factor in the offensive line’s decline in 2015.) The team also has one of the league’s finest backs and a productive quarterback. 2013’s offensive production was not an aberration or anomaly. It was the proper output from one of the league’s most talented units.

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A Note on the Super Bowl

I hear a lot of Bears fans say, “I’m not even going to watch the Super Bowl for this reason or that reason or the other reason or a few different reasons than the other reason.” There’s a sadness to that sentiment. This is the Sunday wherein the sport’s history is written. What is past – regular season, wild card, divisional, title games – is merely prologue.

Fans of the thirty teams not represented in Glendale watch this game with dreams in their hearts. Everything a Bears should want from their club will be represented by the two teams battling this tonight. Every emotion a Bears fan should want to experience will be felt by one of the club’ fan bases well through the evening hours.

This is the Super Bowl.

Did I get a lot out of the Bears punter? No. But was it a nice way to break the ice? Sure. Pat O’Donnell discusses the difficulties of punting at Soldier Field, the mood in the locker room down the stretch and the work he’s done this week with Topps Trading Cards at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Jay Cutler threw 18 interceptions in only 15 games in 2014, the 2nd most he’s thrown in his 6 year Bears career.  Of course, due to his high number of pass attempts (561, most in his Chicago career), Cutler’s interception rate of 3.2% was actually the 2nd lowest he’s had in Chicago, but he still turned it over too much, especially when you factor in his 9 fumbles.

Like I did for the first half of the season, I’m going to go through all 10 of Cutler’s interceptions after the bye and see what went wrong. Last time, I had three categories for the interceptions, and I will be re-using those three while also adding a fourth:

1. Poor decision. This is when Cutler makes a poor decision to force a ball into traffic.
2. Poor throw. This is when the decision to throw is not necessarily a bad one, but the throw is inaccurate.
3. Miscommunication. This is when Cutler and the intended target are not on the same page, leading to a ball going to nowhere and a turnover.
4. Receiver error: This is when Cutler makes the right read and delivers a good throw, but it bounces off the receiver’s hands and is intercepted.

Let’s get right down to it.

Interception 1

Cutler’s 1st interception of the season’s 2nd half came early in the blowout loss to Green Bay.  The Bears were already trailing 7-0 when he tried to get a pass to Martellus Bennett on 2nd and 10.  Bennett was open, but Cutler failed to lead him enough, allowing safety Micah Hyde to jump in front of the ball and grab the interception.

Note: At one point, all of these gifs worked. But alas, they are now just pictures of the first frame of the gif. Sorry. 

Verdict: poor throw

Interception 2

Cutler’s next interception came later in the same game against Green Bay.  Down 48-7 in the fourth quarter, Cutler stepped up under pressure and tried to force a ball in to Matt Forte.  A Green Bay linebacker tipped it, and cornerback Casey Hayward grabbed the ball for an easy touchdown.  This was 3rd down, but the Bears were in field goal range, so Cutler should have just taken the sack and let Robbie Gould kick.

Verdict: poor decision

Interception 3

Cutler’s next interception came against Minnesota the following week.  The Bears had the ball near midfield with 15 seconds left in the 1st half.  Trying to make something happen, Cutler forced a pass deep to Alshon Jeffery that fell well short and was intercepted by cornerback Xavier Rhodes.  I’m almost tempted to call this a Hail Mary of sorts, due to the game situation, but it was still an awful throw by Cutler.

Verdict: poor throw

Interception 4

With the Bears up 14-10 and on the edge of field goal range midway through the 3rd quarter, Minnesota brought a blitz on 3rd and 9.  Cutler tried to make a play by getting the ball to Brandon Marshall, but safety Harrison Smith was there for the easy interception.  This was just a whole bunch of wrong.  Cutler lofted the ball into traffic off his back foot, which is both a poor throw and a poor decision, while Marshall failed to make the correct blitz read and adjust his route accordingly.

Verdict: 0.5 poor decision, 0.5 miscommunication

Interception 5

After avoiding any interceptions in a win against Tampa Bay, Cutler got back in the act against Detroit on Thanksgiving.  He was able to avoid turnovers until the Bears were down big in the 4th quarter, when he threw two.  The first came on 2nd and 3 with almost 10 minutes left, when a scoring drive would have gotten the Bears back in it.  Cutler tried to force a pass deep to Brandon Marshall, but underthrew him a bit.  The Detroit cornerback was able to tip it, and safety Glover Quin came diving in to grab the interception.  Cutler probably shouldn’t have throw that ball, as Marshall was well covered, but a better delivery might have resulted in a big play.

Verdict: 0.5 poor throw, 0.5 poor decision

Interception 6

Cutler’s 2nd interception against Detroit came on the final play of the game, when the outcome had already been decided.  He tried to get a pass in to Marquess Wilson in the end zone, but it went straight to Detroit safety James Ihedigbo.  It’s hard to fault Cutler too much for this one, given the game situation, but it was a poor decision to force a ball to a covered man (though it’s possible nobody was open).

Verdict: poor decision

Interception 7

Cutler’s lone interception against Dallas came late in the 4th quarter with the Bears down 2 scores.  With 1st and goal at the 10 yard line, Cutler tried to loft a pass in to Josh Morgan in the back of the end zone.  Unfortunately, Cutler left it well short, and cornerback Orlando Scandrick was able to snag the ball out of the air and seal the victory for the Cowboys.

Verdict: poor throw

Interception 8

Cutler’s worst game of the year came against New Orleans, when he threw three interceptions, starting on the first drive of the game.  On 3rd and 8, Cutler found an open Martellus Bennett sitting in a hole in the New Orleans zone, but the pass bounced off Bennett’s hands and was caught by Patrick Robinson.  Cutler did absolutely nothing wrong on this play, though I guess you could argue that his throw could have been a smidge better.

Verdict: receiver error

Interception 9

Cutler’s next interception came at the end of the first half.  The ball was snapped near midfield with 12 seconds left, and he tried to force a deep pass to Marquess Wilson.  Wilson made his break and ran upfield, while Cutler expected him to cut towards the sidelines, but either way this was probably getting intercepted, or at least falling incomplete, as Wilson was double covered.  I’m tempted to call this a Hail Mary, but the Bears did have a chance to make something happen shorter and kick a field goal here.

Verdict: 0.5 miscommunication, 0.5 poor decision

Interception 10

Cutler’s final interception of the season came late in the 3rd quarter against the Saints.  With the Bears trailing by 21, Cutler decided to go deep to Alshon Jeffery on 3rd and 3.  He had Jeffery kind of open, but the safety got there before the ball and grabbed an easy interception after Cutler overthrew his intended target.

Verdict: 0.5 poor decision, 0.5 poor throw

Final tally

Over the 2nd half of the season, here’s how I have the tally for Cutler’s 10 interceptions:

• Poor decision: 4
• Poor throw: 4
• Miscommunication: 1
• Receiver error: 1

You’ll note that 3 of those 10 interceptions (numbers 3, 6, and 9) came in situations where Cutler was forced to try and make a play due to severe time limitations.  If you remove those, the numbers change to 2.5 poor decision, 3 poor throw, 0.5 miscommunication, and 1 receiver error.

Combining these totals with the first half of the season (when he had 7 non-Hail Mary interceptions) gives the following final count:

• Poor decision: 7.5
• Poor throw: 4.5
• Miscommunication: 4
• Receiver error: 1

I find it interesting that interceptions in the first half of the season were mostly due to poor decisions and miscommunications, while the 2nd half of the year saw poor throws and poor decisions as the main culprits.  This suggests that the Bears’ offense at least got on the same page a bit more as the season progressed, which is encouraging, but Cutler’s deep accuracy problems did not go away, nor did his tendency to force balls into traffic.

I don’t think Cutler’s ever going to stop making poor decisions that lead to risky throws and some interceptions, but having one of those every two games or so is not the end of the world.  What new coaches Adam Gase and Dowell Logains need to focus on will be improving Cutler’s mechanics and miscommunications among the offense.  Nearly half of Cutler’s interceptions in 2014 came from those areas, and reducing them would go a long way towards improving the offense.

It has to happen.

You can listen to any sports radio show in the country and hear hundreds of analysts breaking down the nuances of this wonderful Super Bowl match-up. (And it is a wonderful match-up.) But for me, the most amazing moments of Super Bowl XLIX will be after the game has been played. Because then, on the stage at midfield, commissioner Roger Goodell and NBC’s Dan Patrick will hand the Lombardi Trophy to Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick. Then those same gentlemen will hand the Super Bowl MVP trophy to Tom Brady.

It will be the glorious conclusion of all this deflation of football drama. And it will present the Kraft, Belichick, Brady trio the grandest stage in all of television to smugly address a suspect public and antagonistic media. Sports are always great theatre. No Super Bowl postgame scenario will have ever been more drama laden.

New England Patriots 24, Seattle Seahawks 16

PS.

I can’t get the images of the Seahawks v. Packers game out of my head. Seattle was awful for the entirety of regulation. No pressure. No passing game. Penalties galore. And after Green Bay had gifted them the lead late their “legendary” defense allowed Aaron Rodgers to walk down the field for the field goal. (Don’t legendary defenses NOT do that?) Two things I believe: (1) If Seattle had settled for a field goal in overtime they would have been beaten by Rodgers and (2) I believe the best team in the NFC is home right now. The Patriots don’t allow fake field goal touchdowns or onside kick recoveries. They are too well-coached for that.

On the surface, Jay Cutler appeared to have one of the better years of his career in 2014.  He set career highs in completion percentage and touchdowns and had the 2nd highest totals of his career in yards and passer rating.

Yet many people have argued that Cutler was actually not good in 2014, for a variety of reasons.  For one thing, he threw 18 interceptions, the 2nd most in his career.  He also had the 2nd lowest yards per attempt average of his career.

But the main knock against Cutler is that he accumulated too many of his stats in garbage time, when the game was already over and teams went into a prevent defense that allowed him easy access to meaningless completions, yards, and touchdowns.  I want to dig into the numbers today to see if this argument holds up.

2014

Using the database at Pro Football Reference, which lets you sort by game situation, I broke up Cutler’s statistics in 2014 into six categories: up two scores (9-16 points), up one score (1-8 points), tied, down one score, down two scores, and down three or more scores (17+ points).  I would have included up three or more scores as a 7th category, but Cutler never attempted a pass while the Bears held a 17 point lead (or greater) at any point in the season.

A first glance does seem to indicate that Cutler did indeed rely on some garbage time statistics to buoy his overall numbers.  He was at his best when the Bears were down by 3 or more scores, which can typically be described as garbage time, as the game is usually out of reach at this point.  Cutler’s completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, and touchdown/interception ratio were all significantly higher than his season averages in these instances.  Removing this data from his numbers drops his season stat line from 66.0% completion, 6.8 yards per attempt, 28 touchdowns, 18 interceptions, and an 88.6 passer rating to 65.4% completion, 6.4 yards per attempt, 20 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, and an 85.3 passer rating.

In an attempt to visualize how this looks a little better, I’ve set up the following graph, which showcases Cutler’s passer rating, yards per attempt, interception percentage, and touchdown/interception ratio in all the various game situations.  In order to make the scales all the same, I compared their percent difference from the season average.  So a passer rating of 102.7 while down by 3 or more scores was 15.9% better than his season average of 88.6, and so on. Note that I set it up so that a lower interception percentage reads as a positive number, because this is the desirable outcome.

Here you can visually see that Cutler was at his best when the team was getting blown out, followed by when they were tied or slightly ahead.  When the Bears fell behind, his interceptions increased and touchdowns decreased, leading to a plummeting touchdown/interception ratio and lower passer rating.

All Chicago years

In order to get a better feel for what this type of data normally looks like, I compiled Cutler’s stats for all six of his seasons in Chicago in the same categories.  This has an added advantage of greatly increasing the sample size, which decreases the variation from one touchdown or interception in a smaller data set.

Here we see a similar trend, but with one important difference: Cutler’s stats when the Bears are getting blown out do not skyrocket like they did in 2014.  There seems to be a negative correlation between the team’s situation and Cutler’s performance, which can be visually seen in the graph below.

This negative trend is largely driven by interception percentage, which is at it’s three worst levels in the three categories where the Bears are losing.  This suggests that Cutler has a tendency to force passes when things aren’t going well, which compounds the problem and leads to further struggles.  Conversely, when the Bears have the lead, Cutler can play safer football, and his interception rates tend to be lower.

The numbers back up the assertion that Cutler’s performance variation is largely interception based. A regression of interception percentage against drive differential (+1 for up by 1 score, -1 for down 1 score, etc.) gives a correlation of 0.4, while the correlation for completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage (the other three stats that go into passer rating) are all 0.1 or lower.

Within season

Of course, one other factor to consider is that Cutler’s statistics have fluctuated from season to season, and ignoring that can lead to a data bias.  For instance, Cutler’s worst season in Chicago was in 2009, when the Bears played from behind more than in some of his better seasons.  Looking at Cutler’s statistics in each situation compared to the other situations in the same year, therefore, is an important control.

The  chart below shows that data, looking at how Cutler’s stats in each game situation compare, on average, to his total production from that same season.  So across his six years in Chicago, Cutler has had a completion percentage 6.3% higher than his total completion percentage that season when his team is up by 17 or more points.

Now we can see a clearer relationship between the game situation and Cutler’s performance, as completion percentage (0.36), interception percentage (0.33), and passer rating (0.45) all have meaningful positive correlations (while yards per attempt and touchdown percentage do not seem to have any discernible pattern). This is nothing shocking; as the team struggles and falls behind, Cutler is forced to throw more, his completion percentage drops, and his turnovers increase, which lowers his passer rating.

Conclusions

The numbers back up the notion that Cutler’s statistics were inflated by garbage time production in 2014.  19% of Cutler’s passing attempts came with the Bears down by 3 or more scores, but those passes accounted for 23% of his yards and 29% of his touchdowns (and 22% of his interceptions).  History suggests that is not a typical pattern for Cutler, so 2014 will likely prove to be an aberration.

The fact that Cutler’s performance gets worse as the team struggles points to how important it is for the Bears to start well with him under center.  When the team plays with a lead, Cutler seems to relax and avoid turning the ball over as much, while he starts pressing and turns the ball over more when they fall behind.  So if Cutler is going to continue to be Chicago’s starting quarterback for the next couple years, building early leads (or at least avoiding early deficits) should be a clear goal for the Bears, as Cutler’s turnover tendencies are likely to do nothing but dig a deeper hole once the Bears fall behind.

Reverend Dave voices a fear I often consider: what if twenty years from now we’re still talking about the 1985 Chicago Bears?

Here are four fun bets for Super Bowl Sunday…

COIN TOSS

Heads or Tails.

If you’ve never bet the coin toss for a Super Bowl, you need to. And not to encourage gambling but it’s actually a fun way to get kids into betting on sports! You don’t need an offshore website or guy with a little notebook at the corner of the bar. You just need a friend. Go to your friend before the game. One of you take heads. One of you take tails. Put $5 or a drink on it. It is a 100% foolproof way of giving yourself a boost of adrenaline before the game begins.

Prediction: Tails. Many believe it never fails.

SHORTEST TOUCHDOWN RUN

From PFT piece:

Over-Under on Super Bowl XLIX’s shortest touchdown: 1.5 yards.

Over: +115 (lay $10 to win $11.50).

Under: -135 (lay $13.50 to win $10).

This prop boils down to one question: Will there be a one-yard touchdown in the Super Bowl?

This is a GREAT Super Bowl prop because it involves a wide range of factors. But ask yourself this question: how many touchdowns do you believe will be scored Sunday? 3? 4? This prop relies upon plays being run from the one yard line and whilst a pass interference in the end zone is not unlikely with these two aggressive secondaries, the odds simply aren’t there.

Prediction: Over.

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THREE THOUGHTS ON THE GAME ITSELF

• The outcome of Seahawks v. Packers disguised the story of Seahawks v. Packers: Seattle’s complete lack of pass rush. If Aaron Rodgers had mobility the game would never have been in question (and let’s be honest, it should not have been in question anyway). Tom Brady’s two Super Bowl losses to Tom Coughlin and the Giants had a similar theme. The Giants pressured him. They pressured him consistently. If the Seahawks don’t they will need to score a lot of points to win this game.
• Who is Richard Sherman covering? The Patriots have no issue not throwing the ball out wide so are the Seahawks going to allow their best cover man to be relegated to Brandon LaFell all evening? The middle of the Seahawks defense can be attacked and I would expecte Edelman and Gronk to live there most of the night.
• Steve McNair still holds the Super Bowl record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 64. I expect the Seahawks to try and break that record with Russell Wilson. Pete Carroll can say whatever he wants but he learned a week ago his quarterback is at a severe disadvantage when chasing the game. Pats will want to be aggressive on the edges. Expect Wilson to take advantage of that and hit them for some zone read runs.

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