I recently had a Twitter conversation with Kev (a great follow on Twitter) of Windy City Gridiron (a great Bears site you should definitely check out) about how passing has changed in the NFL in the last 10 or 15 years.  He shared that 5 quarterbacks passed for 4,000 or more yards in 1999, 5 in 2004, and 11 in 2014.

I speculated that this might be based more on passing attempts than anything, and that turned out to be true; from 1999 to 2014 the top 10 passers based on yardage increased from 524 to 598 pass attempts (12.4%) while increasing from only 7.4 to 7.6 yards per attempt (2.6%).

This small snapshot got me thinking, and I decided to study how the passing game has changed in the NFL from 2002 (the first season with 32 teams) to 2014; all stats come courtesy of ESPN‘s database.

Volume

I started by looking at passing across the league as a whole.  From 2002 to 2014, passing became slightly more frequent; passing attempts per game (which I calculated as passes plus sacks) have trended from about 34 to 37 per game.  At the same time, runs per game have dropped slightly from 28 to around 27, meaning the overall passing percentage has increased, as you can see in the table below.

So teams pass it more in the modern NFL than they did 10 to 12 years ago, but not by a huge amount.  I also find it interesting that the average number of offensive plays a team runs per game has increased slightly in the last ten years, and all of those extra plays are passes.

Efficiency

Next I want to look at how effectively teams throw the ball.  I’ll start with the basic passer rating, the standard measure of passing efficiency (I did not use ESPN’s total QBR for a variety of reasons, including that I can’t break that down by component because the formula is not public and their database only goes back to 2006, limiting the sample size). Passer rating has increased fairly steadily in the NFL since 2002, with a few fluctuations, as you can see below.

The biggest thing that stands out to me from this graph is the massive jump in 2014; after gradually increasing from 81 to 84 from 2007 to 2013, it jumped to 87 in one year.  I’ll be curious to see if that comes back down a bit in 2015 or not.

Passer rating is calculated from four components: completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage.  I tracked each of those categories from 2002 to 2014, and generally they all got better over time.  You can see that in the graph below; note that interception percentage dropping is actually getting better.  In order to put all four categories on the same graph, I took the average of each for the 13 seasons as a whole and calculated their z-score for each season. If you’re not familiar with this, basically 0 is average, above 0 is higher than average, and below 0 is lower than average, with the values getting farther from average the farther from 0 you go.  The full data can be viewed here.

Sacks

I also looked at how sacks have changed since 2002, and found that the answer is not much.  As you can see in the table below, sack percentage has remained fairly steady, with year-to-year fluctuations, as has the average yards lost per sack.

Rushing

Finally, I looked to see how rushing has changed over the same time period.  As I said above, teams average roughly 1 run per game fewer now than they did 10 or 12 years ago, but how well they run the ball hasn’t really changed in that time period, as you can see in the table below.

Since 2002, the NFL has fluctuated between 4.0 and 4.3 yards per carry, with no clear pattern that I can discern, and they have scored touchdowns on roughly 3% of their runs.  If anything has changed, teams have gotten better at avoiding fumbles, as those have take a slight downward tick from 2% down towards 1.5%.

Conclusions

In the last 13 seasons, NFL teams have gotten better at passing the ball.  They complete more of their passes, average more yards per attempt, throw more touchdowns, and throw fewer interceptions.  What hasn’t changed is how often they get sacked and how many yards they lose when that happens.  The running game has also remained fairly steady in terms of yards per attempt and touchdowns, though teams have gotten better at avoiding fumbling.

There has been a lot of excitement among Bears fans about John Fox this offseason.  They cite his 119-89 career record (0.572 winning %) as a head coach, and think it means similar good results are coming to Chicago.

I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade, but Fox’s record as a head coach is a bit overinflated.  He’s not a bad coach by any means, but he’s also not a great one.  Let’s dig in to the numbers to find out why.

Peyton correction

For one thing, Fox’s career winning percentage is skewed by the three years he spent with Peyton Manning.  You’ll pardon me for not crediting Fox when he had the greatest regular season quarterback in NFL history, fully developed, drop into his lap. In 10 years without Peyton, Fox averaged 8.1 wins per year and made the playoffs 40% of the time.  In 9 seasons over the same span (which correlates nicely to Peyton’s prime), Peyton’s teams averaged 12.4 wins and went to the playoffs 100% of the time.  In 3 seasons together, they averaged 12.7 wins and went to the playoffs 100% of the time.

Fox’s presence had basically no change on the outcome of Peyton’s seasons, while Peyton’s presence drastically improved Fox’s outlook.  So let’s look at Fox’s results without having them skewed by the Peyton years.

Who does he beat?

Let’s start by looking at game outcomes.  As I mentioned above, Fox is 81-79 in ten years as a coach without Peyton Manning.  I want to look at who those wins and losses come against.  I split up teams into three loosely defined categories: good (10+ wins, so typically playoff teams), average (7 to 9 wins), and bad (6 or fewer wins) and looked at Fox’s winning percentage against each category.  In order to adjust for the quality of opponent, I compared that winning percentage to what the expected winning percentage would be.  For example, Fox went 11-43 against 54 opponents with 10 or more wins, and those 22 opponents averaged 11.3 wins in the seasons Fox’s team played them.  Thus, opponents posted a winning percentage of 29.5% (4.7 wins in a 16 game season) against them.  Full results can be seen in the table below.

This provides some interesting results.  Fox’s teams did worse than expected against playoff-caliber teams, better than expected against average teams, and about as well as expected against bad teams.  Fox has a reputation for being a conservative manager in-game, and that perhaps plays out in his record against the top teams in the NFL.  You have to be more aggressive to beat good teams, who are not going to make mistakes and beat themselves.

Or this could simply indicate Fox’s teams (outside of the Peyton years) have not had top-level talent to compete with top teams, but they are still disciplined enough to beat everybody else.  Whatever the reason, Fox’s teams have struggled to beat playoff-caliber opponents.

Offensive and defensive production

Now I want to examine how Fox’s teams have fared on both offense and defense.  Like with win percentage, I looked at how many points Fox’s teams scored and gave up compared to what their opponents averaged that year.

Over the 160 game sample, Fox’s offenses scored an average of 19.4 points per game against defenses that gave up an average of 21.7 points per game, meaning Fox’s offenses have performed an average of roughly 2.3 points worse than expected as a whole.  On the defensive side of the ball, things look better.  Fox’s teams have given up an average of 20.6 points per game against teams that scored an average of 21.6 points per game, meaning they have been roughly 1.1 points per game better than expected (rounding error, the actual results are closer to 1.1 than 1.0).

Like with winning %, I broke down the results by quality of opponent, based on their offensive or defensive ranks in points allowed or scored, but this time there wasn’t really a clear pattern for either offense or defense.  The full results are shown below for offense and then defense.

Party like it’s 2004-12

So what have we learned? The Bears have a defensive-minded head coach who couples a below-average offense with an above-average defense, beats the teams he should, loses to the top teams, and ends up right around average.  Sound familiar?

Fox is Lovie.  Lovie is Fox.

In 10 seasons as a head coach, Lovie Smith is 83-77; in 10 seasons without Peyton Manning, John Fox is 81-79.  Fox’s offenses have scored about 2.3 points less than expected, while his defenses have given up 1.1 points fewer than expected.  For Lovie, those numbers are 1.7 and 2.1, indicating that his offenses have been slightly less bad than Fox’s and his defense’s a good bit better.

If there is one noticeable difference between the two, it is who they beat.  Lovie does about as well as expected against 10+ win teams (32% wins vs. 30% expected), worse than expected against average teams (43% wins vs. 51% expected), and better than expected against bad teams (78% wins vs. 72% expected).  Incredibly, Lovie has never lost a game against a team 4-12 or worse (25-0) in his career, and he’s also done a better job than Fox competing against other playoff-caliber teams, although he has been much worse against average teams, where Fox excels.

If Fox has one clear advantage over Lovie, it is that he has assembled a much more complete coaching staff than Lovie ever managed to do in Chicago.  Bears fans can only hope that makes a significant difference.  Otherwise, there are worse fates than simply being respectable, as we saw when Mark Trestman ruined ran the Bears.  If Fox keeps the Bears competitive and around .500 for 4-5 years by beating average and bad teams, then retires and leaves the franchise in solid condition for the next guy, I would consider that a job well done.

New general manager Ryan Pace has mostly received positive reviews for his work since being hired in January, but he has made one key decision that will end up costing the Bears in a big way.

He has not given receiver Alshon Jeffery a contract extension this offseason and reportedly has no plans to.

Head coach John Fox shed some light on the reasoning for this when he hinted at Jeffery being out of shape in 2014, which contributed to his injury problems.  Of course, Jeffery still managed to back up his breakout 2013 season with 85 catches, 1,133 yards, and 10 touchdowns.

At this point it’s clear that Jeffery is an excellent NFL wide receiver, and those players don’t  come cheap.  When I looked at a possible extension for Jeffery earlier this offseason, I examined similar players to him who re-upped with their teams after 3 years and estimated he would be looking at a deal in the neighborhood of $10 million a year, with roughly $20 million guaranteed.

That’s a pretty price to pay, but here’s the simple truth: the longer the Bears wait to pay Jeffery, the more money they’re going to have to pay him.

With one year left on a rookie contract that will pay him around $4.5 million, Jeffery is doing just fine for himself financially, but his next deal is the one that provides life-altering financial security.  Jeffery and his agent are well aware of this fact, but this year the leverage lies with the Bears, because they are the only team that can negotiate with him, and they can guarantee him a lot of money right now before he has to risk a career-ending injury in 2015 that could mean he doesn’t end up seeing that money at all.

For this reason, deals that are the most team-friendly are typically signed with one year left on a players’ contract.  This is how the Steelers locked up Antonio Brown through his prime for just over $8 million a year and $8.5 million guaranteed coming off an 1,100 yard season, while teammate Mike Wallace signed a contract for $12 million a year and $30 million guaranteed in free agency 12 months later despite being 2 years older than Brown and coming off an 800 yard season.

If the Bears make Jeffery play out his rookie deal in 2015, then he has the ability to negotiate with 32 teams instead of just one, the leverage shifts to his side, and he becomes significantly more expensive to keep around.  Let’s look at some similar players to Jeffery who recently hit free agency to see just how high those prices get.

Expensive comparisons

There have been a couple of big-name wide receivers to hit free agency coming off their rookie contracts in recent years.  In 2015, Randall Cobb signed for $10 million a year, $13 million guaranteed, but he took a hometown discount to stay with Green Bay and could have gotten $12 million a year (it’s understandable that Cobb took a discount to play with the best QB in the NFL on a Super Bowl contender, but don’t expect the same from Jeffery).

Jeremy Maclin also got $11 million a year, with $22.5 million guaranteed, in 2015, while 2013 saw Mike Wallace ($12 million a year, $30 million guaranteed) hit it big.  Even the older Vincent Jackson, who hit free agency at 29 and with 2-3 more years of his career spent than the three above, got $11 million a year and $26 million guaranteed in 2012.

Alshon’s past two seasons (2,552 yards, 17 touchdowns) are every bit as good as the combined best two seasons for Cobb (2,241 yards, 20 touchdowns), Maclin (2,282 yards, 20 touchdowns), and Wallace (2,450 yards, 18 touchdowns).  And those three have the advantage of having caught passes from great quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger or having played in the most stat-happy offense in the league under Chip Kelly, neither of which can be used to deflate Jeffery’s numbers and keep his price down.

Jeffery also has another year to add to his resume before hitting free agency, which will very likely find him hitting the market with a more impressive body of work than any of his recent peers.  He should even look better than Jackson, whose two best seasons prior to free agency totaled 2,273 yards and 18 touchdowns, though Jackson did have three 1,000 yard seasons on his resume, a feat which Alshon seems likely to match but which neither Cobb (1), Maclin (1), nor Wallace (2) could.

Indeed, Wallace is the closest recent comparison to Jeffery as of right now, and he struck the biggest deal of the bunch at a time when the salary cap was $30 million lower than it will be in 2016.  Wallace was also coming off an uninspiring 64 catch, 836 yard season when he hit free agency, meaning his value was not exactly at a maximum.

I think it’s safe to say Wallace’s deal is a floor for what Jeffery could expect to receive should he be allowed to hit unrestricted free agency next year, with the potential being there for him to get a significantly bigger contract.  That means Jeffery is looking at an additional $2 million a year, minimum, on a contract signed next year, which adds up to $10 million (all of it fully guaranteed) more on a five year deal than the Bears could probably lock him up for right now.

Franchise tag

Of course, the Bears could let Jeffery play 2015 under his rookie deal and stick him with the franchise tag to prevent him from hitting free agency, but this is an expensive option as well.  The Broncos and Cowboys are doing that this offseason with Demaryius Thomas and Dez Bryant, and they are both getting $12.8 million, fully guaranteed, from their teams in 2015.

The franchise tag guarantees you the average of the top 5 cap hits at your position in that year, and right now that means Jeffery would get $15.3 million dollars in 2016, though that could go up with new contracts to Thomas and Bryant or down with restructures of contracts to players like Calvin Johnson.  And that only secures one year of services for Jeffery, who would then be a free agent looking at a huge contract in 2017.

Compensatory pick?

Of course, it could be argued that the Bears are willing to let Jeffery walk next offseason so they can get a compensatory pick in the 2017 draft.  This makes little sense for two reasons.  First, the highest compensatory pick you can receive is only at the end of the 3rd round.  As one of the 10 or 15 most productive receivers in the NFL, Jeffery is worth more to a team than the 100th pick in the draft.

2nd, and most important, you only get compensatory picks if the money spent on players you lose is greater than the money you spend bringing in new players in free agency.  Given that the Bears are slated to have more than $40 million in cap space and few big-name free agents to re-sign besides Jeffery next offseason, they will be spending money to bring in outside players, so losing Jeffery likely wouldn’t even bring them a compensatory pick in return.

Compensatory picks are for teams with too much homegrown talent to afford keeping.  The Bears are definitely not in that position right now; they don’t have enough good players worth spending money to keep around.  Jeffery is one of those players, and letting him walk would be foolish.

Doesn’t make sense

No matter how you spin it, not giving Alshon Jeffery an extension this offseason is a foolish move that will either cost the Bears millions of dollars (likely $10 million over the course of a 5 year deal) or result in them losing one of the few young playmakers on the roster with little to no return.

If Chicago is going to re-sign Alshon Jeffery, then waiting another year will only increase his leverage, even if he has a down season.  If they don’t plan on making him a highly-paid part of their future, then their best plan for maximizing his value is to trade him away now instead of losing him for nothing next year.

Maintaining the status quo with Jeffery diminishes the returns he will provide to the Bears, yet this is exactly what Ryan Pace is doing.  It’s a rookie mistake for a young GM who is believed to mostly be doing a good job so far.

I recently looked at the recent history (2006-14) of 1st round wide receivers in their rookie seasons to see what it is reasonable to expect from Kevin White in 2015.  Now I am going to look more closely at comparable players from that list to Kevin White based on his physical attributes and college production.

Physical attributes

I put together a list of the height and 40 time of all 30 receivers drafted in the first round since 2006 (based on Combine measurements when available, Pro Day when needed).  Kevin White measured in at 6’3″ and ran a 4.35 second 40 yard dash, so I looked for guys who measured between 6’2″ and 6’4″ and ran the 40 in 4.40 seconds or less as being similar to White.  The full list, which is very short, is seen below.

There are only four wide receivers who can roughly match White’s size/speed combo who have been drafted in the 1st round since 2006.  That shows the rare traits White possesses, and the names Julio Jones and Demaryius Thomas show you just how high his upside is.  Of course, players like Robert Meachem and Darrius Heyward-Bey show that this is no guarantee of stardom.

College production

I also looked at the college production of all the wide receivers drafted in the 1st round since 2006.  Since one of the fears with Kevin White is that he only has one strong season of college production on his resume, I looked at their production in their best college season as well as their production in their 2nd best college season.  Besides White, there were six players with at least 1,000 yards in their best season, less than 750 yards in their 2nd best season, and at least 400 yards difference between their best and 2nd best season.  That list is provided below.

Once again we see players who are stars and players who are busts, with very little in between.  Of the six players with similar college resumes to Kevin White, two (Demaryius Thomas and Dez Bryant) have become NFL superstars, two (Kelvin Benjamin and Odell Beckham) are coming off big rookie seasons and seem headed to NFL stardom, while two (AJ Jenkins and Robert Meachem) never accomplished much in the NFL, though Meachem at least had a couple seasons as a solid role player.

Combining both

Looking at players with White’s combination of size, speed, and college production, we narrow it down even further.  There are only two players who are comparable to White in both of the categories above: Demaryius Thomas and Robert Meachem.

I think it seems reasonable  to say those two serve as a baseline worst (Meachem) and best (Thomas) case scenario for White’s career.  It’s also worth noting that neither player did much as a rookie. Thomas had 22 catches for 283 yards as a rookie, while Meachem spent his rookie season on injured reserve and only posted 12 catches for 289 yards in his sophomore campaign, but that is a very small sample size and does not mean for sure White will have such a small impact in his rookie season.

Boom or bust?

Throughout his comparables we see the immense boom or bust potential that White possesses.  Bears fans can only hope that he avoids busting, because he should be a superstar if he does.

When the Bears drafted wide receiver Kevin White from West Virginia with the 7th overall pick of the draft, the expectation was that he would step into the starting lineup opposite Alshon Jeffery and make a significant impact in his rookie season.  Many fans certainly expect great things from White, starting in 2015, with a few even suggesting to me on Twitter recently that they think White will lead the Bears in receiving yards.

With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at the history of rookie wide receivers similar to White and see what they have done as rookies.  Thus I looked at every wide receiver drafted in the first round from 2006-14, a sample size of 30 players.  A full list of players, along with their rookie stats, can be viewed here.

Average production

Over the last 9 years, the average rookie receiver drafted in the first round has received 88 targets, caught 50 passes, gained 689 yards, and scored five touchdowns (this excludes AJ Jenkins, who recorded no statistics his rookie year, and Robert Meachem, who spent his rookie year on injured reserve).  But these numbers fluctuate tremendously; three receivers topped 1,000 yards (including one who had over 1,300), while four failed to record even 300 receiving yards.  Let’s look at how that production spreads out; the graph below shows the number of receivers in various ranges of receiving yards.

There is a pretty good spread across the board.  Between three and five players filled every category of 100 yards between 400 and 1000 yards, as well as more than 1000 and less than 400.  So it’s clear to see that the range of possibilities for Kevin White as a rookie are very broad.

Of course, you can argue that rookie seasons from eight or nine years ago don’t have much impact on 2015, as passing stats have exploded over that time frame.  There is some merit to that logic, but don’t get carried away.  Many fans remember the monster rookie seasons put forth by the 2014 class of rookie wide receivers and think that will be the norm going forward, but a closer look at the trends makes it seem likely that will prove to be an outlier.  To illustrate this, the graph below shows the average number of receiving yards for 1st round picks each year since 2006 (note 2008 is excluded because there were no 1st round picks at wide receiver that year).

As you can see, 2014 showed a huge jump in production by rookie wide receivers drafted in the 1st round, and expecting that to repeat itself does not seem realistic.  Overall the production of 1st round picks wide receivers doesn’t seem to have changed much since 2006, though it does fluctuate a bit from year to year.

Top 10 picks

Now I want to look at players more closely resembling Kevin White in a variety of factors.  I’ll start with draft position.  White was drafted 7th overall, and the expectations for a player like that compared to somebody drafted late in the first round should be different in their rookie seasons.  So let’s look at how the 10 receivers drafted in the top 10 since 2006.

The average production of these players is slightly higher than the average production of 1st round receivers as a whole in the last nine years; these 10 players averaged 96 targets, 50 catches, 723 yards, and five touchdowns as rookies.  Again there is a lot of fluctuation, with two players topping 1,000 yards and three failing to reach 500.

Team situation

Of course, one thing that could impact White’s production as a rookie is that the Bears already have an established player across from him in Alshon Jeffery.  On the one hand, this helps White, as he will not draw as much attention from opposing defenses.  But it could also limit White’s targets.  I counted 9 other 1st round receivers between 2006 and 2014 who went into a similar situation.  Let’s look at how they did in their rookie years.

These players definitely fared a little better than rookie 1st round receivers as a whole; they averaged 90 targets, 53 catches, 760 yards, and five touchdowns in their rookie seasons.  So it seems that having an established number one receiver opposite you as a rookie does help make the transition easier for rookies.

Stay tuned

There is definitely potential for Kevin White to have a monster rookie season like Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr., and Kelvin Benjamin did in 2014, but expecting that seems unrealistically optimistic.  Rookie 1st round receivers have been spread out pretty evenly from 400-1000 yards over the last 9 years.  A slight boost is seen for players drafted in the top 10 and players going to teams with an established number one receiver, two things going in Kevin White’s favor, so expecting that he might put up something in the range of 800-900 yards as a rookie seems reasonable.

Stay tuned for the 2nd half of this article, when I will look at comparables from this list for Kevin White based on physical measurables and college production to see what we might expect from him over the course of his career.

There is only one man associated with the Chicago Bears who should be embarrassed by what happened with Ray McDonald.

It’s not Ray McDonald himself, who should definitely be embarrassed by his continued stupidity but is thankfully no longer associated with the Chicago Bears.

It’s not general manager Ryan Pace, who’s job depends on putting a team capable of winning games on the field.  His evaluation of players mainly applies to what happens on the field and in the locker room, and McDonald didn’t have any problems in those areas.

It’s not defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who vouched for McDonald before he signed with the Bears.  Even more than Pace, Fangio’s input should only be taken into account for on-field product and locker room behavior.  Fangio should not be relied upon as an authority for anything involving McDonald’s personal life away from the field, so McDonald having issues in that area does not reflect poorly on Vic Fangio.

No, the man who should be embarrassed today is none other than George McCaskey, the chairman of the Bears who describes himself as the man with the final say in any personnel moves that involve character issues.

McCaskey himself has said that he initially told Ryan Pace he could not sign Ray McDonald.  According to McCaskey’s own testimony, that came after reviewing a detailed file on McDonald put together by Chicago’s security staff.  But McDonald and McCaskey then had a face to face meeting in which McCaskey was hoodwinked into believing in McDonald, so he changed his mind despite the facts of the case, and McCaskey’s knowledge of them, remaining exactly the same.

From a business standpoint, hiring McDonald was not really a bad move.  The Bears gave him no guaranteed money and cut him instantly when he messed up again.  In that regard, they didn’t really do anything wrong, even if I’m not a fan of giving an alleged serial domestic abuser his 4th chance in under 12 months when he has not voiced any sort of public remorse for his actions.

But here is why McCaskey should be embarrassed: his comments in the immediate aftermath of the McDonald hiring reek of delusion and hypocrisy.  He spoke of the Bears having “a 96-year tradition of doing things a certain way” shortly after signing a man that, by his own judgment when presented only with the facts of the case, did not fit in with that way.

He also spoke about needing to do a “certain amount of discounting” of the alleged victim’s testimony, despite the fact that he freely admitted never having tried to actually hear that testimony from the alleged victim, her lawyer, or anyone associated with her.  To McCaskey’s credit, he does say there is a level of bias to be expected from everybody involved in the situation, yet he apparently failed to apply that bias filter to McDonald’s side of the story while publicly attaching it to the alleged victim, just one of the many ways he showed a complete ineptitude in handling domestic violence situations.

Ray McDonald fooled George McCaskey into going against his better judgment.  This led to McCaskey trying to claim some absurd moral high ground while simultaneously participating in victim shaming of a woman who has allegedly suffered at least three incidents of domestic violence in the past year.  When it all blew up in only 2 months, McCaskey was left looking like a fool, and his family’s “96-year tradition of doing things a certain way” sure sounds like a hollow boast.

I was recently involved in a discussion where all parties wondered how much dead money factors into team success.  The general theory from those involved in the discussion seemed to be that teams who have less dead money, and therefore more of the salary cap to spend on players, should fare better, but nobody had any numbers to back this notion up.

Since I wasn’t able to find more than anecdotal data about the relationship between dead money and team success, I decided to look into it myself.  Using data from Spotrac, which dates back to 2011, I looked at dead money (as a percentage of the total cap for that year, to correct for cap inflation) and team winning percentage.  This gave me 128 data points-4 seasons each for 32 teams-that I could use to determine how strong the correlation between dead money and winning percentage is.

Results

As you can see in the chart below, I found that there was no appreciable relationship between the amount of dead money a team had and their on-field success that season.

The overall correlation between dead money and winning percentage was completely negligible at 0.004. This indicates that there is absolutely no relationship between the amount of dead money a team carries on their cap and their winning percentage that season.

Team by team

Of course, looking at only one year at a time can be dangerous, as sometimes dead money in one season sets up success in the next (or vice-versa), and winning percentage can fluctuate by a healthy amount based on luck in a short NFL season.  In order to try and reduce the noise in the data, I looked at the average amount of dead money and average winning percentage for each NFL team from 2011-2014.  This data, now containing only 32 points, can be seen in the chart below.

Once again, we see no real relationship between dead money and winning percentage.  The correlation has improved by a factor of about 20, likely a function of reduced noise, but is still extremely low at only 0.08, far below any reasonable threshold for saying there is a clear relationship between the two data sets.

Rebound?

Finally I looked at addressing a 3rd question: what happens the year after significant dead money comes off the books?  Do teams see improvement the year after they swallow a lot of dead money, when they are free to spend more to upgrade the talent on their roster?

I had a bit of a difficult time answering this question.  First I looked at the relationship between the change in dead money and the change in winning percentage.  This reduced the data set from 4 points per team to 3, since I had no previous year to compare to for 2011, and can be seen in the graph below.

Once again, we see basically no correlation, indicating no significant relationship.  But what happens if I select out specifically the teams that had a significant decrease in dead money?  Do those teams improve their performance?

Looking at all teams with a drop of at least 5% in dead cap space from one year to the next is the closest I could reasonably come to answering this question without getting too small of a sample size.  As it is, I was left with a sample size of only 9, which makes getting a significant correlation difficult.

Unsurprisingly, it the correlation was once again low enough to be meaningless (0.0066), and the average change in win percentage for these 9 teams was actually negative, so there is certainly no evidence to suggest that teams are due for a rebound after significant amounts of dead money come off their cap.

No effect

Pretty much any way you look at it, the evidence strongly suggests that there is no relationship between dead money and team success.  Teams like Seattle and New England have been among the best in the NFL the last few years despite consistently high amounts of dead money, while teams like Green Bay and San Francisco find consistent success while managing the cap carefully to avoid dead money.

What this ultimately suggests is that other factors, such as the ability to draft and develop talent and find players to fit your system, have a much greater influence on team success.  Getting a number of quality contributors on rookie contracts more than makes up for large amounts of dead money, as we have seen with the Colts and Seahawks in recent years.  Top-notch quarterback play carries you through a number of obstacles, as we have seen in New England, Denver, and Green Bay.  Good coaching turns teams around in a hurry, as we have seen recently in San Francisco and Arizona, while bad coaching can ruin teams, as we just saw in Chicago.

There are any number of factors that influence team success in the NFL, which is one of the reasons it is so much fun to follow, but the data says that dead money is not one of them.

News broke last night that Charles Tillman will not be back with the Bears in 2015, ending a 12 year run that featured 156 games, 857 tackles, 3 sacks, 42 forced fumbles, 36 interceptions, 9 touchdowns, and countless memories.

Tillman will be remembered as one of the three faces of the Lovie Smith era, the most successful run the Bears have had since their Super Bowl team of the 1980s.  While he never matched the off-field recognition counterparts Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs received, Tillman’s play on the field was stellar; his production was comparable to that of many compatriots who will enter the Hall of Fame.

On-field excellence

Tillman’s career saw him go up against some of the best receivers in the NFL, and he more than held his own.  Bears fans knew they had a great player when he stole the ball from Randy Moss for a game-saving interception in the end zone his rookie year, and in 2012 he shut down Calvin Johnson twice in the midst of the most productive season a wide receiver has ever had in the NFL.

In between, Tillman became famous for the Peanut Punch, his signature move that resulted in 42 forced fumbles, including an astonishing 10 in 2012.   After 12 seasons with the Bears, Tillman is the undisputed best defensive back in franchise history.  His name is scattered throughout the franchise record books, including most defensive touchdowns, most interception return yards, most interceptions returned for touchdowns, and most forced fumbles.

Off-field greatness

But greater than his impact on Sundays was his off-field impact in Chicago.  Perhaps no Bear since Walter Payton has had as significant of an off-field impact in Chicago as Tillman, which made it so fitting when Tillman won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award from the NFL following the 2013 season.

He has been involved in a number of charitable causes in Chicago throughout his career, most notably the Cornerstone Foundation, which he and his wife founded to “provide opportunities and resources to children and their families who are in need.”  Tillman’s days as a Bear may be over, but his presence will undoubtedly continue to be felt throughout the Chicagoland area through his community service.

Hard to say goodbye

Tillman’s exit serves as a painful reminder that Father Time remains undefeated.  Following the best season of his career in 2012, Tillman battled through injuries from the get-go in 2013. He still managed to force 6 turnovers in 8 games, but then he tore his triceps and was out for the rest of the season.  After working his way back for 2014, Tillman lasted only 1.5 games before suffering the same injury.

As Tillman sat on the sidelines, television cameras caught him overcome with emotion as he realized this could be the end of his run in Chicago.  Watching on television 2,000 miles away, I couldn’t help but share Tillman’s tears, and I’m sure I was not alone among Bears fans in that moment.

If ever a player deserved to go out on top, it was Charles Tillman.  It would have felt right to see him win a Super Bowl and then retire, or at least have a strong final season before leaving Chicago on his own terms.  But unfortunately life cannot be scripted, and instead we had to watch his body betray him these last two years.

Selfishly, I want Tillman to retire this offseason.  It would be hard to watch him in a uniform other than Chicago’s.  But if he does sign somewhere else for one last run, I hope he can manage to stay healthy and have a productive year, and I will be cheering for his team should they make the playoffs.

And whether he plays for another team or not in 2015, Charles Tillman will forever be a Bear.

Recently, this tweet from NFL on ESPN was brought to my attention, which contains the following image.

Some people wondered why Jay Cutler, with his reputation for being a turnover machine, was not on this list.  A quick search of statistics indicated Cutler has 89 turnovers in that 5-year span, just missing the cut.  However, total turnovers is a misleading statistic; Cutler has played in only 66 games in that 5-year span, while Brees, Rivers, and Manning have all played 80.  Thus, it will be more accurate to look at the frequency with which turnovers occur.

Turnovers per game

I expanded the search to include all quarterbacks who have been (more or less) full time starters for the last five years, a list that includes 15 quarterbacks.  The table below shows the number of games they have played, the turnovers they have committed, and their turnovers per game in that period.

Here we see that Cutler is among the worst quarterbacks at turning the ball over, but he is certainly not an outlier.  Eli Manning and Carson Palmer both average more turnovers per game than he does, and Ryan Fitzpatrick is very similar to him.

Turnover percentage

Of course, just looking at turnovers per game can be a bit misleading, as some quarterbacks handle the ball more than others.  Therefore, the best way to look at this is by the number of turnovers relative to the number of plays in which turnovers were possible.  Turnovers included both interceptions and fumbles lost, while I counted a quarterbacks’ touches (pass attempts, rushing attempts, or sacks) as their total plays.  Thus, the formula is turnover percentage = (interceptions + fumbles lost)/(pass attempts + rush attempts + sacks).  The table below shows the results.

Here we see Cutler once again is among the worst quarterbacks, and in fact he comes off a little worse in turnover percentage than turnovers per game.  Cutler is still not the worst full-time quarterback in the NFL at turning it over, but he is up there.

Discussion

While there are other factors involved in quarterback play than avoiding turnovers (which is why Peyton Manning is widely considered to be better than Alex Smith), turnovers are certainly very important.  Turnover differential is vital for determining wins in a season and has a very strong correlation to success  in games when the Bears have Jay Cutler under center.

So what can Chicago’s new coaches do to limit Cutler’s turnovers going forward?  One big step will be running the ball more; this limits Cutler’s touches per game, which will limit his turnovers.  Of course, Cutler has averaged only 36.9 touches per game over the last 5 years, 2nd fewest of the 15 quarterbacks in this study.  But that number was at 42.5 in 2014, which would be higher than every quarterback in this study except Drew Brees and Matthew Stafford.  Going back to a more balanced offense like what Cutler saw from 2010-2013 will help some.

One area the Bears can definitely look to improve on is Cutler’s fumbling. His 22 fumbles lost over the last 5 years lead all quarterbacks in this study, and he fumbled on 0.9% of his touches, also the highest mark of any quarterback.  In fact, only Ben Roethlisberger (0.8%) comes even close to that; everybody else was between 0.3% and 0.6%.  Chicago can look to improve this through a combination of better fundamentals and better pass protection, as many fumbles come on sacks.  Cutler has been sacked on 7.5% of his dropbacks over the last 5 years, which is far too high a number. As an added bonus, a more balanced offense, like we discussed before, can slow down the pass rush as well.

Conclusion

Jay Cutler turns the ball over too much.  This is not a shock to anybody, but the numbers say he has a few peers with similar turnover rates.  No matter what Chicago’s new coaches do to help Cutler improve, he is always going to turn it over more than you would like; it’s in his DNA as a gunslinger quarterback.  They should be able to help a bit by focusing on running the ball and pass protection, but Cutler’s high turnover rate is a big part of the reason why he is unlikely to be in Chicago for more than the next 2 years.

“You can’t win with Jay Cutler.”

That’s been a common argument by many fans fed up with Cutler, who was the poster child of a disappointing 2014 year, as they campaigned for the Bears to move on and find a fresh face for the 2015 season.

Since then, the Bears have committed to Cutler as their quarterback for 2015.  So let’s get away from the debate about whether or not that was a good idea (I believe reasonable arguments can be made for both sides) and instead focus on how Chicago can maximize their 2015 success with Cutler under center.

Contrary to what some might say, the Bears have actually won with Cutler in the past, as they are 44-38 in games he has started, but their winning percentage in games he plays in each season has fluctuated from 33% to 70%. Let’s take a look at what changed in seasons where the Bears won with Cutler compared to times when they lost with him in an effort to figure out how they can win with him again in 2015.

Methods

In an effort to try and figure out what changed in those seasons, I looked at the correlation between Chicago’s win percentage in games Jay Cutler started for his six seasons in Chicago and 12 different variables across a number of general areas.  In order to evaluate Cutler’s performance, I examined passer rating, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and touchdown/interception ratio.  Since the average NFL passer rating has increased by about 6 points in those 6 years, I used the difference between Cutler’s passer rating and the NFL average that year.

In order to evaluate the offense as a whole, I looked at their rankings out of the 32 NFL teams in both yards per game and points per game.  In order to evaluate the defense, I looked at their NFL rankings in both yards per game and points per game allowed.  In order to examine the importance of turnovers, I looked at turnovers per game, takeaways per game, and turnover differential per game.  In order to account for the caliber of opponent the Bears faced, I looked at opponent win percentage. In all of these categories, I only included data for the games Cutler started.  For the offensive and defensive NFL ranks, I slotted the Bears where they would have fit based on their per-game stats for this sample set.

For the categories where lower numbers are better, I manually changed the sign of the correlation to accurately reflect the results.  This applied to interception percentage, all of the offensive and defensive rankings, turnovers per game, and opponent win percentage.

Results

The table below shows the correlation between Chicago’s winning percentage in games Cutler starts each season and their performance in the 12 categories for those games.

Discussion

The first and most important point to make here is that correlation does not equal causation.  This is especially true since this data set spans two different coaches who operated with very different philosophies, which can skew the numbers. Only having six years is also a small sample size, which is why I looked at multiple variables in a category when possible.  However, there are still some clear trends that can be seen here, and it seems reasonable to suggest there is some merit to them.

For starters, Chicago’s offensive performance seems to have little to do with their team success when Cutler is under center.  Points per game scored has a low correlation to winning percentage, and offensive yards per game actually has a negative correlation, though again it is fairly small, and I don’t think it means anything.

Likewise, Cutler’s individual performance does not seem to have much impact on Chicago’s overall success with him under center.  The only two factors that have a somewhat meaningful correlation to win percentage are touchdown percentage and interception percentage, but touchdown percentage is actually negatively related to winning percentage.  Opponent win percentage also proved to be negligible.

The two areas that clearly impact the Bears’ winning percentage when Cutler is under center are defensive performance and turnovers, which were also the two hallmarks of Lovie Smith’s teams during Cutler’s first four years in Chicago.  Both defensive categories had a correlation above 0.5, and defensive points per game had a very high value of 0.89, indicating a strong relationship between the defense’s performance and Chicago’s overall winning percentage.

Turnovers are an interesting category to look at, as the biggest knock against Cutler as a quarterback is that he turns it over too much.  Indeed, the largest correlation between Cutler’s performance and Chicago’s success is interception percentage, though a 0.43 correlation is still not overly large.  The turnover differential per game has the largest correlation to team success, though turnovers per game and takeaways per game were both extremely important as well.

One important point to make about turnovers in this case is that they do not only include interceptions; other players can turn the ball over too, and Cutler can fumble the ball away.  Total interceptions and interception percentage are also two very different numbers; Cutler actually threw interceptions at the 2nd lowest rate of his Bears career in 2014 despite throwing the 2nd most interceptions that same season, a reflection of his 561 passing attempts that marked a new Chicago high for him.  Total turnovers had a much higher correlation than interception percentage, which is partially due to fumbles being added in, but it also suggests that the Bears would do well to limit Cutler’s passing attempts and establish a more balanced offense.

Conclusions

While not conclusive by any means, this data suggests that coaches of a team with Jay Cutler as their starting quarterback should focus on defense and turnovers, which can be limited in part by running the ball more.  This is not exactly earth-shattering news, but it is refreshing to see numbers match up with what common sense seems to dictate.  It should also make Bears fans happy to think that Chicago’s coaching hires this offseason indicate a desire to focus on defense and running the ball.

One logical question that can be raised in response to this conclusion is whether Cutler’s contract is too financially cumbersome for the Bears to build a quality defense.  While Cutler’s contract is in line with the quarterback market around the NFL, this is a fair question to ask.  Quarterbacks, especially mid-tier quarterbacks, making as much money as Cutler does are a relatively new occurrence, and early evidence indicates that these salaries may in fact be too cost prohibitive to build a championship-caliber roster around.

Based on that fact alone, I think looking for Cutler’s eventual replacement in one of the next two drafts is an excellent idea.  A solid quarterback on a rookie contract is the biggest bargain in the NFL, and acquiring one in the near future needs to be Ryan Pace’s top priority.  In the meantime, the good news for Bears fans is this: the Bears have won with Jay Cutler before, and there is a clear blueprint they can follow to do it again.