site banner
Lazuli  1mo ago (text post)   425 thread views

Weekly NFL Thread: Week 4

Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):

Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Denver Broncos @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Houston Texans
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Minnesota Vikings @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-09-29 1:00PM Los Angeles Rams @ Chicago Bears
Sun 2024-09-29 4:05PM New England Patriots @ San Francisco 49ers
Sun 2024-09-29 4:05PM Washington Commanders @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2024-09-29 4:25PM Cleveland Browns @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-09-29 4:25PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Los Angeles Chargers
Sun 2024-09-29 8:20PM Buffalo Bills @ Baltimore Ravens
Mon 2024-09-30 7:30PM Tennessee Titans @ Miami Dolphins
Mon 2024-09-30 8:15PM Seattle Seahawks @ Detroit Lions
-1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Does this mean that the Eagles should fire Sirianni? I don't think so, but as Steelers fan I'm of the opinion that coaching changes should only be made in the most dire situations, and the Eagles situation is nowhere near dire.

I'm all for not firing coaches who are dealt a shit hand or are still trying to figure it out, but the problem with Sirianni is one of refusing to adjust. Too many NFL coaches are terrible, one trick ponies, or just high on their own supply with respect to game planning.

When the plan isn't working you are supposed to change the plan, with that not happening it makes it look like Sirianni is a bad coach handed a good team and therefore is wasting that potential. That's a reason to move on potentially.

This is especially hard for the Eagles because they had luck with moving on from Andy and Doug, both didn't need to go but it ended up being a good thing for the birds.

This is especially hard for the Eagles because they had luck with moving on from Andy and Doug, both didn't need to go but it ended up being a good thing for the birds.

I'm a big believer that coaches get stale. You saw it with Andy Reid, with Joe Torre, twice with Joe Girardi. The head coach is only the tip of the iceberg, there are an average of 15 coaches on an NFL staff. When head coaches stay in one place too long, only the really special coaches can avoid ensconcing themselves in layers of friends and associates, calcifying old systems that have trouble responding to changes. Moving on from Andy was good for both parties.

Doug fell victim to the same cycle of a QB with an uncertain talent level somewhere between MVP level franchise cornerstone and unplayable turnover machine: you fire the coach before trading the QB because replacement level coaches are nearly as good as great coaches, while replacement level QBs are essentially useless for a win-now roster. Coaches have minor leagues in the college system they can flow into and out of, producing a reservoir of talent. QBs sink of swim in the NFL.

You fire the coach before trading the QB because replacement level coaches are nearly as good as great coaches, while replacement level QBs are essentially useless for a win-now roster.

I think you have too optimistic a view of replacement-level coaches. First, we need to define out terms, and since it's raining this morning, I took a look at every head coach who has coached since 2007, the year Mike Tomlin, the longest-tenured current head coach, was hired. The trouble with defining replacement-level is that head coaches are normally judged on one thing and one thing only: Wins. The median winning percentage for all head coaches is .427. The mean is only slightly higher, at .430. And this is average, meaning a full half of all coaches are going to have worse records. In order to divorce wins from the equation, I looked at the number of seasons each team coached, under the presumption that good coaches tend to coach longer than bad ones. I used the same coaches as before, but eliminated anyone currently coaching to reduce the sample size problem, e.g. it makes Mike McDonald look like the greatest head coach of all time, though no one thinks he's going to end his career anywhere near 1.000. I will also add that I included data from these coaches' entire careers, not just 2007 and later. The goal was just to limit the coaches sampled to ones who are reasonably recent (I don't want oddball data from the 20s and 30s skewering the results), and I want to be able to name "replacement level" coaches one would actually be familiar with.

The median coaching tenure among NFL head coaches is 4 years, including current head coaches, and the mean is 6.4 years, though this is heavily skewed by people like Bill Belechick who coach forever and by the fact that I didn't include anyone still on their first year. Numbers are similar for men no longer in the game; a median of 4.2 years and a mean of 6.3 years. What kind of guys coach for 4 years? Think Pat Shurmur, Frank Reich, Mike McCoy, Kliff Kingsbury, Jim Mora, and Matt Nagy. If you want average coaches in terms of win percentage you get guys like Todd Bowles, Tony Sparano, Herm Edwards, and Dick Jauron. Remember, this is an average. Dick Jauron coached 9 years with a losing record. Ken Wisenhunt coached 7.4 years with a .403 winning percentage.

The point of replacement level is that average guys are hard to find, since half the guys hired are going to be worse than that. When looking at replacement level coaches, I first looked at the shortest tenures (I didn't include interim coaches or interim stints in this, since these guys were only coaching out of necessity, even if they ended up with the job the next season). The guys with very short tenures are who'd expect, and I'll call these guys "below replacement". Urban Meyer, Bobby Petrino, and Nathanial Hackett didn't even last one season. Cam Cameron did, but at 1–15 he has the lowest winning percentage of any coach on the list. Every coach who lasted fewer than 2 seasons has a winning percentage below .400 with 2 exceptions: Mike Singeltary (.450) and Ben McAdoo (.464). The way I see it, the true replacement level guys are those who lasted 2 or 3 seasons and have records somewhere in the .300 to .400 neighborhood. These are guys like Matt Patricia, Greg Schiano, Brandon Staley, Rod Marinelli, and Tom Cable. Brandon Staley, with a .500 record is a steal. If any of these guys look attractive to you, then fire Sirianni, whose .667 winning percentage is behind only Jim Harbaugh, Matt LaFleur, and Tony Dungy among coaches surveyed, and ahead of Reid, Belichick, and Tomlin. Remember, if you're firing your coach, you're lucky if you get anyone better than Kliff Kingsbury.

you fire the coach before trading the QB because replacement level coaches are nearly as good as great coaches, while replacement level QBs are essentially useless for a win-now roster.

I really like this frame. Elegantly clarifies some intuitions I've had.

Agree with all.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats