Football Frontier

We’re rapidly approaching the end of the 2013 season. Just weeks ago, we wondered if Jacksonville and Tampa Bay would ever win again. They were 0-8 and seemingly a lock for 1-2 in the draft.

Since then, and maybe it’s just how schedules work, both teams have won three times and there’s significant consolidation around the bottom of the standings.

Houston is 2-10, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Washington and Atlanta are 3-9, Minnesota is 3-8-1 and Cleveland, Buffalo and Oakland are 4-8. There’s a lot of serious quarterback need in that bunch, and Teddy Bridgewater, Derek Carr and Zach Mettenberger are potential franchise guys. And you can’t count out Johnny Manziel.

I ran the end of the season through my application that bases predicted results off of expected point spreads. Obviously, this weekend’s trip to Jacksonville is huge for Houston, as the Texans will have a tough time finding a win afterward. The top pick is Houston’s to lose. Literally.

Here’s where I think we are, moving forward:

1. Houston 2-14.
2. Washington 3-13.
3. Minnesota 3-12-1.
4. Cleveland 4-12.
5. Oakland 4-12.
6. Buffalo 4-12.
7. Atlanta 4-12.
8. Tampa Bay 4-12.
9. Jacksonville 5-11.
10. Pittsburgh 6-10.

Of course, this won’t play out exactly. More than one in four games is an upset in the NFL, and things get particularly weird in week 17 when you can get away with playing your third-string quarterback and a vanilla defense.

Schedule strength is the tie-breaker in determining draft order, so here are the expected final schedule strengths for each team in this bottom 10. Remember that the team with the worse schedule comes out ahead in draft-order ties.

1. Pittsburgh 119-135-2 (the Steelers probably will win any strength-of-schedule tie)
2. Jacksonville 126-130
3. Cleveland 129-125-2
4. Washington 135-119-2
4. Minnesota 135-119-2 (note that because Minnesota has a tie, strength-of-schedule is unlikely to matter at all)
6. Oakland 136-120
7. Buffalo 137-119
8. Atlanta 139-116-1
9. Houston 144-112
10. Tampa Bay 150-106

Since these are based on expected results, if a team does a little bit worse than expected, their strength-of-schedule will increase over the above list. So what I’m saying here is that Washington is in great shape to win tie-breakers, but the rest of the teams are extremely close right now. Except Tampa Bay.

As a side-note, I expect Detroit, Kansas City and Cincinnati to come in with the three worst strengths-of-schedule this season. Keep that in mind when considering the playoffs. Last year, the three worst were Atlanta, Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and they all under-performed in the playoffs. The year before, it was New England, San Francisco, New Orleans and Houston. And in 2010, it was Kansas City all alone among playoff teams with the lowest strength-of-schedule (106-150) in the NFL in the last six years. Detroit may challenge that.

Beta testing is going well, and I anticipate a first release candidate within the next week.

The publication question remains open. I’ve had discussions with ViaTech, and I think it’s very likely the technical issues that have caused installation difficulties with Windows 7/8 will not occur with their new libraries. If I go with ViaTech, Front Office Football Seven will be available within two weeks. I’m leaning toward this option.

In a fictitious world, of course, former President Bill Clinton advised me that if I promised people a new Front Office Football, I should deliver people a new Front Office Football.

I thanked him, as I always do. It’s bad form not to appreciate any input from a former president. After all, they’re usually off saving the world or otherwise exercising the superpowers granted to the most powerful leaders in the free world.

I wanted to talk to him about how, exactly, I would fulfill this grand promise. Unfortunately, such details really are beneath someone in his elevated position. So I don’t have any definite answers.

I have, however, after months of heavy development, reached what I would call beta for Front Office Football Seven. I’ve done this many times before, and I think the product is fairly close to release-ready.

I would like to find one or two dedicated beta testers who can start this week. Preferably people on the west coast who can work late in the evening. I am a rather extreme night owl and want to do this type of testing when I can have uninterrupted time late.

I’m looking for people who have extensive multi-player experience. I would prefer if one person has an FTP server that can be set up the way one would be set up for a multi-player league (mine can’t). I would act as commissioner, and the testers would try and break the game.

If you’re interested, and don’t mind signing an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), please send me a PM on Front Office Football Central. Thanks for listening.

As the roll-out of Front Office Football Seven approaches, I promise that if you like your current health care plan, you won’t have to change it on account of the new staff and scouting modules or the film room or any other feature in the game. Sure, Gridiron Greta is in retirement and everything operates off the spectacularly ugly new calendar. But it’s still the same familiar game, now 15 years removed from its initial release.

To update my progress. I think I’m still on track, maybe 2-3 weeks from beta. The to-do list is very short now. Each item is a day, maybe two, of work. I don’t anticipate any surprises. From there, it’s still a matter of deciding how to release the game. I would really like to have it on sale in the Christmas run-up.

Front Office Football Seven is getting nearer to reality.

Three months ago, I took questions about Front Office Football Seven, as it had been under development for, really, five years. Though more serious development started early this year. At the time, I hoped I would release the new product in November.

November approaches, and it’s a lot closer. Many key new features are in place and tested. I have my final “beta” list – the new product will be feature-complete soon. What that means in the software world is that when this list is exhausted, nothing new will be added. The entire focus will be testing and preparing the product for release. Since I test as I develop when I get later in the cycle, my alpha is the same as my beta (but nothing like my gamma, and certainly not in the same world as my delta).

If I had to guess, I’d say beta will begin the second week of November. Maybe the third. The bulk of the testing will focus on multi-player play, because that stresses the game more and many of the new features focus on the multi-player experience.

It won’t be a flashier game. I’ve cleaned up the graphics somewhat, but my philosophy of game development is that a cleaner, simpler interface is better for long-term enjoyment. I will not sacrifice screen space for bells and whistles. I don’t like full-screen products. I think I’ve hit maybe 1998 when it comes to a modern look. Which is an improvement over 1996, where I was last time. Now if I could only charge real 1998 prices for entertainment software, but I digress…

At beta, a product release is about a month away. So I’m hopeful to release this in the Christmas rush. That’s certainly manageable from a development perspective. The question remains how this product will be released. Is it a Steam product, which provides an internal marketing that can’t be matched? Do I stay with ViaTech, which is a smaller ViaTech than it was ten years ago, but it’s familiar, gives me the opportunity to release the exact moment it’s ready and, I’m told, has a new library that solves the myriad of installation issues some of have faced with Windows 7/8. If Steam is the answer, I may need to take a week or so now getting the product into Greenlight (which may end up failing entirely, of course). I may lose the opportunity to release by Christmas. I’ll have to get my hands on a web cam (no small diversion – I don’t own a smart phone, and have no desire to get one).

Or do I find an entirely new avenue for production? Thankfully, this does not mean printing CDs myself and spending the next three months non-stop shipping them all over the world. Been there, done that too many times now. I’ve faced my full life’s allotment of hostile post-office clerks (Carnation, Washington and Amherst, New Hampshire, I am talking about you).

So the rest of the year will be quite busy, and I will be entirely focused on what it will take to finish development and get Front Office Football Seven out the door. The feature set really hasn’t changed since the interview in July. Maybe a tweak here and there. I’ll keep you posted when things change.

As for this blog… WordPress no longer supports php4 and my ISP is rather slow to upgrade. I don’t want to take the time to learn a new blog installation. For at least a year, comments have been broken here. I’ve reverted the blog to the most basic WordPress theme. I’ve removed almost all of the plugins (spambots are ridiculous these days, so to prevent dozens of spam comments a day, I took some time to locate an old version of Akismet that works with php4). I took out the captcha plugin and have switched to pre-moderated comments. All the error messages are gone, so somewhat of a discussion is possible, though I will probably not publish any comments along the lines of “will feature-x be in the new game” or “when will it be released.” That will be covered when it’s released and a free demo will be published so people can review the basics of the game and help file.

Anyway, that’s the latest. I remain very busy and very focused on the new product. Thanks for listening.

When last we heard from Terrelle Pryor, he had turned a promising college career at Ohio State into an absolute mess involving tattoos, lost eligibility and a hasty departure. When the Oakland Raiders spent a three in the 2011 supplemental draft there were snickers, because when it comes to over-valuing athleticism, the Raiders are in a class by themselves.

Pryor quietly went about the business of transforming his game to an NFL level. There was never a question about his physical skills. NFL quarterbacks need leadership and great decision-making skills. It takes years to master these skills, and Pryor’s early exit from college ball meant a longer development curve. A suspension related to how he left Ohio State (it’s apparently against the rules to use the supplemental draft in response to a college suspension) didn’t help.

Pryor received a start at the end of last season, his second in the NFL, and looked fairly bad in a week-17 loss to San Diego. Still, NFL quarterback debuts are notoriously tough, and he was good enough to justify his roster spot. In training camp this year, he beat out Matt Flynn. Again, not tremendous news since Flynn is not exactly known for doing much of anything aside from his 480-yard, six-touchdown performance against playoff-bound Detroit in week 17 a couple of years ago. That performance has made him personally very wealthy, but he has yet to translate that into a starting job.

This year, Pryor started out OK. His running and a half-decent passing performance gave the Raiders a closer than expected loss in the season opener against Indianapolis. He had a bad game against Jacksonville in week 2, but Jacksonville’s offense is, kindly put, in disarray. Pryor has had two very good games since then, missing a week in between with a concussion.

The question is how good these last two games were. Denver beat Oakland, 37-21, in week 3. Pryor was effective, but once Denver takes a big lead (and it was 30-7 early in the third quarter), they play quite conservatively on defense. Champ Bailey was out as well. Still, Pryor accounted for more than 300 yards of offense and didn’t turn the ball over. For someone making his fourth start, it’s a positive.

After missing a week and with lots of talk about Josh Freeman taking over, Pryor had a lot of pressure on him last Sunday night. Helped by an early turnover, he threw for two first-quarter touchdowns, played a very, very conservative offense, and despite just four first downs in the second half, the Raiders won a game that many felt was a likely loss. Pryor’s numbers were impressive (18-23-221-2-0, 11-31 running, no turnovers). San Diego’s pass defense has been fairly bad this season, though.

Pryor has done enough to earn the starting job for a while. The playoffs will be a huge challenge in a division with Denver and the surprising Chiefs. But an eight-win season is reasonable. If Pryor avoids turning the ball over a lot, and avoids more injuries, it’s not a stretch to consider him a big part of Oakland’s future.

Today, Pryor said he has enlisted a quarterback coach to help him avoid Tim Tebow’s fate. I admire that he’s saying this after two pretty good performances for someone in his first half-season starting. On the surface, I see Tebow as an obvious peer. Running is a big part of both quarterbacks’ repertoire. Tebow’s biggest problem was apparent even when he won a few games early on. He doesn’t have an accurate arm. He did a good job throwing the ball in a way so that when he missed, it was uncatchable, but incompletions are very damaging in the NFL as well. Pryor, too, has struggled a bit with his accuracy.

Tebow was wildly inconsistent, though. He may have regressed late in 2011, sandwiching the one decent game (ending with everyone’s favorite Tebow highlight – the overtime long-ball that sent Pittsburgh home in the playoffs) with a series of five awful games that thoroughly convinced John Elway to sign Peyton Manning. Tebow hasn’t started a game since his 9-for-26 stinker against New England in a 45-10 loss the week after Pittsburgh and is currently out of football (I don’t think he’s taking the lingerie-league offer very seriously).

Scouts say Tebow’s mechanics completely devolved after his early success, and I can accept that, though in only two of his 13 starts in 2011 did he complete more than half of his passes. The problem was obvious even at the outset – we’re not talking Steve Blass here. So, more likely, Pryor will simply get help with his mechanics, which are still a work in progress. If he learns a natural overhand release off of a roll-out, he will be much more effective. If he does that and avoids more concussions, he can be a good NFL quarterback.

Josh Freeman was released last week, right before Cleveland and Buffalo played on Thursday night and their respective starting quarterbacks were injured. Still, Freeman is still free. The Oakland Raiders may well pick him up in the next few days, but the bottom line is that Freeman couldn’t be traded and he probably will be a backup when he next wears an NFL uniform.

I’ve written a lot about my quarterback rating analysis, which goes back to 1974 (to refresh, the year that rules were modified to open up the passing game and launch the modern quarterback) and is normalized for differing league norms each year.

Freeman, at 22, and in his second year as an NFL starter, played unusually well, scoring a 57 on average on my scale. The Buccaneers were 10-6 and unlucky to miss the playoffs. That score of 57 was the fourth-best ever for a 22-year-old (third at the time – Robert Griffin III scored a 58 last year). It looked like Freeman was becoming a star.

Then Freeman regressed in his third season, dropping to an average (for his age) score of 45 while the Bucs went 4-12 and fired Raheem Morris. Greg Schiano was hired, and Freeman put up a 48 as the Bucs were 7-9 and nowhere near the playoffs.

NFL coaching being what it is, it’s not a stretch to say that Freeman and Schiano were in a position this year where both needed to show a lot of improvement to remain employed. At 0-4 and in a division where the 4-0 Saints are looking great, it’s safe to say Tampa Bay is as long a shot to reach the playoffs as anyone. Schiano demoted Freeman in week 4, and cut him in week 5. He pretty much has to roll the dice. Freeman’s scores this season were 34, 27 and 29. No team can win with performances like that from their quarterback. Rookie Mike Glennon put up a score of 22 in his debut last week, however, and if I had to guess right now, I’d say Freeman has a much, much better chance than Schiano of taking part in an NFL training camp in 2014.

I’m not writing to assess Tampa Bay’s chances of reaching the post-season. I’m not going to assess Schiano’s chances, either. Coach firing is a study I’d like to do when I get a chance, but I haven’t had the time lately.

My question is what can we expect from Josh Freeman?

Freeman was one of 119 quarterbacks who started for a NFL team in the last 40 years at age 24. Only one other quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, started each of his first four seasons in the league, beginning at age 21. Freeman is unusual. Bledsoe broke out in his fourth season and went on to have a nice career. Nothing like Tom Brady, but a nice career. And 24 is really the age when you expect a quarterback to reach a starting position. Freeman is exceptionally experienced for his age.

So the question depends on how we analyze him. If we go strictly by age, we look at the 41-57-45-48 career track and expect a breakout. We attribute the 30 average in his first three starts to a terrible situation with Schiano and we expect Freeman to find a job as a starter.

But experience is more important than age. So it’s more relevant to compare him to the 132 other quarterbacks who started in their fourth season in the NFL. Of those, 70 scored more than 48 in season 4, 48 scored lower than 48. Of the 48 scoring lower, only 24 started in their fifth season. Of the 70 scoring higher, 59 were starters in year five. He was below average in years three and four.

Freeman’s peer group is basically fourth-year starters with starting experience who scored 47-49 in their fourth season, but regressed from an earlier season. The most similar history list includes Aaron Brooks, Jay Cutler, Donovan McNabb, Steve Grogan, Byron Leftwich, Joe Flacco, Tim Couch, Matthew Stafford and Jay Schroeder. If those are your peers, someone is going to give you another chance.

Freeman has done a lot of harm to himself, at least temporarily, with his miserable September performances and the way he went out in Tampa Bay. It may be enough to keep him from starting this season, though the Oakland situation seems perfect for him given he did well for Raider offensive coordinator Greg Olson in the past. Olson was Morris’ offensive coordinator in Tampa Bay, and came up as a quarterback coach. Olson did experience the regression that was part of Morris’ departure from Tampa Bay, however. He would know more about Freeman than anyone. I think if Oakland isn’t interested, people will figure the regression is real, Olson knows it, and it will be hard for Freeman to find anything better than a low-salary third-QB job until next year’s training camps.

Since 1974, when the modern NFL opened for business with rules that favored the forward pass, 14 quarterbacks have amassed 100 wins, including playoff games. Three are still active, and chasing Brett Favre, who is atop the leader board with 199 victories.

Here’s a quick list of the active leaders:

Peyton Manning, 162-77 (2nd all-time in wins; Favre had 119 losses)
Tom Brady, 152-45
Drew Brees, 104-73
Ben Roethilisberger, 96-41
Matt Hasselbeck, 86-75
Eli Manning, 86-59
Philip Rivers, 70-47
Joe Flacco, 62-29
Aaron Rodgers, 57-28
Michael Vick, 57-43
Matt Ryan, 56-26
Tony Romo, 56-39
Carson Palmer, 54-67
Jay Cutler, 53-42
Matt Schaub, 45-39
Alex Smith, 39-35
Mark Sanchez, 35-31
Kyle Orton, 34-33
Matt Cassell, 30-36
Jason Campbell, 30-39

It’s always fun to speculate about the Hall of Fame. And now, with baseball enduring yet another summer of steroid-related drama, the Hall in Canton is becoming more prestigious, even, than the Cooperstown version.

So, with training camps open this week, and the baseball world all worried about whether the best player of his generation should be suspended for the rest of his life or simply take five days off for what may or may not be a USDA Grade A strain of the quadriceps, I thought I’d add my two cents. Included are players on training camp rosters.

Category 1: They’re in after retirement. These shouldn’t be controversial picks:

Peyton Manning
Tom Brady
Adrian Peterson
Tony Gonzalez
Jason Witten
DeMarcus Ware
Champ Bailey
Ed Reed

Category 2: They have an excellent chance and are late in their careers. Maybe just a year or two of elite play, and they’re in:

Drew Brees
Antonio Gates
Andre Johnson
Jared Allen
Julius Peppers
Vince Wilfork
Dwight Freeney
Troy Polamalu
Charles Woodson (borderline category 1)

Category 3: They’re late in great careers, but they probably will come up a bit short:

Michael Vick
Steven Jackson
Reggie Wayne
Steve Smith
Santana Moss
Justin Smith
Kevin Williams
London Fletcher
Antoine Winfield
Adrian Wilson

Category 4: They have plenty of time left, and are on pace to become a lock:

Aaron Rodgers
Calvin Johnson
Jahri Evans
Joe Thomas
Patrick Willis
Clay Matthews
Darrelle Revis

Category 5: They have plenty of time left, but it’s uncertain whether they’ll enter category 3 or category 2 in a few years:

Eli Manning
Ben Roethlisberger
Joe Flacco
Jamaal Charles
Arian Foster
Larry Fitzgerald
Wes Welker
Roddy White
Marshal Yanda
Jason Peters
Joe Staley
Haloti Ngata
Mario Williams
Jay Ratliff
Lance Briggs
James Harrison
Asante Samuel
Antonio Cromartie
Dashon Goldson

Category 6: They’re young, and they’re already on top of the world:

Rob Gronkowski
A.J. Green
Duane Brown
Ryan Clady
Geno Atkins
Von Miller (depending on the suspension situation)
Aldon Smith
Richard Sherman
Jairus Byrd

The sophomore slump is a term we’re all familiar with. Rookies who do well, or even just decently, are doomed to regress in their second season in the NFL. But does this phenomenon exist for quarterbacks?

To take a look at this concept, I examined the records of 102 quarterbacks who started for their teams in their rookie year or their second year, and then started the following year.

Among rookies who started their first two years, I found an average increase in performance of four points in my quarterback rating. Forty of 55 quarterbacks improved in their second season, thirteen regressed. The two most notable cases in the last 39 years, by the way, were Colt McCoy and Matt Ryan, both dropping 11 points in their second season. Ryan rebounded quickly. McCoy lost his job.

The average score for the rookies who started was 44. For those who were better than average as rookies, their average rating was one point higher as sophomores. Those who were worse than average saw an average rating increase of seven points. Of the six rookies who scored better than 51 in that first season, two definitely improved (Ben Roethlisberger and Dan Marino), Ryan dropped considerably, and the other three were within one point of their rookie score in their second season.

Looking at those who started for the first time as sophomores, and then started in their third year, the average improvement was two points. Of that group of 47 quarterbacks, 27 improved in that third season and 17 regressed. Of the twelve who were above average in their second season, the average drop was 5 points in their third season. Those who were below average saw an average increase of four points.

Seven of the 12 who were above average in year two regressed significantly. These seven include Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Steve McNair and Daunte Culpepper. Four remained about the same, and one, Joe Montana, improved considerably in his third season.

Summarizing: I was unable to find any indication that a sophomore slump is the norm amongst NFL quarterbacks. In fact, it’s rather rare for quarterbacks who do not excel in their first season as a starter. For those who do excel, some regression to the mean is possible, but not the average result. The only group where I saw what might be the expectation of a second-year slump was in those quarterbacks who earned their first starting job in their second season and excelled. Their third seasons were likely to be not quite as good. Though the sample size is very small there, it includes some famous names who turned it back around in the following season.