[OC] A Gravitational Pull Toward ... Bad Luck?
Aug 18, 2022 21:59:15 GMT -6
Funkytown, Danchat, and 3 more like this
Post by Reignman on Aug 18, 2022 21:59:15 GMT -6
Lets find out. It's either that or I've finally figured out how to slay Kirk Cousins once and for all ... until he leads us to the Super Bowl this year, which means I'm running out of time to have fun. Stupid fun ruining trophies.
I'm going to do that with a little help from everyone's favorite propaganda site, no not CNN, PFF
. We're going to put the focus in pro football with this one.
When the Kirkistans aren't busy pointing out the pretty boxscores after yet another disappointing loss, they're making excuses. B-b-but Bradbury has a sweaty ass, a-a-and Zimmer is ruining everything. Well maybe we can put a number on the bad luck and compare Cousins to his peers using PFF grades. The holy grail of football scoring, when its not being inconsistent.
Don't worry, I'm going to try to account for some of that inconsistency, but more on that later.
I'm going to look at 5 "luck based" categories, which are how well the OL blocked for the QB, how well the receivers played, how well the QB's own defense played, how good the opposing coverage was, and finally, how often the QB had to face another QB having a good day. Cooper Rush not included because apparently he had a pretty lousy Sunday night game on Halloween according to the very focused pro football experts. They gave Cooper a 53.2 and Cousins a 76.8 in that game, but what do my 2 eyes know? I only wish Cousins could 53.2 his way to a few more wins for a change instead of all that 76.8 losing he does, but that's why we're here. It must have been someone elses fault. Like Bradbury and his 31.9. I don't remember him throwing any passes into the 20th row on the final play of the game, but whatever.
But I digress ... oh, and unless PFF has coaching grades that I've missed, I can't include that as one of the bad luck categories.
So here's how I'm going to do it ... I took every QB who has started at least 20 games since 2006, which happens to be exactly 100 QB's, and who doesn't like nice round numbers? For each of the categories I checked to see how many games that particular squad was below the league PFF average. The league average for just that season, to account for any inconsistencies I mentioned earlier. What inconsistencies? Well the season average pass blocking grades were as low as 64.7 in 2021 and as high as 76.2 in 2006, which means 60% of all games in 2021 would have been below the 16 year avg. 80.3% would have been below the 2006 average lol, so yeah I can't just take a 16 year avg.
With the yearly avg I get a "bad luck" percent in each category, which is just another way of saying how often a QB got stuck with garbage teammates (or went against good opponents) divided by his total number of starts. Boom! Bad luck data. That's the only way to tell them apart, because otherwise they're all the same.
Who had the worst overall luck? Place your bets and find out ... in 3-4 months depending how lazy I'm feeling. What's the hurry? The Super Bowl parade isn't until February.
Oh and it wouldn't be as much fun if we were only looking at the bad luck, so we have to spice it up a bit and see how a QB dealt with all that bad luck too, so I've included wins/losses. B-b-but it's a team sport, which is why 1/53rd of the team commands 1/8th of the salary cap, am-I-right?!
With this first installment we're going to focus on the pass blocking luck.
TGS = total starts 2006-2021
GS = starts where pass blocking was below average
LUCK = percentage of starts the pass blocking was below average
WIN% = how good/bad the QB dealt with their luck
Well, well, well you could say Cousins hasn't had much luck as far as OL's go, so score one for the Stans.
... On the other hand, he didn't deal with it all that great either **cough** Russ Wilson **cough**. The 31 QB's with worse luck combined for a .451 win% too, so what's the problem? The likes of Tannehill, Cutler, and Rex Grossman even put him to shame. T-Jack had the same win% with much worse luck for crying out loud. Whelp, must be the defense.
Going the other way, everybody and their mother has constantly ranked Derek Carr ahead of Cousins in most polls this offseason, but he's lucky his OL is looking good most days because he loses more often than Cousins when it's not. And oof what's up with Aaron Rodgers? The NFL basically allows the Packers to get away with holding, but he's barely above .500 when his OL is having a bad day grabbing opponents jersey's. Favre too? Hmmm this assignment might have inadvertently exposed the favoritism the Packers have received all these years.
Cousins year by year.
His bad luck almost seems to be getting progressively worse in this category lol.
Ooof, the Vikings have had pass blocking for awhile now (2006-2021). Way to go Rick!
Surprise surprise, when the NFL allows you to get away with holding, you get to be at the bottom of the list, like the Packers.
2021 Vikings game by game:
Only 5 games above the NFL avg of 64.7, but we also only went 3-2 in those games. Our 3 biggest wins in terms of point margin came in those games however, so too bad they didn't show up more often. It's a good thing Bradbury is still around.
There, what haven't I exposed in this project? Cousins, Zimmer, Bradbury, PFF,my bias, the NFL? And that was only the first category.
Up next, we'll find out if Cousins had better luck with Zimmers defense. Something tells me not. No wait, 2018 still exists.
Eventually we'll take a look at how all these cursed SOB's did with good luck too, and with different extremes of luck. This simply went by below average, but how often does a squad dip 33% above/below avg and how does it affect win%? Yep, I'm going to luck the brains out of this one.
*disclaimer: my color scheme (red/blue) for the charts is the opposite of PFF because they don't seem to understand how warm is associated with good (warm) and blue with bad (cold).
I'm going to do that with a little help from everyone's favorite propaganda site, no not CNN, PFF
. We're going to put the focus in pro football with this one.When the Kirkistans aren't busy pointing out the pretty boxscores after yet another disappointing loss, they're making excuses. B-b-but Bradbury has a sweaty ass, a-a-and Zimmer is ruining everything. Well maybe we can put a number on the bad luck and compare Cousins to his peers using PFF grades. The holy grail of football scoring, when its not being inconsistent.
Don't worry, I'm going to try to account for some of that inconsistency, but more on that later.I'm going to look at 5 "luck based" categories, which are how well the OL blocked for the QB, how well the receivers played, how well the QB's own defense played, how good the opposing coverage was, and finally, how often the QB had to face another QB having a good day. Cooper Rush not included because apparently he had a pretty lousy Sunday night game on Halloween according to the very focused pro football experts. They gave Cooper a 53.2 and Cousins a 76.8 in that game, but what do my 2 eyes know? I only wish Cousins could 53.2 his way to a few more wins for a change instead of all that 76.8 losing he does, but that's why we're here. It must have been someone elses fault. Like Bradbury and his 31.9. I don't remember him throwing any passes into the 20th row on the final play of the game, but whatever.
But I digress ... oh, and unless PFF has coaching grades that I've missed, I can't include that as one of the bad luck categories.
So here's how I'm going to do it ... I took every QB who has started at least 20 games since 2006, which happens to be exactly 100 QB's, and who doesn't like nice round numbers? For each of the categories I checked to see how many games that particular squad was below the league PFF average. The league average for just that season, to account for any inconsistencies I mentioned earlier. What inconsistencies? Well the season average pass blocking grades were as low as 64.7 in 2021 and as high as 76.2 in 2006, which means 60% of all games in 2021 would have been below the 16 year avg. 80.3% would have been below the 2006 average lol, so yeah I can't just take a 16 year avg.
With the yearly avg I get a "bad luck" percent in each category, which is just another way of saying how often a QB got stuck with garbage teammates (or went against good opponents) divided by his total number of starts. Boom! Bad luck data. That's the only way to tell them apart, because otherwise they're all the same.
Who had the worst overall luck? Place your bets and find out ... in 3-4 months depending how lazy I'm feeling. What's the hurry? The Super Bowl parade isn't until February.
Oh and it wouldn't be as much fun if we were only looking at the bad luck, so we have to spice it up a bit and see how a QB dealt with all that bad luck too, so I've included wins/losses. B-b-but it's a team sport, which is why 1/53rd of the team commands 1/8th of the salary cap, am-I-right?!
With this first installment we're going to focus on the pass blocking luck.
TGS = total starts 2006-2021
GS = starts where pass blocking was below average
LUCK = percentage of starts the pass blocking was below average
WIN% = how good/bad the QB dealt with their luck
Well, well, well you could say Cousins hasn't had much luck as far as OL's go, so score one for the Stans.
... On the other hand, he didn't deal with it all that great either **cough** Russ Wilson **cough**. The 31 QB's with worse luck combined for a .451 win% too, so what's the problem? The likes of Tannehill, Cutler, and Rex Grossman even put him to shame. T-Jack had the same win% with much worse luck for crying out loud. Whelp, must be the defense.Going the other way, everybody and their mother has constantly ranked Derek Carr ahead of Cousins in most polls this offseason, but he's lucky his OL is looking good most days because he loses more often than Cousins when it's not. And oof what's up with Aaron Rodgers? The NFL basically allows the Packers to get away with holding, but he's barely above .500 when his OL is having a bad day grabbing opponents jersey's. Favre too? Hmmm this assignment might have inadvertently exposed the favoritism the Packers have received all these years.
Cousins year by year.
His bad luck almost seems to be getting progressively worse in this category lol.
Ooof, the Vikings have had pass blocking for awhile now (2006-2021). Way to go Rick!
Surprise surprise, when the NFL allows you to get away with holding, you get to be at the bottom of the list, like the Packers.
2021 Vikings game by game:
Only 5 games above the NFL avg of 64.7, but we also only went 3-2 in those games. Our 3 biggest wins in terms of point margin came in those games however, so too bad they didn't show up more often. It's a good thing Bradbury is still around.
There, what haven't I exposed in this project? Cousins, Zimmer, Bradbury, PFF,
Up next, we'll find out if Cousins had better luck with Zimmers defense. Something tells me not. No wait, 2018 still exists.
Eventually we'll take a look at how all these cursed SOB's did with good luck too, and with different extremes of luck. This simply went by below average, but how often does a squad dip 33% above/below avg and how does it affect win%? Yep, I'm going to luck the brains out of this one.
*disclaimer: my color scheme (red/blue) for the charts is the opposite of PFF because they don't seem to understand how warm is associated with good (warm) and blue with bad (cold).
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ohhh I'm sorry but it appears you've confused me with someone who doesn't enjoy wasting time on data. But perhaps I wasn't clear about the goal of this project. Common arguments in defense of Cousins and his career .500 record boil down to his bad luck. Hence the title of this thread. Cousins commonly referred to as a gravitational pull toward .500, which might be an unfair characterization if he has indeed had bad luck. A poor OL, bad defense etc etc. If only Cousins could once in his career be surrounded by good teammates. So how exactly do we determine anything about his support or lack thereof if I only talk about Cousins and passing grades? Aren't passing grades a measure of a passer in a vacuum, independent of other position groups? If I want to show how good the pass blocking has been for each QB, like I did here, why would I do that with passing grades? 
