40+ minute read on ONE game, a terrible game at that. The substack didn't know I needed. Now that it's offseason Ill be digging into these archives. Trent Green will take weeks of work breaks. Im avoiding all current events. When I take out my phone it should be restorative time not anxiety and outrage time. So that's what I do: restore myself reading about hobbies on phone esp football. This sub archive is perfect for this long offseason.
And...Im notorious at writing too much. Texts to people in my life that need a table of contents. Comments on substack articles that require an index. This is the sub for me!
I didn't realize Herm was that bad at offense. You've been exposing Defensive Head coaches of the past and how they held football back in a big way. I love running the ball but 44% of early down runs go for -1,0,2, or 3 yards. This is outside the redzone, optimal conditions. The rarer 10-30+ yard runs skew things to make a 4-5 YPC look great. But in real time, 1st and 2nd down runs lead to 3rd and 7, Or worse. Your QB has to be so good just to keep offense on field with all those wasted downs waiting for the 20+ yard run to happen. I saw the Jets play live in Herm era. It was all crushingly blocked and stuffed Curtis Martin runs. I was low so it was just a blur of pulling guards and train wrecks. I can't remember a single big run. Jets lost.
This is absolutely not ever going to be a publication for general consumption. I'm not a person for general consumption, because of pretty much the exact reason that you said. Why say in 30 words what can be said in 300? So much is lost about the story in the cut from hundreds of words down to tens of them, and I've never been a fan of that. Regretfully, the average person just isn't going to read 40+ minutes, so relative to the quality of my content, I'm always going to be small in terms of the weight of my following.
Contemplating and accepting this reality has given me the freedom to write things like this. Write things like Trent Green. Things that will really connect to the ardent football fan, and almost nobody else, but that's okay in this circumstance, because my writing style (using a lot of detail, almost exclusively about the past) speaks only to ardent football fans anyway. This means that I'm free to cater to the hardcore fan, or just fans who REALLY like good football stories, and I think I do both very well.
This leaves me in a unique position of being able to make really good stuff, about topics that nobody else will touch, because they don't bring the audience. Keep doing this for long enough, and it brings me into contact with the ardent football fans that I'm looking for, such as yourself.
Thank you very much for the compliment, and I sincerely hope you enjoy all that you find the time to dig into in the archives. I've also been looking forward to the offseason. It frees me up to talk about more off the wall things, like this game right here. Someday, I hope to see you in my comments section with those indexed comments.
That's the kind of follow up discussion that a man who writes 10000 word essays on the regular dreams about!
Yep; the comment to my comment that makes me enjoy the entire phone break by reading it. I have a side project of a YT channel sharing old games so others can watch and download. "Condensed" - just snap to whistle. You could timestamp for your readers to see plays you're talking about. Ive gotten verbose in the comments lol.
Ill be adding 2017-however recent they allow without blocking after the draft. 2017 used to be the limit. I watch CFB only from now until draft. Then classic NFL time.
I came to say a lot of the same things. I love long articles like this that go into the details but never get boring. (Not boring to me anyway. It's possible someone without my love of football would feel differently.) This substack could be very dangerous. I have a ton of work to do and yet I'm very tempted to dig through the archives.
If you loved this article, there is plenty in the archive that would interest you greatly, and it would make me very happy if you went through it, and found everything that interested you. Although, I also understand that my stuff takes a lot of time, and can be tough to put down sometimes (I spend far too much time reading my own archives. I love this stuff). I never begrudge anybody for not reading something I've written, because it's a big investment of time to get into something in the Sports Passion Project style. For instance, in December, when people are presumably short on time, my open rates cratered. That sucks for me of course, but it's not as if I don't understand what's going on.
In sum, I greatly encourage you to look through the archive. There is stuff in there that is worth your time, but I won't take offence if you choose not to spend your time on me LOL.
I don't think you realise how big of a project it takes in order to answer that question accurately. One day, I may take that project on, but the simple answer is I don't know right now. From the Raiders' end, it's one of the worst ever, but from the Vikings' end, they didn't play that bad to tell the truth. Once they switched QBs in that game, they were a positive EPA team, so it's not near the worst. Quite bad, but not even as bad as Ravens-Rams in 2003, for example, and that's a game that ended with a 33-23 score, if I remember correctly.
Seems like you're all about EPA. But how those pure ugly games of stuffed runs and 40% completion rates? Negative EPA is going to "reward" turnovers and I guess that's a bit more interesting and funny to write about.
Im looking at Testaverde's career and it's pretty mediocre most of the time. When a bad QB can't hold up his end of a run first offense, even with good defense keeping him from 14 point deficits. Parcells and Herm just loved him.
Vinny was awesome in 1996 and 1998, and replaceable for all of the rest of his career. It's shocking to me that he stayed around so long, but there is a modern allegory in Alex Smith, who is basically a younger version of Vinny's exact same career, being fantastic in 2012 and 2017, but being really replaceable the rest of the time.
I think what you're talking about is a different definition of the worst offensive game of all time, which would be the one with the fewest successful offensive plays, instead of the lowest combined total EPA like I've defined in this article. There are not counts for this anywhere. They would have to be done by me, manually, but honestly that sounds like an interesting enough project that I would be willing to do it.
Im loving this article and Im in 3rd quarter. Its the Jets vs the Jets so far. Panthers are just kinda there to punt it to them and wait for NYJ to give it back near the endzone. Herm Edwards is ultra conservative but this game alone with Intercepted swing passes is enough to traumatize a then younger Herm into insisting his o coordinator call nothing but Power, Counter, inside ane outside zone runs 40x a game. Run playbooks were more diverse for defensive head coaches I assume. If you're herm u probably want the whole playbook to be a brochure because they suck at executing lets make shit simple....can you handle 5 runs and 5 pass plays today? How about no passes?
Funniest part: Vinny T is beloved by parcells and herm Edwards. Two pass averse D coaches. Vinny led the league in INTs 3 times.
40+ minute read on ONE game, a terrible game at that. The substack didn't know I needed. Now that it's offseason Ill be digging into these archives. Trent Green will take weeks of work breaks. Im avoiding all current events. When I take out my phone it should be restorative time not anxiety and outrage time. So that's what I do: restore myself reading about hobbies on phone esp football. This sub archive is perfect for this long offseason.
And...Im notorious at writing too much. Texts to people in my life that need a table of contents. Comments on substack articles that require an index. This is the sub for me!
I didn't realize Herm was that bad at offense. You've been exposing Defensive Head coaches of the past and how they held football back in a big way. I love running the ball but 44% of early down runs go for -1,0,2, or 3 yards. This is outside the redzone, optimal conditions. The rarer 10-30+ yard runs skew things to make a 4-5 YPC look great. But in real time, 1st and 2nd down runs lead to 3rd and 7, Or worse. Your QB has to be so good just to keep offense on field with all those wasted downs waiting for the 20+ yard run to happen. I saw the Jets play live in Herm era. It was all crushingly blocked and stuffed Curtis Martin runs. I was low so it was just a blur of pulling guards and train wrecks. I can't remember a single big run. Jets lost.
Thank you very much my friend!
This is absolutely not ever going to be a publication for general consumption. I'm not a person for general consumption, because of pretty much the exact reason that you said. Why say in 30 words what can be said in 300? So much is lost about the story in the cut from hundreds of words down to tens of them, and I've never been a fan of that. Regretfully, the average person just isn't going to read 40+ minutes, so relative to the quality of my content, I'm always going to be small in terms of the weight of my following.
Contemplating and accepting this reality has given me the freedom to write things like this. Write things like Trent Green. Things that will really connect to the ardent football fan, and almost nobody else, but that's okay in this circumstance, because my writing style (using a lot of detail, almost exclusively about the past) speaks only to ardent football fans anyway. This means that I'm free to cater to the hardcore fan, or just fans who REALLY like good football stories, and I think I do both very well.
This leaves me in a unique position of being able to make really good stuff, about topics that nobody else will touch, because they don't bring the audience. Keep doing this for long enough, and it brings me into contact with the ardent football fans that I'm looking for, such as yourself.
Thank you very much for the compliment, and I sincerely hope you enjoy all that you find the time to dig into in the archives. I've also been looking forward to the offseason. It frees me up to talk about more off the wall things, like this game right here. Someday, I hope to see you in my comments section with those indexed comments.
That's the kind of follow up discussion that a man who writes 10000 word essays on the regular dreams about!
Yep; the comment to my comment that makes me enjoy the entire phone break by reading it. I have a side project of a YT channel sharing old games so others can watch and download. "Condensed" - just snap to whistle. You could timestamp for your readers to see plays you're talking about. Ive gotten verbose in the comments lol.
Ill be adding 2017-however recent they allow without blocking after the draft. 2017 used to be the limit. I watch CFB only from now until draft. Then classic NFL time.
https://youtube.com/@walterwhitefootballsharing?si=rdHSkWAn9Ic3NOg1
Interesting side project my friend. If I'm ever between 2012-2016, I may take you up on that offer.
I came to say a lot of the same things. I love long articles like this that go into the details but never get boring. (Not boring to me anyway. It's possible someone without my love of football would feel differently.) This substack could be very dangerous. I have a ton of work to do and yet I'm very tempted to dig through the archives.
I feel I have misaligned incentives then LOL.
If you loved this article, there is plenty in the archive that would interest you greatly, and it would make me very happy if you went through it, and found everything that interested you. Although, I also understand that my stuff takes a lot of time, and can be tough to put down sometimes (I spend far too much time reading my own archives. I love this stuff). I never begrudge anybody for not reading something I've written, because it's a big investment of time to get into something in the Sports Passion Project style. For instance, in December, when people are presumably short on time, my open rates cratered. That sucks for me of course, but it's not as if I don't understand what's going on.
In sum, I greatly encourage you to look through the archive. There is stuff in there that is worth your time, but I won't take offence if you choose not to spend your time on me LOL.
Oh I will be reading them. I read really fast, so it's not as big an investment in time as it might be.
Where would you rank that Vikings-Raiders 2023 game among the worst offensive games in history?
I don't think you realise how big of a project it takes in order to answer that question accurately. One day, I may take that project on, but the simple answer is I don't know right now. From the Raiders' end, it's one of the worst ever, but from the Vikings' end, they didn't play that bad to tell the truth. Once they switched QBs in that game, they were a positive EPA team, so it's not near the worst. Quite bad, but not even as bad as Ravens-Rams in 2003, for example, and that's a game that ended with a 33-23 score, if I remember correctly.
Seems like you're all about EPA. But how those pure ugly games of stuffed runs and 40% completion rates? Negative EPA is going to "reward" turnovers and I guess that's a bit more interesting and funny to write about.
Im looking at Testaverde's career and it's pretty mediocre most of the time. When a bad QB can't hold up his end of a run first offense, even with good defense keeping him from 14 point deficits. Parcells and Herm just loved him.
Vinny was awesome in 1996 and 1998, and replaceable for all of the rest of his career. It's shocking to me that he stayed around so long, but there is a modern allegory in Alex Smith, who is basically a younger version of Vinny's exact same career, being fantastic in 2012 and 2017, but being really replaceable the rest of the time.
I think what you're talking about is a different definition of the worst offensive game of all time, which would be the one with the fewest successful offensive plays, instead of the lowest combined total EPA like I've defined in this article. There are not counts for this anywhere. They would have to be done by me, manually, but honestly that sounds like an interesting enough project that I would be willing to do it.
Im loving this article and Im in 3rd quarter. Its the Jets vs the Jets so far. Panthers are just kinda there to punt it to them and wait for NYJ to give it back near the endzone. Herm Edwards is ultra conservative but this game alone with Intercepted swing passes is enough to traumatize a then younger Herm into insisting his o coordinator call nothing but Power, Counter, inside ane outside zone runs 40x a game. Run playbooks were more diverse for defensive head coaches I assume. If you're herm u probably want the whole playbook to be a brochure because they suck at executing lets make shit simple....can you handle 5 runs and 5 pass plays today? How about no passes?
Funniest part: Vinny T is beloved by parcells and herm Edwards. Two pass averse D coaches. Vinny led the league in INTs 3 times.