Did Bill Belichick Make the Right Call?

INDIANAPOLIS - NOVEMBER 15: Head coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots watches play in the fourth quarter of the game against the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium on November 15, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Colts won the game 35-34. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Well, there has been a ton of discussion about whether Bill Belichick made the right call in the instant classic game between the Patriots and the Colts this past Sunday night. Because of that, I thought I’d compile a list of links to several stories (with synopses of some) to get many different takes on this. At the end, I’ll throw in my own thoughts on the call.

Tedy Bruschi’s take: It was an insult to the defense.

Gene Wojciechowski: Belichick flunked his open-book test

Mike Nadel: It’s what Belichick does.

Ron Borges: Maybe temporary insanity?

Advanced NFL Statistics: Statistically, the 4th down call made more sense.

More after the link.

A Playoff Argument for Terrell Davis being a Hall of Famer

Denver Broncos runningback Terrell Davis(30) slips the tackle attempt by Cincinnati Bengals safety Greg Meyers as he breaks into the secondary to pickup a first down during the second quarter of their game at Denver's Mile High Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 21, 1997. (AP Photo/Joe Mahoney)

Over the past couple of years, I have analyzed some of the top running backs in NFL history, both on Checking the Numbers (here) and at Behind the Steel Curtain (here and here). In each of these analyses, I have shown that, on a per game basis, Terrell Davis was one of the top RBs in NFL history. In some analyses he showed up as a top 3 player, but in all he was at least top 10. The knock on him has been that he did not play long enough for serious consideration, although for a 4 year stretch, he was every bit as good at Emmitt Smith and very close to Barry Sanders. So, as I did recently for Hines Ward, I am going to look at how Terrell Davis’s playoff numbers compare with other greats in NFL history.

Checking the Numbers: Pats-Colts Game Week 9

INDIANAPOLIS - NOVEMBER 15: Quarterback Peyton Manning #18 of the Indianapolis Colts greets Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots after the game at Lucas Oil Stadium on November 15, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Colts won the game 35-34. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

On Sunday Night Football, the New England Patriots traveled to Indianapolis to face the Colts. If Brett Favre had stayed retired, this would clearly have been the marquee game of this season. As it was, this game played out to be perhaps the most exciting finish this season. In a game where Tom Brady and the Pats appeared to be in control, a late gamble gave Peyton Manning and the Colts a short field and ultimately the 35-34 victory. Since you can get the game recaps plenty of places, here we will take a look at the teams stats and compare them with their opponents averages to this point in the season.

Checking the Atlanta Falcons Numbers Halfway Through the Season

AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser

Prior to the start of this season, I wrote a statistical analysis of the upcoming Atlanta Falcons’ schedule. Since we are now halfway through the season, I thought this would be a good time to review how they have done thus far. As always, the ultimate determination of success is wins and losses. So far, Atlanta is 5-3 on the season, and they appear to be in good shape to finally break through and have consecutive winning seasons for the first time in franchise history. That’s great news for Falcons fans, but I wanted to dig a little deeper into their performance and analyze their performances compared against their opponents’ averages so far this year. On a game by game basis, these numbers can be misleading, but as more games accumulate, I think it will be good indicator as to the quality of the team.

Do Roughing the Passer calls apply differently to Tom Brady?

In a recent interview on NFL Total Access, Joey Porter stated that different rules apply to Tom Brady when it comes to calling Roughing the Passer penalties. As the linked article says, there was some controversy over a couple of calls in the Ravens – Patriots game a few weeks. Ray Lewis complained about the calls after the game as well, and the penalty where the Ravens defender made almost no actual contact with Brady raised the most concern. So that go me thinking, is there actual evidence that Brady gets preferential treatment? Is this comment by Porter accurate?

When a guy can tell a ref when to throw a flag and he gets it and stuff like that, I mean he got his own rules

Colts or Saints? Who is the Best of the Undefeateds?

Peyton Manning (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Drew Brees (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Both ESPN.com and NFL.com have their power rankings as to where teams rank in NFL after the first 8 weeks of the regular season. Everyone that I have seen ranks the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints as the top two teams in the league, but there is some disagreement as to which should be ranked number 1. Both teams have become known for explosive passing games behind future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, who may be making his case for the Hall as well. But as I mentioned in an earlier post on the Saints, New Orleans now also has a serious rushing attack. Let’s see if the Colts have also found that kind of balance. We’ll also compare each team’s opposing offensive and defensive ranks to see what level of competition that they have faced this year.

Surprise Team of the NFL: Checking the Numbers on the Denver Broncos

Is Josh McDaniels a coaching genius? (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)

Coming into the 2009 season I, along with many others, thought that Josh McDaniels was an egomaniac who had made a huge mistake in getting rid of Jay Cutler. I know I heard at least one pundit say that the Denver Broncos’ ceiling this year was 3 or 4 wins. Well, so far, the Broncos’ are 6-0, they have the top ranked defense in points allowed (2nd in yards), Elvis Dumervil leads the league in sacks, and McDaniels is looking like a genius. In fact, Neil Paine over Pro-Football-Reference.com wrote a post showing the top season performances in Broncos’ history through the first 5 games of a season. Several players are in the top ten and several more in the top 20 in those lists.

Updated: Roethlisberger and Ward Having Historical Seasons

Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

AP Photo/Don Wright

I added a little more information about Hines Ward’s rankings that I thought was interesting.

A little over a week ago, I wrote a post showing how high Hines Ward ranks among NFL WRs in playoff yardage. So far this year, he and Ben Roethlisberger are having historic seasons in terms of passing and receiving yardage. As of the time of this writing, both are leading the league in respective passing and receiving yardage. I wrote in the previous post on Hines that he was on pace to have over 1400 receiving yards. After his game on Sunday against the Browns, he is now on pace to have nearly 1600 receiving yard this season, which would be a career high and a Pittsburgh Steelers record (currently held byYancey Thigpen with 1398 yards in a season). Ben is on pace to have over 5000 passing yards this season, which also would be a Steelers record (currently held by Terry Bradshaw with 3724 yards in a season). With two Steelers on such a historic pace, for this franchise, at least, I wanted to see how they compared with other players’ performances after the first 6 games of the season.

NFL QBs with the Best First Five Games to Their Career

Again this year, we have two rookie quarterbacks who started from game 1 of the season. Last year when Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco started, they had unprecedented success, at least in a year where there were two rookie QBs starting (not to mention rookie head coaches as well). This year, we have Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford, each starting from game 1 with rookie head coaches as well. I was curious how well Sanchez and Stafford match up against other QBs that started very early in the season. Because of this, I went to Pro-Football-Reference.com’s Player Game Finder and queried on players’ 1st 5 games of their rookie season, with greater than or equal to 80 attempts and a passer rating of 65 or above (sorted by passer rating). Here are the players that I came up with.

Andre Johnson Looking like Earl Campbell

Just a quick hit here. I’m sure most of you have seen the highlight of Andre Johnson this weekend running through 3 Cardinals defenders to score a touchdown. You can see the video on NFL.com here.  I was really impressed by his physicality there. In fact, the run reminded me a lot of that classic Earl Campbell run where Earl ran through several players on his way to endzone, ramming his helmet into one guy’s chest and then having his jersey almost ripped off before scoring. Anyway, I can’t think of many wide receivers that I’ve seen over the years that have been that physical on a play. Maybe Hines Ward.