Tag Archives: Bucs

The statistical phenomenon that is DeAngelo Hall

Statistics were invented for a player like DeAngelo Hall. He isn’t that rare Shutdown Corner everybody lusts for — a Darrelle Revis or a Richard Sherman — and at going-on-31 his Pro Bowl years are probably behind him. The Redskins, strapped for cap dollars, deemed him expendable enough to release him during the 2013 offseason, though he eventually re-signed with them and played well enough to earn a four-year extension.

But Hall does have value, even if it’s declining. He may not be a great cover man, but he’s durable and — here’s where the stats come in — opportunistic. In fact, he’s the football equivalent of that guy at the beach with the metal detector. He’s always finding “loose change” by hanging around the ball. And he’s especially good at doing something with said ball once he latches onto it.

Stat No. 1: Because Hall came out of Virginia Tech early and was 20 when he played in his first NFL game, he played 143 games in his 20s. That gave him an unusual amount of time to make his statistical mark, and he took advantage of it. Consider: Since the big rule changes in 1978, the ones that turned the league into a Picnic for Passers, only one pure corner has had more picks in his 20s than DeAngelo did. The Top 10 looks like this:

MOST INTERCEPTIONS BY A CORNERBACK IN HIS 20S SINCE 1978

Seasons	Cornerback	Teams(s)	Ints
1981-88	Everson Walls	Cowboys	44
2004-13	DeAngelo Hall	Falcons, Raiders, Redskins	42
1999-07	Champ Bailey	Redskins, Broncos	42
2003-10	Asante Samuel	Patriots, Eagles	42
1992-00	Terrell Buckley	Packers, Dolphins, Broncos	38
1991-97	Aeneas Williams	Cardinals	38
1996-03	Donnie Abraham	Bucs, Jets	36
1988-95	Eric Allen	Eagles, Saints	35
1995-03	Ty Law	Patriots	35
1989-96	Deion Sanders	Falcons, 49ers, Cowboys	34

Note: Ronnie Lott (43) and Ray Buchanan (38) aren’t included because they got some of their interceptions at the safety spot (enough, at least, to take them below the cutoff of 34).

Granted, Hall has a tendency to gamble, but 42 picks are 42 picks, particularly in an era with low interception rates and a ton of one-possession games. Often, One More Takeaway can be the difference between victory and defeat. That’s what Hall, for all his flaws, gives you.

Stat No. 2: Last season Hall ran back two interceptions and one fumble for touchdowns. That brought his career totals in those categories to five and four. Only one other player in NFL history has returned at least four INTs and four fumbles for scores. Here are the 11 with 3 or more of each:

PLAYERS WITH 3 INTERCEPTION TDS AND 3 FUMBLE TDS, CAREER

Seasons	Player	Team (s)	Int TD	Fum TD
1997-12	Ronde Barber	Bucs	8	4
2004-14	DeAngelo Hall	Falcons, Raiders, Redskins	5	4
1997-11	Jason Taylor	Dolphins, Redskins, Jets	3	6
2000-09	Mike Brown	Bears, Chiefs	4	3
2000-09	Adalius Thomas	Ravens, Patriots	3	3
1991-04	Aeneas Williams	Cardinals, Rams	9	3
1988-00	Cris Dishman	Oilers, Redskins, 2 others	3	3
1989-98	Anthony Parker	Vikings, 4 others	4	3
1969-81	Bill Thompson	Broncos	3	4
1970-82	Lemar Parrish	Bengals, Redskins, Bills	4	3
1964-79	Paul Krause	Redskins, Vikings	3	3

Not a bad bunch. Williams and Krause are in the Hall of Fame, Taylor is surely headed there and I’ve never quite understood why Parrish’s eight Pro Bowls and excellence as a returner don’t merit him serious consideration. Also, did you notice that five of the 11 played at one time or another for the Redskins (for whatever that’s worth)?

Anyway, like I said, DeAngelo Hall was made for stats.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Thoughts on the Logan Mankins trade

For me, there are two surprises in the following chart. The first is that only eight rookie tight ends in NFL history have had 50 or more receptions. The second is that every one of them went in the first 40 picks of the draft except for Tim Wright, the guy the Patriots just acquired from the Bucs for six-time Pro Bowl guard Logan Mankins. Wright, who played his college ball at Rutgers, was passed over by all 32 teams a year ago.

ROOKIE TIGHT ENDS WHO HAVE CAUGHT 50 OR MORE PASSES

Year Tight End, Team	Rec	Yds	Avg	TD	Round-Pick
1988 Keith Jackson, Eagles	81	869	10.7	6	1-13
2002 Jeremy Shockey, Giants	74	894	12.1	2	1-14
1961 Mike Ditka, Bears	56	1,076	19.2	12	1-5
2008 John Carlson, Seahawks	55	627	11.4	5	2-38
1973 Charle Young, Eagles	55	854	15.5	6	1-6
1998 Cam Cleeland, Saints	54	684	12.7	6	2-40
2013 Tim Wright, Bucs	54	571	10.6	5	Undrafted
2010 Jermaine Gresham, Bengals	52	471	9.1	4	1-21

That’s right, no Rob Gronkowski (42 receptions). No Jimmy Graham (31). No Tony Gonzalez (33). No Kellen Winslow Sr. or Jr. (30 combined in their first season). No Shannon Sharpe (7). Maybe this Wright kid is better than we think. (Of course, before today, when the deal was announced, how often did he even cross our minds?)

At the every least, Wright provides low-cost Gronk Insurance in the event the all-world tight end is slow coming back from knee surgery. When No. 87 was out of the lineup last year, the Patriots’ supercharged offense seemed more like a stick shift. Wright also creates significant cap space in case the Pats want to hang onto Darrelle Revis, whose 2015 option is a gargantuan $20 million. Mankins, after all, had the Pats’ second-highest cap number after Tom Brady; Wright, meanwhile, like most undrafted free agents, subsists on gruel.

Still, trading a guard with Mankins’ resumé . . . how often has that happened? Well, I dug up one similar example back in the ’70s. (Which isn’t to say there might not be others.) I also found a couple of guards who were dealt after being voted to five Pro Bowls — and two more who were sent packing after being voted to three. The particulars, chronologically:

● Walt Sweeney, Chargers to Redskins (January 1974) — A nine-time Pro Bowler in San Diego (1964-72), Sweeney joined George Allen’s Over the Hill Gang at the age of 33. He started for two seasons in Washington before calling it a career. The Chargers received fourth-, fifth- and sixth-round picks spread over three drafts.

● Ed White, Vikings to Chargers (July 1978) — White had made three Pro Bowls in Minnesota and would make another in San Diego. Though already 31, he ended up playing eight more seasons (which Mankins might try to do just out of spite). The Vikes, in return, got Rickey Young, who caught 88 passes in his first year with them, a record for running backs (since broken).

● Joe DeLamielleure, Bills to Browns (September 1980) — Hall of Famer DeLamielleure, then 29, had been selected for five Pro Bowls in Buffalo and added a sixth in Cleveland. The Bills came away with second- and third-round picks.

● R.C. Thielemann, Falcons to Redskins (August 1985) — Atlanta needed a wideout. Washington wasn’t sold on its right guard. So the 30-year-old Thielemann, a three-time Pro Bowler with the Falcons, was swapped Charlie Brown, who was coming off an injury-marred season after tying for the NFC lead in receptions in ’83. R.C. was just a spoke in the wheel with the Redskins, but he did start on their ’87 championship team.

● Kent Hill, Los Angeles Rams to Houston Oilers (September 1986) — This was the trade, two games into the season, that enabled L.A. to obtain the rights to unsigned QB Jim Everett, the third pick in the ’86 draft (who had no desire to sit behind Canton-bound Warren Moon). Hill, part of a mega-package that included DE William Fuller and two No. 1s, was 29 and had gone to five Pro Bowls. He played that year and one more in Houston and then retired.

As for Everett, he didn’t win the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, but after moving to the Saints he did leave us with this memorable clip:

Anyway, yeah, this Mankins trade is extremely rare. I wouldn’t want to be the team that comes out on the short end of it.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, NFL.com

Those Allen boys!

A reader sent me this several years ago. He thought it was hilarious — and so do I. It’s a 1972 column written by Bill Brill, sports editor of The Roanoke Times, about the challenges faced by an old-school football coach at Langley High in affluent McLean, Va. The funniest stuff is about two of Redskins coach George Allen’s sons, Bruce (the team’s current president and general manager) and Greg, both of whom played for Langley.

They don’t write columns like this anymore. It’s amazing they wrote them even then. The headline says it all:

Rich Kids’ Coach

Langley’s ‘Bear Bryant’ vs. the Spoiled Brats

“Mrs. Allen called recently and wanted to know when practice started. I told her Aug. 14. Then she wanted to know when Bruce should be there. I told her Aug. 14.”

— Langley coach Red Stickney

Times change rapidly in football, whether college or high school.

Ravis (Red) Stickney is a throwback to the old days, although he played fullback and linebacker for Bear Bryant at Alabama in 1960.

Red Stickney just looks like a football coach. The broad shoulders, the wide head, the short hair.

He even looks like a Bear Bryant type. The old Bear Bryant type. When Red played for the Bear, football was the reason for being in college. Classes were just something that got in the way of most athletes.

Stickney coaches high school football at Langley in Fairfax County. For an old country boy with Bear Bryant tendencies, it has been a revelation.

Langley is a rich man’s school. “Even our blacks are rich,” says Stickney. “The new cars in the school parking lot belong to the kids. The old cars belong to the coaches.”

One of Stickney’s players is Jim Rehnquist. His father is the Supreme Court jurist. There also is a senator’s son and a couple of kids named Allen. Their father coaches the Redskins.

The Allen boys are an enigma. “They are good kids,” says Red, “but they sure are spoiled.”

Whatever the Allen boys want, the Allen boys get. “Greg used to show up for practice in that new Grand Prix his father gave him.”

The Allens do not always make it to practice, or to school, for that matter.

“Mrs. Allen called recently and wanted to know when practice started. I told her Aug. 14. Then she wanted to know when Bruce should be there. I told her Aug. 14.

“So she says that’s the only time the family can take a vacation, and they wanted Bruce to go with them for a couple of weeks. I told her, ‘Mrs. Allen, Bruce plays quarterback. That’s a pretty important position. He’ll have to be there Aug. 14.’

“I even offered to let Bruce live with me those two weeks.”

Bruce, the youngest of the Allen boys, is the best athlete, says Stickney. The oldest Allen, George Jr., will be a sophomore quarterback for Virginia this fall.

The other son, Greg, was Stickney’s kicker last year and a sometimes flanker. “He’s a good kicker,” says Red. “All of the Allens can kick. They go over to Redskin Park and work out with the kickers all the time.

“Greg kicked five field goals for me and didn’t miss an extra point. But he doesn’t like contact.

“We played one game last year and this 140-pound halfback ran back a kickoff against us for a touchdown. Greg just ran alongside of him. He didn’t try to make the tackle.

“He came out of the game and I wanted to kill him. I was so mad I was throwing things. He just looked at me and said, ‘Coach, I told you I didn’t like contact.'”

Stickney coached previously at Potomac High in Oxon Hill, Md. He came to Langley two years ago and inherited a situation where the school had gone 4-46 the previous five years.

“If I coached at Langley the way I did at Potomac, I would have been fired in a week. I used to work their tails off at Potomac, but you can’t do that with these kids.

“You have to have a reason for everything you do. They’re good kids and they play hard, but their favorite word is ‘Why?’ I told the squad one day we’d work some more after practice. They asked why. I said, ‘Because you haven’t got it right,’ but they wanted to know why work after practice.” . . .

For an Alabama player of the hard-nose days, it has been a real experience for Red Stickney. “I didn’t understand them when I got there, and maybe I don’t understand them now or we wouldn’t have been 5-5 last year.

“But I’m learning. It’s tough, though, when you have to go to the Supreme Court when you make a rule.”

From The Roanoke Times, July 20, 1972

Postscript: You get the feeling Stickney wasn’t long for Langley. Sure enough, he left after that season to take the job at Woodbridge (Va.) High. Two years later, he guided the team to a 12-0 record before dropping the Group AAA final to Bethel on a last-minute touchdown. (His big star was running back Russell Davis, a Parade All-American who went on to play for Michigan and the Steelers.)

When Red died in 2004 at 68, David Fawcett of VirginiaPreps.com wrote that the ’74 club “put [Prince William County] on the map for high school football.” It was “the first county team to play for a state championship” and “arguably the most talented prep team ever fielded in county history,” one that included “eight Division I players.”

As for Bruce Allen, the Redskins’ first day of training camp this year in Richmond was July 24. Their president/GM was reportedly in attendance.

James Wilder’s unbreakable(?) record

Thirty years is a long time for an NFL record to last. Eric Dickerson’s season rushing record of 2,105 yards, for instance, will turn 30 in 2014 — if the fates and Adrian Peterson permit it. (Though some might say O.J. Simpson’s 2,003 yards in 14 games in 1973, a 143.1-yard average, is a greater feat than Dickerson’s 131.6-yard average in 16 games.)

But that’s a blog for another day. The blog for this day is that Dickerson’s record, which has survived challenges from the likes of AP (2,097), Jamal Lewis (2,066), Barry Sanders (2,053), Terrell Davis (2,008) and Chris Johnson (2,006) in the past two decades, might not have as much staying power as another, less celebrated mark set in 1984: James Wilder’s 492 touches for the Bucs.

Many fans probably feel about touches the way Paul Reiser’s character felt about “nuance” in Diner: It’s not really a Football Word, not like block or tackle or sack. It’s a tad too, well, touchy-feely.

What 492 touches — in this case, 407 rushes and 85 receptions — reflect as much as anything is endurance, the ability to just take it. You’d think that would make the mark revered, this being a tough-guy game and all. But I get the feeling it’s thought of in the same vein as Joey Chestnut scarfing down 69 hot dogs at Coney Island. You just never hear football people talk about it.

Wilder did a lot with those touches, too. He finished third in the league in rushing (1,544), second in yards from scrimmage (2,229, the third-highest total in NFL history up to then) and second among running backs in receiving yards (685). It was, by any measure, a monster year. Unfortunately, his Tampa Bay team wasn’t very good — 6-10 — which helps explain, no doubt, why his accomplishment has been overlooked.

(He did have the benefit, though, of playing for John McKay, a coach who never worried much about putting mileage on his backs. McKay liked to joke that “the ball’s not heavy” — leaving out the fact that the defenders slamming into his ball carriers often were.)

To put Wilder’s season in perspective:

● His 492 touches broke Dickerson’s record, set the year before, by 51 — almost two games’ worth.

● He still holds the mark by 35.

● Only six quarterbacks that season had as many pass attempts as Wilder did touches — Dan Marino (564), Neil Lomax (560), Phil Simms (533), Steve DeBerg (509), Dan Fouts (507), Paul McDonald (493). (In pass-crazed 2013, 16 QBs did.)

Why does Wilder’s record endure — without anybody taking a serious run at it? For one thing, the game has changed. Teams run the ball less now and aren’t as likely to have one back carry as much of the load as James and his contemporaries did. Running Back by Committee is the preferred approach.

Beyond that, though, Wilder had the kind of year that virtually assured his mark would have legs — if not eternal life. Consider: His 407 rushes were an NFL record, and his 85 catches were second all time for a back. Here are the Top 5 in those departments through the ’84 season:

Year Running back, team	Rushes	Year Running back, team	Catches
1984 James Wilder, Bucs	407	1978 Rickey Young, Vikings	88
1983 Eric Dickerson, Rams	390	1984 James Wilder, Bucs	85
1984 Walter Payton, Bears	384	1983 Ted Brown, Vikings	83
1984 Eric Dickerson, Rams	379	1980 Earl Cooper, 49ers	83
1981 George Rogers, Saints	378	1979 Joe Washington, Colts	82

Finally, a chart showing the Top 5 in touches before Wilder’s career year (left) and today:

Year Running back, team	Touches	Year Running back, team	Touches
1983 Eric Dickerson, Rams	441	1984 James Wilder, Bucs	492
1979 Walter Payton, Bears	400	2006 Larry Johnson, Chiefs	457
1981 Earl Campbell, Oilers	397	2000 Eddie George, Titans	453
1981 George Rogers, Saints	394	2002 LaDainian Tomlinson, Chargers	451
1983 William Andrews, Falcons	390	2000 Edgerrin James, Colts	450

Three decades later, Wilder still has the third-most rushing attempts in a season, trailing only Johnson (416, 2006) and Jamal Anderson (410 with the ’98 Falcons). He’s also still in the Top 20 for receptions by a running back in a season (16th, with Larry Centers’ 101 for the ’95 Cardinals leading the way).

Thirty years from now, it’s entirely possible Wilder’s record will still be standing. Let’s just hope it’s a little more appreciated by then. It deserves to be.