Warrior General Games

I think Samoa only won ONE game last year. Our management is lights out.

Cheeks Pounder needs some All Pro credit. Much respect to that LB.

Originally posted by davedog32

what if a corner gets most of his tackles on special teams.

then i'd ask what the starting CB is doing on special teams. thats what backups are for.


Originally posted by tisichase
as far as im concerned, i'd rather have the guy that can create 10 turnovers and play good coverage than a guy who has caused little turnovers and played great coverage. Turnovers have won us many games.

so during the year, a guy created 10 turn overs... BUT during the same year, he got burned 10 times for TD's because he only plays decent coverage but not lock down. a lot of good those turn overs did. i can already see that my argument for a CB with low numbers but shuts his side of the field down isnt going to fly, you people are all so in love with numbers even tho for a CB its not all about stats.

become a LB if you want those stats to mean something. you think that a real team in the NFL would keep you if halfway threw the season you had 75 tackles? No, thats a hole in your defense, it means people are picking on you and gaining easy yards. those Ints and batted balls are a product of people throwing your way all the time giving you the chance.

I'm with you on this justin. Stats can be overrated especially in this case. This may turn into a difficult process. On another post someone suggested each team submitt 5 names and then vote? That maybe the best option as of right now.

I think what we need for corner stats is a stat that shows how many times your guy gave up a TD, how many yards he gave up, etc. Until then, all we can do is go off of the stats we do have. NFL teams have access to a lot more stats and know where each of a corner's tackles come from.

Teams do have to throw somewhere, too. Maybe they throw to one side of the field because the other corner is that much better, anything. It isn't always the corner's fault that he racks up stats. Until we have more stats, we can't tell why some corners are picked on more than the others.

Originally posted by MrMoose

Teams do have to throw somewhere, too. Maybe they throw to one side of the field because the other corner is that much better, anything. It isn't always the corner's fault that he racks up stats.

in that case you are correct. i will give you that, which is why i think u could make a case for Tillman, he's got about 50 some odd tackles (nothing truly overwhelming), but with that little equation i worked out earlier he's stopping about 51% of the balls thrown his way, IMO thats pretty good. so they have to throw somewhere, but when they throw to him, he's doing his job.

Originally posted by justin5745
Originally posted by davedog32


what if a corner gets most of his tackles on special teams.

then i'd ask what the starting CB is doing on special teams. thats what backups are for.


Originally posted by tisichase

as far as im concerned, i'd rather have the guy that can create 10 turnovers and play good coverage than a guy who has caused little turnovers and played great coverage. Turnovers have won us many games.

so during the year, a guy created 10 turn overs... BUT during the same year, he got burned 10 times for TD's because he only plays decent coverage but not lock down. a lot of good those turn overs did. i can already see that my argument for a CB with low numbers but shuts his side of the field down isnt going to fly, you people are all so in love with numbers even tho for a CB its not all about stats.

become a LB if you want those stats to mean something. you think that a real team in the NFL would keep you if halfway threw the season you had 75 tackles? No, thats a hole in your defense, it means people are picking on you and gaining easy yards. those Ints and batted balls are a product of people throwing your way all the time giving you the chance.

You are right on the money. At this stage of the game, the QB's in our league have enough vision to not throw the ball to a man who is completely covered. The truly best CB's have the lowest stats.

Originally posted by jjo13

You are right on the money. At this stage of the game, the QB's in our league have enough vision to not throw the ball to a man who is completely covered. The truly best CB's have the lowest stats.

Thing is, that corner with low stats could be constantly blowing assignments and giving up TDs. He could be giving up passes that his safeties are having to cover.

We really don't know WHY that corner has low stats at this point in the game. We need other numbers to know if he has low stats because he didn't get thrown to, or if he has low stats because he got thrown to, let the WR make the play but didn't tackle him after.

Originally posted by justin5745

and yes, they could come off run support or just someone you weren't covering, but every CB goes threw that so i think its pretty fair.



Not sure I agree here. It's not like all CBs play the run equally well. some CBs make many more tackles against the run than others do.
CBs that play across a weak CB are probably going to have an easier time because their opponent will be throwing on the weaker CB a lot.
CBs on teams that have poor pass coverage LBs will also make more tackles against TEs and HBs.
Zone coverage also comes into play here.
There are also numerous other good points on flaws brought up by others in this thread.

I like the effort and I think it's a good start, but there are too many variables to just look at the total number of tackles and try to go on it.

Originally posted by MrMoose

Thing is, that corner with low stats could be constantly blowing assignments and giving up TDs. He could be giving up passes that his safeties are having to cover.


just using my guy as an example... 14 tackles. if i had only 14 tackles a little over halfway threw the season BECAUSE OF constantly blowing coverage, I'd hope any self respecting GM that cared about his team would kick my ass off the team or throw me to #5 on the depth chart in a heart beat. So i cant really accept that as a good excuse.

and after looking at my runnin mate, Tee Bone, i gotta give him props. 39 tackles, 7 Ints, and 41 PD's... thats more PD's than tackles. stopping 55% of the things gone his way. and if you people wanna take a few tackles away, like it seems you all want too. it would only strengthen my case for him. lol.

So i guess it all just depends on what your looking for in a CB. i still think that as a CB its best, in any case, to have a lower amount of tackles. (if you were to show me some of you guys' stats with out knowing the position, i'd say "oh... he must be a line backer") but in certain cases, such as having more PD's than tackles, IMO is pretty impressive. its just such a hard position to judge on stats alone.

During the same time that Deion was a beast Rod Woodson was just as good... Woodson would finish 3rd or 4th on the Steelers in tackles... and Sanders would have hardly any tackles... they played the position differently....

I don't know why Sticky Ricky gives up so many catches, but I do know he gives up 5 yard catches and no TDs..... he doesn't give up big gains or TDs and he creates turnovers.... I understand why you think the guys with 15 tackles and 3 INTs are better..... but I feel like you are not giving guys who simply make plays their due....

Sticky gives up catches because they know they can't put the ball in the air for any length of time for him to make a play on it. Its just dink, dink, dink stuff. Plus it doesn't help Sticky Ricky's stats any that teams are throwing the ball from behind all season long. We could put overall passing attempts or run a targeting analysis like fantasy football and point out how often a receiver was targeted and how many times he caught the ball. Also, his opponents YAC is minuscule.

Bottom line is that he makes plays for Samoa every game. That is all that matters. Not some algorithmic football simulation's opinion of 'respect' which can be contorted by a forced gameplan by the opposing offense.

Instead of taking his ball home crying, he takes the offense's game ball home while they go home crying. I'll take that for a teammate any day.

Plus it is hard to incorporate any real football statistic. One example: When was the last time a receiver ran out of bounds in GLB. This could be interpreted into your tackling discussion any number of ways.

Originally posted by nastynate24
but I feel like you are not giving guys who simply make plays their due....

because i feel like anyone given that many chances will eventually create that many turn overs. plus the fact im a little sick of everyone drooling over the LB's, :-p i mean CB's with the high stats... i could put my guys coverage to medium and watch the Ints roll in, but i'd also be giving up unnecessary yardage to simply gain stats for my benefit.

sorry, but i just feel like you guys are just pulling and grasping at anything here now. The simple fact remains, a CB's job is to shut his receiver down, anyone with that many tackles is being picked on for a reason, he's not doing his job. 75 tackles on the year... your gonna tell me 60 of them came from run support? sorry again, but im not buying it.

also, your #1 CB doesnt always guard the #1 WR, so you cant just go back and look at the #1 WR stats for each team and say, "oh i shut him down." it wont work that way, during the course of a game, you will guard the 1, 2, and 3rd receiver. the switch off for the 1 and 2 is pretty significant too.

So if sticky gives up 5 yard catches all game the other team can move the ball at will up the field. ok, no TD's on the year against him? i have that too, while allowing almost no yards, shutting down my side, knocking down or Intercepting half the balls coming my way. i'd take 3 of those corners over any stat mongering corner any day of the year.

So lets say a team has 3 good CBs. All equally good.

Are you saying that teams are simply never going to pass on said team of awesome corners? Or are they just going to throe 30 times to the tight end who is covered by linebackers or DEs? Or maybe they'll run the ball 60 times in a game?

Like I said before, the passes have to go somewhere on the field. It just so happens that they're being thrown Sticky's way on our team.

I don't see why holding a receiver to a few yards a shot is a bad thing, either. It takes 10 yards to get a first down, after all. I'd much rather have a receiver catch a ball and be stopped immediately than have a Corner try to swat the ball, miss a tackle, and give up a big pass.

If that makes corners like Flav and Ricky worse in your mind, so be it. But when our passing D has only given up 138 yards a game this season, I'd like to think a big part of it is because all of our corners are top notch. Heck, the Gangsters D overall has only given up 200 yards total per game, with a total of 10 TDs (5 passing, 5 rushing)

How many yards have the Assassins given up through the air? How many touchdowns? Maybe if you had more linebackers playing corner, you'd have a better pass D. This isn't to say Melbourne is a bad team by any means, but there is definitely an incomplete picture being painted here. We need more stats to know who is truly the best.

I think that really the most honest evaluation of this CB discussion is this: we could easily divise stats to measure the issue of how rarely a CB gets thrown at, and how often he makes a play when the ball comes. We could also determine the breakdown of how many tackles are made in run defense as opposed to against the pass. We could use a combination of these, as well as TDs against, yards against, average YAC, and the stats we already have access to and maybe be able to paint a definitive picture of a CB.

However, to do so would require us to watch every play of every CB, and that is simply insane. So, we are forced to make do with the metrics we have, which are not many. Some interesting things may come out of the data, but for the most part I think we have to just grin and bear our reliance on the counting stats. This is especially true in view of our relative ignorance of how the game's decisions are actually made; who can say for sure why a QB throws a pass one way and not another?

I totally understand the reticence to accept tackles as a major plus for a CB; I think they should be mostly discounted. But to penalize someone for it seems pretty silly as well, especially if comparing to small-sample wonders.

I would say one ought to let the team's pass defense inform them about whether a CB's numbers are making a legitimate contribution, but then you all may call me a homer. In any event, I don't think anyone is attacking the skill of anyone else's player here. Let's try not to get personal as we discuss the MVP of internet pretend fooball.