Fallout from my Kerry Collins column and more....

Welcome Back to Touchdowns and Kicks with  Jimmy G.

As promised, it is mailbag time. But before I get to the mailbag, I need to address my posting from 10 days ago.

The major questions I got in the last few days was regarding my ‘Kerry Collins column’. You can reread it here:

http://www.team990.com/blog/view/article/in_praise_of_a_very_underrated_qb_plus_week_10_predictions/

Most of the emails I recieved sounded a lot like this.

Christos Sougroudis "Wow. I never knew that Kerry Collins was a clutch passer. Why haven’t I heard about this in the media?"

David Wilhelm "Kerry Collins has more 4th quarter comebacks than Brett Favre since 2001? How’d that happen? I think I’ll pay more attention to Kerry Collins from now on"

Those were among the good comments. There were also those who criticized my methodology in judging clutch quarterbacks, Matthew Da Silva of Montreal having the email that really brought the point home.

Matthew wrote "Hey jimmy! awesome blog for week 10, I gotta say those are some awesome numbers but...like all things statistical there’s more than one way to look at it. Couldnt we say that the reason Manning or Brady aren’t at the top of those tables is because they dont have to be there. If the Pats or the Colts are winning by 14 or 21 points by the 4th quarter, you dont need to run up the score and you dont need to march them down field to add to your clutch statistics. So wouldn’t that blow Collins out of the water when it comes to being compared to the best in the league? Or is Collins simply a great QB on a horrible team?(a team which is demanded to win in the 4th quarter as they cant build up or protect a lead until then)"

Well I got to tell you that Matthew brought up some very good points. Kerry Collins would, in theory get more chances at producing a game winning drive in the 4th quarter than a Tom Brady or a Peyton Manning because his Giants (‘01-‘03) Raiders (‘04-‘05) and Titans (‘06-now) were teams that did not build up solid leads like the Pats and Colts, for example.

That is why I included the yardage stats: how many yards, on average, does a quarterback take his team down the field to get the winning points? True, as Matthew emailed me after receiving my response, the yardage stat is not the be all and end all but it is an indicator nevertheless.

For all the emailers who have problems with my methodology, have no fear. I’ll be making adjustments to the numbers to give the readers a better, more efficient formula to judge QB's in the clutch.

It’s Mailbag Time

Tom Charalabous from Park Ex has a question. "Hi Jimmy, wondeful stuff every week. You’ve been writing about MVP candidates the last few weeks and as a Dolphins fan I’d like to know if Chad Pennington has any chance at the award?"

Great question Tom! I have made it clear that I am not a Chad Pennington fan. I agree with Keyshawn Johnson of ESPN when he says ‘the girl who delivers my newspaper has a better arm than Chad Pennington." Harsh words but unfortunately true.

However, your question is a serious one and I will use numbers to indicate that yes, Chad deserves a long look by voters.

Miami’s starting quarterbacks through week 9 of the 2007 season were a combined 0-9 (Trent Green 0-5, Cleo Lemon 0-4) with 166 completions in 280 attempts for 1759 yards, 8 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Quarterback rating: 72.31

In 2008, with Chad in command, the numbers skyrocket off the page.

5-4 record (huge improvement of 5 games)

185 of 278 for 2200 yards, 8 touchdowns and 5 interceptions.

Quarterback rating: 92.62

Check it out: with almost the same amount of passes thrown Chad has thrown for an extra 441 yards and half as many interceptions. With a rating differential of 20.3 on the plus side.

Daniel from Cote Des Neiges is a Bengals fan. "Jimmy, should the Bengals bother to bring Carson Palmer back this year. I would prefer he rest his elbow and be as good as new for 2009. We’re not going to win more than two games anyways regardless of who the QB is."

I couldn’t agree with you more. The Bengals will perform a much needed housecleaning in early January. Marvin Lewis. Gone. Chad Johnson. Gone. Much of the coaching staff will be let go. Why do I get the distinct impression that Bill Cowher will be the next Bengals head coach? Perhaps it is the rumors coming out of CBS.

As for Carson Palmer specifically, he wasn’t playing any better than his backup Ryan Fitzpatrick anyways.

Carson Palmer 4 starts, all losses, 68.98 QB rating

Ryan Fitzpatrick, 5 starts, one win, 66.57 QB rating

However, the one stat that jumps out at you when looking at Fitzpatrick, aside from the fact that he is at best a journeyman, is his 4.75 yards per pass attempt, which is a full two yards less than the league average.

The Bengals would be best served to just let Palmer sit out the remainder of the 2008 season.

Cowboy fan Daniel from Dollard asks "If the Cowboys lose to the Skins Sunday night, will Wade Phillips be fired?"

Simple question. Simple answer. Wade Phillips does not get fired....for now.

If the Cowboys are going to make the playoffs, they simply must beat the Redskins. A loss will put them at 5-5, two games back of the 7-3 Skins without the tiebreaker (Skins sweep). The division crown is already a distant memory. It wouldn’t be impossible to recover, but the Cowboys would be aiming very low, at the second wild card spot and nothing better.

Wade Phillips will be fired at the end of the season unless Dallas reaches the Super Bowl. Given Dallas’ chances right now, I’d say that’s a fair bet.

Frank in Outremont wants to know about his Chargers. "If the Chargers lose to the Steelers they drop to 4-6. Would they be done at this point, especially if the Broncos beat the Falcons to got 6-4. Thanks to Ed Hochuli, we lost to the Broncos when we should have beaten them in week 3."

No Frank, a loss to the Steelers will not eliminate the Chargers. Face facts, the Broncos are a paper tiger who have no running game (Pittman 320 yards, Selvyn Young 268) and no run defense (3rd worst in football)

Looking at Denver’s schedule, I see only two ‘easy games’: at home against the Chiefs and theRaiders.

Considering the fact the Broncos have already lose to KC (KC’s only win) and the Raiders always play them tough (opening Monday night 41-14 massacre notwithstanding) the chances are very good that 8-8 might get the AFC West winner in the playoffs.

On to the MUST WIN TEAMS for Week 11

Week 8: 4 of the 5 teams that needed to win did just that.

Week 9: only 1 of the 4 teams on the list won..

Week 10: only 1 of the 4 teams on the list won.

Who is on this week’s MUST WIN LIST?

SAINTS (4-5)

EAGLES (5-4)

DALLAS (5-4)

JAGUARS (4-5)

SEAHAWKS (2-7)

On to my predictions for Week 11. Last week I was 9-4, bringing my 2008 totals to 87-54, good for a 61.7% success rate. My 2007 success rate? 62.9%. I have some work to do to catch up. 

Colts over Texans: Has anyone noticed that Peyton Manning has four game winning drives thus far in 2008? Considering that the Colts are 5-4, the question becomes: if Peyton weren’t the QB, would the Colts even be sniffing the playoffs? Colts win to get to 6-4.

Eagles over Bengals: Must win for the Eagles. If they cannot beat the 1-8 Bengals, even if Cincy has had a week to prepare, how can they be considered a playoff team. Remember however, i wrote the same thing about the Jags two weeks ago. There was no way the 3-4 Jags were going to lose to the then 0-8 Bengals! How’d that work out for Jacksonville?

Bears over Packers: The biggest game of Aaron Rodgers’ career. A loss would put the Pack at 4-6 with no chance at the wild card and two games back of the Bears for the division crown. Not to put too much pressure on Aaron, but Brett Favre and the Jets are 7-3.

Falcons over Broncos: Broncos cannot stop the run and they cannot run the ball. They are the epitome of a soft team that depends on their QB to throw them out of trouble. It’s good for Denver that they play in the AFC West.

Dolphins over Raiders: Chad Pennington will continue to put up good numbers to advance his MVP case, and more importantly, Miami will get to 6-4 to tie the Patriots and Bills, who will also be 6-4 because....

Bills over Browns: It’s over for Cleveland. Last week they desperately needed a win to stay alive in the wild card race. Things were going very well, they had a 10 point lead entering the 4th quarter...you know the rest. The Bills were 5-1 at one point with three division games scheduled. Winning two of three would have almost guaranteed a playoff spot. One out of three would have been good as well. Instead, they were shut out in the win column to drop to 5-4.

Carolina over Detroit: It’s time for Rod Marinelli to put Drew Stanton in the line of fire to see what he’s got. Going with Daunte Culpepper is the equivalent of wasting Stanton’s development. Seriously, is there anything left to lose? The Lions are already 0-9.

Saints over Chiefs: Saints are two games out of a wild card spot. A loss here and the only thing they’ll be playing for is Drew Brees’ stats.

Seahawks over Cardinals: Don’t laugh when I place the Seahawks in the must win column. True they are 2-7 but they get to play division leader Arizona twice. Needless to say, Seattle needs to go undefeated the rest of the way to get to the post season. They won’t, but they won’t lose here either.

Steelers over Chargers

Bucs over Vikings

Jaguars over Titans

Giants over Ravens

Redskins over Cowboys

That’s it for me. I’ll be back next week. You can email me, as always, at jimmy.garoufalis@team990.com