August 4, 2022 • 29 mins
John Schmeelk talks to Pro Football Focus Data Scientist Eric Eager to analyze the statistics on roster building, quarterback pressure, and the newest data that could help the Giants. SUBSCRIBE NOW: [Apple](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/giants-huddle-new-york-giants/id1457847008) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/0tplKEwbeQKWk7iqskbKQu) | [Google](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9uZmxnaWFudHMuY2FjaGVmbHkubmV0L2NvbnRlbnQvZ2lhbnRzL3Byb2R1Y3Rpb24vZ2lhbnRzLWh1ZGRsZS1nb29nbGUtcG9kY2FzdHMueG1s?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwiYhp7_-ZvwAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQCA) | [Stitcher](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/new-york-giants/big-blue-huddle-new-york-giants) | [iHeartRadio](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-giants-huddle-new-york-gia-79840354/) 0:56 - Data on Brian Daboll 6:14 - Daniel Jones as a runner 10:28 - Stats on QB pressure 16:20 - Most efficient way to build a team 22:29 - Important new NFL data points
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Giants Training Camp two is presented by four, the official
SUV of the New York Giants. It's time to get
inside the Giants huddle on Giants dot Com. Here we go,
Here we go on the Giants Let him lest the
Giants Podcast Network. Welcome to the news edition of the
Giant Huttle Podcast. My name is John Schmilk. This is
gonna be our usual annual summer look at some of
(00:22):
the most recent analytics in the NFL. Usually it's George
chock Brewery that joins us, but today it's gonna be
his colleague over a Pro Football Focus that is your
chief data scientist. He's head of R and D DR
Eric Eager. Eric. Good to have you on the show.
I think we've had every other of the PFF guys
on this show over the years, but we finally have
in you. How are you man? It's good. I know
George has become so big time that I've had to
(00:44):
take some of his media away from him. But it's
really good to chat with you, and I I'm excited
about a Giants offseason that has been uh, profoundly functional. Yes,
let's let's talk about it. So also, there a basic
question why should Giant fans be excited when you look
at the data about Brian Dable coming in to be
(01:04):
the head coach. Well, I think it's unmistakable as far
as you know, how good that Buffalo offense has been, Um,
you know, one of the most efficient in the league.
Despite the fact that that's you know that they you know,
the Buffalo Uh, you know, weather is the worst in
the NFL as far as like you know, temperature and
wind and stuff, and they're still able to be a
high power team. Um, you know, they have three playoff
(01:27):
victories the last two years. Josh Allen went from a
quarterback that I think many people believed was on the
route to being a bus to being you know, an
m VP candidate and a max contract type of player.
You know, you add all of that, and then I
think it's the delta over what they had. And you know,
Joe Judge was an an unconventional candidate and unconventional signing,
(01:48):
and you know, Jason Garrett was his offensive coordinator, and
it just wasn't about. It just wasn't working right. And
and not only did it not work, at some point
it ceased having a chance. And so you know, with
with Dable. You go from one of the most functional
franchise in the NFL, in my opinion, the Buffalo Bills,
you come to the Giants, and I think they're just
(02:09):
gonna be a level of competence that that Giants fans
have not been used to for the past few years.
What is it about the way Buffalo's offense function and
the way Dable cold plays and we don't know who's
gonna cold plays this year. Combined that with Mike Catholic
coming home from Kansas City again one of the best
offenses in the legue over the past few years, Why
should how one of those guys do. Specifically when you
(02:30):
look at the data that you think could maximize some
of the things that Giants have on their roster, Yeah,
they really get the most other offensive line, both of
those guys. So Kansas City last year had the highest
rate of perfectly blocked runs. And it's not necessarily because
they have the greatest offensive lineman in the world, but
just because they negotiate box counts so well that they
(02:51):
leave good matchups for their offensive line. And Buffalo is
the same way. Their offensive line struggled some last year
in terms of matchups, but they ran the RPO even
such a way where once you folded in the r
p O s, they had basically a league average run game,
which I think most people would say, oh, they were
so terrible running the ball, But if you count the
players where Josh Allen pulled the ball out and through it,
(03:12):
they were pretty good. So you know, when you look
at the Giants, Daniel Jones, you know, one of the
more effective rushers of the football at the QB position,
you know, hailed for his accuracy at times at duke
and things like that, and has at times been more effective.
Then I think that the statistics suggest or that the
playing level statistics grades have been Okay, you look at
(03:34):
the playmakers they have with Kadarius Tony Um, you know,
see Kwon Barkley, h Kenny Golladay more of like a
contested ball kind of player. But still, you know, one
thousand yeard receiver in this league. You know, you add
and you know Andrew Thomas was terrific last year. You
add a quantity to the mix and or sorry, Evan
Neal to the mix. And I think that there are
(03:55):
the components of a good offense, and I think that
there are some cheek codes that Daviel put into the
system to actually, you know, unleashed an offense that has
been putrid for the most part since uh, you know,
the Joe Judge Arra started and you don't even go
back before that. Eric, It's been it's been a rough
few years here for the Giants offense. So I want
to dig into a bunch of stuff you talked about that.
(04:16):
Let's what the offensive line first, because I think Giant
fans finally think they're on their way, maybe not there yet,
but on their way to solving the offensive line issue,
which has been an issue since Evan Neo Andrew Thomas
back to back first round picks. You bring in a
couple of events, Mark Lensky, John Feliciano Inside, are you
a believer in the just get to average mentality where
(04:37):
if you can just be fine on the offensive line
as long as you have the weapons, you're good. Where
do you land in terms of how much you have
to invest in the offensive line for your offense to
function at a high level. Yeah, I think so. I think, Um,
the get back the average thing is, I think, you know,
plain mathematical thing. It's like, if you you know, Andrew
(04:58):
Thomas going from being uh terrible as a rookie too
pretty good as a as a sophomore is gonna be
way more important to this team than him going from
very good as a sophomore to a Pro Bowl player
as as a third year player. UM, Evan Neil being
an average offensive tackle in year one is gonna matter
so much more to this team than him becoming great
(05:18):
in future years. Like you want your weakest links on
the offensive line becoming better is almost always better than
your good players becoming amazing. And that that's just a
mathematical fact of life. Um. And so you know the
Giants here, you know when they you know, they took
high draft picks to acquire their tackles. And I like
that because it costs a lot of money. That's the
(05:39):
Kansas City Chiefs found out with Orlando Brown that negotiation.
Kind of a guy who's the seven out of ten
as a tackle wanted ten out of ten money. It's
really hard. It's you know, to sign tackles. It's fairly
easy to sign centers and guards. And so when you
can sort of get on the green at the guard
position using your money, that is a positive thing. And
the and the Giants have done that, and I think,
(05:59):
you know, they're not going to remind anybody of like
the middle of the ninety nineties Dallas Cowboys on the
offensive line. But I think that they will be good
enough if if Daniel Jones is is, you know, takes
a step forward under dable, they're gonna be good enough
not to ruin that. We're joined by head of R
and D for Pro Football Focus Riki are also ahead
of the PF Forecast podcast Go check it out. Or
(06:21):
You talked about Daniel Jones being a runner, and I
think Giant fans agree that, yeah, he's an effective runner.
Then they say, oh no, we don't want him to
be hurt all the time, which has also been a problem.
Does the data show that the more reps you give
a quarterback running the ball, the greater the chance of injury,
because I do think there's some more danger in the pocket.
Sometimes guys get legs, rolled, angles, roll the rolled stuff
(06:42):
like that. What does the data show in terms of
usage as a runner, in terms of keeping quarterbacks healthy? Yeah,
there's always that that that sort of and I know
he wasn't he was in the division with the Giants,
but like when rich Co Tite told Randall Cunningham to
stay in the pocket and he got injured in the
pocket all the time, and he's like, you know why
when I ran, I could I could sort of keep
these things at bay. Um we've seen Lamar Jackson, you
(07:03):
know that it has pushed the envelope. Has been the
most uh you know, designed runner in football we've ever seen.
And last year it's sort of fell off because you know,
of injuries and things like that. So there is that risk.
There haven't been that many running quarterbacks UM, and the
data is pretty scarce at the levels. UM. You know that,
(07:24):
then maybe Daniel Jones wants to run because you have
you know, for every Lamar Jackson, there's a Josh Allen
who never gets hurt, right, and there's a Patrick Mahomes
who never gets hurt or a Steve Young that rarely
got hurt for San Francisco. So it's I think the
question that I think Giants fans have to ask is
if if you're not getting extracting all the value out
(07:46):
of Daniel Jones now, what are you saving him for? Um?
And so I think you want to extract all the
value out of him now and if he struggles then
of course you're gonna move on. If he gets hurt,
you're gonna move on. And if he plays great, then
you have a good off himself. Yeah, And I feel
like over there at PFF, and I've talked to a
bunch of the guys, it's kind of split on where
they land on Daniel Jones, Right, it was a lot
(08:07):
of his PF grades are better than some of his
traditional production numbers over the last couple of years. Where
do you land looking at his career so far, his trajectory,
what's been around him, some of the data. Do you
think he has a good chance of earning a long
term deal this year or do you think there's a
long way to go. I think there's a long way
to go, just because the bar for what constant. So
(08:29):
we've seen this before, right, Like Kyler Murray gave the
Cardinals no no discounts really, right, that was a forty five,
forty six and point one million dollars per year deal.
You generally speaking, it's an honor offs which as to
whether or not that guy gets contract. Baker Mayfield, you know,
was kind of at that bar last year and then
(08:50):
had a terrible season and now you know, he's he's
not gonna make that much money. He's not gonna make
twenty million here. Um. So there's a huge chasm between
you know, the guys like Kyler Murray, the guys like
you know mahomes Allen uh Dak Prescott even who did
get a franchise tag, and you know guys like Jamis Winston, Um,
(09:11):
guys like Mitch Dubinsky, guys who are drafted high who
didn't work out. There isn't like a middle class quarterback
contract because there's sort a lot of guys making between
twenty and thirty five millions. Yeah. There because it's so
cheap to go back into the draft and just draft
the next guy. Right. The Jets fail on Donald, they
go get Zack Wilson. The Cardinals fail on Rosen, they
go back and get Kyler Murray. It's it's not you know,
(09:33):
long gone or the days of you know what paid
or Eli Manning costs the Giants to be their first
pick um, you know, Sam Bradford for the Rams. That's
not it's not a huge investment anymore to draft a
quarterback high money wise the way they used to be.
So teams are willing to do it and they're willing
to discard, uh, you know, the Daniel Jones is in
the world. I think the best case scenario for Daniel
(09:54):
Jones is for him to play well um and and
to eventually you know, sort of earned the earn the
tag um and if and if that happens, then they
can go back to the table and might cost the
Giants more money if they're wrong about him, but I
think they gladly pay the fifty million it's gonna end
up being if he becomes an elite quarterback. Don't miss
your chance to experience a premier hospitality experience watching Giants
(10:15):
games world class concerts in two as a Giant Sweet partner.
Limited full season locations are available or plays a deposit
for individual games called n y his giants dot com
slash suites for more information. What are the things Giant fans,
aside from the basic stats that they know to look
for Eric, that you think they should be keeping an
eye on, whether it's your guys specific metrics or something
(10:37):
else that you like to watch. Where you're seeing the progress,
where you know what we're willing to do one more
year with Daniel on the tag and see where he's at.
Where do you look for the most improvement in the
air as he needs to get better at That might
give giant fans, you know, confidence, that's all right, Let's
give one more year and see where we're at. I
think for him it's not even. And this is where
(10:57):
a lot of folks were, you know, credit called PFF
because we didn't great him as well as a rookie,
even though he had great numbers twenty four touchdown swell picks. Um.
But where I would look is you know what percentage
of pressures are turning into sacks? Two thousand and twenty
that number was last year. Is a little bit better
at six? Um? You know how often is he taking sacks?
(11:21):
Often is he taking pressure? Because pressure is generally speaking,
half a quarterback stat and half a quarterback stat a
half a offensive line stat. So is he taking less pressure?
Is he converting few of those fewer of those pressures
into sacks? Um? When he scrambles, you know what what
is his you know? Is he is he scrambling to
(11:42):
gain yardage or is he scrambling to get hurt? You
know that kind of thing? Um. And the other one,
which this one is the one that fell off, is
after a season where he was pretty good. You know,
it's seventeen turnover worthy plays and twenty four what we
call big time throws. He regrets last year seven big
time throws, twelve turnover worthy plays. Um, a lot of
those are fumbles in the pocket. He actually got better
(12:02):
at that last year. He was terrible in his first
couple of years. But it's it's all about for me.
It's not even the throwing necessarily, it's more the how's
he doing with pressure? Is it? Can he is? Can
he be effective at not getting sacks of pressure? And
then can he be can he not fumble the ball
in the pocket? Because those are drive killers that I
(12:23):
don't think that the Giants can can really put up with.
But you look at things like yards pert tempt and
stuff like that. I mean, the first, you know, five
games of the season, he's seven and a half yards
per tempt, ten point one yards per tempt, seven point six,
seven point eight, seven point two. All of those are
more than passible at the NFL level. Yeah, and look,
I think I think you hit it right. He's done
a good job of reducing the turnovers, but the big
(12:45):
plays have gone down with that, and even more dramatically.
Gotta get the big plays back up a little bit,
but keep the keep the negative plays down. One other
thing on the offense, Erk I want to ask him,
is I know, as of a few years ago, there's
a big corollary where teams that use more pre step
motion tended to be more active, you know, expected added
points stuff like that. Has that stuck or a defensive
(13:05):
figured out a little bit more how to deal with
some of that pre snap motion. Is there as much
of a corell area anymore? No, it's there. I mean
the things now it's it's pre snap motion, it's you know,
it's play action. R p os are a little bit
interesting because I do think that the league is sort
of finding out you're just not seeing linebackers move as much.
So r pos are nowhere close to as effective um
(13:27):
as before. But yeah, I think, um, you know, it's
it's all those things pushing the easy buttons. The other
one is box count negotiation. When if you have sae
Quon Barkley in the backfield, can you play for wide
receivers and still block up the run play? Because I
think if Barkley is one on one with linebackers, you're
probably in a good spot. So you know, I think
(13:48):
I think for them it's it's gonna be trying to
push all the easy buttons. And you did see a
lot of motion the other day in their practice, which
I think is a great thing because it's just gonna
unlock some of the stuff that Kadarius Tony, uh, you
know can do as well as you know the Sterling
Shepherds and the Darius Slayton's of the world that I think.
You know, I know Slaton's second string right now, but
you know guys that I think can can be affected players. Um,
(14:10):
you know, it all locks some of their talents. Alright,
last team specific question before we get into some generic
concepts Wing Mornsdale's defense. Obviously we know pressure a lot
of man to man, try to get sacks, give up
some big plays. The corners got hurt last year. Everything
went to you know, what are we missing anything with
wings defense? Or or does it? Or is that what
the dad? It sells you too, No, it's there, and
(14:31):
I think this is where you know Giants, the Giants
fans can be a little nervous, right because when I
looked at the ravens now the Giants have one of
if not. I can't remember if if When I reman
the numbers, they ended up having the easiest schedule in
the NFL. But the Giants schedule is the yeah, one
point three two points better than the average teams schedule
(14:53):
on a neutral field, meaning like they're playing a very
easy schedule of opponents. And so this might not matter
this year because man coverage. What man coverage does is
it exacerbates the differences between the two teams. So for
the longest time, the Ravens, you know, they would play
a ton of man and because they were so good,
they would shut teams like I remember there was one
(15:14):
game where they had sacked the Titans eleven times and
shut them out on the road and there was nowhere
for anywhere anyone to go. And they had, you know,
league's best defense, and eighteen a really good defense, and
nineteen and then they faced the team like Kansas City,
and because Kansas City is actually better, it exacerbated that
difference in Kansas City puts up forty on them, you
know what I'm saying. So that's the wing Martindale defense.
(15:36):
I I kind of hope that maybe there's a little
bit of okay when we play the great. When we
play the Dallas Cowboys, we're gonna pay a little bit
more zone. Um, but you know, play the Eagles and
they're great receivers right now, we'll play a little bit
more zone. But they're What that defense does is it says, look,
we're gonna we're gonna bring four and a half a play. Um,
you know you're gonna need a Zizo Gelari to build
(15:57):
off of the sack total he had as a rookie.
You're gonna need uh, you know, you're gonna need Cavon
Thibodeau to be what everybody thinks he he he is
when he was the favorite to be then a more
overall pick at times last year. Obviously, Leonard Williams is
gonna have to make his money. And the corners, I know,
without Bradberry, Uh, you know, they're gonna have to hold
up and and that's you know, gonna be that's a
(16:17):
tall order, but you know that's the best that they're
making back there. All right. So let's talk generically now,
and this is obviously specifically the Giants to a team building,
What in your mind, looking at how teams have done
it over the past five or six years, is the
best way to go about building a team, because the
Giants maybe not from scratch, but a lot of contrasts
came off last year, a lot more going to come
(16:38):
off the next couple of years. And Joe Shane is
gonna have a really you know, low salary Florida build
this thing the way he wants, Right, what's the best
way to do this? Do you build and then bring
the quarterback? And last? Do you bring the quarterback in? First?
Do you really build up front and build out? I
know you guys are a big second day over over
pass rush outfit. How would you suggest a team best
go about maximizing their resource horses to build a team
(17:01):
most effectively. Yeah, it's it's never as easy as saying, okay,
start with this and then that, because you know, the
hardest thing is quarterbacks aren't always available. What's available to you?
Right exactly? Yeah? Like so I personally believe so take
take um, take Matt Stafford. Like I don't think you
(17:22):
can build around Matt Stafford, but I think you can
throw Matt Stafford onto a winning team and win a
Super Bowl. And and and we've seen evidence of that.
We see evidence of that in both directions right, as
Detroit Lions fans will tell you if you can't build
around Kirk Cousins, but you can put Cousins on a
great team and do Okay, I think um Tannehill is
the same way. They put Tannehill on a team that
(17:42):
had been winning and he took them to the a
f C Championship game. But I don't think you can
build around Bryan Daniel. And the problem is that the
Tannehills and the Staffords and the Cousins are the quarterbacks
who are available, and they're expensive. Cousins was expensive, Taniel
is expensive, Stafford is extremely expensive. It's so if you're
a rebuilding team like the Giants, you don't you don't
(18:04):
do you don't go down that path unless you're trying
just to get to eight wins to save your job.
And even in that case, like that's not that's not
what this regime for the Giants is at. That this
regime is in it for the long haul, and so
they want to build like a sustainable way. The problem
is some drafts don't have quarterbacks that are worth it.
Right like this past draft, there weren't quarterbacks that were
worth doing that for. So it's tricky, right, And so
(18:28):
I think, you know, and the same thing, by the way,
the Browns, you know, you know when they bottomed out,
you know, they were wrong about Whence, they were wrong
about golf, they were wrong about Mahomes and and and Watson,
but they were right about Travisky. And then they drafted
Myles Garrett at one and and push the decision back
a year before they got Mayfield, and that seemed to
work for them until Mayfield thought about So I think
(18:50):
it's it's one of those where you have to you
have to either build through the draft at quarterback. Right,
you can build you can build around a rookie deal
quarterback because you have the money. You can't build around
a Kirk Cousins because you don't have the money because
you're paying Cousins so much. So you start with a
quarterback who is on a rookie deal, you can build
(19:10):
around him, right, And then the hardest decision that you
ever have to make as a team is whether or
not that quarterback who did well on a rookie deal
because you were able to supplement the roster with great
players and great coaching, whether that guy is gonna be
good when your offensive coordinator gets a head coach job
when you you have to trade Tyree Kill to the Dolphins,
(19:30):
you have to trade uh Davante or A J. Brown
to the to the to the Eagles. That's a harder
question than is this quarterback guy drafted? Any good? Giant
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(19:53):
Giants dot com slash tickets for more information. This is
also in the team building department. We do a ton
of draft stuff here and we have this you know,
position value battle with me and my coast all the time.
I'll even go top fifteen here. At what point do
you not take a premium position player in the top
fifteen Because my argument is that, look, I can go
(20:14):
find the really good guard in the free agent market
pretty much every year and I can sign him and
I'm fine. Same thing for a safety. I mean, what
Anthony Harris two years ago he was like the second
best staking the league and bring him in for nothing
or not nothing, but not a significant cost. So at
what point for you, when you look at data and
how positions impact winning, would you say, all right, in
the top fifth team, I'm comfortable not taking one of
(20:36):
those premium positions corner, edge, tackle, receiver, quarterback. Yeah, I
would let somebody else make that mistake, right, I mean
that's Um, it's hard to say, because you know, you
might be a team that's a guard away. You might
be a team that is you know that you might
see a Kyle Hamilton's say, Okay, that guy's who. That
guy's who I want to have on my team. Right, Um,
(20:58):
you know Jamal Adam Uh, you know Derwin James, although
Derwin James won at seventeen quit Nelson. But the problem
is is you can get those positions like those guys
are almost always top ten paid at their position the
moment they step on the field. Eric Barry, now this
is a different C B A. But Eric Barry was
the highest paid safety the first game he was in
the NFL. So you have to take that differential into account.
(21:23):
You have to take you know, when Burrow was a rookie,
he was making ten million dollars less and half as
much money as the next highest paid quarterback in the league,
who was a starter, which was Teddy Bridgewater. You know
that delta is so valuable, that surplus is so valuable,
and you only get it when the premium positions are
up right, As I said, like you know, left tackle
is like starting pitching in baseball. If you want to
(21:45):
get an average one, it's fifteen million dollars is the
starting point. And whereas you know a guy like Evan
Neil or a guy like Andrew Thomas, I mean you're
making a half to a quarter of that depending upon
where they're drafted. And and that to me, like you
have to take that into consideration. It's no longer you
can no longer just be like, hey, just draft good
football players because roster building is just too difficult. And
(22:08):
when you are a team like the Giants, when you
know you're gonna have to make a tough decision about
your quarterback, like you don't have you you're not afforded. Though,
if the Kansas City Chiefs have to make tough decisions
about Orlando Brown and Tyree Hill the Giants shirts, he'll
have to make tough decisions about who they who they draft,
and who they keep and and what positions they use
their resources on. No great point. All right, right, I
(22:31):
love talking about this with George when he's on and
I know you're the one at the cutting edge here,
so i'd love to get your take. What are some
of the new things you guys are researching, thinking about
and trying to figure out. You know, we've we talked
all about the things here, you know, passing in early downs,
play action, you know, being more aggressive on fourth down.
Some of the things you guys have focused on how
teams can win at the margins. What are some of
(22:51):
the new things you guys are researching and looking at
that will help teams do a better job winning at
the margins and just helping them be more successful. Yeah,
I mean for us, it's right now, it's looking at
weak link systems. It's exactly what you asked about the
Giants offensive line, which is, you know, how can I
be better? How do I get better? Do I get
better by making sure that Trent Williams is on my team?
(23:15):
Or do I get better by making sure that Riley
Reef is on my team? Right? And and um, that
kind of thing where or in the secondary. You look
at the Bengals last year and you know they took
the surplus that they had by going Burrow Higgins Chase.
They took that and they had six defensive backs on
their team last year that were regular starters for other
(23:36):
football teams in a previous season, meaning they had NFL experience.
And not to say that Eli Apple was a gamble
that they thought was gonna work, or that you know,
Shadoube a Woozier was a gamble that thought was gonna work.
But they brought them all in and said, hey, we're
gonna take the best three out of this group. And
ultimately Trey Waynes was the highest paid guy in the group,
and he was the played the few of snaps, but
(23:58):
they were effective. And you know, that's kind of like
I think, that kind of team building strategy where you
look at the weakest link and you look at these
things as systems more than you look at them as
individual players, you know, and Giants fans, I think that
you know that it's hard because you've had Lawrence Taylor, right,
and you think about these Super Bowls, it's all about
Lawrence Taylor. You don't think, well, actually, Leonard Marshall is
(24:20):
pretty good and and Mark Collins is a pretty good
carter like and you look around that defense, You're like,
weren't that many bad players on the defense, and so
obviously Lawrence Taylor could be amazing and and you win
super Bowls that way. Um, you know, for most teams
it's about not having weak links and then having the
quarterback that either is an amazing on a veteran deal
(24:42):
like I'm talking Mahomes, Brady Rogers, you know, Peyton Manning
type quarterbacks, or it's having a quarterback on a rookie
deal and you you hit on that window when when
they're cheap. All right, two specific things I wonder if
you guys have been able to quantify it? You know,
turnovers is the ultimate coach thing, right where it's like
win the turnover, about to win the game. And frankly,
(25:02):
if you look at the numbers, it's generally right. But
at the same time, turnovers are hard to quantify, right,
and it's hard to figure out, all right, well, this
is how you create turnovers? Is how you prevent turnovers?
You know, there isn't a formula for that, and players
with interceptions you to your changes teams the plus minus
it can change from year to year like that. Have
you guys been able to figure out at all the
magic behind the turnover, how you can create them, how
(25:25):
you can prevent them, and because they're so important to winning,
but there really doesn't seem to be a rhyme or
reason to a lot of them. Yeah, you have to
find the process. So at PF dot com this week
I wrote an article about how to bet interception props
um And if you get a PFF subscription you can
get access to our turnover worthy Plays metric. Turnover Worthy
plays predict interceptions better than interceptions too. And so you know,
(25:49):
when you look at somebody you know, like Daniel Jones
is a rookie twenty four touchdowns, twelve interceptions, but a
lot of turnover worthy plays, you know, it doesn't surprise folks.
In the next year's interception and touchdown ratio is more
like one to one um, you know, So preventing turnover
with the plays um quantifying the differences in turnover. So
a sack bumble is almost always worse than an interception,
(26:12):
because an interception can often gain yards for the offense.
Right you're throwing the ball deep and it gets picked off.
Being able to sort of say, you know, to make
a gradient of how bad a turnover is like those
kind of things that can can help you. And so
you're not so tethered to this. Oh, we were plus
minus in the turnover turnaway giveaway ratio, and you would
say generally real quick turnovers have more to do with
(26:35):
mistakes than by the offense than great plays by the defense. Correct, yes, yeah, turnout,
almost everything in football is driven by the offense first
and then the defense can come in, which is why
you know you see teams like the seventeen Jags and
teen Bears and uh, teams of that nature never are
able to sustain brilliant enough defenses to support the like
(26:56):
Bordles and the mixture Whiskys of the world. Because ultimately,
if you get twenty, if you stop drives and turnovers
for an entire year, that's gonna be cut half the
following year. And then you wonder can your quarterback make
up that slack? I know up against eric final question,
and I've never asked anyone this, and I wonder if
if there is an answer, if you've been asked this before.
Game flow has such an impact on certain players ability
(27:20):
to get numbers right, Like if you're ahead, all of
a sudden, your pass rushings do a lot more. But
if you're behind you other teams were conservatives hard to
get sacks. Have you guys been able to kind of
put the advantages of that type of game flow, the
way your team puts certain players in the down and
distance situations with pass rushers for example, and other positions,
to where you can incorporate that into your grading, so
(27:40):
you can kind of try to define how good a
player is independent of those situations. Yeah, down in distance
and stuff isn't our models score differentials in our models,
So you do, you do get a small tick because,
as you said, it's easier to rush the passer when
you're ahead. It's harder to rush the passer on first
and tent when you're behind by seven because you're trying
to stop the run and you're trying to do all
this stuff. So yeah, that that stuff is very much
(28:02):
in there. We're trying we're currently building a bottoms up
simulation that's gonna take that all into explicit accounts. But
you're absolutely right. And you know, if folks want to
bet for the road by the way, um the bet
to make his cave on Thibodeau over sacks this year
because of what you're saying. The Giants play an easier
schedule than everybody believes, which means they're gonna be more opportunities.
Even for a team like the Giants who's lying at
(28:23):
about seven wins, they're gonna be ahead more than they
ever have been I have the last few years, and
I think that's gonna lead to some opportunities for the
rookie out of Oregon. Eric, great stuff. Anything you want
to promote before we say goodbye, yep. Just we have
an app at PFF that's coming out pretty soon. If
you want to sign up to be one of the
beta users, go, uh send me an email and I'll
get you set up. Um. We're we're hoping to soft
(28:46):
launch the app sometime around eight fifteen. So um, I'm
really excited for the year. I can't wait to see
what the Giants haven't sare. Yeah, me too, I can't wait. Eric,
Thanks so much. And by the way, the stuff you
guys do is great. It's an inviable resource. I really
appreciate shade it. Um PFF ultimately just something I'm on
every day. I cannot do my job without it. I
really appreciate the work you guys do. Thank you very
(29:06):
much for the time. Thanks for having me on take
care of That's the episode of the John Subtle podcast.
You thank Eric A Group for joining us. Stay tuned
folks who can continue covering the Giants start training camp.
Giants Training Camp two is presented by four, the official
SUV of the New York Giants. It's time to get
inside the Giants huddle on Giants dot Com. Here we go,
Here we go on the Giants Let him lest the
Giants Podcast Network. Welcome to the news edition of the
Giant Huttle Podcast. My name is John Schmilk. This is
gonna be our usual annual summer look at some of
(00:22):
the most recent analytics in the NFL. Usually it's George
chock Brewery that joins us, but today it's gonna be
his colleague over a Pro Football Focus that is your
chief data scientist. He's head of R and D DR
Eric Eager. Eric. Good to have you on the show.
I think we've had every other of the PFF guys
on this show over the years, but we finally have
in you. How are you man? It's good. I know
George has become so big time that I've had to
(00:44):
take some of his media away from him. But it's
really good to chat with you, and I I'm excited
about a Giants offseason that has been uh, profoundly functional. Yes,
let's let's talk about it. So also, there a basic
question why should Giant fans be excited when you look
at the data about Brian Dable coming in to be
(01:04):
the head coach. Well, I think it's unmistakable as far
as you know, how good that Buffalo offense has been, Um,
you know, one of the most efficient in the league.
Despite the fact that that's you know that they you know,
the Buffalo Uh, you know, weather is the worst in
the NFL as far as like you know, temperature and
wind and stuff, and they're still able to be a
high power team. Um, you know, they have three playoff
(01:27):
victories the last two years. Josh Allen went from a
quarterback that I think many people believed was on the
route to being a bus to being you know, an
m VP candidate and a max contract type of player.
You know, you add all of that, and then I
think it's the delta over what they had. And you know,
Joe Judge was an an unconventional candidate and unconventional signing,
(01:48):
and you know, Jason Garrett was his offensive coordinator, and
it just wasn't about. It just wasn't working right. And
and not only did it not work, at some point
it ceased having a chance. And so you know, with
with Dable. You go from one of the most functional
franchise in the NFL, in my opinion, the Buffalo Bills,
you come to the Giants, and I think they're just
(02:09):
gonna be a level of competence that that Giants fans
have not been used to for the past few years.
What is it about the way Buffalo's offense function and
the way Dable cold plays and we don't know who's
gonna cold plays this year. Combined that with Mike Catholic
coming home from Kansas City again one of the best
offenses in the legue over the past few years, Why
should how one of those guys do. Specifically when you
(02:30):
look at the data that you think could maximize some
of the things that Giants have on their roster, Yeah,
they really get the most other offensive line, both of
those guys. So Kansas City last year had the highest
rate of perfectly blocked runs. And it's not necessarily because
they have the greatest offensive lineman in the world, but
just because they negotiate box counts so well that they
(02:51):
leave good matchups for their offensive line. And Buffalo is
the same way. Their offensive line struggled some last year
in terms of matchups, but they ran the RPO even
such a way where once you folded in the r
p O s, they had basically a league average run game,
which I think most people would say, oh, they were
so terrible running the ball, But if you count the
players where Josh Allen pulled the ball out and through it,
(03:12):
they were pretty good. So you know, when you look
at the Giants, Daniel Jones, you know, one of the
more effective rushers of the football at the QB position,
you know, hailed for his accuracy at times at duke
and things like that, and has at times been more effective.
Then I think that the statistics suggest or that the
playing level statistics grades have been Okay, you look at
(03:34):
the playmakers they have with Kadarius Tony Um, you know,
see Kwon Barkley, h Kenny Golladay more of like a
contested ball kind of player. But still, you know, one
thousand yeard receiver in this league. You know, you add
and you know Andrew Thomas was terrific last year. You
add a quantity to the mix and or sorry, Evan
Neal to the mix. And I think that there are
(03:55):
the components of a good offense, and I think that
there are some cheek codes that Daviel put into the
system to actually, you know, unleashed an offense that has
been putrid for the most part since uh, you know,
the Joe Judge Arra started and you don't even go
back before that. Eric, It's been it's been a rough
few years here for the Giants offense. So I want
to dig into a bunch of stuff you talked about that.
(04:16):
Let's what the offensive line first, because I think Giant
fans finally think they're on their way, maybe not there yet,
but on their way to solving the offensive line issue,
which has been an issue since Evan Neo Andrew Thomas
back to back first round picks. You bring in a
couple of events, Mark Lensky, John Feliciano Inside, are you
a believer in the just get to average mentality where
(04:37):
if you can just be fine on the offensive line
as long as you have the weapons, you're good. Where
do you land in terms of how much you have
to invest in the offensive line for your offense to
function at a high level. Yeah, I think so. I think, Um,
the get back the average thing is, I think, you know,
plain mathematical thing. It's like, if you you know, Andrew
(04:58):
Thomas going from being uh terrible as a rookie too
pretty good as a as a sophomore is gonna be
way more important to this team than him going from
very good as a sophomore to a Pro Bowl player
as as a third year player. UM, Evan Neil being
an average offensive tackle in year one is gonna matter
so much more to this team than him becoming great
(05:18):
in future years. Like you want your weakest links on
the offensive line becoming better is almost always better than
your good players becoming amazing. And that that's just a
mathematical fact of life. Um. And so you know the
Giants here, you know when they you know, they took
high draft picks to acquire their tackles. And I like
that because it costs a lot of money. That's the
(05:39):
Kansas City Chiefs found out with Orlando Brown that negotiation.
Kind of a guy who's the seven out of ten
as a tackle wanted ten out of ten money. It's
really hard. It's you know, to sign tackles. It's fairly
easy to sign centers and guards. And so when you
can sort of get on the green at the guard
position using your money, that is a positive thing. And
the and the Giants have done that, and I think,
(05:59):
you know, they're not going to remind anybody of like
the middle of the ninety nineties Dallas Cowboys on the
offensive line. But I think that they will be good
enough if if Daniel Jones is is, you know, takes
a step forward under dable, they're gonna be good enough
not to ruin that. We're joined by head of R
and D for Pro Football Focus Riki are also ahead
of the PF Forecast podcast Go check it out. Or
(06:21):
You talked about Daniel Jones being a runner, and I
think Giant fans agree that, yeah, he's an effective runner.
Then they say, oh no, we don't want him to
be hurt all the time, which has also been a problem.
Does the data show that the more reps you give
a quarterback running the ball, the greater the chance of injury,
because I do think there's some more danger in the pocket.
Sometimes guys get legs, rolled, angles, roll the rolled stuff
(06:42):
like that. What does the data show in terms of
usage as a runner, in terms of keeping quarterbacks healthy? Yeah,
there's always that that that sort of and I know
he wasn't he was in the division with the Giants,
but like when rich Co Tite told Randall Cunningham to
stay in the pocket and he got injured in the
pocket all the time, and he's like, you know why
when I ran, I could I could sort of keep
these things at bay. Um we've seen Lamar Jackson, you
(07:03):
know that it has pushed the envelope. Has been the
most uh you know, designed runner in football we've ever seen.
And last year it's sort of fell off because you know,
of injuries and things like that. So there is that risk.
There haven't been that many running quarterbacks UM, and the
data is pretty scarce at the levels. UM. You know that,
(07:24):
then maybe Daniel Jones wants to run because you have
you know, for every Lamar Jackson, there's a Josh Allen
who never gets hurt, right, and there's a Patrick Mahomes
who never gets hurt or a Steve Young that rarely
got hurt for San Francisco. So it's I think the
question that I think Giants fans have to ask is
if if you're not getting extracting all the value out
(07:46):
of Daniel Jones now, what are you saving him for? Um?
And so I think you want to extract all the
value out of him now and if he struggles then
of course you're gonna move on. If he gets hurt,
you're gonna move on. And if he plays great, then
you have a good off himself. Yeah, And I feel
like over there at PFF, and I've talked to a
bunch of the guys, it's kind of split on where
they land on Daniel Jones, Right, it was a lot
(08:07):
of his PF grades are better than some of his
traditional production numbers over the last couple of years. Where
do you land looking at his career so far, his trajectory,
what's been around him, some of the data. Do you
think he has a good chance of earning a long
term deal this year or do you think there's a
long way to go. I think there's a long way
to go, just because the bar for what constant. So
(08:29):
we've seen this before, right, Like Kyler Murray gave the
Cardinals no no discounts really, right, that was a forty five,
forty six and point one million dollars per year deal.
You generally speaking, it's an honor offs which as to
whether or not that guy gets contract. Baker Mayfield, you know,
was kind of at that bar last year and then
(08:50):
had a terrible season and now you know, he's he's
not gonna make that much money. He's not gonna make
twenty million here. Um. So there's a huge chasm between
you know, the guys like Kyler Murray, the guys like
you know mahomes Allen uh Dak Prescott even who did
get a franchise tag, and you know guys like Jamis Winston, Um,
(09:11):
guys like Mitch Dubinsky, guys who are drafted high who
didn't work out. There isn't like a middle class quarterback
contract because there's sort a lot of guys making between
twenty and thirty five millions. Yeah. There because it's so
cheap to go back into the draft and just draft
the next guy. Right. The Jets fail on Donald, they
go get Zack Wilson. The Cardinals fail on Rosen, they
go back and get Kyler Murray. It's it's not you know,
(09:33):
long gone or the days of you know what paid
or Eli Manning costs the Giants to be their first
pick um, you know, Sam Bradford for the Rams. That's
not it's not a huge investment anymore to draft a
quarterback high money wise the way they used to be.
So teams are willing to do it and they're willing
to discard, uh, you know, the Daniel Jones is in
the world. I think the best case scenario for Daniel
(09:54):
Jones is for him to play well um and and
to eventually you know, sort of earned the earn the
tag um and if and if that happens, then they
can go back to the table and might cost the
Giants more money if they're wrong about him, but I
think they gladly pay the fifty million it's gonna end
up being if he becomes an elite quarterback. Don't miss
your chance to experience a premier hospitality experience watching Giants
(10:15):
games world class concerts in two as a Giant Sweet partner.
Limited full season locations are available or plays a deposit
for individual games called n y his giants dot com
slash suites for more information. What are the things Giant fans,
aside from the basic stats that they know to look
for Eric, that you think they should be keeping an
eye on, whether it's your guys specific metrics or something
(10:37):
else that you like to watch. Where you're seeing the progress,
where you know what we're willing to do one more
year with Daniel on the tag and see where he's at.
Where do you look for the most improvement in the
air as he needs to get better at That might
give giant fans, you know, confidence, that's all right, Let's
give one more year and see where we're at. I
think for him it's not even. And this is where
(10:57):
a lot of folks were, you know, credit called PFF
because we didn't great him as well as a rookie,
even though he had great numbers twenty four touchdown swell picks. Um.
But where I would look is you know what percentage
of pressures are turning into sacks? Two thousand and twenty
that number was last year. Is a little bit better
at six? Um? You know how often is he taking sacks?
(11:21):
Often is he taking pressure? Because pressure is generally speaking,
half a quarterback stat and half a quarterback stat a
half a offensive line stat. So is he taking less pressure?
Is he converting few of those fewer of those pressures
into sacks? Um? When he scrambles, you know what what
is his you know? Is he is he scrambling to
(11:42):
gain yardage or is he scrambling to get hurt? You
know that kind of thing? Um. And the other one,
which this one is the one that fell off, is
after a season where he was pretty good. You know,
it's seventeen turnover worthy plays and twenty four what we
call big time throws. He regrets last year seven big
time throws, twelve turnover worthy plays. Um, a lot of
those are fumbles in the pocket. He actually got better
(12:02):
at that last year. He was terrible in his first
couple of years. But it's it's all about for me.
It's not even the throwing necessarily, it's more the how's
he doing with pressure? Is it? Can he is? Can
he be effective at not getting sacks of pressure? And
then can he be can he not fumble the ball
in the pocket? Because those are drive killers that I
(12:23):
don't think that the Giants can can really put up with.
But you look at things like yards pert tempt and
stuff like that. I mean, the first, you know, five
games of the season, he's seven and a half yards
per tempt, ten point one yards per tempt, seven point six,
seven point eight, seven point two. All of those are
more than passible at the NFL level. Yeah, and look,
I think I think you hit it right. He's done
a good job of reducing the turnovers, but the big
(12:45):
plays have gone down with that, and even more dramatically.
Gotta get the big plays back up a little bit,
but keep the keep the negative plays down. One other
thing on the offense, Erk I want to ask him,
is I know, as of a few years ago, there's
a big corollary where teams that use more pre step
motion tended to be more active, you know, expected added
points stuff like that. Has that stuck or a defensive
(13:05):
figured out a little bit more how to deal with
some of that pre snap motion. Is there as much
of a corell area anymore? No, it's there. I mean
the things now it's it's pre snap motion, it's you know,
it's play action. R p os are a little bit
interesting because I do think that the league is sort
of finding out you're just not seeing linebackers move as much.
So r pos are nowhere close to as effective um
(13:27):
as before. But yeah, I think, um, you know, it's
it's all those things pushing the easy buttons. The other
one is box count negotiation. When if you have sae
Quon Barkley in the backfield, can you play for wide
receivers and still block up the run play? Because I
think if Barkley is one on one with linebackers, you're
probably in a good spot. So you know, I think
(13:48):
I think for them it's it's gonna be trying to
push all the easy buttons. And you did see a
lot of motion the other day in their practice, which
I think is a great thing because it's just gonna
unlock some of the stuff that Kadarius Tony, uh, you
know can do as well as you know the Sterling
Shepherds and the Darius Slayton's of the world that I think.
You know, I know Slaton's second string right now, but
you know guys that I think can can be affected players. Um,
(14:10):
you know, it all locks some of their talents. Alright,
last team specific question before we get into some generic
concepts Wing Mornsdale's defense. Obviously we know pressure a lot
of man to man, try to get sacks, give up
some big plays. The corners got hurt last year. Everything
went to you know, what are we missing anything with
wings defense? Or or does it? Or is that what
the dad? It sells you too, No, it's there, and
(14:31):
I think this is where you know Giants, the Giants
fans can be a little nervous, right because when I
looked at the ravens now the Giants have one of
if not. I can't remember if if When I reman
the numbers, they ended up having the easiest schedule in
the NFL. But the Giants schedule is the yeah, one
point three two points better than the average teams schedule
(14:53):
on a neutral field, meaning like they're playing a very
easy schedule of opponents. And so this might not matter
this year because man coverage. What man coverage does is
it exacerbates the differences between the two teams. So for
the longest time, the Ravens, you know, they would play
a ton of man and because they were so good,
they would shut teams like I remember there was one
(15:14):
game where they had sacked the Titans eleven times and
shut them out on the road and there was nowhere
for anywhere anyone to go. And they had, you know,
league's best defense, and eighteen a really good defense, and
nineteen and then they faced the team like Kansas City,
and because Kansas City is actually better, it exacerbated that
difference in Kansas City puts up forty on them, you
know what I'm saying. So that's the wing Martindale defense.
(15:36):
I I kind of hope that maybe there's a little
bit of okay when we play the great. When we
play the Dallas Cowboys, we're gonna pay a little bit
more zone. Um, but you know, play the Eagles and
they're great receivers right now, we'll play a little bit
more zone. But they're What that defense does is it says, look,
we're gonna we're gonna bring four and a half a play. Um,
you know you're gonna need a Zizo Gelari to build
(15:57):
off of the sack total he had as a rookie.
You're gonna need uh, you know, you're gonna need Cavon
Thibodeau to be what everybody thinks he he he is
when he was the favorite to be then a more
overall pick at times last year. Obviously, Leonard Williams is
gonna have to make his money. And the corners, I know,
without Bradberry, Uh, you know, they're gonna have to hold
up and and that's you know, gonna be that's a
(16:17):
tall order, but you know that's the best that they're
making back there. All right. So let's talk generically now,
and this is obviously specifically the Giants to a team building,
What in your mind, looking at how teams have done
it over the past five or six years, is the
best way to go about building a team, because the
Giants maybe not from scratch, but a lot of contrasts
came off last year, a lot more going to come
(16:38):
off the next couple of years. And Joe Shane is
gonna have a really you know, low salary Florida build
this thing the way he wants, Right, what's the best
way to do this? Do you build and then bring
the quarterback? And last? Do you bring the quarterback in? First?
Do you really build up front and build out? I
know you guys are a big second day over over
pass rush outfit. How would you suggest a team best
go about maximizing their resource horses to build a team
(17:01):
most effectively. Yeah, it's it's never as easy as saying, okay,
start with this and then that, because you know, the
hardest thing is quarterbacks aren't always available. What's available to you?
Right exactly? Yeah? Like so I personally believe so take
take um, take Matt Stafford. Like I don't think you
(17:22):
can build around Matt Stafford, but I think you can
throw Matt Stafford onto a winning team and win a
Super Bowl. And and and we've seen evidence of that.
We see evidence of that in both directions right, as
Detroit Lions fans will tell you if you can't build
around Kirk Cousins, but you can put Cousins on a
great team and do Okay, I think um Tannehill is
the same way. They put Tannehill on a team that
(17:42):
had been winning and he took them to the a
f C Championship game. But I don't think you can
build around Bryan Daniel. And the problem is that the
Tannehills and the Staffords and the Cousins are the quarterbacks
who are available, and they're expensive. Cousins was expensive, Taniel
is expensive, Stafford is extremely expensive. It's so if you're
a rebuilding team like the Giants, you don't you don't
(18:04):
do you don't go down that path unless you're trying
just to get to eight wins to save your job.
And even in that case, like that's not that's not
what this regime for the Giants is at. That this
regime is in it for the long haul, and so
they want to build like a sustainable way. The problem
is some drafts don't have quarterbacks that are worth it.
Right like this past draft, there weren't quarterbacks that were
worth doing that for. So it's tricky, right, And so
(18:28):
I think, you know, and the same thing, by the way,
the Browns, you know, you know when they bottomed out,
you know, they were wrong about Whence, they were wrong
about golf, they were wrong about Mahomes and and and Watson,
but they were right about Travisky. And then they drafted
Myles Garrett at one and and push the decision back
a year before they got Mayfield, and that seemed to
work for them until Mayfield thought about So I think
(18:50):
it's it's one of those where you have to you
have to either build through the draft at quarterback. Right,
you can build you can build around a rookie deal
quarterback because you have the money. You can't build around
a Kirk Cousins because you don't have the money because
you're paying Cousins so much. So you start with a
quarterback who is on a rookie deal, you can build
(19:10):
around him, right, And then the hardest decision that you
ever have to make as a team is whether or
not that quarterback who did well on a rookie deal
because you were able to supplement the roster with great
players and great coaching, whether that guy is gonna be
good when your offensive coordinator gets a head coach job
when you you have to trade Tyree Kill to the Dolphins,
(19:30):
you have to trade uh Davante or A J. Brown
to the to the to the Eagles. That's a harder
question than is this quarterback guy drafted? Any good? Giant
season tickets are on sale now for the season. In
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(19:53):
Giants dot com slash tickets for more information. This is
also in the team building department. We do a ton
of draft stuff here and we have this you know,
position value battle with me and my coast all the time.
I'll even go top fifteen here. At what point do
you not take a premium position player in the top
fifteen Because my argument is that, look, I can go
(20:14):
find the really good guard in the free agent market
pretty much every year and I can sign him and
I'm fine. Same thing for a safety. I mean, what
Anthony Harris two years ago he was like the second
best staking the league and bring him in for nothing
or not nothing, but not a significant cost. So at
what point for you, when you look at data and
how positions impact winning, would you say, all right, in
the top fifth team, I'm comfortable not taking one of
(20:36):
those premium positions corner, edge, tackle, receiver, quarterback. Yeah, I
would let somebody else make that mistake, right, I mean
that's Um, it's hard to say, because you know, you
might be a team that's a guard away. You might
be a team that is you know that you might
see a Kyle Hamilton's say, Okay, that guy's who. That
guy's who I want to have on my team. Right, Um,
(20:58):
you know Jamal Adam Uh, you know Derwin James, although
Derwin James won at seventeen quit Nelson. But the problem
is is you can get those positions like those guys
are almost always top ten paid at their position the
moment they step on the field. Eric Barry, now this
is a different C B A. But Eric Barry was
the highest paid safety the first game he was in
the NFL. So you have to take that differential into account.
(21:23):
You have to take you know, when Burrow was a rookie,
he was making ten million dollars less and half as
much money as the next highest paid quarterback in the league,
who was a starter, which was Teddy Bridgewater. You know
that delta is so valuable, that surplus is so valuable,
and you only get it when the premium positions are
up right, As I said, like you know, left tackle
is like starting pitching in baseball. If you want to
(21:45):
get an average one, it's fifteen million dollars is the
starting point. And whereas you know a guy like Evan
Neil or a guy like Andrew Thomas, I mean you're
making a half to a quarter of that depending upon
where they're drafted. And and that to me, like you
have to take that into consideration. It's no longer you
can no longer just be like, hey, just draft good
football players because roster building is just too difficult. And
(22:08):
when you are a team like the Giants, when you
know you're gonna have to make a tough decision about
your quarterback, like you don't have you you're not afforded. Though,
if the Kansas City Chiefs have to make tough decisions
about Orlando Brown and Tyree Hill the Giants shirts, he'll
have to make tough decisions about who they who they draft,
and who they keep and and what positions they use
their resources on. No great point. All right, right, I
(22:31):
love talking about this with George when he's on and
I know you're the one at the cutting edge here,
so i'd love to get your take. What are some
of the new things you guys are researching, thinking about
and trying to figure out. You know, we've we talked
all about the things here, you know, passing in early downs,
play action, you know, being more aggressive on fourth down.
Some of the things you guys have focused on how
teams can win at the margins. What are some of
(22:51):
the new things you guys are researching and looking at
that will help teams do a better job winning at
the margins and just helping them be more successful. Yeah,
I mean for us, it's right now, it's looking at
weak link systems. It's exactly what you asked about the
Giants offensive line, which is, you know, how can I
be better? How do I get better? Do I get
better by making sure that Trent Williams is on my team?
(23:15):
Or do I get better by making sure that Riley
Reef is on my team? Right? And and um, that
kind of thing where or in the secondary. You look
at the Bengals last year and you know they took
the surplus that they had by going Burrow Higgins Chase.
They took that and they had six defensive backs on
their team last year that were regular starters for other
(23:36):
football teams in a previous season, meaning they had NFL experience.
And not to say that Eli Apple was a gamble
that they thought was gonna work, or that you know,
Shadoube a Woozier was a gamble that thought was gonna work.
But they brought them all in and said, hey, we're
gonna take the best three out of this group. And
ultimately Trey Waynes was the highest paid guy in the group,
and he was the played the few of snaps, but
(23:58):
they were effective. And you know, that's kind of like
I think, that kind of team building strategy where you
look at the weakest link and you look at these
things as systems more than you look at them as
individual players, you know, and Giants fans, I think that
you know that it's hard because you've had Lawrence Taylor, right,
and you think about these Super Bowls, it's all about
Lawrence Taylor. You don't think, well, actually, Leonard Marshall is
(24:20):
pretty good and and Mark Collins is a pretty good
carter like and you look around that defense, You're like,
weren't that many bad players on the defense, and so
obviously Lawrence Taylor could be amazing and and you win
super Bowls that way. Um, you know, for most teams
it's about not having weak links and then having the
quarterback that either is an amazing on a veteran deal
(24:42):
like I'm talking Mahomes, Brady Rogers, you know, Peyton Manning
type quarterbacks, or it's having a quarterback on a rookie
deal and you you hit on that window when when
they're cheap. All right, two specific things I wonder if
you guys have been able to quantify it? You know,
turnovers is the ultimate coach thing, right where it's like
win the turnover, about to win the game. And frankly,
(25:02):
if you look at the numbers, it's generally right. But
at the same time, turnovers are hard to quantify, right,
and it's hard to figure out, all right, well, this
is how you create turnovers? Is how you prevent turnovers?
You know, there isn't a formula for that, and players
with interceptions you to your changes teams the plus minus
it can change from year to year like that. Have
you guys been able to figure out at all the
magic behind the turnover, how you can create them, how
(25:25):
you can prevent them, and because they're so important to winning,
but there really doesn't seem to be a rhyme or
reason to a lot of them. Yeah, you have to
find the process. So at PF dot com this week
I wrote an article about how to bet interception props
um And if you get a PFF subscription you can
get access to our turnover worthy Plays metric. Turnover Worthy
plays predict interceptions better than interceptions too. And so you know,
(25:49):
when you look at somebody you know, like Daniel Jones
is a rookie twenty four touchdowns, twelve interceptions, but a
lot of turnover worthy plays, you know, it doesn't surprise folks.
In the next year's interception and touchdown ratio is more
like one to one um, you know, So preventing turnover
with the plays um quantifying the differences in turnover. So
a sack bumble is almost always worse than an interception,
(26:12):
because an interception can often gain yards for the offense.
Right you're throwing the ball deep and it gets picked off.
Being able to sort of say, you know, to make
a gradient of how bad a turnover is like those
kind of things that can can help you. And so
you're not so tethered to this. Oh, we were plus
minus in the turnover turnaway giveaway ratio, and you would
say generally real quick turnovers have more to do with
(26:35):
mistakes than by the offense than great plays by the defense. Correct, yes, yeah, turnout,
almost everything in football is driven by the offense first
and then the defense can come in, which is why
you know you see teams like the seventeen Jags and
teen Bears and uh, teams of that nature never are
able to sustain brilliant enough defenses to support the like
(26:56):
Bordles and the mixture Whiskys of the world. Because ultimately,
if you get twenty, if you stop drives and turnovers
for an entire year, that's gonna be cut half the
following year. And then you wonder can your quarterback make
up that slack? I know up against eric final question,
and I've never asked anyone this, and I wonder if
if there is an answer, if you've been asked this before.
Game flow has such an impact on certain players ability
(27:20):
to get numbers right, Like if you're ahead, all of
a sudden, your pass rushings do a lot more. But
if you're behind you other teams were conservatives hard to
get sacks. Have you guys been able to kind of
put the advantages of that type of game flow, the
way your team puts certain players in the down and
distance situations with pass rushers for example, and other positions,
to where you can incorporate that into your grading, so
(27:40):
you can kind of try to define how good a
player is independent of those situations. Yeah, down in distance
and stuff isn't our models score differentials in our models,
So you do, you do get a small tick because,
as you said, it's easier to rush the passer when
you're ahead. It's harder to rush the passer on first
and tent when you're behind by seven because you're trying
to stop the run and you're trying to do all
this stuff. So yeah, that that stuff is very much
(28:02):
in there. We're trying we're currently building a bottoms up
simulation that's gonna take that all into explicit accounts. But
you're absolutely right. And you know, if folks want to
bet for the road by the way, um the bet
to make his cave on Thibodeau over sacks this year
because of what you're saying. The Giants play an easier
schedule than everybody believes, which means they're gonna be more opportunities.
Even for a team like the Giants who's lying at
(28:23):
about seven wins, they're gonna be ahead more than they
ever have been I have the last few years, and
I think that's gonna lead to some opportunities for the
rookie out of Oregon. Eric, great stuff. Anything you want
to promote before we say goodbye, yep. Just we have
an app at PFF that's coming out pretty soon. If
you want to sign up to be one of the
beta users, go, uh send me an email and I'll
get you set up. Um. We're we're hoping to soft
(28:46):
launch the app sometime around eight fifteen. So um, I'm
really excited for the year. I can't wait to see
what the Giants haven't sare. Yeah, me too, I can't wait. Eric,
Thanks so much. And by the way, the stuff you
guys do is great. It's an inviable resource. I really
appreciate shade it. Um PFF ultimately just something I'm on
every day. I cannot do my job without it. I
really appreciate the work you guys do. Thank you very
(29:06):
much for the time. Thanks for having me on take
care of That's the episode of the John Subtle podcast.
You thank Eric A Group for joining us. Stay tuned
folks who can continue covering the Giants start training camp.
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