The Return of Golden Wheels?

PERSPECTIVE
By Nick Webster

As a new franchise with the AFL in the 1960's, along with the Oilers in Houston and the Chargers in LA, then San Diego, the Buffalo Bills were one of the cornerstones of the burgeoning league  one of their most versatile threats was Elbert "Golden Wheels" Dubenion.

Dubenion was a classic speedster but with a size unusual for speedsters of the day. In his 1964 season Dubenion on the AFL Champion Bills team averaged over 27 yards per catch, third highest in NFL history for a player with 2 or more receptions per game.  But in 1961 he did something that has not been done in the 55 years since - he had at least one rushing attempt and one reception per game, AND averaged over 10 yards on each. Fifty-five years later this accomplishment might be equaled.

WR Tyreek Hill of the Kansas City Chiefs after a big game in NFL Week 15 he now has a rushing average of 12.0 yards per carry on 21 carries, so he already qualifies with more than 10 YPC and one attempt per scheduled game. Ironically, the wide out actually has fewer yards per reception than yards per carry on the season. He will need to up his 9.8 average yards per reception in the final week of the season to join Golden Wheels in the 10/10 club. Clearly a gamebreaker, though with a troubled past, Hill's skills combined with Andy Reid's offensive mind make the Chiefs a team to watch.

Defensive Passer Rating: Is This Stat Still Relevant?

PERSPECTIVE
By TJ Troup

For many years I've felt the defensive passer rating was a key to success for teams trying to win the league title. The question for today, with the upcoming match-up on Monday Night between the Lions and Cowboys is the defensive passer rating still a viable/key stat?

For a moment let us journey back to the first season of the NFL Wild card in 1970. Detroit and Dallas both finished the regular season very strong and the Lions headed southwest to take on the Cowboys in the playoffs.

Dallas finished the 1970 season ranked 3rd in the defensive passer rating department (48.9). The talented well coached Cowboy secondary was led by future Hall of Famer Mel Renfro. Detroit finished 4th in the league at 54.8, and the two key men in Honolulu Blue & Silver were future Hall of Fame corners Dick LeBeau and Lem Barney. Though some fans may have been bored by the lack of offense; the game was a hard fought thrilling victory for Dallas by the unique score of 5-0.


This season division champion Dallas ranks 27th in the league with a defensive passer rating of 96.7, while Detroit is even more porous with a rating of 102.1 (31st). The Lions are in first place though both the Cowboys and Packers will be very tough to beat.

Is it possible the defensive passer rating is not as important as I believed it once was? The fact that opponents have completed over 72% of their passes against the Lion secondary must sure bring a smile to coach Garrett's face. No doubt the final score on Monday night will not be 5-0.

The second part the story is a simple question........have there been other teams that were not efficient on pass defense and won a division title? Sam Rutigliano's Cleveland Browns won the AFC Central in '80 but finished 22nd in the league with a defensive passer rating of 83.3 (league average was 73.7), and they lost at home to the Raiders in a classic much discussed first round play-off game.

Twenty years later the Vikings finished dead last with a rating of 91.6 (league average 78.1), yet they won the NFC Central title, and advanced to the conference title game. The Jim Fassel lead Giants destroyed Minnesota in the air, as Kerry Collins played one of the best games of his career. An interesting side note, late in the game back-up Jason Garrett played QB for NYG. Four years later the Packers won the division but ranked 29th out of 30 teams with a rating of 99.1.

To make matters worse they lost to their hated rival in Minnesota in the playoffs as Daunte Culpepper shredded the Green Bay secondary. Most recently in 2014 the Steelers won the AFC North, but did not win division due to their pass coverage as their rating was a very poor 98.4 (28th in the league). Joe Flacco of the Ravens dispatched the Steelers with a fine performance (114.0 rating) as Baltimore won 30-17.

Will New Format Hurt Cameron Jordan's Chances for All-Pro?

CLOSER LOOK
By John Turney

Today, the AP announced changes to All-Pro team. There are several things but we will focus on the defensive line today. The AP stated, "We also are changing the listing of positions on the front seven to two edge rushers (basically 4-3 defensive ends and 3-4 outside linebackers), two interior defensive linemen (basically 3-4 DEs, nose tackles and 4-3 defensive tackles), and three linebackers."

This was done for several reasons we suspect, but among the chief ones was the fact that last year Khalil Mack was a First-team All-Pro at both outside linebacker and defensive end. The raiders list Mack as a defensive end, though he is a hybrid player, one who plays (usually) outside backer when the Raiders play a 3-4 and a defensive end when they go 40 sub (nickel or dime). So, he sometimes has pass coverage responsibilities as well as pass rush responsibilities.

It is not a new position, it's been around since the late-1970s and early 1980s. Lawrence Taylor called it "rush backer" and there are other names, now it seems "edge rusher" is the nomenclature that includes this hybrid position and 4-3 defensive ends. However, the positions are not dissimilar they are not identical, either. Players like Taylor, Andre Tippett, Kevin Greene, Charles Haley (with 49ers) Rickey Jackson, Pat Swilling, to name a few did have some pass coverage skills and were asked to use them.

Defensive ends of the time, Reggie White, Bruce Smith, Richard Dent, Chris Doleman, to use Hall of Fame examples, were not asked to cover, at least not often. Perhaps when it was man coverage and there was a blitz and they may have the second back out of the backfield. But it was not the same as the rushbackers. But those were exceptions rather than the rule.

The same holds today, a 4-3 end like Cameron Jordan is not the same kind of "edge rusher" as Mack or Von Miller. So, it will be interesting to see how the voting ends up.

Our best guess is that the "edge rushers" on the First-team will be Mack and Miller and Vic Beasley will be on the Second-team, getting fewer votes than the other two. Ryan Kerrigan or maybe Cliff Avril will be fourth. Only Avril is a 4-3 end.

So, it's possible this year the classic run stuffing two-way end is not going to be represented, the guy who could rush the passer but also make plays in the backfield in the running game as well.

We shall see.

This season one of those left out may be Cameron Jordan. Jordan has been to two Pro Bowls and stand a good chance of going to a third, but though he's making lots of run stuffs it will be hard for him to crack the AP All-Pro team, even the Second-team due to the competition with the "edge rushers" or rushbackers as we still prefer to call them.

Here are Jordan's career stats through NFL Week 14:

Jordan, through 13 games has 10.5 stuffs and 5.5 sacks for a total of 16 plays in the backfield and is a strong player in all aspects of the game.  Certainly, a few more sacks in the next three games will help his cause, but even at this point, he's a player the scouts love as a 4-3 end, a stack and shed player who can generate a rush on third down.

In a few weeks we shall see what happens. It will be interesting.

Clutch Passers

CLOSER LOOK
By John Turney

 Art credit: D Rogale

Pro Football Reference.com is a wonderful site, allowing for a myriad of searches that spit out answers in moments that used to take days or more of research.

Here is a quick one we did. It's the passing statistics of all quarterbacks from 2010-2016 that occurred in the 4th quarter or overtime in games that are with 14 points, either way. meaning they could be up by up to 14 points or down up to 14 points. We could change that to 16 points since that is 2 touchdowns and 2 2-point conversions.

Here is the result:

From 2010 to 2016, any team vs. any team, in the regular season, in the fourth quarter or overtime,
scoring margin is between 0 and 14

It's likely not a surprise to see Wilson, Rodgers, and Brady atop the list. It is likely a bit surprising to see Peyton Manning at 25.

Coy Bacon's Monster 1976 Season

LOOKING BACK

By John Turney 

In 1976 Coy Bacon was traded from the San Diego Chargers to the Cincinnati Bengals for Charlie Joiner and it was a trade that worked out for both teams, at least for 1976 (and beyond for the Chargers). 

Joiner had first for 1,000-yard season and averaged 21.1 yards on his 50 catches for San Deigo. Bacon had 21½ sacks in a 14-game season, of of the best seasons ever for any defensive linemen based on PFJ research.

Here are his game-by-game totals—

For his efforts, he was named to Paul Zimmerman's New York Post All-Pro team and was Second-team All-Pro on most of the major All-Pro teams as well.

The NFL Illustrations of Sandy Huffaker

NFL ART
By John Turney

The 1977 Pro Football Special of Sports Illustrated featured some really fun images drawn by cartoonist Sandy Huffaker. Back in the day, when it was often an illustrated magazine, cartoonist like Huffaker and Jack Davis, among others, were often featured. It made the magazine unique and different from some of the others at the time.

We hope this may inspire SI to commission an artist to do similar things for the current NFL. We'd like to share those with our readers who may have never seen them or may remember them as fondly as we do:

The following two-color illustrations are likely Huffaker's but we found no credit for them in the article or the table of contents. If they are not Huffaker's we apologize and would love to know who did them if it was not.

Thursday's Color Rush Will Feature the Rams Helmet with White Horns

UNIFORMS
By John Turney

According to press reports, the Los Angeles Rams will don helmets with white horn decals this Thursday in the NFL Color Rush Series.

Since 2000 the Rams have had an old gold horn, with the exceptions of the yellow gold horns they have worn on when they were outfitted in the 1999 throwback uniforms.

With the firing of Jeff Fisher, this will, for a brief moment change the subject away from the disarray that is the current Rams team.

The facemasks will be gray to match the 1964-72 design. Hopefully, the white horn will bring back some memories of the Fearsome Foursome and Roman Gabriel.