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The magic number is 50

by Joe Fortenbaugh
National Football Post
June 18, 02013

Former National Football Post scribe and current Cleveland Browns general manager Mike Lombardi is a walking, talking encyclopedia of football information. That’s what happens to a person after spending 30+ years in the business. During my time spent working with Lombardi, school was always in session.

I’m still in possession of countless notebooks filled from the hours spent listening to Lombardi impart his wisdom. Were you to get your hands on one of these notebooks, you would quickly become cognizant of two things: That Lombardi possesses a vast range of knowledge spanning from management to game theory, and that a two-year-old with a half-eaten No. 2 pencil is capable of producing better script than yours truly.

One nugget of information that repeatedly appears throughout these notebooks is Lombardi’s insistence on the importance of rushing attempts plus completions. Specifically, the Browns general manager used to say that a good football team would produce a rushing attempts + completions total that averaged somewhere in the high 40s.

As you have no doubt already surmised, this statistic is today’s focus.

Let’s begin by taking a look at the best and worst teams in rushing attempts + completions from the 2012 season.



The top-10 teams in rushing attempts + completions combined to post a record of 101-59 (.631) in 2012, with seven of those ten organizations advancing to the postseason. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the bottom-10 teams combined for a 62-97-1 (.387) mark, with zero total playoff berths.

If we expand our sample size to the last five years, you’ll notice:

1. 30 of the 50 teams (60%) that ranked in the top-10 in rushing attempts + completions qualified for the playoffs.

2. Only five of the 50 teams (10%) that ranked in the top-10 in rushing attempts + completions produced a losing record.

3. The 50 teams that ranked in the top-10 over the last five years combined to post a regular season record of 491-308-1 (.614). That average winning percentage falls just short of a 10-6 campaign (.625).

4. The 50 teams that ranked in the top-10 combined to average a total of 51.176 rushing attempts + completions per game.

5. If you take only the teams that averaged 50.0 or more rushing attempts + completions per game over the last five years, you get a combined regular season record of 339-189 (.642), with 22 of 33 (66%) teams qualifying for the postseason. That winning percentage puts a team in between 10 and 11 wins per season.

So how does a team achieve an average of 50.0 rushing attempts + completions per game? Here are two statistics that appear to play an integral role:

Convert on third down: Of the 33 teams that posted an average of 50.0 rushing attempts + completions per game over the last five years, 22 (69.6%) ranked in the top-10 in the NFL in third down conversions. Move the sticks at a high rate and you’ll have more opportunities to both complete passes and run the ball.

Quarterback rating: If you take a look at the top-10 teams in rushing attempts + completions in the above chart, you’ll notice that nine of those organizations have a quarterback who ranked in the top-10 in passer rating in 2012 (only Detroit’s Matthew Stafford failed to crack the mark). The QB rating criteria appears obvious: Elite quarterbacks produce elite numbers, which leads to a high rushing attempts + completions average. This is true. But take note that you don’t necessarily need an elite quarterback to produce a solid QB rating. You just need a guy who plays at a very efficient level. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranked fifth in the NFL in rushing attempts + completions average in 2008 and they did so with 38-year-old signal-caller Jeff Garcia under center, who finished the regular season ranked ninth in the league in QB rating (90.2).

A similar situation took place in 2010, when former Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel ranked eighth in the NFL in QB rating (93.0). That season, Kansas City ranked third in the league in rushing attempts + completions average (51.9).

The Cleveland Browns ranked 29th in the NFL in rushing attempts + completions average in 2012 (45.3), so it should be fun to see if Lombardi’s hiring leads to a new philosophy that yields a better offensive return.

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/The-magic-number-is-50.html

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Mike Lombardi Cracks the Code to Winning in the NFL

by Chase Stuart
June 19, 2013
Football Perspective

Yesterday, Joe Fortenbaugh canonized Mike Lombardi for discovering and emphasizing one of the game’s great hidden stats: the number of rushing attempts plus completions a team has in a game. If you hit 50, you’re in great shape. Fortenbaugh reminds us that Lombardi, whose last team went 2-14, “possesses a vast range of knowledge spanning from management to game theory.” Fortenbaugh does the math for us, noting that the “top-10 teams in rushing attempts + completions combined to post a record of 101-59 (.631) in 2012, with seven of those ten organizations advancing to the postseason. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the bottom-10 teams combined for a 62-97-1 (.387) mark, with zero total playoff berths.” Then, he blows us away with the prize-winning line:

"If you take only the teams that averaged 50.0 or more rushing attempts + completions per game over the last five years, you get a combined regular season record of 339-189 (.642), with 22 of 33 (66%) teams qualifying for the postseason. That winning percentage puts a team in between 10 and 11 wins per season."

The headline to the article reads: Average a combined total of 50 rushing attempts and completions per game and a winning season will likely follow. I’ll do the article one better: From 2008 to 2012, including playoffs, teams with 50+ rushes + completions have a record of 819-325-3, giving them a .715 winning percentage.

After reading that article and getting an inside look into Lombardi’s wisdom, I had considered the code to producing a winning season cracked. But I’ve got a robust database, so I thought maybe I could do even better than that .715 winning percentage Lombardi’s stat produces. The following information is based on the results from every game, regular and postseason, since 2008:


Upon further review, there’s no reason to concern yourself with completing passes. Teams that run 30+ times in a game won 79.9% of the time (798-201-1).
Here’s another to just focus on the ground game: teams with 2+ rushing touchdowns in a game win 76.5% of all games (414-127-1).
But perhaps focusing on offensive statistics is the wrong way to go about it. The real way to win is with defense. Teams that force 3 interceptions or more in a game win 90.0% of the time (210-23-1).
Think forcing interceptions is difficult? All defenses really need to do is foüce incompletions. When your opponent throws 20 or more incomplete passes in a game, you win 87.0% of the time (223-33-1). Even if you only force 15+ incompletions, you still win 75.8% of the time (747-238-2).
Instead of focusing on building your secondary, consider getting some pass rushers. Teams with 6+ sacks in a game win 78.4% of the time (81-22-1).
Here’s another sign that the game is won in the trenches: teams won 71.6% (290-115-0) of the time that they they finished the game with no sacks. Just say no to passing.
Think special teams is one-third of the game? You’re right. Teams won 88.2% of the time when they hit five or more field goals in a game (15-2-0).
Getting to 50+ completions + rush attempts sounds tough. Instead, teams should just focus all their energy on winning the first half. Teams that enter the locker room with a lead won 77.1% of all games (945-280-2). Better yet, just win through three quarters: that gives you an 82.6% chance of winning (1031-216-2).
Of course, the takeaway isn’t that 50 pass completions + rushes isn’t the key to victory. The real key? To take second half kneel downs. Teams that do that win 98% of the time.

http://www.footballperspective.com/mike-lombardi-cracks-the-code-to-winning-in-the-nfl/

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100% of the teams that out score their opponents win.
Maybe I could be a GM.

Last edited by PortlandDawg; 06/23/13 09:02 AM.

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Quote:

100% of the teams that out score their opponents win.
Maybe I could be a GM.





Win.


Browns is the Browns

... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.

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*L* ... I was trying to decide if he's Albert Einstein or Captain Obvious. I suppose the hard part is having a good enough YPC rushing to be able to run +30 times a game and good enough QB, WR's, and pass protection to complete +20 passes. Reminds me of the Steve Martin joke about getting a million dollars tax-free ... "well, first you get your million dollars ..."

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Soo,good teams can run and throw the ball.I would have never figured that out my own.


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Thanks for posting that response article. The more I read about Lombardi's "massive football knowledge," the more comical he becomes, which is unfortunate because I typically like people who take an intellectual approach to things.... but Lombardi is proving himself to be a pedant.

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Is our GM going to be calling plays this year?


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Thanks for posting those articles Dave..

But honestly, if you pass and run and you do it effectively, you will probably win more than you lose. Not really sure there is anything earth shattering in there. Didn't we all know that?


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Somewhere, Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, and Bill Walsh are smacking themselves in the forehead, saying "So that's the secret!

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j/c

So here is the thing... IF you know the numbers... you can work towards them.

In sales, it's all about the numbers. For example: it takes 100 phone calls to get 3 appointments, in those 3 appointments you get 1 sale. If you don't know the numbers, you don't know how hard you have to work and you can never make money. As long as they are pushing it to the team/coaching staff it will produce results becuase they know the amount of times they have to do something to be successful.


I don't understand why everyone is bashing this???
I think this is great they have figured out a way to be successful "by the numbers"


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Which numbers?

The one Lombardi stated or the multiple ones in the response article?


Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.

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It's because it's Lombardi.

I agree that you need a prototype to follow, and goals to meet. If you don't know where you're going, how the heck will you ever get there?

It seems rather elementary that teams with more offensive plays are more successful, but it seems to have escaped this team for how long now? More plays mean sustained drives.

I would think that big plays have to factor in somewhere along the way as well ..... but really if you have that many successful offensive plays, you just seem to get the big plays as well. Maybe I should put it the other way around ...... a successful team with lots of big plays will generally manage 50 successful offensive plays in each game.

I was kind of surprised to see that we did not even come close to 50 back in 2007. We had big plays, but we still only had 305 pass completions, and 440 rush attempts. That's a total of 745, which, divided by 16 is only 46.56. However, Lewis averaged 4.4 yards/carry, and Wright averaged 4.6. DA had 53 pass plays of 20+ yards, and 6 pass plays of 40+. His completion percentage is what held the team back in many regards. We were too often big play, or no play.

Anyway, I have no problem with metrics that help set standards and goals for teams to reach, and this seems to be just one such tool. I don't see why people are so up in arms over it.


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John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
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Quote:

j/c

So here is the thing... IF you know the numbers... you can work towards them.

In sales, it's all about the numbers. For example: it takes 100 phone calls to get 3 appointments, in those 3 appointments you get 1 sale. If you don't know the numbers, you don't know how hard you have to work and you can never make money. As long as they are pushing it to the team/coaching staff it will produce results becuase they know the amount of times they have to do something to be successful.


I don't understand why everyone is bashing this???
I think this is great they have figured out a way to be successful "by the numbers"




Can't speak for anyone else, But I didn't bash the numbers, I just think they are obvious and they don't prove that Lombardi is any better than me or you.

The trick is, getting to those numbers..


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j/c

These stats are nothing new. People have preached these numbers for years. The games has changed where the pass sets up the run, but no team can win without a combination. It works both sides of the ball.

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*L* ... I was trying to decide if he's Albert Einstein or Captain Obvious.




...or an upgraded version of Coach B

Wasn't he the poster who insisted to run it 30+ times to win games?

This is another example of a simple given fact being crowned as a solution. Sociology does this all the time, lol. It doesn't EXPLAIN anything, it just REPRESENTS the winning formula, but doesn't crack it. Just like the term "society" is used anytime a sociologist stops thinking (consciously or unconsciously). At best, it uncovers the "question". It's faulty logic to think this "surface" is some kind of insight to winning, it's just the result. Not really surprising me that a self inflated ego like Lombardi "falls" for it, as that's what people, who overrate their mental capabilities tend to do

Any epistemologist will laugh at you if you think you've thought something smart here....complete passes and then run it home, yeah, why didn't anyone else come up with this before



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FWIW, the two Super Bowl teams had a combined avg of 48.7 comp + rush att (Balt 48.6, SF 48.8). They had a combined record in 2012 of 21-10-1 (.656 winning pct). They also had kicka$$ defenses. I know the stats are supposed to predict success and playoff probability, but its interesting that both SB contestants are statistical outliers, while Detroit (4-12) and a couple other .500 and sub-.500 teams are in the top ten.

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I gotta give Lombardi props. He's leveraged relationships with people he's worked with to write something nice about him. Two articles in three days.

My only recommendation is that he should be spacing them out a bit further.


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WARNING! non-football related post

Quote:

...but Lombardi is proving himself to be a pedant.





I can't pass up the opportunity to Google a word I see on here of which I don't know the meaning. For those who are not so inclined but wondered what "pedant" means...



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism and precision, or who makes an ostentatious and arrogant show of learning.




I must admit thinking Lombardi fit the second half of that description to a tee quite a while back. But I certainly didn't have such a brief and clearly expressed definition for my observation.


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Quote:

Anyway, I have no problem with metrics that help set standards and goals for teams to reach, and this seems to be just one such tool. I don't see why people are so up in arms over it.




I agree with this.

Lombardi didn't come up with a new revelation. He simply studied the existing numbers and noticed a correlation between the numbers and winning teams.

The stuff the other guy came up with I've heard many times. But the 50 rushing attempts + completions I haven't. So he did come up with an original observation at least.

I'm not sure how this, or any statistical knowledge helps. It doesn't seem to be a goal to aim for. Because: How would you do that?

None of those stats the other guy came up with would be a valid goal either. They are all merely numbers after the fact.

What you can take from all of these stats is that if you have a successful running game as well as a successful passing game and a defense who can force turnovers and incompletions as well as stop the run you can win. Duh?!

Those are real goals. The stats are just numbers after the fact.

And the stats contain so many variables that they indicate nothing other than numbers after the fact.

To complete a pass you need 5 offensive lineman blocking well, WR's running good routes, a QB recognizing where to throw the ball and then throwing it timely accurately, a RB picking up a block if called for, the WR making the catch, a good play called for the down & distance situation, etc, etc. That's why you can't evaluate a single player on his stats alone. There are so many other players that contribute to making a play either a success or a failure that you can't tag a single player with a stat. For instance: WR so and so has X number of catches. That's not his stat. That stat belongs to the entire offense including the coaches. On the other hand, if a WR is targeted 100 times and makes 15 catches with 35 drops, well, that's likely on him alone.

That's one of the reasons why Diam often proclaims, "Stats are for losers". If one cannot understand what is happening on the field, doesn't understand the different roles each position group is responsible for, and wouldn't know a good play called if he chipped his tooth on it, all he really has to form an opinion is the numbers after the fact which do not paint an accurate picture of is really happening on the field.

Same goes for evaluating players using stats alone. In FA, what a player does for one team is no indication what he will be able to accomplish for another. He may fair much better or much worse playing alongside a different team who are either much more or much less talented from whence he came.

I don't hate stats or discount them. But they are what they are. Numbers after the fact that really tell you nothing other than what they are and that is the numbers after the fact.

So Lombardi made a valid observation of the stats. For that I'll give him kudos. But otherwise it has little to no value in preparing a team for a game. If a team is properly prepared in all phases of the game, the numbers Lombardi noticed will come. If the team is not well prepared the favorable numbers will not be there.


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Chicken and the egg article.

Did the teams that are winners determine this combination was a path to success

or

Did someone ( read Lomabardi in the case), take the winning teams and total their numbers and then use fallacy as a suggestive argument, in this example "begging the precedent" to attempt to draw a casue and effect relationship. If you solve the equation backwards there is no epiphany only self fulfilling prophecy.

My GUESS, is the latter.

IMO too many variable in the game of football to draw such cause and effect links.


for example... what if they found that teams that run the ball 40 times a game win 90%... so does that mean you hand the ball off the first 40 plays?


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Quote:

for example... what if they found that teams that run the ball 40 times a game win 90%... so does that mean you hand the ball off the first 40 plays?




Oh no! The soup theory. hahaha

You make a good point. But I couldn't help but be reminded of an old poster named soup who pounded his opinion ad nauseum that if you run the ball 35 times a game it virtually guaranteed a win. lol


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Did a little research myself and found another interesting state that teams can use to build there franchise with.

I went back over the last decade and looked at teams with winning vers losing records and what I found was shocking and interesting.

Teams with winning records scored more TD in each game rather than settling for a FG. It seems that the more TD scored the better the chances of winning are.

So for example; if a team (team A) scores four times and all four scores are FG they get 12 points, but the opposing team (team B) that only scored twice with two TD ended the game with 14 points and came away with the win.

So now you have team (team A) who moved the ball down field 4 times and achieved rushing+completions=50 yet team B who only got down field twice with a rushing+completion=30 but got into the endzone won the game. I have to wonder if defense has any say in this stat at all?

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Seems to me that teams with a late lead run the ball a lot to work the clock down. That would be my explanation for his stat. So take home point would be to get the lead early and run out the clock. Not ground breaking.


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That's a prime example of how and why stats don't tell the whole story.


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I wonder what the winning percentage of teams that turn over their entire FO every 2.5 years is?

I wonder what the winning percentage is of teams that retool their entire O every 2.5 years to fit the incoming new system is?

I wonder what the winning percentage is of teams that retool their entire D every 2.5 years to fit the incoming new system is?

I wonder what the winning percentage is of teams that have 4 total players left (1 from each year) from drafts 2006, 7, 8, and 9?

I wonder what the winning.........................ah, nevermind.





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I wonder what the winning percentage of teams that turn over their entire FO every 2.5 years is?

I wonder what the winning percentage is of teams that retool their entire O every 2.5 years to fit the incoming new system is?

I wonder what the winning percentage is of teams that retool their entire D every 2.5 years to fit the incoming new system is?

I wonder what the winning percentage is of teams that have 4 total players left (1 from each year) from drafts 2006, 7, 8, and 9?

I wonder what the winning.........................ah, nevermind.




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Right. It's just an application of sabermetrics to football. Some will mock it as something that's not a real measure that works and others will swear by it.

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Quote:

The magic number is 50

by Joe Fortenbaugh
National Football Post
June 18, 02013

Former National Football Post scribe and current Cleveland Browns general manager Mike Lombardi is a walking, talking encyclopedia of football information. That’s what happens to a person after spending 30+ years in the business. During my time spent working with Lombardi, school was always in session.

I’m still in possession of countless notebooks filled from the hours spent listening to Lombardi impart his wisdom. Were you to get your hands on one of these notebooks, you would quickly become cognizant of two things: That Lombardi possesses a vast range of knowledge spanning from management to game theory, and that a two-year-old with a half-eaten No. 2 pencil is capable of producing better script than yours truly.

One nugget of information that repeatedly appears throughout these notebooks is Lombardi’s insistence on the importance of rushing attempts plus completions. Specifically, the Browns general manager used to say that a good football team would produce a rushing attempts + completions total that averaged somewhere in the high 40s.

As you have no doubt already surmised, this statistic is today’s focus.

Let’s begin by taking a look at the best and worst teams in rushing attempts + completions from the 2012 season.



The top-10 teams in rushing attempts + completions combined to post a record of 101-59 (.631) in 2012, with seven of those ten organizations advancing to the postseason. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the bottom-10 teams combined for a 62-97-1 (.387) mark, with zero total playoff berths.

If we expand our sample size to the last five years, you’ll notice:

1. 30 of the 50 teams (60%) that ranked in the top-10 in rushing attempts + completions qualified for the playoffs.

2. Only five of the 50 teams (10%) that ranked in the top-10 in rushing attempts + completions produced a losing record.

3. The 50 teams that ranked in the top-10 over the last five years combined to post a regular season record of 491-308-1 (.614). That average winning percentage falls just short of a 10-6 campaign (.625).

4. The 50 teams that ranked in the top-10 combined to average a total of 51.176 rushing attempts + completions per game.

5. If you take only the teams that averaged 50.0 or more rushing attempts + completions per game over the last five years, you get a combined regular season record of 339-189 (.642), with 22 of 33 (66%) teams qualifying for the postseason. That winning percentage puts a team in between 10 and 11 wins per season.

So how does a team achieve an average of 50.0 rushing attempts + completions per game? Here are two statistics that appear to play an integral role:

Convert on third down: Of the 33 teams that posted an average of 50.0 rushing attempts + completions per game over the last five years, 22 (69.6%) ranked in the top-10 in the NFL in third down conversions. Move the sticks at a high rate and you’ll have more opportunities to both complete passes and run the ball.

Quarterback rating: If you take a look at the top-10 teams in rushing attempts + completions in the above chart, you’ll notice that nine of those organizations have a quarterback who ranked in the top-10 in passer rating in 2012 (only Detroit’s Matthew Stafford failed to crack the mark). The QB rating criteria appears obvious: Elite quarterbacks produce elite numbers, which leads to a high rushing attempts + completions average. This is true. But take note that you don’t necessarily need an elite quarterback to produce a solid QB rating. You just need a guy who plays at a very efficient level. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranked fifth in the NFL in rushing attempts + completions average in 2008 and they did so with 38-year-old signal-caller Jeff Garcia under center, who finished the regular season ranked ninth in the league in QB rating (90.2).

A similar situation took place in 2010, when former Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel ranked eighth in the NFL in QB rating (93.0). That season, Kansas City ranked third in the league in rushing attempts + completions average (51.9).

The Cleveland Browns ranked 29th in the NFL in rushing attempts + completions average in 2012 (45.3), so it should be fun to see if Lombardi’s hiring leads to a new philosophy that yields a better offensive return.

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/The-magic-number-is-50.html



Good stuff.

It isn't exactly groundbreaking, but then again, I don't really expect an NFL GM to openly talk about anything too extraordinary.

The NFL is behind the times in many areas of statistical analysis. We are talking about a league where the majority of coaches still think it is ok, and front offices/owners still tolerate, routinely punting on 4th and short at midfield. Or heck, anywhere on the field.

A league where if you know the right coaches, and have the right family members, you can be quickly elevated to the absolute top of your profession. Someone tell me that Pat Shurmur was the most qualified person for the Browns head coaching job in 2011.

A lot of people just go on intuition, they know it when they see it, screw the numbers and screw the people who haven't been around to watch the game for 50 years. They don't know anything.

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j/c:

I really hate doing this because I hate when people do it to me, but are you guys kidding me? You're feaking hate for Lombardi clouds every issue. You can't see things for what they really are.

If anyone wants to discuss this.........I will, because there is merit in what he says. There are ways to actively pursue those numbers. And he is right on about it. There is no Captain Obvious about it. Look at the freaking list. The only two teams who did it and weren't good were New Orleans and Detroit, yet both teams made the playoffs the previous year and were major disappointments for other reasons. There is validity in what Lombadi said and he is well respected by others. However, I think it's just going to boil down to Lombardi sucks.........Heckert was great..........yet again.

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I don't hate Lombardi.

But I have read a lot of what he's said and done, and what others have written about him, and I do agree that he tries really, really, really hard to come across as smart.

I think he's smart, and I don't mean that as an insult.

But I'd say 'pedant' is a perfect description.

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How about this: Heckert was decent and Lombardi is yet to be determined, but his past record does not lead an unbiased person to expect him to be as good as we need him to be?


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It's okay if you hate him, but didn't he say that stuff to the reporter LONG BEFORE HE GOT THE GM JOB? Or did I misread things?

If so, how he is trying to make himself look smart in this instance?

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Quote:

It's okay if you hate him, but didn't he say that stuff to the reporter LONG BEFORE HE GOT THE GM JOB? Or did I misread things?

If so, how he is trying to make himself look smart in this instance?




I said I don't hate him.

And I wasn't commenting on this article, per say.

If I had any qualms here it would be that the reporter is trying to make Lombardi sound like some genius in an attempt to drum up interest in this chart or theory, which isn't all that interesting.

Nothing against it - I'm all for analysis of statistical data, but sometimes it does lead to obvious conclusions.

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We all have our opinions. We don't have to agree. I was simply saying that there is sound logic to that theory of his and that dismissing it out of hand is not quite fair.

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There are 2 example where this type of analysis might have played a role in our personnel decisions .......

Look at the need for additional plays, completions, and 3rd down conversions. What was, arguably, our biggest, most important signing of the off-season on the offensive side of the ball? I would think that it was Bess ...... who contributes by adding conversions, and completions, and additional plays.

On defense, we brought in an attacking defense, especially on 3rd down. We stocked up the pass rush, and will bring it all against opposing QBs, which is designed to stop conversions, especially on 3rd downs, and eliminate plays by the opposition.

Practice follows philosophy .... which is just as important as having an "obvious" philosophy.


Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
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Haha, Mufis! Most. Unstable. Franchise. In. Sports.

I wish I could see this number. Every time the offense doesn't score on 3 successive drives, they put all the 2nd teamers in, and if they don't score on 3 successive drives then they go out and the first teamers come back in.

On another note, ... I trend I had noticed back , way back in about 05 or so, and Baltimore fit it last year, and went on to win the SuperBowl. It is this, Because of home openers, the results in the first two weeks are skewed, and a team that is going to win it all will be dominant all season long. So the week 3 blowout win is the thing to look for. Look at the most dominating wins in week 3 and those winning teams will prevail in the big matchups later in the season.

The Browns are at Minnesota in week 3, so they gotta blow that team out. Then the Browns can go on to win the Super Bowl.


Can Deshaun Watson play better for the Browns, than Baker Mayfield would have? ... Now the Games count.
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Hmmmm...............good post. I especially like your mention of Bess. Run the ball plenty of times, have a manageable 3rd down, and then throw to a smart and reliable WR, who more than likely is playing in the slot, where mismatches are prevalent.

Still contemplating your defensive argument. I will get back to you later.

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How can I be politically correct and get my question answered?

Are his posts real or is it comedic relief? Or, is he just way smarter than most of us? You know, so smart that he makes no sense to dummies like me.

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He got this from Belicheck. I read about this 3-4 years ago in a article about Bill.

Not that it is wrong or putting Lombardi down....it makes a lot of sense and is a good number to seek. Seems like a winning number to me. Thirty rushing attempts and twenty completed passes is going to win a lot of football games.


If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.

GM Strong




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