Bill Barnwell's rewards for mid-season 2018 NFL

There is a whole other group of teams whose coaches are always excellent but who never really appreciate this reward. Bill Belichick could deserve to win this award every year. The saints of Sean Payton are 7-1.

McVay won the coaching title of the year last season and is doing everything possible in 2018, but no one has won this award two consecutive seasons since Joe Gibbs in 1982 and 1983. He would have maybe the Rams had a 16-0 record for McVay. win for the second time in two seasons. I think he could win at 15-1 too, but Sunday's loss to the Saints is driving McVay into a tough position in the near term.

Reid is the only veteran candidate who could be at the top of the standings, as the leaders are 8-1 after replacing Alex Smith with Patrick Mahomes. The Eagles and Chiefs 'long-time coach is rightly credited with bringing Mahomes and setting up a devastating system based on his quarterback's strengths and the Chiefs' many weapons. He has not won this award since 2002, when Reid hired a 12-4 Eagles playoff team, although this was an atypical choice as the Eagles pulled out after 11 consecutive seasons. Reid was my choice for the award after four weeks of last season, but the Chiefs suffered a 1-6 mid-season stretch before taking control. Reid can not do that anymore and compete for this prize in 2018.

Will the Nagy Bears suffer a similar fall to the Vrabel Titans? If they do, it will not be for the same reasons. The Titans' three wins were combined with a total of nine points and each of them forced Tennessee to take the lead in the fourth quarter. We can not say that much of the Bears, who led the fourth quarter after four wins out of five. After modest wins over the Seahawks and Cardinals, the Bears beat the Bucs, Jets and Bills by 84 points overall. Big wins on bad teams may not seem impressive, but they are historically a better predictor of future success than narrow wins, even in the face of better competition.

You could argue that the Bears have not played a difficult role, but it's not ready to become difficult. The league's second easiest program for the Bears was at DVOA before the 9th week. Even though the last Bills were prominent in the equation, the only dominant team left on the Chicago program is the Rams in the 14th week. -and-homes left with the incoherent Vikings and even more inconsistent Lions, plus a home game against the Packers and road trips to face the modest Giants and 49ers. If the Bears can go 5 to 3 against this schedule, they will play in the playoffs and Nagy should win this award.

Game of the year

If we are looking for the most important game from 2018 to the present, the best place to go is ESPN's ESPN winnings model. The game that produced the biggest swing in expectation of winning is the most significant of the first half. When you look at the numbers, it's not really a competition.

Unfortunately, not all the decisive touches are winning. Third place of the year came Sunday afternoon, when Brandon McManus missed a 51-yard goal to win the game against the Texans. Case Keenum had converted a fourth run by coaching the Broncos on a 37-yard line with 43 seconds to go, but after using his second elapsed time, Denver decided to throw Jeff Heuerman a 5-yard pass before staying ahead. settle for a long field goal.

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Brandon McManus has a decisive win potential on the pitch and the Texans are holding on to win 19-17.

Vance Joseph was punished for attempting to erase Texas kicker Ka'im Fairbairn at the end of the first half, which allowed a goal to be set back into a mark. Research suggests that chilling the kicker has no effect, although Joseph probably remembers the success with which he slipped Younghoe Koo on his first start against the Chargers in 2017. (The universe slips on the Chargers' kickers. ) In a situation where he could play a much more significant role, Joseph had his offensive sitting on football and settle for a 51-yard placement, which is not nearly safe even in the clear airs from Denver. The Broncos had a 66.9% chance of winning before the kick, but their hope of victory completely evaporated with the failure.

The year game of non special teams belongs to the Bengals. Andy Dalton's 13-yard touchdown pass to A.J. Green against the Falcons in the fourth week, limited a touchdown of 16 yards and 75 yards by scoring a touchdown with seven seconds to go, giving the Bengals a 37-36 lead. The match was not over – the Bengals failed in their two-point try and had to stop Atlanta from scoring – but Cincinnati's hope of victory jumped 72.2 percent after the pass. touch.

During the nine weeks, the game of the year is Graham Gano scored 63 yards against the Giants, which turned a 31-30 deficit into a 33-31 win for the Panthers with a second left. Carolina's chances of winning rose 80.7%, while the Panthers suddenly became the prohibitive favorites of one of the longest goals in the history of the NFL. The Panthers only needed to stop the Giants at the kickoff to ensure the win, which led to 3-1 in the NFC.

Even if the player who seemed to challenge physics from the inside and fight his way through the line of scrimmage has not come back yet, the Watt version we see in 2018 is still among the top five . He needs to rely more on this incessant engine, and Watt sees fewer double teams thanks to the presence of Jadeveon Clowney, but the future Hall of Fame is an easy all-in-one choice with nine sacks, 16 quarterbacks and four forced. procrastinate in nine games.

Miss of the year

In a year in which quarterbacks produce a record number of records and where coaches like McVay and Reid seem to be able to handle open receivers every moment, there's one thing you can not escape: you have to finish Thu. . With the help of next gen stats from the NFL, we can quantify the chances of success of each pass. The final result is not perfect, but it is the best information we have had on the chances of success of each pass.

For this category, I limit myself to jets browsing 16 yards or more, which is the NFL's definition of a deep pass. The "winner" is a Jared Goff moves to Cooper Kupp in the Rams' opening victory against the Raiders. As you can see in the animation below, Kupp looks like doing a little shallow cross before going back on his wheel course. Goff predicts that Kupp will open and perform his throw, but even with a chance to complete that 85.6% pass, the throw is behind the receiver and falls incomplete.

There is another way to define that, and that also includes Goff. The new generation league statistics also measure the distance between a receiver and any opposing defender when passing or landing a pass, in order to provide a reliable estimate of the degree of separation. a receiver. The most open receiver on a gap came by far on a pass from Goff to Robert Woods against the Cardinals in the second week. The Cardinals missed a surrender and left Woods an almost comical trajectory towards the end zone with 17.2 yards of space, almost five meters more space than any other receiver had a completion this year . It's hard to say whether Woods hesitated briefly before continuing his fade or just missed the pitch, but the Rams missed what should have been one of the easiest touchdowns of the season:

The South Carolina product continues to fill the match sheet, as even after missing a game, he has accumulated 88 tackles, a top in the league, with four sacks, three forced fumbles and two interruptions. To put this number in context, Leonard participated in 19.7% of his catch this season. Rams' linebacker Cory Littleton, who arguably plays behind the scariest domestic defensive defense line in football, is the only player with 400 shots or more at less than 3.5% of Leonard's points. I do not think Leonard will win, if only because he's playing for a team that nobody really cares about and will not reap a huge bag total, but the second round pick has been a huge one discovery for Frank Reich and Chris Ballard at Indy.

Offensive rookie of the year

Surprisingly, none of the five quarterbacks taken in the first round deserves serious consideration for any of these three places. The five passersby – Josh Allen, Sam Darnold, Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen – only managed to complete 56.5% of their passes, while throwing more interceptions (32) than touchdowns (29) . Their cumulative smuggler rating is 72.1 and their total QBR, supported by precipitation, is up 36.3. Jackson does not qualify, but the other four rookies rank as four of the worst five league quarterbacks by QBR so far this season in a group with Eli Manning.

Johnson did not do much on Sunday against a strong defense against the Vikings race, but as the Lions give extra touches after being knocked out by Golden Tate, Johnson should be one of the first players to compete in the race. The second-round pick was a devastating hitter for Detroit, with five 20-yard or more runs on just 89 runs. The added reception utility was a bonus. Johnson has never passed 24 assists or 194 passing yards at Auburn, but he has already generated 24 passes for 165 yards in eight games with the Lions. As long as he will not be able to offend Matt Patricia with his posture, the 43rd overall pick should see his role continue to grow in the second half.

The landing rate from weeks 2 to 4 would never be sustainable, even though Ridley came back for the first time since September with a 40-yard record in traffic and a score in Sunday's comfortable win over Washington. The former Alabama player caught six passes for 71 yards, his second total yards per season, and Ridley captured 75% of his targets despite averaging 11.2 yards per attempt. The presence of Julio Jones is a blessing and a curse for his chances of rookie of the year; Jones pushes Ridley's doubles away and opens the red zone, but with an average of more than 11 targets per game for Julio, Ridley may not get the target share to compete.

And yet, you've seen him play and know what I'm talking about. Barkley has six passes for 30 yards or more while no one else has more than four. He has accumulated 348 yards more than any other rookie and is 2 032 yards ahead. Only Eric Dickerson and Edgerrin James have managed their rookie. The Giants did not do a lot of creative things with Barkley, since he only caught four passes that ran more than six meters in the air. It is the card "Get out of jail for free" for a ground-related offense by a horrible offensive line and a quarter that collapses in the dust.

Pass of the year

Just as we used the probability of completion to determine the "Miss of the Year", we can also use the same statistic to determine which successful pass actually exceeded the longest chance of falling into the hands of A receiver. Once again, I will limit myself to passages that run 16 meters in the air or more. It's always good when the numbers match the tape and something that seemed almost impossible on a movie is also saved by the player tracking data.

Better still, this pass has also played an important role in a game. Not win, in this case, but tie one. When Kirk Cousins ​​found Adam Thielen for a 22-yard touchdown against the Packers in the second week, the Vikings were within two points of the Packers with 36 seconds to go after being led 20-7 early in the fourth quarter. Stefon Diggs tied the score with the ensuing two-point conversion, and after the two teams combined to miss three field goals in the ensuing 15 minutes or more, the match was over. is finished on a score of 29-29. Watch the animation and you will see how close the window of Cousins ​​is for this football:

NFL Next Gen Stats believes that Cousins ​​only has 12.4 percent chance to complete this one. It's a perfect throw on a pole / wheel concept against a man blanket with two deep safety features. Thielen is not quite open when the ball is released – he is tied with cornerback Alexander Jaire (23 years old) on the 15-yard line – but Cousins ​​leads Thielen to the exact absolute position on the field where he can catch the pass before being touched by Kentrell Brice's security (29). If you consider it to be Cousins' second regular season game with Thielen, the touch and familiarity it took to make this pass was absolutely unreal. What to throw.

Race of the year

I will use a combination of next-generation statistics and the band to reward this one. It was tempting to give Kareem Hunt's 22-yard touchdown in Week E, where he broke two tackles, scored a third goal, and trailed a fourth Broncos defenseman in the end zone for a the fourth and first place. happened when the chefs used a shovel-reading concept and shoved a shoveled pass. Technically, it's a pass. Sorry, Kareem.

Instead, my race of the year is the longest of the season when a halfback has not been touched. This type of course may be more about the offensive line than the back line, but Isaiah Crowell's 77-yard touchdown against the Broncos in the fifth week is a good balance of both:

Hunter's performance may not be sustainable – these 11.5 bags were delivered with just 15 assists, which would typically generate something closer to seven sacks – but he's a legitimate superstar playing for a defense with three high-profile games against the Bears, Packers and Seahawks after his goodbye. Hunter also gets the Lions in the 16th week in what could be a demonstration game of the LSU product.

Donald did not have a bag against Drew Brees who was released very quickly on Sunday. The defensive player of the year therefore had to settle for four assists, a tackle for which he could have forced Alvin Kamara to reconsider football, pass bypass and fumble recovery to give the Rams a short run. field. After a slow start to the year, Donald has collected 10 sacks and 20 assists in six games. Hunter has the best total of bags, but Donald is a force of nature with every shot that he plays in a way that no one else in football can match for the moment. If the numbers are close, I lean towards the Rams star.

The longest touch of the year

Un touché de la NFL ne peut officiellement franchir que 109 verges, puisqu'un joueur peut prendre le ballon à l'arrière de sa propre zone de but et le parcourir jusqu'à la ligne de but de l'autre équipe pour marquer un but. Cordarrelle Patterson a fait le retour pour les Vikings en 2013.

Pour être plus précis, nous pouvons utiliser les statistiques de la prochaine génération pour voir quel joueur a réellement voyagé le plus loin en direction d'un touché cette saison. Dimanche, nous avons pu constater tout le travail que cela peut prendre pour marquer le butin des Panthers, Curtis Samuel, de faire un revers de 33 verges à la maison. Le plus long touché de l'année, cependant, appartient sans surprise à un joueur des Chiefs. La surprise pourrait être que cela est arrivé alors que Patrick Mahomes était sur la touche: c'était Le botté de départ de Tyreek Hill sur 91 verges pour un touché contre les Chargers dans la semaine 1, où Hill a couru un total de 140,9 verges et a atteint 21,8 mph dans le processus. "Tyreek Hill is fast" n'est pas vraiment une nouvelle, mais dans une ligue dans laquelle les joueurs voient leur avance de 40 verges citée comme une évangile d'une décennie dans leur carrière, il n'est pas mauvais de donner quelques chiffres récents à la vitesse de Hill chose.

Two young NFC passers came up narrowly short. Jared Goff is playing well, but he has slipped some after that incredible prime-time game against the Vikings. From Week 5 on, Goff has completed 64.2 percent of his passes and posted a 100.9 passer rating, which is 11th in the league. By Total QBR, his 64.0 mark is 13th. He certainly hasn't been bad, of course, but the standards at the top of the charts here are higher than they've ever been before. He has fallen to fifth in both passer rating and QBR, which is where he ranks here.

I'm also narrowly eliminating Cam Newton, although I've been pleasantly surprised to be totally wrong about Norv Turner and the Panthers' offense this season. Instead of trying to revert back to some antiquated offensive scheme, Turner has turned Newton and the offense loose. Plenty of teams run jet sweeps and end-arounds in 2018, but the Panthers mix in reverses and even the rare double reverse for big plays, like the one we saw to Samuel on Sunday.

The only thing I'd fault Newton for in this offense is a relatively conservative passing game. The Panthers have successfully jump-started his completion percentage over 60 percent and all the way to a staggering 67.3 percent, but Newton is averaging just 7.2 yards per attempt, which is below the league average of 7.6 yards per pass attempt this season. He makes up for that to some extent by racking up 355 rushing yards, but even those runs have required 62 carries, which is far more than any other passer. (Those numbers don't include kneel-downs.) His numbers are very good, but they're just a tad below our top three MVP candidates.

I recognize that 2018 has been a higher-scoring campaign than 2016, but compare Ryan's first eight games of 2018 with the first eight games of his MVP campaign under Kyle Shanahan in 2016:

Let's work through these two together, since they stand apart for me. The most obvious difference is the touchdown total. Mahomes has 29 touchdown passes. Twenty-nine! Brees has 18. Andrew Luck has 23, and nobody else in the league tops 20. The second-year sensation Mahomes is throwing for touchdowns on 9.1 percent of his passes, the second-highest mark in the league behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. The only passer to hit 9 percent in a 500-attempt season is Aaron Rodgers in 2011. Tom Brady didn't do it in 2007. Dan Marino didn't do it in 1984. This is a big advantage for Mahomes.

Mahomes is averaging nearly a full yard more per pass than Brees, but a lot of that comes from his receivers' work on screens. Strip them out and Brees is completing 74.9 percent of his passes and averaging 8.7 yards per attempt. Mahomes is completing 61.9 percent of his non-screen passes while averaging … 8.7 yards per attempt. Both marks are great. You don't need me to tell you Brees' is better.

Of course, while both teams have excellent weapons, there's a reason I ranked the Chiefs' weapons as the scariest in football before the season. Brees' top two receivers are Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara. Pretty terrifying. Mahomes gets to work with Tyreek Hill and Kareem Hunt. Also scary. After that, though, Mahomes' next two guys up are Travis Kelce and Sammy Watkins. Brees is working with Benjamin Watson and either Ted Ginn Jr. or rookie Tre'Quan Smith, depending on when you're judging the arsenals. Brees has Mark Ingram to help in pass protection and a better offensive line given the injuries on the interior for the Chiefs, but Mahomes has more with which to work.

At the end of the day, there just isn't much between these two. Brees has a passer rating of 120.6 and a Total QBR of 84.5. Mahomes has a passer rating of 116.7 and a Total QBR of 85.4. They're 1-2 in each category. Maybe I lean Brees because the sentimental, sappy side of me wants to see the 39-year-old Brees finally win league MVP before he retires. If you prefer Mahomes, I can't fault you. If Mahomes gets to 56 passing touchdowns and breaks the league record in his first full year as a starter, I'll join you on that side of the fence. For now, though, very narrowly, I lean toward Brees.