2014 Playoffs Super Bowl Preview Football ERA Formula Trends Podcast

Julio Cortez, AP Photo
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AP Photo, Marcio Jose Sanchez

Jay Feely on Jay Cutler: He’ll never be a leader

Kicker Jay Feely spent a few weeks with the Bears as their dismal season was coming to an end in December, giving him a front-row seat for quarterback Jay Cutler’s brief benching and the final days of Marc Trestman’s head coaching tenure.

Feely was left with some strong impressions. During an appearance with Adam Schein on Mad Dog Sports Radio, Feely said he thought Trestman failed to inspire the players because he “was a little awkward when he spoke” and that problem was exacerbated by a lack of leadership from players. One of the players who failed to lead was Cutler, who Feely spoke highly of as a player while saying the team would be much better off if the quarterback was a leader off the field as well.

Feely doesn’t think Cutler’s going to change who he is at this point in his career, which means the Bears have to make other arrangements on the leadership front.

“That’s not who he is. You’re going to have a vacuum there,” Feely said. “So you have to know that as a general manager or a head coach, ‘Hey, we’re not going to have that leadership from this position, so we’ve really got to have other guys that are going to step up and are going to be our verbal leaders.'”

Feely did add that he thinks John Fox would provide the team with the leadership that was missing with Trestman at the helm and that he thinks there’s plenty of talent in Chicago to fuel a turnaround if the other issues can be dealt with this offseason.

Source:  PFT.com
Author:  Josh Alper
Photo: SportsInteraction.com

Robert Kraft: Party with Roger Goodell made Richard Sherman money

When Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman arrived in Arizona for the Super Bowl, he opined that the Patriots wouldn’t be punished as a result of the NFL’s investigation into their use of under-inflated footballs because of a “conflict of interest” illustrated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell attending a party at Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s house before the AFC Championship game.

Kraft didn’t seem to agree with that take on Monday when he deplaned with a statement demanding an apology from the league “for what [the Patriots have had to endure this past week” in the event that the league’s investigation determines the team didn’t intentionally tamper with the balls. Kraft then slammed the league for using “circumstantial leaked evidence” to paint the Patriots in a bad light.

At Tuesday’s Super Bowl Media Day, Kraft said he only wanted to answer questions about football, but did respond to a query about Sherman’s remarks. After calling Sherman “a very smart marketing whiz,” Kraft explained that the party in question would actually benefit Sherman.

“If you go into the facts of what he said, the NFL always used to pay for a big party for the AFC Championship Game. We’ve been privileged to own the team for 21 years, and this was our 10th championship game. When the league stopped giving the parties, we started doing it. This is our third one,” Kraft said, via ESPNBoston.com. “I think Mr. Sherman understood that he’s the biggest beneficiary, because they get over 50 percent of the revenues. So he didn’t go to Harvard, but Stanford must be pretty good because he figured it out.”

The league’s investigation isn’t expected to wrap up anytime soon, which leaves plenty of time for plenty of people to share opinions about what will or won’t happen in the most watched study of air pressure in memory.

Source: PFT.com
Author: Josh Alper
Getty Images

Justin Forsett: The plan is to return to the Ravens

Running back Justin Forsett is preparing to play in the Pro Bowl on Sunday night and would rank high on the list of participants that no one would have thought would be in the game if they’d voted at the start of the season.

After leading the league in rushing yards per attempt, though, Forsett was a good choice for the game and the last act of his breakout season will come before he turns his full attention to figuring out where he’ll play next year. Forsett is set to be a free agent and said recently that he’d like to exit the “friend zone” of short stays and have a long-term relationship with a team.

At the Pro Bowl this week, he said his plan is to have the Ravens be that team.
“That is the plan, they gave me my shot, they trusted me and believed in me enough to give me that shot so I’d like to stay,” Forsett said, via NFL.com. “They expressed that they want me back. I want to be back, so we’ll see what happens.”

The Ravens switched offensive coordinators with Gary Kubiak leaving for the Broncos head coaching job, but new coordinator Marc Trestman said he plans to keep the zone blocking scheme that helped spring Forsett in place for 2015. That would seem to help Forsett’s chances of sticking around, although, as always, the money will wind up determining where Forsett hangs his hat.

Source:  PFT.com
Author:  Josh Alper
Photo: Patrick Semansky, Associated Press

2014 Championship Playoffs Football ERA Formula Trends Podcast

Matt Slocum, AP Photo

2014 Championship Game Football ERA Results

The Football ERA Formula outputs a result that runs on a scale from approximately 5000 points to -5000 with losing teams that are dominated getting pushed into the negative numbers by their victors.  Defensive Elements of the Formula contribute to this negative score in games constituting blowouts.  A few years back, RealFootballAnalysis.com developed a formula that translates the Final Game Results of The Football ERA into Composite Scores that resemble football scores as much as possible.  Here are the Championship Football ERA Game Results and their corresponding Composite Scores:

	Net	Offense	Offense	Offense	Defense	Defense	Defense
	Total	Total	Rushing	Drives	Total	Rushing	Pressure
NE	3483	2110	1113	997	1373	1095	278
Ind	-1573	-510	298	-808	-1063	-1095	33
Sea	1998	1226	949	277	772	465	307
GB	592	220	273	-54	372	-465	837

Matt Slocum AP Photo


2014 Championship Game Football ERA Composite Scores

NE	…	35
Ind	…	10
Sea	…	27
GB	…	20

Elaine Thompson AP PHOTO

2014 Divisional Playoffs Football ERA Formula Trends Podcast

Photo By Andrew Weber, USA TODAY Sports

2014 Divisional Playoff Football ERA Composite Scores

The Football ERA Formula outputs a result that runs on a scale from approximately 5000 points to -5000 with losing teams that are dominated getting pushed into the negative numbers by their victors.  Defensive Elements of the Formula contribute to this negative score in games constituting blowouts.  A few years back, RealFootballAnalysis.com developed a formula that translates the Final Game Results of The Football ERA into Composite Scores that resemble football scores as much as possible.  Here are this week's Composite Scores:


2014 Divisional Playoff Football ERA Composite Scores

Ind	…	27
Den	…	17
Bal	…	26
NE	…	18
Car	…	24
Sea	…	19
GB	…	22
Dall	…	21

Photo by Joe Nicholson, USA TODAY Sports