Blown Away

First via the National Football Post and with more details from Ralph Vacchiano, Derrick Ward (Wind of the Giants trio "Earth, Wind and Fire") has a new home.

It comes as no surprise, of course, since the Giants were prepared to let Ward (nickname: Wind) leave as a free agent, unless he was willing to come back and play for a deeply discounted price. Instead, he found a windfall on the market, agreeing to a four-year, $17 million contract, according to several reports.

That deal reportedly includes $6 million guaranteed, and he’ll supposedly make $9.25 million over the first two years and $13 million over the first three. The entire package is worth an average of $4.25 million annually, which is more than many people thought he was going to make.

They still have Cadillac Williams and just last year the Bucs signed Earnest Graham to a four year $11.05M contract, so it looks like Ward won't have to do all the heavy lifting in Tampa either.

Graham is actually pretty similar to Ward. They are both 29 and bloomed late in their careers. Ward broke his leg and was placed on IR before game 9 of the 2007 season, while Graham was shelved in week 11 last year because of an ankle issue. The Giants plucked Ward off the Jets' practice squad while the Bucs got Graham off the Rams'. There was a really good article on Graham from a while back in ESPN The Magazine, if you have the time.

Ward's bread and butter on the Giants was catching screen passes and dump offs effortlessly and stretching them into more yards that you thought he should. He's not incredibly fast, but agile enough to work his way through congested areas. He had over 1,409 yards from scrimmage last year as part of Earth, Wind and Fire. That's pretty impressive and was a lot of fun to watch.

We knew Ward was leaving when he switched agents, and it does appear that (according to RV) that Drouche got Ward more money than most had anticipated. Still up for kneeing him in the balls for me anyway?

Good luck, Derrick. You seem like an all around good dude and that overtime game against Carolina in Week 16 where you ended up with 266 yards from scrimmage and owned the extra quarter, will live on in Giants lore.

Happy Trails, Derrick Ward

Via the NFP, Adam Schefter has learned that Derrick Ward switched agents.

Ward switched agents and hired Drew Rosenhaus, who is always busy at this time of year making deals.Ward clearly did not want a repeat of last offseason, when he was a free agent and wound up finding little interest, forcing him to re-sign with the Giants.Now that the Giants have tagged running back Brandon Jacobs, Ward wants Rosenhaus to find the market value and best deal for him.

It's been real, Derrick. I'm sorry that you broke your leg and couldn't really enjoy the Super Bowl victory. You were the go-to screen pass/dump off guy; a perfect compliment to the off-tackle bashings of the Juggernaut. Ahmad Bradshaw will have some pretty big shoes to fill, but I think the G-Men are going to be alright.

But you had to go with Drouche? Can you do me a favor? After you sign with your new team and you shake his hand, take an extra firm grip, pull him towards you... and knee him in the balls. Thanks.

Awww, Don't You Know Who The F___ I am?

Brandon Jacobs isn't going to be happy about this...

The Giants locked Brandon Jacobs up for at least the 2009 season by slapping the dreaded “franchise player” tag on him this afternoon. That decision — only the second time the Giants have ever used the “franchise” tag and the first time since they tagged Jumbo Elliott in 1993 — guarantees Jacobs a salary of $6.621 million next season, which is the average of the top five running back salaries last year. It also gives the Giants the right to match any contract offer Jacobs receives during the free-agent signing period.

Early last season, shortly after having discovered the video below, while watching a Giants game, Sampson and I dubbed Jacobs "The Juggernaut". The Max Kellerman Show later arrived at the same conclusion and still uses some two-second drops (which are only two seconds long because there is a curse word every three seconds) from the video on their show. If you like comic book-based cartoons, ebonics or just pretending Brandon Jacobs did the voiceovers for this video, enjoy the show. . .

The Next Great Debate

Yes, the "Next Great Debate" (that's sure to be played out by the time I'm done writing this post.)



What position would LeBron play if he was in the NFL?

In that freeze frame above, it looks like he's lined up wide, but #23 is a RB's number. He's listed at 6'8" 240 or 250 (or 6'9" 270). We'll go with 6'8" 250, close enough. He could be a defensive end, but he's probably not quite bulky enough. He could be a linebacker, but I don't think he's mean enough. I think most people agree that he should be on the offensive side of the ball at a skill position. It basically boils down to RB or WR.

Am I the only person in the world who thinks that LeBron should be a running back?

There is one thing every single person who disagrees with me says: "He's too big". Is he? Being large in and of itself is not a bad thing, it's a good thing. It's the things that come along with being unnaturally massive that those doubters are referring to. Freakishly tall people's bodies break down because our infrastructure just wasn't made to support that much weight, except in very rare cases like LeBron, who I assume was genetically engineered in a laboratory under the NBA headquarters on Madison Avenue. The thing that makes him such a transcendent athlete is that he has the quickness and agility of someone much smaller than him.

The tallest RB in the NFL right now is Brandon Jacobs (6'4" 264), and truth be told, LeBron would be tied for the tallest WR ever in the NFL with Harold Carmichael. Kobe recently claimed he could play wide receiver for the Eagles (via Deadspin). I'm not sure I've ever heard of that franchise, but I agree with that casting. Kobe (6'6" 205, er 220?) [Ed note: Can we get these fuckers on a scale and get this straight?] is built a lot more like Randy Moss (6'4" 210) than LeBron is. He's lean and graceful, and could never take the pounding necessary to carry the ball even 10 or 15 times a game. LeBron is a whole lot sturdier than Kobe.

What it really comes down to is the injury factor. If LeBron could stay healthy as a RB he would be more valuable that he would at WR. It's almost exactly the same conundrum you have with Joba Chamberlain. In both cases, you have a freakishly gifted athlete who could probably play two different roles. The more valuable one seems like it would create a greater potential for injury.

Running backs get hit almost everytime they carry the ball, but at the same time, they have more control over how they get hit. You rarely see a RB take a crushing blow (Willis MaGahee not withstanding). They develop a sense of how to cushion the blows, while a wide receiver can get blindsided going over the middle in a way a running back is rarely going to. LeBron is tremendously shifty for a guy his size and would be extremely hard to tackle. Evidenced by his incredible passing ability on the hardwood, he's the great vision and awareness necessary to find seams in defenses.

Brandon Jacobs runs a 4.56 40 yard dash and on a basketball court, he'd probably lumber down the floor like a C or a PF. LeBron blasts down the floor to the tune of a 4.4 40 and runs the break like a PG. Please direct your attention to the video below and then tell me King James couldn't blow open any counter rush or screen pass and take it to the house.

A Better Stat For Running Backs

Let's say you are an NFL coach, and you have a running back that gains 100 yards on 25 carries and you could choose how to distribute those yards over those carries. You could have him break an 80 touchdown run, but then he would only have gained 20 yards on those other 24 carries, thereby completely bogging your offense down. The best use of those 100 yards would be to distribute them as evenly as possible, in this case being 4 yards for carry. The reason being...

Aaaand I fucking shit you not, right as I'm typing this up (ask Sampson), FOX runs a graphic breaking down Purple Jesus's 18 rushes for 76 yards by each carry.

-1,-1, 2, 2, 6, 2, 40, 6, 0, 6, 1, 3, 0, 2, 0, 3, 0, 5

It saves me a lot of work, but wow that really steals the thunder of this post. Damn you FOX! How dare you listen in to my conversations with my roommate and instantly create a graphic solely to sabotage my shitty blog post that six people are going to read. Fuck.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, even distribution. An even distribution is optimal because if you are picking up four yards every time, you can pick up a first down at will by running three times (theoretically, obviously picking up 4 yards on 3rd & 4 is not the same as on 1st & 10). You can put your team in good down/distance situations, opening up your offensive options. Simply put, given similar total yards and yards per carry, a guy who consistently picks up yards is more valuable than the one who gets you a few big gains but many short runs.

For the sake of argument, I'll say that 4 yards is the cutoff for a "valuable run" (VR). You run for 3 yards 3 times and you still have 4th & 1, so I think you've gotta round up. Look again at PJ's carries again. Out of 18, only 5 of them were VRs. Using the easy method of calculating yards per carry, he's averaging 4.2 YPC. Slightly better than my arbitrary determination of valuable.

What I propose is that in calculating YPC, have 10 yards be the maximum amount per carry. You can make more specific adjustments based on the distance remaining for a first down, but I really don't feel like laying out the specifics at the moment. You could call the stat something nerdy to piss of sportswriters, like VYPR (Valuable Yards Per Rush). Got a better one? Leave it in the comments?

Now, using my new, awesome and completely original formula (probably not) PJ is only averaging 2.5 yards per carry, well below the 4 yard "valuable" threshold. I don't mean to blaspheme Purple Jesus, I'm just trying to say that the 4.2 YPC somewhat overstates his value in that particular game.

[Update - 7:20pm] I type this whole thing up and Westbrook who had 16 touches for 32 yards before this basically wins the game on a 71 yard screen pass. Seem familiar, Giants fans?

[Update - 7:34pm] Wow, after TJack does a great job of reinforcing negative black QB stereotypes by throwing a bunch of shitty passes then breaking a huge run, a fumbled snap essentially ends the game. That was anti-climactic and the fucking Eagles won. I was a much happier person when I started writing this post.

Note: 20th Century FOX assumes responsibility for all cursing in this post.