Decreased Scoring, Derrick Henry and Metallica: Mailbag Part 1

Plus, how to tell if your favorite 3-0 team has staying power and some nominees for the Position Coach Hall of Fame.

Greetings, dear readers! You flooded the Mailbag with so many great questions that I decided to create two columns. Today’s responses will answer more of the general and historical questions. Tomorrow, we will talk Daniel Jones, the Patriots offensive line, the Dolphins and much more.

Is anyone actually good this year? With the exception of the Chiefs and (pending Monday night) the Bills I am just seeing a lot of mid and some known bad (guess who?). – Tom Burton

As Tom said, he was writing before MNF. I think we can safely categorize the Bills as “good.”

I am seeing a lot of “good.” What I am not seeing through three weeks is “overwhelmingly great.” Or, more accurately, “overwhelmingly and expectedly great,” except for the Bills. Even the Chiefs are performing a high-wire act; we are just used to that, because they do it every year.

Parity is baked into the NFL’s recipe, of course, so it’s not surprising to see perennial contenders with a loss or two and upstarts at 3-0. Negativity sells in the media, so I am trained to be critical/snarky about disappointing teams. Fans, particularly here in Greater Philly, are often tougher than the media (or coaches, or the cruel headmasters in British coming-of-age novels) when it comes to appraising the home team’s shortcomings.

If you choose to see a half-full glass instead, there are undefeated teams, teams winning with backup quarterbacks, rebuilding teams making waves and so forth. It’s a surprising season. And who doesn’t love a season full of surprises!

When can I stop worrying about whether my team is a pretender that got lucky and enjoy that they are good? –The Austrian

That depends on how your team is winning and your definition of “good.”

If your team is winning convincingly (10-plus points, let’s say) and/or beating perennial playoff contenders, that’s an encouraging sign. If your team has defeated opponents led by Bo Nix, Crash Test Brissett and Skyler Thompson/Tim Boyle, that’s a reason for healthy skepticism.

If your team’s elevator-pitch narrative makes sense – the Pro Bowl wide receiver is playing like a Hall of Famer and the established defensive coordinator is making the most of his new pieces – that is also a better sign of “goodness” than we’re finding a way to win.

There are also different strata of “good:” on the right rebuilding track, playoff contender, Super Bowl contender. Commanders, Vikings and 49ers fans should apply different definitions to their teams.

Finally, if you think your team is lucky, enjoy the luck! Lots of teams have built deep playoff runs out of soft schedules, beaten-up opponents and fluky bounces. Life is too short to go into every Sunday afternoon waiting for another shoe to drop. 

Is the remarkable performance of defenses this year just a part of the larger trend every year where defenses start with the advantage but offenses catch up over time? – Willard

Scoring in the NFL peaked in 2020 and has been in decline ever since:

• 2020: 24.8 points per team per game.

• 2021: 23.0

• 2022: 21.9

• 2023: 21.8

• 2023: 21.2

I think empty stadiums favored the offense during the 2020 pandemic; fewer false start penalties alone can have a significant impact on offensive production. The decrease in scoring recent years is probably based on a number of interlocking factors in the way the game is played and officiated. Anyone who claims it is because of bad quarterback play or too many rookies rushed onto the field needs to point me to that golden age of pro football history when every team had a great, healthy, fully-prepared quarterback, because I still haven’t found it.

I hate the “two-high safeties are offensive KRYPTONITE” narrative, but it’s possible that we reached the end of a tactical pendulum swing in 2020: defenses finally abandoned the stop-the-run philosophy and began keeping their safeties deep (against competent quarterbacks) on early downs, and offensive coordinators have been slow to adopt countermeasures.

The rise in fourth-down conversion attempts could also have an impact on scoring rates. We now see teams that are more aggressive than the analytics suggest they should be. It’s also possible that the analytics themselves are now askew: increased conversion attempts resulted in greater defensive emphasis on fourth-and-short tactics, resulting in lower success rates that may not have been programmed into your favorite Fourth Down Bot. Finally: teams that are trailing late in games are more aggressive on fourth downs than ever, which can erase some of the meaningless scores that might have padded scoring rates even a decade ago. For example, the Jaguars failed on fourth down five times on Monday night. Had they kicked a few field goals, the final score might have been 47-16 or something, adding nothing to the outcome of the game but nine more points to the statistical soup in the table above.

The biggest factor in the decreased scoring rates for 2024 is almost certainly a small sample size. Let’s wait a few weeks and see if 2024’s scoring rate creeps up to 21.7 or something. Monday night’s Commanders-Bengals game alone increased the season-wide scoring rate by three-tenths of a point!

With defenses clamping down and people like Mel Kiper bitching about it, do you anticipate any major rule changes to further imbalance the scales? More important, what is the most important lesson you have learned about being in an intimate relationship? – Josh R.

Gosh, I hope Mel Kiper does not have the power to impact NFL rules because he wants to protect his draft takes. 

I cannot comprehend why a dip in scoring is being perceived as some NFL crisis. Tactics change. Scoring rates were bound to max out after 45 years of steady increases. I feel like the NFL conversation has become so quarterback-driven than Lower Scoring equals Bad Quarterbacks equals Bad Football in too many people’s minds. Draft running backs for your fantasy teams, bet the under and have fun, people.

As for relationship lessons: the best gift you can give the people in your life is your emotional and physical presence. The people who love you want to spend the good times, bad times and quiet times with you, in body and spirit. Even when they need to be alone or with others, they also need to feel that you are a text message away, not in some physical place or headspace where they cannot reach you.

Football coaches like to say that “the best ability is availability” and praise quarterbacks who are “the same person every day.” That makes good relationship advice as well. It doesn’t mean you cannot be sad, angry or anxious (or sick or extremely busy), just that you should not overreact to minor problems, especially the ones which only impact you, and that you should place the needs of your partner or family ahead of petty grievances/setbacks/desires.

Will we see a currently active running back be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame? – Henry.

Fellow readers covered this one pretty well in the Mailbag chat:

[Derrick] Henry at least. Voters like high peak performance from an RB and Henry has it. They also rely upon recommendations and information from contemporaries and Henry will have a lot of people stump for him. – Thomas Czarples

But Thomas followed up his answer with a question of his own:

Has anyone ever tried to make sense of the "HOF Monitor"? – Thomas Czarples   

I combed through the Hall of Fame monitor about a decade ago. It’s essentially a concept that was ported from baseball – which has rather clear statistical Hall of Fame benchmarks – and it faces the impossible task of assessing players with limited-to-no statistics against an ever-changing historical landscape. I think it is useful for “Yes” arguments at non-stat positions — check out Jason Kelce and Luke Kuechly for example — but bad for “No” arguments because it lacks a dozen flavors of nuance.

What I can tell you is that Henry will not be compared to Barry Sanders or Eric Dickerson when his Hall of Fame case eventually comes up. He will be compared to his fellow finalists, none of whom will be running backs (no positional logjam). Henry also has simple whiz-bang-pow appeal. He will reach the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

The only other running back on a reasonable track right now is Christian McCaffrey, who (like many greats at his position before him), may end up having his case derailed by injuries.

If you could nominate any number of position coaches (for their work specifically as a position coach) for the HoF, who would they be? Tom Clements would be my nom. – Brandon

Clements has been the Packers’ on-and-off quarterbacks coach for many years. He managed the Brett Favre-Aaron Rodgers transition, then returned for the Rodgers-Jordan Love transition, which makes him a candidate for Catholic sainthood two times over. He has spent the last two weeks turning Scrambles McButterfingers back into Malik Willis using a SparkNotes version of the playbook. If we are putting position coaches in the Hall of Fame, he’s a fine choice.

Also:

Dante Scarnecchia turned midround pick O-linemen into wealthy men in New England for 20 years. He’s the main reason we had to deal with Brady into his 40s. Without him, Brady would have a collection of surgeries and concussions and maybe saves his marriage if he only had so so protection instead of top 5. – GT Counter.

Indeed! And the Patriots media would stomp and scream for Scarnecchia. Which would be preferable to hearing them stomp and scream over Matthew Slater or Julian Edelman.

My choice in this scenario would be Alex Gibbs, the longtime Broncos offensive line coach who pioneered modern zone blocking. Dick Hoak, the Steelers running backs coach from Franco Harris through Jerome Bettis, would also be a popular choice.

I know I have said this before, but I hate/loathe/despise the idea of assistant coaches in the Hall of Fame. I don’t want Buddy Ryan or Norv Turner queuing up with their coordinator resumes after seeing them fail as head coaches. Now that he is in the Hall of Fame, Don Coryell should be the litmus test for non-head coaches: you must be this influential to enter. If not, that is what individual team rings of honor are for.

There are thirteen former Eagles on the (insane! 182 players!) PFHOF Senior Ballot. Maxie Baughan, Bill Bergey, Timmy Brown, Roman Gabriel, Jimmie Giles, Harold Jackson, Ron Jaworski, Norm Johnson, Seth Joyner, Mike Quick, Herschel Walker, Bobby Walston, and Al Wistert. Pick one and make the case to the committee. – Kit Wren

Bill Bergey was the Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1969. He was part of the vanguard of “modern” linebackers who helped define 1970s football: just as big and nasty as their predecessors, but faster and more versatile. He got overshadowed in Pro Bowl balloting in his Bengals years by Willie Lanier and Nick Buoniconti, established veterans on Super Bowl teams. He became a quintessential 3-4 inside linebacker when he reached the Eagles, and he helped turn a moribund franchise into a Super Bowl team with both his All-Pro caliber play and leadership.

Now that Randy Gradishar has made the Hall of Fame safe for 3-4 linebackers of the era, Bergey deserves your vote.

I am not sure I believe all of that, but I wasn’t gonna write about freakin’ Herschel Walker. 

You’re the GM, and all of the NFL players that you are old enough to remember are available to draft. You get the first five picks. You also get the first pick of head coaches. Who do you pick and why? In the spirit of Wheel of Fortune’s RSTLNE…Tebow, Herbert, Urban Meyer and all Eagles are off the board. – Sheepnado. 

I will start by hiring Andy Reid, not Bill Belichick. I am worried about: a) Belichick getting a bug up his butt, hating me, and wandering off; or b) ending up with some early- or late-career Belichick who either screams at his quarterback or hires his cronies. Reid doesn’t need extra TLC from ownership and only briefly went into egomania mode in 2011.

Since I hired Reid, I am also drafting Patrick Mahomes. Too many non-repeatable elements went into the creation of Tom Brady. Mahomes was an obvious college talent who simply needed fine-tuning. I just hired the fellow who fine-tuned that talent, so that should not be a problem.

Jerry Rice and Walter Jones will keep Mahomes productive and healthy. Since I was denied Reggie White and worried about finding Lawrence Taylor face down in my sugar bowl, I will settle for Bruce Smith on the edge. I’m tempted to take either Aaron Donald or Lee Roy Selmon with my last pick, but Ronnie Lott can anchor my secondary for a decade, so he gets the nod.

I lived in Philly during the Rich Kotite era; moved to Chicago while Dave Wannstedt was head coach; then moved to South Florida, where Dave Wannstedt moved the same year I did. My question: what progression of multiple cities would a college student/grad student/early career professional have to live in recently or now to experience this same level of NFL ineptitude? – Greg Jacobs

Let’s reverse engineer this so some poor soul arrives in Charlotte just as the Cam Newton era is ending and David Tepper is getting comfortable in the Panthers owner’s box in 2020. This individual arrives there from Denver, where they attended college from 2016 (the year after the Peyton Manning Super Bowl) through the era when John Elway was drafting out of Phil Steele’s College Football Annual and selecting his quarterbacks entirely based on height. That will place our unlucky fan’s high school years squarely in the era when the Jaguars transitioned from Wayne Weaver to Shad Khan at the ownership level: Mike Mularkey, Blaine Gabbert, Gus Bradley, hilarious annual whiffs in free agency. 

If you like, you can replace the Broncos era with the Johnny Manziel Browns era, but I am trying to twist the knife by picking teams that were formerly pretty good but got ripped apart by mismanagement.

Compare all 6 members of Metallica to their NFL QB or coaching equivalent. – Tom

I went with coaches:

James Hetfield is Mike Tomlin. Nothing about his singing or guitar playing is historically brilliant, but he creates the structure that makes everything else both distinctive and highly successful over a long period of time.

Kirk Hammett is Sean Payton: reliably creative, innovative and versatile, but you probably don’t want to hear a whole album of nothing but him.

Robert Trujillo is Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Southland, laying down a steady foundation with a splash of creativity.

Dave Mustaine was Nick Saban: absolutely brilliant, but someone who needed to define his own structure to truly succeed on his own terms. 

Jason Newsted was Joe Vitt, because bass players are assistant coaches in my mind, with obvious Sting-Paul McCartney exceptions. Newsted took on some singing duties after Hetfield suffered on-stage injuries in 1992, just as Vitt has been an interim head coach several times in his career. 

Lars Ulrich is Jason Garrett. He’s there because he has always been there, so why change? Also, the drum sound in St. Anger is actually Garrett clapping, running through lots of equalizers.

Tomorrow: More questions! More answers!

This is a 1983 press photo from Wikimedia Commons. No way in hell am I dealing with Metallica’s lawyers.