Old Mother Hubbard: The Tight Ends

The Lions spent the 20th overall pick of the 2009 draft and, indirectly, the eighth overall pick of the 2006 draft on tight ends. That’s a lot of resources to invest in a position that seems to be going the way of the dodo—but offensive coordinator Scott Linehan loves to deploy his two big targets alongside his wideouts, often to great effect.

Let’s check 2010’s Tight End Old Mother Hubbard for where these players left off:

Will Heller is a good rotational blocker, who’s come up with a few nice catches in his time here. He should have a place on the roster for 2011, at least.

Tony Scheffler was signed to a three-year extension right after his great two-game stretch at the beginning of the season; he’ll likely be here through 2013. The player we saw in September was the same player we saw for years in Denver; I can’t believe that guy’s gone for good. Even if he is, “Diminished Scheffler” is a solid receiving TE, who blocks better than you think.

Brandon Pettigrew is young veteran with a huge frame and amazing tools. He’s already an excellent pass blocker, and a very good run blocker. As a receiver, his awful case of the dropsies hurt both his grades and several key Lions drives. Overall, his many penalties did the same. If he can cut down on the mental mistakes, Pettigrew could be one of the best TEs in the game. If not, he’s still a great blocker, and a target defenses must respect.

This is the order in which their PFF grades shook out, which is the opposite of what we’d expect. What about 2011?

The Lions’ top-rated tight end in 2011 was Tony Scheffler. I again quote from last season's report:

Tony Scheffler led all NFL TEs with 25% or more of their teams’ snaps in target-to-snap ratio. Scheffler was thrown to once every 6.3 snaps he played—meaning if he was on the field, he was a major part of the play. He seems to have a very specific niche in the offense, even if it isn’t what we expected.

This season, the pattern continued: Scheffler was targeted once every 7.73 snaps he played, 4th-most in the NFL. He trailed only Jimmy Graham, Evan Moore, and Kellen Winslow; he had the highest yards-per-catch of that group (9th overall) at 13.3. Scheffler also scored six touchdowns; that’s one every 6.83 targets (3rd-best in the NFL) and 52.8 snaps (1st-best in the NFL).

Just from watching, it seemed as though Scheffler was placed on the field the instant the Lions crossed the opponent’s 35, and instructed to go make a touchdown happen. The stats bear this observation out. Inexplicably, Scheffler’s WPA was not calculated by Advanced NFL Stats. He didn’t have a whole mess of reps, but anyone who scores six touchdowns should have had a significant impact on his team’s chances to win. My suspicion is his WPA would be quite high, especially relative to his EPA.

Bottom Line: Tony Scheffler is a weapon. A walking, talking red zone mismatch with ridiculous dance moves. He has a very specific role in this offense and he executes it very well. Expect nothing to change in 2012.

Brandon Pettigrew, on the whole, improved slightly in the eyes of PFF graders, but not relative to other tight ends. In 2010, Pettigrew was marked at –8.0 overall in a season where the TE average was -3.23. In 2011, he graded out at –7.1, and the average was –1.74. This all sounds like it was more of the same, but in fact Pettigrew’s production was completely different:

This is why I do these things. Look at Pettigrew’s 2010 performance: he was a devastating all-around blocker, much better than average in both the ground and air games. He was also a heavily-penalized butterfingers, and as a result his grade was well below-average. This might be slightly harsh. Pettigrew’s athleticism got him open quite often, drawing a lot of passes his way. Sometimes he got his hands on balls other tight ends wouldn’t have been able to . . . but he dropped a lot of the balls he got his hands on.

In 2011, Pettigrew’s performance in the receiving game improved drastically, nearly matching the NFL average. He caught 70.3% of the passes thrown his way, 23rd-best and above the NFL average of 68.5. His pass protection was even improved over 2010, his +3.5 grade 4th-best in the NFL. Unfortunately, he took a big step back in run blocking: from +0.5 to –7.0. Pettigrew’s run-block grade was ranked 40th of 65; well below the 0.0 average.

Unfortunately, Pettigrew's high penalty rate continued: he was flagged 11 times for 117 yards; both of those marks were the worst in the NFL. This is why Pettigrew’s overall mark keeps getting dragged below average: he takes way too many penalties.

Perspective: there’s nothing average about Pettigrew’s production. He caught 83 passes, 3rd-most in the NFL, out of 117 targets—also 3rd-most in the NFL. Those receptions gained 777 yards and 5 touchdowns. Those targets came once every 9.24 snaps, the 13th-most frequent target rate in the game. Unlike Scheffler, a situational specialist targeted once every 7.73 snaps, Pettigrew played almost every down the Lions’ offense did. With 1,081 snaps played, Pettigrew got more reps than anyone in the NFL save Rob Gronkowski.

Bottom Line: Brandon Pettigrew is an enormous part of the Lions’ offense, and will be for the foreseeable future. He grew phenomenally as a pass catcher from 2010 to 2011, apparently at the expense of his run blocking. Pettigrew remains a devastating two-way player, and a truly rare talent. Last year’s assessment remains correct: If he can cut down on the mental mistakes, Pettigrew could be one of the best TEs in the game.

Will Heller was released to make cap room, and has yet to be re-signed. He, or another blocking specialist with not-stone hands, will need to be required. Oops, I missed his re-signing.

SHOPPING LIST: A Will Heller-type, preferably of the rookie variety. Or maybe Will Heller Possibly a developmental rookie, but otherwise the Lions are set here.

Read more...

Old Mother Hubbard: The Tight Ends

I’m on a breakneck schedule now, trying to wrap this series up before the draft . . . or free agency begins; whichever comes first! We move on to the tight ends, about whom we need another disclaimer: Pro Football Focus grades every TE as a complete package. Typically, if a TE is an impact receiver and a terrible blocker, fans still consider them an impact TE because that’s what we see, and what we can easily measure. Please remember, then that the TE “Pass” grade is not a synthesis of a tight end’s statistics, but a subjective grade of how they actually performed on each play, just like with the linemen and defenders.

The spread this produces is quite interesting: there’s a handful at the top who are good at both receiving and blocking, a handful at the bottom who aren’t good at anything, and a huge hodgepodge in the middle of guys with varying tool sets. At the top of the heap is Jason Witten with the 3rd-best receiving grade, 5th-best pass-blocking grade, and #1 run-blocking grade. The backmarker is Brandon Manumaleuna: 26th of 64 in receiving, 64th of 64 in pass-blocking, and 63rd of 64 in run-blocking.

The highest-rated Lions TE, of course is . . . Will Helller? Yes, with a Blutarskian 0.0 grade, Heller notched the best mark of any Lion TE (NFL average this year was –3.2). He was only thrown at five times, and somehow got dinged for a -0.4 receiving grade in those four plays (NFL average: +0.48). Still, he caught 80% of the balls thrown his way (4 out of 5), for 33 yards and a score.

Heller's primary role is as a blocker, though, and in that he did well. He was graded by PFF at +0.7 in pass blocking (average: 0.0), and +0.1 in run blocking (average: –3.5). So, compared to all TEs who got at least 25% of their team’s snaps (Heller didn’t qualify, only 169), Will Heller was a slightly-above average blocker, slightly better in the run than the pass.

Bottom Line: Will Heller is a good rotational blocker, who’s come up with a few nice catches in his time here. He should have a place on the roster for 2011, at least.

The second-best Lions TE in 2011, according to PFF grades, was Tony Scheffler. The former Western Michigan Bronco was the 21st-best tight end overall. He was a decent +1.2 in receiving, lower than I’d expected, but Heller’s equal in pass blocking at +0.7 (which I didn’t expect, 26th-best). His run blocking was notably worse than Heller’s, graded at –2.6—but that still outpaced the NFL average of –3.5, and slotted him  25th of 64.

Statistically, Scheffler had an up-and-down year. He was thrown at 66 times, and caught 45 of them--percentage-wise, matching the NFL average to the decimal (68.2). What surprised me was his low YpC average, just 8.4 (avg. 10.59). Scheffler is known as a downfield threat, but it seems he wasn’t used that way. His YAC suffered, too—just 4.3 AYaC, compared to the NFL average 5.0.

It’s known that Scheffler suffered a series of injuries throughout the year (concussion, shoulder, ribs), and something definitely seemed amiss with him. After a very strong showing in Weeks 3 and 4, where he hauled in a combined 13 passes for 123 yards (and received +1.3 and +1.4 grades), his production fell off the map. For ten weeks the only non-negative grade he got was a +0.3. He had a particularly awful stretch in weeks 6-10, turning in grades of –1.5, –1.8, –0.1, and a nasty –3.1 against Buffalo. Worse, though, Nate Burleson and Brandon Pettigrew found their role in the offense, and the quarterback carousel seemed to hit Scheffler’s numbers more than than anyone’s . . .

. . . I found an interesting little wrinkle, though: Tony Scheffler led all NFL TEs with 25% or more of their teams’ snaps in target-to-snap ratio. Scheffler was thrown to once every 6.3 snaps he played—meaning if he was on the field, he was a major part of the play. He seems to have a very specific niche in the offense, even if it isn’t what we expected.

Bottom Line: Tony Scheffler was signed to a three-year extension right after his great two-game stretch at the beginning of the season; he’ll likely be here through 2013. The player we saw in September was the same player we saw for years in Denver; I can’t believe that guy’s gone for good. Even if he is, “Diminished Scheffler” is a solid receiving TE, who blocks better than you think.

Now, stunningly, we come to the bottom of the list: the Lions’ #1 TE, Brandon Pettigrew. Let’s clear something up: Pro Football Focus does not grade on “upside.” They do not round up for “potential,” or “excitement.” They don’t even care about the name on the back of the jersey, except to correlate back to the data. All they care about is what a player does, and what Brandon Pettigrew did in 2010 is drop a hell of a lot of passes. 12, to be exact, on 103 targets. Dropping a pass every 8.6 targets gave him the third-most-buttery fingers of any TE with 20 or more targets . . . and a huge factor in his overall –8.0 grade (43rd/64).

It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that Pettigrew's receiving grade, -5.0, is the fourth-worst in the NFL. It turns out, though, that all that “He’ll be like a third tackle” hype actually does hold water: Pettigrew had the NFL’s 6th-best pass-block grade, a +2.3, and 16th-best run block grade, with +0.5.  Unfortunately, his ridiculous ten penalties assessed gave him the second-worst penalty grade in the NFL.

You wanna know something interesting, though? Even with his extremely high drop ratio, Pettigrew’s receiving percentage (% of targets caught) was actually slightly above average, 68.9 (avg. 68.2). Either his quarterbacks are throwing more accurate passes than everyone else—unlikely, given the Lions’ QB situation in 2010—or maybe, Pettigrew is like a range-y shortstop, making “errors” on balls other people wouldn’t even get to. Further,

Pettigrew’s game-to-game grades are wildly inconsistent—and unlike Scheffler or Cherilus or Sims, there’s no “everything was cool and then it all went bad.” Pettigrew’s grades swing from bad to good to bad to okay to terrible to outstanding to okay, with no rhyme or reason. After turning in a horrific –5.6 against Chicago in Week 13, where he got negative grades in every phase of the game, he thwomped Green Bay with a +3.0 overall, and positive grades in every phase of the game. There appears to be no rhyme or reason.

Bottom Line: Brandon Pettigrew is young veteran with a huge frame and amazing tools. He’s already an excellent pass blocker, and a very good run blocker. As a receiver, his awful case of the dropsies hurt both his grades and several key Lions drives. Overall, his many penalties did the same. If he can cut down on the mental mistakes, Pettigrew could be one of the best TEs in the game. If not, he’s still a great blocker, and a target defenses must respect.

SHOPPING LIST: The Lions like to run 2-TE sets, both to for blocking purposes, and for passing purposes. With Pettigrew and Heller, the Lions have a powerful blocking tandem. With Pettigrew and Scheffler, the Lions have a (theoretically) potent receiving combo. This unit didn’t play like it’s capable of in 2010, but even so I see no needs to address. None of these players is perfect, but as a group they’re nearly perfect for this offense.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,nfl draft,team needs,brandon pettigrew,tony scheffler

Read more...

Watchtower Review: Lions vs. Packers

Let’s start with all the totally wrong things I said in last week’s Watchtower:

It seems unlikely that the Lions’ defense does that well against an offense that good twice in a row, though, so I’m going to project the Packers to slightly underperform scoring expectations: gaining 23-26 points. I expect the Lions to be more successful defending the pass with zone coverage, allowing 8.0-8.5 YpA, at the expense of fewer interceptions. The Lions will likely cede the run to the Packers again, allowing 4.25-4.5 YpC. I have high confidence in this projection.

3 points, 3.30 YpC, 6.02 YpA.  Tremendous performance by the defense.

As I said, in Week 4, the Lions managed to hold the Packers’ offense to as few points as can be expected, given how effective they were on a per-play basis. If the same offense shows up this week, I don’t see the Lions being so fortunate.

It can be argued that the same offense didn't show up—but the defense far outstripped their Week 4 effort, even with several key starters lost.  I’m still stunned at how well this defense performed on Sunday.

I don’t expect the Lions to put up 454 yards against the Packers this time around, but I do project them to be more productive with their yards: scoring 17-23 points, gaining 4.50-5.00 YpC, and throwing for 5.75-6.00 YpA.

Yeah not so much.  The yards projections were fairly close—4.63  YpC and 5.32 YpA—but they spun that effectiveness into a single measly touchdown.  Two interceptions and a missed field goal didn’t help.

The Lions gave the Packers their best shot in Week 4, and lost the game mostly by shooting themselves in the foot. Between a truly massive amount of penalties (13 for 102 yards), and the now-obligatory Charles Woodson pick-six, the Lions let the Packers off the hook. As I said above, it’s hard to believe that the Lions could play that well against a team as talented as Green Bay twice in once season—and yet, it’s there. It’s there for them, again. They lost by two on the road before, they can win this one at home. They can . . . but they won’t.

They could . . . and they did.

CTRL-C, CTRL-V, folks. This will be an extremely painful 17-24 defeat.

Or, an incredibly improbable 7-3 victory!  I haven’t ever been more wildly wrong in a score projection, and I couldn’t be happier about it.  I will take that over, and over, and over, and over.  Okay, I’ve got an idea: let’s talk about everything I said that was right.

Look for the Lions to drop eight men into coverage on a regular basis, essentially the same game plan we saw against the Patriots on Thanksgiving. The idea is to get enough rush from the front four to slow down the Pack’s offense just long enough for the Lions’ offense to outscore them.

The Lions did blitz the Packers more than they blitzed the Pats—but they certainly got most of their production from the front four.  It also took a looooooooooooooong time, but they slowed down that Pack offense just long enough for the Lions’ offense to outscore them.  Barely.

Greg Jennings will be the key to this game for the Packers’ offense.  If the Lions can stop him with double- and triple-teams, I don’t think Donald Driver and Donald Lee will be enough to score more than the 23-26 I project, if enough to score that much at all.

Greg Jennings: 4 catches, 52 yards, one bobbled pass that was ultimately intercepted.  They didn’t score the 23-26 I projected, either.

Last year, I thought I’d identified a systemic advantage for Scott Linehan against Dom Capers (and most 3-4 defenses), where the running game was disproportionately effective, and scoring was therefore disproportionately higher.

They didn’t score much, but the Lions ran very well against the Packers—the #1 defense in the NFL—and it was the difference in the game.

However, the Packers are allowing 4.49 YpC on the ground, 7th-worst in the NFL—so clearly, my notion that the Packers are generally struggling against the run was true.  Further, the Lions will be starting Drew Stanton, whose running ability is well-known, and whom the Lions have never hesitated to call designed running plays for.  I expect to see at least one rushing touchdown, or 20-plus-yard scramble, from Drew Stanton on Sunday.

Drew ran 4 times for 44 yards.  He didn’t score, and his long was only 17 yards (not 20).  However, on his other three carries he averaged 9 yards per; he was asked to make plays with his feet and he did—along with the six other Lions who toted the rock on Sunday.

First, this presumes that Drew Stanton plays like he did last week: an efficient, effective, conservative backup quarterback.  If Stanton has a regression to his “2009 49ers game” form, this will be an ugly blowout.  However, there’s an X factor here named Jahvid Best. We saw a return to form last week, and if he still has that burst, that bounce, he could do an awful lot of damage against a Green Bay defense that’s lost three of its top five linebackers for the year.

Unfortunately, Drew did regress to 2009 form against the Packers’ defense—at least for the first three quarters—and boy, was it ever ugly.  However, the running of Best, Maurice Morris, Stefan Logan, and Stanton himself bailed the offense out.

Finally, in the first matchup, Brandon Pettigrew made a lot more headlines for the two or three crucial passes he dropped, than the eight he caught for 91 yards. Likely being matched up against A.J. Hawk, as 49ers TE Vernon Davis was last week (4 catches, 126 yards, 1 TD) could result in a field day for Jumbotron.

Okay, this one was pretty much entirely wrong; Pettigrew was held to just 2 catches for 14 yards.  However, it’s worth noting that the game-winning touchdown came on a tight end screen to Will Heller—who was spelling Pettigrew.  Further, Heller ran right through A.J. Hawk on his way to paydirt.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,green bay packers,drew stanton,greg jennings

Read more...

essential inconsequentials

On Thursday, the Lions held an OTA (just for veterans, since rookies couldn't yet report).  I love these things, partly because of the stories, the rumors, and the hype that comes trickling out.  There is actual football happening in Allen Park, and every tidbit that makes it to the public--no matter how insigificant--will be pounced upon, hoarded, and nibbled upon for weeks by the information-starved Lions fans.  So far, there have only been a few tasty morsels that have leaked out.  Of them, I'm most intrigued by this one, from Calos Monarrez at the Freep:

"The Lions finished off a spirited practice session at Allen Park with Drew Stanton throwing a touchdown pass to tight end Will Heller that elicited hoots and hollers from players — and a nod from coach Jim Schwartz."

We're not told about the nature of this play--the formation, the personnel package, the down-and-distance--nor of any of the plays before or after it.  However, given that the target was Will Heller--the block-first TE acquired in free agency--I'm willing to bet this was in short yardage drills, or possibly at the end of a drive.  It's not a SportsCenter moment, but it brings up a point I've been meaning to make for quite some time: Drew Stanton's a gamer.

There are some athletes that look fantastic in practice, but never seem to bring it in games.  Most reading this blog will remember Matt Millen famously referring to an unnamed Lion as a "devout coward"--a player who looks like a legit impact player all week, but disappears on Sunday (PFT, back in the day, reported that it was WR Scotty Anderson).  But Drew Stanton?  Drew's the other way around.  It seems as though every year, we hear reports of Drew having some rough throws in pracice, having difficulty throwing a spiral, or still needing a lot of polish.  However, the tiny scraps of pre- and regular-season action he's seen have been superlative.  This meshes with career at Michigan State, where he was often the only player going out there and giving it his all.  

I wonder--emphasis on wonder--if Drew has to be in a competitive situation in order to perform like he's capable of performing.  Though he's rarely a standout in shorts-and-T-shirt work, Drew always brings it when he's given the ball and told to go make a play.  The problem is that Drew's almost never been given the ball--especially not when the lights are on and the ammo is live.  On Thursday, I hope he had one of those moments: eleven on eleven, practicing short-yardage, the offense and defense jawing at each other, the last play of a long practice session--did it bring out the Drew we saw at MSU?  Did the playmaking instincts kick in, and guide him to find the open man for the score?  All we really know is that that there was a lot of hooting and hollering, and the coaches liked what they saw.  Maybe it was a weight placed on the "Drew is our #3 Quarterback" side of the scale.  Maybe the decision's already been made one way or the other.  At the very least, it didn't hurt.

Again, this is all extrapolated from one little quote about one little play in a veterans-only OTA months before the season starts--but that's the magic of this time of year: trying to snare wisps of hints of rumors of football out of the ether, and weave them into something we can wrap around ourselves until autumn.

Read more...

l.j. still in play

PFT, citing a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says L.J. Smith will not be signing with the Falcons after all.  As the report states, Smith was down to Atlanta and Detroit, and now it won't be Atlanta, so . . . follow your nose.  If Smith is inked, that will give, er, whoever is playing QB for the Lions a legitimate pair of hands to lean on on third-and-7.  Linehan has always utilized recieving TEs well; I think this signing would be a big boon for the offense.  Moreover, it would pare the "gaping" roster holes--where we don't have anyone who could be considered a legit NFL starter down to MLB and QB, both of which should be able to be filled through the draft.  Let's see if Mayhew can land another "dollar ninja", to borrow a phrase from my compatriot in Lions fandom, DetFan1979.

UPDATE:  Well, that lasted about three and a half seconds.  Killer is reporting that the Lions signed free agent TE Will Heller--who, outside of having turned down a schollie to Julliard for his acting chops, has no more impressive of a resume than Gaines or Fitz.  Killer says he does not know if this affects the chances that L.J. Smith will be signed.  Oh, and Anthony Cannon has been released.

Read more...