What’s Wrong with the SaberCats?
Within the first week of a half-way decent creative writing course, the topic of appropriate adjective use arises. The question isn’t so much one of polarity, pretty much any English speaker can tell you if they want to use a positive or negative adjective, but rather a question of degree. Exactly how hot is it? You said he was tall, but how tall? It is that same question that comes up when attempting to describe the San Jose SaberCats through the first four games of the season. Sporting a 1-3 record, tied for the worst in the league, we know the team is bad. But with a whopping -23 point-differential, which is perhaps the better arbiter of team quality, far and away the worst in the league, (second-worst: -5), it’s clear that the word bad just might not do the situation justice. While no single word seems perfectly appropriate, the title of a popular children’s book does spring to mind, Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Yeah, it’s not great in San Jose. But anybody with an axe to grind can call a team awful, to figure out what’s gone wrong in the Capital of the Silicon Valley is going to take a deep-dive into the past four weeks of games.
Who brought their SCUBA gear?
Writing as an avowed spreadsheet warrior and someone with a passion for statistics, I will make one thing abundantly clear before we begin, four games is not a meaningful sample-size. Even over fourteen weeks, it can be difficult to draw conclusions that rise above the fray of random chance, so there should be a healthy skepticism regarding statistical conclusions drawn from the early slate of games. But we can play only the hand we are dealt, and a four-game sample certainly beats no sample at all. And thus, we write.
Offense
At its core, football, like any other sport, is relatively simple. If you score more points than the other guy, you win. If you don’t? Well, issa L. You can march the ball down the field to the half-inch line, but if you don’t break the plane of the end-zone then it’s all for naught. That’s the predicament that the SaberCats offense has found itself in. Despite posting a perfectly respectable 315 yards per game average, ranking fourth in the league, the Cats simply can’t find their way into the end-zone, scoring a paltry 13.8 points per game, of course, last in the NSFL. This comes despite superb performances from most of the team’s offensive playmakers. 2nd-round draft pick Bailey Cook currently leads the league in receiving yards (389). The running back duo of Vick Bowers Jr. and Demetrius Wiley has performed admirably, with the former ranking second and third in the league respectively in yards per attempt and total yardage, and the latter leading all running backs in receiving yards. And the offensive line, led by standouts Ben Longshaw and Daniel Robicheaux, has allowed only nine sacks, second in the NSFL. Of course, there is one position that is left absent from the glowing offensive reviews, quarterback.
In mid-2015, Esquire Magazine sought to answer the question, “What is the toughest position in football?” And in his interview, NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback Phil Simms answered in a way that sheds light on the current situation facing the Cats, saying, “There isn't a more important position on the field than quarterback. He's the leader of the offense and the face of the franchise. When a team wins, he gets all the glory, and when it doesn't, well, he's usually the goat.” If Simms is right that a franchise’s fortunes rest on the man under center, it looks as if the SaberCats are going to keep coming up broke. Although he is second in the league in pass attempts, San Jose SaberCats QB Jameis Christ has posted the second lowest passer rating (64.5) and lowest completion percentage (48.9) in the entire NSFL. Even if you took his best game by passer rating, an 81.1 performance in a Week 3 loss to the Orange County Otters, and extrapolated out over the entire stretch, it would still only be good for 4th place. Simply put, when your high-water mark is middle of the pack, there’s a huge problem.
There are those that would argue that the SaberCats offensive stats are skewed downward by having faced the best defensive team in the NSFL two weeks in a row. While there is certainly validity to that viewpoint, it does beg a certain “chicken or egg” question. Offensive and defensive stats are, by definition, co-dependent. If a team records 450 passing yards (a great offensive performance), then the defense allowed that same number of yards. Do the Otters have outstanding defensive stats because they played a bad offense in the Cats? Or do the Cats have bad offensive stats because they played a truly elite defense in the Otters? At this point, there really isn’t enough information to tell, the answer will only be borne out as the season goes on and there are more data points to analyze.
Defense
While the central issue plaguing the SaberCats is the lackluster offense, the less glamorous side of the ball certainly has room for improvement as well. Unlike offense however, where statistics can capture almost all of what goes on, it is very difficult to evaluate defense without having film access. This problem becomes particularly acute in cases like that of the Cats, where different stats are telling wildly different stories. Regarding event-stats i.e. interceptions, the Cats are actually performing fairly well. The team is tied for first in sacks, ranks second in tackles for a loss and is one of the three teams in the NSFL to record a safety. On the other hand, the team is fourth in points allowed and fifth in yardage allowed, suggesting a boom or bust quality to the defense. Aside from a lack of forced turnovers, with only two interceptions on the year, there truly isn’t a specific problem that can be isolated and solved regarding the team’s defensive woes. While there certainly have been good individual performances, such as Miller’s four-sack game in a Week 2 victory over the Outlaws, all three levels of the defense simply need to perform better if they hope to improve upon the underwhelming start.
Going Forward
What is too often lost in the discussion surrounding sports is that the other guy is working his ass off too. For every story you can write about a poor quarterback performance, a reporter with a different dateline can just as easily talk about the hours of film study that went into the secondary’s performance. Everybody is trying to do their job, but ultimately only one person in a given matchup is going to succeed. While we have a tendency to gloss over the rough patches of the dynasties of old, the fact remains that given a long enough period of time, there will almost certainly be some struggle. What is far more important is how a team responds to adversity: do they lash out and turn on one another or band together and continue to move forward. The previously mentioned Bailey Cook put the mood of the entire team into words saying “this is about our team coming together as a cohesive unit, and while that exists in the locker room, it’s just not there on the field yet.”
This early into the season, there is no expectation that everyone is hitting on all cylinders, and any talk of a QB
change a la Orange County Otters is both completely premature and does a disservice to the work that Jameis Christ has and continues to put in. The team is entirely behind its quarterback, with Cook recognizing that “Jameis has struggled” but going on to say that “…he's got that work ethic, that makes me feel like he will break out of this.” But when you have the horses, you run with them. While there are certainly other factors to consider when crafting a gameplan, by any and all objective measures, the rushing attack has been better than the passing attack thus far this season, perhaps it makes sense for the Cats to utilize the former a little bit more.
A special thanks to Bailey Cook for providing a statement to Sentinel.
Wordcount: 1399
Within the first week of a half-way decent creative writing course, the topic of appropriate adjective use arises. The question isn’t so much one of polarity, pretty much any English speaker can tell you if they want to use a positive or negative adjective, but rather a question of degree. Exactly how hot is it? You said he was tall, but how tall? It is that same question that comes up when attempting to describe the San Jose SaberCats through the first four games of the season. Sporting a 1-3 record, tied for the worst in the league, we know the team is bad. But with a whopping -23 point-differential, which is perhaps the better arbiter of team quality, far and away the worst in the league, (second-worst: -5), it’s clear that the word bad just might not do the situation justice. While no single word seems perfectly appropriate, the title of a popular children’s book does spring to mind, Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Yeah, it’s not great in San Jose. But anybody with an axe to grind can call a team awful, to figure out what’s gone wrong in the Capital of the Silicon Valley is going to take a deep-dive into the past four weeks of games.
Who brought their SCUBA gear?
Writing as an avowed spreadsheet warrior and someone with a passion for statistics, I will make one thing abundantly clear before we begin, four games is not a meaningful sample-size. Even over fourteen weeks, it can be difficult to draw conclusions that rise above the fray of random chance, so there should be a healthy skepticism regarding statistical conclusions drawn from the early slate of games. But we can play only the hand we are dealt, and a four-game sample certainly beats no sample at all. And thus, we write.
Offense
At its core, football, like any other sport, is relatively simple. If you score more points than the other guy, you win. If you don’t? Well, issa L. You can march the ball down the field to the half-inch line, but if you don’t break the plane of the end-zone then it’s all for naught. That’s the predicament that the SaberCats offense has found itself in. Despite posting a perfectly respectable 315 yards per game average, ranking fourth in the league, the Cats simply can’t find their way into the end-zone, scoring a paltry 13.8 points per game, of course, last in the NSFL. This comes despite superb performances from most of the team’s offensive playmakers. 2nd-round draft pick Bailey Cook currently leads the league in receiving yards (389). The running back duo of Vick Bowers Jr. and Demetrius Wiley has performed admirably, with the former ranking second and third in the league respectively in yards per attempt and total yardage, and the latter leading all running backs in receiving yards. And the offensive line, led by standouts Ben Longshaw and Daniel Robicheaux, has allowed only nine sacks, second in the NSFL. Of course, there is one position that is left absent from the glowing offensive reviews, quarterback.
In mid-2015, Esquire Magazine sought to answer the question, “What is the toughest position in football?” And in his interview, NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback Phil Simms answered in a way that sheds light on the current situation facing the Cats, saying, “There isn't a more important position on the field than quarterback. He's the leader of the offense and the face of the franchise. When a team wins, he gets all the glory, and when it doesn't, well, he's usually the goat.” If Simms is right that a franchise’s fortunes rest on the man under center, it looks as if the SaberCats are going to keep coming up broke. Although he is second in the league in pass attempts, San Jose SaberCats QB Jameis Christ has posted the second lowest passer rating (64.5) and lowest completion percentage (48.9) in the entire NSFL. Even if you took his best game by passer rating, an 81.1 performance in a Week 3 loss to the Orange County Otters, and extrapolated out over the entire stretch, it would still only be good for 4th place. Simply put, when your high-water mark is middle of the pack, there’s a huge problem.
There are those that would argue that the SaberCats offensive stats are skewed downward by having faced the best defensive team in the NSFL two weeks in a row. While there is certainly validity to that viewpoint, it does beg a certain “chicken or egg” question. Offensive and defensive stats are, by definition, co-dependent. If a team records 450 passing yards (a great offensive performance), then the defense allowed that same number of yards. Do the Otters have outstanding defensive stats because they played a bad offense in the Cats? Or do the Cats have bad offensive stats because they played a truly elite defense in the Otters? At this point, there really isn’t enough information to tell, the answer will only be borne out as the season goes on and there are more data points to analyze.
Defense
While the central issue plaguing the SaberCats is the lackluster offense, the less glamorous side of the ball certainly has room for improvement as well. Unlike offense however, where statistics can capture almost all of what goes on, it is very difficult to evaluate defense without having film access. This problem becomes particularly acute in cases like that of the Cats, where different stats are telling wildly different stories. Regarding event-stats i.e. interceptions, the Cats are actually performing fairly well. The team is tied for first in sacks, ranks second in tackles for a loss and is one of the three teams in the NSFL to record a safety. On the other hand, the team is fourth in points allowed and fifth in yardage allowed, suggesting a boom or bust quality to the defense. Aside from a lack of forced turnovers, with only two interceptions on the year, there truly isn’t a specific problem that can be isolated and solved regarding the team’s defensive woes. While there certainly have been good individual performances, such as Miller’s four-sack game in a Week 2 victory over the Outlaws, all three levels of the defense simply need to perform better if they hope to improve upon the underwhelming start.
Going Forward
What is too often lost in the discussion surrounding sports is that the other guy is working his ass off too. For every story you can write about a poor quarterback performance, a reporter with a different dateline can just as easily talk about the hours of film study that went into the secondary’s performance. Everybody is trying to do their job, but ultimately only one person in a given matchup is going to succeed. While we have a tendency to gloss over the rough patches of the dynasties of old, the fact remains that given a long enough period of time, there will almost certainly be some struggle. What is far more important is how a team responds to adversity: do they lash out and turn on one another or band together and continue to move forward. The previously mentioned Bailey Cook put the mood of the entire team into words saying “this is about our team coming together as a cohesive unit, and while that exists in the locker room, it’s just not there on the field yet.”
This early into the season, there is no expectation that everyone is hitting on all cylinders, and any talk of a QB
change a la Orange County Otters is both completely premature and does a disservice to the work that Jameis Christ has and continues to put in. The team is entirely behind its quarterback, with Cook recognizing that “Jameis has struggled” but going on to say that “…he's got that work ethic, that makes me feel like he will break out of this.” But when you have the horses, you run with them. While there are certainly other factors to consider when crafting a gameplan, by any and all objective measures, the rushing attack has been better than the passing attack thus far this season, perhaps it makes sense for the Cats to utilize the former a little bit more.
A special thanks to Bailey Cook for providing a statement to Sentinel.
Wordcount: 1399
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