11-25-2019, 10:43 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-05-2019, 05:49 PM by goodvsevil1275.)
I thought with the awards results now public it might be interesting to break down my ballot and give some insight into how I voted. I sort of find this to be a fun part of the process in the voting process but ballots were totally blind this season so I missed out on the ability to talk about some of these with other GMs. I think ballot transparency is good, though, so I guess I should share mine. Feel free to skip the extremely long-winded explanations.
Kicker of the Year
Winner: Kulture Fulture
My Vote: Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname
Starting off with maybe a little homerism, maybe a little voter fatigue, but I went with Alex D here. Yes, Fulture had yet another perfect kicking season. He was 27/27 on field goals and 31/31 on extra points, whereas Alex D was 30/31 on field goals and 33/35 on extra points. So obviously three missed kicks versus zero stood out to a lot of voters, and that’s fair. But I basically don’t care about missed extra points as long as someone doesn’t miss a bunch of them. They just aren’t worth much, and given that the two were at least fairly close, I basically threw it out unless I felt a tiebreaker was necessary. I focused instead of field goals, and specifically the distribution of them.
While Fulture was a perfect 27/27, Alex made 3 more kicks – though he did miss one. Of their respective totals, each made 13 of 13 from within 30 yards, though Fulture was aided by 4/4 within 20 yards. Moving a little further out, from 30-39 Fulture was 7/7 to Alex D’s 6/6. Then we get to 40-49, which is where my vote was decided. Alex made 10/10 kicks from 40-49 yards, tying for the 2nd highest total from that distance. Fulture made just 6/6 from 40-49. I think 4 more kicks from that distance is a huge check in Alex’s column here. Looking at the 50+ range, both guys made 1 kick, and this is where we find Alex’s only miss of the season. From a range where the league, as a whole, hit at a 50% rate. I don’t really advocate for throwing results out of a data set, but I think it’s important to note when comparing 30/31 to 27/27.
So what does all of this actually mean for voting. Well if we assume field goal attempts from each distance range are equally distributed (in other words a 21 yard kick is just as common as a 29 yard kick), then we can split the difference in each range and use that to look a little more at degree of difficulty. So what I’m doing is assuming all 13 of Alex D’s makes from 20-29 average out to 24.5 yards per kick, then doing the same for each range and calculating average attempt and make distances. Also note that from <20 the average is 18.5 because the only possibly distances from that range are 18 and 19. And I’m assuming 50+ stops at 59. Here’s how it breaks down.
Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname – Average Make: 34.2 yards, Average Attempt: 34.8 yards
Kulture Fulture – Average Make: 31.8 yards, Average Attempt: 31.8 yards
For a point of reference, the longest average attempt in the league was Stephen Harris Jr. at an average attempt of 37 yards. So a difference of 3 yards in average attempt is quite a large jump in degree of difficulty here. Is it enough to justify Alex D winning the award over Fulture? I’m really not sure. I gave the former the nod because of volume and degree of difficulty, but I wouldn’t necessarily try to convince anyone voting Fulture that they’re wrong.
Punter of the Year
Winner: Kicky Bobby
My Vote: Kicky Bobby
Punting is a pretty tough thing to evaluate with our relatively limited stats in the index. I believe the vote distribution for this award was 7 votes for Bobby and 6 for Fulture, which – in my opinion – is closer than it should have been. Someone else got a vote in there, I believe, but I don’t really care about that. It really was between those two punters in the end. Volume is basically meaningless here. Bobby had 7 more punts and 100 more yards, but neither stat on their own is really what I’d use to evaluate the position. I like to look at one very specific stat when voting on punters – percentage of punts inside the 20. Here, Kicky Bobby pinned his opponents inside their own twenty at a 25.3% rate, far and away the best in the league. Fulture had a respectable 16.7% rate, which did rank second. Obviously I20 punts aren’t everything, and are very much influenced by field position. But here that is probably a very strong argument in Kicky Bobby’s favor. San Jose was the worse offense in the league by quite a bit, so it’s hard to assume Bobby was constantly punting from advantageous field position.
Fulture’s strongest case was his average punt distance of 48.4 yards, good for second in the league, and a full three yards per punt higher than Kick Bobby’s 45.4 average. I honestly have no idea how much three yards of field position is worth. Probably something in the hundredths of a point range. It’s not insignificant, but I can’t imagine it is close to enough to overtake Bobby’s advantage in the accuracy department. Talking through this makes me believe it’s a little closer than I thought it was, but I pretty confidently stand by my Kicky Bobby vote in the end.
Defensive Back of the Year
Winner: Chase Jensen
My Vote: Chase Jensen
This was basically a no-brainer. But for the sake of making the case let’s pull some of the top competition in and compare them to Jensen. I’d say Quentin Sinclair had the best season among cornerbacks, pulling in 6 interceptions, breaking up 20 passes, and returning a pick to the house. Then we’ve got Richard D’Attoria V, who was really a linebacker, but I have no idea how that is supposed to go for voting. Anyway, he had a whole bunch of tackles to go with 9 sacks, 3 picks, and a league-leading 23 pass breakups. And lastly there’s Walt Green, who was neck-and-neck with Jensen for much of the season but just couldn’t keep up. He had a well-rounded stat line with 6 sacks, 5 picks, 7 pass breakups, as well as both a safety and a touchdown. Let’s line ‘em up one-by-one here.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Quentin Sinclair: 51 TKL, 6 INT, 20 PD, 1 TD
Chase Jensen – Quentin Sinclair = +48 TKL, +3 TFL, +4 INT, -6 PD, +1 TD
Unless you think 6 pass breakups are worth a whole lot, this one is pretty easy to dismiss. Great season for Sinclair though, who might have won consecutive awards if a CBotY award existed.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Richard D’Attoria: 100 TKL, 3 TFL, 1 FF, 9 SCK, 3 INT, 23 PD
Chase Jensen – Richard D’Attoria = -1 TKL, -9 SCK, +7 INT, -9 PD, + 2 TD
This is reasonably close. We’re basically comparing 7 interceptions and 2 touchdowns to 9 sacks and 9 pass breakups, and a forced fumble. It’s nearly impossible for me to believe that D’Attoria’s advantages compensate for his deficiencies here. Even if you estimated every 3 sacks is worth a pick and every 3 pass breakups is the same, Jensen would still hold an advantage of an interception and two touchdowns against one forced fumble. Another win for Jensen.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Walt Green: 79 TKL, 1 TFL, 1 FR, 6 SCK, 5 INT, 7 PD, 1 SFTY, 1 TD
Chase Jensen – Walt Green = +20 TKL, +2 TFL, -1 FR, -6 SCK, +5 INT, +7 PD, -1 SFTY, +1 TD
Let’s assume for simplicity’s sake that a touchdown and a safety are equivalent. That’d leave us with 20 tackles, 2 TFL, 5 picks, and 7 PDs up against a fumble recovery and six sacks. Again, great season from the competition, but just doesn’t hold up to one of the best defensive back seasons in recent memory. Moving on.
Linebacker of the Year
Winner: Mo Berry
My Vote: Mo Berry
It seems like the voters collectively decided not to consider safeties playing linebacker as linebackers here, and good for them. Safeties have a pretty clear advantage when playing linebacker, so this award should be (and was) decided for an actual linebacker. Honorable mention to Raymond Vans here, who might well have won another LBotY if not for being about one number worse than Mo Berry in every stat. So who is the competition here? Among the high tackle guys, Derginer’s season stands out as the best. Lanzer Grievous tied for the league lead in sacks, but fell short of Berry in other stats. So basically it seems like the only non-obvious comparison is Kolby Deringer. Let’s break it down.
Mo Berry: 92 TKL, 2 FF, 10 SCK, 1 INT, 18 PD, 1 SFTY, 1 TD
Kolby Deringer: 120 TKL, 2 TFL, 1 FF, 5 SCK, 2 INT, 4 PD, 1 TD
Mo Berry – Kolby Deringer = -28 TKL, -2 TFL, +1 FF, +5 SCK, -1 INT, +14 PD, +1 SFTY
So. 28 tackles, 2 TFL, and 1 INT up against 1 FF, 5 sacks, 14 pass breakups, and a safety. Ultimately it really comes down to how much you think a tackle is worth, I guess. Maybe not even then. If you want to say Deringer’s tackles + TFL are worth 5 sacks, just for the sake of argument, you’d be left with a pick up against a forced fumble, 14 PDs, and a safety. Shoot, even if the tackles were worth even more, it’s hard to find a path to say Deringer had the better season. Voters got another one right, I think.
Defensive Lineman of the Year
Winner: Bubba Thumper
My Vote: Grayson Kuusela
I think the final margin on this one didn’t reflect how close it was, but Thumper was a fine pick to win. For my vote, there were three or four guys I looked at for this award. We had three defensive linemen all with ten sacks in Kuusela, Thumper, and Skarsgard. There was also Dick Wizardry with a well-rounded eight sacks and five tackles for loss. And then David Ginsberg, who led in tackles for loss with 12, but brought down the quarterback just four times. So I basically looked at this first by comparing the guys at the top of the sacks leaderboard, then comparing the best one of them to the others. Let’s see how it breaks down.
Grayson Kuusela: 47 TKL, 10 SCK, 1 SFTY
Bubba Thumper: 42 TKL, 1 TFL, 1 FR, 10 SCK
Grayson Kuusela – Bubba Thumper = +5 TKL, - 1 TFL, -1 FR, +1 SFTY
So this comp comes down to five tackles and a safety versus a tackle for loss and a fumble recovery. Obviously in voting for Kuusela I valued the safety quite a bit. Part of that is also that I don’t really care about fumble recoveries in general. I tend to think they should just be a team stat because there’s not really skill in jumping on a fumble. I also didn’t really consider Kuusela’s five tackles. So that left a tackle for loss against a safety, and I went with the points. The good news for Thumper is my opinion only matters for one vote and he still won. And quite frankly I wouldn’t put up much of a fight on this one either. I could see someone voting it either way.
I’m not going to get too deep into Kuusela versus Skarsgard because it’s fairly clear just looking at the index that Kuusela was slightly better. The difference winds up being 5 tackles and a safety versus one tackle for loss, and I think I already talked through that comparison. So let’s compare Kuusela to the guys where it’s a little less clear.
Grayson Kuusela: 47 TKL, 10 SCK, 1 SFTY
Dick Wizardry: 31 TKL, 5 TFL, 2 FF, 8 SCK
Grayson Kuusela – Dick Wizardry = +16 TKL, -5 TFL, -2 FF, +2 SCK, +1 SFTY
Ok so 16 tackles, two sacks, and a safety up against five tackles for loss and two forced fumbles. This was also really, really close. In fact even now I’m not sure if I made the right choice here. All depends on what a safety is really worth, I guess. But I feel like a sack is worth roughly 1.5x a tackle for loss. DylanDeluxe’s defensive line rating article is a reference point here – TFL on average cost the offense ~4 yards as compared to ~7 on a sack. So then it sort of becomes a comparison of the tackles and safety against two forced fumbles. I went with the former, I have no qualms with anyone who voted in favor of the latter. Like I said, still sort of wondering if I overemphasize the safety. In the end my vote wouldn’t have swung the balance either way, though. So not going to worry too much about that. On to the last guy.
Grayson Kuusela: 47 TKL, 10 SCK, 1 SFTY
David Ginsberg: 26 TKL, 12 TFL, 1 FF, 4 SCK
Grayson Kuusela – David Ginsberg = +21 TKL, -12 TFL, -1 FF, +6 SCK, +1 SFTY
Basically looking at a very similar comparison to the one against Wizardry here. Ginsberg had more plays for a loss of yardage, but his plays were skewed strongly toward tackles for loss. If you try to convert things into like terms by treating a sack as 1.5 tackles for loss, you wind up with something like 21 tackles and a safety for Kuusela versus 3 tackles for loss and a forced fumble. I don’t know. Judging tackles is so difficult. Same questions for myself here as in the last comparison. You really could look at any of these candidates and just take your pick.
Defensive Rookie of the Year
Winner: Pete Parker
My Vote: Pete Parker
It looks like three guys got votes for this one – Oswald Grimnir, Net Gaines, and Pete Parker. When I was looking at this the only names that popped off the page for me were Grimnir and Parker. Gaines had a fine rookie season, but his stat line lacked the oomph needed to get my vote for this one. It feels to me like you’d really need to value tackles to put him in the conversation, and unless the difference is monstrous, I can’t really say that I’m going to put much weight in them. I’ll include him to be thorough here, but ultimately I decided between Grimnir and Parker.
Pete Parker: 61 TKL, 1 TFL, 5 INT, 9 PD, 1 TD
Net Gaines: 85 TKL, 3 SCK, 9 PD
Pete Parker – Net Gaines = -24 TKL, +1 TFL, -3 SCK, +5 INT, +1 TD
So this shakes out to 24 tackles and 3 sacks against a tackle for loss, five interceptions, and a touchdown. Putting these in like terms is tough, but I don’t really think that Gaines’ advantages here come particularly close to closing the gap on five interceptions. Moving on.
Pete Parker: 61 TKL, 1 TFL, 5 INT, 9 PD, 1 TD
Oswald Grimnir: 67 TKL, 1 FF, 1 FR, 5 SCK, 20 PD, 1 TD
Pete Parker – Oswald Grimnir = -6 TKL, +1 TFL, -1 FF, -1 FR, -5 SCK, +5 INT, -11 PD
Oh boy, they really had to hit all the stat columns here, huh. Let’s try to clear that up a bit.
Parker: 1 TFL, 5 INT
Grimnir: 6 TKL, 1 FF, 1 FR, 5 SCK, 11 PD
It’s sort of tough to look at this and not feel like Grimnir kind of has an edge, actually. But if we break it down a little, the FF/FR essentially equal a single turnover – much like an interception. So then we’re really left looking at the 5 sacks and 11 pass breakups against essentially four interceptions (subtracting one from Parker’s total for Grimnir’s combined FF/FR). I’d honestly say these are about equal? I don’t know, though. I’m basically looking at Grimnir’s pass breakup total as worth about two turnovers. Basically saying 5.5 lost downs is going to roughly equal a turnover and the important change in field position that interceptions provide. So then am I able to say that five sacks are worth two more interceptions? I don’t think I can, although it’s fairly close. So ultimately I tried to sort of put things in like terms, but this is such a hacky method that I don’t feel totally confident. Ultimately I just felt like Parker’s five picks are more valuable that Grimnir’s well-rounded line.
So much of this is arbitrary in the end and it definitely sucks that these two had to compete against each other. Another vote where I couldn’t fault anyone who voted this differently.
Defensive Player of the Year
Winner: Chase Jensen
My Vote: Chase Jensen
Luckily at this point we’ve basically sorted out who the best at each position was, so I don’t have to rehash comparisons like Jensen versus D’Attoria or Berry versus Deringer. Unfortunately to the good people who play defensive line, this award would require a superhuman effort that we probably haven’t seen since Jayce Tuck faced non-bot offensive linemen. So really the comparison I care about here is our DBotY, Chase Jensen, versus our LBotY, Mo Berry.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Mo Berry: 92 TKL, 2 FF, 10 SCK, 1 INT, 18 PD, 1 SFTY, 1 TD
Chase Jensen – Mo Berry = +7 TKL, +3 TFL, -2 FF, -10 SCK, +9 INT, -4 PD, -1 SFTY, +1 TD
Alright well that made absolutely nothing clear. Let’s do the same thing I did for the Parker/Grimnir comp real quick.
Chase Jensen: 7 TKL, 3 TFL, 9 INT, 1 TD
Mo Berry: 2 FF, 10 SCK, 4 PD, 1 SFTY
This is a pretty steep difference, but that’s no discredit to the season Berry had. Ultimately, though, if we throw out Jensen’s tackles and the TD versus safety pieces for simplicity’s sake, we’re left with 3 TFL and 9 INT against 2 FF and 10 sacks. Ten sacks is a lot of sacks, but it doesn’t compensate for nine interceptions on the other side. Jensen truly had one of the best seasons we’ve seen from a defensive back and absolutely deserves this award. I think we’re all just happy it wasn’t another safety playing SLB who won this time.
Kicker of the Year
Winner: Kulture Fulture
My Vote: Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname
Starting off with maybe a little homerism, maybe a little voter fatigue, but I went with Alex D here. Yes, Fulture had yet another perfect kicking season. He was 27/27 on field goals and 31/31 on extra points, whereas Alex D was 30/31 on field goals and 33/35 on extra points. So obviously three missed kicks versus zero stood out to a lot of voters, and that’s fair. But I basically don’t care about missed extra points as long as someone doesn’t miss a bunch of them. They just aren’t worth much, and given that the two were at least fairly close, I basically threw it out unless I felt a tiebreaker was necessary. I focused instead of field goals, and specifically the distribution of them.
While Fulture was a perfect 27/27, Alex made 3 more kicks – though he did miss one. Of their respective totals, each made 13 of 13 from within 30 yards, though Fulture was aided by 4/4 within 20 yards. Moving a little further out, from 30-39 Fulture was 7/7 to Alex D’s 6/6. Then we get to 40-49, which is where my vote was decided. Alex made 10/10 kicks from 40-49 yards, tying for the 2nd highest total from that distance. Fulture made just 6/6 from 40-49. I think 4 more kicks from that distance is a huge check in Alex’s column here. Looking at the 50+ range, both guys made 1 kick, and this is where we find Alex’s only miss of the season. From a range where the league, as a whole, hit at a 50% rate. I don’t really advocate for throwing results out of a data set, but I think it’s important to note when comparing 30/31 to 27/27.
So what does all of this actually mean for voting. Well if we assume field goal attempts from each distance range are equally distributed (in other words a 21 yard kick is just as common as a 29 yard kick), then we can split the difference in each range and use that to look a little more at degree of difficulty. So what I’m doing is assuming all 13 of Alex D’s makes from 20-29 average out to 24.5 yards per kick, then doing the same for each range and calculating average attempt and make distances. Also note that from <20 the average is 18.5 because the only possibly distances from that range are 18 and 19. And I’m assuming 50+ stops at 59. Here’s how it breaks down.
Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname – Average Make: 34.2 yards, Average Attempt: 34.8 yards
Kulture Fulture – Average Make: 31.8 yards, Average Attempt: 31.8 yards
For a point of reference, the longest average attempt in the league was Stephen Harris Jr. at an average attempt of 37 yards. So a difference of 3 yards in average attempt is quite a large jump in degree of difficulty here. Is it enough to justify Alex D winning the award over Fulture? I’m really not sure. I gave the former the nod because of volume and degree of difficulty, but I wouldn’t necessarily try to convince anyone voting Fulture that they’re wrong.
Punter of the Year
Winner: Kicky Bobby
My Vote: Kicky Bobby
Punting is a pretty tough thing to evaluate with our relatively limited stats in the index. I believe the vote distribution for this award was 7 votes for Bobby and 6 for Fulture, which – in my opinion – is closer than it should have been. Someone else got a vote in there, I believe, but I don’t really care about that. It really was between those two punters in the end. Volume is basically meaningless here. Bobby had 7 more punts and 100 more yards, but neither stat on their own is really what I’d use to evaluate the position. I like to look at one very specific stat when voting on punters – percentage of punts inside the 20. Here, Kicky Bobby pinned his opponents inside their own twenty at a 25.3% rate, far and away the best in the league. Fulture had a respectable 16.7% rate, which did rank second. Obviously I20 punts aren’t everything, and are very much influenced by field position. But here that is probably a very strong argument in Kicky Bobby’s favor. San Jose was the worse offense in the league by quite a bit, so it’s hard to assume Bobby was constantly punting from advantageous field position.
Fulture’s strongest case was his average punt distance of 48.4 yards, good for second in the league, and a full three yards per punt higher than Kick Bobby’s 45.4 average. I honestly have no idea how much three yards of field position is worth. Probably something in the hundredths of a point range. It’s not insignificant, but I can’t imagine it is close to enough to overtake Bobby’s advantage in the accuracy department. Talking through this makes me believe it’s a little closer than I thought it was, but I pretty confidently stand by my Kicky Bobby vote in the end.
Defensive Back of the Year
Winner: Chase Jensen
My Vote: Chase Jensen
This was basically a no-brainer. But for the sake of making the case let’s pull some of the top competition in and compare them to Jensen. I’d say Quentin Sinclair had the best season among cornerbacks, pulling in 6 interceptions, breaking up 20 passes, and returning a pick to the house. Then we’ve got Richard D’Attoria V, who was really a linebacker, but I have no idea how that is supposed to go for voting. Anyway, he had a whole bunch of tackles to go with 9 sacks, 3 picks, and a league-leading 23 pass breakups. And lastly there’s Walt Green, who was neck-and-neck with Jensen for much of the season but just couldn’t keep up. He had a well-rounded stat line with 6 sacks, 5 picks, 7 pass breakups, as well as both a safety and a touchdown. Let’s line ‘em up one-by-one here.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Quentin Sinclair: 51 TKL, 6 INT, 20 PD, 1 TD
Chase Jensen – Quentin Sinclair = +48 TKL, +3 TFL, +4 INT, -6 PD, +1 TD
Unless you think 6 pass breakups are worth a whole lot, this one is pretty easy to dismiss. Great season for Sinclair though, who might have won consecutive awards if a CBotY award existed.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Richard D’Attoria: 100 TKL, 3 TFL, 1 FF, 9 SCK, 3 INT, 23 PD
Chase Jensen – Richard D’Attoria = -1 TKL, -9 SCK, +7 INT, -9 PD, + 2 TD
This is reasonably close. We’re basically comparing 7 interceptions and 2 touchdowns to 9 sacks and 9 pass breakups, and a forced fumble. It’s nearly impossible for me to believe that D’Attoria’s advantages compensate for his deficiencies here. Even if you estimated every 3 sacks is worth a pick and every 3 pass breakups is the same, Jensen would still hold an advantage of an interception and two touchdowns against one forced fumble. Another win for Jensen.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Walt Green: 79 TKL, 1 TFL, 1 FR, 6 SCK, 5 INT, 7 PD, 1 SFTY, 1 TD
Chase Jensen – Walt Green = +20 TKL, +2 TFL, -1 FR, -6 SCK, +5 INT, +7 PD, -1 SFTY, +1 TD
Let’s assume for simplicity’s sake that a touchdown and a safety are equivalent. That’d leave us with 20 tackles, 2 TFL, 5 picks, and 7 PDs up against a fumble recovery and six sacks. Again, great season from the competition, but just doesn’t hold up to one of the best defensive back seasons in recent memory. Moving on.
Linebacker of the Year
Winner: Mo Berry
My Vote: Mo Berry
It seems like the voters collectively decided not to consider safeties playing linebacker as linebackers here, and good for them. Safeties have a pretty clear advantage when playing linebacker, so this award should be (and was) decided for an actual linebacker. Honorable mention to Raymond Vans here, who might well have won another LBotY if not for being about one number worse than Mo Berry in every stat. So who is the competition here? Among the high tackle guys, Derginer’s season stands out as the best. Lanzer Grievous tied for the league lead in sacks, but fell short of Berry in other stats. So basically it seems like the only non-obvious comparison is Kolby Deringer. Let’s break it down.
Mo Berry: 92 TKL, 2 FF, 10 SCK, 1 INT, 18 PD, 1 SFTY, 1 TD
Kolby Deringer: 120 TKL, 2 TFL, 1 FF, 5 SCK, 2 INT, 4 PD, 1 TD
Mo Berry – Kolby Deringer = -28 TKL, -2 TFL, +1 FF, +5 SCK, -1 INT, +14 PD, +1 SFTY
So. 28 tackles, 2 TFL, and 1 INT up against 1 FF, 5 sacks, 14 pass breakups, and a safety. Ultimately it really comes down to how much you think a tackle is worth, I guess. Maybe not even then. If you want to say Deringer’s tackles + TFL are worth 5 sacks, just for the sake of argument, you’d be left with a pick up against a forced fumble, 14 PDs, and a safety. Shoot, even if the tackles were worth even more, it’s hard to find a path to say Deringer had the better season. Voters got another one right, I think.
Defensive Lineman of the Year
Winner: Bubba Thumper
My Vote: Grayson Kuusela
I think the final margin on this one didn’t reflect how close it was, but Thumper was a fine pick to win. For my vote, there were three or four guys I looked at for this award. We had three defensive linemen all with ten sacks in Kuusela, Thumper, and Skarsgard. There was also Dick Wizardry with a well-rounded eight sacks and five tackles for loss. And then David Ginsberg, who led in tackles for loss with 12, but brought down the quarterback just four times. So I basically looked at this first by comparing the guys at the top of the sacks leaderboard, then comparing the best one of them to the others. Let’s see how it breaks down.
Grayson Kuusela: 47 TKL, 10 SCK, 1 SFTY
Bubba Thumper: 42 TKL, 1 TFL, 1 FR, 10 SCK
Grayson Kuusela – Bubba Thumper = +5 TKL, - 1 TFL, -1 FR, +1 SFTY
So this comp comes down to five tackles and a safety versus a tackle for loss and a fumble recovery. Obviously in voting for Kuusela I valued the safety quite a bit. Part of that is also that I don’t really care about fumble recoveries in general. I tend to think they should just be a team stat because there’s not really skill in jumping on a fumble. I also didn’t really consider Kuusela’s five tackles. So that left a tackle for loss against a safety, and I went with the points. The good news for Thumper is my opinion only matters for one vote and he still won. And quite frankly I wouldn’t put up much of a fight on this one either. I could see someone voting it either way.
I’m not going to get too deep into Kuusela versus Skarsgard because it’s fairly clear just looking at the index that Kuusela was slightly better. The difference winds up being 5 tackles and a safety versus one tackle for loss, and I think I already talked through that comparison. So let’s compare Kuusela to the guys where it’s a little less clear.
Grayson Kuusela: 47 TKL, 10 SCK, 1 SFTY
Dick Wizardry: 31 TKL, 5 TFL, 2 FF, 8 SCK
Grayson Kuusela – Dick Wizardry = +16 TKL, -5 TFL, -2 FF, +2 SCK, +1 SFTY
Ok so 16 tackles, two sacks, and a safety up against five tackles for loss and two forced fumbles. This was also really, really close. In fact even now I’m not sure if I made the right choice here. All depends on what a safety is really worth, I guess. But I feel like a sack is worth roughly 1.5x a tackle for loss. DylanDeluxe’s defensive line rating article is a reference point here – TFL on average cost the offense ~4 yards as compared to ~7 on a sack. So then it sort of becomes a comparison of the tackles and safety against two forced fumbles. I went with the former, I have no qualms with anyone who voted in favor of the latter. Like I said, still sort of wondering if I overemphasize the safety. In the end my vote wouldn’t have swung the balance either way, though. So not going to worry too much about that. On to the last guy.
Grayson Kuusela: 47 TKL, 10 SCK, 1 SFTY
David Ginsberg: 26 TKL, 12 TFL, 1 FF, 4 SCK
Grayson Kuusela – David Ginsberg = +21 TKL, -12 TFL, -1 FF, +6 SCK, +1 SFTY
Basically looking at a very similar comparison to the one against Wizardry here. Ginsberg had more plays for a loss of yardage, but his plays were skewed strongly toward tackles for loss. If you try to convert things into like terms by treating a sack as 1.5 tackles for loss, you wind up with something like 21 tackles and a safety for Kuusela versus 3 tackles for loss and a forced fumble. I don’t know. Judging tackles is so difficult. Same questions for myself here as in the last comparison. You really could look at any of these candidates and just take your pick.
Defensive Rookie of the Year
Winner: Pete Parker
My Vote: Pete Parker
It looks like three guys got votes for this one – Oswald Grimnir, Net Gaines, and Pete Parker. When I was looking at this the only names that popped off the page for me were Grimnir and Parker. Gaines had a fine rookie season, but his stat line lacked the oomph needed to get my vote for this one. It feels to me like you’d really need to value tackles to put him in the conversation, and unless the difference is monstrous, I can’t really say that I’m going to put much weight in them. I’ll include him to be thorough here, but ultimately I decided between Grimnir and Parker.
Pete Parker: 61 TKL, 1 TFL, 5 INT, 9 PD, 1 TD
Net Gaines: 85 TKL, 3 SCK, 9 PD
Pete Parker – Net Gaines = -24 TKL, +1 TFL, -3 SCK, +5 INT, +1 TD
So this shakes out to 24 tackles and 3 sacks against a tackle for loss, five interceptions, and a touchdown. Putting these in like terms is tough, but I don’t really think that Gaines’ advantages here come particularly close to closing the gap on five interceptions. Moving on.
Pete Parker: 61 TKL, 1 TFL, 5 INT, 9 PD, 1 TD
Oswald Grimnir: 67 TKL, 1 FF, 1 FR, 5 SCK, 20 PD, 1 TD
Pete Parker – Oswald Grimnir = -6 TKL, +1 TFL, -1 FF, -1 FR, -5 SCK, +5 INT, -11 PD
Oh boy, they really had to hit all the stat columns here, huh. Let’s try to clear that up a bit.
Parker: 1 TFL, 5 INT
Grimnir: 6 TKL, 1 FF, 1 FR, 5 SCK, 11 PD
It’s sort of tough to look at this and not feel like Grimnir kind of has an edge, actually. But if we break it down a little, the FF/FR essentially equal a single turnover – much like an interception. So then we’re really left looking at the 5 sacks and 11 pass breakups against essentially four interceptions (subtracting one from Parker’s total for Grimnir’s combined FF/FR). I’d honestly say these are about equal? I don’t know, though. I’m basically looking at Grimnir’s pass breakup total as worth about two turnovers. Basically saying 5.5 lost downs is going to roughly equal a turnover and the important change in field position that interceptions provide. So then am I able to say that five sacks are worth two more interceptions? I don’t think I can, although it’s fairly close. So ultimately I tried to sort of put things in like terms, but this is such a hacky method that I don’t feel totally confident. Ultimately I just felt like Parker’s five picks are more valuable that Grimnir’s well-rounded line.
So much of this is arbitrary in the end and it definitely sucks that these two had to compete against each other. Another vote where I couldn’t fault anyone who voted this differently.
Defensive Player of the Year
Winner: Chase Jensen
My Vote: Chase Jensen
Luckily at this point we’ve basically sorted out who the best at each position was, so I don’t have to rehash comparisons like Jensen versus D’Attoria or Berry versus Deringer. Unfortunately to the good people who play defensive line, this award would require a superhuman effort that we probably haven’t seen since Jayce Tuck faced non-bot offensive linemen. So really the comparison I care about here is our DBotY, Chase Jensen, versus our LBotY, Mo Berry.
Chase Jensen: 99 TKL, 3 TFL, 10 INT, 14 PD, 2 TD
Mo Berry: 92 TKL, 2 FF, 10 SCK, 1 INT, 18 PD, 1 SFTY, 1 TD
Chase Jensen – Mo Berry = +7 TKL, +3 TFL, -2 FF, -10 SCK, +9 INT, -4 PD, -1 SFTY, +1 TD
Alright well that made absolutely nothing clear. Let’s do the same thing I did for the Parker/Grimnir comp real quick.
Chase Jensen: 7 TKL, 3 TFL, 9 INT, 1 TD
Mo Berry: 2 FF, 10 SCK, 4 PD, 1 SFTY
This is a pretty steep difference, but that’s no discredit to the season Berry had. Ultimately, though, if we throw out Jensen’s tackles and the TD versus safety pieces for simplicity’s sake, we’re left with 3 TFL and 9 INT against 2 FF and 10 sacks. Ten sacks is a lot of sacks, but it doesn’t compensate for nine interceptions on the other side. Jensen truly had one of the best seasons we’ve seen from a defensive back and absolutely deserves this award. I think we’re all just happy it wasn’t another safety playing SLB who won this time.
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