NFLStatsBlog

Haha some of these are great. I'll go bold and say that Plaxico Burress makes the Pro Bowl and wins NFL Comeback Players of the Year.

I did some numbers on this and found that the average starting position dropped about 3-ish yards. In 2010, the average starting field position off a kickoff was the 26-yard-line, but so far this week it has been the 22.7-yard-line. This isn't a huge drop, but nonetheless that means that the only point of the kickoff return is adding 2.7 yards to what would be achieved by kneeling. What's more, it looks like touchbacks are clumped. Some games were loaded with touchbacks and some games had hardly any. It seems that there are kickers who can easily smash the ball into the end zone, and some kickers that are on the fringe. And within that fringe, there are teams that are conservative (running it out) and aggressive (kneeling it). To make a long story short, I think it's too early to tell what effect that new rule will have on the game. It's been annoying in some games so far, and not a big deal in others. There was 1 TD return, so those kind of plays are theoretically still in the mix.

Great links!

Hard to get a good look at JPP. When the squads split up, I was watching the offense. During the live drills I was scouting the secondary more than the line. Yeah JJ had an awesome day. Very impressed.

I have a ful play-by-play of the practice and pictures here. For those in the area considering going, it was really easy to get there off of Route 3 and the set-up the have is great. You park right next to the field and there are plenty of bleachers. The whole facility is gorgeous. Two-second summary: impressed with the offensive; Eli looked great; receivers looked great; secondary is decent but not amazing Osi looked good in his warm up suit ..... ackkkk

He got burned today in practice by an undrafted free agent (Todd Watkins). Obviously Prince is awesome, but it was pretty funny to see him get toasted on one of his first moments "in the NFL."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_vYB3walr4&feature=related @1:08 Ok, I gotta post this. One of the biggest (and dirtiest hits) I've ever seen against a punter. And Sav Rocca was on the receiving end.

I'm sure he is a great leader, but the biggest test of a leader is whether his teammates follow him when the going gets tough. Let's see what happens if there is a couple game stretch when things might look bad--will their be discontent or will he be the general of his troops? It's easy to "lead" during camp or when the pressure is off. I'm thinking of Eli during the 2007 season, when the Giants were on the brink of collapse but came back strong to get in the playoffs (and go on to win the SB).

I was totally thinking NFC East until you pointed out these results. It was 10-7, but the Lions are improved enough to the point where I think they could win 2-2 against the East. If the two divisions got to do this all over again, I think it could come out 12-5 in favor of the NFC North, which is definitely dominant. Lions 2-2, and the Packers winning out the season and a playoff game.

I'm really going to miss Hardknocks. Last week, I was staying at a hotel across the street from the Meadowlands (Sheraton). It just so happens that the Giants are putting all of their rookies up in this hotel for training camp. I was in the restaurant and met some of the players (mostly undrafted free agents). Anyway, you could really see how nervous these guys were on the eve of the most important moment in their lives. After having watching Hardknocks, I could really appreciate exactly how these guys were feeling and what they would be going through the next day. It was pretty funny because I happened to have a Giants shirt on and one of the players thought I was a front office guy. Haha One of the guys I met was Da'Rel Scott (7th Round, RB). Really nice guy and really passionate about being on the team.

Thanks dude, I appreciate it!

That looks fabulous! I'll PM you the paragraph description.

Happy to do it!

Yeah, I'll drop the ".com" -- I definitely don't wanna come across as anything but someone looking to talk NFL. Edit: and thanks for the link! I just did the same on my site.

You are free to post anything related to my blog here on the site. In fact, that would be awesome! And, since I just launched, I'd really appreciate a link. I'll put a link for http://www.thegridironpalace.com on my site ASAP. In my prior job I worked in consulting and gained a lot of analytical experience. I started doing these random models with NFL data to test the commonly held "myths" about the game to see if they are true. So I thought I might as well share it with other fans. I have a bunch more stuff ready to go up soon. Thanks! PS: lemme know if I need to change the username to get rid of the ".com"