This is a fun wrinkle too but I’m less convinced it really should’ve done anything to the backer (30). He needs to fit all the way outside. Keep going buddy! So yeah, I think both are cases where if you don’t have the right combo of athleticism and smarts you’re giving up unnecessary chunk runs.

this one’s an interesting little wrinkle, the back shows out fast to the flat and then comes back to take the hand off. the backer takes the bait and is hopelessly behind the play and he’s the ball fitter. good design but also means they’re playing too much man coverage. goes nowhere if it’s c3.

Here’s an interesting example where it doesn’t work as well as you’d like but the pursuit from the whole D is so committed that the outcome is OK. The guy that ultimately makes the play is the deep safety in C1. And 11 is coming from all the way backside, w 3 other dudes taking deeper angles.

Wink actually bridges these philosophies a bit. He was a much much bigger proponent of a 5-1 Nickel and he would send the lone backer, play man behind it and drop one of the ends. Spike 1 Rat in Aranda jargon, here shown from a different front.

A third straight man rep. Believe this is only a 3 man rush with the 2 deep safeties playing a pure robbers, no particular man responsibility just trying to break on a throw and playing the QB eyes. The LBs are playing 3 over 2 w the RB and TE. Play man on whoever comes your way.

If Michigan hasn’t run man on the opening snap it’s even mor rarely run man on back to back plays. This is a 5 man pressure with man free behind it. Seeing a fade thrown so readily is probably reminding folks of something they’ve seen before.

Same play still. They have rarely if ever spilled the kick out block on split zone. Note the technique from the BYU DE here. He’s hitting the split block square with the outside shoulder and then fighting inside. The backer (17) owns the outside gap of the split block.

So, for one, I don’t think Michigan has played any version of man on the opening snap of a game since perhaps 2020. And against unbalanced in particular they’ve played nearly every snap the last 5 years in 3 Buzz — cover 3 with the strong safety rolling down to play inside the nickel.

for clarity

Let’s do this people

As somebody who has played around with the Chicago data portal crime data a lot but absolutely does not understand the broader context of what constitutes a clearance, I've always found the long term trend troubling/puzzling.

Re: the transformation of the Knicks in the playoffs, here’s KAT’s AST% last 4 years:

MLB has a really difficult problem (NHL too) that playoff series are pretty close to coin flips. I think you could make a pretty decent argument that a Sun Belt conference tourney style organization is the fairest if you want to honor the regular season.

Here’s Tite 4

Here’s Jet 6

In dour moods I sometimes wonder which of the Bulls and Sox are worse run? They’re both, what, the 2nd worst org in their respective leagues? But there’s that and then there’s alienating the premier lesbian sports bar in town to the point where they give up on your WNBA franchise.

How fucking ignorant of absolutely everything to think this is the correct metaphor?!?

This is avg wages times avg hours times all employees, among the many proxies for NGDP growth you can construct. The Q is what proportion of growth will the Fed tolerate as inflation before it decides it just can’t hit 4.5% growth anymore and we just drag along or worse.

“Oh sure if you do something good it’s going to be correlated w scoring more per possession”. Ofc. But it’s not true like it is for Illinois and OREBs. Here’s Michigan e.g.

Really interesting (1) how correlated with their O efficiency Illinois’ OREB% is and (2) just how flat the distribution of their OREBs is. They send _everybody_. If you can slow them down on the glass you can turn them into just a good rather than elite offense. But you need all 5 to do it.

O’Leary really knew what he was doing at WMU. Their best D in 20 years and a 2 TD improvement year over year.