Join us for a live chat during tonight's final preseason game.  Mercifully, the preseason is coming to an end.  Stop by at 6:45 (Indy time), and we'll chat our way through the first half.  We'll all watch the offensive line, the return game, as well as Jerry Hughes and Curtis Painter.

By way of 'announcement', next Monday I'll unveil the 2010 NFL Predicted Standings It's already done. I'm just sitting on it until Monday. I can't guarantee that you'll like it, but it amuses me to no end this year.  Also coming soon..."It's Gonna Happen!" our 18 Bold Visions for 2010.  Finally, next Friday...it's back! Eyes in the Backfield returns for its epic fourth season.  As for 18 Plays, you'll have to wait until after the Houston game. We often do a preseason game, but there's no way I'm watching that Green Bay mess again.

If you want an unmoderated slot guaranteed, email me between now and then.  I want to say a special thanks to Cass who has served as our 'spotter' this preseason.  Thanks for helping out.  The chats have been a lot of fun.  We don't do them often during the season because it's hard for me to follow the game while moderating, but they are a blast for games that don't matter.

See you all tonight.

I love Hall of Fame debates.  I never get tired of them.

Today, let's examine the credentials of two popular NBA players:

PLAYER A

18.2 career ppg
20.6 career playoff ppg
3.0 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.1 apg
5-time NBA All-Star (once as a starter)
3-time NBA All-Third Team
Finished in the MVP voting twice (13th in 2000, 16th in 1998)
Averaged 24 ppg or better game in one season
14th All-Time in scoring (11 HoF players plus Shaq and Kobe ahead of him)7th All-time in games played
Olympic Gold Medal Winner
NBA All-Time leader in 3-pointers made and attempted

PLAYER B

21.5 career ppg
28.5 career playoff ppg
6.0 rpg, 4.7 apg, 1.3 spg
7-time NBA All-Star (six starts)
Two-time All-NBA First Team, Three-time Second Team, Two-Time Third Team
Finished in the MVP voting Top 8 six times (twice finished 4th)
Averaged 24 ppg or better in seven seasons
Two scoring titles
67th All-Time in scoring

I want to thank Derek Schultz for this comparison between Reggie Miller (Player A) and Tracy McGrady (Player B).  In many ways, McGrady's resume is much more impressive than Miller's, though Reggie Miller is considered a borderline Hall of Fame player and McGrady wouldn't be allowed to visit Springfield on a tour bus.

Any discussion about whether or not Reggie Miller should be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame has to account for his post season performance.  Miller habitually saved his best offensive moves for the postseason.  Often sandbagging for the playoffs, Miller knew that in the NBA what you do after the 82nd game means more than what you do all year long.

If you've been reading 18to88 for any length of time, your ears should perk up at that last paragraph.  I routinely say the exact opposite about the NFL.  I personally think that postseason performance is vastly overrated when discussing players.  The answer has everything to do with the nature of the playoffs in each sport.

When I was growing up, I rarely heard any discussion of "rings" as a validation of a player in any sport.  It was often an afterthought.  I remember when the Bulls played the Lakers for the NBA Title, someone casually mentioned that Magic Johnson had five championships.  It was almost a trivia question, but certainly not some kind of argument about his greatness.  That began to change with the career of Michael Jordan.  Jordan's six NBA titles became his defining statistic.  No one can name almost any number associated with Jordan's career except his number of titles.

Over time, that spread to other sports.  When Steve Young won his Super Bowl, there was no further discussion of the issue of how many rings he had.  One was enough to gain entrance to the 'club'.  Not until the Patriots fans felt disrespected by everyone were 'rings' used to measure NFL players.  The fascination with the postseason is relatively new phenomenon.

In the NBA, it makes some modicum of sense.  First of all, the NBA playoffs are a series rather than a single elimination tournament.  With only five players on the court at once, the performance of any one star can swing whole games and series quite easily.  A first round NBA series of seven games is the equivalent of about 8.5% of the regular season.  Four such series would total 34% of the total regular season games. Of course four seven game series would be highly unusual, but that's how much 'rope' an NBA star has in order to win a title.  If he NEEDS that many games, he has them at his disposal. Any player can have an off night, and it won't register or damage their title hopes at all.  A bad call, an unlucky bounce won't end an NBA season in game one. There are other games where you can make up for it.

The NBA playoffs are fairly representative of the regular season.  There's less room for randomness.  This is why the NBA is considered the most predictable of all the leagues.  What happens in the regular season is reflected in the postseason. That means that a player like Miller who was at his best in the post season simple revealed his true self come April, May, and June.  It wasn't a fluke that he got better.  It was by design.

The NFL is a different story.  Each playoff game equals just 6% of the regular season, and for most players that single elimination shot is all they get.  A maximum four game run to the Super Bowl is a fairly representative 25%, but most common is the three game run at 19%.  Additionally, the impact that any one player has on a game is limited.  With 11 players on the field at once, and each side only playing roughly half the snaps, it's much harder to assign credit and blame for wins and losses to just one player.

Ultimately, one game doesn't tell us much of anything useful about an NFL player.  While it's important that at some point a top player be part of a title winning team (ala Steve Young), there's not much sense in ranking players by rings.  Given the fact that the weather changes so drastically throughout the year, it's amazing that we even try to compare the NFL post season to anything else.  Winter and fall football aren't the same for many teams, further adding to the uselessness of the comparison.

Baseball is even more extreme.  Recently, someone commented, "The Cardinals are wasting Albert Pujols's prime" because they had won "only" one title with the 'greatest player of a generation'.  That got me thinking:  Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, and Ted Williams have only two World Series rings among them.  It's asinine to think that any player in baseball 'deserves' two championships.

Baseball's postseason consists of a first round series of five games: just 3% of the regular season.  Sure, it's a series format (unlike football), but even if you played in the full 19 postseason games, that's still less than 12% of a full baseball season.  Baseball's postseason isn't entirely random, but it's close.  Bear in mind that for most of baseball's history there were only two or even one round of playoffs.  Simply speaking, postseason stats in baseball are even more of a blip than in football.  They are all but a total aberration that proves nothing.  They can help a player's case (Curt Schilling) because what a player actually accomplished matters, but they shouldn't be used to disqualify a player.  The sample size is just too small.

Michael Jordan changed the way we view sports and the postseason.  Rings are the thing.  The postseason matters more than the regular season.

While that makes sense in basketball and should help elevate Reggie Miller to the Hall of Fame, it simply doesn't carry over to football and baseball.

In the NFL and MLB, rings are random and not necessarily a good measure of greatness.

The most important thing any NFL team can do is to keep improving.  Last year, the Colts had a tremendous year, but that was last year.  If Indy wants to win it all, they'll have to play even better in 2010 than they did in 2009.  Let's look at each position grouping and see where the team stands in comparison to last year.

OFFENSE:

Quarterbacks:  Last year, the Colts carried three quarterbacks. We'll assume 2010 Manning is wash with 2009 Manning.  Curtis Painter has clearly improved over this 2009 self, though I admit that's not saying much.  The 2009 Colts had Jim Sorgi to lean on, except that Sorgi got hurt (ironically from throwing too much) right when they most needed him.  Let's call the quarterback position a wash.

Verdict: EVEN

Runningbacks: Addai looks great, and Don Brown ought to have a better grasp of his responsibilities in the offense.  I'd love to predict much better seasons statistically from the run game, but we all know better.  Still, with Addai playing for a contract and Brown trying to break through, I think it's fair to say the Colts are slightly ahead of where they were last year at running back.

Verdict: BETTER (slightly)

Wide Receivers: This is a massive growth area for the Colts, and everyone and their brother knows it.  I expect Wayne will start to show the first signs of a slow down, but this will be offset by gains by Garcon and Collie, and the presence of Gonzo.

Verdict: BETTER

Tight Ends:  Colts fans are salivating at the addition of Brody Eldrige.  He's a road grader at TE, but has shown strong pass catching skills.  I worry about Dallas Clark's age catching up to him, but for now, the arrow is pointing up.

Verdict: BETTER

Offensive Line: How do we even grade this group? We still have no idea who is in this group!  Still the 2009 line was horrible, so improvement shouldn't be difficult.  For all the hilarious talk about 'a change in philosophy' from the Colts along the line, the most likely starting 5 will be Diem, DeVan, Saturday, Ugoh and Johnson.  Basically, the same guys who played last year.  Unless swapping out Lilja for Ugoh qualifies as a 'philosophy change', I guess the Colts meant what they said.  Better?  Worse?  We have no idea.

Verdict: Incomplete.  If I had to guess I would say EVEN

DEFENSE

Ends:  Freeney and Mathis will now be spelled by Chick and Hughes.  Despite whispers and worries about Hughes, I'm thinking this unit will be improved.

Verdict: BETTER

Tackles:  It's mostly the same mediocre, but improved, bunch as before.  Gone is Raheem Brock (where do we even classify him?), but Moala has shown some life this preseason.  I'm not going to get giddy until I see some real production.  My sense is that this group will be slightly improved, but they haven't earned the benefit of my doubt.

Verdict: EVEN

Linebackers: Wheeler is the full time starter now. Hagler started last season until he got hurt.  Wheeler improved weekly through the playoffs, and I feel good about where he is.  Angerer has shown flashes of becoming an excellent player, but we should all hope he doesn't see much of the field this year.  The question is whether Hagler with Wheeler as a back up is better than Wheeler (with more experience) with Angerer as the primary backup.

Verdict: EVEN

Secondary:  The secondary was a patchwork quilt last year as Marlin Jackson, Kelvin Hayden, Bob Sanders, and later Jerraud Powers all missed time.  While I don't expect Sanders to play 16 games, he's a massive improvement of Bullitt. Bullitt is a competent starter and an excellent backup.  Sanders is a special talent.  If the corners can stay healthy, I think they'll be better as a group than the 2009 team had.  Injuries will tell the story in 2010.

Verdict: BETTER

SPECIAL TEAMS

Kicker:  Vinatieri is healthy.  As long as he can actually hit a 50 yard field goal, this is a major improvement over a gimpy AV and ghost of Matt Stover.

Punter:  McAfee had a wonderful rookie season.  I expect a similar effort this year.

Return game:  Moore of the same (thanks, I'll be here all week!).  Seriously, the Colts' problem is not with kick returners. It's in roster construction.  There is little correlation with excellent return games and winning football games.  This is just not a high value area for the Colts, and I won't believe they've improved until I see it.

Verdict: BETTER (on AV alone)

COACHING:

To be honest, this is the big question mark again.  Mudd is gone.  Moore has stepped aside, though he's still present.  It remains to be seen what Caldwell took away from from his first season as head coach.  Larry Coyer seems to be getting more aggressive (which I think would be an awful trend).  I don't dislike the coaching staff, but I don't have a lot of trust in anyone on it.  From everything I can see, they've been handed a roster that is at least as good and probably better than they had last year.  I don't necessarily expect 14-0 again, but it's important that the team not lose focus in year two of Caldwell.  I'll be watching the key indicators: penalties, timeouts, two minute drills.  That's where you see institutional erosion taking place.

Verdict: WORSE (for the loss of Mudd, voluntary demotion of Moore)

OVERALL:

This team is better.  On the field, there's no position where they've suffered obvious decline.  The only villain could be age (for Manning, Wayne, Freeney, and Clark) leading to injury.

The bottom line is that Bill Polian has done his job.  He's given his coaches a better roster than they had last year.  Let's see what they do with it.

This is going on the front page instead of in the links because it's something I talk about all the time.

The outstanding site Advanced NFL Statistics just put out an incredible report showing just how much more important passing is than running to winning.

The answer:  A LOT more important.

If I were advising a general manager, I'd tell him to largely forget about the run. Get a RB who's good at picking up blitzes or catching the ball.  Never draft a RB in the first few rounds, and whatever you do, don't waste precious cap space (or payroll budget) on him. Get a quality QB at all costs. Assess your linemen on how well they pass block, and don't worry as much about their run blocking. Get lots of pass rushers on defense. Got a LB that's a great run stopper but can't play coverage? Trade him to some sucker team that cares that they only give up 3.8 yards per carry rather than 4.2 yards per carry. That's how you build a perennial playoff contender.

Huh.  A Great QB.  A pass catching, blitz busting RB that you don't waste cap space on.  Great pass rushers.  Coverage LB.  Perennial playoff contender?

Nah.  Sorry, doesn't ring a bell.

Peter King takes a lot of crap because he loves to go out on a limb, but when it comes to actual reporting, few are better.  Today he devotes the first page of his Monday Morning Quarterback column to the officiating controversy and how it will affect the Colts.

I understand and support the rule change. It's not only a question of safety, but of tactics.  Putting pads and a helmet on the umpire does nothing to keep teams from using the official to run pick plays with wide receivers.  I think we can all agree that simply outlawing such plays would be highly problematic, but they violate the spirit of the rules.

What King does so well is raise the specific questions that dog the implementation of the rule and show how poorly thought out the mechanics of the switch was:

Four: Why is the "false start -- snap infringement'' penalty even called? Why not simply just do the play over? Johnson said if there was no penalty in place, then there'd be nothing to stop a quarterback from hustling to snap the ball on the edge of the rules. If the passer knew he'd be able to do the play over regardless, then why not try to play hurry-up?

 

Polian's view on the infringement penalty is an interesting one. He thinks a game with a slower or older ump trying to keep up with a quick-snapping offense could be significantly affected. "I am dead-set against the penalty,'' said Polian. "It is insane. If I knew it would be this way, I'd have voted against it, and not only that, I'd have crusaded against it.'

This is perhaps the worst part of the new rule.  The quarterback is penalized because the official is too slow?  That defies logic.  If the official is not ready, the play should be redone, and the official should be penalized with a poor grade for the game for being incapable of doing his job.  Penalizing the team for the laziness or poor conditioning by the umpire is not defensible.

Almost as incomprehensible as the penalty is the bizarre explanation for it given by Carl Johnson.  Why should there be something stopping the QB from hurrying up?  What sense does that make?  The league should be trying to hurry the game up, not slow it down.  The justification for the penalty lacks any sense of reason.  Once the ball is spotted, it must be deemed ready to play.  Nothing else makes sense.

I don't think this is a bad rule, but the league clearly did an awful job thinking through the implementation.  This won't just affect the Colts.  This is going to be an issue during the end of nearly every NFL game.  When the explanation for why umpires are so slow to get in position is that they are "too stocky", it's clear that the league has done a sloppy job of implementing a new rule.

Again, I don't think this HAS to be an issue.  It's going to require some effort and creativity by the league.

To date, they haven't put in enough of either.

Pete,

I'm glad the commissioner is letting you celebrate 4,192 in Cincinnati among the most loyal fans on earth.

I want you to know that this is your last, best chance to make things right.

When you lied about gambling, we stood by you.  I personally spent more than a decade defending you.  I was 12 when you were suspended.  I was crushed.  I was angry.  Even after you finally admitted that you had lied to all of us, I remained willing to forgive you and move on.  You haven't shown much humanity in the whole process.  Every time you talk about the gambling and the lies, we all still feel like you are trying to sell us something.

Please, Pete.  This is your moment of redemption.

When you step out onto the field for the ceremony, address your fans.  The Cincinnati faithful treat you like family, Pete.  We WANT to forgive you.  We want the chance to embrace you and let the past be gone.

Address your fans with humility and gratitude.  Tell us:

"I'm so sorry I lied to you.  I made a mess of my life.  I don't deserve your loyalty and your love.  Please forgive me. I hurt the game I love, the fans I love, and the city I love, and I'll regret it and bear that shame forever.  Thank you, Cincinnati for sticking with me all these years.  Thank you for not giving up on me.  Thanks for honoring me today.  If this is as close as I ever get to Cooperstown, it's close enough for me."

Pete, at this point, I don't even care if you mean it.  You deserve to be in the Hall of Fame because what you did after you retired doesn't change what you did when you played.  Selig is looking for an excuse to let you back in.  This is your chance.  Don't blow it.  Be contrite, humble, and say you are sorry.  Muster up more class and humanity than you've ever shown in the past two decades and make things right between us.

If you truly want to get into Cooperstown, this is your best shot.  Say these things in the right way, and you'll have an army of Reds fans ready to bash the doors down for you.

Cincinnati will forgive you...Cincinnati WANTS to forgive you, but first you have to say you are sorry.

Please, Pete.  You get to step on the diamond again.  There was never any question where you stood between the lines.

Make things right between the lines.

I want to call your attention to a couple of 18to88 related links around the web today.

First, check out this brief entry on Redleg Nation's RN Around the World page.  I posted a couple of pictures about how I celebrate opening day here in Argentina.

Second, check out this post discussing the role of bloggers and teams.  It's riffing off of my post earlier this week.

On the other hand, you have bloggers who can do anything they want to:  use any advertisers on their sites, offer recipes for barbecue puppies, complain about any player, or take video cam shots of graphic nudity with a team’s logo pasted all over.  It doesn’t matter to the blogger, but it matters mightily to the Colts, the other teams, the league, and other pro sports.  They have to control the message and the bloggers are uncontrollable.

The overall point is that the market will eventually force the NFL's hand on these issues.

To that I can only add this: mmmmm. Barbecued puppies!

Aaaaaand exhale!

X-rays taken on the right hand of middle linebacker and defensive captain Gary Brackett were negative. Brackett suffered the injury in the first quarter when the helmet of teammate Philip Wheeler slammed into his right hand."No biggie,'' a source with knowledge of the injury told The Star.

Believe it or not, games like last night make me want to quit writing about the Colts.

It's not because I'm disgusted by the performance.  I mostly just hate having to invest time in discussing the ins and outs of preseason games.  There's going to be a lot of hand wringing and a lot of national recrimination over that game last night, and frankly it exhausts me.  Honestly, I'd rather just move along, and forget it ever happened.  I'm in a horribly surly mood about the whole thing.

Against my better judgement here's what I took away from the game:

GOOD:

• Addai looks terrific (no surprise). 
  
• I don't want to hear about how Manning had to move around in the pocket.  He's been doing that since 2006.  Until Ugoh went out with a toe injury, the offensive line had not had a penalty, had given up no sacks, had blocked for long runs and passes and the offense had scored 17 points.  Is this the best line in football?  No, obviously not.  Does it matter?  I just don't think so.  I'm not beating the drum for Charlie Johnson to come back.  Did you notice the Colts ran left last night?  They hadn't run left in forever with CJ.  I'm not saying that Ugoh is great shakes, and maybe having him and CJ playing together will make the line better, but I'm just as comfortable with Ugoh as I am with CJ.
• Bob Sanders looked great.
• Painter is the backup QB.  Is he good? Lord, no.  Might he be tradable in a few more years...yeah, maybe.  He has a nice arm.  I'm just happy we can stop talking about this issue.
  

BAD:

• The injuries. Duh.  This is the only thing that matters at all.  We simply can't hope for a good defensive season if Brackett misses a ton of time.  Remember the 6 catches for 85 yards from Finley and all the talk about how great the Packers tight ends are?  Well, that's what we have to look forward to EVERY WEEK if Brackett is out.  Angerer had some moments, and will be a player, but he isn't Gary Brackett yet.  Ugoh, Lacey, and Addai all got dinged.  I hate preseason.
• The pass rush.  Don't sweat the secondary.  Sweat the fact that there was no rush.  It reminded me a lot of the Super Bowl.  When the Colts don't get a rush, bad things happen.
• The blitz.  I hate blitzing.  I don't mind it in the red zone or on 3rd and shortish, but I HATE it on almost all other downs.  I loved the Tampa 2, vanilla defense.  We won a lot of games like that.  I don't trust Coyer at all.  I don't like all the blitzing.  The blitzes aren't landing and it's making the secondary look terrible.  Taking chances is stupid. I know fans love it, but it doesn't pay off against good QBs.  Ask yourself: do I want teams to blitz Manning?  Of course.  Now ask yourself:  do I want to blitz Aaron Rodgers, Matt Schaub, ect?  It's the same answer.

The Irrelevant:

• Brandon James' muff. He won't be on the team.  Wipe that from your mind.
• The special teams. Special teams are overrated anyway, but in the preseason they are crazy unimportant.
• The score. Yawn.  Stop with the "59 points is 59 points" crap. It's not. Not in the preseason.
  
• Jerry Hughes on the goal line. That drove me nuts.  First of all, the Colts didn't draft Jerry Hughes to stop run plays on the goal line. I doubt he'll ever be in that position again this year.  The announcers were talking about being a 'complete' football player and stopping the run.  STOPPING THE RUN DOESN'T MATTER.  It certainly doesn't matter for Jerry Hughes.  Robert Mathis is one of the worst run stoppers in football. If Hughes turns into the next Mathis, I'll be thrilled.

The BIG issue:

Anyone not dumbfounded by the officiating last night wasn't watching the same game I was.  The calls were sloppy, wrong and generally about as good as the football.  All of that pales in comparison to the idiocy of the new rules related to umpire positioning and the snap of the ball.

The umpire has to be moved out from behind the D-line.  I fully accept that.  It's simply too dangerous.  Someone will get seriously hurt.  I accept the need for a change.  However, the fact that the ball is spotted, yet can't be snapped immediately is absurd.  I don't know if a different official needs to spot the ball. I don't know if the umpires should run faster.  I have no answer.  However, spotting the ball and then penalizing the quarterback for asking for the snap is NOT a solution.  That's just stupid.

This seems to me like a resolvable issue.  Frankly, I hoped the umpire in the backfield would help with holding calls, but after watching Freeney get mugged about 2 feet from the umpire who was staring at the play, I've given up hope of that.  There ought to be a way for the NFL to work out spotting the ball for a quick snap that allows the umpire time to get to his position.  Giving up on the system with 2 minutes to play doesn't strike me as a reasonable plan either.  The league is going to have to work out the mechanics of this.  Changing back won't (and shouldn't) happen.  But letting someone other than the umpire spot the ball has to.  If the ball is spotted, it should be ready for play. It's been that way for many years.  It needs to go back.

Peyton picked up those penalites last night on purpose.  He knew this was a nationally televised game.  He wanted the issue out and dealt with now.  He forced the league to go back to the drawing board to come up with something that would actually work.

Going back to 2002, the Colts have won 5 of the 7 'game 3s' of the preseason in which Manning has played.

Given how terrible they've been in the rest of the preseason, that should tell you what you need to know about how they'll treat tonigh verses all other nights.

Join us at 7:45 (Eastern) to chat about tonight's game. If you are a regular and want an unmoderated slot, please email me.