With the Thanksgiving game today. I thought it would be a good time to look back at how many QB injuries happened against the Seahawks, and how a handful of them altered the direction of the Franchise.

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2022 Week 2: Trey Lance -> Jimmy G (Season Ender)

Trey Lance's debut as the full-time starter (w/full offseason of starter reps) was cut short due to a fractured ankle, ending his season. This pushed Brock Purdy from the third-string position to the backup role.

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2021: Week 4 Jimmy G -> Trey Lance (1 game missed)

This one wasn’t as big or significant. Jimmy suffered a calf injury and missed 1 game.

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2020 Week 8: Jimmy G -> Nick Mullens (Season Ender)

Jimmy Garoppolo's ankle injury sidelined him for the remainder of the season. This injury caused the season to derail, and ultimately gave the 49ers 12th pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. 49ers infamously traded this pick and two additional first round picks for Trey Lance. Kyle Shanahan said in an interview that a reason they made this move was because “they didn’t anticipate having such a low draft position in the near future”.

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2017 Week 12: CJ Beathard -> Jimmy G

The 49ers had traded for Jimmy G at the trade deadline. He didn’t play right away due to needing to learn the playbook. CJ Beathard’s injury forced the 49ers to insert Jimmy into the lineup. The 49ers proceeded to go 5-0 and give Jimmy a 5 year $137.5 million deal.

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Alex Smith injury in 2007

Smith suffered a season ending shoulder injury vs the Seahawks in week 3. This injury really set him back, and I would argue his shoulder/arm was never the same. He had nice zip and velocity before his injury.

There are always those players that a lot of fans haven't realized have gotten washed and are therefore shocked when they are traded/released, or players that simply aren't worth the cap hit. So which are those players for your favorite team?

Different fans of different teams spanning different generations have seen their favorites play on Thanksgiving.

From Randy Moss and Leon Lett to the Butt Fumble and Tomlin’s Trip, there have been many anNFL Thanksgiving moment that we will remember forever.

What tops your Turkey Day NFL memories?

I was thinking about this scenario, and I don't think I've ever seen it happen in a game. What would happen if a QB was hit while throwing a backwards pass and the hit caused him to lose control of the ball. If the QB's hand is moving forward when the hit occurs, but he's throwing backwards, is it a fumble or incomplete pass? Has anyone ever seen this occur in a game?

This is going to sound silly, but my favorite part of the NFL broadcasts is where they show the camera crew enjoying a buffet before they get to work.

I just like the idea that these guys who have to work on Thanksgiving are still being well fed.

The rapid explosion in "QB breakdown" videos this year from QBSchool, Kurt Warner, Brees, Daniels and a million copycats made me realize that they seem to have their own name for basically every route combination. "Oh yeah, I call this one Jimmy 2 Shift" proceeds to draw out the route combination.

I get that there are definitely some broad differences like Shanahan offenses leaning on zone run and bootlegs but it's not like they're running some extra special sauce right? Seems like everyone else knows the same plays and could just run more of them if they wanted to have a "Shanahan offense".

What is it that actually separates the quality of these different coordinators and schemes?

I know it's still early but if they keep their trajectory, my vote goes to CJ Stroud and Puka Nacua.

Adjusted Passer Rating = Traditional Passer Rating, removing Drops, Throwaways, & Spikes.

^(also note: I am using QB Rating & Passer Rating synonymously. This is not ESPN's QBR.)

The bird gauntlet:

Week 12: Seahawks

Week 13: Eagles

Week 14: Seahawks

Week 15: Cardinals

Week 16: Ravens

https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore/_/gameId/401547548

DeVito 18/26, 246 yards, 3 TD 0 INT 36.1QBR

Howell 31/45, 255 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT 58.9 QBR

Titans have lost every road game

I was messing around with some adjusted passer ratings a few weeks ago and a lot of the responses wanted Rushing contributions to be included. So I came up with a new method to do so, combining the adjusted Passer Rating (Passer Rating without Drops, Spikes, Throwaways) with Rushing production. That produced what I call QB CPR.

^(Full disclosure: I am a 49ers fan, but I did not do this to overhype Purdy. He was not atop this list when I started (Cousins, Goff, & Stroud were 1, 2, & 3, respectively. Ignore my flair and you will still see differences like Goff, Wilson, and Mahomes vs their traditional rankings.))

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CPR

Adjusted Rating for Combined Passing & Rushing

GUIDE:

• CPR = Adjusted Passer Rating + Rushing Production
  • Adjusted Passer Rating = Passer Rating after eliminating Drops, Throwaways, & Spikes
  • Combined with Rushing Yds, TDs, & Fumbles Lost
• C-Yd = Combined Yards (Rushing + Passing)
• C-TD = Combined TDs (Rushing + Passing)
• C-TO = Combined Turnovers (Rushing + Passing)
• C-YPA = Combined Yards Per Attempt (Rushing + Passing)
• C-TD% = Combined TD% Per Attempt (Rushing + Passing)
• C-TO% = Combined Turnover% Per Attempt (Rushing + Passing)

CPR2

While doing all this I was looking for another metric to account for players that were doing the majority of the work. That is to say, not benefiting strictly of YAC. So I came up with another metric for this. CPR2 takes the original CPR metric and strips the YAC.

• As an example, it is much harder to earn a perfect rating this way.
  • Keenan Allen is 1/1 for a 49 yd TD. Under both standard and my CPR Rating that would be a 158.3 Rating. However, with CPR2 that becomes a 142.2 Rating. In this rating, perfect means perfect. K.Allen would have had to throw 1/1 for 49 Air Yards on a TD.

Adjusted Rating for Combined Passing & Rushing, further adjusted away from YAC

Guide:

• CPR2 = Takes CPR and adjusts it toward the % of a player's total yards are not from YAC.
  • This is designed to give a more accurate picture of what a QB is doing (as both a runner & passer) separate from the receiver.
• AYPC = Air Yards Per Completion
• YAC/Cmp = Yards After Catch, per Completion
• CRAY = % of Combined Yards from Rushing and Air Yards
• CYAC = % of Combined Yards from Yards after the Catch

Stats vs Context

• A stat like Passer Rating is just a stat. It doesn't give context. You still have to take the stat and apply context to it.
• CPR is just a stat. You still have to apply context to it. But hopefully, this gives a more accurate piece of the picture than basic passer rating.

Common Q&A:

• Does CPR2 favor QBs who have a very strong arm and launch a lot of deep balls?.
  • No. Arm Strength is a routine criticism of Purdy. But he can functionally throw an accurate deep ball without the greatest arm strength.
• Does CPR2 favor QBs who launch a lot of deep balls?
  • Not necessarily. R.Tannehill leads the NFL in Intended Air Yards per attempt. Watson is 2nd, J.Love is 4th. But none of them rank that highly overall.
• Does CPR2 hurt QBs who get a lot of YAC?
  • No. When you look at Stroud you can see he leads the NFL in Air Yards per completion. But he is also 6th in YAC/Cmp. Purdy is 2nd & 1st. Tua is 6th and 3rd. It is possible to get both Air Yards and YAC.
• Why punish checkdowns?
  • the design is not to "punish" anyone. CPR2, specifically, is designed to credit those that are doing more outside of YAC, specifically including on the ground, which is the original criticism I was addressing.
• Why strip away YAC:?
  • Stripping YAC shows more of the individual contribution, especially with the legs. Which is why you see good runners like Hurts and Lamar take a leap. Their traditional passer rating, invented before the age of mobile QBs, doesn't properly give them credit for this overall play.

Their remaining schedule goes:

Commanders (4-7) Seahawks (6-4) Eagles (9-1) Bills (6-5) Dolphins (7-3) Lions (8-2) Commanders (4-7)

Five straight games against winning teams.

There has been so much focus on the Marquez Valdes-Scantling drop that would have given the Chiefs the lead late in the fourth quarter. The assumption is the Chiefs would have won if he makes that catch. Putting aside there was 1:45 left, the Eagles had 3 timeouts left, and Hurts has five 4th quarter comeback wins already on a team that rarely trailed in the fourth quarter, let's focus more on why this happed.

Does Tyreek Hill catch this pass? You are damn right he does. Does he make that 4th and 25 catch on that incredible Mahomes throw. Yep. Most likely. But the Chiefs made a choice. They traded Hill before the 2022 season. They spend their 2022 draft loading up on defense and drafting Skyy Moore. They then let JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman go before the 2023 season.

So the team KC chose to field had a much better defense and much weaker WR core. That led to the Eagles to put up only 21 points against them. Go back in time and keep those WRs, you get a more potent offense but continue to have significant problems with a weak defense.

So, does Hill catch that ball? Yep, 99%. But, in that same what if, the Eagles could easily have put up 35 points on a weaker KC defense making that late game catch not matter.

In the end, the 2023 version of two great teams played. One kept their incredible WRs to compliment their electric QB. One did not. One made half time adjustments, executed the big plays at the right time, created the red zone turnovers, and won the game. The other had major issues with dropped passes and poorly run routes that cost them the game.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination. This article goes into the controversial decision of the NFL and Pete Rozelle to hold games two days later.

• Rozelle later would regret holding the games. He faced public pressure from Governor George Romney (father of Mitt) who urged him to cancel the games. He declined.

• Kennedy had signed the sports broadcasting act which essentially forced the NFL into Sunday broadcasts so as not to conflict with college football. Incidentally, Amazon as a streaming service is not beholden to this law and thus can broadcast NFL games at their leisure,

• NFL owners were fairly divided to play the games or not. Dan Rooney urged Rozelle to cancel, but Rozelle declined.

• The AFL canceled games, causing some public backlash against the NFL.

• Rozelle was a personal friend of Kennedy’s and was very depressed following Kennedy’s murder.

• Even though some fans were upset with the decision to play, many sellout crowds still happened that weekend, including a 63,000 seat sellout between the Cardinals and Giants,

• When the Cowboys arrived in Cleveland for a game, some of the baggage handlers at the airport refused to handle their bags because JFK had been killed in Dallas. “We were [viewed as] killers, [as though] we had killed the president,” Dallas tight end Pettis Norman later said, according to a 2021 History.com story.” Art Modell requested the announcers simply refer to the team as the “Cowboys” instead of the “Dallas Cowboys.”

Really fascinating read.