https://preview.redd.it/lxc5ahmpmhx51.png?width=1100&format=png&auto=webp&s=96377ee44f927e18fd1c787f45bb5d8e093ad3dc We have made it through the first eight weeks of the 2020 season and it’s time to hand out some trophies (not literally of course, since we have to wait until the year is over). I already did this when I
predicted the entire season about a week before we kicked things off and a lot of the candidates I mentioned back then, you will here again, but at the same time, some guys have kind of come out of nowhere. For some of these categories, three names were enough, while for a few others I mentioned two more notables. So who have been my MVP, Defensive Player and Coach of the Year, among others, for the first half of the season? Plus, at the bottom I added my All-Pro teams at this point.
Also make sure to check out
my detailed recap of NFL week eight.
Most Valuable Player:
I think three candidates have kind of separated themselves from the rest of the pack in this MVP discussion and the guy I have at the top has been there all season long, because no other player has been more valuable to his team and their success.
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1. Russell Wilson I have always said Wilson is one of the premiere quarterbacks in the NFL and that the only thing holding him back from quite putting up the same numbers other MVP candidates have produced is his own coaching staff and the conservative he plays in. Well, this year Brian Schottenheimer & company have finally listened to Seahawks fans screaming to “let Russ cook” and he has been smoking hot. Russ is top three in completion percentage (71.5%) and yards per attempt (8.4) and yards per game (307.3), leads NFL with a passer rating of 120.8 and 26 touchdown passes, which makes up for more than one TD every 10th attempt – also an NFL-best mark. And the crazy part is that his team has needed him to be that explosive, since Seattle’s defense has given up an average of 460.9 yards per game – easily the most of any team in the league. The Seahawks themselves are scoring an NFL-best 34.3 points per game and their season-low(!) 27 points came in a matchup, where he led one of his two game-winning drives on the season (versus Minnesota). He is also the only quarterback with multiple starts to not have lost a fumble all season long. The only blemish on Wilson’s resume and the Hawks lone loss came at Arizona in a Sunday Night game, where their quarterback threw three of his six interceptions on the year and that was his only performance that he had a passer rating below 100 in. However in that game, he lit up the Cardinals with the deep ball and made some incredible plays throughout the night. And if you break down the three picks he threw, two of them came by defenders who had to cover a ton of ground and no quarterback would have anticipated them to even be a factor, while on that third one D.K. slowed down for a back-shoulder throw The Seahawks put 35 points on the Patriots, 31 against the Dolphins number-one scoring defense and just now 37 against San Francisco – and it could easily been more if the came wasn’t completely out of hand in the fourth quarter.
2. Patrick Mahomes I know Mahomes has five TD passes less than Russ despite having played one more game, but he also only has one interception on the year – and that one came when he pushed it downfield on a 4th & long towards the end of the Chiefs’ only loss on the season. He is also behind only Wilson in quarterback rating (115.0) and first in QBR (86.8), with the latter thanks to what he has done taking off when nothing is there, which he has really gotten great at once he sees 2-man or other favorable situations. Of the 34 times he has taken off, nine have resulted in first downs and he finished in the end-zone twice. Of course this is still about Mahomes and Kansas City trashing opposing teams with all those weapons in the passing game. With defenses playing a lot more soft coverage against the Chiefs, Mahomes has taken advantage underneath with those short completions, while still finding ways to allow his receivers to uncover on secondary routes and getting the ball to them from all different angles. So his intended air yards may not be overly impressive, because of all the screens and stuff they draw up, and he might “only” be sixth in yards per attempt, but Pat is still tied for first with 31 passes of 20+ yards. He absolutely picked apart the Ravens defense in that huge Monday Night showdown, which tried every coverage and blitz package imaginable and the quarterback had an answer for all of them, completing some throws nobody in the league could make. The Chiefs’ season-low in points (23) came at the Chargers, when he certainly didn’t start out great, but still found a way to lead a comeback and win in overtime. And even in their only loss of the season against the Raiders, it was the opposing offense converting a sneak on fourth down, that denied Mahomes a chance to finish their late push.
3. Aaron Rodgers When you look at Rodgers’ most impressive statistic for his career it is his ridiculous touchdown-to-interception ratio of 4.47, which is a full point better than the next-closest guy (Russell Wilson) and twice as good as anybody that hasn’t played in the 2010’s. Well, right now he has the second-best rate for this season, behind only Patrick Mahomes at 20-2, and those two picks came in his only bad game at Tampa Bay. I’m not going to sugercoat this in any way – after going up 10-0 and once that pass-rush from the Bucs was unleashed, he could not get anything going. With that being said, he has been phenomenal in the six other contests, having throw less than 3 TDs in only of them and his lowest QB rating being at 107.6, with both of those thing coming against Detroit in week two, when the Packers just didn’t need him to crazy and still put up 42 points, as Aaron Jones got loose on multiple occasions. And Rodgers had not fumbled until that very last play we saw from him, as he was stripped from behind while trying to launch a Hail Mary at the end of the Vikings game. By the way, he was incredible in that loss as well, as the only two times the offense was stopped, Equanimeous St. Brown had consecutive passes go off his hands and then the refs for no apparent reason picked up the flag on a blatant pass interference against Robert Tonyan inside the red-zone. Rodgers leads the league with seven completions of 40+ yards and right now Drew Lock is the only starter in the league with a higher mark in yards beyond the sticks (0.9) – which when you look at the rest of the numbers isn’t always an endorsement for the second-year QB, as Lock has three more INTs on 100 less attempts. And outside of Davante Adams – who has missed some time – Rodgers hasn’t really been able to rely on any of his receivers, as they are tied for the most passes dropped at 18, even though the other two QBs with that number have played one more game than Green Bay.
Notables: Josh Allen & Tom Brady
Offensive Player of the Year:
Of course, you could name the same three candidates from the MVP section here, but I tried to mix things up a little and give you three other names worthy of the award. And that includes only one quarterback.
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1. Alvin Kamara I know that this award is often given to quarterbacks as well and it looks odd that Kamara is 16th in the league in rushing (431 yards), but he is averaging five yards per carry and he is also second to only DeAndre Hopkins among all players with 55 catches for an additional 556 yards through the air – so just over 10 yards per grab. Right now he is on pace for 2256 scrimmage yards on right around 20 touches a week, while he would also easily break the NFL record for receiving yards for a running back (1271 over 1191 from Charley Taylor in 1966). And he leads the league not only in scrimmage yards but also percentage of his offense’s yardage (36.5%), while being tied for first with 12 plays of 20+ yards on the season. While he has caught a couple of key wheel routes and can win as a downfield receiver, so far 94.5(!) percent of his receiving yards have come after the catch, constantly bailing out his quarterback by making something happen after checkdowns and ripping off big gains in the screen game. I mean against the Packers he caught 13 of 14 targets for 139 yards and he was the only reason they were in that game in the first place. The explosiveness, the contact balance and the ability get six or seven yards when there should be only three is unmatched. Kamara has scored reached the end-zone seven times and his only fumble, he recovered himself again. He is by far the best player on this Saints offense and the team overall and in the absence of Michael Thomas, he has been asked to shoulder the load for them. Since his lowest output in the season-opener, Kamara has not been held under 119 scrimmage yards in any other week.
2. Kyler Murray While Murray is only 16th among current starters in passing yards per game, only Russell Wilson and by about half a yard Justin Herbert have put up more combined passing and rushing yards at 326.3 a week. Right now, only Joe Burrow and Matt Ryan have been responsible for more combined first downs and touchdowns, and those two have played a full matchup more than the Cardinals and both just won their second games of the season, while Kyler is doing it in service of a 5-2 team, which outside of his own production has averaged less than 100 rushing yards on a weekly basis. As a runner, he leads all NFL players (with double-digit carries) in yards per attempt at 6.7 and 35 of his 65 carries led to first downs or touchdowns (seven TDs). I would not call Arizona’s passing game overly explosive, as Kyler is barely in the top 20 in yards per attempt (7.3), 20+ yard throws (21) and average yards to the sticks (-0.9), but a lot of that has to do with what Kliff Kingsbury wants to do with his Air Raid-based offense, while his QB is tied for second with six throws of 40+ yards and already has an 80-yarder on his resume. Plus, with that guy at the helm, they have the potential to get as hot as pretty much any team out there. Kyler had one really bad game against the Lions, in which Detroit used a lot of different coverages that had them all over the Cardinals route patterns, but #1 has been outstanding the rest of the year and I don’t come away from a lot of games thinking that a lot of his production was served up by the play-calling. I said a couple of weeks that Deshaun Watson is the most elusive quarterback in the league, but nobody is quicker at evading defenders and keeping himself upright. We all love Russell Wilson and his ability to extend plays, but just compare these numbers – Russ has been pressured 79 times and he’s been hit or sacked on 50 of those, Kyler on the other has been pressured 44 times (significantly less due to more of a horizontal passing attack), but he’s only been sacked nine times and taken five more hits (14 total). And Kyler already outdueled Russ on Sunday Night of week seven.
3. Derrick Henry King Henry is once again holding the crown for the league’s rushing leader at this moment. His 775 rushing yards are 123 more than any other player in the league, and while that is in correlation with handling the most carries of all RBs, he still averaging 4.8 yards per attempt, despite being asked to grind away games for the Titans. Right around 30 percent of his touches has resulted in a first down or touchdown (43 total first downs and eight TDs) and about 58 percent of his total yardage has come after contact. Nobody wants to tackle King Henry, because he can plow through 300-pounder defensive linemen at the point of attack and throw DBs around like ragdolls, when he gets around the edge (looking at you, Josh Norman), but at the same time, once he gets rolling, he is as fast as any player on the field, which we saw already when he ripped of an NFL-long 94-yarder against the Texans a couple of weeks ago. The difference between Henry and some of the other franchise backs is that he doesn’t contribute a whole lot in the passing game outside of a few screens (10 catches for 81 yards), but nobody takes on a bigger load than this guy and he really sets the table for everything the Titans do, with the heavy play-action and bootlegs. Usually this guy really starts rolling over the second half of the season, but he has been dominant right from the start this year. When you look at the three games Henry didn’t put 112+ yards on the ground, in two of them the opposing defense totally sold out against the run and Ryan Tannehill completed 75 percent of his passes with seven TDs and no picks, while the team scored 33 and 42 points respectively, and the other one came against the Steelers’ dominant defensive front. On the other hand, he also has the most scrimmage yards in a game all season, when he destroyed the Texans for 264 yards and took over that one overtime drive, to win it.
Notables: The three MVP candidates Defensive Player of the Year:
I think there is pretty clear top three in this one as well and I can honestly see an argument for each one of them to be the pick, but I have stuck my selection (and bet) of a guy I believed would come back even hungrier in 2020.
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1. Myles Garrett This was my preseason pick for Defensive Player of the Year and similar to Russell Wilson’s MVP campaign, I have been riding this all season long. Myles Garrett is tied for a league-high nine sacks and only two players have hit the opposing quarterback more overall than him. The only two games he didn’t record a sack (the season-opener at Baltimore and this past week against the Raiders), the opposing team ran the ball on 56 and 65 percent respectively and somehow all those sacks he has put up have come in big moments – a strip on Joe Burrow to set up the offense at the Bengals 1-yard line after they were just stopped on fourth down in an eight-point game, another against Washington after the Browns finally extended the lead to more than one score, stripping Dak Prescott when the game was tied at 14 and set off a 27-0 run, setting the offense up in field goal range for their first points in the rematch with Cincinnati and while it won’t be found on the stats sheet, he also directly forced a safety on a throw-away by Philip Rivers to make it a two-score game against the Colts. The only other player that has forced four fumbles just like Myles is Ravens DB Marlon Humphrey, who has become a Peanut Punch specialist – and Garrett has also recovered a couple of those himself, with both of them directly setting up touchdown for the offense from short distance. Plus, he is excellent run-defender, who can yank blockers to the side and makes tackles around the line scrimmage, with only one miss on the season. Myles has grown so much with his technique as a pass-rusher, while obviously having that incredible combination of length and athleticism, but also might have gotten “looser” in his movement and how he can torque his body different ways. And the Browns are now using him as a mismatch against guards on passing downs quite a bit.
2. Aaron Donald Just like he has been the last five years or so, Aaron Donald is right up there with the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year and I would not be surprised at all if he won his third trophy at the end of the season. Donald is tied with Myles Garrett for the league-lead in sacks at nine and he is top five in total pressures (22) and QB hits (13), despite offensive lines sliding his way constantly. We have literally seen this man get triple-teamed and lift All-Pro offensive linemen off their feet, but only T.J. Watt has a higher pass-rush win percentage according to Pro Football Focus (25%). This guy is the only player with a four-sack performance this season and not only does he obviously contribute in a major way himself, but because of the way he gives his teammates one-on-one’s consistently, his Rams only have three other teams in front of them in terms of sacks as unit (26), despite not having a lot of names that you would recognize, outside a questionable former first-rounder in Leonard Floyd. And I just mentioned the only two players with more forced fumbles than Donald (Garrett and Humphrey), who has three himself. He has also recorded seven tackles for loss and only missed one of his 26 tackling attempts. The crazy part with his game is that for all the numbers you can actually see, there’s about twice as many plays he makes that don’t show up anywhere in the records. The only reason I don’t have him at number one is that he has four games without a full sack and that Garrett has been a little more consistent at coming up with those real game-changing plays. Still, AD is clearly right up there.
3. T.J. Watt And then this guy is as complete an edge defender as we have in the league. Watt can set the edge at the point of attack, he can chase ball-carriers down from behind as the unblocked man at the line and this past Sunday against Baltimore, we saw him take both guys at times on those read-option plays. Of his 25 tackles on the season, 12 have resulted in lost yardage, which is tied with teammate Vince Williams for a league-high. As a pass-rusher, Watt is “only” tied for fourth with 6.5 sacks, but his 21 hits on opposing QBs is four more than any other player in the league and the 27 total pressure are three more than the next-closest guy as well, while PFF has him tagged with the highest pass-rush win rate in correlation with that (27%). And he headlines the most destructive pass-rush in the league, as the Steelers defense leads the league with 30 sacks and easily has the highest pressure percentage of any unit out there at a whopping 35.0 percent. Watt has also batted down three passes and picked one off. He can do your classic flat drops or carry guys out of the backfield at times, but he can also stand up and move around the line to blitz from different angles or act as a spy at times. He surprisingly has yet to force a fumble this season, but I can remember right now on the very first play he was on the field against the Titans, a good 20 quarterbacks would have lost the ball in that moment with Watt swiping at it, and since he led the league in that category last season, I have no doubt he will rack up a few of those FFs still.
Offensive Rookie of the Year:
This award has two quarterbacks battling it out at the top right now, with one young star receivers and a couple of running backs – one picked in the first round and the other going undrafted – who are also in the running.
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1. Justin Herbert I get that coaches always try to protect their young quarterbacks and want to give them time to learn from the sidelines, but I hope everybody gets that Herbert and Tyrod Taylor aren’t even close to each other. And I have always liked Tyrod as a bridge-starter or game-manager type, but this rookie QB has taken this offense to a completely different level. When you just look at the schedule, you see that the two QBs have the same amount of wins on the season (only one for Herbert against the Jaguars), but in the season-opener the Chargers only put up 16 points against the Bengals, who have given up 28.2 per week from that point on, and L.A. has scored 27.2 points a game since then. It is not Herbert’s fault that his defense has let him down in the second half of games and allowed big comebacks. He took Patrick Mahomes & company to overtime, had his team up 24-7 against the Bucs before a fumble a minute until halftime started turning things around, he outplayed Drew Brees at the Superdome and was inches away in overtime from pulling off a game-tying or -winning drives and before the Bolts defense allowed an epic collapse last Sunday, they were dominating the Broncos 24-3 midway through the third quarter. The way Herbert has opened up the offense with the deep ball is incredible, with two 70+ TDs on the resume already, and he makes the whole field available, after they were very limited before. Among current starters, Herbert is third in passing yards per game (303.3) and second in combined touchdowns per game (3.0), while also being top ten in completion percentage, yards per attempt, quarterback rating and QBR. He is on pace to throw for 4550 yards and 38 touchdowns to go with about 350 rushing yards and five more TDs on the ground, over the course of a 15-game season. Those numbers would shatter all rookie records.
2. Joe Burrow No other team has thrown the ball more than the Bengals (330 pass attempts) and their quarterback leads the league with 221 completions on the season (67% completion percentage). With 11 touchdowns compared to five interceptions, that ratio doesn’t look overly impressive, but he has set up a lot of short rushing TDs, while Cincinnati barely cracks 100 rushing yards per game as a team and only one other squad averages less yards per carry (3.7). Until this past weekend, Burrow was tied with Carson Wentz for the most-sacked quarterbacks in the league, but thanks to a non-existent pass-rush for the Titans, in large part due to the spread-based passing attack the Bengals bring to the table, a clean week has the Bengals QB at “only” 28 sacks so far. However, he has been under the fire all season long, being tied for third with 79 total pressures, despite only eight quarterbacks spending less time in the pocket. And Burrow has yet to complete less than 60 percent of his passes in any game. I know the Bengals were blown out in that one Ravens game, but do we realize that was their only loss by more than one score? They tied the Eagles in a game where Burrow was sacked eight times and hit every other snap, they scored 30+ in their two matchups with the Browns, they were up 21-0 against the Colts in the second quarter and just this past Sunday they beat the recently 5-1 Titans by double-digits. And I would argue their rookie quarterback is by far the biggest reason for it. They are already guaranteed a better record this year than last season, as we are halfway through the season – and they are getting better every week. This guy is the future in Cincinnati. Now they just need to protect him and get that defense going.
3. Justin Jefferson I know that Odell Beckham Jr. was the only wide receiver to be named Offensive Rookie of the Year in the last ten years and I wouldn’t put anybody on the same level as that historic season, but since then this is the most impressive start we have seen for a rookie receiver. Through seven games, Jefferson has caught 31 of his 40 targets for 563 yards and three touchdowns. That puts him 12th among all receivers in yards per game, while having recorded a league-high 14.1 yards per target and 22 of his 31 grabs has resulted in a fresh set of downs. After a rather slow start, with five catches for 70 yards through the first two weeks, Jefferson came onto the scene with 71-yarder against the Titans and now already has three games of 100+ receiving yards, while only having played 74 percent of the snaps on the season. Jefferson has only dropped one pass and not fumbled once, while Kirk Cousins when targeting the rookie receiver, has a passer rating of over 100 despite having thrown four picks and I wouldn’t put a single one of those on the receiver definitely, as on a couple of them there was a linebacker dropping underneath a deep crosser that Cousins stared down the whole way, a badly underthrown pass into a tight window and on another one he and the rookie wideout clearly weren’t on the same page in terms of the route he was supposed to run. Through eight weeks, Jefferson is Pro Football Focus has the second-highest grade among all NFL receivers. I have always been a fan of Adam Thielen and he is Cousins’ favorite target, but to determine who opposing teams believe is more dangerous, all I have to do is watch the Packers put Jaire Alexander on the first-year man for almost the whole game last week.
Notables: James Robinson & Clyde Edwards-Helaire
Defensive Rookie of the Year:
For the defensive side of the ball, this rookie selection was a little tougher, because there are a few guys that have filled the stat sheet across the board, but you don’t have those typical front-runners with a lot of sacks or interceptions, which usually take home the honors.
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1. Antoine Winfield Jr. When I look at who I believe is the best pro player among all defensive rookies already, I would say this is the name that comes to mind. Tampa Bay’s defensive scheme isn’t simple. They ran a lot of different coverages, they can blitz anybody and there are a lot of rules that you have to understand as a member of that unit. Winfield has come in and looked him he belonged from the first time he touched the field. The rookie safety has played 515 of 522 snaps on defense and he shows up quite a bit in the box score. He has recorded 31 solo tackles and only two misses all season long, showing off what a dependable tackler he is in space. He has intercepted a passe and broken up four more, plus he has forced fumble. And call it P.I. or not, he denied a two-point conversion to potentially tie the game this past Monday Night against the Giants. To go with that, he has asked to blitz 29 times in Todd Bowles’ pressure-heavy scheme, resulting in two sacks and three extra hits on the quarterbacks. What made me a big fan of Winfield coming out of Minnesota was the versatility he presents and the fact he played so much bigger than his size would indicate. The Bucs coaching staff has utilized a lot around the line of scrimmage a lot and I love how he drives on routes in quarters coverage. He gas been “credited” with giving up just over 200 yards and two touchdowns, to go with a passer rating of 114.4 in coverage, but I think about half of that production came on two plays in the Chargers game, once with him ending up as the closest defender on a deep bomb, when the other safety should have actually opened up and then on a scramble drill play, where Keenan Allen uncovered late against him.
2. Patrick Queen Baltimore has a rich tradition of middle linebackers, but not so much when it comes to LSU players, with Ozzie Newsome as an Alabama alumn not having drafted a single Tigers player in over 20 years as the Ravens GM. This year, with Eric DeCosta calling the shots, they wanted to bring in a dynamic player to put in the middle of their defense and when Patrick Queen surprisingly was still on the board when they were making their first-round pick this past April, it didn’t matter which college he came from. Queen was immediately put in the starting lineup and he has been filling up the stat sheet from the start. In seven games, he has recorded 48 combined tackles, four of them for loss, two sacks to go with five more QB hits, two fumbles forced and recovered, including a long scoop-and-score. His speed at the second level to string guys out to the sideline or get to the quarterback on delayed blitzes has been a big reason this defense has gone to a higher level in 2020. Of course, he is still a first-year player and not perfect. Queen has already missed 11 tackles and there have been some moments where the rookie seemed a little confused. Two that come to mind right away – the Chiefs running that double-swing fake before throwing the TE screen over the middle, where they had Queen’s head spinning and then last week against the Steelers, where I’m pretty sure he should have covered tight-end Eric Ebron in man, but thought he had the back and that allowed Ebron to easily score on a shallow crosser from 18 yards out. He is learning and we have already seen moments, where he just sees it and goes, shutting down plays before they can even get going, while he obviously has a knack for the ball.
3. Jeremy Chinn One of the small-school prospects I loved in this most recent draft was this 6’3”, 220-pound safety from Southern Illinois, who put up ridiculous numbers at the scouting combine and showed incredible potential on film. So far, he has put up 38 solo tackles – most by any rookie in the league, has intercepted one pass and broken up another five. Chinn has been all over the field, with his ability to cover ground and erase angles for the ball-carrier. One of the two or three negatives I had about him and why I had him around the top 50 and not even higher was the ability to process information post-snap, to not just have his talent take him to the ball, but also the anticipation and identification of certain keys to react quickly. I believe Matt Rhule, defensive coordinator Phil Snow and that entire staff has done an outstanding job of simplifying Chinn’s assignments and just letting him around and make plays. Once he sees something happening in front of him, he can get there as fast as pretty much any player in the league and the Panthers have allowed that talent to flourish. The biggest issue for him are the ten missed tackles so far, but he’ll clean that up as well. Through eight weeks, Chinn has played 96 percent of the defensive snaps and been a fixture on the punt team as well, where he had a huge first-down run against the Falcons in last week’s Thursday Night game on a fake. As he gets more comfortable in the system, I expect him to become a bigger part of the pass-rush, because his closing speed as a blitzer is just absurd.
Notables: Jaylon Johnson & Julian Blackmon Comeback Player of the Year:
As I say every year when making my preseason picks, this is the most vague award of the list, because there are so many different ways you can look at it – players who were hurt for most/all of last season, guys who had a few off-years and then those who were out of the league altogether.
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1. Ben Roethlisberger Roethlisberger is completing 67.9 percent of his passes and while he is only 25th in passing yards per game (232.6), a lot of that has to do with being part of a 7-0 team with the best defense in the league and trying to run down the clock late in games a lot of times. Big Ben has been really steady for Pittsburgh, not having completed less than 63 percent of his passes yet for a total of 15 touchdowns compared to only four interceptions, with five games that didn’t include any turnovers from him. Of those four picks, one came on a wobbling 50-50 pass, where Juju immediately called for pass interference, one came in the end-zone on the final play before halftime and another was batted up by a defensive lineman right into the hands of a linebacker. The Steelers are tied for third with converting 49.5 percent of their third downs and even though their run game is about average, they control the clock primarily with the short passing game, where their quarterback gets everybody involved. And when his team has needed him most Big Ben has come through, with two go-ahead touchdown drives in fourth quarters and taking over on crucial drives, with no-huddle attacks and almost exclusively going in the shotgun to spread it around. In the battle of unbeatens at Tennessee, the Steelers were up 24-7 at halftime, with Roethlisberger converting all four third downs with nine or more yards to go. This past Sunday in Baltimore in a huge AFC North clash with the Ravens, the Steelers offense could not get anything done for the first half plus, with Lamar Jackson gifting his opponents 14 points directly off turnovers, but when Pittsburgh needed to a couple of touchdowns to go ahead, their quarterback came through, as they threw the ball on 15 of those 18 plays and the three runs resulted in -1 yard (+ a touchdown). To do this after a season-ending elbow injury on his throwing arm last year is impressive.
2. Jason Verrett For this one we have to go all the way back to like 2015 and even before that. Jason Verrett was a first-team All-American selection in 2013 and then a first-round pick for the Chargers coming out of TCU. After showing a ton of potential in an injury-riddled rookie campaign, he became a Pro Bowler in his second season with three interceptions and 12 more passes deflected, including a pick-six. The next two years, he only played a combined five games with consecutive ACL injuries and then missed all of 2018 with a torn Achilles. His bad injury luck would follow him to San Francisco however, as he would go on IR with an ankle injury shortly after signing with the 49ers last year. Now, finally in 2020 he is back on the field and balling out. Verrett had a big interception in the end-zone against the Rams a couple of weeks ago and three PBUs the rest of the season, having started the last six games. However, it is the more advanced stats about what the veteran corner has done in coverage that are really impressive. On 25 targets, he has given up just 123 yards and no touchdowns. Plus, he is a highly dependable tackler, having only missed one attempt all season and holding opposing receivers to just 32 yards after the catch. The 49ers had major issues with their corners for large stretches of the season, as Richard Sherman has been on IR since week one and the with Emmanuel Moseley also missing some time, those other guys on the boundary have gotten roasted in some of their matchups. Not with Verrett. He has easily been a top ten player at his position so far and I don’t know how you can take him out of the starting lineup, once they have Sherm and Moseley back together.
3. Aldon Smith I thought long and hard about putting Rob Gronkowski here, because after Gronk look like his feet were stuck in mud early on, he and Tom Brady are not operating at a really high level again, and it almost seems like the big tight-end got his confidence back. However, I decided to go with somebody who was not one but five(!) years out of the league and as we all know, this award is a lot about the stories of these players. When Aldon Smith was drafted in 2011, it was immediately between him and Von Miller as the best young edge rusher in the league, and Smith out-produced the Broncos All-Pro with 14 and 19.5 sacks in his first two years, before he entered a rehabilitation center midway through 2013 season, when he has on path for another one of those years. The two following seasons, he looked like a shell of himself in San Francisco and then Oakland, as his mind clearly wasn’t right, with several off-the-field issues leading two suspensions that cost him the 2016 and ’17 seasons. Now, all the way in 2020, he is back with the Dallas Cowboys and especially early on he looked like a dominant player on the edge. Smith is now at five sacks on the season, with three of those coming against the Seahawks, as he was the only defensive player that kept his team in the game, with additional hits on the quarterbacks. To go with that, he has made some nice tackles in the run game, fighting off blocks and getting hands on the ball-carrier. He has cooled off a little bit these last few weeks, but the lack of production is more a product of how bad the Cowboys defense has been as a whole and long much they’ve been on the field. If he was on a team right now, that allowed him to rush in obvious passing situation, he could potentially be in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation.
Notables: Rob Gronkowski & Alex Smith
Play of the Year:
https://preview.redd.it/e7hgczoznhx51.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=367a15768a5e30164afcabc575cbf2e6700ff75f
1. D.K. Metcalf chase-down tackle on Budda Baker after the INT One of the greatest hustle plays you will ever see and it started a meme fest on the internet.
2. Derrick Henry 94-yard touchdown run vs. Texans The combination of speed and power is freakish for this dude. He tore Houston a new one.
3. Odell Beckham Jr. going 60 yards on the reverse vs. Cowboys Of couese bad effort and angles by the Dallas defense, but this looked like Giants Odell.
All-Pro teams:
Since this is not about building a team or anything like that, I just went to the most used personnel sets for either side of the ball – 11 personnel and nickel defense – and filled up those spots with who I believe have been the best players at those positions. So there is differentiating between left and right tackle, 4-3 defensive end and 3-4 were put together as “EDGE” and there are just any two stand-up linebackers inserted.
Offense:
LT David Bakhtiari
LG Quenton Nelson
C Corey Linsley
RG Wyatt Teller
RT Duane Brown
Second team: Laremy Tunsil, Michael Onwenu, Jason Kelce, Gabe Jackson & Ryan Ramczyk
WR DeAndre Hopkins
WR D.K. Metcalf
WR Davante Adams
TE Travis Kelce
Second team: Calvin Ridley, Stefon Diggs, Justin Jefferson & George Kittle
QB Russell Wilson
RB Alvin Kamara
Second team: Patrick Mahomes & Derrick Henry
Defense:
DE Myles Garrett
DT Aaron Donald
DT Chris Jones
DE T.J. Watt
Second team: Khalil Mack, Jeffery Simmons, Cam Heyward & Calais Campbell
LB Fred Warner
LB Lavonte David
Second team: Darius Leonard & K.J. Wright
CB Kyle Fuller
CB Jaire Alexander
NB Marlon Humphrey
Second team: James Bradberry, Jalen Ramsey & Jason Verrett
FS Minkah Fitzpatrick
SS Budda Baker
Second team: Jessie Bates & Antoine Winfield
Coach of the Year in the comments!!
If you enjoyed this content, I would really appreciate if you could visit the original piece -
https://halilsrealfootballtalk.com/2020/11/05/nfl-2020-midseason-awards/ Also make sure you check out my detailed recap of the NFL's week eight on Youtube -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXx87t1Dcvk Obligatory "didn't happen today" but around 4-5 years ago. Just came across a post that reminded me of this heartbreaking story.
To give some context, we hadn't long had my daughter and she wasn't sleeping through properly. For anyone who doesn't have kids, take note!!
We had been having a very rough couple of days as she wasn't sleeping very well at all. I volunteered to cover any problems in the evening/night.
I am avid football fan (not American football, proper football), and fancy a bet from time to time. I had got into a rhythm of putting on a small bet on an accumulator every other weekend (like £1-£2 at a time). Basically, you make a bet against many different matches and the prize money increases based on the size and type of bets. "Cash Out" betting was a thing, but wasn't picked up by the bookies I used but I didn't mind much.
Moving on to the day in question, it's about 3am after finally getting my daughter to sleep. I was exhausted, I could barely keep my eyes open. Just before bed, I check the football fixtures for the weekend. I couldn't believe my luck, every premier League game was being played on the weekend!
I quickly wake up and get a piece of paper, write down all my predictions and set my bet up - supplementimg the bet with other leagues to the point I maxed the accumulator out at 25 games. I banged on a bet and the odds came out at £15k+. I was pissing myself in excitement. I slam the "place bet" button.
I check my bet Sunday, mid afternoon........ My heart was pounding out my chest, every single bet came in!!! The only game left was Tottenham Hotspurs Vs Swansea which was being played on Sunday. I had bet that Spurs would beat Swansea
Ladies and gentlemen, I am on the verge of winning £15k+ on the back of a £1 bet!! Honestly, those few hours realising I was gonna get such a windfall after a newborn baby - the feeling is unreal.
And this is where it all goes wrong....
As I check my bet, my heart practically stops. In my sleep deprived state I had placed the bet on the wrong team. I meant to place a bet on Spurs, but accidentally bet on Swansea to win. For context, Swansea were awful that season! Now all my hopes rest on a team that were struggling.
I watched hopelessly as Spurs best Swansea ... I could have cried, honestly, I still think about it sometimes.
So there you have it, my chance to get a decent windfall and make our lives a little easier was fucked by sleep deprivation.
I try not to hold it against my daughter ...
TL:DR - Sleep deprived, I placed an incorrect bet and missed out on a large windfall
submitted by ![[OC] A Thoroughly Offensive Analysis of the Top Attacking Assets This Season](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/6Gau9EjvHIr9iEPSlnkkQOtYxo-ygqeVegdb93cxLLU.jpg "[OC] A Thoroughly Offensive Analysis of the Top Attacking Assets This Season") | Background information and some general notes: - I looked at the 39 players with five or more direct goal involvements measured as goals plus assists in the Premier League this season, plus the most involved players of the four clubs with no representation within the former group of 39 I don't mean to name and shame, but these are: Brighton, Newcastle, Palace, and Watford. Oh, and I also added Lundstram to the analysis, since he's been the story of the game this season.
- Statistics are not drawn from the FPL website. I made this decision because FPL's determination of the ownership of goals and assists can be a bit of a crapshoot. Instead, I used the official Premier League website for data on these measures, and collected data from Understat on expected goals and assists for both players and clubs.
- At no point do I incorporate FPL points into this analysis. My aim here is purely to peruse real-world-output data, and I also want to avoid the noise that clean-sheet points can have on these results, since I'm primarily interested in offensive output.
- This is not a predictive analysis! While you may use the conclusions drawn here for the purposes of making predictions, remember that player and team form change; fixture difficulties change; and tactics may change, consequently affecting individual player returns.
- On a related note, the results from this largely-quantitative analysis are best used to complement qualitative forms of analysis, e.g. eye-test, nailedness, etc..
- Player price data is reflective of prices as of November 11 (including the changes made on this date e.g. Abraham's price is £8m).
- Any explanations required for measurements and metrics are included within the graphs themselves. Any further notes that aren't general to the entire analysis are provided within their relevant section(s).
- I have uploaded a downloadable spreadsheet on Google Drive containing all the raw data used in this analysis. What you do with the spreadsheet is entirely your business, but I have two requests:
- do not use it as a breakfast spread;
- do not spread its legs without consent.
Basic, baseline statistics: Here, we start introducing some of the metrics of interest that are used throughout the analysis. First, let's look at DGIs, or direct goal involvements, and xDGIs, or expected DGIs. Figure 1 - This is a list of the top 23 players ranked by their DGIs, with xDGIs alongside those. Simple.
- If you want to draw inferences from these statistics, well, most of the players here (wildly, in the case of Vardy) outperform expectations, with only few underperformers Rash, Raz, and Bobby. But this isn't surprising because we're looking at those who have the highest absolute number of DGIs.
- As you'll see below, the situation is a little different when we arrange players by their xDGIs.
Figure 2 - When we arrange players by their xDGIs, we have a fair few more of them underperforming expectations. In addition to Rash, Raz, and Bobby, we've also got Wood, Maupay, Wilson, Wesley, Ashley Barnes, and Mahrez on the naughty list.
- All of these lads have 5 DGIs, the minimum number to qualify for this analysis, with the exception of Maupay with 4, who I have included so there is some BHA representation here.
- Again, though, this is just simple, preliminary stuff that feeds into the deeper analysis that starts below.
Measurements of reliance: Here, the primary objective is to determine how reliant club i is on player j, or groups of players j, k, and l. This is interesting because we are able to isolate, to an extent, how likely it is that if club i were to score, that player j would be directly involved. Figure 3 - I have limited this section of the analysis to players with DIRs of at least 20%.
- Pukki, Rash, Ings, Auba, and Deulofeu are the only five players with a DIR of at least 50% (remember that in the case of the latter, he's only been involved in four goals but qualifies because there would be no other Watford representation otherwise).
- This tells us that if Norwich, United, Southampton, Arsenal, and Watford were to score, it's more likely than not that these men would be directly involved in some capacity.
- Arranged by DIR, it's very likely that players are outperforming their xDIR – amongst the top 15 here, only Rashford and Kane are underperforming expected involvements. This situation changes as we approach the 30% involvement mark, and players like Wilson, Mo, Wesley, and Lundstram joining the former two.
- Wood, Maupay, and Bobby stand out as contributing a strikingly lower share than expectations would suggest, and that's not surprising given that they featured earlier as underperformers in the DGI measure above.
Figure 4 - Here, we've got players arranged by xDIR. Again, it's more common when you arrange things this way that we have more underperformers present.
- Rashford's xDIR of 62%, and Pukki's of 55%, are way ahead of the rest of the pack. The eye-test pretty much confirms United and Norwich's reliance on these two forwards for goals and assists. This is what makes them tempting FPL assets, but we've got to balance that out with each of their club's attacking prowesses, which I'll get into further down.
Moving along quickly, here's a little table highlighting five different combinations of players and their probability of returns for their teams – limited to a maximum of three individuals, since that's the maximum you can buy from each team anyway: | Club | Bournemouth | Burnley | Chelsea | Liverpool | Sh-eff U | United | | Combination | Callum; King | Wood; Barnes; McNeil | Abraham; Mount | Salah; Mane; Rob | Lunds; Mousset | Rash; Martial | | Combined ~Pr(Returns) | 33% | 44% | 33% | 41% | 38% | 47% | | Combined ~Pr(xReturns) | 34% | 47% | 29% | 41% | 29% | 42% | - All this says is that if you, for instance, had Rash and Martial together, you got returns for almost half of United's 16 goals plus 16 possible assists this season, although based on expectations that figure would be 'just' 42%. To highlight this, Rash has 6 goals and 3 assists (DGI of 9), and Martial 3 goals and 3 assists (DGI of 6), so 15 of United's 32 potential goals plus assists this season have seen returns for one of these two guys.
- Note: Because players can either score or assist, as you play around with the combinations in the spreadsheet you'll notice some will lead to a figure over 100% – fret not, the maximum you could possibly hit is 200% (if, say, Rash got 100% of United's goals and Martial 100% of their assists.
- Caveat: since some goals come without assists, and some assists lead to own-goals, you won't always hit the perfect score even if you account for all players who have attacking returns.
Bringing club-specific offensive prowess into the equation: Now, we're really getting into the important stuff. Here, we bring into focus each team's offensive strengths. For instance, Pukki ranks pretty highly just based on (x)DIR measures, but we need to account for the fact that Norwich are absolutely useless relegation fodder so it's going to do you no favours having him in your squad (unless you had him early on in the season when they weren't playing like they are now). How do we do this? Through new metrics which I'm going to term Effectiveness and xEffectiveness. No points for guessing what the 'x' stands for – and no, it's not a hug or a kiss. Figure 5 - In keeping with the format from earlier sections, we rank players by Effectiveness first, then xEffectiveness.
- As you can see, we have a metric that accounts for individual DGI sorry, in the image it should say DGI instead of 'goals' – too lazy to go back and change that and re-upload, it's a whole process I don't want to get into. Same story for the image below, capiche? and total club goals. And finally, Pukki is nowhere to be seen thanks to Norwich's utter ineptitude (sorry Canaries).
- In line with expectations, City players feature prominently – they've got 6 of the top 11 players. But I bet you didn't know Bilva was a better option than Dilva! I suppose that's why the alphabet goes B, C, D.
- Robbo has been a better offensive option than King Kane – and that's before taking price into account. You heard it here first.
Figure 6 - Now we look at xEffectiveness. Those two lavish bastards, Raz and Rash, are suddenly right up there. If we are to assume that players will generally revert closer to their expectations over time, these two lads are in for some serious haulage moving forward.
- If Leicester hit a sticky patch, be wary. The last two graphs highlight that Maddison, Tielemans, and Vardy have all been overshooting their expectations by a considerable margin. Take advantage of their form and rising prices now, but keep a firm eye on replacements in case things go awry as we move into itchy-backside season.
- For more insights, play around with the data yourself and add to the discussion in the comments below. I'm getting pretty exhausted and I want to move on quickly to the next and final stage of this analysis, where we finally incorporate player price into the equation.
What happens when we take price into account? In short, a lot. Price is an important consideration in FPL – we can't just fit Raz, Kün, KdB, Vardy, Tammy, Mané, and Mo into our team and watch ourselves rocket to the top of the Norwegian FPL standings. I've ranked all the players using a metric I'm going to call the Price Efficiency Rating, or PER for short. It's pretty simple, it's just Effectiveness divided by Price, or xEffectiveness/Price. Figure 7 - I have a confession. I always have to be one step ahead of my audience, so what I've done here is taken Deulofeu's PER of 5.2 as a baseline, and created a Relative PER ranking. Trust me, it makes everything neater.
Some conclusions: - We have three classes of elite players in the FPL this season.
- Tier A* includes Abraham, Vardy, and KdB. I'm willing to bet that nobody in the top 100 has less than two of these three in their squads.
- Tier A is a lonely place, with just Kun and Bilva reppin' the A-badge. But they're lightyears off the rest, still. Most managers in the top 100, I'd wager, have had one or both of these guys in their squads at some stage.
- Tier A– includes Dilva, Tielemans, and this one American dude who until three or so weeks ago was cryogenically frozen but has since taken the league by storm.
- Kane, Auba, and Son all are punished for high price tags and poor team scoring form despite scoring fairly well in FPL terms. Unless things change for their sides, there is so much more value available from an offensive standpoint. The same can be said for Wilson and Haller, despite their middling prices. Jiménez, for instance, is a far better bet as the undoubted focal point for Wolves. Even better still is Mousset, at the bargain bin price of £4.9m.
- A strikeforce containing Abraham, Vardy, and Jiménez/Mousset rather than the first two plus Auba/Kane could leave you the funds to invest in players like McNeil, who has a stunningly low ownership share of 0.8%, or one of the Villa boys ahead of fodder like Cantwell, and enough to upgrade your cheapo defence to include someone like Robertson, who is a better offensive asset given his price and returns than Bobby.
- Speaking of the Villa boys, all this focus on McG and G–lish and we've forgotten all about Anwar El G–Spot, who at £5.5m could offer you the savings you need to make critical changes elsewhere.
- Add your own conclusions below!
Figure 8 - Finally, we get to Relative Expected PER. Here we, again, look at a player's xG + xA (which you should by now know means xDGI).
- KdB is in a league of his own in both Relative and Relative Expected PER, since he features highly in both metrics. He was the essential player based on the eye-test and this is now confirmed completely by data. Sterling and Rashford, if they can get their heads on straight, might jump right into the A* tier with King Kev.
- Kün, Tammy, and Bilva are strong performers, in the A-Team. We could even throw Dilva in here given the disparity between him and Mahrez below, who seems to be having a lonelier time of it than both Akon and System of a Down.
- Again, look at Auba, Kane, and Son down below. Bear in mind that the latter was injured for a while so he, like Martial in the middle of the pack, might see some improvements moving forward – especially if Spurs and United pick up a bit.
- Vardy's immense prolific-ness sees him tumble down the standings here. But we expected that given his wild overperformance of his xDGI measure. Let's see how long he can keep things up. Worrying for Leicester, Maddison and Tielemans also don't look great judged by this metric, and again, it's because Leicester really are outperforming their goalscoring expectations in general.
- Other interesting changes between this expected PER metric and the last, reality-based one involve Maupay, Wood, and Wesley who, if they and their teammates were more prolific, could be valuable assets – especially given their price points.
That's it, really. I'm exhausted. Thank you for your time. I really hope this sparks some discussion as that will probably lead to a multitude more profound insights than what the ramblings of one man who hasn't cracked the top 200k yet though I was sitting pretty at 155k before Sunday's matches can do. TL;DR: I spent ages on this, so the least you could do in return is spend far less time reading it. |
History Est: 1892
Premierships (VFL/AFL): 15
Last premiership: 2010
Grounds: Melbourne Cricket Ground, Marvel Stadium, Olympic Park Oval (training)
Key Administration: - Eddie McGuire (President)
- Mark Anderson (CEO)
- Geoff Walsh (Head of Football Department
- Nathan Buckley (Senior Coach)
2019 season overview H&A Ladder position: 4 (15 wins, 7 losses)
EW Copeland Trophy (BnF): Brodie Grundy
Leading goalkicker: Brody Mihocek (36 goals)
All-Australian representation: Brodie Grundy, Scott Pendlebury (Adam Treloar named in initial squad)
AFL debutants: - Isaac Quaynor (R16)
- John Noble (R17)
VFL affiliate: Collingwood VFL (finished 11th in 2019; 7 wins, 11 losses)
2019 season review Collingwood supporters such as myself had good reason to believe that the club could go one better from 2018. After losing the 2018 Grand Final in heartbreaking fashion, the club theoretically improved its list by re-acquiring a genuine A-grader in Dayne Beams at a premium, shoring up its key position stocks at bargain basement price with Jordan Roughead and exploiting drafting rules to acquire two top-30 talents in Isaac Quaynor and Will Kelly despite not having a live pick until pick 41.
Unfortunately, the home and away season could probably be described as lacklustre. Too often Collingwood relied on playing one really strong quarter of football before taking the foot off the accelerator for the rest of the game. This was evident in the game against Port Adelaide, ANZAC Day, the game against Sydney and the game against St Kilda. Eventually, the club went through a major form slump in the middle of the season, playing unattractive, stop-start football that was more characteristic of the non-finals years under Buckley then the exciting 2018. In the middle of this slump, however, the club delivered a memorable win on the road against West Coast, keeping them goalless for a full half to win by one point and down two players.
The club snuck into the top four by the end of the season, however this was more to do with a Hawthorn masterclass against the Eagles in Round 23 than genuinely being deserving of fourth spot. The two finals Collingwood played were representative of much of the season for the club – the Qualifying Final against Geelong proved the club could still put it together and match it against the best (Geelong having been minor premiers over the course of the entire season), however the Preliminary Final against GWS showed again that the players thought they could pull off a miracle win by playing one good quarter – this was not to be.
Nathan Buckley lamented following the Prelim loss that 2019 was “a wasted year.” Initially I thought this was being a tad harsh, but on reflection I think I agree with him. Collingwood had the elements to put everything together and win the premiership but squandered it for various reasons. The club again faced a huge injury list, with usual suspects De Goey, Elliott and Moore missing chunks of the season. First-choice fullback Dunn re-tore his ACL on his return in a VFL practice match. Langdon injured his knee (the details of which the club has refused to reveal) during halftime against St Kilda and missed the rest of the season. Beams missed much of the season with hip/shouldemental health issues and there continues to be speculation that he may never return to football. Wells sustained a PCL game in his one game of the season which ultimately caused his retirement before the season had officially ended.
As per usual, off-field issues distracted the club, including Stephenson copping a ten-match suspension for betting on Collingwood matches and Sier playing social basketball under a pseudonym despite being in rehab for a calf injury at the time.
Personally, I think much of the problem lies with very few players taking a step-up in their development like what had occurred in 2018. Phillips, Sidebottom, Thomas and Hoskin-Elliott were among the players that had exceptionally strong seasons in 2018 but struggled at times through 2019 (the latter, however, perhaps forgiven for having virtually nil pre-season). The midfield group also failed to connect and take advantage of Grundy’s dominance.
Having said that, there were some positives to take from the season. Grundy continued his trajectory upwards and ultimately had a career-best season. Roughead proved to be the bargain recruit of the year at fullback. Noble being uncovered in the mid-season rookie draft and being plucked from the SANFL proved an inspired choice. Wills saved his career by taking advantage of the spot that opened up for him in Beams’ and Sier’s absence.
Just don’t mention Crisp missing out on AA selection to me though.
2020 Playing List
| Guernsey | Player | Typical position | Games played | Age at start of R1, 2020 | Contracted until |
| 1 | Jaidyn Stephenson | Forward | 40 | 21 | 2021 |
| 2 | Jordan De Goey | Forward | 88 | 24 | 2020 |
| 3 | Isaac Quaynor | Defender | 4 | 20 | 2022 |
| 4 | Brodie Grundy | Ruck | 132 | 25 | 2027 (UFA) |
| 5 | Jamie Elliott | Forward | 105 | 27 | 2021 (UFA) |
| 6 | Tyler Brown | Midfielder | 0 | 20 | 2020 |
| 7 | Adam Treloar | Midfielder | 163 | 27 | 2025 (RFA) |
| 8 | Tom Langdon | Defender | 89 | 25 | 2021 (RFA) |
| 9 | John Noble (a) | Defender | 5 | 22 | 2021 |
| 10 | Scott Pendlebury* (c) | Midfielder | 301 | 32 | 2021 (UFA) |
| 11 | Dayne Beams* | Midfielder | 177 | 30 | 2022 |
| 12 | Matthew Scharenberg | Defender | 38 | 24 | 2020 |
| 13 | Taylor Adams (l) | Midfielder | 132 | 26 | 2024 (RFA) |
| 14 | Darcy Cameron | Ruck | 1 | 24 | 2021 |
| 15 | Lynden Dunn (a, l) | Defender | 196 | 32 | 2020 (UFA) |
| 16 | Chris Mayne | Midfielder | 217 | 31 | 2020 |
| 17 | Callum Brown | Midfielder | 35 | 21 | 2020 |
| 18 | Travis Varcoe | Forward | 221 | 31 | 2020 |
| 19 | Levi Greenwood | Defender | 152 | 31 | 2020 |
| 20 | Ben Reid* | Forward | 150 | 30 | 2020 (UFA) |
| 21 | Tom Phillips | Midfielder | 74 | 23 | 2021 |
| 22 | Steele Sidebottom* (vc) | Midfielder | 234 | 29 | 2021 (UFA) |
| 23 | Jordan Roughead | Defender | 162 | 29 | 2020 |
| 24 | Josh Thomas | Forward | 89 | 28 | 2021 (UFA) |
| 25 | Jack Crisp | Defender | 134 | 26 | 2023 (UFA) |
| 26 | Josh Daicos | Forward | 17 | 21 | 2020 |
| 27 | Will Kelly | Defender | 0 | 19 | 2022 |
| 28 | Nathan Murphy | Defender | 2 | 20 | 2020 |
| 29 | Tim Broomhead (a) | Forward | 36 | 25 | 2020 (UFA) |
| 30 | Darcy Moore | Defender | 71 | 24 | 2020 |
| 31 | Flynn Appleby (a) | Defender | 10 | 21 | 2020 |
| 32 | Will Hoskin-Elliott | Forward | 119 | 26 | 2022 |
| 33 | Rupert Wills | Midfielder | 15 | 26 | 2020 |
| 34 | Trent Bianco | Defender | 0 | 19 | 2021 |
| 35 | Jay Rantall | Midfielder | 0 | 18 | 2021 |
| 36 | Brayden Sier | Midfielder | 18 | 22 | 2021 |
| 37 | Brayden Maynard | Defender | 97 | 23 | 2022 (RFA) |
| 38 | Jeremy Howe (l) | Defender | 183 | 29 | 2021 |
| 39 | Trey Ruscoe | Defender | 0 | 18 | 2021 |
| 40 | Atu Bosenavulagi | Forward | 0 | 19 | 2020 |
| 41 | Brody Mihocek (a) | Forward | 40 | 27 | 2020 |
| 43 | Anton Tohill (a) | Forward | 0 | 20 | 2020 |
| 44 | Jack Madgen (b) | Defender | 8 | 26 | 2020 |
| 45 | Max Lynch | Ruck | 0 | 21 | 2020 |
| 46 | Mason Cox | Forward | 58 | 29 | 2020 |
| 47 | Mark Keane (b) | Defender | 0 | 20 | 2020 |
| 48 | Tom Wilson (b) | Forward | 0 | 22 | 2021 |
\ - 2010 Premiership player*
a - Category A Rookie b – Category B rookie c – Captain vc – Vice Captain l – Leadership group Outs for 2020 | James Aish | Traded to Fremantle |
| Ben Crocker | Delisted (rookie drafted by the Adelaide Crows) |
| Lynden Dunn | Delisted (rookie listed under SSP rules) |
| Tyson Goldsack | Retired (now playing as captain-coach for Port Magpies in the SANFL) |
| Sam Murray | Delisted (now playing for Williamstown in the VFL) |
| Daniel Wells | Retired (now involved in indigenous recruitment and development at Collingwood) |
Ins for 2020 | Trent Bianco | National Draft |
| Darcy Cameron | Traded from the Sydney Swans |
| Lynden Dunn | Rookie listed under SSP rules |
| Jay Rantall | National Draft |
| Trey Ruscoe | National Draft |
| Tom Wilson | Category B rookie selection |
Pragmatic_Shill**’s personal best 22 (+ 4 emergencies) for Collingwood in 2020**
| B: | Langdon* | Roughead | Howe | |
| HB: | Crisp | Moore | Maynard | |
| C: | Phillips | Pendelbury | Sidebottom | |
| HF: | Hoskin-Elliott | Mihocek | De Goey | |
| F: | Stephenson | Cox | Elliott | |
| FOLL: | Grundy | Adams | Beams* | |
| INT: | C Brown | Treloar | Noble | Mayne |
| EMER: | Thomas | Varcoe* | Sier | Greenwood* |
\ Confirmed unavailable for Round 1 2020*
Notes on this selection - This was hard to do. I think there are a bunch of players that are on the cusp such as Wills, Quaynor and even Reid. However if I was to look at pure talent as well as experience that’s what I think a full game-day squad would look like. I even debated listing Varcoe in the emergencies at all because I think his 2019 was so disappointing and given his age (and now injury) he’ll be up against some promising kids coming through. Sier’s 2018 was better than Wills’ 2019 in my view, hence why I gave Sier the nod. Quaynor (while likely being more talented than Noble) hasn’t shown quite enough yet to warrant automatic selection in my view.
- The team selection for Round 1 will look quite different to this – Langdon still appears to be a long way off in his rehab from whatever mystery knee injury he acquired in 2019, Beams is probably a fair chance to not play again, Varcoe has had a shoulder reconstruction and Greenwood is still some time away as he recovers from his ACL injury.
- Using what little powers of precognition I have, I think come Round 1 you can remove Langdon and Beams from my 22 and replace with Quaynor and either Sier or Wills.
Players to watch for 2020 Taken at pick 13 in the 2018 draft after matching a bid from GWS, Quaynor looms as one of Collingwood’s most exciting young prospects. He had to wait for a debut in 2019 and only played a handful of games before a foot stress injury sidelined him for the rest of the season, however the senior appearances he made showed that he fits in nicely to the backline. Quaynor unfortunately has already had an interrupted pre-season due to hip surgery, but is expected to be fit to play come Round 1. While he is an impressive young talent I personally have a concern about whether he and John Noble can play in the same side. Both are undersized defenders used to provide run off halfback, and I haven’t seen either of them deployed in the lockdown small defensive role that has opened up with Levi Greenwood being out injured and James Aish moving to Fremantle. Noble at this stage has more senior experience (plus finals experience) so it will be interesting to see how selection goes when both are fit and available.
Wills holds the record for most tackles laid on debut and in 2018 broke the record for fewest senior games played to reach 100 career tackles. At the start of the year, Wills’ card appeared marked for delisting given his inability to break into the senior side. He came in for a short stint in early 2019 to play a similar role to De Goey when De Goey was injured, however Wills isn’t as explosive and he struggled playing in the forward line. After being dropped, I thought that would be it for him, however an injury crisis with the midfield later in the year (including Beams, Adams and a lacklustre season from Sier) opened up a spot for him, and he played right through to the end of the season. Wills provided much needed grunt for a midfield that failed to live up to expectations for much of the season, and truly earned another extension. His 2020 campaign will be one to watch, as he only managed a one-year extension despite his impressive showing, and given he will be directly competing for a spot with the younger Sier, he is under pressure to continue his senior career. Nevertheless, when he does play he doesn’t look out of place and was an impressive player in weeks when so many others were substandard.
This selection is a bit out of left field, however I didn’t want to repeat last year’s selections of Tyler Brown or Nathan Murphy (even though I am excited to see what their 2020 seasons look like). A lot of regular VFL watchers over on the Collingwood BigFooty have been impressed with Keane, our Irish Category B key defender. Keane apparently is not afraid to be quite physical on the field and showed marked improvement as a lockdown defender through 2019 despite our VFL side being disappointing. Some have said he may even earn a debut in 2020, which would require a temporary senior promotion over the more experienced Category B in Jack Madgen. Watch this space.
Players on notice for 2020 Sier came into the 2019 season with a lot of expectation and excitement from Collingwood fans after his long-awaited senior debut in 2018 showed why Derek Hine rated him highly enough to be our first pick in 2015 despite being relatively unknown. Mystery soon set in during the 2019 pre-season however, as Sier found himself excluded from selection in both JLT matches, despite being fit enough to play in a VFL practice match the day before one of them. The club said he had little niggles such as rib and toe issues, however comments from Pendlebury about Sier needing to demonstrate his commitment to the team on-field raised some eyebrows about whether he was out of favour. When he finally earned his senior return on the Queen’s Birthday, he took the opportunity with both hands, however had disappointing showings for the few games he had after. Then came the infamous “Phil Inn” incident, where he played social basketball while meant to be rehabbing a calf injury. The club claimed he wasn’t banned from senior selection but didn’t even appear in the emergency list for the rest of the season. Despite this, he signed for a further two years. Given the amount of time he’s had on the list and the various challenges he’s faced in that time, you would hope the penny has dropped and he begins to show on a more consistent basis the type of player he can be. That’s up to him now, however he also faces the added challenge of beating an in-favour Rupert Wills for selection as the big-bodied inside midfielder.
I think Cox was unfairly maligned in 2019 – he missed many games, first through an ankle injury and then through a scratched retina, however ended up with the same goal output at the end of the season as he had for 2018 (a season in which he only missed two games). However, it’s clear that there are expectations being placed on him by the media and by Collingwood fans to more consistently show the type of game he had in the 2018 preliminary final. During the 2019 trade period, Collingwood brought in Darcy Cameron from the Sydney Swans, and while Cameron has only played one senior game of football, he is a more natural footballer than Cox and will be competing directly for his spot. Off the field, I feel that Cox has to prove his worth after the details of his contract came out during the same trade period after Essendon came knocking for him to fill their ruck spot. At the end of 2017, Cox signed a new three-year contract which elevated him to the senior list, worth $500,000 a year. At this time, Cox was a Category B rookie who had played a grand total of twenty games. His contract also stipulates that he only needs to play one more senior game for a fourth year trigger, and he’ll need to show a bit more if he’s to convince Collingwood supporters that he’s worth such a hefty price tag given the continuing narrative of our salary cap issues.
- Anyone out of contract that isn’t De Goey or Moore
This is perhaps a cop-out answer but given the impending salary cap squeeze the onus is on the rest of the players out of contract in 2020 (particularly the ones that aren’t best 22) to step up and cement their spot in the side or prove their value to the squad. Some, such as Brody Mihocek and Callum Brown can probably consider themselves safe. Mihocek himself may prove to be challenging as he will require promotion to the senior list to stay and given he was a latecomer to AFL he may choose to take a significantly priced contract elsewhere if it was offered to him.
A number of players have been on the list for a number of years now, including Tim Broomhead and Josh Daicos, that would find themselves very much under the pump in 2020. Other fringe players like Appleby, Madgen, (both requiring senior promotion if they stay), Murphy, Bosenavulagi, Tohill and Keane face uncertain futures. There are also many players out of contract (Reid, Greenwood, Varcoe, Mayne, Dunn) that are in the twilight of their careers, and these players could be the first shown the door if the cap gets too tight. The problem with showing all five of these senior players the door at once, however, is that being gifted picks at the arse end of one solitary draft to fill the list spots might not provide the same quality of depth (even over a long period of time) that keeping some of the experienced veterans on would.
2020 fixture preview Marsh Community Series matches | Date | Opponent | Home or Away | Where | Time |
| Sunday 1 March | Richmond | Away | Norm Minns Oval | 4:10pm (AEDT) |
| Sunday 8 March | St Kilda | Home | Morwell Recreation Reserve | 3:50pm (AEDT) |
Notable matches during the 2020 Premiership Season | Date | Occasion | Opponent | Home or Away | Where | Time |
| Friday 20 March | Round 1 | Western Bulldogs | Away | Marvel | 7:50pm (AEDT) |
| Thursday 9 April | Easter Thursday | Brisbane Lions | Away | Gabba | 7:35pm (AEDT) |
| Saturday 25 April | ANZAC Day | Essendon | Home | MCG | 4:20PM (AEDT) |
| Monday 8 June | Queen's Birthday | Melbourne | Away | MCG | 3:20pm (AEDT) |
Bye: Round 13
Double-ups: - Richmond (R2/R17)
- Brisbane Lions (R4/R16)
- Essendon (R6/R20)
- West Coast Eagles (R11/R22)
- Melbourne (R12/R21)
2020 season preview (expectations and concerns) 2020 shapes as a fascinating year for the club both on- and off-field. On-field there would be genuine expectations both internally and externally that the club makes finals and pushes for a flag for a third season in a row. Personally, I don’t feel that we have improved our list through trading or drafting and instead will need to rely on improvement from the existing players to take the next step. With the oldest list in the competition, it is time for the youth at the club to stake their claims more seriously through strong performances at training and in the twos, rather than wait for positions to become available by default through injuries at senior level. This requires genuine steps up from the likes of Brayden Sier, Tyler Brown and Josh Daicos, as well as a willingness of the coaches to begin managing the constant selection of older players.
Our opening month to the season is as tough as it gets, and may define how the rest of the season plays out. If we start 0-4, I wonder how much of a hit to the self-confidence it will be and our ability to recover.
Off-field, as mentioned, list manager Ned Guy will have his work cut out for him in trying to balance a large out of contract list with players wanting and genuinely deserving substantial pay days, and there is a reasonable chance we could see significant changes to our list at the end of the year which will ultimately have a flow-on effect on our ability to contend in the following years.
The club continues to be distracted with undesirable media stories and the ongoing issue of Beams returning to the club continues to drag on. I get the feeling personally that there is a power of work being done behind the scenes to end the contract that still has three seasons left to run, both for the good of the club and for Beams’ wellbeing. While that is ongoing, however, it remains an unnecessary distraction and a sore reminder that the President continues to be too involved in the administration of the football department.
All in all, I think Collingwood will stay in the 8 but would not be surprised if they fall short of top 4. I don’t see the potential for improvement that I do from other clubs around the same mark. The year will be a positive one, however, if we begin seeing signs that the club can develop a strong side to transition into the ever-close “post-Pendlebury era.”
Thank you to the guys doing the St Kilda season preview for adjusting their schedule to allow me to recover from surgery and complete this.
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