DGDB&D: a Texans blog. » Bennett. Fred Bennett.
Bennett. Fred Bennett.
by MattFrom the latest issue of ESPN the Magazine:
You heard it here first: these four defenders will bust out in ‘08.
By K.C. Joyner, The Football ScientistSleepers? Not exactly. More like Leonardo DiCaprio circa What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. You immediately spotted greatness, but the rest of the world needed some time to recognize it. Each of these defensive players is 24 or younger, and all are on the cusp of that magical tipping point.
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FRED BENNETT
CB, Texans
To experts who say Dunta Robinson is the best corner in Houston, think again. Bennett is not only better than Robinson, the stats say he was the premier corner in the league last season. The 24-year-old Bennett, a fourth-round pick in 2007, actually had better metrics in his eight starts than any numbers Robinson has posted in his four-year career. Bennett’s 4.7 overall YPA led the league among corners with 60-plus attempts, and opposing WRs gained only 67 total yards on the 24 combined medium, deep and bomb passes he faced. With pass-happy teams like the Steelers, Colts and Browns on Houston’s sked in 2008, Bennett’s name will be on everyone’s lips.
Here’s the link, though I don’t know if it will work if you don’t have ESPN Insider. If not, you’re not missing much, as I’ve included all the relevant text anyway. I have an email in to KC and I will update this post if he responds.
Until then, just consider this a very, VERY good sign. If Rhodes can do something with Reeves and/or Molden blossoms, then getting Dunta back is gravy and we suddenly have a real reason to consider moving him to Free Safety. (For further reasons Dunta would make a great free safety, see my last post re: our FSs past.)
July 18th, 2008 by Matt 2008 Season, Dunta Robinson, Secondary issues are primary, The Fred, The Future Trackback
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
The link works just fine. Dunta on one leg would be an immediate upgrade at what we’ve thrown at the FS position. (Smoov Will might be the exception if he can learn to catch) And no doubt D-Rob would be an exceptional field general for the secondary, but the good and bad news is: dude lays the wood on people. See Merrill Hoge’s article just below KC’s and the quote therein from Carnell Lake about moving from safety to CB added a few years to his life. Dunta is listed at 5′10″ 184. Having seen him in person he looks more like 5′8″ 160. I exaggerate a little, but he looks small. I just don’t think his body could take the pounding.
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Forgot to add, great link on Bennett. And thanks for throwing us a bone after the WR2 and FS posts.
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Outstanding news and stats! I really have a great feeling about this year. For once in 6 years, the stars are aligning and this might be the team to be feared (and not jeered).
Like the song, “God Bless Texas”,
“God bless Texas, with his own hand, and banished fuck-tard Cow-punks to Cali-for-ian”.
@Matt and BFD, kind of wants you to sing a c& W song here….
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I actually like KC’s stuff. He takes a different approach to his analysis than most. You can argue with some of his methods, but he at least makes an honest attempt to be objective. He’s had Dunta on his over-rated list in the past….so I’m only mildly surprised to see him say the Fred is better, even if I don’t agree….yet.
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I dig KC. Somewhere in here, there’s a super-long post where he and I (mainly he) talked about Dunta. I’ll find the link and post it.
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July 18th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
ACTUALLY, I should say I did dig KC until he promised me a free copy of his book on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS and never followed through.
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Here it is, p’bear
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
@Matt: (being serious, since these players are new to me…) Is it Done-ta? or Dune-ta?
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Technically, it is DON-tay, but I think we all say DUHN-tuh in our heads.
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July 18th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I’m glad he’s getting some love, but are you fucking serious with “better metrics?” Is that one of those new made up sports things like “quality start?”
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How are YOUR metrics???
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July 18th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Whoa. I knew he played well, but those numbers are pretty absurd. Especially for somebody who plays so tight on most receivers; I’d have expected him to give up a few long balls to bump that YPA a few points. Please Durga… Let Reeves be even mildly competent, and we’ll be in for a good season.
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July 18th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
When Madden 08 came out I moved Freddy to CB2. And surprisingly enough he played well against the Colts offense, better than Dunta did. Thats when I started having a crazy thought in my head that “what if kubes really did make this underrated rookie a starter, would he perform as well as he is performing in Madden 08?” To cut it short. He exceeded my expectations. I mean he had some slip ups here and there but being a rookie CB is though these days.
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July 18th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but my favorite line about Bennett came from Jacoby Jones on Sirius NFL radio:
“Fred’s arms are so long he can pick up a nickle without bending over.” Nice thing for your CB to have.
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Buck is right. Dunta is not a big guy at all. The first time I saw him in person, I couldn’t believe how small his hips and waist were. And he doesn’t look like there is much room to put on weight.
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Rick Smith says that Dunta turning into a safety is not in the conversation at Texanland at all. (paraphrase, of course).
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What will be interesting to me is whether, like last year, the Texans are still going to have to play more elementary secondary coverages in order to protect an inexperienced secondary. At least that was their excuse why the defense was so vanilla last year–because they were protecting the secondary.
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It would also be interesting to see if that affected the sorts of numbers that we saw from Bennett last year. That maybe zone was a bit more forgiving than man.
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July 18th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
@Steph: The irony, as we’ve covered here ad infinitum, is that the vanilla front seven hurt the secondary rather than helped it. Which makes me think that is just an excuse they came up with so they wouldn’t have to say, “well, ya know, our defensive coordinator is REALLY bad at his job.”
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@DiehardChris: My metrics are more Now than your metrics.
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July 18th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
This story actually prompted me to change my Gravatar. The new one should appear shortly.
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July 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
@Matt: I remember that, I think that was one of the post that got me coming here on a more regular basis…of course calling Chad Stanley a Turd eating pederast was the one that sealed the deal.
It think it was actually some of KC’s remarks on Dunta that got me to take a look at some of his stuff. While I didn’t think Dunta was as good as the mob was making him out to be I still thought it was somewhat counterintuitive. While you have to take all stats with a grain of salt I think his do a better job than the standard tkls, int, PD, etc. Much like k/9 and WHIP are a better indication of performance than Wins are for a pitcher.
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July 18th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Me likey
Fred rules. I heart our player evaluation
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July 18th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
@Papabear: Yep, I like that Matt calls it like he sees it
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July 19th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Nice dig, matt. Reading this makes the back of my pants not fit correctly because there’s something happening in the front.
BONER TIME! Foomey, cover your eyes.
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July 19th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Cam,
Bennett’s going to be good, but that Y/A stat is bogus. Want proof? What do you think of Carlos Rogers? You know what I think. Well, this is Carlos Rogers last year:
Rogers, in seven games, was targeted 37 times by opposing QBs (not enough to qualify for the leader’s rankings), and posted a 66% stop rate, and gave up a stingy 5.7 Y/A against. That stop rate was the best in the entire NFL, and had he qualified for it, that 5.7 Y/A against would have ranking him as a top 5 corner in the NFL, just behind Nnamdi Asomugha and Champ Bailey.
It’s misleading, because I think it ends up being determined by the coverage, and the opposing qbs.
Having said that, I do think Bennett’s going to turn into a good starting corner for you…best in the league? That might be a stretch.
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July 19th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
These types of stats are generated by footballoutsiders.com. I recently got a copy of their Pro Football Prospectus 2008, and it pointed this out about Bennett in the chapter on the Texans. While I don’t think he’s going to make Ronnie Lott blush any time soon, I do think we will start mentioning Bennett in conjunction with players like Rashean Mathis. I can’t wait for Dunta to get back.
Anyway, I bought PFP2007 last year also. The book is freakin’ great - it’s absolutely necessary to read if you like the NFL.
Their metrics really are better, Chris. NFL stats suck; they can’t differentiate between a good pass rush making average corners look great, or great corners making an average pass rush look good. These metrics aren’t perfect, but they are leaps and bounds better than just looking at interception totals and going “wow, that guy must be the best in the league.”
The article isn’t saying that Bennett will be the best in the league this coming year. One of the fundamental rules of statistics is that you have to be skeptical of small sample sizes. That’s precisely what you get with Bennett’s year last year. He didn’t play a whole season so his stats won’t be as accurate as they are for, say, Champ Bailey. For example, Bennett was involved in 69 plays; Von freakin’ Hutchins was involved in 100. Another thing to keep in mind is that tackling is an important (and often overlooked) skill in corners. Everyone just expects them to run next to a receiver and knock the ball out of the air everytime, but that’s unrealistic. That’s why there’s curl routes. On those type of routes, a corner needs to be able to tackle, and Bennett isn’t exactly DeMeco Ryans in a cornerback’s body.
The same system shows that Dunta was 9th in success %, which is defined as “the percentage of plays targeting this player on which the offense did not have a successful play. This means not only incomplete passes and interceptions but also short completions which do not meet our baselines for success (45 percent of needed yards on first down, 60 percent on second down, 100 percent on third or fourth down.” Dunta’s was 57% versus Fred’s 61%.
The whole idea behind the Cover 2 defense is to get these sorts of results out of your secondary. The fact that we got these results out of Dunta and Fred are highly encouraging. IIRC, Richard Smith called a lot of zone secondaries after Dunta went out, so maybe that skews the numbers a bit.
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July 19th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I should have made the point that I know the Cover-2 isn’t the primary defense of the Texans. That’s the idea - we got Cover-2 results without having to expose ourselves to the downsides of the Cover-2 (namely, “bend-don’t-break” principles, predictability, and the lack of the threat of the blitz on every down).
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July 19th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
@Sid: @socctty: Good points both. If you were given the choice of throwing against Fred/Dunta or Petey, who would you pick on? And what about taking advantage of safety coverage? lb mis-match? football metrics are still hard to set, but I’d rather have a guy at the top than the bottom, you know?
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July 20th, 2008 at 1:37 am
bfd - You should really check out footballoutsiders.com. Here’s a good place to get started, just to get an idea about what the whole project is about: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/pregame.php
To water down what they do, they have a ton of volunteers that are dedicated to breaking down every single game of the year. I think they assign people based on the home team, so a group of people “chart” Texans’ games, for instance. Each play they watch over and over and over, noting how many people rushed, where they rushed from. How many receivers? Did they tight end block, chip and then run a route, or did he motion to the slot? More than that, of course, but you get the idea. The idea is to get an enormous amount of information, and then see what correlates to wins.
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July 20th, 2008 at 11:39 am
@bigfatdrunk:
Absolutely agree that you’d rather throw at Faggins than Bennett or Dunta Robinson, and that coverage determines things. My point is more that I think there are some positions that defy metrics because success at those positions is based too heavily on external factors. Therefore, you get a guy like Carlos Rogers, who, in this humble Skins’ fan’s opinion, has a lot of work to do, showing well. But watch a Skins game with a Skins fan, and see how many times they threaten to throw their beer at Carlos.
In any case, hope it pans out for you. I’ve had to listen to Matt bitch about Faggins for awhile now—would be good to hear him talk about something else.
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July 21st, 2008 at 11:35 am
@socctty: I love the Football Outsiders’ stuff. Funny thing is, your post prompted me to bust out The Hidden Game Of Football, which I believe was the impetus for the FO project. You want to talk about a book that seems dated now?! They spend a whole chapter talking about how computers work!!