Sentences to ponder

Definitions:

Academe, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

Academy, n. A modern school where football is taught.

From Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

Sentences to ponder

Definitions:

Academe, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

Academy, n. A modern school where football is taught.

From Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

Smiley Happy Pinup

Chris Burnett chanelling the Joker, perhaps. Previously featured here.

Channelling Jime

Derek Zielinski's Jime Litwalk inspired piece.

Deal or No Deal and incoherent views of "trade value"

Apparently, Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall is on the trade block, according to Shutdown Corner. The headline of his piece is called "You just cannot get equal trade value for Brandon Marshall." That's not a per se inaccurate statement, but it presumes you know what "trade value" is. Presumably, by the way it is used in the post, "trade value" equals the value of the productivity or talent the player is capable of. But we all know that a player's "value" is influenced by many factors aside from their raw talent, including his salary, his adaptability to what other teams do, and, particularly in Marshall's case, the likelihood that he will be around to perform and not caught up in the legal system. Shutdown Corner:

Look at it this way: If the Broncos pay Marshall and hang onto him, one of two things happens: He either stays healthy and out of handcuffs and is an extremely productive player, or he ends up suspended or in court again, in which case, the Broncos don't get the value they should.

If the Broncos trade Marshall, though, they also don't get the value they should. Period.

So the only possible way to maximize what you get from him is to roll the dice, keep him around, and hope you get the best out of him. In any other scenario, the Broncos lose.

The italicized conclusion does not follow from the premises, and largely contradicts #1, that they keep him and "he ends up suspended or in court again." The key issue is that there is something they "should" get. Should Marshall be "worth" more, based solely on his talent? Yes, but the fact that he isn't is due solely to himself; it is not something the Broncos have any control over. They must take their troubled receiver as they find him.

Indeed, while value of a player is some estimate of their probable production, that value is a calculation their talent and capability multipled by their risk of injury, off the field trouble, discontent, etc. You don't produce if you're not on the field, and we've seen otherwise talented players be traded for peanuts or released because they weren't "worth" what they were being paid. See Terrell Owens.

Trade or No Trade? The upshot is that SD's conclusion -- that the Broncos must keep Marshall -- doesn't follow, because it confuses "maximizing" expected gain with maximizing the possible gain, two very different things. This is a common cognitive defect, particularly after someone experiences a setback or dramatic loss in value, much like the Broncos just have as their star receiver has been in increasing amounts of legal trouble.

The show Deal or No Deal provides a great example. Much has been written about the show from a behavioral economics perspective. I will assume people are familiar with the show's basic premise that someone selects a case, and then takes other cases off the board which whittles down the possibilities of what are in his case. Throughout the show, a "banker" offers the player a certain amount of money to walk away, based on what possible values remain in play.

Let's say our contestant -- let's call him Sonny Chiba -- has four cases left, with possible values of $10, $100, $500, and $50,000. The case he just chose took $100,000 off the board, so he is reeling a bit and is no doubt upset about the money he just saw evaporate. The banker gives him a new offer: $16,000, significantly down from the previous one.

What should Sonny do? Take it of course. The expected value from the four cases is only $12,652.50, and moreover he has only a 1/4 or 25% chance of having more than $16,000 in his case. In the actual game, this is not an uncommon circumstance at all; the banker is usually generous after a big blow late in the game. But you know what the studies show? After a big loss that dramatically cuts the contestant's expected value and, in turn, the banker's offer (even if it is in fact still a generous one given the circumstances), contestants repeatedly reject the offer. Why? Because all they can think about is that big $50,000 maximum, and how it will compensate them for what they lost. Nevermind that it is unlikely, and that they are staring down a better offer. (I ignore here the fact that $16,000 might be too paltry for some players. Fine, repeat the scenario with 10, 500, 1,000 and 250,000, where the player has just had 500,000 taken off the board.)

Denver's Choice. No offense to SD (who I very much like as a blogger, and I am merely nitpicking out one random statement in a blog post), but his rationale seems to be that the Broncos must keep Marshall because there's a chance it might all work out and he'll be a pro-bowler. That is the same trap that our contestant fell into in our Deal or No Deal example.

Now, this doesn't mean the Broncos must trade him either; we don't know the corresponding offers with as much certainty as Deal or No Deal, either. And he's right that the Broncos probably won't get a fantastic offer because of Marshall's off-the-field problems, but that's to be expected. If believed, SD's logic would be to expect other teams to have traded for Mike Vick or Plaxico simply because of their immense talents without regard to the probability of their spending all or part of the season in jail, or otherwise or caught up in the legal system.

The upshot is that "trade value" should not be confused with the maximum possible upside. Yes, Marshall has big upside, but all the risks surrounding him bring that value down, just as it does for Plaxico, Pacman Jones, Vick, T.O., or even guys on the total straight and narrow who are an injury risk. Just because a player might be great, or has the potential to be great, does not necessarily make their trade value better than another player. There's a difference between upside and realistic expectation.

What it means is that the Broncos -- or another team that might trade for Marshall -- must understand not only what he is capable of but what baggage and risks are attendant as well. In other words, if the Broncos get what they think is a good deal, they should take it. And if Marshall winds up making the pro-bowl elsewhere, then they can (or at least should) be able to safely say that they made the best decision they could under the information they had.

Sonny Chiba could say the same thing if, after he took the banker's offer of $16,000, Howie Mandel opened his case to reveal $50,000. That's just how the game goes. It doesn't change the fact that his decision was undoubtedly the correct one.

Deal or No Deal and incoherent views of "trade value"

Apparently, Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall is on the trade block, according to Shutdown Corner. The headline of his piece is called "You just cannot get equal trade value for Brandon Marshall." That's not a per se inaccurate statement, but it presumes you know what "trade value" is. Presumably, by the way it is used in the post, "trade value" equals the value of the productivity or talent the player is capable of. But we all know that a player's "value" is influenced by many factors aside from their raw talent, including his salary, his adaptability to what other teams do, and, particularly in Marshall's case, the likelihood that he will be around to perform and not caught up in the legal system. Shutdown Corner:

Look at it this way: If the Broncos pay Marshall and hang onto him, one of two things happens: He either stays healthy and out of handcuffs and is an extremely productive player, or he ends up suspended or in court again, in which case, the Broncos don't get the value they should.

If the Broncos trade Marshall, though, they also don't get the value they should. Period.

So the only possible way to maximize what you get from him is to roll the dice, keep him around, and hope you get the best out of him. In any other scenario, the Broncos lose.

The italicized conclusion does not follow from the premises, and largely contradicts #1, that they keep him and "he ends up suspended or in court again." The key issue is that there is something they "should" get. Should Marshall be "worth" more, based solely on his talent? Yes, but the fact that he isn't is due solely to himself; it is not something the Broncos have any control over. They must take their troubled receiver as they find him.

Indeed, while value of a player is some estimate of their probable production, that value is a calculation their talent and capability multipled by their risk of injury, off the field trouble, discontent, etc. You don't produce if you're not on the field, and we've seen otherwise talented players be traded for peanuts or released because they weren't "worth" what they were being paid. See Terrell Owens.

Trade or No Trade? The upshot is that SD's conclusion -- that the Broncos must keep Marshall -- doesn't follow, because it confuses "maximizing" expected gain with maximizing the possible gain, two very different things. This is a common cognitive defect, particularly after someone experiences a setback or dramatic loss in value, much like the Broncos just have as their star receiver has been in increasing amounts of legal trouble.

The show Deal or No Deal provides a great example. Much has been written about the show from a behavioral economics perspective. I will assume people are familiar with the show's basic premise that someone selects a case, and then takes other cases off the board which whittles down the possibilities of what are in his case. Throughout the show, a "banker" offers the player a certain amount of money to walk away, based on what possible values remain in play.

Let's say our contestant -- let's call him Sonny Chiba -- has four cases left, with possible values of $10, $100, $500, and $50,000. The case he just chose took $100,000 off the board, so he is reeling a bit and is no doubt upset about the money he just saw evaporate. The banker gives him a new offer: $16,000, significantly down from the previous one.

What should Sonny do? Take it of course. The expected value from the four cases is only $12,652.50, and moreover he has only a 1/4 or 25% chance of having more than $16,000 in his case. In the actual game, this is not an uncommon circumstance at all; the banker is usually generous after a big blow late in the game. But you know what the studies show? After a big loss that dramatically cuts the contestant's expected value and, in turn, the banker's offer (even if it is in fact still a generous one given the circumstances), contestants repeatedly reject the offer. Why? Because all they can think about is that big $50,000 maximum, and how it will compensate them for what they lost. Nevermind that it is unlikely, and that they are staring down a better offer. (I ignore here the fact that $16,000 might be too paltry for some players. Fine, repeat the scenario with 10, 500, 1,000 and 250,000, where the player has just had 500,000 taken off the board.)

Denver's Choice. No offense to SD (who I very much like as a blogger, and I am merely nitpicking out one random statement in a blog post), but his rationale seems to be that the Broncos must keep Marshall because there's a chance it might all work out and he'll be a pro-bowler. That is the same trap that our contestant fell into in our Deal or No Deal example.

Now, this doesn't mean the Broncos must trade him either; we don't know the corresponding offers with as much certainty as Deal or No Deal, either. And he's right that the Broncos probably won't get a fantastic offer because of Marshall's off-the-field problems, but that's to be expected. If believed, SD's logic would be to expect other teams to have traded for Mike Vick or Plaxico simply because of their immense talents without regard to the probability of their spending all or part of the season in jail, or otherwise or caught up in the legal system.

The upshot is that "trade value" should not be confused with the maximum possible upside. Yes, Marshall has big upside, but all the risks surrounding him bring that value down, just as it does for Plaxico, Pacman Jones, Vick, T.O., or even guys on the total straight and narrow who are an injury risk. Just because a player might be great, or has the potential to be great, does not necessarily make their trade value better than another player. There's a difference between upside and realistic expectation.

What it means is that the Broncos -- or another team that might trade for Marshall -- must understand not only what he is capable of but what baggage and risks are attendant as well. In other words, if the Broncos get what they think is a good deal, they should take it. And if Marshall winds up making the pro-bowl elsewhere, then they can (or at least should) be able to safely say that they made the best decision they could under the information they had.

Sonny Chiba could say the same thing if, after he took the banker's offer of $16,000, Howie Mandel opened his case to reveal $50,000. That's just how the game goes. It doesn't change the fact that his decision was undoubtedly the correct one.

The shallow cross, drag, and drive in the west coast and spread offenses

The shallow cross route is not a new topic for this site. Just the other day, in discussing Trojan Football Analysis's great breakdown of how Georgia's Mark Richt runs the route, I mentioned some of my previous discussions of the route itself as well as some of its common combinations. Those links can be found here, here, here, and here. Also check out the "jerk-route" variant. When teams began to go to the spread years ago by replacing tight-ends and fullbacks with wide receivers, they needed something to do with those wideouts. The shallow became an obvious answer for several reasons: (a) with fewer pass protectors, a quick breaking built-in "hot" route (over the middle no less) is exceptionally useful, particularly since the receiver breaks right in front of the quarterback for an easy throw, (b) the shallow keeps consistency with route concepts designed for two-back sets because the receiver simply replaces the runningback's role as an underneath outlet in the progression, and (c) especially in the spread's early days, defenses tended to cover these extra receivers with linebackers who were ill equipped to chase a receiver for twenty or thirty yards, even if the direction was lateral and not vertical. (The route has some limits: it gives easy cues for pattern reading by the defense.)

There's a couple variations in how the shallow is used. Typically, a shallow route is combined with some kind of ten to twelve yard square-in route behind it. The question is from which side does the square-in break from: is he coming from the same side as the shallow -- i.e. trailing him? Or is he crossing over the top? This matters because it makes a big difference between what kind of flow you're looking for from the linebackers and where the windows in the zone will be. The Airraid guys tend to have the two guys cross and head in opposite directions. the diagram below.

(Image courtesy of Bruce Eien; check out more notes on their version here.) For clips of this version of the concept try here and here. It's a great concept: the shallow pulls the linebackers while the square-in -- aptly known in Airraid terminology as a "hunt route" because the receiver "hunts himself a good place to settle down" -- find the void between defenders.

I am concerned in this post, however, with an older version of the shallow. This is the "drive" concept, made popular by Bill Walsh as a way to get his flanker or "Z" receiver (Jerry Rice, hello!) the ball running full speed across the formation. Secondarily, if they covered Rice there was usually a big window in which to throw the ball to the tight-end. Below is a diagram of how Walsh ran the play from several different sets, straight from an old 49ers playbook.



First, a few features of Walsh's version. Keep in mind a very basic fact that many NFL announcers do not understand: The slant and the shallow are not the same play. On the slant, the receiver takes between two and four steps upfield (I prefer three, beginning with the outside foot back) and then a 45 degree break. The quarterback takes a three-step drop and delivers it quickly. The shallow, on the other hand, takes awhile to develop. The quarterback takes a full five-step drop (and sometimes seven, or five from shotgun) and waits for the receiver to at least cross the centerline. Again, it was Walsh that helped systematize these plays, though they preexisted him.

Anyway, his "drive" route, as he called it, begins with the shallow. Walsh often motioned his flanker towards the formation to enable him to explode through all that man-traffic so he would hopefully emerge free and clear on the backside. If the defense was in was man-to-man -- especially loose man-to-man -- the cornerback usually had a hell of a time trying to catch up with the receiver. But if the defense did cover that route, the tight-end was responsible for finding the void in the zone. The final read was the runningback as an outlet.

But, before getting to those routes, the quarterback always retained the option to throw deep to the corner route or the "go" route on the backside; typically this was the case if the defense was in man to man and he saw a matchup he liked. Note how Walsh sometimes had the corner route run by the halfback in the backfield -- think of Roger Craig or Ricky Watters with a linebacker assigned to him. Alternatively, sometimes the cornerback and near safety were so concerned with the flanker and tight-end that they collapsed down, leaving the runningback or slot man to break wide open on the corner. Nowadays, many modern teams send the runningback on a "wheel" route -- i.e. begin the route like you are running to the flat on a "shoot" and then turn and "wheel" it up the sideline. Below is a variant Bobby Petrino has used in the past at Louisville, the Pros, and now Arkansas.



So where are we now with the play? There have been a few changes in how most teams use the route and concept, especially since now that so few teams base out of two-back sets. As a result, the shallow is seen more as a route for inside receivers than a way to throw it short to your flanker. Below is a diagram of one of the modern versions (as you can see, quite similar), explicated in rich detail in Dan Gonzalez's book, Concept Passing: Teaching the Modern Passing Game. Gonzalez calls his route concept "drag."



So the basic route structure is the same as Walsh's drive. The major differences are that interior players are used, that the outside receiver to the trips side is given a post route to exploit a safety who might play the square-in too aggressively, and on the backside the X is a greater part of the play.

The quarterback isn't always told to read the comeback, but if he does he keys the outside linebacker to that side. See the diagram below, the man circled in blue. If the linebacker drifts where he is or takes the shallow coming to him, the quarterback can drill the ball to the comeback on the outside. If the linebacker heads quickly to the flat to take away the comeback, the shallow route should come wide open in the void he has vacated.



The rest of the play works just like Walsh's drive: either the shallow or the square-in should come open depending on who the linebackers pay attention to, and if neither is open the runningback should be open. Below is footage of the play, thanks to Dan Gonzalez and Mav (first clip), and Bruce Eien (second clip). Bruce's differs slightly but is similar enough to be grouped into the same family.




and




The film by Eien, directly above, is basically a cross between the true, old school "drive" and the Mark Richt/Florida State version, which again is the same "drive" concept but applied to a more two-by-two setting. For more on Richt's version, check out Trojan Football Analysis. Below is a diagram and cutups of the concept as another comparison.






Conclusion

As evidenced by my old post on how Mike Martz used the route, the shallow's usage is limited only by the imagination. It can be the primary route, the hot route, or a secondary route for the quarterback to come to late in his progression. It can be run by any receiver, and can be part of a main concept or used in some auxilliary way. But however it is run, it is still one of the best ways to get the ball to a playmaker -- speed in space -- and so long as teams keep spreading their formations, they will keep using the shallow cross.

Bonus - Video below of Mike White, then head coach of Illinois, explaining the now-Airraid version of the shallow cross. His quarterback at the time was Jack Trudeau. After diagramming the play White shows the square-in or "hunt" going for a big touchdown against one of Bo Schembechler's Michigan teams.




[Ed. Note: Extra thanks to the guys at the Huey Board for some of the diagrams and info, in particular Mav.]