And again, Merril Hoge, Mike Ditka and Dan Marino may have made a living studying tape, but they now make their living as PERSONALITIES.
Sensationalism, not accuracy is what they make their living at.
Also, when watching film you need to watch the same tape of both teams over and over, evaluating each position group and taking notes. For example, if you just watch all five of Miami's offensive line at the same time, you may come away saying they're ok... But when you watch Dallas Thomas you realize that he is a dumpster fire and can be exploited for quick pressure.
Then you look at Washington's interior pressure. You watch Jason Hatcher in 2014. Then you watch Stephen Paea in Chicago in 2014. This is already further than most go. Then you realize sweet, Chicago and Miami played in 2014, let's watch Stephen Paea v. Dallas Thomas.
Then you have to go to the secondary match ups. Are the DBs on the roster effective in man coverage? For example, Derelle Revis is the best man corner in the game. He turns and locates as well as uses his leverage so well that throwing to him in man coverage would be a pretty high percentage play for an INT or a pass defense.
Todd Bowles is fond of "fire and ice" defense, where multiple plays are "Zero" man blitzes, but also mixed in are "drop seven" looks where the QB feels "Phantom Pressure" from his internal countdown being shortened by the frequent blitzing. The idea is to get the QB to throw quickly all the time.
Also, when you are in tight man with quick blitzes, the QB is going to naturally begin to make pre snap decisions, for instance, he will be looking "hot" before the play anticipating man blitz. Because of this, he may already be looking for a quick out or a corner route, which are routes that are "Man Beaters".
A QB, even a very good one, can only watch so many things at once. Because of this, he will see a LB in zone coverage as being a "lazy" man-coverage on his tight end who is on an out or a corner, and that will make him throw into zone because he feels pressure that isn't there and is operating on an assumption of man coverage.
Will this happen all the time? No. But Bowles has such an effective defensive style because it will happen ONCE IN A WHILE. This will create a turnover or a punt multiple times in the game. Because of FILM STUDY, we know that Revis is going to shadow and take away one receiver.
In the Browns game, this is likely to be Dwayne Bowe. Take him away, he's gone.
Also, because of FILM STUDY, we know that Buster Skrine is also VERY EFFECTIVE in man coverage when utilized in the slot. He sticks to his man very well from this position. However, because of FILM STUDY, we also know that Skrine was used as a number two corner last year against the Y receiver. Here, Skrine is borderline horrendous.
If you watch Skrine playing against Torrey Smith you see Skrine beaten routinely by the larger Smith. If you use statistics alone, these statistics will show you that a VERY effective Nickel Slot corner is actually a VERY POOR corner. This isn't true, as film study shows that he is a SPECIALTY player, and when used properly is HIGHLY effective.
However, since you use only statistics, it will show that Skrine is actually going to hinder the Jets secondary.
The real story is this, whoever is on Cromartie is going to have to use double moves to beat him, and that is going to be one of the only reads that will be effective for McCown in week one. I would look for the Tight End to have to have a big game as well, but I would also expect at least ONE int coming from McCown reading the Tight End hot and mistakenly throwing into blanket zone coverage.
McCown is great against zone, one of the best I have seen. However, it's like Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get hit. Once McCown has taken a couple of sacks from Leonard Williams, Muhammed Wilkerson, and Skrine, who has skill as a slot blitzer, I would expect to see his internal clock being sped up and him making some mistakes.
Anyway, these are just two games that I expect to go UNDER on the total. Rest assured, this is from more hours of study than most of these pros do. And it's not because I am over here saying I am better at tape study, I would LOVE to break down film with any of those guys, they would HELP me in my evals. However, it is because my livelihood DEPENDS on me being over 55%.
I would expect that if these guys' paycheck depended on their picks, they wouldn't make such cavalier picks.
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