The smartest kids in football discuss a term called “DVOA” – Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. Let its creator Aaron Schatz explain why Lamar Jackson and this Baltimore Ravens squad would be considered one of greatest NFL teams ever by winning Super Bowl next month in Las Vegas.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
year, team, ravens, play, good, defense, offense, week, schatz, offensive line, offensive linemen, lamar jackson, super bowl, talk, running, lamar, baltimore, luke, analytics, quarterback
SPEAKERS
Aaron Schatz, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
wn st Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive, we’re positively into the festive season here, happy playoffs to everybody. I have suspended the Maryland crabcake tour until such time when the Ravens have a parade or until we get together at the Super Bowl, we’re going to be doing crabcake row presented by the Maryland lottery. I have some rabid scratch offs, or excuse me some oh snap scratch offs to give away as well as our friends at WIN donation, 8669 donation and Jiffy Lube multi care that will happen on February the fifth, whether Lamar Jackson and our loot Jones are in Las Vegas or not remains to be seen this guy might be there. He has been analyzing football in a different way. We talk about folks that come at it a different way. I was introduced to him by Jim Schwartz about 20 years ago and he said, This guy analytics, I’m like, what’s the answer? Let me add it pronounce analytics or spell analytics. But the DVO a has become a standard bearer for measurement for football players and football teams. Eric Schatz joins us now he is our defending champion around here. And Luke sends his apologies for not getting together to to smother Lamar with all of the love and the team and the greatest of all time team. But he promises to see you if Lamar can navigate these next two hours of football over the next couple weeks. How are things with you, you have a new gig going on? So first things first, I know it’s been a different kind of year for you. How’s life?
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Aaron Schatz 01:23
Yeah, it’s been very different. For folks who don’t know I’m now at FTN fantasy, you can find all the DVOA numbers at F tn fantasy.com/dvoa It’s been a bit of a change in my schedule works out a little differently. You know, you’ve established sort of rhythms when you do this for 20 years. And then all of a sudden, you’re doing things a little differently. But I like my new home. And it’s been an interesting season. So I’m feeling pretty good about things I understand
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:50
change after 20 years as well. So we’re making some changes around here, certainly for for what you write about and this and the science of this. And I will go ahead and use the word science in regard to, you know, the way you have evaluated apples and grapefruits in some cases, because, well, Lamar, it’s different than evaluating other people on a statistical basis. There’s more analysis that needs to be made that you have been making from the beginning. This has been a revelation all year. And Luke put up this stat at the end of the Pittsburgh game that they hadn’t been behind by two scores all year long, like literally, and you have an evaluation for them that I want you to explain to our audience, which is the reason I brought you on to say, this is not just impressive, this isn’t just pretty good. It sort of was a landmark season in a lot of ways for your measurements, right?
Aaron Schatz 02:43
Yeah, because they’re not just beating teams. They’re destroying teams and destroying good teams, they faced the fifth hardest schedule in the league this year, and just walloped their opponents. So in my DVOA ratings, which go back to 1981, the ravens are the fifth best team of the last 43 years. And that includes sitting there starters in week 18, if you took out that game, they would be the third best team of the last 43 years. And now that not only is astonishing, but the 40 Niners come out as almost as good before the Niners are the eighth best team. So you have a year this year where you have these two teams that are just far ahead of everyone else, except one of them beat the other one and pretty soundly.
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:40
8Yeah. And I guess that’s the thing. I keep talking to folks here this week. I mean, until we get through next week, San Francisco and Baltimore are what people are expecting. And and look, the odds are when they move this thing to seven teams on both sides, there’s only one team with a buy, that team has a hell of an advantage over everybody else in the field. But the advantage that I found was that I always thought this was going to be burrow and Lawrence and mahomes and Allen, and you’d have to win three of those kinds of games to maybe on the road unless you’re that team. Well, the ravens are that team right now. So I think it’s put a lot more expectation on who’s going to beat them in this kind of year. And it’s going to have to happen at home. And it’s going to have to happen while the ravens are pretty healthy. So I mean all of these things conspiring to make the ravens, this favorite team a lot of it kind of speaks to the kind of your buffalo and Kansas City have had the level of confidence you have these other teams weird
Aaron Schatz 04:33
off, you know, Buffalo has had this weird up and down here with their very inconsistent. The underlying numbers have always been really good for them, but then they lose in really weird ways. And Kansas City their offense has just, you know, we kept waiting for their offense to become the Kansas City offense that we’ve known from the last few years. And not only did it not happen, they took line like fair, they were worse than the second half. And they were in the first half.
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:03
What might have been a lot better if they catch 80% of the balls? They dropped? Right? Like, yeah, that would have led to try all the things that you study, like they were gained
Aaron Schatz 05:13
a little bit of right problem. The receivers are a bit of a problem for the chiefs. Yeah.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 05:17
But that would have changed all the measurements. I mean, if it’s in butts and candies, and nuts and all that, but when you’re evaluating that team, specifically, it it’s not that the offensive line broke down. It’s not that the quarterback can’t throw it. Are they getting bad down in distances, they’re just, they’re just not executing problems.
Aaron Schatz 05:35
The tackles have not been great. You know, they signed Donovan Smith from Tampa to play left tackle and he wasn’t that good. And then he got injured. So now they have a rookie left tackle. Their interior offensive line is still really strong. Defensively,
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:49
the chiefs have been had been formidable, correct. I mean, right up there with Cleveland in that way. And Baltimore, not
Aaron Schatz 05:55
8that high. Okay. Cleveland in Baltimore are pretty far ahead of everybody else on defense, but the chiefs are seventh in my numbers on defense for the year. So yeah, they’re a strong defense stronger than they were last year, that’s for sure.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:08
Make Your Case for Joe Flacco. And for five quarterbacks in Cleveland, four that were functional during the course of the season and what this represents for him to come in because they’re dangerous. You know, there’s any doubt with their defense. They’re dangerous and you get the right weather the right circumstance. Next week, if they were to win this week, they had their own challenge against Houston this week. But what Flacco did two weeks ago against that defense needs to be noted.
Aaron Schatz 06:32
Yeah, Flacco has played very well. That being said, I think the long term outlook for Flacco you have to consider his age and his performance over the last couple of years. And it suggests that he can’t play this. Well, in the long term. The defense is outstanding for Cleveland, right? So Cleveland and Baltimore clearly the two best defenses in the league this year. And that defense can carry them a long way. But their running game has been below average. And I just I have a hard time imagining the Flacco can keep it up at this level. I think he can be an average quarterback, which with that defense is still formidable, but I don’t think he’s really going to be an above average quarterback in the playoffs. What’s the
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:16
most impressive thing for Lamar and the offense for you? Statistically, if you break it down, you always find these sort of anomalies and outliers and crazy things. I would think this particular offensive lumbars efforts have have created some things that you note and say I’ve seen that before. I
8Aaron Schatz 07:33
mean, the fact the quality of the running game, given the fact that it’s mostly like undrafted free agents is pretty remarkable. I mean, they lost the guy who was supposed to be there starting running back early in the season. And then with Edwards and Hill and Keith Mitchell. They put together the best running game in the league. Now Lamar Jackson is part of that right? Part of it is that Lamar Jackson, fear that he’s going to keep the ball opens things up for the running backs. But still, those running backs have been pretty darn good considering that you know, there but mostly a bunch of no names.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:09
Well, you said opens up thanks. It’s opened up the passing game, the fact that he stayed behind the line of scrimmage. I said he’s run around like Roethlisberger. And I sort of mean that was love and saying extending a play keeping a play alive where in the old days, it just never happened because he just stayed off. And he takes off and you get 15 yards you feel great about it. But then he throws the ball and say flowers, turns it into a touchdown. That’s a different feeling than Lamar breaking ankles as a young man in Cincinnati and embarrassing guys. The embarrassment happens here when you you can’t scout team him. Well, you can’t prepare for him. Then he gets into open space and you’re thinking he’s gonna run. No, he’s not he’s gonna make you think he’s gonna run, you’re gonna come up and he’s gonna burn you with his arm, which that that play wasn’t in the playbook and 18 and it and it just it I didn’t think you would ever think that way. I didn’t think they would ever coached the take off out of him because he’s so good to take off. Well,
Aaron Schatz 09:02
the shock is going to be for Ravens fans, this team statistically was more efficient passing the ball in 2019 than they are this year. I realized that from a film watching perspective, his processing and like making reads is more impressive this year than it was four years ago. But the actual statistical efficiency the passing game was better four years ago than it was this year.
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:27
8Well, yeah, the tight end and and he had a better a better overall running game like Mark Ingram and what they you know, to me, you would say they’re the most and Luke always argues every point you make, by the way, and hope he’s in Vegas getting together with you in a couple of weeks. But there is a point where did all of the touchdown passes and all of those things. They were timing passes. And then there’s a difference I think between the Roman offense and what Todd Monken maybe tried to do the first six or eight weeks with Less personnel. But it’s been so effective the last 810 weeks what Monken has done, it feels like it’s blossomed in a way that maybe we didn’t see it so much in September and October. Yeah,
Aaron Schatz 10:11
I mean, some of that, I mean, like they had that game against Pittsburgh where no one could hold on to the ball. And they definitely had receivers missing certain games. And I mean, it’s, there’s no question, it’s been outstanding. Everything about the team has been outstanding. They’re outstanding in every way. I mean, if you’re going to be like one of the top five teams of the last 40 years, you better be pretty good at everything. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:31
they’re pretty good for you with any trends, that anything different about the game that you see this year, anything weirdly up or down, that’s worth discussing in the way that you discuss it from an analytic
Aaron Schatz 10:42
standpoint. Offensive levels were definitely down this year, and sacks were up. And there’s definitely a feeling among a lot of people who cover the league, that there’s a real problem with offensive line depth. But these guys are not getting enough practice time in the preseason. And so when an offensive lineman start to get injured, you’re really having probably really slows down the whole offense and the backup lineman, the drop from the starting lineman to the backup lineman is a real problem. I
8Nestor J. Aparicio 11:10
see it and I see it differently. And I see what hardball and this team has done because of Ronnie Stanley’s whatever age knee, you know, trying to keep him healthy or knowing that you’re 10 games or you know, you’re 13 Three or whatever you are just keep it he needs to be ready to play and play at a high level for three more hours this year for all the money they’ve given them. All the injuries and all of that. I just think for the the offensive line. And I say this to Luke all the time, we’re 25 years into rotation on defense, where every defensive line would have six seven guys, linebackers, you know, nickels and dimes. There’s no nickel and dime package on offense, there’s thud and SCOTTON and bigger backs and tight ends and Pat records. But there’s five offensive linemen and they don’t rotate those, you don’t have two different centers for shotgun. And defenses are playing 1718 deep, offensive lines are playing five deep and rarely can they go six or seven, the Ravens invested in Pat mCherry to be a six or a six guy. But all that being said, you don’t really want them to play. And even if he’s perfect, you’d still rather have your starters taken 60 or 70 snaps as offensive they’re expected to make 70 snaps, whereas we have two down linebackers and we have defenses more evolved from a personnel standpoint to be more multiple than we think of an offensive line about continuity, continuity, continuity, different legs will have guys stepping on each other. Yeah,
Aaron Schatz 12:38
I don’t know whether somebody will come up because the problem is the trade off is the continuity trade off is that if you if you are subbing in offensive linemen, there is that trade off and continuity and continuity is really important that these five guys work together and have time together. And I don’t know whether somebody would try to rotate them more often. And obviously Baltimore’s done it a little bit this year, and they’ve had success. But you know, New England has rotated offensive linemen and they’ve not had success. So I don’t know whether it might become a regular thing for a lot of teams.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:11
Will you pay a left tackle $20 million a year his backup better not be it better be noticeable? You know, I mean, literally where the linemen are going in the amount of money they’re making, I mean, the Ravens every year for five years lost the Jensen or, you know, they, I’m trying to think of the kid that went to Detroit and got all the money. But every year they’ve lost players and assembled a and they didn’t mind going through the draft to replace and they didn’t feel like we want to pay guys 1012 $14 million, you know,
Aaron Schatz 13:41
8right? It’s gonna happen this offseason to Patrick clean is gonna leave and they’ll replace him with the guy, Trenton Stevens. Is that his name? Yeah, that’s the Trenton Simpson. You know, so they do a good job of preparing for the future. They plan for the future very well.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:58
Eric Schatz plans for all sorts of things, talking about DVOA and tell him if I say DVOA what is the science of that as its measured for somebody who is just catching on to your nerdery and analytics and all the smart stuff you guys do? Pretty
Aaron Schatz 14:14
simple. Just takes every single play in the season looks at the success based on the down in distance. And then adjust that based on situation and opponent to tell you when a team is above or below average.
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:27
I call it science, football science. He’s the king of analytics era shots. Nobody want to find you again, somebody can get out there and I know you do a lot of things subscription oriented and offseason and stuff like that. What what, what does it take to get involved with all the information that you provide? Yeah,
8Aaron Schatz 14:43
you go to FTM fantasy.com/dvoa. You want either a stats plus or a fantasy Plus subscription to get all kinds of splits and historical data, you know, offense splitted into paths and runs split by down redzone all All kinds of data from this year all kinds of data from past years. And then you’ll find me there all offseason doing content and on all the social media sites at a shots NFL, which is a SCHA, tz NFL
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:16
ravens gonna win a Super Bowl.
Aaron Schatz 15:19
I think they have the best shot. But the biggest problem for the Ravens is that the 40 Niners are also really, really, really good. But I mean, I think there’s a much better chance of a Ravens 49 or Super Bowl than any combination for the last few
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:32
8years. And I think there’s a better chance of Brock party not throwing five picks in the game to right, he’s
Aaron Schatz 15:36
gonna do that in the second time, second time around. But the fact is, not only are they numerically so far beyond the rest of the teams, they both got the one seat, there are years where you have a team that statistically is awesome. But because of just the way things went, they’ll end up put the two or the three seed and they’ll have to go on the road. Baltimore and San Francisco are not only that good, they got the one seat. So every looks really good to set them up for a Super Bowl.
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:02
And also the balance you know, there’s been a lot of one seats that are all defense, whatever, you know, there’s a level of balance here. It’s gonna end and home field advantage as well. Hey, thank you. You always make the time I know you’ve had some complications around the house today. Thanks for coming on with us. I hope to meet you at some point in the winner’s circle after all this is over with and we could talk about the Ravens historic year and how they won the Super Bowl and what the parade look like and felt like allow me to dream a little bit right we got a couple weeks left.
Aaron Schatz 16:31
If they win the Super Bowl, they should absolutely be in the discussion is one of the best teams of all time.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 16:38
Wow, I’ll let you drop the mic with that. So if if if three hours away a week off Flacco on the couch. Lots of things happen in here this weekend. Luke is out in Owings Mills as well. He’s going to want to reconvene with Aaron Schatz he sends his condolences to not make it because he’s Aaron’s one of his all time favorite guys. So we appreciate all that dumb people do to add to the color and the conversation of what we get to talk about around here especially this time of year where we have the best team because Aaron Schatz said so and so. They say sort of a Hollywood casino as well. If you want to bet on these things. Look we’ll be around we’re gonna be doing the Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery conjunction with window nation and Jiffy Lube beginning February 5, it’s going to be called crabcake row and it’s going to be awesome. Um, this year we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. And we never stopped talking Lamar Jackson number one scene at least until we play hang in there. It’s great festival season here at Baltimore positive
