Kick Ass Offense

Forbes magazine recently ranked NFL teams in order of value with the Minnesota Vikings coming out at the bottom, due primarily to their home in the much-maligned HHH Metrodome. “That’s simply because of their stadium,” Senior editor Michael Ozanian said. “They have one of the five worst stadium situations in pro football.” Forbes puts a $658 million sticker price on the purple, while the beleaguered Washington Redskins topped the charts at $1.26 billion. The Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots were the other two teams breaching the billion-dollar mark. The Vikes were ranked 30th last year, but Arizona and Atlanta increased sponsorships and ticket sales, leaving the purple in the cellar.

The 2006 ZEUS Critical Call Index (CCI) is an assessment of each NFL team’s performance in making optimal decisions on fourth downs, PATs and kickoffs. We refer to these types of play-calling decisions as “critical” because they often have a great effect on the outcome of a game.

Every critical decision for the 2006 regular season was evaluated by ZEUS™ (http://zeusfootball.com) for its impact on the team’s expected winning chances in that particular game. The errors were then summed for the entire 16-game season and the resulting total is the cumulative cost in seasonal win expectation in units of games per season. The lower the number, the better the team was at making critical calls.

ZEUS PLAY-CALLING RANKINGS
Rank Team Errors
1. Dallas Cowboys 0.41
2. Chicago Bears 0.49
3. Pittsburgh Steelers 0.50
4. New York Giants 0.57
5. Baltimore Ravens 0.59
6. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 0.60
7. Oakland Raiders 0.60
8. San Diego Chargers 0.62
9. Cincinnati Bengals 0.65
10. Green Bay Packers 0.67
11. New England Patriots 0.67
12. Carolina Panthers 0.69
13. Seattle Seahawks 0.70
14. Denver Broncos 0.70
15. New York Jets 0.72
16. Philadelphia Eagles 0.74
17. Arizona Cardinals 0.74
18. Atlanta Falcons 0.78
19. Kansas City Chiefs 0.79
20. Tennessee Titans 0.93
21. New Orleans Saints 0.97
22. Miami Dolphins 0.98
23. Houston Texans 0.99
24. Jacksonville Jaguars 0.99
25. Indianapolis Colts 1.02
26. St. Louis Rams 1.04
27. Detroit Lions 1.05
28. Buffalo Bills 1.07
29. Minnesota Vikings 1.09

30. Cleveland Browns 1.16
31. Washington Redskins 1.28
32. San Francisco 49ers 1.48

Here is an example of how ZEUS works.

Suppose a team is facing fourth-and-1 at midfield. The correct call between punting and running is the play that will provide the higher expectation of winning the game on average. ZEUS plays the game to completion (hundreds of thousands of times) from that point forward in a virtual environment and tabulates the statistical results. Score, time on the clock, ball location, down, yards to go, and strengths and weaknesses of the opposing teams are all accurately considered. If ZEUS suggests the run is 2 percent GWC (”Game Winning Chance” expectation) better than the punt, this means that under identical conditions the running play, on average, will net two more victories than the punt in every 100 games played. A 100 percent GWC is equivalent to one full game.

The optimum call does not provide a guaranteed result — no decision in football ever does. It simply identifies the best path to victory. Over the course of a long season critical call errors add up. The ZEUS CCI reveals just how much these preventable errors accumulate, and how much they can ultimately cost an NFL team.

If numbers made the difference in the performance of a team, the cost of coaching staffs would reach staggering amounts. More does not necessarily translate to better. Quantity does not beget quality.

Indianapolis and Chicago, for example, got to the Super Bowl with 16- and 15-man staffs (sans the head coach), respectively. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the 19-man staffs of Houston, Denver, Atlanta and St. Louis watched the playoffs, along with Minnesota’s 22-man colony.

Imagine that. Twenty-three men on the coaching staff, including the head coach, and the Vikings still won just six games in 2006. Talk about not getting your money’s worth.

Of the 12 teams that made the playoffs this season, the New York Giants had the largest staff of assistants with 18, followed by the 17-man staffs in Baltimore and Seattle. The New Orleans Saints’ staff of 20 included four coaching assistants (youngsters learning the ropes).

Source: Scout.com

Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is among a small group of NFL owners complaining about revenue sharing inequities in the league. Wilf claims that due to rising labor costs the Vikings are running at a negative cash flow. The small market owners want a greater share of the revenue from the high revenue teams. As a tax-payer in Minnesota it is nice to see that Zygi is seeking handouts from the likes of Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft in addition to those of us in the 7 county metro area. Read the full story on MSNBC.

Offensive Players

Quarterbacks franchise tag=$12.615 million
Quarterbacks transition tag=$10.182 million
Off. linemen franchise tag=$9.556 million
Off. linemen transition tag=$8.267 million
Wide receivers franchise tag=$7.613 million
Wide receiverstransition tag=$7.040 million
Running backs franchise tag=$6.999 million

Running backs transition tag=$5.981 million
Tight ends franchise tag=$4.371 million
Tight ends transition tag=$3.612 million

Defensive Players

Defensive ends franchise tag=$8.644 million
Defensive ends transition tag=$7.701 million
Cornerbacks franchise tag=$7.790 million
Cornerbacks transition tag=$6.766 million
Linebackers franchise tag=$7.206 million
Linebackers transition tag=$6.493 million
Defensive tackles franchise tag=$6.775 million
Defensive tackles transition tag=$5.554 million
Safeties franchise tag=$4.490 million
Safeties transition tag=$3.984 million

Special Teams

Punters franchise tag=$2.078 million
Punters transition tag=$1.926 million
Kickers franchise tag=$2.078 million
Kickers transition tag=$1.926 million

The Vikings will introduce Leslie Frazier as their new defensive coordinator at a 2:30 p.m. news conference this afternoon at Winter Park. Frazier replaces Mike Tomlin, who was hired by the Steelers as the head coach.

The latest Minnesota Vikings stadium financing plan appears dead before it even arrives at the state Capitol, judging by Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s dismissive take Monday on the possibility for a metrowide sales tax.

Pawlenty said a seven-county sales tax increase for stadium construction “isn’t going to fly.”

“The Vikings have themselves in a real pickle,” Pawlenty said.

Word that the Vikings were exploring a broad tax surfaced over the weekend. At least one top legislators said the Vikings have scheduled a meeting with him for this week.

Vikings vice president Lester Bagley said the sales tax idea isn’t the only one the team was considering. Bagley said he understands Pawlenty’s cool reaction to the metro tax.

“At some point he is going to have to help us find a solution to this longstanding issue,” Bagley said. “He has long told our ownership that he wants to work with us to solve the Vikings stadium problem to keep us healthy and in this state.”

The franchise had been pursuing legislative support for an Anoka County stadium. But the team’s relationship with Anoka leaders broke down late last year. Owner Zygi Wilf is now looking at building on the site of the Metrodome.

The stadium could cost as much as $900 million to build, but the team hasn’t settled on a financing plan.

Last year, the Legislature authorized new stadiums for the University of Minnesota football team and the Minnesota Twins baseball team. The Twins plan is being paid for mostly through a higher Hennepin County sales tax.

Koren Robinson can go foward with his grievance against the Vikings. Sean Jensen reports that his:

“appeal date will be set in the coming week, and NFL Players Association general counsel Richard Berthelsen is confident the receiver can win the case against the Vikings.

“They’d have to show that they cut him for skill reasons or reasons unrelated to what happened off the field, and I don’t see how they can do that,” Berthelsen said.

Berthelsen said Robinson’s appeal will go before an arbitrator between March and June.

In early October, Robinson filed a grievance against the Vikings seeking a significant portion of the three-year, $12.7 million contract he signed in March 2004. Robinson played four games for the Green Bay Packers before he was suspended for one year.”

The Minnesota Vikings may ask the Legislature to approve a Twin Cities metro-area sales tax to help pay for a new stadium in downtown Minneapolis.

The new stadium would feature a retractable roof and is likely to cost about 900 million dollars. It would be built around the site of the current Metrodome.

Team officials have approached some public officials to talk about their proposal. It would probably involve a sales tax increase in seven metro-area counties.

But so far the plan is getting a lukewarm reception at the Capitol. The chairwoman of the House Taxes Committee says she would give any proposal a fair hearing, but says she doesn't think there's much of an appetite right now for more stadium taxes.

A spokesman for Gov. Pawlenty says he is withholding judgment until he sees more details.

Kevin Cosgrove had a short and direct response Friday to an Internet report that he was the “leading candidate” to become the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator.

“I’m not a candidate for the job,” Cosgrove said.

The Nebraska defensive coordinator last year was offered a position as the Vikings’ linebackers coach but turned it down. Cosgrove is close friends with Minnesota head coach Brad Childress, who worked with him at Wisconsin in the 1990s and Illinois in the 1980s.

VikingUpdate (vikings.scout.com) cited an unnamed source as saying Cosgrove is expected to be offered the job. His name has popped into some reports by Twin Cities newspapers since Mike Tomlin left the Vikings two weeks ago to become head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Cosgrove, 51, would not answer further questions regarding interest in the position or possible contact having been made. He recently completed his third season on the Huskers’ staff.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Wednesday that Indianapolis assistant coach Leslie Frazier was interested in the job. Frazier, who worked with Childress in Philadelphia, is off-limits to the Vikings until after Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Chicago Bears assistant Bob Babich, also considered a candidate, told the Pioneer Press he was not considering any move to the Vikings.