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Mail Pouch for July 2006, Part 1
Cold, Hard Football Facts for July 17, 2006
(Note from the Mismanagement: Yes, we realize it's been far, far too long since we updated the beloved Mail Pouch. Honestly, we respond in person to as many e-mails as possible, but we just don't always get around to publishing the responses here. To catch up, we're posting two Mail Pouches this week, representing a smattering of correspondence from the past several months. We're expanding the staff in preparation for the 2006 season, and making the Mail Pouch a more regular feature is high on our list of goals, right after finishing our new book, "Strip Clubs We Have Loved and Lost.")
I'm a member of the site and read your recent post regarding new office space ... we are architects, and will design an effin' happy pig pen for you if you're looking to build out space. We can get the contractors, too. I'm  thinking a set of goalposts as the centerpiece, of course, and maybe a tackling dummy where the president is supposed to sit. Regards – Eric Gould
CHFF: We like our new office space (pictured here), but your deal sounds good. Send some blueprints. We'd like a nice trough filled with beer, too. Costs? Estimates? Please advise.
As you can imagine, costs vary wildly depending on schedule, existing conditions of the space, sub-contractor's relative greed, building officials willing to be bribed, and location. (Where the heck are you guys located anyway? And how big is the staff?) The best thing to do is find space which relatively fits your needs, and then retrofit it, and customize it to make it your own. For a retrofit, assuming the electrical, telephone and HVAC don't need a lot of work, you can probably get away with $15-$30 per square foot. Most tenants can squeeze some sort of allowance out of a greedy landlord to cover all or some of that amount, given the original condition of the space.
In your case, we can probably install artificial turf, some tailgating chairs, etc., and be off to a good start. I'm also thinking of oversized photo essays of large blocks of ice crushing various objects ... maybe Pete Prisco in effigy.
Oh yes, and a couple of troughs will do great. One for beer, and the other for you know what, although that might violate a few health regulations. Regards – Eric Gould
CHFF: Not sure how much retrofitted HVAC will cost, but our current heating system involves burning cardboard beer cases in a trash barrel or sleeping over the subway grate. Can you do better than that? There's occasionally a little troll cuddling under our newspaper blanket, but we try not to discuss that too much in public. We'll be in touch.
And yet Pittsburgh ... Ben wrecks his bike and Holmes has been arrested twice before he's even signed. Do they get dropped? Ben and Holmes were also both first-round picks.
So the Stealers get praised for having two of their most recent first-round picks be idiots, yet the Bengals are convict collectors 'cause we take risks on guys after the 2nd round of the draft...???? And you talk about returning players ... uhhh ... HELLO.
Seriously, pull your heads out of your asses on this one guys. The double-standard and biasness is BLATANTLY obvious.
And how are the Stealers No. 1 still...what great things have they done this offseason? – Chris, the Wretched Mass
CHFF: Well, since we got this letter about a half-dozen more Bengals have been busted by the local constabulary. It's turning out to be quite an offseason. In any case, we'll consider this progress. Last year, we were accused of being New England suck-ups. Now we're blatantly biased in favor of Pittsburgh. Hey folks, maybe the Super Bowl champion gets a little leeway and extra praise because, well, they are the Super F'in Bowl champion.
CHFF: Thanks for the note. Cold, Hard Football Facts movie critic J. Michael Whalen did a great job with the " Rudy" piece. As for the 2006 season, we're with you. We've gone so long without football we've been reduced to watching 0-0 soccer games. And liking it.
I was curious to see your take on "Any Given Sunday" and though I tend to agree with most of your points, I think this film is extremely underrated. Sure, during a first viewing, you can't tell what the heck is going on and it did take me out of the movie, so I really didn't care for it. Then I watched it again and I got a different, positive impression. Stone wasn't trying to make  a statement about the current state of pro football, but where it's heading. Heck, the movie came out in '99 and Pacino is clearly marking a 2001 schedule. Just think, how many teams did monochrome unis in 1999 (none) and how many do it now? Doesn't Willie Beamon's character reek of Michael Vick? Don't those crazy TD celebrations remind you of what the NFL is trying to outlaw nowadays? Aside from the message Stone is trying to send, this film contains one of the greatest speeches in ANY film to date, by one of the best in the business, Al Pacino. It really pulls the film together at the end. – Rich Lee
CHFF: J. Michael Whalen put it best: "Stone made the world of professional football seem even grimmer than Vietnam." If Stone wanted to make a movie that showed what pro football would be like in the future, his dark vision failed miserably. Sure, the NFL has its problems, just like every other aspect of society. And undoubtedly a lot transpires behind the scenes that the public never sees. But the league is also filled with great competitors and upstanding contributors to society, and it provides positive lessons about teamwork. The bigger question is this: If you didn't enjoy the movie the first time, why did you watch it again? Hell, we're so lazy, we don't even do things we liked the first time twice.
CHFF: Being a degenerate is kinda like being crazy: If you admit you're a degenerate, you're really not. The true degenerates are the guys sitting in their mother's basement reading back copies of Big 'Uns and Barely Legal while running football Web sites, who tell everyone they're just as normal as every other 40-year-old. At least, that's what we read in the new copy of "Degenerates Anonymous" someone sent us the other day. Not sure why.
In any case, yes, we plan to post each week a whole section of "Quality Stats," including defensive passer rating and several others, in addition to the Quality Wins Quotient. It should provide some neat content and some very telling information.
Defensive passer rating simply uses the same methodology used to calculate a QB's passer rating. The formula is a bit tricky, but there are calculators online you can use. This one at football.com is pretty good.
Earl Campbell may have been only 230 pounds, but he was playing against defensive linemen that averaged 260ish. Offensive linemen were only 280. Relatively speaking, a 250-pound RB today would be smaller than Earl was back in 1976. You must factor in a percentage of weights when determining big backs vs. small backs. Jim Brown was NOT a small RB for his time. He was huge. Usually your articles are right on. This one is WAY OFF. – Dan
CHFF: Well, we don't know if offensive lineman were that much bigger than defensive lineman back in the late 1970s/early 80s. Hog Hannah, the best lineman of the era, was a monster at 265 pounds, not 280, as you say linemen  were. But that's nitpicking. The gist of your point is absolutely correct. A 230-pound guy in the 1960s was, relatively speaking, much bigger than a 240-pound guy today. So we're with you there. Here's the problem from the point of view of analysis: Finding accurate average-size data in each year of the NFL is not easy. If you know where to find this info, please let us know. Otherwise, we find the contention of the article a fair analysis of an interesting phenomenon: Fans often get all worked up by an oversized workhorse, but at the end of the day, they really don't produce at a high level. As for Jim Brown, he is, in our opinion, probably the best ballcarrier of all time. Yes, he was a horse. But he was also a gazelle with great speed. He wasn't purely a "big back" in the stereotypical sense of the bruising ramrod.
I want to say thanks for the great shit you guys have been doing. I'm looking forward to the updated site. Keep up the fantastic work. A long time loyal troll!!! – David Ferrairo
CHFF: Yes, we have some fine, fine shit. Would you like to smoke some? In any case, thanks for the support. We'll have a lot of new features, data and content this season, along with a bigger staff with some great writers. We do plan on expanding quite a bit. Look for several announcements in the upcoming weeks.
Just a small issue with the Power Rankings you posted June 26. You have Carolina listed at 12-6 last year to include playoffs. They really finished 13-6 including playoffs. – CK Lindberg
CHFF: No, that's a big issue. Thanks for the correction. Per standard Cold, Hard Football Facts protocol, our researcher has been shot and will now bleed to death outside our cardboard-box world headquarters. We'll plant his head on a shish-kabob spike outside the office as a warning to future interns and researchers. It's good for morale.
Re: your guide to the World Cup. As an Englishman, I am bound by a sense of custom to say, "Screw you, asshole, you know nothing about the beautiful  game." And I don't mean that lovely Argentinian lass, who is undoubtedly beautiful and sure looks game! – Neil Saffer
CHFF: We hope you'll keep in mind that this was not a "Lifelong European soccer fan's guide to the World Cup ... " It was, well, you can read the headline yourself. Agreed on the lovely Argentinian lass. Turns out her name is Pamela David, and she's a reality TV star in that particular third-world hellhole. Pip, pip. Cheerio. Carry on.
The second sentence reads "They were certainly a great, talented and exciting team. But even before the loss to Texas, they were never one of the greatest. Not even close."
The 2003 Trojans were, by the standards applied to all college teams before them, one of the great dynasties in the history of the game. Your arguments, as near as I can make them out, amount to one: that the major stars of the 2005 (and 2004) Trojans didn't go as high in the draft as many anticipated.
This argument is irrelevant. First off, the greatness of a college football player isn't necessarily reflected by his professional career. You also denigrate the 2003 USC team by pointing out that they played only one Top 25 team before winning in the Rose Bowl against No. 4 Michigan.
My computer, Mad Max, with which my partner George Ignation and I have ranked college football teams for years, first in the Village Voice and then for the Wall Street Journal, ranked Southern Cal's schedule as one of the four toughest in the nation.
You also point out that LSU, with a record of 13-1, was the "official" national champion, as if this indicates that the Trojans were any less of a powerhouse. In point of fact, college football champions, from the time Walter Camp invented the first ranking system, have often "shared" the titles with other great teams.
You write, "We'll never know if USC was the best team in football in 2003 because it never faced the battle-tested Bayou Bengals of LSU" and you  state, "We'll never know if USC was the best team in football in 2004 because it never faced battle-tested War Eagles of Auburn."
The same could be said for virtually any national champion in any season. Is the Notre Dame 1966 national championship team supposed to give up its title rings because the 9-0-1 Irish did not play No. 3, 11-0 Alabama? I'd argue yes to that one, as an Alabama fan, but according to the rules of that time and place, Notre Dame won, and that is that.
CHFF: Thanks for the comments and criticisms. First, we suggest you dump your fancy Mad Max computer and replace it with the Cold, Hard Football Facts beer-bottle cap and Buffalo-wing abacus. It's far less efficient. Second, we certainly don't mind being taken to task, provided folks bring some Cold, Hard Football Facts and not just opinions. You certainly do that.
But we stand by the thesis of the story, which is this: USC does not look as good after the 2006 draft as it did back in December, when many called it one of the all-time great dynasties. We think that's a very sensible analysis. You have to go back less than 10 years, to the Nebraska dynasty of the mid-90s, to find a program that was more dominant. The Cornhuskers won national titles in 1994, 1995 and 1997 and also played Florida State for the national title on Jan. 1, 1994, a game they lost 18-16. Only two teams have won three of four national titles. One was Notre Dame in the 1940s and the other was a Nebraska program just one decade ago. Nebraska went 49-2 from 1994-97, and all three national title teams were undefeated (the 'Huskers went 11-2 in 1996). They went 60-3 from 1993-97.
Sports fans tend to have short memories and the latest team, player, dynasty, etc. is always the best ever. People give short shrift to the past – and not just in sports. The examples are too numerous to mention, but I think the fact that Nebraska was forgotten so quickly is an example of that phenomenon.
USC was a great, exciting and talented team. Their three Heismans in four years is unprecedented. But at the end of the day, they did not win a single undisputed national title and fielded just one undefeated team. There are at least half a dozen teams that belong ahead of them on the list of all-time greats:
* Notre Dame of the 20s (Knute Rockne still holds the all-time coaching record with an .881 winning percentage)
* Notre Dame of the 1940s (Frank Leahy lost just three games the entire DECADE ... of course, he lost two years to military service. Still impressive. A great forgotten coach, second to Rockne in winning percentage at .864)
* Army of the 1940s (of course, that team had an obvious competitive advantage)
* Oklahoma of the 50s (record 47-game win streak)
* Alabama of the late 60s and 70s (the 1979 Alabama team was more dominant than any of Pete Carroll's USC teams)
* Miami of the 80s/90s
* Nebraska of the mid 90s (dominant, dominant program)
We could go back beyond that to the Harvards, Yales and Penns of 100-plus years ago, but we think it was very obviously a different game back then.
I don't necessarily disagree with your overall characterization of USC's football legacy. But I think you should have mentioned USC's 34-game winning streak. I believe the all-time record is 47 wins in a row by Oklahoma. Winning 34 in a row was a great accomplishment which I believe has not been matched by any other college football team in the 15-plus years I have watched the sport. – Jon Brodkin
CHFF: Well, the 34-game win streak was fairly well-known and well-hyped. And it was quite an accomplishment. So, we tried to provide the other viewpoint. With that said, the history of college football extends back 136 years, so 15 years of watching the game really makes it tough to judge teams by historical standards. We tried to put things in a little more historical context. And, as we stated, there have been a number of programs that were better, and for longer periods, than USC has been in recent years. Look at it this way: USC would have had to win the Rose Bowl over Texas and then go all of 2006 undefeated – after losing Bush, Leinart, White, et. al. – to match Oklahoma's 47-game win streak in the 1950s.
The Fillability Index has gaping holes that decimate its effectiveness. In particular, it ignores free agent signings, players acquired by trading draft picks, and players who missed the previous year due to injury, but are expected to play again at full capacity. Adjusting the system to compile a complete list of the players who have been assembled during the offseason would provide a more accurate look at the ability of a team's front office to address team needs. While the grades for some teams would not change, there would likely be dramatic changes for teams that do not rely solely on the draft for addressing team needs. – Robert "Rock" Howard
CHFF: First, we must commend you on a fantastic name for a football fan. Rock Howard. That's great. Do you know about Howard's Rock at Clemson? Pretty cool tradition. We love college football traditions. They're one of the reasons the  college game is far more entertaining than the pro game.
This original look was the foundation for the Fillability Index, and we linked to it several times in the piece. While we did not mention the James signing (and perhaps we should have), our D grade for Arizona was based upon the fact that it drafted solely to accentuate its strength (passing) and did nothing to beef up its defense.
As far as their other efforts in free agency, the Cardinals have signed just three other players, and two were defenders: DB Jack Brewer from Philly and DT Kendrick Clancy from the Giants. Rest assured, Brewer and Clancy are not the solutions to Arizona's defense problems, and the team still would have been well served drafting defensive studs.
They did not. Hence the poor grade. So, perhaps we should accentuate this more in the Fillability Index. But these signings were considered. Thanks for the note.
I was going through the archives (gotta get that football fix somehow between February and September), and found an article by a Mike Carlson that said some receiver who played back in the Great Depression was better than Jerry Rice. That's some of the most cockamamie football-related BS I'd ever read. Basically, Carlson is saying that because this Don Hutson character "dominated" at a time when the skill level required for playing in the NFL wasn't nearly as high as the skill level needed for playing in the XFL or even Arena Football League, that puts him not only in the same league as Rice, but even entitles him to a higher ranking.
Tell you what buddy – how many "teams" did the NFL even have back in the 1930s? Don't count the 1940-45 years – all the "men" were in uniform, so the NFL in those years was mostly bums, derelicts, and new college grads killing time before the draft letter arrived. Are you seriously saying that some dude who ran over a bunch of hobos, or whatever part-timers those early NFL owners managed to put in uniforms at a time when there were something like 10 teams in the whole league, is fit to even lick the balls of somebody who won his props in an NFL that had the likes of  Lawrence Taylor or Bill Romanowski?
And since I'm on the subject of bursting faux never-saw-it-myself-but-I'm-a-disgruntled-possible-conservative-so-everything-old-or-in-black-and-white-shaky-film-reel-must-be-great nostalgic bubbles, same goes for that Chuck Bednarik you guys are so fired up about. I like the picture of him posing over Gifford because, what the heck, who doesn't like seeing a pretty boy knocked out cold, but do you really think Bednarik could've lasted in the modern NFL, competing against today's skill level? – Khalid Elhassan
CHFF: Well, first, Chuck Bednarik would kick your ass. And he's like 90 years old.
Apparently, you suffer from something that plagues many people: an overemphasis on your moment in history and a lack of appreciation for the greats of the past. The bottom line is that Hutson dominated the league in a way that has been unmatched by any wide receiver, including Rice.
You can argue that the talent wasn't as great back then, but it's an impossible argument to prove. This doesn't mean you're wrong, just that your point can't be proven. We look at it this way: Rice was certainly a greater physical specimen than receivers of Hutson's generation. But, he had the benefit of modern training, diet and athletic science, along with an ability to devote his entire year to being a full-time football player. Had he played back in Hutson's era (1935-45), he would have been limited by the training standards of the era. On the other hand, Hutson, if he played in Rice's era, would have had all the benefits of modern training techniques. At the end of the day, we can only compare players within their era.
And here's something that truly distinguishes Hutson: He also played defensive back – a true two-way player – and was great on that side of the ball, too. In fact, in addition to the many records we chronicled in that piece last year, Hutson holds another amazing record: He recorded a TD pass and an INT in the same game 14 times over the course of his career. The No. 2 players on the list recorded a TD and INT in the same game just four times (thanks to Coach T.J. Troup for that bit of data). Hutson also kicked 172 of 184 extra points in his career. Yes, he did benefit from playing during World War II, when all the "real men" went off to war. In fact, he had his greatest season in 1942, the first year of depleted ranks because of the war effort.
But ask yourself this: Could Rice have dominated at DB, too, while handling placekicking duties? We don't know. But we know that Hutson could, and did. He was a transcendent performer. You should show a little more respect for the great players of football's long, glorious past.
As the Cold, Hard Football Facts state, Favre is 22 INTs short of George Blanda for the all-time lead. I think GB should give Brett the chance to be the best at what he does best: throw INTs and kill his Packers. If he comes in as the starter and plays every game, he should have the record by the ninth game, then after they have been eliminated and he has his precious record, take him out and put the future in. – Robert M. Faria
Hey guys! Great, great website. I'm a mad Dolphins fan of over 20 years now ... boy, where has that time gone? But anyway, I actually live in the UK and wanted to know if you delivered your t-shirts overseas? One of your football presenter ex-pats, a guy called Mike Carlson who lives over here, is always talking about your website. So I thought I'd finally check it out – and it's fab! – Shawn Moore
CHFF: Fab ... Did you say we're fab? A certain collection of four of your countrymen were fab. We're fat. FAT! Please. Show some respect.
We're ashamed to say that Carlson is also a contributor to the Cold, Hard Football Facts. Do a search for "Carlson" (the search button is in the upper right corner of every page) and you'll find some nifty articles he's done for us. Our favorite is his look at the original " Greatest Show on Turf." Great stuff. And, yes, we do deliver T-shirts overseas. Simply order one online and we'll send it out. They're half-price right now, too. We're trying to clear out last year's inventory and should have some much cooler "Our facts can beat up your opinions" T-shirts in this year. |
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The distance between Hutson (pictured here catching a pass against Detroit in 
