Writing the Pine

An interesting debate sparked today after it was announced that Charles Woodson won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award.  Some WtP guys thought that New York’s own Darrelle Revis should’ve won but a few guys actually came to Woodson’s defense.  Here’s how it went (it goes without saying that mature language is used):

David Im: Charles woodson wins defensive player of the year. Revis snubbed?

Young: hell no. charles woodson deserved that award hands down.

Anderson: Revis def. got snubbed.

Eden: woodson had the numbers to back it up

Young: how is this even being debated??

Woodson

Tackles – 74
Solo – 66
Forced Fumbles – 4
Interceptions – 9 for 179 yds with 3 tds
Sacks – 2.0
Stuffs – 9 for a loss of 13 yds

Revis
Tackles – 54
Solo – 47
No sacks, no stuffs,
Forced Fumbles = 0
Interceptions – 6 for 121 yds with 1 td

Woodson’s meant just as much to that packer defense as Revis has meant to the Jets. And what he did vs the Cowboys was shut em down like they aint pay their bills.

Eden: the argument for revis reminds me of the argument for a bruce bowen/ron artest type winning defensive player of the year. except in football the individual impact of one player isnt as significant as in basketball. they might render the opposing team’s best player ineffective, but unless theres an established, quantifiable stat for it, ppl won’t recognize how much of an impact that player has. they’ll always recognize interceptions (steals), tackles (blocks), etc.

plus woodson is well known and every damn time a green bay game is televised they always make note of the fact that he’s the only defensive player to win the heismann.

Peter: CHARLES WOODSON

FROM………………….

Eden: and btw football stats blow. the game is too complex for such simple stats.

take sacks for instance – unless you’re on the defensive line, sacks should be considered in terms of blitz attempts.

as a cornerback there should also be passes thrown into your coverage, although that would be tough to do especially if there’s zone or multiple coverage. these stats would be very revealing though and would probably make the case for revis much more compelling

Rich: no eden.

he has the numbers to “pack” it up.

…

but seriously, I thought revis was the DPOY. the person that listed the WRs that were held under 35 yards against Revis forgot to mention that Moss and OchoCinco was held under 35 yards TWICE. He had a ridiculous year. The best WRs in the league couldn’t get it going against Revis.

Especially when the Jets loss Kris Jenkins, they were still able to scheme aggressively under Rex Ryan because Revis could shutdown the opposing team’s number 1 WR in single coverage. Leaving other personnel available for their “exotic” blitz schemes and coverages.

I thought it was also pretty crazy that Manning won the MVP by such a large margin. and no love for CJ 4.24 / light-blue TD jesus and his 2,000 yard season.

keeper league bitches. keeper league.

David Im: I suppose revis didn’t win for the same reasons namdi asamougha has never won.

David Lee: Snubbed. No one shut down opposing #1’s like revis did. Best single season performance from a db in a very long time. Easy to get high #1 of tackles when ur frontline let’s ppl get to the secondary all the time.

Woodson’s award was a feel-good award, a sentimental pick. No question about it. It’s like giving a player a lifetime achievement award, like denzel at training day, like kobe in 08 when bron def was better, etc.

Anderson: u realized revis has held the best (Moss twice, Andre johnson, Marques Colston, TO (twice), Steve Smith (car), Roddy White, and Ocho (twice) to under 35 yards receiving right? Not to mention some of the QBs he’s gone up against (brady, brees, ryan, schaub)

The Jets defense finished the season as the best defense in the League. For the first 4 games, i thought that was in large part to Kris Jenksins, but after he went down, they stuck in nobodies on the D-line. Revis impacts the game so much that voters cant see because the jets arent on national TV that much. Being able to play man-to-man without any repercussions lets your frontt 7 play so much more agggressively and thats why the jets defense are as great as they (much respect to david harris and bart scott). The packers have 3 pro bowlers on that defense, a great offense to complement the defense and they played the lions twice for heavens sake!

David Lee: Wowww reading young’s emails is getting me so flustered. In class so really vant respond but pretty much reviis was snubbed, period. Numbers aren’t everything. I feared this in week 10 when all the espn riders were writing woodsons cock.

Young: numbers arent everything i agree, but how can you discredit the numbers Woodson’s put up to say revis was snubbed??

Have you seen all packers games? have you seen more jets games than packers games? do you hear about the jets more so than any packer on the daily? yeah so what’s the basis of your arguments then? That he shutdown top receivers? that he held moss, ochocinco, etc to ineffective days? You can’t give a defensive player of the year award because the QB didnt throw it that way.

David Lee: Yo wow young. Really? Revis didn’t do shit just bc the qbs happened to not throw that way? Its bc revis takes away half the field. Having high tackle #s as a db doesn’t necessarily mean its a good thing.

Young: im saying you don’t win defensive player of tyear if you’re not “involved” in plays. If moss gets thrown to 3 times a game because revis is sticking him like glue na dbrady doesnt wanna get picked off, its GREAT defense, but you don’t win defensive player of the year for that. The same reason why Mariano Rivera doesn’t win Cy Youngs although being perhaps the greatest pitcher in the last decade and a half. and in the last decade, the argument could be made that he’s deserved it a year or two.

Woodson’s numbers were ridiculous. Numbers aint everything but 9ints, 3tds, 4ffs?! To say that Revis deserved DPOY because the Jets have the #1 defense, he takes away half the field and all these real subjective biases is ridiculous.

Yes, # of tackles doesn’t necessarily mean its a good thing. On the other side, Revis has a higher number of pass deflections. That’s not necessarily a good thing either right? agreed, as it can go both ways, in that a) he played good enough defense to knock the ball down or b) he was thrown to so many times that maybe half the field wasn’t cut off.

So stats arent everything, but we can all agree the same standard that stats are calculated for Woodson, was how Revis was measured by the league. To say that well Revis’ stats were skewed by the level of competition and all this other shit isn’t fair to Woodson or to Revis. At the end of the day, Woodson had the better defensive year as a player, thus the award should absolutely have gone to him.

Defense is about reacting to what the offense gives you and making plays, whether its the Patriots or the Lions, you still react to the offense and make plays. Woodson made more effective plays individually, no matter how you look at it.

David Lee: i agree with a lot of your points, but I think that Revis had the overall better performance.

Stats are stats. Numbers never tell the whole story.

If someone who plays both safety and cornerback has fewer tackles than a cornerback, he’s doing something wrong. it is NATURAL that he would have those opportunities.

If you watch the jets, the guys comign off the corners for blitzes are safeties or a corner not named Revis. those guys have mroe chances to force fumbles, get tackles, etc.

The reason I’m saying that having more tackles as a corner is that corners are supposed to deny the catch. if you are a corner and you allow your WR to catch the ball every time but you tackle him immediately after, you are not a good corner. That’s why I said having a high number of tackles doesn’t mean you’re better, at least as a cornerback. Having a high number of passes deflected is actually a good thing, a very good thing and there is no other way to look at it. And if you look at how many chances revis had to knock away passes (not that many at all), it’s even more impressive.

Woodson is no longer considered a shutdown corner (he actually was never considered a shutdown corner as a pro), so he doesn’t command the same respect as Revis. That’s why more QBs throw in his direction, and he has more chances to make plays. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but most of the star WRs that sucked vs Revis were thrown to like 4-5 times in teh first half and then the QBs woudl just give up. And Revis STILL managed to get 6 INTs on the year. That is ridiculous!

I’m not playing homer on this one, I just genuinely feel that Revis had the better year. The number of pass-first teams where he just completely dominated the star WR to the point where you asked yourself “is he injured? where is he?” is just crazy. If there has been a better single season performance by a cornerback in the NFL not named Deion, i’d love to see it.

And it is unbelievable how little credit Chris Johnson gets from the media. This guy is the NFL’s #1 back in just his 2nd year as a pro. Completely dominated every single game this year and is the most electric player since barry sanders (completely my opinion, don’t kill me for that statement).

Eden: id say its cause he plays for the titans and they had that terrible start to the season. i feel like only fantasy players who owned chris johnson or played against a team and got raped by him (me) understand just how good he was this year.

David Lee: He was so good that I’d never pass a single sunday without going to nfl.com and rewatching chris johnson hightlights… And the highlight clips are like 3 mins long at the very least. Ridic.

Young: well one the award is called the defensive player of the year award and not the defensive back of the year, so all the other things like coming off the end for a blitz, etc factors into why Woodson had the better overall year as a defensive player. the argument of whos the better corner is not debated here because that is revis because he’s younger and quicker.

” if you are a corner and you allow your WR to catch the ball every time but you tackle him immediately after, you are not a good corner.” well woodson obviously did not let a WR catch teh ball every time so this statement is ridiculous as it applies to neitehr woodson or revis.

Having a high number of passes deflected is actually a good thing, a very good thing and there is no other way to look at it.

-nmandi asomugha had 3 pass deflections ALL YEAR. does that make him a horrible corner? no, it actually can make him look like a ridiculously good one. OR it can make him look like he never deflected any passes (let the WR catch em or just played so good D that he never deflected it but the receiver never caught it). so you’re whole thing about QBs not throwing it to Revis Island, well, Revis Island turned away quite a few passes it seems so qbs must have thrown it his way for him to knock it down. I bring up #of pass deflections not to say who’s better but to agree that stats dont say everything. except stats like 3 tds and 4 forced fumbles.

-i think this year Woodson has proved he can be a shutdown corner still, but like i said, revis is liek 28, woodson is like 33. im not really debating who’s the better cornerback, but who was most deserving of the DPOY

and you are playing homer because you havent seen Woodson play as much as you’ve seen Revis. While you can say “ive seen him shut down a WR where a qb throws 4-5 times and then says fuck it” about Revis, can you honestly and objectively say that about Woodson? I’ve seen 3 games all year that woodson played. the cowboys, the lions on thanksgiving, and parts of both ariz games, so even I can’t say the specifics on how the other team reacts to woodson.

the only player from michigan taht doesn’t make plays is Braylon Edwards.

There’s a lot more to this debate but we’ll end it with that zinger.  So what do you think?  Vote above and leave a comment to voice your opinion!