OwenGoBlue

November 2nd, 2016 at 12:38 PM ^

I read it occasionally and it feels like mining for diamonds in the rough. Two big differences: - Big drop off in talent (90% a kudos to Grantland rather than a dig at Ringer) - Focus on the shorter read and/or headline-with-a-few-clips pieces a la Buzzfeed like you said The Buzzfeed stuff seems to be about profitability - Ringer isn't getting the prestige subsidy from its investors the way Grantland did from ESPN. Still early so holding out hope they find and/or develop more Rembert, Wesley Morris-caliber talents.

Joined: 04/03/2016

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stephenrjking

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:20 PM ^

I think it's Robert Mays that does some good on-field analysis with helpful clips illustrating his point. That's about the best thing I've read there.

Overall the site has been a big letdown. It's not Grantland part two. They're trying too hard to be cool, to be "woke," to be funny, and to still talk about sports. And it's not really working.

Of course a big part of the problem is that it's a Bill Simmons product and Simmons has decided not to write anymore. And his tv show on HBO is tanking relative to other programs on the same network. This leads me to suspect that Bill Simmons has misread his audience; he started as kind of an everyman sports fan who crossed barriers but understood blue-collar fandom, but has evolved into a coastal insider that rubs shoulders with the elite (you know, the kind of people that watch HBO) and has forgotten that a lot of his fanbase wasn't the sort to subscribe to HBO in the first place. 

Every sports fan understands timeless Simmons material like "levels of losing," but that seems like the sort of product that neither he nor the people he hires are interested in writing anymore.

Joined: 03/15/2012

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ScruffyTheJanitor

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:32 PM ^

This is Simmons problem. Once he started being buddy-buddy with famous people, it was over for him. He couldn't be objective anymore. Once the he decided to take his Goodell hate to the NEXT LEVEL, he just ruined himself becuase he lost it on both ends: one, he now longer was "blue-collar" and, on the other hand, he was so Pro-Boston that most of his audience just didn't care. Its a shame, too, becuase there was a time when Simmons was great. 

Joined: 02/03/2011

MGoPoints: 12197

stephenrjking

November 2nd, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^

I don't care about his Boston bias because it is genuine. But part of why it worked is because there was an "everyman" aspect to it, an appeal to people who weren't fans of his teams but understood what it was like to be a long-suffering fan.

But now he's the sort of guy who can ignore the Bruins for years, write about it, and then when they're good fly across the country and scalp dream tickets to a game. He can actually get into a feud with his team's former coach on the air. He can actually talk to and be a part of the "inside."

It's completely different from the paradigm that he made his name in. And, to an extent, I can't begrudge him that (I would enjoy those opportunities if they were afforded to me) but he basically hasn't written anything significant in two years now and unless you already subscribe to the podcast or HBO you never even hear him. 

He was the Sports Guy, the guy who chaffed at the old guard, the guy who did something different than the newspaper columnists like Albom and Lupica who wrote about sports as a profession but looked down their noses at the people who actually cared about the teams, looking for every excuse to do something "greater."

Now he has become Albom and Lupica.

Joined: 03/15/2012

MGoPoints: 20143978

The Oracle

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^

So true. TheRinger has been such a disappointment. It seems to be a constant search for what the writers believe to be clever angles, but which usually turn out to be a complete waste of time. If you feel compelled to list the expected time it's going to take to read a story, it shows how little faith you have in the quality of your writing.

Joined: 12/31/2014

MGoPoints: 4730

gmoney41

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:35 PM ^

I found Grantland to be good, but nothing spectacular.  I hated their pop culture coverage, and their sports coverage was good.  They would occasionally have a very good article once in a while.  The Ringer is pretty bad.  Someone said it is too much like Buzzfeed, and I would agree with that.

Joined: 07/13/2009

MGoPoints: 3938

DK81

November 3rd, 2016 at 11:36 AM ^

I was just talking to my buddy about how well our kick coverage has been on punts and kicks this year under Harbaugh. Just from the eye test we haven't really given up yards at all besides maybe a a slight return or two in garbage time. Funny this article pops up after I complimented them.

Joined: 02/11/2012

MGoPoints: 598

Blueblood2991

November 2nd, 2016 at 12:15 PM ^

Glad to see Speight finally getting some recognition. Thought for sure it would be him.

They certainly have been allowing more return yards since they switched back to the pro style punt. Still enough games to tighten that up though considering we haven't had a ton of practice punting this year.

Joined: 06/11/2015

MGoPoints: 14348

OwenGoBlue

November 2nd, 2016 at 12:30 PM ^

I buy the idea they've figured out how to block a ton of punts and formationally will trade a few yards to lessen the risk of a game changing play. Makes sense for an approach with this defense. Will be interesting if spread punting returns in future years, as well as what it might look like. In the last 10 seconds I've totally talked myself into the merits of Train Punt.

Joined: 04/03/2016

MGoPoints: 31529

MGoBender

November 2nd, 2016 at 12:24 PM ^

In fairness, they address the kicking game before the kick coverage game. Seems to me they wanted to dig a little deeper beyond the obvious kicker situation.  Hey, I didn't know we were bottom half of nation in kick coverage. 

Joined: 03/26/2010

MGoPoints: 15128

stephenrjking

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:24 PM ^

I thought the article would be interesting, but these "flaws" don't seem like glaring issues other than perhaps Clemson's turnovers. We already know that the explosiveness metric they use to ding Alabama is broken, since Michigan also rates poorly in it. That's because teams run efficient plays so seldom that there just aren't many explosive plays anyway.

So I'm not seeing much here. I have worries about Michigan's ability to win it all, but the kicking game is not at the top of the list of issues I'm concerned about.

Joined: 03/15/2012

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M-Dog

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:33 PM ^

My concern in terms of being able to win a National Championship is still the O-Line.  We have a good O-Line, but not a championship O-Line.  

I love the Harbaugh play-calling, but our ability to run is still predicated on movement and misdirection and multiple looks.  We can't just tee off and pound straight ahead when we need to, especially in the red zone.  Teams like Alabama typically can.

Joined: 07/06/2008

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stephenrjking

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:58 PM ^

I totally agree. We have a monster D-Line, and so do Alabama and Clemson. There's a good chance we'll have to play both to win a national title. Our O-Line has shown growth, but it doesn't appear to be elite and I think it is vulnerable against the best of the best. It happened against OSU last season, and, looking further back, it was a serious issue in both USC Rose Bowls we played in the 00s. 

 

Joined: 03/15/2012

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Bo Glue

November 2nd, 2016 at 1:32 PM ^

While listed for Alabama, that has been our biggest statistical hole throughout the season in the Five Factors. I think it would be a fair criticism of our defense.

Joined: 04/02/2012

MGoPoints: 13007

MadMatt

November 2nd, 2016 at 2:27 PM ^

I'm not knocking the author, whose has very legitimate takes on the data.  Also, he admitted he was looking for a weakpoint, relative to all the things these top 4 teams do well.  He was not looking for things they do poorly in the absolute, compared to all of CFB.

What struck me was just how much Alabama and Michigan are ahead of even Clemson and Washington.  I can see opponents building a game plan around his observations on Clemson and Washington.  (Caveat on Clemson: only because he pointed out that interceptions are a primary cause of Clemson's turnover struggles.  If it was simply Clemson was loosing a lot of fumbles, I'd attribute it to small sample size bad luck that is likely to regress to the mean.)

In contrast let's look at what he says about Alabama.  Vulnerability to big plays?  Please, we've been over this with Michigan's alleged weakness to giving up big plays on defense.  When your defense's efficiency is so good (i.e. so few offensive plays that are successful), a higher percentage of those few successful plays will be big gainers.  In other words, out of 100 snaps on defense, two big plays out of ten sucessful plays is 20% explosiveness.  Superficially, this looks worse than those same 100 snaps leading to five big plays out of fifty successful ones (10%).  But, do you really think that 2 big plays out of a 100 is a bigger concern than 5?

Turning to Michigan, he has two prongs.  One, the placekicker has missed some field goals.  Dude, that is a low sample size, vulnerable to streakiness set of events.  In his last game, Allen was 3 for 3 including one from 44 yards.  Also, if he really had the yips, he would look shakey on XPs, which he does not.  Two, the raw kick coverage numbers look bad.  OK, Michigan still looks outstanding in starting field position, which tells me the defense's ability to force punts early in drives is overcoming Michigan's questionable kick coverage.  Also, the opponent's ST better take it to the house, because Michigan's defense is also outstanding in preventing scoring when the other team gets inside the 40 or the 20.

Hey, college football is college football, and inconsistency is endemic.  But, if this is what you call a "fatal flaw," you have rich people problems.

Joined: 11/06/2013

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I Heart Huckleby

November 2nd, 2016 at 3:35 PM ^

He's also flawed in just pointing at the "long opponent kick returns" stat page, which shows Michigan has given up 5 returns of 30+ (1 of which was returned for 40-50 yards). The issue is that this is a raw number which will be somewhat dependent on number of returns, and there's a wide variation in sample size. I mean, evey team kicks off once per game (start of game or after halftime) but otherwise you only kickoff when you score. Michigan is in the top 10 of number of kickoffs (64) because we score a lot, giving more opportunities for opponent returns. On the flip side our oppnents have only kicked off to us 23 times (!).

Compare this with some of the other teams who haven't given up a raw number long returns and you'll see quite a few of them don't score much, or kick a lot of touchbacks. As others have pointed out, our field position rankings are elite. Ultimately, it seems like grasping at straws to find a weak raw stat. I'll gladly take a killer O who scores tons of TD's who also gives up a 35 yard return every 12th time we kick off.

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