Just stats given. No commentary at all, nor did I quote anyone.
I understand. That's why my initial response wasn't aimed at you. The reason I quoted your stats was to respond to the poster (Steelz) who took your stats, quoted them, and built a "See? The team was right, Allen is totally better, and anyone who disagrees is an *******" stance. I see how that would be confusing, that I quoted your stats to respond to him. My mistake for the confusion.
Not saying anything about the comparison between the two, just that, maybe, Lewis wasn't really all that (or at least hadn't shown it to the coaches) to be kept when someone very similar was on the roster.
Honest question about the PD stat. I understand about INT's (hence not completely reliant on them...), but PD's and being avoided by the QB's just doesn't make sense. In addition, we DID need someone who could create turnovers and Lewis, after 4 years, hadn't shown he could do so. I don't know if that WAS part of the decision making process, but it makes sense to me.
For one, PDs are just as unofficial and subjective a stat as tackles are. So it's a measure I inherently distrust anyway, for the most part.
Beyond that, I don't really have an answer. All I can do is say that any objective observer knows that Darrelle Revis is the league's most dominant corner, and a much better CB in every facet than the dozens of guys who beat him in PDs and INTs. So I put very little stock into those stats. Situation usually (not always, but usually) dictates PD and INT numbers more so than quality of play.
Seems to me, that Allen and Lewis are pretty close. Neither one significantly better than the other, at the same point in their careers
Yes, if we rely solely on tackle, INT, and PD statistics, they do look very close. In fact, Allen even looks a hair better. What I'm pointing out is that that method also "proves" that Logan Ryan was WAY better than Peterson and Revis last season. Therefore, I say the method has to be pretty much thrown in the trash.
It's like ESPN's QBR stat. It looks very pretty: an easy, efficient way to evaluate the play of a QB purely from stats. ESPN describes it as a way to analyze exactly how much a QB contributed to his team's chances of winning. Sounds awesome. But consider that, in 2008, Ben Roethlisberger somehow had a lower QBR than both Dan Orlovsky and Tyler Thigpen. Somehow, both finished with HIGHER QBRs than Ben did. Ben is a HOF QB who went 15-4 that year and won the Super Bowl with a game-winning TD pass. Orlovsky and Thigpen combined to go 1-23 that season. But somehow, this stat "proved" that Orlovsky and Thigpen were better and more valuable QBs than Ben that year. That's so goddamn ridiculous that it should call the entire QBR method into question, if not help to discredit it entirely.
The main difference I see is that people here ridicule the FO and coach because Lewis wasn't signed and ***** because Allen was. I haven't seen enough difference between the two to reach such a conclusion. No idea how anyone else does. (Another difference is that I don't consider people who do see the difference as stupid people who don't know **** about football).
Lots of people here wanted Lewis re-signed. Some of those who did may even be OK with this signing.
I agree fully that Lewis was not some grand revelation in his last year with us. He was not an immovable chess piece in our future, and I wasn't devastated when we let him walk. I was, however, greatly annoyed that he signed elsewhere so inexpensively (and more so when he went on to have, by all accounts, an outstanding year in New Orleans). I had assumed he was leaving us for much greener pa$ture$, that he would be offered a bloated deal that we'd be stupid to match. As it turned out, we apparently had no interest in bringing him back at a reasonable price tag.
What annoys me now is that we've taken the same contract Lewis signed in New Orleans - presumably, that's what we could have retained him for - and handed it to Allen. Allen has yet to have a season as good as Lewis did for us in 2012. To me it smacks of Marcus Gilbert and Chris Kemo - the deep, abiding need by this front office to retain ALL of its mediocre starters and pay full market value for them. We didn't used to do that. We used to let productive players and fan favorites walk away without batting an eye if they asked for much more than they were worth. We used to only bust our balls to bring back guys who were (a) good and (b) reasonably/affordably priced. We were the best in the league at doing so. Now, it seems we just hand out market value contracts to any nominal starter who's about to walk. It's as though we feel Marcus Gilbert and Cortez Allen are NEEDED players; how could we possibly compete without them?! Gilbert is a soft turnstile who has been benched repeatedly; Mike Adams' crappiness is his saving grace in that without Adams' frequent benchings, Gilbert would probably be an afterthought. Allen to me is a mediocre, unproven CB at this point who has proven nothing. Yet both those guys were given starter-level contracts before even reaching RFA status, let alone being allowed to test the market. I mean, are these guys SERIOUSLY essential to our core? Could we SERIOUSLY not bring in someone cheaper than Marcus Gilbert to provide at least Marcus Gilbert-level play? Sheesh.
I don't hate Cortez Allen, and I didn't love Keenan Lewis when he walked. But I think this new FO method looks ******. Re-sign everyone and anyone, and do it FAST, because he's The Man For Us and that's that. Sure, he's never been much of a player, but we MUST keep him on board. We could never dream of replacing the production of Marcus Gilbert and Cortez Allen with cheaper and/or more promising options. Apparently, this back-to-back 8-8 team is not to be tinkered with.
