The Inches We Need by Dave Archibald, review

Archibald does a good job of explaining the details of how this fits together. He points out that a team that spends more on its defensive front will typically employ a defensive scheme giving more help in the backfield. On offense, as most fans are aware, rookie contracts incentivise playing young QBs as soon as possible. But Archibald also points out that practice time has been cut so much that teams can only really evaluate young QBs by playing them.

Even a team that gives everything right might not be successful because the NFL is a league of tight margins. Hence Archibald’s title: it’s about getting ahead of the opposition by an inch here and there. This book provides a thorough overview of how that happens.

THE AUTHOR

Dave Archibald has written about the NFL for Inside The Pylon, The Washington Post and NFL Spin Zone. The Inches We Need is his first book.

EXCERPTS

“Teams have to decide whether to devote more resources to the defensive front or to the back end. Generally, whichever side gets more resources, the other will get more scheme help. Some of this is dictated by decisions above—zone teams tend to invest less at cornerback and more in the pass rush. Man-to-man teams need more coverage investment and generally scheme up more rush. Odd front teams tend to scheme up their rush and thus don’t need to invest as much there; 4-3 teams need quality pass rushers, since they’re more predictable, but can often skimp a little on the back end.”

“Economists Cade Massey and Richard Thaler point out that the draft involves two activities that cause human beings to act irrationally: predicting the future and competitive bidding. (…) A player gets drafted by a team, not by consensus. Many teams may rank a player lower than he winds up getting drafted; this may even be the rule rather than the exception. This economic phenomenon is known as the “winner’s curse”: the team that “wins the bid” (drafts the player highest) is the team with the most optimism for the player in a world of incomplete information; thus, they often wind up “overpaying” (drafting earlier than the player warrants).”

“This is the blueprint for maximising comp picks, as shown by the Rams, the Patriots, and the Baltimore Ravens: sign players who were cut, not unrestricted free agents. Acquire players through trade. Trade for players with one year left on their deal. And structure contracts such that you don’t need to cut players at the end of the deal.”

“Note that fans and media often have an unrealistic picture of what success rates look like throughout the draft. As noted above, many first round picks fail, and the drop-off gets worse every round. Dimitroff analysed fourth-round picks and found fewer than 14% became starters and less than half were even active throughout their rookie contracts.”

“I’m not going to claim Trubisky would have been Mahomes or vice versa in different circumstances, but we have to notice the marked difference in the quality of environment each was dropped into. And that matters for development.”

“But looking beyond the one-year lens, at players who earn honours year-after-year as part of great defenses, we see the safety position take on elevated importance. Seventeen safeties showed up on the list three or more times, the most of any position; 11 showed up four or more times, again most.”

“But while there’s evidence that coverage carries more value than pass rush, players that get after the passer perform more consistently than defenders that cover receivers. PFF found pass rush grades have a correlation of 0.62 year-to-year, coverage grades just 0.34.19 So perhaps a star edge rusher has less impact than a shutdown corner, but you know what you’re getting.”

REVIEW


Dave Archibald opens by saying he set out to write a book that filled the gaps in Bill Walsh’s classic Finding the Winning Edge. That’s not as hubristic as it might sound. Walsh’s book was written before teams had really gotten to grips with free agency and the salary cap, and its scattergun approach means you’re just as likely to get the coach’s advice on why you should prank the players as you are his thoughts on drafting.

On those terms, the book largely succeeds. Even if you think you know a lot about how NFL teams are assembled, Archibald will frequently drop in a detail to surprise you. Furthermore, it’s good to have all this knowledge in one place.

There are weaknesses, however. Archibald isn’t a working NFL reporter so he doesn’t have a list of coaches and GMs he can interview. Instead he has conducted exhaustive research, finding key bits of information in a vast number of books and articles. That’s remarkable in itself, but I often wished Archibald could have put his own questions to some football insiders.

The other issue is that this is self-published. My copy, from Amazon’s Kindle store, had out-of-sequence footnotes, so tapping to see where a quote came from led to an unrelated footnote. Also, a professional editor would probably better integrate the material from Inside the Pylon, such as case studies, which breaks the flow of the main narrative.

A second edition, drawing on interviews with NFL insiders and edited by a specialist sports publisher would deserve a place alongside Finding the Winning Edge on any shelf. Nevertheless, this is a really strong book in its own right. I recommend it unreservedly to anyone with an interest in how NFL teams are put together.
Shane Richmond, Pigskin Books

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