Attyla the Hawk":1ctiad5a said:
SeaToTheHawks":1ctiad5a said:
tonyseahawk":1ctiad5a said:
A snapper sailing balls out of reach from the holder or the punter can cost you ANY game. Thats a fact
Still not 1 or 2 games of added value over a replacement. I know that's primarily a baseball stat, but most will understand the relevant comparison here.
I do think it could be that high.
Long snappers only get maybe 8 plays a game. But they are all in highly leveraged situations. Bad snaps can by themselves cost points directly in place kick attempts. And in the case of punts, where a punt is blocked or a punter has to pull it back and gets tackled for loss of down -- those are more directly attributable to expected points for the other team than a turnover is.
So yeah bad snaps can most definitely be worth that much. Particularly for teams that play close games. Seattle rarely is up or down more than 10 points from their opponents. For an air raid team that has to score 35 a game to have a good chance of winning -- botched snaps aren't a big deal. But for teams that play closer contests with game control in mind that consistency is highly pronounced.
Seattle is a flip the field/ball control team. We don't aggressively sell out to force 4th downs. We actively allow teams to move the ball and instead count on the fact that teams won't be as likely to put together 10 play scoring drives by way of unforced error. Field position is absolutely crucial to how we go about winning games in our core philosophy.
This is a good argument, about as solid as one could make for an LS, but I still will not buy an LS having a 1 or 2 game impact.
Let's consider all the unique positions:
QB
RB
FB
WR
TE
C
G
OT
DT
DE
ILB
OLB
FS
SS
CB
P
K
LS
KR
PR
So that is 20 unique positions.
16games/20positions = .8 wins per position if it were attributed equally.
But as well all know that's not even close to the case. QB is going to be the highest and by a long shot. Let's say conservatively 4?
That leaves 12/19 = .63 wins
But of course, still other positions are going to be higher, and on, and on. And LS is not going to be top 5, maybe not even top 10. I don't know, I'd have to sit and think a while to rank the positions in order of importance.
You get the picture.
And I do know what you're trying to say, that late in the game, closely contested, a bad snap could end it. But that's not how value over replacement works. That single play in a game of 100+, is not the sole reason the game was lost.
