Listening to him talk football is a close parallel for me to reading this site. Insightful discourse on sports I like, at a level that's just a bit beyond my comprehension. : ) With the right amount of levity, enough space for tangents to be pursued...
Couple years back, I accompanied my girlfriend at the time to a wedding of a friend of hers. Ate at a table that included a guy named Hugh and his wife - later we chatted for a while, just the four of us, although mostly it was the ladies talking. Driving home my gf mentioned she thought Hugh was QB for the Huskies at one point. ::headdesk:: All afternoon and evening, I had no idea! LOL. Walked around for a couple days regretting that I hadn't even told him how much I enjoyed his work.
Millen always has interesting takes on things. I roll my eyes at the platitudes that most sports 'analysts' throw out there. Millen will take a stand. From the second he laid eyes on Larry Fitzgerald in his rookie year, he was calling him a superstar. He hates Deion Branch. : ) His takes on the different iconic coaches he played under is very iilluminating and entertaining.
Anyway, I caught some of that radio this morning as well. You're right, radio at its best!
Mitch Levy can be shockingly good when he's in the mood to talk sports, and this morning's segment with Hugh Millen was scintillating. The two of them were give-and-go'ing the soccer ball all the way down the flank, Levy asking brilliant setup questions and Millen driving one Andrey Arshavin blast after another by the keeper.
Great radio.
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One thing I'd been wondering about: is John Carlson's success sustainable? I mean, precisely what is the difference between Carlson and (say) the #15 tight end in the NFL?
I'm not a fan of Levy's, but the man is so smart that he is one of the few guys who knows when he's dumb. He defers to Hugh Millen when it comes to analyzing what an NFL secondary looks like at the 3-second mark after a snap.
So Levy asked Millen exactly what, if anything, makes John Carlson special from a quarterback's point of view.
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=== Outside and Inside Receivers ===
Millen instantly noted that to a quarterback, there are two completely different kinds of pass targets.
On the outside, for a split end, "it's all about athleticism." The question is very simple: can the SE beat the corner on a straight Go route.
IFF he can, then the SE needs only technique and moves to make hooks, outs, etc. work.
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I found this very comparable to baseball, by the way. IFF a pitcher has a 93+ fastball, then any kind of decent offspeed pitch is going to be very effective, since the hitter has to respect the FB first.
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The point is, Carlson isn't to be compared to wideouts because he doesn't face the speed-burner cornerbacks. Carlson -- and Houshmandzadeh and Branch, by the way -- are inside receivers.
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=== The Zone Game ===
Millen then explained that the inside guys are facing zones. (Edit to add that this is because the LB's are too slow, and the safeties too small, to deal with elite possession receivers in 1-on-1 coverage.)
Being that you're facing zones inside, the QB's question is whether a slot guy has the right feel for flashing into empty "seams" that open and close constantly.
As Millen conveyed, a QB has to look left, read target 1 and 2, and then he has to QUICKLY turn with his arm in the air and throw to a flashing possession receiver who is hitting a gap at the right time. Most possession receivers simply aren't gifted at picking the best locations. And even fewer guess along with the QB.
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Dr. D would relate this to basketball. Against good defenses, the point guard / power forward assist is so delicate that it's almost a psychic thing. The PF and PG have to be thinking about the same things to find openings in the defense.
It's a cliche, but it's true. The difference between the best duos, and lesser duos, is a question of delicate timing.
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Millen reports that John Carlson is innately blessed with this delicate timing -- that he anticipates holes, and angles into them logically. And even more to the point, he anticipates the angles the same way Matt Hasselbeck does.
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Along with this Carlson has better quickness than other tight ends, though not better speed. When he sees a gap opening he can "burst" into it.
On a different radio segment, Carlson himself was being interviewed and claimed that he was simply uncovered :- ) on his two TD's and the 38-yarder. Okay, sure, uncovered because he instantly went to the right place after Housh rubbed off the safety.
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Along with this, Carlson (as we know) has much better hands than the average tight end -- his hands are probably better than most FL/SE's.
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Along with this, Carlson is very difficult to "punish" after the catch.
All safeties will tell you that if a receiver is willing to take the blow, then sure, he can find a seam and take the ball. The defender will be there one step later to thank him for his efforts. It's sort of like Joe Nash scoring easily provided that he's willing to take the elbow to the side of the head from Ben Wallace.
But Carlson has the knack for taking the ball, hammerlocking it between two arms, and then presenting a solid-steel target for smaller safeties. Often it's open to question who's going to take the punishment -- on his 30+ yard touchdown, the Cardinal safety actually veered away from hitting him.
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So you've got a big, iron-hard target with strong ankles who bursts into the softest spots of the defense, hangs onto the ball, and then deflects punishment after.
I guess Carlson is going to get his 80-90 catches a year.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
They'll probably result in one extra read tomorrow... don't let the threat sway you :- )
That says a bunch for Millen's personality that he could chat with you for that long and never tip you off that he's a local celeb. I haven't listened to him much -- haven't followed the Hawks much since about 2006 -- but am certainly going to start.
Football is so much different from baseball in terms of the gap between what the experts understand and what we fans understand. It's not a comment on baseball experts; it's a comment on how well baseball is subject to mathematical evaluation.
Do you expect that a non-playing fan, if he put a Bill James-type effort into it, could ever understand the game on the level that a Millen does?
You are absolutely right, the intricacies of football are just bewildering to even a more-than-casual fan like myself...
There are a ridiculous # of simultaneous events happening at any moment in football. And they evolve very rapidly. In baseball, you have some positioning things that happen, some orchestration between fielders, but it is largely isolated events.
Millen was talking about a Hass interception that was, in his mind, Burleson's fault. Because Burleson turned his head toward the quarterback for a second, and slowed briefly, and rotated his hips a few degrees, or somesuch... LOL! Like 99.9% of fans are going to see that.
Too, if a fan follows their team, that's only 16 games a year to try to understand what's happening out there. vs. 162. Heh!
Maybe this is why I enjoy listening to him talk about football. It's like listening to Sister Wendy Beckett talk about art. It's not that I'm a huge art fan... But the wealth of detail and WHY behind all the things that you do or don't notice in a scene is fascinating.
I don't know that anyone who hasn't played the game could understand football on the same level as an uber-analytical guy who has actually played the game. And played the game for several of the best football minds in history.
Pretty much anybody you ever listen to, who played QB under Don James, is a walking encyclopedia about everything happening on a football field. Have heard Pelluer, Chandler, all those guys sound the same way.
Field Gulls has an interesting piece on Deon Butler.
With Carlson, Housh and Branch all slot-receiver types, it becomes easy to understand why the Hawks spent a high pick on the best SE-type available.