by Jordan Raanan from www.eaglesville.com
8/6/2008- AM & PM Practices
Lito Sheppard isn’t afraid to speak his mind, even if he’s rebutting a comment from the owner. Sheppard spoke his mind freely following Wednesday’s uneventful morning practice, responding to owner Jeffrey Lurie’s criticism of the former Pro Bowl cornerback’s YPA.
What is YPA you may ask? It is the yards per pass attempt allowed by a cornerback. Apparently Sheppard had a high YPA in 2007, although the obscure stat is not easily obtainable. In fact, unless you are a statistic freak, you’ve probably never even heard of YPA.
“I saw that. I guess you have to find something bad against me, huh?” Sheppard said after returning for the first time in three days from a groin strain.
The discontent Sheppard happens to be in search of a new contract. Taking public offense to the owner’s comment — even if he is speaking honestly — might not be the best negotiating tactic.
“I’m not hiding. I know what I can do,” Sheppard said. “Everybody knows what I can do. If you have to dig that deep to bring up something that I can’t do good, hey, that shows how good a player I am. I tip my hat off to him for expressing that.”
Sheppard has never heard of YPA. The coaches have never mentioned it either.
“Shoot, I didn’t even know they kept that,” he said. “I look at the amount of touchdowns I give up, big plays [I surrender] and big plays I make. If you want to get down to how many inches I give up a play, then so be it. Guess what, I can play this game and I can play it well, so however you nitpick about it, I can do what I do.”
Regardless, Sheppard is not getting a new contract right now. Barring injury, he’s not even going to be a starter. He’s slated to be the Eagles’ third cornerback behind Asante Samuel and Sheldon Brown, even though Samuel is listed as the starter on the left side and Brown and Sheppard are co-starters on the right according to the Eagles’ media book for the preseason opener Friday in Pittsburgh.
“I didn’t know you could start 12 people,” Sheppard joked.
Samuel is almost certain to miss the preseason opener due to a hamstring problem that has sidelined him almost all of training camp. As long as he’s healthy, the free-agent signing from New England will start Week 1 in Sheppard’s old spot on the left. It’s nothing personal against Samuel, but this doesn’t sit well with Sheppard.
“That’s a good way to put it, disappointed,” Sheppard said. “With everything I’ve done for this organization and everything I continue to do, if you can only find negative negative stuff to talk about me, I guess that shows how cutthroat this business is.”
Afternoon
The Eagles are getting ready for the preseason opener Friday night in Pittsburgh. In the meantime, practices are becoming easier. There is no hitting, most of the drills are being run at half speed and everybody is itching to leave Lehigh University. Nothing against the school or anything, but the Birds just want to be somewhere else right now and hit someone not wearing green.
So the preparation continues. And so does the talk about YPAs. (For more on YPAs check the AM report.)
First, here is what owner Jeffrey Lurie said Monday to spark the conversation of the otherwise unknown statistic:
“I will say that I’m very hopeful that Lito [Sheppard] will have a terrific season, [that he will] show us, and the league, that he’s back to the old Lito, feels healthy [that] he’s got great playmaking ability and certainly a lower YPA and just performs the way that we know Lito can.”
Say what you want, Lurie made a mistake. There was no need for him to mention the obscure number. It was a knock on Sheppard, who just so happens wants his contract renegotiated – which the Eagles are not going to offer him now. It proves that the Eagles’ football decision-makers have talked about the two-time Pro Bowl cornerback’s poor performance last season with the owner present.
Lito can’t be optimistic about his chances for a new deal. He had no idea what YPA is and the coaches or front office never mentioned anything about it to him in the past. Sheldon Brown was equally confounded by the newfound statistic.
“I don’t know what it means,” Brown said. “They did a stat like that?”
When it was explained to Brown, he was even more perplexed that the team’s owner would use such a subjective stat. YPA is a number calculated by K.C. Joyner, who writes an ESPN.com column and is a football statistics-based researcher, derived from the number of yards per attempt allowed by a cornerback. The problem is that in football, it’s not always easy for an outsider to assign fault for a completed pass.
“If you’re in Cover 2, who are you going to put the YPA on? To me, YPA doesn’t mean anything. I don’t believe in YPA. I believe in the stats that matter,” Brown said.
The stats that matter to Brown are forced fumbles, interceptions and breaking up third-down passes to get the ball back for your offense. Everything else is just foolish.
“If you play Cover 1, Green Bay for example, those corners may have high YPAs,” said Brown, noting Green Bay plays a lot of 1-on-1 coverage that leaves the cornerbacks on islands succeptible to get beat deep. “If you are in Indy, TB, Chicago, where you are straight playing Cover 2 [zone with safety help], who are you putting those passes on, the coaches man? If a guy runs deep and a safety blew the coverage and I’m chasing him, now that’s my YPA? I want to meet the guy who is making this up?”
Maybe one day Lurie can introduce him because the Eagles’ brass obviously considers it a viable stat to judge their corners. At least when it comes to contract negotiations.
