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Secondary concerns
Cold, Hard Football Facts for January 14, 2008
 By Jonathan ComeyCold, Hard Football Facts slant thrower
When we started breaking down the NFL playoffs, one fact jumped out: the top 11 teams in Defensive Passer Rating all made the postseason.
Wow, we thought. That's impressive. A lot of good secondaries out there, should be a hard-fought playoffs.
Oops.
With all of the league's best secondaries on the field this past weekend, quarterbacks looked like they were playing seven on seven drills in August practice.
Why? Because while these secondaries might have been the best in 2007, they weren't/aren't that great overall, at least historically speaking.
For the first time in NFL history, no team finished with a Defensive Passer Rating of under 70.0 (No. 1 San Diego was 70.0 on the dot). In 2006, four teams were under 70.0. In 2003, there were six. Even as recently as 2000, nine teams produced better Defensive Passer Ratings than the 2007 league leader.
The emphasis on defensive contact rules the NFL made before the 2004 season have caused offensive coordinators to exploit DBs on short routes, on vivid display Saturday and Sunday.
During the divisional weekend, teams completed 68.3 percent of their passes and threw just five INTs in 242 attempts. Defenders recorded just 10 total sacks, a measly average of 1.3 per team, as QBs tossed quick passes.
These performances were no surprise after a regular season that saw an increase to already historic completion percentages.
In 2003, the year before the new emphasis on the rules, the league-wide completion percentage was 58.8 and the league-wide passer rating was 78.3. In 2004, the numbers increased to a 59.8 percent and 82.8, both records.
In 2007 completion percentage shot up to 61.2, while the league-wide passer rating of 80.9 stands as the second best ever.
While completion and passer ratings have gone up since the rules emphasis, the net results haven't been much different. TD and INT numbers have stayed basically unchanged for almost two decades, while passing YPA has hovered around the high 6.0-somethings for about the past 30 years (believe it or not, YPA actually peaked in the mid 7.0s back in the early 1960s).
So, while teams are throwing more short passes, they're not necessarily producing any more than they have in the past based upon number of attempts.
Legend has it that the new defensive rules were a result of New England's manhandling of receivers – specifically the Colts' receivers in the 2003 postseason. Colts' GM Bill Polian made loud public comments about how New England was getting away with murder, and by the summer rules had changed.
Now, four years later, the Patriots are using the very rule that seemed to go against them as their best friend.
It's no surprise, for example, that the two highest individual passer ratings in history (Peyton Manning's 121.1 in 2004 and Tom Brady's 117.2) were produced since the new rules emphasis: passer rating numbers tend to reward high-percentage passes (perhaps too much according to some critics).
Will future changes ensue? Don't be surprised. When teams all start using the same game plans, as you saw this past weekend, the league's rules committee tends to start having meetings. Maybe it's time to bring pass defense back to the game, or at least not flag teams for the countless phantom pass interference calls that seem to have a huge impact on every playoff game in recent years.
But as it relates to this year's playoffs, the basics of success in the postseason hasn't changed. Throw interceptions, you lose, avoid them, you win.
In the eight playoff games this year, the team throwing fewer interceptions is 5-0 (three games had no advantage). And as the chart below shows, keeping the ball out of the hands of opposing defenders has always been a primary concern.
INTS in the PLAYOFFS (1966 to 2007-08 divisional)
|
INTs |
Record |
Winning % |
|
0 |
180-49 |
.786 |
|
1 |
136-109 |
.555 |
|
2 |
53-113 |
.319 |
|
3 |
16-76 |
.174 |
|
4 |
1-26 |
.037 |
|
5 |
0-10 |
.000 |
|
6 |
0-3 |
.000 |
|
