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Icy Issues: chilly topics for chilly games
Cold, Hard Football Facts for January 18, 2008
By Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts duke of url
The Cold, Hard Football Facts tackle key statistical issues of championship weekend with all the frigid emotion of a Lambeau Field icicle.
Icy Issue: Is New England’s defense vulnerable?
Icier Response: Not nearly as vulnerable as it’s being made out to be in some circles.
Football fans looking for an Achille’s heel in the New England juggernaut point to the “aging” defense that “can’t get off the field,” according to some “pundits.”
Sure, compared with New England’s record-setting offense, the defense pales in comparison. But it’s hardly vulnerable.
The 2007 Patriots defense:
- Surrendered 288.3 yards per game this year – fourth in the NFL and the best mark by a New England team since 1979.
- Led the AFC with 47 sacks – five more than the AFC’s No. 2 San Diego – and behind only the Giants (53) league-wide.
- Ranked fourth in the NFL on third downs, allowing opponents to convert just 33.7 percent of their attempts.
- Forced opposing offenses into negative pass plays (sacks or INTs) on 11.52 percent of their dropbacks, the third best rate in the league.
A defense maligned for its aging linebacker corps has been particularly stout in the second half. The Patriots have surrendered just 8.4 second-half points per game this year, despite a lot of garbage-time points by opponents trailing by four or five touchdowns late in the game. The lowly 1-15 Dolphins, for example, scored 28 second-half points in two games against the Patriots this year – after trailing 42-0 and 28-0 at halftime.
Icy Issue: What’s the secret to Eli Manning’s sudden postseason success?
Icier Response: It’s quite simple. Eli’s not throwing interceptions.
At the end of the day, football analysis is pretty simple: if your quarterback plays poorly, you lose games. If your quarterback plays well, you win games.
Eli Manning provides a textbook example of this simplicity in action. He has been something short of mediocre throughout his rocky four-year career. Simply note his career 73.4 passer rating – not good in a league where 80.0 is about average.
Interceptions have been his biggest problem, and the 2007 season was no exception. Manning tossed 20 picks in 529 attempts during the 2007 regular season, a rate of 3.8 percent.
But here in the playoffs, he’s tossed 0 INT in 45 attempts (0 percent), and just 1 in 77 attempts (1.3 percent) over his last three games, including his impressive, four-TD-toss regular-season finale against New England.
Those zero picks in two playoff games are a huge factor in a league in which history has proven that INTs = losses.
In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single factor that has such a profound impact on wins and losses as do interceptions.
ColdHardFootballFacts.com looked at every postseason game of the Super Bowl Era and found that teams that don’t throw picks win nearly 80 percent of all postseason games. But each interception reduces the odds of winning by about a full 20 percentage points.
0 INT – 180-49 (.786)
1 INT – 136-109 (.555)
2 INT – 53-113 (.319)
3 INT – 16-76 (.174)
4 INT – 1-26 (.037)
5+ INT – 0-13 (.000)
Football fans go ga-ga over the quarterback who cranks out tons of passing yards. But it’s far more important to play the way Manning has this postseason, with a quiet efficiency that avoids mistakes.
Simply look at the fate of the two Manning brothers last week. Peyton threw for a gaudy 402 yards and 3 TD. Eli threw for a pedestrian 163 yards and 2 TD. But Peyton tossed two picks. Eli through 0. Peyton lost. Eli won.
Icy Issue: Are the Packers really as good as they seem?
Icier Response: Yes. Maybe even better.
ColdHardFootballFacts.com sizes up each team through our Quality Stats – stats that have a direct correlation to winning football games. Quality Stats generally give us far more insight into a team’s quality than traditional stats.
And by about the middle of the 2007 season, it became pretty clear that 1) the Cowboys had fundamental flaws (namely in defensive efficiency) that would hijack their postseason hopes and that 2) the Packers were an elite team. Dallas did beat Green Bay in the regular season, but the declining performance of the Cowboys after that November meeting simply strengthened the belief that the Packers would be standing over the Cowboys at the end of the season.
Sure enough, Dallas was one-and-done in the playoffs; Green Bay is a huge favorite in another home playoff game.
The end-of-year numbers spoke volumes: the Packers ended up the most solid all-around team in the NFL, perhaps even more complete than the Patriots. Green Bay did not lead any of our nine Quality Stats. But they finished ranked between No. 3 and No. 7 and every single one of them. These highly consistent rankings told us that the Packers were a rock-solid team with no fundamental flaws.
Green Bay ended the season ranked an average of 4.56 (among 32 teams) in our nine Quality Stats – that’s just a micro-fraction behind the almighty Patriots, who topped four of nine Quality Stats and ended the season with an average rank of 4.44.
The Quality Stats indicators told us before the playoffs started that New England and Green Bay were the best teams in their respective conferences. They tell us this week, naturally, that both teams should hold serve at home.
They also tell us that, if both teams do win Sunday, Super Bowl XLII will be one hell of a game pitting the two teams that were clearly the statistical class of the league in 2007.
Icy Issue: What’s the most overrated stat in football?
Icier Response: Passing yards.
Football fans always go ga-ga over long, pretty passes and 400-yard passing days.
But passing yards are probably the single most overrated statistic in football, so unrelated to victory that they could marry in all 50 states.
Last week’s divisional playoff games provided a perfect example. Jacksonville passed for more yards than New England; Seattle passed for more yards than Green Bay; Indy passed for more yards than San Diego; and Dallas passed for more yards than New York.
In all four instances, the team with more passing yards lost.
However, the team’s that passed most effectively won. The Patriots, Packers, Chargers and Giants all won the passing yards per attempt battle.
Their victories in this key indicator – passing yards per attempt is a "Quality Stat" – tell us that it’s not how far you pass the ball that counts, it’s how well you pass the ball when your quarterback steps back into the pocket that counts.
So don't be impressed this Sunday if one team passes for 400 yards and the other passes for 200. Divide those raw passing numbers by the number of attempts, and you'll have a much more accurate gauge of who passed the ball more effectively, and a much more accurate indicator of who actually won the game.
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