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Kerry's Super Bowl Tour de Statistical Force
Cold, Hard Football Facts for January 25, 2012

By Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts Potentate of Pigskin

We’re going to rock the Super Bowl from so many angles that even a Pythagoras of Pigskin will look on in bewilderment at our stat-smashing bravado.
 
A squared + B squared = C squared?
 
Sounds nice, home slice. But how’s your Passer Rating Differential, math man?
 
And that stat, PRD, is how we want to kick off this day-by-day statistical breakdown of New York Giants-New England Patriots, a clash of historic signifigance in Super Bowl XLVI. (By the, we're rolling out to the Super Bowl once again, our third in row, hitting the road Sunday. We'll be reporting from the road and from Indy all next week, including at the big game itself.)

As you know, we call Passer Rating Differential "the Mother of All Stats." And the reason is simple:

  • 58 percent of all NFL champs since 1940 (40 of 69) finished in the Top 2 in this indicator
  • 84 percent of all NFL champs since 1940 (58 of 69) finished in the Top 5 in this indicator
  • 97 percent of all NFL champs since 1940 (67 of 69) finished in the Top 10 in this indicator
In other words, championships are almost always won by teams that dominate in the air. More importantly, and this is the really interesting part: championships have ALWAYS been won by teams that dominate in the air. (You can see the PRD of every champ in NFL history below; with a cap tip to Friend of the Facts Luis DeLoureiro.)
 
This is nothing new, folks. Passing may be more prevalent in the NFL. But it’s certainly not more important in the NFL. In fact, if anything, it's grown less important to dominate the skies over NFL battlefields in recent years. But that’s a different topic to address in the off-season.
 
For now, here’s how the Super Bowl-contending Giants and Patriots stacked up in Passer Rating Differential in 2011.
Passer Rating Differential in 2011
  OPR DPR PRD Rank
New England 105.68 86.11 +19.58 4th
New York 92.87 86.10 +6.76 12th
 
Interesting to note that the Patriots and Giants were in a statistical dead heat in Defensive Passer Rating all year, just 1/100th of a point difference. The Giants were No. 20 in Defensive Passer Rating, the Patriots 21st. There was a lot of talk this year about the historically bad Patriots defense, which ranked 31st in passing yards allowed. Well, the Giants were not much better. They ranked 29th in passing yards allowed, while giving up 58 more points, 400 vs. 342, facts which seem lost on everybody.

But the Patriots and Giants made up for it with big plays, as Super Bowl contenders so often do: New England hauled in 23 INTs this year, tied with San Francisco for second only to the 15-1 Packers (31). The Giants hauled in 20 INT, tied for sixth in the NFL.

The Patriots are well within historic norms for Passer Rating Differential: if they win next Sunday, they’ll join the large majority of champs who finished in the Top 5 in PRD.
 
The Giants are another story. At No. 12 in PRD in 2011, they are outside the statistical realm of Super Bowl probability. Only two of 69 NFL champions since 1940 finished outside the Top 10 in Passer Rating Differential: the 1974 Steelers and, yes, the 2007 Giants – a champ that deviated farther than any other from the well-worn and proven pattern of statistical success that came before it and that has come since.
 
In fact, the 2007 Giants posted the worst PRD (-10.4) and the lowest ranked PRD (24th) of any champion in the history of football (see chart at bottom of the story).
 
But, of course, we know the 2011 Giants have been a different team down the stretch run – not quite as dramatically as they were in 2007, but dramatic just the same.
 
Here’s how the Giants and Patriots stack up in Passer Rating Differential since Week 16, the start of New York’s five-game winning streak that turned a 7-7 also-ran into NFC champions.
Passer Rating Differential since Week 16
Team Games OPR DPR PRD
New York 5 103.04 79.16 +23.88
New England 4 102.03 76.79 +25.24
 
 
The Patriots are better; the Giants are a LOT better. The Giants are clearly on the upswing, much like they were in 2007. In fact, if you saw our segment on NFL Network about Passer Rating Differential and statistical peaking, you know that the 2007 Giants were playing their best football of the season going into the Super Bowl and the 2007 Patriots were playing their worst. Those differing fortunes intersected on the field in Super Bowl XLII.
 
The relative statistical fortunes of each team are not quite the same this year, but we’ll offer more on that phenomenon in our next post.
 
In the meantime, folks argued in 2007, and have already argued with us on different radio shows this week, that maybe the Giants of 2007 and 2011 provide a blow to the sanctity of our Quality Stats. 
 
Not at all. Quite the opposite. If fact, New York’s improvements in both 2007 and 2011 PROVE the importance of our Quality Stats, and of Passer Rating Differential in particular.
 
The Giants struggled to win games in both 2007 and 2011 when they struggled to control the skies. They dominated down the stretch in both 2007 and 2011 when they dominated the skies. New York is +23.4 in PRD during its five-game win streak that propelled it into the Super Bowl. For a little perspective, only two teams posted a higher Passer Rating Differential over the course of the 2011 season: Green Bay (+42.0) and New Orleans (+24.1). So New York's +23.4 over the past five weeks is a VERY strong number ... a winning number.
 
The irrefutable laws of phootball physics do not change simply because a team goes on a hot streak. Quite the contrary. A teams goes on a hot streak because it learns to master the irrefutable laws of phootball physics – the all-encompassing importance of dominating the skies.
 
Just ask the Tom Coughlin, Eli Manning or, better yet, the Pythagoras of Pigskin: the Cold, Hard Football Facts.
Passer Rating Differential for all NFL Champs (since 1940)
Year Champ Games OPR Rank DPR Rank PRD Rank
1940 Bears 11 52.3 3 48.1 7 +4.2 5
1941 Bears 11 95.2 1 30.2 1 +65.0 1
1942 Redskins 11 65.6 3 25.5 2 +40.1 3
1943 Bears 10 95.3 1 22 1 +73.3 1
1944 Packers 10 41.1 7 32.4 3 +8.7 5
1945 Rams 10 67.8 3 31.1 1 +36.7 2
1946 Bears 11 67.8 1 41.8 5 +26 1
1947 Cardinals 12 59.9 4 53.9 5 +6 4
1948 Eagles 12 84.9 1 45.9 2 +39 1
1949 Eagles 12 77.6 1 30 1 +47.6 1
1950 Browns 12 64 4 28.7 1 +35.3 1
1951 Rams 12 79.8 1 51.9 5 +27.9 2
1952 Lions 12 60 6 46.4 2 +13.6 3
1953 Lions 12 53.9 5 37.6 1 +16.3 4
1954 Browns 12 72.1 6 46.6 4 +25.5 4
1955 Browns 12 98.3 1 40.7 1 +57.6 1
1956 Giants 12 66 4 60 6 +6.0 5
1957 Lions 12 55.9 8 60.4 6 -4.5 8
1958 Colts 12 85.4 1 35.1 1 +50.3 1
1959 Colts 12 92.1 1 45.1 1 +47 1
1960 Eagles 12 87.9 2 49.1 2 +38.8 2
1961 Packers 14 82.2 3 53.7 2 +28.5 1
1962 Packers 14 84.9 3 43.4 1 +41.5 1
1963 Bears 14 75.6 5 34.8 1 +40.8 2
1964 Browns 14 80.8 4 75.6 10 +5.2 6
1965 Packers 14 83.1 4 48.2 1 +34.9 1
1966 Packers 14 102.1 1 46.1 1 +56.0 1
1967 Packers 14 63.7 8 41.5 1 +22.2 3
1970 Colts 14 73.3 8 60.3 8 +13 7
1971 Cowboys 14 88.8 1 55.9 7 +32.9 1
1972 Dolphins 14 86.9 1 47.4 2 +39.5 1
1973 Dolphins 14 75.2 8 39.9 2 +35.3 2
1974 Steelers 14 48.9 23 44.3 1 +4.6 12
1975 Steelers 14 86.7 4 42.8 2 +43.9 2
1976 Raiders 14 102.2 1 68.8 15 +33.4 4
1977 Cowboys 14 85.3 2 48.2 4 +37.1 1
1978 Steelers 16 81.5 3 51.8 2 +29.7 1
1979 Steelers 16 76.6 7 56.4 2 +20.2 2
1980 Raiders 16 70 18 61.8 4 +8.2 10
1981 49ers 16 87.7 3 60.2 4 +27.5 2
1982 Redskins 9 91.8 3 67.7 12 +24.1 2
1983 Raiders 16 84.8 6 71.8 12 +13 5
1984 49ers 16 101.9 2 65.6 6 +36.3 2
1985 Bears 16 77.3 9 51.2 1 +26.1 2
1986 Giants 16 75 12 68.6 8 +6.4 8
1987 Redskins 15 80.7 7 69.3 7 +11.4 5
1988 49ers 16 83.5 3 72.2 11 +11.3 6
1989 49ers 16 114.8 1 68.5 8 +46.3 1
1990 Giants 16 90.6 5 62.2 3 +28.4 1
1991 Redskins 16 98 2 58.9 3 +39.1 1
1992 Cowboys 16 88.8 3 69.9 10 +18.9 3
1993 Cowboys 16 96.8 2 75.3 14 +21.5 2
1994 49ers 16 111.4 1 68.1 5 +43.3 1
1995 Cowboys 16 91.7 5 72.3 8 +19.4 2
1996 Packers 16 95.7 1 55.4 1 +40.3 1
1997 Broncos 16 87.4 7 71.5 7 +15.9 4
1998 Broncos 16 93.5 4 80.5 21 +13 6
1999 Rams 16 106.6 1 64.1 2 +42.5 1
2000 Ravens 16 72.7 20 62.5 3 +10.2 9
2001 Patriots 16 85.3 5 68.6 3 +16.7 5
2002 Buccaneers 16 86.3 6 48.4 1 +37.9 1
2003 Patriots 16 84.3 10 56.2 1 +28.1 2
2004 Patriots 16 92.5 8 75.3 7 +17.2 5
2005 Steelers 16 89.4 7 74 8 +15.4 7
2006 Colts 16 101 1 80.4 15 +20.6 4
2007 Giants 16 73 25 83.4 17 -10.4 24
2008 Steelers 16 81.9 17 63.4 2 +18.5 4
2009 Saints 16 106 2 68.6 3 +37.4 1
2010 Packers 16 98.9 3 67.2 1 +31.7 1
 

Cold, Hard Football Facts Potentate of Pigskin Kerry J. Byrne breaks down the Super Bowl from a new point of statistical view each day between now and the big game in Indy.

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