We used them only sparingly last year. With the Cold, Hard Football Facts growing, and with our goal to provide you the best and most useful gridiron information found anywhere, we intend to make much greater use of both Pigskindexes this year.

 

In fact, they will become part of our proprietary "Quality Stats" this season. These are compelling, easy-to-understand pieces of data (such as our Quality Wins Quotient) that – and this is the most important part – have a direct correlation to winning.

 

These are, in our estimation, "Stats That Matter." (The Bendability and Scoreability stats are being kept in our "Quality Standings" section, which will soon become our "Quality Stats" section.)

 

A team that ranks high on the Bendability Index does not necessarily have the best defense. It has the defense that you must work hardest to score upon. This effort, you will soon come to find, is more important than total defense and, in many cases, more important than scoring defense.

NFC North champion Chicago not only gave up the fewest points (202) in football last year, it topped the Bendability Index, too. The Bears forced opponents to march 134 yards to score the equivalent of a single touchdown. Chicago boasted more than a tough defense; they fielded a ferociously efficient defense.

 

A team that ranks high on the Scoreability Index does not necessarily have the best offense. It is the offense that scores most efficiently, marching off a relatively small number of yards for every point it scores. This ease of effort, you will soon come to find, is more important than total offense and, in many cases, more important than scoring offense.

 

NFC title game contender Carolina topped the Scoreability Index last year, which means it squeezed more out of its offense than any other team in football. The Panthers racked up just 4,950 yards of offense, putting them behind 21 other teams, including the lowly Packers, Raiders and Saints. But Carolina scored 391 points, better than all but eight teams in the league. The Panthers needed a mere 76 yards to score the equivalent of a single touchdown. The Saints had a much more difficult life. They needed 129 yards of offense to score the equivalent of a single touchdown.

 

The Bendability and Scoreability Pigskindexes are "Stats That Matter" because they are not simply measures of individual offensive or defensive units. They are, instead, team-wide efficiency rankings. This is a vital consideration in a sport in which the success of each unit is so intricately intertwined with the success of others.

 

In baseball, for example, team batting average has no direct effect upon a pitcher's ERA. But in football, an offense's ability to hold onto the ball has a direct effect on the defense's ability to keep opponents out of the end zone.

 

Each index is a function of many team-wide factors. A stout defense or prolific offense, for sure, but also these factors:

The performance of every unit on a team has a direct impact on every other. Stats that don't matter, like total offense or defense, do not reflect the interwoven fabric of a football team. Just ask fans in Kansas City. The Chiefs were No. 1 in the NFL with 6,192 yards of offense. In fact, they were the only team in football to generate more than 6,000 yards. But they were extremely ineffecient, scored 403 points, ended up in the lower half of the league on the Scoreability Index and missed the playoffs.

 

Unlike other stats, our Pigskindexes do reflect the intricate pattern of tightly woven parts that is a football team.

The most important aspect of these indexes for our purpose is that they have a direct correlation to winning football games.

 

In 2004, when we introduced these indexes, Super Bowl contenders New England and Philadelphia each led their respective conferences in overall efficiency (as measured by combined Bendability and Scoreability rankings). Super Bowl champion New England was No. 1 overall.

 

In 2005, conference title-game contenders Seattle and Carolina ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in overall efficiency among all NFC teams.

 

In the AFC last year, Indy led the conference, and the league, in overall efficiency. The Colts disrupted the efficiency apple cart by falling to Pittsburgh in the divisional playoffs.

 

This, in itself, is telling, however. Despite a mere 11-5 record and a No. 6 seed in the playoffs, the Steelers were actually No. 2 in the conference and No. 4 in the league in overall efficiency (again, as measured by combined Bendability and Scoreability rankings).

 

Interestingly, the 2005 Steelers (an 11-5 team that went on to the win the Super Bowl) were actually far more efficient on both sides of the ball than the 2004 Steelers (a 15-1 team that lost in the AFC title game).

The 2004 Steelers may have won more games, but the 2005 Steelers' offense scored more efficiently while its defense made opponents work harder for their points.

If we look at season-ending 2005 data, it shows that teams that rate high on the Bendability Index are more likely to end up in the playoffs than teams that rate high in total defense or scoring defense.

 

In fact, total defense is virtually useless. Scoring defense is, of course, a very solid indicator. The Bendability Index is an even more accurate indicator.

 

(If you tool around with the spreadsheet here, you'll see that playoff teams are clustered higher on the Bendability Index than they are on the total defense or scoring defense list.)

 

If we measure teams by total defense:

If we measure teams by scoring defense:

If we measure teams by the Bendability Index:

The same phenomenon applies to the offensive side of the ball and to the Scoreability Index. (If you tool around with the spreadsheet here, you'll see that playoff teams are clustered higher on the Scoreability Index than they are on the total offense or scoring offense list.)

 

If we measure teams by total offense:

If we measure teams by scoring offense:

If we measure teams by the Scoreability Index: