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Final 2010 Defensive Hog Index
ABOUT THE DEFENSIVE HOG INDEX: The Defensive Hog Index is our effort to quantify which team has the best defensive front in football. It's proven a huge indicator of success since we introduced it during the 2007 season: teams that are better in the DHI are 25-8 in the playoffs over that time, and the No. 1 team in DHI has won the Super Bowl twice (2007 Giants and 2008 Steelers).
This isn't rocket science, folks. The Defensive Hog Index simply looks at at each team in three major, easy-to-understand categories and ranks them by average in these categories.
The top defensive front is that which posts the highest average rating across the board. The Defensive Hog Index is based upon these criteria:
YPA – Yards Per Attempt. So simple, even you can understand it. This rates a defense's ability to stuff an opposing ground game; NPP% – Negative Pass Plays, expressed as a percentage. This is how often an opponent's pass plays end in either a sack or interception. Defenses that get after the quarterback and overwhelm the opposing offensive line naturally force sacks and INTs. These negative pass plays are calculated as a percentage of attempts. So if a team foces two sacks and two INTs in 40 pass plays, their NPP% will be 10 percent (4/40); 3down% - Opposition success rate on third down. The lower the percentage, the higher the defensive success.
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The Defensive Hog Index has generated plenty of publicity over the years. Football fans love the fact that we have a way to quantify with hard data the best defensive fronts in football. In the past, most analysts sized up defensive fronts with nothing more than the unreliable old eye test.
Fans also love the fact that the Defensive Hog Index consistently identifies Super Bowl contenders. We introduced the indicator in 2007. The No. 1 Defensive Hogs in 2007 belonged to the Giants. They won the Super Bowl. The No. 1 Defensive Hogs in 2008 belonged to the Steelers. They, too, won the Super Bowl.
The Defensive-Hog-dynasty-Steelers boasted the No. 1 unit again in 2010. They won the AFC title, before falling to the Packers in the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl champion Packers finished the year a mere No. 10 on the Defensive Hog Index. But even they are the exception that proves the rule of the importance of Defensive Hogs: Green Bay was No. 1 in the NFL in 2010 at forcing those all-important Negative Pass Plays (12.22% of opponent dropbacks ended in a sack or INT), a key component of the Defensive Hog Index. And, of course, it was a single Negative Pass Play that proved the biggest single play in the biggest single game of the 2010 season:
The Packers had just taken a 7-0 lead in the first quarter of Super Bowl XLV when Green Bay DT Howard Green got in the face of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger at the Pittsburgh goal line. The quarterback forced up a fluttering pass under pressure that was picked off by safety Nick Collins and returned for a touchdown. Green Bay had quickly taken a 14-0 lead. There was still a lot of football to be played but the game was, statistically speaking, O-V-E-R.
Bottom line: great Defensive Hogs make plays that win championships.
With all that said, we were surprised to find that the Defensive Hog Index had a relatively low rate of success as a predictive indicator in 2010.
Our new Predictive Rate of Victory chart revealed that teams with the better Defensive Hogs went just 130-126 (50.8%) in 2010. The DHI showed a similar rate of success in the postseason, where the better D-Hogs went just 6-5 (54.5%), including the Super Bowl loss by Pittsburgh (No. 1 Defensive Hogs) to Green Bay (No. 10 Defensive Hogs).
We will, of course, track the success of the DHI each week of the 2011 season here on CHFF Insider.
Final Quality Stats
2011-01-03 - Final 2010 Scoreability Index
2011-01-03 - Final 2010 Bendability Index
2011-01-03 - Final 2010 Defensive Passer Rating
2011-01-03 - Final 2010 Offensive Hog Index
2011-01-03 - Final 2010 Passer Rating Differential
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