A coffee filter for football data

Cold, Hard Football Facts for Sep 14, 2005

In the middle of last season, we introduced you, the Pigskin Passionistas, to our "Bendability Index." We weren't really sure what it would tell us, but it seemed like a rock-solid way to measure the concept of the "bend-but-don't-break defense" phenomenon – something you've always heard quite a bit about but never saw quantified before the Bendability Index.

It just so happened to turn out that the two teams who topped the Bendability Index at the end of the season were the same two teams that met in the Super Bowl. We figured we were onto something. Today we introduce its offensive counterpart, something we dubbed the Scoreability Index. A look at both indexes from last year offers us some very interesting conclusions.

First: what, exactly, is the Bendability Index? Well, it's a measure of defensive efficiency, run through a coffee filter of football data called the Cold, Hard Football Facts, that essentially adjusts for the overall effect of team-wide performance and every other imaginable variable. Some teams give up a lot of yards, but few points. Some teams give up few yards but many points. The Bendability Index simply quantifies this. It measures how many yards opposing teams need to generate to score a single point. For example, if Team A racks up 300 yards and scores 30 points against Team B, then Team B's Bendability Index is 10.0 (yards allowed (300)/points allowed (30) = 10.0). Team B gave up one point for every 10 yards of offense allowed. Pretty simple. Even we can do it.

Philly topped the list last year at the end of the season. Opponents needed to generate 19.67 yards of offense for every point they scored against the Eagles. New England was No. 2 on the list. Opponents needed to generate 19.12 yards of offense for every point scored against the Patriots.

Fattened by smugness, pork rinds and the apparent success of the Bendability Index last season, we neglected to look at its counterpart: the efficiency of offenses. Hence, our new Scoreabilty Index. It's a measure of how effective a given team is at scoring points.

Some teams generate tons of yards, but few points. Denver was a prime example last year. The Broncos racked up plenty of yards, 6,332 in fact, fifth best in the NFL in 2004. But they scored just 381 points, ninth in the league. That means Denver's offense was pretty inefficient. It needed 16.62 yards of offense to score a single point. Indy, meanwhile, had a highly efficient offense. The Colts racked up 6,475 yards – just 143 more yards than Denver over the course of the entire season. But the Colts scored 522 points, 141 more than Denver. Obviously, the Indy offense was far more efficient than Denver's. The Scoreability Index shows this: the Colts needed just 12.40 yards of offense to score a single point, the second best rate in the league in 2004.

Buffalo actually topped the list. The Bills offense needed just 11.88 yards for every point it scored last season. Clearly, a Buffalo offense that generated just 4,691 yards of offense last year (25th in the league) benefitted from a defense and special teams that gave the offense good field position. The Bills also benefitted from an offense that frequently took advantage of the opportunities given to it: the Bills, 25th in total offense, ranked 7th in the NFL in scoring (395 points).

We like these indexes for several reasons. Here's why: Despite the fact that teams have individual offensive, defensive and special teams units, it remains a game of interwoven parts, with the performance of one unit often having a profound effect on the others. Even though we often look at these as individual units in statistical analyses, they are dependent upon the others. Our efficiency indexes offer a very simple and easy-to-understand formula that accounts for every imaginable variable – turnover ratio, red zone offense and defense, special teams success, etc. It then gives you a rock-solid bottom-line number about the only two things that really matter: your ability to score and your ability to keep others out of the end zone.

A team with a positive turnover ratio, great red zone offense and successful special teams will typically be in a position to score more readily than a team that trails it in these categories. When an offense is able to execute and take advantage of these opportunities, you get a team with a low Scoreability rating – a team, in other words, that does not need many yards to generate points.

When we look at the result of the 2004 Bendability and Scoreability Indexes side by side, they tell us a lot about the potential success of teams. For example:

In the NFC, Philly had the lowest combined score on both indices last year (No. 1 on offense, No. 9 on defense). Not so coincidentally, Philly represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.
New England had the lowest combined ranking on both indices in the entire league (No. 4 on offense, No. 2 on defense). Not so coincidentally, New England won the AFC title and – with a lower combined ranking than Philly – also won the Super Bowl.
During a season in which the AFC dominated the NFC, the top eight teams on the Scoreability Index were all from the AFC.
The top NFC representative on the Scoreability Index was conference champion Philly.
Dallas coach Bill Parcells has a reputation of building highly efficient teams based on strong defense and solid running games. But his 2004 Cowboys rated 29th on the Scoreability Index and 30th on the Bendability Index. Only the lowly 2-14 49ers were worse (28th and 32nd).

Charts for both the 2004 Bendability and Scoreability Indexes appear below. We'll also be providing looks at these 2005 indexes as the season progresses. Obviously, we can't tell much from Week One data, but we'll be updating these charts throughout the season to see which teams are playing most efficiently.

2004 SCOREABILITY INDEX

Team	Yards	Points	Yards Per Point Scored
Buffalo	4691	395	11.88
Indianapolis	6475	522	12.40
San Diego	5542	446	12.43
New England	5722	437	13.09
Cincinnati	5140	374	13.74
Baltimore	4375	317	13.80
Kansas City	6695	483	13.86
Pittsburgh	5184	372	13.94
Philadelphia	5618	386	14.55
Carolina	5225	355	14.72
New Orleans	5139	348	14.77
Atlanta	5084	340	14.95
Green Bay	6357	424	14.99
Seattle	5634	371	15.19
N.Y. Giants	4722	303	15.58
Minnesota	6339	405	15.65
Detroit	4693	296	15.85
Tennessee	5487	344	15.95
Miami	4405	275	16.02
Arizona	4550	284	16.02
Oakland	5153	320	16.10
Cleveland	4481	276	16.24
N.Y. Jets	5438	333	16.33
Tampa Bay	4963	301	16.49
Chicago	3816	231	16.52
Houston	5128	309	16.60
Denver	6332	381	16.62
San Francisco	4585	259	17.70
Dallas	5197	293	17.74
Washington	4397	240	18.32
St. Louis	5877	319	18.42
Jacksonville	5009	261	19.19

2004 BENDABILITY INDEX

Team	Yards	Points	Yards Per Point Allowed
Philadelphia	5115	260	19.67
New England	4972	260	19.12
N.Y. Jets	4878	261	18.69
Jacksonville	5134	280	18.34
Baltimore	4803	268	17.92
San Diego	5360	313	17.12
Indianapolis	5929	351	16.89
Pittsburgh	4134	251	16.47
Chicago	5390	331	16.28
Washington	4281	265	16.15
Houston	5458	339	16.10
Arizona	5141	322	15.97
Carolina	5382	339	15.88
Atlanta	5207	337	15.45
Detroit	5401	350	15.43
New Orleans	6141	395	15.16
Seattle	5621	373	15.07
Tampa Bay	4552	304	14.97
N.Y. Giants	5187	347	14.95
Minnesota	5902	395	14.92
Buffalo	4228	284	14.89
Denver	4459	304	14.67
Green Bay	5541	380	14.58
Cincinnati	5365	372	14.42
Kansas City	6037	435	13.90
Miami	4894	354	13.82
St. Louis	5353	302	13.66
Oakland	5936	442	13.43
Cleveland	5215	390	13.37
Dallas	5285	405	13.05
Tennessee	5724	439	13.04
San Francisco	5481	452	12.13

By Kerry Byrne

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