Patriots: True Outliers

[Hawg73]

Originally Posted by midgar8784

What if your offense is horrible, cannot move the ball, turns the ball over and your defense is giving up points, does that mean the Defense is bad?

The only thing I care about is the Pats getting ranked "31st" in the league when it is crystal clear that our offense is very good and your scenario doesn't fit in their case one bit.

Would a defense such as you have described not also give up a lot of yards since they are defending more than average? So they get ranked lower. Invent a stat that compares points given up with complementary aspects of offense to defense and redo it if that suits you. Maybe we'd be lower than 11th too, were that the criteria but we damn sure wouldn't be 31st.

My point, again, is that yards are an inferior way to rank defenses than points given up and yards seem to be the more common way of trying to quantify defensive ability. Nobody has lost a football game directly because of the number of yards given up. Sure, it generally has a correlation to points against but not necessarily. Yards-- overrated. Points-- underrated. You can give up yards all day long and if you clamp down in the red zone it doesn't matter that much.

Once Roger comes up with a way of awarding points on the scoreboard based on yards given up then I'll give that stat more respect.

[midgar8784]

Originally Posted by Hawg73

The only thing I care about is the Pats getting ranked "31st" in the league when it is crystal clear that our offense is very good and your scenario doesn't fit in their case one bit.

Would a defense such as you have described not also give up a lot of yards since they are defending more than average? So they get ranked lower. Invent a stat that compares points given up with complementary aspects of offense to defense and redo it if that suits you. Maybe we'd be lower than 11th too, were that the criteria but we damn sure wouldn't be 31st.

My point, again, is that yards are an inferior way to rank defenses than points given up and yards seem to be the more common way of trying to quantify defensive ability. Nobody has lost a football game directly because of the number of yards given up. Sure, it generally has a correlation to points against but not necessarily. Yards-- overrated. Points-- underrated. You can give up yards all day long and if you clamp down in the red zone it doesn't matter that much.

Once Roger comes up with a way of awarding points on the scoreboard based on yards given up then I'll give that stat more respect.

No, it does not fit the criteria, but in some cases it does, which is why I cannot say point blank just points is meaningful and nothing else is. Giving up yards, while yes, not scoring, is keeping your offense off the field, so while not as important, its still important.

[grog]

Originally Posted by Hawg73

The only thing I care about is the Pats getting ranked "31st" in the league when it is crystal clear that our offense is very good and your scenario doesn't fit in their case one bit.

Would a defense such as you have described not also give up a lot of yards since they are defending more than average? So they get ranked lower. Invent a stat that compares points given up with complementary aspects of offense to defense and redo it if that suits you. Maybe we'd be lower than 11th too, were that the criteria but we damn sure wouldn't be 31st.

My point, again, is that yards are an inferior way to rank defenses than points given up and yards seem to be the more common way of trying to quantify defensive ability. Nobody has lost a football game directly because of the number of yards given up. Sure, it generally has a correlation to points against but not necessarily. Yards-- overrated. Points-- underrated. You can give up yards all day long and if you clamp down in the red zone it doesn't matter that much.

Once Roger comes up with a way of awarding points on the scoreboard based on yards given up then I'll give that stat more respect.

This may have been from a long long time ago, but I remember someone telling me that a turnover is worth three points on average. With a +30 turnover ratio, thats like 90 points of scoring for the defense. Work that into the new equation too.

[midgar8784]

Originally Posted by grog

This may have been from a long long time ago, but I remember someone telling me that a turnover is worth three points on average. With a +30 turnover ratio, thats like 90 points of scoring for the defense. Work that into the new equation too.

Thing is, in order to have a huge turnover ratio, you also have to not turn the ball over on offense. Did you know that Denver has a -3 turnover ratio?