Wins and Point Diff Around the League

[DasNootz]

so we should bet the under?

[LABILLBACKER]

Just play Singletary more if you want your point differential to go up. Get rid of scrubs like Lee Smith, Star, Murphy and Wallace. You'll see differential movement.

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

6 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

They did miss a FG from chip shot XP distance.

 

I'm not saying the offense doesn't need to improve, nor that below average offense won't bite us

But I'm puzzled at the "just can't get it done" conclusion.

 

The facts are, the Bills at Browns game was very close statistically.  The Browns had ~3.5m edge on TOP, which is big.  44 more offensive yards.  A missed FG from makeable distance, 0-2 on 4th down conversions vs 1-2.  No turnovers.

 

We lost.

 

But the roots of how we could have won are there, and they don't seem out of reach.

 

Go For It!  I can send you my point diff spreadsheet to start with if that helps out.

puzzled are you? keep an eye on the next seven games and see if they get it done with this porous offense. I don't like to jump too far ahead but I'm not looking forward to turkey day when the nation will have eyes on a team that can not score enough points up against the the cowgirls who presently sit at the top of total (27.9 Pts/G) offense, 3rd passing, 5th rushing. I do not see any kind of shoot out in that game and if the bills get behind early I don't see them catching up.

 

hence, why I feel they can not get it done. hey, I was as optimistic about this team as anyone else but they soured my outlook last week and looking back, they never did win a game aside from maybe the giants, in convincible fashion.

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

19 minutes ago, SlimShady'sGhost said:

21-20 is a guaranteed Win 

 

the rest is ALL noise 

you think NE gave a shite winning the SB 13-3?

 

you think they are still worried they only had 3 points by the half? 

thing is, those 3 points you you claim that are "only 3 points" is the stat showing they are 3 points below average.

 

that is not noise, it's a fact.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 minutes ago, DaBillsFanSince1973 said:

puzzled are you? keep an eye on the next seven games and see if they get it done with this porous offense. I don't like to jump too far ahead but I'm not looking forward to turkey day when the nation will have eyes on a team that can not score enough points up against the the cowgirls who presently sit at the top of total (27.9 Pts/G) offense, 3rd passing, 5th rushing. I do not see any kind of shoot out in that game and if the bills get behind early I don't see them catching up.

 

hence, why I feel they can not get it done. hey, I was as optimistic about this team as anyone else but they soured my outlook last week and looking back, they never did win a game aside from maybe the giants, in convincible fashion.

 

Whoa, Big Fella! 

 

Little fact, Dallas is not at the top for pts/game.  #6 currently. 

Baltimore is currently at the top, with 33 pts/game.  NE is second with 30.

 

But that's really a digression.  I'm not talking about winning a particular game, or even those particular games, though it's a point that the Bills did hold NE to 16 points, and that was WITH the help of 4 interceptions, 2 fumbles (0 lost) and a knock-out blow to our starting QB.  There's more blueprint out there on how to work against our D now, and you can bet 'ol Hoody**** is taking notes. 

 

The question is why you believe it is out of scope for our offense to improve to average?  Foaming on about the great offenses of other teams really doesn't address that.

 

 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

1 minute ago, DaBillsFanSince1973 said:

thing is, those 3 points you you claim that are "only 3 points" is the stat showing they are 3 points below average.

 

that is not noise, it's a fact.

you mistook my post 

 

NE 3  Rams  0 

 

Josh is NOT an elite QB 20 games in.   Midling is fine by me.  

[IgotBILLStopay]

2 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I'll bump my own thread, but hopefully legit because I'll put more data out there.

It also came up a while back, someone was expressing that the top-scoring teams are the top-winning teams. 

I put out raw data from NFL.com or pro-football-reference that I thought made the point "ain't necessarily so" but someone objected strongly that it was invalid because not corrected for games played (I thought it could be seen it still was, and the objector didn't want to grind the corrected data).

 

Since I have a spreadsheet rocking, here is the corrected data sorted by points for/game and wins.

What you can see, I think, is that while there's a correlation, and generally the top scoring teams are the top winning teams, it's not strong or predictive.

The #3 scoring team right now has 3 wins. 

If you tell me a team scores on average, 20-25 PPG (league average), I can tell you they have somewhere between 2 and 8 wins^^

 

^^ the same can be said of point differential/game, actually, but it's a better correlation because it's taking into account both sides of the ball

Thanks. Good to know that the way to win is not to just get playmakers on Offense (like the Browns did last offseason). A coach very familiar to this forum once said - "There's three parts to football: offense, defense, and special teams. You'd no more ignore special teams than you would offense or defense."

[The Frankish Reich]

1 hour ago, row_33 said:

 

duh....

 

 

when you win you have more points

 

and if you win 13 or 14 times it would take a heck of a lopsided set of losses to upset standing for point differential

 

the stat adds NOTHING of use.

 

 

row33, I know math is hard...

... that’s ok. I’ll explain: teams with W-L records better than what their point differentials suggest tend to fall back, and vice versa. The Bills W-L record is better than what their meager positive point differential would suggest. Therefore, we may infer that they won’t keep winning games at a .670 rate. 

Got it?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

15 minutes ago, IgotBILLStopay said:

Thanks. Good to know that the way to win is not to just get playmakers on Offense (like the Browns did last offseason). A coach very familiar to this forum once said - "There's three parts to football: offense, defense, and special teams. You'd no more ignore special teams than you would offense or defense."

 

I'm not sure that's the take-home I get from it?

 

We need playmakers on offense, there's no question.  We need a better offense that can execute better.  I think some rejuvenation salts for Haushka or a new FG kicker would not come amiss either.

 

But the key is always the relative quality of all 3 phases of the team, as you say.  (Since ST miscues and points scored/given up get folded into offense or defense I just look there)

 

The take home I have is that because our defense is relatively stout, an improvement to "average" offense would take us a long way.  Not to a Superbowl championship, but into the playoffs.  And I think it is feasibly in reach.

 

But I could be wrong.  Been wrong about lots of stuff here over the last 10 years.

 

 

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

The question is why you believe it is out of scope for our offense to improve to average?  Foaming on about the great offenses of other teams really doesn't address that.

foaming on? nice

 

I was basing it off nfl.com team stats. must of read it wrong. it was yds per game where they sit at 1st position (437.4)

 

have they improved in the last three games? 2-1, sure. points 13, 24 and 16. improvement?

 

they have 7 games to improve as you say. I'd like to believe it isn't out of scope but they haven't shown much improvement in the last 3 games to lead me to believe they will.  

Edited November 12, 2019 by DaBillsFanSince1973

[section122]

2 hours ago, SlimShady'sGhost said:

 

1. the O Line isn't protecting Josh's blind side 
2. Elite QB's are scoring points.  20 game Josh is not.  Nothing shocking there. 
3.  Execution is poor and there have been too many dropped balls.  
4. ONLY 20 total rushes vs Cleveland in NOT poor execution but crappy play calling. 
5. Not as many but still DUMB penalties.  

 

I think 1 and 3 for sure show that it isn't all Daboll and I would even put 5 in there.  At the pro level you shouldn't need coaching to avoid penalties.  For a team that preaches accountability Lee Smith continuing to get PT is a head scratcher.

 

I agree with you about 2 but that goes to my point that the QB is what drives people's opinions about a team.  Have a good one and people think you can win any game.  

 

#4 for me is certainly on play calling but I have seen elsewhere that the Browns stacked the box and forced Josh to beat them with his arm and he couldn't.  Now some of that is drops, some of that is lack of talent, and some of that is play calling.  He tested Denzel Ward a ton for some reason and he is their best cb.  I would have loved to see them pound the rock but Gore is showing his age.  I don't know why they are handling Singletary the way they are.  He should be the starting rb and get runs early and often, that we agree on.

 

If I am going to question the coordinator Singletary's lack of pt and Lee Smith's amount of pt are the 2 places I am most sore about!

 

Bills added talent but they still are not one of the more talented teams.  That is the biggest problem with this team imo.  Apparently last week talent trumped culture .  The phrase he took that from is hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.  When talent works hard they are unstoppable and that's what the offense needs.  Not just process guys but tops of the league talent process guys.  Tre White is a great example of that and the Bills need more of that imo.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 hours ago, DaBillsFanSince1973 said:

foaming on? nice

 

I was basing it off nfl.com team stats. must of read it wrong. it was yds per game where they sit at 1st position (437.4)

 

have they improved in the last three games? 2-1, sure. points 13, 24 and 16. improvement?

 

they have 7 games to improve as you say. I'd like to believe it isn't out of scope but they haven't shown much improvement in the last 3 games to lead me to believe they will.  

 

But the question wasn't whether what the Bills have done on offense has been good enough.  That's what you're going on about, and it's whacking a dead equine.  We all agree.  They're 3.3 points below the league average for scoring points.  Not good enough.

 

The question is, why you feel it is out of scope, unlikely, that the Bills offense could improve even a modest amount? 

 

Josh Allen is developing as a QB and may never be what we want, but it seems to me that we're a missed FG or 2, a dropped pass here and there, and maybe a couple different playcalls away from a modestly better outcome.

 

Now make no mistake, we'll still get our clock cleaned by the best teams at this point, but we should be able to hold our own and win the ones we should with just a scootch better execution.  It doesn't seem too unreasonable a hope.

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

11 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Now make no mistake, we'll still get our clock cleaned by the best teams at this point, but we should be able to hold our own and win the ones we should with just a scootch better execution.  It doesn't seem too unreasonable a hope.

too bad that scootch wasn't there last week against the 2-6 brownies.

 

maybe they can gain that scootch against the 2-7 fins?

 

we shall see.

 

edit: as for whether I believe they can improve or not. not saying they can't but not real confident they can?

Edited November 12, 2019 by DaBillsFanSince1973

[EmotionallyUnstable]

Cool stuff. 
 

I can’t help but consider the fact that we’ve played terrible teams. You look at games where we’ve score well and/or held teams to minimal scoring, and it’s usually clear. 
 

I think averaging 19 points a game is most frustrating to me in two parts:

 

1) I know they can be better. Between the drops, penalties, missed open WRs lack of a deep threat, it’s clear that if they click, they can be an average to slightly above average offense. 
 

2) If they HAD managed to average out about middle of the pack, they’d likely be 8-1 right now. 
 

Anyone trying to blame the defense for not stepping up or playing poorly is nuts. Forget all the rushing yards, or long drives, or lack of turnovers, they are statistically playing well in the most important category: score.

 

its time to put up or shut up for Allen and Co. 
 

 

[ColoradoBills]

Fascinating statistical data.

Question:  Do we suck again?

[ILBillsfan]

I also like DVOA’s on teams offense/defense to get a good picture of the team

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 hours ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

Cool stuff. 
 

I can’t help but consider the fact that we’ve played terrible teams. You look at games where we’ve score well and/or held teams to minimal scoring, and it’s usually clear. 
 

I think averaging 19 points a game is most frustrating to me in two parts:

 

1) I know they can be better. Between the drops, penalties, missed open WRs lack of a deep threat, it’s clear that if they click, they can be an average to slightly above average offense. 
 

2) If they HAD managed to average out about middle of the pack, they’d likely be 8-1 right now. 

 

Agreed.

 

We can do better with the guys we have, and it's frustrating to not see it on Sunday.

[BADOLBILZ]

9 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

 

Buffalo has the lowest point differential of the 6 win teams, but better than all but two 5 win teams and one each of the 7 and 8 win teams.  So we are certainly not the "worst 6 win team in the history of the league" but we're verging on overperforming our offense.

 

 

 

 

Whenever we hear this kind of thing.........and every so often the Bills get off to a hot start...........I remember the 1996 Redskins that came in to Buffalo at a surprising 7-1.

 

 Bills kicked their ass and they staggered to a 9-7 finish.

 

THAT was a team that wasn't anywhere near as good as their record.

 

This year's Bills have had a great schedule advantage but it wouldn't have been a shocking turn of events for them to be a 10 win team in a transition year in the AFC that included 2 teams in their own division in major turmoil.

[NoSaint]

9 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I've tucked this data from previous weeks into various threads.

Thought I'd give it a shot with its own thread and see what folks make of it.

 

Around the league, the average of points scored/points given up per game is holding steady at 22.6 with a standard deviation of 5.3.

That means a "typical" NFL team scores or gives up between 17-28 points. 

Our D, giving up now an average of 16.6 ppg is still above average.

Our O, scoring19.3 ppg is below average, but not horrid - it's basically 1 score per game below average.  (3.3 points to be specific, or just over 1 FG per game).

 

Data are sorted by Wins.  From NFL.com

With Week 10 in the books, we can see that things are starting to sort themselves out, but the wins still don't totally align with the point differential per game. 

 

For example, the 4th best team on point differential is Dallas.  Beware of the 'Boys.

 

Green Bay and Seattle, on the other hand, are running significantly lower net points/game not only than NE and SF, but a number of teams that have fewer wins including Baltimore, Minnesota, Houston, and (for Seattle) KC, LA, and Buffalo.  That says to me that they're overperforming - their defense in the case of Seattle.

 

Buffalo has the lowest point differential of the 6 win teams, but better than all but two 5 win teams and one each of the 7 and 8 win teams.  So we are certainly not the "worst 6 win team in the history of the league" but we're verging on overperforming our offense.

 

OK hope this is interesting to someone, let me know how you see it.  Will answer any questions, but I think it's pretty stump simple in terms of what I did.

 

I think the bottom line is that most NFL games are a lot closer in score than people think.

 

 

 

Is there a reason you are blending a per game with an overall net? Wouldn’t win percentage Jake more sense than total wins?

7 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Good post.

 

That's exactly what the data show.  We are 3.3 points below league average as an offense.  Just over 1 FG per game.

that’s not a small amount though. Go back through many of our 6-10 type seasons and toss a touchdown on it score every other week and that record would shoot up often times.

[Seoulofstone]

3 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

But the question wasn't whether what the Bills have done on offense has been good enough.  That's what you're going on about, and it's whacking a dead equine.  We all agree.  They're 3.3 points below the league average for scoring points.  Not good enough.

 

The question is, why you feel it is out of scope, unlikely, that the Bills offense could improve even a modest amount? 

 

Josh Allen is developing as a QB and may never be what we want, but it seems to me that we're a missed FG or 2, a dropped pass here and there, and maybe a couple different playcalls away from a modestly better outcome.

 

Now make no mistake, we'll still get our clock cleaned by the best teams at this point, but we should be able to hold our own and win the ones we should with just a scootch better execution.  It doesn't seem too unreasonable a hope.

 

Last year Bills averaged 16.8 pts per game. This year, this year 19.3 with 9 worse teams in the league. Gradual improvement.

 

teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/points-per-game

Edited November 13, 2019 by Seoulofstone