The best way to win in this league

[colin]

Good post. I agree that this factor does influence the data, but I don't feel as if it explains the data.

 

If you wanted to remove these factors in the rushing stats you could by using rushing yards per attempt for offense, but that would inevitably lead to more problems with the data.  For example Philadelphia last year was tied for 16th in rushing yards per attempt, but that's only because they had teams playing the pass so often. In actual rushing yardage they ranked 28th near the bottom of the league.

 

It's clear that rushing success on offense is not only about averages but repetition. Repetition wears down defenses, and it allows the offense a chance to move the ball with little chance of a turnover.  A team like Philadelphia runs the ball as a way to keep teams from dropping everybody, but when they need to run they don't do a very good job at it. Last years top 10 rushing teams included Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, NY Giants, Washington, Chicago, San Diego and Jacksonville. Just about everybody on that list is known for running the ball, and they do it well. The vast majority of these teams win because they run; they don't run because they're winning.

 

The passing yardage correlation is heavily influenced by the type of behavior you speak of thus it has no correlation. But passing yards per attempt is not influenced by much, if anything. So it should be at least somewhat surprising that correlation difference of this stat varies so much from offense to defense.

 

As for your 3rd down stat request hear it is based on 04 and 05

Offense  .4761

Defense -.1021

710316[/snapback]

 

3rd down stats are misleading because good teams can have great games and just reach 3rd down fewer times than bad teams.

 

if you have a team that goes about 25 yards and converts one third down but blows the next, they will have better third down numbers than a team that goes 80 yeards and only has 1 third down but does not convert.

 

it is better to be good than bad at 3rd down, but it is best to be able to move the ball on 1st and 2nd and go for big plays on 3rd and long so you score instead of being holcolmbe converting 3 3rd and shorts and ending up punting.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

neeeerd...

 

[Ramius]

Good points. The Steelers and Seahawks were a fluke.

710383[/snapback]

 

I think an o-line playing together for a few years and gelling, as both the steelers and seahawks lines have, has a lot more to do with success than just spending every high pick on the o-line.

 

Also, a note about your guard theory. When were the guards selected in the first round? From the list, most (if not all) of them were selected in the bottom half of the first round, and a lot of them taken in the 20's. That means that the teams taking first round guards were already playoff contending or playoff teams. And a team being good has a hell of a lot more to do with them going to the super bowl than does the drafting of a first round guard. Correlation != causation.

[Bill from NYC]

I think an o-line playing together for a few years and gelling, as both the steelers and seahawks lines have, has a lot more to do with success than just spending every high pick on the o-line.

 

Also, a note about your guard theory. When were the guards selected in the first round? From the list, most (if not all) of them were selected in the bottom half of the first round, and a lot of them taken in the 20's. That means that the teams taking first round guards were already playoff contending or playoff teams. And a team being good has a hell of a lot more to do with them going to the super bowl than does the drafting of a first round guard. Correlation != causation.

710457[/snapback]

 

Thanks for the response, although the first line does take away from the content of it imro.

 

You are correct in that most 1st round OGs are usually selected in the mid to late part of the round.

In 1966, two of the top five picks were OGs, and John Hannah was a #4 overall (not a bad selection either, wouldn't you say? ), but these ARE exceptions.

 

>>>>>That means that the teams taking first round guards were already playoff contending or playoff teams. And a team being good has a hell of a lot more to do with them going to the super bowl than does the drafting of a first round guard.<<<<<

 

As for the above, I think that there is more than one way of looking at this. My feeling is that good teams draft well, and bad teams do not.

I also am sure that the draft means more to small market teams such as the Bills, Steelers and Bengals than it does to the Redskins for example, who have the money to chase virtually any free agent they want.

 

As for the OP, it really is simple. The way to win football games is to run the football successfully, and prevent the other team from doing so against you. It really is that easy, because if you can accomplish this, other things will follow (such as a passing game and pass rush). What I cannot do is think of a way to do so with sub-par lines.

 

Any ideas?

[Ramius]

As for the OP, it really is simple. The way to win football games is to run the football successfully, and prevent the other team from doing so against you. It really is that easy, because if you can accomplish this, other things will follow (such as a passing game and pass rush). What I cannot do is think of a way to do so with sub-par lines.

 

Any ideas? 

710467[/snapback]

 

I do agree with you that it is extremely difficult to do ANYTHING on offense with a sub-par line. As for the draft, it IS vital for smaller teams like buffalo to draft well, because we cant toss 50 million in SB's every offseason to free agents.

 

I dont want to drag this into an arguement about this past draft, but trust me, i was disappointed about not selecting an o-linemen or 2 in the early rounds. I would have liked to see a G and a T/C drafted. We just had soo many holes to fill that i wont knock our draft too much.

 

I know that having even just a solid o-line is the key to winning, and i really cant understand why the bills front office cannot grasp this concept. TD utterly refused to select any linemen early on as well as butler, and they decided to get by on other teams scraps. Linemen need to be treated like QB's. they need to develop and go through growing pains. A team simply cant have the turnover we have on a year to year basis. So thats where i was going with the playing together comment.

 

As for our line now, a realistic hope is that fowler or reyes can be a above average starter for us for years to come, while the other one is a solid stop gap until we can get more talent. If they both turn out good, then great! I dont know a ton about line play and technique (WR's and DB's are my forte, the 2 positions i played ), but i think peters is more of a LT as he's more athletic. Villy will need to be replaced sooner rather than later, and gandy is solid, but not spectacular, and i wouldnt mind an upgrade. As of right now, this team still needs a T and a RG, and i hope that preston or one fo our draftees can develop, but we'll see.

 

I know that was kind of a meadering post, but those were my line thoughts. the bills dont spend enough early picks on the line, and a good line is key to winning. hopefully someday soon they will realize this. Frankly, theres little reason why 1 day 1 pick every year shouldnt spent on the o-line.

[Bill from NYC]

I do agree with you that it is extremely difficult to do ANYTHING on offense with a sub-par line. As for the draft, it IS vital for smaller teams like buffalo to draft well, because we cant toss 50 million in SB's every offseason to free agents.

 

I dont want to drag this into an arguement about this past draft, but trust me, i was disappointed about not selecting an o-linemen or 2 in the early rounds. I would have liked to see a G and a T/C drafted. We just had soo many holes to fill that i wont knock our draft too much.

 

I know that having even just a solid o-line is the key to winning, and i really cant understand why the bills front office cannot grasp this concept. TD utterly refused to select any linemen early on as well as butler, and they decided to get by on other teams scraps. Linemen need to be treated like QB's. they need to develop and go through growing pains. A team simply cant have the turnover we have on a year to year basis. So thats where i was going with the playing together comment.

 

As for our line now, a realistic hope is that fowler or reyes can be a above average starter for us for years to come, while the other one is a solid stop gap until we can get more talent. If they both turn out good, then great! I dont know a ton about line play and technique (WR's and DB's are my forte, the 2 positions i played ), but i think peters is more of a LT as he's more athletic. Villy will need to be replaced sooner rather than later, and gandy is solid, but not spectacular, and i wouldnt mind an upgrade. As of right now, this team still needs a T and a RG, and i hope that preston or one fo our draftees can develop, but we'll see.

 

I know that was kind of a meadering post, but those were my line thoughts. the bills dont spend enough early picks on the line, and a good line is key to winning. hopefully someday soon they will realize this. Frankly, theres little reason why 1 day 1 pick every year shouldnt spent on the o-line.

710543[/snapback]

 

You may not like this, but I agree with everything that you say.

[Orton's Arm]

Again I understand it’s picking up instances of teams running out the clock but let's please keep this in perspective.

 

I suppose we could argue back and forth about which stats are meaningful, and which aren't. You seem to be suggesting there's a correlation between the number of rush attempts, and how many yards you're averaging per carry. Fair enough. But sometimes the rush works better against a tired defense in the 3rd or 4th quarter, than it did against a fresh defense in the first. Teams that are ahead will run the ball often, thereby benefiting more from this defensive tiredness than teams that are behind.

 

You bring up a valid point about how teams that tend to throw more often than they run can inflate their yards-per-carry stat. A good example of this was Travis Henry's yards per carry average under Kevin Gilbride.

 

To get to the bottom of this, perhaps you could run a multi-variable regression analysis, with yards per carry, number of rushes, yards per pass play, etc. as your X variables, and winning percentage as your Y variable. I'd be curious as to which variables would continue to have decent r^2 values in this test, versus which ones would get explained away.

[Bill from NYC]

You bring up a valid point about how teams that tend to throw more often than they run can inflate their yards-per-carry stat.  A good example of this was Travis Henry's yards per carry average under Kevin Gilbride.

710567[/snapback]

 

This is SO true!!!

 

The Bills were playing a "run and shoot" with no blocking. Defenders were racing in to crush our quarterback, almost at will.

Travis was strong and he was able to get a head of steam, gaining some impressive yardage before the trips, slips and fumbles.

[Mikie2times]

What freaks me out about this whole thing is the fact that we might be bad in more then one of these areas next year.

 

Teams struggle to overcome 1 of these issues, and rarely make the playoffs if they’re not at least satisfactory in all of these areas. You get your exceptions every year but those exceptions usually come when a team dominates one of these areas. Take the Colts and the passing game, or Chicago defensive/running strategy last year. You can't be bad in more then one of these areas and even be average in this league, and I think we stand a decent chance of being below average in all three categories.

 

If we do any of these things well next season it will probably be running the ball but even that isn’t a sure thing. Our improvements to the line have held pace with the last regime and we all know how that ended up. On defense Larry Tripplet and the Colts cover 2 hasn't solved their run problems since Dungy installed it. Anderson could improve but is probably not a starter on most teams, and McCargo is still an unknown. Finally young QB's, and ones with weak arm struggle in yards per pass attempt, a critical indicator of performance. Even with Moulds it would be a reach to expect either of these guys to be in the top half of the league in this category after how they faired last year.

[stuckincincy]

Teams struggle to overcome 1 of these issues, and rarely make the playoffs if they’re not at least satisfactory in all of these areas. You get your exceptions every year but those exceptions usually come when a team dominates one of these areas. Take the Colts and the passing game, or Chicago defensive/running strategy last year. You can't be bad in more then one of these areas and even be average in this league,

 

710579[/snapback]

 

I think that's so.

 

The B'gals last season, had very little run defense, and opponents in the 2nd half of the season increasingly held the ball. They gave up just under 15 points per game in the 1st 8, and 26.5 afterwards.

 

Palmer, Rudi Johnson et al saved their bacon.

 

I suspect they'll suffer this coming season. They have a much tougher schedule.

[Orton's Arm]

A random thought that I should have had earlier:

 

The total rushes per game stat measures three things:

- A team's commitment to the run versus the pass

- A team's tendency to run more often when protecting a lead

- A team's total number of offensive plays in a given game

 

Let's say that in a given game, you ran ten more offensive plays than your opponent. Since some of those extra plays will have been running plays, you'll almost certainly have had more running plays than the other team. This doesn't mean you're any more committed to the run than they were.

 

Some teams with below-average levels of commitment to the running game have had success. Take the 49ers of the '80s, or the Patriots team that won the Super Bowl with Antowain Smith as the starting RB. Are such teams anomalies or the norm? To find out, you could replace the number of rushes per game stat with % of rushing plays.

[dave mcbride]

here are two anomalies:

 

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe2001.htm

 

 

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe2003.htm

[dave mcbride]

another thing: i was always under the impression that the most predictive stats were which team scored first, with a td being a much greater indicator of victory than a fg. also, the turnover ratio has always been key iirc.