This Skins Stat Says A Lot About Us

so the average is what? 37 or so? meaning we're losing at least 2 more games a year than we should. that's kind of damning in a way.

losing close ones and taking penalties is at least partially coaching, though i think that some of those years our D was keeping us in games we had no business being in too.

I have never doubted that we have lost more close games than we should have. I feel however that this stat prooves that we have never been that good.
Ultimately, you want to be a team that is rarely in a close game and knows how to win by more than a touchdown and PAT or 2 point conversion. When they do get into close games then you want them to win. If you are playing everyone close then you aren't a very good team. There have to be weeks when you separate yourself from the competition. When you have the weeks that you cannot separate then you find a way to win the close one. All this stat tells me is that the team is good enough to compete but lacks what it takes to be a true contender.

Changed to what?

Edit: and among whom? Coaches? Players?


Maybe he is referring to the sunshiny feeling and the whole "attitude" of Redskins park thing. He refers to it alot, so much so Im beginning to think all of our front office and players walk around with rainbow brite shirts and slap bracelets with the word "positive" on it.

He also might be saying that the thought we are this close has come and gone, and we now know with shanahan, no plan is THE plan. Maybe he did come here for a quick retirement fund BOOSTER!

This means absolutely nothing, btw. Look at the teams at the top, the best in the league over that span, and look at the teams on the bottom, the worst. Its a damning figure, not one to take and try to squeeze optimism out of. Anytime you are compared with the Clevelands and Detroits of the NFL, thats usually not a good thing, no matter how the shanahan apologists (or anyone) want to spin it.

That's an irritating stat. It's also aggravating. To have 2 wiinning seasons during that time span is also annoying. Oftentimes you can find the reasons on the offensive side of the ball as being poor QB play or sight too many turnovers. On defense it could be allowing the opposing offense to convert on too many 3rd downs or allowing too much yardage.

Honestly this stat has a glass half empty/glass half full kind of view to it.

It tells me that we are the most competitive team in the NFL, and consistently.

Btw, the difference between us and the Lions/Browns is 7 games. Thats practically a whole seasons worth of wins. You can interpret that in more than one way.

Also I may add in that Pittsburgh and Atlanta AND Cincinnati and Philly, both had ties in that 10 years. I did not count the ties as a loss nor towards this data (it wouldn't affect the Redskins from finishing at the top)

Detroit went winless in 08, and of all 16 games that they lost, only 5 of them were close.

Buffalo, who comes in just after us at number 5 is the only team in the past 10 years to not make the playoffs.

This stat shows whos franchise has been the most stable and consistently good team in the NFL in this time. New England is obvious, but after them, Indy, and New York Giants, the steelers, then the panthers. The panthers, while they haven't been that good in the past recent years, they were a tough team to beat in the early years.

This stat tells you to limit those close games, and you have a better chance of winning.

Look at the GB packers of 2010, they were the only team on my list who lost all their games by 8 points or less and won the super bowl.

I guess what may be misleading or deceiving about this stat is comparing two teams with similar close lose amounts, but different season results.

Example, The 09 Rams and the 2010 Packers. Both teams had 6 close losses. The packers however went 10-6 and won the super bowl. The Rams in 09 went 1-15.

Back to the redskins. This stat shows that we have been competitive over time, and we've had different players and different coaches but the same results. Maybe its not the team, maybe this is where the finger gets pointed at ownership, because thats been the only consistent in all this.

It may be ownership but that's a waist of argument because Dan isn't selling the team anytime soon.

i would love to see our record if we only played 3 quarters every game for that same timespan in OP.

It would be interesting to see a stat for most Punt/KO returned TD's called back. I know we are notorious for that as well.

I think all this stat says is that for the past decade or so we have been largely a defensive minded team. Scores were lower because our defense was good and our offense stunk - because we had no QB.

There's a huge difference between losing 17 to 13 vs 33 to 29. In the high scoring game you feel like all you needed was one stop, or to be the last team to have the ball. When you lose 17 to 13 like we did for so many years, you felt like you were a star QB away from being competitive.

Which was completely true.