SI Ranks Offensive Backfields

Originally Posted by GMScud

Yeah, well it can work just as easily the other way if the D is giving the O a short field by forcing turnovers in the opponents territory, and/or sacking the QB to set up 3rd and very longs.

Thats why I like the defensive ypg stat and I prefer the offensive ppg stat.

Originally Posted by GMScud

Do you really think we had the 4th best defense in football last year? I don't. Probably right around top 10, but not 4th.

Id agree with that statement. The defense did its job last year but at times didnt look like a top 4 defense. Hopefully this year our defense will be better overall across the board with the additions of Haynesworth and Orakpo.

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by Brian Orakpo

Thats why I like the defensive ypg stat and I prefer the offensive ppg stat.

How can you primarily use the offensive ppg stat if the D is consistently giving the offensive a short field (something just as easily done with turnovers and sacks as it is yards allowed)? Starting a drive from the 40 is a lot easier than from the 20.

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Tounge in cheek, but serious. Think about it: if we had made the playoffs, people would be treating our defense as top five, but they'd be treating our offense as average because there would be no need to justify having only won 8 games with a great defense. It's must easier to justfy unspectacular performance if the overall product doesn't ultimately disappoint.

That's all I was pointing out.

Maybe but when we made the playoffs in 2005 with a 10-6 record all I heard was people slamming our offense even though we were 11th in ypg and 13th in ppg. They played bad in the playoffs but late in the regular season they clicked to help secure a playoff spot. It got so bad Gibbs gave the playcalling over to Al Saunders (which imo was the worst move Gibbs made in his comeback).

If the Skins made the playoffs at 11-5 last season with ranks of 19 in ypg and 28 in ppg and the offense looked bad it would of been slammed even worse imo. I dont care if the Skins went 16-0 last year if we only scored 16 ppg for the season id say our offense was terrible.

Originally Posted by GMScud

How can you primarily use the offensive ppg stat if the D is consistently giving the offensive a short field (something just as easily done with turnovers and sacks as it is yards allowed)? Starting a drive from the 40 is a lot easier than from the 20.

Every team stat has certain flaws. I prefer to use the defensive ypg stat because if the offense puts the defense in bad situations and they hold to FGs it still counts against them if you use ppg.

I like to use the offensive ppg stat because imo the offenses main job is to score. Every offense in the NFL every week will have chances to score. Its just a matter if the offense can get the TDs needed to help your team win.

Imo the defenses job is to contain the opponents offense. I think the ypg stat is the best indicator of this. I believe the offenses job is to score TDs. I dont care how many yards they rack up if they dont score.

Other people have other ways to judge how good a offense or defense is.

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by Brian Orakpo

Every team stat has certain flaws. I prefer to use the defensive ypg stat because if the offense puts the defense in bad situations and they hold to FGs it still counts against them if you use ppg.

I like to use the offensive ppg stat because imo the offenses main job is to score. Every offense in the NFL every week will have chances to score. Its just a matter if the offense can get the TDs needed to help your team win.

Imo the defenses job is to contain the opponents offense. I think the ypg stat is the best indicator of this. I believe the offenses job is to score TDs. I dont care how many yards they rack up if they dont score.

Other people have other ways to judge how good a offense or defense is.

I don't totally disagree with your assessment. But you say the offense's job is to score TD's. Ok. I won't argue against idea that their #1 job is to score, just like it's the D's primary job is to prevent scoring. Well, if said offense has a dominant defense on the other side of the ball, they will not only get more total possessions to perform their job (due to 3 and outs, turnovers, sacks), they will more often than not have a shorter than average field with which to do so.

[GMScud]

Really all I'm saying is there are a few statistical metrics on both sides of the ball that should get just as much consideration as the "total" (just yardage) stat that gets so much praise.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

Exactly, I can name 3 things off the top of my head that were season killers:
1. Leigh Torrence getting beat deep with less than 2:00 to go on a 3rd and long vs. the Rams to set up the game winning FG.

2. Giving up an 87 yard screen pass against the Bengals to Cedric Benson. Every defender should have been docked $25,000 for that play.

3. Blowing a 10 point halftime lead against SF and then after we tied it, allowing yet another long completion under 2 mins to set up the game winning FG.

As "bad" as people want to say the offense was (and they were maddening at times) and as much as people want to tout our 4th ranked (most fraudulent ranking metric in the NFL) defense, we were a few plays away from being a playoff team.

I don't really mind this loss, after all, I credit it with getting us Orakpo

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by GMScud

Really all I'm saying is there are a few statistical metrics on both sides of the ball that should get just as much consideration as the "total" (just yardage) stat that gets so much praise.

#1. Dude, you posted at 2am. I hope you went to bed instead of talking about the same topic all night. LOL.

#2. I simply felt they marked us lower then teams with lesser talent or lower then teams that will be questionable this yr due to change of coaching, and loss of valuable players.

#3. Apparently the writer was not talking about "the backfield" alone cause usually that's refered to RB's and FB's and teams with HB's. I usually don't include the QB in that discussion. If the writer was going to talk about QB's also then he might as well talked about the whole offense and especially the O-line giving the said QB time to throw the ball if they were going to use passing statistics. Simply put a better topic heading would have been "SI Ranks Offenses and their Backfields." I guess I was just being picky about how they ranked the teams, where the Skins were placed and the topic heading.

#4. Whatever statistical data they used to get their conclusion sucks. I presume they are using last yrs stats. Accounting for all the injuries each team had, not counting any additions teams made and then figuring that's how they will be again this yr. I believe adding AH and Orakpo will considerably make our defense better. Whether 4th ranked or not. I think the Skins keeping most of the offensive players, beefing up the O-line, Hopefully a change of pace back, and two WR's and a TE with something to prove makes for a huge change. Truthfully it all amounts to a hill of beans untill the team goes out and proves they can be good. I felt they did that in the first 8 games even though they didn't score 40 points a game. What mattered was they scored more then their opponant. A win was a win. Yes the last 8 games can't be discounted. I just thin a lot played into why we were 2-6 in the last 8 games especially against teams like San Fran who had a mediocre yr like us. We had a new offense, we had a new HC, we had injuries, perhaps became predictable due to the injuries, had a terrible 2 min drill, plus probably a half a dozen other issues. People can blast JC but the O-line sucked in the last 8 games. People say teams figured out what Zorn was doing, maybe, or possibly teams figured out where the O-line kept breaking down and attacked it. Perhaps they realized JC was only partially confortable in his new offensive scheme and decided to blitz to make him get rid of the ball faster. Hopefully Zorn has figured out the problem and has fixed it. If not I'm betting he's gone also. I don't want him gone for consistancy sake but I bet he's gone.

[redskins1974]

Originally Posted by brian orakpo

id go out on a limb and say the offense blew both giants games, the rams game, the 2nd cowboy game, the steelers game, the ravens game, and the bengals game. 8+7=15.

agreed

Originally Posted by GMScud

I don't totally disagree with your assessment. But you say the offense's job is to score TD's. Ok. I won't argue against idea that their #1 job is to score, just like it's the D's primary job is to prevent scoring. Well, if said offense has a dominant defense on the other side of the ball, they will not only get more total possessions to perform their job (due to 3 and outs, turnovers, sacks), they will more often than not have a shorter than average field with which to do so.

Yeah I knew you would say that. I agree you can very easily take why I like the offensive ppg stat and flip it and ask why I dont like the defensive one.

I just dont like how defenses can play great but be in bad field position all game and give up 3 or 4 FGs that they wouldnt have given up if the offense helped them out a little. The reason I like the offensive ppg stat is that even if they are given short fields its no lock they will score TDs off of it. If the offense still doesnt make plays to score their ppg isnt as messed up. They would still have to make plays to score a TD.

Really it just comes down to that I dont mind some cheap FGs messing with the offensive ppg stat because if they cant score TDs it doesnt matter they still suck. I do mind cheap FGs messing with the defensive ppg stat though because a defense can play lights out all game can still give up 3 pts a pop if they start inside their own territory.

Originally Posted by GMScud

Really all I'm saying is there are a few statistical metrics on both sides of the ball that should get just as much consideration as the "total" (just yardage) stat that gets so much praise.

I went ahead and made a new defensive ranking that adds in sacks and turnovers.

What I did was I took the defensive ypg rankings for 2008 for each team and put them on one side. Then I took the sack rankings and turnover rankings for 2008 and averaged them out. This gave me each teams big play ranking for 2008.

Heres the Big Play Rankings List for 2008.....

ten 4
pit 5.5
bal 6
nyj 6
phi 6
mia 6.5
ari 9.5
min 9.5
dal 10.5
car 12
chi 12
tb 12.5
nyg 13
ind 14.5
stl 14.5
oak 15
cle 16.5
ne 17
sea 18
gb 18.5
atl 19.5
sd 19.5
kc 20.5
det 21
no 21
sf 22
cin 23.5
hou 23.5
buf 24
jac 25.5
was 28
den 29

The Skins ranked next to last in Big Plays last year. The good news is with Haynesworth in DC now maybe he can help us like he did Tennessee in this department.

When I take these numbers and average them out with the defensive ypg stat ranking for 2008 heres what I came up with.....

New Adjusted Defensive Rankings for 2008

1. pit 3.25
2. bal 4
3. phi 4.5
4. ten 5.5
5. min 7.75
6. nyg 9
7. dal 9.25
8. mia 10.75
8. tb 10.75
10. nyj 11
11. ind 12.75
12. ne 13.5
13. ari 14.25
14. car 15
15. was 16
16. chi 16.5
17. sf 17.5
18. cin 17.75
19. buf 19
20. gb 19.25
21. oak 21
22. cle 21.25
22. jac 21.25
22. stl 21.25
25. atl 21.75
26. no 22
27. sd 22.25
28. hou 22.75
29. sea 24
30. kc 25.75
31. det 26.5
32. den 29

So you are right that the Redskins defense if you factor in the big plays on defense last year (sacks/turnovers) wasnt as good as other stats that dont factor in big plays suggest. While I dont think the Skins defense was 15th last year it is a pretty interesting stat if you like to factor in sacks and turnovers.

Hopefully with the additions we have made on defense we will have alot more sacks and turnovers in 2009.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Brian Orakpo

I went ahead and made a new defensive ranking that adds in sacks and turnovers.

What I did was I took the defensive ypg rankings for 2008 for each team and put them on one side. Then I took the sack rankings and turnover rankings for 2008 and averaged them out. This gave me each teams big play ranking for 2008.

Heres the Big Play Rankings List for 2008.....

ten 4
pit 5.5
bal 6
nyj 6
phi 6
mia 6.5
ari 9.5
min 9.5
dal 10.5
car 12
chi 12
tb 12.5
nyg 13
ind 14.5
stl 14.5
oak 15
cle 16.5
ne 17
sea 18
gb 18.5
atl 19.5
sd 19.5
kc 20.5
det 21
no 21
sf 22
cin 23.5
hou 23.5
buf 24
jac 25.5
was 28
den 29

The Skins ranked next to last in Big Plays last year. The good news is with Haynesworth in DC now maybe he can help us like he did Tennessee in this department.

When I take these numbers and average them out with the defensive ypg stat ranking for 2008 heres what I came up with.....

New Adjusted Defensive Rankings for 2008

1. pit 3.25
2. bal 4
3. phi 4.5
4. ten 5.5
5. min 7.75
6. nyg 9
7. dal 9.25
8. mia 10.75
8. tb 10.75
10. nyj 11
11. ind 12.75
12. ne 13.5
13. ari 14.25
14. car 15
15. was 16
16. chi 16.5
17. sf 17.5
18. cin 17.75
19. buf 19
20. gb 19.25
21. oak 21
22. cle 21.25
22. jac 21.25
22. stl 21.25
25. atl 21.75
26. no 22
27. sd 22.25
28. hou 22.75
29. sea 24
30. kc 25.75
31. det 26.5
32. den 29

So you are right that the Redskins defense if you factor in the big plays on defense last year (sacks/turnovers) wasnt as good as other stats that dont factor in big plays suggest. While I dont think the Skins defense was 15th last year it is a pretty interesting stat if you like to factor in sacks and turnovers.

Hopefully with the additions we have made on defense we will have alot more sacks and turnovers in 2009.

You may have just made GTripp's day.

[Eknox]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Rankings don't mean shit come September. Who cares.

Matty say it again homie..

[redskins1974]

To me, the fact the Defense didnt get alot of sacks and turnovers was annoying, but ultimately they didnt give up alot of yards or points - bottom line. Now turnovers would have been nice because Gods knows our struggling offense could have used some short drives, but the D still managed to be top 6 for both pts and yards allowed.

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by Brian Orakpo

I went ahead and made a new defensive ranking that adds in sacks and turnovers.

What I did was I took the defensive ypg rankings for 2008 for each team and put them on one side. Then I took the sack rankings and turnover rankings for 2008 and averaged them out. This gave me each teams big play ranking for 2008.

Heres the Big Play Rankings List for 2008.....

ten 4
pit 5.5
bal 6
nyj 6
phi 6
mia 6.5
ari 9.5
min 9.5
dal 10.5
car 12
chi 12
tb 12.5
nyg 13
ind 14.5
stl 14.5
oak 15
cle 16.5
ne 17
sea 18
gb 18.5
atl 19.5
sd 19.5
kc 20.5
det 21
no 21
sf 22
cin 23.5
hou 23.5
buf 24
jac 25.5
was 28
den 29

The Skins ranked next to last in Big Plays last year. The good news is with Haynesworth in DC now maybe he can help us like he did Tennessee in this department.

When I take these numbers and average them out with the defensive ypg stat ranking for 2008 heres what I came up with.....

New Adjusted Defensive Rankings for 2008

1. pit 3.25
2. bal 4
3. phi 4.5
4. ten 5.5
5. min 7.75
6. nyg 9
7. dal 9.25
8. mia 10.75
8. tb 10.75
10. nyj 11
11. ind 12.75
12. ne 13.5
13. ari 14.25
14. car 15
15. was 16
16. chi 16.5
17. sf 17.5
18. cin 17.75
19. buf 19
20. gb 19.25
21. oak 21
22. cle 21.25
22. jac 21.25
22. stl 21.25
25. atl 21.75
26. no 22
27. sd 22.25
28. hou 22.75
29. sea 24
30. kc 25.75
31. det 26.5
32. den 29

So you are right that the Redskins defense if you factor in the big plays on defense last year (sacks/turnovers) wasnt as good as other stats that dont factor in big plays suggest. While I dont think the Skins defense was 15th last year it is a pretty interesting stat if you like to factor in sacks and turnovers.

Hopefully with the additions we have made on defense we will have alot more sacks and turnovers in 2009.

Nice insight, BO. I think last year overall we fell somewhere in between 4th and 15th, probably around the 8-10 range. Good post.