Wys, I read your article about giving J Gray credit and have questions.

[timfromjersey]

I'm not so sure that he deserves any credit yet but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

You stated that after the first six games the defense improved to what would be a rated 7th overall defense in scoring. You gave the per game scoring average after the sixth game as support to your main point. What I would like to know is what was the average and overall improvement (if there was any) in total yardage given up, and more importantly, rushing yardage given up during the remaining games after the initial six.

Did the defense become a bend but don't break defense or did it stop giving up yardage. And did the offense drop during that same stretch because it got less touches, as opposed to the quick scores by the opposition in the first six, giving Bledsoe more possesions. What was the avg. no. of possessions after the first six. How did the offense's time of possession effect how much the defense was on the field?

It seems to me that most teams improve defensively as the season goes (barring injuries to key starters) as a matter of course, just from playing together, reviewing mistakes and improving their on-field communication. What proof do you really have that the improvement was a result of Gray's defensive schemes. Did his gameplanning improve the run defense or coverup their lack of pass-rush, the biggest weaknesses of the defense? Where are those stats?

I found your article interesting but inconclusive.

What say you wys?

[justasportsfan]

Here we go again. I hope wys is busy making sauces.

[Earthquake Enyart]

I hope the health inspector is in town again. :eek:

Once again, it's harder to score points in crappy weather. Besides playing at home, the Bills had road games in GB, NE, and NYJ at the end of last year.

[Throne Logic]

Yardage means a whole lot less than points scored.

Would you rather have an offense that racks up 500 yards and scores 12 points, or an offense that racks up 250 yards and scores 35 points?

Same can be applied to the Defense. A squad that allows 500 yards and gives up only 12 points will do better in the wins column than a squad that allows 35 points only 250 yards.

Yard stats are useless for punters, too. Better to have a "Punts placed within the 20" meshed somehow with Hangtime.

RBs running for 120 yards on 20 carries, but have 1 run for 85 yards. Yeah, nice numbers and a decent performance, but it's not very balanced. Ricky Williams ran for nearly 400 yards in two LOSSES to Buffalo last year. I could care less if he ran for 800 yards in the two games this year, if we win them both.

Most yardage stats annoy me. Not the true picture. Just big numbers.

Stat-wise, (as Wys would correctly tell you), when you do any kind of statistical analysis of something, you SHOULD throw out the highest number and lowest number. This gives a more accurate depiction of the big picture. Use the High and Low for things like the "Big Play" factor, and so on.

Unfortunately, fans get caught up in idea that large numbers are better / worse. In football, the largest numbers (other than salaries), are the yardage stats.

How come there isn't a stat for total yards by kickers? I bet Lindell kicks for 1600 yards this year on field goals . . . Hell, I bet he kicks 4000 yards on Kick-Offs!

anyway, rant over.

[Stewie]

Originally posted by Throne Logic
Yardage means a whole lot less than points scored.

Would you rather have an offense that racks up 500 yards and scores 12 points, or an offense that racks up 250 yards and scores 35 points?

Same can be applied to the Defense. A squad that allows 500 yards and gives up only 12 points will do better in the wins column than a squad that allows 35 points only 250 yards.





This may be hypothetically valid in a vacum, but it is NOT exactly true on the football field and this is exactly why wys doesn't see the big picture IMO..

If your offense racks up 250 yards and 35 points, that means they had to move 35 yards to score each touchdown on average. This is a function of field position! Assuming your offense will make mistakes/score at the same rate, the defense has to be heavily involved here to keep giving the offense the ball on such a short field. Where's the metric for the defensive involvement here?

The bottom line is its a team game. There are no stats for how much the offense and defense believe and inspire confidence in each other. You win as a team, lose as a team, and game stats generally mean little.

[Throne Logic]

Originally posted by paulB
The bottom line is its a team game. There are no stats for how much the offense and defense believe and inspire confidence in each other. You win as a team, lose as a team, and game stats generally mean little.

I couldn't agree more.


Originally posted by paulB
If your offense racks up 250 yards and 35 points, that means they had to move 35 yards to score each touchdown on average. This is a function of field position! Assuming your offense will make mistakes/score at the same rate, the defense has to be heavily involved here to keep giving the offense the ball on such a short field. Where's the metric for the defensive involvement here?

My point was that "yardage" as a solitary stat, is not a good measure. You just furthered my argument. Field position plays a huge roll in the game - still one of the more under-rated of all aspects, despite the amount of talk that is generated about it. Special Teams plays a very large roll in field position, easily as large as the defense, and that is hardly accounted for at all in stats.

Please don't get hung up on the small point where I mentioned that Wys was correct :) . . . I think we are pretty much agreeing on most of this.

[timfromjersey]

you fellas unwittingly fell into the point I was making. While I agree in principle with you on the value of yardage stats, they are however a loose indicator of the quality of the defense. A dominant def. will make many cold stops of an offense via 3 and outs, very short drives and turnovers. A good but not dominant def. may give up long drives but stiffen up near the goal line preventing the touch down. An excellent DC will help create the first def. example more than the latter. A mediocre or poor defense through the natural course of the season can develope into the latter example. Hence the commonly used term "bend but don't break" defense.

But the point of my thread was to question wys assertion that J Gray deserves credit, when clearly my example can be one causative factor on the improved defensive scoring statistics. your examples are just as valid, cold weather causing turnovers and missed field goals, etc.

I just think that wys' analysis on this is just a cliche of statistical overanalysis.

[WG]

Originally posted by timfromjersey
I'm not so sure that he deserves any credit yet but I'm trying to keep an open mind.

You stated that after the first six games the defense improved to what would be a rated 7th overall defense in scoring. You gave the per game scoring average after the sixth game as support to your main point. What I would like to know is what was the average and overall improvement (if there was any) in total yardage given up, and more importantly, rushing yardage given up during the remaining games after the initial six.

Did the defense become a bend but don't break defense or did it stop giving up yardage. And did the offense drop during that same stretch because it got less touches, as opposed to the quick scores by the opposition in the first six, giving Bledsoe more possesions. What was the avg. no. of possessions after the first six. How did the offense's time of possession effect how much the defense was on the field?

It seems to me that most teams improve defensively as the season goes (barring injuries to key starters) as a matter of course, just from playing together, reviewing mistakes and improving their on-field communication. What proof do you really have that the improvement was a result of Gray's defensive schemes. Did his gameplanning improve the run defense or coverup their lack of pass-rush, the biggest weaknesses of the defense? Where are those stats?

I found your article interesting but inconclusive.

What say you wys?

I say I'm on my way out the door now and you should have asked this months ago when the article was posted. I'm swamped between having only two days between coming back and driving back for the Pats game, w/ so much to do in the meantime.

My initial thoughts are this:

What matters most? Yards allowed, or points allowed. Our best Bills Ds weren't always ranked highly in terms of yards allowed, but were ranked highly in terms of points allowed.

IMO it's the goal of the D, and the D should be measured by, the # of points it allows. If it can do that while allowing 500 YPG, then fine. If it can do that w/ 0 TAs, then fine.

If you want to do the research on that, feel free, post your results, and we'll take a look at them. I don't have anywhere near the time right now. Sorry.

As well, how about a parallel analysis of how many of our "points allowed" were actually set up by the offense turning the ball over in our half of the field, often in our own red zone or inside the 30?

[WG]

A corrollary:

Gilbride's O, loaded to the gills, averaged less than 18 ppg over our last 10 games.

The D, sketchy w/ talent, not possessing two proven DL-men, allowed fewer than 20 PPG over the last 10.

That's shameful for Gilbride. Gray did the best w/ what he had. Roles reversed and we wouldn't have won 2 games Gilbride is that bad.

[timfromjersey]

Sorry that I didn't read the article a month ago but I have not been online for many months. Do you imply that your article indexed on the BZ main page should not be read now?

A team that gives up 500 yards is not going to hold down the opposition's score by and large, but I get the exaggerated illustration of a point. I'm not questioning a manifest defesive improvement, just what credit Gray should get after considering other mitigating factors.

I wish you an enjoyable trip and time up in Buffalo and wish I could be heading up there myself this weekend.

:gobills:

[WG]

Yeah, and a team that continually sets opponents up within their own 30 yard line with poorly thrown balls on passing plays resulting in INTs isn't going to hold down the opponents' scores either. Drew contributed significantly last year to opponents' scoring!

No, by all means, read it any time you wish. I simply don't have time now to go do research for you as I often do for others. As it now stands, I'm out the door this morning and am leaving quite a bit of work undone prior to my leaving.

If you want to research all the games and draw out the relevant data, I'll be happy to discuss it w/ you. It'll likely take an hour or two, time that I simply don't have right now.

You threw out a bunch of statements based on suppositions that we gave up just as many yards early on as we did later on. What do you want me to say to that w/o the facts laid out before me/us in order to ascertain, first of all, if it's true or not, and second of all, the impact if they are not.

I can tell you this, that if you look at the early games, such as the Jets game, you'll find that our D actually played very well. Drew's INT setting the Jets up at our own 19 for TD wasn't the D's fault. Neither were two STs TDs. That's 21 points!

So including the last 10, now we're up to 11. You can do a similar assessment for at least another game or two. So the bottom line then becomes that the D only played poorly in 3 or 4 games, w/ STs doing quite a bit of damage and Drew and the offense setting up our opponents for quite a few points.

As to your assertions on the yardage, tough to tell w/o factual data. I don't like commenting w/o some facts before me. But again, just like on O, until they start awarding wins based on fewest yards allowed and/or yards gained, it's not yards that matter, it's points!

From a scoring D perspective, we ranked what would have been 7th over our last 10 games.

See, in Buffalo, we're all now under the odd delusion since Drew's arrival that yards are the end-all-to-be-all stat! Drew's the master at throwing for yards, but his TD production per 100 yards thrown is amongst the poorest in the league.

Apparently this has carried over to D where yards allowed seem to bear a greater weight than points allowed.

Just let me know when the NFL switched from a point-win format to a yardage one. I seemed to have missed that!

;)