Airing it out: Teams rely more on passing

[PA Season Ticket Holder]

"Along with the increased passing, it's been noted that Tiki Barber of the Giants was the only player among the top 11 running backs this season whose team made the playoffs. That's interesting, but I do think it's more of a fluke than anything else. If this happens four straight years, then it would be a trend.
Look at some of the teams that ran the ball really well this year."

"The Miami Dolphins come to mind. They had a lot of ingredients to become a playoff contender, but the passing game wasn't quite as efficient and the defense didn't quite dominate the way they thought it would. So they weren't able to take advantage of a tremendous running game. The Kansas City Chiefs ran the ball unbelievably well, but their defense couldn't quite hold it end up, so one part of their football team was really so weak that the running game couldn't offset it."

http://www.superbowl.com/news/story/6126061

[don137]

4 out of the top 6 defenses did not make the playoffs either.

[WG]

Originally posted by don137
4 out of the top 6 defenses did not make the playoffs either.

That's according to yardage defense. But again, since they don't tally up the yardage accumulated by each team thereby awarding the win to the team w/ the most yards, yardage D is overrated.

Games are won by points being disallowed and conversely, being scored by your own team, whether defensive or offensive.

By scoring D standards, which I consider to be far more meaningful, ...

the top 3,
6 of the top 8,
7 of the top 10,
9 of the top 12,
11 of the top 16,
and 12 of the top 18 scoring defenses made the playoffs.

Not one single team in the bottom 14 teams ranked in scoring D made the playoffs. 2/3 of the top 18 did.

That's all of them, indicating the importance of defense (in terms of being able to keep points off the board, not yardage down to a minimum) for winning championships. Not a team in the playoffs had less than an 18th ranked D and the top 2 seeds in each conference were ranked 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 11th.

Furthermore, the teams remaining are the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 11th ranked scoring Ds.

That's also why I discount Drew's yardage stats when he can't put the ball in the endzone. Who cares about yards if they don't translate to points.