It's a false thing. You publish that stat right after the Jets game where the Bills had a +6/43 point game? It is not going to last. So set yourself up to be sad.Originally Posted by HAMMER
It's a false thing. You publish that stat right after the Jets game where the Bills had a +6/43 point game? It is not going to last. So set yourself up to be sad.
you should do this. tweet an NFL analyst and see if they can even respond to "without taking value into consideration, would you rather have watkins or benjamin" then ask them with the trade.
the first one, everyone would take watkins over benjamin. and i'm guessing its a 50/50 split taking the trade up.
each week, watkins continues to show that he's worth a high price. if he was producing at half his level, i'd say he has a good chance to pan out based on previous rookies.
the level of stupidity you reach on each post is astounding.
Actually, the Bills had one particularly good game against the Jets and one particularly bad one against the Pats. So there are 'outliers' in each direction. Before the Pats game, the Bills were tied for TO differential, I believe.
The bottom line is that though the stats are sometimes Rorschach tests, there are people here who will qualify or attempt to explain away anything that looks positive. We beat teams that are competent, it is not because we are a decent team, it's because those teams 'had a bad game' or were missing this or that player.
gebobs (10-29-2014)
Watkins accounts for 9 of those 35 big plays, most on the Bills.
Watkins - 9
Chandler - 6
Freddy - 5
Woods - 5
CJ - 4
Hogan - 3
Mike Williams - 2
Boobie - 1
Goodwin - 1
Both QBs have played four games, EJ started well and got cold (4,4,4,1 - 13). Orton is more consistent (5,5,3,4 - 17). Note, these numbers do not include runs.
I'm with you on Sammy. I was a doubter. He's a rare player.
The turnovers in that game were what really boosted the Bills. They only had four big plays according to this metric. Granted, two of them were long passes to Watkins, but they still only count as two. But yeah, the Jets game as a whole was the biggest game. I didn't count up the big plays against, but if we just go by turnover differential and big plays for, the game by game count is 8,7,4,3,6,2,2,10.B) A lot of what put the Bills at the top was the lopsided plays all in the Jets game. I think this stat may change drastically for them after 5 or 6 more games.
So, of course, games like that are going to be rare. Hopefully the other end will be rare too. But I agree. It's not likely that the Bills will continue to average 2.5 toxic points per game. I hope like hell they do. It'll be hard without Freddy and CJ.
The team is fun to watch most weeks so far. The only real stinkers were NE and SD. They could have won in Houston but for that bonehead play by EJ.
Last edited by gebobs; 10-29-2014 at 04:25 PM.
Lehner's history. He just doesn't know it yet.
psubills62 (10-29-2014),swiper (10-31-2014)
Actually Fetch, couldn't disagree with you more on this one.
You may think (and may very well be right) that the Bills gave up too much for a specialty player, or that they could have used the picks differently, but living out of market, even talk radio where I am gushes about Watkins. The kid is a star, plain and simple. You don't need statistics to verify what you're seeing with your eyes. His one mistake all year was slowing up on an 84 yard reception--that's amazing.
He could (if he isn't already) easily be the best wide out in the league in the next few years... I'm glad we got him on this team, and I love watching him on Sundays!
Team v. team stats are largely useless in professional football. There are too many variables to control for, and it's not an accurate sample... each team does not play the same schedule, in the same environments, for a large enough amount of time. It is like looking outside your window at 9am in the morning, seeing a Toyota, a Ford, and a Toyota drive by, and deducing that 67% of the country drives Toyotas.
I know that's a very condescending way to explain NFL statistics, but it's amazing how poorly some people grasp simple mathematical concepts (not saying you're one of them!)
The NFL just isn't a "large" enough league to be wedded to statistics the way some fans want it to be... and that's why it's such a popular sport. You can come up with 100 statistical reasons why the Bills should beat the Chiefs in 2 weeks, but absolutely none of it matters or impacts that game in any way, shape, or form. And because most of the statistics are used ex post facto, they become EVEN MORE meaningless, because they can't be used to predict future results.
The internet, advanced metrics, and 24 hour news coverage of the sport has given fans access to the game like never before, and that's AWESOME. I can always read new things about the Bills, any day of the week, any time of the day. Man, I used to have to wait for SHOUT! (the official newspaper of the Buffalo Bills) to come in my out of market mailbox every week... and 1x a month in the offseason. Sometimes, the newspaper wouldn't get there until after the next game had already been played! But with this constant access comes this notion that... something new needs to be said every day... we can't just talk about being excited about the games, or talk about how we HOPE the Bills beat the Chiefs... or how Watkins is our favorite player...
We now feel that we need to quantify these things, or rationalize them. Watkins can't be the best because his DVOA is lower than his TOXIC rating indicates it should be against the top percentile of teams in a strength of schedule rating... what?
Who gives a *****?
GO BILLS!
For what it's worth, I'm not a big Billick fan, but I found it real interesting even before I realized we were at the top of it. I skipped over the chart at first.
It's a just a metric but a happy one for us. Maybe it will carry more weight as the games proceed, maybe not, but it is good to see for now. Billick is not an arbitrary Bills booster.
swiper (10-31-2014)
Well said. I Agree completely. In my post the examples mentioned were not my opinion but we're meant to illustrate what you see on the board. As you say let's not overthink this! Go Bills!
Mace (10-29-2014)
No fletch usually see what he wants to see. Just like you kept harping on how bad the run d was because we havent faced anyone. Yet we play the jets and shut them down and now I do not here anything about the run d. You are a funny dude posing as a BILLS fan
More over ANALyzation as usual. Just enjoy the stat folks. We all know there are many variables involved.
so you post a stat that attempts to rank teams by combining the plus-minus ratio of big plays (defined as 20+ yards) with the plus-minus ratio of turnovers, then whine that other people are over-analyzing.
Sure, makes perfect sense.
swiper (10-31-2014)
Sour Puss
OpIv37 (10-29-2014)
This is a self-evidently useless stat. Look at the rankings in this differential, and then overlay team records.
Fun to see us at the top though and getting some positive press.
gebobs beat me to it. We put up 43 points, but that isn't what's counted in toxic differential. Only 4 explosive plays for Buffalo, which if you consider we had 35 over 8 games, that's only just above our average from the other games.
The turnovers affect the stat, but remove the Jets game and we're still a +12 toxic differential, which would be tied for 3rd. So yeah, still really good.
"Misguided political correctness tethers our intellects."
- Nicholas Cummings
gebobs (10-29-2014)
The only statistic that means a damn thing is wins. Every other stat is an attempt to predict future performance based on the past. And as Niels Bohr once said: "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."
BuffaloRedleg (10-30-2014)
Truth.
But that's part of the appeal of NFL stats. Every team, well maybe not the Raiders, can point to some stat to buoy their spirits. Hey, my quarterback had a 90+ rating for 3 weeks straight. So? Well, he's obviously going to do that forever. Hmmmm...betcha two bits he doesn't this week.
These stats aren't meant to be a predictor of future success. They simply demonstrate that there is a strong correlation between turnover/explosive play ratios and winning football games. Through the first half of the season a team like the Bills has been widely considered an overachiever and a team like the Saints an underachiever, and when you look at toxic differential it's easy to see how they have gotten there.
The Jets game helped to inflate the Bills toxic differential, but whether they had been +1 or +10 in that game doesn't change their record and has no impact on what their toxic differential will be during their last 8 games.
I think turnovers are going to be harder to come by in the second half based on our opponents, so if the Bills want to maintain a high toxic differential it's really going to come down to how well Orton takes care of the football and eliminating costly fumbles by the other guys on offense.
Fletch logic.
but when Watkins catches over 100 yards vs. Jets......
Fletch: " but if you take away his longest catch........ he caught that vs. a bad pass D......blah,blah"
look in the mirror. You're arguing with yourself.
Last edited by justasportsfan; 10-30-2014 at 09:30 AM.
the interesting thing is that our big play guy has made those big plays with double coverage. teams can try to shut him down to gain the advantage, but it isn't really working.
the pats game was a bit odd because they were using him as a decoy and woods had a good game. so the offensive big plays will be hard to stop if orton remains the qb.
the turnover seem to come in bunches. and the team is somewhat reliant to get turnovers in wins.:
week1. - +2 W
Week 2 - +2 W
Week 3 - 0 L
Week 4 - +1 L - their one turnover was a pick 6 so the defense couldn't bail us out
week 5 - +1 W - their kicker missed 3 kicks which was like 3 turnovers.
Week 6 - -3 L
Week 7- -2 W
week 8 - +6 W
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