No, I have researched it in the past and the math does not support your opinion. It is not a third of the game in terms of impact. That's not saying it has no importance, just that it's less important than offense or defense.
Well, yes and no, while as a general rule Specials produce about 33% of what can be expected from an Offense or Defence does in a given game, however: -the cost to upgrade them is quite cheap as was demonstrated in the OP, the Ravens used 2 late rd picks, 2 cheap Free Agents to build a top 5 unit -we are in a division that cares a great deal about Special Teams performance, the avg finish is 9th, ours is 24th -Specials compliment the offense and defensive efforts, long returns on our part and denying them to opponents creates a more fully rounded approach to a given ball game, less yds for the offense to drive to score, more yds to work with for the defense. I watched probably 5 Ravens games last season and have to say I had Special Teams envy, watching that unit consistently pin opponents inside their own 20 yd line, or a touchback out to the 20 with no return, or watching returns generate field position, or scores, and thinking of how Rizzi's unit played and it was sad to consider how crappy our unit is.
Thanks for putting that back up Padre. I mentioned it earlier in the thread. We missed on that one. You think we might have had zero confidence in Anderson and Moses. I do. Moses did finally get on the field on ST.
Its about impact and STs has a much lower correlation with winning than the other two components. So while everything helps or complements other areas, the impact from STs is nowhere near 1/3.
Here's a section from an article from 2007 that was examining why teams win: SPECIAL TEAMS So far I’ve ignored special teams. There’s a reason for that—they don’t really matter on a consistent basis. Of course, we can remember a critical play here, a miracle play there--they can change the outcome of a game on rare occasions. We can remember these spectacular plays because they are so exceptional. But no matter how we measure special teams in a meaningful way, the correlation coefficients are not statistically significant. That’s not to say that teams can ignore special teams. Every advantage a team can find is important, but in the long run, the importance of kickoffs, punts, return yards, and field goal percentages are all dwarfed in relation to things like running, passing, and turnovers. There are several valid explanations for the relative unimportance of special teams. First, and perhaps most obvious, is that special teams plays are far less frequent than pass or run plays. Second, the difference between the best special teams and the worst special teams is small in comparison to the spread between the best and worst offenses and defenses. Third, special teams stats are very hard to evaluate. For example, average net punt yards negatively correlate with winning at -0.17. This means the better the team is at punting, the fewer wins it can expect. But I believe this is misleading because teams with good offenses would be able to kick more “inside the 20 yard line” punts than teams that often kick from their own 30 yard line. One last point about special teams: Big special teams plays, such as kickoff returns for touchdowns, are rare. In the past five seasons, there has been an average of 13.6 kickoffs returned for touchdowns--by all 32 teams combined. The best test of skill vs. luck I have come across asks the question, “does it tend to be repeatable?” Kickoff or punt returns for touchdowns, or 60+ yard field goals, unfortunately, do not tend to be repeatable. http://www.advancednflstats.com/2007/07/what-makes-teams-win-2.html
John Kasay gave the ball to Brady at the 40 yard line in the SB that was a big mistake. Kicking it out of bounds.
Dueling stat geeks! When you watch the Chargers lose 3 games due to poor ST play, and the Dolphins lose 1 game, the answer seems somewhat obvious Rafi. And allow me to add: http://footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamst 2010 50% of the top 16 made the playoffs, 6 of the top 10 2009: 7 of the top 16 made the playoffs and 5 of the top 10 And interestingly enough, the Patriots and Jets both have top 10 units, both made the playoffs the last two seasons and in 2010 6 of the teams that won their division also placed in the Top 16 of the NFL in ST's. I can think of three games we lost due to poor St play: 1st Jets, 1st patriots, Lions.
I suspect we can keep Q or Ike, but not both, of the two I prefer Ikaika simply because he had to make a astounding jump from DT to OLB and maybe he has a bit more upside than Q who annually does very very little out on the field but either one is ripe for replacement imho. As for Mariani, as I've pointed out, the real key is identifying the talent, the system that spots them is more important than missing every now and then, if they can find him, they can find someone else. That is the core of what Irish and Sparano are attempting to do, it is not the individual player per se, it is the system that identifies and acquires that matters. With this Regime, once they identify a problem, they can then fix it, but they are terrible at identifying problems beforehand it literally has to hit them over the head with poor results before they grasp "hey, this might be a problem moving forwards". Now that Irish has acknowledged publicly that we need a Returner I fully expect to land one who can get it done, I'd have liked Chad Owens but they apparently didn't, or they lowballed him.
Friend rafael to research it properly, you would have to research special units in respect to wins & loses compared to the quality/performance of their respective offensive & defensive units. my first statement was, as a rule of thumb you need to dominate/win two of the three in any combination to win. I respectfully disagree & offer the following in support of my position: 1) they set the field position for both the offense & defense to initiate their respective attacks, always important, priceless in a close game. 2) they score points & prevent the opposition from scoring, usually deciding close games 3) most importantly they bridge the offense & defense, being composed largely of either team & a handful of specialist. they create momentum within the game with their ability to initiate & dominate positive field position & put points on the board. 4) I have always thought of a good special teams unit was an equal partner in winning. I've used the simple formula for winning: have to dominate in any two of the three to win:Offense, Defense, Special Teams. in that respect I view them as the third rail & equal partner in football. with a good unit, the team is energized, playing with critical field position & scoring points. the proof: one third of the game video by Mylock & Davis http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-total-access/09000d5d81d18b11 more information: http://www.helium.com/items/1586930-the-importance-of-special-teams-in-football http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/team/new-york-giants/teamreport/67056 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football_positions 5) I don't know what research you read but I assure you Special Teams are a integral part of the whole & in so being equally important in the outcomes of about a third of the games played in the NFL. easy to overlook their importance, given they play one down @ a time not four, but impossible to deny their impact in any given game. in their case more is less... "every coach & player in the game knows that Special Teams is one third of it..." think about it it is what it is
Fellow Member Sick: I suggest: always post the the thread not the poster, it can be unpleasant & embarrassing going after posters
me too! I showed you mine, now you show me yours... to research it properly you would have to research special units in respect to wins & loses compared to the quality/performance of their respective offensive & defensive units. my first statement was as a rule of thumb is you need to dominate/win two of the three in any combination to win. or site some authority, pundit, coach, whatever in support of your position
Chris Williams from NMSU, he had a good preseason then just collapsed later in the preseason, he wound up in the UFL iirc. Which is sort of par for the course, they do try to bring in Returner types, RGM, Smith, Williams, but default back to Cobbs whenever things are not explosive over a game or three. "Ted Ginn's style of returning kicks won't work in the NFL.." that was said in 09, Cobbs shredded his knee, Ginn scores 2 Td's vs the Jets, they then give him away.
Eh regrets do us no good, in retrospect, if Ginn had been kept when Hartline went down he would have offered more than Marlon Moore had in 2010.
It was a while ago, but I looked at STs rankings that some site had compiled and then compared those to the won/loss records and found they were all over the map. That wasn't the case with offensive and defensive efficiency rankings. Neither was a magic bullet on its own but teams that were very efficient on either side tended to have better won/loss records. Teams that were efficient on both offense and defense had even better records on average. Good STs teams that weren't good anywhere else had bad records. And STs combined with either offensive or defensive efficiency were no better on average record wise than teams that were efficient at either offense or defense alone. It seemed to me that STs could have a big effect on one game but over the course of the season were too infrequent to really impact the won/loss totals. I figured that the math involved would be more complex than I could manage. So then I looked for correlation studies like the ones from AdvancedNFLStats I quoted above. In that one they concluded: So far I’ve ignored special teams. There’s a reason for that—they don’t really matter on a consistent basis. Of course, we can remember a critical play here, a miracle play there--they can change the outcome of a game on rare occasions. We can remember these spectacular plays because they are so exceptional. But no matter how we measure special teams in a meaningful way, the correlation coefficients are not statistically significant. That’s not to say that teams can ignore special teams. Every advantage a team can find is important, but in the long run, the importance of kickoffs, punts, return yards, and field goal percentages are all dwarfed in relation to things like running, passing, and turnovers. http://www.advancednflstats.com/2007...ams-win-2.html Other math/stat intensive sites concluded the same. Football Outsiders, which Padre cited earlier, found that STs was about 1/3 as important as either the offense or defense. There are three units on a football team, but they are not of equal importance. Our DVOA ratings provide good evidence for this. The special teams ratings are turned into DVOA by comparing how often field position on special teams leads to scoring compared to field position and first downs on offense. After figuring out these numbers, the top ratings for special teams are roughly one-third as high as the top ratings for offense or defense. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/FO-basics That doesn't mean its 1/3 of the game. That means it's 2/3 less important than the other two. By my count that would mean that Offense is about 43% of the game, Defense is about 43% of the game and STs is about 14% of the game. And Padre knows this, so I find it amusing that he keeps trying to puff up the importance of STs by citing individual games which is obviously irrelevant over the long haul. And there are other obvious mistakes and assumptions that keeps being cited as "proof" throughout this thread. Not to pick on 23rd, but here was part of his post: 1) they set the field position for both the offense & defense to initiate their respective attacks, always important, priceless in a close game. 2) they score points & prevent the opposition from scoring, usually deciding close games 3) most importantly they bridge the offense & defense, being composed largely of either team & a handful of specialist. they create momentum within the game with their ability to initiate & dominate positive field position & put points on the board. 4) I have always thought of a good special teams unit was an equal partner in winning. I've used the simple formula for winning: have to dominate in any two of the three to win:Offense, Defense, Special Teams. Basically, they are all at least partially incorrect b/c they ignore how infrequent the plays occur. 1) The starting position isn't set by the STs alone. It is greatly impacted by your offense and defense. For example say one team starts on the 40 and takes a 10 yard sack or gets a 10 yard holding penalty, gains no yards and punts 40 yards into a fair catch. The other team starts on their 30. Say they get one first down on 15 yard play and then punt 40 yards with no return. The first now is starting on their 15. They have lost 25 yards in field position but their STs were essentially even. 2) STs scores are infrequent. 3) Momentum can be created by any play. STs plays occur less often than the other units so naturally they create momentum less frequently. 4) Again STs plays happen less often so the chances to dominate are less frequent. Most often its a standstill. I think that's the part that many fans don't seem to get. There are significantly fewer STs plays during the average game than offensive or defensive plays for one team. On average each team will get about 65 offensive plays and 65 defensive plays, but only about 20 STs plays. A percentage of those STs are going to be extra points where probably 99% of the time nothing happens. If you add in the plays where neither team gets an advantage, I would guess you probably end up with somewhere around 14% of the plays where STs makes a difference.
And once again we are back to the same old saw Rafi, low frequency, high impact plays, we lost 2 games in 2010 due to poor special teams, possibly 3, and yet one relies on gross stats for the entire NFL, if one wanted to make a truer comparison, look at the bottom 16 teams in ST rankings and see how many games they lost due to poor ST play. For example, the Chargers lost 3 games, the Giants lost one game, we lost 2 games, that is the difference between mixing in the top ST performances with the bottom ST performances, it dilutes the huge impact a poor unit can have on winning. If one recalls, we basically beat the packers in GB, the only team to win there this past season, due to a Packers ST unit member lining up over the snapper illegally.
Well, that can be true, however there are far more punt returns than there are interceptions in a given season. I "think" ST touches the ball offensively about 150 times per yr in punts and kicks and free kicks, ST touches the ball Defensively say 160 times or so depending on how prolific the offense is in a given season, that is over 300 plays per yr or under half as much as an offense will (50 plays per game x 16 games). They see the field more than one would think.
I think your numbers for STs are high. I did a quick glance of KRs and PRs for the season and did not see a single one that had 150. The most I saw was 126 and most were under 100.
Even if you take the team with the most PR attempts, and the team with the most KR attempts and combine them you're still below 150: Regular season 2010, team with most PR attempts had 56 Regular season 2010, team with most PR attempts had 84 Total: 140 Assuming the Rank 16 team shows about the average attempts in the league: Regular Season 2010 Rank 16 team attempts at PR 36 Regular Season 2010 Rank 16 team attempts at KR 63 Total: 99 or ~6.2 per game
I counted FG's and Punts and guestimated at kick off attempts as well Rafi, if anything that would put my number to low. FG's are offensive, punts and kick offs are defensive in nature.
FGs are rarely blocked so it doesn't make much sense to count them among potential impact STs plays. And even if you do count all of your 150 STs plays that's still a small percentage of the 1000+ plays each team has on offense and 1000+ plays they have on defense. I think your numbers do an excellent job of illustrating how infrequent STs plays are compared to the other facets of the game.
More like 120 potentially impact plays or 2 games worth of offense. That would be 13% of the season which is shockingly close the 14% of the game that the number crunchers deduced STs was.
And 400 plays matches right around what Football Outsiders take on the Special Teams impact. 33% but 40% of the plays an offense runs. Which is why, once again, the true way to gauge impact is to look at the bottom 16 teams and see how much of a contribution their individual units made to the overall W/L record, I'm thinking ST lost us 2 to 4 games, it lost 3 for the Chargers, 1 for the Giants that I know of..
With average STs they might account for two wins or losses per year. The other 14 games are going to be on the offense and/or defense.
When the cost to win those 2 wins per yr is 2 late rd picks and 2 low level FA's the buy in cost is quite low for a chance at 2 to 3 wins.
But if those late round picks can't also contribute on offense or defense, then the cost also includes potentially diminishing the effectiveness of those other two units.
Later rd picks just stepping in and seeing playing time with Offense or Defense generally means you are having problems. And consider on a 10 win team, that is 20% of your win total for the cost of 3 roster slots. And that is assuming they cannot contribute on either unit in some capacity as Veteran ST specialists generally can play snaps with either unit, we never bring in Vets like a Tim Shaw who have proven capable at ST and can pull package duty. Low initial costs potential returns out of proportion to their ROI.
Dobbins was brought in largely b/c of his STs prowess. In fact, it was the first thing mentioned by Ireland when asked why they traded for him.
How did that work out for us? I suspect they do not place a high value on Specials and realized how badly they had misjudged around Gm #5 or so, they had added 2 pieces, Dobbins and Smith, Dobbins had a ankle injury to start the yr, Smith did not pan out, then Ireland stopped churning the roster and what we had was what we had to work with in 2010. Heading into 2011, with Irish mentioning several times they need a Returner type, I expect they will make an effort to upgrade the unit as once they identify a weakness they generally get it fixed..save for crappy ST play overall, 24th overall finish in a division that avg's a 9th place finish outside of the Dolphins should be a wake up call.
There's a difference between not putting enough emphasis and not agreeing with their choices. Dobbins was brought in for his STs prowess so you can't say they never do that. IMO the STs performances have not been so much about not setting aside roster spots as it has been about the coaching and the constant churning of the roster.
Padre, I've been considering why PFF has our ST's ranked at #4, and "think" I have the reason. They grade every player per play with a +/- limit of 2 and 0 for average. We have guys like Fields, Denny, and Carp who graded out very high, and most others who are at least average. When there is a horrible play, like a blocked kick or a TD return, it's likely that only one or two players are going to get that -2 grade while the other 9 or 10 get a 0 or even a plus. For example, Fields booms a 50 yard punt with great hang time (+2), guys stay in their lanes, a couple of guys beat ther blocks and force the returner to change direction (+ 1), and then 2 other guys completely whiff ad tackles, giving up a TD (-4). The overall play is a disaster but, overall grade is not. Others ranking ST's are going by stats, and for them, that play is a disaster. IF I'm right, it does make sense. We can't compare the two because they are ranking different aspects of the game under different guidelines.
Well SB as I think of your theory it does not paint a pretty picture of the job that Darren Rizzi did in 2010 as there was some talent on the unit, but as a whole the unit played quite poorly, meaning outside of individual performances of Fields, Carp, and Denny, the rest of the unit underperformed.
That's exactly what I think happened. STs for the most part are about units working together. There are a few specialists that can have a big impact, like the K, P and returner, but we were pretty decent at two of the three. It would be great to have a more dynamic presence at returner (that's why I wanted to keep Ginn), but our returners weren't liabilities. Our problems on STs were mostly due to break downs from other players. Your not going solve that by setting aside roster spots for STs unless you plan on setting aside roster spots for every STs position. The solution is to have the units work together instead of having to train a new guy every week.
In 09, we had J Allen, Nate Jones, Hartline, Hilliard, Ginn, Wake, and Torbor. We did pretty well. Last year, we had Hilliard, Ness, Jones, Culver, and Alamba-Francis. It's easy to see the drop off in ST talent no matter who coaches.
Good point. When we kept changing the bottom of the roster on a weekly basis, the portion of the team most affected is ST's. It got to be like the "Who's On First" comedy skit. In today's day and age of football every coach in the NFL knows each and every move you make, and is going to attack the weakness, aka new guy. You can no longer just put players on ST's and say go after the football.
