What Correlates most with Winning? WARNING: STAT MONKEY THREAD!!!

MB, If I may suggest, that is kind of the wrong measuring stick, a punt return is typically a 12 yd max affair, the real yardstick is long returns and TD's, I'd almost bet that a PR for a TD usually means the returning team wins the game.

Kickoffs are an iffy issue as I'd also think there are more KR for Td's, BUT starting field position on Kickoffs does correlate to wins, one of the Bears and Jests hidden keys to winning is their Returners gave both teams excellent start fp consistently.

 

Which shows that 20 TDs doesn't really mean a winning season. There have been a lot of QBs who have thrown 20 TD passes and not had a winning season.

When he hasn't had a great running game and/or great defense Eli Manning doesn't win much more than Chad Henne.


Eli --2004

Run Game Rank: 11
Defense Rank (Pts Allowed): 17
Record as starter: 1-6

Eli -- 2006

Run Game Rank: 7
Defense Rank (Pts. Allowed): 24
Record as starter: 8-8

Eli -- 2009

Run Game Rank: 17
Defense Rank (Pts. Allowed): 30
Record as starter: 8-8

Chad -- 2009

Run Game Rank: 4
Defense Rank (Pts. Allowed): 25
Record as starter: 7-6

Chad -- 2010

Run Game Rank: 21
Defense Rank (Pts. Allowed): 14
Record as starter: 6-8 (7-8 if count game Penny starter and got hurt on 1st or second play)

 

Gosh fineas, I'd guess that is true of 99% of Qb's, but thanks for pointing it out!

 

I'm a firm believer that passing efficiency/potency is the key to football games. You have to pass with efficiency/potency on offense, and now allow the other team to pass with efficiency/potency on defense.

However, where it concerns the interplay between the run game and the pass game, to me there's a difference between offense and defense. I think it's easier to set up a consistently good passing game on offense in the absence of a good ground game, than it is on defense to have a consistently good pass defense if you don't defend the run. I think defense is more gimmicky. If you're not stopping the run then you can't even get into the situations where you run your gimmick defenses that are designed to murder the quarterback and create turnovers. You can't even get into the situations where you let your smart play makers be smart and predictive. I think it's really hard to be a consistently good pass defense if you're not stopping the run. But on offense, I think it's easier to do that.

 

Maybe my sarcasm detector isn't working, but I am not sure if you are being facetious or not.

 

What Correlates most with Winning?
two words: Andrew Luck

nice analysis, now getting away from the STAT MONKEY THING for a realistic moment

we need:
1) a new Head Coach
2) Franchise QB

this is a young & very talented team, it would be a tragedy to waste it. the sooner we acquire the missing two pieces the faster we compete @ the highest levels. for me game four of the regular season is a watermark. if things are not going well, we should begin making immediate changes.

 

agreed!

having said that, you judge the coach on three things:

1) getting the most out of his players & cadre
2) making good game plans & tactical game-time decisions
3) winning & losing games

none of these things bode well for Sparano, right down to his only declared competency: the offensive line

in my book:

Henne has four regular season starts to prove himself before he's benched in in favor of a backup
& Sparano should be rifted if the team is unsuccessful after game four.
enough is enough, this game is about winning not excuses. lead or let someone lead who is competent to lead

this game is about winning, we need to employ winners & we need to change course. more of the same will not produce a different result.

 

Monstblitz,

do you mind if I share this with a well known local talk show host?

if you don;t mind, send me your real name via PM, so I can attribute.

 

Passer Rating Differential for the league:

Green Bay 32.7
Tennessee 31.5
NY Giants 28.7
Detroit 26.5
Houston 24.2
New England 20.3
NY Jets 19.3
Baltimore 18.3
New Orleans 16.8
San Francisco 15.4
Buffalo 12.8
Dallas 6.8
Washington 5.2
Oakland 1.1
Arizona -2.4
Cincinnati -4.4
Pittsburgh -4.5
San Diego -6.6
Atlanta -6.8
Cleveland -8.9
Seattle -11.7
Tampa Bay -12.5
Carolina -14.9
Minnesota -15.8
St Louis -15.8
Chicago -17.5
Kansas City -19.5
Indianapolis -20.2
Philadelphia -21.1
Miami -28.6
Denver -30.4
Jacksonville -33.5

 

Correlates quite nicely, doesn't it?

To me, this points out two of the biggest issues Miami has. First, the secondary is just down right horrific. I mean horrific. The Dolphins have given up over 8.3 yards per attempt and opposing quarterbacks complete almost 65% of their passes against this defense. The secondary MUST be retooled, particularly the safety spots.

Second, we are not getting consistent efficiency in the passing game on offense. From 20 yard line to 20 yard line, we are fine. However, on third downs and inside the redzone, we are among the worst in the league when it comes to passing. Basically, we struggle defending the pass, and we don't pass well when the field has been constrained whether it is by shortening the dimensions in the redzone or using multiple DB's on 3rd down and in 2 minute drills.

 

Even eliminating the first game doesn't help much. Here is the passer rating differential for the last 3 games:


NY Giants 51.2
Green Bay 39.3
Tennessee 38.7
NY Jets 33.4
Houston 31.9
New Orleans 25.8
Detroit 23
Pittsburgh 17.5
New England 17
San Francisco 15.9
Dallas 5.8
Baltimore 5.1
Atlanta 1.4
Buffalo 0.8
Cleveland -2.5
Tampa Bay -2.9
Oakland -4.7
Washington -5.5
Arizona -6.9
Kansas City -7.3
Carolina -10.2
Seattle -11.3
San Diego -13.1
Cincinnati -15.4
Minnesota -15.7
St Louis -16.4
Indianapolis -26.1
Miami -29.9
Denver -30.7
Chicago -34.6
Philadelphia -35.8
Jacksonville -41.7

 

Wait, the same talented team who's D has been worst than some of the D's that Marino had to play with ? The same talented team that still has serious OL issues, TE issues, WR issues and RB issues ?? The same talented team that is at or near the bottom of nearly every major statistical category this season ? The same talented D that has let 3 of it's 4 opponents drive late in games to win or secure the win ?? The same talented D who's secondary is more like Swiss cheese than a defensive football team ?? The same talented D who's ILBs disappear in games ?? The same talented team who's defensive strength can't seem to muster any pass rush at all ??

We do NOT have this great 'young and very talented team'...we have a mediocre team that is waiting for several players to develop who have not yet. This team is a myriad of IFs...IF Vontae Davis takes the next step....IF S. Smith learns to tackle, IF Fasano doesn't have to be held in to protect the QB, IF the right side of the OL can play at least at a mediocre level, IF Pouncey is somewhere near his brother, IF Carey can make the switch to RG, IF Clemons/Jones/Culver can develop, IF Bell can come back from his injury and age hasn't caught up to him, IF Burnett can free up Dansby enough to cover the TEs and RBs coming out of the backfield, IF Daboll, who's not had much success elsewhere come in and inject life into what Henning called an offense, IF Soliai can build upon last season, IF....well, all these were IFs 6 weeks ago and are still IFs now...Ironically the biggest IF was Henne and he's shown the most of any of the other players or coaches...

EDIT: Wait, I forgot...IF Bush can be an everydown, featured back...

 

The stats make good points, Monst...but is it Chad Henne not playing well enough or is it the OL not being able to open holes for the RBs in the red zone. Is is Henne's fault that we have to max protect on every 3rd down attempt, limiting his passing options and time for plays to develop ?? Is it Henne's fault that he's had at least 3 TD passes dropped, that likely could have swung the big Mo in our favor, if not outright putting games away ?? I'm all for whatever it takes to win, but these stats show a negative light on our offense in general, not on Chad Henne's play specifically.

 

Great work MB, although I got lost at the barber shop . . .

 

Exactly, this is one of the reasons why Reshad Jones continued playing time is a riddle to me, I think Cb will firm up with the return of Vontae, but Bell and Jones at Safety=Terrible pass D.

When your secondary is starting 2 ineffective Safeties, 2 young Cb in Carroll and Wilson, and little passrush, you have our horrible unit.

I suspect we play deep zones to cover for Jones/Carroll/Wilson, but when Dansby is hobbled, the middle of the field is wide open.

As for Returns for TD equating to wins, 3 games I've noticed a kick of punt return for a TD:

-Week 1 Harvin took 1 100 yds vs SD=Loss after blowing a 20 pt lead
-Week 2 Ginn 1 Kick off return for a Td, one punt return for a td=SF win
-Week 33 Devin Hester returns a punt for a Td, setting all time NFL record=Bears win

 

I always thought the stat that correlates most with winning is points scored vs points against. Carry on.

 

Wait, so scoring more points than are scored are on you, means you can win?

 

Kudos to you for doing this, but...

As you say if you had time you'd run a multiple regression, which is essential. Due to the likelihood of intercorrelations between a lot of the variables quoted you can't really make any relative inferences from calculating individual correlation coefficients.

Not here to just poke holes however without being constructive, if you can put up the excel file or send it to me or some such I'll put it through SPSS and try some models. I can send the outputs back to you, so you can evaluate and report here etc To be honest you've done the hard part of getting all the data together, so happy to help if I can.

 

I have seen regression analysis applied to this sort of data before. The results are always the same. The keys to winning are passing and stopping the pass. Whether you use passer rating differential or YPA differential it always comes out that if you pass more efficiently than your opponent you win +70% of the time. If you win the turnover battle as well then you win +90% of the time. This has been proven over and over. I have been talking about this since I joined the site. Generally met with "there are many ways to win". That just isnt true over the course of a whole season. There really is nothing else that correlates as highly with winning. I'm just thrilled that we finally have a HC that understands a focuses on this.

 

Can you provide a similar stat for Rushing Yards Per game differential? What about rushing TD per game differential?

Id like to see those stats before I hail this one. Of course if you outpass the other time by a significant margin you will win the game, that goes without saying. Most of the time.

 

Here's an old post using 2009 data: http://www.thephins.com/forums/show...ion-numbers-for-2009&highlight=win+correlates

Here are the win correlation numbers for 2009

I cut and pasted to avoid the "posting the whole article" thing.

Offense
Points scored .88
Team passer rating .81
Total yards gained per play .81
Yards gained per pass play .80
Total yards gained .77
1st downs .70
Turnover ratio .69
Pass yards gained .68
3rd down conversion % .64
QB hits allowed (.53)
Sacks allowed (.53)
Time of possession .46
4th down conversion % .25*
Pass attempts .14*
Run attempts .12*
Yards gained per rush play .09*
Offensive penalty yards .04*
Run yards gained .04*
Pass/run ratio .02*

Defense
Points allowed (.68)
Run yards allowed (.58)
Passing yards allowed per pass play (.57)
Total yards allowed (.56)
Total yards allowed per play (.54)
Opponent's passer rating (.47)
1st downs allowed (.45)
Sacks made .41
Run yards allowed per play (.33)
4th down conversions allowed (.30)
Passing yards allowed (.24)
3rd down conversion % allowed (.23)*
Defensive penalty yards .14*

Special Teams
Average kickoff (kicking team) .32
Average net punt yards (kicking team) .27*
Average kickoff return yards allowed .15*
Total penalty yards committed .11*
Average kickoff return yards gained .05*
Field goal % .03*

* not statistically significant at 90% confidence



http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2010/0...and-stats.html

It doesn't have run yards differential, but it does show total run yards and run yards per play as well as run yards allowed and run yards per play. The only one that is significant is total run yards allowed, but I suspect that's just b/c teams that are winning just tend to run more at the end of the game.

 

Excellent, look forward to seeing the results

 

It may well be the case. I'm making the point about multiple regression tho because correlations don't really have any predictive power. A proper analysis will look at beta coefficients and effect sizes which actually tell you something about a predictor relative to the other predictors.

 

If you check that link you might find their process. I've seen several of these types of analysis over the years and I really can't remember what they did in this particular one. All of the ones I've seen basically reached the same conclusion. It correlates with what I've seen and I believe that it's been predictive enough that its what professional gamblers tend to use. IIRC I just posted that one back then b/c it did a nice job of setting out the comparisons.

 

is this thread old?, if not its good to see ya bud.

 

Yup, it's is old, nabo is still mia.

 

*Grumble, grumble CHUNK PLAYS grumble, grumble HIDDEN YARDS grumble, grumble K?*

 

It's the philosophies Parcells instilled in this organization that did us no good..... Set us back, even. Trying to revolutionize the running game and winning with ball control offenses that took an early lead and held on for dear life. We built our passing game around game managers with possession receivers that we're called on solely to convert 3rd and long situations.... never allowing them to get into a rhythm. The defense was also designed to contain those potent running games that we just hardly ever faced, aside from the Jets. Pass rushers and play making defensive backs were hardly a priority..... We struck gold with Wake, and drafted Davis/Smith. Otherwise pass defense has been largely ignored. How the **** are you going to beat the patriots when you get your safeties and nickle/dime backs off the street ? Yeremiah was a nice player, like Roy Williams was.... pretty much a liability in passing situations.

The Giants have a similar mentality as far as power football.... but look how many corners/ safeties they've drafted. Webster,Ross,Amukamara,Phillips... they payed Rolle big bucks to play FS, drafted Pierre-Paul when they already had a few elite pass rushers. They get it. I think we do now too... but we're starting from ground zero.

 

If you look at the stats that correlate the most highly -- YPA differential and turnver margin -- it could be the case that just not giving up the ball is what wins.

Woody Hayes's old adage was, "three things can happen when you pass the ball, and two of them are bad."

Of course he meant incompletions and interceptions.

A big part of YPA is pass completion percentage. Obviously a pass attempt that results in an incompletion yields a YPA of zero. No yards were gained.

Given that passes are attempted typically when more yards are needed, and when running the ball is unlikely to get those yards, incompletions tend to stall drives, which of course gives the ball to the other team, typically via a punt.

Same thing happens with a turnover of course.

So the key to winning may be keeping the ball away from your opponent as much as possible. Inasmuch as having an efficient passing game that prolongs drives, and a team that does more taking the ball away than giving at away, produces that outcome, then it stands to reason that YPA differential and turnover margin are predictive statistics.