It's a snow day after my work closed early, so I was sitting here going over a few things after a couple people e-mailed me recently questioning the accuracy of our stats database compared to Pro-Football-Reference.com, ESPN etc. after they pointed out a couple of discrepancies - most notably on 1st and 3rd down.
So I ran through and compared our numbers using the Pro-Football-Reference.com tool (
Game Play Finder / <a href="/play-index/play_finder.cgi?super_bowl=1">Super Bowl Play Finder</a> - Pro-Football-Reference.com) and found a discrepancy on 1st & 3rd down where they were higher on one, and lower on another compared to my numbers.
Upon review, the first discrepancy was in the Jets game on Thanksgiving on a first down play that they counted as an attempt was a safety by Brady - which was nullified because the play was blown dead (ie: No Play). So there was no pass attempt even though they counted it anyway. They actually still have Brady's final totals as 18-of-28 instead of 18-of-27 - which was what his final stat line was later changed to in the official game books by the league. I checked and it looks like even the official team site still has the original game book with the incorrect totals.
NFL.com has the game-log with the corrected updated numbers:
Tom Brady: Game Logs at NFL.com
The second discrepancy came on a 3rd down play in the Seattle game at the end of the first half on an intentional grounding penalty on Brady that was declined. They didn't count the attempt, but since the penalty was declined it still counts as a pass attempt and should have been included with the totals. Our numbers matched the official game book released by the league, which I review following each game to ensure accuracy.
Another odd thing with them is when you use the "Game Play Finder Query Results" you'll also notice if you do a full season search for this year (excluding playoffs) it comes up with 35 regular season touchdowns for Brady instead of 34. I'm not sure why that is, but it's obviously not right.
Also after reading Bedard's column a few weeks ago regarding Welker (
Marriage between Wes Welker and New England Patriots looks strong - Patriots - Boston.com) he listed Welker with 166 targets, based on his source from ProFootballFocus.com. That didn't sound right to me and after review my totals had him with 175 targets - which is correct. ESPN has 174, which after doing some digging and looking at the individual game-by-game splits, I found the error. They listed Welker with 8 targets instead of 9 against San Francisco, which is incorrect. If you review the gamebook you'll see the inaccuracy:
http://prod.static.patriots.clubs.nf...6_gamebook.pdf
On another note Bedard also released an article today talking about some of the numbers from this season:
Looking at the 2012 Patriots by the numbers - Sports - The Boston Globe
In the article it lists the team having had 68 plays of 20 yards or more, which if you review this page:
2012 Patriots Offensive Play Broken Down by Distance Gained
and add the totals from these two:
Houston Texans Playoff Game Stats
Baltimore Ravens Playoff Game Stats
It totals out to 68 - which is what Greg listed
One last note after reviewing this page and comparing it against the official league splits:
2012 Patriots Defensive Stats, Breaking Down The Patriots Performances on 1st Down, 2nd Down, 3rd Down,4th Down and Total Number of Plays
All the numbers matched
So for anyone wondering how accurate those are, it looks like we're actually even better than a couple of other sites
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