6 NE Patriot misconceptions

[Sicilian]

I'm not sure I see the logic in your reasoning. While it's true that every minute you control the ball is one minute less your opponents' offense can score, it's equally true by definition that it's one minute off the clock that your offense could score in.

Football is essentially turn based. Teams alternate opportunities to be on offense. You can't score twice in one possession, so making your turn last longer doesn't change the even ratio of chances to score between you and your opponent (unless you're running out the time at the end of the half or game.)

Rather, what long drives do is reduce the total number of possessions both teams get, which increases the leverage value w/r/t win chance % of each individual possession. The fewer the total possessions in a game, the bigger a role the outcome of each individual possession will have on the game. This is why it's good for teams with the lead to kill the clock -- you know you've already 'won' the possessions that already happened, so the bigger the role they play in the final score, the better for you.

Of course, reducing the number of 'iterations' in the match and magnifying the effect of each iteration's outcome makes the winner more 'random.' The greater the sample size, the better the odds of 'normal' distribution. So if your offense is going to score on their defense 60 percent of the time, and their offense is going to score on your defense 50 percent of the time, the more possessions in the game, the better for you.

This, and not "keeping Manning/Brady on the sideline" is ultimately why keeping the number of possessions down turns out to often be the right strategy for teams when playing the Colts or (latter-day) Patriots. By increasing the leverage value of any iteration's fluke outcome, time of possession helps teams beat opponents that are overall better than they are.

I can't agree more with this post. Excellent explanation.

 

[Shockt327]

I'm not sure I see the logic in your reasoning. While it's true that every minute you control the ball is one minute less your opponents' offense can score, it's equally true by definition that it's one minute off the clock that your offense could score in.

Football is essentially turn based. Teams alternate opportunities to be on offense. You can't score twice in one possession, so making your turn last longer doesn't change the even ratio of chances to score between you and your opponent (unless you're running out the time at the end of the half or game.)

Rather, what long drives do is reduce the total number of possessions both teams get, which increases the leverage value w/r/t win chance % of each individual possession. The fewer the total possessions in a game, the bigger a role the outcome of each individual possession will have on the game. This is why it's good for teams with the lead to kill the clock -- you know you've already 'won' the possessions that already happened, so the bigger the role they play in the final score, the better for you.

Of course, reducing the number of 'iterations' in the match and magnifying the effect of each iteration's outcome makes the winner more 'random.' The greater the sample size, the better the odds of 'normal' distribution. So if your offense is going to score on their defense 60 percent of the time, and their offense is going to score on your defense 50 percent of the time, the more possessions in the game, the better for you.

This, and not "keeping Manning/Brady on the sideline" is ultimately why keeping the number of possessions down turns out to often be the right strategy for teams when playing the Colts or (latter-day) Patriots. By increasing the leverage value of any iteration's fluke outcome, time of possession helps teams beat opponents that are overall better than they are.

Getting off topic, here.....

Although I do not necessarily disagree, I think this is mostly theoretical.

In regards to where the rubber meets the road, Time of Possession is certainly a sign of a dominant O. Notice how I said "sign" of a dominant O. TOP is incidental. You can't be good at TOP in it's own right. It's indicative of how well a team blocks, passes, runs, ect. It's indicative of how well they move the chains -- almost regardless of intent to kill the clock. So, in order to be good at TOP, you have to be flat out good. And good offenses score. Period.

I take it you've seen how much NE dominated TOP in 2007 - 2009? Those teams, especially 2007, were known for throwing deep. We know about their TDs, but what I think matters the most in regards to TOP is that even on failed drives this team was still moving the ball down the field like crazy. That ties into the battle of field position, and yes, field position does indeed matter. Opponents constantly started drives with awful field position...as indicated by our TOP.

What also matters is that the Patriots D during this time frame had just about the fewest snaps in the NFL. As a result, the total points and total yards sacrificed were often less than what their efficiency stats would indicate. Theoretically, you say that the O should suffer too and this should increase the randomness of potentially losing to a lesser team. That makes sense, but they didn't. At all. Because in a roundabout way; if they are dominating TOP - it's because they are already scoring at a super high rate - and as such they aren't vulnerable to the randomness of a lower number of possessions, because they are probably obliterating the other team in regards to field position, which makes it so hard for the opponent to score.

 

[lamafist]

Getting off topic, here.....

Although I do not necessarily disagree, I think this is mostly theoretical.

In regards to where the rubber meets the road, Time of Possession is certainly a sign of a dominant O. Notice how I said "sign" of a dominant O. TOP is incidental. You can't be good at TOP in it's own right. It's indicative of how well a team blocks, passes, runs, ect. It's indicative of how well they move the chains -- almost regardless of intent to kill the clock. So, in order to be good at TOP, you have to be flat out good. And good offenses score. Period.

I take it you've seen how much NE dominated TOP in 2007 - 2009? Those teams, especially 2007, were known for throwing deep. We know about their TDs, but what I think matters the most in regards to TOP is that even on failed drives this team was still moving the ball down the field like crazy. That ties into the battle of field position, and yes, field position does indeed matter. Opponents constantly started drives with awful field position...as indicated by our TOP.

What also matters is that the Patriots D during this time frame had just about the fewest snaps in the NFL. As a result, the total points and total yards sacrificed were often less than what their efficiency stats would indicate. Theoretically, you say that the O should suffer too and this should increase the randomness of potentially losing to a lesser team. That makes sense, but they didn't. At all. Because in a roundabout way; if they are dominating TOP - it's because they are already scoring at a super high rate - and as such they aren't vulnerable to the randomness of a lower number of possessions, because they are probably obliterating the other team in regards to field position, which makes it so hard for the opponent to score.

Interestingly, though the Patriots are the only team to rank in the top 3 in TOP in each of those three seasons ('07, '08, '09), they weren't #1 in the league in any of them. Pittsburgh had a greater average TOP in '07, the Giants did in '08, and both Green Bay and Minnesota did in '09.

If you look at the collection of teams at the top in TOP in each season, it's clear that time of possession isn't going to be a particularly strong indicator of any one thing. As mentioned, in 2007, the most dominant offense in NFL history didn't make the Pats #1 in time of possession -- rather, it was the Steelers, whose defense was better than their offense. The previous most dominant offense in the NFL was the '04 Colts who were - get this - 28th in TOP.

It's also not a particularly strong indicator of overall team success -- while most of the teams at the top in TOP had winning records, in 2006, you had the 8-8 Jaguars and 6-10 Vikings in the top five in TOP. 8-8 Houston was #4 in TOP in '08, and the 7-9 Dolphins were #6 in TOP in '09. Yet despite these outliers, winning teams of all ilk clearly have an edge in TOP, and this is to be expected -- teams that win a lot of games are likely to have had late leads in a lot of games, and thus, played to run the clock out by letting the maximum amount of time tick off between plays, and either running or throwing short passes in the middle of the field. Teams that are often losing at the end of games will be more likely to try to stop the clock every chance they get, and thus, reduce their TOP.

Ultimately, there's way to much that factors into TOP to consider it an indicator of much of anything. Some of the above-mentioned poor teams that ranked well in TOP did so because they had passing games the coaches couldn't/didn't trust, even when time was a factor. In the case of the Colts, even though they've been one of the consistently more dominating offenses in the league, they don't run that much even when ahead, they've historically had a bad rush defense, leading teams to run more than the score might otherwise indicate, their no-huddle offense takes less time off the clock between snaps, and Wayne and Harrison ran a lot of sideline-routes very well.