Number crunching: D Stats during "Garbage Time"

[TheGodInAGreyHoodie]

In last years Eagles @ Giants game at what point did "garbage time" begin?

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

Pats D isn't as bad as people make it out to be

 

[DaBruinz]

Kerry Byrne is right on point. The Pats defense lacks 3 ingredients in the Post Polian rule change.

Pass Rush - They really have none. They chose to trade away first round picks instead of address it. Wrong. You are like too many others who don't understand that a Pass Rush isn't just about sacks. It's about making the QB move out of the pocket by necessity and have to throw the ball on the run. The Pats have actually done a good job of this except for much of the Dallas game.

Cover corners - Don't know what is happening with McCourty. Arrington is himself, Bodden is a Ty Poole and Ras I Dowling is the shiny car in the garage that doesn't work. They've only allowed 10 Passing TDs to this poinit. Not great. But not horrible either.

Playmakings Safety - Milloy, Harrison, Bob Sanders in 2006, Troy P., the Packers actually have 2, Ed Reed The Packers have two play-making safeties??? Who are they? I'm sure the Packers would like to know. Peprah and Burnett are good. They have their moments. But they aren't even close to being in the same class as Ed Reed, Rodney Harrison or Troy Palomalu.

The Pats have not addressed this issue. I will give them this, they tried with Meriweather and Chung. Meriweather is a bust and Chung is a solid player but just not the intimidating factor in the middle that makes a difference. Meriweather wasn't a bust. Claiming such proves your complete lack of football intelligence.

Kerry Byrne says it pretty succintly.

Excited about the Patriots' 5-1 record as they head into the bye week? Think they're a serious Super Bowl contender?

Kerry Byrne urges you to re-think your position.

"Bill Belichick's a great coach, we all know that. But he had this reputation forever as a defensive genius, and we have to end that mythology," Byrne, the editor-in-chief of coldhardfootballfacts.com, told host Gary Tanguay on CSNNE.com's Web-only Cold Hard Football Facts show.

"They've put bad, bad defenses on the field for years on end, and right now it is statistically impossible for this team to win a Super Bowl with a defense this bad."

The Pats rank near the bottom of the league in nearly all CHFF defensive categories, but one number -- yards allowed per passing attempt (7.89) -- tells the story, says Byrne.

"They will never, ever win a Super Bowl unless there's a dramatic improvement in that number," he said

As for Kerry Byrne's YPA argument of using YPA to make an assessment of how good or bad the defense is, it BS. The defenses of the past 5 years haven't allowed more than a 6.5 YPA, yet the team still failed. And it wasn't necessarily the defense's fault. In fact, the last 2 play-off losses are squarely on the offense for their turnovers.

Here are the facts for you.
This team is 5-1.
This team has allowed an average of 22.5 PPG. That is down from the beginning of the season.
This team has a downward trend on it's Yards Per Attempt.

The Pats faced two extremely talented teams in San Diego and Dallas (particularly their offensive weapons) and the Pats held those teams to 21 and 16 points. Both teams are avergaing 24.75 PPG in their games against other teams.

That's called improvement. I know you and Byrne have a problem with that concept. This team is still a work in progress. Intelligent people know that. The OP knows that and wasn't trying to state otherwise.

 

[condon84]

Can somebody please let me know exactly when it was that the NFL decided that wins and losses were to be determined by yards rather than points?



:confused2:

Until the day that happens, this alleged be-all, end-all yardage ranking of defenses is as useful as tits on a bull.

True story: there's a correlation between teams that give up the most yards to teams that give up the most points. There may be some anomalies, but if you look at the bottom teams that give up the most yards, they also are generally the same teams that give up the most points.

Here are the 10 bottom teams in Yards and Points the past two years.

2009

YDS/G
Jacksonville Jaguars
Seattle Seahawks
New Orleans Saints
Oakland Raiders
Tennessee Titans
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
St. Louis Rams
Kansas City Chiefs
Cleveland Browns
Detroit Lions

PTS/G
Oakland Raiders
Jacksonville Jaguars
Seattle Seahawks
Miami Dolphins
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Kansas City Chiefs
New York Giants
St. Louis Rams
Detroit Lions

2010

YDS/G
Dallas Cowboys
Buffalo Bills
New England Patriots
Tennessee Titans
Seattle Seahawks
Jacksonville Jaguars
Arizona Cardinals
Houston Texans
Washington Redskins
Denver Broncos

PTS/G

Indianapolis Colts
Cincinnati Bengals
Seattle Seahawks
Carolina Panthers
Jacksonville Jaguars
Buffalo Bills
Houston Texans
Arizona Cardinals
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos



On the other end, defenses that give up the least amount of yards also are the teams that give up the least amount of points. Again, there are some anomalies, but looking at the stats, that is normally the trend.

 

[Rob0729]

True story: there's a correlation between teams that give up the most yards to teams that give up the most points. There may be some anomalies, but if you look at the bottom teams that give up the most yards, they also are the same teams that give up the most points.



On the other end, defenses that give up the least amount of yards also are the teams that give up the least amount of points. Again, there are some anomalies, but looking at the stats, that is normally the trend.

The Patriots are 32nd in yards allowed and 13th in points allowed. So they are the worst team in yards allowed and above average team in points allowed. Buffalo is 31st in yards allowed and 22nd in points allowed. Chicago Bears are 29th in yards allowed and 12th in points allowed. The Packers are 22nd in yards allowed and 7th in points allowed. KC is 19th in yards allowed and 32nd in points allowed. Where is the corelation?

It isn't true what you are saying. There is no correlation between yards and points. You are more likely to give up more points if you give up more yards, but there is no guarantee of that.

Below are two links. One for the ranking of yards allowed and the other points allowed and the there is not a lot of similiarities to the list:

Yards allowed

http://www.nfl.com/stats/categoryst...OTAL_YARDS_GAME_AVG&d-447263-o=1&d-447263-n=1


Points allowed
http://www.nfl.com/stats/categoryst...y=GAME_STATS&d-447263-s=TOTAL_POINTS_GAME_AVG

 

[condon84]

The Patriots are 32nd in yards allowed and 13th in points allowed. So they are the worst team in yards allowed and above average team in points allowed. Buffalo is 31st in yards allowed and 22nd in points allowed. Chicago Bears are 29th in yards allowed and 12th in points allowed. The Packers are 22nd in yards allowed and 7th in points allowed. Where is the corelation?

It isn't true what you are saying. There is no correlation between yards and points. You are more likely to give up more points if you give up more yards, but there is no guarantee of that.

I edited my post to add some facts. See above.

 

[Ring 6]

There has been a lot of debate by the "homers" and the "objective" crowd on here this season about how much of the Pats defensive yard totals, points etc...have been given up during "garbage time". So I thought while I had some time, I would go through and tally up the totals.

Definition of garbage time for the sake of this research is up by two or more scores in the 4th quarter or 9+ points. I'm sure there are many differing opinions on what constitutes "garbage time", but this one is mine. If you don't like it, feel free to define yours and then provide the raw data from all six games, otherwise take this for what it is worth.

Here we go:

Total Passing yards allowed on the season: 1951
Total Passing yards allowed in Garbage Time: 541 or 27.73%

Total Rushing yards allowed on the season: 638
Total Rushing yards allowed in Garbage Time: 75 or 11.76%

*(At first I thought total rushing was insignificant, until I realized that 52 of the 75 yards were a result of QB scrambles. Just thought I would throw that nugget out there.)

Total Points Allowed on the season: 135
Total Points Allowed in Garbage Time: 27 or 20%

The Pats are averaging 22.5 PPG allowed for the season which is 14th in the NFL. Deduct the garbage time points and that average drops to 18 PPG. No way to quantify it against other teams, but it is interesting to note that when the Pats are not leading by 9+ points their defense is essentially allowing points at a clip that would place them 4th in the league in PPG allowed.
​

I'll let the rest of you chew this up, while I sit back and watch what spits back out.


By the way I have this data broken down a little better in a spreadsheet, but I don't know how to insert into the post. If anyone would like to assist in posting it, please let me know. :rocker:

Edit: I meant to add this in here as well, but got submit happy.

The Pats defense has faced the following offenses (ranked by scoring, not yards ): 30th, 13th, 2nd, 8th, 11th, 15th. 5 of the 6 games have come against teams ranked in the top 15 of the league. Our opponents in total average 24 PPG. When not playing New England, NE's opponents combined average is 24.4 PPG scored. The Pats are allowing 2 PPG less then their opponents average against the rest of the league.

IMO, the facts prove that this team is not as bad on defense as the media and some fans want to make it out to be. And they are far from the worst....

Is it possible to determine the percentage of snaps or drives or time of possession that occured in garbage time?
In other words if we allow 20% of the points in garbage time, it would be instreuctive to know if garbage time is 20% of the game or 3% of the game.

 

[Rob0729]

I edited my post to add some facts. See above.

I saw the facts, but you are taking 1/3 of the league over a two year period to make a point and even then it doesn't totally support your argument. Besides, this year as a whole is an abnormality that throws past trends out the window because the league is on pace to break yard records everywhere by a lot. I still think there are 5 QBs on pace to break Marino's yardage record and Welker is still on pace to shatter Jerry Rice's yardage record.

Also, you are comparing entire season stats vs. six weeks stats. You theory may pan out over the life of a 17 week schedule, but may not hold up much over six weeks. You need to compare the first six weeks of those years to this year to get an accurate assessment. The simple fact of this year after six weeks, there is no corelation between yards allowed and points allowed.

 

[Kontradiction]

It's not about shading the defensive statistics by trying to massage the data and blame it all on "garbage time!", it's about whether or not the defense is any good. It was readily apparent that the defense sucked eggs in the first few weeks. It's also readily apparent that having Haynesworth in the lineup, and using more zone in the secondary, makes the defense that much better, just as it's readily apparent that the defense is better with Mayo in there than it is without him, even though the team's playing the best it has all season in the past couple of weeks.

Last year, it was pretty obvious that the defense could only get the job done if the coaches out schemed their opposition in order to hide the defense's many shortcomings. This year, it looks as if the personnel might be improved enough to make the job of the coaches easier and give the team a better chance in the playoffs, if the team can get the safety play to improve.

I like the way Ihedigbo is playing so far this year. Sure, he misses some tackles, but he always seems to be near his man even when the pass is completed. Hell, I may be alone in this observation, but I think he's outplayed Chung in these last two games. Chung has taken some fundamentally bad angles on tackles (the Dez Bryant 30 yard catch and run comes to mind) and is still a liability in coverage.

 

[condon84]

I saw the facts, but you are taking 1/3 of the league over a two year period to make a point and even then it doesn't totally support your argument. Besides, this year as a whole is an abnormality that throws past trends out the window because the league is on pace to break yard records everywhere by a lot. I still think there are 5 QBs on pace to break Marino's yardage record and Welker is still on pace to shatter Jerry Rice's yardage record.

Also, you are comparing entire season stats vs. six weeks stats. You theory may pan out over the life of a 17 week schedule, but may not hold up much over six weeks. You need to compare the first six weeks of those years to this year to get an accurate assessment. The simple fact of this year after six weeks, there is no corelation between yards allowed and points allowed.

If you compare the teams in the top 10 giving up the least amount of yards per game to the team that gave up the least amount of points per game the past two years, I'm sure you're going to see the same trend I pointed out in the bottom 10. My point was that there is a correlation between the amount of yards a teams gives up to how many points it also gives up. That's just logic. A defense that can't stop an offense accumulating yards is always going to put itself in a position to give up points. Again, there are anomalies because turnovers can be a huge factor, but if you look at the stats going back to how ever many years, you're going to see this trend.

As far as this year is concerned, you're right. We don't know how it's going to shake out. Our defense, specifically our pass defense, has looked a whole lot better now that we're playing more zone.

 

[mgcolby]

any team that blows a 20+ point lead should really not have the right to call any time garbage time.......

making excuses for lousy defense will only grant you the same disappointment you've seen for the last couple of years.......

the current system is colt-like.......works well in the regular season, but in the playoffs, when a team will narrow the playbook to only what works best, you can at this point, see another pummeling at the hands of someone like the ravens.

the pats have a 20 game regular season home winning streak and a 2 game home losing streak in the playoffs.......and it wasn't like they had much hope in either playoff game.....

I don't think there is much hope for this team to be effective in lowing down the passing game........but come playoff time, brady along with an effective rushing game and the ability to stop the run should be enough to get past anyone in the AFC.......

Not a single yard in my post was from the Bills game.

 

[mgcolby]

Is it possible to determine the percentage of snaps or drives or time of possession that occured in garbage time?
In other words if we allow 20% of the points in garbage time, it would be instreuctive to know if garbage time is 20% of the game or 3% of the game.

As I posted I have some of that in my spread sheet...but I don't know how to upload it. I think it would have been clearer for some of the "objective" crowd.

 

[mgcolby]

So, at what point in a 60minute football game does "garbage time" start ? I mean I've seen injury time in soccer, but never seen "garbage time" officially start or be tracked in an NFL game. Must be odd since all coaches keep talking about playing the game for full 60minutes. Would that then also apply to garbage time offensive stats Brady and company have built up over the years since 2007 year of 50TD's ? Should we assign a "*" there and say well those #'s aren't really as good since the piled up TD's in 50+ point blowouts vs Bills, Redskins where games were over in 1st quarter ?

What facts prove today is this...#32 Patriots Defense, and I'm not talking about Devin McCourty here. What facts also prove is Patriots are #1 offense, and 5-1. What facts also show is Lions are #25 in rushing and 5-1, and 49ers are #30 in passing offense and 5-1. What facts also show is Buffalo oly has 4 sacks from their Defense, but 12 ints so far this year and yet is 4-2. Facts also show Steelers Defense has 1 int for the entire season but is #1 in total defense and also 4-2.

So, it is what it is. you can split #'s from any angle to make them look good, bad, ugly.

NFL Stats: by Team Category

Did you actually read my post or did you just get red faced after glancing over the numbers and respond with this diatribe?

If you go by yards...They are 14th in points and last I checked the team with the most yards at the end of the game doesn't win!

 

[TheSolderKing]

what is this garbage time you speak of?



Garbage time is when QB's tally up fantasy yards on our team while the game is out of reach. IE- Big Ben Last Yr nvs the PATS

 

[lamafist]

If you compare the teams in the top 10 giving up the least amount of yards per game to the team that gave up the least amount of points per game the past two years, I'm sure you're going to see the same trend I pointed out in the bottom 10. My point was that there is a correlation between the amount of yards a teams gives up to how many points it also gives up. That's just logic. A defense that can't stop an offense accumulating yards is always going to put itself in a position to give up points. Again, there are anomalies because turnovers can be a huge factor, but if you look at the stats going back to how ever many years, you're going to see this trend.

As far as this year is concerned, you're right. We don't know how it's going to shake out. Our defense, specifically our pass defense, has looked a whole lot better now that we're playing more zone.

Of course you're right, there is a degree of correlation between yards allowed and points allowed. Of course, there's a much greater degree of correlation - 1:1 - between points allowed and points allowed.

But that's dealing strictly in descriptive terms -- what's already happened. What, I imagine, we're really interested in is more predictive, i.e. which correlates more strongly with points allowed going forward. That's harder to answer.

There are many situations in which, seemingly paradoxically, a rate stat is less predictive of itself going forward than another stat or metric. In baseball, team OPS (On base % + slugging %) correlates more strongly with future scoring than runs per game to date. In both baseball and football, Pythagorean win expectancy, which is essentially how many wins a team with the same amount of Points Allowed vs. Points Scored usually wins, tends be correlate better with winning % down the stretch than winning % to date.

The reason for this is actually pretty obvious, when you think about it: statistics based on the contributing factors to an outcome, such as hits to runs and points to wins, end up with exponentially more data points, and are thus less susceptible to statistical noise. Put plainly, it makes sense that knowing more about why something happens is more useful than just taking note of how often it happens.

If I could find a site that has team split stats for games 1-8 and 9-17, it would be actually pretty easy to get a picture of whether points or yards allowed over the 1st half of the season is more predictive of second half points allowed.

 

[mgcolby]

Is it possible to determine the percentage of snaps or drives or time of possession that occured in garbage time?
In other words if we allow 20% of the points in garbage time, it would be instreuctive to know if garbage time is 20% of the game or 3% of the game.

TOP = 14% (25:06 out of 183:30 season total)
Total Garbage Time Plays = 5% (77 out of 375 season total)
Total Garbage Time Completions = 5.5% (28 out of 154 season total)

Dolphins game stats

TOP: 9:31 (Game TOP: 31:33)
Total Garbage Time Plays: 34 (Game Total Plays: 69)
Total Garbage Time Completions: 14 (Game Total: 30)
Total Garbage Time Passing Yards: 189 (Game Net: 390)

Chargers game stats

TOP: 4:33 (Game TOP: 30:58)
Total Garbage Time Plays: 11 (Game Total Plays: 64)
Total Garbage Time Completions: 7 (Game Total: 29)
Total Garbage Time Passing Yards: 84 (Game Net: 372)

Raiders game stats

TOP: 4:09 (Game TOP: 33:20)
Total Garbage Time Plays: 16 (Game Total Plays: 66)
Total Garbage Time Completions: 7 (Game Total: 25)
Total Garbage Time Passing Yards: 147 (Game Net: 344)

Jets game stats

TOP: 6:45 (Game TOP: 26:05)
Total Garbage Time Plays: 16 (Game Total Plays: 66)
Total Garbage Time Completions: 7 (Game Total: 16)
Total Garbage Time Passing Yards: 96 (Game Net: 158)

 

[condon84]

If I could find a site that has team split stats for games 1-8 and 9-17, it would be actually pretty easy to get a picture of whether points or yards allowed over the 1st half of the season is more predictive of second half points allowed.

That would be an interesting stat. I'm sure it fluctuates because of the nature of the game (mainly injuries and weather).

 

[lamafist]

Re: the idea of discounting points/yards allowed during Garbage Time...

I think some of the metrics Brian Burke developed for his site Advanced NFL Stats do a pretty could job of adjusting for "garbage time" performance.

In particular, I'm thinking of team defensive Win Probability Added. Burke defines Win Probability as "the probability that a team will win a game in progress, given a particular combination of circumstances including score, time remaining, field position, down, and to go distance... based on a model built on actual outcomes of NFL games from recent seasons that featured similar circumstances."

Thus, a Win Probability Added metric measures the value of each play in terms of the "difference between a team’s Win Probability (WP) at the start of a play and the WP at the end of the play."

This accounts for garbage time because giving up yards or points when you're up big late is going to lower your Win Probability a lot less than when the game is still closely contested. What's more, there's no arbitrary definition of what constitutes garbage time and how much the points/yards should be discounted.

In terms of Win Probability Added, the Patriots defense ranks 24th, compared to its ranking 30th in Expected Points Added, which is not context sensitive.

The context sensitivity does introduce some problems, of its own, though. I imagine you could use defensive WPA to weight changes in defensive EPA, the way that ESPN does with its QBR stat, to get some of the benefits of context-sensitivity without becoming context-oversensitive.

I kind of wish ESPN would have gone this route instead of QBR, as I personally think better team offense and defense metrics would be a more useful addition to football conversations than a QB stat. And that becomes even more true when considering the difficulty in separating a QB's performance from that of his line and receivers.

 

[mgcolby]

True story: there's a correlation between teams that give up the most yards to teams that give up the most points. There may be some anomalies, but if you look at the bottom teams that give up the most yards, they also are generally the same teams that give up the most points.

Here are the 10 bottom teams in Yards and Points the past two years.

2009

YDS/G
Jacksonville Jaguars
Seattle Seahawks
New Orleans Saints
Oakland Raiders
Tennessee Titans
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
St. Louis Rams
Kansas City Chiefs
Cleveland Browns
Detroit Lions

PTS/G
Oakland Raiders
Jacksonville Jaguars
Seattle Seahawks
Miami Dolphins
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Kansas City Chiefs
New York Giants
St. Louis Rams
Detroit Lions

2010

YDS/G
Dallas Cowboys
Buffalo Bills
New England Patriots
Tennessee Titans
Seattle Seahawks
Jacksonville Jaguars
Arizona Cardinals
Houston Texans
Washington Redskins
Denver Broncos

PTS/G

Indianapolis Colts
Cincinnati Bengals
Seattle Seahawks
Carolina Panthers
Jacksonville Jaguars
Buffalo Bills
Houston Texans
Arizona Cardinals
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos



On the other end, defenses that give up the least amount of yards also are the teams that give up the least amount of points. Again, there are some anomalies, but looking at the stats, that is normally the trend.

Well we are definitely an anomialy because we are tied with Buffalo for last in YPA at 6.6.

Yet we are 14th in PPG allowed. That is why I think YPA is to simple and Yards per point is where the money is at and I have won money using a YPP system. I think it is a truer system as it takes into account total team defense to include special teams and accounts for turnovers that lead to short fields, it nicely averages all of that out. New England would be third behind Bal and SF for YPP points based off the top 10 YPA defenses.

Here are the top ten YPA defenses right now:
YPA YPP
Bal: 4.5 20.2
Pit: 4.5 15.9
Cin: 4.6 15.1
Ten:4.8 17.3
Dal: 5 12.7
Cle: 5.1 13.8
NYJ:5.1 17.8
Det: 5.2 17.6
SF: 5.2 20.7
Jax: 5.2 14.8

NE: 6.6 18.8

 

[lamafist]

That would be an interesting stat. I'm sure it fluctuates because of the nature of the game (mainly injuries and weather).

Still, I think you'd still get an idea of whether yards/game rates can tell you something about the 'sustainability' of points-per-game rates.

It would make some sense -- turnovers and red zone percentages have a dramatic effect on points allowed, and both do tend to the regress to the mean over the course of a season.