Mountain_Commando
Rotational Player and Threatening Starter's Job
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2008
- Messages
- 1,138
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- 962
"Worst Ranked Defense", "Haven't beaten a good/winning team" for Pats. "Second best defense", "physical/aggressive/scary/dangerous team" for Ravens. The above talking points have been repeated incessantly by the mediots all season to the point that everyone and their grandma now treats them as gospel.
However, a few of points which are not mentioned much if at all, are as follows:
a) the above "truths" are based on the overall performances through the entire season
b) how a team played in week 1 or even week 10 has little bearing to how you plays in the playoffs.
So to gauge these two teams' current states as accurately as possible, lets look at their most recent games, last 4 for a decent sample size...and limit ourselves to the a few of the most important stats for simplicity's sake. See attachments.
Summing up these stats gives us the following data points over the last 4 games:
1. Patriots offense scored more than twice as many points and gained almost 800 more yards than Ravens offense, but did so against much more inferior defenses. Not a big surprise.
But...
2. Patriots defense allowed just 1 more point and 244 more yards, while making 8 more sacks and 1 more INTs than the vaunted Ravens defense, while playing just marginally lower offenses.
(also consider that Spikes and Chung (and McCourty at FS) only contributed to the last 2 of those games)
Take from it what you will, and all the stats in the world mean exactly squat at kickoff time...but I for one am not the least bit impressed by the initially mentioned mediot "gospel" points, nor am I overly nervous for the game despite our opponent being the AFC second seed team.
However, a few of points which are not mentioned much if at all, are as follows:
a) the above "truths" are based on the overall performances through the entire season
b) how a team played in week 1 or even week 10 has little bearing to how you plays in the playoffs.
So to gauge these two teams' current states as accurately as possible, lets look at their most recent games, last 4 for a decent sample size...and limit ourselves to the a few of the most important stats for simplicity's sake. See attachments.
Summing up these stats gives us the following data points over the last 4 games:
1. Patriots offense scored more than twice as many points and gained almost 800 more yards than Ravens offense, but did so against much more inferior defenses. Not a big surprise.
But...
2. Patriots defense allowed just 1 more point and 244 more yards, while making 8 more sacks and 1 more INTs than the vaunted Ravens defense, while playing just marginally lower offenses.
(also consider that Spikes and Chung (and McCourty at FS) only contributed to the last 2 of those games)
Take from it what you will, and all the stats in the world mean exactly squat at kickoff time...but I for one am not the least bit impressed by the initially mentioned mediot "gospel" points, nor am I overly nervous for the game despite our opponent being the AFC second seed team.
Attachments
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