Myth: Patriots D benefits from great field position

[IllegalContact]

So much wrong in this lazy sentence. It gives headaches..

shaddup

 

[BTTA]

@PF_SU , thanks! Your persistence at incremental improvement of the analysis is impressive.

 

[luuked]

shaddup

Then contribute something thoughtful and not easily disprovable hot takes. Nobody is exchanging TDs for FGs or turnovers here. The defense is actually good despite what all stats humping fantasy fans want to believe.

 

[IllegalContact]

Then contribute something thoughtful and not easily disprovable hot takes. Nobody is exchanging TDs for FGs or turnovers here. The defense is actually good despite what all stats humping fantasy fans want to believe.

 

[Deus Irae]

I makes all the sense in the world to me if you look at it through the prism of what Chatham was talking about. Generally, the farther away from their own territory they are the more risk-averse is the playcalling. Once opponents cross midfield MP and BB tighten the screws on them and dont just scheme against big plays. And it works.

This is not a classic bend but dont break defense that just exchanges TDs for FGs as some lazy take artists want you to believe but a unit that genuinely is able to make life hard for opponents once they turn into a more aggressive mode.

All of this obviously comes with an exception for when the opponent is within their own 10 yard line or in must have the ball back situations. This is how we got the ball back against the Texans, Panthers (except for that Gilmore call) and Steelers to have shots at game winning drives.

But none of that means that they aren't benefiting from the initial field position. It's just the opposite, really.

 

[luuked]

But none of that means that they aren't benefiting from the initial field position. It's just the opposite, really.

Yes.

I was just saying that drives which start early being more successful for opponents than the ones that start farther up the field meshes with the theory that Chatham put out in his podcast.

Obviously that means -- as you are saying -- quite the opposite in terms of the original hypothesis of this thread.

 

[stinkypete]

I would not go so far to call it a myth. The fact that the Patriots defense benefits from good field position is a fact and a testament to the play of the special teams.

I would say that the field position is one element of the Patriots defensive success, the other being red zone defense.

 

[Oswlek]

So I played around with the numbers:

Since week 5, excluding kneel-downs, there have been a total of 4473 drives league wide. The top-five in points allowed per drive are:

1) Jacksonville Jaguars - 1.19
2) Minnesota Vikings - 1.21
3) New England Patriots - 1.21
4) Los Angeles Chargers - 1.24
5) Philadelphia Eagles - 1.31
LEAGUE AVERAGE - 1.76

72.9% of all drives in the league have started between the 11 and 39 yard line of the offense. The Patriots D has the highest percentage in the league of drives starting in that area at 89.8% (114 of 127 drives, 7 came inside the offense's 10 and 3 between the 40 and 49 yard lines and 3 inside Patriots territory). The other teams of the top five in overall points per drive are at:

1) Jacksonville Jaguars - 73.7%
2) Minnesota Vikings - 76.8%
3) New England Patriots - 89.8%
4) Los Angeles Chargers - 76.3%
5) Philadelphia Eagles - 73.5%

So going by that it would seem that the Patriots defense's overall points per drive number has to be significantly benefitting from that good starting position, right? Then let's take a look at where the Patriots rank in terms of points allowed per drive in that specific area (11-39 yard line):

1) Minnesota Vikings - 1.07
2) Jacksonville Jaguars - 1.11
3) New England Patriots - 1.18
4) Baltimore Ravens - 1.28
5) Los Angeles Chargers - 1.30

So, even if it can't be denied that the Patriots D benefits from field position, it's not like they aren't performing very well if you perform a peer comparison by isolating the numbers to that specific area.

Next, breaking down the 11-39 yard line numbers further into two categories. One is between the 11-24 yard lines, and the other is between the 25-39 yard lines.

In terms of percentage of all drives starting between the 11-24 yard lines, the top-five are formed by:

1) Cincinnati Bengals - 36.6%
2) New England Patriots - 36.2%
3) Miami Dolphins - 35.9%
4) Los Angeles Chargers - 35.3%
5) Arizona Cardinals - 33.3%
LEAGUE AVERAGE - 29.6%

Again, the Patriots rank very high in terms of percentage of drives starting there. So which teams are in the top-five in points allowed per drive?

1) New Orleans Saints - 0.56
2) Baltimore Ravens - 0.80
3) Cleveland Browns - 0.92
4) Arizona Cardinals - 0.94
5) Minnesota Vikings - 0.97
LEAGUE AVERAGE - 1.41

So where are the Patriots?

19) Jacksonville Jaguars - 1.38
20) New England Patriots - 1.46
21) Buffalo Bills - 1.47

That's right, the Patriots in terms of points allowed on drives starting between the 11 and 24 yard lines are not only below average, the figure is also significantly higher than both, the overall points per drive number and points per drive number on drives starting between the 11 and 39 yard lines. Which means, when the Patriots D gets terrific field position, they aren't really making anything out of it.

On the flip side, this means that their points allowed per drive numbers for drives starting between the 25 and 39 yard lines has to be terrific. And this is absolutely correct:

1) Jacksonville Jaguars - 0.93
2) New England Patriots - 0.99
3) Minnesota Vikings - 1.11
4) New York Giants - 1.39
5) Cincinnati Bengals - 1.39
LEAGUE AVERAGE - 1.74

They, like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings are massively better than league average on drives starting between the 25 and 39 yard lines (and 44.5% of all drives in the entire league have started in that area). The difference of the top-three teams to league average here is much bigger than the difference between the top-three teams (which happen to be the same in both cases, coincidence?) and league average for overall points allowed per drive:

Overall
1) Jaguars: -0.57
2) Vikings: -0.55
3) Patriots: -0.55

Drives starting between 25-39
1) Jaguars: -0.81
2) Patriots: -0.75
3) Vikings: -0.63

To conclude:
1) Does the Patriots D enjoy good starting field position? Absolutely.
2) Do they make the most out of the good starting field position? When speaking about drives starting between the 11-24 yard lines, absolutely not, which is a tad disappointing.
3) Is the good starting field position a main driver of the defense's good points allowed figure? No.

I swiped and posted this comment on the NE/TN preview over on footballoutsiders. With credit given, of course.