San Diego Points For/Against Analysis (Long Read)

[abyzmul]

Football Outsiders is a stat site, slick..... It's not based upon an opinion, but a formula.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

pardon, it's not were, they still are. it should be "despite the switch at QB". the broncos are a run oriented team who happen to have a QB with a strong arm.

Oh! I thought their season was over. Guess I missed that.

 

[abyzmul]

That's not fair, Deus. That's too much for him to take in at any one time.

congratulations on being added to my sig!

 

[abyzmul]

Oh! I thought their season was over. Guess I missed that.

teams cease to exist if they don't make the post-season? that's news. thanks for the insight.

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

congratulations on being added to my sig!

I'll wear it as a badge of honor!

Just be sure you show up here Sunday night!

 

[abyzmul]

I'll wear it as a badge of honor!

Just be sure you show up here Sunday night!

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

teams cease to exist if they don't make the post-season? that's news. thanks for the insight.

I didn't say they "ceased to exist"! I said I thought their season was over.

It's time for you to put the bong down, move away from the keyboard for a while, and regain a semblance of civility and intelligence.

For your sake, as well as ours...

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

And why, pray tell, did you include that picture of yourself?

 

[mgcolby]

i'll say it again, to argue that the jets and tennessee are tougher opponents than denver, kc, and seattle is simply idiotic. period. congratulations on being added to my sig.

Let me get this straight, we were in a fictional game that you made up and which you are in control of. Then you declared yourself the champion?

Just a little advice for you: those voices you hear, aren't real.

Good luck.

You would have gotten a little more credibility if you actually came back with something a little stronger than "and you should also note that v. young did indeed play in that game against the chargers. to attempt to downplay that victory is meaningless. young entered the game when the chargers were winning 17-0. the game ended 40-7 with a touchdown being scored against the 2nd string defense with under 4 minutes to play."

To counter FACTS!

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

according to this poll the patriots don't stand a chance.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/polling?event_id=2730

that's a collection of people's votes, but once again i'm not putting any decisive value on opinions alone.

Clearly something posted ad heavily dominated in a SD market.

If you are telling me that the GENERAL PUBLIC of random NFL fans would take LT over Tom Brady by a margin of 78% - 22%, you'd be out of your freaking mind.

Even if you hate the guys guts, or have been out of the country for the last 5 years or so, the margin would NEVER be that far overweighted to one player over another. NO CHANCE.

Likely there are a bunch of SD fans sitting there voting and hope that by seeing that poll in thier favor this weekend, it will help you. IT WON'T. It totally out of our hands.

See you Sunday, and YOU BETTER COME BACK.

 

[1BoltFan Here4Fun]

Oswlek - that was a nice start to a thread. Sad to see it slide downhill.

I came to this board to get away from the Patriot trolls over in SDland.

My only comments in regards to the last month of the season is that the Chargers have been battling through a huge group of injuries on both sides of the ball.

Its pretty hard for statistics to show that two starting receivers were out (McCardell and Parker) and that our defensive line has been a mash unit the entire year. Our bye came in week 3. This team was tired.

In terms of points allowed, the Chargers have struggled and it is a major concern for this weeks game. But the stats are a bit skewed from games like KC and Cincy. At Cincy, the Chargers had reached the point where Marty had NO OTHER defensive players to put on the field. They literally ran out of healthy linebackers and D linemen. It was Rivers who saved the day.

This game is a measuring stick for the Chargers. I can't wait to see how it comes out!

 

[abyzmul]

I didn't say they "ceased to exist"! I said I thought their season was over.

It's time for you to put the bong down, move away from the keyboard for a while, and regain a semblance of civility and intelligence.

For your sake, as well as ours...

here's a lesson for you, time to learn:

i said that the broncos still ARE a run oriented team.

you said, "i'm sorry, i thought their season was over."

i pointed out that even though their season is over, they STILL ARE a run oriented team.

pwned.

 

[abyzmul]

See you Sunday, and YOU BETTER COME BACK.

coming back won't be any fun, why would i want to kick someone when they're down? you will be licking your wounds and talking about how the refs blew this call, that call, and that the chargers cheated, etc..

i prefer to debate rather than to humliate. unforunately, sometimes my debating is too powerful and it ends up hurting people's feelings... take this thread as an example.

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

here's a lesson for you, time to learn:

i said that the broncos still ARE a run oriented team.

you said, "i'm sorry, i thought their season was over."

i pointed out that even though their season is over, they STILL ARE a run oriented team.

pwned.

You may be right, but why don't we wait till next season to determine that? Or don't you have that kind of patience?

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

coming back won't be any fun, why would i want to kick someone when they're down? you will be licking your wounds and talking about how the refs blew this call, that call, and that the chargers cheated, etc..

i prefer to debate rather than to humliate. unforunately, sometimes my debating is too powerful and it ends up hurting people's feelings... take this thread as an example.

Hey guys!!! Ever seen the phenomenon of "whistling past the graveyard"? Here it is, in all it's glory!

And to top it off, here's a "debater" with English skills to match!

It just doesn't get any better than this!

 

[Brownfan80]

Rather than jumping into the fray that came after the initial post, I'll just offer this:

Os, thanks again for an interesting post. Your system is interesting, even if it is not yet scientifically proven. I think this game will be a big test not only for the Patriots, but also for your system. I'd appreciate a post after the game, whichever way it goes, detailing how your system faired in the outcome.

This game will be the toughest of the year for the Patriots. SD is the best team in the league right now.

 

[Brownfan80]

Football Outsiders is a stat site, slick..... It's not based upon an opinion, but a formula.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You call yourself a forum debate champion with -that- kind of a response? Wow, they must not have high standards in San Diego.

Well, at least you'll still have something to be proud of after the Chargers lose: Kendra from Girls Next Door is from your city, and she's mighty fine.

 

[Oswlek]

Oswlek - that was a nice start to a thread. Sad to see it slide downhill.

I came to this board to get away from the Patriot trolls over in SDland.

My only comments in regards to the last month of the season is that the Chargers have been battling through a huge group of injuries on both sides of the ball.

Its pretty hard for statistics to show that two starting receivers were out (McCardell and Parker) and that our defensive line has been a mash unit the entire year. Our bye came in week 3. This team was tired.

In terms of points allowed, the Chargers have struggled and it is a major concern for this weeks game. But the stats are a bit skewed from games like KC and Cincy. At Cincy, the Chargers had reached the point where Marty had NO OTHER defensive players to put on the field. They literally ran out of healthy linebackers and D linemen. It was Rivers who saved the day.

This game is a measuring stick for the Chargers. I can't wait to see how it comes out!

Thank you very much. I try my best to be as objective as I can, although I am sure that a Pats bias will come through on occasion. That said, the stats are the stats. There is nothing subjective about them except for my own interpretation of them in the end. While I expected there to be some dissention from Bolt fans, the responses from SadThePats are as confounding as they are usless. He attacks areas that clearly have no impact on the anlysis and refuses to accept anything other than a chorus of suck jobs on every SD player.

Now, those of you that have taken the time to let me know that SD has had some injuries and that will impact the figures, I thank you. Obviously if you have guys playing in this game that missed most of the season, then one would expect that SD should do better. This is good news for SD because they already had a season lead to begin with. If I saw a spread of 1 full point in the beginning, I would have actually sided with SD a given them a 70% chance of winning even though NE's wins the trends. I find it perfectly reasonable to assume that SD could have outperformed their own performance by 1 point if they had the guys that will set foot on the field Sunday.

That said, don't underestimate the fact that NE has been playing a few men down themselves. Even during their best run, the 4 week trend, three of those games were missed by Vince Wilfork and Ben Watson, both of which will be available this week.

I love this matchup and I look forward to it with great anticipation. Both teams have something to prove and both are perfectly capable of proving it.

BTW, the trend numbers exclude the games Merriman missed and the Arizona game. I did this to be fair to SD and because of this the Cincy game is not counted in any of the trend games. Just in case I wasn't clear with my intial post.

 

[Oswlek]

Rather than jumping into the fray that came after the initial post, I'll just offer this:

Os, thanks again for an interesting post. Your system is interesting, even if it is not yet scientifically proven. I think this game will be a big test not only for the Patriots, but also for your system. I'd appreciate a post after the game, whichever way it goes, detailing how your system faired in the outcome.

This game will be the toughest of the year for the Patriots. SD is the best team in the league right now.

Good to have you back.

BTW, I did a back test of the 2005 AFC playoffs and the system, so it is a little more proven than it was last week. Just in case you missed it, here is the post on the back test:

Alright. I just finished doing a little backtesting. I would have liked to have done more, but it will have to do for now. I looked at last year's AFC playoff field. Since I already knew that NE rated higher than Jax and lower than Denver, I didn't bother to calculate NE's or the Jags' scores. Shoot me. Here is the damage:

Pitt:
PF - 24.3 vs 20.1 ~ +4.2
PA - 16.2 vs. 20 ~ +3.8
Total ~ 8

Pitt with Roethlisburger
PF - 25.4 vs. 20.5 ~ +4.9
PA - 15.7 vs. 22 ~ +6.3
Total ~ 11.2

Cincy
PF - 26.3 vs. 19.6 ~ +6.7
PA - 21.9 vs. 19.2 ~ +2.7
Total ~ 9.4

Indy
PF - 27.4 vs. 21.9 ~ +5.5
PA - 15.4 vs. 20.8 ~ +5.4
Total ~ 10.8

Indy ignoring final two games
PF - 29.2 vs. 22.1 ~ +7.1
PA - 14.7 vs. 20.3 ~ +5.6
Total ~ 12.7

Denver
PF - 24.7 vs. 19.4 ~ +5.3
PA - 16.1 vs. 21.4 ~ +5.3
Total ~ 10.6

Conclusions/Observations
* I think it is fair to say that I would have used the "with Ben" figure for Pitt, which makes their victories over Cincy and Denver no flukes. Without even doing this breakdown, I did wager on Pitt in that game. Of course I also put money on NE against Denver

* I would have probably used the Indy one that excluded the final two games. However, with Dungy's son and Indy's playoff history it is not surprising that Pitt was able to win that game. (In hindsight anyway. I was surprised at the time.) Had I done this last year - I only did it for NE games - I would have realized that these two teams match up more closely than they initially appeared.

* Considering NE was 6-0 in 2003 and 2004 using this measure (and I knew that they would beat Pitt big because they had a very large advantage - yes I know I just said before that spread doesn't correlate as well with this, but I hate them d%#*!@t!), in the games that I have tracked so far the team with the best measure is 10-1. And the one outlier is Indy.

 

[Brownfan80]

Good to have you back.

BTW, I did a back test of the 2005 AFC playoffs and the system, so it is a little more proven than it was last week. Just in case you missed it, here is the post on the back test:

Wow. That's some interesting stuff in the backtest. That it predicted the AFC Championship finalists is most surprising (assuming I read the numbers right, of course).

And I had missed it, so thank you for reposting it.