The SB defense - statistical anomaly

[luuked]

This is becoming a dead horse around here but what’s the common denominator between the KC game and the Super Bowl?

Jordan Richards getting significant reps. When he is on the field, bad things happen.

Except this is not true. Richards had no more snaps in the SB than his season average. He played exactly the same role as in the entire season. If Chung had not missed a few snaps with injury Richards would have been below his season average.


There is enough about him to hate without starting to scapegoat him for everything that goes wrong.

 

[maineman209]

This is becoming a dead horse around here but what’s the common denominator between the KC game and the Super Bowl?

Jordan Richards getting significant reps. When he is on the field, bad things happen.

Richards averaged 17 D-snaps/game during the regular season.

The Pats defense averaged 18.5 points allowed during the regular season.

Richards played:
41 snaps v. KCY .. they scored 42
(Richards tied Van Noy for 2nd leading tackler; he also forced a fumble)
16 snaps v. NOL .. they scored 20
3 snaps v. HOU .. they scored 33
1 snap v. CAR .. they scored 33
17 snaps v. DEN .. they scored 16
25 snaps v. BUF .. they scored 3
28 snaps v. BUF .. they scored 16
35 snaps v. NYJ .. they scored 17
30 snaps v. NYJ .. they scored 6
22 snaps v. TEN .. they scored 14
6 snaps v. JAX .. they scored 20

Richards played 16 snaps in the SB.

There no correlation between Richards' snap counts and opponent scoring.

 

[Sciz]

Richards averaged 17 D-snaps/game during the regular season.

The Pats defense averaged 18.5 points allowed during the regular season.

Richards played:
41 snaps v. KCY .. they scored 42
(Richards tied Van Noy for 2nd leading tackler; he also forced a fumble)
16 snaps v. NOL .. they scored 20
3 snaps v. HOU .. they scored 33
1 snap v. CAR .. they scored 33
17 snaps v. DEN .. they scored 16
25 snaps v. BUF .. they scored 3
28 snaps v. BUF .. they scored 16
35 snaps v. NYJ .. they scored 17
30 snaps v. NYJ .. they scored 6
22 snaps v. TEN .. they scored 14
6 snaps v. JAX .. they scored 20

Richards played 16 snaps in the SB.

There no correlation between Richards' snap counts and opponent scoring.

And maybe even a negative correlation. Outside of the week 1 mess, the Patriots were undefeated and didn’t allow more than 20 points in the 7 games that Richards got at least 22% of the defensive snaps.

 

[maineman209]

And maybe even a negative correlation. Outside of the week 1 mess, the Patriots were undefeated and didn’t allow more than 20 points in the 7 games that Richards got at least 22% of the defensive snaps.

The fact that there isn't a clear correlation in either direction is just an indication that there are a a lot of other variables at work. However, it also indicates that Richards' presence isn't a proximate cause for any type of outcome.

 

[Deus Irae]

The fact that there isn't a clear correlation in either direction is just an indication that there are a a lot of other variables at work. However, it also indicates that Richards' presence isn't a proximate cause for any type of outcome.

It indicates that Richard's presence wasn't a consistent proximate cause for any one type of outcome. But you cannot disprove the negative overall when the negative individually is there.

Or, to put it another way (and just using an example, not defending that baseline):

The team lost 4 games all season. If you reasonably assess 2 of the losses as results of Richards' play and 2 of the losses as not the result of Richards' play, you cannot dismiss Richards as a proximate cause of losses. You can dismiss the notion of Richards as a proximate cause of ALL losses, but that's not exactly the same thing.

While I get that your overall point that it was not the number of snaps that mattered, and I agree with that premise, the phrasing of your post takes things into a different direction.

If y'all are going to go down the rabbit hole of terminology and data, get all the way in there.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

It was a historical anomaly to bench a starting CB minutes before kickoff and force 5 teammates to play out of position all game in the biggest game of the year.


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[maineman209]

It was a historical anomaly to bench a starting CB minutes before kickoff and force 5 teammates to play out of position all game in the biggest game of the year.


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Which five guys were "playing out of position"?

 

[luuked]

Which five guys were "playing out of position"?

Same lie as Butler being benched "minutes" before the game. Just not true, best to ignore irrational garbage like that.

 

[maineman209]

Same lie as Butler being benched "minutes" before the game. Just not true, best to ignore irrational garbage like that.

Eh. Sometimes I find contorted rationalizations and feverish back-pedaling amusing.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Fact: after arriving in Minnesota, their starting CB Malcolm Butler practiced with the starting units multiple days before Super Bowl Sunday. He was told minutes before kickoff he wasn't starting, news so new to him he started crying during the national anthem.

Teammates who played out of position as a result: Rowe playing outside instead of slot. Chung as slot instead of against TE. Scrubs like Richards playing period. McCourty covering TEs and WRs instead of playing FS. Resulted in a "statistical anomaly" where the league's fewest points defense from weeks5-17 with Butler starting, gave up the most points it ever did all year.

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[maineman209]

Fact: after arriving in Minnesota, their starting CB Malcolm Butler practiced with the starting units multiple days before Super Bowl Sunday. He was told minutes before kickoff he wasn't starting, news so new to him he started crying during the national anthem.

So, you must have been right there with the team at practice and just before the game then. Odd, then, that your own eyewitness testimony contradicts that of a couple Patriots players.

Teammates who played out of position as a result: Rowe playing outside instead of slot. Chung as slot instead of against TE. Scrubs like Richards playing period. McCourty covering TEs and WRs instead of playing FS. Resulted in a "statistical anomaly" where the league's fewest points defense from weeks5-17 with Butlwr starting, gave up the most points it ever did all year.

Huh! Maybe I've been watching a different team?

From what I saw last season, watching live and on rewind ...
- Rowe played both inside and outside, depending on the matchups.
- Chung played maybe 40%-50% of his regular season snaps covering slot guys, regardless whether they were TEs, RBs or WRs. Seems to me that a couple guys who break down game tape for a living have come up with a similar number. But, y'know, we could all be wrong.
- For most of the season (approximately 702 out of 1060 defensive snaps), Harmon played deep safety, while D-Mac played "up", along with Chung, in a 3-safety variation of the man-zone hybrid coverage schemes known as "pattern-matching" (developed jointly by Saban and Belichick when they worked together in Cleveland). This often left D-Mac in man coverage on WRs and TEs (depending on where their route took them), by design. But, y'know, I obviously don't know nearly a much about who should have been playing what position/role as you do.

BTW - the most points that the Pats gave up all season was the 42 against KCY in week-1. Butler played 100% of the snaps in that game.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Read

We May Never Know Why Bill Belichick Benched Malcolm Butler

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Yeah I'm sure it really helped that Rowe, expected to start the game, didn't even know he was starting. But go ahead and dismiss this since it doesn't fit your pre-defined narrative.


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[DropKickFlutie]

The Patriots gave up 538 yards and 41 points in the Super Bowl. Just horrific numbers any way you slice it. And that's for sure colored how we view the defense moving forward.

It seemed like a replay from the first four weeks of the year. During those four weeks, the Patriots fielded the worst defense in history, yielding an average of 457 yards and 32 points a game. Just atrocious. So in the Super Bowl, they were WORSE than they were during this historically awful four-game stretch.

But it's more than that. Without looking it up, can you all guess how many times since 2001 the Patriots have given up 41+ points and 530+ yards in a game?

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The answer is ONE. They've played 309 regular and post season games in those 17 years (an average of more than 18 games a year - think about that...they AVERAGE two playoff games a year!), and in those 309 games, they've allowed 41+ points and 530+ yards TWO TIMES.

The other time? The first game of the 2017 season, against KC, where they allowed 537 yards and 42 points. So the 2017 season was bookended by the two worst defensive performances in the BB/TB era. Incredible.

They've had some other bad games of course, but nothing quite like these two. Here are the other games during this 17 year period where they've been kind of close to as bad:

2014 vs KC - 41 points, 443 yards
2012 vs SF - 41 points, 388 yards
2009 vs NO - 38 points, 480 yards
2008 vs Mia - 38 points, 461 yards
2007 vs Ind - 38 points, 455 yards (AFCCG)
2005 vs SD - 41 points, 431 yards
2005 vs Ind - 40 points, 453 yards

But none of those are as bad as the two 2017 games. So I don't think it's remotely fair to say that the SB represents the true level of this Patriots' defense. They're not a top 5 defense, but they're not CLOSE to this bad. So our lasting memory of the 2017 team is the Super Bowl defense, but it really was a terrible statistical outlier and should not remotely be the gauge by which we evaluate their true level.

It looks like the SB pass defense is back this afternoon.....



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[captain stone]

Same lie as Butler being benched "minutes" before the game. Just not true, best to ignore irrational garbage like that.

Hilarious.


Oh and BTW, Feck the McCourtys.