What advanced stats show about New England's Schedule + Patriots Defense (UPDATED with playoff #s)

[Off The Grid]

Saw an interesting piece in the Globe by Alex Spier. I don't subscribe to Dan Shanuessy's "Tomato Can" nonsense, nor do I feel having a harder schedule necessarily makes you a Super Bowl winner as Felger has tried to tell us....but I think advanced stats might give us an interesting picture.

Alex Speier: The Patriots’ defense looks good, but just how good is it? - The Boston Globe

• As measured by Football Outsiders, the Patriots faced by far the worst group of offenses in the NFL this year. Indeed, according to Football Outsiders, New England’s defense had the easiest schedule (with their opponents collectively 7.1 percent below average) of any team in the NFL over the last six years. None of the Patriots opponents this year finished in the top seven in points scored.

• In terms of DVOA, the Patriots had just the 16th-best defense in the NFL this year – the worst mark in the era of the 12-team playoff format (1990 to present) for any team that led the league in points allowed. Football Outsiders calculates Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) by comparing a team’s defensive performance on every play to a league-average outcome while adjusting for the context of the game situation and quality of opponent.

• There have been six Super Bowl winners since the 1990 season that finished 16th or worse in the Football Outsiders metric. Most recently the 2012 Ravens, who were decimated by injuries during the regular season, finished 19th in defensive DVOA but saw enough parts come together in January to roll through four playoff wins.

• That said, of those six Super Bowl winners with Patriots-like DVOA ranks, five of those featured a top-10 defense (in terms of DVOA) the year before winning the Super Bowl – including those 2012 Ravens, who led the NFL in DVOA in 2011. That suggests a team with a solid defensive core that may have been affected by various factors, including injuries. Four of those six finished in the top five in the year before they hoisted the Lombardi. The only exception was the 2009 Saints, a prolific turnover-generating group that ranked 17th in DVOA (one year after finishing 26th) en route to a championship … and infamy in the form of the Bountygate scandal.

Curious what to make of this?

None'f the following is directed at you, Brother Survivor...

FootBall OutSiders is a great Site...But they get too carried away with Statistics, I think...

Here's the only "Advanced Stat" that anyone needs to know.

The Patriots were #1 in Defense. Period. By far.

Not "Scoring Defense", Feltchers.

"Scoring Defense" is Defense.

 

[RayClay]

I have done a 180 degree on Shank not because I started to like him or anything. I now find him to be such a Ronald McDonald crazy curled red head clown that I actually would miss not see and hearing him around. He is such an old school, angry that the internet exists, mourns the death of print, wishes the Red Sox never won, boxing fan. I think he thinks football is a necessary evil. Even the term "tomato can" is from boxing and suggests both "laziness" and "loathing football in general" on his part.

The thing that has changed for me though is I now like having him around. Imagine what he is going to be like when he gets even older. It will be funny. I actually bumped into him in town once when I was going to a customer and he was fumbling with his cell phone it cracked me up. It was right when Theo had left and I said "Dan, you trying to Theo on the line or what?' and he looks me, smiled, and said "he won't return my calls anymore". The fact that he is a human being actually kind of struck me that day. I also ran in to Mazz once in a 7/11 and for some reason that felt rediculous, like get of my 7/11 ass hole. lol

Boxing fan? I think you're confusing him with Borges. the only boxing shank was involved in was when they stole his lunch money and used his head as a speed bag back in the mean streets of Groton

 

[The Brandon Five]

Well it looks like the best defense remaining from the 12 playoff teams is gone? Giants were higher rank than anyone else? There goes that argument.

The remaining teams:

Pats #1
Hawks #3
Dallas #5
KC #7
Pitt #10
Houston #11
GB #21
Atlanta #27

To get a sense of balance, the Offensive ranks:

Atlanta #1
Pats #3
Green Bay #4
Dallas #5
Pitt #10
KC #13
Hawks #18
Houston #28

So, looking at it in the simplest terms it appears that New England and Dallas are the most balanced with Pitt and KC having similar balance but a lower level.

 

[mosslost]

Boxing fan? I think you're confusing him with Borges. the only boxing shank was involved in was when they stole his lunch money and used his head as a speed bag back in the mean streets of Groton

"Tomato Can" is a term used in boxing. That is where Dan got it from.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

Anyone who thought this Patriots D was the second coming of the 85 Bears was fooling themselves (if anyone actually thought that).
I doubt the Patriots have much of the top rated 'anything'. The strength of this years team is they are solid in almost every corner including D and run game. I'd bet they are top 10 in every sub group. No doubt whatsoever that this team can and, compared to others, is the most likely to win the SB. But even the very very best can get eliminated via lousy gameplans, poor execution (dropped passes, TOs, stupid penalties, poor red zone performance etc), or even the dreaded newly discovered weak area that another team exploits(an opposing team's coaching staff figures something out that BB and staff have missed/aren't ready to adjust to/don't have an answer for). Too many variables to be certain of anything.

With that said, this year's team will likely win the SB IF they bring their A game to the next 3 matchups. IMHO, and why I like our chances, the Patriots' A game>remaining field's A game. The Patriots can come out and play their game and bring it home. Most of the others need the Patriots to falter for their A game to win the day.

 

[meatface]

I'm going to go on record with an unpopular opinion which I hope is proven 100% wrong:

I don't believe this team will win the Super Bowl, and defense will be the reason. This team has given up plays to HORRIBLE offenses. There have been long stretches with zero pass rush and I believe that will end up biting us. We may me able to get through the AFC but I can't see this defense holding up against many of the NFC offenses. Again, I would love to be wrong, it's just this gut feeling I had that this team just doesn't have enough horses on D.

This is the NFL, even bad teams can make plays. I'm not saying they are going to win the Superbowl but there is no team in this playoffs without flaws, we tend to focus more on the Pats flaws because we see every snap.

 

[deroc5050]

Well the AFCC and the Super Bowl will be tough games. No guarentees but the one good thing about this year is that if the offense sputters like GB did against the Giants last weekend for example, the defense can hold teams out of the end zone.

 

[Soul_Survivor88]

I updated the stats that show how the Patriots schedule played into their strength, if that's something that's of any interest to you. (HOU's playoff appearance in the divisional round is factored in)

But again, please keep in mind, that despite what the numbers say about "poor competition," only four of the 17 games did New England's opponent score more points than their season average. For the most part, the Patriots still were able to make bad teams play even worse!

 

[convertedpatsfan]

Just a reminder that the New England D has faced an elite QB and offense. Every single ****ing day.

 

[Soul_Survivor88]

It's hard to overstate how bad the opposing offenses have been.

NE's opponents are -7.1%,. Tennessee, who has faced the 2nd easiest schedule, is -4.2%. They are closer to 15th (0.0%) than to 32nd.

So, roughly, NE's opponents have been twice as bad at offense as the opponents faced by the second-easiest schedule. I think they might have scheduled an FCS team.​

@QuantumMechanic Saw this comment on Football Outsiders. Since you are familiar with DVOA, can you confirm that our schedule of offense was really this bad compared to the rest of the League?

 

[PatsBoy12]

Why is the board littered with this topic?! I don't give a sh*t because their strength of schedule won't have any bearing on the outcome next week. If they play like the PATRIOTS, meaning best coached and top notch execution, they'll win. If not, they'll likely lose. That won't have sh*t to do with the Rams, Jets, Texans, Steelers or any of the other teams they faced that will be watching from the cheap seats. Can we just let it go?

 

[BelichickFan]

It's hard to overstate how bad the opposing offenses have been.

NE's opponents are -6.7%. Tennessee, who has faced the 2nd easiest schedule, is -3.3%. They are closer to 15th (0.0%) than to 32nd.

So, roughly, NE's opponents have been twice as bad at offense as the opponents faced by the second-easiest schedule. I think they might have scheduled an FCS team.​

@QuantumMechanic Saw this comment on Football Outsiders. Since you are familiar with DVOA, can you confirm that our schedule of offense was really this bad compared to the rest of the League?

The thing is, there are positive spins too. Our defense was - 1.5 for the year (regular season) but - 6.0 weighted for later games.

If you use the weighted numbers, the Patriots were 11th (-6.0),the Falcons were 22nd at (5.6). I know they are said to have been closer to 11th if you scrunch the sample size more but the weighted does tell a story. The run defense for the year was 4th, it would likely be even better weighted.

BTW, football outsiders has us 59% to win.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

You know what would sort of put a nice little bow on this whole "how good is this defense" argument?

A tour de force SB. Then the offense has to do its part too, because allowing 17 points doesn't make you a good D if the Pats score 14. Huh? Really? Yeah really.

Kinda partial to 0. Against the best offense in the NFL. That oughtta do it.

No I'm not spoiled

 

[patfanken]

Well I've read the 3 pages of the thread. I found them interesting and somewhat confusing. There is not doubt that this isn't a shut down defense in the manner of the 85 Bears of the Ravens. What is it is a very solid D that smothers teams eventually. They make the offense need to make the perfect play with perfect execution and that is hard to do on drives of 10 -12 plays.

To be a dominant defense this offense needs a gifted pass rusher to can win one on one. Trey Flowers is developing into one, but we need another especially from the inside. Given the amount of money we will have in FA and the depth of the edge rushing class, plus the chance of picking in the top half of the first round, we might solve that issue this off season.

I know this turned out to be a very easy schedule, but I can clearly recall when it came out last year, I thought, along with everyone else that this would be a moster schedule to overcome. The Jets where coming off a 10-6 season and seemed on the rise. The Bills were at 500 and likely to improve. Miami was everyone's darling and ended up 10-5. Plus games with Pittsburgh, Cinci, Seattle, Cardinals, and Denver on the road. NO one would have called this a "tomato can" schedule a year ago.

BTW- I have a question. Has any0ne seen where the Pats offense ranked in how difficult the defenses they played. While the defense might have played easy offenses, IIRC, the offense had to play against some very difficult defenses.

 

[BelichickFan]

Ken, football outsiders says we faced the 10th best defenses group, Atlanta faced the 2nd. That said, their weighted offense (again, that more heavily stresses recent games) has our offenses basically equal, Patriots 1st at 25.0 and Atlanta 2nd at 24.8.

 

[Wheelman]

Patriots have not allowed a 1st quarter touchdown since week 5 against the Browns. Mind you there were two games where the opponent scored a TD within the 1st minute of the 2nd quarter but that's still very impressive.

 

[1960Pats]

I'm going to go on record with an unpopular opinion which I hope is proven 100% wrong:

I don't believe this team will win the Super Bowl, and defense will be the reason. This team has given up plays to HORRIBLE offenses. There have been long stretches with zero pass rush and I believe that will end up biting us. We may me able to get through the AFC but I can't see this defense holding up against many of the NFC offenses. Again, I would love to be wrong, it's just this gut feeling I had that this team just doesn't have enough horses on D.

The AFC won the head to head battle vs the NFC this year. If the NFC offenses are so much more superior to the AFC then the AFC's defense has to be much better. You can't have it both ways.