Will this defense be top ten? (hint: no)

[rochrist]

Sorry Deus. 19 other teams have played 7 games..

It is true that a number of the other good teams are still on 6. Denver, Cinn, GB...

 

[TommyD4207]

To be fair, the Patriots having played more games than a lot of other teams makes the stat at least potentially misleading/false.

26 sacks after 7 games isn't misleading. That puts them on pace for what, 55 for the season? That would be a franchise record, IIRC.

The point isn't whether they're leading the league or not. The point is that they've been a dominant front 7 against the pass.

There's nothing misleading or false about that.

 

[1960Pats]

Funny how that works around here with (some) people

It's human nature.

 

[1960Pats]

Patriots are currently 7th in points allowed, 12th in yards allowed. 11th against the pass.

That's flirting with a top 10 defense, is it not?

In my book that makes them the 7th ranked defense.

 

[1960Pats]

It's too bad the discussion about the defense comes in a troll thread

Don't the posters determine what kind of thread this is?

We the posters, by the posters, for the posters.

 

[Huckleberry1]

You guys love to pick and choose stats. Of course the pats will be #1 if you take away all the garbage time stats... That has to do as much with our offense as our defense. Why not take away garbage time stats from other defenses too when collecting those statistics?

But I am pleasantly surprised with how well they're doing. I've been hoping Chandler Jones would turn out to be our best defensive player since I learned about him years ago in Syracuse, that seems like a possibility now.

Still, i'm worried about this defense giving up those plays that end the season in the playoffs.

I also want to see how they do against an elite QB, which we have not seen. Maybe Roethlisberger? But he did have a good game.

This defense has not been good on 3rd down, although yesterday was pretty great all around.

I can see a 10-15th ranked defense that will either make or break the team in the playoffs. The secondary can be taken advantage of, which is what scares me at this point.

Anyway, fire away with your dislikes, your angry comments about how you know better than everyone in the media, and how this team can have no flaws.

Funny to see every statistic presented that viewed the patriots defense negatively was ignored while all the positive statistics were showered with praise.

I don't know about anyone else but I am really pissed off at the way they are playing, they should have twelve wins by now and the only people who don't understand that are the same old homers with rose colored glasses. F.cking Belichick has ruined this team for years to come.

 

[RIpats88]

this defense has come together nicely. I think the front 7 has masked alot of deficiencies at CB. not to mention our safety play from Harmon/chung/mccourty has been really good.

and to think we have Sheard coming back hopefully next week as reinforcements.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

I think the 99% likelihood of victory is based on the specifics of the game itself (minutes left + scoring differential between teams) so "garbage time" would need to be calculated on a case-by-case basis.

Thanks for the follow up CEO.
I would like to see the stat of total minutes of 99% likely of victory time (garbage time). I'm guessing the Patriots are WAY out in front of everyone else. If you have the link to the list of games with garbage time amounts please post it or PM it to me.
Something tells me this rarely mentioned stat says quite a bit of good things about a team (historically speaking. I'll be sure to factor out, though, the outlier of Manning's Colts and Broncos). I'd also like to see the ratio of garbage time/points allowed. Patriots may have given up a lion's share of their points during garbage time, however, they also may have a ton of garbage time minutes.

 

[50-yard-line]

Garbage time is definable. This is a great Defense.

 

[Nikolai]

I'm pretty damned pleased with this young and talented defense. ****, this is what we've been wanting for a while. Think back to 2009-2012 and get back to me.

This thread...I don't care! I can't stand it!

 

[Deus Irae]

26 sacks after 7 games isn't misleading. That puts them on pace for what, 55 for the season? That would be a franchise record, IIRC.

The point isn't whether they're leading the league or not. The point is that they've been a dominant front 7 against the pass.

There's nothing misleading or false about that.

When the quote is about being tied for the sack lead, and the team has played more games than others, yes, there's absolutely, without question, something potentially misleading/false about that.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

I don't know about anyone else but I am really pissed off at the way they are playing, they should have twelve wins by now and the only people who don't understand that are the same old homers with rose colored glasses. F.cking Belichick has ruined this team for years to come.

You left out BB's rampant cheating that caused school children to cry, college students to flee to their safe spaces, and the NFL to put the triple whammy on the Patriots. This has obviously screwed the team up in multiple ways for years to come. F BB and F his quantum computer cloaked gatorade heaters, and F his low earth orbiting satellites that send out high frequency sound waves to jam coaching radio transmissions ((ESPN's Mort says that when BB retasks the satellites, through a control center believed to be located in the Cayman Islands, to a highly focused mode it can cause Payton Manning's throws in most critical playoff games to be frequently incomplete, and Mike Tomlin to completely forget the basics of clock management and wander innocently into the field of play with the clock running.

That damn BB is ruining everything....

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

When the quote is about being tied for the sack lead, and the team has played more games than others, yes, there's absolutely, without question, something potentially misleading/false about that.

Unless you are an NFL exec or ESPN....

 

[Reckedtrek]

Posts getting deleted like you read about

How can I read about them if they keep getting deleted?

 

[goheels22002]

Are you trying to tell me that the score of the game wasn't 23-20 Pats with a little more than a minute remaining (about 1:15)?

There are many things that could've happened in that last 75 seconds, and the NYJ had a chance to tie it on the last play. If we need to remind ourselves that they played some GTFB scheme to puff our chests a bit, fine, but when a team has the opportunity to tie and send it to OT on the last play of any game, I don't consider it meaningless.

You're right about the last 75 seconds of the Jets game. The one factor you are forgetting is the formula for Einstein's Ideal Law of Jets:

Jets + (chance to screw up) X Nimrod WR - Fireman Ed = Patriots WIN

 

[Bobsyouruncle]

Garbage time is definable. This is a great Defense.

There's a few issues with that definition of garbage time.

It's being used as the first time 99% was hit. In the BUF and IND games 99% was hit, then later the probability dropped below 99%, but this statistic counts as all points scored after the first 99% as garbage time.

For an example of how flawed that is, take a look at the 2013 PATS-Donkeys game.

Denver Broncos at New England Patriots - November 24th, 2013 | Pro-Football-Reference.com

Halfway into the second quarter the Broncos had a 99% win probability. So all 34 points scored by NE after that are "garbage time" according to this method. Scoring 34 points and winning a game isn't garbage time, and even if they scored 30 to get it close they wouldn't have been garbage time.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

There's a few issues with that definition of garbage time.
It's being used as the first time 99% was hit. In the BUF and IND games 99% was hit, then later the probability dropped below 99%, but this statistic counts as all points scored after the first 99% as garbage time.

Good point.

The other issue when using the "garbage time points allowed" statistic (which I really like) is that the Pats have spent more time in GT than other teams. So really you need to use a "points allowed per drive" metric instead.

 

[Soul_Survivor88]

There's a few issues with that definition of garbage time.

It's being used as the first time 99% was hit. In the BUF and IND games 99% was hit, then later the probability dropped below 99%, but this statistic counts as all points scored after the first 99% as garbage time.

For an example of how flawed that is, take a look at the 2013 PATS-Donkeys game.

Denver Broncos at New England Patriots - November 24th, 2013 | Pro-Football-Reference.com

Halfway into the second quarter the Broncos had a 99% win probability. So all 34 points scored by NE after that are "garbage time" according to this method. Scoring 34 points and winning a game isn't garbage time, and even if they scored 30 to get it close they wouldn't have been garbage time.

The Broncos held a "insurmountable" lead at halftime, and not in the 4th quarter.
Once you reach the 99% threshold of probability towards the end of the game, you can definately afford to take your foot off the pedal, even if that probability consequently drops. It's all about having a dominant offense that can outscore the opposition through all four quarters and produce an insurmountable margin of points.

 

[Soul_Survivor88]

Good point.

The other issue when using the "garbage time points allowed" statistic (which I really like) is that the Pats have spent more time in GT than other teams. So really you need to use a "points allowed per drive" metric instead.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | 2015 DEFENSIVE DRIVE STATS

If we use points allowed per drive (PAPD), the Patriots currently rank 8th at 1.85 points for 14 drives

 

[Bobsyouruncle]

The Broncos held a "insurmountable" lead at halftime, and not in the 4th quarter.

It obviously wasn't insurmountable. I didn't invent this standard of 99% = garbage time. If you want to move the goal posts to 99% in the 4th quarter that's fine but the statistic is still bad. The Cleveland game in 2013 had the Patriots score 17 "garbage time" points in the 4th quarter to win the game. The SB last year saw the 99% swing from one team to the other in just a couple minutes.

Once you reach the 99% threshold of probability towards the end of the game,
you can definately afford to take your foot off the pedal, even if that probability consequently drops.

When is the end of the game? The 4th quarter, or the end of the 4th quarter (when is the end of the 4th quarter 4min? 2min?) because the standard used in the chart called the entire 4th quarter points in BUF garbage time. BUF was only down 5 points with over 4:00 to go. That's not garbage time in my book. I don't think that's how BB drew it up. You allow long slow time killing drives, because you play to prevent quick scores when you have a big lead. The Patriots defense allowed BUF to do the one thing they couldn't allow. Quick scores to make it close. That's not prevent, or garbage time, that's just bad defensive play.

It's all about having a dominant offense that can outscore the opposition through all four quarters and produce an insurmountable margin of points.

This is true, but my point is that the 99% point does not equal when you can let off the gas, and it certainly isn't a metric for garbage time as I've shown through real examples where this standard for garbage time includes game winning drives as being "garbage time" points.

Some of those points were garbage time, but not BUF or IND.

This is just cherry picking to fool ourselves. You could call the Patriots points garbage time and reshuffle their ranks by not counting those points. Why don't we do that? Because we only want to mess with stats that make the Patriots look better?

You could make a case that forcing a team to become one dimensional by leading actually helps the defense effectively inflating their rank (IMO that's why the 2007 defense had a high rank). But we're not manipulating that.

We could show (and we know) that having a great offense actually allows the Patriots defense to play less. If the offense was terrible the defense would have to stop more drives with less rest. So a team like the Broncos with a bad offense actually have a much better defense because they get no help.

There's a lot of ways to manipulate the numbers, but only doing it for the most favorable reasons to the Patriots is just kidding ourselves. And there's just no need to. 7th in defense is good, especially paired with the top offense. You can win a lot of games like that. Maybe all of them. They're just not the best defense in the NFL right now, that's okay.