Forgetting for a second that a team’s ranking in each category is weighted in determining that team’s overall ranking, I thought it would be interesting to see which team is the most “complete” based on the play-by-play categories we consider in our analysis. Given that only 4 of the top 10 teams come from the NFC and only two of those teams (NYG and NO) have records above .500, it makes sense that, coefficient weights aside, the two most complete teams as far as the M-P rankings are concerned come out of the AFC. PIT, ranked number one overall, has an average category rank of 9. NYJ comes in just a hair ahead with an average rank of 8.75.
The Jets excel in running offense (#1), defensive play success (#1), scoring defense (#4) and scoring offense (#5). The Steelers have the top ranked running defense, scoring offense and scoring defense, and rank third in passing offense. PIT’s 20th and 24th ranked offensive play success and running offense, respectively, bring up their average relative to the Jets.
However, the reason the Steelers climbed to number one this week while the Jets fell a spot to fifth is because the Steelers far outrank the Jets in two important categories. PIT ranks first in scoring offense (second most important category) and third in passing offense (fourth most important), whereas the Jets sit fifth and 29th in those same categories.
Persistent stupidity
At least three teams either over the course of the season or last week alone caught our attention as being heavily penalized: DET, DAL and SD. On TV, it’s easy to see how these penalties prevent teams from achieving success in the win/loss column. Take for instance the Lions, who stopped the Giants on 3rd and goal, only to receive an unsportsmanlike penalty at the end of the play giving the Giants at least three more shots at the endzone. Three plays later, the Giants scored. For the Cowboy, Miles Austin torched the Minnesota secondary, but only by committing offensive pass interference for which he was flagged. The Cowboys ended up punting.
Where do the effects of these penalties over the course of a game or the duration of a season manifest themselves in our rankings? Indirectly, persistent sloppiness shows up in the categories of scoring offense and defense. For Dallas, who has been plagued by penalties since week one when a penalty on the last and potentially game-winning play of the game cost them victory against the division rival Redskins, this is painfully obvious. The team’s unweighted average category rank is 11 when scoring offense and defense are omitted and 15 when they are not.
Detroit appears to be sloppy on the defensive side of the ball, which detracts from the big numbers put up by Calvin Johnson and the rest of the team’s offense. For San Diego, poor discipline on both sides of the ball has begun to chip away at their meteoric rise in our rankings as documented last week. San Diego slipped from 7th to 12th after this past weekend when their comeback attempt against the resurgent Rams fell short.
A look back: Chiefs/Texans
One of the more intriguing matchups of last week for us was the Texans and Chiefs. The game lived up to excitement expectations with the Texans furiously fighting back in the fourth quarter to take it in the end. What made this game particularly interesting to M-P was the direction each team was heading in entering play. From a rankings perspective, HOU needed to play well to stave off their impressive M-P plunge and QB Schaub’s huge day helped the Texans jump from 21st to 18th overall. The evenly played game (the Chiefs outgained the Texans by 4 yards and had the ball for 6 more minutes) and QB Cassel’s similarly impressive performance benefitted KC from our point of view as well.
A look ahead: Giants/Cowboys
A Monday night matchup of top 10 M-P teams grabs the headlines this week, albeit top 10 teams heading in different directions at different rates the last two weeks. DAL may be (1-5) and occupy the bottom spot in the NFC East, but the Cowboys impress M-P by ranking fourth in both offensive and defensive play success (the first and third most important categories) and sixth in passing offense (fourth most important). The Giants counter well by ranking ninth and second in the same two play success categories, respectively. NYG’s sixth ranked rushing offense versus DAL’s 17th ranked rushing defense and DAL’s sixth ranked passing offense versus NYG’s 15th ranked passing defense will be key matchups for each team to exploit in the march to victory.
- Andrew Hughes
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