"The Most Important Stat in Football"

[Brown Warrior]

Good stuff, especially in a passing league.

Aaron Rodgers shows Passer Rating Differential is important stat - Kerry J. Byrne - SI.com

[nickers]

This thread should renamed: "The Most Important Stat in Football" According to Shep!

[Brown Warrior]

Hold on! I didn't name it that!

[Tobalaz]

Let's put it into statistical context: the 49ers won five titles not because they had Joe Montana and Steve Young. The 49ers won five titles because they had Montana and Young and consistently paired these great passers with the best pass defenses in football.

Again, defense is being hailed as one of the most important parts of a winning team's game.

[Alo]

Yep. All of this seems intuitively obvious: great offense + great defense = #Winning. And though I don't have any numbers, I suspect you could find a similar correlation between teams having a dominant running game and an efficient high QBR passing offense. The causation here could be a bit complex...or sumtin

Also, teams with poor QBR differentials have gotten pretty frickin' far. Last year, the Jets had an awfully mediocre +1.5 PRD, yet they were a few bounces away from making it to the SB.

[Brown Warrior]

BUT, my habitually contrary friend...

I actually would have reduced it even further: The teams that pass best win. Period. The teams with the best QBRs the last few years have just won.

As I proved way ahead of this jamoke. The defensive half was vaguely incidental. The top passing teams in the NFL (who don't have a QB named Schaub) are the best teams.

And a couple went all the way to the last game... who did nothing else well.

Catch up when you like... but that's our league.

[Alo]

So you disagree with the article's conclusions. That's fine, that's fine.

[Tobalaz]

This is what I know....
Teams HAVE won the Superbowl with a great defense and running game.
Teams HAVE won the Superbowl with a great defense and passing game.
Teams HAVE NOT won the Superbowl with a great passing game and no defense.
If all it took was a passing game, teams like the Arizona Cardinals (under Warner) and San Diego Chargers (under Fouts) would have had 2 hands full of Superbowl rings by now and the Colts would be the greatest team in NFL history.

They DON'T give out Superbowl rings to the team with the highest qbr each season, they've got to win the big game first.

[Sez.EJ]

Statistics can show whatever you want them to. It just depends on WHAT you are looking for and HOW you collect your data. I am not disputing that this passer rating differential isnt' a factor. I am sure it is. but it's HIGHLY subjective to say it's the most important stat in football...

I could easily point out turnover differential, and say it's the most important stat. IMO it is a more accurate stat of team success than what Shep posted above. This directly leads to wins and playoffs if your one of the top teams in this catagory.

In 2009 eight of the top 10 teams in this very accurate category made the playoffs. That's pretty solid. The 11th team, the Jets, made it as well. ......In 2008, EVERY team in the top 10 made the playoffs. Every... last... one....Last year 2010..8 of the top 11 teams made the playoffs.

Do the math..In past 3 years the top 32 teams in turnover differential... teams 27 made the playoffs..nearly 85% are playoff bound. Now someone tell me that we don't need more defense. Having an offense that does not turn it over is great. It's important; but you have to TAKE the ball away too.

The most important stat in footall.. Now see how easy that is.. It just depends on what your looking for. I am sure 10 more people could come up with a different.. most important stat.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Alo

Yep. All of this seems intuitively obvious: great offense + great defense = #Winning. And though I don't have any numbers, I suspect you could find a similar correlation between teams having a dominant running game and an efficient high QBR passing offense. The causation here could be a bit complex...or sumtin

Also, teams with poor QBR differentials have gotten pretty frickin' far. Last year, the Jets had an awfully mediocre +1.5 PRD, yet they were a few bounces away from making it to the SB.

Seemed like the difference in the SB was the same difference witnessed in the NFC Conference Championship Game where an INT that put a TD on the board lessened what was needed from the QB. Come to think of it, anyone remember the 14 point swing of James harrison's 100 yard INT return vrs Arizona in that SB? How about the 14 point swing of the Peyton Manning INT vrs New Orleans? Gee, how about the onside kick recovered by New Orleans?

If the best QBs on the planet are automatic SB Champions - what's up with the combined SB Championships of Dan Marino, Dan Fouts and Peyton Manning? Trent Dilfer has the same sum of Superbowl Championships, which completely alley ooops and 360 dunks all the other variables that count.

I'm getting kind of tired hearing how many SBs Bradshaw won when I've had to see highlights of 1 circus catch after another plus the Immaculate Reception. There's ALWAYS been the way the Steelers got it done, which is margin of error gift wrapped for QBs that did NOT have gotta have passing numbers or ratings. When your defense scores TDs, limits time of possession while your oline and running game work in tandem to control the clock - welcome to the Dilfer setup supplied in Baltimore. Again, your buddy Flugel refers to this as margin of eror that idiot-proofs the biggest of knuckleheads.

I like what I'm reading in this thread. Time of possession heavily WEIGHS the war in the trenches on both side of the line of scrimmage. Taking care of the football on offense and attacking on defense also gets weighed in at the turnover ratio.

That's how a backup like Jeff Hostetler beats a Jim Kelly in the Superbowl. During the regular season - the Giants got bratspanked by the elite passing attack of the AFC. During the post season, the Giants' coaching staff exploited the Jumbo Elliott vrs Bruce Smith matchup. It was like a JUDO tactic predicated on which side Bruce Smith chose to OLAY on every play. Consequently, Elliott rag-dolled Bruce right out of the running lane. Outcome? You will find NY scored on 2 of the longest SB scoring drives in NFL history. One was something like 13 minutes while the other was about 11 minutes as Machine Gun Kelly could only watch helplessly from the sidelines. ALL those years Jim Kelly and Dan Marino dominated AFC passer ratings, guess how many SB victories they combined for? ZERO.

That said, You just have to remember that teams built exclusively to rely on the passing game can look like a Russian military attack that discounted the brutalities of winter prior to retreating back home with head between crack cheeks. Don't belive me? Check out the difference between Dan Fouts beating Miami in a tropical climate and Dan Fouts losing in 67 below zero wind chills the very next week. There was NO defense to fall back on or score TDs with as the lesser passing game ended up in the SB for the AFC. The most successful QB GB ever had if you go by Championships won was the 17th round pick out of Rice named Starr. Would Vince Lombardi say he didn't need his linemen on both sides of the ball or the patented power sweeps that put his offense in the highlights? Doubt it. Reality is Brett Favre only won 1 Superbowl in ALL these years while Green Bay only had a 9-7 regular season in 2010. Most interesting them of 2010 was announced in our preseason matchup with GB where McCarthy announced they needed to get the ball out of QB's hand quicker in rememberance of what holding onto the ball too long in Arizona led to just 1 post season earlier.

I think winning it all is ALWAYS gonna required balance. I think we ALL get that the league is trying to make to make it necessary you employee the best passible passer you can find. You can't have the Kyle Bollers and Derek Andersons back there playing Santa Claus to the opponent or it renders the rest of the team useless. That's like playing outfield on a day a pitcher can't find the strike zone. No thanks.

[Brown Warrior]

Good convo. Tom, there's been a lot of talk lately, including from Holmgren himself, that long drives create more opportunities for miscues that lead to a punt (penalty, sack) or a turnover. Holmgren was saying in today's NFL, you need to be efficient but also explosive. He's not the only one talking about that lately. It's like the bar has been raised.

About the ability to pass the ball mattering more than anything else: It's really tough to find a Super Bowl team in recent years who didn't pass the ball really, really well. You can find some that couldn't run the ball (Arizona and Indy were both ranked DEAD LAST in their recent Super Bowl years). And you can find teams that were so-so on defense making and even winning the big game (not last year, mind you).

But the Super Bowl teams have been led by Brady, Manning, Warner, Brees, Rodgers, and Roethlisberger. I believe you said there have been champs who ran the ball and defended well but didn't pass well... and that's just not the league we play in. It just isn't true. WAAAAAY back in 2000, the Ravens did it, but that's not just old, it's also a big anomaly.

And they didn't run and defend "well"... they were among the best at both... EVER. That defense and that 2,000 yard back were a perfect storm. It hasn't happened since.

When you talk about "the league we play in," you look at the last 5-10 years, depending on how fast you believe the league evolves. Passer ratings and their connection to winning has become a little more profound every year, especially in the past decade. And raw passing yards connecting to winning? Never used to be the case. That was for desperate teams, not great ones.

Now the teams that pass for the most yards are also the top teams, period. That team in Houston continues to be the only real exception, and they do everything well on offense yet continue to be a .500 type team. Love for someone to explain that because the same wasn't true of Manning or Warner's teams.

Holmgren has said it about five different ways and it's impossible to dispute: You have to be able to pass the ball "at a very high level" to win in this league now. There is not shortcut, no way around it. The Jets are managing to be an exception, but they haven't gone to a championship, let alone won one... and they have a pretty damn good QB with a nice set of WRs and a good TE to keep defenses honest, even if they aren't clicking on all cylinders yet. They'll be complete (and maybe champs) when they do and not before, no matter how much of a genius Ryan is... and he is.

My bottom line is my usual bottom line: It's about passing the ball and rushing the passer. So I do like this PRD stat pretty well and I get why Byrne digs it. I just think QBR alone is a pretty phenomenal stat as measured by its connection to winning.

[Legacy Fan]

Originally Posted by nickers

This thread should renamed: "The Most Important Stat in Football" According to Shep!

Actually, it should be titled: "The most important stat in football - on an Internet message board"

If you're talking about who wins superbowls - it's cliche (for a reason) - but it's defense. Thems the breaks