by Chase Stuart
on November 24, 2018
Every 1st down represents a new set of downs that gives a team a chance another small battle against the defense.
Take the Saints, for example. How many 1st-and-10s (or 1st-and-goals or 1st-and-longer than 10s) have they had this year? By my count, 339. How did I get there? New Orleans has had 105 drives this year (more on that in a moment) and 282 first downs this year. Now remember that in the NFL, a touchdown is also a first down, and the Saints offense has scored 48 touchdowns this year. Therefore, New Orleans has recorded 234 non-scoring first downs. Add in the 105 1st downs that began every drive, and this means the Saints must have had 339 sets of downs this season.
Let’s look at the Jets for another example. New York has had 126 drives, 153 first downs, and 18 offensive touchdowns. Therefore, the Jets must have had 261 new sets of downs with which to operate. This methodology should be a pretty accurate way of capturing the number of new sets of downs a team has, although it may be off by 1 or 2 for some teams. (For example, the Jets are probably at 260, not 261; one drive began with an interception but Trumaine Johnson fumbled the return.) You can’t use the actual number of first down plays, because teams often have multiple first down plays due to penalties on the same set of downs (think of a 1st-and-10 where a rusher gains 4 yards and a holding is called, and a team then has a 1st-and-16).
So to calculate the number of sets of downs a team has, you use this formula:
Drives + First Downs Made – Touchdowns
Now how do we calculate the number of drives? That’s pretty simple using the PFR Play Index.
Remember from our work on estimated drives, every drive ends in one of seven ways: [continue reading…]
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by Chase Stuart
on July 3, 2015
Yesterday, I looked at the best defenses in football history in terms of (estimated) points allowed on an (estimated) per drive basis. Today, the reverse: the worst defenses in history, at least, without adjusting for era, in terms of points allowed per drive.
The 1981 Colts take the top spot, and that’s not going to be a surprise to any fan of NFL history. Those Colts teams were terrible, particularly on defense. In ’81, Baltimore beat New England 29-28 in week 1, beat New England 23-21 in the last game of the season, and lost every game in between. In ’82, Baltimore finished 0-8-1. In fact, beginning in December 1980, over the team’s next 31 games, the Colts went 3-1 against the Patriots and 0-26-1 against the rest of the NFL! And beginning in ’81, the Colts went 24 straight games without being favored.
The ’81 Colts finished last in just about every defensive category, including points, yards, turnovers, first downs, passing touchdowns, rushing touchdowns, and net yards per attempt. Baltimore’s defense ranked in the bottom three in both rushing yards and passing yards, too. Baltimore allowed 533 points, which remains the most in a single season in NFL history, undisturbed by the modern era. [continue reading…]
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by Chase Stuart
on July 2, 2015
The Purple People Eaters
The
1969 Minnesota Vikings were really good on defense. It began with the defensive line, as that Minnesota squad was the only team in NFL history to send
all four defensive linemen to the Pro Bowl.
Alan Page,
Carl Eller,
Jim Marshall, and
Gary Larsen may have been the greatest combination of
defensive linemen playing together in their primes in NFL history. The Vikings also had Hall of Fame safety
Paul Krause playing in the prime of his career.
Minnesota was quarterback by Joe Kapp, but propped up by the defense: after the season, Kapp was traded to the Patriots, and proceeded to suffer the second worst decline in passer rating in NFL history. The Vikings went 12-2 that season, losing on opening day and in a meaningless game at the end of the year.
Minnesota allowed just 133 points, or 9.5 points per game, in 1969. That’s the 2nd fewest in a season since World War II, trailing only the Gritz Blitz 1977 Falcons. The Vikings allowed 16 touchdowns in 1969, but four came on returns (two on interceptions, one fumble, one interception)! Exclude those, and the Vikings allowed just 84 points on touchdowns and 21 points on field goals, for a total of 105 points allowed to the opposing offense. [continue reading…]
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by Chase Stuart
on July 1, 2015
On Sunday, I looked at the single-season leaders in estimated offensive points per estimated drive. Today, let’s look at the reverse: the teams since 1950 with the fewest points per estimated drive.
The 1977 Bucs ranked last in the NFL in points, yards, first downs, passing yards, passing touchdowns, net yards per attempt, rushing yards, and rushing yards per carry. The team ranked third from last in rushing touchdowns and interceptions. It was that kind of year for Tampa Bay, as the team was shut out 6 times in 14 games, and held to just a field goal in three others.
Tampa scored just 103 points, but the defense scored four touchdowns! As a result, the Bucs get credit for just 76 estimated offensive points (the offense does get credit for one missed extra point), the fewest of any team since 1950. [continue reading…]
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by Chase Stuart
on June 28, 2015
As regular readers know, PFR’s Approximate Value statistic uses Offensive Points Per Estimated Drive (OPPED) as its base statistic. Given the discussion yesterday regarding estimates drives and scoring, I thought it would be useful to provide a list of the single-season leaders since 1950 in this metric.
Let’s use the 2007 Patriots as an example. For modern teams, we have the data available on how many drives each team had, but for historical teams, it’s not so easy. There are two ways we can measure drives for all teams. One is to measure the end of drives. For example, the ’07 Patriots had:
- 50 passing touchdowns;
- 9 interceptions;
- 17 rushing touchdowns;
- 24 field goal attempts;
- 45 punts;
- 6 fumbles lost; and
- 0 safeties (i.e., the offense was never sacked in the end zone)
That gives us a total of 151 estimated drives. What we’re missing here are drives that end when the clock runs out and turnovers on downs. Unfortunately, that data is simply not out there historically, although it’s probably not all that important (and, at least with respect to the former, those drives arguably should be excluded, anyway).
We can also measure the start of drives. The ’07 Patriots:
- Played 16 games, which means 16 times where the team received the ball at the start of each half;
- Recorded 0 safeties recorded on defense (which would lead to a possession);
- Allowed 23 passing touchdowns;
- Forced 19 interceptions;
- Allowed 7 rushing touchdowns;
- Faced 14 opponent field goal attempts;
- Forced 76 punts;
- Forced and recovered 12 fumbles.
- In addition, New England also had 3 pick sixes and returned 3 fumbles for touchdowns. as a result, we need to subtract 6 from our total, since those turnovers did not lead to drives for the offense.
This method of estimating drives isn’t perfect, either, but if we average the two results, hopefully we get something pretty close. New England’s offense had 161 estimated drives by this metric, giving them an averaged of 156 estimated offensive drives.
What about estimated points? That one is relatively simple:
- Award 7 points for each rushing touchdown or passing touchdown;
- Award 3 points for each made field goal
There are flaws here, well, but this is probably the best we can do. By this method, New England had 532 estimated offensive points, and 3.41 OPPED. That is the most of any team since 1950. The full list:
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