Quote:
Originally Posted by 12thMan
Yes, that's true and I'm not turning a blind eye to stats, per se.
That is a valid stat you pulled, but the defense as a whole ranked at the bottom of the league. We sucked when it was time to stop the pass and we sucked when it was time to stop the run. To me that's a 'nitpick' stat.
I think a better question, in my mind, is how well did we do stopping teams on third down conversions? How many passing touchdowns did we give up inside the twenty? You see where I'm going?
Another thing, in my football ignorance, I still can't my mind around exactly what is a number one as opposed to a number two receiver.
A team is going to use the best option available and try to create mismatches. Reggie Wayne torched us, yet he's considered a number two.
|
All valid points. Our ranking vs certain receiver is just that, a ranking vs. certain receivers. Generally the CBs (or nickel backs) are responsible for the #1 and #2 wideouts, and the safeties and LBs for the TE, RBs, and slot receivers.
Actually, the #1 vs #2 wideout is a fairly subjective process. Generally I would say the #1 is the guy that gets the most passes thrown to him on a seasonal basis. Sometimes you do get teams like Indy who have a 1 and 1a. However, over the course of 16 games, if the numbers vs a #1 and #2 show a large discrepancy (as these do), then there is likely a significant value in the numbers.
I don't think it's nitpicking at all to use numbers to determine the safeties and linebackers are much farther below league average than the corners are. These numbers tell me that we need to improve the LBs (i.e. sign London Fletcher) and the S (get Taylor to play with more discipline--or bench him). We could use some improved CB depth in case of another Springs injury, but Rogers and Springs did a pretty good job with No. 1 receivers COMPARED to Wright/Rogers/Rumph/Jimoh with No. 2s and Washington/Marshall/Holdman/Taylor/Archuleta/Vincent/Fox with TEs and espicially RBs.
These numbers were charted under a consistent Redskin pass rush (or lack thereof), so it eliminates that varible.
Things like stopping 3rd down conversions and red zone TD passes are conducive to winning (and important statistical columns to improve in), but stats like that don't assign responsibility at an individual level. What I'm saying is that if we find statistically significant evidence that our team is poorly adept to stop a 3rd down conversion (a very reasonable theory) compared to other teams in the league, how is it that we can go about improving that? It's not specific enough to fault a position or player for this defensive shortcoming, so it's tough to fix the problem.