Steelers are 31st in defense. They have 4 wins with an offense that truly is 31st if not 32nd. If their defense was indeed 31st no way they are 4-2. No way.
How stats lie
- Thread starter SteelerSask2
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They give up a crap ton of yards running and passing. The turnovers and pass rush have saved their ***. And Baltimore's receivers not being able to catch a cold.
They're about a handful of plays on defense from being winless.
I wouldn't say that stats lie, but if there was ever a case where stats are misleading this could be the one.
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I sometimes hate getting a dose of reality.
Their D does suck. They can't stop the run or the pass. The only thing saving them is Watt and Highsmith getting sacks and turnovers. Without them, we might have 1 win. What they are doing is not sustainable. The D needs to get better as does the O. Cam is not the cure-all. Even when he was in the lineup last year, they still had trouble against the run. One of these years, they will pick a DL with their No. 1 pick again.
The Jagoffs will be a perfect example. They can run with a true 3 down back and they can pass. Pressuring Lawrence and getting turnovers will be key as they will put up a lot of yards on us. Canaduh needs to have the O ready to roll from the 1st snap. No more 3 and outs to start the game.
The Jagoffs will be a perfect example. They can run with a true 3 down back and they can pass. Pressuring Lawrence and getting turnovers will be key as they will put up a lot of yards on us. Canaduh needs to have the O ready to roll from the 1st snap. No more 3 and outs to start the game.
Mostly scheme involved. They simply don't put these players in the best position to succeed. Or even pick what players to bench over start. So both sides of the ball have an element of this...
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Middle of the pack in points allowed and 2nd in defensive touchdowns and 2nd with 6+ turnover differential.
Yes.., favorable achievements..
I also feel that Coach T knows how to make his teams current weaknesses not be fully exploited and taken advantage of on both sides of the ball..
He is also very good at convincing his players that they can win even when if feels like their losing..
I believe he deserves a ton of credit for our improbable and probably undeserving 4-2 start..
The only negative thing I have against Coach T is that he cut THE GUNNER!
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Yes.., favorable achievements..
I also feel that Coach T knows how to make his teams current weaknesses not be fully exploited and taken advantage of on both sides of the ball..
He is also very good at convincing his players that they can win even when if feels like their losing..
I believe he deserves a ton of credit for our improbable and probably undeserving 4-2 start..
The only negative thing I have against Coach T is that he cut THE GUNNER!
TJ is the only reason Coach T has any wins.
Let me explain some issues that come with the way the NFL ranks things.
1. It doesn’t account for possessions.
This is the most glaring. A team with a miserable Offense might give significantly more possessions to the opponent than a great offense, and a great quick strike offense might give more possessions up than a ball control offense would…
So lets say you have two teams. One team has a bunch of turnovers and 3-outs and the other has a ton of sustained drives that eat 7 minutes or so off of the clock.
One gives up 14 possessions, the other like 8…
The D on team A is penalized because they have more downs to defend regardless of how great they play… if team d gives up 15 yards per possession and team B gives up 20… the first team probably did better but looks worse in this grading system.
2. It doesn’t account for penalties… or turnover yardage…
So team A’s offense turns the ball over on the 10 yard line, they give up a seven yard run, then pick the ball off and returns it for a 97 yard Touchdown
team B’s punts the ball to the opponents 20… they then draw a defensive holding with a personal foul, jump offsides, then commit a pass interference penalty in the end zone. The other team drives it in for a 1 yard TD…
In the current system Team B had a better drive… despite having surrendered 80 yards and tge other D gaining 90 from the initial possession… and scoring…
3. It doesn’t account for starting position…
Team A has a terrible punter and a worse Kicker and not great coverage..
Team B has magnificent specialists…
Team A’s opponents routinely get the ball at or past midfield, while team B’s are usually pinned deep behind the 20…
Both have the exact same bad play and the opponent gets behind them for a score… but the opponent for team A got the ball on their own 35, while team b’s opponent was on the fifteen.
The team with the better special teams is penalized simply because they have more field at risk.. and moreover, it’s easier to defend a shorter field…
If a team throws a bunch of picks in their own red zone, a really bad D could look good in yardage, just because there weren’t many yards to give up …
4. It overbiases for outliers. Its an extremely short season… a single really great or terrible game can really affect the data… the smart thing to do is to exclude the best and worse game to keep a freak game from overbiasing everything… so if say, an offense drives down the field taking up a ton of time but has a half dozen turnovers returned for tds, that biases the yardage down and scoring up because of that freak game…
Or if a rash of injuries hits a position in a game, like 4 corners go out and the team gets shredded… utilizing those kind of outliers isn’t a great way to grade a team.. so if you trim off the best and the worse you can get a more accurate confidence coefficient…
1. It doesn’t account for possessions.
This is the most glaring. A team with a miserable Offense might give significantly more possessions to the opponent than a great offense, and a great quick strike offense might give more possessions up than a ball control offense would…
So lets say you have two teams. One team has a bunch of turnovers and 3-outs and the other has a ton of sustained drives that eat 7 minutes or so off of the clock.
One gives up 14 possessions, the other like 8…
The D on team A is penalized because they have more downs to defend regardless of how great they play… if team d gives up 15 yards per possession and team B gives up 20… the first team probably did better but looks worse in this grading system.
2. It doesn’t account for penalties… or turnover yardage…
So team A’s offense turns the ball over on the 10 yard line, they give up a seven yard run, then pick the ball off and returns it for a 97 yard Touchdown
team B’s punts the ball to the opponents 20… they then draw a defensive holding with a personal foul, jump offsides, then commit a pass interference penalty in the end zone. The other team drives it in for a 1 yard TD…
In the current system Team B had a better drive… despite having surrendered 80 yards and tge other D gaining 90 from the initial possession… and scoring…
3. It doesn’t account for starting position…
Team A has a terrible punter and a worse Kicker and not great coverage..
Team B has magnificent specialists…
Team A’s opponents routinely get the ball at or past midfield, while team B’s are usually pinned deep behind the 20…
Both have the exact same bad play and the opponent gets behind them for a score… but the opponent for team A got the ball on their own 35, while team b’s opponent was on the fifteen.
The team with the better special teams is penalized simply because they have more field at risk.. and moreover, it’s easier to defend a shorter field…
If a team throws a bunch of picks in their own red zone, a really bad D could look good in yardage, just because there weren’t many yards to give up …
4. It overbiases for outliers. Its an extremely short season… a single really great or terrible game can really affect the data… the smart thing to do is to exclude the best and worse game to keep a freak game from overbiasing everything… so if say, an offense drives down the field taking up a ton of time but has a half dozen turnovers returned for tds, that biases the yardage down and scoring up because of that freak game…
Or if a rash of injuries hits a position in a game, like 4 corners go out and the team gets shredded… utilizing those kind of outliers isn’t a great way to grade a team.. so if you trim off the best and the worse you can get a more accurate confidence coefficient…
And most if the points in the two blowouts.
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I think yardage and points should be looked at per TOP or per drive to account for how often your offense is putting you back on the field. Vice versa as well - is an offense really good or is their defense putting them back on the field?
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With Heyward out, they might only have three established, really good players defensively with Watt, Highsmith and Fitzpatrick. Porter and Benton have potential and definitely need to keep playing more.
The edge guys are definitely the key, though. If a defense has two really good ones, it can cover up a lot of flaws in other areas in terms of forcing offenses into negative plays and preventing points.
And there are flaws, with the run defense constantly getting gashed and receivers running wide open in the secondary too frequently. The Steelers rank near the bottom of the league in both yards per pass and yards per run allowed.
The overall DL and CB play has been among the worst in the league to this point, but there is potential for improvement with Heyward hopefully returning and the development of Porter and Benton.
It definitely has not been money well spent at CB and the Steelers are on their sixth year of trying to replace Ryan Shazier in the middle of the defense and it has not been due to a lack of trying.
The edge guys are definitely the key, though. If a defense has two really good ones, it can cover up a lot of flaws in other areas in terms of forcing offenses into negative plays and preventing points.
And there are flaws, with the run defense constantly getting gashed and receivers running wide open in the secondary too frequently. The Steelers rank near the bottom of the league in both yards per pass and yards per run allowed.
The overall DL and CB play has been among the worst in the league to this point, but there is potential for improvement with Heyward hopefully returning and the development of Porter and Benton.
It definitely has not been money well spent at CB and the Steelers are on their sixth year of trying to replace Ryan Shazier in the middle of the defense and it has not been due to a lack of trying.
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At least 68.4% of football stats are directly correlated to past outcomes.