NFL Offensive Rankings Without D/ST Scores

[TrailBlazer]

shocking

What is shocking? The offense isn't a top offense in the league as the OPs stats would suggest. Its painstakingly obvious. So of course not everyone will agree with you.

 

[TTexasTT]

What is shocking? The offense isn't a top offense in the league as the OPs stats would suggest. Its painstakingly obvious. So of course not everyone will agree with you.

I wasnt even talking to you, but youre trying way too hard.

Im sure that Dallas is among the highest in Points, TDs, yards/play...

Anyway, this defense has the offense off the field too much. Dallas probably has the lowest time of possesion and plays run.

Youve already been exposed once in this thread, but fear not, there are many like you. Allow me to introduce you to them on my ignore list. Sorry but you bring nothing to the table.

 

[85Cowboy85]

The stats in the OP are off considerably. You cannot count just single plays that led to scores. Getting the ball at the 2-yard line off a turnover and scoring a touchdown is a credit to the defense, not the offense.

I can tell you that we've scored 14 points off special teams (one punt return for a TD and one 90 yard kickoff return that setup a 10 yard series that led to a TD) and 42 points off turnovers (Ware's interception on first play of the season set up a short series that led to a TD; fumble recovery at the 2 yard line that set up a TD; as well as touchdowns by Heath, Carr, Lee and Church).

And that's without actually going back game-by-game as I'm sure I missed some additional points that came from short fields due to other turnovers or special teams plays.

/reality

Yes it is important to account for field position. However as Percy pointed out in another thread when we start within our own thirty we are are 7th in scoring percentage and 6th in the amount that end in touchdowns. So even when the cowboys have a long way to go they are scoring at a pretty good clip compared to other teams.

What's obviously driving this is the Redzone efficiency. Cowboys are second in the league in scoring touchdowns only behind the ridiculous Broncos offense.

In fact there are only three teams since 2003 which have ended the season with a higher redzone TD scoring percentage then Dallas's 70.73% TD rate.

2003 KC Chiefs - 76.27%
2007 NO Saints - 72.00%
2013 Denver Broncos - 78.33%

That's it. Dallas would have been first place any other year.

 

[Hoofbite]

I posted something similar a while back but I went a bit further.

I also looked at how many drives started from inside the Redzone for each team. Dallas has 6 of those right now, 3 of which started no further than 5 yards away. Pretty sure at the time they had some combination of being #1 and #2 in terms of the number of such drives and number of points off those drives. I can't remember which category was #1 and which was #2. Kudos to the offense for being far more effective in terms of finishing off those short gimmes but not really doing much but inflating the figure with 5 yard drives.

There's a dozen or so teams that don't even have a single drive that started that close and Dallas is one of 3 teams who actually has more than 1.

The offense isn't as good as their point total would indicate. 6 non-offensive scores, 3 drives of 5 yards or less, and the aberration game against Denver. There's 1/3rd of the teams total TD tally.

 

[85Cowboy85]

While we did score a lot of points against Denver, it's not fair to cut out our top performance while leaving it in for other teams when comparing. In other words disregarding an outlier must be done across the board.

I went back for every team ahead of us in the scoring rankings and found their top offensive performance in terms of offensive points per game. It's not easily available so I ended up sorting through game logs to determine which points were scored offensively and defensibly. Here's what I've got assuming I made no mistakes.

Top Performances

Denver - 51 against Dallas
Saints - 49 against Dallas
New England 55 against Pittsburgh
Seattle - 45 against Jacksonville
Philadelphia- 49 against Oakland
Detroit - 38 against Packers
Chicago - 45 against Dallas

Remember we scored 48 against Denver. So we would gain on 4 of the 7 teams while losing ground on 3 of 7 if the outliers were disregarded.

 

[TheCount]

If the idea is to get at how prolific the offense is with the defense out of the question, I think there are probably more numbrs that need to be part of the story - such as points off turnovers. Starting position from special team turns. Special team scores and a few I'm probably missing. Removing just defensive scores didn't really seem to have much effect on the overall ranking for any of the teams, really, which is to be expected as it's irregular.

 

[85Cowboy85]

If the idea is to get at how prolific the offense is with the defense out of the question, I think there are probably more numbrs that need to be part of the story - such as points off turnovers. Starting position from special team turns. Special team scores and a few I'm probably missing. Removing just defensive scores didn't really seem to have much effect on the overall ranking for any of the teams, really, which is to be expected as it's irregular.

My list and the general 8th ranking also disregard special teams scores. So you don't have to worry about those.

The average starting field position has been good generally but the team has also been good at scoring when put in bad field position.

The argument to be had here IMO is whether the Redzone scoring percentage is sustainable. Because that to me is clearly what accounts for the ranking and probably what has carried this team all year. If they keep scoring TDs at this percentage they are going to make up for some of the lacking yardage as you would expect.

 

[burmafrd]

certain people keep whining that the offense is not helping out the D. Well what help has the D been to the offense except by turnovers? THEY are responsible for the horrible TOP which means the Offense gets FEWER drives each game then they would otherwise.

Not to mention they let the game get way out of hand and the offense has to pass like crazy to try and keep up- and certainly Opposing D's like that.

The problem with this team is about70% or so ON THE DEFENSE. 30% on the offense. Yet SOME here keep harping on the offense. Now I know most of them are either open or closet Romo haters and their REAL agenda is to attack Romo. They just think they are being subtle.

I think that Red Ball and Jerruh made a conscious decision this year to have Romo concentrate on not having turnovers. That is THEIR decision. The result of course is that the offense is NOT going to be that aggressive. Amazing how many here are blind to that REALITY.

 

[Tezz]

The special/defense teams accounted for a lot of points and that's not including the return TDs... The offense barely moved the ball off turnovers, but still scored a hefty amount of points because they frequently started deep inside the red-zone in HB dive position or FG range.

This is the way I look at it the Cowboys offense had a plus match-up in every game this year except two and underwhelmed. In half the games this year the Cowboys defense had to go through top tier offenses and were embarrassed a couple of times, but they still got TOs and when faced against offenses below the top tier level they played well. I'm not going to let the offense or defense off the hook if the season continues down this path...

 

[percyhoward]

If we had last year's defense that provided few turnovers for the offense, we wouldn't even be in the top 15 teams on offense this season.

This claim can be checked out easily. Just take out the offense's drives that did not begin after a takeaway and see where we rank.

The offense has had 132 drives that did not begin after a turnover by the opponent. 32 of them (24%) ended in touchdowns, which ranks 4th in the NFL.

 

[Reality]

This claim can be checked out easily. Just take out the offense's drives that did not begin after a takeaway and see where we rank.

The offense has had 132 drives that did not begin after a turnover by the opponent. 32 of them (24%) ended in touchdowns, which ranks 4th in the NFL.

So we score a touchdown on 1 out of 4 series that were not started by a turnover. In a typical game, a team will have 8-10 possessions, so that basically means this offense will score 14-17.5 points per game without turnovers. That's even more depressing now you've clarified it.

 

[percyhoward]

I also looked at how many drives started from inside the Redzone for each team. Dallas has 6 of those right now, 3 of which started no further than 5 yards away. Pretty sure at the time they had some combination of being #1 and #2 in terms of the number of such drives and number of points off those drives. I can't remember which category was #1 and which was #2. Kudos to the offense for being far more effective in terms of finishing off those short gimmes but not really doing much but inflating the figure with 5 yard drives.

The offense isn't as good as their point total would indicate. 6 non-offensive scores, 3 drives of 5 yards or less, and the aberration game against Denver. There's 1/3rd of the teams total TD tally.

Leave out the drives that didn't start on our opponent's side of the field, and see where we rank.

Percentage of drives that began outside 50-yard line and ended in TD
2013: 23% (7th)
2012: 20% (12th)
2011: 17% (15th)
2010: 17% (16th)
2009: 22% (7th)

 

[percyhoward]

So we score a touchdown on 1 out of 4 series that were not started by a turnover. In a typical game, a team will have 8-10 possessions, so that basically means this offense will score 14-17.5 points per game without turnovers. That's even more depressing now you've clarified it.

To connect the dots, 24% and 4th in the league is good thing. The league average is 18.7%, and 27 other offenses are worse.

 

[JoeyBoy718]

It's hard to truly measure how the offense has played with no help (or lack of help) from defense or special teams. Should we only count drives that started at our own 20 yard line? Should we not count drives that started near our own goal line since that would be a failure of our special teams? Should we not count drives that started in our opponent's territory since that would be a success of our special teams? Should we not count drives started after our defense forced a turnover? What type of drive should count? Any drive that went 65-80 yards?

 

[NateSuri]

By taking out D/ST scores it ended up dropping our PPG by 3.2, but we're still ranked 7th in PPG out of 32 teams. I wouldn't exactly call it a drastic change as some have indicated it would've been, we only dropped from 3rd to 7th. I know some like to point out that on offense we struggle moving the ball, and that's true to an extent, but the fact is we DO have one of the better offenses in the league. We may struggle moving the ball, but we make up for it with our RZ TD efficiency which is only 2nd to Denver.

I'd like to know the average length of scoring drive by the cowboys, because I have a feeling they've benefited greatly from Harris's return game as well as midfield turnovers.

 

[percyhoward]

It's hard to truly measure how the offense has played with no help (or lack of help) from defense or special teams. Should we only count drives that started at our own 20 yard line? Should we not count drives that started near our own goal line since that would be a failure of our special teams? Should we not count drives that started in our opponent's territory since that would be a success of our special teams? Should we not count drives started after our defense forced a turnover? What type of drive should count? Any drive that went 65-80 yards?

You could simply count drives that start around where the average NFL drive starts -- the 28.6 yard line.

Dallas is 6th in scores on percentage of drives that start from inside their own 29, and 6th in TD.

 

[percyhoward]

I'd like to know the average length of scoring drive by the cowboys, because I have a feeling they've benefited greatly from Harris's return game as well as midfield turnovers.

You can't ignore all the drives that fail. That would be like only looking at the average yards gained on completions for a QB, while ignoring the incompletions. The Commanders lead the NFL with the longest average scoring drive, followed by the Falcons.

 

[Tezz]

I used the Titans as a litmus test because:
Most people would view them as a vastly inferior offense
Similar amount of total drives, TOP/drive and plus match-ups in the schedule

Some raw numbers I use might be a little off, but it will cut the total points differential(357-292) between the two teams in half. Used total points subtracted return scores and scores where the offense started in the RZ due to TOs/special team plays:
Cowboys - 277 Points
Titans - 244 Points

The Cowboys RZ starting position has played a big role in its RZ-TD efficiency. RZ trips that start inside the 5YD line in my mind are almost automatic. Not where the drives started, but where the RZ opportunity started with a first down... Ratio consisting of RZ-TDs that started within the 5YD line/Total RZ-TDs:
Cowboys - 8/29
Titans 3/22

I chose extreme parameters to show the benefits of positioning the Cowboys had... There are too many variables in stats that you can spin it in many ways. Even the stuff I wrote about is flawed, but whatever... Let me know!

 

[percyhoward]

I used the Titans as a litmus test because:
Most people would view them as a vastly inferior offense
Similar amount of total drives, TOP/drive and plus match-ups in the schedule

Some raw numbers I use might be a little off, but it will cut the total points differential(357-292) between the two teams in half. Used total points subtracted return scores and scores where the offense started in the RZ due to TOs/special team plays:
Cowboys - 277 Points
Titans - 244 Points

The Cowboys RZ starting position has played a big role in its RZ-TD efficiency. RZ trips that start inside the 5YD line in my mind are almost automatic. Not where the drives started, but where the RZ opportunity started with a first down... Ratio consisting of RZ-TDs that started within the 5YD line/Total RZ-TDs:
Cowboys - 8/29
Titans 3/22

I chose extreme parameters to show the benefits of positioning the Cowboys had... There are too many variables in stats that you can spin it in many ways. Even the stuff I wrote about is flawed, but whatever... Let me know!

There's no reason to discount a touchdown because the offense had the ball outside the opponent's 20-yard line on one play, and inside its 5 on the next. It doesn't isolate any specific aspect or ability of an offense. If you want to know why we're so good in the red zone, look at the red zone plays.

The Cowboys average red zone run gains 3.8 yards, which is 2nd in the NFL. 41.9% of all our red zone runs result in either a first down or touchdown, which leads the league. As for passing, 42.6% of our red zone passes result in either a first down or TD, which ranks 2nd.

Our average gain on a red zone play is 3.6 yards, which is 5th in the league. This has nothing to do with our defense or special teams, or with the offense's starting field position. It's just good, solid red zone play.

 

[Tezz]

I agree with the points you have made and the problems with my parameters, but I do think there is relevance to where a RZ-TD opportunity starts. RZ-TD efficiency is based on TDs scored once the offense has reached the opponent's 20YD line and the Cowboys have an inordinate amount of starts deep within the 5YD line. I like the average gain/RZ-play stat... I think the RZ-O has been good this year, but I think positioning has played a helping hand.