2011 Packers (15-1) had the worst defense

[gimmesix]

I'm not saying we will be good this year. Actually, if our defense is only average I'd be ecstatic. I'm just saying that losing Ware at his current state of decline is not something that is hard to overcome. But I also agree with you in that the bar should be much higher than just trying to be as good as last year - which was not good at all.

That's why I can't wait for training camp. We have soooo many questions this year on defense. We have guys with high potential that just haven't panned out at other stops. We have guys with high potential that are coming off of injuries. We have guys that have been solid and been to Pro Bowls coming off of injuries. New guys with potential but are completely unknown.

All in all, I feel our roster has more POTENTIAL than what we started the year with last year. If Crawford and Lawrence are what we hope they can be, and if Carter can step it up and we find a middle LBer and if we get a solid safety tandem - we could be a solid defense. Not spectacular, but solid.

I'm not a Romo guy, but many believe he's elite. We have what looks to be a top 5 oline, we have a top 5 WR, we have a top 5 TE, we have a top 10 RB, we have a number 2 WR that many are saying could be a number 1, we have another weapon at TE if utilized. We have a hand picked OC. There should be no excuses for this offense to not be a top 5 scoring offense.

If we get that and a solid defense, we could make the playoffs.

But still a lot of questions to be answered.

OK, I'm with you on all this. All I've been saying really is that although "Ware at his current state of decline is not something that is hard to overcome" doesn't mean we will overcome it or reach that level we really need to be at, which is closer to where Ware was in his prime.

I am eager to see how it all falls into place, even if some of it doesn't work out the way that we would like it to. I mean, I do have grandiose visions of Lawrence terrorizing QBs, of guys like Melton and Crawford and Bass, etc., constantly being disruptive, but I temper that by understanding that we don't know what we've got and what we've got could turn out just as bad as I hope it is good.

I even picture Rolando McClain coming in here in shape and with a new attitude and providing us with such a presence at linebacker that we want to keep him for years to come, but I know the reality has a great chance of being a far cry different than that.

 

[Idgit]

In all seriousness, I would love to know what you are referring to. Statistics supporting garrett or general observation that garrett supporters tend to be people who present stats in other arguements?

The latter. Though when I posted it, I almost mentioned that you were a notable exception.

And the idea that Garrett supporters like statistics is just an anecdotal observation on my part.

 

[khiladi]

What are you talking about, exactly? I can't even guess as to which direction you're floundering right now.

Turnovers affect the outcomes of games. Significantly. Nobody you were arguing with in that other thread said otherwise. If you think they did, you're misunderstanding their actual argument or misrepresenting it on purpose.

But, but, but in the other thread...

TOs caused by the defense don't affect games, because the offense still has to score. You know, because the defense is to be blamed for us not making the play-offs and if we correct that, then we will.

As an aside, by correction, does that include the increase our defense got us in TOs from last year? Or was our defense just the worst ever?

 

[noshame]

WOW light bulbs going on all over the board today.

 

[Idgit]

But, but, but in the other thread...

TOs caused by the defense don't affect games, because the offense still has to score. You know, because the defense is to be blamed for us not making the play-offs and if we correct that, then we will.

As an aside, by correction, does that include the increase our defense got us in TOs from last year? Or was our defense just the worst ever?

I'm going to have to ask you for a link since I have no idea what you're referencing at this point.

 

[xwalker]

In all seriousness, I would love to know what you are referring to. Statistics supporting garrett or general observation that garrett supporters tend to be people who present stats in other arguements?

I have reviewed multiple pages on this site and my conclusion is that appproximately 90% of stats were provided by posters that would be considered optmistic.

The 2 most frequent negative posters never provided any stats, game footage review or any type of useful information.

 

[khiladi]

I'm going to have to ask you for a link since I have no idea what you're referencing at this point.

You remember, in the thread where I spoke about the Eagles being dominated by us in terms of the passing game and us still losing, because of TOs... The same one where I brought up the Detroit game and our defense providing us 4 TOs, and us still losing. You know the one where I referred to the San Diego, where our offense was dead in the water for significant chunks of time, while Sean Lee gifted as a TD and another TO if I remember correctly.

I mean I thought the defense was the sole reason we didn't make the play-offs...

 

[Idgit]

You remember, in the thread where I spoke about the Eagles being dominated by us in terms of the passing game and us still losing, because of TOs... The same one where I brought up the Detroit game and our defense providing us 4 TOs, and us still losing. You know the one where I referred to the San Diego, where our offense was dead in the water for significant chunks of time, while Sean Lee gifted as a TD and another TO if I remember correctly.

I don't. I only remember you getting slapped silly in that thread and not actually making good arguments.

Trouble is, none of those bad arguments related to what you were originally trying to twist them into here in this thread, and what you're posting now by way of your recollections isn't helping you much.

I'm afraid you'll either have to post a link to somebody saying takeaways don't matter or just concede you were making that part up.

 

[TheDude]

The latter. Though when I posted it, I almost mentioned that you were a notable exception.

And the idea that Garrett supporters like statistics is just an anecdotal observation on my part.

That's interesting, I think it is inherent nature to group or lump people into boxes. I know I went rounds taking the "anti-garret" stance, but I do support Romo and am probably more positive on him than many others (maybe even moreso than the guy I was debating Garrett on as I thought he somewhat questioned Romo's value somewhere in that - but dont hold me to it). I'm not saying you are intentionally lumping me in anywhere, and aren't offended if you do.

Like most, if everyone is honest, there are some good things and some bad things. I am not a Garrett fan mainly due to the fact he got a job that I don't feel he earned, but rather "pulled strings", "leveraged his education" etc. Just seems like the Cowboys should have really scoured the the landscape for the best coach.

Since then, aside from a few notable instances (one recent thread and maybe after the botching the final 1:05 in the 2011 Az game, punting in in Bears territory last year while trailing in the 3rd, etc.) I usually dont bring him up. I've been pretty meh and quiet on him in general because I dont think he has had a really talented team. However, I don't think he has still ever "out-coached or out-schemed" another team. I based this more on the general slow starts that came to a head in 2012. Last year was better and I don't think the GB game was on him last year but Romo just missed 3 throws.

I try to fair to a given situation, Romo, Jason, etc., Defense etc. The Garret debate was really calling out all of personal and subjective bias that a group (wink) assign all positives to Jason but absolve his involvement in the bad. Culture change, consistency, building a franchise for the future, etc. It can't be proven - conversely I cant prove he hasn't contributed in good moves. But there have been really bad moves in the last 3 years and you have to weigh those fairly.

I enjoy and appreciate the work some posters do here, percy had a great breakdown on Romo. Now, I could just as easily taken the "devils advocate" position against those stats and measures but football is extremely hard to "prove" with any given stat. There are too many interlinked parts to solidly eliminate the possibility of chance explaining outliers and a given situation. However, moving to a legal mindset, I think there is merit to "preponderance of the evidence" and that was well laid out by the poster.

On the stat side, I do a lot of model building in my job - mainly mortgage prepayment and behavioral modeling. Guessing when a person prepays/refinances a mortgage has tons of inter-linked variables that while may not seem big, can really burn you in a short time period. Interest/mortgage rate levels are obvious, but then you have loan-to value, the Actual loan size, burnout rate, media effect, geography, product type, age of the loan, purpose of the loan, etc. You get a good feel that all of your variables are tracking perfectly with high correlations, p-values and r^2 and then - boom, refi/spike unexpectedly and you see that mortgage brokers decided to under cut rates by 1/2 point and market to past sellers and all of a sudden reinvestment risk is realized. (or another example - hypothetically - maybe defaults spike in Memphis because FedEx is shutting down)

Using statistics to say "there is a 75% chance Dallas beats the 49ers opening day because I know football and played football" - is just plain criminal to me. I dont really care unless others begin to buy in. Then you get all of this warring over nonsense math.

Comparative info is interesting, such as this thread, but sometimes I think we get caught up in numbers and try to explain how and why to other teams and players/schemes/systems, etc are not homogenous and sometimes the team is just not good. While crude, the final arbiter is the Parcells adages "Its results oriented busines." Results are wins and "You are what your record says" is pretty strong

My intuition is that putting up 350 yards and 21 points in the first half has a much higher correlation to a win than 350 yards and 21 points in the second half. One just feels dominating and and the other may be a good adjustment, but also likely came from some desperation. If I get a change to pull from pro-football reference, I will. Even if that is the case, there's still a good change it may not be significant.

Aside from that, I guarantee Dallas has been in more losses that are a "Tail event" in the last 3-5 years than would be expected. GB, Detroit x2, etc.And that in itself is a marvel and maddening (contributing to understood frustration for some)

Sorry for the long post - definitely more than you wanted in a reply

I have reviewed multiple pages on this site and my conclusion is that appproximately 90% of stats were provided by posters that would be considered optmistic.

The 2 most frequent negative posters never provided any stats, game footage review or any type of useful information.

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate the effort you put into running numbers, I have done it a couple of times and it takes alot of time (especially when you have a job). Even if we may or may not agree on a stat significance, there are interesting topics to discuss and debate

 

[CCBoy]

You remember, in the thread where I spoke about the Eagles being dominated by us in terms of the passing game and us still losing, because of TOs... The same one where I brought up the Detroit game and our defense providing us 4 TOs, and us still losing. You know the one where I referred to the San Diego, where our offense was dead in the water for significant chunks of time, while Sean Lee gifted as a TD and another TO if I remember correctly.

I mean I thought the defense was the sole reason we didn't make the play-offs...

Off the top of the head...how many recent games in Philadelphia has Dallas won?

 

[Idgit]

That's interesting, I think it is inherent nature to group or lump people into boxes. I know I went rounds taking the "anti-garret" stance, but I do support Romo and am probably more positive on him than many others (maybe even moreso than the guy I was debating Garrett on as I thought he somewhat questioned Romo's value somewhere in that - but dont hold me to it). I'm not saying you are intentionally lumping me in anywhere, and aren't offended if you do.

Like most, if everyone is honest, there are some good things and some bad things. I am not a Garrett fan mainly due to the fact he got a job that I don't feel he earned, but rather "pulled strings", "leveraged his education" etc. Just seems like the Cowboys should have really scoured the the landscape for the best coach.

Since then, aside from a few notable instances (one recent thread and maybe after the botching the final 1:05 in the 2011 Az game, punting in in Bears territory last year while trailing in the 3rd, etc.) I usually dont bring him up. I've been pretty meh and quiet on him in general because I dont think he has had a really talented team. However, I don't think he has still ever "out-coached or out-schemed" another team. I based this more on the general slow starts that came to a head in 2012. Last year was better and I don't think the GB game was on him last year but Romo just missed 3 throws.

I try to fair to a given situation, Romo, Jason, etc., Defense etc. The Garret debate was really calling out all of personal and subjective bias that a group (wink) assign all positives to Jason but absolve his involvement in the bad. Culture change, consistency, building a franchise for the future, etc. It can't be proven - conversely I cant prove he hasn't contributed in good moves. But there have been really bad moves in the last 3 years and you have to weigh those fairly.

I enjoy and appreciate the work some posters do here, percy had a great breakdown on Romo. Now, I could just as easily taken the "devils advocate" position against those stats and measures but football is extremely hard to "prove" with any given stat. There are too many interlinked parts to solidly eliminate the possibility of chance explaining outliers and a given situation. However, moving to a legal mindset, I think there is merit to "preponderance of the evidence" and that was well laid out by the poster.

On the stat side, I do a lot of model building in my job - mainly mortgage prepayment and behavioral modeling. Guessing when a person prepays/refinances a mortgage has tons of inter-linked variables that while may not seem big, can really burn you in a short time period. Interest/mortgage rate levels are obvious, but then you have loan-to value, the Actual loan size, burnout rate, media effect, geography, product type, age of the loan, purpose of the loan, etc. You get a good feel that all of your variables are tracking perfectly with high correlations, p-values and r^2 and then - boom, refi/spike unexpectedly and you see that mortgage brokers decided to under cut rates by 1/2 point and market to past sellers and all of a sudden reinvestment risk is realized. (or another example - hypothetically - maybe defaults spike in Memphis because FedEx is shutting down)

Using statistics to say "there is a 75% chance Dallas beats the 49ers opening day because I know football and played football" - is just plain criminal to me. I dont really care unless others begin to buy in. Then you get all of this warring over nonsense math.

Comparative info is interesting, such as this thread, but sometimes I think we get caught up in numbers and try to explain how and why to other teams and players/schemes/systems, etc are not homogenous and sometimes the team is just not good. While crude, the final arbiter is the Parcells adages "Its results oriented busines." Results are wins and "You are what your record says" is pretty strong

My intuition is that putting up 350 yards and 21 points in the first half has a much higher correlation to a win than 350 yards and 21 points in the second half. One just feels dominating and and the other may be a good adjustment, but also likely came from some desperation. If I get a change to pull from pro-football reference, I will. Even if that is the case, there's still a good change it may not be significant.

Aside from that, I guarantee Dallas has been in more losses that are a "Tail event" in the last 3-5 years than would be expected. GB, Detroit x2, etc.And that in itself is a marvel and maddening (contributing to understood frustration for some)

Sorry for the long post - definitely more than you wanted in a reply



Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate the effort you put into running numbers, I have done it a couple of times and it takes alot of time (especially when you have a job). Even if we may or may not agree on a stat significance, there are interesting topics to discuss and debate

Not at all...this is a great reply. I just wish I could do it justice with a longer response. I'm not sure Parcell's adage that 'you are what your record says you are' is all that accurate when it comes to evaluating coaches. Or, rather, I think that's how coaches are hired and fired, but I'm not sure it's the best way to build an organzation. There are a lot of trailing effects in the NFL that aren't necessarily in a coach's control, for example, that have a significant impact on how a team might perform. Players take time to develop--some more than others, for example; contract commitments to prominent players have impacts that last many years; injuries can dramatically affect the trajectory of a star player's development; offensive or defensive fads can dramatically affect a division or a conference for a year or two and then disappear; league rulings can affect a team's cap situation; and sea changes like the new CBA can work out differently than teams project them to initially.

These examples are relevant to the Cowboys, but only because they are nearer and dearer to my heart and so I remember them better. And that's not an argument for Jason Garrett in any way...only an acknowledgement that the job a coach does isn't necessarily best measured in wins and losses. The fact that it's most often measured that way notwithstanding. The reality is that a HC's performance is probably best measured by a combination of qualitative and quantitative factors, with wins being, by far, the most important quantitative measure.

And, honestly, thinking about it more, I'm not sure the most statistically-inclined posters actually are Jason Garrett fans. I probably lumped Romo-supporters and Garrett-supporters together in my head since I'm often on those sides in most debates. But I'm not sure, honestly, how much overlap there is in those two groups. Probably not as much as I'd guess.

 

[CCBoy]

Not at all...this is a great reply. I just wish I could do it justice with a longer response. I'm not sure Parcell's adage that 'you are what your record says you are' is all that accurate when it comes to evaluating coaches. Or, rather, I think that's how coaches are hired and fired, but I'm not sure it's the best way to build an organzation. There are a lot of trailing effects in the NFL that aren't necessarily in a coach's control, for example, that have a significant impact on how a team might perform. Players take time to develop--some more than others, for example; contract commitments to prominent players have impacts that last many years; injuries can dramatically affect the trajectory of a star player's development; offensive or defensive fads can dramatically affect a division or a conference for a year or two and then disappear; league rulings can affect a team's cap situation; and sea changes like the new CBA can work out differently than teams project them to initially.

These examples are relevant to the Cowboys, but only because they are nearer and dearer to my heart and so I remember them better. And that's not an argument for Jason Garrett in any way...only an acknowledgement that the job a coach does isn't necessarily best measured in wins and losses. The fact that it's most often measured that way notwithstanding. The reality is that a HC's performance is probably best measured by a combination of qualitative and quantitative factors, with wins being, by far, the most important quantitative measure.

And, honestly, thinking about it more, I'm not sure the most statistically-inclined posters actually are Jason Garrett fans. I probably lumped Romo-supporters and Garrett-supporters together in my head since I'm often on those sides in most debates. But I'm not sure, honestly, how much overlap there is in those two groups. Probably not as much as I'd guess.

It also hurts having a media intelligence quota revoves around their personal grasp of fame and social pecking orders, and claim that the world of a Bill Russell, 'The Iceman,' Wilt Chamberlain, or even Magic Johnson and Larry Bird belongs in a conversation with what is being wagged as the modern talents of a Koby or the now 'Cleveland Golden Boy.'

No matter Russell had eleven rings and a Michael Jordan only had six...there one goes.

 

[Animosity]

Yes, points allowed and turnovers seem more important than yards allowed.

Last season Cowboys gave up 27 a game. Packers 26.8 a game. Packers made the playoffs, Cowboys didn't. Weird. I wonder who.. just who was the difference maker? Let's wait for another excuse.

 

[Super_Kazuya]

Last season Cowboys gave up 27 a game. Packers 26.8 a game. Packers made the playoffs, Cowboys didn't. Weird. I wonder who.. just who was the difference maker? Let's wait for another excuse.

Wouldn't it be... Blair Walsh?

 

[percyhoward]

Last season Cowboys gave up 27 a game. Packers 26.8 a game. Packers made the playoffs, Cowboys didn't. Weird. I wonder who.. just who was the difference maker? .

Normally that would be their 1st round pick from 2005, but in this case it was the guy who didn't put Arizona in their division.

 

[khiladi]

I don't. I only remember you getting slapped silly in that thread and not actually making good arguments.

Trouble is, none of those bad arguments related to what you were originally trying to twist them into here in this thread, and what you're posting now by way of your recollections isn't helping you much.

I'm afraid you'll either have to post a link to somebody saying takeaways don't matter or just concede you were making that part up.

Maybe your reading comprehension is bad.

But I thought TOs created by the defense don't affect the output of the game. That's what the Garrett-homers kept telling me when they said it was all the defense's fault and I was saying this offense didn't capitalize multiple times on the chances this defense provided them with. We were 13th in turnovers, what were we the year before with Rob Ryan? Pretty bad, bottom-feeder bad..

In fact that was the excuse Garrett said following the firing of Rob and the hiring of Kiffen and Marinelli, i.e. the defense needs to give the offense more chances. So we upped the TOs dramatically, but were still 8-8..

Got to love how the standards keep changing for Garrett...

Like I said, keep hanging on hyperbole.

http://cowboyszone.com/threads/will-linehan-go-more-no-huddle.286447/page-11#post-5526489

How about this:

DO you know what the word essentially means? it's pretty much the same thing as 'not nearly the same stat'... Keep grasping at straws. And it's obviously clear you kept silent on the fact that my comment to you was about points off of defensive turnovers, of which we were 23rd.. So what was our offense doing then?

And you know what is also true about those 2 points per game? If the defense didn't get us a TD essentially against Detroit on lee's TD, the 2 pts wouldn't matter. If our offense didn't turn the ball over twice against the Eagles, meaning the Eagles capitalized off their defense forcing TOs, that 2 pts wouldn't have mattered.

I particularly like this one, the page before:

Now we will go to the mouth-piece of Jason Garrett:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap10...rett-lack-of-turnovers-led-to-rob-ryan-firing

"The Bears had 44 takeaways. We had 16. That's 28 more opportunities with the ball," Garrett told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from the Senior Bowl. "Give me some of those 28 opportunities. That's something that we really sat back and thought a lot about, had a lot of discussions about -- what's the best way to try to achieve that, and then, 'OK, you want to do that, now who are the guys who can help implement that?' " So this defense achieved what Dallas wanted with the firing, a bunch of turnovers by a long shot. Yardage given up doesn't necessarily equate to points, which is why Dallas was middle of the pack in allowing scores upto around the middle of the year with the Saints and Bears game, obscuring the totals by then. Now his defenders are blaming the defense yet again for him failing to make the play-offs.

This also clearly demonstrates that Garrett was behind the firing as well, because blaming the defense gave an excuse for the offense. He was saying the defense needed to give the Cowboys more opportunities.

Guess what happened when they got their opportunities? You guess it, 23rd in the league... Genius!

 

[khiladi]

To summarize once again:

The statement 'turnovers don't affect the outcome of a game' is a logical corollary to what the Garrett-homers SAID. What does that mean? What your claiming I said the Garrett-homers said is not what I claimed they said, but the natural corollary to what "they" said.

Now follow me here:

Despite being 13th in the league last year in generating TOs, we were 23rd in the league in scoring on them. It wasn't a matter of generating TOs, it was because of the fact our offense sucked in capitalizing off of them that, potentially, we didn't make the play-offs. One field goal off a TO in Detroit would have given us the win.

Even then, this is without getting into a discussion where our defense actually scored on TOs or put us into positions to score from close out, whether it was field goals or TDs.

 

[big dog cowboy]

The 2 most frequent negative posters never provided any stats, game footage review or any type of useful information.

I'm shocked.

 

[khiladi]

Last season Cowboys gave up 27 a game. Packers 26.8 a game. Packers made the playoffs, Cowboys didn't. Weird. I wonder who.. just who was the difference maker? Let's wait for another excuse.

Imagine if we weren't 23rd in the league in scoring off of TOs that our defense provided us with.

 

[Doomsday101]

Last season Cowboys gave up 27 a game. Packers 26.8 a game. Packers made the playoffs, Cowboys didn't. Weird. I wonder who.. just who was the difference maker? Let's wait for another excuse.

No excuse Cowboys did not get the job done period. You feel better putting it on one person hey knock yourself. GB went 8-7-1 and took their divison Cowboys went 8-8 and blew a chance to clinch theirs.