Cowboy Stupid Mistake Rating, Week 17

[fanfromvirginia]

This is it -- the last update for the regular season. I'm going to miss putting this together. At the beginning of the season, I came up with an idea for a new stat, which I'm calling the Stupid Mistake rating. The formula is giveaways x 6 + # of penalties.

Last week against Philadelphia we did a little worse than league average with 17 points -- 1 giveaway and 11 penalties. This was our worst performance in this ranking in several weeks but still not that bad. Interestingly, in both our Philly wins we had the same rating, 17. The 11 penalties were disconcerting. It drove us down into a tie for 3rd to last with 115. So we didn't do a whole lot better than last year in number of penalties, when we finished dead last. However, we really have improved over the course of the season. Up until last week, that is. We finished third in giveaways, with a mere 19. This must be considered an unqualified success, especially considering we've gotten better at this as the season progressed.

Our final overall average was 14.31, which is 8th in the league. We were dead last in the league in 2008 using this rating so we got quite a bit better.

It's interesting to look at how this conforms to overall success. Just on the surface, you can see that it generally appears to track well but with several interesting exceptions. 6 of the top 8 teams are playoff teams. But the other six playoff teams are all over the map, in particular Arizona, which is 31st in the league. Carolina managed to move up quite a bit in this rating over the last few weeks. At one point they were in last place by quite a bit. Not surprisingly, the NYG got quite a bit worse toward the end of the season.

League best (Chargers): 11.25
League worst (Detroit): 21.5
League average: 16.314
Cowboys: 14.31

Team-by-team ratings (Team/Giveaways/Penalties/Rating):

1. SD/17/78/11.25
2. JAC/23/70/13
3. MIN/18/101/13.06
4. NE/22/81/13.31
5. GB/16/118/13.38
6. IND/24/74/13.63
7. ATL/25/78/14.25
8. DAL/19/115/14.31
9. DEN/23/93/14.44
10. PIT/25/85/14.69
11. SF/24/98/15.13
12. KC/27/84/15.38
13. BAL/22/115/15.44
14. MIA/29/78/15.75
15. PHI/23/115/15.81
16. WAS/28/85/15.81
17. NO/28/89/16.06
18. HOU/28/95/16.44
19. CLE/31/77/16.44
20. CIN/25/114/16.5
21. NYJ/30/88/16.75
22. CAR/31/88/17.13
23. NYG/31/95/17.56
24. SEA/31/95/17.56
25. TEN/31/98/17.75
26. BUF/30/107/17.94
27. TB/34/93/18.56
28. STL/33/100/18.63
29. CHI/34/100/19
30. OAK/33/117/19.69
31. ARI/36/108/20.25
32. DET/41/98/21.5

 

[LongSnapper]

this is pure genious THE STUPID STAT wow awesome
my only suggestion is that you flip the chart 32 should be 1 etc relating to the stupid stat

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Update: We whooped them last night but did poorly on this stat with one giveaway and a whopping 14 penalties, for 20 points.

 

[DandyDon1722]

That's really interesting stuff. Great job.

 

[Wezsh0T]

Yes, but the Eagles were much worse with a rating of 33.

 

[GoBigD]

I dont understand the formula. Can someone explain it a little further into detail for me?

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Yes, but the Eagles were much worse with a rating of 33.

Good point!

 

[Wezsh0T]

I dont understand the formula. Can someone explain it a little further into detail for me?

You take the number of turnovers (fumbles and interceptions) and multiply by 6. Then you add the number of penalties.

Eagles had 3 fumbles and 1 pass intercepted. 4x6 = 24
Eagles had 9 penalties. 9x1 = 9

24 + 9 = 33

 

[fanfromvirginia]

I dont understand the formula. Can someone explain it a little further into detail for me?

There's not much to it. You take the number of times you turn the ball over and multiple it by six. We had one fumble last night (Jenkins on the runback of the interception), so that part is six points. Then you add the total number of penalties your team commits. Dallas committed 14 penalties last night. 6 + 14 = 20. I figured it out for each game, for each team, thus the averaged rankings above.

It is intended to capture 'stupidity' but it is admittedly VERY imperfect of course. I just wanted something that was easy to keep track of, comparable to other teams and through time that kind of sort of approximates stupid mistakes.

 

[GoBigD]

Ok I get that. But why 6?

 

[Wezsh0T]

Ok I get that. But why 6?

I think the "6" is a way of prorating turnovers. I'm guessing "6" was chosen to represent that turnovers can often lead to points for the other team. Did I guess right?

I like the rating because it's a simple way of looking at your team's mistakes for that week.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Ok I get that. But why 6?

Another good question. It could be anything but I chose 6 because there are approximately 3.5 times as many penalties as turnovers so I needed to weight this by at least that amount to make it even. But I wanted turnovers to get a little extra weight. To be honest, it really could be 4 or 5. I've stuck with 6 because it seems to work okay.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

I think the "6" is a way of prorating turnovers. I'm guessing "6" was chosen to represent that turnovers can often lead to points for the other team. Did I guess right?

I like the rating because it's a simple way of looking at your team's mistakes for that week.

Yeah, that's about right. See above post.

 

[GoBigD]

Ok I get it now. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[lspain1]

I think for the coming week this stat might be pretty important. Going into a hostile environment on the road, the Cowboys need to fix the penalties and fast. I note that the Vikings look very good on this measure.

 

[GoBigD]

Im curious to know what the stupid stat was for the last 6 teams when they played against the cowboys.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Im curious to know what the stupid stat was for the last 6 teams when they played against the cowboys.

I never thought about keeping track of both teams in one game but it makes good sense. I was mostly interested in to what extent the Cowboys were playing stupidly.

I think next year in my updates I'll give both teams' scores.