Cowboys closing the gap on Pats... here's proof!

[HogsRLegends]

They've closed the gap in the DVOA, too. Now only 20 points behind, and the Pats offense is no longer on pace to be the greatest of the DVOA era - that remains with Peyton and the 2004 Colts.

Maybe a product of not having a dome.

Brady is on pace to throw over 50 TDs.

 

[NextGenBoys]

If the trend continues, the Pats are in trouble. Over the last 6 weeks, they've been out performed by a few teams. And one of those is the Steelers.

David.

Over the last 6 weeks the Pats havent lost, while the Steelers struggled to beat Miami and lost to the Jets. I dont call that outperforming. I see what you're saying, but NE is the real deal. Lets not act like this is the rule rather than the exception.

 

[The Panch]

The big differences between the Cowboys and Pats are the penalties and the number of turnovers given up. The Pats have much better numbers in both areas.

True. They dont shoot themselves in the foot like we do.


That being said, stats dont really matter right now. What matters is NE escaped two losses to mediocre teams(especially last night), one that we dominated in their own territory. Im gonna hold my judgement to whether they're even gonna make it to the SB depending on how the Steelers play em Sunday cause Roethlisberger has been playing very poorly lately.

Over the last 6 weeks the Pats havent lost, while the Steelers struggled to beat Miami and lost to the Jets. I dont call that outperforming. I see what you're saying, but NE is the real deal. Lets not act like this is the rule rather than the exception.

The Steelers are a very unreliable team. Its like they dont take teams serious with winning records. They lose to the Cardinals, Broncos and Jets and im supposed to take them serious??


That being said, they handled the high flying passing offenses of the Browns and Bengals very well this season and I see no reason why they cant do what the Eagles and Ravens did twice as better. The key is gonna be how well their Offense plays cause like I said, not too impressive right now.

 

[thewireman]

The big differences between the Cowboys and Pats are the penalties and the number of turnovers given up. The Pats have much better numbers in both areas.

I wonder why that is?

 

[silver]

we're closing the gap but Tom Brady is still the best QB in professional football. You just knew yesterday that he was going to pull the game out. We have our own version in Romo, but Brady has the big game experience factor on his side. That's the difference between us, one guy has done it before and the other one still needs to prove he can do it in a big game. I fully trust our guy will get it done.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I wonder why that is?

I think it's continuity on both sides of the ball-- and not just in personnel but the systems they're using. Plus they are very experienced as a team.

Brady has thrown far fewer picks than Romo.

 

[dwmyers]

Over the last 6 weeks the Pats havent lost, while the Steelers struggled to beat Miami and lost to the Jets. I dont call that outperforming. I see what you're saying, but NE is the real deal. Lets not act like this is the rule rather than the exception.

Ok, I posted my stats over the last 6 weeks here:

url: http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105476

The code I used to generate those stats are also posted in my .sig.

But to pull out the two sets of stats that are important, given what I've been looking at the last few weeks, and understand, these are stats starting from week 8 in the season.

From week 8 on, the Pats are 5-0 and the Steelers are 5-1. They differ by one loss in terms of record. Pats are doing a *lot* better in terms of averages.. average point spread and all that. But you can't use average scores to compare the Pats because they don't behave like everyone else when they start winning against helpless teams. They keep scoring as fast as they can. That means averages are useless in comparing them to almost equivalent opposition (because their opposition doesn't inflate scores on games they've won).

Looking at medians, this is what I see from week 8 on:

Rank  Team    Spread   Median    StdErr TrMean 
---------------------------------------------------
1     NE      20.20     4.0   +/- 23.10  17.33 
2     DAL     15.60    11.0   +/- 10.38  14.00 
3     GB      11.00    11.0   +/- 14.17  10.50 
4     PIT      9.83     7.0   +/- 12.04   7.75

If you use point spread, sure, the Pats are head and shoulders above everyone else. But the median point spread isn't.. in fact it's the worst of all 4 teams listed. And what my instincts tell me is that *if* the Pats play no better than their average over their last 5 games, then the Steelers have to be favored slightly in their upcoming game, because a 3 point difference in median between teams differing in record by only 1 game is significant.

Now, this begs the question of whether you're going to see the Pats of the last 5 games or the Pats from 7-8 weeks ago. I can't answer that. I'm only noting the trend, the data.

The Steelers have a shot, and it may be a better shot than people realize.

David.

 

[dwmyers]

The what?

There is a site with an interesting take on power rankings called

url: http://beatpaths.com

And their approach is purely graphical, an extension of the idea that if A beats B and B beats C that there is a 'beat path' that shows that A is better than C. Not that I buy the logic entirely, but this is a guy trying to think out of the box and not parrot other people.

And while I think FO does some very fine analysis at times (the curse of 370, their blitz analysis last year), their pre-season team record prediction system is broken and I'm not entirely satisfied with DVOA either. As I said, with Philadelphia ranking second in the middle of last year and with a record of 4-4, they have issues.

What I suspect FO is caught in, what hurts them, is that average and cumulative stats are prone to statistical outliers. It's why I'm playing with robust stats. I may be as off as beatpaths in pursuing them, but medians have enough promise to keep looking.

For one, if you take the stats of teams at the end of the regular season and try and predict who will win the AFC and NFC championship and then the Super Bowl, giving one point to predicting the AFC champ, one point to predicting the NFC champ and one point then to predicting the Super Bowl winner, median point spread alone is more accurate than record + average point spread over the last 6 years. So as of the moment I'm working on a set of rules of thumb for using medians and record to see how to improve the accuracy and functionality of it as a predictive system.

David.

 

[AdamJT13]

There is a site with an interesting take on power rankings called

url: http://beatpaths.com

And their approach is purely graphical, an extension of the idea that if A beats B and B beats C that there is a 'beat path' that shows that A is better than C. Not that I buy the logic entirely, but this is a guy trying to think out of the box and not parrot other people.

Ahh, the old Slippery Rock system.

Personally, if all you want is a result-driven ranking, I'd take Sagarin over anything else out there.

 

[Royal Laegotti]

After 12 games...

1. Dallas has given up 16 sacks...so has NE

2. Dallas has 33 sacks...NE 31.

3. Dallas has 18 INT's...NE 17

4. Dallas averages 6.4 yards per play...NE 6.3

5. Dallas is giving up 4.9 yards per play...NE 5.1

6. Dallas averages 8.8 yards per pass...NE 8.6

7. Dallas is giving up 6.4 yards per pass...NE 6.8

8. Dallas averages 4.3 yards per rush...NE 4.1

9. Dallas is giving up 3.8 yards per rush...NE 4.1

10. Dallas has 70 plays of 20+ yards (58 pass/12 rush)...NE 59 (56 pass/3 rush)


There are more categories we lead them in and many more they lead us in of course. However, you can't deny that we are certainly on par with NE in key areas and are closing the gap.


:starspin

And NE has predominantly been playing cupcake teams! With the exception of us and Indy!

 

[NextGenBoys]

Ok, I posted my stats over the last 6 weeks here:

url: http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105476

The code I used to generate those stats are also posted in my .sig.

But to pull out the two sets of stats that are important, given what I've been looking at the last few weeks, and understand, these are stats starting from week 8 in the season.

From week 8 on, the Pats are 5-0 and the Steelers are 5-1. They differ by one loss in terms of record. Pats are doing a *lot* better in terms of averages.. average point spread and all that. But you can't use average scores to compare the Pats because they don't behave like everyone else when they start winning against helpless teams. They keep scoring as fast as they can. That means averages are useless in comparing them to almost equivalent opposition (because their opposition doesn't inflate scores on games they've won).

Looking at medians, this is what I see from week 8 on:

Rank  Team    Spread   Median    StdErr TrMean 
---------------------------------------------------
1     NE      20.20     4.0   +/- 23.10  17.33 
2     DAL     15.60    11.0   +/- 10.38  14.00 
3     GB      11.00    11.0   +/- 14.17  10.50 
4     PIT      9.83     7.0   +/- 12.04   7.75

If you use point spread, sure, the Pats are head and shoulders above everyone else. But the median point spread isn't.. in fact it's the worst of all 4 teams listed. And what my instincts tell me is that *if* the Pats play no better than their average over their last 5 games, then the Steelers have to be favored slightly in their upcoming game, because a 3 point difference in median between teams differing in record by only 1 game is significant.

Now, this begs the question of whether you're going to see the Pats of the last 5 games or the Pats from 7-8 weeks ago. I can't answer that. I'm only noting the trend, the data.

The Steelers have a shot, and it may be a better shot than people realize.

David.

Oh trust me I know the Steelers have a shot. I said several weeks ago before the Pats had their 2 bad games I thought Pitt would give them a run and possibly beat them. They have the running game to control the clock, the tough defense, and a QB who can win games. I'm just saying that NE is still the cream of the crop for the NFL, and I dont think the two bad games they just had is going to continue. Matter of fact I dont think they play that bad again the rest of the season, or playoffs.

 

[lzppjb]

I was looking at the numbers yesterday.

The Pats lead Dallas in Points and TOP. Those are directly related to Plays Run, which is directly related to their lead in Turnovers, Penalties and 3rd & 4th Down Conversions.

Anyone remember the game with them? They were 11/17 on 3rd down. That's what beat Dallas.

 

[03EBZ06]

There is a site with an interesting take on power rankings called

url: http://beatpaths.com

Holy cow, that is a horrible ranking system. Just last week, they had Browns (7-4) & Lions (6-5) ranked ahead of Cowboys (10-1).

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I was looking at the numbers yesterday.

The Pats lead Dallas in Points and TOP. Those are directly related to Plays Run, which is directly related to their lead in Turnovers, Penalties and 3rd & 4th Down Conversions.

Anyone remember the game with them? They were 11/17 on 3rd down. That's what beat Dallas.

Yep.

Wes Welker ate our lunch. Whatever we were doing or not doing was killing us.

I heard them mention on the Monday night telecast that the Ravens were bumping Welker a lot at the line of scrimmage-- that's something I don't think we were doing much of-- if at all.

To give the Cowboys' defense any sort of chance against the Pat's offense Newman has to play on Welker.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

I don't buy into them fizzling or struggling or whatever. Fact is they are undefeated. If Dallas fizzles its way to the Super Bowl I would be more than happy.

I'm with you. These Pats might lose a game down the stretch here and they might continue to 'struggle' but they will open the right can of whoop *** at all the necessary moments, I expect.