Historical Team Rankings

[windward]

All we had to do was have a top 20 defense, and by the best metrics (defensive pass rating - 13th, points per drive - 16th, drive success rate - 24th), we did just that. But finishing 31st in rushing TD allowed means we allowed a lot of drives to reach the red zone, and then gave up a lot of red zone touchdowns. Using my admittedly very simplified metrics (with their high correlation to the team's playoff appearances), that's the worst regular season defense in Cowboys history to make the post season.

Maybe you can think of another regular season defensive performance that was equally as bad in a playoff year, but I can't. That speaks to the level of performance by both the passing and running games in 2014.

I think it depends on what metrics you look at to be honest. There were years in which we allowed more points (1983), allowed a higher defensive passer rating (2006) and ranked lower in overall rushing yards allowed (1998).

I'm looking at the winners of Super Bowls and how they ranked in rushing TDs allowed. It looks like the rankings are all over the place. You have teams like Seattle who finished 1st then. You have Baltimore and Nyg who finished a subpar 23rd and then the Colts who finished 30th back in 06. Seems a bit volatile to me.

 

[percyhoward]

I think it depends on what metrics you look at to be honest. There were years in which we allowed more points (1983), allowed a higher defensive passer rating (2006) and ranked lower in overall rushing yards allowed (1998).

I'm looking at the winners of Super Bowls and how they ranked in rushing TDs allowed. It looks like the rankings are all over the place. You have teams like Seattle who finished 1st then. You have Baltimore and Nyg who finished a subpar 23rd and then the Colts who finished 30th back in 06. Seems a bit volatile to me.

It only gets muddled when you just look at rushing TD allowed, which there's no reason to do anyway. Keep in mind I didn't use the best metrics because they simply aren't available going back that far (1960). I simply drew a conclusion from the context of the data I'd gathered in the OP.

Here are the NFL rankings for the three best metrics of all -- points per drive, drive success rate, and defensive pass rating for two of the three teams you mentioned:

2014 16th, 24th, 13th
2006 22nd, 20th, 20th
1998 6th, 10th, 11th

The 1983 team ranked 16th in defensive pass rating, and the other two stats are not available that far back. In any case, we can comfortably say that the 2014 defense is no better than Dallas' 3rd worst regular season defense to make the playoffs. And again, that says little about how they will perform in the post season.

 

[Idgit]

He asked how I came up with that. I answered by reading this thread. I fail to see the issue. Was I supposed to ignore that so you two feel better?

No. They are not more talented than I think. Perhaps you hope they are. Percy just illustrated how bad they've been. For two years now. Under Rod Marinelli. Who I pray to God the Cowboys don't lose.

It doesn't matter. It was a legitimate question, because I hadn't read Percy's explicit comment (I had just browsed his data), and I didn't understand how you got your conclusion from just looking at his rankings. But since I don't actually believe you're posting in this thread than for any reason other than trying to defend your Marinelli position--which is unsupportable--I don't really care. I should know better.

I was surprised too, but then I looked up rushing defenses on ESPN.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/t...shingTouchdowns/position/defense/seasontype/2

The def has given up 18 rushing TDs which ranks 31st.

Yeah, if percy says it, I know he looked it up. But it's surprising, right?

Well, I just went through the box scores. About midway through the season we were doing ok in terms of rushing TDs given up. Then we had a streak of sever multiple rushing TDs surrendered from there. Looking at Marinelli's record in CHI, it doesn't really seem like giving up a lot of scores on the ground is something this defense is prone to, either. It probably points to a personnel limitation, but it's just funny that we haven't talked about it as an obvious weakness yet this season, given that we talk about everything else.

 

[lothos05]

How many rushing TDs have they given up over the last 1/2 and last 1/4 of the season?

If you are still wondering how the breakdown looks for rushing TDs (and to add to Idgit's post above):

First 8 games: 6 TDs
Second 8 games: 12 TDs
Last 1/4 of Season: 6 TDs

As percy indicated earlier most of the rushing TDs were the result of teams driving into the redzone as only two rushing TDs came outside of the redzone . . . 32 yd TD (Jax) and 38 yd TD (Phi - 1st game). Philly really did the most damage by scoring 5 rushing TDs. Damn, I just threw up a little.

 

[Idgit]

How many rushing TDs have they given up over the last 1/2 and last 1/4 of the season?

We actually started giving up more rushing TDs later in the year, for some reason. I was just counting in my head, so I don't recall the number exactly, but we only gave up like 6 TDs on the ground the first half of the year.

 

[Idgit]

If you are still wondering how the breakdown looks for rushing TDs (and to add to Idgit's post above):

First 8 games: 6 TDs
Second 8 games: 12 TDs
Last 1/4 of Season: 6 TDs

As percy indicated earlier most of the rushing TDs were the result of teams driving into the redzone as only two rushing TDs came outside of the redzone . . . 32 yd TD (Jax) and 38 yd TD (Phi - 1st game). Philly really did the most damage by scoring 5 rushing TDs. Damn, I just threw up a little.

There we go.

 

[windward]

We actually started giving up more rushing TDs later in the year, for some reason. I was just counting in my head, so I don't recall the number exactly, but we only gave up like 6 TDs on the ground the first half of the year.

There was a stretch between the Seahawks game and the Colts game where we allowed under 20 points just once (Jax). So yeah our defensive performance was mediocre to bad during that stretch. I do think they have played better of late.

 

[Idgit]

Out of curiosity, here's how the top-5 defenses in terms of points/series ranked in terms of rushing TDs surrendered this regular season: 5th DET, 5th SEA, 11th BUF, 2nd HOU, 8th AZ.

 

[TrailBlazer]

Our defense did get better, especially when you consider we lost ware lee and hatcher.

 

[jobberone]

http://i471.***BLOCKED***/albums/rr75/jobberone/ScreenShot2015-01-10at74855AM_zps77483c6b.png

We gave up 22 TDs passing and 18 rushing with an Sc% of 31.3 yielding 1.83 ppd (pts/drive). The Sc% is pretty good. We gave up 22 ppg (15th) with a diff of 7.2 (5th).

By comparison GB:

Scored 486 points (30.4/g), 1st of 32 in the NFL. Allowed 348 points (21.8/g), 13th.
Differential of 138 points (8.6/g), 3rd. Expected W-L: 11.0-5.0.

Very evenly matched teams. This game boils down to # drives and Sc%, RZ TDs v FGs, turnovers and big plays both negative and positive.

 

[Proximo]

I'm saying you would be hard pressed to find a coordinator in the league that could do less than what he's done here the last two years.

And yes, I considered him the coordinator last year.

LOL Ooooookayy buddy.

 

[Risen Star]

There was a stretch between the Seahawks game and the Colts game where we allowed under 20 points just once (Jax). So yeah our defensive performance was mediocre to bad during that stretch. I do think they have played better of late.

They play hard, I'll give them that, but if we ever want to have an even average defense we need to overhaul the roster. These players aren't good enough. We've got a gang of misfits up front and our safety play is atrocious.

 

[CaptainCreed]

Sure our defense may be bad on a per drive basis but the team operates to keep them off the field and have done a hell of a good job to get us this far knowing what would happen if it was exposed more. Great running game, ball control offense obviously limits the amount of possessions the other team gets and makes defensive stops when we do get them mean so much more. Running game has helped us become much more efficient on offense and helps the D be an outlier as far as actual performance versus how good we should be statistically. Opponent offensive drives have ended in the highest percentage of turnovers in the league correct?

 

[jobberone]

At the beginning of the year some here thought we'd be lucky to get to the top of the bottom 1/3 of the league in defense. Now we're slightly above average and getting back some players even though we're missing more than a few. So I see this a huge progress esp considering the defense is improving, getting turnovers and doing well in pass diff. I think we're generating more pressure as well.

Some are still complaining about players who have done well like Hitchens. But most of them either make a living off of being contrary and/or just extremely negative people to begin with.

 

[jobberone]

Sure our defense may be bad on a per drive basis but the team operates to keep them off the field and have done a hell of a good job to get us this far knowing what would happen if it was exposed more. Great running game, ball control offense obviously limits the amount of possessions the other team gets and makes defensive stops when we do get them mean so much more. Running game has helped us become much more efficient on offense and helps the D be an outlier as far as actual performance versus how good we should be statistically. Opponent offensive drives have ended in the highest percentage of turnovers in the league correct?

Our defense gives up a Sc% of 31 which is good. You're right, we still allow more points than I'd like at 22 ppg but that's not bad and an improvement of 5 ppg from last year which is very significant.

 

[percyhoward]

Out of curiosity, here's how the top-5 defenses in terms of points/series ranked in terms of rushing TDs surrendered this regular season: 5th DET, 5th SEA, 11th BUF, 2nd HOU, 8th AZ.

Right, there are better defensive metrics these days that aren't available (at least, to me) going back into the 70s or even 80s. Rushing TD was chosen out of convenience, although it makes a good (if simple) counterpart to defensive pass rating for the following reason: Pass rating weights passing touchdowns quite heavily. If teams are moving the ball on your defense and scoring a lot of rushing TD, the defensive pass rating won't suffer as much, because most of the damage was in terms of yardage only. One of the reasons this defense ranked 13th in DPR was a low number of passing TD allowed (6th) compared to total TD allowed (20th).

The 31st ranking in rushing TD allowed basically shows what DPR doesn't always show -- that teams moved the chains and finished drives very successfully against this defense, relative to the rest of the league's defenses. We ranked 24th in Drive Success Rate, which is the percentage of down series resulting in a first down. I think that's why the average rankings I listed in the OP correlate so highly with playoff appearances. "Rushing TD allowed" is kind of a "poor man's Drive Success Rate" when the latter stat is not available.

 

[CaptainCreed]

Opponent drives had ended in turnovers 17.4% of the time, highest in the league. They are gonna need one or a few against Rodgers who hasnt thrown a pick at home all season (25 TDs, 0 ints).

 

[percyhoward]

Percy just illustrated how bad they've been. For two years now. Under Rod Marinelli.

I guess it's fair to call the last two years "bad." I'd call 2013 "terrible," and 2014 "slightly below average, but better than expected." These are the rankings in the three best defensive metrics: points allowed per drive, drive success rate, and defensive pass rating:

2014: 16th, 24th, 13th
2013: 30th, 32nd, 26th

As mentioned in my response to Idgit, the DPR (that last ranking) is somewhat misleading because of all the rushing TD we allowed. Against the pass, we were only a little better in yards per attempt (7.5 this year vs. 7.8 last year), but much better in INT% (3.2 vs. 2.4). So overall pass defense was improved over 2013. But the most important ranking is that first one. 16th in points allowed per drive, compared to 30th last year.

Although it ranked 20th in TD allowed, this defense was very good at not allowing many FG attempts. Our opponents only attempted 18 field goals for the season, which was the league low. IOW, opposing teams either moved the ball all the way into the end zone, or couldn't even get into FG range. Part of the reason we managed to do this was because we forced a lot of takeaways. If you remove all drives ending in takeaways, Dallas ranked 28th in TD allowed per drive. But takeaways don't explain it all. Using that same filter that removes takeaways, the Cowboys still ranked 2nd in FG attempts allowed per drive. That disparity (28th in TD allowed, 2nd in FG allowed) is unusual.

Remove drives with takeaways (19% of all drives), and look at the percentage of all the remaining drives (the other 81%) by the opponent that did not result in points. The 2014 Cowboys ranked 11th, while the 2013 Cowboys ranked 30th. Here's the real reason for the improvement in points allowed, and it's not takeaways: Last year, while the average defense was allowing a FG, we were allowing a TD. This year, while the average defense was allowing a FG, we were either allowing a TD or keeping the opponent out of FG range completely.

That said, according to Football Outsiders, our defense faced the 3rd-easiest schedule of offenses this year. In 2013, it faced the 5th-most difficult schedule. So it would be easy just to assume we gave up a bunch of TD to good offenses and stopped bad offenses cold. But that's not how it actually went down. This defense's best games were against top 10 offenses in points per drive -- the Saints (#3), Seahawks (#9), and Colts (#7). It's about to face the #1 offense in points per drive tomorrow.

 

[Idgit]

I guess it's fair to call the last two years "bad." I'd call 2013 "terrible," and 2014 "slightly below average, but better than expected." These are the rankings in the three best defensive metrics: points allowed per drive, drive success rate, and defensive pass rating:

2014: 16th, 24th, 13th
2013: 30th, 32nd, 26th

As mentioned in my response to Idgit, the DPR (that last ranking) is somewhat misleading because of all the rushing TD we allowed. Against the pass, we were only a little better in yards per attempt (7.5 this year vs. 7.8 last year), but much better in INT% (3.2 vs. 2.4). So overall pass defense was improved over 2013. But the most important ranking is that first one. 16th in points allowed per drive, compared to 30th last year.

Although it ranked 20th in TD allowed, this defense was very good at not allowing many FG attempts. Our opponents only attempted 18 field goals for the season, which was the league low. IOW, opposing teams either moved the ball all the way into the end zone, or couldn't even get into FG range. Part of the reason we managed to do this was because we forced a lot of takeaways. If you remove all drives ending in takeaways, Dallas ranked 28th in TD allowed per drive. But takeaways don't explain it all. Using that same filter that removes takeaways, the Cowboys still ranked 2nd in FG attempts allowed per drive. That disparity (28th in TD allowed, 2nd in FG allowed) is unusual.

Remove drives with takeaways (19% of all drives), and look at the percentage of all the remaining drives (the other 81%) by the opponent that did not result in points. The 2014 Cowboys ranked 11th, while the 2013 Cowboys ranked 30th. Here's the real reason for the improvement in points allowed, and it's not takeaways: Last year, while the average defense was allowing a FG, we were allowing a TD. This year, while the average defense was allowing a FG, we were either allowing a TD or keeping the opponent out of FG range completely.

That said, according to Football Outsiders, our defense faced the 3rd-easiest schedule of offenses this year. In 2013, it faced the 5th-most difficult schedule. So it would be easy just to assume we gave up a bunch of TD to good offenses and stopped bad offenses cold. But that's not how it actually went down. This defense's best games were against top 10 offenses in points per drive -- the Saints (#3), Seahawks (#9), and Colts (#7). It's about to face the #1 offense in points per drive tomorrow.

This is great stuff, percy.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I'm saying you would be hard pressed to find a coordinator in the league that could do less than what he's done here the last two years.

And yes, I considered him the coordinator last year.

But having said that, I would hate to lose him and have to watch another team have terrible defenses and think that could have been us.

Risen lives in the world he wants to live in and not the one that actually exists.