TrailBlazer
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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.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.shocking
I wasnt even talking to you, but youre trying way too hard.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.
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
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.
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.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.
Leave out the drives that didn't start on our opponent's side of the field, and see where we rank.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.
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.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.
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.
You could simply count drives that start around where the average NFL drive starts -- the 28.6 yard line.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 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.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.
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.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!