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Why The 2015 Cowboys Defense Was Not As Bad As You're Being Told
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016...oys-defense-was-not-as-bad-as-youve-been-told
For months, the nattering nabobs of negativism have been wallowing in the ineptitude of the 2015 defense and have been throwing around a few key stats to prove their point:
Just 31 sacks (ranked 26th)
Only eight interceptions (ranked 31st)
A meager three fumble recoveries (32nd in the league)
The best thing about those numbers is that they can be used to endlessly rain on the 2016 Cowboys parade! How can a team that's missing two of its best edge rushers for four games even dream of getting more than 31 sacks? How can a team that's returning stone-hands Carr and draft-bust Claiborne get any interceptions at all? And with no middle linebacker, forget about those fumble recoveries as well. In fact, forget about the entire dumpster fire that's the woefully under-manned, under-talented and over-self-medicated Cowboys defense.
Fortunately, not everything is that black and white, even if some would have you believe that. So it was with great delight that I re-read an article by Tom Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News from a couple of years ago, which explained what stats Rod Marinelli uses to assess his defense. Turns out, the Cowboys use a much more holistic approach to evaluate their defense:
When I talked to Rod Marinelli in training camp, he said there were only two sets of numbers he cared about for his defense: the Aikman ratings and turnovers.
The Aikman Efficiency Ratings were devised by - you guessed it - Troy Aikman, who was looking for a better way to rate offenses than the NFL’s "official" method of measuring offensive and defensive performance: yards gained or allowed. In 2006, together with Rick Odioso, a statistician for Fox Sports and Jim Henzler, a senior analyst for Stats Inc., Aikman created the formula for the Aikman Efficiency Rating (AER), which combines seven stats in five categories that Aikman and his cohorts believed offered a truer picture of offensive and defensive strength.
The exact formula used to arrive at the ratings was never made public, and remains proprietary to Stats Inc., but we do know what the seven stats are that go into the metric and how they are weighted in the metric:...
http://www.bloggingtheboys.com/2016...oys-defense-was-not-as-bad-as-youve-been-told
For months, the nattering nabobs of negativism have been wallowing in the ineptitude of the 2015 defense and have been throwing around a few key stats to prove their point:
Just 31 sacks (ranked 26th)
Only eight interceptions (ranked 31st)
A meager three fumble recoveries (32nd in the league)
The best thing about those numbers is that they can be used to endlessly rain on the 2016 Cowboys parade! How can a team that's missing two of its best edge rushers for four games even dream of getting more than 31 sacks? How can a team that's returning stone-hands Carr and draft-bust Claiborne get any interceptions at all? And with no middle linebacker, forget about those fumble recoveries as well. In fact, forget about the entire dumpster fire that's the woefully under-manned, under-talented and over-self-medicated Cowboys defense.
Fortunately, not everything is that black and white, even if some would have you believe that. So it was with great delight that I re-read an article by Tom Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News from a couple of years ago, which explained what stats Rod Marinelli uses to assess his defense. Turns out, the Cowboys use a much more holistic approach to evaluate their defense:
When I talked to Rod Marinelli in training camp, he said there were only two sets of numbers he cared about for his defense: the Aikman ratings and turnovers.
The Aikman Efficiency Ratings were devised by - you guessed it - Troy Aikman, who was looking for a better way to rate offenses than the NFL’s "official" method of measuring offensive and defensive performance: yards gained or allowed. In 2006, together with Rick Odioso, a statistician for Fox Sports and Jim Henzler, a senior analyst for Stats Inc., Aikman created the formula for the Aikman Efficiency Rating (AER), which combines seven stats in five categories that Aikman and his cohorts believed offered a truer picture of offensive and defensive strength.
The exact formula used to arrive at the ratings was never made public, and remains proprietary to Stats Inc., but we do know what the seven stats are that go into the metric and how they are weighted in the metric:...
