What wins you games?

[Galian Beast]

I been trying to find consistency in what wins, and whether or not it was defense or offense.

12 teams make the playoffs. 20 teams do not. There are some circumstances involved with the division wins and wild cards, but that means that the top 37-38 percent of teams should make the playoffs.

The thing is I wanted to look purely at offense and defense (not special teams) although perhaps I will look at that at some point.

The top 12 offenses and defenses by touchdowns scored per game (with some deep stats thanks to teamrankings.com)

* Teams in bold made the playoffs


Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 4
2 Green Bay 3.8
3 New England 3.6
4 Detroit 3.2
5 Carolina 2.9
6 NY Giants 2.9
7 San Diego 2.7
8 Philadelphia 2.6
9 Atlanta 2.5
10 NY Jets 2.5
11 Minnesota 2.4
12 Dallas 2.4

I think looking at that, you can see the difference between good offenses and elite offenses... New Orleans, Green Bay, New England, and Detroit were elite offenses. And an elite offense gets you into the playoffs. While really good offenses or good offenses might not necessarily get you there. All 12 of these teams were in contention though. Minnesota seems to be an outlier, where they must have not scored any points anywhere else.

What about defense?

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 1.5
2 Baltimore 1.6
3 San Francisco 1.6
4 Houston 1.7
5 Cleveland 1.9
6 Miami 2.1
7 Seattle 2.1
8 Tennessee 2.1
9 Arizona 2.1
10 Chicago 2.2
11 Jacksonville 2.3
12 Washington 2.4
13 Dallas 2.4

Here the first team not to make the playoffs was Cleveland, and that is because of their offense. Similar to Carolina and their defense. Miami came on too late, same with Seattle. It would seem 1.9+ isn't necessarily elite enough to get you where you need to go.

I think what of note that the 2.4 touchdowns we allowed per game was down from the previous year of 3.2 touchdowns allowed per game, but the combination of 2.4 touchdowns per game on offense, and 2.4 touchdowns allowed on defense was too much of a push.

The Patriots defense for instance was really bad (yardage wise), but they didn't allow any more touchdowns than our defense. The difference though? Their offense is elite.

Both the top 4 offenses and top 4 defenses made the playoffs.

New York? They had a 2.6 on Defense, which was just slightly lower than their 2.9 on Offense.

My question is, can we become a 3+ team on offense, and a 2- team on defense?

I would suggest that we have our 2 touchdown a game QB in Tony Romo. Assuming we can keep him healthy. What we need in addition is the 1 rushing touchdown a game running game, versus the 5 rushing touchdowns we accomplished last year.

Romo threw for 2 touchdowns or more in 11 games. If we have a defense that allows 2 touchdowns or less per game, we should win the vast majority of our games.

Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones also made a good point. Do you know what we did to help our offense? We improved the defense.

What helps creates scoring? Takeaways.

New England and New York had lousy defenses, but they were both top 5 in takeaways. Same with Green Bay. We were 16th in the league.

16th in the league in takeaways, but 11th in the league in turnover margin. Do you know what that means? It means the offense did it's job, but the defense did not.

We were 6th in the league in giveaways... But everyone wants to blame tony romo. Yet I don't remember him making many more fumbles than the one in the Jets game. Although the special teams had a fumble in there too.

Does the offense need to score more points? absolutely it does. Dez needs to step up, the offensive line needs to step up, and murray and felix need to step up, but the defense by far and large needs to get better.

When we have big leads, and teams get more aggressive to try and get back into the game, that should be a double edged sword for them. We need to punish them for that. Like in the Bills game.

 

[Galian Beast]

I think it's worth noting that no team rated above us in touchdowns per game, was rated above us in defense touchdowns allowed per game, and vice versa. Perhaps net they were, but not separately.

 

[Afigueroa22]

I find it very interesting we are on both lists..

 

[popp1234]

I been trying to find consistency in what wins, and whether or not it was defense or offense.

12 teams make the playoffs. 20 teams do not. There are some circumstances involved with the division wins and wild cards, but that means that the top 37-38 percent of teams should make the playoffs.

The thing is I wanted to look purely at offense and defense (not special teams) although perhaps I will look at that at some point.

The top 12 offenses and defenses by touchdowns scored per game (with some deep stats thanks to teamrankings.com)

* Teams in bold made the playoffs


Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 4
2 Green Bay 3.8
3 New England 3.6
4 Detroit 3.2
5 Carolina 2.9
6 NY Giants 2.9
7 San Diego 2.7
8 Philadelphia 2.6
9 Atlanta 2.5
10 NY Jets 2.5
11 Minnesota 2.4
12 Dallas 2.4

I think looking at that, you can see the difference between good offenses and elite offenses... New Orleans, Green Bay, New England, and Detroit were elite offenses. And an elite offense gets you into the playoffs. While really good offenses or good offenses might not necessarily get you there. All 12 of these teams were in contention though. Minnesota seems to be an outlier, where they must have not scored any points anywhere else.

What about defense?

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 1.5
2 Baltimore 1.6
3 San Francisco 1.6
4 Houston 1.7
5 Cleveland 1.9
6 Miami 2.1
7 Seattle 2.1
8 Tennessee 2.1
9 Arizona 2.1
10 Chicago 2.2
11 Jacksonville 2.3
12 Washington 2.4
13 Dallas 2.4

Here the first team not to make the playoffs was Cleveland, and that is because of their offense. Similar to Carolina and their defense. Miami came on too late, same with Seattle. It would seem 1.9+ isn't necessarily elite enough to get you where you need to go.

I think what of note that the 2.4 touchdowns we allowed per game was down from the previous year of 3.2 touchdowns allowed per game, but the combination of 2.4 touchdowns per game on offense, and 2.4 touchdowns allowed on defense was too much of a push.

The Patriots defense for instance was really bad (yardage wise), but they didn't allow any more touchdowns than our defense. The difference though? Their offense is elite.

Both the top 4 offenses and top 4 defenses made the playoffs.

New York? They had a 2.6 on Defense, which was just slightly lower than their 2.9 on Offense.

My question is, can we become a 3+ team on offense, and a 2- team on defense?

I would suggest that we have our 2 touchdown a game QB in Tony Romo. Assuming we can keep him healthy. What we need in addition is the 1 rushing touchdown a game running game, versus the 5 rushing touchdowns we accomplished last year.

Romo threw for 2 touchdowns or more in 11 games. If we have a defense that allows 2 touchdowns or less per game, we should win the vast majority of our games.

Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones also made a good point. Do you know what we did to help our offense? We improved the defense.

What helps creates scoring? Takeaways.

New England and New York had lousy defenses, but they were both top 5 in takeaways. Same with Green Bay. We were 16th in the league.

16th in the league in takeaways, but 11th in the league in turnover margin. Do you know what that means? It means the offense did it's job, but the defense did not.

We were 6th in the league in giveaways... But everyone wants to blame tony romo. Yet I don't remember him making many more fumbles than the one in the Jets game. Although the special teams had a fumble in there too.

Does the offense need to score more points? absolutely it does. Dez needs to step up, the offensive line needs to step up, and murray and felix need to step up, but the defense by far and large needs to get better.

When we have big leads, and teams get more aggressive to try and get back into the game, that should be a double edged sword for them. We need to punish them for that. Like in the Bills game.

How the hell do you guys have the patience to research this stuff. Having said that, I still appreciate posts like this. Very informative stuff.

 

[sureletsrace]

Wait. So we scored 2.4 TD/g, and gave up 2.4TD/g, and our record was 8-8? Wow.

Sounds like we're a .500 team.

 

[honyock]

I been trying to find consistency in what wins, and whether or not it was defense or offense.

12 teams make the playoffs. 20 teams do not. There are some circumstances involved with the division wins and wild cards, but that means that the top 37-38 percent of teams should make the playoffs.

The thing is I wanted to look purely at offense and defense (not special teams) although perhaps I will look at that at some point.

The top 12 offenses and defenses by touchdowns scored per game (with some deep stats thanks to teamrankings.com)

* Teams in bold made the playoffs


Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 4
2 Green Bay 3.8
3 New England 3.6
4 Detroit 3.2
5 Carolina 2.9
6 NY Giants 2.9
7 San Diego 2.7
8 Philadelphia 2.6
9 Atlanta 2.5
10 NY Jets 2.5
11 Minnesota 2.4
12 Dallas 2.4

I think looking at that, you can see the difference between good offenses and elite offenses... New Orleans, Green Bay, New England, and Detroit were elite offenses. And an elite offense gets you into the playoffs. While really good offenses or good offenses might not necessarily get you there. All 12 of these teams were in contention though. Minnesota seems to be an outlier, where they must have not scored any points anywhere else.

What about defense?

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 1.5
2 Baltimore 1.6
3 San Francisco 1.6
4 Houston 1.7
5 Cleveland 1.9
6 Miami 2.1
7 Seattle 2.1
8 Tennessee 2.1
9 Arizona 2.1
10 Chicago 2.2
11 Jacksonville 2.3
12 Washington 2.4
13 Dallas 2.4

Here the first team not to make the playoffs was Cleveland, and that is because of their offense. Similar to Carolina and their defense. Miami came on too late, same with Seattle. It would seem 1.9+ isn't necessarily elite enough to get you where you need to go.

I think what of note that the 2.4 touchdowns we allowed per game was down from the previous year of 3.2 touchdowns allowed per game, but the combination of 2.4 touchdowns per game on offense, and 2.4 touchdowns allowed on defense was too much of a push.

The Patriots defense for instance was really bad (yardage wise), but they didn't allow any more touchdowns than our defense. The difference though? Their offense is elite.

Both the top 4 offenses and top 4 defenses made the playoffs.

New York? They had a 2.6 on Defense, which was just slightly lower than their 2.9 on Offense.

My question is, can we become a 3+ team on offense, and a 2- team on defense?

I would suggest that we have our 2 touchdown a game QB in Tony Romo. Assuming we can keep him healthy. What we need in addition is the 1 rushing touchdown a game running game, versus the 5 rushing touchdowns we accomplished last year.

Romo threw for 2 touchdowns or more in 11 games. If we have a defense that allows 2 touchdowns or less per game, we should win the vast majority of our games.

Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones also made a good point. Do you know what we did to help our offense? We improved the defense.

What helps creates scoring? Takeaways.

New England and New York had lousy defenses, but they were both top 5 in takeaways. Same with Green Bay. We were 16th in the league.

16th in the league in takeaways, but 11th in the league in turnover margin. Do you know what that means? It means the offense did it's job, but the defense did not.

We were 6th in the league in giveaways... But everyone wants to blame tony romo. Yet I don't remember him making many more fumbles than the one in the Jets game. Although the special teams had a fumble in there too.

Does the offense need to score more points? absolutely it does. Dez needs to step up, the offensive line needs to step up, and murray and felix need to step up, but the defense by far and large needs to get better.

When we have big leads, and teams get more aggressive to try and get back into the game, that should be a double edged sword for them. We need to punish them for that. Like in the Bills game.

Nice research!

It's interesting that there was no team in the league that ranked in the top 10 (the top 12 for that matter) in both offense and defense in touchdowns/game. Either really good offense teams or really good defensive teams made the playoffs, but no one excelled at both.

You could argue that by the end of the year when the defense got healthy, the Giants were as close to a balanced team as anyone in football.

 

[Cowboys&LakersFan]

Above average offense and great defense or great offense and average defense.

 

[Galian Beast]

Nice research!

It's interesting that there was no team in the league that ranked in the top 10 (the top 12 for that matter) in both offense and defense in touchdowns/game. Either really good offense teams or really good defensive teams made the playoffs, but no one excelled at both.

You could argue that by the end of the year when the defense got healthy, the Giants were as close to a balanced team as anyone in football.

I think that is what enabled them to win the Super Bowl. I think if we were slightly more consistent, we might have been able to win the super bowl.

If one thing had gone our way that didn't.

Our season came down to missed catches, botched special teams execution, unfortunate injuries... It really goes to show that every game is vital in the nfl.

 

[jobberone]

It used to be scoring 25+ pts a game and giving up 17- was the goal. I don't know if that is true anymore with the increase in offense.

 

[RS12]

Two most important stats in football are turn overs and 3rd down conversion rate.

 

[Galian Beast]

Two most important stats in football are turn overs and 3rd down conversion rate.

Offensive 3rd down conversations per game

Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 7.2
2 San Diego 6.4
3 Baltimore 6.1
4 Atlanta 6.1
5 Houston 5.8
6 Cleveland 5.8
7 Pittsburgh 5.7
8 Green Bay 5.7
9 New England 5.4
10 Philadelphia 5.3
19 Dallas 4.9


Defensive 3rd down conversions per game

Rank Team 2011
1 NY Jets 4.3
2 New Orleans 4.3
3 Detroit 4.4
4 Arizona 4.4
6 Baltimore 4.5
5 Kansas City 4.5
7 Tampa Bay 4.6
8 Denver 4.6
9 Miami 4.6
10 Philadelphia 4.7
11 Buffalo 4.7
20 Dallas 5.1


Turnover Margin Per game

Rank Team 2011
1 San Francisco 1.7
2 Green Bay 1.2
3 New England 0.8
4 Detroit 0.6
5 NY Giants 0.6
6 Seattle 0.5
7 Atlanta 0.5
8 Baltimore 0.4
9 Houston 0.3
10 Jacksonville 0.3
11 Dallas 0.2

I think turnovers might play a larger factor, but 3rd down conversions seem much further from consistent. At least on defense.

 

[Bluestang]

I've thrown this stat out in another thread but in 4 games this year we held the lead going into the 4th quarter.

If the defense was able to make a stop or get a key turnover it could have meant we win at least one out of those 4 games if not all four.

You look at this draft and you get pretty good idea what VR thought the problem was.

 

[Galian Beast]

I've thrown this stat out in another thread but in 4 games this year we held the lead going into the 4th quarter.

If the defense was able to make a stop or get a key turnover it could have meant we win at least one out of those 4 games if not all four.

You look at this draft and you get pretty good idea what VR thought the problem was.

Opponent 4th quarter points per game

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 3.5
2 Baltimore 4.1
3 Cleveland 4.1
4 Atlanta 4.6
6 Kansas City 4.7
5 Arizona 4.7
7 Jacksonville 4.9
8 Cincinnati 5.7
9 Chicago 5.8
10 Denver 5.9
19 Dallas 6.4

4th quarter points per game

Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 10.7
2 NY Giants 9.9
3 Detroit 8.7
4 New England 8.4
5 Green Bay 7.7
6 Dallas 7.4

 

[Bluestang]

Opponent 4th quarter points per game

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 3.5
2 Baltimore 4.1
3 Cleveland 4.1
4 Atlanta 4.6
6 Kansas City 4.7
5 Arizona 4.7
7 Jacksonville 4.9
8 Cincinnati 5.7
9 Chicago 5.8
10 Denver 5.9
19 Dallas 6.4

4th quarter points per game

Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 10.7
2 NY Giants 9.9
3 Detroit 8.7
4 New England 8.4
5 Green Bay 7.7
6 Dallas 7.4

19th in defending 4th quarter pts - ouch!

I believe in 5 of our losses we lost by a TD or less which means to me that we were competitive all the way to the end.

 

[ShiningStar]

I been trying to find consistency in what wins, and whether or not it was defense or offense.

12 teams make the playoffs. 20 teams do not. There are some circumstances involved with the division wins and wild cards, but that means that the top 37-38 percent of teams should make the playoffs.

The thing is I wanted to look purely at offense and defense (not special teams) although perhaps I will look at that at some point.

The top 12 offenses and defenses by touchdowns scored per game (with some deep stats thanks to teamrankings.com)

* Teams in bold made the playoffs


Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 4
2 Green Bay 3.8
3 New England 3.6
4 Detroit 3.2
5 Carolina 2.9
6 NY Giants 2.9
7 San Diego 2.7
8 Philadelphia 2.6
9 Atlanta 2.5
10 NY Jets 2.5
11 Minnesota 2.4
12 Dallas 2.4

I think looking at that, you can see the difference between good offenses and elite offenses... New Orleans, Green Bay, New England, and Detroit were elite offenses. And an elite offense gets you into the playoffs. While really good offenses or good offenses might not necessarily get you there. All 12 of these teams were in contention though. Minnesota seems to be an outlier, where they must have not scored any points anywhere else.

What about defense?

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 1.5
2 Baltimore 1.6
3 San Francisco 1.6
4 Houston 1.7
5 Cleveland 1.9
6 Miami 2.1
7 Seattle 2.1
8 Tennessee 2.1
9 Arizona 2.1
10 Chicago 2.2
11 Jacksonville 2.3
12 Washington 2.4
13 Dallas 2.4

Here the first team not to make the playoffs was Cleveland, and that is because of their offense. Similar to Carolina and their defense. Miami came on too late, same with Seattle. It would seem 1.9+ isn't necessarily elite enough to get you where you need to go.

I think what of note that the 2.4 touchdowns we allowed per game was down from the previous year of 3.2 touchdowns allowed per game, but the combination of 2.4 touchdowns per game on offense, and 2.4 touchdowns allowed on defense was too much of a push.

The Patriots defense for instance was really bad (yardage wise), but they didn't allow any more touchdowns than our defense. The difference though? Their offense is elite.

Both the top 4 offenses and top 4 defenses made the playoffs.

New York? They had a 2.6 on Defense, which was just slightly lower than their 2.9 on Offense.

My question is, can we become a 3+ team on offense, and a 2- team on defense?

I would suggest that we have our 2 touchdown a game QB in Tony Romo. Assuming we can keep him healthy. What we need in addition is the 1 rushing touchdown a game running game, versus the 5 rushing touchdowns we accomplished last year.

Romo threw for 2 touchdowns or more in 11 games. If we have a defense that allows 2 touchdowns or less per game, we should win the vast majority of our games.

Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones also made a good point. Do you know what we did to help our offense? We improved the defense.

What helps creates scoring? Takeaways.

New England and New York had lousy defenses, but they were both top 5 in takeaways. Same with Green Bay. We were 16th in the league.

16th in the league in takeaways, but 11th in the league in turnover margin. Do you know what that means? It means the offense did it's job, but the defense did not.

We were 6th in the league in giveaways... But everyone wants to blame tony romo. Yet I don't remember him making many more fumbles than the one in the Jets game. Although the special teams had a fumble in there too.

Does the offense need to score more points? absolutely it does. Dez needs to step up, the offensive line needs to step up, and murray and felix need to step up, but the defense by far and large needs to get better.

When we have big leads, and teams get more aggressive to try and get back into the game, that should be a double edged sword for them. We need to punish them for that. Like in the Bills game.

im going to simply this very easy question, more points to the other team, and do you know how you do it, stay within the rules, other than that no one cares, if you get lucky with a safety and you win the game, its a win. If you punch it in the end zone because the other team suffered a bad injury during the game, its still a win. If you win because the ball flops your way twice and you arent the best team on the field and you still have more points, you win.

Regardless of how you get there, a win is a win is a win is a win, they DONT ever give them back. And if one wins more to you and you have to scarficie the next two games, by all means do it. worked for the Giants.

Winning is not about who has the better team, its about the most points in the game, whether you have to change trends, or start a new tradition, its about winning and if it means signing a guy who previously did something wrong and he can help you win, you sign him, the fans wont care nor give back the win.

Wins never change hands. You hear fans all the time we ahve to get younger, we have to do this we have to do that, no you dont because the wins arent based off one sole stat or one player, they are based off who has the most points before time runs out. And you cant predict it.

as i said before once the ball is kicked, everything goes out the window because nothing matters til time runs out.

 

[Doomsday]

To me you have to finish to win games in today's NFL. Teams are so close in talent, that it comes down to who can execute down the stretch.

This has been the achilles heal of the Cowboys the last few seasons. There were at least 5 games last season that came down to the last 1/2 of the 4th quarter that ended up causing Dallas the division.

 

[Keystone_Heavy]

I actually looked at the correlation once between wins/points and pass/rush offense. I like to play around a make "sabermetric" type stats for football when I'm bored. Not that I'm really qualified for such a thing. This is only for 2011:

Wins= 58.67% for passing yards, 5.95% for rushing yards.

Points= 79.04% for passing yards, 11.4% for rushing yards.

Of course this is a really simple test. And PPG really isn't as good a thing to look at as offensive TDs would have been. But I personally think that what this shows us is that this really IS a passing league, and that passing the ball is waaay more important to winning than rushing it.

 

[Hoofbite]

I think that is what enabled them to win the Super Bowl. I think if we were slightly more consistent, we might have been able to win the super bowl.

If one thing had gone our way that didn't.

Our season came down to missed catches, botched special teams execution, unfortunate injuries... It really goes to show that every game is vital in the nfl.

Those things happen to every team though so it's pretty much a wash and what it really comes down to is executing or stopping the other guy from executing, something Dallas struggled with mightily at the end of the season.

 

[Hoofbite]

I actually looked at the correlation once between wins/points and pass/rush offense. I like to play around a make "sabermetric" type stats for football when I'm bored. Not that I'm really qualified for such a thing. This is only for 2011:

Wins= 58.67% for passing yards, 5.95% for rushing yards.

Points= 79.04% for passing yards, 11.4% for rushing yards.

Of course this is a really simple test. And PPG really isn't as good a thing to look at as offensive TDs would have been. But I personally think that what this shows us is that this really IS a passing league, and that passing the ball is waaay more important to winning than rushing it.

You've basically just confirmed what has been the case for a number of years.

Passing offense accounts for most of the yards and points.

I'm not entirely sure that's all that indicative of one thing or another because that was also the case back in the early 90s. Whens the last time a RB out rushed his full season starting QBs passing yards?

A good game for a QB is what? 300 yards?

RB, 100 yards?

If both have a good game, passing accounts for 75% of the production.

Even still, I don't think that absolutely means that running is less important. So long as teams are eliminated in the playoffs after 1 game and you can still win by running no matter how infrequently, I think there's value. And that doesn't even account for any potential impact that running has on the ability to pass or potential impact that running has on limiting opponent opportunities.

 

[Beast_from_East]

I been trying to find consistency in what wins, and whether or not it was defense or offense.

12 teams make the playoffs. 20 teams do not. There are some circumstances involved with the division wins and wild cards, but that means that the top 37-38 percent of teams should make the playoffs.

The thing is I wanted to look purely at offense and defense (not special teams) although perhaps I will look at that at some point.

The top 12 offenses and defenses by touchdowns scored per game (with some deep stats thanks to teamrankings.com)

* Teams in bold made the playoffs


Rank Team 2011
1 New Orleans 4
2 Green Bay 3.8
3 New England 3.6
4 Detroit 3.2
5 Carolina 2.9
6 NY Giants 2.9
7 San Diego 2.7
8 Philadelphia 2.6
9 Atlanta 2.5
10 NY Jets 2.5
11 Minnesota 2.4
12 Dallas 2.4

I think looking at that, you can see the difference between good offenses and elite offenses... New Orleans, Green Bay, New England, and Detroit were elite offenses. And an elite offense gets you into the playoffs. While really good offenses or good offenses might not necessarily get you there. All 12 of these teams were in contention though. Minnesota seems to be an outlier, where they must have not scored any points anywhere else.

What about defense?

Rank Team 2011
1 Pittsburgh 1.5
2 Baltimore 1.6
3 San Francisco 1.6
4 Houston 1.7
5 Cleveland 1.9
6 Miami 2.1
7 Seattle 2.1
8 Tennessee 2.1
9 Arizona 2.1
10 Chicago 2.2
11 Jacksonville 2.3
12 Washington 2.4
13 Dallas 2.4

Here the first team not to make the playoffs was Cleveland, and that is because of their offense. Similar to Carolina and their defense. Miami came on too late, same with Seattle. It would seem 1.9+ isn't necessarily elite enough to get you where you need to go.

I think what of note that the 2.4 touchdowns we allowed per game was down from the previous year of 3.2 touchdowns allowed per game, but the combination of 2.4 touchdowns per game on offense, and 2.4 touchdowns allowed on defense was too much of a push.

The Patriots defense for instance was really bad (yardage wise), but they didn't allow any more touchdowns than our defense. The difference though? Their offense is elite.

Both the top 4 offenses and top 4 defenses made the playoffs.

New York? They had a 2.6 on Defense, which was just slightly lower than their 2.9 on Offense.

My question is, can we become a 3+ team on offense, and a 2- team on defense?

I would suggest that we have our 2 touchdown a game QB in Tony Romo. Assuming we can keep him healthy. What we need in addition is the 1 rushing touchdown a game running game, versus the 5 rushing touchdowns we accomplished last year.

Romo threw for 2 touchdowns or more in 11 games. If we have a defense that allows 2 touchdowns or less per game, we should win the vast majority of our games.

Jason Garrett and Jerry Jones also made a good point. Do you know what we did to help our offense? We improved the defense.

What helps creates scoring? Takeaways.

New England and New York had lousy defenses, but they were both top 5 in takeaways. Same with Green Bay. We were 16th in the league.

16th in the league in takeaways, but 11th in the league in turnover margin. Do you know what that means? It means the offense did it's job, but the defense did not.

We were 6th in the league in giveaways... But everyone wants to blame tony romo. Yet I don't remember him making many more fumbles than the one in the Jets game. Although the special teams had a fumble in there too.

Does the offense need to score more points? absolutely it does. Dez needs to step up, the offensive line needs to step up, and murray and felix need to step up, but the defense by far and large needs to get better.

When we have big leads, and teams get more aggressive to try and get back into the game, that should be a double edged sword for them. We need to punish them for that. Like in the Bills game.

Good research.

What this tells me is that the offense is good enough to win, but the defense is not. Nobody that gave up 2 or more offensive TDs a game made the playoffs.

This really should not be a surprise to anybody that watched the draft, clearly Valley Ranch thinks the same thing.