Will Linehan go more no huddle?

[percyhoward]

Is that why I also spoke about Chicago, Oakland, San Diego and the Saints as well? .

Okay, so those five games, then. What were the criteria that went into your selection of those 5 games, and your omission of the other 11?

Correlation is not causation.

No matter what either one of us says, nothing is going to change the fact that the best teams have the best points per drive differentials, and the worst teams have the worst ones.

Look at these two lists again. See any teams that should switch lists?

1. Den (1st offense, 19th defense)
2. Sea (1st defense, 9th offense)
3. NO (8th defense, 3rd offense)
4. Car (2nd defense, 10th offense)
5. Cin (3rd defense, 13 offense)

28. TB (27th offense, 24th defense)
29. Hou (31st offense, 22nd defense)
30. Oak (23rd offense, 27th defense)
31. Was (24th offense, 28th defense)
32. Jac (32nd offense, 25th defense)

Correlation is not causation. Once again, I don't accept your premise that it indicates wins, and the above clear establishes it. You have to go out and play the game, not go out an do math to win a game.

 

[khiladi]

Okay, so those five games, then. What were the criteria that went into your selection of those 5 games, and your omission of the other 11?

What was I 'measuring' for the umpteenth time before you ask these ridiculous questions? And when you do that, then you can ask yourself what my point was in regards to a sample size of over 30% of the games in regards to my point about the offense.

And again, nothing is going to change the fact that teams with an average of among the best points per drive per season have won games when their points per drive differential were below the average points per differential of the fifteenth rank team. What's your point, other than correlation does not equal causation. Are you telling me turnovers have no impact on the outcome of a game?

 

[percyhoward]

What was I 'measuring' for the umpteenth time?

Offensive performance in bits and pieces of a season that you selected, from what I've been able to make out.

And again, nothing is going to change the fact that teams with an average of among the best points per drive per season have won games when their points per drive differential were below the average points per differential of the fifteenth rank team.

And more importantly, if those teams are among the best in points/drive differential for the season, they've made the playoffs.

Are you telling me turnovers have no impact on the outcome of a game?

Please explain this bizarre question.

 

[Brooksey]

BTW, we didn't make the play-offs because of our record, not because of some statistical average across the season. Thus, the Detroit game is much more of a valid statistic in this context than some average that doesn't tell us much about any specific game. 4 extra chances to score and our offense failed, except once and that from seven yards out. We could have easily capitalized and put the game out of reach. But our offense, as it's typical trend, was doing nothing until the 4th. And a defense had played 3 quarters holding down the fort.

Dude our offense was pretty good statistically in some select categories. The choke jobs or situational failures don't show up in these stats, they show up in the win loss column. Fighting with the Garett Sniffers will do you no good. They can't handle the truth about Garett and Callahan's demotions, instead they sweat a guy who can copy and paste stats from the football outsiders. That's their MO, look at it for what it really is.

 

[Idgit]

Dude our offense was pretty good statistically in some select categories. The choke jobs or situational failures don't show up in these stats, they show up in the win loss column. Fighting with the Garett Sniffers will do you no good. They can't handle the truth about Garett and Callahan's demotions, instead they sweat a guy who can copy and paste stats from the football outsiders. That's their MO, look at it for what it really is.

Maybe, at some point, you'll explain how patiently explaining that a HC is losing games because of a defense that is consistently ranking at the very bottom of the league is "sniffing."

I'm not sure I've ever seen a more willful misinterpretation of obvious data than we're seeing in this thread. Honestly. And the weird thing is, it's not even in support of the regular collective delusion around here because --no matter which side is right-- the responsibility still belongs with the head coach.

 

[percyhoward]

BTW, we didn't make the play-offs because of our record, not because of some statistical average across the season.

I'm sorry I missed this post from before, because this is the entire argument. You're saying there's a meaningful difference between the record (W-L) and the ranking (points per drive differential).

So show the difference. Dallas ranked 17th, and finished 8-8. Denver and Seattle ranked 1st and 2nd. You think that if Dallas had been 1st or 2nd, and those other teams had been around 17th, the teams would still have kept their same records? I've told you about the strong correlation between the records and the rankings. I've shown you the top 5 and the bottom 5 in points per drive differential -- twice.

If you can point out a fundamental difference between the records and the rankings, this is where you do that. Have at it.

Dude our offense was pretty good statistically in some select categories. The choke jobs or situational failures don't show up in these stats, they show up in the win loss column.

Maybe you can explain the difference between the team's 8-8 record and its ranking of 17th in a 32-team league. Be as specific as you can.

And when did "points scored" and "points allowed" become higher math, anyway?

 

[percyhoward]

I'm not sure I've ever seen a more willful misinterpretation of obvious data than we're seeing in this thread. Honestly. And the weird thing is, it's not even in support of the regular collective delusion around here because --no matter which side is right-- the responsibility still belongs with the head coach.

Maybe some prefer to err on the side of suspicion than risk bamboozlement by fancy ciphering. I agree it's a little odd, and not just because Garrett is in charge of the whole team, but also because you can be aware of the offense's success while attributing very little of it to Garrett.

 

[Brooksey]

Maybe, at some point, you'll explain how patiently explaining that a HC is losing games because of a defense that is consistently ranking at the very bottom of the league is "sniffing."

I'm not sure I've ever seen a more willful misinterpretation of obvious data than we're seeing in this thread. Honestly. And the weird thing is, it's not even in support of the regular collective delusion around here because --no matter which side is right-- the responsibility still belongs with the head coach.

The strength of this team in 2013 was our offense and some believe it was mismanaged. I don't think there's anyone on the forum who argues that defense is not the weakness, that's been well established as others have said. The point is the offense is not a top 5 total offense because we are 4th in points per drive, the offense and play calling imbalance has lost us some big games when the defense has played well. If points per drive was the holy grail...why would we remove Callahan (4th) and replace him with Linehan who was ranked 14th (pts/dr) to call the plays?

The Cowboys organization does not see this stat as the most telling as some suggest. Percy says yards per drive don't correlate to winning but 8 out of the top 10 are in the playoffs. Maybe he can explain that and then post about 20 years of data to backup his assertions that Yards and TOP doesn't matter. Excluding teams that run the no huddle, I'm willing to look at the data with an open mind.

I see this: We are 12th in Yards/per drive, 9th in DSR, 21st in Plays Per Drive and 15th in Top/dr and we run the clock to zero before every snap. Stop and think about that for a moment. With this defense as weak as it is, was this the right strategy? I don't think so. If we run a more balanced offense like they did in SD, (check their stats) IMO, we're in the playoffs.

 

[Alexander]

If we run a more balanced offense like they did in SD, (check their stats) IMO, we're in the playoffs.

Correct.

Amazing but probably true considering how awful the defense was. A win versus Green Bay where we truly frittered the game away by offensive imbalance and the road is much easier.

 

[percyhoward]

If points per drive was the holy grail...why would we remove Callahan (4th) and replace him with Linehan who was ranked 14th (pts/dr) to call the plays?

The Cowboys organization does not see this stat as the most telling as some suggest. Percy says yards per drive don't correlate to winning but 8 out of the top 10 are in the playoffs. Maybe he can explain that and then post about 20 years of data to backup his assertions that Yards and TOP doesn't matter. Excluding teams that run the no huddle, I'm willing to look at the data with an open mind.

I see this: We are 12th in Yards/per drive, 9th in DSR, 21st in Plays Per Drive and 15th in Top/dr and we run the clock to zero before every snap. Stop and think about that for a moment. With this defense as weak as it is, was this the right strategy? I don't think so. If we run a more balanced offense like they did in SD, (check their stats) IMO, we're in the playoffs.

First, thanks for actually looking at the season's numbers instead of selected games/plays.

I have no doubt that the organization is well aware of which stats are the most telling. Your mistake is in thinking that the team's ranking 4th in points per drive is the same as Callahan's being responsible for it. Two different things. Jerry has already talked about how Romo's role was greatly expanded in the red zone and hurry up situations, and since the offense did very well in those situations, we can assume that it had little to do with Callahan.

Linehan is here because there was obviously tension in the relationship between Callahan and the HC. Depending on which reports you believe, you might even say there was no relationship at all. And you could justifiably point to Linehan's 3rd-down success in Detroit as compared to our horrible 3rd down numbers last year -- numbers that may or may not have had anything to do with Callahan. We will see.

Nowhere did I say that yards per drive doesn't correlate to winning. I said it has a moderate-to-strong correlation, which is consistent with 8 out of the top 10 teams making the playoffs. Points per drive is significantly stronger, according to all the research I've seen posted anywhere. Maybe you can find information to the contrary, but until then...

As for time of possession, as I also said in post #169, it's not even as strong as those other two stats. Again, if you've got data that refutes this, let's see it. It's also important to realize that whether teams run a no huddle or not has no bearing on the correlation of TOP with wins, since intentions don't enter into it, and running a no huddle doesn't mean running it well.

I see this: We are 12th in Yards/per drive, 9th in DSR, 21st in Plays Per Drive and 15th in Top/dr and we run the clock to zero before every snap. Stop and think about that for a moment. With this defense as weak as it is, was this the right strategy? I don't think so. If we run a more balanced offense like they did in SD, (check their stats) IMO, we're in the playoffs.

The Chargers were 8th (2nd offense, 23rd defense) and Dallas was 17th (4th offense, 30th defense). You could switch the team's defenses, change nothing about the offenses, and the Cowboys (with a net .23 ppd) might very possibly have reached 10 wins.

If you switch the two teams' offenses, and change nothing about the defenses, 10 wins is not as likely, but still quite possible--as long as it doesn't matter to you how much of the load can one unit be expected to carry.

 

[percyhoward]

Correct.

Amazing but probably true considering how awful the defense was.

The offense nearly carried the defense into the playoffs.

 

[Idgit]

The strength of this team in 2013 was our offense and some believe it was mismanaged. I don't think there's anyone on the forum who argues that defense is not the weakness, that's been well established as others have said. The point is the offense is not a top 5 total offense because we are 4th in points per drive, the offense and play calling imbalance has lost us some big games when the defense has played well. If points per drive was the holy grail...why would we remove Callahan (4th) and replace him with Linehan who was ranked 14th (pts/dr) to call the plays?

The Cowboys organization does not see this stat as the most telling as some suggest. Percy says yards per drive don't correlate to winning but 8 out of the top 10 are in the playoffs. Maybe he can explain that and then post about 20 years of data to backup his assertions that Yards and TOP doesn't matter. Excluding teams that run the no huddle, I'm willing to look at the data with an open mind.

I see this: We are 12th in Yards/per drive, 9th in DSR, 21st in Plays Per Drive and 15th in Top/dr and we run the clock to zero before every snap. Stop and think about that for a moment. With this defense as weak as it is, was this the right strategy? I don't think so. If we run a more balanced offense like they did in SD, (check their stats) IMO, we're in the playoffs.

We were very close to the playoffs as it was. It would stand to reason that a more efficient offense might have gotten us in.

I'm not sure it follows that the difference was related to our run v. pass balance. My first guess would be that Rivers' passing efficiency was better than ours was with Tony last year.

 

[percyhoward]

We were very close to the playoffs as it was. It would stand to reason that a more efficient offense might have gotten us in.

I'm not sure it follows that the difference was related to our run v. pass balance. My first guess would be that Rivers' passing efficiency was better than ours was with Tony last year.

While there were situations when we could have benefited more by running the ball, the area where the offense really needs to improve is on 3rd down, to receivers other than Bryant, Witten, and Beasley.

(While looking at this, keep in mind that the offense's overall pass rating ranked 7th and conversion percentage ranked 6th, while the defense ranked 26th and 27th in the same categories.)

The last number is conversion percentage on that down.

Top 4 targets
3rd down
Bryant 16 of 34 207 yd 6.1 ypa 5 td 0 int 106.3 41.2%
Witten 17 of 31 165 yd 5.3 ypa 2 td 0 int 91.5 38.7%
Williams 12 of 23 196 yd 8.5 ypa 0 td 2 int 44.8 34.8%
Beasley 14 of 18 146 yd 8.1 ypa 1 td 0 int 119.0 61.1%
others 11 of 31 78 yd 2.5 ypa 1 td 2 int 28.0 14.6%

All other downs
Bryant 77 of 125 1026 yd 8.2 ypa 8 td 2 int 102.3 43.2%
Witten 56 of 80 686 yd 8.6 ypa 6 td 1 int 115.9 40.0%
Murray 51 of 62 341 yd 5.5 ypa 1 td 0 int 95.0 27.4%
Williams 32 of 51 530 yd 10.6 ypa 5 td 0 int 131.2 45.1%
others 89 of 131 849 yd 6.5 ypa 5 td 5 int 82.5 26.0%

On 3rd down, passes to Bryant, Witten, or Beasley resulted in a 1st down 45% of the time. If the rest of the targets had matched that, Dallas would have ranked 3rd in this category, instead of 20th.

On 3rd down, passes to Bryant, Witten, or Beasley had a rating of 107.4. If the rest of the targets had matched that, Dallas would have led the league in this category, instead of ranking 18th.

For the sake of comparison, Detroit's 3rd-down pass rating was 70.4 to Johnson, and 107.4 to the next 3 most-targeted players. In San Diego, players other than Allen, Royal, and Gates converted more than 46% of the time.

 

[khiladi]

I'm sorry I missed this post from before, because this is the entire argument. You're saying there's a meaningful difference between the record (W-L) and the ranking (points per drive differential).

No, I'm saying we didn't make the playoffs because of our record. The NFL doesn't look at point differential to determine who makes the play-offs, they look at the record. But then again, this statement was simply a sarcastic response to your comment that points per drive differential is why we make the playoffs. Again, for the umpteenth time correlation is not causation and for the umpteenth time, show me what my contention is that you claim was my contention that you are responding to. We are not on page 12 of the response and you still haven't gone back and provided me any proof.

 

[khiladi]

Linehan is here because there was obviously tension in the relationship between Callahan and the HC. Depending on which reports you believe, you might even say there was no relationship at all. And you could justifiably point to Linehan's 3rd-down success in Detroit as compared to our horrible 3rd down numbers last year -- numbers that may or may not have had anything to do with Callahan. We will see.

That is not what Jerry said. They were planning on going Callahan this year as well and then Linehan was fired. Jerry specifically said this changed the direction of play-calling, because this was an offense Linehan was familiar with. Otherwise, Callahan would have remained the playcaller. In both cases, Jerry affirmed either way home-boy Garrett isn't touching the offense.

 

[khiladi]

Dude our offense was pretty good statistically in some select categories. The choke jobs or situational failures don't show up in these stats, they show up in the win loss column. Fighting with the Garett Sniffers will do you no good. They can't handle the truth about Garett and Callahan's demotions, instead they sweat a guy who can copy and paste stats from the football outsiders. That's their MO, look at it for what it really is.

And notice how the Garrett homers just brush aside his words when Rob Ryan was fired:

"The Bears had 44 takeaways. We had 16. That's 28 more opportunities with the ball," Garrett told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from the Senior Bowl. "Give me some of those 28 opportunities. That's something that we really sat back and thought a lot about, had a lot of discussions about -- what's the best way to try to achieve that, and then, 'OK, you want to do that, now who are the guys who can help implement that?' "

Garrett was given some of those 28 opportunities, and we were, per their own words 23rd in the league scoring off of them. So when the defense ups the TOs by a wide-margin, we couldn't score. Yet, these same Garrett homers are telling us the defense is to blame and that was our resident excuse.. I mean we haven't even discussed whether these additional turnovers impacted or did not impact a particular game, and whether or not it was an influential factor in deciding games except for Detroit. But like I said ages ago, I'm not getting paid to analyze each and every game. I game enough of a sample size to illustrate my point, of which I'm still waiting for certain posters on their board to actually tell me what it is, instead of trying to shoot down a point I never made.

 

[percyhoward]

No, I'm saying we didn't make the playoffs because of our record. The NFL doesn't look at point differential to determine who makes the playoffs, they look at the record. But then again, this statement was simply a sarcastic response to your comment that points per drive differential is why we make the playoffs. Again, for the umpteenth time correlation is not causation and for the umpteenth time, show me what my contention is that you claim was my contention that you are responding to. We are not on page 12 of the response and you still haven't gone back and provided me any proof.

Proof of what? I think I've lost track of what you think I'm claiming you contended.

Very technically speaking, correlation is not causation. Just because the last three times you washed the car it rained doesn't mean your washing the car caused it to rain. That's when that phrase correctly applies -- as a warning to statisticians to remember the big picture. You can't exactly explain away a .90 correlation over tens of thousands of games with a catchphrase.

Besides, since we already know scoring a lot of points and not giving up a lot of points causes teams to win a lot of games and not lose a lot of games, then we already know we're talking about causation anyway.

 

[Idgit]

Proof of what? I think I've lost track of what you think I'm claiming you contended.

Very technically speaking, correlation is not causation. Just because the last three times you washed the car it rained doesn't mean your washing the car caused it to rain. That's when that phrase correctly applies -- as a warning to statisticians to remember the big picture. You can't exactly explain away a .90 correlation over tens of thousands of games with a catchphrase.

Besides, since we already know scoring a lot of points and not giving up a lot of points causes teams to win a lot of games and not lose a lot of games, then we already know we're talking about causation anyway.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that more average points/drive actually does cause more average points/game and that the differential has a significant impact on winning as a result. I'll go further out on that same limb and say that, while 'correlation does not imply causation,' it hints at it a lot more substantially than the 'a complete lack of bothering to try to correlate anything does imply causation' argument you're debating against.

And, in any event, even if we're unable to prove what does--necessarily--cause victories in today's NFL, in the absence of a clearly better direction, I'm recommending doing the things that correlate with winning football games. If it rains 90% of the time when I wash my car, over 32 different cars, and thousands of car washes...and we're in a draught...you're going to see me out there sudsing up and using the garden hose. Lucky you.

 

[percyhoward]

I'm not getting paid to analyze each and every game.

Dallas ranked 4th in what has proven to be the most meaningful offensive stat.

People who are getting paid to analyze each and every game figured out both of those things.

 

[khiladi]

Proof of what? I think I've lost track of what you think I'm claiming you contended.

Wow... So now it's not about what you accurately responding to what I contended, it's about me responding to you about what you claim I contended.

Very technically speaking, correlation is not causation. Just because the last three times you washed the car it rained doesn't mean your washing the car caused it to rain. That's when that phrase correctly applies -- as a warning to statisticians to remember the big picture. You can't exactly explain away a .90 correlation over tens of thousands of games with a catchphrase.

That's exactly what your doing. Now pay attention... I'm going to repeat what I stated with high-lights:

No, I'm saying we didn't make the playoffs because of our record. The NFL doesn't look at point differential to determine who makes the play-offs, they look at the record. But then again, this statement was simply a sarcastic response to your comment that points per drive differential is why we make the playoffs. Again, for the umpteenth time correlation is not causation and for the umpteenth time, show me what my contention is that you claim was my contention that you are responding to. We are not on page 12 of the response and you still haven't gone back and provided me any proof.

What was my contention?

Besides, since we already know scoring a lot of points and not giving up a lot of points causes teams to win a lot of games and not lose a lot of games, then we already know we're talking about causation anyway.

So you should be a coach.. "Hey guys, you need to score more than you win."