I believed, in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 season, that with Jason Peters at left tackle, the least of Philadelphia’s worries would have been the tackle position. Instead, he was injured in the off season. In September, Philadelphia center Jason Celce went down with a season ending injury. In the New Orleans game, Todd Herremans suffered a season ending injury, and going into the Dallas game, starting guard Danny Watkins had been out with a sprained ankle.
Losing Todd Herremans: deal breaker for the Eagles? (Image from Wikimedia).
So, in week 10, the Eagles had one healthy starting caliber player, and 4 backups playing on the offensive line. This loss of talent was profound, even in comparison with Dallas, which had 1 backup on the line – though Dallas RG Mackenzie Bernadeau has been pretty marginal as a starter. Simplified, losing tackles is much worse than losing a guard and a center. Result? A markedly ineffective Vick, a thoroughbred offense reduced to dog-sled pace.
No wonder announcers were hyping this as the “end of a season” for one of these teams. Most any cold blooded announcer could have figured out what was about to happen. The only question was how best to pitch it so people would actually watch.
Atlanta: I’ve been comparing the 2012 Atlanta Falcons to the 1976 Oakland Raiders, to make the case that Atlanta has a chance. But the 1976 Raiders had made it to three previous Conference Championship games, while the Mike Smith squads have never gone that far. They lack the deep playoff experience of those 1970s Raiders squads.
The fact is, all scoring stats suggest Atlanta has benefited from plenty of luck. I think, because of a better Julio Jones, that this is a better Falcons team than the 2011 team, but the coaching changes in New Orleans markedly benefited this squad. Yes, Atlanta can be beaten.
Week 9 scoring stats:
Week 10 scoring stats:
If we use the median point spread as a measure of how good Atlanta is, and select the teams within 2 points of their value, you end up with a group that includes San Francisco, New England, Minnesota, and the New York Giants. That’s a talented group of teams, but perhaps not as terrifying as Green Bay, Houston, Denver, and Chicago. Pythagoreans point out three elite teams in Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco, while simple rankings prefer the quartet of Houston, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.
At this point, perhaps the more appropriate past comparison for the Falcons would be the 1973 Oakland Raiders. Atlanta needs to make some noise in the playoffs first.
Should anyone be worried about the Giants mid season slide? No. They always do this. The question is, will they fully recover in time to make a playoff run. That’s not something that will be entirely answered until week 17.
November 13, 2012 at 12:38 pm
“They lack the deep playoff experience of those 1970s Raiders squads.” Would love to see an analysis on whether playoff experience actually matters. Maybe just # playoff games for the starters vs playoff win % or something along that line. Good stuff though. Keep it coming!
November 13, 2012 at 2:52 pm
The answer to your question is in multiple posts on this blog. The 3 factors that matter most in predicting playoff wins are home field advantage, playoff experience, and strength of schedule. A link to my last study on the topic is this one.
What I’m not able to show analytically is that winning playoff games matter, though in this case, I tend to think it is important. Some coaches win playoff games. Others seem not to, even with fantastic regular season talent and teams.
D-
November 13, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Just started following your blog this season – which I like. “Playoff experience was determined by examining the data and seeing if the team played a playoff game within “playoff span” years of the year in question. Assignment was either a 1 or 0 value, depending on whether the question was true or false. Dm/(n-p) ”
In 2011 the Giants had very few left overs from the 2007 team. I would think there would be a better way to quantify playoff experience. And coaches playoff experience maybe a separate variable?
November 13, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Difficult to cut 110 games into too many slices of pie. But in the case of the 2011 Giants, QB experience I believe counted, and even if it just turns out that Eli had a ‘hot’ year and a half, certainly his play in the 4th quarter of 2011 was exceptional. It also didn’t hurt that the 2011 team, statistically, had many of the same attributes of the 2007 team, in having played an exceptionally tough schedule.
That said, you’re asking good questions, so please don’t stop.