Random statistical thoughts and musings as I bask in the sunshine of the Seahawks game and look ahead to the high pressure front hanging over Philadelphia.

1. Stat of the Week:

"According to SportsOneSource data, the top-selling sports jersey over the past year is the No. 9 worn by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. 3.1 million Romo jerseys have moved through stores over the past year, a testament to both Romo’s style and the Cowboys’ premium brand image."

Hat tip to JasonAHeath for the Fanpost.

No wonder Jerry runs his merchandising business separate from the NFL. Using rudimentary skills left over from my business administration degree, the revenue Jerry generates from one year's worth of Romo jersey sales should be roughly equal to Ware's contract - plus or minus ten to twenty million or so in petty cash.

2. Straight from the Cowboy Ring of Shame: Turnover Ratio

As I was preparing this post in delightful anticipation of the Seahawks game, I was desperately hoping for a favorable TO ratio of at least two in that game (well, at least we had a +1). Why? See below.

Turnover Ratio by season, 2000-2009

Note on the background colors. The casual reader might assume that I've chosen the green background color to simply highlight the best TO ratios. Not so, cherished reader, not so at all.

The trained observer immediately recognizes that the green color background highlights the years in which the Cowboys or the Eagles made the playoffs - any correlation with the TO ratio is pure coincidence. Let's keep working that TO ratio, shall we?

3. Should you turn off your TV at halftime?

During the Atlanta game Troy Aikman said something to the effect that "There is overwhelming statistical evidence that the team that holds the lead by halftime also wins the game". I don't have whatever stats he was quoting, but let's see if we should turn off the Cowboy games at halftime:

Cowboys regular season W/L record based on scores at halftime, 2006-2009

The Boys have blown only three halftime leads in 3 1/2 years (PHI 06, PIT 08, DEN 09). I haven't looked at other teams' stats, but to me that looks pretty impressive.

With Dallas trailing or the score tied at halftime, the Cowboys have managed to come back and win about half the time. However, all of these comebacks have come in situations where they were trailing by a touchdown or less. Abandon all hope when the opponent leads by more than a touchdown at halftime (NO 06, WAS 07, STL 08, NYG 08) - we lost all those games.

4. This one's for you, Terry.

Romo's (and the teams') December swoon is pretty well established, and has been discussed to death, so let's not go there.

One of the more nefarious allegations that have been bandied about is that Romo pads his stats against weak teams (Great QB or stat-hungry whore?) and underperforms against quality teams. Irrefutable fact or vicious slander? Time to set the stat hound loose to sniff out the truth:

Tony Romo regular season Passer Rating by opponent W/L record, 2006-2008

Well, well, well, lookee here: Romo's performance against quality opponents (>.500 winning record) is perfectly in line with his overall performance. Romo does have better numbers against the truly terrible teams in the league, but which QB doesn't? JaMarcus Russell perhaps. Interestingly, the only drop off we see is against teams that finished the season 8-8, and that's due to 5 INT Romo threw in the two Giants games in 2006.

Note: The data is based on full regular season W/L records, and therefore excludes 2009 games. After all, who knows whether the Falcons or Giants, two of our 'quality' opponents so far this year,  will have winning records by the end of the season? Also, that allows me to exclude the abysmal Giants game in week 2 and since I am The King Of This Fanpost and the stats are my minions, I can do whatever I want. I love this power, heh heh heh.

5. Watch out for Sheldon Brown

Through week 7 (no data for week 8 yet), the Eagles' Sheldon Brown is playing at an All Pro level so far this year, with an unheard of 2.3 Defensive Passer Rating and a 70% success percentage (i.e. only 30% of the balls thrown his way are caught by the receivers). This may have something to do with having played only one game against an offense not ranked in the bottom 10 of the league (CAR: 28th, NO: 1st, KC: 24th, TB: 26th, OAK: 31st, WAS 27th - all per week 7). Or let me put it differently:  Delhomme, Brees, Cassel, Josh Johnson, Russell, and Campbell.  All that's missing is Derek Anderson. Regardless, Brown's numbers are still still pretty impressive.

Raf has a recent story (Fun with Scientific Football '09) that puts some of Brown's numbers in perspective.

Stopping opponents 50% of the time appears to be the threshold for being considered a shutdown corner. In the last three years ['05-'07] only 38 corners have achieved this — 9 in 2005, 17 in 2006 and 12 in 2007.

Only once in that span has a corner topped 60% in success percentage, that coming last year when the Raiders Nnamdi Asomugha posed a 62.9% success rate. Asomugha is the hardest corner to throw against, topping 50% in each of the last three years, the only cornerback to do so.

-- Do YPAs Mimic the SAT? BSR, July 14, 2008

Here's how our cornerbacks compare:

Cornerbacks: Defensive Passer Ratings through week 7

Note: Data is through week 7 and does not contain the Giants and Seahawks games.

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Two more nuggets to ponder...

... after the picture.

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6. Next stop on the Pass Rush Express: 1020 Pattison Avenue, Philadelphia

Which teams have the best pass rush this year? Going simply by number of sacks, the Vikings have the best pass rush this year with 31 sacks. But there are three separate stats that, taken together, paint a better overall picture of how much pressure is brought on opposing quarterbacks:

1. Sacks - the mother of all pass rushing stats.

2. QB Hits - a stat the NFL started recording in 2006.

3. QB Pressures - not an official NFL stat, but recorded by ProFootballFocus.com among others.

Taking sacks, hits and pressures together, here's where the League stands in pass rushing through week 8, 2009:

Note on the data: Sacks are the official NFL stats, QB Hits I've taken from the NFL Gamebooks, QB Pressures* are from ProFootballFocus.com through week 7 (this weekends games not included). The ProFootballFocus site is the only place I could find numbers on pressures, but their numbers for Sacks and Hits do not match the official NFL numbers, so take the pressure numbers with a grain of salt.

The 'Weighted per game' column weighs Sacks with the factor 3, Hits with the factor 2 and Pressures with the factor 1, and is provided free of charge specifically for those among us who believe coming close doesn't count (Either you nailed the prom queen, or you didn't). However, while sacking the QB is clearly the best way to go, the ability to upset and affect the passing game in a consistent fashion has value as well.

Regardless of how you look at it, the Cowboys and the Eagles are two of the most pass-rush happy teams in the league. Should make for an interesting game that will most likely be decided by which team can better protect its Quarterback.

Also, as you look over the complete table, it becomes a little clearer why some of the pre-season favorites have fallen on harder times.

7. "There's a first time for everything" a/k/a the stat round-up of this post.

• Romo is now 3 games and one quarter without an interception - a personal best - which nicely coincides with three successive games with a 100+ rating, second longest in his career after a 7 game stretch in 2007 (Games 7-13).
  
• Patrick Crayton's 2 touchdowns on punt returns so far this year tie the franchise record for most in a season. NFL record for the season? 4. Go Patrick!
  
• With 17 touchbacks so far, David Buehler matches the modern-day Cowboys season record from 1998, and is easily on track to eclipse Lin Elliot's franchise record of 27 from 1992 (did we win something that year?). Of course, Lin Elliot still kicked off from the 35 yard line. The move to the 30-yard line was implemented in 1994, and it was the 40 yard line before 1974.
  
• For the first time in his career, Romo threw to 10 different receivers in the Seattle game - can you spell Romo Friendly Offense? Technically, he threw to more receivers in the Buffalo game in 2007 (7 own receivers, 5 Bills defenders), but I have a strong feeling that is not what Jerry meant with "RFO".  
• Kevin Ogletree and John Phillips both recorded their first NFL receptions.