Seven Statistical Nuggets To Start the Off-Season

Random statistical thoughts and musings as we enter what promises to be a very, very long off-season.

1. If the Eagles' front office were to run the Dallas Cowboys ...

... I would get violently sick, Seanrude would be arrested and make the local Dallas newspapers under the headline "Deranged New Jersey Man Tries to ‘Fire’ Andy Reid", Dallas would never again win a Superbowl and Bye, Dawk :( would finally come out of the closet as a Dallas fan - in short, nothing good would come of this.

But, you've got to give it to the Eagles, they do have a crafty front office, and appear to be doing three things well:

1. They have a knack for establishing high roster quality at (relatively) low cost.  So do we, see also Tony Romo, Miles Austin, Jay Ratliff and perhaps one day Kevin Ogletree
   
2. They do really well at letting go of veteran players shortly before their performance significantly declines – feasting off the free-agent mistakes other teams make in overvaluing the Eagles’ players.  Recent cases in point: the Lito Sheppard trade (27 yrs, '09 5th rounder & '10 conditional pick), the Greg Lewis trade (28, '09 5th rounder) and letting the declining veterans Brian Dawkins (35) and Jevon Kearse (31) go instead of paying them outrages money.  Outside of Anthony Henry (part of trade for Jon Kitna) most Dallas 'Veteran' players last year were released without getting any trade value for them (Owens, Williams, Ellis, Thomas, Davis, Pacman)
3. Philadelphia is a dangerous place for any player over 30.  Excluding their two kickers, McNabb and the likely-to-retire Westbrook, the Eagles have 5 players currently 30 years or old. Excluding Kitna, the Cowboys have 10.

Applying points 2 (use players in their late 20's or early 30's as trade bait) and 3 (move the over 30s into assisted living facilities) to the Dallas roster could look as follows:

Potential trade bait: Get some trade value for Barber, Crayton, Hamlin and/or James as long as they still have some gas in the tank, and Newman if the coaching staff see Scandrick as a viable replacement.

The over 30s: unfortunately, despite their age, most of these players are relatively safe, as we have hardly any suitable replacements for them. Here's looking at you, Mike Iupati.

Notes on Roster: 53: 53-man roster, IR: Injured reserve, PUP: Physically unable to perform, RF: Reserve Future

2. Quality wins

This season, Dallas had a 4-2 record against quality teams (teams with a winning record in the 2009 regular season).  Only two teams had more wins against quality opponents than Dallas: Indianapolis (5-1) and New orleans (5-1).  Guess which two teams are playing the Superbowl this year?

Below is a summary of quality wins for the NFC East.  Notice how the Cowboys have garnered have of the quality wins of the whole divison?  Notice also how the Eagles have have played the fewest quality opponents of all teams in the division?  That may go some way to explaining how they ended up with an 11-5 record despite their brutal injury record.

NFC East Quality standings 2009

3. Not all turnovers are created equal.

During the 2009 regular season, there were 872 turnovers in the NFL, or 1.7 per team per game.  The Cowboys were fairly efficient in this stat department, creating only 21 turnovers in the regular season.  Below is look at all 256 games this season, and how the number of turnovers correlates with the W/L record.

W/L correlation to turnovers, 2009

Turnovers are clearly not the way to win games in the NFL.  Duh.  But here's an interesting nugget: unsurprisingly, the 12 playoff teams were able to compensate for turnovers significantly better than non-playoff teams, but the margin of difference is surprising, at least to me:

Winning percentage based on number of turnovers, 2009

4. Offense or Defense, which one gets you to The Tournament?

"Offense wins games, defense wins championships" is one of the more often heard phrases in football.  Well, this season things certainly look different.  The Colts and the Saints play the superbowl with the 18th and 25th ranked defenses by yards, and the 8th and 20th ranked defenses by points respectively. Defensive powerhouses they are not. 

And of the teams making The Tournament, offense and defense are evely split.  In an interesting statistical fluke this season, 9 out of the top 11 scoring offenses and 9 out of the top 11 scoring defenses made the playoffs.  Also worth noting is that the Cardinals were the only playoff team that did not finish the regular season with either the offense or the defense in the top 10.

Playoff participants (*) and their ranking on offense and defense by points

5. Gratuitous cheerleader pics of the week.

The Tampa 2. Twice.

via i.cdn.turner.com

6. "Live Fast, die young": The motto of our defense in 2009

We've all given ourselves multiple virtual pats on the back for the performance of the Cowboys defense in 2009, after all, they were ranked 2nd in the league in points allowed only behind the Jets.

But what should give us pause is our 4th quarter defense:

Cowboys defensive points allowed by quarter, 2009 reg. season

First, the (statistical) good news:

• Through the first three quarters, Dallas has the best defense in the league (141 points), with the Jets a distant second (169).
• We are ranked #1 in the NFL by points allowed in the 1st and 3rd quarter and # 3 in the 2nd quarter.  

And now for the (statistical) bad news:

• In the fourth quarter, our defense is ranked 24th in the league.  And don't start annoying me with 'junk time' scores, other teams have them as well and don't slip as badly as the Boys.
• 44% of the total points scored on us come in the 4th quarter.  In laymen's terms, that is ALMOST HALF of all points scored on us are scored in the 4th quarter.  For comparison, the team allowing the fewest 4th quarter points (Saints, 48 points) allowed only 17% of their total points in the 4th quarter.

7. Quality stat of the month:

For the first time in its SBNation history, BTB has surpassed 300,000 vistors a month in January 2010, with 313 thousand vistors and counting.  That's quite a step up from the 3,369 vistors in BTB's first month on SBNation in December 2005.  Here's a link to Dave's first BTB post on SBNation. Oh, how time flies - well worth a read.

Among the regulars mentioned in the post still around today: Deke, Parl, CCBoy and, not surprising at all, Terry.

Special thanks to our front page staff for this achievement.