Advanced NFL Stats has a bunch of new studies up, and I wanted to make sure you all saw them, because they touch on things we’ve been talking about.
First: which QBs depend the most on yards after the catch?
It’s been shown that YAC is more heavily dependent on the wideout rather than the QB. So what if you took YAC out and figured yards per attempt. I wonder who led the NFL in that number over the past five years? I think we can shelve the old tired “Manning is great because of his wideouts” argument.
Second: Which QBs carried their teams and which teams carried their QBs in the playoffs?
I’ll let you have the fun of figuring it out, but by “Expected Wins” based solely on QB play, Brady and Manning should both be around 10-8. Someone got seriously carried.
Third, which teams have been clutch in the playoffs for the last decade? As J.C. proved awhile back, the Colts actually weren’t too bad against the spread. They were actually underdogs much more often this decade than people realized, and came out with just about the record you would expect them to have.
Finally, the team that most people like to say has underachieved in the playoffs this decade is the Colts. However, in 40% of the random simulations the Colts actually lost more games than what they really lost. In fact winning 9 games is the second most likely scenario for the Colts. Additionally, the Colts actually had a record of 9-8 against the spread showing again that they did pretty much as expected by Vegas.
What people don’t realize is that in the decade, the Colts were the best team in the AFC twice (2005, 2009). You would have expected them to go to two Super Bowls. That’s what happened.
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