Dungy in the playoffs

In arguing a point over on the CHFF message board related to a pointless dig at Tony Dungy in an otherwise interesting article about John Madden, it occurred to me to see how Tony Dungy fared in the playoff verses how he was expected to fare.  There is a weird undercurrent out there that says that Dungy’s teams typically underachieved.  To test this premise, I’ve compared Dungy’s playoff results with what could be reasonably be expected of his teams based on several criteria. 

The categories I set are wins, DVOA (the footballoutsiders measure of a team), Pythagorean wins (based on what a team should have finished), and simple home/away.  The results are interesting. 

Based simply on regular season record and home/road games, Dungy essentially finished exactly as one would expect.  In other words, he performed exactly as well as he should have (actually a little better). 

When looking at more advanced measures of a team’s quality, however, we see that Dungy actually over performed.  He should have only won 7 playoff games, and in only one year did he have the best overall team (2005).  In fact, two of his biggest upset losses (2005 and 2008) weren’t as large of upsets by DVOA as they appeared. 

So, the next time someone claims that Dungy’s teams underachieved in the playoffs, you can point them to the facts.  His teams actually overachieved in the regular season, and performed essentially as they should have in the playoffs. His team was upset by 3-4 times (depending on which measure you prefer).  His teams won 6 upset games under him.

Links
Via FO, Joe Posanski looks at great players by jersey numbers.  Of note are:
8 Joe Morgan
14 Pete Rose
18 Peyton Manning
28 Marshal Faulk

Tony Dungy is staying busy in the coolest way possible.

A look at Ziggy Hood  (thanks FO)

Our prayers are with you and your kids, Edge. (thanks Stampedeblue)

Peyton Flakes.  I already have a box of Peyton Os (seriously)