Links

I feel like I’m running out of things to say, because I spend so much energy responding to our good friends with the weird accents in the comments section. As my confidence about this season grows each time I watch the Pats and Colts play, the hilarity of how this season will end rises. I’ve noticed around that some people are starting to question the validity of the argument that the Pats can’t run and the Colts can. This argument was obviously most effective after the Pats and Colts played, and Joe Addai clearly rushed the ball more consistently. The Colts largely held down the Pats run game despite having major injuries at linebacker. The stats didn’t reflect it so much (Addai had a carry that went for -9 yards as Charlie Johnson began his game changing implosion), but everyone who saw that game could see that the Colts ran better against NE than NE ran against the Pats.

Unfortunately, something major changed since then. Indy spent most of the next 6 weeks struggling to run as they lost first Tony Ugoh and then Ryan Diem. Of course, both of these guys are expected to be back (Ugoh already is) for the playoffs. The scores of wounded recievers and linemen slowed down the run game temporarily. In the meantime, the Patsies beefed up against the Jets and Dolphins (who are terrible against the run). Thus, some chowder heads have begun to feel overconfident by looking at season stats about running. Hey, they say, we run better than the Colts. No, you don’t. The Pats cannot run as effectively as a HEALTHY Colts team (which we’ll have in January). Stats without context are meaningless. Any idiot can put up a list averages and think it means something.

Oddly enough, one of the stats helping the Pats rushing numbers has been Tom Brady. Because they run so many deep patterns, Brady has been able to scramble much more effectivley this season. He has 33 attempts for 102 yards. Manning has 20 attempts for -5 yards. These numbers factor into a team’s rushing stats and skew the true averages.

Remember, that this only matters in bad weather games. The Pats would be crazy to run, when they can pass so well. But they are crazy to have a deep lob passing offense when they play in New England. That’s just stupid. It’s going to kill them in the end.

All that was a long set up to say, “Hey, check out these links!”

DJ Gallo does his best PK. Funny stuff
The FO DVOA conversation may look like alphabet soup, but never ceases to interst me.