Ewe and I Give You the Formula For Winning in NFL!

[Ramsey]

Two years ago my sister Ewe posted a thread on ROD, upon a subject she called "Yards per Pass Attempt Differential. She still lurks on ROD, but rarely posts because she's going back to school and works full time. I've decided to update her viewpoint which I share with two more years of stats.

Definition of "Yards per Pass Attempt Differential" or Y-PAD... The difference between team's offensive yards per pass attempt and a team's defense yards per pass attempt allowed. You perform the same arithmetic with rushing yards per attempt differential and I did for all recent playoff teams.

Why even bring up Y-PAD? Because Y-PAD seems to have a very high correlation with winning, and moving deep in the playoffs toward the Super Bowl. Before I move on my sister Ewe crunched a bunch of stats and came to the conclusion that stats like sacks don't have a high correlation with winning. But I digress.

Without further adieu, allow me to cut to the chase.

Between 2003 and 2015- 135 out of 156 or 86.5% of playoff teams had a positive Y-PAD!

The Rams?
2013.... Negative 1.26 Y-PAD
2014.... Negative 0.55 Y-PAD
2015.... Negative 0.88 Y-PAD

What about Rushing Ramsey? I didn't go back to 2003, but I did crunch the last 3 years numbers.

2013.... 7 out of 12 playoff teams had positive rushing yards per attempt differentials.
2014.... Half the playoff teams had positive rushing yards per attempt differentials
2015....7 out of 12 playoff teams had positive rushing yards per attempt differentials.

I only figured out the playoff records for playoff teams with regular season negative passing yards per attempt differentials for 2013, 2014 and 2015. Why? Because I'm lazy. Combined playoff record was 3-6. Not one team with a regular season negative passing YPA differential (Y-PAD) made it the AFC or NFC Championship game, much less the Super Bowl.

Conclusions -
1. A superior rushing offence and defense have minimal correlations to a teams playoff success. For example New England had a negative rushing YPA in 2014 and 2015.

2. A positive Y-PAD "yards per pass attempt differential has a very high correlation to your team making the playoffs. Since 2003 86.5% of playoff teams had a positive Y-PAD

3. Positive Y-PAD's appear to be crucial to playoff success, once you make the playoffs

Because I'm lazy, I won't spit out stats for losing teams. Suffice to say the majority of losing teams have negative Y-PAD's. My sister EWE pointed out in 2013, only one team NYG 7-9 had a positive Y-PAD.

Two years ago, my Sister Ewe wrote on the 2013 exceptions-

"But in passing, I will point out The Interception Exceptions to my YDS/A pass differential hypothesis. The Giants led the NFL in futility, throwing 29 Interceptions! Six more interceptions than the next team! The Chiefs threw a league low of 8 interceptions, while the Colts QB's were tied for 3rd, throwing only 10 interceptions! 3. The Kansas City Chiefs - 0.53 and Indianapolis Colts -0.52 YDS/A passing differentials stand alone as the only NFL teams with winning records and a negative YDS/A passing differentials! We know the Colts beat KC in a wild wildcard playoff shocker, and then lost to the New England Patriots in the next round."

My sister's observation implies turnover differential has a high correlation to won loss records. She called it the Interception Exception. She went on to explain 2013 teams with zero Y-PAD's,

"Teams like the Titians, Bears, and Lions with zero YDS/A passing differentials had either 8-8 or 7-9 records."

Like I said earlier, I only put my microscope on 2014 and 2015 playoff teams and our Rams. I assume since 2014 and 2015 playoff team Y-PAD's stats mirrored 2003-2013 playoff teams, the same was true for 2014-2015 losers.

In 2015 thanks to Todd Gurley and Tavon Austin our Rams had a positive 0.6 yard rushing differential! But we also had a 0.88 negative Y-PAD.

How Does it Work? In 2015 the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers led the NFL, averaging 4.8 yards per rush. Our Rams were tied for 5th with a 4.6 ypr. Yes! Unfortunately, our Rams were dead last in Yard per pass attempt with a 5.93. Do the math people.

5.93 passing yards minus 4.8 rushing yards equals a 1.13 yard difference. So the worst passing offense in the NFL gained 1.13 more yards per play then the best rushing offense in the NFL!

I could stop writing here, because there are brains on ROD that can figure out what to do with these stats better then me. That's why I'm writing the thread. Like Bob Dylan, you guys don't need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows.

I have noticed the following things.
1. I believe a franchise QB is more important then a # 1 wide receiver. Super Bowls are littered with Franchise QB's...50 ROD dollars to the first person who can name the last game manager quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

2. Call me Captain Obvious, but Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, DeAndre Hopkins, Brandon Marshall, Odell Beckham, Allen Robinson, Dez Bryant and Antonio Brown are the crème of the crop of #1 Wide Receivers. There's a few playoffs in that bunch. Hell, there's even one Super Bowl appearance. Antonio Brown caught 1 pass for 1 yards in a Super Bowl loss to Green Bay.

3. That brings me to the dark defensive side of Y-PAD. There's is a thread floating around ROD now. Cornerback Josh Norman wants 16 million a year. Is he worth it? Let's put Josh Norman's 2015 season under a microscope.

A. Through the first four weeks of the season, Norman had been targeted 35 times and allowed a 42.9% completion percentage for 129 yards to go along with 4 interceptions. During this time, opposing quarterbacks recorded a 23.1 quarterback passer rating when targeting Norman.

B. Norman stuck to Dez Bryant for 43 snaps...allowed one catch for 6 yards.

C. Over the first 14 weeks of the season, Norman held DeAndre Hopkins, TY Hilton, Dez Bryant, Mike Evans, and Julio Jones to a combined 9 receptions for 89 yards.

D. Normans worst game was against Odell Beckham Jr. 4 receptions, 30 yards, one TD.

E. For the 2015 season, opposing quarterbacks had a passer rating of 54.0 when throwing at Norman, the lowest rating allowed by all NFL corners.

My points? Only the Denver Broncos allowed less yards per pass attempt then Carolina. Although Carolina led the NFL in Y-PAD with positive 1.39 Yards per pass attempt differential. Remember, New England rode Darrelle Revis's back for one year to a Super Bowl win.

Seattle led the NFL in positive Y-PAD in 2013 and 2014. So, for the last 3 years 12 teams have participated in the AFC and NFC Championship Games. All 12 teams had a positive pass per attempt differentials.

The team that lead the NFL in Y-PAD has played in the last 3 Super Bowls. I didn't check the 2012 Super Bowls and Super Bowls before that. So the trend may continue further back then 2013.

Because your eyes don't lie, I'm sure you've seen that the refs let defenses get away with more rough stuff during the playoffs. Thus Denver was able to overcome inferior QB play with the best pass defense in the NFL.

Bottom Line- The Rams need a positive Y-PAD if we want to get deep into the playoffs. We might be able to win a Super Bowl with a average franchise QB, if we have devastating pass defense. It would appear a franchise QB would put us on the fast track to a Super Bowl. Our defense is Super Bowl ready.

Hey guys, I loved watching the Rams in the 70's and early 80's. Those 11 minute Eric Dickerson killer drives thrilled me. But in a modern NFL rushing offense and defense takes a back seat to passing offense and defense. A strong passing offense can get you to the endzone in less then a minute and in 3 plays. The odds of drive breaking turnovers and penalties go way down. That's why Y-PAD is so important.

 

[bubbaramfan]

If you go back and look at game box stats and look at ave. yds. per pass play, you will see that in almost every case the teams with the better stat is the winner. Mostly I noticed if a team wins with a lesser ave. yds per pass play it is because they have 2 or 3 more takeaways. I read this somewhere 5 or 6 years ago and have been looking at that stat every Monday when box scores come out for the sunday games and generally holds true.

 

[RaminExile]

Ewe was a really good poster. Hope she comes back and gives us her insight more often!

Franchise QBs unfortunately are rather difficult to come by. The chicken egg debate comes to mind re: WRs and QBs but I think we can realistically say we can get a no#1 WR this year but wd might not be able to get Wentz or Goff. Well have to trade to #1 overall to get Wentz because Cleveland will (should-it's still Cleveland after all) take him and the Whiners will take Goff...so the price might be a little steep...

 

[Prime Time]

Ewe was a really good poster. Hope she comes back and gives us her insight more often!

Totally agree. You've been hitting it out of the park lately yourself @Ramsey.

 

[Fatbot]

This is great because a differential is so convenient. If your goal is to drill down to really what matters to winning in the NFL, however, I don't think the offense and defense parts necessarily need to be combined. I think it may be stronger to just look at defense net passing yards allowed per attempt (NY/A) by itself? (12 teams better than average, all made the playoffs except the 10-6 Jets and only one real outlier, the Raiders.)

The offense net passing yards per play probably is not as strong due to teams like the Saints who were just so bad defensively that it didn't matter. So you can probably get better correlation results combining defense-only-NY/A with other factors, like the turnovers she mentions or some other toxic differential-type stat, and leave out the offense side. Which seems to be the foundation of the Jeff Fisher philosophy.

As to the rushing v. passing, the logic fails since it would simply mean a team should pass every time, which we know would not work. The passing numbers are so high because defenses still have to stop the run; turning into one-dimension would end that threat and the passing number would tumble fast adding a lot of zeroes due to increased incompletions.

As to the Josh Norman thing, there's also the factor of the Carolina defense having a few other guys that had Pro Bowl level seasons helping his numbers. Drop Norman into the Giants defense and those numbers probably dip a little, no matter how talented he is. It's still a team game where all numbers have to factor in the other 10 teammates and 11 opponents on the field and more.

 

[MauiRam]

Yes, yes Y-PAD seems an important stat. The fly in the ointment is that the receiver has to actually catch the ball and then hang on to it. Problem was when our receivers did make good catches downfield, too often the catch was negated by flags: holding, hands to the face, or some other drive killing infraction. Oh well, maybe this year things will be different ..

 

[DaveFan'51]

I am not one who cares too much about the Pass Attempt Differential, because too many Balls are just thrown-away due to pass coverage or pass rush. I'm more of a Yards pre Completion man! JMHO

 

[Dieter the Brock]

I recall Ewe she had great contributions

 

[bluecoconuts]

So what you're saying is she's a numbers geek? I too like numbers...

 

[Merlin]

Thanks for posting that @Ramsey. I don't consider myself a stat nut or anything, but I am fascinated by key stats and enjoyed the read greatly.

I recall Vermiel I think it was saying that you pass to score points. Whoever said it, I think it is the truth in that passing the ball has a much higher percentage chance of flipping the field. Currently this Rams offense flips the field position very rarely in the passing game, and they probably managed to do that more in the run game once they had Gurley in place doing his thing.

Either way I am in agreement the QB is the key to this thing. One enormous disparity in our passing game right now is the combination of Tavon Austin and his microscopic catch radius coupled with inaccurate QBs. Accuracy from the QB position is what we are lacking in order to maximize Tavon in this offense, because it will allow him to start catching passes 10+ yards out instead of this steady diet of bubble screens and jet sweep garbage. Those things will also become more effective once that happens, because defenses won't be as confident rolling up tight on us.

In the passing game I think Gurley is an untapped resource. He is so smooth in his ability to catch and run with the ball, he does it with the same effortlessness that Faulk displayed. But the Rams did not use him enough in that role. Next season I think that should change, where they can line up in base 21 or even 11 personnel and then motion Gurley out to run the TE type patterns. Imagine that dude getting the ball in a seam with a 5 or 10 yard start. He's a threat also on bubble screens, and they can divide the defense by ensuring he and Tavon are on different sides.

So IMO the Rams are going to be focused on accurate QBs in this draft. That means contrary to popular opinion they won't be that high on Cook. Not to say they won't take him, but he's not gonna be a guy they covet. Hackenberg even moreso, his accuracy is absolute garbage. Guys who fit that accuracy IMO are Goff up top (who also anticipates and throws WRs open), and if they wait to take the position after round 1 it's guys like Doughty, Allen, Johnson.

I think if they can find a QB who can put the ball on target, they will get a great deal more from Tavon and it will help boost their offense along with a big, route running possession WR or two they can find in this draft.

 

[PowayRamFan]

Yeah, but is she EMBRACEABLE? Haha, some won't get this one, I understand.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

Nice work @Ramsey Mail it to Snead.