[OC] Final Animated NFL Ratings for the 2022 SeasonSubmitted by Bischrob t3_107ytpl in dataisbeautiful
Poincare_Confection t1_j3psjhu wrote
The big takeaway for me is that offense has more impact on win rate than defense.
Compare the Patriots and Chiefs. Very symmetrical positions on this chart, but Patriots are defense heavy whereas Chiefs are offense heavy. Yet the Chiefs went 14-3 and Patriots went 8-9. According to this, the Patriots had the 2nd best defense in the entire league and had a middle of the pack offense, and yet they went 8-9. That says a lot to me.
tensigh t1_j3q96xj wrote
How do you explain the Niners? Highest rated defense and the offense slowly crept up, they’ve won 10 straight with a third string QB.
Krogsly t1_j3qqrxs wrote
SF was 4-3 before acquiring arguably the best offensive player in the NFL, then lost to KC before their 10 straight. Their 3rd string qb might not be the biggest reason they're winning. Replacing Trey Lance and acquiring McCaffrey are most likely the reasons their offense got better and had more impact on winning.
CodyNorthrup t1_j3rgbbk wrote
Lance has almost no impact on the rating. He started week 1 and was hurt early in the 1st quarter in week 2
tensigh t1_j3r1htm wrote
True, they shifted their offense once they acquired McCaffrey. But their defense has always surpassed their offense this year so in their case you could say their defense had a bigger impact than their offense. At least, looking at this graph that could be a conclusion. Watching the games it's clear their offense has had a great psychological edge, but that isn't reflected in the numbers in this graph since the defense rating is consistently higher than the offense.
Yayareasports t1_j3v2hrn wrote
*3-3 but otherwise generally yeah. Also Trent Williams got healthy around then
Krogsly t1_j3vr4co wrote
Trent Williams was huge, agreed.
hallese t1_j3qua2s wrote
In other words, as their offense improved, they won more games. I feel like OP already explained that.
tensigh t1_j3r0xii wrote
The OP said that offense had more impact than defense, but with the Niners their defense always surpassed their offense.
You could call it an anomoly but in their case defense had a "bigger impact" on their success.
hallese t1_j3r2jfd wrote
Yet the ten game win streak correlates with their offensive improvements, right? This has been a trend for decades. Hell, I wrote about this in grad school and started my professional career off that project. The - at the time - ten highest scoring teams in NFL history had all finished .750 or better, but only one of them had won the Super Bowl up to that point. In the playoffs, and I suspect this is due to good defenses appearing to be more consistent than good offenses, defense became a better indicator of success. For instance, in 2010 the top two defenses were Pittsburgh and Green Bay, who played each other in the Super Bowl that year. Top two offenses? San Diego and New England who combined for zero playoff wins that year.
Antani101 t1_j3r4gog wrote
They had a good defense but without a good offense they weren't winning 10 straight
tensigh t1_j3ri1b9 wrote
I agree totally. My assertion was that the Niners were an anomoly because their defense consistently outperformed their offense. The statement was "offense had a bigger impact", using the Chiefs as an example. The Niners, however, seem to refute that, or at least, are an exception.
Antani101 t1_j3rxs2d wrote
No they don't.
Even with a consistently good defense they weren't going anywhere.
Red_n_Gold_Tears t1_j3v620p wrote
Offense and defense both improved week after week, primarily after the Chiefs game and after our bye week which I believe was 2 weeks later.
Garoppolo was still recovering from his surgery and had to regain that on-field synergy after Lance went down. Kittle came back I think week 3, and also had still been recovering. Niners also had quite a few defensive injuries that finally started coming back gradually, also losing our CB1 for the year, and our FS (Jimmy Ward) was playing nickel ever since. Greenlaw was out quite a few games early on as well and eventually came back. We had 2 DL out between Armstead and Kinlaw out for a good while too.
Niners just have so many good players on both sides of the ball... And they have depth that just has this step-up and next-man-up mentality. Everyone on that team really holds each other up. I mean look at when Garoppolo went down and they all rallied behind Purdy... So many great motivators and you can really see and feel they all excited to play for and with one another. This group is really somethin special.
And I really dont think we have a single bad apple on the team... And the ones they did have they weeded out. They understand this is a "team" and a team game. And probably the only 2 that come to mind is possibly Deebo Samuel and Jeff Wilson Jr causing a lil drama... Deebo wanted a paycheck, and JWJ didnt want to continue being a RB3 since they picked up CMC and Mitchell was coming off IR. Maybe even McKinnon having a bad attitude when asked if he thought the Niners would bring him back replying with "Fuck naw".
When was the last you seen a current Niner act like Diggs complaining about not gettin the ball and requesting a trade cause your QB isnt targeting you enough to your expectations. Or Brady/Rodgers basically throwing temper tantrums on the field or on the sideline breaking tablets. Or Antonio Browns stripping off his pads and quitting mid game.
That's the ShanaLynch culture theyve built from the ground up since theyve arrived in 2017.
Poincare_Confection t1_j3qqsac wrote
The 49ers have one of the best offenses on this chart. Looks like 5th best. They only support my belief.
tensigh t1_j3r14ub wrote
Except that their defense has surpassed their offense, even as offense improved. So the defense had a larger impact than their offense, yes?
Poincare_Confection t1_j3r341h wrote
I can be more precise: My suspicion is that offensive rating would correlate better with win rate than defensive rating would correlate with win rate.
tensigh t1_j3rigdu wrote
I'm a Niner fan so I've been watching them all year. Clearly their offense has improved and psychologically it's lifted the team up. Purdy's first game as a starter resulted in 35 points - a HUGE offensive impact. But the Niners' and Chiefs data in this chart seem to point in opposite directions.
MasterMacMan t1_j41uzvk wrote
Brock Purdy was playing at an Pro Bowl level in those games though.
tensigh t1_j41xucu wrote
No doubt, I'm a Niner fan and have been crying tears of joy for this.
I was trying to refute the original statement that offense had more impact than defense. This is often true but looking just at this chart, the Niners seemed to paint a different conclusion.
And yeah, Purdy's been awesome, I want him to be the permanent starter. He's proven himself whereas Lance hasn't, and Jimmy is on his way out.
Unlucky_Sherbert_468 t1_j3uha56 wrote
Patriots probably just have a coach who doesn't know how to win.
Source: Me, a Bills fan
kllinzy t1_j3pxgie wrote
Idk I'm in a mood so I'm commenting the same thing again, but, I think the scaling is messing up your logic here.
So the pats looked pretty close to the top corner, but this chart doesn't actually say how much they were beating the chiefs in defensive EPA or how much they were losing in offensive EPA.
They could have been winning the defensive EPA by 3 points and losing the offensive one by 5, and the chart wouldn't be able to show it, so long as the spread on the defensive axis was much tighter than the spread on the offensive axis.it could go the other way too, I'm just saying this chart doesn't necessarily lead to your conclusion.
I think this is amusing, because basically, to draw the conclusion about who is better in overall EPA in any given week, the pats or the chiefs, you must also consider how bad the lions and bears played (or whoever is setting the 0 that week on each axis).
iDEN1ED t1_j3r2dk7 wrote
As a pats fan we were just killed by terribly untimely mistakes and bad special teams. I mean the offense wasn’t great but we gave away at least 3-4 games with just some idiotic shit.
dsvigos t1_j3qv2tx wrote
How about the Bears? Middled around 0.5 offense but worse defense in the league. Finished with the #1 overall pick. All their wins came early when the defense was higher rated than the offense.
In my opinion football is all about matchups and coaching strategies. In the last two super bowls the more defensive team beat the more offensive one. But obviously things always change.
My biggest example I can think of is when that Super Bowl where the Giants d line basically beat the undefeated Patriots on their own.
shoeless_sean t1_j3py7h1 wrote
It does in the regular season yes
But in the playoffs almost every team has a good/great offense. Only a few also have a good defense and that’s what separates a playoff team from a SB contender
hoffmanmclaunsky t1_j3r5knu wrote
Those teams aren't symmetrical though. The Chiefs have the best offense and a slightly above average defense. The Pats have a good defense and a well below average offense. At a glance on this chart maybe they seem similar, but it's misleading.
Just look at their season point differential. The Pats scored 17 more points than they allowed for the whole season. The Chiefs scored 127. Regardless of their offensive/defensive ranks, it's very clear from those numbers that the Pats are a middling team and the Chiefs are great team.
No_Manners t1_j3r6exh wrote
Lions were at zero for defensive rating for basically the entire season and ended with a winning record.
Dude_man79 t1_j3r6k93 wrote
As the late John Madden said, "Usually the team that scores the most points wins the game."
AlsoIHaveAGroupon t1_j3rk71n wrote
- Patriots offense (pretty bad) is worse than the Chiefs' defense (average)
- Patriots defense (very good) is worse than the Chiefs' offense (great)
- Special teams is not included in this graph. I don't have numbers on overall special teams, but I know the Patriots surrendered 3 kickoff returns for TDs and had either the worst or second worst punting unit in the NFL, so that cost them a fair amount as well.
- There's luck/clutchiness involved in converting expected points to actual points, and then again luck/clutchiness in turning actual points to actual wins. The math says the points for/points against for the Patriots would normally lead to 9.0 wins in a 17 game season (they won 8) and the Chiefs would normally have 11.4 wins in a 17 game season (they won 14). So their expected wins are quite a bit closer, but the Chiefs were better at closing out wins, and the Pats blew some close games.
These numbers are scaled so that the best offense and the best defense are 1.0, but the EPA/play models do tend to show good offenses with higher EPA numbers than good defenses. But that may reflect the EPA model more than the actual truth of the connection between offense and defense and wins. The 49ers likely have the best defense this year, and the Chiefs or Bills likely had the best offense, and all three teams have 13 or 14 wins. So... both are good?
Apprehensive-Ad-5009 t1_j3sa5mh wrote
A point scored is worth a point prevented. If the rating was a points scored/prevented per possession with some factor accounting for a turnover, the graph would make more sense.
Iplaykrew t1_j3ua42k wrote
Gotta score points
SuperSimpleSam t1_j3wjk27 wrote
But look at Cowboys (12-5) vs Giants (9-7-1). Cowboys are dead last in offense and only slightly better in defense. My take away is these ratings don't really match with records.
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