A few weeks ago I wondered what the 2007 Dallas Cowboys season would tell us about Bill Parcells. But secretly I already knew what it would tell me. If the Cowboys slide to 4-12, it will be because Parcells ruined the team and left the cupboard bare. If they go to the Super Bowl, it will be because the talent had been there all along (which was none of Parcells' doing), but Parcells had been inept at translating it into production.

Similarly, the many Michael Vick haters --- I'm talking about those who disparaged Vick as a player --- already have several scripts written. Which one they use depends on the kind of numbers that Joey Harrington produces this year. The Vick-bashers are truly in a no-lose situation here. If Harrington posts good passing numbers, it'll prove that Vick was horrible and that White, Jenkins, et al weren't the problem. If he doesn't, well, he's Joey Harrington, the worst quarterback in the league. If the Falcons go 8-8 or better, it will put an end to the notion that Vick was ever responsible for those winning records the Falcons posted during his tenure. If they go 4-12, it will be because of the distraction created by Vick this offseason.

My contention (which I should admit is not backed by any objective evidence that I'm aware of, but which I persist in believing anyway) is that Vick's presence under center was an immense help to the running backs. Opposing ends and outside linebackers had to stay outside, which left bigger gaps in the interior line. For me, the real test of Vick's former value will be whether Dunn and Norwood see a drop in their yards-per-rush average this season.

My team data goes back to 1972. Since then, there have been 17 teams who experienced a yards-per-rush drop of more than one yard from one season to the next. I'd bet big money that this year's Falcons will be the 18th, and they may well set the record.

           YearN YearN+1
           Y/RSH  Y/RSH  DIFF
=============================
phi 1990   4.73   3.13  -1.60
ind 1985   5.03   3.66  -1.37
buf 1973   5.10   3.84  -1.26
pit 1972   5.07   3.86  -1.21
ram 1984   5.29   4.09  -1.20
nwe 1985   4.13   2.93  -1.20
nwe 1976   4.99   3.82  -1.17
mia 1973   4.97   3.84  -1.13
det 1984   4.52   3.40  -1.12
det 1997   5.51   4.43  -1.08
det 1981   4.69   3.61  -1.08
oak 2000   4.75   3.68  -1.07
nyj 2004   4.53   3.46  -1.07
sfo 2003   4.57   3.51  -1.06
car 1999   4.28   3.27  -1.02
det 1990   5.27   4.25  -1.01
sdg 1991   4.84   3.83  -1.01

But I'm being a little disingenuous. The Falcons' 5.47 yards per rush last season was largely due to the rushing of Vick himself. A more fair test would be to see what happens to the rushing average of the running backs. Last season, the Atlanta RBs were sixth in the league with an average of 4.64.

+======+======+======+======+
| team | rsh  | yd   | ypr  |
+======+======+======+======+
| sdg  | 461  | 2482 | 5.38 |
| sfo  | 343  | 1785 | 5.20 |
| jax  | 430  | 2206 | 5.13 |
| nyg  | 426  | 2121 | 4.98 |
| phi  | 354  | 1658 | 4.68 |
| atl  | 405  | 1881 | 4.64 |
| den  | 426  | 1887 | 4.43 |
| was  | 415  | 1824 | 4.40 |
| pit  | 415  | 1816 | 4.38 |
| stl  | 396  | 1725 | 4.36 |
| kan  | 470  | 2040 | 4.34 |
| ten  | 379  | 1632 | 4.31 |
| mia  | 358  | 1508 | 4.21 |
| dal  | 426  | 1795 | 4.21 |
| nwe  | 432  | 1818 | 4.21 |
| min  | 393  | 1648 | 4.19 |
| ind  | 416  | 1726 | 4.15 |
| gnb  | 396  | 1623 | 4.10 |
| chi  | 471  | 1916 | 4.07 |
| hou  | 365  | 1459 | 4.00 |
| nor  | 427  | 1707 | 4.00 |
| cin  | 393  | 1562 | 3.97 |
| car  | 389  | 1546 | 3.97 |
| bal  | 401  | 1518 | 3.79 |
| oak  | 352  | 1328 | 3.77 |
| buf  | 368  | 1370 | 3.72 |
| sea  | 449  | 1657 | 3.69 |
| tam  | 346  | 1273 | 3.68 |
| det  | 264  | 963  | 3.65 |
| nyj  | 426  | 1449 | 3.40 |
| ari  | 377  | 1256 | 3.33 |
| cle  | 313  | 1023 | 3.27 |
+======+======+======+======+

I predict that that falls below 4.0 this year.

This post has nothing to do with football, unless you're the kind of person who sees football wherever you look. It was inspired by a question I saw on a fantasy football message board, and I might be able to make some loose football tie-ins at the end, but you may want to skip this one if you read this blog primarily for the football rather than the math.

Here is the inspiration: a post on the footballguys message board that said simply,

What are the odds of drawing the 14th pick out of 14 teams for three straight years?

The poster had apparently done just that. It was posted at 7:29 p.m. By 7:31, three people had posted the answer that most people would consider the right one.

(1/14)*(1/14)*(1/14) = 1/2744

Assuming everything is on the level, that guy's chances of drawing the fourteen slot in a given year would be 1 in 14. Since each year would be independent of the others, multiplying the yearly probabilities should give the overall probability of 1/2744. Fair enough. But the question "what are the odds of that?" can --- and often should --- be interpreted differently. [By the way, I am blurring, and will continue to blur, the distinction between odds and probability. Nothing bad will happen as a result.]

Suppose I flip a coin ten times and get: THHHTTHHTH. What are the odds of that?

Well, that depends on what you mean; it depends on what you think is the essence of a sequence of coin flips. The probability of that precise string is 1/2^10, or 1/1024. The probability of 6 heads and 4 tails is about 20.5% (that's 10-choose-6 divided by 2^10). The probability of a 6/4 split one way or the other is about 41%. So is THHHTTHHTH a rare event or not? It's a rare outcome, but all of the 1024 outcomes are rare. And we're often not interested in the outcome itself. Instead we group outcomes together into the events that we're interested in. We might be interested in the event "six of one, four of the other," which consists of a lot of different outcomes. That event is not particularly rare.

As a brief football-related aside, this is one reason --- not the only reason, but one reason --- to hate the expression

When you put the football in the air, three things can happen, and two of them are bad.

Actually, when you put the football in the air, there are about eleventy-bajillion different things that can happen. Grouping them into the three events: complete, incomplete, and interception, is arbitrary. If I was at my own 20-yard line, I could just as easily say, "when you put the football in the air, 75 different things can happen, and 72 of them are good." I could gain 80 yards, I could gain 79 yards, I could gain 78 yards, I could gain 77 yards, ..., I could gain 5 yards or less, I could throw an incompletion, or I could throw an interception.

Back to our fantasy football playing friend. If he had drawn the 6th pick for three straight years, or the 8th pick, or the 3rd pick, the same pick for three straight years, would we have heard from him? If so, then maybe the right question is "what are the odds of me getting the same draft slot for three straight years?" Answer: 1/14^2 = 1/196 (this was pointed out in the same thread, at 1:41 a.m.).

But as someone who wasn't involved, I might have a different perspective. If any single member of that league happened to draw the 14 slot all three years, you can bet I would have heard from him on the message board. Quite possibly if any person in that league had drawn the same slot for three years, we would have heard about it. But wait. This message board comprises people from many, many different leagues that probably have similar draws. From my perspective, maybe the question is "in a given year, what are the odds of me reading about some guy who got the same draft slot for each of the last three years?" And the probability of that is pretty high.

How high? Well, first, let's focus on a single 14-team league and examine the probability of somebody drawing the same slot (any slot) for three straight years. This turned out to be a hard question, at least for me. The answer is:

Sum_{k=1 to 14} P_k * Q_k

where P_k is the probability that there are exactly k guys with the same slot in the second year as the first, and Q_k is the probability that, given exactly k guys were in the same slot year one and year two, one or more of them would again land the same slot in year three. Even figuring P_k isn't an easy, but it turns out (google one of my favorite official mathematical words --- derangements --- for details) that

P_k = (1 / k!) * sum_{i=0 to (14-k)} (-1)^i / i!.

I think there must be an easier way to express Q_k, but what I came up with was:

Q_k = (1 / 14!) * sum_{j=1 to k} [(-1)^(j+1) * (k-choose-j) * (14-j)!].

Crunching the numbers, we find that the chance of somebody in a 14-team league getting the same slot three years in a row is about .06876. Roughly 7%. Now suppose that all the members of, say, 10 different leagues of the same kind frequent my message board. Then there is a 1 - (1-.06876)^10 probability --- about 51% --- that I, a random member of the message board, will be hearing about somebody who had a 1-in-2744 event happen to him.

This discussion is vaguely connected to my annual splits happen posts, where I point out highly non-interesting facts, like that Thomas Jones averaged nearly 10 fantasy points per game more against teams whose city name starts with A--M than against those that started with N--Z. A friend of mine read that post and remarked, "I don't even know how you thought to look for something like that." But the point is that I don't have to be clever. I don't have to know where to look. If you look at enough things, enough players' splits, enough fantasy draft drawings, you will see some things that seem absurdly unlikely.

This is one reason that it's not always appropriate to apply standard significance tests to facts you read about or see flashed on the screen during a game. You think Marty Schottenheimer is a crummy playoff coach. What are the chances that the collection of teams he's coached would, against the playoff opponent's they've faced, have a record of 5-13 or worse? You could make some assumptions and run the numbers; maybe you'd find that it is 4% or so. So you conclude: the probability of his record having happened due to chance is very, very low. Therefore, it probably isn't just chance; he must be a bad playoff coach.

That isn't necessarily appropriate. Why not? Because, even if all coaches were exactly average and chance was completely responsible for their records, there would undoubtedly still be coaches with records like Marty's (about 4% of all coaches, in fact!). You were (probably) checking the unlikelihood of Marty's record because you already knew it was bad. Do you see why that method is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

That's not to say that Marty isn't a bad playoff coach, or that statistical significance testing can never be used to examine such questions. It's just a reminder that "how unlikely is it that Marty's teams would go 5-13 in the postseason?" is a question that, just like "what are the chances of me getting the 14th slot in my draft three years in a row?" can be interpreted in different ways.

I still have not finalized the details of my attempt to algorithmicize college football's human polls. Since this project is too silly to post on any day other than Friday, and since this is the last Friday before the season starts, I guess I'd better nail it down right here.

In the above-linked post, I laid out a rough draft of an algorithm for ranking college football teams that would match up with the human poll at the end of the year. I knew that that formula in that post probably wouldn't end up being the finished product, and was hoping to get some suggestions from the readership (that's you). As usual, I did get good suggestions. In particular, both JKL and Pat noted that there needs to be a mechanism for vaulting teams up in the rankings when they beat a team ranked ahead of them, especially early in the season. They're right.

So here is the new system:

STEP 1: Build the preseason rankings - this will be done just as described in the earlier post:

1a. First rank all the BCS conference schools

1a(i). put them in order of last year's final poll (including the "others receiving votes" part)

1a(ii). order the non-vote-receiving teams by their 2006 winning percentage, with ties broken by perceived conference superiority: SEC > Big 10 > Big 12 > Pac 10 > ACC > Big East (note: since Notre Dame was "ranked" at the end of 2006, there is no need to make a special rule for them. Should the need arise in future years (yeah, like this thing is going to survive past week 3, much less into future years), they will be treated as a Big 10 team.)

1b. rank the non-BCS teams, first using last year's final poll, then ranking the rest by record, ties broken alphabetically (A's first)

1c. put all the non-BCS teams behind all the BCS teams to create the preseason rankings.

STEP 2: weekly adjustments

2a. deal with the losers first

2a(i). teams that lose by 9 or fewer points to a team ranked higher drop 2 spots.
2a(ii). teams that lose by 10 or more points to a team ranked lower drop 10 spots.
2a(iii). all other losing teams drop 5 slots.
2a(iv). all losing teams drop an additional 5 slots if they lost their previous game as well.
2a(v). all ties broken by the previous week's rankings. [for example, if the #1 team loses by 3 points, they should drop to #6. Meanwhile, if the #4 team loses to the #2 team by 3 points, they should also drop to #6. In this case, the former #1 would be #6 and the former #4 would be #7.]

At this point all the losers have a ranking. We need only order the rest of the teams, then fill them in to the empty slots in order.

2b. ordering the non-losers. (All references to "teams" below refer only to the non-losing teams.)

2b(i). starting with the lowest-ranked (worst) team, we look at each team in turn. If they beat a top 25 team, then they leapfrog int((.5 - .02r_1)r_2) teams, where r_1 is the previous rank of the beaten team, r_2 is the previous rank of the winning team, and int() is the greatest integer function (i.e. round down).

That's it. I'd like to point out that, even though it took a fair amount of verbiage, this isn't as complicated as it seems. The basic idea is: drop the losers down, move up the big winners, and fill everyone else in in the same order as the previous week.

I honestly have no idea how this is going to work out. I hope I'll be able to keep up with it throughout the season. Here is the preseason poll:

1. Florida
2. Ohio State
3. LSU
4. USC
5. Wisconsin
6. Louisville
7. Auburn
8. Michigan
9. West Virginia
10. Oklahoma
11. Rutgers
12. Texas
13. Cal
14. Arkansas
15. Wake Forest
16. Virginia Tech
17. Notre Dame
18. Boston College
19. Oregon State
20. Tennessee
21. Penn State
22. Georgia
23. Nebraska
24. Texas A&M
25. Georgia Tech
26. South Carolina
27. Maryland
28. Texas Tech
29. Kentucky
30. South Florida
31. Missouri
32. Clemson
33. Cincinnati
34. Purdue
35. Kansas State
36. Oklahoma State
37. UCLA
38. Oregon
39. Arizona State
40. Florida State
41. Miami (FL)
42. Kansas
43. Washington State
44. Arizona
45. Pittsburgh
46. Alabama
47. Minnesota
48. Iowa
49. Indiana
50. Washington
51. Virginia
52. Ole Miss
53. Vanderbilt
54. Northwestern
55. Michigan State
56. Baylor
57. Iowa State
58. UConn
59. Syracuse
60. Mississippi State
61. NC State
62. North Carolina
63. Illinois
64. Colorado
65. Stanford
66. Duke
67. Boise
68. BYU
69. TCU
70. Hawaii
71. Houston
72. Central Michigan
73. Navy
74. San Jose State
75. Ohio
76. Southern Miss
77. Nevada
78. Troy
79. Tulsa
80. Utah
81. Western Michigan
82. East Carolina
83. Middle Tennessee
84. Northern Illinois
85. Rice
86. Arkansas State
87. Kent State
88. La-Lafayette
89. SMU
90. Wyoming
91. New Mexico
92. Akron
93. Ball State
94. Florida Atlantic
95. Marshall
96. Toledo
97. UTEP
98. Air Force
99. Bowling Green
100. Fresno State
101. Idaho
102. La-Monroe
103. New Mexico State
104. Tulane
105. UCF
106. Colorado State
107. Army
108. La Tech
109. North Texas
110. San Diego State
111. UAB
112. Buffalo
113. Memphis
114. Miami (OH)
115. UNLV
116. Eastern Michigan
117. Temple
118. Utah State
119. Florida International

In March, I ranked the 2006 NFL quarterbacks based on how many adjusted passing yards they accumulated. Adjusted passing yards are calculated by starting with raw passing yards, subtracting 45 yards for each interception thrown and adding 10 points for every touchdown pass. Adjusted yards is nothing new -- PFR has always posted lists of the top ten leaders in several statistics, and adjusted yards per attempt is one of those categories. Here's the list from this past season:

D McNabb       8.09

D Huard        7.96

P Manning      7.72

D Brees        7.55

T Romo         7.44

C Palmer       7.17

M Bulger       7.11

P Rivers       6.96

M Brunell      6.50

T Brady        6.26

If you have to use one statistic to rank quarterbacks, adjusted yards per attempt is probably the best one. It's "better" than quarterback rating in the sense that it more closely mirrors what quarterbacks are supposed to do to win games. But as we all know, not every quarterback faces the same schedule. It's not really fair to compare Peyton Manning to Drew Brees if one is playing the Ravens and the other the Bengals. Sure, over 16 games the variance in the strengths of opposing defenses gets pretty small, but it does not even out. The solution? Rearview adjusted yards per attempt, which adjusts for strength of schedule.

Doug and I have written a rearview QB article for our other website, Footballguys.com, each of the past two years using fantasy points per game as our statistic. Finally, the light bulb went off in our heads to do the same process here, but using adjusted yards per attempt.

The system is essentially the same as the one used in the Simple Rating System. Let's look at Tony Romo, who averaged 7.44 yards per attempt last season, on 337 attempts. If we want to find Tony Romo's true rating, we need an equation that looks something like this:

R_Romo = 7.44 + (29/337) * (R_phi) + (23/337) * (R_clt) + ... (36/337) * (R_was)

What's that formula say? Romo's true rating should equal his AY/A plus the rating of each defense he played multiplied by the number of pass attempts he had against that team. Since Romo threw 29 passes against the Eagles, 23 against the Colts and 36 against Washington, those numbers should be weighted accordingly. Each of the defenses will be assigned a rating based on how much tougher or easier they are on opposing QBs than the league average. Philadelphia had a +0.57 rating last year, which means that opposing QBs averaged 0.57 fewer yards per pass against them than against the rest of the league. So the R_phi would be +0.57. It's simply Romo's AY/A plus the weighted average rating of his opponent's adjusted yards per attempt allowed rating.

Therefore, an average quarterback playing an average schedule would have the league average 5.825 adjusted yards per attempt. If Romo played a schedule that was exactly average, the sum of all the numbers to the right of the first plus sign would be zero, and Romo's true rating would be the same as his actual rating. If he played an easy schedule (which he did), all the numbers on the right would sum to a negative number, and Romo's "moral" rating would be worse than what he actually did.

It wouldn't be that difficult to find Romo's rating if we knew all of his opponents’ ratings. But we can’t figure those out until we’ve figured out the ratings of all the QBs they've faced; after all, a team like Tennessee played Peyton Manning twice, Donovan McNabb, Tom Brady and Philip Rivers. They shouldn't be penalized for that, so we have to adjust Tennessee's defensive rating for strength of schedule, as well. But we can't do that until we figure out the ratings for Manning, McNabb, Brady and Rivers. As you can see, each QB's rating depends on each team's defensive rating, and vice versa.

Fortunately, Doug whipped up a formula that will iterate this strength of schedule adjustment process over and over again until the ratings no longer change. That's when we know we've finally reached the "morally accurate" ratings for each QB and each team defense.

With that out of the way, here's a list of all QBs with 100 attempts last season, with their SOS adjusted yards per attempt on the left, their actual adjusted yards per attempt in the middle column, and their SOS adjustment on the far right. A positive number indicates a hard schedule, and a negative number indicates an easy schedule.

player			adjAY/A		actAY/A		SOS rating

Donovan McNabb		7.92		8.09		-0.17

Peyton Manning		7.87		7.72		 0.15

Damon Huard		7.73		7.96		-0.24

Carson Palmer		7.37		7.17		 0.20

Drew Brees		7.36		7.55		-0.19

Tim Rattay		7.23		6.91		 0.32

Tony Romo		7.02		7.44		-0.42

Jeff Garcia		6.99		7.02		-0.02

Philip Rivers		6.98		6.96		 0.02

Marc Bulger		6.91		7.11		-0.21

Mark Brunell		6.78		6.50		 0.29

Kurt Warner		6.69		7.21		-0.52

Tom Brady		6.47		6.26		 0.22

J.P. Losman		6.33		6.09		 0.25

Chad Pennington		6.12		5.78		 0.35

Daunte Culpepper	6.07		6.07		-0.01

David Garrard		6.05		5.93		 0.12

Ben Roethlisberger	5.89		5.67		 0.22

Jay Cutler		5.88		6.32		-0.44

Jon Kitna		5.81		5.75		 0.06

Matt Leinart		5.69		5.61		 0.08

Steve McNair		5.68		5.70		-0.02

Trent Green		5.68		5.09		 0.59

David Carr		5.64		5.29		 0.35

Jake Delhomme		5.41		5.75		-0.35

Brett Favre		5.27		5.31		-0.04

Byron Leftwich		5.25		5.49		-0.24

Drew Bledsoe		5.18		5.17		 0.01

Michael Vick		5.16		5.38		-0.22

Vince Young		5.16		4.86		 0.30

Alex Smith		5.16		5.27		-0.12

Matt Hasselbeck		5.12		5.25		-0.13

Eli Manning		5.06		5.12		-0.06

Jake Plummer		5.05		4.79		 0.26

Jason Campbell		5.04		5.44		-0.41

Rex Grossman		5.01		5.26		-0.24

Seneca Wallace		4.85		4.91		-0.06

Brad Johnson		4.82		4.93		-0.11

Joey Harrington		4.72		4.33		 0.38

Charlie Frye		4.55		4.56		-0.02

Derek Anderson		4.21		4.13		 0.08

Andrew Walter		4.00		4.06		-0.07

Bruce Gradkowski	3.93		4.10		-0.17

Aaron Brooks		3.71		4.04		-0.32

Chris Simms		2.21		2.64		-0.43

If I was going to make a guess as to how many adjusted yards per attempt each QB would average this season, the above list would be my starting point. Manning, McNabb and Palmer, three of the best QBs in the league, come out on top. It's a bit surprising to see Damon Huard rank highly, but it's hard to argue with his numbers from last year. He had the lowest interception rate of any quarterback since 1960, throwing just one interception in 244 pass attempts.

Perhaps a more interesting way to look at the QBs would be to check just their schedule:

Trent Green		 0.59

Joey Harrington		 0.38

David Carr		 0.35

Chad Pennington		 0.35

Tim Rattay		 0.32

Vince Young		 0.30

Mark Brunell		 0.29

Jake Plummer		 0.26

J.P. Losman		 0.25

Ben Roethlisberger	 0.22

Tom Brady		 0.22

Carson Palmer		 0.20

Peyton Manning		 0.15

David Garrard		 0.12

Derek Anderson		 0.08

Matt Leinart		 0.08

Jon Kitna		 0.06

Philip Rivers		 0.02

Drew Bledsoe		 0.01

Daunte Culpepper	-0.01

Charlie Frye		-0.02

Jeff Garcia		-0.02

Steve McNair		-0.02

Brett Favre		-0.04

Seneca Wallace		-0.06

Eli Manning		-0.06

Andrew Walter		-0.07

Brad Johnson		-0.11

Alex Smith		-0.12

Matt Hasselbeck		-0.13

Donovan McNabb		-0.17

Bruce Gradkowski	-0.17

Drew Brees		-0.19

Marc Bulger		-0.21

Michael Vick		-0.22

Damon Huard		-0.24

Byron Leftwich		-0.24

Rex Grossman		-0.24

Aaron Brooks		-0.32

Jake Delhomme		-0.35

Jason Campbell		-0.41

Tony Romo		-0.42

Chris Simms		-0.43

Jay Cutler		-0.44

Kurt Warner		-0.52

Jay Cutler had the second easiest schedule in the league last year, while Jake Plummer had one of the harder ones. Tony Romo and Jason Campbell were young QBs that put up impressive numbers, but both played easy schedules. Really, we don't know too much about either QB just yet. And maybe, just maybe, Trent Green isn't finished after all. His numbers were very close to the league average last season, he just faced an impossible schedule -- while Damon Huard got to play the easy opponents. He's not exactly moving into an easy division, though. Look at the AFC East QBs last year -- Harrington, Brady, Pennington and Losman all had very difficult schedules. None had great numbers, and a tough schedule was one of the reasons why.

What about the defenses? The table below shows how many yards per attempt each defense allowed last year, relative to the league average. The middle column shows that the Bears actually allowed 1.56 AY/A below the league average last season. But since Chicago faced an easier than average string of QBs, their SOS rating was -0.13. Therefore, the Bears were "morally" just 1.43 adjusted yards per pass better than the league average. The Jaguars move the other way; Jacksonville faced Peyton Manning twice, Donovan McNabb, Damon Huard and a bunch of pretty good QBs. Despite that, they still were 1.04 AY/A better than the league average, but they shoot way up and almost catch the Bears when adjusting for strength of schedule.

team	 adjR	 actR	 SOSR

chi	 1.43	 1.56	-0.13

jax	 1.36 	 1.04	 0.32

rai	 1.00    1.03	-0.03

rav	 0.89	 1.13	-0.25

nwe	 0.76	 0.82	-0.06

phi	 0.57	 0.76	-0.19

clt	 0.57	 0.43	 0.15

den	 0.49	 0.28	 0.21

cle	 0.48	 0.27	 0.21

nyg	 0.36	 0.14	 0.21

gnb	 0.33	 0.32	 0.01

pit	 0.31	 0.29	 0.02

buf	 0.27	 0.20	 0.07

min	 0.25	 0.42	-0.17

ten	 0.24	-0.28	 0.52

sdg	 0.10	 0.19	-0.09

nyj	 0.08	 0.32	-0.24

car	 0.04	 0.19	-0.15

dal	-0.15	-0.38	 0.23

mia	-0.28	-0.48	 0.20

cin	-0.39	-0.33	-0.06

sea	-0.46	-0.54	 0.08

kan	-0.50	-0.16	-0.33

sfo	-0.54	-0.81	 0.27

nor	-0.61	-0.27	-0.34

ram	-0.67	-0.26	-0.41

hou	-0.70	-0.86	 0.15

tam	-0.73	-0.85	 0.12

crd	-0.87	-0.83	-0.05

det	-1.06	-0.84	-0.22

atl	-1.36	-1.09	-0.27

was	-1.43	-1.62	 0.18

The Redskins last year were just pitiful against the pass, but at least they had a tough schedule to take (a small) part of the blame. Washington pulled off the rare double 32s, ranking dead last in interceptions (6) and touchdown passes allowed (30). That might explain why LeRon Landry, the defensive back out of LSU, was Washington's first round draft pick in April. Atlanta goes the other way; the Falcons looked bad against the pass in '06, but were actually even worse than they looked. Only a historically bad year by Washington kept Atlanta out of the basement.

The Titans' pass defense looked below average at first glance, but Tennessee was actually one of the better pass defenses last year. The 49ers added Tully Banta-Cain, Nate Clements, Michael Lewis and Patrick Willis in the off-season, in the hopes of giving their weak defense a boost. And while those additions will get the credit if San Francisco improves this year, note that the 49ers weren't that bad against the pass in 2006, either. They just looked awful because they played McNabb, Huard, Brees and Rivers, along with facing Bulger and Warner twice. Across the Bay, the Raiders look legit. Sure, Oakland allowed the fewest passing yards in the league because the Raiders had a miserable offense and opposing teams never needed to pass on them. But Oakland also ranks third here in SOS-adjusted yards per attempt allowed, which indicates that on a per-attempt basis, they were extremely very effective. Remember, that unit intercepted 18 of the 401 passes thrown against them last year, one of the best five rates in the league.

Back when I used to write blog posts, I would frequently use this simple rating system as a quick gauge of team quality. To refresh your memory, it's a system that's been around forever and is extremely basic compared some of the other power rating systems out there. But I like it because it's easy to understand. An average team will have a rating of zero. An above average team will have a positive rating while a below average team will have a negative rating. Every team will have a rating that is the equal to their average point margin plus the average of their opponent's ratings, so the teams' ratings are all interdependent: the Colts' rating depends upon the ratings of all their opponents, which depends upon the ratings of all their opponents (some of which are the Colts), and so on. The 2006 Steelers had a rating of +3.4. They outscored their opponents by an average of 2.4 points per game, while their opponents were on average, according to the same kind of calculation, 1.0 points better than average. Hence we estimate that the Steelers must be 3.4 abstract theoretical points better than an abstract theoretical average team.

Another project I was working on --- and that either Chase or I will be writing about soon --- prompted me to do something I've been meaning to do for awhile, which is to separate the simple rating system into an offensive and a defensive component. Doing so, we find that the Steelers +3.4 rating breaks down into +3.0 on offense and +0.4 on defense. Meanwhile, their strength of schedule of +1.0 breaks down as +1.6 for offense and -0.5 for defense (ignore the rounding discrepancy). Here's what all that means:

The Steelers' offense scored 1.4 points per game more than an average team, but they faced defenses that, all things considered, were 1.6 points better than average. So morally the Steelers' offense was 3.0 points per game better than average.

The Steelers' defense allowed 0.9 points per game fewer than average, but the offenses they played were on average 0.5 points below average. So morally, the Steelers D was only 0.4 points per game better than average.

When you put these two facts together (and again ignore the rounding discrepancies), you get the same numbers as in the first paragraph. So what we've done is to break down the Steelers' rating --- and their strength of schedule --- into two pieces. Here are the offensive and defensive ratings for each team last season:

                offense          defense          total
            rating   SOS     rating   SOS     rating   SOS
==========+================+================+===============
nwe 2006  |   +4.3   +0.9  |   +5.9   +0.1  |  +10.2   +1.0
sdg 2006  |  +10.0   -0.1  |   +0.2   -1.5  |  +10.2   -1.6
bal 2006  |   +1.5   +0.1  |   +7.8   -0.3  |   +9.3   -0.2
chi 2006  |   +4.9   -1.1  |   +3.0   -1.7  |   +7.9   -2.9
jax 2006  |   +2.6   +0.1  |   +4.9   +1.3  |   +7.5   +1.4
ind 2006  |   +6.9   +0.9  |   -1.1   +0.8  |   +5.9   +1.7
cin 2006  |   +4.0   +1.4  |   +0.0   +0.1  |   +4.1   +1.5
nor 2006  |   +4.9   -0.2  |   -0.9   -1.4  |   +4.0   -1.6
dal 2006  |   +5.0   -0.9  |   -1.3   -0.1  |   +3.7   -1.0
pit 2006  |   +3.0   +1.6  |   +0.4   -0.5  |   +3.4   +1.0
phi 2006  |   +3.2   -1.0  |   +0.2   +0.0  |   +3.4   -1.0
buf 2006  |   -0.2   +1.7  |   +2.4   +1.2  |   +2.2   +2.9
nyj 2006  |   +0.4   +1.3  |   +1.7   -0.5  |   +2.0   +0.7
den 2006  |   -0.8   -0.1  |   +2.1   +0.5  |   +1.3   +0.4
kan 2006  |   +0.4   +0.4  |   +0.6   -0.4  |   +1.0   -0.0
mia 2006  |   -3.3   +1.1  |   +4.0   +1.1  |   +0.7   +2.1
nyg 2006  |   +1.2   -0.3  |   -1.1   +0.8  |   +0.1   +0.5
ten 2006  |   +1.0   +1.4  |   -2.3   +2.0  |   -1.3   +3.5
car 2006  |   -4.2   -0.4  |   +1.5   -0.1  |   -2.7   -0.5
atl 2006  |   -2.8   -0.4  |   -0.2   -0.4  |   -3.0   -0.8
sea 2006  |   -1.6   -1.9  |   -1.9   -1.3  |   -3.6   -3.2
stl 2006  |   +0.8   -1.5  |   -4.7   -1.6  |   -4.0   -3.1
was 2006  |   -2.1   -0.6  |   -2.0   +0.9  |   -4.0   +0.3
min 2006  |   -3.7   -0.6  |   -0.4   -0.7  |   -4.1   -1.3
gnb 2006  |   -2.3   -0.4  |   -2.1   +0.1  |   -4.4   -0.4
hou 2006  |   -3.2   +0.8  |   -1.3   +0.9  |   -4.5   +1.7
cle 2006  |   -4.5   +1.3  |   -1.3   +0.3  |   -5.8   +1.5
det 2006  |   -1.8   -0.2  |   -4.6   -0.4  |   -6.4   -0.5
ari 2006  |   -2.6   -1.6  |   -4.3   -0.6  |   -6.9   -2.2
tam 2006  |   -7.2   +0.3  |   -0.8   +0.7  |   -7.9   +0.9
sfo 2006  |   -3.5   -1.4  |   -5.2   -0.2  |   -8.7   -1.6
oak 2006  |  -10.3   -0.2  |   +0.7   +0.8  |   -9.6   +0.6

Some basic SRS trivia:

Best and worst offenses since 1970

                offense          defense          total
            rating   SOS     rating   SOS     rating   SOS
==========+================+================+===============
min 1998  |  +13.2   -0.2  |   +1.6   -1.1  |  +14.9   -1.4
stl 2000  |  +12.6   -0.4  |   -9.5   -0.7  |   +3.1   -1.2
was 1983  |  +11.7   -0.2  |   +2.2   +1.1  |  +13.9   +0.9
ind 2004  |  +11.7   +0.6  |   -0.3   +0.1  |  +11.4   +0.7
was 1991  |  +11.7   +0.4  |   +4.9   -0.0  |  +16.6   +0.3
sdg 1982  |  +10.5   -1.3  |   -5.4   -1.0  |   +5.1   -2.3
stl 2001  |  +10.4   -0.8  |   +2.9   -0.2  |  +13.4   -1.0
buf 1975  |  +10.4   +1.0  |   -3.4   +1.4  |   +7.1   +2.4
kan 2004  |  +10.0   +1.3  |   -4.7   +1.0  |   +5.3   +2.3
sdg 2006  |  +10.0   -0.1  |   +0.2   -1.5  |  +10.2   -1.6
sfo 1993  |   +9.9   -0.9  |   -0.3   -0.5  |   +9.7   -1.5
sfo 1994  |   +9.9   -1.4  |   +1.7   -0.0  |  +11.6   -1.4
den 1998  |   +9.5   -0.5  |   -0.6   -2.6  |   +8.9   -3.1
bal 1976  |   +9.3   -1.3  |   +0.4   -1.1  |   +9.8   -2.5
kan 2003  |   +9.2   -0.2  |   -0.9   -1.0  |   +8.3   -1.2
sdg 1981  |   +9.2   -0.0  |   -4.7   -1.0  |   +4.4   -1.1
mia 1984  |   +9.1   -1.8  |   +1.5   -1.1  |  +10.6   -2.9
sfo 1998  |   +8.8   +0.2  |   +1.8   +1.0  |  +10.6   +1.2
sfo 1987  |   +8.8   -0.2  |   +4.2   -0.5  |  +13.1   -0.7
oak 1977  |   +8.8   +0.9  |   +1.6   +0.9  |  +10.4   +1.7
stl 1999  |   +8.7   -3.4  |   +3.2   -2.5  |  +11.9   -5.9
gnb 1996  |   +8.7   +0.6  |   +6.6   -0.7  |  +15.3   -0.1
nyj 1982  |   +8.7   +1.6  |   +1.6   -0.1  |  +10.3   +1.5
dal 1983  |   +8.6   +0.5  |   -0.1   +0.6  |   +8.5   +1.1
kan 2002  |   +8.4   +0.9  |   -2.3   +1.0  |   +6.1   +1.9
sdg 1985  |   +8.3   +0.7  |   -7.2   -1.6  |   +1.1   -0.9
dal 1971  |   +8.3   -1.4  |   +1.6   -1.9  |   +9.9   -3.3
ram 1973  |   +8.2   -0.1  |   +5.2   -1.5  |  +13.4   -1.6
ind 2003  |   +8.2   +1.0  |   -1.2   -1.0  |   +7.0   +0.0

.....

cin 1993  |   -7.4   -0.4  |   -1.0   +0.2  |   -8.4   -0.2
chi 1974  |   -7.4   -0.1  |   -2.9   -1.2  |  -10.3   -1.2
sea 1982  |   -7.4   -1.4  |   +2.0   -1.8  |   -5.4   -3.2
tam 1983  |   -7.5   -0.7  |   -1.6   +0.4  |   -9.0   -0.3
nwe 1990  |   -7.5   +1.3  |   -7.1   +0.7  |  -14.6   +2.0
cle 1999  |   -7.6   -0.4  |   -6.5   +0.0  |  -14.1   -0.3
dal 1989  |   -7.6   +0.2  |   -2.8   +1.2  |  -10.4   +1.4
sdg 1998  |   -7.7   -1.4  |   -0.7   -0.6  |   -8.4   -2.1
nwe 1991  |   -7.9   -2.1  |   -0.8   -0.7  |   -8.7   -2.8
nyj 1995  |   -7.9   -1.0  |   -3.3   -0.8  |  -11.2   -1.7
atl 1987  |   -7.9   +0.0  |   -5.9   +1.5  |  -13.9   +1.5
cin 2000  |   -8.1   +1.0  |   -2.4   -0.6  |  -10.5   +0.4
dal 2002  |   -8.2   -0.1  |   -0.3   -1.4  |   -8.5   -1.5
nor 1975  |   -8.2   +0.6  |   -5.9   -0.7  |  -14.1   -0.1
hou 2002  |   -8.4   -0.0  |   -1.1   -0.5  |   -9.4   -0.5
chi 2004  |   -8.5   -1.4  |   +0.3   -0.5  |   -8.2   -2.0
cle 2000  |   -9.1   +1.5  |   -5.5   +0.0  |  -14.6   +1.5
gnb 1977  |   -9.1   -1.5  |   +0.4   -1.1  |   -8.7   -2.6
bos 1970  |   -9.1   -0.5  |   -6.8   -0.2  |  -15.9   -0.7
phi 1972  |   -9.2   +0.7  |   -5.3   -0.4  |  -14.6   +0.2
buf 1985  |   -9.5   -0.5  |   -0.2   +2.0  |   -9.8   +1.5
atl 1974  |   -9.7   +0.6  |   -2.6   -1.5  |  -12.3   -0.9
sea 1992  |   -9.8   +0.2  |   -0.2   +0.6  |  -10.0   +0.8
oak 2006  |  -10.3   -0.2  |   +0.7   +0.8  |   -9.6   +0.6
tam 1976  |  -10.8   -0.6  |   -8.8   +1.4  |  -19.7   +0.8
tam 1977  |  -11.1   -1.3  |   +0.3   -0.9  |  -10.7   -2.2
ind 1991  |  -11.5   -1.5  |   -5.7   -0.9  |  -17.3   -2.4
phi 1998  |  -12.3   -1.1  |   -0.5   -0.2  |  -12.8   -1.3

Best and worst defenses since 1970

                offense          defense          total
            rating   SOS     rating   SOS     rating   SOS
==========+================+================+===============
min 1971  |   -3.4   -1.5  |   +9.9   +0.5  |   +6.5   -1.1
tam 2002  |   -1.0   -0.9  |   +9.8   +0.4  |   +8.8   -0.6
pit 1976  |   +5.7   +0.4  |   +9.6   +0.3  |  +15.3   +0.8
chi 1985  |   +6.5   -0.5  |   +9.4   +0.3  |  +15.9   -0.2
den 1977  |   +1.9   -0.5  |   +9.4   +2.8  |  +11.3   +2.3
min 1970  |   +5.9   +1.2  |   +9.2   +0.1  |  +15.1   +1.4
pit 1975  |   +5.4   -0.7  |   +8.8   -0.2  |  +14.2   -0.9
ram 1975  |   +0.5   -1.2  |   +8.7   -2.3  |   +9.1   -3.5
bal 1971  |   +2.0   -1.0  |   +8.5   -0.9  |  +10.4   -1.9
mia 1973  |   +5.0   -0.1  |   +8.2   -0.5  |  +13.2   -0.6
bal 2000  |   +0.0   -0.1  |   +8.0   -2.3  |   +8.0   -2.5
bal 2006  |   +1.5   +0.1  |   +7.8   -0.3  |   +9.3   -0.2
chi 1986  |   -0.1   -1.6  |   +7.7   -1.1  |   +7.6   -2.7
nyg 1990  |   +0.0   -0.8  |   +7.6   +0.7  |   +7.7   -0.1
buf 1999  |   -0.2   +0.6  |   +7.4   +0.9  |   +7.1   +1.5
mia 2000  |   +0.0   +0.5  |   +7.1   +0.5  |   +7.1   +1.0
nor 1992  |   +0.7   -1.2  |   +7.1   +1.0  |   +7.8   -0.2
chi 2001  |   +0.8   -0.1  |   +7.1   -0.5  |   +7.9   -0.5
min 1973  |   +1.7   -0.0  |   +7.0   -0.5  |   +8.6   -0.5
den 1978  |   -1.9   -1.2  |   +6.9   +1.0  |   +5.0   -0.2
kan 1995  |   +0.8   -0.1  |   +6.9   +0.4  |   +7.6   +0.3
phi 1980  |   +2.9   -0.6  |   +6.8   +0.2  |   +9.7   -0.4
ten 2000  |   +1.5   +0.6  |   +6.8   -1.9  |   +8.3   -1.3
phi 2001  |   +0.9   -0.3  |   +6.8   -0.4  |   +7.7   -0.7
bal 2004  |   -0.6   +1.0  |   +6.8   +2.0  |   +6.1   +3.1
tam 1999  |   -4.1   -0.2  |   +6.7   +0.6  |   +2.6   +0.4
oak 1973  |   +0.1   -1.3  |   +6.7   -0.3  |   +6.8   -1.6
phi 1981  |   +2.0   -0.3  |   +6.7   -0.2  |   +8.7   -0.5
den 1984  |   +1.0   +0.1  |   +6.7   +0.5  |   +7.7   +0.7

.....

nwe 1990  |   -7.5   +1.3  |   -7.1   +0.7  |  -14.6   +2.0
hou 1982  |   -3.9   +1.2  |   -7.1   -0.0  |  -10.9   +1.2
nyj 1975  |   -1.2   +0.9  |   -7.1   +3.2  |   -8.3   +4.2
gnb 1983  |   +5.2   +0.3  |   -7.1   -1.5  |   -1.9   -1.2
sdg 1985  |   +8.3   +0.7  |   -7.2   -1.6  |   +1.1   -0.9
nyj 1996  |   -2.5   +0.5  |   -7.6   +0.3  |  -10.1   +0.8
phi 1973  |   +3.4   +0.7  |   -7.7   +0.9  |   -4.3   +1.6
ram 1982  |   +1.0   -1.1  |   -7.8   -0.1  |   -6.8   -1.2
cle 1990  |   -5.2   +0.7  |   -7.8   +1.0  |  -13.0   +1.7
hou 1983  |   -3.7   +0.2  |   -7.9   -0.9  |  -11.5   -0.8
ari 2000  |   -7.2   +0.4  |   -8.1   -1.1  |  -15.2   -0.7
min 1984  |   -2.7   +1.3  |   -8.2   +0.9  |  -10.9   +2.1
cin 1999  |   -3.3   -0.2  |   -8.2   -0.3  |  -11.5   -0.5
sdg 1973  |   -3.6   +2.4  |   -8.3   -0.2  |  -11.9   +2.2
sfo 2004  |   -5.1   +0.2  |   -8.6   -1.8  |  -13.6   -1.6
sea 1977  |   +4.2   +1.3  |   -8.6   +0.9  |   -4.3   +2.2
tam 1976  |  -10.8   -0.6  |   -8.8   +1.4  |  -19.7   +0.8
atl 1996  |   -0.2   +0.9  |   -8.9   -0.5  |   -9.1   +0.4
buf 1971  |   -4.5   +1.7  |   -8.9   -0.1  |  -13.4   +1.6
nor 1980  |   -1.1   +1.2  |   -9.4   +0.6  |  -10.4   +1.8
nor 1977  |   +0.3   +0.9  |   -9.4   -2.6  |   -9.2   -1.7
stl 2000  |  +12.6   -0.4  |   -9.5   -0.7  |   +3.1   -1.2
ind 2001  |   +6.1   +0.5  |   -9.8   +0.3  |   -3.8   +0.8
tam 1986  |   -4.6   +1.0  |  -10.8   -1.8  |  -15.4   -0.8
nwe 1972  |   -6.3   +0.2  |  -11.1   +0.6  |  -17.4   +0.7
bal 1981  |   -3.8   +0.7  |  -12.0   +0.6  |  -15.8   +1.3
hou 1973  |   -4.3   +0.9  |  -12.3   +0.1  |  -16.7   +1.1
sea 1976  |   -2.2   +0.6  |  -12.9   -1.4  |  -15.1   -0.8

Biggest discrepancies between offense and defense

                offense          defense          total
            rating   SOS     rating   SOS     rating   SOS
==========+================+================+===============
stl 2000  |  +12.6   -0.4  |   -9.5   -0.7  |   +3.1   -1.2
sdg 1982  |  +10.5   -1.3  |   -5.4   -1.0  |   +5.1   -2.3
ind 2001  |   +6.1   +0.5  |   -9.8   +0.3  |   -3.8   +0.8
sdg 1985  |   +8.3   +0.7  |   -7.2   -1.6  |   +1.1   -0.9
kan 2004  |  +10.0   +1.3  |   -4.7   +1.0  |   +5.3   +2.3
sdg 1981  |   +9.2   -0.0  |   -4.7   -1.0  |   +4.4   -1.1
buf 1975  |  +10.4   +1.0  |   -3.4   +1.4  |   +7.1   +2.4
cin 1985  |   +6.2   +0.2  |   -6.9   -1.1  |   -0.7   -0.9
sea 1977  |   +4.2   +1.3  |   -8.6   +0.9  |   -4.3   +2.2
gnb 1983  |   +5.2   +0.3  |   -7.1   -1.5  |   -1.9   -1.2
ind 2004  |  +11.7   +0.6  |   -0.3   +0.1  |  +11.4   +0.7
mia 1986  |   +6.2   -0.2  |   -5.7   -0.9  |   +0.5   -1.1
buf 1991  |   +7.6   -2.0  |   -4.1   -3.2  |   +3.6   -5.2
min 1998  |  +13.2   -0.2  |   +1.6   -1.1  |  +14.9   -1.4
phi 1973  |   +3.4   +0.7  |   -7.7   +0.9  |   -4.3   +1.6
sea 1976  |   -2.2   +0.6  |  -12.9   -1.4  |  -15.1   -0.8
kan 2002  |   +8.4   +0.9  |   -2.3   +1.0  |   +6.1   +1.9
was 1999  |   +6.8   -0.1  |   -3.9   -1.2  |   +2.9   -1.2
bal 1996  |   +3.9   +1.1  |   -6.8   +0.3  |   -2.9   +1.4
den 2000  |   +7.8   -1.9  |   -2.7   -0.3  |   +5.0   -2.2
sfo 1993  |   +9.9   -0.9  |   -0.3   -0.5  |   +9.7   -1.5
kan 2003  |   +9.2   -0.2  |   -0.9   -1.0  |   +8.3   -1.2
den 1998  |   +9.5   -0.5  |   -0.6   -2.6  |   +8.9   -3.1
det 1990  |   +4.2   +1.0  |   -5.9   -0.2  |   -1.6   +0.9
cin 1986  |   +5.7   +0.6  |   -4.2   -0.1  |   +1.5   +0.5
nor 1977  |   +0.3   +0.9  |   -9.4   -2.6  |   -9.2   -1.7
sdg 2006  |  +10.0   -0.1  |   +0.2   -1.5  |  +10.2   -1.6
was 1983  |  +11.7   -0.2  |   +2.2   +1.1  |  +13.9   +0.9
ind 2003  |   +8.2   +1.0  |   -1.2   -1.0  |   +7.0   +0.0

......

cle 1984  |   -6.1   -0.5  |   +2.3   -0.3  |   -3.8   -0.8
chi 2004  |   -8.5   -1.4  |   +0.3   -0.5  |   -8.2   -2.0
tam 1996  |   -5.9   +0.7  |   +2.9   +0.8  |   -3.0   +1.5
car 2002  |   -6.0   -0.5  |   +2.8   -0.0  |   -3.3   -0.5
tam 1995  |   -6.9   -0.3  |   +1.9   +1.4  |   -5.0   +1.1
ari 1994  |   -5.6   +0.0  |   +3.3   -0.3  |   -2.3   -0.3
den 1978  |   -1.9   -1.2  |   +6.9   +1.0  |   +5.0   -0.2
nwe 1988  |   -4.5   +0.1  |   +4.4   +1.9  |   -0.2   +2.0
chi 1993  |   -4.6   -0.5  |   +4.3   +0.0  |   -0.2   -0.5
nyg 1983  |   -5.5   -0.4  |   +3.4   +3.3  |   -2.1   +2.9
buf 2003  |   -5.0   +0.7  |   +4.0   +0.6  |   -1.0   +1.3
kan 1973  |   -4.1   -1.2  |   +5.1   -0.6  |   +1.0   -1.8
buf 1985  |   -9.5   -0.5  |   -0.2   +2.0  |   -9.8   +1.5
sea 1982  |   -7.4   -1.4  |   +2.0   -1.8  |   -5.4   -3.2
kan 1979  |   -4.0   +1.2  |   +5.4   +1.8  |   +1.4   +2.9
gnb 1977  |   -9.1   -1.5  |   +0.4   -1.1  |   -8.7   -2.6
sea 1992  |   -9.8   +0.2  |   -0.2   +0.6  |  -10.0   +0.8
phi 1983  |   -6.7   +0.5  |   +3.6   +1.9  |   -3.1   +2.4
tam 2002  |   -1.0   -0.9  |   +9.8   +0.4  |   +8.8   -0.6
tam 1999  |   -4.1   -0.2  |   +6.7   +0.6  |   +2.6   +0.4
oak 2006  |  -10.3   -0.2  |   +0.7   +0.8  |   -9.6   +0.6
was 2004  |   -7.4   -0.9  |   +4.0   -0.9  |   -3.4   -1.8
tam 1977  |  -11.1   -1.3  |   +0.3   -0.9  |  -10.7   -2.2
phi 1998  |  -12.3   -1.1  |   -0.5   -0.2  |  -12.8   -1.3
chi 2005  |   -5.2   -0.9  |   +6.6   -1.4  |   +1.4   -2.2
jax 2004  |   -5.7   -0.5  |   +6.4   +2.5  |   +0.8   +1.9
atl 1977  |   -6.1   -1.7  |   +6.6   -1.4  |   +0.5   -3.1
min 1971  |   -3.4   -1.5  |   +9.9   +0.5  |   +6.5   -1.1

Last year, I wrote that Eric Mangini, Sean Payton and the other rookie coaches stood had decent chances of seeing early success. As we now know, both rookie head coaches took their teams to the post-season in 2006. Herm Edwards also guided the Chiefs to the playoffs, in his first year in Kansas City. From 1991-2005, twenty-four of the 180 playoff teams made the playoffs with new coaches. Of those 24, thirteen of those coaches were rookies, and eleven were "retreads". So roughly once a year, a rookie head coach takes his team to the playoffs. So what does history say about the Jets or Saints or Chiefs chances of repeating?

For the sake of simplicity, "first" represents a rookie coach like Mangini, "retread" represents a guy that's coached before but is on a new team like Edwards, and "old" represents a guy that's not in his first year with his current team. Here's the data for the 15 seasons from 1991-2005:

Coach	  #Teams      Repeats	  Repeat%

first	    13	 	 8	  0.615

retread	    11		 4	  0.364

old	   156		82	  0.526

total	   180		94	  0.522

While at first glance it appears as though the rookie head coaches fare are better at returning to post-season play than regular coaches, let's take a look at those first year coaches:

Coach		tm	year	Yr N	Yr N-1	Yr N+1	N+1 playoffs?

Jim Mora	atl	2004	11-5-0	5-11-0	8-8-0	no

Bill Callahan	rai	2002	11-5-0	10-6-0	4-12-0	no

Herm Edwards	nyj	2001	10-6-0	9-7-0	9-7-0	yes

Mike Martz	ram	2000	10-6-0	13-3-0	14-2-0	yes

Jim Haslett	nor	2000	10-6-0	3-13-0	7-9-0	no

Chan Gailey	dal	1998	10-6-0	6-10-0	8-8-0	yes

Jim Fassel	nyg	1997	10-5-1	6-10-0	8-8-0	no

Steve Mariucci	sfo	1997	13-3-0	12-4-0	12-4-0	yes

Ray Rhodes	phi	1995	10-6-0	7-9-0	10-6-0	yes

Barry Switzer	dal	1994	12-4-0	12-4-0	12-4-0	yes

Dennis Green	min	1992	11-5-0	8-8-0	9-7-0	yes

Bill Cowher	pit	1992	11-5-0	7-9-0	9-7-0	yes

Bobby Ross	sdg	1992	11-5-0	4-12-0	8-8-0	no

While it's true that eight of the thirteen coaches returned, there were a few irregular situations. Bill Callahan took over a loaded Raiders team left without a coach when Jon Gruden bolted to Tampa Bay, and he still couldn't take Oakland to the playoffs in consecutive years. Herm Edwards inherited a pretty good Jets team when Al Groh left to coach Virginia. Mike Martz and Barry Switzer inherited Super Bowl champions from Dick Vermeil and Jimmy Johnson, while Steve Mariucci took over a similarly skilled roster in San Francisco after George Seifert. So five of the "rookie" head coaches were handed the keys to teams with winning records, and four of them brought their teams to the playoffs the first two years. Mangini and Payton took over teams that won a seven games combined in '05, so those five coaches aren't the best of comparables. Of the other eight, half brought their teams back to the playoffs, which is in line with what the "old" coaches did as well.

So it seems that inexperience at the head coaching position shouldn't be held against or brought forward as evidence as to why the Jets or Saints will make the playoffs again in '07. Maybe they'll be like Cowher or Dennis Green, and have a long run of success with their teams. Or perhaps they'll end up like Jim Mora, Jr. or Jim Haslett, remembered mostly for failing to meet expectations.

Besides the coaching switch, the Jets and Saints were also pretty unique compared to most playoff teams: both teams made the post-season despite winning fewer than 5 games the previous year. Only seven of the 180 playoffs teams from 1991-2005 won fewer than five games in Year N-1. Here's a table of all 180 teams, along with how many of them returned to the playoffs in Year N+1:

N-1Wins	   #Teams     N+1Post	Repeat%

 3	      2	       1	0.500

 4	      5	       2	0.400

 5	     13	       3	0.231

 6	     16	       7	0.438

 7	     20	       7	0.350

 8	     16	      11	0.688

 9	     26	      17	0.654

10	     26	      11	0.423

11	     21	      14	0.667

12	     17	      10	0.588

13	     12	       7	0.583

14	      4	       3	0.750

15	      2	       1	0.500

Total	    180	      94        0.522

As you can tell, not all playoff teams are created equally. Teams that were losing teams the year before they made the playoffs, returned to the playoffs the following year just 36% of the time. Conversely, all other playoff teams made the playoffs again at a 60% clip. To be sure, there's some element of a hidden variable involved -- the bad teams the prior year were probably "weaker" playoff teams in Year N, and weak playoff teams return at lower rates.

There were 56 playoff teams in Year N that had losing records in Year N-1. Of those, nine teams failed to reach double digit wins in Year N, but obviously still made the playoffs. Only one of those -- the '97 Jaguars -- reached the post-season in Year N+1. That leaves 47 teams with double digit wins in Year N, and they would be repeat post-season entrants 40% of the time. While that's better than the 8 or 9 win teams, that 40% rate is a bit below the 60% rate from the other teams.

So what do you think? Is the one-year wonder theory for real?

We've all heard a sports analyst say "Team A is 19-1 when RB X has 20 or more carries in a game", as if giving RB X twenty carries in a game is what causes the team to win. While it's clear that the causation runs the other way, I was curious what exactly were the average winning percentages that correlated with a certain number of carries in a game.

The table below displays the winning percentages from all games in the past decade, when a team's leading running back in that game (as measured by number of carries) had X number of carries:

#Car     Gm       Win    Win%

39+	 10	  9	0.900

38	  8	  7	0.875

37	 13	 11.5	0.885

36	 18	 17	0.944

35	 10	  8.5	0.850

34	 23	 21	0.913

33	 28	 24	0.857

32	 37	 33	0.892

31	 72	 63	0.875

30	 72	 57	0.792

29	 73	 64	0.877

28	 99	 79	0.798

27	120	 96.5	0.804

26	164	126	0.768

25	151	114	0.755

24	198	143	0.722

23	213	142	0.667

22	267	175	0.655

21	267	171	0.640

20	270	151.5	0.561

Rudi Johnson tops the list with a 43-carry game in week 10 of the 2003 season, a 34-27 victory over the Texans. The one loss at the top occurred in 1999 when Ricky Williams rushed 40 times for 179 yards, but the Saints still fell to the Browns, 21-16. Cleveland was involved with the one 38-carry outlier, too. In 2004, Lee Suggs rushed for "only" 143 yards on 38 carries in a 10-7 loss to Miami.

When a RB gets "only" 25 carries, that's a pretty good sign that his team is going to win. RBs with exactly 25 carries were on teams that won three out of every four games, but RBs with 20 carries only were on the winning team 56% of the time. While announcers often use the "20 carry rule", it seems like 25 might be the true magic number.

Let's break that table down into some more manageable tiers, though:

#Car    GM      Win     Win%

  35+	 59	 53	0.898

30-34	232	198	0.853

25-29	607	479.5	0.790

20-24	1215	782.5	0.644

I don't think there's anything groundbreaking in the data, although it's nice to get some empirical evidence. If a team is giving its RB thirty-five or more carries in a game, chances are that: 1) that team is winning and/or going to win; and 2) it's a pretty close game. Thirty-three of the 59 games were decided by seven points or less, and only six involved 20-point victories. It makes sense that you'd only keep riding your star RB if it's a close game.

For what it's worth, when a team has a RB get 20 or more carries in a game, that team has won 71.6% of its games over the past ten years. I'm not sure what I would have guessed, but at least it gives me some baseline against which to compare. So the next time an announcer mentions that the Chargers are 37-18 when Tomlinson gets 20 or more carries, I'll know that that rate isn't very successful at all.

Doubling up
Only four times in the past decade has a team had two RBs get 20 carries in the same game. In week sixteen this year, Deuce McAllister (27-108) and Reggie Bush (20-126) led the Saints to a 30-7 victory over the Giants, while DeShaun Foster (28-102) and DeAngelo Williams (21-82) helped the Chris Weinke-led Panthers beat the Falcons, 10-7. Also in week 16 but this time in 2002, Ladell Betts (20-116) and Kenny Watson (20-110) carried the Redskins to victory over the expansion Texans, 26-10. Three years earlier, the Bills performed the same feat against the Redskins, with Antowain Smith (20-68) and the unforgettable Jonathon Linton (24-96) helping Buffalo double up Washington, 34-17.

Individual RBs

How do the individual RBs fare? Here are the 25 RBs with the most 20-carry games from 1997 to 2006. Note: for players like Curtis Martin, this is not a career list, since they were active before 1997.

player			#gms	#wins	Win%

Antowain Smith		29	24	0.828

Edgerrin James		81	67	0.827

Ahman Green		46	38	0.826

Eddie George		68	55	0.809

Warrick Dunn		34	27.5	0.809

Jamal Lewis		50	40	0.800

Marshall Faulk		39	31	0.795

Terrell Davis		34	27	0.794

Jerome Bettis		58	45	0.776

Deuce McAllister	35	27	0.771

Rudi Johnson		33	25	0.758

Ricky Watters		32	24	0.750

Tiki Barber		46	34	0.739

Priest Holmes		41	30	0.732

Shaun Alexander		59	43	0.729

Stephen Davis		47	33	0.702

Thomas Jones		30	21	0.700

Ricky Williams		47	32	0.681

LaDainian Tomlinson	55	37	0.673

Curtis Martin		83	55	0.663

Emmitt Smith		49	32	0.653

Fred Taylor		61	38	0.623

Clinton Portis		41	25	0.610

Corey Dillon		57	34	0.596

Travis Henry		32	17	0.531

Travis Henry just barely breaks .500 when he gets 20 carries in a game, despite being on pretty decent teams for his career. In 20+ carry games, his teams went 2-1 in 2001, 5-3 in 2002, 6-5 in 2003, 0-3 in 2004, 0-0 in 2005, and 4-3 last season. Henry's teams actually lost five straight games from 2003-2006 when he had 20+ carries, losing by 17, 3, 3, 14 and 3. It's not too surprising seem Smith and James on top of the list here, as they've been on two of the winningest teams of the last half-decade.

I'm not sure if there's much else to learn from this list, but at least you'll have something to refer to next time you see a RB get his 20th carry of the game.

While Doug was writing about Jimmy Smith a year ago, he used the following stat:

One of my favorite arbitrary-but-interesting stats is Yards Over 1000. We compute it simply by starting to count the yards only after they reach the 1000 mark.

I was wondering how last year's RBs would look under a made-up stat called "Yards Over 3.0." That's derived by subtracting 3.00 from a player's yards per carry average, and then multiplying the difference by his number of carries. This strikes a balance of rewarding players with high YPC averages but a low number of carries, while also letting compilers keep adding to their "YO3.0" as long as they're gaining over three yards per carry. Here's how last year's top 35 RBs look:

2006 RBs

player			team	rsh	yd	ypc	YO3.0
LaDainian Tomlinson	sdg	348	1815	5.22	771
Frank Gore		sfo	312	1695	5.43	759
Tiki Barber		nyg	327	1662	5.08	681
Larry Johnson		kan	416	1789	4.30	541
Brian Westbrook		phi	240	1217	5.07	497
Steven Jackson		ram	346	1528	4.42	490
Willie Parker		pit	337	1494	4.43	483
Fred Taylor		jax	231	1146	4.96	453
Maurice Jones-Drew	jax	166	 941	5.67	443
Ladell Betts		was	245	1154	4.71	419
Joseph Addai		clt	226	1081	4.78	403
Travis Henry		ten	270	1211	4.49	401
Jerious Norwood		atl	 99	 633	6.39	336
Tatum Bell		den	233	1025	4.40	326
Deuce McAllister	nor	244	1057	4.33	325
Thomas Jones		chi	296	1210	4.09	322
Chester Taylor		min	303	1216	4.01	307
Rudi Johnson		cin	341	1309	3.84	286
Ronnie Brown		mia	241	1008	4.18	285
Julius Jones		dal	267	1084	4.06	283
Warrick Dunn		atl	286	1140	3.99	282
Michael Turner		sdg	 80	 502	6.28	262
Ahman Green		gnb	266	1059	3.98	261
Marion Barber III	dal	135	 654	4.84	249
Laurence Maroney	nwe	175	 745	4.26	220
DeShaun Foster		car	227	 897	3.95	216
Corey Dillon		nwe	199	 812	4.08	215
Willis McGahee		buf	259	 990	3.82	213
Mike Bell		den	157	 677	4.31	206
Leon Washington		nyj	151	 650	4.30	197
Jamal Lewis		rav	314	1132	3.61	190
Cedric Benson		chi	157	 647	4.12	176
Ron Dayne		htx	151	 612	4.05	159
Edgerrin James		crd	337	1159	3.44	148

Because running backs are often running in different down and distances and at different points in the game, it's not always fair to make such comparisons. Was Jerious Norwood's season really the 13th best in the league? Would the Falcons have rather had him than Dunn last year? I'm not sure, but I think it's probably easier to find a guy that will run 286 times at 4.0 yards per clip than 99 times at 6.4 yards per carry.

Was Michael Turner about equal to Ahman Green last year? Turner averaged 6.28 yards per carry and Green averaged 3.98. Certainly, you'd prefer Turner to Green if he had only a few less carries. Conversely, you'd clearly prefer Green to Turner if Turner had less than twenty carries on the season. The question is, at what number of carries do your preferences intersect? Is it 186 carries as this formula tells us? That sounds like a lot, but consider this: Turner (or another RB) would have needed to rush for 557 yards on 186 carries, which isn't too tough to find in the NFL. That's why I like having the replacement value of a carry being 3.00; it still rewards compilers, but guys that make big plays can rocket up the chart.

In case you were wondering, two Jets RBs -- Derrick Blaylock (-31) and Kevan Barlow (-23) -- join J.J. Arrington (-23) at the bottom of this list.

How does LT's monster season stack up against some of the all-time greats?

Best 60 RB seasons of all-time

player			year	team	rsh	yd	ypc	YO3.0
Barry Sanders		1997	det	335	2053	6.13	1048
O.J. Simpson		1973	buf	332	2003	6.03	1007
Jim Brown		1963	cle	291	1863	6.40	990
Eric Dickerson		1984	ram	379	2105	5.55	968
Jamal Lewis		2003	rav	387	2066	5.34	905
Barry Sanders		1994	det	331	1883	5.69	890
Walter Payton		1977	chi	339	1852	5.46	835
Terrell Davis		1998	den	392	2008	5.12	832
O.J. Simpson		1975	buf	329	1817	5.52	830
Ahman Green		2003	gnb	355	1883	5.30	818
Earl Campbell		1980	oti	373	1934	5.18	815
Tiki Barber		2005	nyg	357	1860	5.21	789
LaDainian Tomlinson	2006	sdg	348	1815	5.22	771
Shaun Alexander		2005	sea	370	1880	5.08	770
Frank Gore		2006	sfo	312	1695	5.43	759
Jim Brown		1958	cle	257	1527	5.94	756
Larry Johnson		2005	kan	336	1750	5.21	742
Clinton Portis		2003	den	290	1591	5.49	721
LaDainian Tomlinson	2003	sdg	313	1645	5.26	706
Ricky Williams		2002	mia	383	1853	4.84	704
Clinton Portis		2002	den	273	1508	5.52	689
Tiki Barber		2006	nyg	327	1662	5.08	681
Jim Brown		1965	cle	289	1544	5.34	677
Priest Holmes		2002	kan	313	1615	5.16	676
Jim Taylor		1962	gnb	272	1474	5.42	658
Terrell Davis		1997	den	369	1750	4.74	643
Emmitt Smith		1995	dal	377	1773	4.70	642
Garrison Hearst		1998	sfo	310	1570	5.06	640
Eric Dickerson		1983	ram	390	1808	4.64	638
Shaun Alexander		2004	sea	353	1696	4.80	637
Emmitt Smith		1993	dal	283	1486	5.25	637
Robert Smith		2000	min	295	1521	5.16	636
O.J. Simpson		1976	buf	290	1503	5.18	633
Barry Sanders		1996	det	307	1553	5.06	632
Barry Sanders		1989	det	280	1470	5.25	630
Marshall Faulk		1999	ram	253	1381	5.46	622
Tony Dorsett		1981	dal	342	1646	4.81	620
Marcus Allen		1985	rai	380	1759	4.63	619
Otis Armstrong		1974	den	263	1407	5.35	618
Jamal Anderson		1998	atl	410	1846	4.50	616
Ottis Anderson		1979	crd	331	1605	4.85	612
Jim Brown		1960	cle	215	1257	5.85	612
Eric Dickerson		1986	ram	404	1821	4.51	609
Jim Brown		1964	cle	280	1446	5.16	606
Marshall Faulk		2001	ram	260	1382	5.32	602
Corey Dillon		2004	nwe	345	1635	4.74	600
Marshall Faulk		2000	ram	253	1359	5.37	600
Mike Anderson		2000	den	297	1487	5.01	596
Emmitt Smith		1992	dal	373	1713	4.59	594
Earl Campbell		1979	oti	368	1697	4.61	593
Deuce McAllister	2003	nor	351	1641	4.68	588
Curtis Martin		2004	nyj	371	1697	4.57	584
Walter Payton		1985	chi	324	1551	4.79	579
Jim Taylor		1961	gnb	243	1307	5.38	578
James Brooks		1989	cin	221	1239	5.61	576
Warrick Dunn		2005	atl	280	1416	5.06	576
William Andrews		1983	atl	331	1567	4.73	574
Priest Holmes		2001	kan	327	1555	4.76	574
Roger Craig		1988	sfo	310	1502	4.85	572

With almost any study you do, it's hard to avoid having Barry's 1997, O.J.'s 1973, or Jim Brown's 1963 pop up at the top of the list. They remain the only three to ever average over 6.00 yards per carry in a season with at least 150 carries. Mercury Morris ranks 4th in carries by a RB with a 6.00+ YPC average, when he rushed 149 times for 954 yards (6.40 YPC) in 1973. Morris and Simpson might have had something to do with the Patriots awful run defense that year.

What about from the other side? What RBs kept getting carries but not much else? Look at Jack Holmes, second on the list. He's got more than double the number of carries of any RB to average 0.50 or fewer yards per carry in a season (Jim Stinnette, not shown below).

Worst 20 RB seasons of all time

player			year	team	rsh	yd	ypc	YO3.0
Eddie Price		1953	nyg	101	206	2.04	-97
Jack Holmes		1980	nor	 38	 19	0.50	-95
Abner Haynes		1966	den	129	304	2.36	-83
Lee Bouggess		1970	phi	159	401	2.52	-76
Ron Johnson		1974	nyg	 97	218	2.25	-73
Don Allen		1960	den	 30	 18	0.60	-72
Odell Lawson		1970	nwe	 56	 99	1.77	-69
Dub Jones		1953	cle	 31	 28	0.90	-65
Larry Schreiber		1975	sfo	134	337	2.51	-65
Robert Holcombe		1998	ram	 98	230	2.35	-64
Dick Christy		1961	nyj	 81	180	2.22	-63
Jonathan Wells		2002	htx	197	529	2.69	-62
Louis Carter		1977	tam	 59	117	1.98	-60
Larry Brown		1974	was	163	430	2.64	-59
Natrone Means		1999	sdg	112	277	2.47	-59
Donnell Bennett		2000	kan	 27	 24	0.89	-57
Tony Collins		1986	nwe	156	412	2.64	-56
Harold Green		1993	cin	215	589	2.74	-56
Benny Malone		1979	was	176	472	2.68	-56
Tom Moore		1967	atl	 53	104	1.96	-55

How about a career list? I think you know who's going to top this one.

Best 30 RBs of all time

player			rsh	yards	YPC	YO3.0
Barry Sanders		3062	15269	4.99	6083
Jim Brown		2359	12312	5.22	5235
Walter Payton		3838	16726	4.36	5212
Emmitt Smith		4409	18355	4.16	5128
Eric Dickerson		2996	13259	4.43	4271
O.J. Simpson		2404	11236	4.67	4024
Tony Dorsett		2936	12739	4.34	3931
Tiki Barber		2216	10448	4.71	3800
Marshall Faulk		2836	12279	4.33	3771
Curtis Martin		3518	14101	4.01	3547
Thurman Thomas		2877	12074	4.20	3443
Corey Dillon		2618	11241	4.29	3387
Fred Taylor		2062	9513	4.61	3327
Franco Harris		2949	12120	4.11	3273
Jerome Bettis		3479	13662	3.93	3225
Marcus Allen		3022	12243	4.05	3177
Joe Perry		1737	8378	4.82	3167
LaDainian Tomlinson	2050	9176	4.48	3026
James Brooks		1685	7962	4.73	2907
Ahman Green		1871	8491	4.54	2878
Earl Campbell		2187	9407	4.30	2846
Priest Holmes		1734	8035	4.63	2833
Edgerrin James		2525	10385	4.11	2810
Shaun Alexander		1969	8713	4.43	2806
Ricky Watters		2622	10643	4.06	2777
Jim Taylor		1941	8597	4.43	2774
Warrick Dunn		2256	9461	4.19	2693
Freeman McNeil		1798	8074	4.49	2680
Terrell Davis		1655	7607	4.60	2642
John Riggins		2916	11352	3.89	2604

I'm surprised to see Tiki Barber and Curtis Martin so high on this list. I figured Barber didn't have enough carries, and Martin didn't have a high enough YPC average. But seeing them both crack the top ten makes me confident that this list doesn't penalize the workhorses too much, or prevent great players with shorter careers from ranking highly.

And, of course, let's end it with the co-star of today's title:

Worst 15 RBs of all time

player			rsh	yards	YPC	YO3.0
Lee Bouggess		271	697	2.57	-116
Odell Lawson		 70	130	1.86	 -80
Don Allen		 30	 18	0.60	 -72
Willie Spencer		104	247	2.38	 -65
Tony Jordan		144	371	2.58	 -61
Jack Holmes		117	293	2.50	 -58
Gary McDermott		 54	108	2.00	 -54
Jim Tiller		 31	 43	1.39	 -50
Tom Smiley		120	312	2.60	 -48
Harry Jones		 44	 85	1.93	 -47
Walt Kowalczyk		103	264	2.56	 -45
Fred Bukaty		 76	187	2.46	 -41
Reggie Evans		 16	 11	0.69	 -37
Travis Prentice		187	525	2.81	 -36
Sam Gash		121	327	2.70	 -36

All I can say is that Lee Bouggess sure must have been a pretty good receiver, blocker and teammate to stick around for three years.

On Monday and Tuesday, we tried to decide who would be the better NFL RB, Reggie Bush or Maurice Jones-Drew. In the end, both were projected to have excellent careers. But let's take a look at their rookie seasons from a different angle now, one commonly promoted by fans of either as reason for optimism in '07.

From weeks 10 through 17 last year, Reggie Bush and Maurice Jones-Drew ranked as the 8th and 4th best fantasy RBs, respectively. This was a large improvement from the first half of the season, when Bush ranked 38th and Jones-Drew ranked 20th at the end of week nine. So it's easy to see why fantasy owners are excited about the prospects for Bush and Jones-Drew, but is it warranted? Bush's average draft position is towards the end of the first round, while MJD's is being selected int he early to middle parts of round two. In fantasy leagues that reward points per reception, both are drafted even earlier.

It's been argued many times over that the light went on for Reggie Bush, and he adjusted to the pro game in the middle of last year. If that was the case, then it certainly seems appropriate to expect Bush to play like the 8th best RB and not the 38th best. But remember that sometimes splits happen with no explanation at all. Further, Bush's big game of the season happened when Marques Colston was on the sidelines, and the 67 rushing yards in week 1 were his second highest total of the season. Bush's strong playoff performance shouldn't be ignored, but neither should the careers of Kevin Jones and William Green.

Like Bush, Green had a subpar YPC average as a rookie in 2002 (3.7), but the last seven weeks of the season he ran for 708 yards and averaged 4.2 yards per carry. It was certainly easy to claim that "the light went on" for Green, and in fact, many thought he'd be a stud in 2003. Green never regained the success from the second half of his rookie season, though, and was out of football last year.

Kevin Jones led the league with over 900 rushing yards in the second half of 2004, his rookie season. He averaged 5.3 YPC, and he was expected to be a stud in 2005. He was drafted as a top 12 RB that year, but was one of the biggest busts of the season.

It's easy to say that Bush and Jones-Drew are way better running backs than Green and Jones. But that's only because of what we've seen since the rookie years of Green and Jones. It's non-controversial to state that Bush has about a million times more talent than Willie Green did. But would you have said that after Green carried his Browns into the playoffs by rushing for 178 yards and two scores against the 9-5-1 Falcons in week 17?

Regardless, the question I want to look at today is whether rookie RBs that perform better at the end of the year play better the next season than those that hit the rookie wall.

Jones-Drew (13th best) and Reggie Bush (18th) were among the 26 rookie running backs since 1996 to total over 1,000 yards from scrimmage. The group was evenly split with respect to yards per carry average: twelve saw their YPC decrease as the season went on, twelve saw it increase, and two saw no change. When looking at fantasy points, the picture was much clearer: only seven saw their fantasy production decrease as the season went on, and only two or three of those seven were significant.

While some people like to use first and second half splits, the arbitrariness of those numbers often fails to reflect a true change in production. Instead, I like to use a weighted average formula to note progression:

Adjusted Fantasy Points =

1*(Gm 1 FP) + 2*(Gm 2 FP) + 3*(Gm 3 FP) + ... + 16*(Gm 16 FP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 16

[Note: For the purposes of this study, fantasy points were calculated by dividing a player's total yards by 10, and adding six points for each touchdown scored by the running back.]

Here's a table of all 26 RBs, with the fantasy players that improved the most during their rookie seasons at the top. The "Improve" column is simply the adjusted FPs minus the actual fantasy points. The last column shows how many FPs each player scored in their sophomore season:

Name			Year	Team	FP	adjFP	Improve	Next Year
Clinton Portis		2002	den	289.2	354.3	65.1	274.5
William Green		2002	cle	136.0	191.5	55.5	 66.9
Corey Dillon		1997	cin	198.8	241.4	42.6	160.8
Maurice Jones-Drew	2006	jax	227.7	269.1	41.4	 --
Kevin Jones		2004	det	167.3	207.9	40.6	107.3
Willis McGahee		2004	buf	207.7	247.7	40.0	172.5
Jamal Lewis		2000	rav	202.0	241.2	39.2	 --
Dominic Rhodes		2001	clt	186.8	216.1	29.3	 --
Reggie Bush		2006	nor	178.7	207.4	28.7	 --
Anthony Thomas		2001	chi	178.1	201.3	23.2	124.4
Mike Anderson		2000	den	255.6	278.1	22.5	 96.4
Edgerrin James		1999	clt	315.9	337.2	21.3	338.3
Domanick Williams	2003	htx	186.2	207.3	21.1	261.6
Fred Taylor		1998	jax	266.4	284.5	18.1	117.5
Marcel Shipp		2002	crd	178.7	192.0	13.3	101.4
Ricky Williams		1999	nor	117.6	128.3	10.7	194.9
Eddie George		1996	oti	203.0	212.8	 9.8	186.3
Joseph Addai		2006	clt	188.6	193.9	 5.3	 --
Olandis Gary		1999	den	173.8	178.1	 4.3	  9.0
Cadillac Williams	2005	tam	161.9	160.0	-1.9	105.4
Antowain Smith		1997	buf	149.7	144.9	-4.8	161.5
Robert Edwards		1998	nwe	216.6	211.1	-5.5	 --
Karim Abdul-Jabbar	1996	mia	191.5	184.6	-6.9	211.3
Warrick Dunn		1997	tam	186.0	175.6  -10.4	149.0
Ronnie Brown		2005	mia	143.9	128.9  -15.0	158.4
LaDainian Tomlinson	2001	sdg	220.3	194.4  -25.9	307.2

Twenty of the 26 RBs played in the NFL the following season (Jones-Drew, Bush and Addai have yet to play their second seasons, while Jamal Lewis, Dominic Rhodes and Robert Edwards all suffered season-ending injuries before the next regular season). Olandis Gary tore his ACL in the season opener the next year, and Mike Anderson's role changed significantly, leaving just 18 runners to examine.

Only Portis, Dillon and Green had better improvement as rookies than Jones-Drew. None of those three matched their rookie production the next year, though, and only Portis was close. William Green was a huge bust, and Dillon played nowhere near as well as he did towards the end of 1996. Further, the next big improvers -- Kevin Jones, Willis McGahee and Anthony Thomas -- also were busts as sophomores. Only Edge, Dom (Davis) Williams and Ricky Williams were able to even match their rookie production the following year.

On the other side, Antowain Smith, Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Ronnie Brown and Tomlinson were slow finishers that improved the next season. So four of the six strong starters improved on their overall rookie production, while only three of the thirteen fast finishers improved on their overall production. While it's worth noting that all three also bested their adjusted fantasy point totals, this evidence would seem to go strongly against intuition. We shouldn't expect to see the Reggie Bush or MJD from the second half of '06, and might be lucky to just see what we got out of them last year.

I used the same formula to compute adjusted yards per carry, but used Rushing Yards in the numerator and Carries in the denominator.

Adjusted YPC =

1*(Game 1 Rush Yards) + 2*(Gm 2 RYds) + 3*(Gm 3 RYds) + ... + 16*(Gm 16 RYds)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

1*(Game 1 Rushes) + 2*(Gm 2 Rsh) + 3*(Gm 3 Rsh) + ... + 16*(Gm 16 Rsh)

Here's the full list, along with their sophomore production (min: 100 carries):

Name			Year	Team	YPC	adjYPC	Improve	Next Year
Reggie Bush		2006	nor	3.65	4.13	 0.48	 --
William Green		2002	cle	3.65	4.05	 0.40	3.94
Olandis Gary		1999	den	4.20	4.56	 0.36	 --
Clinton Portis		2002	den	5.52	5.80	 0.28	5.49
Maurice Jones-Drew	2006	jax	5.67	5.92	 0.25	 --
Kevin Jones		2004	det	4.70	4.94	 0.24	3.57
Corey Dillon		1997	cin	4.85	4.98	 0.13	4.31
Willis McGahee		2004	buf	3.97	4.10	 0.13	3.84
Mike Anderson		2000	den	5.01	5.12	 0.12	3.87
Edgerrin James		1999	clt	4.21	4.32	 0.11	4.42
Robert Edwards		1998	nwe	3.83	3.91	 0.08	 --
Karim Abdul-Jabbar	1996	mia	3.64	3.70	 0.06	3.15
LaDainian Tomlinson	2001	sdg	3.65	3.65	 0.00	4.52
Dominic Rhodes		2001	clt	4.74	4.74	 0.00	 --
Joseph Addai		2006	clt	4.78	4.73	-0.05	 --
Jamal Lewis		2000	rav	4.41	4.35	-0.06	 --
Warrick Dunn		1997	tam	4.37	4.29	-0.08	4.19
Cadillac Williams	2005	tam	4.06	3.93	-0.13	3.55
Ricky Williams		1999	nor	3.49	3.35	-0.15	4.03
Domanick Williams	2003	htx	4.33	4.18	-0.15	3.93
Anthony Thomas		2001	chi	4.26	4.10	-0.16	3.37
Ronnie Brown		2005	mia	4.38	4.21	-0.17	4.18
Eddie George		1996	oti	4.08	3.88	-0.21	3.92
Marcel Shipp		2002	crd	4.44	4.19	-0.25	3.64
Fred Taylor		1998	jax	4.63	4.37	-0.26	4.60
Antowain Smith		1997	buf	4.33	3.91	-0.42	3.75

Reggie tops the list this time, as he really made great strides last year. But remember, William Green is second on that list. On the fast finishers side, of the eight RBs that played their sophomore seasons, only two of them improved. One was Green, who was still a big time bust for the Browns. The other was Edgerrin James. For the strong starters, only one out of ten -- Ricky Williams -- bested his rookie YPC average. Antowain Smith and Anthony Thomas ended the year poorly, and things never turned around for them the next season.

So what's it all mean? Will Bush or Drew be the next Edgerrin James or the next William Green? Perhaps most notably, only four of the 18 RBs -- James, Ricky Williams, Dom Williams and Tomlinson -- had better years as sophomores. Fourteen RBs totaled over 1,000 yards as rookies, were poised to breakout, but then regressed the following year. And it doesn't look like the great finishes in 2006 by Bush or Jones-Drew should make them immune from suffering similar fates.

In Part I, we looked at the rookie seasons and draft values of all RBs drafted between 1978 and 1997. We found out that Reggie Bush, as a result of his significantly higher draft value, still was projected for slightly more remaining career rushing yards than Drew. However, rushing yards doesn't tell the whole story. Jones-Drew averaged 5.7 YPC, which is incredible. Reggie Bush scored 178 fantasy points, which is very high for a RB with just 565 rushing yards.

Let's start with fantasy points. Using the same technique as we did before, we can perform a regression analysis to find career fantasy points scored, using fantasy points scored as a rookie and draft value as our two variables. Here's the formula:

Remaining career FPs = 107.6 + 0.14 * (Draft Value) + 3.58 * (rookie FPs)

What's that mean? If Tony Hunt (Pick 90, Draft Value = 140) scores 31 fantasy points this year, we'd project him to score about 238 fantasy points for the rest of his career. If he breaks out and scores 150 FPs, we'd up that projection to 664 fantasy points. If Titans' rookie Chris Henry (Pick 50, draft value 400) scores 34 fantasy points, we'd project him out at 285 fantasy points for the remainder of his career. If Chris Henry scores 150 FPs, his projection moves up to 701 FPs. But Marshawn Lynch (Pick 12, Draft Value 1200) only needs 119 FPs to be projected for 701 remaining fantasy points.

Once again, I think those numbers don't feel too out of whack with what your intuition would tell you. How do Reggie and Maurice stack up? Bush (DV = 2600) scored 178 fantasy points last year, projecting him out at 1,109 career fantasy points. Jones-Drew (DV = 300) scored a whopping 228 fantasy points last year, which translates to a prediction of "just" 966 career fantasy points. The extra 50 fantasy points aren't enough to counteract the 2300 point difference in pick value. Don't forget that Freeman McNeil and Garrison Hearst both scored under 100 FPs as rookies, but the former number three overall picks would each end up topping 1200 career fantasy points. While it makes sense to put a lot of stock in what players do in the NFL, one rookie season is a pretty small sample compared to three or four years of college and a draft combine.

On the other hand, what about yards per carry? Jones-Drew's sparkling 5.67 YPC is one of the biggest reasons people are so bullish on his future. In fact, since 1970, only two others RBs with a minimum of 100 carries have hit 5.5 YPC as a rookie: Clinton Portis and Franco Harris. That's pretty good company. And just as interesting, Reggie Bush averaged only 3.65 YPC, over two yards per carry fewer than Jones-Drew.

I looked at all rookie RBs from 1978-1997 with a minimum of 100 carries, and ran a regression using yards per carry and draft value to predict fantasy points for the remainder of their careers. Here's the formula:

Remaining fantasy points = -792 + 0.26 * (Draft Value) + 320 * (Rookie Year Yards Per Carry Average)

Jones-Drew (draft value 300, YPC = 5.67) is now projected to score 1110 more fantasy points the rest of his career. This feels about right: he was projected at 966 when looking at just last year's total fantasy points, but deservedly gets a big boost when using yards per carry as a variable. Bush (draft value 2600, YPC = 3.65) is projected for 1,052 fantasy points, which is still pretty good. That's only a small downgrade from before, when we ignored Bush's low YPC average. Why? The sample here is different, because we're only looking at RBs with 100 or more carries as a rookie. The nine RBs drafted in the top three over this 20 year span averaged over 1500 career fantasy points. Only one -- Blair Thomas -- was a bust. So the draft value variable here got a nice boost.

Finally, let's combine rookie fantasy points, rookie yards per carry average and draft value and see what we get:

Rest of career fantasy points = -515 + 0.10 * (Draft Value) + 130 * (YPC) + 4.5 * (FPs)

Jones-Drew's projected soars to 1282 fantasy points for the rest of his career. Reggie Bush is projected for 1024 fantasy points. Bush got a 231 point head start due to his draft position, but loses 263 points to Drew due to the large YPC difference, and another 226 FPs because of the 50 point difference the players scored last year. Interestingly enough, the relatively small 50 point difference in points scored last year is weighed almost as heavily as the enormous YPC differential. Why is a low YPC average for a rookie not so terrifying? Emmitt Smith (3.9 YPC average as a rookie, 3,025 fantasy points scored the rest of his career), Marshall Faulk (4.1, 2,479), Curtis Martin (4.0, 2,078), Tiki Barber (3.8, 1860), Roger Craig (4.1, 1561), Eddie George (4.1, 1532), Charlie Garner (3.7, 1322) and James Wilder (3.5, 1115) all had great careers despite not running very well as rookies. The fact that Barber, Garner and Wilder -- all excellent receivers -- had similar YPC averages to Bush is good news for Bush fans.

For Jones-Drew, the news is even better. The 11 RBs to score 228 or more FPs during their rookie season averaged 1,472 FPs for the remainder of their careers. Don't forget that the NFL's 4th all-time leading rusher -- Curtis Martin -- was a third round pick who had an incredible rookie year and never looked back.

One note: Herschel Walker was drafted in the 5th round due to his involvement with the USFL, and considered a 5th round pick for this study, despite undoubtedly being an elite, top-ten pick talent. To a small extent, that may understate the value of being a high draft pick, because he's not morally one of the low round picks to succeed.

Check out Part III, tomorrow, though. The news doesn't always stay good for our second year stars.

[Note: This can also be seen over at the Footballguys.com blog:]

Reggie Bush and Maurice Jones-Drew are two of the most exciting and talented young players in the league. Both have the necessary skills to earn annual trips to Honolulu. Bush, of course, was a Heisman Trophy winner and top three pick in the NFL draft … just like O.J. Simpson, Tony Dorsett, Earl Campbell, Bo Jackson and Barry Sanders. Jones-Drew averaged over 5.5 YPC and rushed for 12+ TDs last year, joining an elite club consisting of only Drew, Jim Brown, O.J Simpson, Eric Dickerson and Clinton Portis. And only Portis did that as a rookie.

It is not controversial to state that Bush was viewed as the better prospect and that MJD had a better rookie season. The key question now, is which one trumps the other? Forgetting the names for a minute, which RB would you expect to have the better career: the highly touted prospect or the rookie stud? Reuben Mayes rushed for 1353 yards at 4.7 yards per carry as a rookie, but had just 2,131 more rushing yards the rest of his career. Additionally, John Stephens, Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Greg Bell and Terry Miller all had 1,000 yard rookie seasons, but fizzled out quickly. On the other hand, we know that high draft position doesn’t mean everything, either. Ki-Jana Carter, Brent Fullwood, Blair Thomas, Alonzo Highsmith, and, well, Terry Miller, were top five draft picks that recorded fewer than 2,500 rushing yards in their careers.

I looked at all RBs drafted from 1978 to 1997. That gives us 20 years worth of drafts, with little worry about active players. There are a few guys still remaining, but Tiki Barber and Corey Dillon just retired from that ‘97 draft class, and I doubt we’ll be seeing significant changes to career totals to cause concern. Here’s a pretty intuitive chart:

Draft Pick   #RBs      Career Rush Yards

1  -  3       13       7132

4  - 10       15       4663

11 - 20       29       3642

21 - 40       54       2930

41 - 70       57       2135

71 -100       52       1629

101-150       70       1268

150+         154       1032

There were 13 RBs drafted among the top three over this 20 year era, and they each averaged 7,132 career rushing yards. There’s a very strong correlation between draft pick and career rushing yards, which isn’t terribly surprising. Based off this, you might have projected last year that Reggie Bush (#2 overall) would outrush Jones-Drew (#60 overall) for his career by about 5,000 yards.

But now it’s this year, and we have some more information at our disposal. Jones-Drew rushed for 941 yards last year, while Reggie Bush rushed for only 565 yards. What does history tell us to think about those data? The table below breaks down all rookie RBs into tiers based on their number of rushing yards during their rookie season. The last column shows the average rest of career rushing yards (AROCRY) for those players:

Rushing Yards	#RBs	AROCRY

1400+	      	  8	9702

1100-1399	 11	5053

900-1099	 13	4161

600-899		 31	3109

400-599		 45	2527

200-399		 80	1590

01-199		206	 960

0		 50	 716

Like the draft pick chart, there are no surprises here. The more yards you rush for as a rookie, the more yards you’d expect a player to rush for during the remainder of his career. Based off this table, you might project that MJD will rush for about 1600 more yards than Bush for the rest of their respective careers.

But we DO know something else about Bush and Jones-Drew, namely their draft position. We’re getting closer to answering the question of which RB should be expected to rush for more yards: the highly drafted player or the better rookie. We can use multiple regression analysis to tell us how these two variables play off each other. One of the problems with using regression analysis, however, is that it treats the difference between the 1st pick and the 20th pick the same as it would the difference between the 201st and 220th pick. The solution? The NFL pick value chart. So now the 1st pick is worth 3000 points, the 2nd 2600 points, the 10th 1300 points, the 116th pick 62 points, etc. So if we use rookie rushing yards and NFL draft value as our two variables to solve for remaining career rushing yards, here’s the formula we get:

Remaining Career rushing yards =

439 + 0.88 * (Pick Value) + 4.49 * (rookie rushing yards)

So let’s say Adrian Peterson (the 7th pick, pick value 1500) rushes for 1,000 yards this year. This formula would project him to rush for 6,249 rushing yards for the rest of his career. If he rushed for 1,500 yards, we’d project him at 8,494 remaining career rushing yards. If the first pick in the draft rushed for 1,206 yards as a rookie, we’d project him for the same 8,494 remaining career rushing yards. An undrafted rookie would need to rush for 1794 yards to be projected for the same remaining career rushing yards. Those numbers “feel” about right to me, so I think our formula will work.

How do Reggie Bush and Maurice Jones-Drew fare? Bush was the 2nd pick (2600 points) and rushed for 565 yards, so that projects him out at 5,264 rushing yards for the rest of his career. Jones-Drew was the 60th pick (300 points) and rushed for 941 yards, projecting him at 4,928 yards. So at least for now, it looks like Reggie Bush holds a slight edge.

In part II of this series, we’ll compare the two players using different variables than rushing yards. In part III, we’ll take a step back and reign in our optimism just a bit.

Ernest Givins         8215
Ronnie Harmon         6076
John Taylor           5598
Jerry Smith           5496
Marcus Allen          5411
Russ Francis          5262
Ike Hilliard          5251
Brent Jones           5195
Mike Pritchard        5187
Tiki Barber           5183
Raymond Chester       5013
Joe Morrison          4993
Rodney Holman         4771
Mike Renfro           4708
Jay Novacek           4630
Earnest Byner         4605
Walter Payton         4538
Thurman Thomas        4458
Preston Carpenter     4457
James Jett            4417
Rick Upchurch         4369
Paul Coffman          4340
J.J. Stokes           4293
Ricky Watters         4248
Freddie Jones         4232
Ken Dilger            4099
Tony McGee            4089
Tony Galbreath        4066
Michael Timpson       4047
Sam McCullum          4017
Marcus Pollard        4007
Pete Holohan          3981
Hassan Jones          3824
Warrick Dunn          3771
David Patten          3761
T.J. Houshmandzadeh   3735
Doug Cosbie           3728
Willie Green          3720
Charlie Garner        3711

Steve Young           4239
Walt Garrison         3886
Rocky Bleier          3865
Michael Vick          3859
Fran Tarkenton        3674
Clarence Davis        3640
Preston Pearson       3609
Don Calhoun           3559
Steve McNair          3558
John Elway            3407
Wayne Morris          3387
Walter Abercrombie    3357
Ernie Green           3204
Roland Harper         3044
Charlie Harraway      3019
John Cappelletti      2951
Matt Suhey            2946
Jim Braxton           2890
Kordell Stewart       2874
Archie Griffin        2808
Jim Harbaugh          2787
Bobby Mitchell        2735
Greg Landry           2655
Charles Alexander     2645

Kent Graham           7801
Don Strock            5349
Todd Blackledge       5286
Cody Carlson          4469
Matt Cavanaugh        4332
Mark Herrmann         4015
Don Trull             3980
Sean Salisbury        3824
Jamie Martin          3814
Turk Schonert         3788
Harry Gilmer          3786
Jeff Rutledge         3628
Anthony Wright        3578
Eric Zeier            3520
Billy Joe Hobert      3371
Ed Luther             3187
Mike McMahon          2867
Mike Moroski          2864
Bobby Scott           2781
Tony Adams            2733
Paul Justin           2614
Terry Hanratty        2510
Glenn Foley           2469
Kelly Stouffer        2333
John Fourcade         2312
Don Heinrich          2287

1. What player has the most career receiving yards, among all players who never led their team in receiving yards?

2. What player has the most career rushing yards, among all players who never led their team in rushing yards?

3. What player has the most career passing yards, among all players who never led their team in passing yards?

Yesterday, we took a look at which QBs have had really fun and really boring seasons. Well it only makes sense now to check out the career list, broken up by era. It's pretty clear to see that each decade breeds more and more boring QBs. The transformation from the vertical game of the AFL to the West Coast Offense and efficient passing games of today makes it necessary to separate out players from different decades. Note: Only QBs with 50 career TDs + INTs were eligible.

Top 10 most passers that debuted before 1960:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
23.68	Sid Luckman		 904	14686	137	132	1939
22.91	Lamar McHan		 610	 9449	 73	108	1954
22.76	Ed Brown		 949	15600	102	138	1954
21.74	Eddie LeBaron		 898	13399	104	141	1952
21.50	Adrian Burk		 500	 7001	 61	 89	1950
21.47	Bob Waterfield	 	 814	11849	 97	128	1945
21.46	Johnny Lujack	 	 404	 6295	 41	 54	1948
21.15	Cotton Davidson	 	 770	11760	 73	108	1954
21.03	Babe Parilli		1552	22681	178	220	1952
21.00	George Ratterman 	 299	 4279	 39	 41	1950

In the '60s:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
21.09	Steve Tensi		 369	 5558	 43	 46	1965
20.73	Daryle Lamonica		1288	19154	164	138	1963
20.39	Jacky Lee		 430	 6191	 46	 57	1960
19.96	Don Meredith		1170	17199	135	111	1960
19.95	John McCormick		 214	 2895	 17	 38	1962
19.88	Joe Namath		1886	27663	173	220	1965
19.88	Bill Nelsen		 963	14165	 98	101	1963
19.79	Tom Flores		 838	11959	 93	 92	1960
19.74	Pete Beathard		 575	 8176	 43	 84	1964
19.71	Johnny Green		 275	 3921	 26	 34	1960

In the '70s:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
20.16	Matt Robinson	 	 244	 3519	 18	 38	1977
19.50	Steve Grogan		1879	26886	182	208	1975
19.21	Steve Ramsey		 456	 6437	 35	 58	1970
19.03	Terry Bradshaw		2025	27989	212	210	1970
18.96	Matt Cavanaugh		 305	 4332	 28	 30	1979
18.75	Scott Hunter		 335	 4756	 23	 38	1971
18.25	Dennis Shaw		 489	 6347	 35	 68	1970
17.98	Jim Plunkett		1943	25882	164	198	1971
17.95	Vince Evans		 704	 9485	 52	 74	1977
17.93	Lynn Dickey		1747	23322	141	179	1971

In the '80s. [Note: 1980 takes six of the top ten spots (and the 11th one, as well), so I'm going to show the top 10 that debuted in the '80s, along with the next best five that debuted from 1981-1989]:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
17.96	Jay Schroeder		1426	20063	114	108	1985
17.60	Marc Wilson		1085	14391	 86	102	1980
17.13	Jeff Kemp		 479	 6230	 39	 40	1981
16.81	Dave Wilson		 551	 6987	 36	 55	1981
16.80	Cliff Stoudt		 359	 4506	 23	 38	1980
16.77	Mike Tomczak		1248	16079	 88	106	1985
16.67	Eric Hipple		 830	10711	 55	 70	1980
16.66	Scott Brunner		 512	 6457	 29	 54	1980
16.58	Bill Kenney		1330	17277	105	 86	1980
16.53	Paul McDonald		 411	 5269	 24	 37	1980

16.42	Todd Blackledge	 	 424	 5286	 29	 38	1983
16.40	Boomer Esiason		2969	37920	247	184	1984
16.16	Mike Pagel		 756	 9414	 49	 63	1982
16.11	Steve Beuerlein		1894	24046	147	112	1988
16.06	Mark Rypien		1466	18473	115	 88	1988

In the '90s or later:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
16.92	Ben Roethlisberger	 644	 8519	 52	 43	2004
16.24	Craig Erickson		 591	 7625	 41	 38	1992
15.86	Rex Grossman		 367	 4496	 27	 26	2003
15.75	Gus Frerotte		1427	18120	 95	 79	1994
15.68	Kurt Warner		1645	20591	125	 83	1998
15.68	Michael Vick	 	 930	11505	 71	 52	2001
15.59	Trent Green		2143	26963	157	101	1997
15.51	Ryan Leaf		 317	 3666	 14	 36	1998
15.51	Tommy Maddox		 686	 8087	 48	 54	1992
15.50	Jake Delhomme		1151	13965	 92	 63	1999

Now let's take a look at the most boring QBs, also sorted by debut year.

Pre-1960:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
17.19	Frank Tripucka		 879	10282	 69	124	1949
17.21	John Brodie		2469	31548	214	224	1957
17.68	Bart Starr		1808	24718	152	138	1956
17.71	Frankie Albert		 316	 3847	 27	 43	1950
17.81	Sonny Jurgensen		2433	32224	255	189	1957
18.19	Milt Plum		1306	17536	122	127	1957
18.23	Bill Wade		1370	18530	124	134	1954
18.38	Len Dawson		2136	28711	239	183	1957
18.45	Jim Finks		 661	 8622	 55	 88	1949
18.49	Y.A. Tittle		2118	28339	212	221	1950

1960's:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
15.44	Virgil Carter		 425	 5063	 29	 31	1968
15.62	Jack Concannon	 	 560	 6270	 36	 63	1964
15.71	Steve Spurrier		 597	 6878	 40	 60	1967
15.88	Bill Munson		1070	12896	 84	 80	1964
16.14	Roman Gabriel		2366	29444	201	149	1962
16.20	Mike Livingston	 	 912	11295	 56	 83	1968
16.52	Greg Landry		1276	16052	 98	103	1968
16.67	Karl Sweetan		 269	 3210	 17	 34	1966
16.87	Gary Cuozzo		 584	 7402	 43	 55	1963
16.88	Fran Tarkenton		3686	47003	342	266	1961

1970's:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
14.47	Steve Dils		 504	 5816	 27	 32	1979
14.68	Steve Fuller		 605	 7156	 28	 41	1979
14.92	Joe Montana		3409	40551	273	139	1979
15.25	Gary Huff		 392	 4329	 16	 50	1973
15.39	Steve Deberg		2874	34241	196	204	1978
15.59	Archie Manning		2011	23911	125	173	1971
15.74	Ken Anderson		2654	32838	197	160	1971
15.98	Joe Theismann		2044	25206	160	138	1974
16.05	Gary Danielson	 	1105	13764	 81	 78	1976
16.09	Brian Sipe		1944	23713	154	149	1974

1980's:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
13.96	Steve Bono		 934	10439	 62	 42	1985
14.01	Troy Aikman		2898	32942	165	141	1989
14.04	Hugh Millen		 560	 6440	 22	 35	1987
14.07	Jim Harbaugh		2305	26288	129	117	1987
14.15	Rich Gannon		2533	28743	180	104	1987
14.20	Steve Walsh		 713	 7875	 40	 50	1989
14.33	Bernie Kosar		1994	23301	124	 87	1985
14.57	Ken O'Brien		2110	25094	128	 98	1984
14.89	Erik Kramer		1317	15337	 92	 79	1987
14.91	Jack Trudeau		 873	10243	 42	 69	1986

1990's or later:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
12.46	Shane Matthews		 492	 4756	 31	 24	1993
13.22	Jim Miller		 610	 6387	 36	 31	1995
13.27	David Carr		1243	13391	 59	 65	2002
13.40	Joey Harrington	 	1209	12478 	 72	 77	2002
13.58	Brad Johnson		2619	28548	164	117	1994
13.59	Kyle Boller		 578	 6103	 36	 34	2003
13.62	Josh McCown		 498	 5431	 25	 29	2002
13.76	Danny Kanell		 491	 5129	 31	 34	1996
13.80	Chad Pennington	 	1081	11973	 72	 46	2000
13.82	Kent Graham		 696	 7822	 39	 33	1992

Other notable recent players:

Fun	Player			 Cmp	 Yard	 TD	INT	Debut Year
15.31	Peyton Manning		3131	37586	275	139	1998
15.22	Eli Manning		 690	 8049	 54	 44	2004
15.20	Daunte Culpepper	1760	21097	137	 89	1999
15.15	Trent Dilfer		1645	19352	106	117	1994
14.92	Jeff George		2298	27602	154	113	1990
14.87	Brett Favre		5021	57500	414	273	1991
14.80	Marc Bulger		1357	16233	 95	 59	2002
14.80	Carson Palmer		 932	10768	 78	 43	2003
14.60	Drew Bledsoe		3839	44611	251	206	1993
14.58	Donovan McNabb		1898	22080	152	 72	1999
14.36	Steve McNair		2600	30191	172	114	1995
14.34	Tom Brady		1896	21564	147	 78	2000
14.19	Drew Brees		1481	16766	106	 64	2001

[NOTE: ADDED AFTER 11:00 AM EST TODAY]

Here are the numbers for the 2006 season, minimum 200 attempts:

Donovan McNabb		18.04	180	2647	18	 6
Tony Romo		16.83	220	2903	19	13
Rex Grossman		16.29	262	3193	23	20
Ben Roethlisberger	16.21	280	3513	18	23
Michael Vick		16.17	204	2474	20	13
Carson Palmer		15.62	324	4035	28	13
Matt Hasselbeck		15.56	210	2442	18	15
Jason Campbell		15.43	110	1297	10	 6
Vince Young		15.35	184	2199	12	13
David Garrard		15.24	145	1735	10	 9
Drew Brees		15.01	356	4418	26	11
Peyton Manning		14.91	362	4397	31	 9
Jake Plummer		14.82	175	1994	11	13
Damon Huard		14.72	148	1878	11	 1
Philip Rivers		14.66	284	3388	22	 9
Matt Leinart		14.59	214	2547	11	12
J.P. Losman		14.46	268	3051	19	14
Alex Smith		14.36	257	2890	16	16
Eli Manning		14.27	301	3244	24	18
Jon Kitna		14.20	372	4208	21	22
Andrew Walter		14.13	147	1677	 3	13
Brett Favre		13.95	343	3885	18	18
Tom Brady		13.88	319	3529	24	12
Marc Bulger		13.79	370	4301	24	 8
Chad Pennington		13.35	313	3352	17	16
Jake Delhomme		13.33	263	2805	17	11
Joey Harrington		13.05	223	2236	12	15
Mark Brunell		12.90	162	1789	 8	 4
Steve McNair		12.71	295	3050	16	12
Charlie Frye		12.42	252	2454	10	17
Brad Johnson		12.41	270	2750	 9	15
Bruce Gradkowski	11.93	177	1661	 9	 9
David Carr		11.07	302	2767	11	12

I'll leave the commentary up to you guys, today.

Do you know who holds the modern record for yards per completion in a season? It's Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills QB and United States Congressman. In 1964, Kemp averaged 19.20 yards per completion, easily the most for any QB since 1960 with at least 200 pass attempts. Here's a list of the top 20 QBs:

19.20	Jack Kemp	1964	buf
18.59	Tom Flores	1963	rai
17.87	Johnny Unitas	1964	clt
17.83	Craig Morton	1970	dal
17.81	George Blanda	1961	oti
17.75	Ed Brown	1963	pit
17.61	Bobby Layne	1960	pit
17.47	Tom Flores	1966	rai
17.39	Norm Snead	1963	was
17.38	Joe Namath	1972	nyj
17.13	Don Meredith	1965	dal
16.99	Terry Bradshaw	1970	pit
16.84	Eric Hipple	1981	det
16.83	Joe Namath	1968	nyj
16.70	John Hadl	1968	sdg
16.70	John Brodie	1961	sfo
16.64	Sonny Jurgensen	1962	phi
16.61	Cotton Davidson	1962	rai
16.60	Chris Chandler	1998	atl
16.45	Greg Landry	1971	det
16.45	Ed Brown	1964	pit
16.42	Jim Ninowski	1961	det
16.31	Johnny Unitas	1960	clt
16.28	Jack Kemp	1961	sdg
16.27	Jay Schroeder	1988	rai

And the bottom 25 QBs:

8.43	Bobby Hoying	1998	phi
8.94	Donovan McNabb	1999	phi
8.95	Doug Pederson	2000	cle
9.12	Mark Rypien	1993	was
9.15	Kordell Stewart	1999	pit
9.16	David Carr	2006	htx
9.31	Kelly Holcomb	2003	cle
9.32	Joey Harrington	2003	det
9.38	Bruce Gradkowski2006	tam
9.50	Gary Huff	1975	chi
9.56	Joe Namath	1976	nyj
9.62	Dan Pastorini	1973	oti
9.65	Anthony Wright	2005	rav
9.67	Roman Gabriel	1974	phi
9.70	Hugh Millen	1992	nwe
9.72	David Carr	2005	htx
9.74	Kelly Holcomb	2005	buf
9.74	Charlie Frye	2006	cle
9.77	Boomer Esiason	1992	cin
9.84	Kyle Orton	2005	chi
9.84	Jim McMahon	1993	min
9.85	Shane Matthews	1999	chi
9.85	Patrick Ramsey	2004	was
9.89	Mike Livingston	1978	kan
9.91	A.J. Feeley	2004	mia

Certainly, Kemp's 1964 season is interesting because of his high yards per completion rate. But there are some other peculiar notes about his stat line. Kemp completed an abysmal 44.2 percent of his passes, converting 119 of 269 passes. There have been 1280 quarterbacks to throw 200 passes in a season since 1960: Kemp ranks as the 27th worst on the list. In Mike Shanahan's only full season with the Raiders, both his QBs completed 44.1% of his passes. No wonder he didn't stay in California for very long. Here's a list of the worst 30:

35.3%	Gary Marangi	1976	buf
36.1%	Dick Wood	1966	mia
37.1%	Cotton Davidson	1962	rai
38.1%	Terry Bradshaw	1970	pit
39.0%	Johnny Green	1960	buf
39.8%	Tom Sherman	1968	nwe
40.3%	Steve Tensi	1967	den
40.4%	Bobby Douglass	1971	chi
40.6%	Babe Parilli	1965	nwe
40.7%	John McCormick	1965	den
41.0%	Pete Beathard	1967	oti
41.2%	John Hadl	1962	sdg
41.2%	Rusty Hilger	1988	det
41.4%	Jim Zorn	1977	sea
41.8%	Doug Williams	1979	tam
42.1%	George Blanda	1965	oti
42.7%	Jack Kemp	1966	buf
42.7%	Joe Pisarcik	1977	nyg
42.8%	Dan Darragh	1968	buf
43.5%	Bob Avellini	1976	chi
43.6%	Jack Kemp	1967	buf
43.7%	Randy Johnson	1966	atl
44.1%	George Herring	1961	den
44.1%	Steve Beuerlein	1988	rai
44.1%	Jay Schroeder	1988	rai
44.2%	Akili Smith	2000	cin
44.2%	Jack Kemp	1964	buf
44.3%	Jim Hart	1968	crd
44.5%	Ed Brown	1964	pit
44.7%	Vince Evans	1981	chi

And the best 30:

70.6%	Ken Anderson	1982	cin
70.3%	Steve Young	1994	sfo
70.2%	Joe Montana	1989	sfo
69.3%	Brian Griese	2004	tam
69.2%	Chad Pennington	2002	nyj
69.2%	Daunte Culpepper2004	min
69.1%	Troy Aikman	1993	dal
68.7%	Kurt Warner	2001	ram
68.3%	David Carr	2006	htx
68.0%	Steve Young	1993	sfo
67.8%	Carson Palmer	2005	cin
67.7%	Kurt Warner	2000	ram
67.7%	Steve Young	1996	sfo
67.7%	Steve Young	1997	sfo
67.6%	Rich Gannon	2002	rai
67.6%	Peyton Manning	2004	clt
67.4%	Kelly Holcomb	2005	buf
67.3%	Peyton Manning	2005	clt
67.3%	Steve Bartkowski1984	atl
67.0%	Peyton Manning	2003	clt
66.9%	Marc Bulger	2005	ram
66.9%	Steve Young	1995	sfo
66.8%	Joe Montana	1987	sfo
66.7%	Brian Griese	2002	den
66.7%	Ken Stabler	1976	rai
66.7%	Ken Anderson	1983	cin
66.7%	Steve Young	1992	sfo
66.4%	Ben Roethlisberger2004	pit
66.4%	Trent Green	2004	kan
66.3%	Peyton Manning	2002	clt

Those large data dumps are just the background for this post. Because Kemp's season gets even more interesting. Kemp threw 13 TDs against 26 INTs in 1964, which is pretty incredible considering he only had 269 pass attempts. His 9.67 INTs per 100 pass attempts ranks as the 5th worst of those 1280 QBs. Here are the top and bottom 10 INT rates:

11.1	Eddie LeBaron	1960	dal
11.0	Terry Bradshaw	1970	pit
10.4	George Herring	1961	den
10.0	George Blanda	1962	oti
9.7	Jack Kemp	1964	buf
9.4	Norm Snead	1973	nyg
9.2	John Hadl	1962	sdg
8.9	Dennis Shaw	1971	buf
8.6	Joe Namath	1975	nyj
8.5	Ralph Guglielmi	1960	was

0.4	Damon Huard	2006	kan
0.9	Steve Deberg	1990	kan
1.2	Steve Bartkowski1983	atl
1.2	Neil O'Donnell	1998	cin
1.2	Brian Griese	2000	den
1.2	Bart Starr	1966	gnb
1.3	Phil Simms	1990	nyg
1.3	Jim Harbaugh	1997	clt
1.3	Doug Flutie	2000	buf
1.3	Brad Johnson	2002	tam

That's right, Damon Huard last season had the lowest INT rate of the 1,280 QBs since 1960 to throw 200 passes in a season.

So roughly, every 20 times Jack Kemp threw a pass, he would have nine 20-yard completions, with one of those going for a TD, two INTs, and nine incompletions. Maybe it's the AFL'er in me, but that sounds pretty exciting to watch. So I've decided to come up with a fun index, centered around Mr. Kemp. Without putting too much thought into this (since this is, after all, filed under 'totally useless'), here's the formula:

[ ((Interceptions + Touchdowns) X 25) + Passing Yards ] / Completions

It's basically yards per completion, with a bonus for "big plays." Since both passing TDs and INTs are big plays, I weighed them the same. Both are fun to see.

Kemp had a fun score of 27.39, the highest in the modern era. He had 13 TDs, 26 INTs, 2285 passing yards and 119 completions. I think this "fun score" formula approximates what we're trying to get at, and since Kemp topped the list, I'm happy. Here are the top 30 most fun seasons to watch since 1960:

Fun	Player		Year	Team	Cmp	Yard	TD	INT
27.39	Jack Kemp	1964	buf	119	2285	13	26
26.02	Terry Bradshaw	1970	pit	83	1410	 6	24
25.89	Tom Flores	1963	rai	113	2101	20	13
25.56	George Blanda	1961	oti	187	3330	36	22
24.89	Bobby Layne	1960	pit	103	1814	13	17
24.63	Jim Zorn	1977	sea	104	1687	16	19
23.85	Ed Brown	1963	pit	168	2982	21	20
23.79	John Hadl	1968	sdg	208	3473	27	32
23.76	Tom Flores	1966	rai	151	2638	24	14
23.56	Joe Namath	1972	nyj	162	2816	19	21
23.33	Don Meredith	1965	dal	141	2415	22	13
23.23	Craig Morton	1970	dal	102	1819	15	 7
23.10	Norm Snead	1963	was	175	3043	13	27
22.92	Cotton Davidson	1962	rai	119	1977	 7	23
22.85	Ed Brown	1964	pit	121	1990	12	19
22.85	Norm VanBrocklin1960	phi	153	2471	24	17
22.81	Cotton Davidson	1961	kan	151	2445	17	23
22.76	Sonny Jurgensen	1962	phi	196	3261	22	26
22.76	Johnny Unitas	1960	clt	190	3099	25	24
22.75	Y.A. Tittle	1962	nyg	200	3224	33	20
22.56	Cotton Davidson	1964	rai	155	2497	21	19
22.54	Bill Wade	1961	chi	139	2258	22	13
22.27	Charley Johnson	1962	crd	150	2440	16	20
22.03	Jay Schroeder	1988	rai	113	1839	13	13
22.02	Eric Hipple	1981	det	140	2358	14	15
21.99	Matt Robinson	1978	nyj	124	2002	13	16
21.97	John Hadl	1965	sdg	174	2798	20	21
21.89	Earl Morrall	1968	clt	182	2909	26	17
21.88	Jack Kemp	1961	sdg	165	2686	15	22
21.83	Johnny Unitas	1964	clt	158	2824	19	 6

Of note: two pre-1960 QBs even beat mighty Jack. In 1943, Sid Luckman (29.04) had 110 completions (on 202 attempts), 2,194 passing yards, 28 TDs and 12 INTs. But if you lower the bar to 100 attempts, no one could match Joe Geri: despite completing just 41 of 113 passes (36.3%), he passed for 866 yards (21.12 yards per completion). Throw in 15 INTs and 6 TDs, and he has a fun score of 33.93.

You might notice that there aren't any QBs on the fun score list since 1990. Here are the top 25 most fun seasons since then:

Fun	Player			Year	Team	Cmp	Yard	TD	INT
21.47	Chris Chandler		1998	atl	190	3154	25	12
19.50	Jay Schroeder		1990	rai	182	2849	19	 9
19.32	Jeff George		1999	min	191	2816	23	12
19.10	Chris Miller		1991	atl	220	3103	26	18
18.81	Jake Plummer		1997	crd	157	2203	15	15
18.74	Kurt Warner		2000	ram	235	3429	21	18
18.67	Boomer Esiason		1990	cin	224	3031	24	22
18.55	Randall Cunningham	1998	min	259	3704	34	10
18.40	Heath Shuler		1994	was	120	1658	10	12
18.25	Vinny Testaverde	1993	cle	130	1797	14	 9
18.23	Mark Rypien		1991	was	249	3564	28	11
18.19	Vinny Testaverde	1990	tam	203	2818	17	18
18.07	Ben Roethlisberger	2005	pit	168	2385	17	 9
18.04	Donovan McNabb		2006	phi	180	2647	18	 6
17.95	Peyton Manning		2004	clt	336	4557	49	10
17.92	Billy Joe Tolliver	1999	nor	139	1916	 7	16
17.85	Trent Green		2000	ram	145	2063	16	 5
17.81	Donald Hollas		1998	rai	135	1754	10	16
17.66	Jay Schroeder		1991	rai	189	2562	15	16
17.60	Rodney Peete		1990	det	142	1974	13	 8
17.55	Kurt Warner		1999	ram	325	4353	41	13
17.50	Rodney Peete		1992	det	123	1702	 9	 9
17.49	Jeff Blake		1994	cin	156	2154	14	 9
17.46	Steve Young		1991	sfo	180	2517	17	 8
17.38	Daunte Culpepper	2000	min	297	3937	33	16

I think it's safe to say that Jay Schroeder was a pretty darn fun QB to watch: he's on this list twice, and his 1988 season even cracked the original list. Whatever happened, it sure wasn't boring. And don't be too surprised to see Chandler at the top of this list. The 1998 Falcons had Tony Martin and Terance Mathis catch 130 balls for 2,317 yards, 17.8 yards per catch. Chandler was incredible that season, leading Atlanta to the Super Bowl. A few of the players on here -- Jeff George, Vinny Testaverde, Jeff Blake -- were physical talents with rocket arms and exciting games, but will never be remembered as winners. And check out the 2000 Rams, with two QBs on this list. That was the Rams team that saw 1,011 points scored in their games, easily the most in league history.

How about the reverse? Here are the 25 most boring QB seasons since 1990.

Fun	Player			Year	Team	Cmp	Yard	TD	INT
10.40	Bobby Hoying		1998	phi	114	 961	 0	 9
11.07	David Carr		2006	htx	302	2767	11	12
11.09	Doug Pederson		2000	cle	117	1047	 2	 8
11.23	Mark Rypien		1993	was	166	1514	 4	10
11.65	Kordell Stewart		1999	pit	160	1464	 6	10
11.78	Brad Johnson		2001	tam	340	3406	13	11
11.85	Jeff George		1991	clt	292	2910	10	12
11.93	Bruce Gradkowski	2006	tam	177	1661	 9	 9
11.93	Anthony Wright		2005	rav	164	1582	 6	 9
11.97	Jim McMahon		1993	min	200	1968	 9	 8
12.15	Steve Walsh		1994	chi	208	2078	10	 8
12.16	David Klingler		1993	cin	190	1935	 6	 9
12.16	David Carr		2005	htx	256	2488	14	11
12.16	Kelly Holcomb		2003	cle	193	1797	10	12
12.19	Rich Gannon		2003	rai	125	1274	 6	 4
12.24	Kyle Boller		2004	rav	258	2559	13	11
12.25	Shane Matthews		1999	chi	167	1645	10	 6
12.26	Jim Harbaugh		1993	chi	200	2002	 7	11
12.29	Jeff George		1993	clt	234	2526	 8	 6
12.37	Kurt Warner		2002	ram	144	1431	 3	11
12.40	Rich Gannon		1991	min	211	2166	12	 6
12.41	Brad Johnson		2006	min	270	2750	 9	15
12.42	Charlie Frye		2006	cle	252	2454	10	17
12.42	Brad Johnson		2005	min	184	1885	12	 4
12.48	Joey Harrington		2003	det	309	2880	17	22

Bobby Hoying was just awful: he had a 45.6 QB rating for the season. But the 2006 version of David Carr embodies exactly what the formula was intended to find -- really boring QBs. He was everything that Jack Kemp was not. You might remember that Carr tied the NFL single game record for consecutive completions against the Bills last season (sorry, Bill M.). While impressive, note that Carr threw for exactly 202 yards during that stretch. That ugly 9.18 yards per completion average barely topped his season average of 9.16 YPC. There was nothing interesting about the Texans' passing game last year, as Carr completed a ton of short passes for not very many yards. Eleven TDs on 442 passes isn't very exciting to watch. Maybe if Houston had drafted Reggie Bush, they would have been just a bit more fun.

Brad Johnson (2001 - Tampa, 2005-2006 - Minnesota) hasn't been very fun to watch, either. Thankfully him and Carr aren't starting anymore. But here's something interesting: Jeff George (twice), Kurt Warner and Mark Rypien all appear on the boring list, despite also appearing on the fun list! George was incredibly boring as a Colt in 1991, but eight years later he had the third most fun season since 1990 with the Vikings. That should finally settle the debate that Bill Brooks and Jessie Hester were no Randy Moss and Cris Carter. Warner was really fun with the Rams in 1999 and 2000, but by 2002 he had become boring. Throwing 11 INTs was the only thing he did that was exciting -- he had just 3 TD passes in 220 attempts that season. Similarly, Rypien was great and fun to watch in 1991, but two years later, he ran a boring and incompetent 'Skins offense. Amazingly, he had only 4 TDs in 319 attempts that year.

As you might imagine, there aren't very many boring QBs from before 1990. Only five QBs had scores below 13.00, and none were below 12.00. Gary Huff (1975, Chicago) was the most boring, followed by Roman Gabriel (1974, Philadelphia), Greg Landry (1977, Detroit), Eric Hipple (1986, Detroit) and Mike Livingston (1978, Kansas City).

Tomorrow, we'll switch from a seasons view to a careers view, and see how the QBs stack up.

I was quickly browsing the 2006 NFL team stats, and I noticed that the league's top scoring team, San Diego, scored many more points (492) than the league's worst defensive team allowed (San Fran, 412). Five teams, in fact, scored more points than the 49ers allowed. On the other end, the league's worst offensive team, the Raiders, scored far fewer points than the league's best defensive team, the Ravens, allowed (168 vs. 201).

A bit more calculation shows that the standard deviation of points scored in last year's NFL was 67.3, while the standard deviation of points allowed was 47.1. In plain English, this means that the defenses were much more tightly bunched around average than the offenses were.

Last season, while a bit more extreme than usual, was not an anomaly. It was the fifth straight year that offenses were more spread out than defenses. If we go back to the beginning of the 16-game schedule in 1978, we find that offenses have been more spread out than defenses in 21 of 29 seasons. Here's the data.

 Yr     PF STD   PA STD
=======================
1978      47.1    50.8
1979      54.7    51.4
1980      59.6    58.7
1981      55.8    62.1
1982      43.4    32.2
1983      71.4    51.4
1984      69.2    63.1
1985      61.6    62.8
1986      59.1    60.6
1987      55.3    47.4
1988      60.1    48.7
1989      57.8    57.6
1990      55.8    64.8
1991      72.7    53.1
1992      63.5    53.8
1993      60.8    47.4
1994      57.8    50.2
1995      57.1    39.2
1996      52.2    63.3
1997      51.1    51.4
1998      81.2    47.9
1999      66.4    61.0
2000      82.3    73.5
2001      57.1    65.5
2002      60.7    54.9
2003      70.3    51.2
2004      68.7    58.7
2005      65.7    58.2
2006      67.3    47.1
=======================
AVG       61.6    54.8

Questions:

1. Why?
2. Do we care?
3. Does this same tendency exist in other sports?

My initial reaction to the first question is that this happens because offense is much more dependent a single person than defense is.

On the second question, I think probably not, but I'd be interested in hearing other opinions.

My friend Jene Bramel, a lifelong Bengal fan, has an interesting post over at the footballguys blog. Here's the intro:

Every team has their share of "coulda, shoulda, wouldas." Cleveland fans have The Fumble and The Drive. Raider fans are left to wonder about the Immaculate Reception, the Tuck Rule and Bo. Buffalo fans, well, let’s not dredge up those memories again. Bengal fans have their own painful memories. Pete Johnson stuffed on 4th and 1 or Lewis Billups dropping an interception in the end zone at crucial points in separate Super Bowls, Carson Palmer lying in a heap in a 2005 playoff game and any number of failed top draft picks. The passing of offensive innovator and former Bengal assistant coach Bill Walsh may have reminded long time Cincinnati homers of possibly the biggest what-could’ve-been in franchise history.

Read about the injury that changed football history.