Sample size in football IS tiny compared to say baseball but after 16-17 games, IMO, a team has pretty much shown what it is made of. When a season starts, I don't even look at team stats till there is at least 4 or 5 games to work with.
We've all heard the expression "defense wins championships". That may have been truer a few years ago but not so much these days. Don't get me wrong, a good defense surely helps but just a competent defense can keep you in games if you have a good to great offense.
Of the remaining 8 teams in the playoffs, here's where the remaining teams rank in defense , yds/game:
2. San Francisco
4. Baltimore
14. Minnesota
17. Kansas City
18. Green Bay
21. Tennessee
26. Seattle
28. Houston
Note that #1 New England and #3 Buffalo are out along with 6 others from the top 10.
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Here's the same group ranked by points allowed/game, defense:
3. Baltimore
5. Minnesota
7. Kansas City
8. San Francisco
9. Green Bay
12. Tennessee
19. Houston
22. Seattle
A little different look, eh? Points allowed per game has more of the remaining competitors in the top 10 defensively.
Some teams you can move the ball on but they get stingy in the red zone.
The yds/game stat has been used as THE ranking stat for like ages but it doesn't tell the full story. Like all raw stats, it is just one piece of the puzzle.
Calculated rankings, power rankings and new age metrics are fun to look at but I think I still prefer looking at the raw data....
So far, everything is pointing to a San Francisco/Baltimore Superbowl but sometimes one of the lower ranked teams goes on a hot streak and blows up all the models. We'll see how that works out this year...
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