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I was in an argument with a guy at work who is a fan from another team that will remain nameless. He was trying to tell me how much progress our team had made in the last few years under Shanny. I told him that there were some things I liked about our progress and some things I didn’t. After our discussion i thought to myself; What better way to prove my point to him than with stats right? I thought I’d share them.
Stats don’t lie but they also don’t always tell the whole story. Keeping that in mind I started digging. I didn’t want to go back too far so I started with 2009. I thought 2009 was significant because it was the last Zorn year and would give us some kind of baseline. We went 4-12 and generally had a terrible season. We can all agree on that. The lone bright spot that year was the defense. It wasn’t dominant if memory serves, but it was pretty good. In fact it was ranked 10th overall for the season. The offense, on the other hand, was not good and finished 22nd overall. Honestly it was probably worse than that (told you stats can lie at times).
Shanny arrives in 2010 and brings with him Jim Haslett and his version of the 3-4 defense. The 3-4 didn’t fit the talent we had at that point but the 3-4 had worked other places for years so I, along with many others, was willing to let them take a shot. We all bit the bullet. It was worse than we thought and the defense took a big step back and nose dived to 31st overall that first year.
It’s interesting to look at the other teams at the bottom of the barrel with us in 2010 for the sake of comparison. Four of them are now top 10 defenses. Having a top ten defense doesn’t make you an automatic contender but it doesn’t hurt your chances to win ball games. Only Jacksonville and Washington have been consistently this low *sigh*.
Bottom 7 Defensive teams in 2010:
Den – 32nd
Was – 31st
Hou – 30th
AZ – 29th
Jac – 28th
Sea – 27th
Ten – 26th
Current Defensive rankings for the same seven team in 2013:
Den – 23rd
Was – 28th
Hou – 1st
AZ – 9th
Jac – 29th
Sea – 2nd
Ten – 10th
On the offensive side of the ball the first Shanny year saw very little progress. Betts and Portis ended up on the IR and the Campbell/Collins QB situation was nothing to get excited about and they finished 18th overall, statistically still better than I had thought.
After a couple of years wandering in the desert we got our QB and the offense came around almost immediately. We entered the top 5 for the first time in recent memory. This season we’re ranked 6th currently which is a lot better than I thought we would rank. You take into account that Robert was clearly not ready to start the season and all of the opportunities we’ve missed this season and that ranking becomes more remarkable. The fact that we’ve been so far behind in so many of these games has certainly figured into the numbers we’ve been able to put up.
Here are our Special Teams rankings for the last few years:
2009 – 23rd Last year of Mr. Swinging Gate
2010 – 25th
2011 – 21st
2012 – 28th
2013 – 32nd That’s DEAD LAST FOLKS
So what’s my point? Well, you hear coaches talking all the time about the “three phases of the game”. Statistically we’ve been getting smoked in two of the three phases year after year. While the offense has definitely improved with the addition of a QB and other pieces the defense and special teams couldn’t be worse. I guess technically the defense could be four places lower, but you get my point.
You simply cannot get by consistently with one working part of the machine. Most of us already know this and knew things weren’t good without seeing these numbers, but there were some specifics that were new to me. I still think Shanny’s future will depend on how the team finishes the rest of the season, but I think I’m changing my mind about the value of coaching continuity. If we were seeing any improvement at all I might have a different opinion.
Stats don’t lie but they also don’t always tell the whole story. Keeping that in mind I started digging. I didn’t want to go back too far so I started with 2009. I thought 2009 was significant because it was the last Zorn year and would give us some kind of baseline. We went 4-12 and generally had a terrible season. We can all agree on that. The lone bright spot that year was the defense. It wasn’t dominant if memory serves, but it was pretty good. In fact it was ranked 10th overall for the season. The offense, on the other hand, was not good and finished 22nd overall. Honestly it was probably worse than that (told you stats can lie at times).
Shanny arrives in 2010 and brings with him Jim Haslett and his version of the 3-4 defense. The 3-4 didn’t fit the talent we had at that point but the 3-4 had worked other places for years so I, along with many others, was willing to let them take a shot. We all bit the bullet. It was worse than we thought and the defense took a big step back and nose dived to 31st overall that first year.
It’s interesting to look at the other teams at the bottom of the barrel with us in 2010 for the sake of comparison. Four of them are now top 10 defenses. Having a top ten defense doesn’t make you an automatic contender but it doesn’t hurt your chances to win ball games. Only Jacksonville and Washington have been consistently this low *sigh*.
Bottom 7 Defensive teams in 2010:
Den – 32nd
Was – 31st
Hou – 30th
AZ – 29th
Jac – 28th
Sea – 27th
Ten – 26th
Current Defensive rankings for the same seven team in 2013:
Den – 23rd
Was – 28th
Hou – 1st
AZ – 9th
Jac – 29th
Sea – 2nd
Ten – 10th
On the offensive side of the ball the first Shanny year saw very little progress. Betts and Portis ended up on the IR and the Campbell/Collins QB situation was nothing to get excited about and they finished 18th overall, statistically still better than I had thought.
After a couple of years wandering in the desert we got our QB and the offense came around almost immediately. We entered the top 5 for the first time in recent memory. This season we’re ranked 6th currently which is a lot better than I thought we would rank. You take into account that Robert was clearly not ready to start the season and all of the opportunities we’ve missed this season and that ranking becomes more remarkable. The fact that we’ve been so far behind in so many of these games has certainly figured into the numbers we’ve been able to put up.
Here are our Special Teams rankings for the last few years:
2009 – 23rd Last year of Mr. Swinging Gate
2010 – 25th
2011 – 21st
2012 – 28th
2013 – 32nd That’s DEAD LAST FOLKS
So what’s my point? Well, you hear coaches talking all the time about the “three phases of the game”. Statistically we’ve been getting smoked in two of the three phases year after year. While the offense has definitely improved with the addition of a QB and other pieces the defense and special teams couldn’t be worse. I guess technically the defense could be four places lower, but you get my point.
You simply cannot get by consistently with one working part of the machine. Most of us already know this and knew things weren’t good without seeing these numbers, but there were some specifics that were new to me. I still think Shanny’s future will depend on how the team finishes the rest of the season, but I think I’m changing my mind about the value of coaching continuity. If we were seeing any improvement at all I might have a different opinion.
