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Are Packers satisfied with the current playoffs format structure?
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<blockquote data-quote="Footballtalk" data-source="post: 431732" data-attributes="member: 6271"><p>Thanks for your responses everyone. I see there are some mixed feelings on the issue.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I also see a lot of people inaccurately pin-pointing GB's defense as worse in the league. There's never been a day and hopefully never will be when a team's yards will ever determine the outcome of the game nor the strength of a defense or offense. Games are won by points, not yards and yards stats do not override points stats. GB's defense is ranked 22nd in points allowed and 4th in yards per point efficiency. It's similar to the Patriots and what makes their defense so good. Yards are far down the list as far as being able to accurately evaluate an NFL defense. Despite perception that may be fueled by TV and overused inaccurate statistics, the fact is it's pretty much impossible for a team to outscore another without <strong>both</strong> a good defense and offense, unless they always win games on their last offensive possession.</p><p> </p><p>GB would have not been able to outscore their opponents by a 201 point differential if they didn't have one of the top defenses in the league. It's just impossible. No matter what their ranking may be in yards, ultimately points override that. GB's defense had to get a lot of stops in order for the offense to blow teams out the way they did. If they didn't the offense would have never been able to outscore teams by that large a margin. They were 2nd in the NFL overall in their ability to outscore their opponents, and that's simply not possible without also having a top of the league defense. Either that or they had to be playing the worst offenses in the NFL and GB didn't play bad offenses.</p><p> </p><p>Both GB's and Patriots yards statistic can simply be explained by an effect similar to Simpson's Paradox in statistics. Simpson's Paradox is a statistical anomaly which can present the exact <em>opposite</em> results based on the context used for measurement. In this case looking at yards of one portion of your team. In other words, looking at a piece of the pie, such as yards of your defense, may reveal one result like last in the league, but looking at the full pie will reveal something different. Not enough people are aware of this when it comes to football stats.</p><p> </p><p>GB's defense was nowhere near as bad as people think and was one of the top most efficient defenses in the league. In 2011 however, they also happened to have the #4 special teams defense and #6 special teams offense. This often tends to create the appearance of a "bad defense in yards allowed".</p><p> </p><p>Inversely, teams with bad special teams defenses often come out looking with the best defenses in yards. For example Jacksonville, Washington, and Kansas City have the 25th, 28th and 31st worse special teams defense in the league. Their actual defense artificially ranks high in yards because of this.</p><p> </p><p>In reality, what's happening is their special teams is giving up a lot of field position and opponents don't have to travel the same distance against their defense that they do against Green Bay or Patriots. This is actually a bad thing, even though they are perceived as having better defenses. The Patriots #2 special teams defense and GB's #4 special teams defense are doing their jobs, pushing opponents back, forcing other offenses to travel the full field, thus making their actual defense appear worse in yards. But in reality, in football this is actually <strong><em>key</em></strong> to a defense getting stops and not allowing points, which are more important. They're doing what they are supposed to be doing. When looking at both special teams + defense combined yards starts presenting a slightly more accurate picture.</p><p> </p><p>An example:</p><p> </p><p>Washington's defense ranked 12th in yards per game, allow 339.8 yards <em>per game</em>. At first sight they appear vastly superior to GB's defense which give up 412 yards per game, ranked 32nd.</p><p> </p><p>When broken down<em> per drive</em>, however, Washington actually allows 29.45 yards per drive, ranking 15th. But their special teams defense gives up 30.66 yards in field position per drive, <em>more</em> than their actual defense. Overall they allow 60.11 yards per drive.</p><p> </p><p>Green bay allows 35.64 yards per drive, and actually rank 29th but their special teams only give up 25.70 yards per drive, a lot less than their actual defense. Overall they actually allowed 61.2 yards per drive total. Indianapolis allows even more, 63.3 total yards per drive, yet they are ranked 25th.</p><p> </p><p>In reality there is only a 1 yard difference between GB's defense perceived to be worse in the league and Washington's defense, perceived to be 12th in the league. Similarly, in reality Indianapolis allows more total defensive yard per drive than GB, but they are also ranked higher.</p><p> </p><p>Using yards per game to measure the overall strength of a team's total defense is one of the worst possible measurements to use. It's often completely off the mark. The misconception largely comes from the NFL labeling the yards per game category which never tracks special teams defense "Total defense". It's not. And it's an incorrect label. Not to mention, it still only measures yards, not points.</p><p> </p><p>In reality both GB's total defense as well as Washington do the same thing. On average they allow about 61 yards per drive total, which is the equivalent of being right on the edge of successfully scoring a difficult FG. Not a touchdown. That's actually what most defenses are expected to do. And most NFL defenses are much closer to one another than anyone actually realizes. They're <strong>all</strong> very good, including GB. Offenses, oth, show a much larger discrepancy.</p><p> </p><p>The difference is that a FG from the 39 yard line, is usually a 50+ yard FG, which is incredibly hard to make. So when you have a team like GB whose offense averages 3.05 points per drive(#1 in the league), more than the value of a FG, while their defense, on average, "forces teams to try and make the equivalent of 50+ yard FG" every drive, you have a huge advantage. Washington's offense only averages 1.52 points per drive. They're likely to lose most of their games because their defense is doing the same thing GB's is. Trying to keep offenses to 3.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Footballtalk, post: 431732, member: 6271"] Thanks for your responses everyone. I see there are some mixed feelings on the issue. I also see a lot of people inaccurately pin-pointing GB's defense as worse in the league. There's never been a day and hopefully never will be when a team's yards will ever determine the outcome of the game nor the strength of a defense or offense. Games are won by points, not yards and yards stats do not override points stats. GB's defense is ranked 22nd in points allowed and 4th in yards per point efficiency. It's similar to the Patriots and what makes their defense so good. Yards are far down the list as far as being able to accurately evaluate an NFL defense. Despite perception that may be fueled by TV and overused inaccurate statistics, the fact is it's pretty much impossible for a team to outscore another without [B]both[/B] a good defense and offense, unless they always win games on their last offensive possession. GB would have not been able to outscore their opponents by a 201 point differential if they didn't have one of the top defenses in the league. It's just impossible. No matter what their ranking may be in yards, ultimately points override that. GB's defense had to get a lot of stops in order for the offense to blow teams out the way they did. If they didn't the offense would have never been able to outscore teams by that large a margin. They were 2nd in the NFL overall in their ability to outscore their opponents, and that's simply not possible without also having a top of the league defense. Either that or they had to be playing the worst offenses in the NFL and GB didn't play bad offenses. Both GB's and Patriots yards statistic can simply be explained by an effect similar to Simpson's Paradox in statistics. Simpson's Paradox is a statistical anomaly which can present the exact [I]opposite[/I] results based on the context used for measurement. In this case looking at yards of one portion of your team. In other words, looking at a piece of the pie, such as yards of your defense, may reveal one result like last in the league, but looking at the full pie will reveal something different. Not enough people are aware of this when it comes to football stats. GB's defense was nowhere near as bad as people think and was one of the top most efficient defenses in the league. In 2011 however, they also happened to have the #4 special teams defense and #6 special teams offense. This often tends to create the appearance of a "bad defense in yards allowed". Inversely, teams with bad special teams defenses often come out looking with the best defenses in yards. For example Jacksonville, Washington, and Kansas City have the 25th, 28th and 31st worse special teams defense in the league. Their actual defense artificially ranks high in yards because of this. In reality, what's happening is their special teams is giving up a lot of field position and opponents don't have to travel the same distance against their defense that they do against Green Bay or Patriots. This is actually a bad thing, even though they are perceived as having better defenses. The Patriots #2 special teams defense and GB's #4 special teams defense are doing their jobs, pushing opponents back, forcing other offenses to travel the full field, thus making their actual defense appear worse in yards. But in reality, in football this is actually [B][I]key[/I][/B] to a defense getting stops and not allowing points, which are more important. They're doing what they are supposed to be doing. When looking at both special teams + defense combined yards starts presenting a slightly more accurate picture. An example: Washington's defense ranked 12th in yards per game, allow 339.8 yards [I]per game[/I]. At first sight they appear vastly superior to GB's defense which give up 412 yards per game, ranked 32nd. When broken down[I] per drive[/I], however, Washington actually allows 29.45 yards per drive, ranking 15th. But their special teams defense gives up 30.66 yards in field position per drive, [I]more[/I] than their actual defense. Overall they allow 60.11 yards per drive. Green bay allows 35.64 yards per drive, and actually rank 29th but their special teams only give up 25.70 yards per drive, a lot less than their actual defense. Overall they actually allowed 61.2 yards per drive total. Indianapolis allows even more, 63.3 total yards per drive, yet they are ranked 25th. In reality there is only a 1 yard difference between GB's defense perceived to be worse in the league and Washington's defense, perceived to be 12th in the league. Similarly, in reality Indianapolis allows more total defensive yard per drive than GB, but they are also ranked higher. Using yards per game to measure the overall strength of a team's total defense is one of the worst possible measurements to use. It's often completely off the mark. The misconception largely comes from the NFL labeling the yards per game category which never tracks special teams defense "Total defense". It's not. And it's an incorrect label. Not to mention, it still only measures yards, not points. In reality both GB's total defense as well as Washington do the same thing. On average they allow about 61 yards per drive total, which is the equivalent of being right on the edge of successfully scoring a difficult FG. Not a touchdown. That's actually what most defenses are expected to do. And most NFL defenses are much closer to one another than anyone actually realizes. They're [B]all[/B] very good, including GB. Offenses, oth, show a much larger discrepancy. The difference is that a FG from the 39 yard line, is usually a 50+ yard FG, which is incredibly hard to make. So when you have a team like GB whose offense averages 3.05 points per drive(#1 in the league), more than the value of a FG, while their defense, on average, "forces teams to try and make the equivalent of 50+ yard FG" every drive, you have a huge advantage. Washington's offense only averages 1.52 points per drive. They're likely to lose most of their games because their defense is doing the same thing GB's is. Trying to keep offenses to 3. [/QUOTE]
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