Since we’re in the midst of the off-season, between the two major team-construction events, I thought it’d be a good time to explain my personal philosophy on what it takes to win a Super Bowl.  The goal is to try to dig down to the most basic attributes a team must have, and in the process examine clichés like “defense wins championships” or “you need an elite QB”.

Here’s where I am currently:

To win the Super Bowl:

– You need a lot of good players.

– You need some of those players to play great (greatly?) in the playoffs.

– You need to get a few lucky bounces along the way.

That’s my current theory at least, I’ll update it as I find new data that conflicts.  Today I’ll give my thoughts on the QB position and then examine the whole Offense vs. Defense wins championships thing.

Overall, I’d like to identify a set of necessary conditions for winning the Super Bowl.  Today is the first step in that endeavor.

First I’ll attack the QB position:

You do not need an elite QB to win the Super Bowl.  It certainly helps, but the fact is you just need a “good enough” QB.  The entire “elite” debate is ridiculous, but especially at the QB position.  When you use the term “elite”, you’re alluding to a very exclusive group.  Is the top 10% fair?

If so, that means the number of “elite” starting QBs in the NFL is between 3 and 4.  So congratulations Patriots, Packers, and Broncos; one of you obviously won the Super Bowl last year.

The fact is, the term “elite” is useless since there’s no standard definition, and even if there were it wouldn’t mean anything significant.  Teams need a QB that is “good enough”.  So what does my list look like?

Good Enough – Brady, Manning (both), Rodgers, Brees, Ryan, Roethlisberger, Flacco, Schaub, Romo (i hate him but yes), Rivers, Kaepernick, Luck

That’s my list, although I’m sure there is some disagreement.  Also, this is not to say a QB not on that list CAN’T win the SB, just that, at this moment, I don’t believe they’ve proven themselves good enough.

Joe Flacco is not an “elite” QB, by any realistic definition.  However, that doesn’t matter, he still won the Super Bowl.  Colin Kaepernick came damn close.

The problem for Eagles fans is that neither Vick nor Foles looks good enough this year.  It’s possible Foles could get there, but extremely unlikely this season.  I’m pessimistic about Vick’s chances.

Does Defense Win Championships?

Well, what do you think?  Now consider:

– Over the last 10 seasons, 5 SB winning teams ranked in the top 7.5% for points allowed per game.  Put differently, the top 24 out of the last 320 team seasons contained half of the Super Bowl winning teams.

This is, perhaps, the most surprised I have ever been by a stat I’ve looked up while writing.  In any case, it would certainly appear as though having a truly great defense goes a long way.

What about offense?

Based upon the above stat, I would expect to find a similar result (i.e. be great at something, either offense or defense).  Looking at the same sample:

– Just 1 SB winning team (New Orleans ’09) in the last ten years placed in the top 7.5% of points scored, or 92.5 percentile.

If we look at the top 10% of offenses over the last 10 years, just one more SB champ makes the cut, the 2004 Patriots.

Put together, it seems like having a “great” defense is preferable to having a “great” offense.  That definitely has to change the overall theory a bit.

What about the reverse perspective?

– The lowest ranked offense to win the Super Bowl in the last ten years was the 2008 Steelers, who averaged just 21.7 ppg, good enough for exactly 160 out of 320, or the 50th percentile.

The 2003 Patriots are just above them, having averaged 21.8 ppg.  Interesting to note that the Patriots (now offensive juggernauts), won their first title with a fairly weak offense.

As you might have expected, both the ’03 Patriots and the ’08 Steelers had historically great defenses.   Both placed in the top 10 of the last 10 years.

– The lowest ranked Defense to win the SB in the last ten years was the ’11 NY Giants, who allowed 25 ppg (while scoring just 24.6, leaving them the only SB winning team with a negative point differential, I really hate the Giants).

That places them 265th out of 320 teams, or 17th percentile.

– Among SB winners of the past 10 years, the 2007 Giants are the lowest ranked offense that did NOT have a corresponding historically great defense.  They scored 23.3 ppg, ranking the team 120th out of 320, or the 62.5 percentile.

I feel like we need some charts, so here are two, one showing points allowed vs. Wins and the other showing Points Scored vs. Wins.  Note this is just regular season data.

Both illustrate strong correlations.  The values:

– Points Scored to Wins:  .768

– Points Allowed to Wins: -.669

Have I confused you yet?

If not, good for you, because I’ve certainly confused myself.  Let me attempt to summarize what we’ve seen here today:

– A GREAT defense goes a long way, but is NOT a necessary condition to winning a SB.  Neither is a GOOD defense, as evidenced by the ’11 Giants, ’06 Colts, and ’07 Giants (all placed in the bottom 50% yet still won the SB).

– A GREAT offense does not go as far, but a GOOD offense does seem to be a necessary condition for winning a SB.  No offense ranked in the bottom 62.5% for the last ten years has won the SB.

What does it all mean?

While teams should focus on being good everywhere, it appears as though Offense should take slight preference, as the only way to win without a very good offense is to have a historically GREAT defense, which is obviously harder to put together.

Or you can be like the NY Giants and just ride a wave of lucky bounces…twice.

Yesterday we did the defense, so naturally today we will do the offense.  However, this is a little bit less informative due to the injuries the team sustained last season.

I’m going to skip the original chart I made because it was based on perceived ability (not performance), and included all of the injured starters.  Using PFF’s grades, this is how the offense looked last season.

A couple of notes, then I’ll highlight a few areas.  Due to the injuries, there were a number of players that received playing time.  I used whichever player took the most snaps as the rule for inclusion.  Watkins and Scott played nearly the same amount, but they ranked similarly so the color wouldn’t change.  There were also a few players who were on the edge as to which color they deserved (for instance Shady was the last spot in the top third).  I could have done the mixed colors again, but I wanted it to be as clear as possible.

Takeaways-

– Both Jeremy Maclin and D-Jax played well below their potential.  Perhaps not surprising given the QB situation and the state of the O-Line, but it remains a cautionary note going into next season.  We know Maclin has the talent, but we can’t pretend he’s a lock to realize that next year.

– Jason Peters will hopefully come back as green.

– I know everyone loves Jason Kelce, but PFF graded him close to the bottom for his rookie year.  I think he’ll be good, but this is another position at which fans seem to be buying the upside without realizing there’s a reasonably significant chance it doesn’t work out.  For the record, his rating in 2011 would have placed Kelce LAST in 2012, below Dallas Reynolds.

– The right side of the line is tough to project.  If the Eagles draft a RT at #4 and shift Herremans back to RG, then both of those spots could go green.  Keep that in mind as we get closer to the draft.

Drafting a starting RT could provide immediate improvement at TWO positions.

– Although I don’t need to mention this, having your QB grade out red is bad.  Of the 27 QBs that played more than 50% of their team’s snaps, just 4 ranked worse than Vick (Ponder, Fitzpatrick, Sanchez, Weeden).

– It will be interesting to see how James Casey and Brent Celek split time.  I know Kelly says he will use a lot of 2 TE sets, and Casey can line up almost anywhere, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Casey supplant Celek as the starting TE.

– Finally, PFF’s ratings shouldn’t be taken as gospel. So feel free to disagree with the colors above, just note that the source is Pro Football Focus, not me.

That’s all for today.  Working on some bigger stuff that takes time, but the results should be fun.

Now that we’re through free agency, I think it’s time to take another look at the defensive line-up.  Previously, I put together an illustration of the Eagles 2012 starting defensive line-up, with each position color-coded according to performance/ability.

Today, I’ll put the same illustration together, this time with a the scheme/roster additions reflected.  I think doing this visually makes the comparison much easier to see.  Additionally, I’ll go back an update last season’s using PFF’s ratings in an attempt to take some of the subjectivity out of the ratings.

This is an attempt to make roster evaluation as simplistic and easy as possible.  Red = Bad, Green = Good.

Please note that this (the color-coding) is obviously subjective (hence the PFF adjustment in the second chart).  My guess is there are a few players for whom there will be disagreement over the corresponding color rating.

Here is the original graphic of last year’s defense, not updated with PFF:

For reference, Green = above average starter, Yellow = league average starter, Red = Below league average.  If I could go back and change anything, it’d be the CB ratings.  I was far too generous to both Nnamdi and DRC.  Using pure performance (not potential), they both should have been red.  For those paying attention, that means the ENTIRE Eagles secondary would be rated below league average (which sounds about right in hindsight).

Now let’s use PFF’s ratings.  If a player was in the top third of the league (starters), they’ll be green, middle third = yellow, bottom = red.  This chart will be a reflection of ONLY total performance, so no adjustments made for inconsistency (see multi-colored ratings above).

Note that Nate Allen and Akeem Jordan have replaced Anderson and Chaney.  At the time I did the last one, Anderson and Chaney were the starters.   However, over the whole season Jordan and Allen played more snaps.

Looks like the original ratings were pretty good, except for the previously mentioned CBs.  Additionally, while Kendricks had runs of both very good and bad play, his overall rating was very poor.

As you can see, there was far too much red and not nearly enough green last year.  It comes as no surprise then, that to date, most roster changes have been made on defense.

Now comes the hard part, trying to project next year’s team.  First a couple of rules:  Injury-risk will not be taken into account.  This is obviously a major concern, but I don’t see any good way to incorporate it into the graphic.  Therefore, I’ll projected the “on paper” defense, then highlight the risks afterwards.  Also, since we don’t know the exact defensive alignment Kelly will use, I’ll stick with a basic 3-4.

Keep in mind that the actual physical alignment will be different from what’s shown above. However, I think right now this is as good a guess as any in terms of personnel.

What jumps out?

– Phillips, Chung, and Fletcher can all be considered “injury risks”.  That’s a big chunk of the secondary (as well as the source of major improvement over last year).  If any or all of those guys go down, the Eagles are back in the red.

– The DL has gone from a strength (relatively speaking) to a weakness.  Cox is a keeper and should anchor the line (I don’t see him having an issue transitioning to the 3-4, regardless of whether he ends up as a 3-tech or 5-tech.)  However, Spooky is just a body and can’t be counted on for even league-average play.  Also, the opposing DE spot is a glaring hole on the roster (hence all the Star/Floyd draft talk).  I think there’s a good chance they address this with one of those prospects.  It’s also possible Vinny Curry puts on some weight and takes a shot at this spot.  In any case, as of this moment, it has to be viewed as a weakness.

– As I mentioned after their signings, the Williams/Fletcher combo is going to take some getting used to (Fletcher may not even win the job).  The hope here is for league-average play, nothing more.

Overall, the D looks a lot different from last year (personnel-wise).  However, it’s clear we still need a couple of impact players (i.e. green).  Maybe Barwin rebounds and becomes one of them.  Maybe Cole or Graham transitions better than projected.  Maybe Kendricks flourishes at his new spot and finds a consistent game.  Hopefully the team can use the draft to upgrade from red to green either at NT or DE.  That’s a lot of unknowns.

Keep in mind that it’s easier to go from bad (red) to average (yellow) than it is to go from average to good (green).  It’s clear that Roseman and Kelly looked at the second chart above (the PFF adjusted one) and tried to address every red mark (weakness).  On paper, they’ve been successful.

Even so, as of this moment, the Defense is still pretty far from one we can safely project as “good”.  Though after last season, I’ll be happy with just average.