I’ve been digging through a lot of data while putting together a database that we can examine for interesting information.  In the process, I’ve come across some encouraging news for the Eagles heading into next year.

First, a few stats from this year:

– According to Football Outsiders, the Eagles ranked 14th in yards per offensive drive (35.51 ypd).

– The team also ranked 14th in defensive yards per drive (30.50 ypd), or yards allowed per drive.

Neither of those is great, but if you looked at nothing besides those measures, you’d be very surprised that the team finished 28th in the league.  Now let’s look at two related stats (also from Football Outsiders):

– The Eagles ranked 24th in offensive points per drive (1.54).

– The team ranked 28th in points allowed per drive (2.21).

Those numbers make it a bit easier to see why the team’s record was so bad.  But why the discrepancy?  Why were the Eagles so much worse than almost every other team at converting yards to points?

It will be news to almost nobody that the answer lies mainly in two stats, turnovers and field position.  However, most people don’t fully appreciate just how bad the team’s performance was in those areas this year.  Here are a few more stats from this year before we get to the hopeful part (I promise there is one).  Over the past ten years:

– Many people know the Eagles had the worst TO differential of any team (-24, tied with this year’s Chiefs and the ’04 Rams).

– However, a big reason for this was that the team lost 22 fumbles this year.  Over that time frame, only the ’07 Ravens were worse.  Conversely, the Eagles threw 15 interceptions this year, which is nothing to get too upset over.

–  The team only had 13 takeaways, behind only the ’06 Redskins for least since 2003.

–  The Eagles average starting field position (25.19 yard line) ranked 27th in the league this year.

– Eagles opponent’s started with better field position (31.86 yard line) than anyone else in the league.

– Combined, the net result of  -6.67 yards was by far the worst difference in the league (St. Louis was next with -5.87.)  In clearer terms, the Eagles had to go nearly 7 more yards each drive than their opponents in order to find the end zone or field goal range.

So we have a team that lost more fumbles and created fewer turnovers than almost any other team in recent history.  That, along with poor special teams play, led to the worst field position differential in the league by far, which goes a long way towards explaining why the offense and defense could finish in the middle of the pack for yards per drive without scoring/preventing points.

It also explains how Nick Foles could look good (i.e. move the offense) without better results.  He almost literally could not have received less help from the rest of the team by way of field position or extra possessions.

So where’s the hope I promised?  For that we have to re-engage our old friend, the correlation analysis.  Here’s what it tells us:

– Earlier this year, we looked at individual player fumbling rates and found that most of it is the result of luck.  In other words, be very skeptical whenever you hear that a player has a “fumbling problem”.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the same holds true for teams.

Using every team’s performance from the last ten years and measuring lost fumbles from one year to the next, I derived a correlation coefficient of .0837 (very weak).  This means that although the Eagles had a historically bad year (losing 22 fumbles), there is no reason to expect next year will be anywhere near as bad.

A little mean reversion will go a long way towards improving the TO differential. (Also, see the fumbling recovery rate post from earlier this year.)

– Similarly, I ran the same analysis on takeaways, and found a similarly weak correlation coefficient of .0838.  Turns out, there is very little persistence in takeaways as well.  Therefore, we have no reason to expect the Eagles to be as impotent next year when it comes to creating turnovers as they were this year.

For those of you that are skeptical, here is the data chart.  Takeaways are on the Y axis, with takeaways the following season on the X.

Note:  I am not suggesting that both takeaways and fumbles are COMPLETELY luck.  At the margins, there are players who are clearly good at not fumbling and similarly I expect that there are a few teams/players that are persistently good at forcing turnovers.  However, overall, those teams/players are exceptions.

Wrapping up, by examining data from the last 10 years, we can see some evidence that suggests that this year, the Eagles were both a bad team AND a very unlucky one.  While there’s no guarantee they become a good team next year, I feel comfortable saying it is likely they won’t be as unlucky.

Regarding yesterday’s post, two of the 10+ win teams following a 4 win season were under new coaches:

NY Jets ’06 – Eric Mangini was hired and led the team to 10 wins.  However, his tenure thereafter was mixed and I don’t think any Eagles fan wants a similar experience.

Atlanta ’08 – The team won 11 games in Mike Smith’s first year.  Also Matt Ryan’s rookie year.  This is really the gold standard for 4 win turnarounds.

Other notable new-coach turnarounds:

Miami ’08 – Biggest turnaround in NFL history, improved from 1-15 to 11-5.  Tony Sparano’s first year, as well as Bill Parcells’ first year leading the front office.

Saints ’06 – Team hired Sean Payton and Drew Brees, improving to 10 wins from just 3 the previous season.

Colts ’12 – Obviously Andrew Luck’s rookie year, team improved from 2 wins to 11.  Also Chuck Pagano’s first season as coach, though that was complicated by his cancer treatments.

The Eagles finished the year with 4 wins.  Everyone’s heard plenty of talk over the last few seasons of parity in the NFL, but what kind of season could the Eagles put together following such a bad year?

Over the past 10 seasons, 27 teams have finished the year with 4 wins (not including this year.)

The good news?

Ten of them (more than 1/3) have followed a 4 win season with 9+ wins, with six teams registering 10 wins or better.

Here is the frequency chart:

Quick rebounds not only happen, they do so relatively often.  The coaching decision is obviously huge, but regardless, given the injuries this team sustained and the past performance of 4 win teams, seen in the chart above, it’s not unreasonable to expect the Eagles to contend for a playoff position as soon as next year.

With the current emphasis on the passing game in the NFL, the adage “throw to score TDs, run to kick field goals” has become popular with commentators.

Is it true?

To get an idea, I looked at the passing play percentage and points scored for every team in the league going back to 2003, giving me 320 data points.  Here is the chart, with passing play percentage on the X and points scored on the Y:

See a relationship?

If you said no, you’d be correct.  The correlation value for the above data series is -.083, which means there is really no relationship.  Passing the ball more often does not appear to lead to more points scored.

Some of you (if not everyone) are probably thinking:  “Wait, teams change their play-calling when the are winning/losing, skewing the run/pass ratio.”  My answer: Of course they do, but that itself should not skew the above data to such a degree that there is NO relationship between passing percentage and points scored (if passing really did lead to more points scored.)  Teams that noticeably change their strategy can only do-so late in the game, limiting the number of plays they can run that will skew their overall averages.  Additionally, teams that are running the ball to kill the clock take as much time as possible, running as few plays as possible, again limiting the skew.  Overall, of all the plays run in the NFL every year, relatively few of them are run by teams focused on anything except scoring points.

Feel free to disagree, but if passing the ball more really did lead to more points scored (i.e. TDs instead of field goals), I’d expect to see at least a weak-moderate positive relationship despite any skew effects of teams killing the clock.

Conversely, we can also ask: “Do teams pass more when they are losing?” While the data can’t tell us definitively which is cause and which is effect (do losing teams throw more or does throwing lead to more points against?), it can show us if there is a relationship between the two. Here is the chart, this time with Points Allowed on the Y axis:

A fairly clear positive relationship exists.  In fact, the correlation value of .46 confirms there is a moderate positive relationship between Passing Play Percentage and Points Allowed.

Let me note again that the data doesn’t prove “Losing teams throw more often”, but it does lend pretty strong support to that hypothesis.  However, given the data above, perhaps losing teams should consider running the ball more, since passing it doesn’t appear to give them a greater chance of catching up (scoring points.)

Obviously this doesn’t hold for end of game scenarios where the clock becomes a big factor (passing takes less time then running.)  However, it does suggest that teams that fall behind early shouldn’t alter their game plan until it is absolutely necessary (very late in the game), something Andy Reid repeatedly did over his career with the Eagles.

Andy Reid’s play-calling has been a favorite topic of discussion for fans since he was hired.  Now that he’s gone, let’s take a look back at he run/pass ratio.  I’m compiling a lot of data for a more in-depth look (and one we’ll be able to draw statistically significant conclusions from), but for now, here is a basic view of the percentage of passing plays called by the Eagles:

Notes: The data is from teamrankings.com and only goes back to 2003.  The averages are not weighted by number of plays, in hopes of giving a better view of differences in general offensive philosophy.

Over that time period (2003-2012):

– The Eagles average annual passing rate was 59.90%, behind only 4 other teams (Arizona, Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis).

– Detroit passed the most, by far, with an average rate of 62.84%.

– The Steelers had the lowest average rate, passing 52.47% of the time.

– The highest single year rate was registered by Detroit in 2006, when the Lions passed on 68.43% of plays.  They went 3-13 that year.

– The lowest single year rate came from the Steelers in 2004, when the team passed on just 39.20% of plays.  That year the team went 15-1 (Big Ben’s rookie year).

Next up, we’ll tackle the obvious question:  Does passing more equal winning more? More points scored?  Putting the data together now.  I hope to have an answer in the next day or so.

I highlighted turnover differential earlier but figured it would be interesting to look at how the offense and defense progressed over the Andy Reid era.  Below is a chart showing Points Scored and Points Against (total, not league rank).  Here are some interesting notes:

– Over his first seven seasons, Andy Reid’s team had an average league rank of 12.4 for Points Scored.  Over his last seven: 10.3.  Pretty consistent.

– Points Against average rank over the same time periods?  First seven seasons: 9.4    Last seven: 14.9    The defensive performance declined substantially over time.

– From 2000-2004 (Andy Reid’s peak), the Eagles average Points Against rank was 3.4.  Safe to say the Eagles success was built on defense.  (Points For average rank over the same period was 8.8)

– Over the past 4 seasons, the Eagles average Points Against rank is 19.

– For those of you thinking of Jim Johnson (hard not to when confronted with these numbers):  Average points against with JJ: 290.  Without JJ: 346.6.

This ties in rather well with the message gleaned from the draft history post.  Reid’s inability to find quality defenders in the draft was perhaps his biggest persistent weakness (I know it wasn’t only Reid in the draft room, but you’re kidding yourself if you think he didn’t have the final say.)