Quote:
Originally Posted by NLC1054
Come now, sir. The Houston Texans offense did not "explode" when Kyle left.
In 2009 they were number 4 in total offense. In 2010, they were number three.
In 2010, the Texans were number 4 in passing offense. In 2009 they were number one.
In 2010, they were 9th in scoring offense. In 2009 they were tenth.
In 2010, Matt Schaub passed for 4,370 yards, 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. In 2009, he passed for 4,770 yards (most in the league), 29 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.
The only statistical category the Texans truly improved in was rushing offense, where they ranked 30th. But even then, when Arian Foster finally worked his way into the starting line up for the last two games in 2009, he rushed for 97 yards and 119 yards.
And even a more balanced offensive attack and the league's leading rusher only bumped them from four to three in total offense.
So no, sir, I wouldn't call that an "explosion", nor is it proof that the team did better when Kyle left.
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Why are you using total offense
ranking to examine a claim that a very good offense got much better? A ranking can't show you that.
What I said was based on the
DVOA totals of the Texans offense, which more than
doubled in 2010. They weren't the best offense in the league in 2010 because they weren't the Patriots.
You probably already know that passing offense, scoring offense, and total offense are highly correlated. But rushing offense isn't strongly correlated to those three. Teams that run better than other teams don't generally score more points, and it has hardly any bearing on how many yards they throw for. But they get more first downs, control time of possession, and dominate critical end of game scenarios.
And when you go from a team that absolutely can't run the ball and you produce the NFL's leading rusher the following year with no meaningful passing dropoff, how is that not a huge gain? They went from the worst rushing team in football under Shanahan to perhaps the best under Dennison. Only the Pats and Eagles would join the Texans in the discussion for the most improved offenses in 2010.
I don't think you can shrug off going from worst to best at rushing the ball as insignificant. I'll give you that it doesn't affect point scoring all that much, but teams need to both score AND prevent points. Teams that run efficiently prevent points.
More shocking is that the Redskins offense somehow declined from 2009 to 2010. In a year, we'll know if it was just a one year fluke.