Greg Blache Defensive Scheme!!

[an23dy]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Alright, I understand. Nothing I'm doing is arbitrary, it's all quite straightforward, but you don't see it the same way. Gotcha.

See the problem with Philly vs. Washington determining who has the better defense is that: 1) if there's only two teams in the entire population, nothing can tell the difference between bad offense and good defense. You saying that our defense clearly outplayed their's might just be their offense getting clearly outplayed by ours, and 2) there's 14 games that you're just totally ignoring. Not arbitrarily, but as I said before, you aren't actually backing what you think you are backing. Because no one agrees with you that the other 14 games shouldn't be counted.

The Redskins were top ten in most stats, and are probably were a top ten defense when you get right down to it. But what if I say, and defend, them being the 12th best defense? There's nothing arbitrary about that, it's just a ranking based on evidence. Furthermore, there was such a huge, undeniable gap between us and the five "elite" defenses last year, that when you start to establish an NFL average defense from the 2008 season, it comes out somewhere around the 10th or 11th best team. Just because of the obscene quality of the defenses at the top of the list (obviously, the best in years). Again, nothing remotely arbitrary about that, just standard normal distribution.

I think you have no idea how good Minnesota and Philadelphia's defenses were last year, and any argument that suggests we were better than them last year is going to be arbitrary and circumstantial, because there was such a huge chasm between the two. I guess that's just my opinion there, but it just not a strong argument to say that they were in the top five last year defensively. Let's face it, if we had a top five defense, we would have made the playoffs. Every one of my top five defenses did make it, and none of them had any more offense to note than we did.

Again, I think you can debate if they're 6th or 11th or whatever. You can say, "we have a better defense the Giants", and I can respond "even though they create turnovers and we do not?" and you can say "yes" and that's that. I would just question who the one picking the arbitrary numbers is right now.

You originally said the Eagles have an undeniably better defense than us. I don't understand how you can say that. Maybe you really are sure in your mind of that, but I'm not sold on that at all. I think it would be much easier to say the Eagles offense is better than the Redskins offense and our special teams was nothing special. And if that's the case then how did we beat them twice? From the games that I watched I remember our defense outplaying them.

And in terms of turnovers you're only looking at the one side of it. The Redskins were the ONLY team in the NFL last year to never give up more than 27 points in a game. That's consistency and that may not be flashy and get media attention about the defense on NFL Live or Sportscenter or have guys like Dawkins acting like an animal or the fat Williams guys getting in trouble with water pills and Jared Allen doing vitamin water commercials or any Pro Bowlers, but I think if people actually watched the games and paid attention to the defense they would see it differently. Also people don't look at the turnovers in terms of we were always in close games last year so teams didn't have to take any risks against us. When your offense can get you a lead (28th in points) other teams have to take more chances in order to catch up, which causes more turnovers.

I think our offense was really bad and we got unlucky losing some close games. Also, just because you're a top 5 defense it doesn't mean you automatically make the playoffs. I could argue we were the 4th best defense so I just don't see how you can be so sure those other 5 were better than us.

But all I was really saying is there's a lot more of what goes into how good a defense is than just the stats you're using. You gotta think about what offenses they play, what their offense does (if they keep putting the defense in bad positions), and a whole lot of other stuff that you can't just average with stats. Just because a team is 10th in interceptions, 10th in yards, 10th in yards allowed per drive, etc, it doesn't mean they're the 10th best defense. There are a lot of important factors not related to the team defensive statistics. I think it's more of an opinion than a statistical analysis.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by an23dy

...
But all I was really saying is there's a lot more of what goes into how good a defense is than just the stats you're using. You gotta think about what offenses they play, what their offense does (if they keep putting the defense in bad positions), and a whole lot of other stuff that you can't just average with stats. Just because a team is 10th in interceptions, 10th in yards, 10th in yards allowed per drive, etc, it doesn't mean they're the 10th best defense. There are a lot of important factors not related to the team defensive statistics. I think it's more of an opinion than a statistical analysis.

Just pointing out, that last year our Defense faced the awesomeness of Cleveland, Cincinatti, St Louis, Detroit.

The D was definitely able to step up at times(against Philly, AZ, etc), but they were not consistent. Also, and I showed this in another thread, but you can get it from Pro Football reference, our D struggled on the opening drive more often than not. I know our offense did too, but most games the D gave up either a FG or TD on the opening drive.

[WillH]

Originally Posted by an23dy

I think our offense was really bad and we got unlucky losing some close games. Also, just because you're a top 5 defense it doesn't mean you automatically make the playoffs. I could argue we were the 4th best defense so I just don't see how you can be so sure those other 5 were better than us.

But all I was really saying is there's a lot more of what goes into how good a defense is than just the stats you're using. You gotta think about what offenses they play, what their offense does (if they keep putting the defense in bad positions), and a whole lot of other stuff that you can't just average with stats. Just because a team is 10th in interceptions, 10th in yards, 10th in yards allowed per drive, etc, it doesn't mean they're the 10th best defense. There are a lot of important factors not related to the team defensive statistics. I think it's more of an opinion than a statistical analysis.

Yeah, I agree to an extent. I mean I wouldn't argue we had a top 5 D, but I agree that our offense's poor play had an impact on our D's stats. Someone mentioned they didn't hold on in the last couple min of games and a "championship team" would have, and that's true. Our D obviously wasn't good enough last year to win it all, but it is hard to scrutinize them too much because in those games they were on the field WAY too long. I don't think you can hold that against GB either.

As far as the pass rush. If I remember correctly the D wasn't generating much pressure in the last couple years of GW. The fact is we have had a serious talent deficiency on the DL and LB's (only as far as pass rush is concerned) for many years. Let's see what they can do with some real talent up front.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by an23dy

You originally said the Eagles have an undeniably better defense than us. I don't understand how you can say that. Maybe you really are sure in your mind of that, but I'm not sold on that at all. I think it would be much easier to say the Eagles offense is better than the Redskins offense and our special teams was nothing special. And if that's the case then how did we beat them twice? From the games that I watched I remember our defense outplaying them.

And in terms of turnovers you're only looking at the one side of it. The Redskins were the ONLY team in the NFL last year to never give up more than 27 points in a game. That's consistency and that may not be flashy and get media attention about the defense on NFL Live or Sportscenter or have guys like Dawkins acting like an animal or the fat Williams guys getting in trouble with water pills and Jared Allen doing vitamin water commercials or any Pro Bowlers, but I think if people actually watched the games and paid attention to the defense they would see it differently. Also people don't look at the turnovers in terms of we were always in close games last year so teams didn't have to take any risks against us. When your offense can get you a lead (28th in points) other teams have to take more chances in order to catch up, which causes more turnovers.

I think our offense was really bad and we got unlucky losing some close games. Also, just because you're a top 5 defense it doesn't mean you automatically make the playoffs. I could argue we were the 4th best defense so I just don't see how you can be so sure those other 5 were better than us.

But all I was really saying is there's a lot more of what goes into how good a defense is than just the stats you're using. You gotta think about what offenses they play, what their offense does (if they keep putting the defense in bad positions), and a whole lot of other stuff that you can't just average with stats. Just because a team is 10th in interceptions, 10th in yards, 10th in yards allowed per drive, etc, it doesn't mean they're the 10th best defense. There are a lot of important factors not related to the team defensive statistics. I think it's more of an opinion than a statistical analysis.

Calling the offense "really bad" as opposed to something more rooted in what they actually were (slow-moving, turnover-averse, and lacking big play scoring ability) is a necessary justification to explaining how we could only be 8-8 with an elite defense. Of course, once you come to the realization that the defense was less-than-elite, in pretty much every possible way, then it becomes easier to accept the offense for what it was, and not have this justification dilemma with our record.

Philadelphia played 12 games against the same teams in the same locations as we did. They basically played the same schedule as us. Despite the slow moving, drive-limiting nature of our playing style, they STILL managed to give up fewer total yards, and points than us, while forcing more turnovers. They were undeniably better. Continuing to deny it is pretty crazy, considering the 4th ranking in pts against and yards against you hold so dearly is one behind the Eagles, and their scores in that category are far more legitimate, thanks to having faced more opponent drives than we did.

[an23dy]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Philadelphia played 12 games against the same teams in the same locations as we did. They basically played the same schedule as us. Despite the slow moving, drive-limiting nature of our playing style, they STILL managed to give up fewer total yards, and points than us, while forcing more turnovers. They were undeniably better. Continuing to deny it is pretty crazy, considering the 4th ranking in pts against and yards against you hold so dearly is one behind the Eagles, and their scores in that category are far more legitimate, thanks to having faced more opponent drives than we did.

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Just pointing out, that last year our Defense faced the awesomeness of Cleveland, Cincinatti, St Louis, Detroit.

Your argument is akin to saying if meteorologists play the Pittsburgh Steelers 4 times in a 16 game season they have the toughest schedule in the NFL. It is neither here nor there. Four games isn't an entire season, how about the Saints, Cardinals, Giants, Cowboys, Eagles. If your argument is that Philadelphia had a harder schedule, you're wrong. Look up whatever stats you want on that for the 16 games and you can see that. Philly also played Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. The only different teams we played were New Orleans (#1 in points and yards) and Detroit (actually ranked better than the Redskins in points), but yeah they were bad.

In any case teams are different over the course of the year, even if its in the same location. We were a completely different team in in the beginning of the season versus the end, and you can say that about a bunch of teams. But for 2 of those 12 games, one near the beginning and one near the end that were on the same day at the same location I saw one defense outperform the other both times, but apparently that was undeniably oppositely viewed by you, irrelevant to you, or maybe you just missed the games.

If you're arguing that the Redskins offense (28th in points) is better than the Eagles offense (6th in points) you're wrong. That's like arguing the St. Louis Rams defense (28th) is better than the Vikings defense (6th).

The differences in most of the stats between the Redskins and Eagles are small (0.4 points) and 10 yards so I'm saying small differences in stats like that don't matter when there are so many other variables involved from week to week and you don't even really know how important those stats are to a good defense. Slowing teams down not taking risks and making them make the small play slows them down and makes less drives for the other team. Is that a stat? No, but does it make a good defense, maybe. I think that it is wrong to be so sure based on a selection of stats that you choose that doesn't take other variables into consideration. You can have your opinion, but I think that you're opinion the Eagles are undeniably better is crazy and I feel my opinion that it's not UNDENIABLE is more reasonable. And evidence is the fact that many other people will agree with me that the Redskins defense could have been better than the Vikings or Eagles last year. And if you think all those people are crazy, then I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing and maintaining your original opinion.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by an23dy

Your argument is akin to saying if meteorologists play the Pittsburgh Steelers 4 times in a 16 game season they have the toughest schedule in the NFL. It is neither here nor there. Four games isn't an entire season, how about the Saints, Cardinals, Giants, Cowboys, Eagles. If your argument is that Philadelphia had a harder schedule, you're wrong. Look up whatever stats you want on that for the 16 games and you can see that. Philly also played Cleveland, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. The only different teams we played were New Orleans (#1 in points and yards) and Detroit (actually ranked better than the Redskins in points), but yeah they were bad.

In any case teams are different over the course of the year, even if its in the same location. We were a completely different team in in the beginning of the season versus the end, and you can say that about a bunch of teams. But for 2 of those 12 games, one near the beginning and one near the end that were on the same day at the same location I saw one defense outperform the other both times, but apparently that was undeniably oppositely viewed by you, irrelevant to you, or maybe you just missed the games.

If you're arguing that the Redskins offense (28th in points) is better than the Eagles offense (6th in points) you're wrong. That's like arguing the St. Louis Rams defense (28th) is better than the Vikings defense (6th).

The differences in most of the stats between the Redskins and Eagles are small (0.4 points) and 10 yards so I'm saying small differences in stats like that don't matter when there are so many other variables involved from week to week and you don't even really know how important those stats are to a good defense. Slowing teams down not taking risks and making them make the small play slows them down and makes less drives for the other team. Is that a stat? No, but does it make a good defense, maybe. I think that it is wrong to be so sure based on a selection of stats that you choose that doesn't take other variables into consideration. You can have your opinion, but I think that you're opinion the Eagles are undeniably better is crazy and I feel my opinion that it's not UNDENIABLE is more reasonable. And evidence is the fact that many other people will agree with me that the Redskins defense could have been better than the Vikings or Eagles last year. And if you think all those people are crazy, then I think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing and maintaining your original opinion.

We played New Orleans and Detroit, they played Atlanta and Chicago. Please cut the shit. Their schedule was harder. Not that it matters over 16 games when 14 are basically the same, and they still beat us in every single defensive metric, most by a long shot. It's pretty much undeniable that their defense was better, at least among objectivity. If you aren't concerned about being objective, then it's just an entirely different viewpoint: fan.

Would you, in the future, not quote me with saying what CRedskinsRule says. I mean, he's right, but we're also two different people. Thanks.

But I do thank you for claiming argument consistency from TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. That's one of the more entertaining things that has ever happened from around these parts. Now I pretty much can't take you seriously anymore. I think you'll understand.

The rest of your post just seems to be a never-ending series of strawmans that varies between arguments that he made, neither of us made, and no one has ever made.

P.S. The fact that drive total has become a non-quantifiable statistic in this debate means it's pretty much over.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

...
Would you, in the future, not quote me with saying what CRedskinsRule says. ...

Turnabout from the other day, right GTripp

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Turnabout from the other day, right GTripp

Irony, I believe. Though some may call it coincidence.

[an23dy]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

We played New Orleans and Detroit, they played Atlanta and Chicago. Please cut the shit. Their schedule was harder. Not that it matters over 16 games when 14 are basically the same, and they still beat us in every single defensive metric, most by a long shot. It's pretty much undeniable that their defense was better, at least among objectivity. If you aren't concerned about being objective, then it's just an entirely different viewpoint: fan.

Would you, in the future, not quote me with saying what CRedskinsRule says. I mean, he's right, but we're also two different people. Thanks.

But I do thank you for claiming argument consistency from TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. That's one of the more entertaining things that has ever happened from around these parts. Now I pretty much can't take you seriously anymore. I think you'll understand.

The rest of your post just seems to be a never-ending series of strawmans that varies between arguments that he made, neither of us made, and no one has ever made.

P.S. The fact that drive total has become a non-quantifiable statistic in this debate means it's pretty much over.

Get over yourself please, stop with all the hand waving saying they're undeniably better because you say so based on the criteria you choose. And if you did watch the games, can you at least agree with me that on those 2 days the Redskins defense was better? Throughout the year I never felt our defense was getting handled except maybe the first game versus the Giants. The Eagles gave up 41 to Dallas, 36 to the Giants, and 36 to Baltimore. That's not what I call consistent and that may not be a stat that you choose, but it does matter if you want to call yourself a good defense.

If there were a stat that was for the offensive strength that you face I guarantee it would be higher for the Redskins than the Eagles. I know it's the case for points and yards by a large margin. I wasn't claiming their schedule was harder, I was saying we faced better offenses. New Orleans had the best offense in the NFL and we had to face the Eagles offense twice (which was one of the best offenses in the NFL, again 6th in points) while they had to face our offense twice (which is much worse statistically, since you seem to care about the statistical analysis so much). And yeah Atlanta and Chicago were offensive powerhouses last year, I think I missed that.

P.S. You defined the meaning of drive total and how it is relevant statistically, but you don't know. Having a lower number of drives could mean that the defense is better, that they force offenses to work during every possession, bend but not break (i.e. Blache's scheme), as opposed to one that is more attacking and takes more chances (i.e. Jim Johnson's scheme).

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by an23dy

Get over yourself please, stop with all the hand waving saying they're undeniably better because you say so based on the criteria you choose. And if you did watch the games, can you at least agree with me that on those 2 days the Redskins defense was better? Throughout the year I never felt our defense was getting handled except maybe the first game versus the Giants. The Eagles gave up 41 to Dallas, 36 to the Giants, and 36 to Baltimore. That's not what I call consistent and that may not be a stat that you choose, but it does matter if you want to call yourself a good defense.

If there were a stat that was for the offensive strength that you face I guarantee it would be higher for the Redskins than the Eagles. I know it's the case for points and yards by a large margin. I wasn't claiming their schedule was harder, I was saying we faced better offenses. New Orleans had the best offense in the NFL and we had to face the Eagles offense twice (which was one of the best offenses in the NFL, again 6th in points) while they had to face our offense twice (which is much worse statistically, since you seem to care about the statistical analysis so much). And yeah Atlanta and Chicago were offensive powerhouses last year, I think I missed that.

P.S. You defined the meaning of drive total and how it is relevant statistically, but you don't know. Having a lower number of drives could mean that the defense is better, that they force offenses to work during every possession, bend but not break (i.e. Blache's scheme), as opposed to one that is more attacking and takes more chances (i.e. Jim Johnson's scheme).

Number one, there are definately stats kept on who faces the hardest competition. Again, these all suggest that it was pretty much a negligible difference, since you know 12 of our opponents were exactly the same as Philly. Here, is football outsiders rankings, and to get the opponent adjustment, you can just subtract the Non-adjusted from the adjusted total. Simple enough. Philly faced better offenses, by their rankings, but again, it's a really, really small difference, enough to not matter, which is what I've told you from the start. Other rankings I've seen say the same.

Number two, you cherry pick your numbers like only one other person I've ever talked to on this fourm, which given your propensity to deem other's numbers to be arbitrary, delights me very much. You point out that Philadelphia had three games with a high point total. Except that, we already know there's no way to skew it to say the Skins don't allow points at a faster rate. So I don't know what you are trying to say. Philly has a higher variance? That's true, I suppose.

Number three, I definately do know everything in bold is an irrelivant point. Last year, we gave up points at a faster rate than the Eagles, and we gave up more total points, and we faced fewer drives. To an extent, we did have a small bend-but-don't-break effect in our defense. It's true. We also broke undeniably faster than Philadelphia, Tennessee, or Minnesota. Like, gave up more points. That's what you mean by bend but don't break, is it not?

Number four, you apparently are okay quoting other people under my username. That's not cool, dude. I'm not just going to ignore that you did that.

[an23dy]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Number one, there are definately stats kept on who faces the hardest competition. Again, these all suggest that it was pretty much a negligible difference, since you know 12 of our opponents were exactly the same as Philly. Here, is football outsiders rankings, and to get the opponent adjustment, you can just subtract the Non-adjusted from the adjusted total. Simple enough. Philly faced better offenses, by their rankings, but again, it's a really, really small difference, enough to not matter, which is what I've told you from the start. Other rankings I've seen say the same.

Number two, you cherry pick your numbers like only one other person I've ever talked to on this fourm, which given your propensity to deem other's numbers to be arbitrary, delights me very much. You point out that Philadelphia had three games with a high point total. Except that, we already know there's no way to skew it to say the Skins don't allow points at a faster rate. So I don't know what you are trying to say. Philly has a higher variance? That's true, I suppose.

Number three, I definately do know everything in bold is an irrelivant point. Last year, we gave up points at a faster rate than the Eagles, and we gave up more total points, and we faced fewer drives. To an extent, we did have a small bend-but-don't-break effect in our defense. It's true. We also broke undeniably faster than Philadelphia, Tennessee, or Minnesota. Like, gave up more points. That's what you mean by bend but don't break, is it not?

Number four, you apparently are okay quoting other people under my username. That's not cool, dude. I'm not just going to ignore that you did that.

Sorry for the quote, I copied and pasted the quote thing and didn't edit it on accident. We all make mistakes, just like all the mistakes you make in every reply you send.

Yeah check out the variance, it says Washington was more consistent than Philly. I guess that changes your earlier opinion on the matter because boom it's right there in the stats. It's okay we all make mistakes, and you spelled forum wrong too.

Yeah we play 12 of the same teams, I know how the schedule works, you don't need to make the same argument continuously. The difference in the other games is we play a good Philly offense they play a bad Redskin offense and the other two games had negligible difference.

The DVOA only takes into account certain statistics on defense and is incomplete. I bet they just fiddle with the stats til it looks how they think it should look. You can't tell everything from looking at statistics. Do you think Philly and Minnesota's defense was better than Tennessee's, because the stats might say so, but I wouldn't say that and I don't think you would either. And of course you're going to pull up those stats because they have the weighted thing towards the end of the season when Philly was playing their best defense, yet it still wasn't good enough to beat us, when they're playoff hopes were seemingly on the line.

Okay wait, yeah I see it so clearly now, -20.7%, but I think I still need to see the stat for pressure situations, or do they eliminate plays once a game is considered out of reach, or do they have a stat for whether a player is injured, or if he picked his nose between plays. IT'S OBJECTIVE, that's my argument. YOUR OPINION IS NOT ABSOLUTE UNDENIABLE TRUTH THAT EVERYBODY AGREES WITH BECAUSE YOUR PRECIOUS STATS SAY SO. Maybe you should stop crunching the numbers and doing your math homework on Sundays and actually watch the games and make an opinion of your own.