John Clayton on the Redskins' Playoff Chances

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Originally Posted by Schneed10

Suisham didn't miss 16 FGs beyond his normal miss rate. The best answer is to convert red zone opportunities into TDs, and leave Suisham on the sideline.

But there were at least 10-12 reasonably makeable FG situations that were passed on because the game situation dictated that 3 points wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Ergo, projecting an increase of 30-45 points due to improvements in the results of FG games is realistic. However, then any increase in the Touchdown projections would be worth 4 points per, because we can't double count the game situations in which we came away with zero points. We can add 3 points in those situations with no theoretical improvement, or 7 points with a small theoretical improvement, but under no situation can those be 10 point situations.

The bottom line is that a progression to the mean based on last year's talent should yield about 19 PPG. To get up to 21, and get those 6-7 extra touchdowns out of those FG attempts, the offense has to improve situationally, both in the red zone, and in the 30+ yd play categories.

I think we can extrapolate that if the offense simply isn't worse than last year, we're dealing with a playoff team. If it progresses just by 2-3 PPG (on top of the 2.5 PPG progression to mean yardage totals), we're talking about a SB contender. 2-3 PPG won't be easy though, and if we start trading in additional turnovers for points, we're going to cost ourselves more wins than the points will gain us.