UK Skins Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I was going to write this against a couple of the other posts but since it applies to more than one I thought I would make it a new thread instead. What is the big deal about our final finishing position of #5 in defense? This is being used to suggest anything from us having a really great defense to not needing to draft any defensive players. I just checked NFL.com and as I thought we finished #21 in Points Allowed. The last time I looked if you concede more points than the opposition you lose the game. Doesn't matter how many yards you allowed or whether you had more Pro-Bowlers on your team or anything else! That is a pitiful rating and those people crowing about our so-called great defense should give it a lot of thought - because without a heck of an improvement we won't be going to the Play-Offs next season either. :cuss: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eparadox Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 We also sucked at creating turnovers (23rd), which I think is more important for a defense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Great post, I agree 100%.... The number of probowlers means nothing, the ranking means nothing.... the only thing that matters is the W-L record. Sure Champ and LaVar made the probowl, but so what. I don't think either really deserved it. They made it on name recognition. I would rather have 11 no name guys that play together as a team than several pro bowlers who are individual talents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 The Pats were around the bottom of rankings last year and had no big names, but their D could always stop people when it counted. Just ask Mike Martz... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlanta Skins Fan Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Originally posted by codeorama Sure Champ and LaVar made the probowl, but so what. I don't think either really deserved it. They made it on name recognition. I would rather have 11 no name guys that play together as a team than several pro bowlers who are individual talents. I agree with the sentiment, and I agree LaVar was a questionable Pro Bowl pick. (To my eyes he played worse this year than last, thanks mainly to misuse by Lewis, but I have no idea how his play ranked compared to other LBs.) As for Champ, he really did have a good year, particularly after Lewis finally started using him primarily in man coverage against the #1 WR, instead of zone coverage against whoever was in the slot. Champ deserved the Pro Bowl. Gardener deserved the Pro Bowl more than anyone. He was robbed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I think both total yards and total points are misleading. It's not the defense's fault we were second to last in opponent FG percentage. (Opposing kickers were a staggering 10 for 10 from 40-49 yards.) It's not the defense's fault we were 21st in return TDs. We were 23rd in turnover ratio, not takeaways. It's not our defense's fault we were 29th in giveaways. Our defense, however, was 4th in yards per play. I think that is pretty good. Our defense was 10th in takeaways. Again, pretty good. Our defense was 9th in sacks. Again, pretty good. Could our defense be better? Sure. But it is by far the strongest link on the team right now. ST and offense need some serious upgrades first, IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Originally posted by Atlanta Skins Fan Gardener deserved the Pro Bowl more than anyone. He was robbed. I agree 100% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Originally posted by Henry Could our defense be better? Sure. But it is by far the strongest link on the team right now. ST and offense need some serious upgrades first, IMHO. You're right.. The points vs. should improve as the o and sp teams improve. All three units have to be good in order for the team to be successful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonnyJ Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Henry, Where are you getting your stats? I find it hard to believe that the D was 10th in takeaways - it was my biggest gripe about them. I don't think anyone is deluding themselves into thinking that the D is really a "Top 5" D. Just not enough takeaways and not enough stops, IMO. Sure, they were put in bad situations often, but a "Top 5" D allows FGs in those situations instead of TDs, and turns minimal FG opportunities into punting situations. More often than not. This D didn't do that. Opponent TD opportunities became TDs, FG opportunities became FGs. We won't get into the lack of three and outs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Skins Posted January 8, 2003 Author Share Posted January 8, 2003 That's a good point SonnyJ. Also if the offense are giving the opposition the ball inside the red zone every time then the defense are going to struggle. Mind you whether they get a touchdown or a field goal the yards allowed isn't going to be much so that counters that argument! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyDave Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Heck a top 5 offense didnt help the Chiefs either. We need to take care of the lines and address depth on Defense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlanta Skins Fan Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 It should be possible to do a statistical readjustment of the defense's low points ranking (#21) to neutralize extraneous variables. I don't have time to do that now, but factors to include would be: Turnovers by our offense, relative to the rest of the NFL Excessive FG% by the opposition (Redskin opponents had the highest FG% in the NFL, compared to other teams and their opponents -- that's known as being cursed) Opponent offensive points strength, relative to the rest of the NFL Neutralizing these factors would definitely improve the points ranking, but I highly doubt it would raise the ranking close to #5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Sonny, for some reason my list put things backwards. We were tied for 22nd in takeaways. However, the 13th ranked team only had three more than we did, so that rank is a little misleading. Heck if we just got that one fumble against the Giants when the refs botched the call we're tied for 18th. What killed us was our 29th ranking in giveaways. That's not a misleading stat. We were dead last in fumbles lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Henry, You're dead wrong on your stats. Our defense was 23rd in takeaways, not 10th. We had 26 takeaways all year. You just sorted the column from least to most. Hit the sort again and you'll see us at 23. I think you just saw us 10th in the list, but it was from least to most. The defense is not, and was not, far and away the strongest unit on the team right now. Over the last six games -- and especially the final four with Ramsey -- the offense was stronger than the defense. The defense got very fat against the No. 32 and No. 30 offenses in football and that's great. But, just before playing Houston Lavar was talking about how the unit was regressing and, he was right. We were on a stretch before that where we were falling in the statistical measurements and looking more and more confused. The defense certainly looked great against Dallas. It looked pretty good against Houston. But, I find it difficult to get overly excited about those great two games while forgetting about the relative disappointment that led up to them. As for the Pro Bowl, there's no doubt Bailey deserved it. He was the most dominating corner in the league in coverage. Gardener should also have made it and Lavar probably did make it on rep more than anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dchogs Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Also if the offense are giving the opposition the ball inside the red zone every time then the defense are going to struggle. that coupled with poor special teams is the reason for the rankings in my eyes. the fact that we gave up a ton of points (21st ranking) without giving up much yardage (5th ranking) indicates (truthfully from the games that i actually saw) that the defense was constantly defending a short field due to turnovers or crappy ST play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonnyJ Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Originally posted by dchogs that coupled with poor special teams is the reason for the rankings in my eyes. the fact that we gave up a ton of points (21st ranking) without giving up much yardage (5th ranking) indicates (truthfully from the games that i actually saw) that the defense was constantly defending a short field due to turnovers or crappy ST play. A true "Top 5" defense would minimize opposition points in these situations, more often than not. The fact that the Redskins D didn't, more often than not, speaks volumes. It just wasn't a shutdown D. And, how often was the D able to give the offense similar scoring opportunities? I don't recall too many. It works both ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dchogs Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 don't get me wrong, sonny. i wasn't defending the D at all, just making some sense of the disparity in the two rankings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GURU Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Here are some other Redskins defensive statistical rankings gleened from espn.com: Tied for 25th in forced fumbles. Tied for 22nd in interceptions. Tied for 22nd in passes defensed. 12th in rushing yards per game. 11th in yards per rush. Tied for 11th in rushing TDs. Tied for 4th in yards per pass attempt. 7th in total first downs given up Here's a couple of stats that might surprise some of you because I've heard some sentiment that our D is much worse in these categories: Tied for 9th in sacks. 6th in 3rd down percentage (35%) Another stat I like to look at is the opponents passer ratings. It's as useful as using ratings to rank QBs, but can be somewhat enlighting as far as effeciency goes. The Skins D ranked #11 in opponets' passer ratings. Looking at everthing overall, I think the Skins have a top 10 defense. They do some things well, and the need lots of improvement on others. I also believe that most of the improvement will come from playing together in the same system over time. They need to upgrade the talent at a couple of positions, but no major overhauls. Better support from the offense and special teams would markedly improve the play of the defense, even if the personnel stayed exactly the same, in my opinion. It's popular to say "defense wins championships." But I think there is a more symbiotic relationship between the phases of the game. You just can't just build a championship defense and ignore the other parts of the game. I don't have any statistical evidence, but my inclination is to believe that the best teams are the ones who have balance and rank near the top in all three phases of the game. By the way, Champ and LaVar absolutely deserve their Pro Bowl selections. You have to watch what opponents do. And if you watch, you will see that opponents are very aware of where Champ and LaVar are on the field at all times. They are still young players, and are still susceptible to mistakes here and there. But they are dominating players that other teams must account for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlanta Skins Fan Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I'm now satisfied, looking through the various stats, that our defense was indeed a top-10 defense for the year. The worst factor was creating turnovers, the only area where the defense was poor. Points allowed (#21) is misleading -- not just because of offensive turnovers and opponent FG%, but because the actual difference in points allowed between us and many higher ranked teams is quite small. We allowed 22.8 ppg. Cleveland (#10) allowed 20.0 ppg. Miami (#4) allowed 18.8 ppg. These are significant but not massive differences, and they are neutralized somewhat by our offensive turnovers and high opponent FG%. HOWEVER: This isn't the whole story. There are further questions that need to be asked: Did Marvin Lewis get more from the talent than could be expected, less, or about what should be expected? The answer helps to grade Lewis's performance. By definition, an *average* NFL DC should be able to get a #5 defense (based on talent) to perform at a #5 level. Was the improvement in play this year a result of the players playing better, Marvin abandoning his initial scheme, or both? To my eyes, our pass defense only started kicking in gear when Champ was finally allowed to cover the opponent #1 WR in man coverage. This coverage scheme was not Lewis's preferred approach, so it's hard to credit him much with the results. (I do appreciate his changing at last.) How much of the improvement in defense can be attributable to the emergence of Daryl Gardener as a massive individual force? To me, Gardener single-handedly dramatically improved our defense -- even helping Bruce Smith get in gear -- and that had nothing to do with the scheme. Was the playing of LaVar at DE a waste of his talents and, worse, did it create a serious short-term and long-term risk to LaVar's health and effectiveness? My personal opinion is that LaVar's open-field tackling declined not just because of his hand injury, but because he had lost fundamental agility due to being beaten up at DE. In my view, Lewis delivered an average overall DC performance, and improvement came about mainly through using Champ in man coverage (against Lewis's preference) and through the emergence of Gardener as a force. I think if Lewis returns, the defense will continue to perform well in 2003, barring major injuries or the failure to re-sign Gardener and Powell. It may actually improve. But I would prefer Lewis to leave, on balance, because I think we can get the same results with Edwards -- and my hope is that Edwards will no longer continue to play LaVar at DE. I said the following at the begining of the season and I'm repeating it now: Let me be as blunt as possible: the single greatest threat to LaVar's longterm health and effectiveness as a LB is Marvin Lewis. Lewis will ruin what makes LaVar special -- his remarkable agility, speed and open-field tackling -- leaving him physically average or worse. I believe LaVar is capable of being one of the best LBs of the decade, if he is allowed to play LB full-time in a stable scheme that exploits his ability to make plays as a roving menace. To me it's a choice: Lewis or LaVar, and I'm going with LaVar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 My only argument would be about LaVar being a great open field tackler.... He's a hitter, not a tackler, I don't think I can ever remember seeing him wrap anyone up... what does this tell me... he is undiciplined. Lewis has said as much. If I were LaVar, I would spend the offseason learning the basics, learning how to tackle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlanta Skins Fan Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Originally posted by Atlanta Skins Fan I would prefer Lewis to leave, on balance, because I think we can get the same results with Edwards -- and my hope is that Edwards will no longer continue to play LaVar at DE. I believe LaVar is capable of being one of the best LBs of the decade, if he is allowed to play LB full-time in a stable scheme that exploits his ability to make plays as a roving menace. To me it's a choice: Lewis or LaVar, and I'm going with LaVar. Hey Art: I just argued myself into drafting DE Terrell Suggs. :doh: Seriously, reviewing the history of why LaVar played DE on passing downs, it probably boils down to the failure to retain LDE Marco Coleman. We had acquired Wynn supposedly to play DT, with Coleman at LDE -- but with Coleman gone, Wynn played LDE. Wynn's a run-stopper, not a pass-rusher. Lewis "solved" this problem by making LaVar the LDE on passing downs. I hate it when small stupid decisions snowball into giant stupid decisions. Question: who's the best pass-rushing LDE available via the draft or free agency? The answer could solve the LaVar DE problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 . . . the single greatest threat to LaVar's longterm health and effectiveness as a LB is Marvin Lewis. Lewis will ruin what makes LaVar special -- his remarkable agility, speed and open-field tackling. . . I've had this image in my head for a while, now: LaVar, your mission today is to take Shockey out of the game, man-to-man. Everybody else is somebody else's job. If a corner can be assigned to a WR man-to-man, perhaps there's a way to do the same with a LB on a TE. ---------- Kirk: "Well, Commander, it looks like there isn't going to be a war." Kor: "A pity, Captain. It would've been glorious." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PennState11 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Part of the reason we had the #21 Scoring defense was because we were leading the league is opponents starting inside the 50. LaVar deserved the pro-bowl. He had 12 Sacks and 4 FF. Thats the same number as sacks as 2 DE's who made the probowl. And Champ is the best corner in the league excluding the giants game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Utah Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 You know the sad part is that you guys actually think your on to something here with all of the turnover arguements. I don't have time right now to explain it completely but a turnover is a result of good play. It is not counted on when making a gameplan. There is no call on defense that the coaching staff can say will get them a turnover. We suffered on defense with a major lack of discipline. The stat that everyone seems to be missing is the defensive penalties. We were almost dead last (29) in penalites called against us. That is what kept drives alive and allowed so many games to get out of reach for us. The points per game or points allowed throughout the season is also misleading. While I am not sure of the exact stat on this, I bet our opponents didn't have to go very far to get their points. Our defense IS the strongest part of our team right now. Since we couldn't score for sh*t this year and we couldn't hold onto the ball at all, it is idiotic to think that we can solve either of those problems by adding more defense. Bring the offense up to a level where our defense can have a fighting chance. Put some playmakers on offense to go with (hopefully) Ramsey instead of our 2 tackles so we can start to control a game on offense instead of hoping our defense can save their butts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRMADD Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Sonny J: A true "Top 5" defense would minimize opposition points in these situations, more often than not. The fact that the Redskins D didn't, more often than not, speaks volumes. It just wasn't a shutdown D. I totally disagree. It was a shutdown D -- teams couldn't move the ball against us. Yes, they scored on us a lot from short-range (as many have noted, because the special teams and offense gave the ball away), but the fact that teams couldn't generate much offense under "normal" conditions says a lot. If a team is #5 in yards allowed but #21 in points allowed, the only conclusion you can draw is that we lost the field position and time-of-possesion and turnover battles horribly. And we did. Remember when Lavar and Daryl single-handedly won a game for us with a strip at the goal line? That's shut-down D. The problem was that we were so far behind in so many games because of miscues on offense and special teams that their heroics just didn't matter. Yes, the defense could improve. They did seem to jell at the end of the year -- everyone likes to talk about Betts and Watson running all over the Cowboys, but it was the defense who won that game. The offense put the Cowboys in position to try to win at the end, but the defense shut them down. The other issue is the defense's inability to generate turnovers of their own. Part of that problem is just bad luck -- our opponents fumbled 26 times but we only recovered 12 of them. Part of it is that we were so far behind in many games that offenses didn't have to take risks with the ball or try to throw their way back into a game. It's hard to generate turnovers if your opponent is just running the ball with a 21 point lead. Our offense had 34 fumbles and lost 20 of them. That means that 60% of the time we dropped the ball, they picked it up. But we only picked up 45% of their fumbles. That's just poor dumb luck. If those statistics had been reversed (and it's mostly luck), that would be 4 more fumbles that we recovered and 5 more of our own that we fell on, which would improve our turnover margin from 29th in the league to 19th in the league. And who knows what impact that would have had on our results? The point is that our defense was unlucky, our offense and special teams were gaffe-prone, and it showed up on the scoreboard. Points allowed is all that matters, but the defense doesn't play in a vacuum. If we don't fix our problems on offense and special teams, the defense will stay the same. But if we do fix the offense and special teams, our offense will get better without making any changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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