More important to improve: Offense or Defense

[Voice_of_Reason]

I was trying to find a thread to put this in, and it could maybe go in either the draft or FA thread, but the topic is less about players than it is about theory.  So, let's see how this goes.

 

What got me to thinking about this topic at all is the going theory that there's a chance the 'Skins could take a RB in the 1st round of the draft.  I understand BPA, and all that stuff, and I'm completely on board with it.  But in taking a RB in the 1st, you are prioritizing offense over defense.  So, I got to thinking, "maybe if we just improve the offense, add a RB, score more points, control the clock, we can make the defense more irrelevant."

 

The way that you win games is by scoring more points than your opponent.  John Madden taught me that.  But seriously, I thought it would be interesting to look at PPG scored vs. given up, also known as "Point Differential".  So I "ran some numbers." NOTE: I understand PPG is not a true measure of either offense or defense, there are a lot of things that go into points, so it's not a perfect measuring stick.  HOWEVER, it is what determines the outcome of games.  So, points are important.

 

A couple things stood out:

 

1. The 2 teams that had the best point differential were in the SB.  NE scored 27.6, gave up 15.6 for a difference of 12, which was far and away the best in the league.  There defensive PPG was aided by the fact they played QBs who are the NFL equivalent of Larry, Mo and Curly in a loop Atlanta was next (33.8/25.4/8.4).

2. New England was the 3rd ranked offense in points, and 1st defensively.  They went 14-2, and won (barely) the SB because Kyle Shanahan gagged the game away, the stupid ninny.

3. Atlanta took a very different route to the second best point differential.  They had the #1 offense, but the #27th ranked defense.  However, they were able to overcome their defensive issues because their offense was SO MUCH BETTER than everybody else.  They scored almost 4 points per game more than the second best scoring offense, New Orleans. 

4. So, now let's take New Orleans.  They had the second best scoring offense in the league at 29.3 PPG.  (Drew Brees rocks).  But they had the 31st scoring defense.  So while Atlanta was able to overcome it's defense with an average of 8.4 more ppg than their opponents, NO only scored .9 (Don't miss the decimal there) more points than their opponents, and ended up with a 7-9 record.

5. The vast majority of the teams that averaged 2 more points than their opponent or better through the season made the playoffs.  The exceptions are Arizona (+3.5), Philly (+2.2), Denver (+2.2) 

6. Teams that had a marginal points differential were ~8-8.  The biggest exception were the Raiders.  There were 12-4 with only a +1.9 point differential.  This means you win A LOT of close games, and are defying the law of averages.

7.  The Redskins point differential was .9.  They were the 12th scoring offense, and the 19th scoring defense. They were 8-7-1. That fits.  The latter is somewhat shocking to me that it is that high, and this is where stats are a little mis-leading.  Since the defense couldn't get off the field, the entire game was "shortened."  There were just fewer possessions, which meant less scoring.  The offense had fewer opportunities because of it, as did the defense.

8. FWIW, Dallas had a point differential of 7.2 good for 3rd in the league.  It was ranked 5th scoring offense and defense. 

 

So now, we get into the discussion, should the Redskins pour as many resources into the offense as possible, and will that be successful.  The numbers say it can be, if you are Atlanta offensively, and can score 34 ppg, you can basically have a terrible defense, and be ok.  BUT, if you're even the second best offense (NO), you must have a respectable defense, because you can very quickly go from 12-4 to 7-9. 

 

My conclusion is that it's SO hard to just out-score teams, you have to have some balance on the team.  I also don't think a RB in the first round is going to bump the 'Skins from 12th to 1st in scoring.  Whereas a defense that can get off the field and get a few more possessions might be able to do wonders.

 

Long story short: Invest in the defense, don't draft a RB in the first round, expand point differential, and win more games. 

 

That is all.

 

WARNING: Posts to the effect of "the reason our scoring was down is because Kirk sucks in the Red Zone" will not be looked upon favorably.

 

[CTskin]

Our offense is what it is- pass first and pass a lot. Even if Fournette fell in our laps, it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of ToP and eating up the clock because it's just not how Gruden's system works.

 

Kirk and the basketball team of a receiving corp are going to put up big points. Load up on the D to back the offense up! The only offensive position the NEEDS upgrading is LG.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

We should at the very least have some regression to the mean in regards to our Red Zone offense.  We were really good in 2015 and then awful in 2016.  The truth is somewhere in between.  But we also replaced our top two WR's who work best with space, with guys who are 4 inches taller.  Jordy Nelson isn't an ideal red zone threat, but he's got good size, catches away from his body, and knows how to put his body in between the defender and the ball.

 

I'm expecting higher scoring next season regardless.  But it would be hard to make the leap to dominant offense.  We'd need a dynamic RB and an in-line TE that can block.  Those two things are hard to come by.

 

In theory it should be easier to turn our defense from awful to mediocre than it would be to turn our offense from pretty good to amazing.  But it's possible with our o-line and our QB, new pieces on offense would be better utilized and transition easier.

[Morneblade]

Defense.

Wins.

Championships.

[Voice_of_Reason]

11 minutes ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

...

 

In theory it should be easier to turn our defense from awful to mediocre than it would be to turn our offense from pretty good to amazing.  But it's possible with our o-line and our QB, new pieces on offense would be better utilized and transition easier.

I agree with all of this, but only quoted the below part.

I think that going from pretty good to amazing on offense is highly unlikely.  The thing that the amazing offenses have are elite, blue-chip play makers. We have a lot of solid guys who know what they are doing.  I think if you put Julio Jones on this offense, that might be something.  But absent that, I'm not sure how much better the offense is going to get.

 

The defense needs to go from awful to average.  I'm looking for a differential of about 3 ppg next year.  If they can do that, they'll win between 10-12 games.  

9 minutes ago, Morneblade said:

Defense.

Wins.

Championships.

Except when they don't.  I don't think there was a defense on the field in the last SB.  

 

But I agree, we need to find a better defense.  

15 minutes ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

I'm expecting higher scoring next season regardless.  But it would be hard to make the leap to dominant offense.  We'd need a dynamic RB and an in-line TE that can block.  Those two things are hard to come by.

 

Let me add that I completely agree with this.  The dynamic RB might be easier to find that the in-line TE.  

 

I think, though, with our larger receivers, the running game is going to work better.  One of the things that was a problem is that our entire offense was built around a stretch-zone style running game, (even under Gruden), but our WR/TEs couldn't set the damn edge, so the RB would often times just run completely sideways out of bounds.  Which made me hit my head on things all the time.

 

The perfect TE for our offense was a pre-injured, probably 3-4 years younger Logan Paulson.  Guy was big, somewhat athletic, and would set the damn edge.  Then he got hurt, and was never quite the same.  

[Morneblade]

6 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

 

The defense needs to go from awful to average.  I'm looking for a differential of about 3 ppg next year.  If they can do that, they'll win between 10-12 games.  

Except when they don't.  I don't think there was a defense on the field in the last SB.  

 

But I agree, we need to find a better defense.  

Let me add that I completely agree with this.  The dynamic RB might be easier to find that the in-line TE.  

 

 

I and BLC (RIP) got into with OldFan a long time ago over what was more important, O or D when it came to winning a SB. It got to be very long and lengthy and I ended up having to do WAY too much research, but the stats showed that Defense was more important. It won more SB's, was more easily able to overcome a bad Offense and still win, ect. It was agonizing because OF would not let it go, and I'm never going to put myself through that again. So, I'm sticking with that mantra.

 

I'll also agree with you, it's MUCH easier to turn bad into average than to turn very good into the absolute best. Focusing on Defense is the easiest, best way to improve this team. The best LG out there and a top flight RB would help, but not all that much. A 15th ranked D would, as you said, probably give us 3-4 more wins. Top 10 D puts us at 14-2ish and likely the odds on favorite in the NFC.

[TSO]

I think you did an excellent job of putting into numbers why the consensus opinion this offseason was all about improving the D for us. Well done @Voice of Reason.  

 

I keep thinking about how much of an impact it would've been on our season had our defense just been poor to average on 3rd downs alone versus historically bad. It's not an exaggeration to think we could've won 11-13 games easily just off of that one stat. Amazing, really. 

 

Even with the terrible red zone woes, we still ended up 12th in scoring offense. Imagine just two or three more possessions per game and what that would've done? 

 

Hmmm... that's interesting, actually. What was our average total points per drive last season both offensively and defensively? Apply those numbers with the assumption of, say, a couple more drives per game offensively and couple less drives defensively to our points differential and what does that amount to in comparison to the Pats and Falcons? 

[Voice_of_Reason]

2 minutes ago, Morneblade said:

 

I and BLC (RIP) got into with OldFan a long time ago over what was more important, O or D when it came to winning a SB. It got to be very long and lengthy and I ended up having to do WAY too much research, but the stats showed that Defense was more important. It won more SB's, was more easily able to overcome a bad Offense and still win, ect. It was agonizing because OF would not let it go, and I'm never going to put myself through that again. So, I'm sticking with that mantra.

 

I'll also agree with you, it's MUCH easier to turn bad into average than to turn very good into the absolute best. Focusing on Defense is the easiest, best way to improve this team. The best LG out there and a top flight RB would help, but not all that much. A 15th ranked D would, as you said, probably give us 3-4 more wins. Top 10 D puts us at 14-2ish and likely the odds on favorite in the NFC.

FWIW, being a guy who grew up in the 80's, I find it hard to let go of "run the ball, stop the run" as a mantra to win games. But I digress.

 

The one thing that I think can't be argued is that defenses travel.  It's easier to play defense on the road, and it's easier to play defense in bad conditions.  So unless you're a dome team with home field throughout the playoffs, you're going to need to bring your D to win a championship. Good defensive teams are also generally intimidating, and tougher, and that helps in the playoffs as well.

 

I just want an "ok" defense.  Right now, I think they probably have improved from historically bad to just below average. They should have 2 better safeties, and 1 better ILB, and they don't have the village idiot as a coordinator.  Those will all help.  But they need 3-4 new DL, another ILB, a better pass-rush from an OLB, and consistent CB play to go from Below Average to Great.  If they solve one or two of these things, they might get to average, which would be a huge win.  

 

PS: Somehow I missed the news on BLC.  That's very sad.  

[Morneblade]

1 minute ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

FWIW, being a guy who grew up in the 80's, I find it hard to let go of "run the ball, stop the run" as a mantra to win games. But I digress.

 

The one thing that I think can't be argued is that defenses travel.  It's easier to play defense on the road, and it's easier to play defense in bad conditions.  So unless you're a dome team with home field throughout the playoffs, you're going to need to bring your D to win a championship. Good defensive teams are also generally intimidating, and tougher, and that helps in the playoffs as well.

 

I just want an "ok" defense.  Right now, I think they probably have improved from historically bad to just below average. They should have 2 better safeties, and 1 better ILB, and they don't have the village idiot as a coordinator.  Those will all help.  But they need 3-4 new DL, another ILB, a better pass-rush from an OLB, and consistent CB play to go from Below Average to Great.  If they solve one or two of these things, they might get to average, which would be a huge win.  

 

PS: Somehow I missed the news on BLC.  That's very sad.  

 

I'm with ya. I guess the only difference is I think we can run with Brown and Foster and be ok with ILB. I think we need DL, NT, OLB and CB help pretty badly right now. S and ILB I feel is servicable enough, although S is more on potential than anything.

 

Oh, and I was referring to BLC's perma-ban, sorry for the confusion

[sportjunkie07]

I think it is more important to improve the defense. I don't think the statistics show how good our offense was or how bad our defense was. 

 

I'm of the opinion that we have a very good offense as it is now, and that the loss of garcon and djax is negligible. Our defense as it currently stands will get run all over.. something that I think has been a major detriment in critical games over the past two seasons. 

 

I get the feeling that opposing teams realize they can succeed vs the redskins by using the running game to either get difficult short yardage or to just get substantial yardage and use the game clock in their favor. 

 

This puts a lot of pressure on the offense, making them have to play very well for the team to win, and that is an unreasonable expectation. 

 

If we can hit on high picks to improve run defense the result will make our team more flexible against the run. Opposing teams won't have the bread and butter running game that they can rely on. The net result will be a better more balanced defense that will be more difficult to impose will on.

 

This will have a domino effect of improving the secondary, and giving an already good and perhaps slightly underrated offense the ability to shine. 

 

Unfortunately, I don't think we can accomplish improving the rush defense marketably in one draft unless we hit on multiple defensive picks. 

 

It must be noted that this draft is very strong for te and rb imo. We do need to consider getting one of each is just doesn't have to be with our first two picks. 

[Voice_of_Reason]

25 minutes ago, thesubmittedone said:

I think you did an excellent job of putting into numbers why the consensus opinion this offseason was all about improving the D for us. Well done @Voice of Reason.  

 

I keep thinking about how much of an impact it would've been on our season had our defense just been poor to average on 3rd downs alone versus historically bad. It's not an exaggeration to think we could've won 11-13 games easily just off of that one stat. Amazing, really. 

 

Even with the terrible red zone woes, we still ended up 12th in scoring offense. Imagine just two or three more possessions per game and what that would've done? 

 

Hmmm... that's interesting, actually. What was our average total points per drive last season both offensively and defensively? Apply those numbers with the assumption of, say, a couple more drives per game offensively and couple less drives defensively to our points differential and what does that amount to in comparison to the Pats and Falcons? 

Ask and ye shall receive.  

 

According to Football Outsiders, our average points per drive was 2.4.  FWIW, that was 6th in the league.  (Which, with the the Red Zone issues, that's not half bad)

 

So, 3 more drives, if you score at the same pace is 7.2 more ppg. That would have taken them from 24.8 to 32, right behind Atlanta. Point differential would have been 8.1.  That would have been third behind NE and Atlanta. Atlanta went 11-5.  I will leave you to draw your own conclusion as to overall record.  But I am comfortable saying it would have been better, and they would have made the playoffs.

 

With 2 more drives, they would have ended up with 29.6.  That would still be better than NO by .3 for second.  The point differential would have been 5.7.  That would have been 4th behind Dallas.  Still probably looking at a 10+ wins. Teams with point differentials of 4.5 or better all won 11 games or more.  

 

 

EDIT: I did that WIHTOUT subtracting points from defense, assuming that they would give up the same number of points. The numbers would be more stark if we included the 2.19 points per drive the defense gave up.  That by the way, was 24th in the league.  Which stinks.  I really hope they forced that idiot Barry to hitchhike home after they fired him.  

13 minutes ago, Morneblade said:

 

Oh, and I was referring to BLC's perma-ban, sorry for the confusion

Ah, still sad.  I hate to see perma-bans.  But less tragic.  And I still missed it. 

[Rex Tomb]

1 hour ago, CTskin said:

Our offense is what it is- pass first and pass a lot. Even if Fournette fell in our laps, it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of ToP and eating up the clock because it's just not how Gruden's system works.

 

Kirk and the basketball team of a receiving corp are going to put up big points. Load up on the D to back the offense up! The only offensive position the NEEDS upgrading is LG.

True - if Forrest Lamp is there, I'd take him in a heartbeat to line up alongside Trent Williams.  We would have a Dallas-caliber O-line.

[Voice_of_Reason]

8 minutes ago, Morneblade said:

 

I'm with ya. I guess the only difference is I think we can run with Brown and Foster and be ok with ILB. I think we need DL, NT, OLB and CB help pretty badly right now. S and ILB I feel is servicable enough, although S is more on potential than anything.

Foster/Compton (who I think the coaches think is better than Foster) are not physically talented enough to be ILB in an NFL defense.  They need to upgrade both.  I don't mind either as a backup, but neither should be a starter.  But I agree, it's less of a need now (Until Brown blows out his knee on the second defensive snap, and both are starting again) than DL.  

 

I think that CB might be ok if Breeland gets his head out of his ass.  He's got the tools and has played at a high level.  Normal is a stud.  CB is automatically a B position because of Norman.  But they need the other starter and the nickle guy, to step up and be consistent.  

 

I like Kerrigan, but he's an effort guy. They need somebody with true burst around the edge to scare folks.  They don't have that guy.  Unless it's Gallett, who manages to avoid a 6 year ban from Mara for the stupid fracas he was involved in.  

2 minutes ago, Rex Tomb said:

True - if Forrest Lamp is there, I'd take him in a heartbeat to line up alongside Trent Williams.  We would have a Dallas-caliber O-line.

I just want a guy who we can nickname the Lamp Post on the OL.  

[Voice_of_Reason]

14 minutes ago, sportjunkie07 said:

Unfortunately, I don't think we can accomplish improving the rush defense marketably in one draft unless we hit on multiple defensive picks. 

 

It must be noted that this draft is very strong for te and rb imo. We do need to consider getting one of each is just doesn't have to be with our first two picks. 

The one thing that could really help is that if the rumblings from the players and coaches (specifically Gruden in his fireside chat) that there were some fundamental scheme issues on defense, and those will be fixed by having a competent DC, we could see immediate improvement. 

 

Remember, since 2010, this defense has been coordinated by Haslett, who knew nothing, and Barry, who knew less.  Given that, it's possible that just by being competent, Manusky (and all signs point to him being competent), might be able to solve some long-standing issues that we thought were personnel, but were actually dope DC things.  

 

I'm not saying that's absolutely true, but track record matters, and for the past 6 season, the track record of the DC has been poop on a stick.  

[sportjunkie07]

13 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

The one thing that could really help is that if the rumblings from the players and coaches (specifically Gruden in his fireside chat) that there were some fundamental scheme issues on defense, and those will be fixed by having a competent DC, we could see immediate improvement. 

Perhaps we will. 

 

I just think that in the redskins scenario, especially with barry as dc, talent was as big or a bigger problem than coaching.

 

I really liked breeland but he has regressed. Norman is legit and Kerrigan is always B+. That's about it though. Lots of subpar rotational players on our defense. 

 

I really like the brown pickup though. Better coaching and some talent infusion from the draft gives us a shot, albeit one I'm not relying on.

[Morneblade]

19 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Foster/Compton (who I think the coaches think is better than Foster) are not physically talented enough to be ILB in an NFL defense.  They need to upgrade both.  I don't mind either as a backup, but neither should be a starter.  But I agree, it's less of a need now (Until Brown blows out his knee on the second defensive snap, and both are starting again) than DL.  

 

I think Foster is average. With some help around him, I think he's "good enough" for the time being. There were times he looked really good, and times he didn't. But I think he's physical enough to be a thumper, and I think he can call the plays and let Brown do his thing. The thing is to get a guy in front of both of them that will allow them to do their job.

 

19 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

 

I think that CB might be ok if Breeland gets his head out of his ass.  He's got the tools and has played at a high level.  Normal is a stud.  CB is automatically a B position because of Norman.  But they need the other starter and the nickle guy, to step up and be consistent.  

 

I like Kerrigan, but he's an effort guy. They need somebody with true burst around the edge to scare folks.  They don't have that guy.  Unless it's Gallett, who manages to avoid a 6 year ban from Mara for the stupid fracas he was involved in.  

 

I hope so. I think the Norman signing got in his head last year and he really regressed. I hope he's not butthurt over it anymore and and gets his head back in the game. Still, need a 3rd corner even if Bree gets back to 2015 standards.

 

11 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

The one thing that could really help is that if the rumblings from the players and coaches (specifically Gruden in his fireside chat) that there were some fundamental scheme issues on defense, and those will be fixed by having a competent DC, we could see immediate improvement. 

 

I'm hoping for this. I think Manusky is a pretty big upgrade and I really like having Tomsula. Those 2 should help a lot.

 

11 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Remember, since 2010, this defense has been coordinated by Haslett, who knew nothing, and Barry, who knew less.  Given that, it's possible that just by being competent, Manusky (and all signs point to him being competent), might be able to solve some long-standing issues that we thought were personnel, but were actually dope DC things.  

 

I'm not saying that's absolutely true, but track record matters, and for the past 6 season, the track record of the DC has been poop on a stick.  

 

Big time.

[elkabong82]

Offense should be fine as is. Load up on defense.

 

That doesn't mean ignore offense in the draft either though. If we're at 17 and the team's board has a RB as the BPA then take him, but the rest of the draft better be practically nothing but D Picks. A better run game means better TOP and makes D life easier. 

 

But yes, defense takes the priority. If offense had glaring holes I might feel differently because you need to keep elite units elite in the NFL, but that's not the case. Get D even just to average and we're in the postseason.

[Morneblade]

2 minutes ago, elkabong82 said:

Offense should be fine as is. Load up on defense.

 

That doesn't mean ignore offense in the draft either though. If we're at 17 and the team's board has a RB as the BPA then take him, but the rest of the draft better be practically nothing but D Picks. A better run game means better TOP and makes D life easier. 

 

But yes, defense takes the priority. If offense had glaring holes I might feel differently because you need to keep elite units elite in the NFL, but that's not the case. Get D even just to average and we're in the postseason.

 

Agreed. In fact, the only position on O I would really consider upgrading is LG. That would help our pass pro and if we get a good run blocker there, the left side would be a place you can run to all day. And I don't think you have to do that in the 1st round.

 

Everything else is dead on.

[TSO]

By the way, the one thing I'd still disagree with the OP about is BPA, though. This ties into what we were just talking about in the FA thread. 

 

Essentially, that's why it was so vital to me that we improved Dline in a major way via FA. I did not want to go into the draft feeling like we needed to get one there to improve that position enough. 

 

To detail my BPA philosophy more (warning, detail means detail, incoming verbosity, lol)... there will always be positional significance weighted into the draft board. However, positional significance does not equate to need.

 

 I think people often confuse the two. Let me explain. 

 

Say you have two players who are equally great prospects at their respective positions. Essentially, they both have a similarly high "boom" likelihood. However, one is a WR and the other is a Dlineman. On your draft board, you put the Dlineman higher because his position is more impactful.

 

That has nothing to do with your immediate team needs. You could be stacked at Dline, weak at WR, and this still would be the way to go regarding your board. In fact, you might end up with quite a few Dlinemen ahead of that one WR on your board because of this assigned "positional significance". 

 

Of course, different teams value different positions, well, differently. But it's also why you generally see teams drafting Oline/Dline/Edge/QB in the first round versus all other positions. 

 

Furthermore, "positional significance" takes into account the amount of roster spots/playing time. Positions like K and P have one guy taking EVERY snap. QB is similar, though you'd like to have at least one more on the roster and preferably two.  So if you've got your guy there that lessens the significance assigned to drafting one high. 

 

On the other hand, all other positions are going to be allotted a higher number of roster spots and will have numerous guys playing a considerable amount of time. So it's next to impossible to become "stacked" to the point of not having a need for the foreseeable future at those spots.

 

"Need" here is technically divided into two categories. "Immediate need" and the "need that's always there" because it's tied to the "positional significance" that I'm talking about. 

 

For example, even if you had two Aaron Donald-level players on your Dline (a near impossible feat as is) and the rest of your Dline was good, there'd be no reason not to draft a third. That guy will still have a major impact at a vital position, be a big part of the rotation, allow you to overcome injuries, and also allow you to overcome the salary cap (losing guys to FA while taking no step back). Even more, you could trade a player before that, acquiring more assets, all while not skipping a beat. 

 

All of this is to say that, according to how I view BPA, if a RB ends up being the player highest on our draft board when we pick... well, he should have really earned that spot in our personnel department's assessment. It means he's overcome the weight of "positional significance" already and is the guy we'll regret not taking there due to the higher likelihood of impacting the team long term. 

 

So "immediate need" shouldn't be significant at all, really. I realize I might be extremist in that viewpoint, but I feel I've got plenty of logic on my side there. Immediate need can change so quickly and so randomly there's no way to truly judge it. You might think you have an immediate need somewhere, only to end up with a bigger one elsewhere (due in no small part to taking the lesser prospect by reaching in the draft and, thus, missing out on someone that could've helped at the newly emerged "immediate need"). Injuries, cap space, acquisitions not panning out, etc... all can turn a spot you think you're fine at into a disaster overnight. 

 

I might be willing to go so far as to say that identifying "immediate need" for the draft is useless. Not in that your team doesn't have a weakness that they need to address, but in the idea that it'll remain the only one so, therefore, you must give it some weight.

 

Hence why Free Agency is key to solving "immediate need" temporarily and what we were alluding to in the FA thread recently. 

 

Phew... there's even more nuance to this and I could go on and on about it. But I'll stop here.   

[Dark Acre]

Something that's missing is how talented a pick has to be to improve that side of the ball.  By that, I mean, let's take Atlanta.  In order to improve their O, they have to draft a great player.  Drafting a good player isn't going to yield an improvement.   By the same token, they could probably draft mediocre players on D and yield noticeable improvement.  Also to consider, at a certain point you max out the utility of any given player's talent relative to the improvement.  So the Skins might say "we need to draft the 17th best player (assuming the 1st 16 go BPA) in order to improve our O because our O was already pretty good, but we want it to be better and we can greatly improve our woeful D with the guys available rounds 2-7."  Why might we want to improve a good O?  Because while good, it may not be good enough to beat the top Ds, in which case you want to improve the O.

[elkabong82]

3 minutes ago, Morneblade said:

 

Agreed. In fact, the only position on O I would really consider upgrading is LG. That would help our pass pro and if we get a good run blocker there, the left side would be a place you can run to all day. And I don't think you have to do that in the 1st round.

 

Everything else is dead on.

 

If we traded back and picked up an extra 2nd and 3-5th, then maybe you take Lamp. But other than that the team can wait since it seems the bulk of the guard class is projected to go between rounds 3 and 5. I do like Koundijio as depth. Gruden seems to like Long at C, but we could draft a C later on too and bump Long back out to guard.

[TSO]

1 hour ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

 

So, 3 more drives, if you score at the same pace is 7.2 more ppg. That would have taken them from 24.8 to 32, right behind Atlanta. Point differential would have been 8.1.  That would have been third behind NE and Atlanta. Atlanta went 11-5.  I will leave you to draw your own conclusion as to overall record.  But I am comfortable saying it would have been better, and they would have made the playoffs.

 

With 2 more drives, they would have ended up with 29.6.  That would still be better than NO by .3 for second.  The point differential would have been 5.7.  That would have been 4th behind Dallas.  Still probably looking at a 10+ wins. Teams with point differentials of 4.5 or better all won 11 games or more.  

 

 

EDIT: I did that WIHTOUT subtracting points from defense, assuming that they would give up the same number of points. The numbers would be more stark if we included the 2.19 points per drive the defense gave up.  That by the way, was 24th in the league.  Which stinks.  I really hope they forced that idiot Barry to hitchhike home after they fired him.  

 

Wow. This is really unbelievable stuff here. Really drives the point home and I don't see how anyone can dispute what this directly suggests. 

 

It's why the Kirk Cousins' thread and some of the, uhm, intense focuses some have there blow my friggin mind. And not just about him, about the offense in general.

 

As for Barry, well... I won't get too much into that. We both have well enough established views there, lol. I'll just say that I think, while poor coaching was certainly a factor (especially after learning about the issues within the secondary and Fewell), the Dline was and still is my bigger concern. I hope Tomsula isn't getting screwed here (and Manusky for that matter), suffice to say. 

 

Either way, awesome work @Voice of Reason! 

[Peregrine]

Definitely defense.  What we saw last year was an time our offense faltered, there was no hope of the defense picking them up.  But many times the offense picked up the defense even it was terrible.

 

We dont need a top 5 defense.  But we do need to improve to an average defense, as that alone will greatly improve our offense just through more drives and better field position.  Upgrading the offense will help a mediocre defense through more drives and better field position, but it wont help a wet paper bag, which is what we currently have.  Right now, any improvement we make on defense will help our offense score more.  But I dont think the same can be said for the offense helping the defense, until the defense gets out of the basement of the NFL.

[Morneblade]

1 minute ago, elkabong82 said:

 

If we traded back and picked up an extra 2nd and 3-5th, then maybe you take Lamp. But other than that the team can wait since it seems the bulk of the guard class is projected to go between rounds 3 and 5. I do like Koundijio as depth. Gruden seems to like Long at C, but we could draft a C later on too and bump Long back out to guard.

 

Sure, and with that other 2nd round pick, pick up a DE or other position that you have ranked highly. In another thread Lamp came up, and I thought 1st round was too high for him. I actually feel that way about most DL that are 1st round pick that are likely to be available, besides McDowell. 2nd round is where you find the value for most of them. And NT you're looking at the 4th round.

[Voice_of_Reason]

15 minutes ago, thesubmittedone said:

By the way, the one thing I'd still disagree with the OP about is BPA, though. This ties into what we were just talking about in the FA thread. 

...

 

God that was long.  Very good, but very long.

 

However, I'm not sure what I said that you disagree with, because I kinda agree with everything in that really long post...  So maybe something I said wasn't really clear.  

 

We can agree to disagree on the DC, as you said, we both have pretty established positions there.  Though I don't discount the fact that they had zero talent on the DL, and really anywhere on defense.  Just that to compound that, the DC was a blooming idiot.