OK, I'm late. The Steelers won the Superbowl.
Anyway, I'm posting because I am now writing for 11lions.co.uk which is a blog following the fortunes of the England football team up to including the World Cup Finals in South Africa next year. I've also got another project lined up for the next Premiership season, which I'll reveal as soon as the Premiership fixtures come out.
Thanks for reading, I promise to post a little more regularly from now on.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Sunday, February 01, 2009
More Stats
OK, in no particular order:
Run/Pass Ratios
Pittsburgh hasn't changed much in their run/pass split. They were a marginal passing team in the regular season (52.3%); in the post season they're a marginal running team (53.8%). Basically, the Steelers run a balanced offense - even though that offense is not one of the best in the league.
Here's the interesting bit though. During the regular season, the Cardinals were what I'd call a strong passing team: the overall split was 64.95/35.05 in favour of the pass. This changed dramatically during the postseason. Arizona has bee a marginal run first team during the post season (52%) - that's a 17% swing.
Stomps, Dominations and Mutual Opponents
Coined by the Football Outsiders, the definition of a stomp: a win by more than 14 points against an opponent with an overall losing record. A 'domination' is the same thing against an opponent with a winning record.
The Cardinals are slightly ahead here with three stomps and two dominant wins. Two of the stomps came over the 2-14 St Louis Rams (the other was over the Buffalo Bills), the dominations were over Miami in Week 2 and Carolina on the road in the playoffs. Pittsburgh has one less domination, stomping Cincinnati twice and dominating the Patriots on the road.
Not much between them in that respect, but what may be more significant is that Pittsburgh is 3-2 versus mutual opponents with wins over Washington, Dallas and New England. Arizona is 2-4 with wins over Dallas and Philadelphia. Both teams lost to the New York Giants and both beat the Cowboys, which probably says more about the Cowboys than anything else.
The Better QB Doesn't Always Win
Well, the one with better regular season rating over the last decade anyway. 40% of the last ten games were won by the player with the better rating but that's been skewed recently with three of the last five (60%) Superbowls being won by the player with the better regular season passer rating. Intriguingly, both Warner and Roethlisberger are amongst the players with better passer ratings who won Superbowls (Warner over Steve McNair in 2000 and Roethlisberger over Matt Hasselbeck in 2006), when the Patriots beat Warner's Rams in 2001, Warner's rating was much better than Tom Brady's - as indeed Brady's was when Eli Manning caused a major upset last season. Warner has a rating that's 16.8 points better than Roethlisberger's going into tonight's game - similar to that when he lost to Brady in 2001, but also similar to when he beat McNair the season before.
So if defense wins championships (and the Pittsburgh defense performs as well as the billing), the Steelers win - although they are not facing an average offense, they may actually be facing the return of the Greatest Show On Turf . Conversely, if offense wins games, the Cardinals win.
The key: Ken Whisenhunt. Three seasons as Steelers offensive co-ordinator, two seasons as Cardinals head coach. If he can prepare his defense to take care of the Pittsburgh offense, then it's an Arizona win. He''ll have some help: I counted six assistants with the Cardinals who have some recent knowledge of the Steelers.
Pittsburgh is the favourite. See you tomorrow.
Run/Pass Ratios
Pittsburgh hasn't changed much in their run/pass split. They were a marginal passing team in the regular season (52.3%); in the post season they're a marginal running team (53.8%). Basically, the Steelers run a balanced offense - even though that offense is not one of the best in the league.
Here's the interesting bit though. During the regular season, the Cardinals were what I'd call a strong passing team: the overall split was 64.95/35.05 in favour of the pass. This changed dramatically during the postseason. Arizona has bee a marginal run first team during the post season (52%) - that's a 17% swing.
Stomps, Dominations and Mutual Opponents
Coined by the Football Outsiders, the definition of a stomp: a win by more than 14 points against an opponent with an overall losing record. A 'domination' is the same thing against an opponent with a winning record.
The Cardinals are slightly ahead here with three stomps and two dominant wins. Two of the stomps came over the 2-14 St Louis Rams (the other was over the Buffalo Bills), the dominations were over Miami in Week 2 and Carolina on the road in the playoffs. Pittsburgh has one less domination, stomping Cincinnati twice and dominating the Patriots on the road.
Not much between them in that respect, but what may be more significant is that Pittsburgh is 3-2 versus mutual opponents with wins over Washington, Dallas and New England. Arizona is 2-4 with wins over Dallas and Philadelphia. Both teams lost to the New York Giants and both beat the Cowboys, which probably says more about the Cowboys than anything else.
The Better QB Doesn't Always Win
Well, the one with better regular season rating over the last decade anyway. 40% of the last ten games were won by the player with the better rating but that's been skewed recently with three of the last five (60%) Superbowls being won by the player with the better regular season passer rating. Intriguingly, both Warner and Roethlisberger are amongst the players with better passer ratings who won Superbowls (Warner over Steve McNair in 2000 and Roethlisberger over Matt Hasselbeck in 2006), when the Patriots beat Warner's Rams in 2001, Warner's rating was much better than Tom Brady's - as indeed Brady's was when Eli Manning caused a major upset last season. Warner has a rating that's 16.8 points better than Roethlisberger's going into tonight's game - similar to that when he lost to Brady in 2001, but also similar to when he beat McNair the season before.
So if defense wins championships (and the Pittsburgh defense performs as well as the billing), the Steelers win - although they are not facing an average offense, they may actually be facing the return of the Greatest Show On Turf . Conversely, if offense wins games, the Cardinals win.
The key: Ken Whisenhunt. Three seasons as Steelers offensive co-ordinator, two seasons as Cardinals head coach. If he can prepare his defense to take care of the Pittsburgh offense, then it's an Arizona win. He''ll have some help: I counted six assistants with the Cardinals who have some recent knowledge of the Steelers.
Pittsburgh is the favourite. See you tomorrow.
OMG New Post LOL
Good grief...I last posted in September.
Anyway, it's the Superbowl Edition.
Right, stats. I looked at the last four games that the Steelers and the Cardinals played and did some really basic number crunching. First thing to remember is that half of the Steelers last four games were during the regular season and they went 3-1. The Cardinals were 4-0 and their last three wins were in the play offs.
I once won a bet on first TD scorer when I decided Deion Branch would do that, so I thought I'd take a look at that first - but remember this is only over the last four games. For Pittsburgh, the stats like a Willie Parker rushing TD (30% of Pitt's scores overall, half of the Steelers rushing TDs), for the Cardinals it's actually even clearer. Larry Fitzgerald's numbers over the last four games are seven touchdowns (58% of Arizona's total TDs and a whopping 70% of the Cards receiving TDs).
Currently both Parker and Fitzgerald are about 6/1 for first score, but remember that the numbers in the paragraphs are how likely they are to score at some point during the game rather than whether they score first. The category where they're worth a punt is 'Anytime Touchdown Scorer' and at this point the odds drop to 8/11 - which is basically saying that it's highly likely that Parker and/or Fitzgerald will score at some point.
Looking at the first TD scorer for both teams over the last four games, there are some more clues. The first TDs for Arizona were all receptions and Fitzgerald had half of them (the others were snagged by Tim Hightower and Jerheme Urban), which points in the direction of a bet on Arizona's first scoring play being a pass.
There's some variance in Pittsburgh's stats. Two rushing scores for Willie Parker (no surprise there) but two receptions for scores by Santonio Holmes...who is about 8/1 for first score. Hmm. This fits my 'anything less than 14/1 in a big field isn't a bad bet' theory.
Right, on to my next pet theory number one: regular season v. post season QB ratings. Exactly two years ago I posted this: 'Here's a stat for y'all: over the last ten years, the average regular season rating for winning Superbowl QBs has been 91.8. Here are some players from 2006 that scored above that - Drew Brees, Damon Huard, Marc Bulger, Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers, Tony Romo, Donovan McNabb...and Peyton Manning.'
Since then, the average has dropped to 89.9 because last year's winner (Eli Manning) had the worst regular season rating (73.9) - worse than the much maligned Trent Dilfer had in 2000 (76.6). Here are this season's figures:
Kurt Warner first:
Regular season rating was 96.9,
'Last four games' rating was 114.5
Post season rating was 112.1.
Ben Roethlisberger:
Regular season rating 80.1
Last four games 85.2
Post season 90.7
Warner's regular season rating would take fourth place over the last ten years, behind Peyton Manning in 2006, Ben Roethlisberger in 2005...and Kurt Warner in 1999. In fact - despite the nine season difference - Warner is only playing at 1.4 points below his '99 level. Impressive.
Roethlisberger's rating beats Dilfer and Eli Manning; he's 18.5 points below his 2005 level. I know it's not really an indicator of how the game is going to go, but this is an alert for Steelers fans - remember the average passer rating of the victorious QB during the regular season is 89.9 and Big Ben is ten points below that. I have time (and I probably will) I'll do some numbers for the losing QB. I'm also going to post some more stuff before the game but I need to do some other stuff first.
But here's a stupid one. 90% of the winning QBs over the last decade have had two syllable last names. The only one that hasn't is Ben Roethlisberger. Make of that what you will!
Anyway, it's the Superbowl Edition.
Right, stats. I looked at the last four games that the Steelers and the Cardinals played and did some really basic number crunching. First thing to remember is that half of the Steelers last four games were during the regular season and they went 3-1. The Cardinals were 4-0 and their last three wins were in the play offs.
I once won a bet on first TD scorer when I decided Deion Branch would do that, so I thought I'd take a look at that first - but remember this is only over the last four games. For Pittsburgh, the stats like a Willie Parker rushing TD (30% of Pitt's scores overall, half of the Steelers rushing TDs), for the Cardinals it's actually even clearer. Larry Fitzgerald's numbers over the last four games are seven touchdowns (58% of Arizona's total TDs and a whopping 70% of the Cards receiving TDs).
Currently both Parker and Fitzgerald are about 6/1 for first score, but remember that the numbers in the paragraphs are how likely they are to score at some point during the game rather than whether they score first. The category where they're worth a punt is 'Anytime Touchdown Scorer' and at this point the odds drop to 8/11 - which is basically saying that it's highly likely that Parker and/or Fitzgerald will score at some point.
Looking at the first TD scorer for both teams over the last four games, there are some more clues. The first TDs for Arizona were all receptions and Fitzgerald had half of them (the others were snagged by Tim Hightower and Jerheme Urban), which points in the direction of a bet on Arizona's first scoring play being a pass.
There's some variance in Pittsburgh's stats. Two rushing scores for Willie Parker (no surprise there) but two receptions for scores by Santonio Holmes...who is about 8/1 for first score. Hmm. This fits my 'anything less than 14/1 in a big field isn't a bad bet' theory.
Right, on to my next pet theory number one: regular season v. post season QB ratings. Exactly two years ago I posted this: 'Here's a stat for y'all: over the last ten years, the average regular season rating for winning Superbowl QBs has been 91.8. Here are some players from 2006 that scored above that - Drew Brees, Damon Huard, Marc Bulger, Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers, Tony Romo, Donovan McNabb...and Peyton Manning.'
Since then, the average has dropped to 89.9 because last year's winner (Eli Manning) had the worst regular season rating (73.9) - worse than the much maligned Trent Dilfer had in 2000 (76.6). Here are this season's figures:
Kurt Warner first:
Regular season rating was 96.9,
'Last four games' rating was 114.5
Post season rating was 112.1.
Ben Roethlisberger:
Regular season rating 80.1
Last four games 85.2
Post season 90.7
Warner's regular season rating would take fourth place over the last ten years, behind Peyton Manning in 2006, Ben Roethlisberger in 2005...and Kurt Warner in 1999. In fact - despite the nine season difference - Warner is only playing at 1.4 points below his '99 level. Impressive.
Roethlisberger's rating beats Dilfer and Eli Manning; he's 18.5 points below his 2005 level. I know it's not really an indicator of how the game is going to go, but this is an alert for Steelers fans - remember the average passer rating of the victorious QB during the regular season is 89.9 and Big Ben is ten points below that. I have time (and I probably will) I'll do some numbers for the losing QB. I'm also going to post some more stuff before the game but I need to do some other stuff first.
But here's a stupid one. 90% of the winning QBs over the last decade have had two syllable last names. The only one that hasn't is Ben Roethlisberger. Make of that what you will!
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