One of my favorite days of the offseason is when Football Outsiders drop their almanac. There is not a better advanced statistical preview out there, and it always sheds a final bit of light on the previous season.
Here are some nuggets I took away that I hadn’t known beforehand…
– First, I love it when stats back up what I’ve been writing about all offseason. I touched on first down being a priority to fix for the defense, and I think they addressed it with the additions of Tommy Kelly and Adrian Wilson. FBO’s metrics back up my argument. Here are the DVOAs on each down for the defense last season (the lower the better, especially into the negative numbers):
- 1st Down: 17.7% (31st in NFL)
- 2nd Down: -19.7% (3rd in NFL)
- 3rd Down: 1.7% (19th in NFL)
– Is Belichick losing his aggressive streak? He was in the top 6 for aggressiveness index from 2004-2010, but was 11th in 2011 and 23rd last year. This is a measure for going for it on 4th down.
– Pats went from 74% in 2-TE sets in 2011 to just 49% last year.
– Pats led NFL with 59 defensive penalties. Yikes! Didn’t realize that one.
– Patriots rushed 4 or 5 guys 87.9% of the time. Just 4% of their blitzes were by a DB (31st in NFL). Only rushed 6+ 5.3% (23rd in NFL).
Highly recommend you pick up the almanac at FootballOutsiders.com if you’re into this kind of stuff.