Week 11 recap
Well, I got as many right as I usually do. Except there were two more games, so I had more wrong than ever before: 8-8. That's like coin-flip picking. Lest anyone say my failure is due to my fondness for underdogs, Baltimore 16, Pittsburgh 13. Baltimore over Pittsburgh! That's like San Fran over Tampa. How are we supposed to foresee this stuff? And was St. Louis an underdog? The problem is I picked the wrong underdogs, not too many.
Oh well. The Colts may lose next week. Or three weeks from now. Or whenever. There's still lots of time.
Backlog Bob
Note: By way of clarification, I'm not particularly fond of the "perfect" Dolphins of 197...2 was it? The big deal for me is that the Colts have played two good teams, one good offense, barely beat both, and they're definitely overrated. By way of contrast, the Broncos and the Seahawks are underrated, having lost only one game each in the last ten weeks, each against a well-balanced team that has stayed afloat despite a very tough schedule. The Broncos have a better chance of winning in Indy than the Colts would have in Denver, especially in winter. Dungy, Manning, etc. have to be thankful they almost certainly won't have to play football in Denver. And I don't think my Seattle fanhood is the only reason I think they would have a chance against Indy's first-stringers.
Inflammatory comment of the week: the 49ers' defense has played better in the last three weeks than the Colts' D in that same time frame.
Oh well. The Colts may lose next week. Or three weeks from now. Or whenever. There's still lots of time.
Backlog Bob
Note: By way of clarification, I'm not particularly fond of the "perfect" Dolphins of 197...2 was it? The big deal for me is that the Colts have played two good teams, one good offense, barely beat both, and they're definitely overrated. By way of contrast, the Broncos and the Seahawks are underrated, having lost only one game each in the last ten weeks, each against a well-balanced team that has stayed afloat despite a very tough schedule. The Broncos have a better chance of winning in Indy than the Colts would have in Denver, especially in winter. Dungy, Manning, etc. have to be thankful they almost certainly won't have to play football in Denver. And I don't think my Seattle fanhood is the only reason I think they would have a chance against Indy's first-stringers.
Inflammatory comment of the week: the 49ers' defense has played better in the last three weeks than the Colts' D in that same time frame.
posted by weblogbob83 at 10:42 AM
5 Comments:
Of course Indy will lose this season. Once they've wrapped up home-field advantage, they will rest their starters and probably lose a game or two to a team that's still trying to secure their playoff position. Like Seattle, perhaps.
And Baltimore over Pittsburgh was an obvious upset pick. They nearly dropped their game to Baltimore at home, now they were on the road starting their 3rd string quarterback whose late game turnovers had already cost them a game. And sure enough, he cost them this game.
Bottom line about the Colts is that you're determined not to give them their due and will find some way to carp about how they really aren't as good as their record suggests.
And your "inflammatory comment" was merely silly. The 49ers were 0-3 in that span and the Colts were 3-0. Moreover, taking the season as a whole, (a much better measure of a team's true ability) the Colts have scored more points than anyone and allowed fewer than any but the Bears.
Indy should win their next 3 to lock their division and perhaps home-field, depending on how Denver fares on the road the next couple weeks, then they'll rest starters and drop a game or two and the undefeated story will go away.
The interesting questions are how the AFC North will shape up between Pittsburgh and Cincy, and how the NFC East and South will play out.
"Silly?" I was hoping for "ridiculous" or at least "nonsense." But you'll notice that in that "all-important" of defensive statistics, PA, the 49ers gave up fewer than the Colts in the last three games. Your criterion for defensive greatness, not mine. If you want me to bring a staff of my own to the argument, how about strength of schedule? Until Cincy, the Colts spent the last three (or 5) weeks beating up on one of the worst teams in the history of football (Houston), and the most injured team in the league this year (NE), but still allowed about twenty points from each. They only win because they have A) lousy opponents, and B) one of the best offenses in the history of the game. To attribute the difference in record entirely to the respective defenses is to discount the difference in offenses entirely, which in this case is sillier than anything I've ever written about football. (Considering the difference between the Colts' offense and the 49ers' 4th-string offense, it may just be sillier than anything I've ever written about anything at all.)
Are you going to try to tell me that they've faced three tough opponents this year? I doubt even you would say that three of the Colts first ten opponents were or are in the top half of the league. So they seemed to have a defensive dukeout against Jacksonville. But where was their defense when they went to Cincinatti? It looked like they left their defense home.
But getting back to the silly comparison, the 49ers faced the dynamite offense of the Giants while the Colts visited the Foxborough hospital ward known as the Patriots, and put up comparable defensive numbers. SF played the run-happy Bears while Indy hosted the nothing-happy Texans, and again put up similar numbers. And I know you inherited Dad's rampant Seattle sports skepticism, but if you think Seattle is not at least tied for second-best offense this year, you're at odds with a lot of shrewd football observers on that point. So let's say the Bengals O is better, but be honest with yourself: it's a narrow difference. Yet the 49ers fared far better against Seattle than Indy did against the Bengals, to the tune of ten points, 120 yards, and a 13-pt. difference in 3rdD%.
Colts O. Weak schedule. They still might win the Super Bowl, a la the 7,000-yard Rams of 2000. But that's because nobody combines dominant D with above-average offense this season.
You're right, I do think PA is the most important defensive statistic. And sure, take just the last three weeks as your measure of a team. 3 weeks ago, the Colts allowed 3 fewer points than the 49ers did. 2 weeks ago the Colts and the 49ers allowed the same number of points. And this past Sunday, the Colts gave up 10 more points than the 49ers. But the Colts were playing a tougher opponent than the 49ers. Cincy has faced 3 division leaders and their strength of schedule has been tougher than the Seahawks. The Seahawks are a soft division leader, having no road wins against a winning team and having to snatch a lucky come-from-behind win to beat Dallas at home. Cincy, on the other hand, put up 24 on the road against Chicago, the toughest defense in the NFL. So the only week in the past three where the 49ers held an opponent to fewer points than the Colts did was at home against the weaker opponent while the Colts gave up 10 more (and won) on the road against what was clearly the stronger opponent.
The Colts' defense can stop the offenses they face sufficiently well. Their offense can overcome opposing defenses. No other team combines these traits so well. The Colts are clearly the best team in the NFL.
Fun fact: The Colts have held an opponent under 10 points 4 different times. Chicago has done it 6 times (winning 5). Cincy has done it 3 times. No other team more than twice. The Seahawks have not managed it yet.
I forgot to address your contention about the Seahawks offense. Against teams better than .500 (3 games), they average 16 points a game. The Colts against +.500 teams (3 games) average nearly 32 points. And Cincy (4 games) averages 23.5, a full TD better than the Seahawks.
I'm not willing to concede that PA is the best indication of how good a defense is. It's just the best indication of how easy it will be for the offense to score enough points to win. And winning is what matters, but it gives less insight than other things about whether a defense will do well in other circumstances. I kept saying that Indy's D would do poorly against a good offense. The first game in which they face a good offense (all game) and they allow 37 points, and almost 500 yards. (492!) The only other time a defense did so poorly against the Bengals was in week 2. It was the Vikings. The Steelers' defense, by contrast, went to Cincinatti, held the Bengals to 13, and allowed their inferior offense (both to the Bengals' and more so to the Colts') to win by 14, a significantly wider margin than the Colts' victory.
It's interesting that you would start emphasizing strength of schedule for the first time just so you can demean the Seahawks' offense. Which means you have lost sight of your goal - defending the Colts' defense, which has faced the easiest first ten offensive opponents in the history of football. It's true that if you don't factor in strength of schedule, the Seahawks are the best offense in the league by almost any conceivable yardage-based statistic, and second only to the Colts in points. Their most glaring weakness on offense is their only slightly above-average performance on third downs, where their ninth in the NFL with 40.8% (though on fourths, they're for 5/5, the only team in the league that's perfect on fourth down). Oh, and their relative weakness on thirds has got to be mitigated by the fact that they're tied (with the Bengals, who by the way have a lower 3d%) for fourth fewest third down attempts, with 120, only five more than the Steelers, who have the fewest.
As for rating the offenses by the winningness of their opponents, you're dismissing the basis of my argument without testing it in order to "disprove" it. My whole contention is that you can't rate a defense by its team's winning %, so how can you judge the strength of your opponents' defenses by whether they're over .500 or not?
I'm not going to argue with your contentin that the Colts' O is better than the Seahawks'. I agree with that. But if the Bengals' O is better, it is only by the slightest degree, as I said. I will break down each week in the NFL by which team faced the tougher defense, and by about how much (+1 or +2 etc.). I will compare each team's opposing D during the other team's BYE.
Week 1: SEA +2
Week 2: SEA +1
Week 3: CIN +2
Week 4: SEA +3
Week 5: CIN +2
Week 6: CIN +1
Week 7: (tie)
Week 9: CIN +2
Week 11: CIN +?
BYE: CIN +1
Not counting week 11 (the content of which is the source of this debate), the Bengals have faced only slightly tougher defenses over the course of the season, and put up slightly lower offensive numbers, meaning that while they might be a better O, they're only slightly better.
Like I said: Indy wins with their offense. Seattle could put up 35 against Indy no problem. But Seattle, like Indy, lacks the defense to hold great or even competent offenses, so Indy wouldn't have a problem scoring over 35 with their starters.
By the way, Seattle can clinch a playoff spot this week, and Indy can't. And Indy might have to win in Seattle to rest their starters against the increasingly violent Cardinals (who hobbled Bulger, not unlike the Colts).
Oh, and the Colts' opponents have a collective record of .411 (Seattle's: .438).
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