Bleacher Report - Articles by Donna Cavanagh

NFL Playoff Picture: 18 Teams Control Their Own Destiny

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:55:17 -0500

Every year as the NFL season moves toward Weeks 16 and 17, the media and fans alike bemoan the practice of “good” teams resting starters for the playoffs and not putting out an effort in the final weeks of the season. Well, it looks like this year is going to be very different.

We did some peeking ahead at remaining schedules and projected some win-loss numbers, and it looks to us as if there will be huge games in the final weeks. In fact, we only see one or two teams that perhaps can take the final week off.

With only five weeks left in the season, more than half the teams in the league “control their own destiny”. That is, if they win out the rest of their schedule, they will win their division or at least make the playoffs. We will explain in detail, but we have the feeling that NFL fans will be visiting the NFL.com “Tie-Breaker” page frequently as the season winds down to figure scenarios for their teams.

First, let's cover the teams that will only play spoilers and have no shot at the playoffs: Lions (2-9), Panthers (1-10), Bills (2-9) and Bengals (2-9). We won’t dwell on these teams.

Right behind these four teams are eight teams with very little chance of making the playoffs, and the scenarios to get them there would take so much to explain, but that is not our focus here. The unlikely eight are the Redskins (5-6), Vikings (4-7), Cardinals (3- 8), Browns (4-7), Texans (5-6), Raiders (5-6), Broncos (3-8) and Cowboys (3-8).

There are two teams with records over .500 that could make the playoffs, but they can’t do it alone: Bucs (7-4) and Dolphins (6-5).

Every other team in the NFL controls their own destiny, and this we want to explain.

In the NFC East, both the Giants and Eagles are 7-4, and they play each other one more time, so it is evident that these teams hold their playoff fate in their own hands.

In the NFC North, the Bears (8-3) lead the Packers (7-4), but these teams also play each other once more. If the Packers win this game, these teams could end up tied at 12-4. In this case, the Packers and Bears would have split the head-to-head (first tie breaker), and they would both be 5-1 in the division (second tie breaker) and they would be 6-2 against common opponents outside the division (third tie breaker).

The difference comes in because one of the common opponents’ losses by the Packers was to the Dolphins, who are out of their conference. This means the Packers would own the fourth tie breaker record in conference. Obviously, the Bears control their destiny by virtue of their one-game lead and another game with the Packers.

Oh, and the Packers–Bears game is Week 17, so this contest could become a virtual playoff game which means the winner is in, and the loser goes home for the winter.

In the NFC South, the Falcons (9-2) lead the Saints (8-3) and like the North, they play each other one more time (in Week 16). The Saints can get to a tie record with the Falcons with no help. In this case, both teams would be 13-3. Since all the other teams in the conference, other than the Bears, have at least four losses already, one of these teams would win the division and the other would get a wild card.

In the NFC West the Rams and Seahawks lead with 5–6 records. Right on their heels are the 49ers with a 4–7 record. The Rams and Seahawks play each other in Week 17 so how they control their destiny is obvious. There will be no wild card from this division.

The 49ers play the Rams in Week 16 and the Seahawks in Week 14. They can gain the one win they need to pull even with the two teams ahead of them. Since the Seahawks and Rams also play each other, it would only be a two-way tie at most if the 49ers win out. If they win out and tie the Rams, they will have beaten the Rams twice and own that tie breaker. If it were to be the Seahawks they tied with, the 49ers would have a 5-1 division record and the Seahawks 4-2, so they would own that tie breakers.

The AFC can’t possibly top that, can they?

The AFC East is easy. Both the Jets and Patriots are 9-2, and they play each other on Monday night, so it is easy to see how these two teams control their own destiny.

The AFC North is also easy, the Steelers and Ravens are both 8-3, and they also play each other this week.

Now for the fun, the AFC South, the Colts and Jaguars are 6–5. The Titans are 5–6, and they play the Jaguars this week and the Colts in Weeks 14 and 17 so they can catch the Jaguars and pass the Colts with no help. If this scenario were to play out, the Titans would have beaten the Jaguars twice so they would own that tie breaker.

The AFC West has the final two teams that control their own destiny, the Chiefs lead with a 7–4 record and the Chargers are one game back at 6–5. They play each other in Week 14. If the Chargers win that game, they would be even and have split with the Chiefs. They would both have two losses in the division, but one of the Chargers' losses was to the NFC Rams, so the Chargers would have the better conference record.

All we can say is wow. At PossessionPoints.com, we spend all season crunching numbers, so what does our PossessionPoints stat expect to happen? Going into this week’s action, our stat is forecasting the following teams to make the playoffs, and their forecast record is shown.

AFC: Patriots (14-2), Jets (12-4), Ravens (13-3), Steelers (12-4), Colts (10-6), Chargers (11-5) (the Chiefs also forecast for 11-5 but would miss on the tie breaker).

NFC: Giants (11-5), Eagles (11-5), Packers (11-5), Falcons (14-2), Saints (11-5), and Rams (8-8). (The Bears have to play the Patriots, Jets and Packers, and if they lose those and drop to 10-6, they could easily miss the playoffs).

If these records work out, the Falcons and Patriots might be able to partake in that fan despised ritual of resting their starters the final week. The Falcons play the Panthers and the Patriots play the Dolphins that week, so it is unlikely that someone will back into the playoffs because of it. We are looking forward to the excitement the final weeks have to offer and are actually hoping our projections are off just a little, and everyone has to play every game.

NFL Players Getting in Touch with Their Feminine Side

Donna Cavanagh — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 08:51:58 -0400

Do you remember when there used to be specific gender traits? Mind you I am not complaining that the gender line has been blurred through the years, but I have to say that I think that the male sex has embraced their feminine side more than the female sex has embraced their masculine side.

We always hear that women have had to let go of femininity to climb the corporate ladder or make their mark in male-dominated fields, but what about the men who are in these he-man fields who let down their testosterone guard for the finer and gentler things in life.

Last week, Miami Dolphin Kendall Langford lost his diamond earring on the field while practicing. Yes, he and his fellow teammates had to drop to their hands and knees and scour the turf in search of his “bling."

Okay, the earring was worth $56,000. When I heard that price tag, I could see Marilyn Monroe turning over in her grave knowing that now “Diamonds are a guy’s best friend”! Did the team find the two-plus-carat accessory? No. The players had to call off the search because they were running late for a team meeting.

I can understand this football player’s heart wrenching disappointment for this lost bauble. What girl has not dropped that special piece of jewelry given to us by a boyfriend? What female has not had her best girlfriends helping her search carpeting, sidewalks or underneath bleachers after a romantic tryst for that sentimental piece of bling? Okay, our bling might have been worth significantly less than $56,000, but jewelry is jewelry.

Now, before anyone decides to try and sneak into the Dolphins’ playing field to find the diamond stud, don’t bother. Another reason why the search was called off was because the turf crew was beginning to mow, so my guess is that there is a wealthier landscaper running around Dade County these days.

Bling is not the only area where he-men have blurred the gender line. As I was listening to sports radio the other day, I heard two broadcasters discussing New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady. “What’s the big deal about this?” you may ask. I know. He is one of the superstars of the game.

However, these broadcasters were not discussing his QB rating or his team’s chances for getting to the Super Bowl this season. No, they were discussing his new haircut. Apparently, they did not approve of his new Justin Beiber cut (yes, they knew who Justin Beiber was), and they believe that his stylist gave him bad advice. They preferred the shorter, more masculine hair cut that Brady sported the last few seasons. It gave him a tougher image and a more confident look whereas this cut made him appear softer and more sensitive. Off the field, they thought this might be nice style for dress-up occasions, but it was not a good choice for the NFL season.

This was like a five-minute discussion. When did an NFL player’s “do” become the main topic for sports radio shows? Also, I have heard discussed the frequency that players get manicures and pedicures. Again, I am all for personal grooming, but it is difficult for me to imagine someone beating the crap out of another man on the playing field and then two hours later deciding whether he will get clear polish or go crazy and get the French manicure?

While we are on the subject of hair: Steelers’ player Troy Polamalu has his long, flowing-out of control locks insured for one million dollars. Technically, Head and Shoulders has his hairdo insured because Polamalu is a spokesperson for the shampoo.

So now when he is on the Sunday gridiron, I wonder if he is going to tuck it in under his helmet like the old ladies who tuck their hair under the plastic rain caps so they don’t get messed up in the wind and rain. Hey, in the NFL if a player has hair exposed, it is legal for an opposing player to tackle him using that hair. I have to believe that Head and Shoulders just cringes every time another player pulls down Polamalu to the ground. I can hear the shampoo big wigs screaming,

“Break any bone you want; you can even make him bleed, but please do not touch a hair on that head!”

I know that professional athletes have always taken care with their wardrobes and appearance, and I admit I like a man who wants to look good, but I don’t want him to outshine me. I hate that they have better jewelry than me; I hate that they know more about hair conditioner and skin moisturizers than me; I hate that they spend more time in the stylist’s chair than me; and I hate that they know more about fashion than me.

Where will this madness end? Will it lead to men adopting women’s other cultural habits like going to the bathroom in groups? Will they call each other up on the phone just to say hello and see what is on each other’s minds? Will they start to experience PMS and go on crying jags just because they feel the need to cry? Will they become the new main demographic for Cosmopolitan?

Well, to be honest, I could live with the last one. If they are reading Cosmo then they are reading about finding a woman’s “G” spot and that can only help women in the long run, unless, of course, men discover they have a new “G” spot too. Yeah, that is what men need, another reason to have sex.

When they put the microphone in the huddle so we can all listen to the players’ conversations, will we hear words like, “I’m so bloated today. Tell me the truth; do I look fat in these pants because I feel fat?”

Anyway, my point is this (yes, I have a point, I know I’m shocked too): Can we have some gender boundaries so we know who are men and who are women? Just some—I don’t want to go back to 1950s society, but I want a guy who can look good, smell good, and be sensitive to me. I want a man, who when I come down the steps in my finest outfit, says, “Wow, you look great!” Not, “Wow, those earrings you have on would go a lot better with what I am wearing!”

Is this too much to ask?

NFL: 2010 Preseason Performance Rankings

Donna Cavanagh — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:54:00 -0400

Last year, we looked at "Preseason Performance Rankings" for the first time. As we said in the article "2009 NFL Preseason Performance Rankings", we do not put a great deal of importance on preseason data. However, when we look back with 20/20 hindsight, we see some interesting things.

Seven of the top 12 teams on that list became seven of the 12 playoff teams in 2009. Two of those teams—the Jets and Bengals—were teams that we would have thought were long shots to make the playoffs. The Saints, the No. one team on the list, won the Super Bowl. The top 12 teams went on to have a combined 107-85 record (a 0.557 winning percentage) while the bottom 12 teams finished with a 76-116 record (a 0.395 winning percentage).

One of the reasons we wrote the 2009 article was to highlight how low the Chargers, an expected playoff team, were on last season’s rankings. In fact, they were down at 31.

As it turned out, the Chargers did make the playoffs as everyone expected, so being low on the Preseason Performance Rankings is not necessarily the kiss of death. That’s good news for Colts, Patriots and Cowboys’ fans whose teams occupy three of the bottom four positions on this year’s PossessionPoints.com Preseason Performance Rankings.

Our Performance Rankings are an objective list of a team’s "Relative Performance Measure" (RPM). This measure is based on in-game offensive and defensive PossessionPoints statistics that we developed. We have provided several links at the end of this article for those that want to read more about the RPM and why it is significant.

Last year’s chart was completed after just three preseason games. We omitted the final week since those games often feature soon-to-be-cut players. We did the same thing for this season, and below is the 2010 chart.

On the flip side, there are teams in the top 12 again this season that many expect to see in the playoffs. This year, no one would be surprised to see the Ravens, 49ers, Packers, Bengals, Saints, Falcons, Vikings and Chargers make postseason play.

Who might be the surprise teams this year? The Rams at No. five and the Raiders at No. 11 would be major surprises if they were to make the playoffs. While we also doubt that these teams will make the playoffs, we do think that our Preseason Performance Rankings could be an indicator that these teams have started to move away from being everyone’s doormat.

You can read more on the relevance of the RPM along with last season’s Preseason Performance Rankings in the following articles:

NFL Week Two Performance Rankings (gives a real good overview of RPM)

Playoff Upsets – What Upsets?

In The NFL Performance Means Everything

NFL Cut Down Day: Here Comes the "Turk"

Donna Cavanagh — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:16:46 -0400

Today is Cut Down Day in the NFL.

I understand that it is an emotional day where some careers are launched and others are sunk. I get the whole “dashed dreams” heartache thing. I have experienced this kind of emotional devastation in my own lifetime as well as the pain of rejection. 

I was cut from the eighth grade cheerleading squad, and to this day, I believe my elimination was politically motivated. That pain sliced my heart in two. I still cannot do a cartwheel without shedding tears. I was rejected from the Peace Corp when I was 18 because I did not possess the life skills that they thought might help third-world countries.

In the Peace Corp’s defense, my only real skill at that time was the correct application of mascara, so it was probably better that they discouraged me from volunteering.

Today, as NFL wannabes and veterans find out if they made the cut or not, I have to stop and take notice of the process that transforms some young men into NFL players and others into soon-to-be managers of the local fast food joint.

I know some of you are saying, “Well, if you do not like Cut Down Day, don’t watch!”

Ah, but I have to watch and know who will and who will not be with us for opening day. As president of an NFL data analysis site, PossessionPoints.com, I sort of have to know who is in and who is out. However, I think there is too much drama attached to this day.

For instance, let’s look at the role of the “Turk” – the eliminator who summons the players to his office so he can crush their dreams in person. How does one get the title of “Turk”? Is this a role people like to take on? Where did the title of “Turk” come from? To me, it’s got a thug or mob ring to it. I don’t think it’s the image the NFL should go for.

When players get the call to go see the “Turk”, do they know who it is or is it some big mystery? Does the “Turk” wear a special outfit for the occasion? Is he dressed up like the Grim Reaper? Maybe he just dons a black hooded sweatshirt so he looks athletic and menacing at the same time — sort of Bill Belichick on a rainy day.

Maybe, just maybe, the “Turk” dresses as Bozo the Clown or a comic Superhero, so the last NFL memory for guys who are cut is a funny or positive one. How much less traumatic would it be to watch your dreams go up in smoke if Superman was the one lighting the fire? Maybe the “Turk” wears a fatherly costume like a Joe Paterno mask. I would think having your playbook ripped from your hands is a lot easier to take when a revered old man is doing the ripping.

If I were a player on that about-to-be-eliminated bubble, I would not answer my cell phone this entire weekend. Maybe if a player pretends he didn’t get the call, he will not get cut. Maybe there is a pity position that all teams keep secret. That would be nice.

Personally, I think the NFL could learn a great deal from the theatrical world. I know the NFL does not want to hear this, but drama people are a lot tougher than NFL players. How do theater actors and dancers find out about cuts? A public posting of a list.

Yes, everyone knows at the same time who is in and who is out. There is no “Turk” explaining why the cut was made. You just assume you stunk up the audition. No “Turk” is there offering condolences and names of other producers who might have a role for you. No, drama people are unceremoniously thrown out on their butts and told to take more lessons or go back to waiting tables.

I know there is still hope for some players who get the call to go see the “Turk”. There are practice squad players who I think are the NFL’s version of media interns. They get the crap beaten out of them for almost no pay but they gain experience and maybe a shot to get cut again next year. They are like the understudies of the gridiron.

I am just thinking here, but if I was a player who knew that there was a good shot I was going to meet the “Turk”, I would head to the team locker room and wait for other players to show up especially those who might be in line to take my spot on the roster.

It’s a fact of life that injuries occur at the strangest times, and teams need replacement players. One never knows when a player might “accidentally” fall down a flight of steps or get stuck and shrivel up in the whirlpool. It could happen. My only caveat with this strategy is to make sure that the player who “accidentally” trips or shrivels is the player whose position you want. It does you no good for a punter to take a header down some steps if you are a defensive lineman. In other words, make wise choices.

Well, that is my take on NFL Cut Down Day. To those who do not make it onto an NFL roster, I say “I do feel for you, and there is always next year.” To those who do make a team, I say “Congratulations on a job well done, and I look forward to watching you play this season.”

Analyzing the 2010 NFL Strength of Schedule List

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:51:58 -0400

No doubt you have seen what we call the “classic” strength of schedule, which is based on a team’s schedule and the records of their opponents in 2009, published in various places.

This analysis has been done this way for many years now.

Two years ago, PossessionPoints.com looked at Strength of Schedule (SOS) based on our Relative Performance Rankings (RPM). We have explained this in detail in other articles .

But to put it simply, this measures how a team performed for the season based on our in-game PossessionPoints statistic.

To us, statistics are just data, which only become information if some useful conclusion can be drawn from the data. So, we looked at the traditional SOS rankings for the prior two years.

We found the average position of the teams that made the playoffs was 15.8 in the rankings. We looked at our RPM rank and found it was only marginally better, at 16.6, for the teams that made the playoffs.

While our RPM out-performed the classic SOS method both years, we wanted to see if there could still be a better measure.

What we came up with involved using the overall RPM as well as a difference between the home and road RPMs. When we did this, the average of the teams who made the playoffs in the last two years rose to 18.6.

On this scale, that is quite a difference. The best 12-team average would be 26 (average of 21-32) and the worst 12-team average would be a 6 (average of 1-12).

An illustration of why we like this new measure can be seen with the 2008 Super Bowl Champions, the Steelers.

They were ranked as having the most difficult (1) schedule by both the SOS and our RPM measure. But by the PossessionPoints new measure, the Steelers rank went down to seven.

The new measure does not say their road to the championship was easy, but it does paint a less challenging picture than previously thought.

Below is a chart of last year’s classic SOS rankings alongside our new Home/Road RPM measure. Hopefully, you will note the relative even distribution of the classic SOS vs. our new measure.

Last year only two of the 12 playoff teams had a difficulty ranking higher than 16 by our new measure:

The above information serves as groundwork for presenting this year’s equivalent rankings shown below:

You can find many interesting observations from this information. And we will note a few.

If the new ranking we developed continues to outperform the classic SOS, it will possibly be more difficult for the Jets to return to the playoffs this year than the classic SOS would project.

The Eagles and Redskins are also in a more difficult situation than the classic SOS puts them in, but only marginally so.

Conversely, the Titans, Texans and Giants may not have as difficult a time making the playoffs as the classic SOS would project for them.

We hope you enjoy this new measure. We always spend the offseason looking at new ways to analyze data. We are as interested as you are to see how this new measure plays out.

Dear John (Mara): Your New York Giants Aren't That Bad

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:40:40 -0500

(An Open Letter to Giants’ Owner John Mara)

Earlier this week you expressed your displeasure with the Giants' season performance, and you “vowed to make changes.”

You are quoted as saying “I am disappointed in everybody, in everything. I’m unhappy with everyone. It’s just not acceptable to perform like that. There are 8-8 seasons and there are 8-8 seasons, but this one felt more like 2-14 to me.”

It is nice to see an owner hold his team to a high standard and “expect excellence.” We, at PossessionPoints.com , agreed with your expectations for this season as we picked your Giants to win it all (our preseason “out on a limb prediction ”).

But now that it is over, and we look over the season performance, we have to ask if you aren’t being overly critical on your team.

Consider the following chart:

NFL schedule results and records">

We highlighted the playoff teams in “blue”, and we highlighted in “green” the five teams that had better than .500 records and played teams with a combined record over .500.

You will note your Giants’ opposition ranked fifth toughest. You should also note that only one team in the top 10 with the toughest schedules, the Ravens, made the playoffs. And their record at 9-7 was only one game better than your Giants’.

You should also note that no NFC teams that played teams with above .500 records made the playoffs. The closest was the Cowboys whose schedule ranked 22nd.

We acknowledge that the Giants did play some bad games this season, and many people are focused on the two final games, which we agree were two of the three worst. The other really bad effort by our measure was the Thanksgiving game in Denver.

But let’s look at the Giants’ game-by-game results with another gauge. If you consider a “Quality Win” as a win over a team with a .500 or better record and a “Bad Loss” as a loss against a team with a sub-.500 record you will see the following:

The Giants’ had three “Quality Wins” and no “Bad Losses”. The closest thing to “Bad Losses” that the Giants had were the two of the three games we previously mentioned against the Broncos and Panthers who both had .500 records.

You can argue that your team should have had more “Quality Wins” as the Eagles and Cowboys in your division both had more. The Eagles had six and the Cowboys had five.

The Eagles were the only team of the three that had a “Bad Loss,” and that was their loss to Oakland. So yes, we agree, your Giants could have had more “Quality Wins” and this is why the other two teams are in the Playoffs and the Giants are not.

We understand your disappointment in your team and your desire to win, but the Giants’ performance was not so awful that we would agree with your feeling of this season as a 2-14 type season.

Your Giants were an 8-8 team, and they played like an 8-8 team. There were some good, some bad points and certainly some room for improvement.

Your coach Tom Coughlin seems to have focused on the defense and already removed the defensive coordinator from his position. We have to say this does seem like the reasonable response to the season performance, based on our “PossessionPoints” statistic.

Your Giants’ defense measured 107 (we consider this bad and color that performance red) as it was 31st in the league. Your offense measured 109 (we consider this good and color that performance green) as it was seventh best in the league. The net (offense minus defense) was a positive two, which ranked 18th in the league.

We realize you are most likely unfamiliar with this net measure, which we call a “Relative Performance Measure”, so we included a full chart with all the teams in the league and how they did by this measure.

Take note: Once again, we colored the playoff teams blue. You can see that they most of them lie at or near the top of the chart.

In closing, we are glad to see your coaching staff moving quickly to improve your defensive performance, but we hope your disappointment in the team’s performance doesn’t cause you to do anything too drastic.

Next season you will be playing a third-place schedule and with a little improvement in defense, we expect you will be right back in the playoffs and contending for the division crown.

One last thing: Could you do us a favor? Give this message to Roger Goodell.

If the league wants to improve quality of play by all teams in the final four weeks of the season, make it that the win-loss of these four weeks are used for seeding the teams that make it into the playoffs. That will keep everyone’s “A” team on the field.

Best,

PossessionPoints.com

Titans and Broncos: A Study of Contrasting Seasons

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:12:29 -0500

When the NFL schedule came out last spring, a quick glance at the bye weeks showed that two of the teams off in Week Seven were the Titans and Broncos.

If we told you in the summer that one of these two teams would be 6-0 and the other would be 0-6, and then asked you to tell us who would have the winning record, we are confident that you and any other football fan would have replied, “That’s easy—the Titans will be 6-0 and the Broncos will be 0-6.”

We are sure you all know now that it was the Broncos who were 6-0 at Week Seven and the Titans who languished at 0-6.

Teams often use their bye weeks to try to make big changes, get healthy, and right a ship going in the wrong direction. Teams never want their bye to “break their momentum” when things are going right, but sometimes the bye week turns out to be a curse instead of a welcome respite.

When Week Seven arrived, it is as if someone stole all of the Broncos’ momentum and transferred it to Tennessee as a cruel joke.

So, we decided to take a look at the two teams’ seasons to date to see what the PossessionPoints stat could tell us about it. For those of you not familiar with the stat, we will give you a very brief rundown. The stat is based on, among other things, “time of possession” and points scored on a scoring drive.

We have determined significant values where we turn our indicators Green, Red, and Yellow. In a game, a team with a “Green” offense wins better than 75 percent of the time and a team with a “Green” defense wins over 80 percent of the time. We find these color indicators very useful in evaluating team defense and offense.

If you look at the Broncos’ and Titans’ charts below, you can see that they reveal some interesting things. The first six games the Broncos were pretty balanced, mostly led by their defense with four green performances, but their offense did have three green performances.

The Titans had no green performances. In fact, they had three red offensive and three red defensive performances.

Since the bye, the Broncos have been almost completely red, and their best performance was a yellow performance against the Steelers. However, the Titans seem to have found their offense with Vince Young. Their defense had its lone green performance of the year right after the bye, but it is the offense that proved to be the main factor in their recent success.

It is hard to ever say one player is responsible for winning or losing, but the Titans made a switch at QB in the bye week, and it is hard to argue with results.

We’ve been doing a lot of schedule analysis this season, and we have found that frequently in the NFL teams beat the teams they should, and their losses come at the hands of better teams. When teams go on winning or losing streaks, a look at their schedule often provides the answer as to why they are on a winning or losing run.

However, this schedule is not the case with either the Broncos or Titans.

One of the ways we have been looking at this is by looking at “Quality Wins” and “Bad Losses.” By our definition a Quality Win is a win against a team with a .500 or better record, while a Bad Loss is a loss to a team with a sub-.500 record.

When we look at the Broncos and Titans, we see that four of the Broncos' six wins were Quality Wins and two of the Titans' four wins were Quality Wins. In games where both the Titans and Broncos lost, both teams had a Bad Loss.

So we don’t think we can blame or credit the schedule maker with the success and failure of these two teams this season. You just have to blame it on some good old-fashioned fundamental football for the Broncos’ downturn and the Titans’ ascent.

With the Titans, you can certainly make the case like we did earlier that the QB switch changed their fortunes. For the Broncos, we don’t have as pat an answer. Were the Broncos just playing over their heads early in the season and now their weaknesses have caught up to them, or are they not playing to their potential now?

What would a study of these two teams be without at least a glimpse into the future? Here again there are some similarities. Both teams have to face some tough competition. The Broncos have to face the Colts, Eagles, and Giants. The Titans have to face three division leaders in the Cardinals, Colts, and Chargers (we know Broncos fans will be rooting for the Titans in this one).

The Titans' only slim hope for the playoffs is to grab a wild card, and to do this they may have to run the table. Just last year the Titans started the season 10-0; could they finish the remainder of this campaign 10-0? Nothing in the NFL is impossible, but that is a very tall order.

For the Broncos to get to that same 10-win mark, they would need to win four of their remaining six games. To PossessionPoints.com that means that the Broncos must win the three games against the Chiefs (two) and Raiders. They then must find a way to come up with one more Quality Win against the Colts, Giants, or Eagles.

There are a lot of “ifs” out there for these two teams. Both have the opportunity to make a run for the playoffs, but the Titans have a long road up and the Broncos seem to be falling downhill fast.

AFC North: Toughest Division in the NFL?

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:29:25 -0500

Get a group of football fans together talking about their favorite teams, comparing records and schedules, and sooner or later, someone will throw out a phrase along the lines of “Well, they play in a tougher division.”

We, at PossessionPoint.com , confess we love this discussion. We write about it as often as we can. We address this issue in the preseason , regular season, postseason, and offseason.

In past discussions, we have used our “Relative Performance Measure” (RPM) as the main talking point in the discussion. If you have been following some of our “schedule analysis ” articles this season, you know we have been looking at teams’ records vs. winning and losing teams.

So, we are going to throw some new definitions and tables at you so you are better armed with more talking points when you get into one of those “who has the toughest division” talks.

Some people will always fall back to win-loss records and that will be their sole basis for which division they believe to be the toughest. By this measure, the AFC South has the best win–loss percentage right now. But in six of the eight divisions all teams are at or above .500, and the chart below does not really make the AFC South stand out to us.

This season, we have been looking at teams’ schedules and measuring what we dub “quality wins” and “bad losses.” By our definition, a quality win is a win over an opponent with a .500 or better record, and a bad loss is a loss to a team with a sub-.500 record.

When we look at how divisions have performed by this measure, it paints quite a different picture.

The AFC North has a remarkable 10-0 record by this measure. Even though the division has the Browns with a 1-7 overall record, the Browns still do not have a “bad loss” by our definition. Here is their season record to demonstrate the point. They have no quality wins or bad losses. All seven losses came against teams with .500 or better records while their lone win was over a team with a sub-.500 record.

What we found even more remarkable than the AFC North’s 10-0 record was seeing the AFC West with the second-best Quality Win percentage. This division, with a combined record four games under .500 at 14-18, only has one bad loss and six quality wins, which is quite remarkable.

Granted, most of the quality wins belong to the Broncos (4), but it is still pretty impressive that the Broncos on their own have as many quality wins as the entire NFC East, a division frequently touted as the toughest in football.

There has been a great deal of talk about how weak some of the schedules have been so far for teams in the NFC East, but a look at our charts drove the point home. We love digging into numbers to get insights that traditional win-loss records do not provide. In fact, that is why we still look at teams and divisions with our RPM stat which provides a different angle than traditional win-loss record stats.

The RPM measure gives yet another view of which division is the toughest, and this view, quite frankly, is the one that probably agrees more with conventional wisdom. By the RPM measure, the AFC East is the strongest division by a pretty good margin, followed by the NFC East.

After these two divisions, there is a sizable drop in RPM to the three next divisions: the AFC North, the AFC South, and the NFC South, whose RPM measures are somewhat close to each other.

(These charts and others related to our 2009 schedule analysis work are available here on our site. More information on the PossessionPoints Relative Performance Measure RPM can be found in the BleacherReport Article NFL Week 2 Performance Rankings)

Triple-Decker Sandwich Hell Awaits Patriots

Donna Cavanagh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:26:45 -0500

An NFL team plays a sandwich schedule when they play a challenging game, and "easy win" game and another challenging game. The easy game is sandwiched in the middle and often not considered something to worry about. However, these games can result in upsets when the better team eases up its play performance.

This year, the Patriots have taken the idea of the sandwich game to a new level. In fact, we might say the Patriots are working on a triple-decker threat—but instead of the usual bread and meat sandwich, they will be facing three slices of sandpaper surrounding two layers of ground glass. Doesn’t this sound appetizing?

Over the next five games, the Patriots have to play their two toughest divisional opponents, and mixed in between are the only two currently unbeaten teams left in the NFL.

While the Jets are just .500 with at 4-4 record and the Dolphins are still below .500 at 3-4, these are the two teams with the most to gain if the Patriots falter in this stretch. The gauntlet starts with the Patriots hosting the Dolphins this weekend. They then travel to the 7-0 Colts. followed by a return trip home to New England to meet the Jets.

For week four, the Patriots get an extra day to prepare for the currently unbeaten Saints. They then get one less day to prepare for their trip in week five to Miami. For these five games, the Patriots’ opponents have a combined 24-12 record.

If you are thinking the Dolphins are not quite like the team of 2008, remember they played the Colts tough and possessed the ball for about three-quarters of the game. They also had a big early lead on the Saints that they failed to hold.

The good news for the Patriots is that after these five weeks, they finish with four teams that have a combined record of just 14-16.

We point this out to you as we post this week’s version of PossessionPoints schedule analysis chart that we debuted in the article “NFL 2009 Win – Loss Records: A Look At The Schedule Excuse”

There are now five teams with records over .500 that have played opposition with combined records over .500, while there are still only four teams with records under .500 who have played teams with combined records under .500.

There are now just two unbeaten teams: the Saints and Colts. The Saints have played the tougher competition based on their win-loss records. The Saints’ opponents so far have a combined .481 record, while the Colts' past opponents have just a.340 winning percentage.

Going forward, this flips, as the Colts’ future opposition currently has a combined .537 winning percentage while the Saints’ future opponents only have a .359 winning percentage. This is why when you hear speculation about a possible 16-0 team this season, the talk usually goes to the Saints.

Ironically, the last team to go 16-0, the Patriots, appear to be the most likely to derail the Saints from that goal this year. For the Saints, they may be better off if the Patriots or some other team does knock them from the ranks of the unbeaten before the season ends. As you all probably recall, the Patriots' unbeaten season did not exactly have a storybook ending for them.

2009 NFL Doormats: Are the Losing Teams Really That Bad?

Donna Cavanagh — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:47:43 -0400

We are big believers in the old saying, “You are never as good as you look when you are winning, nor as bad as you look when you are losing.” With that said, we decided to take our PossessionPoints.com schedule analysis work in a slightly different direction and look at the losing teams in the NFL.

We probably do not have to tell you this, but right now the losing teams this season look really bad. After Week Seven in the NFL, there are 15 teams with records over .500, five teams with .500 records, and 12 teams under .500.

If you look at the combined records of those 12 losing teams, you will find that they have just 16 wins combined. That’s right—a 16-63 combined record for a winning percentage of just 0.203. It would seem these losing teams are the “NFL Doormats”, and they clearly have the “welcome” sign out.

We like to be thorough, so we also want to note that the .500 teams are a combined 15-15 while the winning teams are 72-25 for a winning percentage of 0.742.

Now, before we go any further with our analysis, we need to take a quick sanity check.

How different are these percentages from last season? In 2008, there were 16 teams with records over 0.500, five teams with 0.500 records and 11 teams under 0.500.

The losing teams were 46-129-1 for a 0.263 percentage; the 0.500 teams were 40-40; and the winning teams were 169-86-1 for a 0.663 percentage.

Both the distribution of teams and the winning percentage are not that far off after Week Seven of 2009 from what they were for all of 2008, so we will continue with the analysis.

We decided to look at quality wins and bad losses. We define a “quality win” as a win over a team with a .500 or better record and a "bad loss" as a loss to a team with a sub-.500 record.

So by definition, looking at the 2009 records, you can see there are 16 bad losses so far (number of wins by losing teams) and 40 quality wins (number of losses by winning and .500 teams)

There is one situation where there is double counting. When a winning team loses to a losing team, it is a quality win for the under .500 team and a bad loss for the over .500 team. When two under .500 teams, play we do record a bad loss but hey, somebody has to win. Similarly, when two over .500 teams play, somebody is going to get a quality win.

It is the double counting situation that is most interesting. This year, there have been four bad losses by currently over .500 teams. Two of those bad losses belong to the Jets as they have lost to both the Dolphins(2-4) and the Bills(3-4). Another bad loss is owned by the Eagles, who lost to the Raiders(2-5), while the final bad loss belongs to the Jaguars(3-3) who lost to the Chiefs(1-6).

Keep in mind, unlike season ending analysis on the 2008 data, this is a snapshot in time. So, for example, a win by the Bills this week which would move them up to .500, would erase one of the Jets’ bad losses.

With that said, there are a couple of other interesting things to take from the “Quality Win”(QW) / “Bad Loss” (BL) chart below. Note the Titans (0-6), Lions (1-5), Browns (1-6), Raiders (2-5), Dolphins (2-4), and Seahawks (2-4) all have no bad losses. That means all of their losses have come at the hands of teams who have .500 records or better. Conversely, the Redskins and Bucs both have three bad losses.

When we look at last season’s chart (not included in this article but available on our site ) like the one above, we note a couple of things.

First, the Packers (6-10), only had one bad loss and three quality wins, which means of their 16 games, 12 were against teams with a .500 record or better.

The second fact that stood out was that there were 10 teams with zero bad losses. The Titans, Steelers, Panthers, Cardinals, Falcons, Patriots, Eagles, Ravens, Dolphins and Saints.

Perhaps you will note from that list, the only two teams that did not make the playoffs were the Saints and Patriots. It sounds obvious, that a good path to the playoffs is to avoid bad losses.

Along these same lines, we wanted to show this weeks update to a chart we debuted a couple of weeks ago in the article “NFL 2009 Win–Loss Records: A Look At The Schedule Excuse. "

You will note that there are now three teams with records over .500 that have played teams with combined records above .500 (highlighted in green). There are also only three teams with records under .500 that have played teams with combined records of under .500 (highlighted in tan).

Of the currently unbeaten teams, the Broncos have played the best opposition so far as their past opponents have a combined record exactly equal to .500. That helps explain how they have four quality wins in the first chart.

As we said in the beginning, our philosophy has always been to find new ways to analyze all the data that comes out of the NFL. Although our approach may not be traditional, it does give fans the opportunity to see how teams truly perform from season to season.

Denver Broncos Continue To Impress

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:37:55 -0400

We admitted last week in our article “2009 NFL Surprise Teams: Broncos and Bengals” that we were wrong in our preseason expectation of the Broncos. As we said last week, we saw the disarray in the Broncos’ camp surrounding the Cutler fiasco and the Brandon Marshall suspension, and we thought the Broncos were a last place team waiting to happen.

We did a new chart last week in our article “NFL 2009 Win–Loss Records: A Look at the Schedule Excuse." In this article, we looked at all of the teams with winning records who had faced competition also with winning records. The list last week consisted of three teams, and this week there are five.

One of the things that was true last week and is still true this week is that not a single one of the unbeaten teams has faced competition with a combined record over .500, while none of the winless teams have faced competition with a combined record under .500.

However, the Broncos and Saints are actually close. In fact, for both teams, if you drop the games their past opposition has played against them, then their competition’s combined records would be over .500. This is not true for the other two unbeaten teams: the Vikings and Colts.

Going forward, the Broncos’ competition does not appear to be that tough in that they have a combined win-loss percentage of just .491. We are not trying to argue that the Broncos do not have some tough teams in their future; they do.

They still have to face the Steelers (4-2), the Colts (5-0), the Giants (5-1), the Eagles (3-2), and the Ravens (3-3). Given the way the Broncos have played the first six games, we now have to believe that they can win at least two of those five tough games.

In our PossessionPoints.com preseason preview, we said it looked like the AFC West was the Chargers’ division to lose. As we have said, that was a poor assessment. We call ourselves a “data analysis” company, so we try to learn as much from our mistakes as from our successes. So, we went back over our preseason data, and we are going to blame some of our “surprise” on human error.

It turns out our Preseason “Relative Performance Measure (RPM)” data was pointing to good things for the Broncos relative to the Chargers in their division. If you go back to our article “2009 NFL Preseason Performance Rankings” you will see we said:

“So, are we concerned about the 1-2 Chargers who have a terrible -55 RPM? Yes, we are a little. To us, this might be a warning flag. We would rather see the Chargers’ RPM up there with the 0-3 Broncos.”

In the chart in that article, the Broncos were 10th with an RPM of positive 9.96. If you read through the comments in that article you will see that we took some heat from Chargers’ fans who just wanted to throw out the preseason. We mistakenly agreed that you probably should not read too much into preseason data.

However, our stat is scoring drive-based, and good numbers can be accumulated quickly even in preseason, so perhaps we undervalued the chart a little.

If we look back on that preseason chart we see the bottom five consisted of the Raiders (currently 2-4), Chargers (2-3), Rams (0-6), Titans (0-6), and Chiefs (0-6). The top five consisted of the Saints (5-0), Falcons (4-1), Steelers (4-2), Cardinals (3-2), and Jets (3-3). We’ll remember that next year when we look at preseason performance.

This week’s regular season RPM chart has the Broncos at seventh with an RPM of positive 39. This is a really nice performance, and while their future schedule has some teams with good RPMs, only two—the Steelers and Giants—are currently higher than the Broncos.

Our RPM chart this week is below:

NFL 2009 Win – Loss Records: A Look At The Schedule Excuse

Donna Cavanagh — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:56:00 -0400

It does not seem to matter if your team has a good record or a bad record. Why? Because, fans, sportscasters and writers will point to your team’s schedule and tell you if their record is either the beneficiary of an easy schedule or the victim of a difficult one.

We are not going to belabor the point, but as of now we would say that there are only seven teams in the league who based on their schedule should be looking in the mirror and feeling especially proud or upset with themselves.

We have heard the schedule excuse relative to the Vikings, Giants and Redskins. Well, in the Redskins’ case, we hear how they have been responsible for the first win for three teams, and they have a 2-3 record to prove it. In fact, it is pointed out by various sources that they have not faced a team that has a win on their record at the time the Redskins played them.

Since PossessionPoints.com is a “data analysis” company, we decided to look at all 32 teams and the win-loss records of their opposition to date to see where everyone’s record and performance truly stacks up in relation to their schedule.

The results were interesting. Fifteen teams have played opposition whose current combined record is over .500. Of those teams, only three of them - the Patriots, Bengals and 49ers - have a winning record. None of the five currently unbeaten teams have played teams whose combined record is over .500.

That leaves seventeen teams to have played opposition whose current combined record is under .500. Of those teams, only four of them - the Jaguars, Bills, Texans and Redskins - have a losing record. None of the four currently winless teams have played a teams with a combined record below .500.

Does it sound too obvious to state that if you have played tough teams you have a tough time winning while if you play lesser teams you have a tough time losing?

The table below shows all the teams sorted by their past opponents’ winning percentage. The Lions and Browns have faced pretty tough competition, but at least the Browns’ future opponents have a sub .500 record. The Patriots, Bengals and 49ers, who we highlighted before, also face future competition with a sub .500 record. On the flip side, the going gets tough for the Giants, Eagles, Vikings, Ravens and Bears (unfortunately it’s no picnic for the Redskins either) as they all face future competition whose combined record is well above .500.

2009 NFL Surprise Teams: Broncos and Bengals

Donna Cavanagh — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:21:42 -0400

When that crazy tipped pass ending gave the Broncos their first win, many of you probably thought, like most of the humans around the office here, “Well, somebody had to win.”

We have to admit that we never thought that we would be heading into week six and that game would have provided the only loss by either team.

Although PossessionPoints.com is based on the East Coast, we do what we can to follow teams nationwide. We are avid listeners to Sirius NFL radio so we hear fans from all over the country voice their biased opinions about their teams.

As early as August, even the most optimistic Broncos fan was only expecting maybe an 8-8 season. The team had dealt away their young “franchise” QB and seemed to have gotten the short end of the deal. They were feuding with their top wide receiver, and it appeared to many that their rookie head coach may be in over his head.

The Broncos went 1-3 in the preseason, and they failed to score over 20 points in any of the four games. So, we were not expecting much out of the Broncos this season. We will admit that we said that “the AFC West was the Chargers' division to lose.” We expected the Broncos to win their first game against the Bengals because our expectations for the Bengals were a bit lower than our expectations for the Broncos.

In the Bengals' case, we thought that they would have a tough time competing in their division with the two teams (the Steelers and the Ravens) that we expected to be quite strong, like they were in 2008.

So, here we are and five weeks are gone, and the Bengals are 4-1 with wins over both the Steelers and Ravens to their credit. The win over the Ravens was in Baltimore too.

The Broncos and Bengals sit at No. 6 and No. 7, respectively, on our Performance Ranking Chart, and now we have to say we would not be surprised to see both of these teams in the playoffs.

Looking ahead at the Bengals’ schedule, you cannot count them out of any game based on the way they have been playing. And you would have to count them as the clear favorite in the games against the Raiders, Browns, Lions, and Chiefs. That would give them eight wins.

The other teams left on the Bengals’ schedule are the Texans, Bears, Ravens, Steelers, Vikings, Chargers, and Jets. No pushovers there, but if they can win just three of those seven games, it would be an astounding feat and an 11-win season. Don’t tell the Patriots, but 11 wins usually makes the playoffs.

The road ahead for the Broncos is equally promising. They have five wins in the bank and still have two games with the Chiefs, one with the Redskins, and one with the Raiders ahead of them. With these opportunities in mind, let us say that the low expectation for the Broncos is nine wins.

They just beat the Patriots, so you have to count that game as well as the games against the Cowboys and Bengals as quality wins. Their immediate future is the toughest as they face the Chargers, Ravens, and Steelers in the next three games.

The Broncos get a break in that their bye falls right after the Chargers’ game, and that will give them a rest to prepare for the Ravens. The game with the Redskins follows the Steelers’ game and then the Broncos once again face the Chargers. However, this time the contest is in Denver. Denver still has the Giants, Eagles, and Colts on their schedule, so they do not have a “soft” schedule.

If they win the games we now expect them to win to get to nine wins, they only need to win two of the games against the Steelers, Ravens, Chargers (twice), Giants, Colts, and Eagles.

Hey, the Bengals beat both the Steelers and Ravens, and they have about the same “Relative Performance Number” (RPM) as the Broncos. (For more information on our RPM see our article on Week Two Performance Rankings, where we explain them in more detail.)

We actually enjoy “surprises” in the NFL. We find it interesting as our stat-based projections put out predictions that the humans in the office sometimes do not believe.

We shook our heads each week that our Matchup Chart picked the Bengals and Broncos, but so far they have lived up to their stats and won. The Matchup Chart did pick the Patriots to win last week, but the computer thought the game would be close enough that it had the Broncos with the points. That served us well anyway.

We can't wait to see what surprises the remainder of the season brings.

The full Week Six RPM chart is below:

Saints Shine in First Quarter of 2009 NFL Season

Donna Cavanagh — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:51:59 -0400

The Saints are one of the teams to start this year with a record of 4-0. At PossessionPoints.com, our expectations were high for the Saints this season as we expected that they would win their division and play the Giants in the NFC championship. Nothing we have seen in the first quarter of this year makes us rethink our projection. If we were to rethink anything, it might be the expectation of the Giants as the NFC champions.

The Saints currently have the best Relative Performance Measure in the league with an RPM of 68.6. (For more details on the PossessionPoints.com RPM see the Bleacher Report article “Week 2 Performance Rankings” where we do a more through explanation of this measure).

The Saints have achieved their 4-0 record while facing teams with a combined record of seven wins and eight losses or a .467 winning percentage. The four teams that they have played have a combined RPM of -20. By either measure, their first-quarter schedule ranked 20th in the league.

Their schedule going forward does not look much tougher. Their future opponents have a combined record of 16 wins and 28 losses for a winning percentage of .364 which is the lowest winning percentage of any team’s future opponents’ schedule. By the RPM measure, their future opponents have a combined -96 which ranks 27th in the league.

By contrast, the Giants have played teams with a combined record of four wins and 12 losses (a 0.250 winning percentage) and an RPM of -103. The negative 103 RPM was the easiest four game combination in the league. By combined record, the .250 winning percentage also ranked as the easiest in the league.

Going forward, the Giants’ future opponents have a combined 26 win - 17 loss record (0.605 winning percentage) and a combined RPM of -2. From a winning percentage point of view, that is the second toughest schedule while from an RPM point of view it is the 14th toughest.

Our outlook looks bright for the Saints. Their schedule does not look tough, and their performance has been outstanding. If they keep it up, we could easily see them playing the Giants, who are number two on our RPM chart with an RPM of 56, in the NFC championship game which was our original forecast for them.

The full Week 4 Performance Ranking chart is below:

NFL Week Two Performance Rankings

Donna Cavanagh — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:14:16 -0400

In our articles, we often refer to our “Relative Performance Measure” or (RPM) which is the statistic we use to make up our performance rankings. Unfortunately, it is impossible to explain our RPM fully in each article, but we do get questions from readers such as “What is your RPM?” and “Why is it significant?”

Since it is early in the season, and there are only two games to go on with our RPM, we thought we’d take the time here to explain what they are, and why they are significant.

What are the PossessionPoints.com RPM numbers?

This may take some time to explain, so be patient and stay with us. You won’t be sorry.

The basic PossessionPoints.com stat is an offensive measure. It is a blended stat (which means it is generated by a mathematical formula from other stats and game information). As the name implies, “time of possession of a scoring drive” and “points scored on a drive” are key components. The quarter in which the points are scored also come into play.

As an offensive measure, we have key cutoffs at 60 and 100 (From analyzing numbers, we determined that 60 and 100 were significant levels where winning percentages changed.) This is where our color codes come in.

We turn an offense “yellow” at 60 and “green” at 100. From the time that we have been keeping this stat from the 2006 season, we have noticed that a team that gets to the “green” level of offensive performance, wins better than 75 percent of the time.

The defense of a team is measured by how many PossessionPoints it allows the opponent’s offense to total. The same key cutoffs apply, but this time we start a defense “green” and turn it “yellow” at 60 and “red” at 100. A team, that keeps its opponent below 60 (Green), wins better than 80 percent of the time.

We have talked about offense and defense but haven’t mentioned RPM yet. To get a “team” measure in a game, we simply subtract their defensive PossessionPoints performance from their offensive performance. This net number can be positive or negative and has its own significance.

You’ll note the 40-point yellow range in the offensive and defensive numbers. That range has significance here also. We color the net “green” at positive 40 and “red” at negative 40. Here a green net equates to better than 90 percent winning. This net number is a single game “Performance Measure.”

Our season “Relative Performance Measure” is the average that a team has performed in all of the games they have played.

Why is the RPM significant?

This is an interesting question because different people find significance in different numbers so we will look at a couple of things. As you know, 12 teams make the playoffs each year. Based on end-of-regular-season RPM’s, eight of the top 12 RPM teams in 2006 and 2008 made the playoffs, and 10 of the top 12 in 2007 made the playoffs.

In 2006 and 2007, five of the seven teams with the lowest RPMs to make the playoffs lost their first game, and in 2008 six out of seven lost their first game. In 2008, three of the top four were in the Conference championship games, and in 2006 and 2007 it was two out of four.

Another way to look at significance is to look at a team that this season is defying the PossessionPoints stat, and is 2-0 despite a very red -66 RPM. That team is the Colts.

In 2006, the Colts went 12-4 and won the Super Bowl. They finished the regular season with an RPM of 17 which was tenth in the league. They owe it all to their offense who was first with an average 134 PossessionPoints per game. Their defense was dead last with an average of 116 PossessionPoints allowed. But they won it all.

However, if you remember, their defense came alive in the playoffs and performed to an average of just 53 PossessionPoints allowed in the Playoffs. So, there was no surprise that this new-found defensive strength coupled with their famed offense, proved to make the Colts unstoppable that year in the Playoffs.

In 2007, the Colts as a team did better in the regular season with an RPM of 29, but their offensive performance fell a little to 124 while their defense improved to 94. They went 13-3 and got a first-round playoff bye. They met the 11-5 Chargers who had the No. 2 defense that year and an RPM not far behind the Colts at 23. The Chargers’ prevailed 28-24, and the Colts were one and done in the Playoffs.

In 2008, the Colts were again 12-4 like 2006, but this time they were one of the few teams to ever make the playoffs with a negative RPM. Last season, they had a -6 RPM and had to travel to San Diego to play the Chargers in the first-round game.

The Chargers’ regular season RPM was 29. It was by no means a mismatch, but the Chargers did prevail 23-17, and the Colts were once again one and done.

We find significance in winning football games, but can a team win without following the PossessionPoints formula? Sure, it seems the Colts are trying harder than ever to prove it in 2009, but we wouldn’t count on it. More likely the Colts will take a deep breath, realize they are fortunate to be 2-0 and make fixes that will result in them performing better by our measure.

On to the Week Two Rankings:

As the season goes on and there are more weeks of data, we would stack our stat-generated “performance rankings” against any opinion-based “power rankings.” Early in the season with only two games done, many position changes for the teams are still ahead of us.

Does it surprise anyone that the Jets are on the top of the performance rankings after two weeks? The probability is that their numbers cannot stay this strong. An RPM of 100 is way more than the Patriots’ 2007 RPM of 83.

That RPM was off the charts for a full season. By comparison, last year the Steelers after the Super Bowl had the top RPM, but it was only 37. So, we have to believe the Jets will come back to the pack a bit, and the question we have to ask is that as they get reeled back in will they continue to win?

Behind the Jets are the Saints, while the Jets have been defense led (allowing only 23 PossessionPoints per game) the Saints as you probably have guessed have been offense led posting an average of 163 PossessionPoints per week.

It’s a long season, but those two teams are off to a great start. We could talk a lot more about the chart below, but we spent a great deal of space trying to answer some questions we have gotten in the past.

NY Giants Will Win It All: A 2009 Bold NFL Prediction

Donna Cavanagh — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:49:58 -0400

Opening night kickoff is only a short time away, so we figured now was the time to make our “out on a limb” call for who we think will end the season holding the Lombardi trophy.

We are sure you must be wondering what flawed logic went into this prediction, or maybe you are thinking that we are just Giants fans pushing our team.

Well, to be honest, maybe our logic is flawed, but we are not Giants fans trying to drum up support. We write on all teams and try to avoid sounding like we have a favorite. (The truth is we are all human, and we were fans before we started in the football stat business, so we do have our favorites. You'll just never know who they are.)

Now, we will be the first to admit that we are out on a limb with this projection.

What is the basis for this bold prediction? We put out a “Detailed Analysis of the 2009 Season” article a couple of days ago. You can go there and read about all 32 teams.

In that article we talked about each team and played their schedule against adjustments we made to our PossessionPoints.com stats. Those adjustments then gave us best case, worst case, and an expected season record.

As for the Giants, we say we are out on a limb chiefly because they are the only team where our expected record (13-3) matches what we came up with as a "best case." And our worst case expectation is an 8-8 record. So, there is clearly more downside in our view than upside to this prediction.

When and if you read the “Detailed Analysis” article, you will see that we used our PossessionPoints stat and made adjustments to it in percentage terms and played that against each team’s 2009 record.

We settled on a downward adjustment of five percent to the Giants’ offensive numbers and a very small upward adjustment of two percent to their defensive numbers. That gave us the projected 13-3 record, the NFC East division title, and a first-round bye.

In our view, the biggest question mark for the Giants is with their wide receiver corps. Who will emerge as the No. 1 receiver, and who will make up for the loss of Plaxico Burress?

This loss of a key weapon was our reasoning for dropping the Giants’ offense by five percent. The return of Osi Umenyiora was the main driving factor in the upward adjustment of two percent of their defense.

If the season plays out to our adjustments, the Giants will be playing the Saints in the NFC championship and the Steelers in the Super Bowl. The Steelers will have also beaten the Patriots in Pittsburgh to get to the Super Bowl.

It is always fun to go “on the record” with our projections, but this one will be tough. We honestly feel that at least 14 of the 32 teams have a real shot at the Lombardi trophy, so it appears to us to be a wide-open year.

This season should be a lot of fun, but we had to come down to just one and we didn’t make outlandish adjustments to “prop” up the Giants, so we’ll stand by it.

2009 NFL Season Detailed Analysis – Best Case / Worst Case Projections

Donna Cavanagh — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:45:54 -0400

As we did in 2008, we published our PossessionPoints.com “Preseason Preview” a couple of weeks ago before the first preseason game was even played. In this preview, we go through the full 256-game NFL schedule and look at how we think each team will do.

We wanted to give our Bleacher Report readers a synopsis of the preview, so here it is. Keep in mind that even though we call this a synopsis, this is a detailed, and we mean detailed, analysis. Going through 32 teams takes time and space. So, get yourself a cold drink or a cup of coffee, perhaps a pizza and sit down and enjoy!

One nice thing about the PossessionPoints stat is that it lends itself well to mathematical manipulation. So, we look at how teams did by our stat both offensively and defensively in the prior year, apply adjustments we feel account for off-season changes, then run their new stat against their 2009 schedule and see how they do.

Sound pointless? Well, we used the same methodology last year and our picks went 153-103. That was good enough for a top 10-finish in a contest with 300+ people picking games each week. They had the benefit of up-to-the-minute injury data and other variables, while our picks were made in July. So needless to say, we saw no reason to change this methodology.

We aren’t going to go into all the detail in this article that we did on each team in our preseason preview. We will provide readers who want to read the full 35-page preview a link at the end of the article. You can read it for free.

With each team, we accept the possibility that our expected case adjustments may be wrong. We intentionally try to be conservative so as to get a “middle” expectation. We then go to extremes, both positive and negative, and rerun the season. This gives us an idea of who the “surprise” good, and “surprise” bad teams might be.

Most teams in the NFL have a pretty wide range. If they stumble, they could be very bad, but if things fall right, they could have a season to remember. We find it a fun exercise to see where a team’s extremes could fall. Some teams surprised us, and our findings may cause you to raise an eyebrow also.

The other thing we love to look at is which conference do we think will be stronger in the coming season, and this year we think the balance of power is swinging to the NFC. In 2007, the NFC and AFC split their inter-league games 32-32, last season the AFC had a slight edge, 34-29-1 (Bengals and Eagles tied). The numbers we settled on this season, have the NFC winning 36 of the 64 inter-league games and the AFC winning just 28..

When it comes to the overall division records, we hope, for football fans in the west, we are wrong. But in both conferences, the western divisions are the only ones who fall below .500 (in the NFC the west is 29-35 while in the AFC total to just 23-41).

In each of the team write-ups, you will see a “projected record”. That will be followed with what their rank in the league was by our PossessionPoints stat for both offense and defense in 2008.

After that we show you the adjustment factors we settled on to for their offense and defensive numbers. All teams’ final adjusted numbers were played against the 2009 schedule to get their “projected record”. Next, you will see best and worst case scenarios, which we talked about earlier, followed by some quick observations.

Enough of the preliminaries, we promised you a team-by-team analysis and by gosh you are going to get it. We’ll start with the AFC.

AFC East:
Patriots:
Projected Record 13-3
2008 Offense Rank: 4th                Defense Rank: 11th
Offense Adjustment: +5%           Defense Adjustment: -5%
Best Case Record: 16-0                Worst Case Record: 6-10
Quick Observations: The return of Tom Brady could easily mean the Patriots have a bigger offensive adjustment than the 5% we put in. Could the Patriots go 16-0 again? Probably not, but being a stats-based manipulation, you can’t fault the computer for putting it out there.

The 6-10 downside is what surprised us a little. It indicates to us that the 2008 Patriots really did come “back to the pack” some, compared with where they were in 2007, plus the fact that the other teams in their division have improved since then.

Bills:
Projected Record 8-8
2008 Offense Rank: 23rd               Defense Rank: 18th
Offense Adjustment: +15%          Defense Adjustment: +15%
Best Case Record: 10-6                Worst Case Record: 2-14
Quick Observations: Perhaps, the addition of T.O. won’t make a difference to the Bills but that wouldn’t follow the pattern of T.O. which is that things go well the first year he plays on a new team. In reality, the teams finishing 2-4 in this division could end up in just about any order.

While we have the expected records of the Jets and Dolphins below the Bills, both of them have a better best case than the Bills. That is mostly due to the fact that we settled on a pretty aggressive upward adjustment for the Bills, while we were both conservative and pessimistic with the Jets and Dolphins. Time will tell.

Jets:
Projected Record 7-9
2008 Offense Rank: 10th               Defense Rank: 9th
Offense Adjustment: -5%             Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 13-3                Worst Case Record: 2-14
Quick Observations: The Jets made substantial improvements in 2008 with Brett Favre at quarterback. Their offense improved 43% from their 2007 level, so we are going with a small fall of in the offense due to another quarterback change.

These numbers and projections remember, were done before the first preseason game, and well before Mark Sanchez was named as the starter. If Sanchez is the real deal, then perhaps the Jets’ offense will not fall off at all, and they head toward their best case of a 13-3 record. Their best case is high because they were a top 10 offense and defense in the PossessionPoints stat last year.

Dolphins:
Projected Record 5-11
2008 Offense Rank: 13th               Defense Rank: 10th
Offense Adjustment: 0%             Defense Adjustment: -5%
Best Case Record: 12-4                Worst Case Record: 2-14
Quick Observations: We can hear Dolphins’ fans screaming. “How can you
take a playoff team from last year and project a 5-11 record?” Well, by our calculation, based on last year’s performances, the Dolphins’ 2009 schedule is the second toughest in the league.

Although the “wildcat offense” will not take anyone by surprise this season, Miami did add one of the best running quarterbacks in College football history, Pat White, to their roster. This could produce significant new wrinkles that opposing defensive coordinators must plan for. So, even though the Dolphins will have a difficult schedule, we left their offensive PossessionPoints unchanged from 2008. Not every team can improve, so we did cave into the hard schedule and drop their defensive numbers by a small 5%.

Like the Jets in this division, there is a wide range in the Dolphins’ possible results, again this is because they were in the high-middle in both offense and defense last year, and small changes could change their rank and performance dramatically.

Overall for the AFC East we have them just over .500 at 33-31.

AFC North:
Steelers:
Projected Record 14-2
2008 Offense Rank: 15th                Defense Rank: 2nd
Offense Adjustment: -5%           Defense Adjustment: -5%
Best Case Record: 15-1                Worst Case Record: 6-10
Quick Observations: The Steelers were a very good PossessionPoints team in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Their offense actually went back by 19% in 2008 while their defensive PossessionPoints performance improved by 16%. In last year’s Preseason Preview, we reduced their offense by 10% and left their defense unchanged and projected a 12-4 record. This year could be another great year for the Steelers.

We continue to bring their PossessionPoints projections back with the rest of the pack of the league. We reduced their offensive and defensive numbers by 5%. This does not matter much in our eyes, because unlike 2008, when we viewed their schedule as the toughest in the league, this year they have the fifth-easiest schedule based on teams’ 2008 PossessionPoints numbers. Even with the negative adjustments, the computer spit out a forecast of a 14-2 record and a return trip to the Super Bowl.

Ravens:
Projected Record 12-4
2008 Offense Rank: 19th                Defense Rank: 1st
Offense Adjustment: 5%           Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 15-1                Worst Case Record: 9-7
Quick Observations: The Ravens reversed their fortunes in a big way in 2008. After a horrible 2007, the Ravens got their defense back on track and led the league by our PossessionPoints measure. This got them a wild card playoff berth and carried them to a game short of the Super Bowl.

We do not see a repeat of the 2007 let down, and we expect the Ravens will continue to improve as Joe Flacco, their surprising rookie QB from last year, enters his second full season. So, we improved their offense by 5% and left their league-leading defense unchanged. Hopefully, the loss of Coach Rex Ryan doesn’t detract from their defense. Their worst case number shocked us in that they were the only team with a better than .500 worst case.

This, we can attribute to the fact that the first-place rank on defense doesn’t tell the story. By the PossessionPoints measure they were 19% better than the second-place Steelers defense, so even when we aggressively turned down the Ravens, their defense kept them winning more games than they lost.

Browns:
Projected Record 5-11
2008 Offense Rank: 30th                Defense Rank: 13th
Offense Adjustment: 20%           Defense Adjustment: 10%
Best Case Record: 11-5                Worst Case Record: 1-15
Quick Observations: The Browns stumbled big time in 2008 in terms of offensive PossessionPoints and wins, and it cost coach Romeo Crennel his job. The Browns’ offensive PossessionPoints numbers fell by 34% from their 2007 level. Injuries and ineffective performance plagued the quarterback position in particular. Will Coach Mangini have more success?

We think he could help, and we adjusted the Browns offensive PossessionPoints number up 20% and their defensive number up 10%. Those are pretty significant upward revisions, but coaching changes seem to be able to rapidly re-establish performance when there was a rapid falloff the year before.

Witness the 2006 to 2007 to 2008 Ravens: good, bad and back to good after a coaching change. That’s the good news. The bad news is even with the aggressive adjustments, the Browns were still projected sub .500. It takes even more radical adjustments to get to their best case of 11-5. Browns’ fans, you don’t want to think about the downside.

Bengals:
Projected Record 2-14
2008 Offense Rank: 32nd               Defense Rank: 21st
Offense Adjustment: 25%           Defense Adjustment: 10%
Best Case Record: 6-10                Worst Case Record: 0-16
Quick Observations: The Bengals were a bad PossessionPoints team in 2008 with a poor road record of 4-11. Their offense was dead last in the league at 32nd which was a 42% fall off from their 2007 offense that was seventh best in the league. Their defense last season was no glimmer of light either as they were 21st in the league.

Hopefully for the Bengals, 2009 will finally find a 100% healthy Carson Palmer. We have built that in and improved their offensive numbers by 25%. However, we did not bring them all the way back to 2007 levels because we think the loss of TJ Houshmandzadeh will be felt. The 2008 defensive performance was within one percent of 2007’s performance, so we think this year, Marvin Lewis will get his defense going a bit more. In anticipation of this defensive bump, we adjusted the defensive number up 10%.

Even with all these positive adjustments, the effects of having the 10th hardest schedule in the league by our calculation, causes the computer to spit out a very disappointing 2-14 record. It only likes home wins against the Lions and Chiefs.

Overall for the AFC North we also have them just over .500 at 33-31.

AFC South:
Texans:
Projected Record 10-6
2008 Offense Rank: 6th                Defense Rank: 17th
Offense Adjustment: 0%           Defense Adjustment: 5%
Best Case Record: 13-3                Worst Case Record: 8-8
Quick Observations: Coach Gary Kubiak is entering his fourth season at Houston, and we think conditions may just be right for his team to be the “surprise” team of 2009. If we are right in that the Colts experience some adjustment struggles with their coaching changes, and the Titans do not enjoy the kind of success they had in 2008, then the door opens for this young and talented team.

The Texans had the surprise rookie running back last year in Steve Slaton, and he is quite the complement to their all-world wide receiver Andre Johnson. If Slaton can avoid a sophomore slump, we feel quite confident that the Texans can equal their offensive PossessionPoints performance which was a quite good sixth in the league. So, we left their offense unchanged and upped their defensive performance, which was 17th in the league last season, by a conservative 5%. Based on last year’s team performances, the Texans have the fourth easiest schedule
in the league this season. All of these factors came together, and our computer spit out a 10-6 projection and a win of the AFC South.

Do not get too carried away Texans’ fans, as the South is a very good division and in reality, we wouldn’t be surprised if any of the four teams in the division were to win it.

Titans:
Projected Record 9-7
2008 Offense Rank: 22nd              Defense Rank: 5th
Offense Adjustment: 5%           Defense Adjustment: 2%
Best Case Record: 11-5                Worst Case Record: 7-9
Quick Observations: Last season, the Titans made Kerry Collins the starter and moved a troubled Vince Young to backup. Given the success the Titans had last season, Tennessee signed Collins to a two-year, $15 million contract. There is no QB controversy as the starting job is Collins’. The Titans’ offense wasn’t what propelled them to success last season based on our PossessionPoints numbers. They were 22nd in the league while their defense was an astounding fifth. So, for this season, we like the stability at QB as well as the running back tandem of Chris Johnson and LenDale White. We decided to give the Titans a 5% positive adjustment. While there isn’t much room for defensive improvement, we also moved that unit up, but by only 2%. The computer ran through the schedule, which based on last year’s opponent performances, is the 13th toughest in the league, and it produced a 9-7 record. The Titans are one of the few teams with a pretty tight range as we have them with a worst case of just 7-9. Like the Ravens, they can thank their good defense for that.

Colts:
Projected Record 8-8
2008 Offense Rank: 14th               Defense Rank: 27th
Offense Adjustment: 20%           Defense Adjustment: 5%
Best Case Record: 12-4                Worst Case Record: 3-13
Quick Observations: The Colts had a very good 12-4 record last season, but based on their PossessionPoints numbers, we would view them as overachievers. While in past seasons, they were typically a top-five PossessionPoints offensive team, in 2008 they ranked just 14th. This represented a 17% fall from their 2007 performance. However, let’s remember that their season was basically split. In the beginning, Peyton Manning was struggling to get back from off-season knee surgery and an infection which caused Manning to miss the entire 2008 preseason. The Colts’ numbers were markedly different in the last nine games as opposed to the first seven.

We decided to adjust the Colts up to the performance levels of the last nine games of last year. So, we upped their overall offense 20% and their defense 5%. The defensive adjustment may be doubtful if oft-injured star safety, Bob Sanders, doesn’t come back 100% from his current knee injury. The Colts have the 12th most difficult schedule in the league based on our stats, so even with the positive adjustments, the computer only yielded an 8-8 result.

The Colts have one of the widest possible ranges, and this is due to their 27th ranked defense. If their performance falls off instead of improving then the Colts could find themselves on the short side of a lot of high scoring games.

Jaguars:
Projected Record 8-8
2008 Offense Rank: 18th               Defense Rank: 22nd
Offense Adjustment: 5%           Defense Adjustment: 5%
Best Case Record: 12-4                Worst Case Record: 4-12
Quick Observations: PossessionPoints has the Jaguars listed last in the AFC South, but as we have said in other team write-ups, this division could be won by any of the four teams. The Jaguars had an off year in 2008. Their offensive numbers were off 23% while there defensive numbers broke down and tumbled over 31%.

Many people blame a rash of injuries, and we won’t argue with that. We do not think Jack Del Rio has lost his touch with the team. The offensive line had considerable injuries last year, so the Jaguars addressed that with their first-round pick of Eugene Monroe. Monroe missed the first few weeks of camp while his contract was being worked out, but he finally signed on August 14th. Time will tell if the missed practice time has an effect on the highly touted rookie.

We adjusted the Jaguars offense and defense up five percent, not bringing them back to their 2007 level, but certainly an improvement over last season. By our numbers, the Jaguars have the 11th easiest schedule, so even with the modest improvements we made, the computer yielded an 8-8 result for the Jags.

Like the Colts, the Jaguars have a pretty wide range in our best and worst case numbers. They are in the low middle with their 2007 offensive and defensive numbers, so again they are prime candidates for large movements.

Overall for the AFC South we have this division with the best overall record in the AFC at 35-29. No matter which teams wins this division, we would not count that as a surprise.

AFC West:
Chargers:
Projected Record 12-4
2008 Offense Rank: 1st                 Defense Rank: 15th
Offense Adjustment: 0%           Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 13-3                Worst Case Record: 6-10
Quick Observations: Norv Turner has flirted with disaster his first two seasons as Chargers coach. Last year, they won the division with an 8-8 record basically because of a monumental collapse by the Denver Broncos.

However, from a PossessionPoints standpoint, 2008 was not so bad and unlike the Colts who overachieved relative to their PossessionPoints stats, the Chargers underperformed. The Chargers were first in offense but 15th in defense. This left them seventh overall in our performance rankings.

Given where they were, we decided to leave both their offensive and defensive numbers unchanged, as we didn’t see any significant events in the off-season that would push us to make adjustments.

We did consider the return of Shawne Merriman, who missed all of last season with a knee injury, but in the end we went with the conservative approach and left it unchanged. The result is that once again that the Chargers will win the AFC West with a projected record of 12-4.

The best case is pretty close to what we see as the “best case” of 13-3 so it would seem like there is a lot more downside in the Chargers’ prediction than there is upside.

Raiders:
Projected Record 6-10
2008 Offense Rank: 31st                 Defense Rank: 26th
Offense Adjustment: 30%            Defense Adjustment: 20%
Best Case Record: 8-8                  Worst Case Record: 4-12
Quick Observations: In 2008, the Raiders backslid on their PossessionPoints offensive and defensive performances. They went backwards 22% on offense and 19% on defense. It is not surprising that Lane Kiffin lost his job although the circumstances surrounding the dismissal were a bit on the bizarre side even for Al Davis.

Then, there was the 2009 draft where the Raiders shocked the “experts” by selecting Darrius Heyward-Bey with their first round selection. It was very hard to gauge what kind of adjustments we should make to the Tom Cable-led Raiders. The Raiders played spoiler in the final game of the season and knocked the Bucs out of the playoffs (allowing the Eagles to sneak in). That takes some doing to get a team with a bad record to beat a team with a potential playoff future.

So, we went with very optimistic adjustments of 30% on offense and 20% on defense. Even with these incredibly large adjustments, the projection for the 2009 Raiders came out to be only be 6-10.

We can probably chalk that up to the Raiders having the eighth toughest schedule based again on the 2008 PossessionPoints performances of their 2009 opponents. The Raiders have one of the tightest ranges between best and worst case, only four games separate the best case of 8-8 and worst case of 4-12.

Chiefs:
Projected Record 3-13
2008 Offense Rank: 24th                Defense Rank: 29th
Offense Adjustment: 15%            Defense Adjustment: 15%
Best Case Record: 11-5                Worst Case Record: 1-15
Quick Observations: Last year, our preseason preview for the Chiefs started out “Dear Herm (Edwards): You have your work cut out for you this year.” Unfortunately, our projections proved optimistic as the Chiefs only won two instead of the projected three games.

The 2008 Chiefs were not a very good PossessionPoints team as they were 24th in offense and 29th in defense. The Chiefs tried to address their defensive inequities in the draft by selecting defensive end Tyson Jackson, defensive tackle Alex Magee and corner back Donald Washington with their first three picks. They also addressed the offense by getting quarterback Matt Cassel.

Given these changes, we adjusted the Chiefs’ offense and defense up by 15% each. It didn’t have much of an effect as the computer still only saw fit to favor them in three home games against the Raiders, Broncos and Browns. However, there is a wide spread with the Chiefs so if things do manage to click, they could be a surprise team this year pushing the Chargers.

Broncos:
Projected Record 2-14
2008 Offense Rank: 11th                 Defense Rank: 30th
Offense Adjustment: -5%             Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 7-9                  Worst Case Record: 1-15
Quick Observations: The Broncos had the playoffs made last season, and it looked like the Chargers were done. All the Broncos needed to do was win one of their last three games, but Denver seemed to fall apart, and they lost all them all. The Broncos of 2009 will be very different than the Broncos of 2008.

Gone are quarterback Jay Cutler and coach Mike Shanahan. The 2009 Broncos will be led by quarterback Kyle Orton and coach Josh McDaniels. McDaniels is off to a rocky start in Colorado. He will need to quickly get the focus off the off-season loss of Cutler at quarterback and onto football.

We think the production of Cutler will be difficult to replace even with the addition of rookie running back Knowshon Moreno. If they still had Cutler and added Moreno, we would be making a positive adjustment, but the loss of Cutler causes us to take 5% off their offensive numbers from 2008.

We left their defense unchanged. The projection was for a division trailing 2-14 record. That could make things mighty uncomfortable for rookie coach McDaniels. Even our best case is a sub .500 7-9.

Overall for the AFC West we have this division with the worst overall record in the AFC at just 23-41. This division really looks like the Chargers to lose, and we think they will have a hard time losing it.

NFC East:
Giants:
Projected Record 13-3
2008 Offense Rank: 2nd               Defense Rank: 6th
Offense Adjustment: -5%           Defense Adjustment: 2%
Best Case Record: 13-3                Worst Case Record: 8-8
Quick Observations: The Giants were a very good PossessionPoints team last year as they were second in offense and sixth in defense. They lost in the playoffs to a likewise good PossessionPoints team, the Eagles.

It is hard to see the Giants improving on last season offensively especially with the loss of Plaxico Burress who almost certainly will not be playing in the NFL this season. The Giants’ offense did tail off late last season after they lost Burress, so in this off-season, they drafted a wide receiver Hakeem Nicks. Unfortunately, he alone can’t replace the production of Burress.

The Giants also lost Derrick Ward to free agency to the Bucs who picked up the Giants number two running back from last season. They also tried to address that loss in the draft by picking Andre Brown from NC State. Unfortunately, he tore his Achilles tendon in practice and is already out for the season. On the positive side, the Giants defense should be getting Osi Umenyiora back.

So, we adjusted the Giants’ offense down 5% and defense up 2%. Despite having the seventh hardest schedule in 2009 and basically a negative adjustment to their 2008 performance, the computer still yielded a 13-3 division winning projection. In a real strange twist, even with further offensive and defensive performances, we still got 13-3 as a best case, so we are out on a limb forecasting the Giants to achieve what we think will be the best case scenario. There is plenty of downside - down to 8-8 or so.

Eagles:
Projected Record 11-5
2008 Offense Rank: 8th                Defense Rank: 3rd
Offense Adjustment: 2%           Defense Adjustment: -10%
Best Case Record: 13-3                Worst Case Record: 8-8
Quick Observations: The only thing standing in the way of the 2009 Eagles appears to be division foe - the Giants. As we made our adjustments, many of the early runs had the Eagles-not the Giants - in the Super Bowl. The Eagles’ defensive coordinator from last season, Jim Johnson, lost his battle with cancer earlier this year.

Sean McDermott has replaced Johnson, but we are concerned that the McDermott defense may not be as effective as Johnson’s defense. The Eagles also have already lost last year’s starting middle linebacker, Stewart Bradley, for the season with a knee injury. Last year, the Eagles were the third best defense in the league, but we have concerns that they won’t be able to maintain that level, so we adjusted their defensive numbers down 10%.

The Eagles have worked to improve their offense by drafting wide receiver Jeremy Maclin and running back LeSean McCoy. They also added Michael Vick, but we had already committed to a 2% positive adjustment to their offense before the signing of Vick, so we are sticking with that.

The Eagles have an easier schedule this year than last year. They have the 19th toughest schedule which isn’t that bad. With our adjustments, the computer figured the Eagles would come in second in the division with an 11-5 record. They have the same best case and worst case as the Giants, 13-3 and 8-8.

Cowboys:
Projected Record 8-8
2008 Offense Rank: 16th                 Defense Rank: 12th
Offense Adjustment: -1%           Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 12-4                Worst Case Record: 5-11
Quick Observations: We considered the Cowboys’ 2008 PossessionPoints performance somewhat middle-of-the-road. They were the 16th best offense and 12th best defense. In the off-season, they got rid of wide receiver Terrell Owens. Some people think this will be a positive; others are not so sure.

Terrell Owens is a top wide receiver and even if a play doesn’t go his way, he does have an impact because he will draw the attention of the defense. So, we made as minor a negative adjustment as we could with his loss- just 1%. We left their defense unchanged.

The Cowboys have the ninth hardest 2009 schedule by our calculation and that combined with their middle-of-the-road numbers yielded a mediocre 8-8 result. This year will be a good test for head coach Wade Phillips. We give him credit if he can get the team over .500, but we will be looking for him to be searching for a new gig if they fall much below .500.

Don’t panic yet, Cowboy fans, their best case is pretty close to the Giants’ and Eagles’ best case, and if they achieve that best case, you know some of those wins will come at the Giants’ and Eagles’ expense. So, we wouldn’t count the Cowboys out of winning this division.

Redskins:
Projected Record 3-13
2008 Offense Rank: 27th                 Defense Rank: 7th
Offense Adjustment: 0%           Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 10-6                Worst Case Record: 2-14
Quick Observations: The Redskins are hurt most by being in one of the toughest divisions in football. We know they added one of the best defensive linemen in Albert Haynesworth, but the Redskins have had a long history of signing big name players only to have them fall off considerably once they put on a Redskin jersey and cash that big check. We have no explanation for this, so we won’t even try to make sense of it.

The Redskins’ offense was their biggest problem last year as they were 27th in the league by our PossessionPoints stat. Their defense was actually quite good at seventh best in the league. Looking at their division and recognizing that not every team can improve, we made a modest 5% downward adjustment to their offense and defense.

Hopefully, for Redskins’ fans this is not the direction they go because this produced a poor 3-13 result. The good news is this was pretty close to what we see as the worst case scenario of 2-14. The best case of 10-6 would most likely land them a wild card.

Overall for the NFC East we have this division with the same overall record as the NFC North and AFC South 35-29. These three divisions tie for the best record in our projections.

NFC North:
Packers:
Projected Record 11-5
2008 Offense Rank: 3rd                Defense Rank: 16th
Offense Adjustment: 0%           Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 15-1                Worst Case Record: 6-10
Quick Observations: We really are excited to see how the NFC North shapes up this year. Aaron Rodgers established himself quickly last season, and Packers’ fans can expect more Rodgers to Jennings and Driver touchdowns this year. We thought about adjusting the Packers’ offense up but opted to just leave it unchanged.

Their defense in 2008 was 16th in the league, and they addressed the defense with two first-round draft picks: defensive tackle B.J. Raji (who was a contract holdout early in the preseason), and linebacker Clay Matthews who was taken with the 26th overall pick. We considered improving the Packers’ defense but opted to leave it unchanged as well.

The Packers’ schedule is not much harder than the Vikings. By our calculation, they have the third easiest schedule in the league. If our projections work out and the Packers play basically as well as they did last season, they should finish 11-5 and tied with the Vikings for the division title. If they lose that tie breaker, they would earn a wild card playoff berth. The best case that we got by making modest improvements in their offense and defense was an amazing 15-1.

Vikings:
Projected Record 11-5
2008 Offense Rank: 9th                 Defense Rank: 4th
Offense Adjustment: -5%           Defense Adjustment: 0%
Best Case Record: 14-2                Worst Case Record: 8-8
Quick Observations: This division looks to be tight battle between three teams. Sorry, Lions’ fans, but we do not think your team is quite up to the Vikings, Packers and Bears. At the time this was done we thought Brett Favre was staying retired so we were concerned about questions at quarterback.

If we were to redo things today we would probably at least leave the Vikings offense unchanged. In the end we aren’t sure if the Vikings are getting the Favre of 2007 or 2008,.

There was a big difference between the two years, so we will live with our -5%. However, the Vikings of 2008 were a very good PossessionPoints team both offensively where they ranked ninth, but they were especially good defensively where they ranked fourth in the league.

The Vikings’ defense should be a strength again this year, but given how good they were last year we could not see a compelling case to make a positive adjustment, and we left their very good defensive number unchanged. While their offense sports perhaps the best running back in the league in Adrian Peterson, the questions at quarterback caused us to adjust their offense down 5%.

According to our stat and based on last year’s performances, the Vikings have the second easiest schedule in the league, so even with the negative adjustments, the computer generated 11 wins and a tie for the division title with the Packers.

Bears:
Projected Record 10-6
2008 Offense Rank: 26th                 Defense Rank: 19th
Offense Adjustment: 25%           Defense Adjustment: 20%
Best Case Record: 11-5                Worst Case Record: 3-13
Quick Observations: The Bears were not a particularly good PossessionPoints team last year as they had the 19th ranked defense and the 26th ranked offense. They addressed their offensive weakness in a big way when Jay Cutler forced the Broncos to trade him.

We think Cutler should be a major upgrade, and we adjusted the Bears’ offense 25% to account for it. With the Bears’ offense better able to sustain drives and score, we think it could actually help their defensive PossessionPoints performance also. So, we improved their defense by 20%.

Our analysis of their 2009 schedule has it ranked as the 13th easiest, not as easy as the Vikings or Packers, but still in the easy half. What was the end result of all this number crunching for the Bears? A 10-6 record that has them just missing a wild card playoff berth. But do not fear Bears’ fans, this division and the projected wild cards are so close that one game either way will make a big difference.

Lions:
Projected Record 3-13
2008 Offense Rank: 28th                 Defense Rank: 32nd
Offense Adjustment: 25%           Defense Adjustment: 25%
Best Case Record: 7-9                Worst Case Record: 0-16
Quick Observations: Rookie coach (Jim Schwartz) and rookie QB (Matt Stafford) should be a recipe for a playoff berth, right? Well as much as we would love to see history repeat for the Lions as it did for the Ravens and Falcons, we just do not see a playoff season just yet.

The Lions have one of the best receivers in the league in Calvin Johnson, and they have the number one overall selection in the 2009 draft in Matt Stafford to throw to him. They addressed improving the offense further in the draft by selecting tight end Brandon Pettigrew and wide receiver Derrick Williams. These weapons are an addition to a running back, Kevin Smith, who had a surprisingly good year last year. So, we went ahead and improved the Lions’ 2008, 28th ranked offense by 25%.

The only thing worse than the Lions’ offense in 2008 was their defense which was ranked 32nd in the league by PossessionPoints figures. It is no wonder they were 0-16. If the Lions’ offense improves drastically, it will keep their defense off the field and fresh.

That scenario allows us to bump their defensive number also by 25%. Even with the 16th easiest schedule, these adjustments still produced just three wins. The best case still fell short of .500 and given that we do these projections based on modifying last year’s numbers, well the downside is the same as last year 0-16. However, we really don’t expect a repeat of that.

Overall for the NFC North, we spilled the beans when we did the recap of the NFC East: they tie for the best division record with the NFC East and AFC South 35-29.

NFC South:
Saints:
Projected Record 12-4
2008 Offense Rank: 5th                 Defense Rank: 25th
Offense Adjustment: 5%           Defense Adjustment: 10%
Best Case Record: 14-2                Worst Case Record: 6-10
Quick Observations: The Saints were a good PossessionPoints offense and a bad PossessionPoints defense last year. They were fifth in the league in offense and 25th in the league in defense. Their defense actually backslid by 10% from their 2007 level. The Saints tried to address their defensive deficiencies by drafting corner-back Malcolm Jenkins and safety Chip Vaughn.

They also signed free agents corner-back Jabari Greer and safety Darren Sharper. We look for the already very good offense to get a boost from the return of a healthy Reggie Bush and Jeremy Shockey. With these things in mind, we bumped their offense slightly by 5% and their defense a bit more by 10%. That was good enough for the computer to give the Saints a 12-4 record and win the NFC South.

Their best case would put them on top of the NFC with a 14-2 record while they do have substantial downside, down to 6-10. This downside could be attributed to the fact that this division has the toughest overall schedules and the Saints schedule we rank as the 11th hardest in the league.

Saints:
Projected Record 10-6
2008 Offense Rank: 17th                 Defense Rank: 20th
Offense Adjustment: 20%           Defense Adjustment: 20%
Best Case Record: 12-4                Worst Case Record: 4-12
Quick Observations: The Panthers won the division and had a first-round bye last season, but when they lost their first playoff game to the Cardinals at home, we weren’t terribly surprised. The Panthers were a 10-point favorite but PossessionPoints told our members on our match up page that: “Two Green indicators go with the Cardinals while one Yellow lines up with the Panthers.

So, our straight up pick is the Cardinals.” The reason PossessionPoints went that way, is that it appeared to us that the Panthers’ 12-4 record was a bit of an overachievement as they had the 17th ranked offense and 21st ranked defense by the PossessionPoints stat.

Coaching and confidence go a long way in the NFL, and while last season we thought the Panthers overachieved, we are sure that neither the team nor their fans agreed. Success builds on itself and a 12-4 season with a first-round playoff bye will be viewed as a solid success and a foundation to be built upon.

So, while we made adjustments to most teams based on football moves, with the Panthers we are making adjustments based on emotional factors such as confidence and determination. We adjusted their offensive and defensive numbers up by 20%, and the result was a 10-6 projection that just misses a wild card playoff berth.

If you look over our adjustments for other teams, you will agree that 20% is pretty generous and it takes further adjustments up to 25% to get to the best case 12-4 record. That would give the Panthers the division but the downside risk is substantial for the Panthers as our analysis gives them the hardest schedule in 2009.

Falcons:
Projected Record 8-8
2008 Offense Rank: 12th                 Defense Rank: 14th
Offense Adjustment: 5%           Defense Adjustment: 5%
Best Case Record: 11-5                Worst Case Record: 5-11
Quick Observations: Last season, Atlanta was the surprise team, but this year they will not sneak up on anybody. Teams are well aware of the key offensive weapons from last year which include running back Michael Turner, quarterback Matt Ryan and wide receiver Roddy White. Then, in the off-season, they added perhaps one of the best tight ends to ever play in the NFL, Tony Gonzalez.

While we are sure that Matt Ryan and offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey are drooling at the thought of all the options this offense now has, the defensive coordinators around the league now have a season full of film to dissect tendencies.

So, we struggled with how to adjust the Falcons’ 2008 numbers for 2009. The Falcons had the 12th best offense and 14th best defense in the league by our numbers last season. We finally decided to go with minor 5% adjustments to their offense and defense.

Like the Panthers, the Falcons have a very tough schedule in 2009 – the fifth toughest by our calculation. The adjustments resulted in a middle of the road 8-8 record, and no return to the playoffs for second-year coach Mike Smith. Like the NFC North we could see any of the three top teams in our list winning the division. The Falcons upside even with their tough schedule is 11-5.

Bucs:
Projected Record 3-13
2008 Offense Rank: 20th                 Defense Rank: 8th
Offense Adjustment: -5%           Defense Adjustment: -5%
Best Case Record: 10-6                Worst Case Record: 1-15
Quick Observations: “How can this be?” Buccaneers’ Fans will surely wonder how can a team that was one win away from a playoff spot be given a projection of just three wins. The Bucs were a below average PossessionPoints offense in 2008 ranking 20th while they were an above average defense ranking eighth.

Their defense was better early in the year before Monty Kiffin decided to join his son’s coaching staff at Tennessee. After missing the playoffs, the Bucs also had a change at head coach, which historically, we mark as a negative. While we will still view the coach change as a negative, we are wary of this adjustment in light of how well the Dolphins, Falcons and Ravens of 2008 performed with new head coaches.

The Bucs by our calculation have the third toughest schedule in the league this year, and that coupled with the -5% adjustments to their offense and defense drove the computer to the poor 3-13 result.

They do have a surprisingly good best case for a team with 3-13 forecast: 10-6 could be wild-card playoff worthy this year.

Overall for the NFC South we have this division slightly over .500 at 33-31.

NFC West:
Cardinals:
Projected Record 10-6
2008 Offense Rank: 7th                 Defense Rank: 23rd
Offense Adjustment: 5%             Defense Adjustment: 5%
Best Case Record: 14-2                Worst Case Record: 6-10
Quick Observations: Well, Cardinals’ fans, last year we said: “this could be your year!” This year, we favor your team to repeat as champions of the NFC West. Confidence and continuity are the factors that cause us to adjust your offensive and defensive numbers up 5%. There is no question who the number one quarterback will be this year and that will help the offense gel better.

The Cardinals were the seventh best offense in 2008 and 23rd ranked defense by the PossessionPoints stat. They added Ohio State running back Chris Wells with their first-round selection. If Wells can draw some defensive attention away from the passing game, then the Cardinals could improve considerably over last year’s performance.

Even with the modest 5% adjustments we made, the computer gave the Cardinals a 10-6 projection and a win of the division by two games over their next closest competitor. This, we are sure has something to do with the fact that by our calculations, the Cardinals have the easiest schedule in the NFL in 2009.

With this schedule the upside is substantial if they do improve their performance by more than the minor 5% we gave them: 14-2 could be seen on the upside.

49ers:
Projected Record 8-8
2008 Offense Rank: 21st                  Defense Rank: 24th
Offense Adjustment: 5%             Defense Adjustment: 25%
Best Case Record: 10-6                Worst Case Record: 4-12
Quick Observations: Last year, we gave San Francisco “little chance” at the playoffs. They changed coaches in mid-season to Mike Singletary, and their team performance as measured by PossessionPoints made a significant turn up.

So, we decided, rather than make alterations to their season numbers that had them ranked as the 21st offense and 24th defense, we would instead first adjust them to the Singletary coached values. The change to Singletary was seen more in the defense than the offense, so we adjusted their defensive numbers up 25% and their offensive numbers up just 5%.

The result for the 49ers, who will be playing the seventh easiest schedule by our calculations, is an 8-8 record. This would be good for a second-place finish in the division--one game in front of the Seahawks. But it is pretty close to the best case of 10 wins given that we already made substantial upside adjustments to their performance.

Seahawks:
Projected Record 7-9
2008 Offense Rank: 25th                   Defense Rank: 31st
Offense Adjustment: 25%             Defense Adjustment: 25%
Best Case Record: 10-6                Worst Case Record: 1-15
Quick Observations: The Mike Holmgren era has ended and the Jim Mora era has started. This isn’t Jim Mora’s first stint as a head coach, so we won’t count him as a rookie. The former Falcons’ coach takes over a team that had become accustomed to winning the NFC West prior to last year’s poor showing which PossessionPoints.com warned about in last year’s preseason issue. By PossessionPoints measure, the Seahawks had the 25th ranked offense and the 31st ranked defense. So, Jim Mora really has his work cut out for him.

Injuries were a factor in last season’s dismal performance which was an 11% retraction on offense and an astounding 62% falloff in defensive performance from their 2007 levels. We are going to give them the benefit of the doubt that injuries won’t be as significant this season, and we upped both their offensive and defensive performances by 25%. That only got them to a mediocre 7-9 record.

Rams:
Projected Record 4-12
2008 Offense Rank: 29th                   Defense Rank: 28th
Offense Adjustment: 25%             Defense Adjustment: 25%
Best Case Record: 9-7                Worst Case Record: 0-16
Quick Observations: Rookie coach and seasoned pro at QB: Why does this sound like a better combination than rookie coach and rookie QB? Steve Spagnuolo, who had been the Giants defensive coordinator the last few years, will lead the Rams this year. At QB, the Rams should have Marc Bulger, the nine-year veteran, who has seen both success and failure in his time in the NFL. However, the Rams have a long way to go. In 2008, they had the 29th ranked offense and the 28th ranked PossessionPoints defense.

The Rams have a top-flight running back in Steven Jackson, and they have been building their offensive and defensive lines in the draft the last two seasons. This year, they took offensive tackle Jason Smith with the second overall pick while in 2008 they took defensive end Chris Long. The Rams keep adding top talent, and at some point you would expect things to click. Will it be this year under Spagnuolo?

Maybe, but our calculations make it doubtful. We upped their offensive and defensive numbers from 2008 by 25%. When those adjustments were played against their 2009 schedule, the result was a disappointing 4-12. While still better than last season’s 2-14 record, it is not what anyone would consider good, and the Rams would still be last in their relatively weak division.

Overall for the NFC West we have this division as one of the two divisions with a sub .500 record at 29-35.

Well that’s it, every time we look this over, we can question ourselves about one team or another. It took a long time to come up with the numbers we finalized on, and no doubt there will be teams that skew to our best or worst case rather than the expected case.

As your reward for getting to the end of this article, we are offering all readers of this article free access to our full preseason preview which we have for sale on our site. Just follow this link and you can get at the full 35 page 2009 Preseason Preview where you can see your team’s schedule and game-for-game forecasts.

2009 NFL Preseason Performance Rankings

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:49:54 -0400

While we like to ignore most preseason records, we do take a look to see how teams measure up in our “relative performance measure” (RPM). However, similar to preseason records, YOU CAN’T READ TOO MUCH INTO THESE NUMBERS. The reason we do present them is to highlight any warning signs that teams may be exhibiting.

While these RPMs are interesting to look at and speculate about, you have to remember two things: Only three preseason games are used in generating these numbers and preseason games are not coached or even played like regular season games.

Since the RPMs are an average of just three games, a single game like the Saints thumping of the Raiders, can skew things for these two teams. The Saints vaulted to the top while the Raiders sunk to the bottom. The Saints’ RPM number of 90 is a better game average than the 2007 Patriots who had an RPM of 83 and went 16-0. At PossessionPoints.com, we admit that we like the Saints a lot this season, but not that much.

It is nice to see that the preseason Saints are not doing anything to make us back off our preseason preview prediction which says that New Orleans will be a playoff team this year. But note that the Falcons are right there on the Saints’ heels in the preseason, so that could be a very interesting division to watch.

Right behind the Saints and Falcons are last year’s two Super Bowl teams: the Steelers and Cardinals. The Steelers had a full season RPM last year of just over 40, and their preseason number is very similar.

The Giants, Eagles, Texans and Packers are all teams we think could and should make the playoffs, and their RPMs are right around 0. It is not impossible for teams to get into the playoffs with an RPM that low, but when it happens typically a team loses their first playoff game. (See the article we wrote in January, Playoff Upsets – What Upsets?)

An RPM in the low, single-digit, negative numbers to an RPM that goes positive is not something to get too concerned about in the preseason from our point of view.

The opposite is true too. You’ve probably heard it a hundred times this preseason: The Lions went 4-0 last year in the and then went 0-16 in the regular season. Preseason numbers would have been misleading at best putting the Lions near the top of the chart..

So, are we concerned about the 1-2 Chargers who have a terrible -55 RPM? Yes, we are a little. To us, this might be a warning flag. We would rather see the Chargers’ RPM up there with the 0-3 Broncos. But the Chargers have started slowly in the regular season in the past and still managed to make the playoffs. Will they repeat that trend this season? Perhaps, they are getting their slow start out of the way in the preseason, so they can get into a winning frame of mind quickly in the regular season.

We hope that is the case, as they might not be able to afford being upset by the Raiders in their opener this year since they have the Ravens and Steelers as two of their next three opponents. We would hate to see them go into their early bye week with a 1-3 record especially since our preseason preview was expecting them to be 3-1 at that point.

Ain’t the preseason fun?

If you want more reading on the relevance of the RPM then perhaps in addition to the article we linked to above (Playoff Upsets – What Upsets?), these two articles we wrote before last season's Super Bowl might be informative.

In The NFL Performance Means Everything

A Few More Reasons To Like The Steelers

2009 Fantasy Football Player Lists With A Twist

Donna Cavanagh — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:27:51 -0400

It is late preseason, and if you can’t find a list ranking players for Fantasy Football then you aren’t looking too hard.

Fantasy lists vary from site to site, but PossessionPoints.com likes to look at things a bit differently. Our player lists contain an “expected value” next to the player’s name. This expected value helps Fantasy participants gauge if there really is a difference between the No. 4 and No. 5 players on the list. Of course, this “expected value” is based on one particular scoring system, which we list at the end of this article for your reference. Depending on the Fantasy game you may play, this expected value may vary some, but it still gives you a relative difference between players.

When you look at most lists, look to see if they are they giving you a list for the best player next week or for the remainder of the season? Can you even tell? Fantasy can get complicated, so you have to know what your list is telling you.

Over the last three years, we have found that many Fantasy players have the most fun when they can actively manage their team. To accommodate this management need, we provide three lists for each player position: an Expected Value for Next Week, an Expected Value for the Next Four Weeks, and an Expected Value for the Remainder of the Season. We give you a sneak peak at these lists later in this article.

If you are someone who wants to set your roster and only make changes when injury or something like that forces you to, then look at the Remainder of the Season charts. You’ll have your up and down weeks, but in the end, we think the top players on this list will serve you best.

However, if you are like most Fantasy players, you will want to know what to expect from your players this week and who on your roster to sit or play. For this type of game involvement, you need the Expected Value for Next Week chart.

Four weeks into the NFL season completes a quarter of the season, so even if you only adjust your roster a few times a season, you may want to look at the next quarter of the season to see where your players stand. That’s why we have the Next Four Weeks list.

See for yourself below how the lists can vary by looking at just the top five in each player position.

Quarterbacks:

It would seem that it is hard to go wrong with any of the top five QBs for the season: Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Romo and Rivers. Tony Romo is one that we struggled with as far as any offseason adjustments. He lost a top target, Terrell Owens, but perhaps team chemistry will make the difference here.

If we had him on our fantasy team, we would keep a close eye on how he performs the first few weeks. We expect he will be with the leaders the first week, and the first 4 weeks. However, if he underperforms early, perhaps you might want to see if you can upgrade as there is a pretty good chance he will fall short of being a top five for the full season.

Running backs:

Let’s see: Adrian Peterson, Adrian Peterson and Adrian Peterson. Anybody surprised by that? Of course not, but some of the other players on our lists surprised us a bit.

DeAngelo Williams isn’t on the “Next 4 weeks” chart, mostly because he has a bye in week Four. This shows what every Fantasy player knows, and that is you have to manage carefully for bye weeks. Our full lists also highlight in what week players have byes. It looks to us that Matt Forte, Clinton Portis and Maurice Jones-Drew may have a better first quarter of the season than they will the remainder of the season.

Wide Receivers:

Larry Fitzgerald is tops on our Expected Value for the Remainder of the Season chart, but his bye in week four keeps him off the “Next 4 Weeks” chart. Greg Jennings is fifth on the season chart, and we really think the Rodgers to Jennings combination could be as potent as the Brady to Moss combination.

Calvin Johnson will be a top target for whoever is the starting QB in Detroit. However, the biggest variable with Calvin Johnson will be the Lions themselves. If, as a team, they improve over last year, then he will be a top, if not the top Fantasy receiver this year. For Calvin Johnson to become the top receiver in week one depends on whether or not the Saints have improved on defense. If in your draft you have the choice between Calvin Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald, nobody would be the least bit surprised by a selection of Fitzgerald.

Tight Ends:

Similar to the other lists, nobody will be surprised to see Witten, Gates, Clark or Gonzales on the top of these lists. Where the lists get interesting is seeing Shockey at number two for the first week. We guess we he can attribute this to the fact that the Saints open up against the Lions in Week one.

Defense / Special Teams:

Defenses that can generate turnovers and score are featured on these lists. The Ravens, Steelers and Titans all fit that description. We are a little worried that we may not have made enough adjustments to the Eagles’ defense from last season, and that they won’t live up to our expected values. They have a new defensive coordinator and have already lost their starting middle linebacker for the season. However, Asante Samuel appears primed to have a big season in the turnover department. If he can convert a few of his picks into touchdowns, the Eagles should have a top five defense.

Kickers:

Kickers are typically taken in the later rounds of the draft, and with good reason. If you get one of the good ones, there isn’t that much difference over the course of the season. So draft a top kicker, and forget about him, as long as he doesn’t get hurt, he should contribute.

For completeness, the scoring system on which our Expected Values are based is:
Touchdown is 6 points - passing, receiving, rushing or Kick return (a passing TD the QB and receiver get 6pts. Kick return points go to player not DEF/special teams)
Passing: 0.03 points per yard passing, -3 points for an INT
Rushing: 0.1 points per yard
Other: -2 points for a fumble, 2 points for 2 Point conversion.
Kicking: 3 points for FG, +1 if over 39 yards, +0.1 point each yard over 40, 1 point for PAT, -1 point missed PAT or FG under 30 yards
Defense/special team: 6 points TD (not kickoff or punt returns), 2 points safety, 2 points INT, 2 points fumble recovery, 2 points blocked kick (FG, punt, PAT), 1 point QB sack, 12 points if No Points are allowed, -0.5 points for each point allowed.

NFL Preseason In Full Swing: Yea, But…

Donna Cavanagh — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:09:40 -0400

Preseason in the NFL started last week, and the games in weeks 2 and 3 are typically better than the games in week 1. Optimism abounds in just about every NFL city, and discussions pop up in offices, bars and barbershops around the country. Many of these discussions result in volleys of phrases that start ‘Yea, but’.

In the spirit of preseason fun, we, at PossessionPoints.com, decided to take a break from our number crunching and toss out some of the discussions we’ve heard:

Did you hear the Eagles signed Mike Vick?

- Yea, but he won’t be able to play at least the first quarter of the year?

o Yea, but when they do put him in, think about the wildcat offense they will be able to run.

§ Yea, but the wildcat offense won’t be a surprise to anyone. Everyone in the league is practicing a defense for it.

Did you see the Raiders beat up the Cowboys?

- Yea, but that wasn’t nearly as exciting as trying to figure out who on Oakland’s coaching staff is beating up whom.

o Yea, but football is a violent sport, and would we expect anything different or less dramatic from Al Davis and the Raiders’ organization?

§ Yea, but this Commissioner isn’t letting anything slide. Who knows what he is going to do here? Does Plaxico need a roommate?

Did you see the Lions win last week?

- Yea, but it is preseason.

o Yea, but it gets their mind off their 0-16 season last year

§ Yea, but they went 4-0 in the preseason last year, where did that get them?

· Yea, but they have that Miracle Man, Matt Stafford. He could be better than Flacco or Ryan.

o Yea, but it’s the Lions, When was the last time they were really good even when they had good players?

That little volley that took place about the Lions going 4-0 in preseason and then 0-16 in the regular season got us to wondering about the significance of preseason wins and losses. So, we also took a look at some teams from last year I know that we said we were not going to numbers crunch. Yea, but we lied.

Believe it or not, the Lions were the only 4-0 team last preseason, but there were two 0-4 teams. The Patriots and Browns were both 0-4 in 2008. In the regular season, Tom Brady got hurt in the first game, and they still went 11-5. The Browns went 4-12.

Until we looked at the Browns, we were thinking maybe it was better if a team lost rather than won its preseason games. The Browns set us right on that thought.

What about last year’s Super Bowl teams? Well the Steelers went 3-1 while the Cardinals were 2-2. Nothing conclusive there. Their championship game opponents? The Ravens were 1-3 and the Eagles were 2-2.

Here we go again, Yea, but, except for the Steelers, all those teams had fewer than 12 wins in the regular season. They played some of their best football in the postseason.

How about the teams that won 12 or more in the regular season? Of course, there were the 13-3 Titans who were 3-1 in the preseason. The 12-4 Panthers and 12-4 Giants who both went 2-2 in the preseason. While the 12-4 Colts were 1-3 (1-4 if you count the Hall of Fame game), nothing of significance showed up one way or another.

To paraphrase former Cardinals coach, Dennis Green: The preseason is what we thought it is. It is a tryout for the regular season.

Coaches tryout players and plays to see what works and what doesn’t work. They don’t care about winning, and they take risks like going for a two-point conversion after a touchdown late in the 4th quarter when their team is down by one. They win or lose on that one play.

In the regular season 99.9% of the time, a coach would opt to kick the extra point and go for overtime.

So, there are two and a half more weeks of tryouts, and like the coaches, we won’t pay any attention to wins or losses. We will pay much closer attention to how individual players perform, and how the teams performed in terms of execution.

We also know fans are looking to the preseason to see a glimpse into how their favorite team will perform. To that we say, “Yea, it may be football, but guess what? It isn’t real football yet”.

Could Peyton Manning Lock Up His Trip To Canton This Year?

Donna Cavanagh — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:26:02 -0400

Many people already consider Peyton Manning a surefire Hall Of Famer, and quite frankly we won’t argue with them. But we know there are still some doubters. This year, Peyton has to take on a larger leadership role than ever before in his pro career. His team is going through a major transition with a new head coach, Jim Caldwell, and a new offensive coordinator, Clyde Christensen.

No matter how much successors strive for consistency with their predecessors, they are still different people with different ways of doing things. No two people, even if they have worked together in the past, perform exactly alike. How these differences translate to the team will, in our view, dictate how the Colts season goes.

If football were a normal business, these changes would be viewed as “safe” since you promoted the assistant head coach / QB coach to head coach and the wide receivers coach to offensive coordinator. Both coaches have been with the Colts for eight years. On the surface, this could look like a very smooth natural progression with little effect on the Colts.

However, let’s face facts. NFL football is anything but a “normal business.” Team composition changes from year-to-year, and the fine line that separates good and bad moves around the league each year as well. Teams go from the cellar to the penthouse and vice versa in the blink of an eye.

The Colts could be in for a very difficult season if the Titans can maintain their stride from last season, the Texans continue to improve, and the Jaguars return to their 2007 form.

If the Colts win their division and “make some hay” in the playoffs, we have to believe it will be in large part due to the leadership and playing ability of their quarterback. If that doesn’t push any doubter over the edge as far as Manning’s Hall Of Fame credentials, we don’t know what would.

When we look at the Colts of last season, we see two different teams. Early in the year, Manning struggled to get over his offseason knee surgery. Look at the chart below:

In the last nine games, the Colts’ offense was 92% better by our PossessionPoints.com measure than it was in the first seven games.

Was Peyton Manning’s health the only thing that caused this turn around? It is hard to say because the defense performed much the same in the last nine games as it did in the first seven. In fact, there was only a negligible one percent difference by our measure.

So, perhaps we are putting too much on the shoulders of Manning, but we will be watching the Colts this year with great interest. As we said, conditions appear right for the Colts to have a mediocre season, but in our view, the wildcard is Peyton Manning.

Looking Forward To a Full Season of Mike Singletary

Donna Cavanagh — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:41:08 -0400

As pre-season camps get ready to get underway around the NFL, we find it is time to get rolling on our Pre-Season Preview issue. In this issue, PossessionPoints.com examines all teams’ off-season moves and upcoming schedules. We use this information to make forecasting adjustments for the upcoming season.

Coaching continuity is one key factor we use for forecasting adjustments. For last season’s winning teams, we place greater weight on coaching continuity than we do on last season’s losing teams.

This season, we find ourselves more concerned about the Indianapolis Colts than we do about the St. Louis Rams. Although the Colts have replaced Tony Dungy with his appointed heir, Jim Caldwell is still an unknown commodity in the head coach position.

The question mark around the Colts' new coach makes it difficult to automatically keep the team at a high level of performance; it prompts us to give a neutral to negative adjustment to the Colts in our assessment.

Even though Caldwell has been with the Colts’ organization, it’s hard to quantify his leadership abilities, chemistry with players, and game-day decision in this new position until he performs as a head coach.

Conversely, the Rams hired Steve Spagnuolo, who comes in with a good reputation that was built as the Giants defensive coordinator. Since the Rams have struggled in the past seasons, their performance in the upcoming season will most likely improve. In our calculations, a new coach in this situation becomes a neutral to positive adjustment.

The 49ers are an interesting case. They have Mike Singletary, who took over after the seventh game last season.

When we look to forecast the 49ers’ upcoming season, we need to decide if we want to base our calculations on their full season 2008 data or just the nine games Singletary coached, in which San Francisco went 5-4.

The chart below shows the 49ers’ season split into the pre-Singletary and post-Singletary periods:

Their overall PossessionPoints performance improved 109 percent under Singletary: that overall improvement was driven by the 40 percent improvement in their defense.

The other consideration that comes into play is the team’s '09 schedule. Based on last year’s “overall” PossessionPoints numbers, the 49ers’ '09 schedule is the 26th hardest or 7th easiest, depending on how you want to look at it.

We realize that when a coach takes over in the middle of the season, there is a limit of what he can change. For Mike Singletary to have the effect he had makes for some potentially high expectations next season.

Let’s face facts: the 49ers are not in the toughest division in football. If we get to December and they are contending with the Cardinals and Seahawks for the division title, we would not be surprised.

What Is the Toughest Division in the NFL For 2009?

Donna Cavanagh — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:29:57 -0400

As each season looms, the debate over which division is the toughest intensifies. We, at PossessionPoints.com, are no strangers to this debate and love to participate in it as well. Here is our preliminary overview of the NFL divisions. We hope it might help you decide who you think should be known as the “Toughest Division in the NFL”.

This year, we feel there are surprises on the horizon as the parity between NFL teams is on the increase. For many people, parity is a bad word meaning mediocrity, but we view it as a positive. We believe fans will see more teams playing up or raising the bar in performance which could lead to some interesting game results down the road.

As of now, we still look at the NFC East and the AFC South as the division strongholds. Most of the NFL experts and analysts seem to view the Giants and the Eagles as formidable threats on both offense and defense, and many of these experts have one of these teams taking the division and possibly going to the Super Bowl.

While we do not argue this point, we do not want to count out Dallas or the Redskins. Both teams had their struggles last year, but both teams managed a .500 or better season. An injection of talent and the elimination of some team distractions may be enough to hoist one or both of these teams into the playoff arena. With so much potential, this division definitely rates a vote as the toughest in the NFL.

In recent years, the AFC South has also become a force to be reckoned with. It would not surprise us in the least to see the Colts, Titans or even the Texans make their way into the heart of the playoffs. We know that the Colts have adjustments to handle with the retirement of Tony Dungy and offensive coordinator Tom Moore. However, their new head coach, Jim Caldwell, who has worked for Dungy since his Tampa Baydays, was the first choice of Dungy, and the Colts are trying to bring back Moore as a consultant for the team. So, the adjustments may not be too difficult to handle.

As for the Jaguars, we look at them as a team that has to prove a bit more before we list them in the same class as their division opponents. However, they take nothing away from the threat that this division holds as they were a playoff team in 2007. If the Jaguars can forget 2008 and return to their 2007 form, the AFC South could well be the toughest division.

There is a sound argument to also view NFC South, the AFC East and the NFC South as contenders for the toughest division crown. With the Panthers, Falcons and Saints in the NFC South, this division may be ready to let loose this season as they did last season. All the teams in the NFC South also had a .500 or better record in 2008.

Now, Bucs’ fans, do not get upset, but we think it is Tampa Bay that may have a tough time bringing this division home. The Bucs could find themselves playing a very long season this year.

The AFC East gets a boost from the return of Tom Brady to the Patriots’ roster. If the reports about his strength and agility are true, there is no doubt that the Patriots can be viewed as potential Super Bowl contenders. We also assume that the Dolphins have the ability to repeat or beat their 2008 performance. Only the Bills at 7-9 were below .500 in this division last season.

If the Patriots’ return to their 2007 dominance, they can make it more difficult for other teams in their division to get to a .500 or better season.

The Jets may join the club of teams that start rookie QBs with a new head coach. It worked for Atlanta and Baltimore last season, so why not this season? With so much potential waiting to be unleashed from these AFC East teams, this division might turn out to be the toughest of all.

We have to admit that we think the toughness of the NFC North is compromised by the presence of the Detroit Lions. Yes, they have the No. 1 draft pick and yes, their future looks brighter. But it is a long road from 0-16 to the playoffs, no matter what you are paying your new quarterback. We do look for the Lions to improve, but we are doubtful of their ability to make the playoffs.

With that said, the NFC North has some of the toughest competition around with the Bears, Packers and Vikings who are all capable of bringing home a division championship. The most likely suspects for the division title for us at this point are the Vikings or Bears who will no doubt benefit from the addition of Jay Cutler.

So, as of now, we see that five out of the eight divisions have a clear shot at winning the “toughest” moniker, but let’s see how the remaining three divisions – the AFC North and the AFC and NFC West fare.

We know that the AFC North includes not only the Super Bowl Champs, the Pittsburgh Steelers, but their strongest opponent, the Baltimore Ravens as well. Both of these teams will most likely be playoff bound again. However, when your division includes the Bengals and Browns who both have a ton to prove this season, it’s hard to seriously see this division as the toughest.

The AFC West has many questions to answer this year. We do believe that this division is the Chargers to lose. We do see improvements with the Raiders and Chiefs but these improvements are probably not enough to make this division the toughest in the NFL.

The Broncos are now without Jay Cutler, and they also have a new head coach in Josh McDaniels. It is hard to tell if a team will gel with a new quarterback and a new head coach. So, while we see a great deal of potential in this division, we think it is premature at best to say that this division is the toughest.

Last but not least is the NFC West. Okay, the Super Bowl runner-up, the Arizona Cardinals are in this division, but we have to consider the Seahawks, who were perennial champs prior to last season, as a team to consider for the division crown. We said before last season started, that the coaching situation would undo the Seahawks’ season and that proved true. However, with Jim Mora on the sidelines for all of last year, the transition for this team should be complete. We are looking for the Seahawks of old to make a return.

In the NFC West, we also are anxious to see how the 49ers perform in their first complete season with Mike Singletary. Will his high-motivation coaching tactics continue the success he saw with the 49ers last season? Another team that could be on the upswing are the Rams. If their new head coach Steve Spagnola can work the wonders with the entire Rams team as he did with the Giants’ defense, who knows what lies ahead?

Well, that is our preliminary look at the divisions and the positive and negative components of each. Again, what surprises us the most about this season is the increase in parity that exists throughout the league. In our view, parity can only add to the excitement of the game. We are anxious for the 2009 season already.

(If we were to rank the divisions in 2008 based on how teams did in our Performance Ranking the final ranking would be:

NFC East

AFC East

NFC South

AFC South

AFC North

NFC North

AFC West

NFC West)

NFL Power Rankings: An Alternative View

Donna Cavanagh — Sun, 17 May 2009 12:44:54 -0400

Now that the draft is over and mini-camps have started around the league, the next onslaught of information coming your way will be the never-ending stream of “NFL Power Rankings.”

In some ways, PossessionPoints.com is no different than other information outlets in that we will be presenting our own version of Power Rankings weekly during the season. However, that is where the similarity ends.

We believe that when people look at the lists of Power Rankings they want to see how their favorite team fares in the eyes of those who construct these Power Rankings and if their team has a chance of making it to the playoffs or the Super Bowl.

We would like to state right off the bat that a team’s talent is just one of the factors that determines a team’s win-loss record and a possible playoff berth.

In this article, we would like to highlight four factors that contribute to a team’s final win-loss record.

Those factors are randomness, schedule, home field advantage, and team quality (traditional Power Ranking if you will). We have provided a lot of the background information for this article on a page on our site.

Randomness

We know that over the course of a season, a team’s final win-loss record is more than random luck. Much of a team’s success does depend on talent.

However, imagine if you will, a scenario where all 32 teams are completely equal in the talent department and there is no such thing as a home field advantage. If these conditions existed, what kind of records do you think you would see?

Do you think that almost all teams would have win-loss records between 7-9 and 9-7?

We put together a quick little spreadsheet and used the 2009 schedule to come up with random results for all 256 games on the schedule.

We posted some of the “random season” results on our site, and the results surprised us in that typically, the top teams had 12-4 records, and the bottom teams finished around 4-12.

It may seem strange, until you consider the fact that the chance of winning or losing 12 out of 16 coin tosses is about one in 36, and 11 wins or losses of 16 coin tosses is about one in 15.

So, applying this same principle with 32 teams each season, it does make sense that just by random chance, some teams would go 12-4, and some would go 4-12.

We always expect extremes to be rare, and the odds of a random 16-0 or 0-16 record are around 1 in 65,000. As we were working with our spreadsheet, we did see this extreme occur, and it happened on our spreadsheet to the NY Jets.

We did not purposely focus on the Jets. It could have been any of the teams, and we could have used any season schedule to get similar results.

We will grant you that the football sometimes takes funny bounces, and this can be a factor in some games during the season making luck or chance a legitimate portion in a team’s win-loss record.

It is a totally unpredictable factor, and therefore, it cannot be incorporated into analysis and forecasting equations.

Since equations are our thing, we do not want to spend that much time talking about randomness, but we also do not want you to dismiss the fact that it can affect a team’s win-loss record.

Schedule:

Take any ranking system. We do not care if it is an expert’s Power Rankings or last year’s win-loss rankings. You can pick whatever. Play these rankings against this year’s schedule, and you may be surprised at what you find.

To illustrate this point, we took a look at some 2009 Power Rankings that have already been published. For what we are doing in this article, it does not matter if you accept this order as realistic or not. In the example we chose to focus on, the 32 teams were ranked:

We played these rankings against this year’s schedule neglecting home field advantage or any randomness.

In this scenario, if a team plays a higher-ranked team, the lower-ranked team gets the loss while the higher-ranked wins.

When we played these rankings against the 2009 schedule in this manner, it was no surprise that the top nine teams would become playoff teams.

However, the No. 10 Dolphins would miss the playoffs with a record of 9-7 while the No. 11 Vikings would also miss the playoffs with a record of 10-6.

The next playoff team this list for the 2009 season would be the No.12 Eagles who play 11 teams that rank lower than the Eagles and only five teams that rank higher. This would give the Eagles an 11-5 record and a wild-card playoff spot.

Based on these rankings and their schedule, the No. 13 Packers, like the Vikings, would also miss the NFC playoffs with a 10-6 record.

The No. 14 Cardinals and No. 15 Chargers would win their divisions and make the playoffs with 9-7 and 10-6 records respectively.

One would like to think that the 12 best teams make the playoffs each year, but that just is not possible with the way the NFL schedule works, even if every team plays perfectly to its capability each week.

Home Field Advantage

Now, we are going to get a little more complicated (yes, it is true) but stay with us. To be able to work with home field advantage variations, this we had to quantify how much better one team was relative to another.

To keep this as simple as possible, we assumed the difference between each team was a constant.

So, the top ranked team was assigned a +8 (just our own statistical yardstick), the second team a +7.5, the third team a +7. Each team was graded 0.5 away from the one next to it, and the value of 0 was skipped so the bottom team had a -8.

With this tight a ranking in our system, very small changes in the value of home field make a big difference.

Now, we can start modifying how much home field is worth and observe what happens to win -loss records and playoff scenarios.

In the extreme adjustment of home field advantage, all teams would be 8-8, wining all their home games and losing all their road games. This would be boring. Who wants the home team to always win?

Once again, we used the same example rankings. When we made the home field advantage factor worth just one percent, the playoff picture changed very little.

The No. 12 Eagles fell into a tie for the final NFC wild-card playoff spot as they saw their record fall to 10-6. However, it was not the No. 11 Vikings with whom they tied. It was the No. 13 Packers.

When we bumped up home field to two percent, the Packers’ record rose to 12-4, and they tied the Bears for the division. The Vikings remained behind them with a record of 10-6.

At this level, the Eagles miss the playoffs with a 9-7 record. The Cardinals would still win the NFC west but now with an 11-5 record. The AFC playoff picture would remain unchanged.

At the four percent level, the Bears, Vikings and Packers all make the playoffs with 11-5 records. The Panthers and Falcons would tie for the NFC South title with 10-6 records.

The only point of this little exercise is to illustrate what many people take as a given. Schedule combined with a home field advantage does play a role in a team’s season and win-loss record.

Yet, many Power Rankings omit these factors. Even with the constant distribution of team quality that we used, you can see how the value of home field can change win-loss records and the playoff picture.

Team Quality (Traditional Power Ranking)

Most “Power Rankings” authors are trying to enumerate teams in order of quality. In other words, best teams are ranked highest and the not-as-talented teams are ranked at the bottom.

The question we always come up with is: How much better is the No. 1 team over the No. 2 team or even the No. 10 team?

An even distribution like we used in the “home field” analysis above is not a very realistic distribution.

The top team may be well ahead of the remainder of the league, as it was with the 2007 Patriots, or the top five teams may be very close together like last season was by our measure.

The same is true at the bottom. By our measure, the 2008 Lions fell well below the rest of the league.

To illustrate this, we took the same rankings and gave the top 12 teams relative performance grades between 34 and 45 (Again, our statistical yardstick).

The bottom 12 teams got values between -34 and -45 while the middle eight teams were given values between 4 and -4.

Of course with no home field advantage, the records are the same as we described in the “schedule” section.

We need to vary home field by larger increments now since the separation between the 32 teams is much greater being between 45 and -45 as opposed to 8 and -8 in the example above.

At a four percent adjustment, the Chargers no longer make the playoffs and are replaced by the Broncos who had a “Power Ranking” of 18. The Bears and Vikings make the playoffs while the Packers do not.

At a 15 percent adjustment, the Chargers are back in with a 9-7 record while the Broncos fall out with an 8-8 record. The Packers move back into contention for a playoff spot as their record equals the Vikings at 11-5. A tie breaker would determine who made the playoffs.

So What?

You are probably thinking, “So what, if you play with numbers enough you can make them say anything you want.”

Well, not really, even given their relatively low power ranking of 14 there was virtually nothing we could do to make the Cardinals miss the playoffs. The NFC playoff picture fluctuated much more than the AFC playoff picture did.

Even if an all-knowing supernatural NFL power provided a perfectly ordered list of best to worst teams, the chances that the top 12 teams on this list make the playoffs would be very slim for the reasons we have explained.

A Different List

As we said at the start of the article, we also publish a list that resembles the “Power Rankings” list. We call it our “Performance Rankings” because it is based on how teams perform in our PossessionPoints stat.

We are not going to explain all that goes into our stat in this article because we would bore you to death, but the end result is a positive or negative number we call the “Relative Performance Measure” or RPM.

Our RPM list is just the ranking of teams from the largest RPM to the smallest. But with the RPM, you can see how close one team is to another.

In fact, two adjacent teams may either be a fraction or several numbers apart. Typically the 32 teams will be spread over a 90-point or more range.

Below is a Performance Rankings chart. The last column, on the right shows the final RPM from last season (with one exception we will talk about later).

It should be no surprise to note that the Steelers are on the top of the RPM list, and the Lions are on the bottom. Where some teams fell in the middle might be a surprise to some fans, but that is where the stat put them.

Some of you might be thinking, “Last year is history, why are you showing this now?”

Well, if you look at the chart and each team’s win-loss record, you will note that these records are not the win-loss records from 2008.

What these win-loss columns show is a projection of each team for 2009 if each of the teams played their 2009 schedule at the same RPM level as 2008.

Do Not Panic! This is at best a partial look at what’s ahead. We have not made our modifications for off-season trades and drafts.

The one adjustment we talked about comes into play here. The Panthers’ 2008 RPM was not good. We adjusted them so they would fall with the leaders up at No. 7, within 8 points of the top ranked Steelers.

Even with that adjustment, when we played the Panthers revised RPM against their schedule with a four percent home field adjustment, Carolina ends up with a 9-7 record. (Four percent home field adjustment is the best historical adjustment for our RPM).

Conversely, look at the No. 17 Cardinals. They had an RPM of 10.93 (the Super Bowl brought them down some). However, when we play that RPM against their 2009 schedule, we project a 12-4 record.

We could find a lot of interesting facts in this chart, but we are just going to focus on one more. The No. 13 Falcons and the No. 14 Saints are in the same division and had very similar 2008 RPMs of 12 and 14.

Yet, if the No. 14 Saints play at the same level of their 2008 RPM in 2009, we project that they would have a 10-6 record while the No.13 Falcons would go to just 8-8.

Our list ranks teams based on how they perform in our stat. History has shown us that this is a pretty good way to look at which teams can ultimately win in the playoffs. Our list would be sorted much differently if we sorted teams just by projected wins.

In a nutshell, we believe that Performance Rankings are more than just opinion-based lists. Factors such as home field advantage and strength of schedule have to come into play as well if fans are going to get a real feel for how their team’s chances at success.

This season we will add “Projected Win-Loss Records” to the RPM value when we publish our weekly rankings. This way readers will get a feel for relative quality from the RPM number as well as how it would appear to project to wins and losses.

(For more background on how the RPM shows itself in the Playoffs you may want to read an article we wrote during last year’s playoffs “NFL Playoff Upsets: What Upsets?”)

Should Mark Sanchez Be the New York Jets' 2009 Starter?

Donna Cavanagh — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:39:29 -0400

What can Jets’ fans expect this season from rookie QB Mark Sanchez? With all the hype and exposure surrounding the “new” New York Jet, we, at PossessionPoints.com, wanted to try to keep our expectations as grounded as possible.

We decided to look at the top 10 quarterbacks of last season (by QB rating) and see how their immersion into NFL play prepared them for success. Which quarterbacks got to wade into the professional football waters slowly, and which ones were thrown off the pier without much notice and expected to swim?

Here they are:

Philip Rivers – 2008 QB Rating: 105.5

In the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Rivers only appeared in two games, and he only attempted 30 passes. These stats put him in what we call the “let’s let him get used to the water slowly” category.

Chad Pennington – 2008 QB Rating: 97.4

In 2000, Pennington appeared in one game, and in 2001, he appeared in two. He attempted only 25 passes in the two years. With these numbers, Pennington is also another toe dipper in the NFL waters.

Kurt Warner – 2008 QB Rating: 96.9

Warner's NFL career started late. Although signed as a free agent out of Northern Iowa by the Packers in 1994, Warner never saw opening day. He was released in the preseason. Stints in Europe and the Arena Football League preceded his final arrival into the NFL.

Even though Warner had vast football experience behind him before he put on a Rams’ uniform, Warner still played in just one game in 1998 and attempted only 11 passes. He, like Pennington and Rivers, is also a slow wader.

Drew Brees – 2008 QB Rating: 96.2

Drafted by the Chargers in 2001, Brees played in just one game and attempted 27 passes in his first season. In his second season, he played in all 16 games for the Chargers. After an impressive 4-0start, Brees ended his second season with a mediocre 8-8 record and a QB rating of only 76.

The Chargers benched him during the 2003 season after he played in 11 games in favor of veteran Doug Flutie. The combined efforts of these two QBs gave San Diego a miserable 4-12 record. Brees’ QB rating sat at 67 for those 11 games.

For us, Brees fell into the “you can throw him in the water, but better give him a life preserver to survive.” category. After his near drowning in San Diego, a change of scenery put Brees on the path to quarterback success.

Peyton Manning – 2008 QB Rating: 95

In 1998, Peyton Manning was drafted No. 1 for the Colts and proceeded to play 16 games while attempting 575 passes. His QB rating was the lowest of his career at 71. We categorize Manning as a quarterback who was thrown off the pier and expected to excel. While he has excelled, his first year was his worst and the Colts ended their season with a horrible 3-13 record.

Aaron Rodgers – 2008 QB Rating: 93.8

In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Rodgers played in a total of seven games. He attempted just 59 passes in those three seasons prior to his starting in 2008 in place of the relocated Brett Favre. Rodgers is definitely another toe dipper in the NFL quarterback pool.

Rodgers is like many NFL quarterbacks who appear to thrive after two-to-three seasons of sitting.

Matt Schaub – 2008 QB Rating: 92.7

In 2004, 2005 and 2006, Schaub attempted a total of just 161 passes for the Falcons. In 2008 alone, he attempted 380 for the Texans. Schaub, a three-year backup QB to Michael Vick, is another example of teaching a QB to swim before putting him into action.

Tony Romo – 2008 QB Rating: 91.4

Signed as an undrafted free agent with the Cowboys in 2003, Romo did not throw a pass for them until three years later in 2006. Yes, Romo only held a clipboard for his first three years, but his slow immersion gave him the confidence and skills to succeed.

Jeff Garcia – 2008 QB Rating: 90.2

Does anyone not appreciate Jeff Garcia’s trek to the NFL? Garcia played in Canada for four years prior to his NFL experience. In his first NFL season, he did play in 13 games and attempted 375 passes.

We really have a tough time putting him in the “just throw him in the water and see if he stays afloat” category as he seems to have swam pretty well up North. So, we are going to say that his four years in Canada is the equivalent of the three years as an NFL backup.

Matt Cassel – 2008 QB Rating: 89.4

Our vote for “Cinderella Quarterback”. As a backup from 2005-2007, Cassel attempted just 45 passes in three years. We all know about 2008 and what fate dealt to both Tom Brady and Matt Cassel.

For Cassel, who also served as the backup at USC, he might have easily assumed that his NFL uniform would always include a pair of headphones and a clipboard.

However, he learned well in those three-plus years and proved himself when given the opportunity. We will mercifully put him in the toe dipper category, but to be honest, he probably falls more into the “stuck on the beach and watching everyone else have a good time” category.

That’s the top 10 from 2008. If you notice, the big rookies who made all the headlines last year are not in that list. So, how did they perform?

While not in the top 10, Matt Ryan came close and ranked No. 11 with a QB rating of 87.7. Impressive for a rookie who we feel literally had the fate of the Falcons faithful on his young shoulders.

His coach had little choice but to start him from the beginning, since they also traded away Matt Schaub. However, head coach Mike Smith did give Ryan breathing room by supplying him with a copious number of running plays especially in the earlier part of the season.

Not in the top 10 and sitting at 22 with a QB rating of 80.3 is Joe Flacco of the Ravens. In the preseason, few thought Flacco would be the starter, but injuries and strange virus that sidelined Troy Smith, put Flacco from wader to jumper. Give him credit for accomplishing what he did.

The Ravens formidable defense was Flacco’s life preserver.

What we take from our little study is this: If Rex Ryan follows conventional QB development philosophy, he will start veteran Kellen Clemens and leave Sanchez carrying a clipboard for a year or two.

Ryan may believe that he can have the same success with Sanchez as the Falcons have with Ryan and the Ravens have with Flacco. Hopefully, somewhere in his coaching strategy is the knowledge that even the most gifted rookie quarterback cannot carry a team.

In our view, the Jets’ success or lack thereof is more dependent on Rex Ryan than it is on Sanchez. If Ryan does start Sanchez and puts him in a position where he makes mistakes that cost the Jets wins, we would put the blame on Rex Ryan and his staff..

One more note, you may ask why we focused on Sanchez and the Jets instead of on Matt Stafford and the Lions. The answer is simply this: The Lions can only go up from that 0-16 record.

Stafford could start, without setting the NFL on fire, and still improve the Lions. We think Stafford should be fine as long as Detroit’s coaching staff keeps him away from excessive sacks which could affect his confidence and future performances.

Optimism Justified for Minnesota Vikings

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:11:28 -0400

At this time of year, all teams are optimistic about the upcoming season and why not? Off season trades and the NFL draft infuse new blood into sometimes tired rosters giving even the most desperate teams a feeling of hope. While we at PossessionPoints.com admire the positive attitudes that all teams have, we believe that there are some teams, more than others, who deserve to hold on to those high hopes and optimism. For us, the Minnesota Vikings are one such team.

The Vikings are coming off a season where they ranked ninth in offense, fourth in defense and fifth overall according to the PossessionPoints statistic. While our rankings may differ from the traditional total yardage-type rankings, they do display a high correlation to winning. For example, we projected the 2008 Vikings would go 9-7 and take the division title. We were a little off in that they won the division with a 10-6 record.

Based on those PossessionPoints rankings, we would have expected to see the Vikings work on offense first in the draft. So, we were not taken aback when they did exactly that drafting wide receiver Percy Harvin from Florida and offensive tackle Phil Loadholt from Oklahoma. These selections, coupled with their upgrade at backup QB with the acquisition of Sage Rosenfels (maybe starter after preseason), have prompted us to make an upward adjustment of at least five percent to Minnesota’s offensive numbers from last year.

For reference purposes, a five percent adjustment either positive or negative is considered a small adjustment in PossessionPoints. An average adjustment would range between 10 and 15 percent up or down, and a significant adjustment would be 20 percent or more in either direction.

Minnesota’s three remaining draft picks went to the defensive side of the ball, and we are not yet sure if they got any impact players. With this in mind, we are most likely to forecast that their defense will be about the same as last year. There is certainly room for improvement with the Vikings in defense since they were 22 percent behind the league-leading Ravens. However, given that they ranked fourth in defense last season by our statistic, an unchanged forecast is not all that bad. Even if they remain unchanged in PossessionPoints, they should still easily be a top-10 defense next season.

There is another factor that gives support to our belief that the Vikings should be a tough team again in 2009. By our stat from last season’s performances, the Vikings have the second easiest schedule in 2009. The difficulty is pretty balanced between home and road games as Minnesota has the fifth easiest home and the fifth easiest road schedules. (Having the Lions twice on their schedule does help).

We are long way from making our adjustments to all the teams in the league, and when we do complete the adjustments, the picture may change drastically. For instance, a significant upward adjustment in the Lions’ projected performance could spell trouble for teams who have to face a new Detroit team twice. As we get closer to the season, we will draw more a more concrete picture. As of now, our outlook for the Vikings in 2009 remains positive and hopeful.

Pioli, Haley, and Cassel: The Perfect Storm for the Kansas City Chiefs?

Donna Cavanagh — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:56:49 -0400

Is a Perfect Storm circling over Kansas City? Well, if you are a Chiefs fan, you are hoping that the storm not only hovers, but makes landfall as well.

In the upcoming season, Kansas City will experience a triple force: a new general manager, a new head coach, and a new franchise quarterback. For many experts, a change in one of these positions sends up a red flag, but we at PossessionPoints.com think that this triple whammy may spark the beginning of a new and dynamic Chiefs team.

It is true that only Matt Cassel has actual experience in his new job. As starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, Cassel proved his physical and mental prowess when he stepped in for Tom Brady last season.

Scott Pioli has a great deal of experience in the front offices around the league, including stints in Cleveland, Baltimore and New York, but this is his first GM position. With that said, Pioli was a key factor in building the Patriots into the dominating force that ruled the NFL in recent years.

Although new to head coaching, Todd Haley has paid his dues in the coaching world, holding positions with the Bears, Jets, Cowboys, and Cardinals. Haley was instrumental in all teams making the playoffs while he was with them. His most recent success came as offensive coordinator for the Cardinals who, as we all know, got to the Super Bowl.

Why do we bring this all up? Because we love historical parallels, and we try to learn from them. In 2008, the Dolphins also made the risky triple change when they brought in Bill Parcells as head of football operations, Tony Sparano as head coach, and Chad Pennington as starting QB.

When we did our Preseason Preview issue for the 2008 season, we adjusted our estimated performance of the Dolphins up by 10 percent, which is generous for us, but not outlandish. The result of this 10 percent was that we still expected Miami to have another losing record.

However, in our 2008 Preseason Preview we also said, “Actually, the computer does give hope if the Dolphins can improve their performance 15 percent more on offense and defense. If we up their improvement to 25 percent in each category, their projected record actually vaults all the way to 10-6. Could the Dolphins be a team—we color “Red” —that makes the playoffs?”

We didn’t expect the Dolphins would improve on both offense and defense by 25 percent. That is an exceptional improvement. Truth be told, Miami improved by 30 percent on offense and 28 percent on defense, and as you know, they went 11-5 and made the playoffs.

In hindsight, maybe we should not have been so stingy with our upwards adjustment. We didn’t take the arrival of their “perfect storm” as seriously as we should have.

The parallels between the 2008 Dolphins and 2009 Chiefs do not end with their personnel changes. For example, there is the non-football coincidence, in that Bill Parcells is Scott Pioli’s father-in-law. (Can you imagine the holiday dinners in that family? We’re guessing football is a big part of that table conversation.)

Although this is an unscientific statement to make, we think that some of Bill Parcells’ magic has to rub off on Pioli.

There are other more technical parallels as well. The 2007 Dolphins ranked 20th in possession points offense with a 79 (the higher the number the better). The 2008 Chiefs ranked 24th in possession points offense with an 83. This is very close statistically.

The 2007 Dolphins ranked 32nd in possession points defense with a 122 (the lower the number the better) while the 2008 Chiefs ranked 29th in possession points defense with a 122.

To give you an idea of the significance of the number range, the 2007 Patriots were the best possession points offense in the last two seasons with a value of 163 (about double the Dolphins/Chiefs number), so both teams would need to improve by 100 percent to get to the Pats’ level. The 2008 Ravens were the best defense in the last two seasons with a value of 54, which is less than half of the value posted by the Dolphins and Chiefs in 2007 and 2008.

Well, no one owns the crystal ball that says for sure that the Chiefs will transform themselves into a playoff team just as the Dolphins did. However, history can and often does repeat itself, and that perfect storm that landed in Miami in 2008, could very well be making its way to Kansas City this year.

2009 NFL Mock Draft: Composite of Experts

Donna Cavanagh — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:53:18 -0400

You can barely go to a sports site without stumbling over at least one mock draft. So, we at PossessionPoints.com, decided to take on a project that we have not seen elsewhere.

We constructed a composite mock draft based on mock drafts completed this week from 10 football “experts.”

The first thing we noticed about the experts’ drafts is that they are all over the place. While some players have made their way to everyone’s list, there are some highly-touted players who made very few lists. We did notice that the first three top picks were the same on most mock drafts.

Although our composite draft cannot take into account every expert’s picks, it does give insight into the relative value of certain players as seen through the eyes of many experts.

Each mock draft has just 32 players, but our composite draft contains 45 because that is the number of unique names on these 10 mock drafts. For our purpose, we took these names and put them in order based on what we call a “composite score”.

The composite score was generated quite simply—really, we swear. We added together the selection number that a particular player held in each of the mock drafts.

For example, Matthew Stafford was picked No. 1 in all 10 mock drafts we looked at; therefore, he had a composite score of 10.

If a player was not on a particular mock draft, he was given a score of 33 (32 being the last pick) for that mock draft. For example, Michael Johnson was picked for only one of the 10 mock drafts. Amazingly, on that draft, he was picked at No. 9. In the other nine drafts where he was not included, we gave him a score of 33 making his composite score 306.

Let’s see where the players fell out in our composite draft:

1. Detroit – Matt Stafford, quarterback from University of Georgia

Composite Score 10--As we said before, Matt Stafford was the No. 1 choice in all 10 of the mock drafts we studied.

2. St. Louis Rams – Jason Smith, OT from Baylor

Composite Score 26 - Jason Smith was picked in the No. 2 spot in eight of the 10 drafts we looked at. On the other two, he was picked at No. 4 and No. 6 which makes him a pretty solid No. 2 composite pick.

3. Kansas City Chiefs – Aaron Curry, LB from Wake Forest

Composite Score 34 – Curry was picked as early as two in one draft and as late as eight in another. He wound up at No. 3, and eight of the ten drafts had him at No. 3.

4. Seattle Seahawks – Eugene Monroe, OT from Virginia

Composite Score 42 – Monroe was also picked as early as No. 2 in one draft and as late as No. 6 in three drafts. The other six drafts had him at No. 4 four times and No. 3 twice.

5. Cleveland Browns – Michael Crabtree, WR from Texas Tech

Composite Score 67 – Crabtree was only picked at No. 5 in two of the ten drafts. He was picked at No. 4 three times, but that is the earliest any of the mock experts had him selected. The latest any of our experts had him was at No. 13.

6. Cincinnati Bengals – B.J. Raji, DT from Boston College

Composite Score 75 – Raji was selected at No. 6 in three of the mock drafts. This is the earliest he was selected, but the latest he was selected was No. 10. This is a tight range, so we find it hard to argue with his No. 6 position.

7. Oakland Raiders – Brian Orakpo, DE from Texas

Composite Score 79 – While the composite has Orakpo ending up at No. 7, none of the mock drafts have him in this position. Orakpo’s earliest position in the mocks was at No. 5, and surprisingly, he was put there six times. So, it would appear many experts think a more likely destination for this defensive end is Cleveland rather than Oakland.

8. Jacksonville Jaguars – Mark Sanchez, quarterback from USC

Composite Score 88 – Sanchez was picked as early as No. 4 and as late as No. 12 in our 10 mock drafts. Three mock drafts had him at No. 8 where he wound up on the composite. Three other mock drafts also put him at No. 12.

9. Green Bay Packers – Aaron Maybin, DE from Penn State

Composite Score 103 – Maybin was selected as early as No. 9 and as late as No. 13 in the ten mock drafts. His most frequent selection spot was No. 10 where he appeared five times.

10. San Francisco 49ers – Andre Smith, OT from Alabama

Composite Score 112 – Smith was picked as early as No. 6 and as late as No. 16. The most common selection in the mock drafts for Smith was No. 13 where he appeared four times. Three experts had him going at No. 6. The tendency of a composite is to split the difference which is why he is on our composite at No. 10.

11. Buffalo Bills – Jeremy Maclin, WR from Missouri

Composite Score 119 – The selections were highly varied for Maclin as he had the largest spread of any of the first 12 composite picks. His earliest pick was at No. 7 and the latest was way down at No. 26. He was most frequently picked at No.7 which was where he showed up in four of the mock drafts.

While the composite puts him at No. 11, none of the mock drafts had him at this number. We side with all the experts here as well since the Bills have picked up the one and only Terrell Owens.

12. Denver Broncos – Everette Brown, DE from Florida State.

Composite Score 122 – The Mock Drafts have Brown being selected as early as No. 5 and as late as No. 14. He is most frequently picked at No. 11 where he appears in three of the mock drafts. We can see Maclin sliding down and Brown sliding up without too much trouble.

13. Washington Redskins – Tyson Jackson, DE from LSU.

Composite Score 128 – Jackson was picked as high as No. 9 and as late as No. 18. His most common selection spot was at No. 12 where he showed up four times.

14. New Orleans Saints – Malcolm Jenkins, CB from Ohio State

Composite Score 144 – This one is really surprising. Next to Matt Stafford, Jenkins has the tightest range on the 10mock drafts. He was either selected No. 14 or No. 15 in all 10 expert mock drafts with No. 14 being the most frequent spot at six times.

15. Houston Texans – Michael Oher, OT from Mississippi

Composite Score 168 – There is a pretty wide range with Oher as some mock drafts have him going as early as No. 8 while some having him go as late as No. 22. He shows up most often in the No. 16 spot where he appears four times.

16. San Diego Chargers – Brian Cushing, LB from USC

Composite Score 178 – The selection numbers on Cushing are broad as well. He is picked as early as No. 12 and as late as No. 25. It is a tie as to where he falls most often in selection. He appears in three mock drafts at No. 15 and in three mock drafts at No. 18.

17. New York Jets – Josh Freeman, quarterback from Kansas State.

Composite score 183 – Freeman is the third quarterback in most mock drafts. He shows up as early as No. 11 and as late as No. 22. He actually does show up at No. 17 in two mock drafts, but he is found most often at No. 19 where he appears three times.

18. Denver Broncos – Robert Ayers, DE from Tennessee

Composite score 200 – Talk about your wide ranges! Ayers shows up as early as No. 11 and as late as not-picked-in-the-first-round. While two mock drafts left him out completely, two had him at No. 11 and two at No. 13. None had him going at No. 18 where the composite score landed him.

19. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Chris Wells, RB from Ohio State

Composite Score 204 – Wells gets the award of “widest range” of anyone we looked at. Given that we only assigned 33 numbers, we were impressed that his range was 28. He was selected as early as No. 5 and as late as not-picked-in-the-first-round.

It is pretty clear to see that the mock draft experts have no idea what to do with Wells. His most frequent selection fell at No. 14 where he appeared twice, but two mock drafts left him entirely off the first round.

20. Detroit Lions – Darrius Heyward-Bey, WR from University of Maryland

Composite Score 214 – Heyward-Bey came close to Wells’ “widest range” mark as he was picked as early as No. 7 and as late as not-in-the-first-round. Given that Detroit has greater needs than WR, we doubt that Heyward-Bey will wind up where the composite left him. The most frequent selection number he held was No. 17 where he showed up in three of the mock drafts.

21. Philadelphia Eagles – Knowshon Moreno, RB from University of Georgia

Composite Score 229 – Moreno showed up in all ten mock drafts as early as No. 16 and as late as No.31. He did appear at No. 21 twice where the composite score left him, but he was more often selected at No. 31 where he was found in three of the mock drafts.

22. Minnesota Vikings – Peria Jerry, DT from Mississippi

Composite Score 230 – Jerry was picked as early as No. 15 and as far the down the list as not-picked-in-the-first-round. He was only left off of one of the mock drafts. He showed up most frequently at No. 27 where he was found four times.

23. New England Patriots – Brandon Pettigrew, TE from Oklahoma State

Composite Score 232 – Pettigrew has the distinction of having the highest composite score while being included in all 10 mock drafts. The earliest he appeared is at No. 17 and the latest was at No. 31. He can be found most often at No. 21 where he appeared four times. While he does not show up at his composite position of 23, he does show up three times at 24. We think 24 might be more accurate.

24. Atlanta Falcons – Rey Maualuga, LB from USC

Composite Score 240 – We would love to tell you there were 10 times when Maualuga showed up at No. 24, but, alas, that is not the case. He appeared as early as No. 15 on the mock drafts and as late as not-picked-in-the-first-round. He tied in his most frequent selection spots appearing at No. 20 and No. 30 two times.

25. Miami Dolphins – Clay Matthews, LB from USC

Composite Score 245 – Just like the other USC linebacker above, Matthews was left off the first round picks once and selected as early as No. 15 once. He most frequently appeared at No. 25 where the composite score placed him, and he showed up at this selection spot three times.

26. Baltimore Ravens – Vontae Davis, CB from Illinois

Composite Score 245 – Davis tied with Matthews in the composite score, but because Matthews’ earliest selection was at No. 15 and Davis’ was at No. 19, Matthews got the 25thslot. Davis, also like Matthews, most frequently showed up in the mock drafts at No. 25 where he appeared twice.

27. Indianapolis Colts – Eben Britton, OT from Arizona

Composite Score 249 – Britton was picked as early as No. 20 and was left off the first-round list as well. None of the mocks had him No. 27 as the composite did, and he most frequently landed at No. 22 where he appeared three times.

28. Buffalo Bills– Larry English, DE from Northern Illinois.

Composite Score 270 – Some mock drafts picked English as early as 23, but he was left entirely out of the first round in three of the 10 drafts we studied. None of the mock experts picked him at No. 28, and the most frequent spot where he showed up was at No. 23 where he appeared four times.

29. New York Giants – Percy Harvin, WR from Florida

Composite Score 280 – Harvin was picked as high as No. 22 and as late as not-picked-in-the-first-round. His most frequent selection spot was No. 26 where he showed up twice. He did show up in one mock draft at No. 29 where the composite score left him.

30. Tennessee Titans – William Beatty, OT from Connecticut

Composite Score 286 – This selection is hard to figure since Beatty was left off the first- round in six of the 10 mock drafts we examined. However, he did show up at No. 20 in three of the drafts and at No. 28 in one which is why his composite is at No. 30.

31. Arizona Cardinals – Evander Hood, DT from University of Missouri.

Composite Score 302 – Hood was left out of the first round in five of the 10 mock drafts we studied. When he was included, Hood showed up most frequently at No. 27 where he appeared three times.

32. Pittsburgh Steelers – Michael Johnson, DE from Georgia Tech

Composite Score 306 – This one almost seems ridiculous. Johnson was left out of the first round in nine of the 10 mock drafts we looked at. The only mock draft that included him selected him way up the list at No. 9 which is how he found his way to the 32nd spot.

As we said at the start, there were 45 unique players that showed up in these 10 mock drafts. We are listing players 33-45 and their composite scores so you can see who the remaining players are and where they fell: Always keep in mind, that draft experts re-evaluate their choices daily.

If we were to re-run our composite again tomorrow, there might be changes due to the experts’ changes.

33. Darius Butler, CB from Connecticut – Composite Score 306

34. Hakeem Nicks, WR from North Carolina – Composite Score 307

35. Kenny Britt, WR from Rutgers – Composite Score 314

36. Alex Mack, C from California – Composite Score 315

37. Donald Brown, RB from Connecticut – Composite Score 319

38. Jarron Gilbert, DE from San Jose State – Composite Score 321

39. Connor Barwin, LB from University of Cincinnati – Composite Score 322

40. Clint Sintim, LB from University of Virginia – Composite Score 323

41. James Laurinaitis, LB from Ohio State – Composite Score 323

42. Shawn Nelson, TE from Southern Miss – Composite Score 325

43. LeSean McCoy, RB from University of Pittsburgh – Composite Score 328

44. Max Unger, OT from Oregon – Composite Score 328

45. D.J. Moore, CB from Vanderbilt – Composite Score 329

2009 NFL Schedule: Carolina Panthers Difficult, Arizona Cardinals Easy

Donna Cavanagh — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:11:59 -0400

There is a plethora of NFL schedule analysis out there, but we would like to offer a unique perspective that we gain when we use the Relative Performance Measure (RPM) of PossessionPoints.com.

We use this measure to evaluate the teams’ schedules based upon their opponents’ RPM from last season.

We do not want to go into all the details of what goes into our RPM, but our performance measure is particularly useful for this type of analysis.

It serves as a grading system that quickly identifies good teams from bad teams. Last season, the Steelers finished at the top of our chart with an RPM of +37, while the 0-16 Lions finished at the bottom with a -60.

When we apply our RPM to a season schedule analysis, we add together all the opponents’ RPMs.

So, if a team was only going to be playing the Steelers and Lions, we would say their schedule had a – 23 RPM which would be an easier than average schedule.

In the world of PossessionPoints, the higher RPM, the more difficult the opponent is and the more difficult the schedule is.

For the upcoming season, we found that the Panthers’ opponents had a +227 RPM, which translates into one really hard schedule. It well outpaced the No. 2 Dolphins whose opponents’ RPMs were +169.

The +227 RPM was also more than 100 RPM points greater than the third toughest schedule, which belongs to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

One of the goals of the NFL schedule makers is to try and give the previous season’s best teams a more difficult schedule; however, this season, according to PossessionPoints, it did not work out that way.

The Cardinals have the easiest schedule, as their opponents have a combined -199 RPM. Super Bowl Champions, the Steelers, have the fifth easiest schedule with a combined -128 RPM.

Another thing we look at or our schedule analysis is the home vs. road situation.

Imagine your favorite team had to go play the mythical schedule mentioned above of the Steelers and Lions.

To give your team the best chance of victory against those two teams, you would rather they play the Steelers in your stadium and go visit the Lions in Detroit.

When we added this to our analysis, the Steelers had the best or easiest road schedule with a -159 RPM. Their home schedule was a +30.

So, this means Pittsburgh is playing their most difficult games in their own house, in front of their fanatical and fervent fans.

The team that is playing the absolute toughest opponents at home are the Bucs whose home opponents have an RPM of +140.

We need to put an asterisk on this, because one of the Bucs’ home games is thousands of miles away across the pond in London against the Patriots.

We do not think the Bucs can legitimately claim a home field advantage there.

We realize that our analysis is different from the traditional media, so we have provided links to our site where you can find all of last year’s RPMs as well as the charts that break down this year’s schedule.

Do NFL Stat Leaders Equal Team Wins?

Donna Cavanagh — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:14:49 -0400

The world is concentrating on the upcoming NFL draft and the league’s future stars. As a slight diversion, PossessionPoints.com thought it was a good time to turn our attention to veteran NFL players who became stat leaders, and the effect these leaders have had on their team’s success.

We wanted to see if having a stat leader on a team correlated to winning games and more importantly, winning championships.

We looked at six statistical categories for seasons 2002 through 2008: three offensive and three defensive. On the offensive side, we analyzed the quarter back rating, rushing yards and receiving yards. On the defensive side of the ball, we looked at the leaders in number of tackles, sacks and interceptions.

In 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006, two players tied for most interceptions. Since there was a tie, we counted both players as leaders. In total, there were 46 players whose efforts put them on top of the player pile in performance.

Of these 46 players, only five played in a Super Bowl, and only two of those five were on a Super Bowl-winning team. The first two players we found who played in a Super Bowl happened to be one of the interception-leader ties.

Rod Woodson from Oakland tied Brian Kelly from Tampa Bay in 2002 with eight interceptions. As you may remember, the Bucs beat the Raiders in the 2003 Super Bowl.

No Super Bowl participants were stat leaders again until the 2005 season which, of course, included the 2006 Super Bowl. During this season, Shaun Alexander of the Seahawks led the NFL in rushing with 1,880 yards. While the Seahawks got to the big game, they lost the championship to the Steelers.

The next season, Peyton Manning of the Colts, led the NFL with a quarter back rating of 101. This turned out to be the magical season for Manning who finally put the critics to rest and earned his Super Bowl ring.

The fifth and final Super Bowl participant was Tom Brady of the Patriots who led the league in 2007 with a quarterback rating of 117. As we all know, the Patriots would have achieved a perfect season had they not lost the Super Bowl that year to the New York Giants.

Five out of 46 stat leaders or 10.8 percent have made it to the Super Bowl. This may seem like a pretty fair number of players, but percentages are a funny thing. Consider this: two out of 32 teams in the NFL make it to the Super Bowl each year. That translates to 6.2 percent. This makes a10.8 percent figure seem not too impressive.

Our main point is this: having an NFL stat leader on a team does not necessarily equate to winning championships. However, what about winning games in general?

We took a look at the win/loss records of all the stat leaders, and there were some leaders on losing teams such as D’Qwell Jackson of the Browns. In 2008, Jackson led the league in tackles with 154, but Cleveland could only muster a record of 4-12.

However, when we added together the records of all the stat leaders from 2002 to 2008, we found that the combined record of their teams was over .500. In fact, the overall combined record for the seven years we analyzed was 429 wins and 307 losses or a winning percentage of .582. This is slightly better than a single season record of 9-7, which is often good enough for a playoff berth.

What we conclude is this: Teams need their stat leaders, but having those leaders is not a sure trip to the Super Bowl.