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Re: Opponents’ pass-completion percentage...
Great post, NWN! 
Originally posted by NWNewell
As an engineer, few things irritate me more than the mis-use of statistics. Love to see statistics out of context (sense the sarcasim).
People shouldn't give a crap about the completion percentage. What I worry about most, after points/game, is the yards/attempt. How well do they move the ball when they try to pass? If opponents completed 100% of their passes for only 3yds/attempt, they would be looking at 4th and 1 a lot (extreme example). Our defenses completion percentage may look terrible, but our yards/attempt is not too bad (6.8yds/att = ranked 15th). And even that is a little inflated because we've played with a two possession lead quite often and used prevent to ensure that the opponents would take a long time to score and not have enough time to sustain multiple long scoring drives. Hence, why our 4th quarter completion percentage is ~70%.
Now, I'm not saying that our pass defense has been stellar, it has not. But it's no where near as dire as these hand plucked individual stats portray it to be.
I'm a little concerned about Brees and the Saints. But only if Brees and the Saints are patient and are capable of playing a savvy finesse short yardage passing game. I have my doubts about that. Most of Brees yards and TD's come from the big play. I think Brees will try to go for the big play too often and that will be the Saints downfall (if our secondary stays disciplined and doesn't become impatient themselves, trying to jump the short yardage routes and get burned deep).
Our defense emphasizes stopping the run, deep passes, and yards after the catch, forcing them to sustain long drives and earn their points through many short yardage pass completions. If out league leading 13.7pt/g (leading by nearly 3pt/g) demonstrates anything, it's that this is a tough way to put points on the board. Every year people criticize our pass defense (except 200
. But it is nearly impossible to play lights out against both the run and the pass at the same time. DL has schemed a great way to shut down the run while at the same time managing the pass defense in a way that make's it difficult to put points on the board. Since DL has been with the Steelers in 2004, the Steelers have averaged 16.6pt/g and had the number 1 ranked scoring defense four times. I don't think you will fined another defense that has performed better over the past seven years. (Baltimore has averaged 17.4 and was ranked 1st once) Oh, and by the way... Our amazing 2008 defensive effort that had us #1 across the board (rushing, passing, overall, scoring), well, we averaged 13.9pt/g. So far, the end result of this years efforts have been better than in 2008.
When are Steelers fans going to learn the ingenious of DL scheme and stop listening to inflammatory media snippets and out of context statistics. I thought Steeler Nation had a better football IQ than that.
People shouldn't give a crap about the completion percentage. What I worry about most, after points/game, is the yards/attempt. How well do they move the ball when they try to pass? If opponents completed 100% of their passes for only 3yds/attempt, they would be looking at 4th and 1 a lot (extreme example). Our defenses completion percentage may look terrible, but our yards/attempt is not too bad (6.8yds/att = ranked 15th). And even that is a little inflated because we've played with a two possession lead quite often and used prevent to ensure that the opponents would take a long time to score and not have enough time to sustain multiple long scoring drives. Hence, why our 4th quarter completion percentage is ~70%.
Now, I'm not saying that our pass defense has been stellar, it has not. But it's no where near as dire as these hand plucked individual stats portray it to be.
I'm a little concerned about Brees and the Saints. But only if Brees and the Saints are patient and are capable of playing a savvy finesse short yardage passing game. I have my doubts about that. Most of Brees yards and TD's come from the big play. I think Brees will try to go for the big play too often and that will be the Saints downfall (if our secondary stays disciplined and doesn't become impatient themselves, trying to jump the short yardage routes and get burned deep).
Our defense emphasizes stopping the run, deep passes, and yards after the catch, forcing them to sustain long drives and earn their points through many short yardage pass completions. If out league leading 13.7pt/g (leading by nearly 3pt/g) demonstrates anything, it's that this is a tough way to put points on the board. Every year people criticize our pass defense (except 200
. But it is nearly impossible to play lights out against both the run and the pass at the same time. DL has schemed a great way to shut down the run while at the same time managing the pass defense in a way that make's it difficult to put points on the board. Since DL has been with the Steelers in 2004, the Steelers have averaged 16.6pt/g and had the number 1 ranked scoring defense four times. I don't think you will fined another defense that has performed better over the past seven years. (Baltimore has averaged 17.4 and was ranked 1st once) Oh, and by the way... Our amazing 2008 defensive effort that had us #1 across the board (rushing, passing, overall, scoring), well, we averaged 13.9pt/g. So far, the end result of this years efforts have been better than in 2008.When are Steelers fans going to learn the ingenious of DL scheme and stop listening to inflammatory media snippets and out of context statistics. I thought Steeler Nation had a better football IQ than that.
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