Bears best defense ever? (1 Viewer)

[David Yudkin]

For those that are really, really old school . . .

1920 Akron Pros 7 PA in 9 games

1922 Canton Bulldogs 15 PA in 12 games

1927 New York Giants 20 PA in 13 games

1929 Green Bay Packers 22 PA in 13 games

1942 Chicago Bears 84 PA in 11 games (rest of league averaged 184 PA)

1962 Green Bay Packers 148 PA in 14 games (rest of league averaged 322 PA)

1963 Chicago Bears 144 PA in 14 games (rest of league averaged 321 PA)

1969 Minnesota Vikings 133 PA in 14 games (rest of league averaged 300 PA)

 

[BGP]

That's not how I've used this stat. A .5 difference is not significant. What is significant is neither team is over 20. A YPPA over 20 is a signature of a strong defense. A YPPA of 16 is actually pretty crappy. I would grade both defenses as mediocre to poor.I think it does award the best defenses. Its more difficult to only give up 200 points if you give up 5000 yards than if you only give up 1500 yards. The defense probably had to come up with more huge plays to stop all those extra drives for no points.Look at it this way. Is it more impressive for your defense to go out there for 15 straight drives and give up 0 points, or 3 drives? Of course the 15 is more impressive. And the defense that had the streak of 15 is going to have a much higher YPPA.

If you think Tampa was a "mediocre" defense because it had a ~16 YPPA, you have lost your freaking mind. Last season, Tampa finished 1st in yards allowed, 8th in points allowed, 12th in takeaways, and 7th in 3rd-down conversion percentage. That's not "mediocre", that's fantastic.

Yes I would call it a mediocre defense. I say that because opposing offenses got a lot of points out of the limited opportunites they had against that defense. That belies some fundamental breakdowns somewhere. I guess I'll break the Tampa's 2005 season down game-by-game in reverse order:week 17: Bucs 27, Saints 13Saints 303 yards/13 points = 23.54 YPPA - great d for that game.week 16: Bucs 27, Falcons 24 (OT)Bucs outgained Falcons 444-281 but it went into OT anyway.Falcons: 281 yards/24 points = 11.29 YPPA. ICK! What happened?One thing that sticks out huge to me is that the Falcons got in the red zone three times. Each time the Falcons got a touchdown. No red zone defense. And that gets back to what I'm talking about. The Falcons had limited oppotunities, but they were extremely efficient with them and squeezed every point they could out of the yards they got.week 15: Bucs 0, Patriots 28Patriots 336 yards / 28 points = 12 YPPA. Another terrible number.What happened in this game? The Patriots had several poor drives. But the Patriots got in the red 4x and every single time they scored a TD. So in these two weeks here, the Tampa Bay defense, the defense I've apparently lost my freaking mind over because they were so great, has given up 7 TDs in the last 7 red zone trips by the opponent. Well, the Patriots did enter the red zone at the end of this game but took kneeldowns to run out the clock. So 7 out of 8... But teams are maximizing their opportunities against the Bucs defense.I see a medicore defense already. I'll stop here since this is time-consuming. Just trust me next time.

 

[The Kerminator]

Bump

 

[SSOG]

That's not how I've used this stat. A .5 difference is not significant. What is significant is neither team is over 20. A YPPA over 20 is a signature of a strong defense. A YPPA of 16 is actually pretty crappy. I would grade both defenses as mediocre to poor.I think it does award the best defenses. Its more difficult to only give up 200 points if you give up 5000 yards than if you only give up 1500 yards. The defense probably had to come up with more huge plays to stop all those extra drives for no points.Look at it this way. Is it more impressive for your defense to go out there for 15 straight drives and give up 0 points, or 3 drives? Of course the 15 is more impressive. And the defense that had the streak of 15 is going to have a much higher YPPA.

If you think Tampa was a "mediocre" defense because it had a ~16 YPPA, you have lost your freaking mind. Last season, Tampa finished 1st in yards allowed, 8th in points allowed, 12th in takeaways, and 7th in 3rd-down conversion percentage. That's not "mediocre", that's fantastic.

Yes I would call it a mediocre defense. I say that because opposing offenses got a lot of points out of the limited opportunites they had against that defense. That belies some fundamental breakdowns somewhere. I guess I'll break the Tampa's 2005 season down game-by-game in reverse order:week 17: Bucs 27, Saints 13Saints 303 yards/13 points = 23.54 YPPA - great d for that game.week 16: Bucs 27, Falcons 24 (OT)Bucs outgained Falcons 444-281 but it went into OT anyway.Falcons: 281 yards/24 points = 11.29 YPPA. ICK! What happened?One thing that sticks out huge to me is that the Falcons got in the red zone three times. Each time the Falcons got a touchdown. No red zone defense. And that gets back to what I'm talking about. The Falcons had limited oppotunities, but they were extremely efficient with them and squeezed every point they could out of the yards they got.week 15: Bucs 0, Patriots 28Patriots 336 yards / 28 points = 12 YPPA. Another terrible number.What happened in this game? The Patriots had several poor drives. But the Patriots got in the red 4x and every single time they scored a TD. So in these two weeks here, the Tampa Bay defense, the defense I've apparently lost my freaking mind over because they were so great, has given up 7 TDs in the last 7 red zone trips by the opponent. Well, the Patriots did enter the red zone at the end of this game but took kneeldowns to run out the clock. So 7 out of 8... But teams are maximizing their opportunities against the Bucs defense.I see a medicore defense already. I'll stop here since this is time-consuming. Just trust me next time.

Again, this is absolutely ludicrous. If they had a game where the held the other team to 100 total yards and 10 points, you'd be going on and on about how this was a horrible defensive showing.Ludicrous.

 

[BGP]

That's not how I've used this stat. A .5 difference is not significant. What is significant is neither team is over 20. A YPPA over 20 is a signature of a strong defense. A YPPA of 16 is actually pretty crappy. I would grade both defenses as mediocre to poor.I think it does award the best defenses. Its more difficult to only give up 200 points if you give up 5000 yards than if you only give up 1500 yards. The defense probably had to come up with more huge plays to stop all those extra drives for no points.Look at it this way. Is it more impressive for your defense to go out there for 15 straight drives and give up 0 points, or 3 drives? Of course the 15 is more impressive. And the defense that had the streak of 15 is going to have a much higher YPPA.

If you think Tampa was a "mediocre" defense because it had a ~16 YPPA, you have lost your freaking mind. Last season, Tampa finished 1st in yards allowed, 8th in points allowed, 12th in takeaways, and 7th in 3rd-down conversion percentage. That's not "mediocre", that's fantastic.

Yes I would call it a mediocre defense. I say that because opposing offenses got a lot of points out of the limited opportunites they had against that defense. That belies some fundamental breakdowns somewhere. I guess I'll break the Tampa's 2005 season down game-by-game in reverse order:week 17: Bucs 27, Saints 13Saints 303 yards/13 points = 23.54 YPPA - great d for that game.week 16: Bucs 27, Falcons 24 (OT)Bucs outgained Falcons 444-281 but it went into OT anyway.Falcons: 281 yards/24 points = 11.29 YPPA. ICK! What happened?One thing that sticks out huge to me is that the Falcons got in the red zone three times. Each time the Falcons got a touchdown. No red zone defense. And that gets back to what I'm talking about. The Falcons had limited oppotunities, but they were extremely efficient with them and squeezed every point they could out of the yards they got.week 15: Bucs 0, Patriots 28Patriots 336 yards / 28 points = 12 YPPA. Another terrible number.What happened in this game? The Patriots had several poor drives. But the Patriots got in the red 4x and every single time they scored a TD. So in these two weeks here, the Tampa Bay defense, the defense I've apparently lost my freaking mind over because they were so great, has given up 7 TDs in the last 7 red zone trips by the opponent. Well, the Patriots did enter the red zone at the end of this game but took kneeldowns to run out the clock. So 7 out of 8... But teams are maximizing their opportunities against the Bucs defense.I see a medicore defense already. I'll stop here since this is time-consuming. Just trust me next time.

Again, this is absolutely ludicrous. If they had a game where the held the other team to 100 total yards and 10 points, you'd be going on and on about how this was a horrible defensive showing.Ludicrous.

I think red zone defense is a critical component of a great defense, so its not ludicrous.

 

[SSOG]

I think red zone defense is a critical component of a great defense, so its not ludicrous.

You know what's better than a good red-zone defense? A defense that never lets the other team into the red zone in the first place.Seriously, if you're claiming that giving up 10 points and 300 yards in a game is more impressive than giving up 10 points and 100 yards in a game, then you've lost your mind.What if the defense gives up 3 points and holds the other team to negative yardage? Would that be like the worst game in YPPA history?

 

[BGP]

I think red zone defense is a critical component of a great defense, so its not ludicrous.

You know what's better than a good red-zone defense? A defense that never lets the other team into the red zone in the first place.

But as I just showed, the Bucs that you said I had lost my freaking mind over let opponents into the red zone 8 times in 2 games. The only time they didn't give up a TD was when the Patriots took a knee to end the game. 8 red zone attempts in two games is a long way from "never allowing a team in the red zone".

 

[BGP]

But over the course of 16 games, a lot of those situations even out for every club. Its not something I would use for 1 game, or a stretch of few games. I think it works well when looking at a season, however.What this does tells us is how inefficient opposing offenses are made to be by the defense. When an offense looks to be efficient, it seeks to obtain the most points out of every yard it gains. A good defense is one that makes the opposing offense work hard for every point. And that is the fundamental basis for YPP and YPPA.

I disagree. YPPA awards teams that either give up very few points, or a lot of yards. That's not consistantly awarding the best defenses. If one team allows 200 points and 1500 yards, and another team allows 200 points and 5000 yards, the second team will score more than THREE TIMES higher on YPPA.Let's look at an example from last year. Last year, Tampa Bay allowed 4444 yards and 274 points (16.2 YPPA). The New York Giants allowed 5240 yards and 314 points (16.7 YPPA). According to YPPA, despite allowing MORE points and MORE yards, New York ranks as a better defense than Tampa Bay last year.If you want a truly intuitive stat, try one that rewards for allowing fewer points and FEWER yards, not fewer points and MORE yards.

That's not how I've used this stat. A .5 difference is not significant. What is significant is neither team is over 20. A YPPA over 20 is a signature of a strong defense. A YPPA of 16 is actually pretty crappy. I would grade both defenses as mediocre to poor.I think it does award the best defenses. Its more difficult to only give up 200 points if you give up 5000 yards than if you only give up 1500 yards. The defense probably had to come up with more huge plays to stop all those extra drives for no points.Look at it this way. Is it more impressive for your defense to go out there for 15 straight drives and give up 0 points, or 3 drives? Of course the 15 is more impressive. And the defense that had the streak of 15 is going to have a much higher YPPA.

Denver's YPPA through 5 games is 39.65. Is that good or something?

For a 5 game stretch its awesome. We'll see where the Bears and Broncos are after 16 games though.

 

[flapgreen]

Bears=Best team EVAH

 

[DrJ]

The average offense faced by the 77 Falcons scored 15.8 PPG, so they allowed their opponents 58.35% of their total output. So far, they are #1...The 06 Bears opponents are getting an average of 17.4 PPG. So far they are holding them to 41.2% of their output.ETA: Ravens opponents score 15.6 PPG this year (holding opps to 59%), San Diego opponents have scored 14.2 PPG (Holding opps to 63%), and Denver opponents are getting 20.4 PPG (Holding opps to 41.6%). So, only the Broncos defense has been nearly as impressive as Da Bears this season.

Was looking back on the numbers of the 63' Bears, and in terms of % of opponents average, they blow ALL of these guys away. 77 Falcons, 85 or 86 Bears, 00 Ravens....just blow em away.The average offense they faced scored 20.5 PPG. The allowed 10.2 PPG, or about 50% of their opponent's average. Pretty nuts.I'm thinking that the top 2 defenses of all time have to be the 85 Bears (because of their QB sacks, turnovers, etc) and the 63 Bears (because of these point numbers). You can argue either way, depending on whether you value points or turnovers more, but these are your two.

 

[Gr00vus]

The average offense faced by the 77 Falcons scored 15.8 PPG, so they allowed their opponents 58.35% of their total output. So far, they are #1...The 06 Bears opponents are getting an average of 17.4 PPG. So far they are holding them to 41.2% of their output.ETA: Ravens opponents score 15.6 PPG this year (holding opps to 59%), San Diego opponents have scored 14.2 PPG (Holding opps to 63%), and Denver opponents are getting 20.4 PPG (Holding opps to 41.6%). So, only the Broncos defense has been nearly as impressive as Da Bears this season.

Was looking back on the numbers of the 63' Bears, and in terms of % of opponents average, they blow ALL of these guys away. 77 Falcons, 85 or 86 Bears, 00 Ravens....just blow em away.The average offense they faced scored 20.5 PPG. The allowed 10.2 PPG, or about 50% of their opponent's average. Pretty nuts.I'm thinking that the top 2 defenses of all time have to be the 85 Bears (because of their QB sacks, turnovers, etc) and the 63 Bears (because of these point numbers). You can argue either way, depending on whether you value points or turnovers more, but these are your two.

You make valid points.That being said, posts like yours make that old SNL skit seem even funnier than I remember it.