The Red Zone Post - 2009 Edition - Part 2

Picking up from yesterday, after a minor detour to fix some stats issue identified by ATG ...

Time to talk about Donovan.  Here are the numbers:

As we learned on Monday, presumably these are combined regular and postseason stats.  And as before, the percentage columns allows us to better compare across seasons.  (Touchdown and Interception percentages are per attempts; sack percentage is per attempts plus sacks.)

I thought we might actually see a more striking difference in terms of sack percentage.  Overall, McNabb was much, much better about not taking sacks last year than he has been throughout his career:

His red zone numbers are in line with those full season numbers, but because he's typically been better about not taking sacks in the red zone, the RZ numbers don't change much.

The interception percentage is obviously also high.  We're talking about uber-small sample sizes here, but still, it's more than you'd like to see.  Especially because the team's total red zone interception number was five:  three by McNabb, one by Kolb and one by DeSean Jackson.  (The numbers above are just McNabb.)

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Just because I was curious, I ran some 2008 leaguewide numbers against each other:

I don't know enough about how they derive DVOA to say much about that, but it's at least somewhat interesting.

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So now that we've broken things down by unit, let's go drive by drive.  Summary table of red zone results:

You'll note the numbers here don't exactly match the PFW numbers from above.  I count 66 trips instead of 63 because of the two kneeldowns (which I'm guessing PFW smartly takes out of their comparative stats) and because Buckhalter had a touchdown run from the 20-yard-line.  The FO stats consider that in the red zone, and I do too.  But PFW doesn't, so they end up with 31 touchdowns in 63 trips. 

It doesn't make a huge difference either way.  If you add that touchdown into PFW's stats, the Eagles only go from 49.2 percent to 50.0 percent, moving them into a tie for 21st.  But it does add a complicating factor as we compare stats within different datasets.

(Also, the "penalty" was a holding call that knocked them out of the red zone for good.)

A couple interesting things in that chart:

1. The FGs as time expired.  Both of these were late first half drives where the Eagles got the ball and raced down to the red zone to kick field goals on second down with almost no time left.  Hard to criticize the offense for these.
2. The two blocked field goals.  Those just shouldn't happen in the red zone.  Also can't blame the offense for an inability to convert 32- and 34-yard field goals.
3. The five interceptions.  Those were killers.  Over 31 percent of the team's interceptions came on the 19 percent of plays in the red zone. (If you just count McNabb, it's about 19 percent for each.)

So how far off were the Eagles?  Well, using the PFW numbers for leaguewide comparisons, to get to "average" in term of score percentage, they only need to convert one of those two blocked field goals.  To become top 10, they need to make both the blocked field goals and then pick up 1.5 other scores.

The touchdown side is a little more difficult.  They need two more touchdowns to get to average, five-and-a-half to eke into the top 10. 

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As a side note, I have to say that after a week of staring at these numbers, the whole idea of the "red zone" is starting to seem awfully arbitrary.  We're lumping together red zone possesions that start with second-and-six on the 17 with those that begin with first-and-goal on the eight.  We count second-and-eight on the 19, but not first-and-10 on the 21, even though the latter is arguably a better situation. 

All of which means that when we throw around these numbers, we're not really talking about red zone performance, but rather "red zone performance," where the phrase in quotes is something that tastes almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea a proxy for what we're really trying to measure.

Which isn't to say this stuff doesn't have value.  The incredibly consistent decline of the team's "red zone performance" does not, after six years, seem random. 

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So now the big question everyone wants to ask:  Who's to blame?

First answer is that I stand by the Westbrook Theory.  When you have a guy who makes up that big a portion of your offense, but isn't as effective down by the goal line (due to an overabundance of attention), it has to have an impact. 

The second is receiving talent.  Now that we have the corrected graphic from yesterday, let's put it up again:

 

We said yesterday that the goal is to score TDs 60 percent of the time in the red zone.  With a 60/40 pass/run breakdown, that means you need to score passing TDs 36 percent of the time.  The numbers above are coming up a little short.

I don't know how much we're going to be able to bump up the running back percentage.  Teams are so keyed in on those guys down there -- especially Westbrook -- that it doesn't seem like a profitable way to go.  That leaves tight end -- and we know those guys could be better -- and wide receiver ... which I think bleeds the discussion over into issue number three ...

... which would be Donovan McNabb.  Don's a great quarterback, but it's fair to say his strength isn't making anticipatory throws on the money into tight spaces.  That's fine when he's throwing to a big, physical guy like Terrell Owens or even Chad Lewis, but it doesn't work as well when he's supposed to throw a slant to Kevin Curtis.  Take away the run threat and his big targets, and it's perhaps not surprising that he's struggled some.

The final explanation would of course be the playcalling.  I understand the Eagles are keying off a defensive alignment when they audible to splits backs and run the shovel pass, but when a couple thousand fans are at home whispering "shovel, shovel, shovel," when it happens, you have to wonder how many surprises these guys still have in store.  (And note, as always, that I think this is the least important factor.)

What that all means is that this season is shaping up to be a bit of a test.  The run game should certainly be better (if the line gels, Weaver does well, Westbrook stays healthy and McCoy hangs on to the football), but the real test will likely come in the passing game. 

If I'm wrong about McNabb, maybe we'll see Jackson, Curtis and Maclin jitterbugging all over the place and scoring tons of red zone touchdowns.  If I'm right, the most important guys are going to be Brent Celek and Cornelius Ingram, two big bodies who can put themselves between McNabb and the defender and give him a backstop to throw into. 

As with last year, I guess we'll see.

The Red Zone Post - 2009 Edition - Part 1

^{- Posted by Derek -}

Another year, another post about the red zone.  If you're into the history of things (or just have a lot of time to kill), you can check out some previous posts covering the red zone here, here and here.  Or just read last year's version of today's post here.

I'm going to start with a lot of descriptive stuff, and then maybe at the end we can "figure it all out."

As usual, the base red zone statistics are from Pro Football Weekly.  Unfortunately, I can't link to them any more.  They just redesigned their site (as in within the past few days) and I can no longer find the red zone stats.  I'm not sure if they're now behind a paywall or they just took them down completely, but either way, you'll have to trust the numbers below.  Luckily I grabbed them before they disappeared.

Here's the historical trend:

 

Bottom line:  the Eagles were somewhat improved last year in terms of touchdown percentage, but still not where they used to be.  The TD% ranks from 2003 to 2008 go 3rd, 3rd, 12th, 10th, 24th, 22nd.  Not a great trend.

It's a little hard to make an eyeball comparison for the Pass TD / Rush TD numbers, since the quantity of red zone possessions has changed so dramatically over the years.  So here's the same table above in percentage terms:

Now that's a bit more illuminating.  For all the issues the Eagles had running the ball last year, the rush TD numbers are in line with what we saw from 2005 to 2006 (when the Eagles were a top 10 or 12 RZ offense).  It actually appears to be the passing TD numbers that are down.

To be clear, I don't think there exists one "best" way to score in the red zone.  If you're a power rushing team, you might as well bull your way into the end zone.  If you're the Cardinals, spread everyone out and run picks all day with/for Boldin and Fitzgerald. 

Another way of saying the same thing is that we all understand the 2003 season was really weird.  That was the year of the three-headed monster rushing attack, the likes of which we haven't seen before or since with Andy Reid.  Even with the revamped offensive line and new fullback Leonard Weaver, it doesn't seem likely we'll see another season with that kind of running emphasis any time soon. 

So if you carry Reid's 60/40 pass/run split to the red zone ... and you aim for touchdowns on about 60 percent of the trips ... you end up with about 36/24 in terms of pass TDs and rush TDs. 

The Eagles were closer to the rushing part of that equation.  (With the final note being that two rushing TDs came from McNabb and one from DeSean.)

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Of course, the actual scoring of the touchdown is just the last bit of the red zone offense.  Which is to say, you could be great at converting those second-and-goals from the two-yard-line, but not so good at running the ball in the red zone to get yourself to that position.

This, in fact, seems to be the situation the Eagles found themselves in (oh, except for the being "great" at running anywhere bit).  And it's yet one more piece of evidence for why playing the 2008 season without a real fullback was a truly colossal blunder.

For this section, I'm relying on the FO game charting stats I've been referencing recently.  I've pulled out every red zone play to see what I could find.  Here are some eye-opening red zone rushing statistics (only running back rushes counted):

  

If you're a plain vanilla kind of guy, the first chart is for you.  It demonstrates rather conclusively that the Eagles' only competent rushing attack came with single backs and that the shorter the yardage needed, the worse the offense did. 

With that said, there's an issue with those numbers.  Westbrook managed two longer runs out of single back sets -- a 17-yarder on first-and-10 and a 16-yarder on second-and-four.  Those two runs pretty dramatically change the averages, so in the second table I've taken them out. 

I think the nice thing about that table is that it shows how few options the Eagles had in short yardage situations.  Yes, they could stick with the single-back sets on first-and-10, but on second-and-four, that wasn't really an option.  It was better than running Hunt or Klecko out there, but still not that effective.

Now I know what some of you are thinking right now:  "Well of course the average goes down in short yardage, because on first-and-10 you're trying to get as many yards as possible and on third-and-one you're trying to get, well, one.  He's stealing a base."

It's a good point, but the same issues show up if you look to see if they did, in fact, get that yard on third-and-one:

That's a listing of all 19 short yardage, multiple back, red zone rushing plays the Eagles ran last year.  Of the 19 plays, the Eagles "won" seven, in the sense that they picked up enough yards for a first down or touchdown.  But four of those wins came on first and goal at the one yard line.  Everywhere else, things were pretty abysmal.

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UPDATE:  I just realized, thanks to ATG, that these individual numbers below lump together regular and postseason play.  So the charts are still useful for a sense of the entire season, but it messes up the percentage table down below.  It also explains why we're showing more touchdowns from the tight end position here than in the next section.

For the next section, here's an update on a chart I did last year:

That's getting a bit large to take in all at once, so here are the summary tables:

Once again -- and this is something I didn't think of last year -- it's important to put this into percentage terms, to get a better handle on production per red zone trip.  So that last table shows that in 2004, wide receivers caught touchdown passes on 19.1 percent of red zone trips.  In 2008, the corresponding figure was 12.7 percent.

UPDATE: So here's where the error compounds.  Counting just the regular season, the tight end number would be about as bad as last year, especially if you don't give Herremans tight end credit.  This actually makes more sense, so it's good to see.  Here's a revised version of that last chart:

Now, again, 2004 isn't the best comparison, in the opposite way that 2003 is tricky.  The Eagles had an incredible red zone passing attack that year, but those figures probably aren't the "ideal."

The biggest question, I think, is what's up the tight ends.  Twelve TD catches from that position (the 2004 number) seems like an awful lot.  For comparison, let's take a look at the 2008 tight end numbers leaguewide (note: these are all TE TDs, not just those in the red zone):

So yeah, 12 would be a lot.  We could see seven though.

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Unfortunately, with that, I think I'm going to have to call it a night and make this a two-parter.  I could rush out the McNabb and "how they were stopped" stuff, but I'd rather do that right.  So Part II on Tuesday.

Revising Those Sack Stats

Clearly, it's Upon Further Review day around here. 

Back in early May, I put up this post that took a look at some of the Eagles' defensive stats and how they matched up historically.  My big takeaway, and lingering concern, was about interior pass rush, or rather the lack thereof.  We're still going to have to wait for the PFP game charting numbers to come out to resolve some of the debate around that issue, but thanks to some reporting by Bob Brookover today, we can refine the data a bit.

In a look at an under-the-radar Darren Howard -- and really, no one talks about him -- Brookover includes this bit:

The way he helped most was as a pass-rushing defensive tackle in the Eagles' nickel defense. He estimated that six of his 10 sacks came at defensive tackle rather than defensive end, the position the Eagles anticipated him playing when they signed him to a six-year, $32 million contract in 2006.

Assuming that's reasonably accurate, let's revisit that sack breakdown chart:

I left Howard '06 and '07 seasons unclassified.  I think most of those sacks came at end, but we don't know for sure and it doesn't really change things much either way.

Bottom line:  Even if you throw Howard's six DT sacks into the mix, you're still looking at interior pass rush numbers that are lower than what we saw the last time the defense was really good.  And what's unnerving is that we're not seeing much reason to believe the back seven can help pick up the slack.

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Now, I understand some people will think this isn't that important.  And it's true that for the Eagles to be a good team, they can just "limp along" with their current interior pass rush.  But let's say the Cardinals defy every recent trend and we see them in the playoffs again next year.  We already know covering everyone is out the window.  And you can't take the long way 'round to Warner because he gets rid of the ball too quickly.  In that case, some guys with the ability to come flying up the middle would come in awfully handy.

Follow Up To The Red Zone Defense Post

A few weeks ago, I put up a quick look at the way the Eagles' defense performed in the red zone last year.  The post was really just a data dump, but it did raise a couple of interesting questions I said I would go back and revisit.

The first issue that came up is that clearly not everyone reads Pro Football Prospectus.  That's pretty much homework around here, but it explains why some people didn't realize how good the Eagles' red zone defense typically is.

Skipping all the methodology stuff, here are the relevant quotes from the essay in the 2007 PFP (pp. 447-451):

[T]he Patriots, Eagles and Jets were responsible for 13 of the 44 teams on our [bend but don't break] list...   Jim Johnson took over in 1999 and has had five BBDB seasons in eight years.  The year before he joined the Eagles, Johnson was a defensive assistant on the 1998 Seahawks, another team on this list...

The Eagles have had an above average red zone defense in every year of Johnson's tenure except for their injury-plagued 2005 season... 

It is not completely satisfying to say that the Eagles simply have a good red zone defense without addressing why.  The obvious answer to any Jim Johnson question is that he loves to blitz.  The blitz is especially effective when a defense is backed up against its own goal line because the secondary has less ground to cover...

It's important to note that red zone DVOA is not highly correlated from year to year for most teams, which further emphasizes how unsustainable Bend But Don't Break defenses are.  The Eagles and Patriots are notable for their ability to consistently perform at a high level in the red zone, but they are exceptions, not the rule. 

Another question that was raised was this comment by ATG:

The "bend but don't break" discussion might be aided by knowing how many scores came from outside of the redzone. Is it more often true that teams chipping away, little by little, or are teams rolling the dice on each play and getting lucky occasionally from everywhere on the field?

I've assembled a few charts to address part, though not all, of that question.  (The drive stats are from FO, the overall stats are NFL.com, and the red zone numbers are, as usual, Pro Football Weekly.) 

The first couple charts are Eagles-only:

Upon further review, the most striking thing about the Eagles red zone numbers is just how few times they allowed the opposition to get down there.  Only the Giants allowed fewer red zone trips (35), and as we'll see in a moment, that's not a totally positive statistic for them. 

For whatever reason, the Eagles were not as good at preventing red zone touchdowns as they have been the past.  As we saw in the last post, however, it was really sort of an up and down thing.  The last month of the season was much better.

Overall, however, the Eagles were very good at preventing teams from scoring, which is of course what matters most.  They posted their best TD / drive and Non-RZ TD / drive numbers in the past six years (and second-best score / drive). 

Here's a leaguewide comparison for 2008:

 

A few things jump out at me with that chart:

• The Patriots allowed touchdowns on two-thirds of all red zone possessions.  So much for the PFP essay above.
• The Eagles faced the second-highest number of opposing drives last year, behind only the noted offensive powerhouse up in Chicago.  Yes, they really needed some new offensive linemen and a fullback.
• Take a close look at those Giants' numbers.  The New York defense faced 26 fewer drives that the Eagles' defense, allowed a similar number of red zone touchdowns, but also yielded touchdowns on more than 10 percent of drives that didn't reach the end zone.  That's an awful lot of big plays given up.
• I'm sure there are 87 reasons why it's not a statistically valid way of looking at things, but if you care, the correlation between RZ TD% and Non-RZ TD% is 0.55.
• If you're a bottom line type of guy, the Eagles were 15th in RZ TD%, 8th in Non-RZ TD%, and 4th in Total Score %.

A Close Look: Red Zone ... Defense

I know, I know, not the post a number of people have requested, but I'm stil sifting through the defensive stats right now.  Chart-heavy post for today.

Courtesy of our oft-cited friends at Pro Football Weekly, some history:

The "score %" metric really doesn't have much value as a defensive evaluation.  It's mostly a measure of how much other teams are playing from way behind.

The TD % is important, however, and as you can see from the chart, it's one of the few areas the Eagles' defense wasn't all that great last year.  To a large extent, that's mitigated by the low number of red zone trips they allowed, but it's still something to monitor.

You can chop up the season into chunks:

And here's a look at the week-to-week performance:

A few things jump out at me there:

• Terrible red zone performances in the first Giants game and against the Cardinals.  Arizona repeated its three-for-three performance in the NFC Championship Game.
• The division rivals shredded us to the tune of 12 / 9 / 3 the first time we played all of them.  The second set of games went 6 / 2 / 2.
• Need some more thought on the WR/TE/RB split in terms of receiving touchdowns.  The first thought is that that's a lot of TDs by TEs, but three of those were one-yarders.  The longer TE catches dried up after week five against Washington.

After the break, all the red zone touchdowns scored against the Eagles this year:

Write Your Own Story

So far, I've focused mostly on the offense in these offseason dead language analyses, mostly because that's where the bigger issues seemed to be.  Heading into free agency and the draft, we could see where the action was (or at least needed to be).

But now it's time to focus on the defense ... which so far is proving to be a bit difficult.  There are a host of complicating factors that are making comparisons across seasons kind of tough.  And not all the data make that much sense.

For example, here's a chart I've been staring at for the past hour:

 

There are parts of that chart I get.  Trent Cole has made himself into a very good -- and very underrated -- run defender.  On the other side, Juqua Parker is not a very good run defender.  Those things make sense.

What I don't understand is those mid/guard numbers.  Aren't we all in love with these defensive tackles?  Don't they do a great job plugging those interior lanes?  Why are the Eagles the only run defense in the top nine that allows more than 4.0 ALYs up the middle (Jax is #10 and allows 4.15)?

Do we blame the linebackers?  Does that even make sense when the guy in the middle was the best of the bunch?  And if it's up to the MIKE, how come the numbers bounced around so much during the Trotter years?

Furthermore, everyone always talks about how Victor Abiamiri can be the new Brandon Whiting.  Maybe he won't get to the QB, but at least he'll play the run well ... except that those 2000 to 2003 right tackle / LDE are (mostly) not that great.  And that was when we had Emmons playing the strongside.

The first thought for the 2008 mid/guard issue would be the divisional opponents, but check out their ALYs:

The Giants were killers up the middle, but they were even better over the left side.  Washington and Dallas were middle of the pack.

So here's the question:  do these numbers even mean anything?  Remember, these are adjusted line yards, so it's not like one or two big gains can skew the numbers.  On the other hand, if they bounce around too much, you have to worry about the impact of things like charter / scorekeeper error and not overly large sample sizes. 

I'm opening the floor.  What's your theory for the mediocre up-the-gut numbers?  And how can we use that to explain other strange past results?  Here's the relevant Football Outsiders page if you want to do more research.  I'm all ears.

Roster Turnover And Experience

Updating some charts here now that we have a better sense of how the starting lineups are going to shake out this year.  First, the roster turnover graphic (click for full size):

Six years, six different (projected) starting WILs...

Assuming the lineup above, here's the experience chart (again, click for full size):

  

The "stealth" rebuilding has been talked about so many times around here -- and, over the last year, other places -- that it's not really a secret any more.  However, it's still striking to see how much the Eagles have turned things over since the Super Bowl:

• Only three starters remain from 2004.
• After the 2005 debacle, Reid installed new starters at 10 positions, shoving youth to the fore across the field.
• The last couple years have seen the running out of almost all the old guys.  McNabb is the only 9+ player left.  Sheldon and Westbrook are the 8s. 

Quoting myself (with apologies) for convenience:

My argument would be that teams want good players first and foremost, but once you get beyond the talent question, you're better off if the majority of your roster is in the blue or red sections.  The green players (rookies or second years) don't have the experience you want in crunch time and the graybeards (nine years and up) are generally on the wrong side of 30 and starting to lose at least one step.

If this lineup holds, 19 of the 22 spots next year will be blue or red.

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For historical interest, here's the 2007 version of this post.  And here's 2008 (go with 2007 first so you can skip the re-hash in the 2008 piece).

A Close Look: Defensive Stats

Straightforward stats post this morning.  Here's a top level comparison of the 2007 and 2008 defenses:

 

Aggregated by position group:

 

Honestly, not much this tells us other than:

1. Brian Dawkins was hurt a bunch in 2007.
2. Darren Howard was a monster in limited action in 2008.
3. The Eagles stripped the heck out of the ball in 2008

More interestingly, here are sack breakdowns going back even further:

In chart form:

You tell me how to classify Darren Howard.  He was mostly a rush tackle last year, but he did line up some at end.  I don't have breakdowns for where his sacks came from the last three seasons.

I'm still concerned by the incredible shrinking red box in that chart above.  From 2000 through 2004, (usual) starting DTs Corey Simon and Darwin Walker combined for at least nine sacks every year, reaching a high of of 14 in 2003.  Bunkley and Patterson combined for seven sacks in 2007, but they had just two last year (both by Bunk). 

Yes, Howard counts as a tackle (at least for 2008), but it's still a problem that the two starting DTs can't get to the quarterback.  And we shouldn't count on Howard duplicating his success in 2009.  Opposing offensive coordinators will focus on him this year, not to mention he'll also turn 33 in November.  I'll be surprised if he exceeds half of last year's sack total next season. 

Nor is it just an issue with Bunk and Patterson not playing in nickel situations.  Corey Simon totaled 23.5 sacks on first or second down from 2000-2004.  Good pass rushers can get to the quarterback no matter the down.

With no upgrades in sight at either OLB position, if this defense is going to take another step forward, the two starting tackles are going to have to put some pressure on the pocket.

If technique wizard Pete Jenkins wasn't able to pull that off, I'm a little skeptical about the kind of progress we can expect from Rory Segrest.

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Note: I said yesterday: "The locals just worked full time over a weekend to give us three days of wall-to-wall minicamp coverage -- an output the non-traditional media ... can't hope to match."

Credit due to GCobb and his crew.  They came pretty darn close.

A Close Look: Punting Stats

Two summers ago, I did an analysis of Dirk Johnson's punting stats that tried to go beyond the traditional gross / net rankings people always put out there by using situational stats to account for the fact that not every punter has the same distribution of scrimmage lines from which he kicks.  The somewhat surprising result was that Dirk really ... wasn't all that good.  It made me think Rocca had more of a chance than I had been giving him up to that point.

Last year, I repeated the analysis with Sav's stats.  The result:

Sav was slightly below average in his first season, with overall numbers that were pretty close to what we've seen from Dirk the past few years.  In fact, Rocca's gross and net punting figures were almost exactly in line with Dirk's 2006 stats.  Given that this was his first year punting, we should expect to see improvement in his second season.  And Sav has almost certainly done more that enough to guarantee he'll be back next year.

We're back this year with round three.  Here's the table:

 

I've highlighted in dark green the top figures from the five seasons we're looking at (2005 was an injury year for Dirk).  From the top line numbers, it's pretty clear Sav had the best season we've seen from that position in awhile -- but he was still good rather than great, with gross / net ranks that were 19th and 14th, respectively. 

He continues to demonstrate great control around the endzone.  His 5.2% touchback percentage was third-best among punters who played for one team (fifth best overall).  He was slightly below average keeping punts inside the 20 (ranked 20th), but that's in some ways a meaningless stat, since he kicked 16 balls from his own red zone in 2008 vs. only seven in 2007.  His "modified" percentage (which strips out punts from inside one's own red zone) was the best we've seen recently. 

He made great strides in terms of the return game.  Rocca had slightly more punts returned this year, but the average return was much lower, yielding a "return damage" rating much better than we've seen since 2004.  This likely relates to better consistency.  We saw fewer line drives this year from Sav.

The "long gross" figure is a little worrisome.  That's the average length of punts kicked from inside one's own 20 yard line. 

Finally, he was very, very good on punts from the opponents' half of the field, placing eight of nine of those opportunities inside the 20.

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An interesting thing about his performance this year is that his numbers would have been a lot better if he'd just missed the plane to Cincinnati.

Sav punted 10 times that day for a gross of 36.2 and a net of 31.1.  Take that performance away and he would have been at 44.5 / 40.3 for the year.  That's a net that would have put him fourth among full-time punters.

Add Sav to the list of 3,000,000 people who wish that day had never happened.

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As one final note, I took a look last year at the history of Australian punters in the NFL to see if that could teach us anything.  It's not the most illuminating analysis ever done around here, but for posterity's sake, here's the updated table:

A Close Look: McNabb vs. The League

Continuing the theme of presenting statistics I never knew were publicly available, we're going to talk today about Donovan McNabb.

I know what you're thinking:  "There's nothing new you can possibly say about McNabb -- we've heard it all before." 

Yeah, that's what I thought too.  But the place I found those individual sack statistics last week also has quarterback stats I never thought I'd get (at least until the top secret raid on Football Outsiders HQ coming up later this summer -- sign-up via email).

This is, in fact, one of my (few) complaints about the FO guys.  I never knew just how much information they had until I did the charting last year.  Now that I know, it drives me a little nuts that they publicize a statistic like "catch rate" for wide receivers.  Yes, all statistics require context for their evaluation, but that particular number is so context-specific as to be almost completely meaningless as a standalone number. 

And yet because that number is out there, people throw it around all the time, as if it sums up the guy's ability to catch the ball, and not the types of routes he runs, the quarterback throwing him the ball, and all that other stuff.

Now obviously the FO guys know all that, but they could do the rest of us a favor by publishing numbers that were a bit more illuminating -- i.e., how many balls did the guy actually drop, what percentage of throws his way were off-target or defensed, etc.

But you know what's pretty sweet?  For quarterbacks -- not wide receivers yet, just quarterbacks -- those numbers have turned up.

(I realize this all may seem a bit breathless to those of you more inclined to the "blood and guts" school of football analysis.  Pardon the stat geeks for our excitement.  Also, keep in mind these are just 2008 numbers, I haven't found anything historical yet.)

Let's roll the charts:

I have to tell you, this is one of my all-time favorite charts.  It simultaneously confirms everything we thought we knew about McNabb, while also making it clear that we (including me) have a tendency towards exaggeration when discussing his style of play.

In order:

Passes dropped -- This number surprised me.  I thought it would be much higher.  And, in fact, the Eagles' receivers did drop a lot of balls last year (29 of McNabb's passes alone).  But the thing we sometimes forget is just how often the Eagles throw the football.  Clearly the drop issue could see some improvement, but McNabb's not seeing anything other than league average when you put things into percentage terms, no matter how "stone-handed" people say his receivers are or how "hard to catch" his ball is.

Poor throw -- Yep, he's higher than average here.  McNabb's 13th-highest among the 32 qualifying quarterbacks.  However, we should keep in mind the numbers we're talking about here.  McNabb was dinged for 89 "poor throws" last year.  If he'd been average, that number would have been about 82.  That's less than one throw every two games.

Pass defensed -- Same deal here.  We know McNabb doesn't like to throw the ball into tight spaces.  And yet, while he's below league average on this number, we're talking about two throws all year.  That doesn't seem like a guy who's missing a lot of opportunities, as many of us have figured.

Pass hit at line -- Average.

Intercepted -- Yep, McNabb's low as always.  These numbers have him sixth-best at avoiding picks.  The interesting thing with this category, however, is that it's not one where you can just say, well, a couple more throws and he'd be average.  Interceptions are awfully damaging, which means those three additional picks he avoided by being better than average were pretty important.

Other -- There's no legend for this piece.  I'm guessing it's mostly spikes and balls obviously thrown away.  Either way, he's not far off the norm.

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Added bonus, after the jump because they're huge, full league charts for every category, with all the NFC East quarterbacks highlighed.  The charts speak for themselves, but you're going to see some surprises.