Some 2007 / 2008 Stat Comparisons

Crazy week.  No time for pleasantries.  Let's talk numbers.

Domo jumped on some of this stuff earlier in the week.  But of course there's always more than can be looked at with these things. 

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Red Zone Offense

One way to tell that Eagles fans aren't going too crazy just yet is that we've seen at most a minor freakout over the team's offensive red zone performance so far.  After all, the inability last year to score touchdowns after moving the ball downfield was a major factor in the team's underachieving scoring performance (relative to yards gained).

What's funny is that this year's offense really hasn't been much better:

  

It feels like  things have improved, but really that's just because the Eagles are giving themselves more chances.  They're still struggling to punch in the rock. 

Also, it's only been four games, but despite missing a game and a half, LJ Smith continues to be the most important Eagle down by the goal line:

 

Westbrook's 3.1 yard average down by the goal line is actually a signficant improvement over his career numbers.  We'll see if that's just a sample size issue as the season progresses.

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Red Zone Defense

The defensive numbers are interesting in their own right:

Many fewer red zone chances.  Much worse percentage.  Very small sample size.  Only Baltimore and New York have allowed opponents fewer red zone opportunities.  Again, it's early.  But that's certainly a good trend.

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Special Teams

Lot of attention in the offseason paid to increasing the explosiveness of the return game.  Here are the results so far:

 

I like that we're returning more punts and fewer kickoffs.  Beyond that, we're not seeing much change.  What happened to all those proven special teams players we brought in (the one who didn't get cut, I mean...)?

On the other hand, check out the punting stats:

Um.  Wow.  (Yes punt distances tend to decline over the course of the season.  Shave about a yard off of the gross and net numbers to account for that.  Still.)

The kickoff numbers aren't quite as eye-popping, but there's definite improvement here as well:

One annoying thing the NFL does with its stats is counting onside kicks in overall averages.  Makes comparisons difficult.  Fortunately -- and this is new -- they're now telling us how many onside kicks were made ("OSK" above) so we can do a quick-and-dirty correction above to find that Akers' average "real" kickoff last year was about 63.2 yards.  Still a nice improvement, even with weather effects.

That kick return average stat at the right is troubling however.  One long return pretty much kills that number though, so it's still early.

Comments

[shlynch]

Just a note on your STs that gets back to one of your favorites from the offseason. Thomas Tapeh had 27 production points in 2007 despite "not playing STs". Tony Hunt has 24 so far this year. However, they were split into 21 in game 1 ... and totals of 0, 0, 3 in the next three weeks.

So much for the big improvement on STs from the FB position.

[Me]

Not to mention I am RACKING my brain trying to figure out some way to break out the fullback's contribution to our suddenly impotent running game this year.

Wait, where did you get those numbers?

[shlynch]

I got them from the weekly game releases. I have put a spreadsheet together that has totals by player, week by week; want me to send it to you?

[Me]

A stone unturned. I've been trying to find those numbers in-season for a long time.

Emailing ya.

[shlynch]

Sorry, turns out I had previously mis-typed my e-mail address. :blush: This one will work.

[Eric]

Keep in mind NY and Baltimore have played one less game.

[Andrew]

Alright, but what is redzone scoring percentage on offense leaguewide? How about for 2007 playoff teams? How about number of trips to the redzone?

In other words, you give us the Eagles numbers, but without context, they don't mean much. Are the Eagles league average, above, or below?