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:

• Terrell Owens, 4 Yd pass from Tony Romo (Nick Folk kick is good), 10:02. Drive: 8 plays, 56 yards in 4:39.
• Marion Barber, 17 Yd pass from Tony Romo (Nick Folk kick is good), 5:08. Drive: 9 plays, 79 yards in 6:02.
• Marion Barber, 1 Yd run (Nick Folk kick is good), 4:35. Drive: 7 plays, 67 yards in 4:17.
• Greg Olsen, 19 Yd pass from Kyle Orton (Robbie Gould kick is good), 13:05. Drive: 3 plays, 59 yards in 1:16.
• Chris Cooley, 18 Yd pass from Antwaan Randle El (Shaun Suisham kick is good), 8:08. Drive: 7 plays, 75 yards in 3:27.
• Clinton Portis, 4 Yd run (Shaun Suisham kick is good), 14:54. Drive: 6 plays, 43 yards in 1:53.
• Frank Gore, 6 Yd run (Joe Nedney kick is good), 11:14. Drive: 6 plays, 78 yards in 3:46.
• Roddy White, 8 Yd pass from Matt Ryan (Jason Elam kick is good), 3:55. Drive: 14 plays, 82 yards in 4:02.
• Plaxico Burress, 17 Yd pass from Eli Manning (John Carney kick is good), 8:21. Drive: 10 plays, 80 yards in 4:57.
• Kevin Boss, 1 Yd pass from Eli Manning (John Carney kick is good), 14:55. Drive: 10 plays, 80 yards in 5:42.
• Brandon Jacobs, 3 Yd run (John Carney kick is good), 5:56. Drive: 13 plays, 69 yards in 5:28.
• Brandon Jacobs, 3 Yd run (Eli Manning 2 Pt. Conversion pass to Plaxico Burress failed), 9:30. Drive: 5 plays, 40 yards in 2:49.
• Daniel Wilcox, 1 Yd pass from Joe Flacco (Matt Stover kick is good), 1:49. Drive: 3 plays, 6 yards in 0:49.
• Le'Ron McClain, 1 Yd run (Matt Stover kick is good), 3:10. Drive: 5 plays, 36 yards in 3:01.
• Larry Fitzgerald, 1 Yd pass from Kurt Warner (Neil Rackers kick is good), 2:58. Drive: 11 plays, 81 yards in 5:26.
• Steve Breaston, 6 Yd pass from Kurt Warner (Kurt Warner 2 Pt. Conversion pass to Larry Fitzgerald failed), 3:21. Drive: 4 plays, 35 yards in 1:17.
• Larry Fitzgerald, 7 Yd pass from Kurt Warner (Neil Rackers kick is good), 14:15. Drive: 5 plays, 74 yards in 1:08.
• Darcy Johnson, 1 Yd pass from Eli Manning (John Carney kick is good), 0:15. Drive: 6 plays, 70 yards in 1:54.
• Clinton Portis, 1 Yd run (Shaun Suisham kick is good), 8:43. Drive: 5 plays, 18 yards in 2:44.