Fresh FO Content!

Yeah, we don't use exclamation points around here very often, but when the Football Outsiders guys start giving premium content away for free, we're all over it.

Gabe noted a few weeks ago that FO would be doing something a little different with Pro Football Prospectus this year, due to a little issue related to not having a publisher.  In an attempt to assuage everyone's concerns that maybe this year's version of the Football Outsiders Almanac (née PFP) wouldn't be the same great offering, they're giving away sample chapters for free. 

You can start today with the New York Giants chapter, wherein we get to see the new book is pretty much the same as the old book.  Long live the new book.

Now, with all of that said -- and really, I can't overemphasize how much you need to buy this book -- I know from personal experience that there are times one can get so excited about disproving conventional wisdom that, well, you get out in front of the data.  And they've done that here:

The correlation of the incident to the team’s downswing in performance yielded a simple narrative: The Giants offense wasn’t as good without Plaxico Burress, and it turned them into a totally different team.

That narrative is simply untrue.

The Giants’ passing offense actually improved with Burress out of the lineup ... The running game declined some without the threat of Burress stretching the field to concern opposing safeties, but it wasn’t enough to drag the offense down; the team’s offensive DVOA was 20.6% with Burress in the lineup and 27.8% over the eight games he wasn’t around.

Those topline numbers are all well and good, but check out the chart they also helpfully include:

(Ordinarily I'd not just pilfer the graphic, but since they're giving the chapter away for free -- and since you should really, really buy the book -- I think we're ok.)

I'm not denying the extent to which defensive issues contributed to the team's slide, but look at those rushing numbers.  Going from a DVOA of 21.1% to 11.3% is a huge swing.  It's basically the difference between "we can't stop those guys" and "now we've got a chance." 

And it's exactly what we predicted would happen when Plax went away for good:

Burress demands a double team ... But that's out the window now.  Today, rather than worrying about how he's going to square the circle by constantly helping over the top on Burress while also bringing enough guys into the box to stop that wicked running game, Jim Johnson has the luxury of saying, screw it, I'll let my secondary cover these guys one-on-one, focus on stopping the run, and bring extra guys all day to try to shake up Eli.

This is a huge change for the Giants.  And while it might not be enough for the Eagles to pull off a win this week, it will be enough to ensure New York isn't winning another Super Bowl. 

The reason, I would wager, that the passing statistics look relatively unaffected is that I imagine every defensive coordinator in the league came to pretty much the same conclusion:  I can't beat these guys if I don't stop their running game, so I'll throw what I have at that and take my chances with Eli. 

There's tons of other good stuff in the chapter, of course, so get reading.  The info on how the defense will change now that Spags is gone is also interesting.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of seeing great pass rushers dropping into coverage all that often either, but if I'm a Giants fan, I have to wonder if we're changing things up because that makes the most sense or because our new defensive coordinator has never held that position before and only has two years in the scheme.

Also, I've really, really been looking for an excuse to link to this.