11-06-2015, 12:04 PM
(11-06-2015, 11:51 AM)jj22 Wrote: And you can't say we won last year because of the Defense....
Why not?
They were 12th in PPG
T-13th in yards per play
T-6th in 3rd down %
3rd in passer rating against
3rd in passing TDs against
T-3rd in interceptions
T-13th in forced fumbles
They didn't get to the QB as much as we'd like to see and definitely struggled against the run in some games, but can you really say the defense was so horrible just because of the yards per game ranking? Yes, that's the standard to go by defensive ranking and I agree that it's the single best stat to use IF you're in a situation to only use 1, but if you dig deeper into the spectrum of stats (which we can easily do), they weren't that bad.
We went to the playoffs last year due to the defense not being that bad, Jeremy Hill playing lights out for half of a year, and Andy not letting injuries and poor performance break his will. That along with an easy schedule got us into the postseason. I definitely give Andy some of the credit, he did good things out there, but let's not close our eyes to the detailed defensive stats and forget that Hill in 2014 was great in at least a few games.
