06-06-2020, 10:09 AM
(06-06-2020, 08:27 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: But when you just look at yards, you can't account for the offense doing a better job sustaining drives (remember how they changed the scheme and the rushing attack was among the best in the NFL down the stretch after being nonexistent in the first half of the season?
I guess if you broke down yards per drive...or maybe factored in time of possession in some way that it would help isolate the defense's improvement outside of the improved offense.
This is a good point.
The defense was on the field less the second half of the season, but not by a lot. The first 8 games opponents ran 529 plays which ranked 23rd in the league (fewest plays ranked highest). The second half of the season opponenets ran 24 fewer plays (505 total) to rank 15th in the league.
But here is the key stat. Over the first 8 games of the season the Bengals defense was allowing 6.59 yards per play which ranked 32nd in the league, and just like "yards allowed", that would have been the 2nd highest ypp allowed by any defense since the 1970 merger. Over the last 8 games they allowed over a yard less per play (5.57) to rank 21st.
So some of the decrease in yards allowed was based on facing fewer plays per game, but there was still a huge increase in efficiency per play from one of the worst in history to 21st in the league.
