'14 stats that point to a regression by the Bengals in '15

[fredtoast]

http://grantland.com...-us-about-2015/

Season-long statistics have a weaker predictive value in football than they do for just about every other professional sport, specifically because the season is much shorter. You can fit 10 NFL seasons into one MLB campaign with a couple of games to spare. The 16-game schedule means we learn less about the true talent level of each team in football than we do in other sports.

The good news is that we can turn that lack of information into a positive. Because 16 games just aren’t enough to learn much about a team, we can usually safely say that teams that exhibit some extreme characteristic or have some event occur a freakishly high (or low) amount of the time will not have that same experience over the next 16 games.

In every sport I’ve ever examined, the difference between the number of points a team scores and the points it allows is a better indicator of its future win-loss record than its actual win-loss record over that same time span. Pro football is no exception. whereresearch by Daryl Morey (yes, the same Daryl Morey who is very sad about last night’s Rockets game) found that a variant of Bill James’s Pythagorean Expectation formula can estimate what each team’s win-loss record “should” have been, given their points scored and allowed.

(can't cut and paste the chart, but it shows that in 2014 the Bengals won 1.9 games more than they should have based on point differential. That was second highest in the league)

Point differential isn’t exactly complex, but it’s even easier to count up a team’s wins and losses in games decided by seven points or fewer and see whether they were able to produce a similar record the following year. The vast, vast majority of teams win neither a particularly high nor a particularly low percentage of their close games on an annual basis. Most of the differences between teams comes in what they do in the other games, the ones that are decided by two scores or more.


(again I can't cut and paste the chart, but the Bengals were also second best in the league last year in games decided by 7 points or fewer going 3-0-1)



Basically what this article is saying is that the Bengals were not as good as their record last year and are likely to regress toward the mean in 2015. It is an interesting read. I just posted a very small portion of it.

[GreenCornBengal]

So in summary, good teams blow other teams out on a more regular basis? I can agree with that. We did that often in 2013 and I thought we had a super bowl caliber team that year.

[Derrick]

(05-24-2015, 07:26 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: So in summary, good teams blow other teams out on a more regular basis? I can agree with that. We did that often in 2013 and I thought we had a super bowl caliber team that year.

So did I This stat could be in play this season. However, the 2015 schedule is a **** buster so the statistical result may be clouded.

[*bengalfan74*]

I've been saying all along things really have to go right and this team has to find it's heart to keep from really dropping off this season. We don't have the luxury of playing the two weakest divisions in the NFL this year - like we did last. We have 4 prime time games, we'll still have Dalton's ups and downs - probably.

I'm looking for a struggle to go much better than 9 - 7/10 - 6. And it could easily be way worse.

[Shake n Blake]

I've seen last year's point differential pointed out before. Part of me wants to believe that the drop off was largely thanks to injuries on both sides of the ball. Losing Eifert, MLJ, AJ, Gresh and Andre for large chunks of the season probably hurt our offense's ability to score. Losing Burfict and MJ90, and having a hobbled Atkins probably caused us to give up more points.

Not to mention we were breaking in new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

On paper, our depth has improved tremendously and our coordinators have a year under their belts. The d-line is deeper (a better rotation should help tremendously), and we have better depth at LB and WR, which were problem areas last year. So I think the point differential will improve.

Part of me is fearful that this team could regress as the playoff frustration continues to build, but I just think this team has too much talent (experienced talent, at that) to implode. I see 7-9 as a nightmare scenario. 11-5 is probably their ceiling as long as they continue to go .500 in the division.

[BritishBengal]

It is a really interesting article. I remember reading the same one Barnwell wrote leading into last season. I think it's a better predictor for improvement rather than decline. It's a brave person who will predict with MJ back, Eifert and Jones back from injury and Geno hopefully 100% that the team will regress substantially.

[OSUfan]

(05-24-2015, 11:57 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I've seen last year's point differential pointed out before. Part of me wants to believe that the drop off was largely thanks to injuries on both sides of the ball. Losing Eifert, MLJ, AJ, Gresh and Andre for large chunks of the season probably hurt our offense's ability to score. Losing Burfict and MJ90, and having a hobbled Atkins probably caused us to give up more points.

Not to mention we were breaking in new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

On paper, our depth has improved tremendously and our coordinators have a year under their belts. The d-line is deeper (a better rotation should help tremendously), and we have better depth at LB and WR, which were problem areas last year. So I think the point differential will improve.

Part of me is fearful that this team could regress as the playoff frustration continues to build, but I just think this team has too much talent (experienced talent, at that) to implode. I see 7-9 as a nightmare scenario. 11-5 is probably their ceiling as long as they continue to go .500 in the division.

Great post and I absolutely agree. I think many look past the fact that we were looking at two coordinators with their first season in that capacity with the team. This is huge and has to be taken into account. I think both will be much more comfortable in their roles this season and more comfortable about using the talent at their disposal.

While I realize every single team in the league deals with injury I also realize that not all injuries are created equal. Who is injured can make a vast difference to each team or at the very least a side of the ball for that team.

[Baby Hawk]

(05-25-2015, 12:55 PM)BritishBengal Wrote: It is a really interesting article. I remember reading the same one Barnwell wrote leading into last season. I think it's a better predictor for improvement rather than decline. It's a brave person who will predict with MJ back, Eifert and Jones back from injury and Geno hopefully 100% that the team will regress substantially.

[PlayerFormerlyKnownAsMousecop]

(05-24-2015, 07:14 PM)fredtoast Wrote: http://grantland.com...-us-about-2015/

Season-long statistics have a weaker predictive value in football than they do for just about every other professional sport, specifically because the season is much shorter. You can fit 10 NFL seasons into one MLB campaign with a couple of games to spare. The 16-game schedule means we learn less about the true talent level of each team in football than we do in other sports.

The good news is that we can turn that lack of information into a positive. Because 16 games just aren’t enough to learn much about a team, we can usually safely say that teams that exhibit some extreme characteristic or have some event occur a freakishly high (or low) amount of the time will not have that same experience over the next 16 games.

In every sport I’ve ever examined, the difference between the number of points a team scores and the points it allows is a better indicator of its future win-loss record than its actual win-loss record over that same time span. Pro football is no exception.   whereresearch by Daryl Morey (yes, the same Daryl Morey who is very sad about last night’s Rockets game) found that a variant of Bill James’s Pythagorean Expectation formula can estimate what each team’s win-loss record “should” have been, given their points scored and allowed.

(can't cut and paste the chart, but it shows that in 2014 the Bengals won 1.9 games more than they should have based on point differential.  That was second highest in the league)

Point differential isn’t exactly complex, but it’s even easier to count up a team’s wins and losses in games decided by seven points or fewer and see whether they were able to produce a similar record the following year. The vast, vast majority of teams win neither a particularly high nor a particularly low percentage of their close games on an annual basis.  Most of the differences between teams comes in what they do in the other games, the ones that are decided by two scores or more.


(again I can't cut and paste the chart, but the Bengals were also second best in the league last year in games decided by 7 points or fewer going 3-0-1)



Basically what this article is saying is that the Bengals were not as good as their record last year and are likely to regress toward the mean in 2015.  It is an interesting read.  I just posted a very small portion of it.

Silly stats are silly. If point differential was necessarily relevant then there wouldn't be any NFL Playoffs.

I can't see how or why this team would randomly experience a dramatic drop-off from the past 4 years. The amount of depth on this team sustained the team last year. Granted, the ceiling for this team isn't out of this world like it was in 2013 or 2005, but I think we can expect more of the same: Solid yet unspectacular (that is, unless Dalton can throw for 30 TD's again).

[Baby Hawk]

(05-24-2015, 11:57 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I've seen last year's point differential pointed out before. Part of me wants to believe that the drop off was largely thanks to injuries on both sides of the ball. Losing Eifert, MLJ, AJ, Gresh and Andre for large chunks of the season probably hurt our offense's ability to score. Losing Burfict and MJ90, and having a hobbled Atkins probably caused us to give up more points.

Not to mention we were breaking in new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

On paper, our depth has improved tremendously and our coordinators have a year under their belts. The d-line is deeper (a better rotation should help tremendously), and we have better depth at LB and WR, which were problem areas last year. So I think the point differential will improve.

Part of me is fearful that this team could regress as the playoff frustration continues to build, but I just think this team has too much talent (experienced talent, at that) to implode. I see 7-9 as a nightmare scenario. 11-5 is probably their ceiling as long as they continue to go .500 in the division.

[J24]

(05-24-2015, 11:57 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I've seen last year's point differential pointed out before. Part of me wants to believe that the drop off was largely thanks to injuries on both sides of the ball. Losing Eifert, MLJ, AJ, Gresh and Andre for large chunks of the season probably hurt our offense's ability to score. Losing Burfict and MJ90, and having a hobbled Atkins probably caused us to give up more points.

Not to mention we were breaking in new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

On paper, our depth has improved tremendously and our coordinators have a year under their belts. The d-line is deeper (a better rotation should help tremendously), and we have better depth at LB and WR, which were problem areas last year. So I think the point differential will improve.

Part of me is fearful that this team could regress as the playoff frustration continues to build, but I just think this team has too much talent (experienced talent, at that) to implode. I see 7-9 as a nightmare scenario. 11-5 is probably their ceiling as long as they continue to go .500 in the division.

Agreed!

[BonnieBengal]

(05-25-2015, 03:18 PM)J24 Wrote: Agreed!

It's hard to use the 2014 stats to predict anything since we had so many key players injured. I'm expecting a great season this year, despite our tough schedule. Whoever has to play us has a tough game ahead of them too.

[lostpoet2]

I think the issue in 2014 was there were 4 losses where the Bengals basically didn't show up. In the Patriots, Colts, and first Browns/Steelers regular season games, we were outscored by 95 points. If those games had just been more competitive losses, say by an average of 10 points, the Pythagorean expected wins would have been 9.8, which is pretty close to the actual 10-5-1 record.

[BFritz21]

(05-24-2015, 11:57 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I've seen last year's point differential pointed out before. Part of me wants to believe that the drop off was largely thanks to injuries on both sides of the ball. Losing Eifert, MLJ, AJ, Gresh and Andre for large chunks of the season probably hurt our offense's ability to score. Losing Burfict and MJ90, and having a hobbled Atkins probably caused us to give up more points.

Not to mention we were breaking in new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

On paper, our depth has improved tremendously and our coordinators have a year under their belts. The d-line is deeper (a better rotation should help tremendously), and we have better depth at LB and WR, which were problem areas last year. So I think the point differential will improve.

Part of me is fearful that this team could regress as the playoff frustration continues to build, but I just think this team has too much talent (experienced talent, at that) to implode. I see 7-9 as a nightmare scenario. 11-5 is probably their ceiling as long as they continue to go .500 in the division.

If Atkins can return to form at all, that will be huge, especially with MJ coming back, as well as Hardison (hopefully) rotating in (at least) on passing downs and being able to shoot then A gap because the offense will just run out of guys to block our defense. You can't double Atkins, have one or two guys occupied by Hardison, and then still be able to stop MJ and Dunlap with single blocking (also guys like Clarke, Gillberry, Hunt, etc.).

I think, however, the biggest addition to this team will be a healthy Hill as our bell cow for a full year. I was just talking to a waiter tonight at dinner about how it's impossible to load the box to stop Hill, cover Eifert and Croft up the seams (and maybe even Uzomah), and then still have enough defenders leftover to cover the deep ball to AJ (or even short-to-medium routes, but my point was that the tight ends up the seams will hold the safeties in the middle of the field and keep them from playing overtop of AJ).

It's a rough schedule, but, assuming that we stay healthy (and we're deep enough to even handle a few injuries), I see us being 5-1 or even 6-0 going into the bye week, and then finishing the year with only 3 or 4 losses.

I think everyone is underestimating Hill's value, but I believe that he can carry us to victory.

[*Go Cards*]

With the Bengals having so many key injuries yet still overcoming them, excluding playoffs of course.

Think with the return to health and the emergence of Jeremy Hill this will not be a regression year.

In fact, believe it is their prime time for next two years.

Think last season would have been if not for key injuries and loss of both coordinators.

No guarantees that they capitalize though.

[BonnieBengal]

(05-26-2015, 01:24 AM)Go Cards Wrote: With the Bengals having so many key injuries yet still overcoming them, excluding playoffs of course.

Think with the return to health and the emergence of Jeremy Hill this will not be a regression year.

In fact, believe it is their prime time for next two years.  

Think last season would have been if not for key injuries and loss of both coordinators.

No guarantees that they capitalize though.

I think so as well.

[Junglejuice]

When the Bengals lost games in 2014 they lost big.

That plays heavy into the statistic.

[*bengalfan74*]

Another little tidbit to keep in mind. We won 6 games last season against teams with a combined 27 wins ! Including the 2-14 Titans, 3-13 Jaguars, and 2-14 Buccaneers. Those teams averaged 4.5 wins.

It's impossible to look into the future totally accurate about this season but I have a strong suspicion we won't play 6 teams this season with an average of 4.5 wins.

I believe this team is in for the test of their football lives and it's time to put up or shut up. Can they do it ? Sure, will they do it ???