On the Seahawks' #24 Efficiency Ranking

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Q.  Wow, the Seahawks are the 24th-likeliest team to beat a .500 opponent at a neutral site.  Can that be correct?

A.  It's not correct, no.  And it doesn't really claim to be.

As the author notes, "the rankings are starting to make sense."  You're talking about six games' worth of statistics.

Last week the Seahawks were #15 ... this week they drop to #24 based on a weird game played in weird weather.  The Seahawks don't make much more sense at #24 than the Chargers do at #2.

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Q.  Is this efficiency ranking predictive?

A.  No doubt it predicts wins and losses better than, say, points scored.  But that's not saying much.

Football sabermetrics ain't like baseball sabermetrics.  The players are interdependent! 

And they're dependent on play calling.  With the Seahawks up by 15 points* in a rain storm against a rookie FA quarterback, they're going to sit on a lead.  Had the Seahawks been playing on sunny grass last week, everything would be different.

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Q.  Yeah, that Chicago win seems a long time ago, doesn't it?

A.  Right.  The Seahawks went on the road, and handed the Bears' heads to them both physically and on the scoreboard.

Now you've got this wet-weather game last week, and everybody's off the bandwagon.  C'mon.

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Q.  Doesn't the Arizona game worry SSI at all?  Rookie QB, joke offense, and the Seahawks looked lousy.

A.  Right now this team is capable of powerful performances and terrible ones.  The Cards game was a lousy performance.  But next week, against Oakland, we dunno.

We don't know who the Hawks are yet. 

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Q.  Any guesses as to who they are?

A.  They've got a thumping front seven, a defense that will hold up, and I like what Carroll's doing to shore up the secondary.

Hasselbeck is getting older, but he ain't Max Hall, either.  When Okung and Lynch are in there, the offense can be average-solid.

No more than that, though.  They don't have the receivers (or QB, for that matter, or overall talent) to be better than average-solid on offense.

So they've got a better-than-average D and a weak-or-average offense.  They'll be .500, or they'll be about 10-6, depending on what Carroll can coax out of the undertalented offense.

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Q.  They've played some trrble passers, Charles.  Drew Brees could rip them up.

A.  Yep.  Drew Brees could rip up about 25 teams in the NFL.  No, make that 31 teams.

The game in N'Awlins is a loss.  So?

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Q.  Dr's Prognosis?

A.  Carroll looks good to me.  I'll put my money on the 9-7, 10-6 scenario.

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Y'read it here first,

Dr D

Comments

1
Nathan H's picture

Imagine this team was quarterbacked by Trent Dilfer circa 2001, a game manager that doesn't lose the game for you. The Ravens from ought-one dominated by their defense and did juuuuust enough on offense to have more points than the other team when the clock wound down to 00:00. That was their identity.
The Seahawks have a similar, game manager quarterback leading an offense doing juuuuust enough to not lose. Their defense is solid/strong but prone to mistakes to the point where you can't put the game on their shoulders.
The identity of this team, so far, have been the adjustments made in the gameplan before the game starts AND during the game to take advantage of the glaring weaknesses in that day's opponent. That speaks to a lack of ego, the need to do whatever it takes to win, and the intelligence and ability to make these changes on the fly. Pete Carroll's coaching is the identity of this team. I don't know how many times I've seen a team dominate from the sidelines but I can count it on my right hand. I never would have thought....I wonder how long it will take the NFL to adjust? Can it be adjusted to? I'm in the wilderness frontier here.

2
Anonymous's picture

Dilfer was gifted with having maybe the best defense in the history of the multiverse. I find it curious that *good* QB's are never called "game managers". I wonder why that is? This team will rise fall(Smart $$$'s on fall) on Matt's arm.  and 
BABVA much?
We have one really good QB on the roster, unfortunately, Charlie doesn't have Matt's brain, and Matt doesn't have Charlie's arm.
 
 

3

But the general principle is true... there is an art to being a 60% fave and "managing" that into a 75% chance to win.
...................
Hasselbeck is no Peyton Manning, especially not these days - that's just stating the obvious.
But I'm in the camp that says the non-flashy QB's, including Dilfer for a few years and Hasselbeck in his twilight, Dave Krieg, Brad Johnson, Jim McMahon, and those guys can be a lot tougher to beat than fans give them credit for.
Fans with a wave of their hands say "ah, it was the defense," but how many great defenses fail to win the Super Bowl?
...............
Knox used to say, "There are QB's you win BECAUSE OF, and QB's you can win WITH."  Putting Krieg in the latter category.
Hass is obviously in the "win with" category, at best, but hey.... the Cardinals are wishing they had one of those right now...

4

The way Doc's post was written, I assumed the Seahawks had lost the game after leading...to a lousy team...pardon me for asking, but...does it matter to anyone here that they won?  Convincingly?  Never trailed in the game?  :)
They blew a ton of scoring opportunities, but it sure seems to me like this game should be, at worst, considered a nice crisp win for the defense and a bad game for the offense.  Which is a push.  How does that performance drive you off the bandwagon for a team that we all knew had a mediocre offense and an outstanding defense?
Looking at the Seahawks' upcoming schedule, I don't see any way they go less than 10-6.

5

Good stuff Matty.  :daps:
The fieldgulls.com super-expert John Morgan, almost a local Kiper-type analyst, is sagely cautioning Hawks fans that their efficiency lags far behind their W's and L's.   John isn't really "off the bandwagon" as much as he is trying to calm the hysteria, I think :- )
Fine as far as it goes... we ain't talkin' a 13-3 team here ... but yeah.  They went a bit overboard in weighting the first 6 games' "efficiency" despite the weird weather etc.
Like you say, we knew they had issues on offense and would have to win with D and spec teams.  The sched should give us a lee wind towards that 10 wins.
..................
Hey.  Anything in particular youse guys want to see as far as that baseball thing goes? :- )

6

Baseball sabermetrics and football statistical analysis (we need a different name...SABR is the society for american baseball research...you cannot call the analysis of football sabermetrics) need to be approached COMPLETELY differently.  Foorball statistics are in their absolute blastocyst stage...they aren't even infants yet...and the reason is...in football the situation matters a hell of a lot more than it does in baseball.  In baseball, every play is one hitter, one pitcher, and three defensive units.  In football, every play involves AT LEAST 18 of the 22 guys on the field and you can't really statistically separate the different offensive and defensive units that have to work together to produce a result...and it gets worse than that...because in football there's a CLOCK...that clock dictates policy...efficiency ratings can be totally FUBARed by a team having a 2-possession lead with 10 minutes to play.
To be honest...the only thing I believe that an efficiency rating can tell you is the odds of the Seahawks winning a football game where they NEED to convert on their opportunities on a regular basis...not the odds of them beating a random .500 team.  They'll need higher efficiency if they want to beat another great defensive team or a good offensive team with fair defense.  They don't need to be efficient to win against a lot of other types of teams.  And of course...the other problem with efficiency is that it's forced to be a small sample statistic...in football, you have to...HAVE TO...focus only on the statistics that can be of significant sample size in a 16-game schedule to have any chance of seeing something new.
The analysts in football haven't quite gotten their heads around that problem yet.
Bottom line...there's a reason that I micro-analyze baseball and learn so much from the effort, while I watch football with no further insight than a typical insightful football fan.  Football is a much harder problem...I'm not smart enough to figure it out without years of study...study much more dedicated than even what I've done with baseball.  We need a totally different approach to football...every play must be viewed through a more specific lens than what is commonly stored in the play by play records.  We need to make note of who were the key blockers, the key corners, etc. that made events unfold the way they did.   Not just Hasselback to TE for a 9 yard TD pass...we need specific accounts of what each guy did on any given play.

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