KB_fan

UM.... WOW.... it's very late in my time zone and perhaps I'm misreading something, but I just took a look at the Infographic posted on Panthers.com as a game preview with CAR & JAX stats from 2014. http://www.panthers.com/news/article-2/Infographic-Week-1-Preview-/cceef6ae-73a2-44c6-851e-2455a97b0dd7 It seems to me the stats are all wrong. CAR should lead JAX in Yards, points per game etc. Where did these numbers come from?!?!?!? Can someone else check the NFL.Com stats page and verify I'm not crazy for thinking there is something VERY wrong with this infographic? http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?seasonType=REG&offensiveStatisticCategory=GAME_STATS&d-447263-n=1&d-447263-o=2&d-447263-p=1&d-447263-s=TOTAL_POINTS_GAME_AVG&tabSeq=2&season=2014&role=TM&Submit=Go&archive=true&conference=null&defensiveStatisticCategory=null&qualified=false

I do a lot of data organization and analysis for my job, so my brain is kind of trained to think in these terms. Also, creating spreadsheets, etc. helps me learn and remember important data. But I would never claim that all football is statistics. There are a lot of intangibles or things that are difficult to measure in terms of how players interact that lead to success or failure. One player, one play can swing a game or a season far beyond what the "stats" would ever lead one to believe. So, I enjoy looking at the stats, but know there's a lot more to following a team and understanding what makes it tick.

In case it makes for easier reading, or sharing, of the tables and comments I've posted here tonight, I've copied all the tables & analysis posted here into a blog entry:

One last set of tables, and these in some ways are the clearest of all to show that we should have the edge on offense, defense and as a team. I've summed up the numbers of players per team in each PFF category, and then also looked at the same for the offense and the defense. Wow. The quality of Carolina's starters in comparison with JAX is striking. A full 50% of our starters (11 players) rank as good, very good or elite, compared with a total of only 3 JAX players (14%). I'd remembered hearing that Jacksonville's defense was better than its offense, but a full 45% of their defensive starters rank below average, though those figures, as true for Carolina as well, are lowered by injuries. Surprisingly for all our handwringing about offense, we only have 1 of our starters (Oher) or 9% ranked below average, vs. 4 players (36%) for JAX. Now we just need to translate all this nice data in our favor into a VERY CONVINCING WIN on the field!

Some of the things that struck me as I prepared these tables included the very obvious fact that Jacksonville is a team being rebuilt. A full third of the Jacksonville team is NEW: 7 of their starters slated to play on Sunday (i.e. not counting those out with injuries, but counting their replacements instead) have never played with Jacksonville before. This includes 1 rookie and 6 free agents signed for 2015. Another 8 starters have 1 season with Jacksonville - 6 of whom were rookies last year, and so are in their second season in the NFL. That is an INCREDIBLE 15 players (71% of the team's starters!) with only 0 - 1 year of experience with the team. By contrast for Carolina we have 4 new free agents starting (including Kyle Love who will replace Star) and 1 rookie. Note I did NOT count Ted Ginn as a new free agent since he played for Carolina in 2013. We have a pretty high number of 1st year players with Carolina as well - 7 starters with 1 year of experience on the team, 4 of whom were rookies last year, 3 of whom are veteran free agents. So for Carolina the total is 12 players with 0 - 1 year of time with the team (57% - still a pretty high figure, but not nearly as eye-popping as Jacksonville's %). Jacksonville is also in worse shape with injuries than we are, with 3 of their starters slated to sit out (2 of whom are among their best players), while Carolina only has Star sitting out that we know of (also one of our best players). The replacements for all 3 JAX players are rated "below average" by PFF, but so too is Kyle Love, our replacement for Star. Of course, as we've seen with Love, he's played well in preseason, so those ratings from last year may not reflect current play. But for Jacksonville, their already low average rankings for their starters got lower because of the players not starting. For Carolina, the difference was tiny. Jacksonville starters on Offense are CONSIDERABLY YOUNGER and LESS EXPERIENCED than Carolina's offense. For defense, the stats are pretty similar in terms of age & experience for both teams, but as noted above, Carolina has a BIG advantage in CONTINUITY, on both offense & defense, with our players on average having played together 1 - 1.5 years longer than their JAX counterparts. Looking at the players position by position, there's not too much to be said, most of the conclusions are pretty obvious. But a few notes: On Offense: Carolina looks to have the advantage at QB, RB, TE. WRs and OLine rankings are pretty similar for both teams. CAR has a tiny edge in WR, while JAX has a small edge in OLine rankings overall. However JAX has less continuity of their OLine, with 2 new starters added this year in contrast to Carolina only adding 1 new starter, Michael Oher. On Defense: CAR has the advantage at DT. Kony Ealy's "Poor" ranking by PFF means CAR & JAX average out to a matching ranking for DE. For LBs, obviously it's no contest. We rank better for CBs, while JAX has a small edge on Safeties. Carolina's overall defensive ranking is a full point/category higher than Jacksonville's and our continuity is better on defense. I know we've all heard the stories that Blake Bortles is playing so much better in the preseason, but in light of these comparisons, I really can't see much reason at all to favor Jacksonville. Based on the quality of our starters, we SHOULD win this game quite easily. The huge difference in continuity with Carolina's offense and defense having more time to jell and learn how to play together should be a significant advantage for Carolina.

Here is the position by position comparison for the DEFENSIVE STARTERS of both teams:

Here is the position by position comparison for the OFFENSE of both teams: CORRECTIONS: I seem to have somehow gotten at least 2 incorrect weights for the JAX OLine. Sorry not to have caught the mistake earlier. Beadles should be 315 and Parnell is also 315.

A Look at Jacksonville's Starters: CORRECTIONS: I seem to have somehow gotten at least 2 incorrect weights for the JAX OLine. Sorry not to have caught the mistake earlier. Beadles should be 315 and Parnell is also 315. Not quite sure what happened. I cut and paste the data from the JAX roster page, but perhaps at some point I copied names and weights separately and got things mixed up?

A Look at the Panthers' Starters:

I put together some tables to help us get a picture of both the Panthers and the Jaguars starters at a glance. I'll be posting 3 comments with the tables below, and then a 4th comment with some analysis. 1st an overview of the Panthers starters (including those substituting for injured players).2nd an overview of the Jaguars starters (including those substituting for injured players).3rd a comparison position by position of the two teams.For each player I compiled 6 statistics: years with the team, age, years played, height, weight, PFF Category. The PFF Category grades are the general categories assigned to each player in the PFF Depth Chart analyses. I've given each category a grade from 1 (poor) to 6 (elite). The PFF rankings primarily reflect 2014 season play. Here is the depth chart for the Panthers: https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2015/06/03/2015-depth-charts-update-carolina-panthers/ Here is the depth chart for the Jaguars: https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2015/06/03/2015-depth-charts-update-jacksonville-jaguars/ Note that these depth charts are several months old, and so while the players are current, their place on the depth chart may have shifted substantially during the preseason

For those who may not have seen it already, early in the week I posted a side by side comparison of some key Panthers vs. JAX stats from the Preseason.

True. Fair point. Gronk is a play maker for sure.

A reminder of Brady's 1st 6 series against our D: Four 3 & Outs + 2 interceptions. Don't forget it. 1 15:00 13:30 1:30 Kickoff NE 20 3 8 0 8 0 NE 28 Punt 2 11:37 10:05 1:32 Downs NE 40 3 1 0 1 0 NE 41 Punt 3 9:41 7:14 2:27 Punt NE 44 4 15 0 15 1 CAR 41 Interception 4 3:00 1:43 1:17 Kickoff NE 20 3 11 0 11 1 NE 31 Interception 5 1:20 14:46 1:34 Punt NE 10 3 7 0 7 0 NE 17 Punt 6 9:06 7:40 1:26 Punt NE 11 3 0 0 0 0 NE 11 Punt

Makes it look even better that we made him look pretty awful on a lot a series and got two interceptions

I hope whichever Huddler has adopted Gano this season will give the guy lots of shout outs. We are spoiled by his reliability so much of the time, take it for granted. People complain we score too many FGs and not enough TDs. But part of the point is that we DO score FGs almost every time we go for one. Makes a BIG difference.

So about those low numbers of sacks allowed this year... Here's that comparison data I was talking about

Excellent read. Thanks! I was interested in your reference to the sack stats in 2014 and the 2015 preseason. I've also been struck by how few sacks we've allowed this preseason. It got me doing some number crunching. I'm about to post my findings in a new topic. There's not a perfect correlation between low sacks in the preseason and low sacks in the regular season. But, there is an intriguing pattern with very low sacks in the preseason (both in absolute numbers and as a % of offensive plays) matching our best winning seasons, while we had an extremely high level of preseason sacks in 2010, when we went 2 - 14. I wonder if the low preseason sack level correlates somehow with a greater level of preseason intensity & competitiveness which translates into success in the regular season... Anyway, one of those stats that makes me go "Hmmmm..... that's interesting."

The Jags fan blog Big Cat Country has an interesting entry with analysis of Kony Ealy and what Jags fans should expect from him as a threat to their offense: http://www.bigcatcountry.com/2015/9/8/9276219/film-room-player-to-watch-panthers-de-kony-ealy Also, this entry re: how Bortles matches up with our Secondary http://www.bigcatcountry.com/2015/9/8/9272929/jaguars-vs-panthers-individual-matchups-that-could-decide-the-game The articles are not bad, but they've got virtually no comments... at least SB Nation's inferior blog for the Panthers has great involvement and articles with hundreds of comments...

floor 8 - 8 / ceiling 11-5 The average gives us 9.5 wins - I'll round up to 10, so say 10-6. I was leaning 11-5 before Kelvin's injury. I think we lose the following games: Eagles GreenBay Dallas @ Atlanta Either Seattle or Indy. Leaning towards Seattle now that they have Graham, otherwise I'd think this was our year to beat them. As for loss #6: I think it will be kind of random - maybe a let down against a team we're favored to beat - maybe Washington given that game comes after our hardest stretch. Confident of a 3peat in our division. Predict at least 1 playoff win.

Jonathan Jones ‏@jjones9 32s32 seconds ago Positions for Carolina to watch this weekend: WR, CB and C. In that order. Gettleman is always looking for pass rushers, by the way

Black & Blue Review ‏@BlackBlueReview 2m2 minutes ago Incomplete list, but per sources, #Panthers have expressed p-squad interest in: Byrd, Simonson, Foucault, Cox, Alecxih, Blechen, Glanton 2 retweets 2 favorites

Black & Blue Review ‏@BlackBlueReview 40s40 seconds ago #Panthers Cut to 53: Unit-By-Unit Breakdown http://ow.ly/RPFO7

A few more tweets of interest Black & Blue Review ‏@BlackBlueReview 13m13 minutes ago Brian Folkerts waived with an injury settlement. While Remmers and Scott are backups, still could see #Panthers shop for backup C. Bryan Strickland ‏@PanthersBryan 13m13 minutes ago Most difficult cuts in my six seasons with team, which should bode well. Steve Reed ‏@SteveReedAP 13m13 minutes ago All five draft picks made the Panthers roster, and so did two undrafted rookies - RB Brandon Wegher and S Dean Marlowe 1 retweet 1 favorite Steve Reed ‏@SteveReedAP 10m10 minutes ago Essentially no major surprise cuts by the Panthers. Top names would be Bersin, Todman and Trusnik. Joe Person ‏@josephperson 9m9 minutes ago #Panthers 5 WRs (for now) -- Cotchery, Ginn, Funchess, Norwood, Corey Brown. I think this could change by end of the weekend. Joe Person ‏@josephperson 6m6 minutes ago Undrafted DE Arthur Miley (knee) goes on regular IR. My earlier tweet was wrong. Fling your online arrows this way.

So, you are happy with Brown, Cotchery, Funchess, Ginn & Norwood and don't want us to bring anyone else in?

So, Corey Brown IS safe for now because Miley is sent to IR, not short-term IR Click here to view the 53-man roster. Below is a complete list of the cuts. WAIVEDPOSPLAYEREXPCOLLEGEDTChas Alecxih1PittsburghSMarcus Ball2MemphisWRBrenton Bersin2WoffordLBBrian BlechenRUtahWRMike Brown3LibertyCBCarrington Byndom1TexasWRDamiere ByrdRSouth CarolinaDERakim Cox1VillanovaOTDavid Foucault2MontrealLBAdarius Glanton2Florida AtlanticCBT.J. Heath2Jacksonville StateTEMarcus Lucas1MissouriGJordan McCray1Central FloridaDTTerry ReddenRMemphisTEScott Simonson1AssumptionOTMartin Wallace2TempleCBLou Young1Georgia TechTERMINATED/VESTED VETERANPOSPLAYEREXPCOLLEGEGRicky Henry3NebraskaRBJordan Todman4ConnecticutLBJason Trusnik9Ohio NorthernWAIVED/INJURY SETTLEMENTPOSPLAYEREXPCOLLEGECBrian Folkerts3WashburnINJURED RESERVEPOSPLAYEREXPCOLLEGEDEArthur MileyRSouthern