Win over Jags Week 1: Statistics & Analysis

[KB_fan]

Here's the table I put together to try and capture the "big plays" during the Jaguars game:

(Update: in reviewing, I see I have a few errors (included a long pass that was nullified on a penalty) and inconsistencies.  I'll try to post the correct version here soon.  This is my first time ever trying to do a drive table like this, so it's been a bit of a work in progress.)

 

As I understand it, "big plays" as typically calculated includes rushing gains of 10+ yards, and passing plays of 25+ yards.  In the table above, I've also included returns of 10+ yards as a big play, and since turnovers are also "big plays" - especially when they occur in the opposing team's territory, I've highlighted those too.  Wherever you see the tan for JAX or the blue for Carolina in the table above, there was a big play.  

JAX had quite a bit of offensive momentum going on in the first half with 4 nice runs & 2 big passes.  Thanks to our defense, and the missed FG by JAX, we were able to eke out the 1st half with a one point lead.  JAX definitely left points on the field.  Notice that as their big plays declined in the 2nd half, so did their scoring opportunities.  (No brainer really, but still interesting to see)..  JAX DID NOT CROSS THE 50 yard line in the entire 2nd half.

As for the Panthers, the table shows we really struggled to get into any kind of strong offensive rhythm during the game.  There were some exciting plays (J Stews 22 yard run, the 37 yard pass to Ginn, the 24 yard pass to Cotch), but particularly on the run game, we struggled to get much going.  Now some if this is ground & pound Panthers football.  4 yards, 4 yards, 2 yards... , and I can live with that.  But without a deep passing threat, I worry teams will stuff our run game.

I think we REALLY need more big deep passing plays if we want other teams to respect our offense and to give our run game some space.  Although we too left points on the field, with the two missed field goals, and other missed opportunities, the big plays we did pull off, generally got us into scoring opportunities.

The 5th drive of the game, when the Panthers scored our only Offensive touchdown is an interesting case, however, showing that Panthers don't always need big plays to get scoring opportunities.  Ground & pound and short passes CAN work for us.

That nice drive was 5:27 minutes, 12 plays, 66 yards.  We didn't really have any "big play" in the drive.  I've included "half a big play" in the scoring table to show the 17 yard pass toTed Ginn that got us into JAX territory.  Although not a classic big play, it did provide much needed momentum, and advance the drive in a najor way.   Right now for our offense, 17 yards is a big play...!

Anyway, I had fun putting this table together.  I hope it's of interest to other readers, and I'd welcome comments and feedback if you have suggestions for improvement.  I'm still a newbie when it comes to analyzing football, but I'm having a lot of fun learning.

[KB_fan]

By the way, the chart above brings up a question I have for any here who might have suggestions about a dilemma I'm facing in analysis.

Technically, Panthers had 12 possessions of the ball, 12 drives.  If one calculates scoring efficiency, you would say we scored on 1/4th of our drives (3 of 12).   In reality though, two of our "drives" were non-existent.  We got the ball with 14 seconds before the half, and 6 seconds before the end of the game and simply knelt both times/

Should I eliminate those drives from calculating scoring efficiency?

It would mean a difference from 25% (3/12 drives) scoring efficiency to 30% scoring efficiency (3 of 10 drives).  Not really huge in absolute numeric terms, but a bit more accurate in giving a picture of the true dynamics of the game.

[KB_fan]

As I thought about it further, I realized it might be really useful to see the final scrimmage position of each drive to really see more clearly how big plays relate to scoring position, and to see opportunities seized or lost.  So now I've added a column showing where each drive ended.  Wow, for JAX it really is a tale of two halves.  After 4 consecutive drives from late in the 1st quarter and throughout the 2nd quarter into scoring range, they never crossed midfield in the 2nd half.  Incredible job by our defense.

I've also modified the pass column for the Panthers.  Firstly, I realized I had an error in the table above, I had counted a 24 yard pass as a "big play" when technically it's not.  But, since it's helpful and interesting for me to see the effect of even our medium range passes for the Panthers, I've included passes of 15+ yards for the Panthers as follows:  15 - 19 yards = 0.5;  20 - 24 yards = 0.75; 25+ yards = 1.  Including these shorter distance passes as well also has the unfortunate effect of showing how anemic our passing game really was.  It wasn't just "big plays" we couldn't make, but even 15 yard passes were really rare.  We had 3 passes total of 15 yards or longer in the entire game.  Hmmmm.  That's GOT to change, as we all know, and as our team knows too.

(Update:  in going back to the drive data to try and add medium range passes for the Jags to make both sides of the table consistent, I discovered an error or two (I'd included a run nullified by a penalty, and also counted a 24 yard pass as a "big play".  I'm working on corrections and will post a revised version soon.  This is the first time I've tried something like this, so it's a bit of a work in progress.)

[KB_fan]

Ok, I've cross-checked everything and data should now be correct & consistent for both teams.  To make things even clearer, I've included short summaries of the big plays for each drive. 

Is this helpful to Huddlers?  If so, I can try to do this for every game.

[KB_fan]

Can someone post PFF grades or is that against rules?

 

In case anyone's missed it, Jeremy has posted PFF grades for Week 1:

PFF Grades Week 1: Offense  http://www.carolinahuddle.com/boards/topic/118334-panthers-week-1-pff-grades-offense/

PFF Grades Week 2: Defense  http://www.carolinahuddle.com/boards/topic/118335-panthers-week-1-pff-grades-defense/

 

[KB_fan]

Thanks to all who put up with my "work in progress" posts last night and today as I kind of thought out loud and modified my data presentation as I went along in order to develop that "drive chart / big plays" table I posted above. 

I've posted that same table now in a new blog entry along with 5 key takeaways from week 1,'  I'm now calling that table: "The game at a glance."  Of special note is a section analyzing the anatomy of the drive on which we scored our single Offensive Touchdown.

If others find this helpful, I'll try and post this same kind of "game at a glance" table each week.

I think I'll wait until next week before posting a link to my full gamebook spreadsheet. (Next week it will have the side-by-side comparison of weeks 1 and 2.)  I want a few more days to check it for accuracy, clean up the formatting, and also set up the formulas that will calculate running totals and per game averages throughout the season...  So, stay tuned for much more stats & analysis next week.

If there's some particular aspect of the gamebook or certain statistics of interest that I haven't posted here in this thread (and there are quite a few areas I skipped when posting sections of my spreadsheet), please give a shout, and I can post more information.

[KB_fan]

No time for me to crunch or analyze the following data tonight, but I thought some folks might be interested in looking at our passing game in more depth.  So here is a table with all of our passing attempts by drive.

Here is the Excel Spreadsheet in case anyone wants to play with the data (there's a bit more info there re: whether the pass was short or deep and what direction it was thrown.)

 PassingLog_Wk1.xlsx

 

Anyone see any interesting patterns?   I truly haven't even tried to study it, just compiled the data...

2nd Half:

[KB_fan]

MUST READING / Looking at Game angles over at BBR:

http://blackandbluereview.com/beyond-the-box-score-panthers-at-jaguars/

Bill analyzes highlights from something like 30 plays... maybe more.  Very cool.

[yasuhara2241]

MUST READING / Looking at Game angles over at BBR:

http://blackandbluereview.com/beyond-the-box-score-panthers-at-jaguars/

Bill analyzes highlights from something like 30 plays... maybe more.  Very cool.

Thanks for posting this and all the other info you post!! Love reading everything. 

[KB_fan]

I've got one more table I thought it would be worth posting here.  It's a side by side Panthers v. Jags drive comparison chart.  Although the game felt very tense until late in the 2nd half, it shows clearly that JAX had only 4 significant drives of the entire game - their final 4 drives of the first half.  Apart from those drives, they got NOTHING going on Offense.  Really impressive by our D - and also shout outs to our O & ST for not allowing any turnover or a big return that gave JAX good field position in the 2nd half.   They had trouble crossing their own 40 yard line in the second half (1 drive out of 6!!!), let alone getting across midfield!

 

[yasuhara2241]

I've got one more table I thought it would be worth posting here.  It's a side by side Panthers v. Jags drive comparison chart.  Although the game felt very tense until late in the 2nd half, it shows clearly that JAX had only 4 significant drives of the entire game - their final 4 drives of the first half.  Apart from those drives, they got NOTHING going on Offense.  Really impressive by our D - and also shout outs to our O & ST for not allowing any turnover or a big return that gave JAX good field position in the 2nd half.   They had trouble crossing their own 40 yard line in the second half (1 drive out of 6!!!), let alone getting across midfield!

 

I posted this in another thread. I thought it kind of was related to your statistical analysis when concerning the offense. 

 

I've disliked Shula for the longest time but I thought he called a very good game. The players just didn't take advantage of the opportunities. 

1st Drive: 14 play drive 5:47 possession: From the 30 to the 4 and if not for a bs penalty it would have been a TD. 

2nd Drive: 3 and out. Funchess dropped 2nd down pass and Ginn dropped a 3rd down pass that would have been a TD. Still had a chance for pts but Gano missed the long field goal. 

3rd Drive: 3 and out. This was the BS spot on the QB sneak by Cam where the official started past the line and kept moving back until we didn't have the 1st down. 

4th Drive: Int. 2 completed passes for 6 and 9 yards and then the horrible throw for the INT. 

5th Drive: 12 play drive 5:27 possession. From 34 until TD to Cotchery. This includes a 4th down conversion

6th Drive: 7 play drive 3:45 possession. This was the one drive I didn't like the playcalling. We got a huge pass to Ginn for 37 yards and got to Jax 37 after a J Stew run. We had 2nd and 6 and called the option where Cam got -5 yards and then was sacked for -6 yards. We should have come away with points here. 

7th Drive: 7 play drive Almost 4 min possession. This drive was killed with the penalty on Kalil for the illegal man down field and then the screen pass to Whittaker that had potential but I believe Norwell missed a block. We can call this a "bad series" if ya'll want to. 

8th Drive: 3 and out. I don't remember much of this drive. But it was not a good one. 

9th Drive: 15 play drive 8:07 possession. We were very conservative on the end of this drive, just running to keep the clock going and make it a 2 possession game. Ended in a 47 yard FG. 

10th Drive: 3 runs when we were in field goal range after the TD interception. 

Overall, this was a very good day in my opinion from Shula. We can nitpick a few series but we controlled the clock for 9 minutes more than JAX. We had a 47% 3rd down efficiency which wasn't bad. We had nice distribution from the run to pass. 

I think we need to make sure that we don't criticize just to criticize. This was a good game for Shula. 

[KB_fan]

Following up on that "raw" passing data I posted the other day, here's the data sorted by player, with their completion data summarized.

[KB_fan]

A few interesting statistics from Game 1 posted at Panthers.com today

 

 

SACK ARTIST MARIO ADDISON COULD BE PANTHERS' J.J. WATT LIGHT: Also highlighting Addison as a potential breakout pass rush specialist fo 2015, David Newton of ESPN writes: "If you consider sacks per play, Addison is alone in first. His came on 31 plays, 46 percent of Carolina’s defensive snaps. Watt needed 68 plays, 97 percent of Houston’s defensive snaps." READ MORE

 

PANTHERS HAVE TOP FIVE DEFENSE: In his weekly positional power rankings, Chris Wesseling of NFL.com lists the Panthers' defense as the fifth-best in the league, even with defensive tackle Star Lotulelei sidelined and linebacker Luke Kuechly missing time due to a concussion. Wesseling notes that Carolina's entire front seven was selected in the first 85 picks of the draft. READ MORE