A detailed look at the Panthers scoring success of 2015

[Jeremy Igo]

KBfan has provided us with an article on the huddle homepage worth a read. Very interesting stuff. She compares last year to previous year's offenses. 

 

 

Quote

 

2015 CAROLINA PANTHERS POINTS SCORED AND ALLOWED:

Only in the first quarter of the season did the Carolina Panthers average less than 30 points per game.  The consistency is striking.  For twelve games in a row (from game 3 to game 14) they scored at least 27 points – and that included their toughest stretch of the season – the “murderer’s row” stretch against Seattle, Philly, Indy & Green Bay.

Just look at that again.  It’s AMAZING:

• Only in 2 games (their 2 losses) did they score fewer than 20 points.
• only in 4 games did they score fewer than 25 points
• In 10 games they scored at least 30 points
• In 8 games they scored at least 35 points
• In 3 games they scored at least 40 points

I thought it would be interesting to compare those numbers with previous Carolina Panthers’ seasons.

 

 

http://www.carolinahuddle.com/2016/06/29/carolina-panthers-scoring-2015/

[KB_fan]

I appreciate Jeremy giving me the opportunity to write for the front page of the Huddle.  I hope I don't drive readers away in droves or damage the reputation of this joint as the place to come for TopCats photos (smile!).

I'd really welcome feedback and questions, as well as suggestions about what other topics you might like to see covered in a few more "season-in-review" entries before training camp begins.  I'm hoping I can do 2 - 4 more. 

***

 

In addition to what I wrote in the article, I thought the Huddle might be interested in knowing a bit more background about the article.  There's also a ton more information that I gathered than I could find a way to include in the article... I've posted a little bit here below and will try to add some additional graphs, links & info in this thread today as I can find time.

 

Most of my stats analysis entries start as the result of questions that interest me that prompt me to do research.  Here are some of the questions that prompted this article:

"I know the Panthers have never scored more points than they did in 2015, but how close have they come to 500 points before?"   Somewhat surprising answer:  The previous best scoring season was in the 1999 8-8 season when the Panthers scored 421 points.  (Surprising to me as a fairly recent Panthers fan, as I would have assumed the previous best offensive season would have been a year when the team made a playoff run.  Bad assumption.)  Runners up for previous best scoring seasons:  414 points in 2008, and 406 points in Cam's rookie season in 2011.  Those are the only 3 prior seasons where the Panthers broke the 400 point barrier, one of the reasons 500 points for the Panthers in 2015 was such a pleasant shock.

"What was the Panthers previous best offensive ranking in terms of points scored?"  Answer:  Once again it was the 1999 season when the Panthers ranked 4th.  Next best:  5th place in 2011.   Counting 2015, the Panthers have had 6 top-10 offenses (by points scored), with an average ranking of 17th over their 21 years.   By contrast on defense we've had more success:  9 top-10 defenses (points allowed), with an average ranking of 14.  We've never had back to back top-10 seasons on offense, while we have had multiple back-to-back top 10 seasons on defense.  I'm really hopeful we'll have another top-10 season on both offense and defense this season.  Doing so should help the team to go very far...

"We had a LOT (14 to be exact) of consecutive games in 2015 where we scored at least 20 points.  Have the Panthers ever done anything like that before? "   Answer:  previous best consecutive 20+ point games streak was 2005 when we had a streak of 9 games.  2015's streak of 14 20+ point games came as a real surprise coming off the 2014 season where the Panthers never put together more than 2 such games in a row!

"What's the record for any team in consecutive 20+ point games, or 30+ point games?" 

Wikipedia has the Answer for those consecutive game streak questions:

• Most consecutive games scoring 20+ points, 30

Denver Broncos, 2012-2014

• Most consecutive games scoring 30+ points, 14

St. Louis Rams, Nov. 28, 1999-Oct. 29, 2000

 

Most Games Scoring 30+ Points, Season, 13   Denver Broncos: 2013

 

• Most consecutive games scoring 40+ points, 4

Indianapolis Colts, Nov. 14, 2004-Dec. 5, 2004

St. Louis Rams, Sept. 17, 2000-Oct. 15, 2000

 

Here are a few other records / interesting bits of trivia from Wikipedia which I stumbled across while doing research for this article.   For instance, our 500 points in 2015 was great for the Panthers, but NOWHERE near a league record... We'd need ANOTHER 107 points for that!   Anyone think Cam can shatter that record?

• Most Seasons Leading League Scoring, 10

Chicago Bears: 1932, 1934–35, 1939, 1941–43, 1946–47, 1956

• Most Consecutive Seasons Leading League Scoring, 4

San Francisco 49ers: 1992–95

• Most Points, Season, 606

Denver Broncos: 2013

 

"What's the winning percentage when a team scores at least 20 points....?"   ....

As you can see, often one question leads to many more, and at some point the questions and research possibilities seem endless!  Sometimes I get lost in chasing tangents or get mired down in too much data, or don't have enough time to follow through on doing the research / number crunching. 

For instance, while working on this analysis of Panthers scoring in 2015, I started to look at winning percentage for varying point thresholds, but then hit a busy stretch at work and never got to finish that work....  I did find a Football Perspectives blog entry from early 2015 discussing a QB's win % when his team scores 21+ points (average is 75% wins), and a team's win % when ALLOWING 21+ points (on average, 25%).

I wanted to look at how the Panthers' compared in 2015 and previous seasons... But I only got as far as looking at 2015:  

-  Of 9 games where we allowed 21+ points, we won 8.   (89%).  

- Of 16 games where we scored 21+ points, we won all 16 (100%)

Not too shabby! 

I'd like to do more to track that statistic over time, but doing so will have to wait for another day.   It seems to me that first stat of winning 89% of games in spite of allowing 21+ points is a really big deal....  When I see that stat all I can do is think of Cam on the sidelines during the Giants game... Giants come back from a big deficit to tie it 35-35 in the closing minutes?   No problem.  We'll quick march down the field and get the 3 points for the win.  That seemed to epitomize the 2015 team:  do whatever it takes to win, both on offense & defense working in tandem.

But putting the Panthers 2015 performance in historical perspective terms of "will to win" in overcoming some high-scoring opponents and losing some big leads will have to wait for another time.

[sharkkiller]

They should really know how it is done, so I sent it to ESPN.

 

[TheRed]

At one point weren't we in the bottom of the league in red zone scoring percentage heading into the end of 2014?

I recall a clear decline for quite awhile there.

The improvement that followed had a lot to do with a better run game, but Shula also successfully managed to get his head out of his ass for just about the entire 2015 season. That is until he decided to save his "Teddy Ginn behind center!!!" play for the fuging Super Bowl.

[sharkkiller]

I deleted the original tweet and resent i, because I looked like an idiot putting "right" instead of "write". Sigh.

 

[imminent rogaine]

Oh, KB are your initials.... I assumed you really liked Kelvin.

 

Also, to further drive home the link between the offense and defense, it might be interesting to see a comparison of defensive turnovers and offensive points off of turnover.  Just a thought. Thanks for the write up.

Edit: I mean in chart form. I can read the turnover discussion.

[Moorgan]

Great article @KB_fan. I know being speculative is always dicey but I wonder what kind of statistical improvement to the offense KB can make. I recognize that you can't just add KB's stats from his rookie year but perhaps percentages would make more sense? I don't have the math brain you do but maybe there's something that will work.

As an aside, just heard on Dan Patrick show that Syracuse University is the first University to offer a Sports Analytics (ie Money Ball) degree. Food for thought.

[KB_fan]

46 minutes ago, TheRed said:

At one point weren't we in the bottom of the league in red zone scoring percentage heading into the end of 2014?

You have a GREAT MEMORY.  I went back to check the 2014 stats.  Yup.  Following Week 4 of 2014 we ranked dead last in the league with a cumulative season red zone scoring % of 30%.  YIKES.  It got a little better later in the season.... but not much.  The highest season % we reached in 2014 was 52.17%.  We generally ranged between 42% - 48%, in the bottom 5 - 6 teams of the league.

2015 was a VERY different story.

Here's where I found the info:

One of the best stats sites I've discovered in the past year or so of morphing into an Extreme Panthers Stat Geek is the team ranking site.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/

One of it's absolute coolest feature is that you can check how a team's ranking changed at different points of a season.  Thus, let's look at Red Zone Scoring:

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/red-zone-scoring-pct/

You can see we led the league in Red-Zone (TD) scoring in 2015-2016  (includes the post-season)  (as of Feb 8 2016).

Rank	Team	2015	Last 3	Last 1	Home	Away	2014
1	Carolina	69.44%	77.78%	50.00%	75.00%	62.50%	48.15%

 

But you can dial back the date and look at how the % changes over time:

After the NFC Championship win we hit the 70% mark for the season - our best red zone scoring % of the season.

On Jan 4th at the end of the regular season:   ranked 2  68.25%

On From Dec 14th - Dec 28th we were 4th:  Here's the stat from Dec 28th:   66.1%

On Dec 7th we were 5th  65.31% (I love how we improved over the course of the season!)

I can throw together a quick graph mapping red zone % week by week for 2014 - 2015.  It's a pretty shocking difference...  The win at SEATTLE was a huge turning point in terms of our red zone success.  We never looked back from there.

 

[KB_fan]

32 minutes ago, imminent rogaine said:

Oh, KB are your initials.... I assumed you really liked Kelvin.

The double meaning was intended!   I am a big KB fan.  I'm excited about what he brings to our offense and looking forward to a great winning partnership between him & Cam.  When I officially joined the Huddle last May after nearly 2 years of lurking it was just after the draft and we were all excited about the prospect of KB & Funchess together on the field... the KB hype was hot and it seemed a fun user name.

[Cj72]

Looking at that brings back the painful memories from 2010. Wow it was horrible!!

 

Also, great job as usual kbfan

[TheRed]

Awesome info, thanks KB fan.

[KB_fan]

35 minutes ago, imminent rogaine said:

Also, to further drive home the link between the offense and defense, it might be interesting to see a comparison of defensive turnovers and offensive points off of turnover.  Just a thought. Thanks for the write up.

Edit: I mean in chart form. I can read the turnover discussion.

Yes, I'm definitely planning to dig more into the turnover data and the points off of turnovers.  The Panthers 2015 numbers were insane.   We had the highest points off of takeaways and the highest Net Points off of turnovers of any team in the league since 2009.

I'm not sure of a site that tracks Net Points from Turnovers going back prior to 2009, but here's the data I have so far from 2009 - 2016 so far:

Note, the table shows the teams that led the league each season in NET TURNOVER POINTS.  This is not always the same team that led the league in takeaways, or in turnover differential, but the team that had the best differential between points scored following take aways and points allowed due to give aways. 

I'll have a lot more on turnover data in a few days when I finish my next season in review post.

[mc52beast]

Here's some food for thought;

just think how good the offense could have been with Jimmy Clausen behind Kalil.

[KB_fan]

In follow up to @TheRed's comment about how terrible we were in the Red Zone in 2014, here's a quick look at our cumulative season averages for Red Zone Scoring (TD) % in 2014 and 2015 week by week.   I love how the line just keeps going up & up at the end of the 2015 season. 

Here's the graph:

Here's the table: