Interesting Panthers stat

[iamhubby1]

2 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

No worries.   I had a nice relaxing afternoon, and spent some good time with local friends the past few days.  Tonight I'm sitting at the computer waiting for a friend to Skype me from the U.S., so it was easy to do some number crunching while the computer was open in front of me.  But I appreciate the concern!

 

Lol. Can't have that computer open and not use it for what it was built for? The assimilation of information. I use mine for Panther news, and of course soft pron. But that's just me. Well, and probably half our Huddle brethren as well.

 

Glad you enjoy it so much. Cuz you do A LOT to keep us lay folk informed. And thanks for that.

[sharkkiller]

2 hours ago, iamhubby1 said:

 

Lol. Can't have that computer open and not use it for what it was built for? The assimilation of information. I use mine for Panther news, and of course soft pron. But that's just me. Well, and probably half our Huddle brethren as well.

 

Glad you enjoy it so much. Cuz you do A LOT to keep us lay folk informed. And thanks for that.

Sure. "Soft pron" lol

[Wundrbread33]

5 hours ago, thomas96 said:

Stew's a solid back for sure but it's this type of thing that makes me wish we had a truly dominant HB to pair with Cam. A guy like Gurley so he wasn't stuck in "1 on 12" situations on that sh*tty Rams offense. Our offense is damn good as it is with Stew healthy clearly, possibly the best in the league. But with an elite HB like Gurley we could be among the best ever. I absolutely love me some Stew but he's always banged up and when he isn't missing games like he will this week and possibly longer, it's likely affecting his play too. We had extremely good run blocking last year from the line, except for Oher who was sub-par, and Stew's numbers weren't very great. I watched the games and of course remember him playing like a boss but I feel he leaves some yards on the field because he doesn't have as much ability to break one loose for a huge gain, which seems like it's there quite a bit with how good our run blocking is. Stew's getting older as well and it'll be sad as hell to have to move on but it's inevitably going to come soon, and I hope we can get that dominant back in next year's stacked draft class. Would be ideal to have Stew around another year to get that guy adjusted, and up to the task in pass protection and to have a nice tandem again since we know Rivera loves his RB tandems.

My eye ball test says Stew had been hit behind the LOS plenty this season. He is one of the most elusive backs in the game as referenced by the commentators (he was a leader in broken tackles last year) during the Denver game.

 

I guarantee this "GBR" stat is heavily influenced by Cam getting wide open runs past the LOS on a read. If we were more traditional in the running game, we would be a lot lower on his list.

 

Doubt Gurley would help much. Even AP has shown you how useless a back can be when he gets blown up before he can get moving.

[t96]

53 minutes ago, Wundrbread33 said:

My eye ball test says Stew had been hit behind the LOS plenty this season. He is one of the most elusive backs in the game as referenced by the commentators (he was a leader in broken tackles last year) during the Denver game.

 

I guarantee this "GBR" stat is heavily influenced by Cam getting wide open runs past the LOS on a read. If we were more traditional in the running game, we would be a lot lower on his list.

 

Doubt Gurley would help much. Even AP has shown you how useless a back can be when he gets blown up before he can get moving.

Stew had plenty of room to run last year. Denver's the best defense in the game so in that game struggles were understandable. Against the Niners Stew got hurt instantly and then Fozzy and a sh*tload of room. Gurley in this offense could break Dickerson's rushing record, and would get atleast 1500 yards easily. Gurley wouldn't help much if our offense was like the Rams, you're right. But it isn't. We have a top o-line, best QB in the league, solid WRs and the second best TE. Gurley or AP would thrive here, better than anywhere else in the league. AP has actually shown that a ridiculously talented back can overcome poor o-line play to some degree. Obviously when teams are selling out to stop the run the runner won't go anywhere as shown by Gurley this year, but that wouldn't be the case here. Gurley would be busting long runs every game for us, since he'd have the space, tackle breaking ability and then the speed to get to and past the second level. Stew has two of those but not the speed to make the most out of a play.

[ShutDwn]

Stew had plenty of room to run last year. Denver's the best defense in the game so in that game struggles were understandable. Against the Niners Stew got hurt instantly and then Fozzy and a sh*tload of room. Gurley in this offense could break Dickerson's rushing record, and would get atleast 1500 yards easily. Gurley wouldn't help much if our offense was like the Rams, you're right. But it isn't. We have a top o-line, best QB in the league, solid WRs and the second best TE. Gurley or AP would thrive here, better than anywhere else in the league. AP has actually shown that a ridiculously talented back can overcome poor o-line play to some degree. Obviously when teams are selling out to stop the run the runner won't go anywhere as shown by Gurley this year, but that wouldn't be the case here. Gurley would be busting long runs every game for us, since he'd have the space, tackle breaking ability and then the speed to get to and past the second level. Stew has two of those but not the speed to make the most out of a play.

Stew really didn't have that much room otherwise he'd average higher than 3.9 ypc

[iamhubby1]

28 minutes ago, stbugs said:

I've been pretty shocked. They were supposed to have improved. Drafted Karl Joseph (S) in the 1st, Jihad Ward (DE) in the 2nd, Shilique Calhoun (DE) in the 3rd, signed Sean Smith (CB), signed Reggie Nelson (FS), signed Bruce Irvin (LB) and they are only 4 points from the worst scoring D in the league giving up just under 35 points per game. They gave up 800+ yards and 7TDs to Brees and Ryan. They made those two look like it was 2012 again.

 

That is one heck of a lot of pieces to try and integrate all in one off-season. There is something to be said for continuity. But, I gotta say, if they can get it together, they have some talent.

[KB_fan]

Looks like ESPN DID update the article, changing the wording:

 

Quote

48.1: The percentage of drives for Carolina Panthers' opponents that have ended without a first down or touchdown through two weeks. That's the top mark in the league.

I'm still not sure we're leading the league by that measure, and that's a bit awkward wording...  but at least he did make an attempt to correct it, no longer claiming that we're forcing 3&outs on 48% of our opponents drives.

[wud35]

33 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

Looks like ESPN DID update the article, changing the wording:

 

I'm still not sure we're leading the league by that measure, and that's a bit awkward wording...  but at least he did make an attempt to correct it, no longer claiming that we're forcing 3&outs on 48% of our opponents drives.

You need to be very careful, ESPN might try to hire you. Lol

As always awesome work.

[redbuddha]

15 hours ago, KB_fan said:

Hmmmm.  That stat seems much too high to me.

Do you have a link to the article  @sharkkiller? 

Maybe I'm missing something, but according to the drive chart data from the gamebooks, I have the following recorded in my 2016 game data spreadsheet:

• Vs Broncos: Panthers forced 3  3&outs in 9 net drives  (33%)
• Vs SF:  Panthers forced 4  3&outs in 16 net drives (25%)

So that's a total of 7 3&outs in 25 drives for a season-to-date percentage of 28%.

I'll review my data, but here are the drive charts for you all to check out:

 

I STILL only count 7 total 3&out drives for our opponents (3 vs. Denver / 4 vs. SF)

A couple of possibilities as to where ESPN could be getting the MUCH higher total:

• Maybe they're not excluding kneel down drives?
• Maybe they're not excluding drives that ended in an opponent's turnover?
• Maybe they're calculating the total of drives with NO first downs by the opponent?

Or maybe they're just flat out wrong?

I'll check out some other sources of data like Sporting Charts or PFR to see what other sites are saying about our opponents 3&out %

KB_fan was definitely that kid in school that would show the teacher her work, to see how she got the answer!

[KB_fan]

This makes me realize the value of the work I put in doing those "game at a glance" drive charts.  If I hadn't manually done the data entry myself, I'm not sure I would have caught ESPN's error.  It's so easy to believe what you read and not fact check it.   I wonder how many incorrect stats I've blithely re-tweeted or copied in some thread here over the past two seasons.  I'm sure it's been plenty.   (BTW, no offense or criticism intended to the OP! This was an interesting stat and if I'd seen it before he did, I'm almost certain I would have quickly tweeted or posted it, only a little while later realizing the stat was incorrect.)

Of course it helps being a fan of one team and thus going in-depth on their stats.  ESPN analysts don't have that luxury, so it's easy to misread / misinterpret data if you don't have the full context.

For the record, based on ESPN's definition of % of opponents drives with 0 first downs and 0 touchdowns, Panthers WERE leading the league through week 2.  (Not counting Houston - New England's week 3 game, which put Houston in the lead).

But that is a pretty strange stat since it would include field goals and missed field goals - not exactly a defensive "stop," and it also includes "end of half" / "end of game" drives when time was expiring.  A few of those drives might be meaningful attempts by an opponent to move the ball, but most are not.

Here's the Pro-Football Reference Query that shows the results for week 1 & week 2 (look at the DEFENSE totals table)

I think the better query would be to include all drives with 0 first downs, no scores, and no end of half / end of game drives.  By that measure, Panthers were in 3rd after week 2, behind Philly & Houston, as I'd already posted above.

 

One good thing to come out of this ESPN mistake is that I'm getting to know my way better around the PFR database.  It's been a struggle to figure out their query syntax in some cases, but with added practice, I'm slowly becoming better at taking advantage of this amazing resource.  It also helps that the stats  geeks at PFR are very very helpful and have responded whenever I've emailed or tweeted needing help on a query.  I love that!

[redbuddha]

KB_fan is the sexiest woman alive. I can only one day hope to marry a woman who loves football this much!

Could you imagine her providing live ticker tape stats during the game?

I am not worthy!