Rivera on blowing leads

[Mr. Scot]

13 hours ago, JawnyBlaze said:

If we could somehow meld Rivera and Arians we’d have....probably belichick. A great coach anyway. 

I think Rivera pretty much owns Arians.

Given how I feel about Rivera, that should tell you a lot about how I regard Arians.

 

2 hours ago, Darth Biscuit said:

I would very much like for you to analyze 2015 in regards to this as I remember it being a lot more than 4 games... that Saints game, which I was at, came down to a Josh Norman INT in the endzone of Josh fuging McCown as the Saints were rallying from behind...

2015 had all the stars aligned for the Panthers...  yet we still blew leads and had to fight at the end of quite a few games.  Back in 2013 (I think) when "Riverboat Ron" was born, we all thought he'd learned his lesson... but it didn't stick...

Listen, I get what people are saying about griping and the fact that we're 4-1.  I love the fact that we're 4-1 and I hope we keep winning, but we're winning because the PLAYERS are overcoming the challenge.  The coaching is HURTING us, not helping.

Yeah, 2015 wasn't immune.  We let a lot of teams get close.  The Colts, Eagles and especially the Seahawks in the playoffs. Absolute dominance like you saw in the Cardinals game wasn't frequent.

It wasn't that we didn't fold in the second half.  It was just that we generally built up large enough leads that we were still up by a few at the end.

[KB_fan]

For 2015, 2016 and 2017 to date I can give you the exact grisly totals in terms of how the Panthers have been outscored in the 4th quarter of games:

2015:

Actually the total isn't so bad for 2015 in the regular season.  Panthers were outscored in the 4th in 5 of 16 regular season games. 

Indy, Green Bay, Dallas, NYG, and at Atlanta.  (But in the Dallas game, Panthers still held on to 70% of their lead, so it wasn't a serious lapse.  The other 4 games were much more serious issues).

For the 2015 season:

Panthers scored 104 points in the 4th quarter.

Panthers allowed 108 points in the 4th quarter.

For the post-season, Panthers were outscored in the 4th in 2 of our 3 post-season games:

Panthers scored 18 points, allowed 26.

Here's a screen shot with a portion of my gamebook database with all the details for 2015.  Most interesting perhaps, near the bottom is the % of largest lead maintained for each game:

Here's the 2015 post-season:

 

For the entire 2015 season (including post-season), the Panthers managed on average to maintain 56% of their largest lead.  I would claim that's not too shabby,  It certainly looks positively OUTSTANDING compared to 2016.

I'll try to post 2016 & 2017 charts, and some other fun stats re: blown leads among NFC South teams soon, but my internet is acting up a bit.... 

[Zaximus]

Ron's 4th quarter approach needs to change completely.    The defense needs to keep playing hard and the offense needs to try harder to move the ball.    

That, combined with this team's inability to manage the clock and get plays to the field is crazy this far in.

[xav8tor]

Those stats show what many of us knew. Our style of prevent ain't cutting it. In 2015, everything clicked. Only when Riverboat appears, do we put up the numbers we are capable of. When he was on the hot seat, look what happened. This year, that win with a lead percentage could easily have been cut in half by the Pats and Lions. RR needs to resurrect his Riverboat personna.

[twylyght]

1 hour ago, DaveThePanther2008 said:

Players get hurt whether we play prevent or the way we got there. 

You should NEVER let up on any team.  If there is time on the clock you play 60 minutes.  Not 45 and freaking pray the other team doesn't come back.

I don't disagree.  The commentary was concerning people that are complaining now will always find a reason to complain.

[KB_fan]

For 2016, stats are ugly, as would be expected with a 6-10 record and a season where we lost 6 of 8 extremely close games.

What I think I find most damning about 2016 is that Panthers had leads in 12 games at some point in the 2nd half, but only won 6 of those games.  We won NO games where we came from behind in the 2nd half.

I'm going to present the data in two formats in order to try and give the clearest picture of what went wrong:

 

[Mr. Scot]

7 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

What I think I find most damning about 2016 is that Panthers had leads in 12 games at some point in the 2nd half, but only won 6 of those games.  We won NO games where we came from behind in the 2nd half.

Ugh :(

[KB_fan]

Here's the 2016 data in the normal format I use to present it, (rows instead of columns), including the scoring data for each quarter:

Grisly details:

Outscored in the 4th quarter in 13 out of 16 games.

Outscored by 161 points against to 89 points for.  OUCH.

Lost 6 games in which we had leads of 17 points, 10 points (twice), 8 points (twice) and 4 points.  That Kansas City loss when we'd been leading by 17 was the nail in the coffin of the season, I believe.

Here's perhaps the worst:  for the season on average we maintained only 5% of our largest lead per game, due mostly to losing so many games where we had a lead.  But even games we won, we frittered away 60 - 85% of our leads in 3 of those 6 games...

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, KB_fan said:

Outscored in the 4th quarter in 13 out of 16 games.

Outscored by 161 points against to 89 points for.  OUCH.

Lost 6 games in which we had leads of 17 points, 10 points (twice), 8 points (twice) and 4 points.  That Kansas City loss when we'd been leading by 17 was the nail in the coffin of the season, I believe.

Here's perhaps the worst:  for the season on average we maintained only 5% of our largest lead per game, due mostly to losing so many games where we had a lead.  But even games we won, we frittered away 60 - 85% of our leads in 3 of those 6 games...

That's ugly.

[KB_fan]

Before I present 2017 data, let me share some fun links...  It COULD be worse... We could be Atlanta or Tampa...

As I noted in one of my replies above, it's not easy to find NFL data on blown leads.  But I did discover that PFR (Pro Football Reference) has a cool set of pages on each team's 50 worst blown leads.

Here's the page for the Panthers.  For those who want to wallow in the misery of blown leads, you can click on the link and re-live them all game by game.

www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/car/blown_leads.htm

(note I couldn't fit all 50 games in my screenshot, but this gives you a taste)

Important:  these are only blown leads in a LOSS.  Doesn't show a big blown lead when the team held on for the win.

Anyway, of the Panthers 50 worst blown lead losses, 14 came under Rivera since 2011.

But looking at our NFC rivals - all of whom have longer team history than the Panthers - I was surprised that very similar numbers of big blown leads have come in the same time period since 2011.

Since 2011:

Atlanta has 10 big blown leads

Tampa has 14 big blown leads

New Orleans 9 big blown leads

So for all 4 NFC South teams, roughly 20 to 30% of their biggest blown leads have been in the past 6 seasons, regardless of the fact that the other 3 teams have much longer history.  All teams blow leads.  Panthers may be pretty awful in 4th quarter scoring, but other teams have BIGGER blown leads.... (You knew this was coming, didn't you)...

 

 

[ecu88]

3 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

Before I present 2017 data, let me share some fun links...  It COULD be worse... We could be Atlanta or Tampa...

As I noted in one of my replies above, it's not easy to find NFL data on blown leads.  But I did discover that PFR (Pro Football Reference) has a cool set of pages on each team's 50 worst blown leads.

Here's the page for the Panthers.  For those who want to wallow in the misery of blown leads, you can click on the link and re-live them all game by game.

www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/car/blown_leads.htm

(note I couldn't fit all 50 games in my screenshot, but this gives you a taste)

Important:  these are only blown leads in a LOSS.  Doesn't show a big blown lead when the team held on for the win.

Anyway, of the Panthers 50 worst blown lead losses, 14 came under Rivera since 2011.

But looking at our NFC rivals - all of whom have longer team history than the Panthers - I was surprised that very similar numbers of big blown leads have come in the same time period since 2011.

Since 2011:

Atlanta has 10 big blown leads

Tampa has 14 big blown leads

New Orleans 9 big blown leads

So for all 4 NFC South teams, roughly 20 to 30% of their biggest blown leads have been in the past 6 seasons, regardless of the fact that the other 3 teams have much longer history.  All teams blow leads.  Panthers may be pretty awful in 4th quarter scoring, but other teams have BIGGER blown leads.... (You knew this was coming, didn't you)...

 

 

:'(

[KB_fan]

Here's the link where you can see all the biggest blown leads by all teams:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/blown_leads.htm

Panthers are NOWHERE near the top in terms of worst blown leads, but all our division rivals are up there at the top...!

So really, IT COULD BE WORSE.... take heart!

[tiger7_88]

2 hours ago, KB_fan said:

Here's some very damning evidence about how poorly the Panthers have tended to play on both sides of the ball in 4th quarters:

Via the Team Rankings site, I looked at how the Panthers ranked in 4th quarter points scored and 4th quarter points allowed since 2011.  UGH:

Only once each on offense and defense have the Panthers been in the top half of the league in terms of 4th quarter scoring under Ron.

But 8 times -  four seasons each for offense & defense - we've been in the bottom 10 of the league in 4th quarter scoring.

I think this right here is the huge, blinking, neon arrow of statistical evidence pointed at the head coach.

[KB_fan]

Ok, now a quick look at 2017 to date.  It's fresh in all our minds, so doesn't need a lot of analysis, but here's a glance at the scoring data:

Yup we've been outscored in the 4th in 3 of our 5 games, and the totals are pretty awful:

We've scored 13 points in the 4th, while allowing 41 points.  OOF.  Terrible!  But, we're 4-1.  I can live with the drama if we can keep pulling out wins, but yes, I'd rather we find a way to fix this!