Panthers Stat Tracking 2021: Opponents on 3rd & 4th Downs

[KB_fan]

Yesterday I posted a stat tracking thread where I hope to keep track of how Panthers are doing throughout the season on 3rd down conversions.

https://www.carolinahuddle.com/topic/171955-stat-tracking-panthers-2021-3rd-4th-down-conversions/

Today I am digging more into Panthers defense - how did we do in stopping our opponents on 3rd & 4th down.

As we know all too well, not being able to get off the field on 3rd down was a HUGE weakness for the team last year.  We were 31st in the league, allowing teams to convert on 49.25% of 3rd downs.  OUCH.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-third-down-conversion-pct?date=2021-02-08

Well right now, Panthers are pretty much doing a "Worst to First" deal.... we're currently LEADING the league through 2 games in terms of opponents' 3rd down conversions, with an average of only 25% allowed.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-third-down-conversion-pct?date=2021-09-23

 

It's SO great to see.  I'm starting to dig more deeply into the game logs from Jets & Saints games and will have some more analysis later tonight after dinner.  

[KB_fan]

Here's an early sneak peak at the game log data for the Jets on 3rd & 4th downs.  (I still have to get the actual numbers in my spreadsheet...)

But what I see at a glance is that Panthers D did a very nice job in keeping the Jets in 3rd and long most drives throughout the game, and also had some very nice stops on 3rd & short.  [Apologies that I don't have data from last season to compare in terms of how we did on 3rd & long vs. 3rd & short (both in what situations we faced how often and the success rate in preventing the 1st down)]

I love being able to see the plethora of names too in terms of Panthers defenders making the stop.  It really is a "whole of defense" effort, not just one or two guys doing all the tackling.

 

More summary & analysis after dinner along with Saints game data too...

 

[Khyber53]

Dang, I really appreciate seeing these!

And yeah, it's great to see so many different players making the stops. I think that everyone got used to Luke making the majority of them (followed by Shaq and Thomas Davis) back in the day. After he was gone, we had a lot of soft effort players that we've had to get rid of or retrain.

[KB_fan]

Here's the detail from the game log for the Saints game.  We kept them in 3rd and VERY long on many plays, of which they converted 2.  But the few times they got short or intermediate 3rd or 4th down situations we stuffed them every single time (or forced penalties that forced them to punt).  Really eye opening to look at this in detail.  

Note, I've included 3rd & 4th down penalty plays that technically don't count as plays, but basically by forcing false starts and delays of game which moved the Saints back further..., in my book, they count as Panthers stops on 3rd/4th down, official or not.

Edited September 22, 2021 by KB_fan

[KB_fan]

Here's the overview of opponents' performance in converting 3rd & 4th downs. 

(Note: The "made" attempts at right include any attempts where 1st downs were granted because of CAR penalties.  The "failed" numbers at the right include several 3rd / 4th attempts nullified by opponents' penalties. So the numbers on the right don't match the official game book stats where the penalties are ruled no play.)

 

And here is the running total for Weeks 1 & 2:

Some observations:

1) Panthers are doing a great job in keeping defenses of 3rd/4th and long.  Basically 60% of all conversion attempts are in the 3rd & long category (I'll have exact yard averages per game later... the Saints had a number of WAY long attempts well beyond 3rd & long).  By contrast, only 40% of Panthers 3rd down attempts so far have been 3rd & long.  So well done!

2) I love that we're not just stopping 3rd & longs, but also stuffing opponents in 2/3 of all their short yardage attempts.  (By contrast Panthers are making close to 50% of their short 3rd down attempts).  And allowing 0 conversions on middle distance attempts.  So very nice!

3) We may worry about Panthers' Defense having let up in the 2nd half of games (especially versus the Jets), but it hasn't shown up in the 3rd down conversion stats.  Panthers are equally successful in stopping conversions in both halves, for the most part.

[KB_fan]

Just calculated the average distance of opponents 3rd/4th down attempts.  Basically for both teams it was 3rd & 8

Jets:  7.8 yards to go

Saints 8.3 yards to go

 

For Panthers, by contrast, our offense has done a much better job of keeping the 3rd downs maneageable.  Average yards to go on 3rd/4th downs:

versus Jets 4.6 yard

versus Saints 5.6 yards

[Khyber53]

Third and eight as the average? Wow! 

The percentage of conversion on 3rd and 8 for pro teams can't be very high, even for the best teams.

Still, we're at a heck of a pace for defensive efficiency right now. It's hard to tell if it is the quality of the competition (or lack thereof) or if we're just really killing it out there. Time will tell but with the schedule ahead of us, it's going to be very hard to win over the sceptics until the last fourth of the season.

 

[Jon Snow]

1 minute ago, Khyber53 said:

Third and eight as the average? Wow! 

The percentage of conversion on 3rd and 8 for pro teams can't be very high, even for the best teams.

Still, we're at a heck of a pace for defensive efficiency right now. It's hard to tell if it is the quality of the competition (or lack thereof) or if we're just really killing it out there. Time will tell but with the schedule ahead of us, it's going to be very hard to win over the sceptics until the last fourth of the season.

 

It's a good strategy to keep your opponents in 3rd and long. It's not easy to do either so props to the chubby general and his old fart genius on the defense. 

[KB_fan]

8 hours ago, Khyber53 said:

Third and eight as the average? Wow! 

The percentage of conversion on 3rd and 8 for pro teams can't be very high, even for the best teams.

Still, we're at a heck of a pace for defensive efficiency right now. It's hard to tell if it is the quality of the competition (or lack thereof) or if we're just really killing it out there. Time will tell but with the schedule ahead of us, it's going to be very hard to win over the sceptics until the last fourth of the season.

 

I'd love to find data on how often teams are in 3rd & long, and what the conversion % is.  

I did some searching today, but I've not (yet) been able to find any site that provides data  for the NFL on 3rd down by distance, e.g. to calculate how good teams are at converting 3rd & longs. 

If anyone has any leads on where to find that data, I'd love to know.

I did find an article / site that tracked that for college football:

https://staturdays.com/2021/01/14/comparing-third-down-conversion-rate-by-distance-to-go/

In 2020, the average college team converted 3rd & 7 / 3rd & 8 about 36% of the time, and 3rd & 9 or 3rd & 10 about 31% of the time.

So far Panthers are converting 3rd and long (7 yards and longer) about 18% of the time.  But it was widely uneven (0% Jets) (33% Saints).

Panthers Defense is holding opposing defenses to 26% average conversion rate on 3rd & long.  (38% Jets, 22% Saints).

[Khyber53]

15 hours ago, KB_fan said:

I'd love to find data on how often teams are in 3rd & long, and what the conversion % is.  

I did some searching today, but I've not (yet) been able to find any site that provides data  for the NFL on 3rd down by distance, e.g. to calculate how good teams are at converting 3rd & longs. 

If anyone has any leads on where to find that data, I'd love to know.

I did find an article / site that tracked that for college football:

https://staturdays.com/2021/01/14/comparing-third-down-conversion-rate-by-distance-to-go/

In 2020, the average college team converted 3rd & 7 / 3rd & 8 about 36% of the time, and 3rd & 9 or 3rd & 10 about 31% of the time.

So far Panthers are converting 3rd and long (7 yards and longer) about 18% of the time.  But it was widely uneven (0% Jets) (33% Saints).

Panthers Defense is holding opposing defenses to 26% average conversion rate on 3rd & long.  (38% Jets, 22% Saints).

I read that one, too. It's college data, though, and that can be pretty skewed depending on the teams used. That 36% conversion rate for 3rd and 7/8 just seems really high compared to the pro game. 

Somewhere out there, someone's gotta have that data, though. 

[KB_fan]

After 3 weeks (pending MNF, which shouldn't change anything at the top of the leaderboard...) Panthers continue to lead the league in 3rd down defense.

These numbers really impress me... I wanted to put them in context, so I did a little research.

I just did some digging at Team Rankings (which allows you to look at stats for any given week in a past season by changing the date.... I LOVE that feature!)

Here are what the 3rd down conversion defense leaders' stats looked like after week 3 going back to 2015.

• 2015  Denver 18.7%
• 2016  Seattle 25%
• 2017  Baltimore 24.3%
• 2018  Kansas City 25.8%
• 2019 New England 12.8%
• 2020 Arizona 28.6%

So the Panthers' current performance of allowing only 22% conversion on 3rd down puts us in some pretty great company in terms of dominating, winning defenses:  In the past 6 seasons, only Denver 2015 (sigh) and New England 2019 were off to better starts in terms of shutting down teams on 3rd down.

Defense wins championships baby!

 

Here's Panthers' ranking & performance on 3rd down defense (entire season) for some past seasons:

• 2003  34.0% (#7)

• 2013 36.3% (#12)
• 2014  42.1% (#21)
• 2015  36.9% (#9)
• 2016 37.9% (#11)
• 2017 37.4% (#12)
• 2018 39.9% (#20)
• 2019 39.9% (#21)
• 2020 49.3% (#31)

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by KB_fan

[PanthersATL]

imagine if Luke did weekly tape review sessions with specific players as part of opponent planning... 

[Fox007]

On 9/22/2021 at 8:27 AM, Jon Snow said:

It's a good strategy to keep your opponents in 3rd and long. It's not easy to do either so props to the chubby general and his old fart genius on the defense. 

Bro remember how we used to give up free first downs on 3rd and literally anything. If it was 3rd and 10 we'd have our CBs 20 yards off....

nice poo KB_FAN

[Jon Snow]

20 minutes ago, Fox007 said:

Bro remember how we used to give up free first downs on 3rd and literally anything. If it was 3rd and 10 we'd have our CBs 20 yards off....

nice poo KB_FAN

I remember.  It was bad, real bad.