Hawgdriver
03-25-2009, 03:55 PM
Just how good was the 2008 Broncos offense? Was it the #2 offense, as measured by yardage? Was it the #16 offense, as measured by points? In my opinion, it was a top three offense if you ignore giveaways, but a top ten offense if you include them.
There is some debate about how good the Broncos offense was last year. Some argue that it was almost the best in the league because they were #2 in yards gained. Others say that the only stat that matters is a W, and that’s a function of having more points than the other guy. They would say the Broncos are a middle of the pack offense—an 8-8 team and a #16 offense. I think both arguments ignore some important points. The points that need to be included in a solid evaluation of the Broncos offense include the effects of (in no particular order):
Defensive/special team points / points off takeaways, special teams, punt and kick returns, etc.
How good or bad the field goal kicker is
Strength of the defense they play against
How often the offense gave up the ball (fumbles/interceptions)
Starting field position – how much ground did they have to cover to score?
Number of chances to score
After you consider these factors you are more likely to really understand how good or bad the offense was. For example, if the Broncos are #16 in total points, what happens to that ranking if you subtract out the non-offensive touchdowns? The Broncos would then move from #16 in scoring to #11 when you consider just those points that were a result of team offense. What if the Broncos had a better kicker, how would that make a difference in their scoring? That would move them from #11 in scoring to #8 if they had a league average kicker. If you agree that defensive/special teams touchdowns shouldn’t count toward how good an offense is at scoring, and you also don’t consider the missed field goals that the kicker should have made against the offense, but you think that scoring is how you judge an offense, then you should agree that the Broncos were about #8 in the league as an offense.
There is more to consider. First, you would like to know the strength of the opposing defense. If you played the Lions all 16 games you would have the best offensive stats in the league regardless of how good your offense really was. I am sorry to say that such an analysis is beyond the time I have available. I would like to see someone else pick up that thread. I suspect they had a relatively soft defensive schedule.
Perhaps one of the most important corrections to make for an offense is starting field position. If you have two equal offenses, the one with better starting field position will score more often. Unfortunately, I have no clue how to get a starting field position statistic. The closest I came was an article by Pat Kirwan from week 11 of last year that had starting field position averages for all the teams. The Broncos starting field position was in the bottom 20% of the league. They usually had a significantly longer field to work with when they got the ball. This is reinforced by their awful takeaway statistic, 13. That was 4 below the #31 team in the league. When you don’t get short fields, and you don’t get great kick and punt returns, you aren’t going to score as often. One measure of offensive production is average drive length. When the Broncos got the ball on offense, how much did they move the ball? The answer to this statistic provides one of the strongest indications of a good Broncos offense—they were #1 in the league at 40.6 yards per drive. It is possible that if they had shorter fields they would have scored much more often. On the other hand, they may have been ineffective at scoring touchdowns in the red zone. Sadly, I can’t find any red-zone statistics to help answer that question.
Let’s take a basic look at their scoring effectiveness—how many points do they score per drive? How does that compare to other teams? What if they had a shorter field to work with? Their scoring effectiveness per drive was #6, and if they had an ‘average field position’ they would be #3.
That is a reasonable analysis of how well they moved the ball and scored, but that’s just one part of an offense. It should be obvious that the most important, or at least one of the most important statistics is turnover ratio. This is the single most effective statistic in predicting the win-loss record of any given team. Winning the turnover battle goes a long way to winning championships. As we mentioned, the Broncos were dead last in creating takeways, but how about giveaways? If your offense racks up tons of yardage but coughs up the ball near the goal line you will lose games because your offense stinks. In the giveaway category, the Broncos were #7 from the bottom. Jay threw a lot of picks and there were a lot of fumbles recovered by the defense. I don’t know how to determine the effect this has on the offense overall, but it’s safe to say that it knocks their effectiveness down quite a bit. I have them as about a #8-#10 offense for that reason. For comparison, Football Outsiders has the Broncos as a #5 offense after correcting for whatever factors they think are important.
There is some debate about how good the Broncos offense was last year. Some argue that it was almost the best in the league because they were #2 in yards gained. Others say that the only stat that matters is a W, and that’s a function of having more points than the other guy. They would say the Broncos are a middle of the pack offense—an 8-8 team and a #16 offense. I think both arguments ignore some important points. The points that need to be included in a solid evaluation of the Broncos offense include the effects of (in no particular order):
Defensive/special team points / points off takeaways, special teams, punt and kick returns, etc.
How good or bad the field goal kicker is
Strength of the defense they play against
How often the offense gave up the ball (fumbles/interceptions)
Starting field position – how much ground did they have to cover to score?
Number of chances to score
After you consider these factors you are more likely to really understand how good or bad the offense was. For example, if the Broncos are #16 in total points, what happens to that ranking if you subtract out the non-offensive touchdowns? The Broncos would then move from #16 in scoring to #11 when you consider just those points that were a result of team offense. What if the Broncos had a better kicker, how would that make a difference in their scoring? That would move them from #11 in scoring to #8 if they had a league average kicker. If you agree that defensive/special teams touchdowns shouldn’t count toward how good an offense is at scoring, and you also don’t consider the missed field goals that the kicker should have made against the offense, but you think that scoring is how you judge an offense, then you should agree that the Broncos were about #8 in the league as an offense.
There is more to consider. First, you would like to know the strength of the opposing defense. If you played the Lions all 16 games you would have the best offensive stats in the league regardless of how good your offense really was. I am sorry to say that such an analysis is beyond the time I have available. I would like to see someone else pick up that thread. I suspect they had a relatively soft defensive schedule.
Perhaps one of the most important corrections to make for an offense is starting field position. If you have two equal offenses, the one with better starting field position will score more often. Unfortunately, I have no clue how to get a starting field position statistic. The closest I came was an article by Pat Kirwan from week 11 of last year that had starting field position averages for all the teams. The Broncos starting field position was in the bottom 20% of the league. They usually had a significantly longer field to work with when they got the ball. This is reinforced by their awful takeaway statistic, 13. That was 4 below the #31 team in the league. When you don’t get short fields, and you don’t get great kick and punt returns, you aren’t going to score as often. One measure of offensive production is average drive length. When the Broncos got the ball on offense, how much did they move the ball? The answer to this statistic provides one of the strongest indications of a good Broncos offense—they were #1 in the league at 40.6 yards per drive. It is possible that if they had shorter fields they would have scored much more often. On the other hand, they may have been ineffective at scoring touchdowns in the red zone. Sadly, I can’t find any red-zone statistics to help answer that question.
Let’s take a basic look at their scoring effectiveness—how many points do they score per drive? How does that compare to other teams? What if they had a shorter field to work with? Their scoring effectiveness per drive was #6, and if they had an ‘average field position’ they would be #3.
That is a reasonable analysis of how well they moved the ball and scored, but that’s just one part of an offense. It should be obvious that the most important, or at least one of the most important statistics is turnover ratio. This is the single most effective statistic in predicting the win-loss record of any given team. Winning the turnover battle goes a long way to winning championships. As we mentioned, the Broncos were dead last in creating takeways, but how about giveaways? If your offense racks up tons of yardage but coughs up the ball near the goal line you will lose games because your offense stinks. In the giveaway category, the Broncos were #7 from the bottom. Jay threw a lot of picks and there were a lot of fumbles recovered by the defense. I don’t know how to determine the effect this has on the offense overall, but it’s safe to say that it knocks their effectiveness down quite a bit. I have them as about a #8-#10 offense for that reason. For comparison, Football Outsiders has the Broncos as a #5 offense after correcting for whatever factors they think are important.