Projo Fantasy Sports Blog

December 11, 2007 Archives

By Michael Salfino

There's a great formula for converting yards from scrimmage into points: 15 yards from scrimmage equals one point on the scoreboard.

Note that in the NFL this year, every 15.05 yards from scrimmage equals one point. In 2006, it was 15.56 yards. And in 2005 and 2004, it worked out to 15.33 and 15.21 yards, respectively.

Let's examine which offenses, defenses and individuals are most and least efficient when it comes to this yards-into-points translation.

The 2007 offenses that leverage yardage the best are the Steelers and the Chargers. San Diego gets a point every 13.1 yards from scrimmage; Pittsburgh one point every 14 yards.

Insignificant? Over the course of the season thus far, San Diego has 39 more points than our formula suggests it's earned. For Pittsburgh, it's 30 additional points. Most NFL games are decided by seven points or less.

The least efficient offenses are the Eagles and the Broncos. Philadelphia's yards from scrimmage translates into 23.5 points per game, yet they score just 20.8 (putting them 35 total points to the minus side). Denver should be scoring 23.8 points per game, not 21.7 (27 total points short).

Interestingly, the Niners (last in yardage and points) should score about 2.5 more points per game than they actually have. I suspect that yardage and point totals get skewed on the extreme ends of the spectrum, as I wouldn't expect a team averaging 90 yards from scrimmage to score even six points per game. So I've focused on overall rankings in identifying outliers.

The differences are more striking on defense. The Jaguars and Vikings both allow about four less points per game than their yardage totals suggest. That's 52 points thus far, projecting to 64 over the full season.

Our least efficient defense is the Ravens, who should have allowed 19.8 points per game, not 24.2. The Dolphins aren't far behind (22.4 earned, 27.3 actual). The Cardinals are three points per game on the minus side of the equation (21.7 earned, 24.8 actual).

In searching for reasons why, I wasn't surprised to see that the Ravens are 32nd in turnovers and the Cardianls 30th. The Dolphins are also in the bottom third of the league here. And all three teams have poor special teams. So, each team's offense is handing the opponents points and poor special teams play forks over many hidden yards.

Also not surprising is Miami being is 32nd in preventing TDs on red-zone possessions, and the Cards sitting at 25th in stopping TDs once teams are in goal-to-go.

Those factors are all key reasons for the offensive outliers, too. But since yardage is our biggest sample of data, I'd weigh that more heavily when trying to get the true measure of a unit's strength in forecasting not only next week, but next year, too.

Now let's look at some individuals who are generating far more or less TDs than their yardage total suggests.

Buy

Carson Palmer, QB, Bengals: He should have 30-plus TDs given the 265 passing yards he averages per game. Instead, he has 21 scoring strikes, which translates to one point every 23.5 yards passing. There has to be some degree of bad luck in here.

Brett Favre, QB, Packers: Favre gets so much love that it pains me to say he should be even better this year. But the facts don't lie: just one point every 21.8 yards passing. He could easily be sitting on 35 TD passes right now.

Larry Fitzgerald, WR, Cardinals: He's a monster, physically and in the end zone. So I buy that he's four TDs short now of where he should be given his yardage (1,139 yards in just 12 games).

Hold

Tom Brady, QB, Patriots: He averages a point every 13 yards passing. If it was every 15 yards, he'd still be sitting on 39 TD passes with three games left. Expect him to be a monster again in '08.

Willie Parker, RB, Steelers: With a league-leading 1,217 rushing yards, you'd figure he'd have 12 rushing TDs, not 2. But look at the paltry average per carry (3.98).

Sell

Randy Moss, WR, Patriots: He's always been efficient given his red-zone skills. But he's too far over expectations (19 TDs, not the 12 his yardage total suggests).