Ewe and I Give You the Formula For Winning in NFL!

Ramsey, Today at 11:46 AM Last edited: Today at 12:28 PM

Two years ago my sister Ewe posted a thread on ROD, upon a subject she called “Yards per Pass Attempt Differential. She still lurks on ROD, but rarely posts because she’s going back to school and works full time. I’ve decided to update her viewpoint which I share with two more years of stats.

Definition of “Yards per Pass Attempt Differential” or Y-PAD… The difference between team’s offensive yards per pass attempt and a team’s defense yards per pass attempt allowed. You perform the same arithmetic with rushing yards per attempt differential and I did for all recent playoff teams.

Why even bring up Y-PAD? Because Y-PAD seems to have a very high correlation with winning, and moving deep in the playoffs toward the Super Bowl. Before I move on my sister Ewe crunched a bunch of stats and came to the conclusion that stats like sacks don’t have a high correlation with winning. But I digress.

Without further adieu, allow me to cut to the chase.

Between 2003 and 2015- 135 out of 156 or 86.5% of playoff teams had a positive Y-PAD!

The Rams?
2013…. Negative 1.26 Y-PAD
2014…. Negative 0.55 Y-PAD
2015…. Negative 0.88 Y-PAD

What about Rushing Ramsey? I didn’t go back to 2003, but I did crunch the last 3 years numbers.

2013…. 7 out of 12 playoff teams had positive rushing yards per attempt differentials.
2014…. Half the playoff teams had positive rushing yards per attempt differentials
2015….7 out of 12 playoff teams had positive rushing yards per attempt differentials.

I only figured out the playoff records for playoff teams with regular season negative passing yards per attempt differentials for 2013, 2014 and 2015. Why? Because I’m lazy. Combined playoff record was 3-6. Not one team with a regular season negative passing YPA differential (Y-PAD) made it the AFC or NFC Championship game, much less the Super Bowl.

Conclusions –
1. A superior rushing offence and defense have minimal correlations to a teams playoff success. For example New England had a negative rushing YPA in 2014 and 2015.

2. A positive Y-PAD “yards per pass attempt differential has a very high correlation to your team making the playoffs. Since 2003 86.5% of playoff teams had a positive Y-PAD

3. Positive Y-PAD’s appear to be crucial to playoff success, once you make the playoffs

Because I’m lazy, I won’t spit out stats for losing teams. Suffice to say the majority of losing teams have negative Y-PAD’s. My sister EWE pointed out in 2013, only one team NYG 7-9 had a positive Y-PAD.

Two years ago, my Sister Ewe wrote on the 2013 exceptions-

“But in passing, I will point out The Interception Exceptions to my YDS/A pass differential hypothesis. The Giants led the NFL in futility, throwing 29 Interceptions! Six more interceptions than the next team! The Chiefs threw a league low of 8 interceptions, while the Colts QB’s were tied for 3rd, throwing only 10 interceptions! 3. The Kansas City Chiefs – 0.53 and Indianapolis Colts -0.52 YDS/A passing differentials stand alone as the only NFL teams with winning records and a negative YDS/A passing differentials! We know the Colts beat KC in a wild wildcard playoff shocker, and then lost to the New England Patriots in the next round.”

My sister’s observation implies turnover differential has a high correlation to won loss records. She called it the Interception Exception. She went on to explain 2013 teams with zero Y-PAD’s,

“Teams like the Titians, Bears, and Lions with zero YDS/A passing differentials had either 8-8 or 7-9 records.”

Like I said earlier, I only put my microscope on 2014 and 2015 playoff teams and our Rams. I assume since 2014 and 2015 playoff team Y-PAD’s stats mirrored 2003-2013 playoff teams, the same was true for 2014-2015 losers.

In 2015 thanks to Todd Gurley and Tavon Austin our Rams had a positive 0.6 yard rushing differential! 😎 But we also had a 0.88 negative Y-PAD.

How Does it Work? In 2015 the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers led the NFL, averaging 4.8 yards per rush. Our Rams were tied for 5th with a 4.6 ypr. Yes!(y) Unfortunately, our Rams were dead last in Yard per pass attempt with a 5.93. Do the math people.

5.93 passing yards minus 4.8 rushing yards equals a 1.13 yard difference. So the worst passing offense in the NFL gained 1.13 more yards per play then the best rushing offense in the NFL!

I could stop writing here, because there are brains on ROD that can figure out what to do with these stats better then me. That’s why I’m writing the thread. Like Bob Dylan, you guys don’t need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows.

I have noticed the following things.
1. I believe a franchise QB is more important then a # 1 wide receiver. Super Bowls are littered with Franchise QB’s…50 ROD dollars to the first person who can name the last game manager quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

2. Call me Captain Obvious, but Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, DeAndre Hopkins, Brandon Marshall, Odell Beckham, Allen Robinson, Dez Bryant and Antonio Brown are the crème of the crop of #1 Wide Receivers. There’s a few playoffs in that bunch. Hell, there’s even one Super Bowl appearance. Antonio Brown caught 1 pass for 1 yards in a Super Bowl loss to Green Bay.

3. That brings me to the dark defensive side of Y-PAD. There’s is a thread floating around ROD now. Cornerback Josh Norman wants 16 million a year. Is he worth it? Let’s put Josh Norman’s 2015 season under a microscope.

A. Through the first four weeks of the season, Norman had been targeted 35 times and allowed a 42.9% completion percentage for 129 yards to go along with 4 interceptions. During this time, opposing quarterbacks recorded a 23.1 quarterback passer rating when targeting Norman.

B. Norman stuck to Dez Bryant for 43 snaps…allowed one catch for 6 yards.

C. Over the first 14 weeks of the season, Norman held DeAndre Hopkins, TY Hilton, Dez Bryant, Mike Evans, and Julio Jones to a combined 9 receptions for 89 yards.

D. Normans worst game was against Odell Beckham Jr. 4 receptions, 30 yards, one TD.

E. For the 2015 season, opposing quarterbacks had a passer rating of 54.0 when throwing at Norman, the lowest rating allowed by all NFL corners.

My points? Only the Denver Broncos allowed less yards per pass attempt then Carolina. Although Carolina led the NFL in Y-PAD with positive 1.39 Yards per pass attempt differential. Remember, New England rode Darrelle Revis’s back for one year to a Super Bowl win.

Seattle led the NFL in positive Y-PAD in 2013 and 2014. So, for the last 3 years 12 teams have participated in the AFC and NFC Championship Games. All 12 teams had a positive pass per attempt differentials.

The team that lead the NFL in Y-PAD has played in the last 3 Super Bowls. I didn’t check the 2012 Super Bowls and Super Bowls before that. So the trend may continue further back then 2013.

Because your eyes don’t lie, I’m sure you’ve seen that the refs let defenses get away with more rough stuff during the playoffs. Thus Denver was able to overcome inferior QB play with the best pass defense in the NFL.

Bottom Line- The Rams need a positive Y-PAD if we want to get deep into the playoffs. We might be able to win a Super Bowl with a average franchise QB, if we have devastating pass defense. It would appear a franchise QB would put us on the fast track to a Super Bowl. Our defense is Super Bowl ready.

Hey guys, I loved watching the Rams in the 70’s and early 80’s. Those 11 minute Eric Dickerson killer drives thrilled me. But in a modern NFL rushing offense and defense takes a back seat to passing offense and defense. A strong passing offense can get you to the endzone in less then a minute and in 3 plays. The odds of drive breaking turnovers and penalties go way down. That’s why Y-PAD is so important.

You guys remember EWE and Ramsey. This seems to be a refinement of one of Dick Vermiel’s stats. The two best indicators of success are TOs and yards/attempt.

It is hard to predict TOs, but much easier to use the concept of yards/attempt or yards/attempt minus yards/attempt-allowed equals yards/attempt – differential.