ckparrothead
Premium Member
I was having a debate with my buddy who runs Billsbuzz.com, Mark Weiler, and after doing some research I thought I'd share some things I found with you guys.
First thing is first. The tale of the tape.
Dolphins Ranking, Patriots Ranking
Pass Offense: #23, #2
Rush Offense: #15, #28
Pass Defense: #14, #27
Rush Defense: #20, #27
That's the initial tale of the tape. Many people discount the tale of the tape, saying that the opponents have played different sets of teams, and therefore different rankings are to be expected. This is a valid, fair assessment.
Except in this case.
We're looking at the opponents who have played the Dolphins, and the opponents who have played the Patriots. One think you have to do when doing this, is when you're looking at the opponents who have played the Dolphins, you have to disregard what the Dolphins themselves did against them. To include those results would be "muddying the water" and allowing a bias to show up in the data. For instance, if you're trying to show that tha Dolphins have a poor pass offense because they've played good pass defenses, the Dolphins' poor results against those defenses would be biasing the data toward your thesis. You're not getting a clean result or an objective look at how those defenses actually played against people other than you.
So here are the results. This is measured in yardage per game, of the average Dolphins opponent and the average Patriots opponent.
Dolphins Avg Opponent, Patriots Avg Opponent
Pass Offense: 185.9, 190.3
Rush Offense: 128.2, 132.4
Rush Defense: 109.2, 104.6
Pass Defense: 201.8, 203.0
This is very remarkable in that the Patriots average opponent has been almost identical to the Dolphins average opponent on both sides of the ball. In other words, the tale of the tape is a CLEAN LOOK at the differences between the Dolphins and Patriots.
You have the Patriots outstanding passing attack, vs. the Dolphins relatively better rushing attack, rush defense, and pass defense. None of these attributes can be cleanly explained by who the Patriots have played versus who the Dolphins have played or vice versa.
This will be a great view of how the tale of the tape plays out on the field when both opponents have basically played very similar opponents.
First thing is first. The tale of the tape.
Dolphins Ranking, Patriots Ranking
Pass Offense: #23, #2
Rush Offense: #15, #28
Pass Defense: #14, #27
Rush Defense: #20, #27
That's the initial tale of the tape. Many people discount the tale of the tape, saying that the opponents have played different sets of teams, and therefore different rankings are to be expected. This is a valid, fair assessment.
Except in this case.
We're looking at the opponents who have played the Dolphins, and the opponents who have played the Patriots. One think you have to do when doing this, is when you're looking at the opponents who have played the Dolphins, you have to disregard what the Dolphins themselves did against them. To include those results would be "muddying the water" and allowing a bias to show up in the data. For instance, if you're trying to show that tha Dolphins have a poor pass offense because they've played good pass defenses, the Dolphins' poor results against those defenses would be biasing the data toward your thesis. You're not getting a clean result or an objective look at how those defenses actually played against people other than you.
So here are the results. This is measured in yardage per game, of the average Dolphins opponent and the average Patriots opponent.
Dolphins Avg Opponent, Patriots Avg Opponent
Pass Offense: 185.9, 190.3
Rush Offense: 128.2, 132.4
Rush Defense: 109.2, 104.6
Pass Defense: 201.8, 203.0
This is very remarkable in that the Patriots average opponent has been almost identical to the Dolphins average opponent on both sides of the ball. In other words, the tale of the tape is a CLEAN LOOK at the differences between the Dolphins and Patriots.
You have the Patriots outstanding passing attack, vs. the Dolphins relatively better rushing attack, rush defense, and pass defense. None of these attributes can be cleanly explained by who the Patriots have played versus who the Dolphins have played or vice versa.
This will be a great view of how the tale of the tape plays out on the field when both opponents have basically played very similar opponents.
