WhoDat!656

We are down to three. On Sunday, all five undefeated teams went on the road, and three survived their contests, with New England’s poor offense finally catching up to them in Cincinnati, and Seattle losing a wild game in Indianapolis. Let’s put all three teams under the microscope now to assess who has the best chance going forward of playing in the Super Bowl.

In the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks samples three different varieties, belonging to papa bear, mama bear, and baby bear. Two of the choices are polar opposites; of course, baby bear’s stuff is just right. When we look at the three remaining teams, it is Sean Payton playing the role of baby bear.

I whipped up a similarity score based on points (for, against, and difference), yards per play passing and rushing on both sides of the ball, and turnover margins. Forty other teams have started 5-0 since 1990. I tried to find the ten most similar teams, though that was impossible for Denver because the “similarities” were so dissimilar for all but two.

In an interesting contrast, Denver and Kansas City this year are each other’s most dissimilar team among all those undefeateds. To put that in some perspective, Denver has allowed more points than Kansas City has scored. The Chiefs have allowed only ten more points all season than Denver did on Sunday. Denver has a historically great passing offense, countered by easily the worst pass defense among the 43 undefeateds since 1990. Kansas City has a passing offense that is better than only the 2003 Panthers at this same point, in net yards per attempt, but in the top 5 in passing defense among undefeateds.

Meanwhile, as Denver is scorching hot, and Kansas City is cooling off opponents, the New Orleans Saints are just cruising along just right, stopping teams with decent pass defense, and relying on Drew Brees, Jimmy Graham and company to score the points.

The Three Undefeated Teams: Hot Broncos, Cold Blooded Chiefs, But Are the Saints Just Right? | The Big Lead

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."

halloween 65

So far, so good. I just hope we don't overlook any team. Keep the nose to the grind-stone!!

triman

JUST RIGHT