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Those are in order our rushing rank, total defensive rank, and scoring defense rank from last year. Can people please stop saying if we had a better running game and a better D AB could get us to the playoffs when it has proven not to be true for the last 3 years?

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32, 32, 30, 27, 27

Our total yards allowed rank, our total yards per game allowed, our rushing yards allowed rank, our passing yards per game allowed, our points allowed per game rank...

What\'s your point?

It is hard to score when you don\'t have the ball, right?

For as little reason as you say people have to believe that AB could get us to the playoffs, you have as little reason to believe that he couldn\'t, it seems to me.

Basically, what you\'ve shown is that our defense can get much worse and our offense can put up the same number of wins. It seems to follow from that - either (1) our offense can only win 8 games no matter what, or (2) our offense was better this year than last year (thus, with a better defense would be better). I don\'t see how you get (3) AB cannot win more than 8 games?

In fact, it is unclear to me why anyone would think that our number of wins says much about any one player, when we\'re playing a team game?

I don\'t see what is so wrong in reasoning that if the offense was better this year than last year, we would do better with a better offense. Are you claiming there is no way that AB and other players on the O could have become better players since a season ago?

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Actually, now that I think about it, unless AB has some magical power to make our defense irrelevant as to whether or not we win or lose games, I don\'t see the argument at all.

The claim is that the offense (including AB) is good enough to put 8 wins with a middle of the pack D, the next year they put up 8 wins with a sheity D, so they must be improving. This means that the offense (including AB) is good enough to put up 9-11 wins (which is on track for the playoffs) with a better D.

What is so wrong about that?

[Edited on 6/2/2005 by JKool]

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In fact, add in the fact that the OLine seems to be getting worse to that argument and you get - it must be AB, the WRs, and Duece who are getting us the wins. They are the ones who are getting better?

Further, Duece was worse this year. Now it looks like it must have been AB and the passing game (and maybe the Special Teams) that are the only things improving?

Ok, I\'ll admit it, I don\'t buy those last two claims, but they don\'t seem to be all that unreasonable conclusions from the fairly reasonable argument I advanced earlier.

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I think it makes the argument that AB costs us games so no matter how much better or worse the offensive line or defense is, it will not matter. Why do you think we won ONLY 8 games last year? I\'ll give you a hint, starts with F and ends in umbles. By AB. Some even when noone touched him. How many more games do you think we win this year if he doesn\'t LEAD THE LEAGUE IN RED ZONE TURNOVERS. One player can kill a team, especially if he plays the most important position on the field. AB kills this team. If it\'s not one thing it\'s another. That\'s what it shows.

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I also disagree with the offense not having the ball, unless you consider going three and out every drive of every first quarter as not having the ball. This was explained quite nicely by I believe tobias-reiper in another thread, maybe the one about the O-line. You can read the response there. So while we wanna blame the D, maybe the offense should shoulder some for putting them in the same bad position game after game after game of having to stop the opposing team on numerous consec drives before they decided to score. I don\'t know many others defenses that wouldn\'t be last under those conditions. So I can\'t get behind that either.

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There\'s no proof this can be done. But there is plenty it can\'t.

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I agree that AB hurt us in some games that season, due to fumbles. However, on your view, what accounts for the fact that we were able to win 8 games with a worse defense and a worse OLine? Was it Duece by himself? Was it Horn? Or was it our skilled positions as a group (but not AB included)?

Also, what is wrong with this argument:

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What proof is that?

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I responded to that quote in another thread. Also, we got 8 wins cause of the worse NFC in memory. Possibly ever. Nothing to brag about at all. Had the Panthers been better, we may have another loss against them. How about Atlanta resting all its starters the second game? I would count that as two losses normally any other year. SO I am not as impressed by our 8 wins as you seem to be Kool.

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If the defense suffered so greatly by bad field position, how could they manage to allow so many yards to the other teams?

It seems to me like the implication is that the O gave the D such bad field position at say our 20 or 30, the D would have to suck pretty darned hard to give up so many yards a game. That is, the high number of yards per game suggests that the defense gave up long drives, not short ones.

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The fact that we were better in EVERY category the previous 3 years and we still have not won 10 or 11 games or made the playoffs. We won 9 AB\'s first year. That\'s just a fond memory now. Unless again you wanna count the 7 wins Blake spotted AB, I never will. So like I said, plenty of proof we can\'t.

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Come on Kool, you are a smart guy. AB led the league in red zone turnovers. Doesn\'t that let you know teams had to drive to score? Couple that with quick scores given to defenses(Denver) or turning the ball over inside our own 20(Seattle) giving the opposing team the ball in their own red zone. Come on man.

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How much better was the NFC last year?

So much better that there is NO REASON to believe that our Defense dropping from mid to worst and our OLine going from mid to lower-mid doesn\'t show an improvement in our offense?

I guess I don\'t buy it.

Also, of our 8 wins, two were against non-NFC teams.

Furthermore, even if everything you\'ve said here is true, which is a lot to grant, we\'ll be playing roughly the same teams next year. Thus, again, my argument that we have reason to believe that we\'ll win more games with a better OLine and D still stands.

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So, you ascribe to the \"no improvement at all\" school of thought. Are you trying to tell me that you don\'t think that AB has improved AT ALL since those seasons? I don\'t buy that - we can just go back to the stats page we had last time. He\'s improved every year until this year (when the OLine and D fell apart).

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Thanks. And so are you.

That is why I\'m confused as to why you don\'t think improving the D would matter - unless (a) AB cannot and has not improved, and/or (b) AB has some magical power to make it impossible for the team to win 9-11 games just because he steps on the field.

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To be honest, I don\'t understand how you and I can argue to the conclusion that it is hard to say whether AB will make us better or worse next season (based largely on a statistical - i.e. historical - argument), then have you come here and say that what AB does is make it impossible (all on his own) to believe that our team would get more wins if we had a better defense?

Is it so unreasonable to think that if one improves a teams offensive line and defense that a team will win more games (forget the whole AB thing for a second)?

If the answer is yes, then either (1) AB must be the entire reason that we cannot get above 8 games, or (2) we can win enough games to make the playoffs with AB.

(1) seems wildly implausible to me. I agree with the stuff you\'ve said about red zone turn overs and fumbling, but those are things that can be corrected (and, I believe, rather simply if there weren\'t so much pressure on our QB to win games).

Furthermore, no QB in the league is so powerful that he can control what happens in the entirity of the running game, the special teams, and the defense. Now, I know you will grant that special teams, running games, and defense SOMETIMES win games. That seems to me to be completely out of the hands of the QB.

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So basically Kool you are counting on Carolina having 14 contributors go on IR for us to be better? Or a top player like Priest Holmes out if we play a team like KC? I can\'t ascribe to hoping that kinda lucks keeps our competiton weak again next year, especially since we play the AFC East next year. That may be 4 losses alone. So we will actually be palying better teams next year across the board.

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Also, I can\'t count a QB who led the league in fumbles one year then the next led in red zone turnovers and straight dumb plays as improving. Maybe we disagree there also. Or maybe we disagree on what \"improvement\" is.

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Also, just so I can get this straight:

Your answer to this is that the poor play of all the other teams is what got us 8 wins?

Weren\'t we a team in the NFC - thus, just as bad as those other teams for being a part of such a bad division?

If the \"NFC\" has the power to be bad, then it has the power to make us bad. I guess, I\'m just a bit confused as to how this response works. Sorry for being daft on this one.

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I guess, we do disagree on improvement. The things you stated are different, un-related things; I don\'t see what that could have to do with whether or not someone got better at something?

Here is one thing we may agree on: passer rating. ABs passer rating has gone up every year until this one - is that improvement or not?

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I don\'t understand this statement at all:

Huh? That makes no sense at all. If the NFC is bad, that tends to lend us the ability to get easier wins, thus making us look better. Unless you feel we could beat a full strength Panthers that went to the Superbowl last year, when we split with them this year at half strength. Unless you feel Atlanta being able to rest all its starters in Week 16 against us shows a strong NFC, what if they were at full strength? Another loss. KC no Priest. I don\'t understand at all. A BAD NFC makes a mediocre-bad team look better than they are. I think that\'s pretty clear. No?

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I don\'t care if AB has a 100 passer rating, if he leads the league in red zone turnovers or leads the league in fumbles, we can not win. That is not improvement. Passer rating is not really consistent as it doesn;t take into account total turnovers, only INTs. If they counted fumbles in that equation, I guarantee AB\'s rating would have been horrendous, and thus not improved at all.

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I\'ll pick this up tomorrow Kool. I have company and wanna watch the game. Later. Good talk.

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Your answer to the question \"how did we win so many games?\" was that the NFC was bad.

You must have meant we played only bad teams. That has nothing to do with the NFC, but rather the teams we faced. Thus, you cannot make such a sweeping claim.

If you want to make the sweeping claim, then it follows that we were bad as a result of being a member of the NFC, just like those other teams. If that is the case, then your point is irrelevant.

Here is something frustrating - either you think that things like aggregate stats and generalization matter or you don\'t. You can\'t just switch between them to make points. For example, if you say that having a good running game is good and that shows that we need a better line, you cannot turn around and say this - we cannot get better by improving the running game because SD didn\'t get better when they did that 4 years ago.

Either you\'re on board with the generalization or you\'re not.

I think that is a fairly good diagnosis of the reason you and I disagree on a few things.

Either way, great discussion, but I have to get going. See you tomorrow. Cheers.

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Glad the halftime show sucks. I have no idea what point you are making on that last statement Kool so count me in as a dummy. I use stats to express some issues, then on other issues I may not. I used stats for this argument cause people want to keep making the point our D killed us. When our D didn\'t kill us , AB did. That was my point. I don\'t know how this lends to a generalization.

Also, if you don\'t realize the NFC was the worst it has been possibly ever this past year, well I can\'t really help with that either. That\'s not a generalization, that is a fact. There is all sorts of articles on it if you simply google it. I don\'t know how that is general at all when it is true and was talked about weekly on ESPN and sports shows in general. I have been really specific in what I have stated all along, we can not win with AB. That is not general either. That is a specific belief I have backed up with 4 years of proof. So if you point to what specifically was general, maybe I will understand better. As of right now I am at a loss as to what was a generalization.

Also, since we are in the NFC, would it stand to reason that we play mainly NFC teams? And if such is the case, and the state of the NFC was as bad as it\'s ever been, would that lend to the fact that we played bad teams? If we were an AFC team and I said the NFC had bad teams, I would see where you are coming from. But we were a part of the bad NFC, so the fact that we played bad teams is a given. Again, you can google the info on how bad the NFC was. We played 12 NFC teams as opposed to 4 AFC teams. Do with that info what you will with a horrible NFC this past year.

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I thought about it Kool, and you must be talking about what I said about passer rating. If a QB throws 25 tds, no INTs but fumbles 100 times and loses 75, QB rating ignores the fumbles completely. He would have pretty much a perfect ranking. Now we know a QB like that would not be perfect. That\'s not very accurate at all. Some stats can\'t be disputed, defensive stats, offensive stats and such cause they are not subjective, they are a compilation. A RATING based on a formula that doesn\'t take into account all factors is flawed. So some stats can be taken at their face value, and their MEANING disputed. But QB rating is entirely subjective considering not all factors are put into play. Here is ESPN\'s efficiency rating.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...eek17/rankings

It\'s not perfect either. All we can take into account is what we see, and form an opinion, which is what we all do. Your opinion may differ from mine, but that\'s cool. But I know things like leading the league in red zone turnovers or leading the league in lost fumbles are not stats winning QBs lead the NFL in. I don\'t need any ratings to tell me that.

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Whodi, thanks for the thoughts, as always.

I feel like we\'re talking past each other right now, but I\'m hard pressed to diagnose the problem. Perhaps some external observer can help us out? If not, I\'ll think on it for awhile.

My current view is that we both think the other guy has a point, but we\'re not sure why we aren\'t making more progress. I think it is safe to say that we both think that we have a point that isn\'t stupid, but we also think the other guy\'s isn\'t either.

I\'m willing to call it a draw for right now, if you are?

More thoughts later... ok?

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:cheers:

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:patos: