saintswhodi

If you are saying that our bad offense should have helped our bad defense a lot more, I am definitely on board with that. Remind me again of Miami\'s record? That super talented defense got them the 2nd pick in the draft, so we see what a bad offense can truly do to a team, even if they have a good defense. I am glad someone brought them up. This is getting too easy.

JKool

I\'m not clear on what is getting easy, Whodi? Maybe you could make that clearer.

I do think our offense (which was middling, not bad), could have helped out or poor defense. However, I also think that our downright poor defense could have helped out our offense just as much or more. I guess, I take the question to be this: if we were going to assign a percentage contribution to our wins to the different aspects of the team, what would it look like?

This isn\'t an argument one way or the other... yet, but here is my hunch:

Wins:
Offense - 35% (asked to win a lot of games, and often didn\'t)
Defense - 30% (was plain bad)
Special Teams - 15% (really helped us in a couple of games)
Game Plan/Coaching - 20% (when the defensive scheme was revamped and the FB was finally utilized, we played much better).

Losses:
Offense - 25% (was asked to win games, and often didn\'t)
Defense - 30% (was about as bad in wins as in losses)
Special Teams - 10% (didn\'t hurt us on the whole)
Game Plan/Coaching - 35% (ineffective game planning, poor leadership, misuse of players we do have, etc.)

It seems to me that when we were losing, the coaches were the biggest factor, and when we were winning the offense was the biggest factor (though one game the ST and the D really did step it up).

These percentages are just based on impressions and game observations, so the could certainly be way off. However, I believe that it might be worth while to see if we can find some ways to confirm these distributions - that would resolve a lot, IMO.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

saintswhodi

Does your distribution factor in that our D was top 10 in takeaways? And that a certain member of the offense was the red zone turnover leader? I think our offense was more bad than middling. How much more do you want the D to \"help\" the offense than being top 10 in takeaways? Should they also score the points for the O?

I am also basing this on the fact that the main reason we won the final four games was BECAUSE of special teams and D and not because of offense. I also don\'t see how an offense that could not score or get a first down in the first quarter of 14 of 16 games can be counted as a bigger factor than a unit that was top 10 in takeaways. I don\'t have a distribution, but I would have offense as less a factor in wins and slightly more of a factor in losses. You have to score to win right? Well, they weren\'t.

JKool

Whodi, I have a suggestion, and I hope you\'ll be amenable to it.

Let\'s do this cooperatively, since I, for one, don\'t think we actually disagree on that much. Here is my idea. You post your distribution, and then we\'ll see if others can get in on coming to an agreement among all of us on what the distribution is like (I\'m sure in the end, it\'ll be somewhere between yours in and mine). Maybe we can even move this to its own thread?

What say you?

On a related point, to win you must score more points than the other team, not simply score points. Scoring more points than the other team involves not only scoring points but stopping the other team from scoring points. I\'m sure we agree on that.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

JKool

PS - Since I pulled those distributions mostly out of my azz, I wouldn\'t be shocked if they were a bit off - they just seemed roughly intuitive to me.

saintswhodi

I don\'t want a big disagreement Kool. You can go into the thread where you said you were leaving and see where our defense CLEARLY stopped the other teams from scoring while our offense was playing dominoes on the sideline or something. I don\'t know if you refuse to see it or what. I can post it again if you like cause lynnwood asked for it.

This was how many punts and 3 and outs forced on the first drive of every game by the D. Also the points they gave up for the quarter. Averages to 7.3 points given up per 1st quarter, AGAIN while our offense was scoring ZERO and not getting first downs. Seems like the defense stopped people plenty, and it only includes ONE of 10th place in the league 33 turnovers they created overall. So based on THAT, and the high number of red zone turnovers, here is my distiburtion.

Wins
Offense-29%
Defense-31%
ST-25%
Coaching-15%

Losses
Offense-29%
Defense-26%
ST-15%
Coaching-30%

[Edited on 24/2/2005 by saintswhodi]

GumboBC

No matter how much we discuss winning and losing, as far as the Siants are concerned, I still come to the same conlusion.

1. Our defense is most responsible.
2. Our offense needs to play better.

That\'s not taking coaching into consideration.

Then when I break down what\'s wrong with the defense. Here\'s what I see the problems are:

1. Rick Venturi.
2. Lack of talent.

Then when I break down the offense. Here\'s what I see as the biggest problems.

1. Offensive line.
2. Penalties.

Then you can factor in Deuce being injured, Brooks, dropped passes, poor play calling, etc., etc....

Defense doesn\'t win alone.
Offense doesn\'t win alone.

TEAMS WIN AS TEAMS AND TEAMS LOSE AS TEAMS!

saintfan

I\'ve posted these numbers in another thread, and I\'ll post \'em again here, cause I don\'t think you can have an HONEST conversation about what was wrong (or who\'s to blame, since we like to play the blame game here) with our defense unless you acknowledge this:

Minnesota -- 425 yards passing (5 TD p ***** in that game)
St. Louis -- 358 yards passing
Oakland -- 350 yards passing
KC -- 311 yards passing
Carolina -- 307 yards passing

We did do pretty well against teams with Rookies or cast offs at QB tho.

Seattle -- 170 yards rushing
San Fran -- 180 yards rushing
Arizona -- 240 was it...yards rushing
Minnesota -- 188 yards rushing
SD -- 251 yards rushing
Denver -- 200 yards rushing
Atlanta -- 186 yards rushing
Carolina -- 132 yards rushing
Dallas -- 121 yards rushing
Tampa Bay -- 169 yards rushing

This isn\'t \"a\" game, this is a list of our poorest passing and running defensive efforts. I think we held 5 teams under a hundred, and couple of those teams got pretty close. If you dig deeper you\'ll see that we sucked against QB\'s that had a clue and did fairly well against the bad ones.

Also, is it just me, or did our defense have a hard time getting off the field all season long? I seem to remember getting frustrated about that nearly every game. I think I recall screaming something like \"STOP SOMEBODY\" followed by a few words my wife didn\'t care for. Anybody?

C'mon Man...

saintswhodi

Yes cause this quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEA- 1st drive punt. 0 points first quarter given up.
SF- 3 and out 1st drive. 3 points first quarter
ST.L- 1st drive TD. 7 points given up 1st quarter
ARI- Brooks fumbles at the 1. D forces punt. 7 points total first quarter
TB- 1st drive field goal. 3 pts 1st quarter.
Minn-1st drive INT. 7 pts. 1st quarter
OAK- 1st drive punt. 6 pts
SD-1st 2 drives TDs. 14 pts.
KC- 1st drive TD. 10 pts.
DEN. 1st 3 drives score. 17 pts then Mike Lewis fumbles and they add a FG. 20 pts scored.
ATL- 1st drive 3 and out and punt.
CAR- 1st 2 drives FGs. Deuce fumbles. CAR adds TD. 13 points scored.
DAL- Berker kicks off out of bounds. Dallas 1st drive no points. 10 1st quarter.
TB- 1st drive TD. 7 for the quarter.
ATL-1st drive punt. Zero points 1st quarter.
CAR- 1st drive FG. 3 for the quarter.

looks so much like stats from A game. I can\'t even do this again. :rollinglaugh:

saintfan

Once again you ignore the numbers I guess. My point is that you hollered when we said the O-Line sucked. You said, \"But fella\'s I was AT the Dallas game and man you should have seen how well they played.\" Now it\'s the Seattle game.

Without asking a question, can you comment on the rushing yards allowed and tell me how that points to our defense being done in by our offense?