I haven't really had an ear to the ground, at least in terms of the spirit of this blog.  Plenty of vacations on the airwaves - as well my own.  Let's get back into the swing of the blogosphere with some NFL musings

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I'm a stat guy.  Yes I watch the games.  I absolutely hate it when someone espouses the benefits of statistical analysis in sports, and the retort is "well you'd come to a different conclusion if you actually watched the games."  Ignore the implication that I don't watch the games (yeah I look at data for something that I absolutely despise.  What a great use of my time), and consider that a one game anecdote can't actually be better evidence than a data set of sixteen.  I like to look at the stats and finding new ways of processing them beyond the raw numbers.  Ratios have a way of putting the raw figures in to perspective. 

Anyway, here is a set of numbers.  Let's see if you can figure out what they are: 21, 17, 56, 27, 34, 16, 7, 7, 31, 16, 37, 42, 28, 51, 20, 34.

Those are numbers that get your offensive coordinator fired.  In today's NFL, it's a well known fact that any game plan that does not provide a means to score 57 points is gross negligence.  Fine, you should probably get one pass, but I need an explanation about not coming up with that 52 point plan.  While your explaining that away, how about explaining why this offense can't score 29 points per game.    

If this mystery still baffles you, those numbers are the points GIVEN UP by the Lions in each game this season.  You don't have to be a stat guy to figure out that the Lions created the wrong fall guy here.  But let's be sure about it.  Let's look at the Lions' record in their best PF and PA games using the top fifty percentile in each.  In the Lions' eight best PA efforts, the Lions were 7-1, with 27 being the eighth best PA total.  The only game lost in this instance was a 16-10 loss to the Giants.  What does this tell us?  It tells us that the Lions won when the score was kept managable, and that the offense didn't do enough in only one game.  League average PA is almost 22 points, thus we can see that two of the Lions best games were still at or above the league average PA, and the Lions won those two games. 

On the flip side, the Lions were the median for PF/G.  They met or exceeded league average nine times.  In their eight best PF efforts, the Lions were 5-3.  It seems clear to me that the two games out of the playoffs that the Lions finished in the standings, should be attributed to the below average defense.  Mike Martz's offense can traditionally be crticized for turnovers, but the Lions were a managable -1 in that category.  Regarding the run game, Kevin Jones can't stay on the field, and the Lions were rarely ahead in the second half of the season.  I think the Lions jettisoned the wrong man.

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I want to hear from Browns fans.  What angers you the most?

*Sorgi playing the second half against the Titans.

*Dungi not exhausting all means necessary to win (notably the timeout he stuck in his pocket at the end).

*Being 10-6 and watching a 9-7 team make the NFC playoffs

*Knowing that the Browns are, in fact, better than the Titans.