Cards Defense 3rd best according to Aikman

[Jttsaz]

http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3065472

Offense at 29

 

[arthurracoon]

 

[CardLogic]

According to the AER system San Fran is ranked at:

• Defense - 30th
• Offense - 22nd

 

[Russ Smith]

Am I the only one who doesn't believe Aikman has anything to do with that rating beyond putting his name on it?

 

[clif]

Am I the only one who doesn't believe Aikman has anything to do with that rating beyond putting his name on it?

of course.... but would it get any pub if is was called "joe - I dont know nothing about football - something's efficiency rating"?

 

[CardLogic]

of course.... but would it get any pub if is was called "joe - I dont know nothing about football - something's efficiency rating"?

Exactly!!!

Same as with regards to "power rankings"... Most of them aren't worth a crap, just some talking heads opinions. I visit Gridiron Gauge - just some "joe" who got tired of the subjective nature of rankings and derived his own mathematical formula for ranking based on each teams won-lost record in the last 16 games (not including pre-season).

It appears to me to be very accurate at a team current ranking, not taking into account a teams potential.

 

[jerryp]

Exactly!!!

Same as with regards to "power rankings"... Most of them aren't worth a crap, just some talking heads opinions. I visit Gridiron Gauge - just some "joe" who got tired of the subjective nature of rankings and derived his own mathematical formula for ranking based on each teams won-lost record in the last 16 games (not including pre-season).

It appears to me to be very accurate at a team current ranking, not taking into account a teams potential.

Try http://www.footballoutsiders.com

Efficiency ratings are based off every single play run during the course of the season. This site wasn't formed specifically to get ratings but to challange the usefulness of conventional stats, which is what Aikman seems to be crusading against.

Later in the season when more games have been played there will be an adjusted efficiency rating based off of all previous games with the most recent being weighted more so you can lok at overall season performance where each game is equally important and look at what teams are "hot".

Football Outsiders has Arizona at 19 overall (up from 27 before the Saints game). Defense is 12th overall (pass 13th, rush 13). Offense is 26th (pass 23rd, rush 25th).

Basically plays are given a success rating then the average success rate for the league is found. Then you find the success rate for a team and compare to the league average. Arizona is currently 14.2% below the league average in terms of offensive success rate. Indianapolis is 43.5% above the league average success rate on offense. Miami is an insane 62.3% below league average.

Now I know people are going to bitch that our defense is only slightly above league average instead of third but compare our ratings to last year and it's clear the system shows the improvment. Right now our defense rating is -5.1% which means opposing offenses are five percent below league average in success when facing us. Last year we were 31st with opposing offenses being 14.8% above league average when facing us.

And the cool thing, we're ranked near top 10 and there hasn't been adjustments to opponents strength yet (he's waiting for more games). Right now though according to his ratings we've played the 2nd hardest schedule so far. So when schedule strength is factored in we'll get a boost to our ratings.

Give the site a try, actually read how the ratings are devised and feel free to question and challange his methods, he answers questions about his methods in a weekly mailbag and a lot of times right in the comments section and has taken a lot of reader feedback to refine his system. He's also going back through old game logs and adding more data. I think he's going to have the 2000 season done soon. Anyhow, it's far more useful than the standard stats, which is what Aikman is also saying.

 

[CardLogic]

Try http://www.footballoutsiders.com

Thanks! I'll check it out.