joeshmo said:Only a few issues I have with the article.
1. "While coverage could and should be improved, it wasn't a fatal flaw."
Not a Fatal flaw. Our Coverage Unit allowed 25% of the leagues special teams touchdowns. As for averages our punt coverage unit was slightly below average in the rankings, but the kickoff coverage unit was by far the worst unit in the league by a full 3.1 yards worse then the 31st ranked team. the return game was average to above average. So although the return game needs to be upgraded the coverage unit was clearly the fatal flaw of the field position battle with this team.
joeshmo said:Only a few issues I have with the article.
1. "While coverage could and should be improved, it wasn't a fatal flaw."
Not a Fatal flaw. Our Coverage Unit allowed 25% of the leagues special teams touchdowns. As for averages our punt coverage unit was slightly below average in the rankings, but the kickoff coverage unit was by far the worst unit in the league by a full 3.1 yards worse then the 31st ranked team. the return game was average to above average. So although the return game needs to be upgraded the coverage unit was clearly the fatal flaw of the field position battle with this team.
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I agree and could care less that we average 2 yards per return an team X. Our coverage unit was below professional level and caused a lot of problems for our defense. It also always seemed to happen right when momentum went he Cardinal's way, deflating the team.
conraddobler said:That with a top 5 defense equals we contend for the NFC title, dosen't mean we'll win it, I see us in the championship game though.
agree and could care less that we average 2 yards per return an team X. Our coverage unit was below professional level and caused a lot of problems for our defense. It also always seemed to happen right when momentum went he Cardinal's way, deflating the team.
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Duckjake said:I
This all true but let's not lose sight of the fact that the Cardinals defense gave up 18 scoring drives of 70 yards or more last season. Several of them to open the game. And these were mostly in either the first half or early in the 2nd half. It wasn't all poor special teams play giving up short fields.
kerouac9 said:But what was the league average on those drives? That averages to 1.125 drives per game. Considering that most offensive possession start between their own 20 and 30, that actually doesn't seem like a ton. Where does that stat come from? I'll investigate it myself versus some of the other Ds in the league.
kerouac9 said:All right, I thought I'd look at scoring drives of 70 yards in the regular season or more in the regular season for the 2005 playoff teams. Here's what I found:
Broncos: 18
Bears: 9
Bengals: 14
Bucs: 13
Colts: 15
'Hawks: 15
Steelers: 11
Pats: 19
Jags: 15
Skins: 14
Giants: 21
Panthers: 16
It looks like your metric is pretty bogus, since the average for the playoff teams is 14.92 70+ yard scoring drives in the regular season. Top defenses didn't have that much fewer.