Originally posted by CardLogic
By the way Kudo's and credit goes to whoever first posted the numbers as a recap re: Mac's comments after the game. (I can't find the thread to quote it.)
CardLogic:
That was me, thanks. Here it is:
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Originally posted by Pariah
"The Cardinals, meanwhile, were ranked No. 1 in total offense and No. 7 in total defense. But they lost 42-24 to the Detroit Lions, who are 24th in offense and 30th in defense."
That's interesting.
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Pariah:
Interesting, but not that hard to understand. As McGinnis pointed out in his post-game comments, " ... (the Lions) got basically 28 points out of 78 yards of offense."
Punt return--7 pts, 0 yds offense. Muffed punt--7 pts, 35 yds. Fumble--7 pts, 36 yds. INT return--7 pts, 0 yds. Mac got it wrong. Detroit got 28 points out of only 71 yards of offense.
Special teams and turnovers. That's why the Cards lost this game.
When statistics don't seem to make sense, and don't reflect the game that you saw, the simple response is to say, "Statistics are meaningless." I think it's more interesting to ask, "What's missing from this picture?
Why don't the stats make sense?"
I do data analysis for a living. Statistics
don't lie, but they can mislead. Taking one or two numbers out of context can lead you to make bad conclusions, in my experience.
In the case of the Detroit game, the disconnect was that there's usually a correlation between yards gained and points scored. When that correlation breaks down, there are a couple of common explanations. One is that a team's offense was ineffective in the red zone. Another is that special teams play and/ or turnovers played a role, producing points with few or no offensive yards recorded.
This was one of those latter games. Casual observers look at the final score, see an 18-point differential, and conclude, "The Cards got blown out." The truth is that the Cardinals won every important offensive/ defensive comparison: total yards, passing yards, rushing yards, first downs, time-of-possession. Take away two plays--neither of which was against the Cards defense--and this was a four-point game. (Close to the point spread, most of which can be attributed to home field.)
Statistics certainly don't tell the whole story. But they tell most of it, especially if you understand what they're saying.
Thanks again for the kudos.
WC
