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In the shadow of the last two postseason losses, I’ve seen a number of Green Bay Packers fans itching for Ted Thompson to make some big roster moves. Their basic premise is that star quarterback Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have much time left to get to another Super Bowl. It’s either now or never if the team wants to make another serious run at it.

Rodgers is, after all, turning 30 this December. By the time the season is over and the playoffs are underway, he’ll have reached that magic age in the NFL when a player’s value suddenly drops like a brand new car being driven off the dealer’s lot. Sure, he hasn’t shown any physical or mental signs of decline in his performance, but time flies when you’re chasing the Lombardi Trophy.

To be perfectly clear, I have been a big skeptic of this line of thinking. This skepticism has actually led me to do a little data mining. How many quarterbacks have won the Super Bowl after they’ve turned 30? How many have even played in a Super Bowl? Is it a foregone conclusion that Rodgers will be battling the odds in the coming years?

So I went all the way back to Super Bowl XXX and compiled the ages of the starting quarterbacks since that year. Just to note, I only went back 18 years for the purposes of time management and the idea that modern rules are helping with durability. Quarterbacks are being protected from physically damaging hits, so they should theoretically have a better chance of playing into their later years.  Read more... (759 words + 3 images, estimated 3:02 mins reading time)

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One thing I noticed while watching the Green Bay Packers humiliating loss to the New York Giants was their inability to put themselves in favorable down-and-distance situations.

In fact, of the 54 offensive downs that Aaron Rodgers was on the field for, 40 of them were at or over ten yards to convert. Three were in the moderate-long range (7-9 yds.), eight were in the moderate-short range (4-6 yds.), and only three were in the short range (1-3 yds.).

But how does this compare with the rest of the season? It’s one thing to have the numbers, but we also have to have some context and comparison. After all, there will tend to be more downs of 10 yards to go, since that is what most first downs start with.

Without further ado, here is some raw data concerning the Packers’ offensive performance by down-and-distance (click on the image for a larger resolution):

The first thing to look at is the yards per play on first down. Green Bay had its lowest overall production on first-and-long this season (2.68 yards per play). Their second lowest output came against the Seahawks where they averaged a full yard more at 3.68 yds/play. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, their best production on first-and-long came against the Indianapolis Colts (6.79 yds/play).  Read more... (741 words + 3 images, estimated 2:58 mins reading time)

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In my very first “Packing the Stats” feature, I broke down the 2010 Green Bay Packers’ scoring by quarter in an attempt to research the claim that they were slow starters. Among a number of conclusions that I drew was the discovery that the team performed best in the third quarter. Not only were they scoring well, but they were also limiting the point totals of their opponent.

As I look through the stats this year, however, it’s quite the opposite. The third quarter for the 2012 Green Bay Packers is their worst by far, especially considering it is the only quarter in which the Packers have been outscored by their opponent. In fact, the Packers have only had a higher third quarter score than their opponent in two out of ten games so far.

Before we go any further, though, let’s take a look at the raw data. I’ve also included a chart to help illustrate the overall scoring data by quarter:

The Green Bay Packers, perhaps surprisingly, do the best overall in the first and fourth quarters of play. Their defense does a nice job keeping the points down at the beginning of games, where they only allow and average of 1.9 points in the first quarter. Unfortunately, they allow on average a steady 6.0 to 6.6 points in each subsequent quarter of play.  Read more... (719 words + 4 images, estimated 2:53 mins reading time)

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Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy wasn’t kidding when he called second-round pick Randall Cobb “very talented,” “multidimensional,” and “a matchup player” after the 2011 NFL Draft. We didn’t see a whole lot outside of kick returns last year, but this season has really seen Cobb explode on the offense. From his role in the slot to his special place in the “Cobra” formation, he has been a dynamic force that tilts the field.

We could talk about his best-in-league 131.0 wide receiver rating from ProFootballFocus.com. We could also look at his 45 receptions (tied for 13th in the league) or six receiving touchdowns (tied for 7th). But what I really want to focus on in this issue is a measure of production not often looked at: first down conversions.

What I have charted below is the number of conversions made by each individual player on the offense through the first nine weeks of 2012. From there, I’ve broken that number down into passes, runs, conversions by down, and touchdowns. (Note that a touchdown is considered part of the total number of conversions. Also note that the trick special teams plays are not included, since they are not produced by the offense.)

Let’s take a look at the numbers before we go any further:

   Read more... (659 words + 3 images, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)

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There has been some frustration among Green Bay Packers fans lately about the run/pass ratio from the offense on first downs. During the lukewarm win against the Jacksonville Jaguars last Sunday, Mike McCarthy seemed to consistently call running plays on first down. Frustration with the predictability of the calls started to seep into the ever-watchful fans, and it became just another part of the team’s so-called “moral loss.”

Now, I have been slowly tracking a good number of statistics during the past eight weeks, most of which I haven’t even gotten into analyzing. One thing I do after each game is log every offensive play: the down, distance, yardage gained, how it was gained, who gained it, and the outcome. From there, I can gather a whole bunch of raw statistical information, a lot of which isn’t available on the popular NFL statistical websites.

One thing it has allowed me to track is the run/pass ratios on a down-by-down basis, which I have presented below. Now, in the following data, I have not accounted for plays in which penalties have been accepted, since a good number of times they are pre-snap penalties. This adds a little bit of error to the numbers, but it should be nothing of significance.

The first thing I want to show you is the total number of called runs and passes, as sorted by down and distance (click the image to enlarge):

2012 Run/Pass Ratios by Down and Distance  Read more... (889 words + 3 images, estimated 3:33 mins reading time)

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In response to the low yards per attempt by Alex Green last weekend, we had some good discussion in the comments regarding my statistical research on how the rushing game affects the success rate of NFL teams in the past ten years. The data seemed to show that the number of attempts had a higher correlation with winning than average yards per attempt.

Some people agreed, bringing up the Packers’ success during the two halves of the Seahawks and Colts games when they committed to running the ball more. Others argued that this was more of a secondary outcome, in which winning causes increased attempts and not the other way around.

We even had some suggestions for further statistical research, such as parsing out big runs and even comparing correlations in the passing game.

Before continuing my future research, I wanted to do a quick aggregate of both total attempts per game and total yards per game. These two categories showed a higher correlation to winning than yards per attempt, so what if we looked at them together?

Below is a table that charts win percentage in relationship to both attempts and yardage. Take a look:

Rushing Statistics and Success Rate, 2002-2011

First and foremost, this was an outcome I did not expect at all. Logic told me that we’d see more of a “diagonal” relationship with win percentages. In other words, the higher the yards and attempts combined, the better the percentage.  Read more... (410 words + 2 images, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

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After Sunday afternoon’s 30-20 victory by the Green Bay Packers over the St. Louis Rams, I listened to Jason Wilde’s weekly appearance on ESPN Wisconsin’s radio show “Pack Attack.” The conversation immediately dove into a debate between Wilde, Bill Johnson, and Homer about the effectiveness of Alex Green’s rushing attempts. While he made 20 rushing attempts the entire game, Green only netted 35 yards for a 1.8 yards per carry average. His longest run was for 15 yards.

On one side of the debate was Jason Wilde, who maintained that making the attempts to run the ball was more important than their overall yards per carry. He posited that the defense’s linemen would have to account for a run, even if it wasn’t for significant yardage. That means they couldn’t just “pin their ears back” and go after the quarterback each down.

Opposing this idea was Bill and Homer, who both insisted that Green’s yards per carry was unacceptable and would need to get better in the future to ensure offensive success. They claimed that if the running game isn’t making traction, then the defense doesn’t really have to worry about it, period. (Jason Wilde eventually called them “stubborn” in their opinions.)

So which matters more – yards per carry or total rushing attempts? This really piqued my interest from a statistical standpoint, and I decided to head over to Pro-Football-Reference.com to being my research. My sample data was all games (regular season and postseason) within the past ten years (2002-2011) that matched the rushing criteria below.  Read more... (1438 words + 1 image, estimated 5:45 mins reading time)

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