Studs and Duds first half of season

Run along please

 

General observation: I don't remember what critical matter of the universe hangs in the balance of this argument, but if we apply a little more effort with grammar and substance, and a little less with personal attacks, it might make for more compelling conversation.

 

So, despite some poor comparisons by multiple posters, it is clear that judging a defense solely based on points given up is lazy and inaccurate. There are other factors that can affect the total of points given up. Was the Jets defense worse two weeks ago because it gave up a touchdown after Bishop returned an interception to the one-yard line? Of course not.

Turnovers by the offense or special teams errors can make things much harder on a defense. That is why you see Detroit scoring 52 points in a game with 225 yards of total offense. That isn't to say the Titans were good defensively in that game, but it wasn't all on the offense.

Take a recent college game as an example. Pitt blew out Syracuse last week, 41-13, but didn't have a great offensive day. The Panthers intercepted five passes and returned three of them for touchdowns. You would think the Syracuse defense was horrible in that game, but that wasn't the case.

Of course, points given are a huge part of how you evaluate a defense, but they are just part of the equation if you want to do it accurately.

 

I'm all for better grammar and more substance, but that standard could be applied more consistently. Also, I tend to fight my urge to refer to errors in punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar. Though I agree with the importance of clearing up such things in effective communication, I'm sure you realize that posting about such things only antagonizes the poster in question.

 

Good luck with this

 

Next time I do an English Thesis I will make sure to have you proof read it. Thank You.

 

For sure, but I was talking about the defense... so not sure how that applies.

We played 2 top 10 ranked defenses going into our bye (Chargers - 1, Denver - 3) and 2 bottom 10 (Raiders - 27, Cowboys 31). The rest were middle of the pack (between 11 and 22). The last 9 weeks, we play against 4 bottom 20 defenses (Baltimore - 26 (x2), Cincinnati - 23 (x2)) and 2 top 10 defenses (Chiefs - 5, Eagles - 7). The rest middle of the pack. So yeah, we have slightly better matchups with our offense that make up a little bit of the fact that we play a lot of high level offenses. There's no panic button of course, because even if our defense gets torn up, we can still outscore teams... but I'd like to see the defense stiffen up a bit. Been way too loose the last month or so.

 

Just bringing it up for the flip side. We are going to face better offenses which in theory should mean we give up more points. But we are also going to be facing weaker defenses which means we should get more points. So they kind of cancel each other out.

 

That's why I stated it as a general observation. It's not specific; each can take from it what they will.

As for the spelling/grammar, I found it entertaining that a post talking about how somebody else is too dumb butchered some basic spelling and grammar concepts. But maybe DJ18 was being purposefully ironic