Something to keep an eye on: Point differential?

[Coach Tuesday]

2 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

No. I get why you want to establish a random cut-off in a place where you can ignore a negative Bills performance and pretend it never happened. We all get it. Couldn't be clearer. Unfortunately, that's not how stats work, that you can randomly eliminate them because you feel like it. What you've got there is a negative DVOA performance.

 

And 0% in DVOA isn't "doing what it's supposed to do," as you say here. Nice spin there. In real life, mediocre performance isn't "doing what you are supposed to do." Your boss isn't going to come into the office and say, "Hey nice going, Coach Tuesday, half the people in the world could do better than you are doing. Great stuff!!! You're doing what you're supposed to do."

 

You don't get to randomly decide which numbers you'll ignore after checking out how you can gerrymander a way to exclude a game or two that you don't want to think about. You either use DVOA ... or you don't. If you don't, that's fine. If you do, you face up to the consequences of doing so.

 

The consequences of basing your argument entirely on DVOA (while desperately trying to avoid anyone noticing that the offense scored less than twenty points in four games), the system you love so much, is that according to that system, the Bills had four games where they were below average, sub-mediocre.

 

Football Outsiders don't say anything about a 1% cutoff. They don't attach any importance whatsoever to that. That's entirely your own made-up little attempt to justify leaving out the game that is inconvenient for your argument.

Lol “random cutoff” - you are verging on unhinged here.  You don’t understand what “statistically significant” means, you don’t understand what DVOA is measuring.  Remember when you accused me of hiding several bad games because you couldn’t access the link because you don’t want to pay for the content, and then it turned out to only be one statistically insignificant performance?  What’s “obvious” to all is your complete lack of understanding of the subject-matter, your moving goalposts and outright paranoia mixed with your bizarre condescension as if you’re some intellectual titan deigning to explain the universe to us apes… which couldn’t be farther from what is happening here.

 

The Bills’ offense in 2020 had one of the best if not the best overall performances in franchise history, setting numerous records.  Both on the aggregate and, with 2 possibly 2.5 or 3 exceptions, individually, did what they needed to do - meaning they performed at or, in most cases, far better than average - to beat the opponent and (as was the original point) affect a positive point differential.  You are the only person - literally the only one, there is no one else - arguing otherwise.  The argument I was responding to above was that “context doesn’t matter” which you’d think would have been the subject of your flat-earth “nonsense” campaign because of course context matters, of course you’d want to understand why point differential wasn’t higher, whether it reveals weaknesses or trends.  So far all you’ve done is trotted out the absurd notion that the Bills’ 2020 offense was a mirage and could barely beat the Jets… something the stats and everyone else’s eyeballs knows is borderline insane.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Coach Tuesday

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

3 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

Permit me to drastically disagree about the Titans game. That was dreadful. Just went back and watched the whole thing a few days ago as I slowly work through last season. It was awful. On both offense and defense. But the offense absolutely killed themselves with penalties, two INTs and a lost fumble.

 

They couldn't get out of their own way.

 

 

 

I agree it was bad. I thought Allen was by far the best player on the team that night. And that says a lot because he was only okay IMO. The entire team, offense and defense was out of sink. It felt like one of those rare games where you sometimes hear of coaches saying alright we aren't even going to watch the film on this game it was so bad and so out of character for the team. I chalk a lot of that up to the change of circumstances, the ridiculously bad and unfortunate play by Roberts who really shouldn't even ever be playing the WR position that really set the tone for the night. The Bills were out of sorts. Even leading up to that game there was a strong feeling of the "TItans vs. the world" because of how they were being blasted and blamed for their covid outbreak. Was not shocked in the least that they came out with a strong focus and played exceptionally well on both sides.

 

The other games, the KC games the Chargers games, they didn't really have any unusual circumstances or excuses they shouldn't have already been familiar with.

 

We just have to disagree on the Jets game. It wasn't a perfect game by any means. That is why it was a glass half full / half empty game. But a bad game by the offense? That would be incorrect. Bills surely tripped over themselves on offense preventing TD's both literally and figuratively. But still, 126 yards rushing, 5.0 ypc, no punts, 300 plus yards passing 90 QB rating. 

 

Jets, Patriots and Steelers games. They were not perfect or good offenses games all around. But I would not define either as bad overall either. KC games and Chargers games. Those three games felt like overall bad games by the offense.

 

 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

Well so far so good I guess.

 

Or, rather be 2-0 and somewhere in the middle of the pack in point differential or 1-1 and leading the lead in point differential? 

 

I rather the Bills were 2-0 of course with like a +4 differential. One positive thing to take away is that the defense so far looks pretty good and is a noticeable improvement from last year and has really allowed for the bills to have such a strong differential. Give the offense some time to get it together. 

 

 

[The Frankish Reich]

I’m pretty sure our point differential now has us at a projected 2.9 wins in 2 games total. 😀

[Nextmanup]

Some of us have been pointing out the merits of point differential (and getting killed for it by the vocal majority here) for years now.

 

It's a better way of determining quality than win/loss record, though many of the good people at this forum can't fathom how that could be true.

 

 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

Bills push their point differential to +50 now. Tied for first with Denver. It's early but it feels like this team is a lock to go over +100 in differential for the second consecutive year. The franchise record is +165 by the 1990 team. That is a lofty mark but with the Jets still remaining on the schedule twice I could see this team challenging that mark. I also don't really see this team getting blown out in any games like they were in the Titans game last year.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Sammy Watkins' Rib

[Warcodered]

Wouldn't a better stat be average point differential per game?

[Big Turk]

+57 past 2 weeks...pretty pretty good 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

12 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

Wouldn't a better stat be average point differential per game?

How is that different though? All teams play the same number of games.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

On 9/20/2021 at 12:11 PM, Nextmanup said:

Some of us have been pointing out the merits of point differential (and getting killed for it by the vocal majority here) for years now.

 

It's a better way of determining quality than win/loss record, though many of the good people at this forum can't fathom how that could be true.

 

 

Yea I think its a pretty good indicator in a bigger sample size...every now and then you get an outlier like last year's chargers team though that loses every close game and messes the metric up lol 

[Warcodered]

15 minutes ago, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

How is that different though? All teams play the same number of games.

I mean the difference would be I guess the point differential is +50

and the average per game is +16.66.

 

The point differential has to keep going up each week where as the average just needs to stay at whatever is the ideal level.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Warcodered

[TFBillsfan]

Bills are 1st in the league in points scored and 2nd in points allowed. Man, we played like junk in week one! Lets go pound the Texans next week!

 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

Bills remaining schedule will have them playing 5 games against the 4 worst point differential teams in the league. Jets x2 (-50), Falcons (-46), Jaguars (-38) and Dolphins (-37). I really think the team point differential record could be within reach this season. 

[billsfan89]

14 hours ago, TFBillsfan said:

Bills are 1st in the league in points scored and 2nd in points allowed. Man, we played like junk in week one! Lets go pound the Texans next week!

 

Even in week one they lost a close game to a team that is at the very least decent. These things happen, sometimes you come out a bit flat and you run into a bad matchup. The past two weeks have definitely been a fantastic rebound.

[Don Otreply]

Frankly, there is only one set of stats that actually matter, and that as we all know is the win / loss column the rest of the stats are for geeking out, they can be fun to follow, but they are all after the fact as it were,  when it comes down to it you won or you didn’t.

 

Go Bills!!!

 

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

I don't care how we win I just want to see the spanking