Monday was my birthday and after a little good cheer I was not ready to waste my time with sleep. Look at the time of the original post.

The phrasing was inadequate and lazily I attempted to use commas to help clarify rather than rewriting the sentence.

I apologize for that.

It was disrespectful to Packers Home members to attempt to laugh it off the next morning. I apologize for not upholding the high gramatical standards of Packers Home.

Originally Posted by: CaliforniaCheez 

Monday was my birthday and after a little good cheer I was not ready to waste my time with sleep. Look at the time of the original post.

The phrasing was inadequate and lazily I attempted to use commas to help clarify rather than rewriting the sentence.

I apologize for that.

It was disrespectful to Packers Home members to attempt to laugh it off the next morning. I apologize for not upholding the high gramatical standards of Packers Home.

Originally Posted by: CaliforniaCheez 

Indeed, the correlation will never be perfect. But it is certainly amazingly high.

Originally Posted by: Nonstopdrivel 

'Amazingly high' is a bit strong for me. I have always found this statistic to be kind of a 'well, duh' statistic...

Those teams who pass well and who stop the other team from passing well, do well.

Well, duh... 🤷


The differential stat combines both a defensive and an offensive element. We had a discussion on this (and other stats) back around Jan, and looked at the individual components (D, Passer rating, Turnovers, etc):

http://packershome.com/tabid/63/g/posts/t/12224/Passing-is-fancy-but-doesnt-mean-playoffs.aspx 

#1 factor/predictor was Elite D, followed by Passer Rating (Elite QB) and Turnover Differential.

Originally Posted by: macbob 

This is such a kicking-in-an-open-door stat.

I mean, what it really tells you is that the team that has a good offense and a good defense is most often the best team in the league?

It doesn't factor in rushing, but rushing, at this day and age, is mostly helpful in setting up the pass. And a lack of a rushing game makes a team one dimensional, which hurts the passing game. So both stopping the run and being able to run it on offense factor in pretty heavily, as well.

When you rank good in offensive passer rating it's because you throw for a lot of yards, a lot of TDs and not a lot of interceptions, most likely aided by a somewhat decent rushing attack.

When you rank good in defensive passer rating you're most likely forcing some turnovers, keeping the other team down in yards, not letting them throw a lot of TDs and you're not letting their RB run wild, which means few chances to go deep off of play-action.

That's as close to saying "The team that scored the most points today" as it gets.

Originally Posted by: Rockmolder 

That's as close to saying "The team that scored the most points today" as it gets.

Originally Posted by: Rockmolder 

It doesn't factor in rushing, but rushing, at this day and age, is mostly helpful in setting up the pass. And a lack of a rushing game makes a team one dimensional, which hurts the passing game. So both stopping the run and being able to run it on offense factor in pretty heavily, as well.

Originally Posted by: Rockmolder 

This 4 part statistical analysis debunks the rushing-to-set-up-the-pass theory. But you have to get to part 4 for that information. Article 

Originally Posted by: azrunning 

A good passing game is far more important than a good running game in the NFL. It’s at least twice as important, and probably even more so. If we include interceptions as part of the passing game, passing efficiency and interception rates dwarf the importance of running efficiency by a factor of 4 to 1.