Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago

Top Guns: A brief history of NFL air superiority 
Cold, Hard Football Facts for February 18, 2011

(Ed. note: this story first ran on January 6, 2011. It's been updated to include the 2010 Packers, another team that won a championship by dominating the passing wars. One of our off-season projects is to produce the Passer Rating Differential of every team since 1940 and find out how many teams that topped Passer Rating Differential won a title. We're fairly certain you'll be amazed by the number.)

By Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts World War II ace of analysis

What did you do over the holidays?

[img_r]http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/images/AirSuperiority.jpg[/img_r]You probably hung out with family. Saw old friends. Sang a couple Christmas carols. Shared gifts with loved ones. Enjoyed a bountiful dinner. Watched old Bing Crosby movies by the fireplace. Reveled in the wide-eyed joy of an innocent child. Drank a little too much egg nog with good ol Uncle Hal Christmas Eve.

Sounds quaint. Were sure you had fun.

Our holidays went a little bit differently well, except for the too much egg nog part.

We spent the holidays in the true Cold, Hard Football Facts tradition, gathered around the Christmas can of Spam, the trash can fireplace and the jug of moonshine and calculated the offensive passer rating, Defensive Passer Rating and Passer Rating Differential of every NFL champion since the dawn of the T formation (thatd be since 1940, for those of you keeping score at home).

Our research provided an incredible treasure trove of data that slowly begins to make up for the Christmas presents and parental love that we never received as children.

You know our theory: winning in the NFL is all about winning the war of passing efficiency.

To make a comparison with our other obsession, World War II, you dont invade France without first establishing air superiority. In the NFL, you dont invade Dallas, or any Super Bowl location, without doing the same.

Teams that dominate the skies dominate on the scoreboard.

To prove this point, we introduced last year what we call Passer Rating Differential subtracting a teams Defensive Passer Rating from its offensive passer rating and ranking teams by the difference.

It's been a homerun. New Orleans dominated the indicator almost from wire to wire and ultimately dominated the Colts on the way to the first Super Bowl title in franchise history. Then came Green Bay in 2010. The Packers also dominated Passer Rating Differential. And, lo and behold, they won a Super Bowl, too.

Turns out thes are hardly an isolated incidents.

Heres a look at the Passer Rating Differential of every single NFL champion since 1940.

Passer Rating Differential NFL champions since 1940
[img]http://packershome.com/ForumsPro/download/id=548.html[/img]
[img]http://packershome.com/ForumsPro/download/id=549.html[/img]
[img]http://packershome.com/ForumsPro/download/id=550.html[/img]

Our holiday research confirmed what we long suspected: teams that dominate through the air dominate on the scoreboard. Consider that the NFL has crowned 71 champions since 1940.

[list]

  • An incredible 69 of them registered on the plus side of Passer Rating Differential.
  • 56 were +10 or better in Passer Rating Differential.
  • 46 were +20 or better in Passer Rating Differential.
  • The average NFL champion over the long haul of 71 years was +27.4 in Passer Rating Differential. [/list]

  • Only two teams won NFL titles after seasons in which they were upside down in Passer Rating Differential, the 1957 Lions and the 2007 Giants.

    But in both cases, they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Both teams produced incredible postseason turnarounds that saw each of them dominate the skies on their way to an NFL title.

    The 1957 Lions
    Tobin Rote replaced Hall of Famer Bobby Layne as Detroits quarterback late in the 1957 season. He played the game of his life in the 1957 title game, a shocking 59-14 win over the favored Browns. He completed 12 of 19 for 280 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT and a 146.4 passer rating (he also ran for a score).

    Cleveland quarterbacks Milt Plum and Tommy OConnell were dreadful that day. They combined to complete 9 of 20 for 112 yards, 0 TD, 4 INT. Running back Chet Hanaluk added another pick on his one pass attempt. Thats a 20.4 passer rating.

    In other words, the Lions dominated the Browns that day because they dominated the air.

    The 2007 Giants
    Weve long insisted that New Yorks win over New England in Super Bowl XLII was the greatest statistical upset in NFL history.

    [img_r]http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/images/TyreeDavidcatch.jpg[/img_r]Our look at Passer Rating Differential proves it. The 2007 Giants boasted both the worst Defensive Passer Rating (83.4) and worst Passer Rating Differential (-10.4) of any champion in NFL history.

    The 2007 Patriots boasted the second best single-season offensive passer rating in NFL history (116.0) were +37.9 in Passer Rating Differential.

    But the Giants produced the most improbable postseason run in NFL history because they improbably dominated the skies in the playoffs.

    Giants quarterback Eli Manning, in fact, produced what might have been the greatest four-game stretch of his career in those playoffs.

    He completed 72 of 119 for 854 yards, 6 TD, 1 INT and a great 95.71 passer rating.

    Meanwhile, he cranked out that effort during a four-game stretch in which the Giants defense clamped down a murderers row of quarterbacks: highly efficient Pro Bowl passer Jeff Garcia, prolific stat machine Tony Romo, all-time leader in everything BrettFavre and the tremendous Tom Brady.

    These four passers combined to complete 89 of 158 for 910 yards, 5 TD, 5 INT and a 70.39 passer rating.

    In other words, the Giants posted a Passer Rating Differential of +25.3 during their unexpected playoff run, about the historic norm in the regular season of all NFL champions. The Giants won the Super Bowl because they suddenly found a way to dominate the war of passing efficiency.

    By the way, take a look at the last 71 NFL champions, ranked by Passer Rating Differential. The 2010 Packers come in at No. 30, so slightly above average.

    A whole bunch of conclusions jump out at us when looking at these numbers. Here are just a few:
    [img_r]http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/images/LuckmanSidLifecover.jpg[/img_r]
    Chicago unleashed shock & awe on the NFL with the T-formation
    The Bears, led by quarterback Sid Luckman (pictured) adopted the T-formation from the college game in the early 1940s. They used it most notably to beat the Redskins 73-0 in the 1940 NFL title game. Its still the biggest blowout in NFL history.

    The charts here reveal that the formation was like unleashing shock & awe from the skies upon the rest of the NFL. The 1943 (+73.4) and 1941 Bears (+65.0) easily top our list of NFL champions in Passer Rating Differential.

    And this list doesnt even include the great dominant Bears of 1942, who were +60.0 in Passer Rating Differential (81.4 to 21.4). They were the most dominant team in NFL history (11-0; 376 PF, 84 PA) before getting upset by Sammy Baugh and the 10-1 Redskins in the 1942 title game.

    The dearth of talent during the World War II seasons (1942-44) certainly enhanced the divide between the revolutionary Bears and the rest of the league. But looking at this list, we now know in no uncertain terms why the T-formation was such a dramatic development in the history of football one that also inspired a revolution on the scoreboard (as we discussed over the summer).

    The rest of the NFL soon caught up and the gap in Passer Rating Differential has narrowed, never matching the numbers the Bears produced in the 1940s.

    [img_r]http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/images/UnitasJohnnypasser.jpg[/img_r]Even the greatest quarterbacks had a lot of help Johnny Unitas makes the short list of almost everybodys greatest quarterbacks ever. He certainly makes our list, too. Unitas is best remembered for leading the Colts to victory over the Giants in the 1958 NFL title game, The Best Game Ever. Unitas and the Colts beat the Giants again the next year in the 1959 NFL championship game.

    But those Colts werent just great on offense. They dominated on defense, too. They topped the NFL in both Offensive Passer Rating and Defensive Passer Rating in both seasons. We believe theyre the only team in history to accomplish this feat in consecutive years. Both teams rank among the seven best champs in Passer Rating Differential.

    Bart Starr and Joe Montana are also on the very short list of best quarterbacks ever. But both these Hall of Famers were aided in their quests for multiple championships by shutdown pass defenses.

    The gap in Passer Rating Differential has narrowed in the Live Ball Era
    The rule changes of 1978 that ushered in modern offense and what we call the Live Ball Era certainly led to an upswing in passing stats. Offensive and Defensive Passer Rating are both higher over the past 33 years. But the gap in Passer Rating Differential has actually narrowed a bit compared to the historic norm.

    NFL champions since 1978 have posted an average offensive passer rating of 89.6 and a Defensive Passer Rating of 66.3, an average Passer Rating Differential of +23.3.


    UserPostedImage
    StoicFire
    14 years ago
    Very impressive statistics! I'm not as surprised about the trend as I am about the consistency. And the really good news is that it looks like our OPR and DPR should continue to impress for a while now...
    "the Quarterback can run if he wants to, but with this rocket attached to your body... who would?" -Aaron Rodgers
    zombieslayer
    13 years ago
    Good stuff. Yes, DCs say all the time that they want to shut down the run. In reality, who cares? You don't want to give your cards away.

    Let's say you're playing poker. The interviewer says "so, how are you doing?"

    "Oh," you reply. "I have one Ace of Spades but I won't tell you the other card."

    Well, that's why DCs are always saying they need to stop the run. Of course they're not giving their cards away.

    It's all about the pass. Pass efficiently on O. Stop the other QB on D. The run? Neat-o, but statistically it's not that important.

    The guys at Cold, Hard Football Facts understand this. And no, I'm not one of their writers.
    My man Donald Driver
    UserPostedImage
    (thanks to Pack93z for the pic)
    2010 will be seen as the beginning of the new Packers dynasty. 🇹🇹 🇲🇲 🇦🇷
    macbob
    13 years ago
    NSD-A very good article, and I enjoyed it, but I can't say I'm shocked by the finding that teams that pass well and stop the other team from passing well do well. The article provides us no insights about the importance of the running game, though.

    I would love to see a similar comparative analysis done on the running side, but there is not a composite stat that lends itself well to offensive/defensive analysis as the QB rating does for passing. That said, I would probably expect similar results (teams that do well on O and whose D does well do well overall), so I'm not sure exactly what it would tell us, unless you could then somehow correlate that running stat to the QB Rating stat.

    I find it interesting that the the difference between OPR & DPR is shrinking. I'm going to go back and look at their stats, but what I'd expect to find is that the offensive changes led to increases in QB ratings on Offense, which would then lead me to believe that the Defensive QB ratings are increasing at a faster pace.

    Overall, I'm not sure what the significance is of the narrowing of the gap, I will think about it.

    In Madden, it's all about the pass. Pass efficiently on O. Stop the other QB on D. The run? Neat-o, but statistically it's not that important.

    "zombieslayer" wrote:



    ZS--as always, I appreciate your video game analysis, it's highly informative on a number of levels. ::razz:
    zombieslayer
    13 years ago
    I've already posted those stats, Macbob, and it clearly shows that it doesn't matter whatsoever how effective your running game is whatsoever.

    And no, I don't play videogames. I don't even own a console or a windoze box. I got better things to do than play videogames.
    My man Donald Driver
    UserPostedImage
    (thanks to Pack93z for the pic)
    2010 will be seen as the beginning of the new Packers dynasty. 🇹🇹 🇲🇲 🇦🇷
    zombieslayer
    13 years ago
    Well, folks, looks like NFL GMs agree with me. NOT ONE RB was picked in the top 10 this year in the NFL Draft. You want to hear something even more extreme? NOT ONE was picked in the top 20. Or the top 25. It wasn't until the 28th pick that somebody grabbed a RB.

    Then in round 2, the 2nd RB was picked for the 38th pick. Then the 3rd RB was picked in the 56th pick. By then, a shitload of QBs, OL, WRs, DBs, LBs, and DLs were picked.

    But then again, what do they know, right?
    My man Donald Driver
    UserPostedImage
    (thanks to Pack93z for the pic)
    2010 will be seen as the beginning of the new Packers dynasty. 🇹🇹 🇲🇲 🇦🇷
    Rockmolder
    13 years ago

    Well, folks, looks like NFL GMs agree with me. NOT ONE RB was picked in the top 10 this year in the NFL Draft. You want to hear something even more extreme? NOT ONE was picked in the top 20. Or the top 25. It wasn't until the 28th pick that somebody grabbed a RB.

    Then in round 2, the 2nd RB was picked for the 38th pick. Then the 3rd RB was picked in the 56th pick. By then, a shitload of QBs, OL, WRs, DBs, LBs, and DLs were picked.

    But then again, what do they know, right?

    "zombieslayer" wrote:



    You know how to kick down open doors.
    zombieslayer
    13 years ago



    You know how to kick down open doors.

    "Rockmolder" wrote:



    Damn right. I was right about winning the SB without a running game yet still there are some people who won't give me credit about it. They were doom and gloom about not being able to win without a running game and I went the other extreme - I said we'd win while rushing less than 1/2 of the time. Well, we ended up rushing 1/3 of the time and won.

    I'll readily admit when I was wrong. I was wrong about TT. I was very anti-TT when the whole Favre thing went down and I'll readily admit I was wrong about that. Yet, some folks can't admit I was right about this. So I'll rub it in.

    (I never claimed to be mature).
    My man Donald Driver
    UserPostedImage
    (thanks to Pack93z for the pic)
    2010 will be seen as the beginning of the new Packers dynasty. 🇹🇹 🇲🇲 🇦🇷
    Cheesey
    13 years ago

    Well, folks, looks like NFL GMs agree with me. NOT ONE RB was picked in the top 10 this year in the NFL Draft. You want to hear something even more extreme? NOT ONE was picked in the top 20. Or the top 25. It wasn't until the 28th pick that somebody grabbed a RB.

    Then in round 2, the 2nd RB was picked for the 38th pick. Then the 3rd RB was picked in the 56th pick. By then, a shitload of QBs, OL, WRs, DBs, LBs, and DLs were picked.

    But then again, what do they know, right?

    "zombieslayer" wrote:


    True.
    The whole NFL has been pushing for more offense, and passed alot of rules to protect QB's. So the smart way of thinking is to base your offense on the air attack, but have just enough of a threat at RB to keep the defense on their toes.
    Think of how QB's were treated back in the 1960's. They were battered constantly, so a good running game was the way to go. That's not how it is now though.
    UserPostedImage
    Dexter_Sinister
    13 years ago
    This all means the smart way to build a D is to stop the pass and contain the run.

    Someone should tell Capers that. Maybe he will come up with some kind of a wierd package just for that.

    Like lots of LBs and only a couple of DLs.
    I want to go out like my Grandpa did. Peacefully in his sleep.
    Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
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