Can anyone lose a game besides the QB?

Danchat
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 17, 2020 11:05:24 GMT -6

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Post by Danchat on May 17, 2020 11:05:24 GMT -6

May 17, 2020 9:46:32 GMT -6 Reignman said:

This is like asking if anyone can lose a game besides the starting pitcher. The short answer is, yes ofc they can, but ....

I get triggered when people talk about pitcher W-L... talk about a useless stat. Back in the day that seemed to be the only stat that people cared about for a starting pitcher! I definitely think QB W-L is more statically significant as I believe randomness is more frequent in baseball. And a QB can give the other team points via turnovers while that's not possible in baseball.

May 17, 2020 9:46:32 GMT -6 Reignman said:

And that's the actual argument. The QB affects it the most! Other players can affect the outcome of games, but I don't think it's similar, unless we're talking about all the other positions combined.

Well yes, ideally a study would reveal how closely the other positions affect the ratio compared to the QB. Would a QB affect the W-L ratio for the equivalent of the whole O-line, or the whole offense? What defensive position is the most important? It would prove very difficult to isolate these stats, but I'll think this one over and see if I can come up with a way to study this that will be feasible and will yield results.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 17, 2020 12:43:48 GMT -6

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Post by Reignman on May 17, 2020 12:43:48 GMT -6

May 17, 2020 11:05:24 GMT -6 Danchat said:

And a QB can give the other team points via turnovers while that's not possible in baseball.

Then what would you call 2 run home run lol? If that's not giving up points to the other team than I don't know what is haha j/k. I know what you meant. A pitcher and QB actually have opposite goals. When is trying to prevent the other team from scoring (can't score themselves), and the other is trying to score (and can also give up points). Which only proves football is a much better sport. *whistle*

May 17, 2020 11:05:24 GMT -6 Danchat said:

Well yes, ideally a study would reveal how closely the other positions affect the ratio compared to the QB. Would a QB affect the W-L ratio for the equivalent of the whole O-line, or the whole offense? What defensive position is the most important? It would prove very difficult to isolate these stats, but I'll think this one over and see if I can come up with a way to study this that will be feasible and will yield results.

I don't see how that would ever be possible. It would be too subjective. You can't study it in a vacuum. Unless maybe you used Madden to come up with something. That's the only thing I can think of where you could perfectly isolate one position while keeping all the other variables exactly the same, which would be important.

For example, pick some random team, maybe an average team. Simulate a bunch of seasons to get a baseline. Then give that team the best QB in the league, change nothing else, make them play the same schedule etc. Simulate a bunch of seasons again to see how many more wins the team had. Then do the same, but with a bad QB. Then do the same but with good/bad players from other positions. You'll have to have injuries off too. The only change you'll want is that one position, and you'll have to simulate each test enough times to soften any possible anomalies.

Maybe I'll give it a try when I get bored haha. I would keep track of offensive/defensive stats too, to see which positions have the most impact for their particular side of the ball.

Aug 8, 2024 18:42:12 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

if sitting and watching something versus actually doing it made a person great at it, Reignman would be the next Ron Jeremy.

legendsofthenorth
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 17, 2020 14:17:54 GMT -6 via mobile

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Post by legendsofthenorth on May 17, 2020 14:17:54 GMT -6

Thanks guys great info to read through.

What I hear is not really the answer to my question but more of the anwser of the QB is the most important position in football so should take the blame no matter what happens through out the game. They get paid the most, touch the ball the most so they should have the most blame.

I get that and I agree with all of it. So no arguement from me on any of the well written posts from you guys/gals.

Thanks for the great input!

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 17, 2020 16:23:17 GMT -6 Reignman, Funkytown, and 1 more like this

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Post by whoskmoon on May 17, 2020 16:23:17 GMT -6

So this is as good of a place as any I suppose.

If you really want to know how a QB affects wins, Dak Prescott is a great case study.

I think a lot of people believe Dak is the product of a great team, and that might be true, but he had played a big role in his great win % up until the past year.

From 2016-2018 Dak, in the 4th quarter, down by 8 or less (23 games)

Player	        Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	Y/A	1D	Rate	TD %	INT %	Games
Dak Prescott	105	173	60.7	1457	10	1	12	-80	8.4	65	104.6	5.78%	0.58%	23

2019 Dak, in the 4th quarter, down by 8 or less

Player	        Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	Y/A	1D	Rate	TD %	INT %	Games
Dak Prescott	34	59	57.6	439	0	2	3	-23	7.4	21	67	0.00%	3.39%	5

In his first 3 years, Dak was 32-16, in 2019 he was 8-8. The stats above are a big reason why his win rate dropped so dramatically. He plays well in just 3 of those 5 games in 2019, and his team is probably in the playoffs instead of .500 in a terrible division.

In fact, when you look at the top QBs in win % with 20 starts or more and 35+ pass attempts in this situation since 2015 (in order descending):

Jimmy Garoppolo
Tom Brady
Patrick Mahomes
Teddy Bridgewater
Alex Smith
Ben Roethlisberger
Deshaun Watson
Drew Brees
Russell Wilson
Dak Prescott

Compare it to the top passer rated QBs in that spot:
Teddy Bridgewater
Deshaun Watson
Ben Roethlisberger
Andrew Luck
Josh Allen
Jimmy Garoppolo
Russell Wilson
Drew Brees
Patrick Mahomes
Tom Brady

Not surprisingly we see the same names on both lists, for the most part. A QB playing well at the end of close games results in more wins. Who knew?

The opposite is true as well:

Bottom 10 win percentage ascending:
Blake Bortles

Jacoby Brissett

Jameis Winston

Baker Mayfield

Sam Darnold

Andy Dalton

Philip Rivers

Ryan Fitzpatrick

Joe Flacco

Nick Foles

Bottom 10 passer rating ascending
Sam Darnold

Nick Foles

Blake Bortles

Baker Mayfield

Jacoby Brissett

Joe Flacco

Philip Rivers

Mitchell Trubisky

Ryan Fitzpatrick

Case Keenum

Cousins is 19th in passer rating and 18th out of 37 in win % in case anyone was curious. Very average in pretty much every stat in that spot, except int % where he throws a pick on 4% of his passes and is 3rd worst. That is a big reason that despite pretty good individual QB stats, he is still just hovering around a .500 win %.

Now, this is only part of how a QB affects win % and there are some QB who play great from start to finish and don't have a lot of opportunities in the 4th down 8 or less, but still win. However, when you start to break down QB stats situationally , and look at who is playing poorly in spots that clearly affect the outcome of games, you realize pretty quickly that while a QB can't make a horrible team into a SB contender, they are the difference between an okay team going .500 or an okay team winning 10 games and making the playoffs.

Danchat
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 17, 2020 17:19:20 GMT -6 Funkytown likes this

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Post by Danchat on May 17, 2020 17:19:20 GMT -6

May 17, 2020 12:43:48 GMT -6 Reignman said:

I don't see how that would ever be possible. It would be too subjective. You can't study it in a vacuum. Unless maybe you used Madden to come up with something. That's the only thing I can think of where you could perfectly isolate one position while keeping all the other variables exactly the same, which would be important.

I think it would be possible to look at games when a team was missing a certain player and check out the W-L ratio with them and without them. While there still are several more factors than just that single player, I think it'd warrant some examination.

diehardtwinsfan
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 18, 2020 8:18:56 GMT -6

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Post by diehardtwinsfan on May 18, 2020 8:18:56 GMT -6

May 16, 2020 20:29:29 GMT -6 legendsofthenorth said:

May 16, 2020 20:20:39 GMT -6 suncoastvike said:

Well in fairness to "most everybody". It depends on the team and where they are at in their growth. If you are given fully guaranteed money to take over a 13-3 team one game short of the big dance. Well he needs to be better then some rookie or journeyman when it it counts.
Post game interviews about pointing fingers or not after a loss is too late. Was that Adam and Diggs laughing with him last year on the sidelines during the game? That is the point where they need to be together. That is still at a point that it is not too late. Yelling in his face and whatever went down with Diggs last year didn't mean it could be laughed off later.
Kirk for better or worse was brought in to be the missing piece that was going to make us better. Make us a champion. Is it fair that he alone can not get us a division title? Yet alone back to the conference championship round? No not totally but that is how close we were and he was given alot of guaranteed money for a reason. Not to just be a guy who holds up his end sometimes yes sometimes no.

Let's not make it a Kirk issue. Let's make it a discussion about whether other than QB, can anyone else be responsible for wins or losses?

to answer the question.. yes... anyone can be the reason why a game is lost... Generally though, the reason a game is won is likely more a team thing. Even a one man wrecking crew at any position is still heavily dependent on other guys doing their job to win a game... but if one guy... and really almost any one guy fails miserably at doing their job... well, that's how games are lost.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 18, 2020 8:29:35 GMT -6 via mobile Funkytown likes this

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Post by wivikesfan on May 18, 2020 8:29:35 GMT -6

May 17, 2020 16:23:17 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

So this is as good of a place as any I suppose.

If you really want to know how a QB affects wins, Dak Prescott is a great case study.

I think a lot of people believe Dak is the product of a great team, and that might be true, but he had played a big role in his great win % up until the past year.

From 2016-2018 Dak, in the 4th quarter, down by 8 or less (23 games)

Player	        Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	Y/A	1D	Rate	TD %	INT %	Games
Dak Prescott	105	173	60.7	1457	10	1	12	-80	8.4	65	104.6	5.78%	0.58%	23

2019 Dak, in the 4th quarter, down by 8 or less

Player	        Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	Y/A	1D	Rate	TD %	INT %	Games
Dak Prescott	34	59	57.6	439	0	2	3	-23	7.4	21	67	0.00%	3.39%	5

In his first 3 years, Dak was 32-16, in 2019 he was 8-8. The stats above are a big reason why his win rate dropped so dramatically. He plays well in just 3 of those 5 games in 2019, and his team is probably in the playoffs instead of .500 in a terrible division.

In fact, when you look at the top QBs in win % with 20 starts or more and 35+ pass attempts in this situation since 2015 (in order descending):

Jimmy Garoppolo
Tom Brady
Patrick Mahomes
Teddy Bridgewater
Alex Smith
Ben Roethlisberger
Deshaun Watson
Drew Brees
Russell Wilson
Dak Prescott

Compare it to the top passer rated QBs in that spot:
Teddy Bridgewater
Deshaun Watson
Ben Roethlisberger
Andrew Luck
Josh Allen
Jimmy Garoppolo
Russell Wilson
Drew Brees
Patrick Mahomes
Tom Brady

Not surprisingly we see the same names on both lists, for the most part. A QB playing well at the end of close games results in more wins. Who knew?

The opposite is true as well:

Bottom 10 win percentage ascending:
Blake Bortles

Jacoby Brissett

Jameis Winston

Baker Mayfield

Sam Darnold

Andy Dalton

Philip Rivers

Ryan Fitzpatrick

Joe Flacco

Nick Foles

Bottom 10 passer rating ascending
Sam Darnold

Nick Foles

Blake Bortles

Baker Mayfield

Jacoby Brissett

Joe Flacco

Philip Rivers

Mitchell Trubisky

Ryan Fitzpatrick

Case Keenum

Cousins is 19th in passer rating and 18th out of 37 in win % in case anyone was curious. Very average in pretty much every stat in that spot, except int % where he throws a pick on 4% of his passes and is 3rd worst. That is a big reason that despite pretty good individual QB stats, he is still just hovering around a .500 win %.

Now, this is only part of how a QB affects win % and there are some QB who play great from start to finish and don't have a lot of opportunities in the 4th down 8 or less, but still win. However, when you start to break down QB stats situationally , and look at who is playing poorly in spots that clearly affect the outcome of games, you realize pretty quickly that while a QB can't make a horrible team into a SB contender, they are the difference between an okay team going .500 or an okay team winning 10 games and making the playoffs.

This really does nothing to support or negate the degree to which a qb affects the outcome of a game.

And BTW when looking at Cousins, how are his stats since being here? It's almost like being in a trash organization negatively affected his performance.

whoskmoon
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 18, 2020 9:02:43 GMT -6 Reignman likes this

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Post by whoskmoon on May 18, 2020 9:02:43 GMT -6

May 18, 2020 8:29:35 GMT -6 wivikesfan said:

May 17, 2020 16:23:17 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

So this is as good of a place as any I suppose.

If you really want to know how a QB affects wins, Dak Prescott is a great case study.

I think a lot of people believe Dak is the product of a great team, and that might be true, but he had played a big role in his great win % up until the past year.

From 2016-2018 Dak, in the 4th quarter, down by 8 or less (23 games)

Player	        Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	Y/A	1D	Rate	TD %	INT %	Games
Dak Prescott	105	173	60.7	1457	10	1	12	-80	8.4	65	104.6	5.78%	0.58%	23

2019 Dak, in the 4th quarter, down by 8 or less

Player	        Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	Y/A	1D	Rate	TD %	INT %	Games
Dak Prescott	34	59	57.6	439	0	2	3	-23	7.4	21	67	0.00%	3.39%	5

In his first 3 years, Dak was 32-16, in 2019 he was 8-8. The stats above are a big reason why his win rate dropped so dramatically. He plays well in just 3 of those 5 games in 2019, and his team is probably in the playoffs instead of .500 in a terrible division.

In fact, when you look at the top QBs in win % with 20 starts or more and 35+ pass attempts in this situation since 2015 (in order descending):

Jimmy Garoppolo
Tom Brady
Patrick Mahomes
Teddy Bridgewater
Alex Smith
Ben Roethlisberger
Deshaun Watson
Drew Brees
Russell Wilson
Dak Prescott

Compare it to the top passer rated QBs in that spot:
Teddy Bridgewater
Deshaun Watson
Ben Roethlisberger
Andrew Luck
Josh Allen
Jimmy Garoppolo
Russell Wilson
Drew Brees
Patrick Mahomes
Tom Brady

Not surprisingly we see the same names on both lists, for the most part. A QB playing well at the end of close games results in more wins. Who knew?

The opposite is true as well:

Bottom 10 win percentage ascending:
Blake Bortles

Jacoby Brissett

Jameis Winston

Baker Mayfield

Sam Darnold

Andy Dalton

Philip Rivers

Ryan Fitzpatrick

Joe Flacco

Nick Foles

Bottom 10 passer rating ascending
Sam Darnold

Nick Foles

Blake Bortles

Baker Mayfield

Jacoby Brissett

Joe Flacco

Philip Rivers

Mitchell Trubisky

Ryan Fitzpatrick

Case Keenum

Cousins is 19th in passer rating and 18th out of 37 in win % in case anyone was curious. Very average in pretty much every stat in that spot, except int % where he throws a pick on 4% of his passes and is 3rd worst. That is a big reason that despite pretty good individual QB stats, he is still just hovering around a .500 win %.

Now, this is only part of how a QB affects win % and there are some QB who play great from start to finish and don't have a lot of opportunities in the 4th down 8 or less, but still win. However, when you start to break down QB stats situationally , and look at who is playing poorly in spots that clearly affect the outcome of games, you realize pretty quickly that while a QB can't make a horrible team into a SB contender, they are the difference between an okay team going .500 or an okay team winning 10 games and making the playoffs.

This really does nothing to support or negate the degree to which a qb affects the outcome of a game.

And BTW when looking at Cousins, how are his stats since being here? It's almost like being in a trash organization negatively affected his performance.

He has actually been much worse as a Viking, throwing 3 picks and 3 Tds for a 73 passer rating. He has one win in ten games in that spot.

It is interesting you think that QB playing well when down a score or less at the end of a game doesn't dramatically increase the odds of a team winning over when a QB struggles. Now this is just my opinion, but it is a lot more difficult to score when your QB is struggling than when he is playing well. It is also really difficult to win a game you are down in, if you don't score to overtake the team that is beating you. Just my opinion on that though.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 18, 2020 9:05:34 GMT -6 via mobile Funkytown, Danchat, and 1 more like this

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Post by wivikesfan on May 18, 2020 9:05:34 GMT -6

May 18, 2020 9:02:43 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

May 18, 2020 8:29:35 GMT -6 wivikesfan said:

This really does nothing to support or negate the degree to which a qb affects the outcome of a game.

And BTW when looking at Cousins, how are his stats since being here? It's almost like being in a trash organization negatively affected his performance.

He has actually been much worse as a Viking, throwing 3 picks and 3 Tds for a 73 passer rating. He has one win in ten games in that spot.

It is interesting you think that QB playing well when down a score or less at the end of a game doesn't dramatically increase the odds of a team winning over when a QB struggles. Now this is just my opinion, but it is a lot more difficult to score when your QB is struggling than when he is playing well. It is also really difficult to win a game you are down in, if you don't score to overtake the team that is beating you. Just my opinion on that though.

I'm more interested in the overall body of work and the effort to not be down by 8+ in the first place. If the team is doing what they're supposed to, they shouldn't be in that position very often.

whoskmoon
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 18, 2020 10:39:04 GMT -6 Reignman, vikingpitbull, and 1 more like this

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Post by whoskmoon on May 18, 2020 10:39:04 GMT -6

May 18, 2020 9:05:34 GMT -6 wivikesfan said:

May 18, 2020 9:02:43 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

He has actually been much worse as a Viking, throwing 3 picks and 3 Tds for a 73 passer rating. He has one win in ten games in that spot.

It is interesting you think that QB playing well when down a score or less at the end of a game doesn't dramatically increase the odds of a team winning over when a QB struggles. Now this is just my opinion, but it is a lot more difficult to score when your QB is struggling than when he is playing well. It is also really difficult to win a game you are down in, if you don't score to overtake the team that is beating you. Just my opinion on that though.

I'm more interested in the overall body of work and the effort to not be down by 8+ in the first place. If the team is doing what they're supposed to, they shouldn't be in that position very often.

How well a QB does in that spot is the difference between an 8 win season and a 11 win one and a 10 win season and 13 win one. It is us making the playoffs in 2018 versus sitting at home, and a playoff bye and home field in the playoffs versus a WC birth in 2019.

If you are going to put a team together that gives its QB all day to throw, stops the opposition from scoring more than 10 points, runs for 2K yards and has 2 great WRs, sure, you don't need a great comeback QB very often. In fact, you could throw just about any backup QB making 5 million on that team and be successful.

Last I checked we weren't paying Cousins 5 million to be carried to wins by a great team though.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 19, 2020 11:14:01 GMT -6 Funkytown and legendsofthenorth like this

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Post by Reignman on May 19, 2020 11:14:01 GMT -6

May 17, 2020 17:19:20 GMT -6 Danchat said:

May 17, 2020 12:43:48 GMT -6 Reignman said:

I don't see how that would ever be possible. It would be too subjective. You can't study it in a vacuum. Unless maybe you used Madden to come up with something. That's the only thing I can think of where you could perfectly isolate one position while keeping all the other variables exactly the same, which would be important.

I think it would be possible to look at games when a team was missing a certain player and check out the W-L ratio with them and without them. While there still are several more factors than just that single player, I think it'd warrant some examination.

Ahhh man, we need to see more Madden studies around here. But yeah, the thing with Madden is, you can create a large enough sample size and control all the variables, so that would be ideal.

To see how an individual player in the real NFL impacts their team, there are just too many things to consider and the sample size is extremely small. For example, if a player misses a couple of game and his team loses those games, it could be for any number of reasons. Maybe those 2 opponents were good, or they matched up well, or it was 2 road games, or the QB ate a bad turkey sandwich for breakfast.

But alright, lets try this with a player. I already have one in mind because I've done this before, with Diggs. I remember looking into how much of an impact he had on our offense since he seemed to miss a few games every year, and I think I learned he didn't have much impact on our offense in terms of production, but lets look again to make sure.

In 80 possible games, Diggs played in 70. The Vikings held him out of his first 3 games as a rookie for whatever reason, and he missed 7 others due to injury. He had 18 other games where he was on the field for less than 75% of the offensive snaps, but we're not going to look at that for now.

Here are the stats with and without Diggs in the lineup.

QB stats:

          W-L    CMP%   YPG  TD/G IN/G RATING
with     43-26   68.5  247.6  1.5  0.4  99.9
without   7-2    71.7  204.6  0.9  0.8  89.9

Team stats:

                     OFFENSIVE TOTALS       DEFENSIVE TOTALS
           PF-PA     1stD  TOT PASS RUSH    1stD  TOT PASS RUSH
with     23.0-19.4   19.6  341  231  110    18.8  321  217  104
without  23.7-13.8   19.2  323  196  127    19.1  286  187  100

On the surface it looks like the passing game is more productive with Diggs, but a few things stand out to me. We don't seem to have any trouble winning without Diggs (more on that later). And as anyone who is familiar with my "rushing leads to winning" obsession, you run more often when you have the lead, so we should expect the passing numbers to be down in the games Diggs missed because we won those games by an average of 10 points. The rushing is a little better in those games, and so is the defense.

But the fact that we won more often without Diggs can be a bit misleading too. Of those 9 opponents, none of them finished the season better than 9-7, 6 were below .500, and 7 were at home.

Another thing that stood out to me was how the Vikings win pct seemed to get lower with the higher pct of snaps Diggs was on the field. A side effect of "rushing leads to winning" perhaps?

SNAP%    W-L   PCT
90-100%  5-7  .417
85-89%   8-11 .421
80-84%   8-3  .727
70-79%  15-4  .789
50-69%   7-1  .875
out      7-2  .778

Based on this little study I would conclude that Diggs doesn't seem to impact the offense all that much, and we shouldn't really miss him. What the study can't account for is his impact in the locker room or his affect on team morale. Although we could say even if the players are affected by those things, they don't let it slow them down on the field. Not that losing a player permanently is the same as losing them for a game or 2.

The Vikings used a platoon of Charles Johnson, Patterson, Floyd, Treadwell, and Robinson in his absence, and I don't think anyone would argue any of those guys gave us a better chance to win than Diggs. It just made us rely more on Wallace, Thielen, Wright, and Rudolph. On the other hand, those guys were backups. Diggs permanent replacement should be better than a backup, so the argument still stands, I don't think the offense will suffer all that much without Diggs.

The point being, there are a lot of factors to consider with a study on how an individual player impacts his team.

Last Edit: May 19, 2020 11:16:29 GMT -6 by Reignman

Aug 8, 2024 18:42:12 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

if sitting and watching something versus actually doing it made a person great at it, Reignman would be the next Ron Jeremy.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 19, 2020 12:05:51 GMT -6 via mobile

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Post by vikingpitbull on May 19, 2020 12:05:51 GMT -6

May 19, 2020 11:14:01 GMT -6 Reignman said:

May 17, 2020 17:19:20 GMT -6 Danchat said:

I think it would be possible to look at games when a team was missing a certain player and check out the W-L ratio with them and without them. While there still are several more factors than just that single player, I think it'd warrant some examination.

Ahhh man, we need to see more Madden studies around here. But yeah, the thing with Madden is, you can create a large enough sample size and control all the variables, so that would be ideal.

To see how an individual player in the real NFL impacts their team, there are just too many things to consider and the sample size is extremely small. For example, if a player misses a couple of game and his team loses those games, it could be for any number of reasons. Maybe those 2 opponents were good, or they matched up well, or it was 2 road games, or the QB ate a bad turkey sandwich for breakfast.

But alright, lets try this with a player. I already have one in mind because I've done this before, with Diggs. I remember looking into how much of an impact he had on our offense since he seemed to miss a few games every year, and I think I learned he didn't have much impact on our offense in terms of production, but lets look again to make sure.

In 80 possible games, Diggs played in 70. The Vikings held him out of his first 3 games as a rookie for whatever reason, and he missed 7 others due to injury. He had 18 other games where he was on the field for less than 75% of the offensive snaps, but we're not going to look at that for now.

Here are the stats with and without Diggs in the lineup.

QB stats:

          W-L    CMP%   YPG  TD/G IN/G RATING
with     43-26   68.5  247.6  1.5  0.4  99.9
without   7-2    71.7  204.6  0.9  0.8  89.9

Team stats:

                     OFFENSIVE TOTALS       DEFENSIVE TOTALS
           PF-PA     1stD  TOT PASS RUSH    1stD  TOT PASS RUSH
with     23.0-19.4   19.6  341  231  110    18.8  321  217  104
without  23.7-13.8   19.2  323  196  127    19.1  286  187  100

On the surface it looks like the passing game is more productive with Diggs, but a few things stand out to me. We don't seem to have any trouble winning without Diggs (more on that later). And as anyone who is familiar with my "rushing leads to winning" obsession, you run more often when you have the lead, so we should expect the passing numbers to be down in the games Diggs missed because we won those games by an average of 10 points. The rushing is a little better in those games, and so is the defense.

But the fact that we won more often without Diggs can be a bit misleading too. Of those 9 opponents, none of them finished the season better than 9-7, 6 were below .500, and 7 were at home.

Another thing that stood out to me was how the Vikings win pct seemed to get lower with the higher pct of snaps Diggs was on the field. A side effect of "rushing leads to winning" perhaps?

SNAP%    W-L   PCT
90-100%  5-7  .417
85-89%   8-11 .421
80-84%   8-3  .727
70-79%  15-4  .789
50-69%   7-1  .875
out      7-2  .778

Based on this little study I would conclude that Diggs doesn't seem to impact the offense all that much, and we shouldn't really miss him. What the study can't account for is his impact in the locker room or his affect on team morale. Although we could say even if the players are affected by those things, they don't let it slow them down on the field. Not that losing a player permanently is the same as losing them for a game or 2.

The Vikings used a platoon of Charles Johnson, Patterson, Floyd, Treadwell, and Robinson in his absence, and I don't think anyone would argue any of those guys gave us a better chance to win than Diggs. It just made us rely more on Wallace, Thielen, Wright, and Rudolph. On the other hand, those guys were backups. Diggs permanent replacement should be better than a backup, so the argument still stands, I don't think the offense will suffer all that much without Diggs.

The point being, there are a lot of factors to consider with a study on how an individual player impacts his team.

I think the biggest connection between any and all success vs failure for this team or individual(s) is what you outlined and what is known already. What plays the largest role is winng teams vs losing teams and what that does in terms of effect for this team. We have many if not all the reasons for failure in front of us. It's not some misguided fallacy. Connect the dots and the relevance is alarming. IMO it leaves no doubt.

wivikesfan
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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 20, 2020 13:30:56 GMT -6 via mobile Reignman likes this

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Post by wivikesfan on May 20, 2020 13:30:56 GMT -6

May 18, 2020 10:39:04 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

May 18, 2020 9:05:34 GMT -6 wivikesfan said:

I'm more interested in the overall body of work and the effort to not be down by 8+ in the first place. If the team is doing what they're supposed to, they shouldn't be in that position very often.

How well a QB does in that spot is the difference between an 8 win season and a 11 win one and a 10 win season and 13 win one. It is us making the playoffs in 2018 versus sitting at home, and a playoff bye and home field in the playoffs versus a WC birth in 2019.

If you are going to put a team together that gives its QB all day to throw, stops the opposition from scoring more than 10 points, runs for 2K yards and has 2 great WRs, sure, you don't need a great comeback QB very often. In fact, you could throw just about any backup QB making 5 million on that team and be successful.

Last I checked we weren't paying Cousins 5 million to be carried to wins by a great team though.

Well... it's fair to be unhappy about it but I'd actually argue that IS what we are paying him to do. I think hes proven that he can play well in ideal situations, but hes not elite enough to carry a team.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 21, 2020 17:39:23 GMT -6

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Post by Reignman on May 21, 2020 17:39:23 GMT -6

May 17, 2020 17:19:20 GMT -6 Danchat said:

May 17, 2020 12:43:48 GMT -6 Reignman said:

I don't see how that would ever be possible. It would be too subjective. You can't study it in a vacuum. Unless maybe you used Madden to come up with something. That's the only thing I can think of where you could perfectly isolate one position while keeping all the other variables exactly the same, which would be important.

I think it would be possible to look at games when a team was missing a certain player and check out the W-L ratio with them and without them. While there still are several more factors than just that single player, I think it'd warrant some examination.

Alright I got started with some Madden Science to try and answer this question, but I still have a ways to go. I took a quick look at the QB.

First I setup my control group. With injuries off, I simulated the same season 10 times with the default rosters. Cousins the Vikings QB, with his 84 overall rating. Unfortunately the results have been wildly inconsistent lol. You'd think if you simulated the exact same season, no injuries, 10 times, that they'd be pretty similar to one another, but that's not what I found. The Vikings finished anywhere from 5-11 to 11-5, 4th in total offense to 28th, 9th in passing to 31st etc.

But we press on anyway. The average Vikings record for these 10 seasons was 8.4 wins and 7.6 losses. So then I did the exact same thing, exact same rosters, schedule, everything, except I swapped out Cousins 84 rating with Mahomes 95. Well I didn't trade Cousins for Mahomes, instead I left Mahomes on the Chiefs and just changed Cousins ratings to match Mahomes because I want everything the same.

Things were a little more consistent with Mahomes err a better Cousins, but still pretty wild. The Vikings finished as low as 8-8 and as high as 13-3. They averaged 10.3 wins and 5.6 losses. They even made it to 2 Super Bowls and won one of them. Lost to the Browns in fact lol. The Browns actually won 3 Super Bowls in the 30 seasons I simulated. That's better than what the actual Mahomes did with the Chiefs in this test. They never won more than 11 games and didn't win a Super Bowl

In the final test, I setup Cousins to have the same ratings as Mannion who has a 66 overall rating, and put him through the exact same simulation. Mannion Cousins never won more than 7 games and was as low as 3. He averaged 5.3 wins and 10.6 losses. Never made the playoffs obviously. In fact the Bears became insanely good during these 10 seasons. They made it to the Super Bowl 9 times and won 6 of them, so go figure. That's how bad Mannion is lol. They only won 3 Super Bowls in the other 20 seasons.

But the point of this exercise is to see which position has the most impact on a team in the wins/losses department. So next I'll run this same simulation but swapping out a different position. Do you imagine I'll find any single elite player at any other position that could improve the average wins from 8.4 to 10.3? Or even find a bad player who could drop it down to 5.3? Maybe we'll at least find the 2nd most important position on a team lol.

We can also go by position groups. How bad does the entire OL have to be to cost the team 3 wins? Or the receivers?

Aug 8, 2024 18:42:12 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

if sitting and watching something versus actually doing it made a person great at it, Reignman would be the next Ron Jeremy.

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Can anyone lose a game besides the QB? May 22, 2020 21:22:14 GMT -6 Danchat likes this

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Post by Reignman on May 22, 2020 21:22:14 GMT -6

Alright, I tried this same test with the OL and oh boy, I think Madden might be drunk today. Yeah I can't figure this one out, so here are the results.

I isolated Reiff on this one. First a reminder of how the control group did, where Reiff had an overall rating of 65, which made him pretty much the worst starting LT in the league. In my QB test, Mannion was a 66 and my bottom benchmark for QB's. So Reiff and his 65 in the control group will be my bottom benchmark for LT's, so I only need to try an elite LT in this test and call it a day.

So that's what I did, I made Reiff the best LT in the league. A 99 rating. Not 99 across the board, he has the same ratings as whoever the best LT was and that happened to give him a 99 overall. A 99 in pass blocking and run blocking however.

The control group with 66 Reiff finished with an average of 8.4 wins, so how much did that improve with a 99 Reiff? It shot up to 8.9. So going from the worst LT to the best only led to in increase of 0.5 wins. The worst QB to the best led to exactly 5.0 more wins, or 10x as many. According to Madden, LT's aren't nearly as important as QB's.

So ok, how about the entire OL as a unit? In that 8.4 win control group, the Vikings OL was awful as a unit.

Reiff     34th ranked LT with a 65
Elflien   16th ranked LG with a 74
Bradbury  19th ranked C  with a 74
Kline     22nd ranked RG with a 73
O'Neill   26th ranked RT with a 70

As a starting unit, that's a combined rating of 356, which ranked them 28th in the NFL. The Eagles ranked #1 at 435 (87 average). And the Eagles are in the playoffs all the time BTW.

I didn't want to get too crazy, so I decided to give the Vikings a top 5 OL unit to start with, or about an 81 average. That put each individual in the 10-15th range for their position, but made them top 5 as a unit. Should be enough to get some results right?

Annnnnnnnnnnd the Vikings got worse lol. Go drunk Madden, you're home. Yep, with a top 5 OL they only won an average of 7.7 games in 10 simulations. Only made the playoffs once at 11-5.

But hold the phone. The offense was actually better than the control group offense. Scored 1.7 more points per game, and racked up 12.6 more yards per game. It was the defense that went downhill for whatever reason. They gave up 1.6 more points per game and 12 more yards, so it was pretty much a wash lol. I didn't touch the defense. All other aspects were the exact same as the control group.

Ok ok, fine. Lets try an elite OL then. I bumped each guy up to match the 3rd best player at their position, or right around the 90 range, and that made them best unit in the league at 448.

Annnnnnnnnnd they only won 9.0 games or 0.6 more than the control group. Only made the playoffs 3 times.

They scored more points than the "top-5" line, but statistically they were about the same. Injuries are off, so it's not because Cousins or anyone missed games. Exact same schedule all 10 seasons. The defense was slightly better than the "top-5" team, but still slightly worse than the control group.

Makes no sense to me. Madden puts no value in the OL apparently. I mean I almost got better results just making Reiff a 99 than I did making the whole unit #1 lol. Tomorrow I'll make them all 99 to see if that finally does anything.

I think we can safely say if we tried this in real life, the 3rd best OL at every position would produce more noticeable results. Maybe Madden isn't a reliable source to answer certain questions after all xD.

Aug 8, 2024 18:42:12 GMT -6 whoskmoon said:

if sitting and watching something versus actually doing it made a person great at it, Reignman would be the next Ron Jeremy.