Astonishing Stats: Ravens/Flacco vs Playoff Teams

[callahan09]

First of all, one quick caveat: I am not including the 2012 Season Finale against the Bengals, because the starters were rested and we didn't try to win the game, so it is not really relevant to the discussion.

We're looking at regular season games + post-season games against teams that made the playoffs in each respective year.

[u]Year By Year[/u]

2008: 10 Games = 3 Home + 7 Road
4-6, 70% Road -> .400 Winning Percentage

2009: 9 Games = 2 Home + 7 Road
2-7, 78% Road -> .222 Winning Percentage

2010: 8 Games = 2 Home + 6 Road
4-4, 75% Road -> .500 Winning Percentage

2011: 8 Games = 5 Home + 3 Road
7-1, 38% Road -> .875 Winning Percentage

2012: 9 Games = 4 Home + 4 Road
5-3, 50% Road -> .625 Winning Percentage


[u]Against Playoff Teams[/u]

43 Games = 16 Home + 27 Road
22-21, [b]63% Road -> .512 Winning Percentage[/b]

Flacco: 795/1343, 9374 Yards, 57 TD, 37 INT --> [b]83.2 QB Rating[/b]


How does this compare to performances against teams that didn't make the playoffs?

[u]Against Non-Playoff Teams[/u]

48 Games = 26 Home + 22 Road
40-8, [b]46% Road -> .833 Winning Percentage[/b]

Flacco: 893/1478, 10610 Yards, 60 TD, 27 INT --> [b]88.3 QB Rating[/b]


Now here's where it gets interesting. What if we just look at numbers since 2010? These are Flacco's healthy, non-newbie seasons, and it's the more recent and therefore more relevant data. So, check this out...

[b][size=6][u]Since 2010[/u][/size][/b]

[u]Against Playoff Teams[/u]

24 Games = 11 Home + 13 Road
16-8, [b]54% Road -> .667 Winning Percentage[/b]

Flacco: 466/767, 5821 Yards, 43 TD, 12 INT --> [b]96.5 QB Rating[/b]


[u]Against Non-Playoff Teams[/u]

30 Games = 15 Home + 15 Road
23-7, [b]50% Road -> .900 Winning Percentage[/b]

Flacco: 593/1007, 6919 Yards, 39 TD, 22 INT --> [b]83.6 QB Rating[/b]


[u]Analysis[/u]

First of all, it's obvious that this team has always been good at winning against playoff teams. Flacco's career 83.2 QB Rating against playoff teams is not bad. The team has a winning record against playoff teams, as well, despite playing 63% of such games on the road! Very impressive.

But what really sticks out to me is the "Since 2010" numbers.

Flacco has been playing excellently against playoff teams for the past 3 seasons, obvious by that 96.5 QB Rating. He's got over 60% completion percentage and better than a 3:1 touchdown to interception ratio (closer to 4:1, actually). And he's got these numbers while playing a majority of these games on the road, against the best teams (because these are the teams that made the playoffs)! In these past 3 years, the winning percentage in games against playoff teams has shot way up to .667.

That's really good news, because it shows that we come prepared to play against the best teams.

Surprising is what's going on with that "Against Non-Playoff Teams" stat since 2010. Playing in a better ratio of home versus road games (50% versus 54%) and against worse competition (teams that failed to make the playoffs), Flacco actually has a lower QB Rating (83.6 vs 96.5).

What's more is that despite Flacco not playing as well against the non-playoff teams in the past few years, the TEAM has a much better winning percentage in those games than they do against the playoff teams.

So what causes Flacco to come up so big in the biggest games against the best opponents, and yet the team loses more frequently than against the lesser opponents in the smaller games when Flacco doesn't show up as strongly?

It's definitely a bit weird, but at least we can comfort ourselves in knowing that Flacco has a habit of showing up in big games against great teams. Perhaps the team around him needs to follow suit a little better...

[beasy2487]

You sir, are a beast.

[BALTIMOREFLACCO]

Awesome stats.

We definitely seem to play up or down to our level of comp.

[PolishRifle]

Reading your posts is like watching "A Beautiful Mind". Only in this version Russel Crowe is obsessed with the Ravens. Would be more entertaining imho.

[callahan09]

[quote name='PolishRifle' timestamp='1359748915' post='1337822']
Reading your posts is like watching "A Beautiful Mind". Only in this version Russel Crowe is obsessed with the Ravens. Would be more entertaining imho.
[/quote]

Hahaha, I will take that as a compliment.

[beasy2487]

Part of what might explain the better play against better teams while still losing more to those is teams is that better teams have more ways to beat you and can overcome outstanding play from the opponent's QB position. Just look at us vs. Denver: If Peyton wins that game he's showered in praise for the amazing line he put up but the Ravens were good enough to overcome him and get the W.

[Yatagarasu]

Good stats, but they won't win you games. Past is the past, all we care about is now and we got here because the stats indicate we're a championship caliber team. I hope we throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at the 49ers.

[jaege]

[quote name='Corvus Amplus' timestamp='1359759204' post='1337967']
Good stats, but they won't win you games. Past is the past, all we care about is now and we got here because the stats indicate we're a championship caliber team. I hope we throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at the 49ers.
[/quote]


And do not take our foot off their throats until the clock reads zero. No such thing as brotherly love during the game.

[hawkprey]

Hmm. Astonishing? I'll challenge you to some astonishing stats.

Earlier this year I did drive statistics on our "pass first" offense. Now I looked at what I call the "Caldwell era". This not including the first Broncos game, where Caldwell was calling plays for the first time and running the same offense Cam did because there wasn't enough time to add wrinkles to it. And I didn't count our Bengals game, because this is about Joe, not Tyrod Taylor.

I counted only drives that weren't "half-ending" (as does football outsiders), such as kneeldowns and running the clock down. Also the one pseudo-dive to move us into better field goal position in OT. And, we had one drive that was a relatively easy TD off a turnover in opponent territory. Basically I'm only counting "normal" drives.

As I figured out, the Ravens have two stylistic offenses - one is run early/run heavy, the other is shotgun/no-huddle combined with first down passes and multiple receiver sets.

So these are our drives where the first non-penalized play was a run.
[u][color=#800080]1st play run:[/color][/u]
[color=#800080]1.54 points/drive[/color]
[color=#800080].148 TDs/drive[/color]
[color=#800080]36.65 yards/drive[/color]

For comparison, during this 4 game stretch, we played defenses that gave up this (averaged, from footballoutsiders):
[color=#008080][u]Defenses that gave up:[/u][/color]
[color=#008080]1.8 points/drive[/color]
[color=#008080].197 TD/s drive[/color]
[color=#008080]31.595 yards/drive[/color]

The numbers for a drive that starts with a pass are a little higher for every team, I assume. This because of less conservative calling and a bigger need to score. I counted 15 of these drives in 4 games (little over 1/3 of our total drives).
[color=#800080][u]1st play pass:[/u][/color]
[color=#800080]4.4 points/drive[/color]
[color=#800080].6 TDs/drive.[/color]
[color=#800080]45.1 yards/drive[/color]

The Ravens are nearly 3 times as effective at scoring when we pass the ball to start the drive. And despite passing the ball being riskier, the Ravens haven't turned the ball over once in these 15 drives. Also, if the TD to Jacoby hadn't been incorrectly overturned, we would have scored [b]10 TDs[/b] on 15 drives where we passed the ball on the first play.

What does it mean? When Joe has the ball in his hands, we can put up huge points. In fact, even though Joe's passer rating wasn't great this year, he posted a 94.8 passer rating with 4 or more receivers on the field. That's [b]5th best [/b]in the league. So does the circumstance of the game match the difference in offensive success?


[b]Want to know if Joe is clutch?[/b]
-His 4th quarter rating is 103.1, 4th best in the league.
-Including the playoffs, Joe's 4th quarter rating is a staggering 113.6.
-When the Ravens are down 9-16 points in games, his rating is 102.5.
-He has a 102.7 rating in the last 2 minutes of a half.
-He's the only starting QB not to have thrown an interception in the 4th quarter or OT of a game (Peyton is the only other to do it though the regular season only)
-In fact, this year he hasn't thrown an interception in the last 20 minutes of any game (from 5:00 left in the 3rd on).

I can tell you what this all means. I can tell you why the Ravens won so many games this year despite being mediocre in yards on both offense and defense. It's because when the Ravens HAVE to score points, they do. Just open the passing game and let Joe fling it. He has been arguably the best QB in the league when you let him be.

[callahan09]

[quote name='hawkprey' timestamp='1359763825' post='1338038']
Hmm. Astonishing? I'll challenge you to some astonishing stats.

Earlier this year I did drive statistics on our "pass first" offense. Now I looked at what I call the "Caldwell era". This not including the first Broncos game, where Caldwell was calling plays for the first time and running the same offense Cam did because there wasn't enough time to add wrinkles to it. And I didn't count our Bengals game, because this is about Joe, not Tyrod Taylor.

I counted only drives that weren't "half-ending" (as does football outsiders), such as kneeldowns and running the clock down. Also the one pseudo-dive to move us into better field goal position in OT. And, we had one drive that was a relatively easy TD off a turnover in opponent territory. Basically I'm only counting "normal" drives.

As I figured out, the Ravens have two stylistic offenses - one is run early/run heavy, the other is shotgun/no-huddle combined with first down passes and multiple receiver sets.

So these are our drives where the first non-penalized play was a run.
[u][color=#800080]1st play run:[/color][/u]
[color=#800080]1.54 points/drive[/color]
[color=#800080].148 TDs/drive[/color]
[color=#800080]36.65 yards/drive[/color]

For comparison, during this 4 game stretch, we played defenses that gave up this (averaged, from footballoutsiders):
[color=#008080][u]Defenses that gave up:[/u][/color]
[color=#008080]1.8 points/drive[/color]
[color=#008080].197 TD/s drive[/color]
[color=#008080]31.595 yards/drive[/color]

The numbers for a drive that starts with a pass are a little higher for every team, I assume. This because of less conservative calling and a bigger need to score. I counted 15 of these drives in 4 games (little over 1/3 of our total drives).
[color=#800080][u]1st play pass:[/u][/color]
[color=#800080]4.4 points/drive[/color]
[color=#800080].6 TDs/drive.[/color]
[color=#800080]45.1 yards/drive[/color]

The Ravens are nearly 3 times as effective at scoring when we pass the ball to start the drive. And despite passing the ball being riskier, the Ravens haven't turned the ball over once in these 15 drives. Also, if the TD to Jacoby hadn't been incorrectly overturned, we would have scored [b]10 TDs[/b] on 15 drives where we passed the ball on the first play.

What does it mean? When Joe has the ball in his hands, we can put up huge points. In fact, even though Joe's passer rating wasn't great this year, he posted a 94.8 passer rating with 4 or more receivers on the field. That's [b]5th best [/b]in the league. So does the circumstance of the game match the difference in offensive success?


[b]Want to know if Joe is clutch?[/b]
-His 4th quarter rating is 103.1, 4th best in the league.
-Including the playoffs, Joe's 4th quarter rating is a staggering 113.6.
-When the Ravens are down 9-16 points in games, his rating is 102.5.
-He has a 102.7 rating in the last 2 minutes of a half.
-He's the only starting QB not to have thrown an interception in the 4th quarter or OT of a game (Peyton is the only other to do it though the regular season only)
-In fact, this year he hasn't thrown an interception in the last 20 minutes of any game (from 5:00 left in the 3rd on).

I can tell you what this all means. I can tell you why the Ravens won so many games this year despite being mediocre in yards on both offense and defense. It's because when the Ravens HAVE to score points, they do. Just open the passing game and let Joe fling it. He has been arguably the best QB in the league when you let him be.
[/quote]

Great stuff!! Thanks for your efforts.

[Purple_ICE 81]

You want to know a cool Boldin stat? Anquan Boldin was thrown 21 times on 3rd down this season and post season and completed 17 of those passes. meaning Boldin completes 81% percent of 3rd downs thrown his way.

[nyc9192]

[quote name='jaege' timestamp='1359760342' post='1337994']
And do not take our foot off their throats until the clock reads zero. No such thing as brotherly love during the game.
[/quote]
For real.Even their father told em that once you get up stay up.