Stats That DON'T Matter: 2 Overblown New York Giants Stats to Ignore

Sometimes, statistics can tell a story. Other times, they tell only part of a story. And on some occasions, they're absolutely useless. While the majority of football statistics carry at least some meaning, here are two particular stats from 2011 that New York Giants fans can safely ignore heading into 2012:

Passing Yards Per Game

The Giants ranked fifth in the league with 295 passing yards per game and third in the NFL with 8.4 yards per attempt. Impressive, right? But the team might actually want to see those numbers drop a bit if they're going to improve and become more balanced in 2012. 

The Giants passed because they couldn't run. The team's passer rating was 92.9 and its touchdown-to-interception ratio was 29-to-16. Those numbers are only slightly more modest than the top two, and all indicate that New York was very efficient throwing the ball. But it trailed too often last year, and the running game averaged a league-low 3.5 yards per carry, and so, accumulating passing yards was something it semi-naturally excelled at. 

Ideally, it'll be forced to resort to throwing deep less often next season. 

Pro Football Focus Pass-Rush Rating

Regular readers know I'm a big fan of the metrics utilized by PFF, but every stat has limitations, and although this number isn't overblown, it should be cited as one that doesn't do New York's pass-rush justice.

According to PFF, the Giants pass-rush registered a 34.0 rating in 2011, which ranked below the likes of Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta. This is based mainly on the fact that the Giants had only 64 hits and 211 hurries last year. By comparison, Philly drew a 111.3, San Fran a 109.0, Dallas a 68.4, Houston a 54.6 and Atlanta a 34.8.

In three fewer games, the Falcons had 47 hits and 186 hurries, and in four fewer games, Dallas had 50 hits and 192 hurries. That puts them on similar levels, I suppose. But including the playoffs, the Giants averaged 3.1 sacks per game. The Cowboys and Falcons came in at 2.7 and 2.1, respectively. 

Sacks are often overrated, and pressure is key, but in this case, when you're sacking the quarterback that much more often than your opponent, your rush is simply better. Being good at closing is important—often the difference between 2nd-and-10 and 2nd-and-20.

Despite the fact that Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck missed a combined 11 games, the Giants had the third-highest sacks per game average in the league last year behind only the Eagles, Vikings and Texans. With those guys healthy and ready to roll, they can disregard PFF's assessment in 2012.

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