How Statistics Don't Tell the Whole Story in the NFL

Statistics. 

The ideal way to support nearly every football opinion. 

No hometown biases, no questionable speculation, just the unalterable numbers to prove or disprove one side of an argument.  

Different conclusions can be drawn from various statistics depending on one's perspective, but actually, statistics don't always tell the whole story. They aren't as definite as many people lead on. 

I'm here to dispel the most common statistic myths present in NFL analysis—the ones which fuel simply unsound evaluation on a yearly basis, both for individual players and teams as a whole. 

Yards Allowed or Yards Gained

Yards allowed for a defense or yards gained for an offense can gauge the effectiveness of each respective unit to a certain degree. But to base general, always-used rankings on that lone statistical figure is short-sighted. 

Yes, it's an easy way to compare all 32 teams to one another, but there are many holes in the foundation of those rankings.

First—and most obviously—since when are football games won and lost by the yardage gained or allowed? 

Yeah, never. 

Ask the 2010 San Diego Chargers. 

To many, they had the "best" or "top-ranked" offense AND defense. They finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs. 

Too often, we hear "top-15 defense" or "top-10 offense," which are statements solely based on the yardage allowed or gained in a given season. 

There are many other variables that factor into how many yards a team gains or allows each year. Anyone can realize that all defenses and offenses aren't afforded the same amount of drives in a given game or over the course of a season for too many reasons to describe in this space. 

So, instead of using an elementary yards allowed or gained total, graduate to an advanced drive statistic, like the one provided by Football Outsiders—a much better indicator of a team's production.

You'll see that based on the amount of drives, the Baltimore Ravens, not the Pittsburgh Steelers, actually allowed the "fewest" number of yards in 2011. 

Therefore, if you like to use "yards allowed" as to what determines the "best" defense in the league by using the Football Outsiders metric, you'll have a more factual basis to your rankings. 

For my money, I'll call the "best" defense the one that allows the fewest points per game, or maybe more accurately, per drives provided, which was the San Francisco 49ers in 2011, by the way. 

Sometimes A "Good" Pass or Run Defense Isn't Really A Good Pass or Run Defense

This can be tricky.

Normally, a stingy run defense is a stingy run defense. The same goes for a pass defense. But don't forget that, on occasion, a seemingly statistically impressive run defense is only the result of a bad pass defense, and vice versa. 

Take last year's Cleveland Browns, for example. 

They allowed 184.9 passing yards per game, ranking only behind the Pittsburgh Steelers in that department. However, I wouldn't call the Browns secondary an elite unit. Well, 2011's numbers certainly can't be used to indicate that. 

Joe Haden's a fine cornerback with immense potential, and Sheldon Brown is a respectable veteran, but there's a telling piece of evidence that significantly "helped" the Browns reach their lofty ranking. 

Teams understood how weak the Browns' run defense was and weren't afraid to exploit it. The opposition carried the ball 534 times against Cleveland last year, the second-highest total in football. Conversely, quarterbacks threw the ball a mere 469 times. Only the Chiefs defended fewer passes. 

Those contrasting numbers undoubtedly played a major factor in the amount of yards the Browns secondary allowed. 

This correlation happens every year in the NFL.

Be on the lookout.

Strength of Schedule 

Don't look into a team's strength of schedule before a game is played. Please. Save yourself the trouble. 

Don't mark off "easy wins" or "definite losses." 

All NFL fans know the sporadic phenomenon of new teams making the playoffs each season. Five new clubs have advanced to the postseason that didn't reach the postseason the previous year for—ready?—16 straight years. 

You simply cannot base one year on another for any particular team. 

Sure, some games for your favorite team will clearly be easier than others, but there are just so many variables, it's pointless to look ahead and predict. 

Anyone else think the Indianapolis Colts, with Andrew Luck and Co., will be a tad bit better than we thought they'd be a few months ago? Enigmatic teams dot the NFL landscape every season.

Did anyone see the 2010 Kansas City Chiefs coming? How about the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles? They were one of the trendiest Super Bowl picks among experts before their disastrous start to the season. 

Don't forget the Miami Dolphins' 2007-to-2008 turnaround from 1-15 to 11-5. 

Yes, the New England Patriots will almost assuredly be a tougher test for any team than the St. Louis Rams this year, but history says the majority of the league is more of a toss-up than anything else.

Individual Tackles

This may be the hardest statistic to distinguish the truly impactful players from the not-so-impactful ones. 

Plainly put—individual seasonal performances cannot solely be based on the number of tackles one accumulates. 

Where the tackles occur in relation to the line of scrimmage is much more important. 

In 2010, Bills linebacker Paul Posluszny finished third in the NFL with 151 total tackles. A linebacker's fundamental job is to tackle the ball-carrier. So, the former Penn State star was the third-best linebacker in the league that year, right? 

Wrong. 

The overwhelming majority of his tackles were made down the field after big chunks of yardage were already gained. 

Poz's 151 tackles spoke more to hustle and the unrelenting way in which he played the game that season than anything else. 

This works in contrast to 2009, when Patrick Willis led the NFL with 152 tackles. Where Posluszny was mostly an opportunistic tackler, Willis was regarded as the most impactful, game-changing linebacker in football and still is today. 

With so much grey area regarding tackles, don't get upset if the linebacker or safety with the third-most takedowns this season is not might named to the Pro Bowl. 

An advanced stat is needed that monitors a tackle's proximity to the line of scrimmage would certainly help in player evaluation (though, to my knowledge, there isn't one out there).

Quarterback Interception Total 

This is the most straightforward and occasionally misleading statistic in football. Instead of looking at a quarterback's seasonal interception total, they must be looked at on an individual basis. 

You know those frustrating tipped passes that hit a receiver in the hands and are picked off?

Rarely a signal-caller's fault. 

Eli Manning led the NFL with 25 interceptions in 2010, but many were of the tip-drill variety and frankly, should have been completions. 

Statistics can be an extremely useful tool in football analysis. But remember, in some instances, they can misinterpret what's really happening on the field. 

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