Hello again everyone. My statistical preview of today's 49ers-Saints game is up on Football Outsiders, so feel free to click over there, and give it a read while you eagerly anticipate kickoff. I didn't have enough space in that article to go over every last bit of statistical matchup minutiae, and David asked me to contribute to the Niners Nation playoff euphoria, so here I am, ready to drop some supplemental knowledge.

Let's start with something that a lot of people have been talking about this week: Is the Saints offense really that much worse of a team on than the road than at home? At Football Outsiders, we rate teams according to an efficiency statistic called DVOA (current ratings are here, methodology is here), which evaluates the success of every play, and adjusts the team's success points according to the strength of opponent (e.g., it's easier for an offense to convert 3rd-and-15 against the Rams defense than the 49ers defense) and the type of game situation (e.g., it's easier for a defense to stop 3rd-and-15 than 3rd-and-1). Because DVOA is a play-by-play metric, we can aggregate it into whatever stat split we want to evaluate.

In this case, the relevant split is home-road, and DVOA indicates that, yeah, the Saints offense is a lot worse on the road. Specifically, the difference between their efficiency at home and their efficiency on the road is the third-highest in the league this season. Now, don't get me wrong, New Orleans No. 1 offense at home only drops to fourth-best on the road, so it's not like we're talking about San Francisco circa 2010 (15th at home, 30th on the road). Nevertheless, when it comes to ratings rather than rankings, what we are talking about is a unit that can't be stopped becoming one that can at the very least be slowed down.

This is even more intriguing given that the 49ers defense has exhibited an almost-identical type of home-road DVOA split. Namely, they're No. 2 at home, No. 9 on the road, and their home-road efficiency difference is seventh-highest among NFL defenses. So, putting the Saints' and 49ers' home-road splits together, what initially appears to be a 4.3 percent New Orleans advantage in overall efficiency becomes a 24.7 percent San Francisco advantage when we take the game's venue into account. That's a big difference!

After the jump, more matchup knowledge...

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Our friends over at ESPN.com presented us with some information regarding the match-up on Thanksgiving between the 49ers and Ravens. This information was followed by a question:

[The 49ers boast a 45.2 opposing QBR this season (sixth in NFL), and the suddenly pass-happy Joe Flacco has thrown it 388 times (third-most in NFL). Whose pass rush/protection unit has the advantage?]

The 49ers have a fierce run defense, so when Flacco drops back to pass, that will be when the real challenge takes center stage for both teams. Since San Francisco hasn't had any problems stopping the run and leads the NFL in takeaways and turnover ratio, I believe Flacco will have his hands full. The 49ers like to bring the pressure in passing situations with new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.

When bringing pressure, the 49ers have left opposing QB's with an average completion percentage of 33.3% and 3.3 average yards gained --- this is elite in today's NFL. However, Flacco has managed to stand tall and make plays under that kind of pressure.  This is also because Flacco has been well protected by a mammoth offensive line.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This post is a more-in-depth version of the infographic David posted earlier today. Several of the themes overlap, so consider what you read here a text-based supplement to the pretty picture created by Beyond the Box Score.

Each Thanksgiving, millions of people travel home to celebrate with their family. It's only fitting then that I cyber-travel from Football Outsiders back to my internet home, Niners Nation, to celebrate the 9-1 San Francisco 49ers with my extended football blogging family. No doubt, there's a lot to celebrate about this team, not the least of which is that, for the first time since the pre-NN days, they're actually a relevant NFL squad in late November.

The question I'm going to try to answer today -- with statistics, of course -- is, "How did they get here?" We know what's changed in terms of what we've seen with our eyes. For instance, this year's team plays much smarter than those of recent vintage: gone are the stupid false starts, delay of game penalties, and blown coverages that made us want to throw a brick through our televisions. Heck, in the space of one lockout-shortened offseason, the 49ers have seemingly gone from the second-dumbest team in the NFL -- the Raiders are always the dumbest, obviously -- to one of the smartest.

Although our eyes are a vital source of football perception, statistics can help to supplement what we see, and provide additional nuance about things to which we may not have paid much attention. In addition to watching (and charting) plenty of game film at Football Outsiders, we evaluate teams using a play-by-play efficiency measure called defense-adjusted value over average -- DVOA for short.

After the jump, an in-depth look at the statistical improvements that have fueled the 49ers turnaround in 2011...

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I read a great article today on Sports Illustrated today, and it wasn't the Swimsuit Edition. This piece was written by Kerry J. Byrne of Cold Hard Football Facts (CHFF) and was focused on our very own San Francisco 49ers.

The title of the piece is "49ers' turnaround thanks to league's best coaching job". I thought at first that it would be a subjective piece; one-man's opinion of how good Jim Harbaugh was at coaching the team based on the same factors the media has been pointing out thus-far: shortened off-season-challenged team beats quality opponents and has top defense, despite much maligned oft-labeled-bust QB, etc, etc.

Once I started reading it I realized that it was actually about quantifying what smart football really is, in terms of statistics. The points made about yards versus points on both sides of the ball are really interesting and things that the national media (and fans) should really consider when evaluating teams based on the numbers.

Join me after the jump for a few examples.

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The folks at Football Outsiders conduct various charting exercises to help develop more detailed information about what we see on the football field. Their latest release of information is a rundown of quarterback sacks for each team. Thanks to Ougadas for pointing it out in the Fanshots. They went through and determined how many sacks took place in the first 2.5 seconds or less of a play and how many sacks took 3 or more seconds to develop.

49ers QB Alex Smith has been sacked 14 times through four games, which is third among NFL quarterbacks. Based on FO's game-charting, two os his sacks were long sacks and eight were short sacks. That would leave four sacks in between 2.5 and 3 seconds. His eight short sacks were the most among any QB and came on 6.61% of his pass attempts plus sacks (pass attempts do not normally include pass plays ending in a sack). His two long sacks came on 1.65% of pass attempts plus sacks.

While Alex Smith has had issues in the past of holding on to the ball too long, that would not appear to be the case this season, at least with regards to sacks. It's not a perfect stat because QB pressures and QB hits that don't result in a sack are not included. However, I'd say it's still useful information. Alex Smith's short sack rate is three times the NFL average. It may not tell us everything we need to know, but I think that says something about the performance of his blockers, whether it be the line, the running backs or whatever. It's not a perfect stat, but it helps add a little context to the always popular Alex Smith discussion.

Last year when the NFL announced it's new policy regarding kick offs and moving the ball forward, there were many people issuing cries of dismay over how this would remove one of the most exciting parts of the game and how it would make return specialists and special teamers practically irrelevant. 

During the pre-season we had touchback after touchback, nearly every one accompanied by some variation of "If the NFL wants to make kickoffs safer this is what they'll end up with."

I actually think the new rule will make kickoffs more exciting, not less exciting, and I think the evidence (after a whole week's worth of play) backs me up. 

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The 2011 NFL season kicks off tonight at 5:30pm pacific as the last two Super Bowl champs do battle to kick things off. As we get closer and closer to the 49ers season opener on Sunday, there is still some interesting tidbits of preview material as we figure out what this new look 49ers team will be able to do over the next four, hopefully five months.

The folks over at Football Outsiders have been kind enough to provide some of the writers and editors for interviews with SB Nation. As would be expected, NN worked out a Q&A with former front page writer Danny Tuccitto. Danny put together fantastic statistical preview and review posts here at NN for several years before he inevitably moved on to bigger and better things. He now works as an assistant editor over at FO and took time out of his BUSY schedule to answer a few questions about the 2011 49ers as FO views them.

After the jump we've got a few comments from Danny followed by the Q&A.

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Greetings from FO-land, everyone. Just thought I'd drop in to share a blog post I came across while scouring the internets for Extra Points fodder. This one pertains to Alex Smith, so I figured NN would be a better home for the discussion.

In case you're unaware, Ben Alamar is a Professor of Management at Menlo College, Editor of the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, coauthor of Football Outsiders Almanac (which, by the way, will be hitting the virtual shelves sometime shortly after the lockout ends), and author of the Analytic Football blog. On Analytic Football, he did a post last Friday identifying 5th-year QBs who put up numbers at age 26 similar to Smith's 2010 stats. Money quote:

On Yds/Att, QB rating, TD% (indexed by PFR), Int% (indexed by PFR), and Completion Percentage, Smith fits right in. He is better than Big Ben in TD%, QB rating, and Compl%, better than Brees in Int%, and just behind [Roethlisberger, Brees, and Peyton Manning] on Yds/Att. The other three of course all of [sic] Super Bowl rings and multiple All-Star game appearances on their resumes. So what is going on? How can the much maligned Alex Smith, playing for multiple head coaches and offensive coordinators, have delivered a similar performance as these shining examples of QB play?

I'll leave it to you to read the rest of Alamar's post, in which he does a more sophisticated stat analysis to find out "what gives."

After the jump, my take...

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