Football Outsiders and the 49ers: Team Stats through Week 5

Welcome back for this week's look at how the 49ers' team stats rank in the NFL according to Football Outsiders (FO).* If you want a less stat-intensive look at 49er rankings, check out Fooch's weekly post on how the team stacks up against the rest of the NFL according to the internet punditocracy.

The obvious focus of this week's post is going to be how the Niners' FO stats and rankings were affected by Sunday's - holding back vomit - 45-10 loss at the hands of the Falcons. When a team is on the wrong end of a 45-10 game, you'd assume that both their offense (OFF), who only scored 10 points, and their defense (DEF), who gave up 45 points, are going to take a statistical beating across the board. However, there are two issues we need to keep in mind when evaluating the effect of the ATL game:

• Situations Matter. Make sure to remember that DVOA is a measure of situational efficiency. So just because the Niners performed like a JV team based on the final score, don't assume that they performed that bad in every specific game situation. For instance, the fact that the OFF scored only 10 points in the game isn't nearly as bad as the fact that they scored 0 points during the 2nd half despite being in a situation (i.e., down at least 25 points) where ATL's defense (DEF) was minimally interested in stopping them. In other words, an OFF can score only 10 points, and yet still be efficient provided that their not - ala the Niners vs. ATL - playing half of the game in the easiest of easy offensive situations.
• Ceiling/Floor Effect. Also make sure to remember that, going into Week 5, the 49ers' OFF was ranked near the bottom of the league in most OFF DVOA categories, while their DEF was ranked near the top of the league in most DEF DVOA categories. For you Olympics buffs out there, I'm basically saying that the OFF was diving from the 3m springboard going into the ATL game, while the DEF was diving from the 10m platform. In statistics, having, at-most, a 3m dive is called the floor effect, while having, at-most, a 10m dive is called the ceiling effect. So, after the ATL blowout, it's much more likely that the DEF's stats dove farther than the OFF's stats; simply because the DEF was diving from higher up.

So keeping these situational and diving event differences in mind, let's take a look at the stats and rankings through Week 5.

After the jump, I'll present the 49ers' overall stats, rankings, and situation splits, as well as introduce a new member of the Tony Robbins splits...

TEAM RANKINGS

Here are the 49ers' overall team DVOAs and rankings (bold = top 8 in the NFL; italics = bottom 8):

Total	Rank	Offense	Rank	Defense	Rank	Special Teams	Rank
-9.8%	21	-16.0%	26	-9.1%	6	-2.9%	22
Total VOA	Rank	SOS	Rank	Variance	Rank
-15.6%	23	-0.8%	16	13.6%	22

So much for last week's post-Rams stat improvements: the 49ers' Total (TOT), OFF, and Special Teams (ST) DVOA rankings all returned to where they were prior to Week 4. Based on their TOT DVOA, the Niners are now the worst of the nine 3-win teams, and have fallen behind the Seahawks (8.2%, 14th) in DVOA among NFC West teams.

The only unit that didn't drop in the rankings was the DEF. However, although the DEF's ranking remained #6, their actual DEF DVOA dropped from -16.6% to -9.1%, meaning that the DEF is now 7.5% less situationally efficient after 333 plays than they were after 261. Considering that number of plays, the DEF's DVOA decrease is mathematically equivalent to a hitter's batting average dropping from .305 to .286 during a 12-game stretch in late May.**

When compared to their VOA, the Niners' TOT DVOA indicates that they've benefitted a good bit from playing in situations where their opponent is relatively weak. Interestingly enough, though, their overall DVOA-based strength of schedule (SOS) isn't weak at all; it's actually just about average. The discrepancy between these two seemingly similar pieces of information just means that, although the Niners have played against a relatively average group of teams, they've nevertheless played in a relatively easy group of game situations.

One last thing I'll mention about the team stats is that the Niners' TOT DVOA Variance, which you'll recall is a measure of week-to-week consistency, skyrocketed from what it was before the ATL game (8.0%, 11th). When your latest performance is so wildly uncharacteristic from past performances, as the 49ers' was this past week, anything measuring consistency - simply by definition - is going to show that you're more inconsistent. The question becomes, however, "Are they who we thought they were?" I think a lot of Niner fans have been asking themselves that very question since Sunday (at least I know Ninjames has been).

OFFENSIVE RANKINGS - OVERALL

Here' how the offensive rankings look overall and by type of play (bold = top 8 in the NFL; italics = bottom 8):

OFF	Rank	Pass	Rank	Run	Rank	Variance	Rank
-16.0%	26	-8.6%	26	-18.0%	27	2.9%	8
OFF VOA	Rank	Pass VOA	Rank	Run VOA	Rank
-14.2%	25	-5.7%	23	-17.4%	25

Another game, and yet the stats stay pretty much the same. That top row of stats is especially (un)impressive. On every stat that measures how good they are, the OFF is ranked in the bottom 8. But on the one stat that measures how consistent they are, the OFF is ranked in the top 8. Basically, we can set our clocks to incredibly bad 49er OFF: the cuckoo sings every Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Pacific.***

What's most interesting to me about the above table is what the ATL game did to Pass OFF DVOA and Run OFF DVOA. With respect to pass OFF, the Niners' Pass OFF DVOA decreased by a whopping 15.4%; taking them from an above-average pass OFF to a below-average one. There's no doubt in my mind that this was the result of being unable to pass the ball during the 2nd half despite ATL committing defensive indifference (Sorry for all the baseball analogies today). An average NFL OFF would have been eating the Falcons' DEF alive while down by 25 points in the 2nd half. You know, the proverbial "garbage time" padding of stats. Unfortunately, the Niners don't have an average NFL offense.

This year's OFF is starting to remind me a lot of the pre-Singletary, Hostler and Martz 49er OFFs. With those OFFs, I fully expected mediocrity. Unlike some, I wasn't disappointed by their inability to score 30 points in a game. Rather, what (site decorum) killed me was their total inability to do even the most basic things well. It was like their playbook was written in a foreign language, and no one had bothered to pick up Rosetta Stone. Going up against a horrible DEF? They still couldn't move the ball. Getting blown out and the DEF is playing prevent? They still couldn't move the ball. It was like each and every yard was a constant struggle. That's what I see from the 2009 OFF so far. Nothing at all is coming easy to them, despite the fact that many of their plays have come in the easiest of game situations. To me, the next best thing to being great at most things (ala the Saints) is being great at one thing (ala the Dolphins). So far, this year's OFF is great at nothing. They don't seem to have a single play that they can dial up for guaranteed yards, no matter the score, opponent, or situation. If you want to be a running OFF that relies on its DEF to win games, fine. If you want to run the ball 50 times a game, fine. Just be (site decorum) great at running the ball, then!

Speaking of running the ball, the run OFF still sucks, although not as badly as they did through 4 games. Specifically, the Niners' Run OFF DVOA increased by 6.7% and "jumped" 3 spots in the rankings. I presume that this was mostly a case of floor effect: the running game was still bad, just not as horrifically bad as it had been. In other words, Shaun Hill's 3rd-down scrambles, and Glen Coffee's "really, I'm not the worst starting RB in football" mediocre performance, were not more efficient than the NFL average; they were just more efficient than their average.

OFFENSIVE RANKINGS - SITUATIONAL SPLITS

Here are the OFF's pass and run DVOAs by down:

Down	OFF	Rank	Pass OFF	Rank	Run OFF	Rank
1st	-2.1%	20	-1.6%	24	1.1%	14
2nd	-45.0%	31	-48.5%	30	-34.1%	28
3rd	-0.3%	19	20.4%	12	-51.6%	28

By far, the biggest changes on this table relate to 3rd down. Overall, the Niners' OFF is now 6.9% worse on 3rd down than they were prior to the ATL game. However - get this - the run OFF is 50.2% better on 3rd down, while the pass OFF is 22.2% worse. Again, there's no doubt in my mind these changes are a case of ceiling and floor effects. The 49ers' 3rd-down pass OFF could not get much better than the 42.6% DVOA they had after 4 games, whereas their 3rd-down run OFF could not get much worse than their previous -101.8% DVOA. For those of you who questioned the sustainability of some 49er stats, it looks like we've identified one area (i.e., 3rd-down OFF) in which they haven't been sustained, for better or worse.

Maybe the changes in 3rd-down efficiency have something to do with down and distance. Here are the OFF's down splits by distance (Short = 0-3 yards; Mid = 4-6 yards; Long = 7+ yards):

Distance	OFF	Rank	Short	Rank	Mid	Rank	Long	Rank
1st	-2.1%	20	N/A
2nd	-45.0%	31	-45.9%	31	-31.2%	25	-49.3%	31
3rd	-0.3%	19	29.7%	8	-49.1%	22	9.7%	19

Not surprisingly, 3rd down is where the stats in this table changed drastically from last week. Specifically, the Niner's 3rd & Short OFF DVOA increased by 19.8%, while their 3rd & Mid OFF DVOA decreased by 51.8%. When you combine these changes with those of the run vs. pass 3rd down changes above, we can conclude that the 49ers had a good number of efficient 3rd down runs against ATL (e.g., Hill scrambles for 1st down), and an even larger number of inefficient 3rd down passes (e.g., Hill throws incomplete pass).

Taken together, the 3rd down splits suggest that the Niners were passing a lot on 3rd down. Of course, this is to be expected in a lopsided game. However, what's important for the purposes of discussion is that the 49ers' OFF couldn't pass the ball efficiently in this relatively easy game situation. Again, passing yards on 3rd down while getting blown out in the 2nd half are a dime a dozen in the NFL; they're as easy to come by as grapes in Napa. Unfortunately, the 49ers spent all of the ATL game in San Francisco.

If you recall, the Niners OFF was 40% better in the shotgun through 4 games. Here are their shotgun splits through 5 games:

% of Plays in Shotgun	Rank	Shotgun DVOA	Rank	Non-Shotgun DVOA	Rank	Difference	Rank
32.9%	29	0.6%	21	-21.8%	27	22.4%	12

As you can see, the OFF's shotgun prowess vis-à-vis non-shotgun formations is about half of what it was going into the ATL game. Furthermore, nearly all of this difference is accounted for by decreased efficiency in shotgun; from 19.8% to 0.6%. So, with this added bit of information, the picture of offensive inefficiency vs. ATL is complete. Namely, they played over half the game in easy passing situations, but yet they passed the ball inefficiently in shotgun, on 3rd down and mid, and on 3rd down overall, despite the fact that they had previously performed above average in such formations and situations.

Finally, let's take a look at the OFF's red zone efficiency:

Red Zone	Rank	Red Zone Pass	Rank	Red Zone Run	Rank	Goal-to-Go	Rank
10.7%	13	46.4%	9	8.5%	16	35.1%	13

You'll recall that the 49ers' pass OFF was #1 in Red Zone DVOA last week at 109.1%. So much for that. Despite still being almost 50% more efficient than the NFL average, the 49ers' red zone pass OFF fell out of the top 8 after posting 0 successful plays in 4 red zone pass attempts against ATL. If not for the Red Zone Run DVOA improving by 4.2% - thanks mostly to a Glen Coffee TD - the OFF's overall red zone efficiency would have declined even further.

DEFENSIVE RANKINGS - OVERALL

Here' how the defensive rankings look overall and by type of play (bold = top 8 in the NFL; italics = bottom 8):

DEF	Rank	Pass	Rank	Run	Rank	Variance	Rank
-9.1%	6	-3.1%	10	-17.2%	9	6.3%	22
DEF VOA	Rank	Pass VOA	Rank	Run VOA	Rank
-0.3%	13	11.3%	15	-17.3%	11

Well, that stint at the top of Run DEF DVOA sure was short-lived, eh? The 49ers' run DEF was so inefficient against ATL that they dropped 8 spots in the rankings and saw their Run DEF DVOA decrease by 18.7%. Yikes. In addition, their DVOA Variance took a predictable turn for the worse just like the OFF's.

Another big change this week involves the effect of SOS on DVOA. Whereas the 49ers DVOAs and unadjusted VOAs were pretty similar after 4 games, these stats are much more divergent after the ATL game, especially with respect to overall and pass defense. This suggests that the inefficiency of their pass defense is largely a byproduct of the fact that it came against an ATL pass OFF that was only average going into the game.

DEFENSIVE RANKINGS - SITUATIONAL SPLITS

Based on the above, we should expect for the splits to show increased inefficiency on pass DEF. Let's take a look. Here are the DEF's pass and run DVOAs by down:

Down	DEF	Rank	Pass DEF	Rank	Run DEF	Rank
1st	-5.7%	8	10.7%	10	-19.9%	8
2nd	-31.6%	4	-37.3%	4	-24.4%	9
3rd	14.0%	22	13.5%	19	16.1%	21

By far, the biggest change in these splits was in 3rd down pass DEF, which dropped from an 8th-ranked -3.6% to a 19th-ranked 13.5%. Explaining this is pretty easy. Let's consult the play-by-play to look at how the pass DEF fared in 3rd-down situations of varying difficulties (unsuccessful plays in bold):

Distance	Yard Line	Qtr	Time	Score	Play	Direction	Result	Yards
Easy Pass Situation for SF DEF
8	SF 19	1	11:43	SF 0 - ATL 0	Pass	Short Left	Complete to White	12
9	ATL 30	1	2:14	SF 7 - ATL 14	Pass	Short Left	Complete to White	12
4	ATL 10	2	7:13	SF 10 - ATL 14	Pass	Short Left	Complete to White	90 (TD)
13	ATL 26	3	2:58	SF 10 - ATL 38	Pass	Deep Left	Incomplete to Jenkins	0
Average Pass Situation for SF DEF
4	SF 22	3	5:59	SF 10 - ATL 35	Pass	Short Left	Incomplete to Gonzalez	0
Difficult Pass Situation for SF DEF
4	ATL 46	1	14:13	SF 0 - ATL 0	Pass	Short Middle	Incomplete to Booker	0
6	ATL 36	1	8:00	SF 0 - ATL 7	Pass	Short Middle	Complete to Finneran	8
3	SF 37	3	8:07	SF 10 - ATL 35	Pass	Short Right	Complete to Gonzalez	9

Adding these plays up by difficulty, we get the following:

• Difficult situations: 1 of 3 successful, giving up 17 yards, 2 first downs, and 0 TDs
• Average situations: 1 of 1 successful, giving up 0 yards, 0 first downs, and 0 TDs
• Easy situations: 1 of 4 successful, giving up 114 yards, 3 first downs, and 1 TD

So, taken together, the play-by-play tells us that the 49ers' pass DEF was horrifically bad in the easiest situations. Indeed, giving up a 90-yard TD on 3rd & 4 at your opponent's 10-yard line is just about as inefficient as you can possibly get as a pass DEF.

Here are the DEF's down splits by distance (Short = 0-3 yards; Mid = 4-6 yards; Long = 7+ yards):

Distance	DEF	Rank	Short	Rank	Mid	Rank	Long	Rank
1st	-5.7%	8	N/A
2nd	-31.6%	4	27.6%	29	89.1%	31	-82.7%	2
3rd	14.0%	22	23.5%	20	-5.1%	19	16.1%	21

The two big changes here are the DEF's increased inefficiencies on 2nd & short and 3rd & mid. For an explanation of their 32.2% decrease in 3rd & Mid DVOA, refer back to ATL's 3rd-down play at 7:13 left in the 2nd quarter (Hint: Rowdy Roddy). Regarding their 26.9% decline in 2nd & Short DVOA, they actually didn't play that bad except for giving up a rushing first down on 2nd & 1 down 45-10 in the 4th quarter and, way more importantly, giving up 1 of Michael Turner's 3 TDs on 2nd & 3. The obvious conclusion here is "don't give up TDs." However, what's more likely going on is a sample size issue: The 49ers' DEF simply hadn't faced many 2nd & short plays through the first 4 games, so allowing a TD had an undue impact on their 2nd & Short DVOA.

Here are the Niners' defensive shotgun vs. non-shotgun splits:

% of Plays in Shotgun	Rank	Shotgun DVOA	Rank	Non-Shotgun DVOA	Rank	Difference	Rank
37.3%	13	-17.7%	5	-4.7%	15	-12.9%	4

As they were comfortably ahead for most of the game, ATL's OFF only used the shotgun formation on 18.1% of their plays. Therefore, it's no surprise that the only real change from Week 4 to Week 5 was increased defensive inefficiency vs. non-shotgun plays. Incidentally, a sample size effect - although in the opposite way - occurred here as well because Roddy White's 90-yard TD came on a play in the shotgun, and therefore should have had a much bigger effect on the Niner DEF's Shotgun DVOA. It didn't, though, because they've now defended 124 shotgun plays; a sample size that's large enough to prevent massive fluctuations based on a single play.

Finally, let's take a look at the DEF's red zone efficiency:

Red Zone	Rank	Red Zone Pass	Rank	Red Zone Run	Rank	Goal-to-Go	Rank
0.0%	14	-77.7%	5	56.8%	31	89.1%	29

Yesterday, Fooch discussed the rush DEF's 31st-ranked Red Zone DVOA, so there's no need to rehash that here. Instead, I'll simply mention that the more shocking stat is their Red Zone Pass DVOA, which is over 80% better than last week. Something (aka my knowledge of statistics) tells me that this huge improvement is a byproduct of small sample size. Namely, the 49ers DEF had been so good through 4 games that their opponents weren't even getting to the red zone very much to begin with. Under such circumstances, the sample size is so small that any epic fail or epic success is going to have a huge impact on the stats. In the case of Red Zone Pass DEF DVOA, we saw epic success - albeit pre-Deioning - in the form of Dre Bly's interception (INT). In contrast, we saw epic fail in run DEF for the reasons Fooch cited yesterday. All in all, I'd take it with a grain of salt.

SPECIAL TEAMS RANKINGS

Below are the Niners' ST DVOA stats broken down by unit:

ST	Rank	FG/XP	Rank	Kickoff	Rank	Punt	Rank
-2.9%	22	-1.3	18	-3.8	30	9.0	2
ST VOA	Rank			Kickoff Return	Rank	Punt Return	Rank
-2.1%	23			-3.4	25	-5.8	31

Overall, the ST continues its decline: the last 4 games, the 49ers' ST DVOA has decreased from 6.4% to -2.0% to -2.1% to -2.9%. Among specific units, the biggest declines came in FGs and kickoff returns. Missing a 48-yard FG and fumbling a kickoff return will do that to you. The worst thing about the Kickoff Return DVOA, though, is that it's actually fallen 14 spots in the rankings since the last time the banished Allen Rossum returned a kickoff. In other words, benching Rossum seems to have hurt rather than helped the kickoff return unit.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Punt Returner X still sucks.

"TONY ROBBINS" SPLITS

Last week, I introduced the TR splits as a way of crudely evaluating 49er motivation in general, and Mike Singletary's Formula for Success specifically. This week, I'm going to fine-tune the TR splits a little bit.

The first improvement is that I'm going to add net TR splits (i.e., OFF TR split minus DEF TR split) to the mix, because it's interesting to evaluate Singletary's Formula for Success for the 49ers as a team rather than just for specific team units.

Second, some of you may have already noticed that Red Zone DVOA is out as a TR split because it really doesn't fit as a measure of "create good field position." In its place, I've inserted a new FO-based statistic I'll call DANLOLS (hat-tip for the name: howtheyscored).

To address a comment by nickbradley, who seems to be quite a fan of field position, I've taken the average starting line of scrimmage per drive for each NFL team's OFF and DEF, which are displayed on FO's drive stats page as LOS/Dr, and adjusted them for SOS to make them a defense-adjusted line of scrimmage stat (LOLS for short). LOLS is interpreted as the number of yards of starting field position not due to SOS. Simply subtracting a team's DEFLOLS from their OFFLOLS gives us Defense-Adjusted Net Line Of Scrimmage; hence, DANLOLS. Just like DVOA, positive numbers are good for OFFLOLS and DANLOLS, whereas negative numbers are good for DEFLOLS.

So to recap, the new version of TR splits includes Inside-the-20 DVOA, 1st Quarter DVOA, 4th Quarter DVOA, and now DANLOLS.**** Below are the 49ers' OFF, DEF, and net TR splits:

	DANLOLS	Rank	Inside the 20	Rank	1st Quarter	Rank	4th Quarter	Rank	Avg Rank
OFF	1.06	11	-66.5%	32	-36.5%	28	10.8%	15	21
DEF	-3.33	2	-18.4%	9	-2.6	14	19.0%	20	11
Net	4.39	4	-48.1%	28	-33.9%	24	-8.2%	20	19

Just to make sure we're all on the same page about LOLS here, the Niners' OFFLOLS stat of 1.06 means that their average starting field position has been 1.06 yards better than what SOS would predict, and the Niners' DEFLOLS stat of -3.33 means that their opponents' average starting field position has been 3.33 yards worse than what SOS would predict. In other words, the 49ers' OFF has been starting drives about 1 yard closer to a TD than what their opponents have allowed on average this season, and the 49ers' DEF has been starting drives about 3 yards farther away from giving up a TD than what their opponents have enjoyed on average this season. Both of these are good things.

So, now that you hopefully understand what DANLOLS means, we can see that the 49ers are one of the best teams in the league when it comes to creating good field position. As was discussed in last week's thread, ATL had the #2 DANLOLS going into Sunday's game. It turns out the 49ers' SOS when it comes to unadjusted Net LOS/Dr has been murderously difficult this season: Their OFF has faced the 3rd-toughest LOS/Dr schedule, while their DEF has faced the 9th-toughest. It's not surprising, then, that whereas their 2 losses have come against the #1 and #3 teams in unadjusted Net LOS/Dr (ATL & the Vikings, respectively), their 3 wins have come against the #12, #21, and #28 teams in Net LOS/Dr (SEA, the Cardinals, & the Rams, respectively).

When we break DANLOLS down by OFF and DEF, however, we see that, the DEF has been 3 times better than the OFF at creating good field position. The reason for this is quite apparent from the other "create good field position" stat in the table; namely, the 49ers' efficiency inside the 20. The OFF and DEF Inside the 20 DVOAs suggest that the DEF has been almost 85% more efficient at keeping the other teams pinned deep in their own territory than the OFF has been getting out of the shadow of their own goal line. In other words, with respect to being pinned deep, the DEF has been creating good field position, while the OFF has been failing to prevent their opponents from creating good field position; hence, the massive discrepancy between DANLOLS and Net Inside-the-20 DVOA.

Regarding the "execution" and "finish" components of Singletary's Formula for Success, we see from the table that the 49ers haven't been that successful through 5 games. Again, there's a dichotomous relationship between the OFF and DEF. Whereas the OFF has been starting games poorly and finishing them well, the DEF has been starting games well and finishing them poorly. This suggests that the OFF and DEF are spending (at least) half the game picking up each other's slack when the other unit isn't playing well. This makes sense because 4 quarters of complete team domination is something we have yet to see from the Niners. Even the STL game was largely a one-unit-for-one-half display of domination.

BOTTOM LINE

OK, so through 5 games, we can draw the following conclusions about the 2009 49ers:

1. Ala Socrates via Dennis Green, "Are they who we thought they were?"
2. Their OFF can't even do the easy stuff well.
3. Their DEF is still an above average unit against the run, but they need to shore things up during the bye week on 3rd down and in the red zone. The ATL game needs to be the exception, not the rule.
4. They need to find a competent kick/punt returner stat!
5. Tony Robbins and Mike Singletary have to be disappointed. The Niners - especially on OFF - need to get their collective heads in the game.

On Sunday, I'll break down the player stats and rankings. See you then.

*DVOA statistics used to produce this article were obtained from Football Outsiders.

**In case you're wondering how I calculated this, here it is in all its geekish glory. For the 49ers DEF, 333 plays through 5 games prorate out to 1065.60 plays through 16 games, so going from 261 plays to 333 plays in 2009 equals going from 24.49% of a season's worth of plays to 31.25% of a season's worth of plays. If you consider NFL plays as at-bats (ABs), then, based on the MLB average of 3.79 ABs per game in 2009, a "hitter" going from 24.49% to 31.25% of a season's worth of ABs equals going from 150.45 ABs to 191.98 ABs, which happens from games 39 to 50 in a 162-game season. For my favorite team (feel free to guess who that might be), games 39 to 50 happened between May 19th and May 31st this season. The MLB average for batting average in 2009 was .262, so a batting average 16.6% better than the MLB average was .305, whereas a batting average 9.1% better than the MLB average was .286. Therefore, the Niners' DEF DVOA decrease from -16.6% to -9.1% over plays 261 to 333 this season is mathematically equal to a hitter's batting average dropping from .305 to .286 during 11 games in late May (i.e., from games 39 to 50)...Hey kids, stay in school. Cross-sport math is pretty cool.

***Pre-emptive strike: I know they don't play at 1:00 p.m. Pacific every Sunday. So forward all complaints about using a loose metaphor to my attorney.

****In the comments section, I've posted stats and rankings for every NFL team according to DANLOLS.