Outsiders on Pats, Part V

I have to say, that Patriots passing attack ( not total offensive) in 2007 was the best ever. It was unbelievable what they did especially in the second half of the season when they were playing on national television every week in bad weather conditions.
The Patriots should have finished 19-0 if Asante Samuel doesn't have butterfingers....

11.4 wins? I'm all for statistical analysis, but this is ridiculous. These nerds need to use some logic here. They won 11 games with Cassel and a terrible defensive backfield, and they figure the Pats will win 0.4 more games? That doesn't pass the sniff test.

I think 13-3 is a reasonable prediction, but they can be better than 07. So 15-1? I hope they don't go 16-0, because I think they need to feel how terrible it is to lose so they can improve as a team. It sounds funny, but I think if they lose that Baltimore game in 07, then they win the Super Bowl going away (think of how they played in December of 05 after the Miami game).

Easiest schedule? I'd love to see the magic formula that got him to that conclusion..

EASIEST SCHEDULE? What? The Patriots have the 3rd hardest schedule according to strength of schedule. They travel to Tampa, Indy, Denver and New Orleans. Tampa, Indy and New Orleans are all extremely solid teams with 2 of the top QB's in the NFL and Denver is an impossible place to play. Made even tougher by the fact that McDaniels knows our team as well as anyone. Atlanta Tenn and Baltimore are all going to be tough games at home. Our division is hungry and has had an influx of talent across all 4 teams.

I am never dissapointed in Mike Reiss but I am dissapointed that he missed this obivously ludicrous statement.

They are really down on the rest of the AFC east. Projected wins for our divisional rivals. Buffalo 5.3, New York 6.2, Miami 6.4 wins.

For the 11.4 wins here's what they look at to calculate it. "These projections stem from three equations that forecast 2009 DVOA for offense, defense, and special
teams based on a number of different factors, including the previous two years of DVOA in various situations, improvement in the second half of 2008, recent draft history, coaching experience, injury history, specific coaching styles, and the combined tenure of the offensive line."

They rarely if ever predict a team to do better than 11 wins. The only two teams they have rated higher than us are the Colts 11.5 wins, and the Chargers 12.5 wins.

If you're into extremely objective analysis of football I'd advise you to check out their site. Great stuff for any football fan. www.footballoutsiders.com, I bought their book last year and I'm not going another season without it.

The Patriots' schedule is ranked easiest based on Football Outsiders' win-loss projections for all 32 teams. A huge part of it is that they project the Jets, Bills and Dolphins to drop off significantly this year.

"EASIEST SCHEDULE? What? The Patriots have the 3rd hardest schedule according to strength of schedule."

What is that based on, last season's won-loss records?

A pathetically useless way to evaluate the upcoming season.

The most interesting part of his statement is the part where he said "they weren't perfect in 2007 (regular season) either." Um...YEAH, THEY WERE. Doug Farrar unwittingly pinpointed exactly why these sorts of statistical analyses fail when applied to football.

As stated by another poster the reasoning behind the easy schedule claim is that the other 3 division teams will suck. Of course if that makes our schedule easy what should be said about the Chargers? The East isn't the worst division in the conference the west is.

I think the biggest surprise will be the dropoff in the Colts this season.

They're transitioning to a new head coach, defensive coordinator, and offensive line coach. I'm interested to see how this goes, but my theory: not well.

I think they may finally realize the value of [Howard Mudd] or whoever the guy is who coached their offensive line for so many years. That they'd lowball their coaches on retirement benefits may come back to bite them, and as a Patriots fan, I hope it does.

MarkZ, these guys thought we were perfect for three quarters of the season, but that in the final weeks of the regular season as well as in the playoffs, we were no longer flat out dominating every game. That's all they are saying.

I personally agree with them, I think McDaniels made zero adjustments later in the season and teams kept focusing on rushing the quarterback, pressing our receivers, and they disrupted our offense and our level of play that way.

Evil, a big reason why these guys projected the Chargers to win the most games in the regular season is because they projected their schedule to be the 5th easiest.

Overall I think its best to not take any of this personally, its just these guys attempt at being an extremely objective source of analysis.

Noonan, I understand that people criticize the Pats for the final quarter of the regular season because they were winning by narrower margins than earlier in the season. But the fact is this: they were 4-0 in those games. That's perfect. If they won all 16 games by a margin of only 1 point, it would be perfect. Even though, statistically, they may not rank #1 across the board in every category.

They might have the "easiest schedule" if the other teams in the AFC East were still doormats, but the division is quickly becoming one of the toughest in the league. Even the Bills could be tough to beat twice, remember they had a great start last year, and they have improved on paper. I don't think we can really count on the usual 4-5 wins within the division anymore. The Pats can't have an 'easy' schedule this year unless those teams really underachieve.

Please ignore my redundant post! (didn't read down far enough to see that a bunch of people already mentioned the assumed weakness of the division). I don't think the rest of the AFC east is going to drop off that much, Jets maybe...