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- Thread starter BB73
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Fair warning: I said I wouldn't let this go... What follows is more numerical proof of what we already know.
If you'd like a little context, check the numbers on Cheater Red Zone Defense in post #1852 of this thread.
Differential Red Zone Offense (DRZO): A ratio that shows how good you are at scoring touchdowns in the red zone compared to all the other offenses that your opponents faced.
Differential Red Zone Penetration (DRZP): A stat that I made up to show how good you are at getting into the red zone. Insert your own joke here.
As with defense, the Cheaters were much better at both before they were caught cheating...
As with the defense, the Cheaters went from Very Good to Pretty Good when outside of the red zone (the orange bars above).
Also as with the defense, the Cheaters performance lemminged right off a cliff inside the red zone (the blue bars above).
Seriously... On both offense and defense, the Cheaters went from outstanding to very average in Red Zone performance after they had to move the illegally compiled laminates full of illegally obtained information... move them from the sidelines to the press box.
The interesting thing to me is that the numbers changed in such a similar way, but almost certainly for very different reasons. As mentioned in Post #1852, the defense is hampered by offenses that increase their pace inside the red zone, thus making it nearly impossible to get signals from the press box to the field in time. For the cheater offense however, they can take as long as they like. The reason for the huge drop off here comes from just how big their advantage was before they were caught.
In the red zone, the defense has to commit to stopping what they think you're going to do. They have no choice; they have no chance if they don't. The defense has to roll the dice. If you know which direction they are rolling those dice, you can dial up something that will exploit them. Your advantage there is huge. The problem for the Cheaters is that, after they were caught, teams were almost certainly more careful in the red zone to do whatever it took to not get their signs stolen, because the stakes are so much higher there because of the risks the defense has to take in the red zone. Simply not having the advantage of knowing for sure what they were going to do caused them to devolve into no more than what they really were... a little above average.
Main takeaway: More evidence that you did not need... but solid, objective evidence that we can cite whenever we are talking to anyone about this. They cheated. They continued to cheat after they were caught, but it didn't go as well, especially in the red zone. Their title is tainted. That's a cold hard objective fact.
If you'd like a little context, check the numbers on Cheater Red Zone Defense in post #1852 of this thread.
Differential Red Zone Offense (DRZO): A ratio that shows how good you are at scoring touchdowns in the red zone compared to all the other offenses that your opponents faced.
Differential Red Zone Penetration (DRZP): A stat that I made up to show how good you are at getting into the red zone. Insert your own joke here.
As with defense, the Cheaters were much better at both before they were caught cheating...
As with the defense, the Cheaters went from Very Good to Pretty Good when outside of the red zone (the orange bars above).
Also as with the defense, the Cheaters performance lemminged right off a cliff inside the red zone (the blue bars above).
Seriously... On both offense and defense, the Cheaters went from outstanding to very average in Red Zone performance after they had to move the illegally compiled laminates full of illegally obtained information... move them from the sidelines to the press box.
The interesting thing to me is that the numbers changed in such a similar way, but almost certainly for very different reasons. As mentioned in Post #1852, the defense is hampered by offenses that increase their pace inside the red zone, thus making it nearly impossible to get signals from the press box to the field in time. For the cheater offense however, they can take as long as they like. The reason for the huge drop off here comes from just how big their advantage was before they were caught.
In the red zone, the defense has to commit to stopping what they think you're going to do. They have no choice; they have no chance if they don't. The defense has to roll the dice. If you know which direction they are rolling those dice, you can dial up something that will exploit them. Your advantage there is huge. The problem for the Cheaters is that, after they were caught, teams were almost certainly more careful in the red zone to do whatever it took to not get their signs stolen, because the stakes are so much higher there because of the risks the defense has to take in the red zone. Simply not having the advantage of knowing for sure what they were going to do caused them to devolve into no more than what they really were... a little above average.
Main takeaway: More evidence that you did not need... but solid, objective evidence that we can cite whenever we are talking to anyone about this. They cheated. They continued to cheat after they were caught, but it didn't go as well, especially in the red zone. Their title is tainted. That's a cold hard objective fact.
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Zurp
I have misplaced my pants.
So, DRZP - that goes from about 1.43-ish to about 1.35-ish. Is that really a big difference?
Can this stat be broken out by game? Does that number mean anything? I mean, if you shoot a shotgun at a target you get a splatter of holes. Each individual hole doesn't mean much, but the whole picture of holes (heh - "whole holes") are where the story is told. So, is the first half of the season one splattering of holes and the second half is a different splattering that is close? Or maybe the splattering is tighter than I'm picturing? Is that 0.08 difference a big deal?
The bigger deal seems to be the DRZO, which goes from about 1.41 to 1.05. Aside from "we weren't cheating as well", I would see good explanations being, "we had a few really good players get hurt", or "other teams figured out our gimmicky offense", or .... Maybe that's all I can think of. I'm pretty sure the cheating one is the most likely and the one I believe.
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I appreciate you taking the time to look at this, because it made me go back and examine things more carefully.
Upon a more careful analysis, you're absolutely right in questioning my analysis. My analysis was wrong.
First, here are the raw numbers
As you already surmised, those red zone penetration numbers represent an inconsequential drop (from about 6th nationally to just 7th). It is absolutely not enough of a drop to suggest that their cheating was less effective outside of the red zone.
But the same (closer) look makes it clear that their red zone offense had an even bigger drop than I realized. They went from number one in the country in DRZO to a shade above average. So whatever the reason, the forced change to their cheating had a much bigger effect in the red zone than outside of it. In fact, it may not have affected them outside of the red zone. This is consistent with the change in McCarthy's numbers, as by far the biggest change to his passing stats after they were caught was in the number of touchdown passes. He threw at least 1 in every game before getting caught. In the first 5 games after getting caught he threw a TOTAL of ONE touchdown pass.
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