Ryan’s numbers on rise?
Offers legit test for Pats’ top-rated ‘D’
HOUSTON — History is on the side of the Patriots tonight in Super Bowl LI. Or is it? Well, that depends if you’re looking at ancient history or recent history.
This season, the Atlanta Falcons were the NFL’s highest-scoring team, racking up 540 points, an average of 33.7 per game. Quarterback Matt Ryan passed for 4,944 yards, 38 touchdowns and only seven inter ceptions, completing touchdown throws to an NFL-record 13 different receivers. His completion percentage of 69.9 was enough to get him an endorsement deal with GPS, and his 9.3 yards per attempt was one of the reasons he won the NFL passing title for the first time in his career.
Ryan throws to the game’s most explosive receiver, Julio Jones, who turned 83 receptions into 1,409 yards, averaging 17 yards per reception and 100.6 per game. And Jones is just the headliner of an assembly of weapons that includes receivers Mohamed Sanu and Taylor Gabriel and running backs Devonta Freeman (1,079 yards, 13 touchdowns) and Tevin Coleman (11 TDs).
Countering that kind of explosiveness is not easy, but the Patriots will send out the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense to face it, a unit that has allowed only 15.6 points per game this season and 30 in a game only once. That was a 31-24 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, but if that’s the outlier, the Patriots would seem to be in a good position to win their fifth Lombardi Trophy of the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era.
That’s where the ancient history comes in, and it’s all good news for the Pats.
Atlanta is the ninth team to score at least 540 points in a season. None, including the 2007 and 2012 Patriots, won the Super Bowl. Of those nine, five didn’t even get to the Super Bowl.
This also is the sixth time the No. 1 scoring offense has met the No. 1 scoring defense in the Super Bowl. Only once has the offense prevailed, when the 1989 San Francisco 49ers beat the stuffing out of the Denver Broncos, 55-10. Other than that, defense ruled.
So one would think the odds favor the Patriots, and if those historic numbers hold true, they do. But in this oddest of NFL seasons, there are other numbers to examine. Not ancient history numbers but troubling numbers from 2016 that are not as encouraging.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal, of all places, suggested the Patriots’ defensive prowess might be “inflated.” Considering that understanding inflation is their business, let’s take a look at what they found.
Using statistics supplied from STATS LLC, the Journal argued that while the Patriots did indeed have the NFL’s stingiest defense, they also faced the season’s easiest set of opposing offenses. This is a case that has been made before, including in this space, causing members of the defense to grow a bit cranky about it as the season progressed. They have admitted to playing with a chip on their shoulder, the defensive backs being particularly vocal about not winning the respect they believe they deserve.
Understood, but do their statistics tell the story, and if so, is that story fact or fiction?
In a miracle of fortuitous scheduling, the Patriots did not face a single top-10 quarterback and saw only two top-10 offenses. According to STATS, the Patriots defense faced the weakest set of quarterbacks of any team in the league in 2016, the collection amassing a league-low 83.1 passer rating in aggregate. Yet those same slappies fared better against Belichick’s team than the rest of the NFL, posting an aggregate 84.4 rating vs. the Pats defense. By contrast, Denver’s stout defense faced quarterbacks with an aggregate 92.1 rating and limited them to 69.7, according to STATS.
Tonight, the Patriots will not be so lucky. Ryan led the NFL with a passer rating of 117.1, so their scheduling fortune is done, and that does not bode well if recent history is considered. That’s because the top three passers they faced this season — Ryan Tannehill, Russell Wilson and Andy Dalton — put up an aggregate rating of 104.6 against them, while for the season, Tannehill was 93.5, Wilson 92.6 and Dalton 91.8.
The Patriots defense held Tannehill to his season passer rating of 93.5, but Dalton was 103.4 against them and Wilson 124.6, marked improvements in efficiency by both. That does not bode well because if the same run-up occurs with Matt Ryan, STATS concluded he will have a rating of 118.9. Super Bowl quarterbacks with ratings of 118.9 or higher in the game are 11-0.
So ancient history, which in the NFL these days stretches back only LI in Roman numerals, says when the highest-scoring offense meets an opponent that leads the NFL in scoring defense, the defense normally wins. But what do the Patriots’ 2016 defensive statistics say?
Is that really what this Patriots defense is all about, or will the Falcons’ multi-faceted offense, which figures to play even faster than usual on the turf at NRG Stadium, expose those numbers as alternative facts?
The answer to that is why they play the game.