Winning in the Trenches - Sack differential & wins

[KB_fan]

Yesterday in the Week 7 Stats & Analysis thread, I posted a simple table showing sacks allowed and sacks made for all the games so far this season. 

That +7 differential of sacks made - sacks allowed is looking MIGHTY GOOD, and I thought it would be interesting to compare it with other seasons. 

Typically the Panthers have been known to get off to a slow start.  Also it sometimes takes a bunch of games for the Oline to gel (certainly true last season when we played something like 7 different combinations of the Oline early in the season..).  I began to wonder if the two trends are related.  This year's Oline continuity and significant improvement in their play certainly seems to be making a difference in our results...  How do this seasons results in sacks (both sacks allowed, and sacks made) compare to the first 6 games of other recent seasons?

I decided to go back to 2011 and Cam's first season to give us 5 seasons of data to compare.  Here are the sack totals - sacks allowed & sacks made for the first 6 games of the 2011 - 2015 seasons.

The +7 sack differential in 2015 jumps of the page.  In none of Cam's prior 4 seasons have we had an early season sack differential greater than +1.

In terms of absolute numbers, 2013 just edges out 2015 for most sacks made with 19 vs 18.  (How exciting that in 2015 we're so close to 2013's amazing sack pace!).

And in terms of sacks allowed, 2011 just beats out 2015, with 10 vs 11.  So, at least in terms of the past 5 seasons, we're also near our best pace in terms of fewest sacks allowed.

So, HUGE SHOUT OUTS to our O & D lines!!!

Barring injuries, I expect their play only to improve as the season continues.

[2jakefansinva]

Someone once said............Big guys allow you too compete.

[KB_fan]

There's a second portion to my review and analysis of sacks in recent Panthers seasons, however.

In compiling the data above, I began to notice a striking pattern.  It seems games with negative sack differentials (i.e. Panthers allowing more sacks than we make) often lead to losses.  (Not really a big surprise...).  I decided to try and quantify it.

I looked at every game from 2011 - 2015 to date.  Here are the results:

In the top table, you find the number of games with a negative, neutral (0), or positive sack differential for each season.

In the second table, you find the number of wins each season for the different outcomes:  wins when we had a negative sack differential, wins when we had a neutral sack differential, and wins when we had a positive sack differential.

In the third table you find the percentages:  wins per outcome divided by the number of games with a particular outcome.

Obviously there are some exceptions to the pattern (notably in 2011 and 2015).  But when you look at all 4+ seasons of data so far, there is a VERY STRIKING correlation between negative sack differential and losses, and positive sack differential and wins.

THERE APPEARS TO BE A LOT OF TRUTH TO THE FREQUENT SAYING - ESPECIALLY AMONG PANTHERS COACHES AND OUR FRONT OFFICE - THAT "FOOTBALL IS WON IN THE TRENCHES" 

Yup.  The numbers back it up!

[Mr. Scot]

Aaaahhh, the trenches.

Michael Oher isn't perfect, but he's definitely an improvement over what we had.

And I'm pretty sure anyone who was unhappy about the draft "double dip" a few years ago has probably changed their minds.

[KB_fan]

Since I have the data compiled in Excel, here's one more table.   Here are the totals for sacks allowed and sacks made for all games since 2011.   (This includes post-season in 2013 and 2014, even though the table headers say "regular season"). 

 

[UpstatePanther]

Well done KB! So nice to see that 100 in the win-percentage column for 2015.