Emulating the Panthers

[Shadow]

Carolina in it's successful years has followed the wisdom we've all heard: run the ball and play good defense.  The league tends to follow trends of successful teams.  I wanted to take a closer look to see how well our formula works for being a consistent playoff team.  Today I'm looking at passing percentage for offense and opponents third down conversion percentage for playoff teams of the last five years.

Number of teams in the top half of passing percentage that made the playoffs (ie 1-16 in the league in passing percentage)

2015: 3, New England, Pittsburgh, Denver

2014: 4, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Arizona

2013: 4, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Denver, New England

2012: 3, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Green Bay

2011: 5, Detroit, Green Bay, NY Giants, New England, Atlanta

The middle percentage of passing in the league for those five years was about 59% of the time.  It seems here that if you want to be a playoff team, you should be committed to running the ball as 2/3 of playoff spots go to teams who run.  Also a lot of the bad teams have very high passing stats because they are behind by a lot and need to catch up.

Number of teams that made the playoffs in the top half of opponents third down percentage

2015: 12, All 12 playoff teams

2014: 8, New England, Denver, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Seattle, Arizona, Detroit

2013: 7, Seattle, Carolina, San Francisco, New Orleans, Denver, Cincinnati, Kansas City

2012: 6, San Francisco, Denver, Houston, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Cincinnati

2011: 8, San Francisco, New Orleans, NY Giants, Detroit, Baltimore, Houston, Denver, Cincinnati

The middle percentage of opponents third down conversion rate is around 38%.  If you can not get your defense off the field then that means you're tiring out your pass rush.  That will make your defense less effective late in games that are close.  Carolina has been pretty good at making teams pay when they can not score points.

 

[L-TownCat]

It's gotta be hard to emulate 6'5 250lbs QB with RB speed, laser rocket cannon arm and that beautiful smile.

[Newtcase]

24 minutes ago, L-TownCat said:

It's gotta be hard to emulate 6'5 250lbs QB with RB speed, laser rocket cannon arm and that beautiful smile.

/thread

[UKPanther94]

Funny how the media bangs on about how its now a passing league, yet time and time again it's always been the teams with the best defenses and the top running games that prevail in January.

[tondi]

I hope they don't even try to emulate us as I think being such an aberration among NFL offenses works to our advantage.