Football Outsider has Panthers rated 6th best team in NFL

[SCP]

I'm a blind homer and even I think that's a bit crazy.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2013/2013-dvoa-projections

[Sean Payton's Vicodin]

We will see where we are this Sunday.

 

I don't really follow the hype or the anti hype.

 

Edit: Damn, they have us 3 overall on defense, behind Chicago and Pittsburgh. Would love to have a dominant defense again. Haven't seen that in a while

[TheGreatestOfAllTimeCam]

well I see they swung and missed on that one

[SCP]

This whole DVOA system is over my head. But apparently they have 12 years of DVOA stats the lends some credence to their system.

[Ivan The Awesome]

[Zuck Fod]

I wonder how much DVOA our all black uniforms add? They gotta help somewhat, right?

[UNCrules2187]

Mike Tanier, a former (current?) FO writer/contributor, released his NFC South predictions today. He has the Saints winning the division at 10-6 with the Panthers taking a WC spot...at 10-6:

 

 

 

Bottom Line: General manager Marty Hurney and many of Rivera's assistants were fired in the weeks between the Panthers' 1-6 start in 2012 and the start of the 2013 NFL calendar year. Rivera and defensive coordinator Sean McDermott survived the bloodletting, and they now must prove that they deserved to stay. Newton bore the brunt of the blame for the team's close losses, and he contributed heavily to some of them, but Rivera was often mixed up about when to punt, go for it, or kick a field goal, while McDermott dialed up soft prevent defenses at some of the most inappropriate times (see the first Falcons game, or the Bears game). The Panthers now have too much talent to fall out of the playoff race before Halloween. If it happens again, it will be because the "lack of leadership" issue runs deeper than a quarterback who drapes a towel over his head on the sideline. (Thanks to Vince Verhei and his excellent Football Outsiders Almanac chapter for many of the details in this capsule).

 

Prediction: 10-6

 

 

 

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/59430332/

 

[RelaxImaPro]

Quoted from the comments of people I presume follow all this DVOA mess pretty closely.  About the Panthers ranking.

 

Barnwell has been doing a team-by-team analysis over on Grantland, and his argument for Carolina's resurgence hinges on the Panthers' "bad luck" in close games.

As defined by FO, close games are games decided by 7 points or fewer, and this is a metric that typically has high season-to-season variance. Simply put, if a team plays 100 games against evenly matched teams, it's likely to go 50-50. If the game score is close at the end, it' was probably an even match-up, so when a team goes on a streak (good or bad) in close games one season, they are likely to regress to the mean the following season.

Last year, the Panthers were 1-7 in close games, so simple regression to the mean will probably boost their record by a couple of wins.

Carolina also had a top-10 weighted DVOA last year, including a top 10 offense, and they've upgraded their defense through the draft.

I'm still not sold, though. I like Cam Newton and I think Steve Smith is always overdue for a big season and a deep playoff run, but I'm not sure this is the year.

 

Yeah, I don't get it. I know Atlanta has a tough schedule, but the offense alone should account for 8 wins. If the defense steps up at all I see 10-11.

Still, this is a little scary since FO is more right than I prefer to admit.

Play the games!!

 

Well people FO has spoken.  Playoffs and a division title, baby.

 

 

[RelaxImaPro]

Simply put, we were an anomaly last season and anyone who watched all of our games know this.  We damn sure should have won more than 7 games... I don't think I've ever seen a sports team be as consistently unlucky as we were.

[Kevin Greene]

Why do they tease us?

[Growl]

I'm a blind homer and even I think that's a bit crazy.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2013/2013-dvoa-projections

 

Agreed, that's entirely too low.

[SCP]

How reliable are these stats in football? The sample sizes are so small. Baseball stats normally bear true because of the sheer size of the data pool. Football not so much IMO.

[RelaxImaPro]

How reliable are these stats in football? The sample sizes are so small. Baseball stats normally bear true because of the sheer size of the data pool. Football not so much IMO.

 

Not sure, but we were supposedly top 10 in both offense and defense last year... it's just other random variables kind of screwed everything up for us.  A case of everything that could go wrong, well, pretty much went wrong.

 

I don't know jack poo about that DVOA stuff though.

[pantherj]

Just off hand I think we should have beaten Seattle, KC, ATL, and CHI. We simply didn't have the defense we needed to hold up in the 4th when teams went to the air. We should be totally different this season.