Sunday, January 8, 2012

On Brees and Marino, again.

I was reading some football fan's blog post on why NFL teams don't pass more when passing has a higher effectiveness rate that rushing.  They mentioned that in 1978, the NFL enacted some rules changes that increased passing effectiveness.  From 1979-1984, when Marino set the old record, passing yards and attempts increased steadily.  Marino's record in 1984 was over 1000 yards what the record was in 1978.  But it didn't just happen overnight. Dan Fouts threw for 4000, 4700, and 4800 yards, thus pushing the record up.  When Marino broke it, he was only about 200 yards from the previous record, and 500 off the 4 year average (not counting 1982's short season).  Brees was 400 yards off the previous record and 700 off the 4 year average.

That, however, is not the point of the post. Look at the graph below: it shows the year-to-year passing leaders for the combined NFL from 1973 to 2011.  Note the incredible difference in totals BEFORE the rules change in 1978 and after (that dip is the 1982 strike season of only 8 games).  Nearly 2000 yards in three years.  Note, however, that the leaders' totals have remained somewhat constant for the next twenty years.


Marino's record is largely the result of changing passing rules, as is evident in the success passers had since the rules changes in 1978.  The results of those rules changes happened overnight.  The same cannot be said of Drew Brees' stellar effort.  If the rules changes were so important to his record, you'd think that there would be a burst of records set immediately following the rules changes, which didn't just happen this year; this would mimic the events of 1979.  That didn't happen.

So what did?  For one, the lockout eliminated training camp, which cut down time for defensive units to mesh.  This is evident in the fact that about 7 QBs were on pace to shatter, obliterate, and destroy Marino's, and Brady's passing records by week 3.  That evened out as defensive units started their meshing.

In essence, the lockout was an equalizer.  In 1984, its hard to think that defensive units had figured out how to stop pass-happy teams like the Chargers and Dolphins when most of the teams still relied on the run.  The defense was thus at a large disadvantage.  In 2011, sure there were rule changes, but those changes were mitigated by the fact that defensive units have been seeing pass-happy teams for nearly 20 years.  Teams have placed high-priority on top-notch corner backs to counter the threat of the passing attack, and pass-rushing linemen and linebacker/linemen hybrids are more and more common.

Thus, it appears to me that Drew Brees effort is at least equal to Marino's.

Drew Brees, Dan Marino, and Records

Last Monday night, Drew Brees surpassed Dan Marino's single-season passing yards record that stood for 27 years.  I wasn't going to say anything about it, I mean, Brees has always been a great QB, and it truly is a remarkable feat.  However, I've heard WAAAYYYY too many people say that Brees' record is essentially meaningless as a result of changes in rules that have allowed passing offenses more room.

I'll be honest.  I really don't want to agree with such naysaying.  Brees' accomplishment is astounding, and the fact that he came close a couple of years ago is further testament to his abilities as a quarterback.  Yet, one can't deny that the rules have changed things.  To be honest, today's game is much, much different than it was in 1984.  In trying to respond to posters on a news piece concerning Brees (the posters said his record was meaningless due to new rules changes) I wanted to argue that in 1984, offenses were more run centric than they were now.  In fact, I hypothesized that NFL defenses today are more likely geared for the pass that they were in 1984 since coordinators have had at least a decade of pass-centered offenses.  I didn't however want to make this claim without actually looking at the data.  I found some stuff at Pro-Football-Reference.com.  What I found was actually quite eye-opening, but it proved my hypothesis...sort of.

I wanted to see what the 10 years prior to each record setting year looked like in terms of run vs. pass.  My thought was quite simple: if defenses see a majority of passing, they'll be much better accustomed to to defending it.  I was right, sort of.  On average, from 1974-1983, teams passed about 45% of the time, per game.  On average, from 2001-2010, teams passed about 55% of the time.  However, I noticed that passing attempts/game increased starting in 1979.  From 1979-1983, the pass/run ration was essentially 50/50 (which actually brought the pass/run ratio of the entire decade down to 44/56...it would have been something like 40/60).

Seeing the rise in passing, I hypothesized that perhaps Marino's record could have been influenced by defensive coordinators still not catching up the passing phenomenon.  I decided to look at the top passer (because Marino was the top passer that year) to see how they fared in that time frame.  I noticed that between 1969 and 1979, only Joe Namath passed for over 4,000 yards (once) and only twice did a passer pass for over 3,500 yards.  Then the floodgates opened.  From 1979-1984 (actually, to 2011), the only time the leading passer hasn't thrown for 4,000 yards has been during strike-shortened seasons (to be even more precise, Dan Fouts was on pace in the strike shortened season of 1982 to pace for over 5,300 yards). Fouts set the record for yards in a season twice three times in that time period, jumping from 4,020 to over 4,700 in a single season.  Such a trend could easily see the 5,000 yard mark as reachable in 1984, and if Marino didn't do it, it could have been Fouts.

Looking at that, it dawned on me that it had only been 5 years since changing the rules prompted more passing, and it generally takes defensive minds a couple of years to adjust.  In short, by 1984, extensive passing was still new, and not the beast we see today.  Teams that passed a majority of the time weren't the norm.  In 1984, 13 of the 28 teams passed more that 50% of the time, and only 2 (the Eagles and Bills) passed at least 60% of the time, while the league average was 51%.  Knock out the Bills and Eagles (61% and 60% respectively, and the Chargers (59%) and the league average is 49%.  My point is, a defensive coordinator is going to be preparing for an equal dose of run versus pass.  Thus, when a team throws 60% of the time against defensive schemes designed to stop the run, large numbers are bound to be put up.  Add in quaterbacks of Marino's skills, and you've got a recipe for a record breaking year.

Fast forward to today.  Since 1984, there has only been two seasons in which the leading quarterback hasn't thrown for more than 4,000 yards, the shortened season of 1987 (in which there were only 15 games) and 1997.  In the decade prior to 2011, only three times has the leading passer thrown for less than 4500 yards.  Between 1984 and 2001, the leader passer threw for MORE than 4500 yards 4 times.  In 2011, only 5 teams passed 50% or less of the time while, 6 passed over 60% of the time. If you take out the top three passing teams (with percentages of 65, 63, and 61), you still get 55%.  What this tells me is that defenses are more accustomed to passing offenses.

From 2001-2011, the average yards the leading passer has thrown for is 4754.  Drew Brees' record is 700 yards over the average for the last decade.  From 1979-1983 (not counting 1982's shortened season) the average was 4514 yards.  Marino's record in about 500 yards over the average.  Thus, from a statistical point of view, one could argue that Brees' record is more significant than Marino's.