2010 fun and crazy stats

I hold and always will hold that stats tell a story that often is overlooked by commentators, prognosticators, and NFL “experts” alike. They would tell you that Austin Collie is good enough to be a top 30 WR based on last year’s stats, but they would fail to mention that he only played in 8 games. Double those stats and you have yourself a top 3 WR. Collie is barely the #3 WR on his own team, right? So what! Stats point to the fact that when given the opportunity, he may be Manning’s favorite target.

So let’s look a little closer at some 2010 stats that have been overlooked and dive a little deeper into them.

One of the most shocking to me was the Seattle Seahawks getting into the playoffs. For a moment, let us overlook the fact that they ended the season at 7-9 and made it in as the first team with a losing record. That alone is a staggering thought, but let’s dig a little deeper. Seattle was the 5^th worst team in the entire NFL in point differential. While going 7-9 they were outscored by 97 points! They had losses by 17, 17, 30, 34, 15, 18, 19, 16, and 23! Yes, their closest loss all year was a 15 point loss to New Orleans; oddly enough, the team they beat in the wild-card game. They had wins of 27, 7, 3, 12, 18, 17, and 10. In 16 games they only had 2 games finish within single digits. Season ticket holders should get a refund for the boredom that certainly came from sitting through these lopsided games. A team that loses 9 games by an average of 21 points not only doesn’t deserve to make the playoffs, they don’t deserve a single nationally televised game and should be banned from any discussion of teams worthy of calling themselves division leaders.

Compare that to the Buffalo Bills. The Bills finished the season with even a worse point differential, being outscored by 142 points. They were, however, much closer to being a good team that Seattle. In their 12 losses they had 4 games that were decided by a field goal (including 2 OT losses) and 3 more games decided by 10 points or less. This team was much closer to being 10-6 than Seattle could ever have dreamed of being.

Something else that caught my eye was division play. In the AFC West you had an Oakland team go 6-0 in the division and yet they finished the season 8-8! This shows how weak the AFC West is. The NFC West went 6-18 in their 24 games played against other NFC teams. SIX AND EIGHTEEN!!! How bad is your division when you can only win one of every four games against the rest of your conference? Kansas City actually won the division with a 2-4 division record. The next worst division record for a team winning the division was 4-2, and 4 division winning teams had records of 5-1. The AFC South was the most even division with one team at 4-2, two teams at 3-3 and one team at 2-4. Carolina was the only team in the league to go 0-6 against their own division.

Here are a few more fun stats for you from the 2010 season:

Tennessee and Detroit combined for a 12-20 record but outscored their opponents by 10.

There was only 1 team with 3 or fewer wins (Carolina). That hasn’t happened since 2004 (at least 2 teams each year since then).

Detroit ended the season tied with the 2nd longest current win streak (4 games).

The Bengals went from 10-6 in 2009 to 4-12 in 2010. Dallas went from 11-5 to 6-10.