So, I am actively blogging the playoffs for the first time since 2009. Part of that is I have little else to do right now without school to go back to. The other is I'm more invested in what happens in these playoffs than any other since then. Just like 2009, Peyton Manning's team is a #1 seed. Just like 2009, there is an NFC South team with the #1 seed. There are a couple other similarities (one 2,000 yard rusher, though Chris Johnson in 2009 wasn't on a playoff team), but the last similarity is I am going to do playoff primers for both conferences again for the first time since then.
Here's how the primers worked: I went through the six playoff teams from the AFC and NFC in reverse order. I looked at their offense, their defense, their QB and their coach, and ranked them 1-6 in their conference. I'll talk about the rankings in a minute. These were just general looks, trends and opinions on the teams in these four categories. Then I finished with an interesting stat or trend for the team overall. Last time, the stats were very conventional-stat heavy, which I will do again, but this time I'm also going to list their advanced stats in the two advanced stats I care about (Football Outsiders' DVOA and Brian Burke's Advanced Stats' WPA).
Now for those rankings. So, in 2009 I decided to pick the games on how I felt, and also pick them in a really rough quantifiable way with the rankings. My method was to use the following formula (DEF + OFF + (QB + COACH)/3 - 1 (IF HOME) = Ranking. The team with the lower rankings would be my 'Formula Winner'. Now, since the rankings were based on my own subjective reasoning, it isn't really all that quantitative, but screw it.
So, first up next is the AFC.
Here's how the primers worked: I went through the six playoff teams from the AFC and NFC in reverse order. I looked at their offense, their defense, their QB and their coach, and ranked them 1-6 in their conference. I'll talk about the rankings in a minute. These were just general looks, trends and opinions on the teams in these four categories. Then I finished with an interesting stat or trend for the team overall. Last time, the stats were very conventional-stat heavy, which I will do again, but this time I'm also going to list their advanced stats in the two advanced stats I care about (Football Outsiders' DVOA and Brian Burke's Advanced Stats' WPA).
Now for those rankings. So, in 2009 I decided to pick the games on how I felt, and also pick them in a really rough quantifiable way with the rankings. My method was to use the following formula (DEF + OFF + (QB + COACH)/3 - 1 (IF HOME) = Ranking. The team with the lower rankings would be my 'Formula Winner'. Now, since the rankings were based on my own subjective reasoning, it isn't really all that quantitative, but screw it.
So, first up next is the AFC.
