Week 2 Analysis: Yards Per Attempt Continues to Predict Victory

I'm continuing with the theme that yards per attempt is among the most important stats in the NFL.  Last week, I checked the win/loss record for teams whose offense put up a higher yards per attempt than their defense yielded.

The results from week 1 indicated that about 71% of teams with favorable Y/A won the game.  This result was consistent with the results of the past several years.


So, as I'll probably do every week, I checked this stat against the week 2 results and - drum roll please - 75% of teams who won the Y/A battle won the game.

The only teams that managed to win despite being on the wrong end of this stat were the Raiders (against the Chiefs), Ravens (against SD), Bears (agains Pitt) and 49ers (against the Seahawks).  Keep in mind that the 49ers and Bears only averaged .03 and .10 yards, respectively, less than their opponents - results that would never be considered significant.
The big outlier of the bunch was the Raiders - who passed for almost 5 fewer yards per attempt than the Chiefs.

The Dolphins almost pulled out the game despite a defecit of 7.6 yards - the largest deficit of any team in any game this season.  If you recall, this game actually broke the record for the highest time of possession by a team that lost a game - the Dolphins had the ball for over 45 minues.  But, as Brian Burke describes in this piece, TOP is an "intermediate outcome".  According to Brian, an "intermediate outcome" "is a natural byproduct of being good at something else."  Taking it a step further, if a team scores very quickly (as Brian also states) several times, then they could very well lose the TOP battle and win the game.  However, in the case of this game, these quick strikes lead to a higher Y/A and, in the end, a victory.

That's it for today.  I'm hoping to turn what I'm finding into some type of predictive tool.