Quote:
Originally Posted by Racehorse
That is the issue with "bend, but not break". You have long drives that exhaust the players on defense, so they end up breaking later in the game as they become fatigued.
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Speaking of this... I noticed the Bills giving up a high completion rate, so I was looking at some stats a few days ago (these don't include today)...
Opponents' completion percentage: Colts 30th (69.7%), Bills 27th (68.9%).
But in TOP: Colts 31st (26:22), Bills 17th (30:04).
So that's a discrepancy. Fairly similar in terms of giving up the pitch-and-catches, but massive TOP difference. So I look at 3rd downs...
Defensive 3rd-down percentage: Colts 28th (44.6%), Bills 21st (40.8%).
Offensive 3rd-down percentage: Colts 23rd (36.0%), Bills 8th (42.0%)**.
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Not a massive difference in DEF 3rd-downs, but Bills are a bit better. The latter, though, seems to fit with the intuition... Bills are very good at sustaining drives, we are not. Defense gets tired. So then if you look at scoring defense by half...
Colts are actually 8th in 1st-Half scoring defense, Bills are 22nd. But in the second half, the attrition seems to set in and it flips. Colts are 24th in 2nd-Half scoring defense, Bills are 3rd.
Take it even further to 4th-Quarter Scoring defense... Colts drop to 26th.
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This doesn't explain today when they were just bad from the jump. But over the long sample, it makes sense.