After 15 games, the Green Bay Packers are 14-1. But this season, the Packers have been outgained by their opponents. In fact, the Packers have won more than half of their games while losing the yardage battle. How is that possible?
It’s tempting to just think that total yards is meaningless as a measure of team ability, but that’s not really the case. The team that wins the yardage battle has won 66% of all games this season. New England and New Orleans, the two teams most similar to Green Bay, have outgained their opponents in 19 of their 30 games this season. The Steelers, Texans and Saints are the top three teams in yardage differential while the Colts, Rams and Bucs are the bottom three. As a metric, yards and yards allowed have flaws; I would never use yards to rank a player or a team, and the same goes for yards allowed. But yards are still generally correlated with success. So let’s dig a little deeper into what’s actually happened for the Packers this season.
Green Bay ranks 16th in yardage differential, as only 14 teams have outgained their opponents. But Green Bay has lost a lot of possessions this season. A turnover ends your opponent’s drive and gives you a possession, except when you return that turnover for a touchdown. The Packers have seven interception, fumble or special teams touchdowns this season, depriving the offense of possessions. The Packers also muffed two punts (both against Minnesota) and lost a couple of onside kicks. The Packers have also had a few kneel down drives at the end of halves, where they only technically had a possession. Of course, the same has happened to their opponents, but Green Bay has disproportionately lost significantly more drives than the average team this season.
Excluding kneel-down drives at the end of a half, the Packers have had 154 drives this season; their opponents have had 164 drives. The Packers have averaged 38.6 yards of offense per drive this season compared to just 36.6 for their opponents. If you gave Green Bay 10 extra possessions and they gained yards at the same rate, then the Packers would rank 11th in yardage differential. It’;s still surprising that a 14-1 team has “only” outgained its opponents by a couple of yards per drive, but that’s the more telling stat. The fact that the Packers have been outgained this season is entirely a function of losing drives on offense due to return touchdowns and some lost possessions via muffed punts and onside kicks.
But even yards per drive is prejudicial against the Packers. That’s because Green Bay’s average drive has started at the 30.1 yard line, while their opponents average line of scrimmage to start a drive is the 24.9 yard line. If you eliminate the 20 drives where Green Bay had its best starting field position, the Packers average line of scrimmage on their remaining 134 drives was the 24.9 yard line, the same as their opponents. But removing those drives bumps the average yards gained per drive from 38.6 to 41.1. On touchdown drives, you can only gain so many yards, so it makes sense that the Packers see an increase of 2.5 yards per drive when their field position is worse. If you pro-rate the 41.1 yards on those 134 drives to 164 drives (the number of drives the Packers’ opponents have had this season), Green Bay would outgain their opponents by over 700 yards, good enough to rank 7th in the league. Note that this impacts Green Bay much more than most teams: according to Football Outsiders, through 15 weeks, the Packers had the 5th best starting field position per drive on offense and the 3rd best starting field position for its defense (i.e., farther away from the Packers’ own end zone). Those factors will inflate the amount of yards per drive the Packers allow and deflate the amount of yards per drive the Packers give up.
What about garbage time? There’s no doubt that the Packers have allowed some garbage time drives. The Raiders drove 75+ yards when trailing by 30 points in the second half — twice. So did the Broncos. The Bears and Panthers have 80+ yard drives in the final five minutes when trailing by 14+ points, and the Lions had a meaningless drive that picked up 75 yards late on Thanksgiving. But the Packers have faced many garbage time drives this season, so you would naturally expect any average defense to give up a bunch of yards on some drives.
I defined a “garbage time drive” as one where the opponent started a drive trailing by more than 24 points at any point, or by more than 16 points with 10 or fewer minutes left, or by more than 8 points with five or fewer minutes left. There were 24 such drives, including all of the ones identified above. But there were also 8 drives where the opponents gained fewer than 10 yards, as being in “garbage time” can work against the offense, too. In fact, those teams gained an average of 34.0 yards on those garbage time drives (average line of scrimmage at start of drive: 25.3), lower than opponents gained per drive against Green Bay when in less trashy situations. So garbage time isn’t an explanation for why the Packers have given up a chunk of yards.
But what about on the other side? Green Bay has had one drive that would classify as during garbage time: when the Packers trailed by 12 when they got the ball with under 5 minutes to go against the Chiefs. They drove 80 yards for the score, but never saw the ball again. However, Green Bay has had 17 drives where they had the ball in the positive side of garbage time: up by more than 24 points, up by more than 16 with 10 or fewer minutes remaining, or up by more than 8 with 5 or fewer minutes left. Even including the one drive against the Chiefs, Green Bay has averaged just 22.3 yards per drive during garbage time situations (although the average drive started at the 38.4 yard line). If you exclude all drives where the Packers started on the opponent’s side of the field, though, the Packers still averaged only 22.8 yards per drive in the remaining garbage time drives. The sample size is small, but there is evidence to indicate that garbage time has hurt the Packers — it’s just that the effect is on the offensive side of the ledger.
What about the ‘bend but don’t break’ theory? The Packers rank 17th in red zone defense, making them far from elite once teams approach the Packers’ end zone. It’s tempting to think that’s the reason, since the Packers rank 13th in points allowed and 31st in yards allowed. But there are other factors involved; Green Bay leads the league in interceptions, which helps improve their own offense’s average field position. And like New England, the great offense really helps their defense when it comes to field position. On Monday Night Football against the Bears, Chicago’s average drive started at their 20.1 yard line. Chicago had a 78-yard drive that went for a field goal; three drives of 55-61 yards ended with an interception or a field goal attempt, and ended with only three points.
Green Bay has far from a dominant defense. They give up a ton of yards, but they benefit from generally having good field position. That, combined with an absurd amount of interceptions, helps the Packers limit their opponents on the scoreboard. But the Packers aren’t an elite team. Football Outsiders and Advanced NFL Stats have had the Packers as a very good but far from historically great team all season long. PFR’s Simple Rating System has the Packers at #1 — remember, the SRS is based solely on points scored, points allowed and strength of schedule — but the Saints, Patriots and 49ers are not that far behind.
The Packers are 5th in offensive yards, which belies their elite offense. The Packers rank 1st in both NY/A and ANY/A; at worst, they have the third best offense in the league, and the gap between the top three offenses and the rest of the league is massive. Green Bay, along with the Saints and Patriots, has a deadly passing game that makes them capable of winning every game. But the Packers have had fewer drives than most teams, which limits their potential output; the Packers also generally get the ball in excellent field position, somewhat limiting the amount of yards they can gain.
Green Bay is 31st in yards allowed, but that’s not all that misleading. The Packers have faced some extra drives, but this is simply not a good defense: and you can’t put the blame on garbage time stats. I don’t think ‘bend but don’t break’ really applies to the Packers, who are actually quite the opposite of that. Green Bay leads the league with an absurd interception rate — 5.0% — but otherwise the pass defense is terrible. It seems like Green Bay’s defensive philosophy is more boom or bust: get the interception or it’s going to be ugly. The Packers are in the bottom five of the league in net yards per pass allowed, and there’s no excuse for that. Green Bay’s defense has forced a bunch of turnovers which is one of the biggest reasons why the Packers have surprisingly been outgained this season. But that’s about the only good thing the defense can do.
So why are the Packers 14-1? Despite ranking 28th in NY/A allowed, Green Bay’s first-place ranking in NY/A makes a significant dent in the rankings. In fact, the Packers still rank sixth overall in “net” net yards per attempt allowed:
Rk Tm NY/A NY/A A Net 1 Pittsburgh Steelers 7.2 4.9 2.20 2 Houston Texans 7.0 5.1 1.96 3 New Orleans Saints 7.6 6.4 1.26 4 Detroit Lions 6.7 5.6 1.12 5 New York Giants 7.6 6.4 1.12 6 Green Bay Packers 8.2 7.1 1.06 7 Oakland Raiders 7.0 6.0 0.96 8 Philadelphia Eagles 7.0 6.0 0.93 9 New England Patriots 7.9 7.2 0.63 10 Tennessee Titans 6.4 5.8 0.59 11 Baltimore Ravens 5.9 5.4 0.51 12 Dallas Cowboys 7.0 6.5 0.50 13 Cincinnati Bengals 6.0 5.8 0.26 14 Atlanta Falcons 6.7 6.5 0.24 15 San Diego Chargers 7.0 6.8 0.21 16 San Francisco 49ers 5.9 6.0 -0.08 17 Arizona Cardinals 5.9 6.0 -0.14 18 Miami Dolphins 6.1 6.3 -0.20 19 Chicago Bears 5.9 6.2 -0.29 20 Carolina Panthers 7.0 7.3 -0.32 21 Washington Redskins 6.0 6.4 -0.34 22 Seattle Seahawks 5.6 6.1 -0.49 23 New York Jets 5.5 6.1 -0.54 24 Buffalo Bills 6.2 6.8 -0.65 25 Cleveland Browns 5.2 6.0 -0.85 26 Denver Broncos 5.4 6.5 -1.12 27 Kansas City Chiefs 5.8 6.9 -1.14 28 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5.9 7.5 -1.61 29 St. Louis Rams 4.7 6.3 -1.62 30 Minnesota Vikings 5.3 7.0 -1.71 31 Indianapolis Colts 5.2 7.1 -1.89 32 Jacksonville Jaguars 4.3 6.2 -1.89
Add in ridiculous interception rates on both sides of the ball — the Packers are +22 in interceptions — and you’ve got arguably the best team in football. They have a Pythagorean Record of 11.4-3.6 — which, like the SRS, only looks at points and points scored — so even with the great passing numbers and the strong interception rate, the Packers are lucky to be 14-1. While they haven’t been in too many close calls, they also haven’t blown out many teams, either. Green Bay is one of the top three teams in the league, but by no means are they an unbeatable machine. But the fact that they have allowed more yards than they’ve gained has nothing to do with that.