Last week, we introduced some new metrics intended to measure players' ability to pick up big chunks of real estate in one play, to find the stars of the game who make the highlight reels by flipping field position in just one snap. Today we're going to look at the NFL's defenses and see which teams are best at preventing plays like this, not producing them, but first I want to respond to some of the feedback we got last week.
Here's a quick look at what I wrote about this idea seven days ago:
The basic concept is to divide all offense yardage into two categories: those yards that move a team towards (or, in the cases of sacks, stuffs, and penalties, pull a team away from) the first down, and those that are accumulated after the first-down line has been crossed.