It doesn’t take a degree in Advanced Footballology to know that marching down the field and then scoring in the red zone leads to wins. Conversely, a team that can’t score touchdowns in that part of the field is probably going to be in for a long season. But should teams that find themselves in […]
Advanced football analysis indicates that it’s difficult to make the playoffs while allowing more points than you score. Prior to this year, 564 teams had made the playoffs since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, and just 46 (8.2 percent) did it with a negative point differential. Of those, just 10 allowed regular-season opponents to outscore […]
College football does not lend itself to consensus, but if you asked enough fans to name the best defense the sport has seen this century, you’d probably get a clear answer: 2011 Alabama. The Crimson’s Tide case is overwhelming, no matter the lens used to examine it. Narratively? That team won a national championship game […]
Like anyone going through an identity crisis, Michigan football has had to make some changes. It’s tough to hang your hat on defense in today’s version of the game, but the Wolverines had done so under aggressive former defensive coordinator Don Brown, who took over for the 2016 season. The early returns were immediate and […]
On Monday night, the winless Miami Dolphins were headed toward halftime with a surprising two-touchdown lead. But for a Miami team that is widely believed to be tanking, leading the heavily favored 2-4 Pittsburgh Steelers may not have been a cause for celebration. Beating the Steelers might have boosted short-term morale among the players and […]