Giants are the highest scoring team in football with 292 points, only 3 points ahead of the Jets and this week's opponent, the Cardinals. Giants defense is not the leader in fewest points allowed - they are the 5th best in the league. But they are the leader in terms of point differential. They have allowed 170 points and therefore have scored 122 more points than they have allowed. The only other team in the NFL with numbers close to the Giants are the Titans who have a point differential of 113. The next closest team is the Eagles who have scored 71 more than they've allowed followed by the Jets (68) and Panthers (67).
Point differential is an interesting statistic. Yards allowed and yards gained are not good measures of how good the defense and offense truly are. Points can be a little misleading also, but after 10 games, which is a large enough sample to smooth out the effects of one huge game, I think they are more descriptive than yards gained/allowed. The >100 point differential is a great indicator of team strength.
Strength of schedule is an important influence to all team stats as well as to its record, of course. I think the Titans are a real good team, but they only have 2 wins against teams that are currently over .500: Colts(6-4) and Ravens(6-4). By contrast, the Giants have beaten 5 teams that now have a better than .500 record: Redskins (6-4), Eagles (5-4-1), Cowboys(6-4), Steelers(7-3) and Ravens(6-4).
The rest of the way, 5 of the 6 teams that the Giants play are over .500 and the Titans have only 3 of their remaining 6 opponents in that category. Interesting schedule twist: if the Titans go 15-0, the qb standing in their way for a perfect regular season will be the brother of the qb that tried to block last year's Patriots game 16 - Titans versus Colts.
Giants have the best running game in football, averaging 170 yards per game and have gained more than 200 yards in 5 straight games. But the passing game has declined and it has been a while since the passing game generated more than 200 yards. That's not good. The Giants have to get their passing game going if they're going to play their best and win in the playoffs. My feeling is that the Giants will have to get their passing game going this week and put up some points, because they could get into a track meet against the Cardinals and their incredibly gifted WR's. More on the upcoming Cardinals game in a later post.
1 comment:
With our banged up secondary, this could be an interesting game. I'm looking forward to seeing Eli throw some. I don't hink I've seen a deep pass in 3 weeks! I imagine the goal would be to control the clock and keep them off the field, but they can strike first. Truth is, if we take homefield for the playoffs, we don't even need a passing game...
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