themunn":vw29dlsq said:
That article has two huge fallacies in that it compares plays per drive rather than seconds per play. The patriots can run of 70+ plays in a game and end with a smaller ToP for less time than we can running 35 plays because of our style of play. Seccondly, it's looking at it from the pov that rest time between drives is what is important rather than time elapsed on the field over the entire course of the game.
Looking at only TOP is a fallacy of its very own. Consider these two situations:
1. A team rushes for 0 yards, and uses up most of the play clock preparing for the next play.
2. A team has an incomplete pass, and uses up most of the play clock preparing for the next play.
Both scenarios gained 0 yards for the team, and took up the same amount of real time. Yet the former took up 40 seconds on the game clock while the latter took up 5. Those extra 35 seconds mean nothing in reality, yet get added to the TOP stats.
I do agree that defending a run is more tiring than defending a pass, though.
However, I do wonder how tired NFL defenses actually get. You see it more in the college games, when certain teams run 80% of the time. But if NFL defenses really get as tired from defending the opponent as fans think, we wouldn't see so many 4th-quarter comebacks as we do. Think about the Patriot's game. New England had a 8-minute TOP advantage over Seattle (with the caveat that TOP doesn't measure real time, as I noted above), and a 7-minute advantage in the second half. But Seattle's defense didn't look tired at all near the end. With all the endurance training NFL players go through, I think their bodies are more used to the rigors of each game, and spending extra time on the field doesn't faze them that much.
