I was perusing the Patriots' record, and I noticed something interesting.
Here are their point totals for games they won (respectively): 27, 38, 38, 43, 38, 25, 31, 27, 24, 24, 38
That works out to...
... an
average of 32.09 points per game
... and a
median value of 31 points
... and a
mode value of 38 points
... and a
range of 11
Here are the point totals for games they lost (respectively): 20, 10, 10, 33, 10
That works out to...
... an
average of 16.6 points per game
... and a
median value of 10 points
... and a
mode value of 10 points
... and a
range of 23
In the playoffs, the Patriots have scored 41 against the Chargers and 37 against the Chiefs, averaging 39.
Meanwhile, what about the Rams?
Here are point totals for games they won (respectively): 33, 34, 35, 38, 33, 23, 39, 29, 36, 54, 30, 31, 48
That works out to...
... an
average of 35.6 points per game
... and a
median value of 34 points
... and a
mode value of 33 points
... and a
range of 31
Here are point totals for games they lost (respectively): 35, 6, 23
That works out to...
... an
average of 21.3 points per game
... and a
median value of 23 points
... and there is
no mode (no repeating value)
... and a
range of 29
In the playoffs the Rams have scored 30 against the Cowboys and 26 against the Saints, averaging 28.
You could think of it this way: the Rams' median score when they
lost is higher than the Patriots' second-highest score losing (20). So if we can hold the Patriots to under 21 points, we have an excellent chance of winning.
This suggests that, whatever it is we do on defense, it needs to be designed toward preventing big plays that get the Patriots into the endzone quickly. Bend, don't break should be the mantra. Redzone defense needs to tighten up big time. If they kick a field goal but don't get a touchdown, that's a "win" on that drive.
Meanwhile, it will be very helpful for our offensive firepower to get back up near its regular season numbers. While the Rams defense has been better in the playoffs, scoring has also been down considerably, and that will need to get fixed against the Patriots who are tearing up other teams' scoreboard right now.
(If you're not up on statistical terms, "median" is the value in the middle when you arrange them from least to greatest and in a large enough dataset is often considered a better indicator of the future than average which can be skewed by large outliers. "Mode" is the number that appears the most often. "Range" is the difference between the highest and lowest values and in a case like game scores could tell you how reliably a team might score near their average or median.)
