Win the Time of Possession

Do the Chargers have a chance to beat the now 17-0 Patriots? Of course. But a legitimate chance?

Well, Jim Fassel has a plan. On ESPN First Take this morning he reported that New England has averaged about 3 points per possession this season, and he suggested that if San Diego can hold them to seven possessions in the game, they'll only need to beat 21 points, and they'll have a chance in the fourth quarter.

Is this a good strategy?

Seven possessions for the Patriots means about fifteen possessions total, or about four minutes per possession. So, then, the Chargers strategy should be to keep the ball for at least four minutes at a time?

What kind of football strategy is that? Your goal is not to hold onto the ball, biding your time before you punt! Your goal is to put it in the end zone. Score touchdowns! Time of possession is a side effect.

It is common practice in all walks of life to confuse correlation with causation. Well-intentioned people get ahold of statistics, take them out of their context, and reach downright silly conclusions as a result.

The Chargers may very well win the game this weekend. And, in doing so, they may very well limit the Patriots to seven possessions. Even less likely, the Patriots may score exactly twenty-one points in the process, though I think we can reasonably rule out seven field goals. But even if these things do occur, the Chargers won't have won the game because they only let the Patriots have the ball seven times. Rather, the Patriots will have seen the ball just seven times because the Chargers were winning the game.

When an offense is playing well, it retains possession of the ball for long stretches at a time. Often, the result is points on the board. Thus, there is a strong correlation between scoring and time of possession. Poor performing offenses have lots of three-and-outs, and don't hold the ball very long. They also don't score any points.

Time of possession may well be an important indicator of offensive—and defensive—success. But it is not a worthwhile goal in its own right. If you hold the ball for a long time but ultimately punt it away, the most you can hope to gain is field position. And against an offense like New England's, that isn't worth as much as it used to be.

When it comes right down to it, if the Chargers want another trip to the Super Bowl, they have to score more points than the Pats. Everybody knows that. And if the Patriots get just seven possessions, the Chargers get no more than eight. If they can do more in those eight than Tom Brady and company in their seven, they will win. But if not, then the number of possessions is irrelevant. After all, the Jaguars held New England to seven possessions in their match-up on Saturday. Look where it got them.

Manning was Quite Good

Peyton Manning has received a lot of grief in the last couple days (following their loss to the Chargers) and I'm not really sure why. The Colts did lose the game, but Manning compiled a near 100 QB rating, which is pretty respectable. If you take out the ridiculous Eric Weddle INT when a very catchable ball bounced right off Kenton Keith's hands right to the defender, Manning would have completed 70% of his passes for 400+ yards with 3 TD's and 1 INT (on a ball off Reggie Wayne's hands). That's a decent afternoon.

Peyton Manning may not have played his best game ever, but he was sharp early (didn't he complete his first 14 passes?) and the Colts were hurt badly on the Marvin Harrison fumble in the 1st quarter when they were driving for a 14-0 lead. I don't buy the announcers take that Harrison being rusty caused him to fumble. I think he fumbled because he's a fragile WR who avoids contact at all costs. It looked, to me, like Harrison was trying to figure out a way to get down on the ground before the defense could get a lick on him. In fact, I was hoping he'd do that ... and I figured he would because he ALWAYS does. However, with all the Chargers around him, he was unable to get down and ended up in an unfamiliar position trying to spin away from defenders and he got nailed. That one is on Harrison.

If the Colts got points out of that drive (they almost certainly would have being close to the Charger 20), it might have changed the whole dynamic of that game. Another big play was the Weddle INT. Keith might have made a first down (or TD) and the Colts would have got at least a few points out of the drive. The Colts were in FG range again late in the game (at the SD 7) and went for it on 4th down trailing by 4.

I'm not saying Manning played perfectly, but he was pretty good. The running backs managed just 50 yards on 17 carries (less than 3 yards per), forcing the team to be one-dimensional late and decreasing Peyton's efficiency. It's easy to blame the starting QB for wins and losses, but I don't think it's the right thing to do in this case. Manning played like Manning does (his QB rating was 98 this year) and the Colts just didn't get it done.

"Kansas Confirmation"?

ESPN's Heather Dinich wrote an article titled "It took till last game, but Kansas proved it belonged." What an idiotic thing to write about the KU victory in the Orange Bowl. The Jayhawks beat the Virginia Tech Hokies and definitely deserve recognition for having a solid season. But, the fact remains that the Missouri Tigers should have been in the Orange Bowl on the strength of their season in which they lost to only 1 team (Oklahoma - albeit twice) and beat KU. Missouri also took down Illinois in their non-conference schedule. Who did KU play non-conference?

Missouri throttled Arkansas 38-7. I would say that Missouri made a decent case that they should have played a more dangerous opponent than the 8-4 Razorbacks. In fact, if anything was "confirmed" in the last few days (aside from that OU needs to take a hard look at bowl prep and defensive strategies), I'd say it was that the Missouri Tigers should have been playing in a BCS game. Kansas is a good team, but they lost to Missouri straight up and have not done anything this year to prove that it was better than their rival ... thus, they definitely didn't prove they belonged in the Orange Bowl over Missouri.