Originally posted by Yubaking
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There is a limit to what we can do for the turnovers. We lost to the Raiders because we had 5 turnovers (3 int and 2 lost fumbles- 1 TD by Woodson), yet still late in the game, we were still in it. You can almost consider it 6, because we went for it on 4th down and didn't convert in the early 2nd quarter and got no points on the 1 yard line. It was a classic field position game We lost because we moved the ball more, but didn't score, and we didn't allow Oakland to drive much, but when they did they were in a better position to take advantage of it. It also is worth noting that we held them to 3.7 ypc, since you seem to blindly put so much faith in that stat.
Again, you point that we gave up nearly exactly the same # of points in both seasons. So, doesn't that suggest what I have been saying all along? That yards per carry doesn't matter as much as the yards we give up through the air. That it is how the rest of the team performs is just as important in determining if we are going to win or lose, not just our run D. You seem fixated on having a dominant run D, when that doesn't matter like it used to.
If you run the stats for points allowed, there is no correlation between YPC, a weak but similar correlation for YPA and YPP. So, running D doesn't matter nearly as much as passing D.
And you keep stating how awful our D was last year, but they were not universally awful. They were up and down. Again, late in the season, they played as well as any D in football despite not having a pass rush. If there is one thing to fixate on, it is probably that our pass D is going to have a hard time sustaining success without one, which is why I think tying up resources in NT is a waste. Sure, it would be nice to have a better run D, but not at the expense of other positions, especially pass rush. We need to keep some of those resources (especially cap space) so that when we can get a pass rusher or two or three, we have the resources to take advantage of it.
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