Regular season numbers, postseason success

In preparation for my upcoming breakdowns of Sunday’s conference championship games, I’ve been looking at a bunch of statistics and studying each teams. I thought it might be interesting to talk about what these teams have in common. (And what the losing teams don’t.) While some of these statistics could be coincidences or one-year flukes, it might help you understand what’s important for winning teams to focus on.

1. They run. Three of the four remaining playoff teams (Seattle, Denver and Pittsburgh) rank in the top five among the league’s rushing offenses. That’s not too shocking, since those rankings are based on total yardage and good teams tend to run the ball a lot to kill the clock at the end of victories (with the obvious exception of the Colts).

But those teams don’t just run a lot, they run well-Seattle and Denver’s per-carry averages both round to 4.7, and Pittsburgh picks up 4.0 per rush. Carolina actually ranked 19th in rushing and 29th in average (3.4) in the regular season, but still had a commitment to the running game, ranking 10th in the league in attempts despite such a poor success rate.

Watching from the couch: New England. I think everyone realizes by now how much I respect Tom Brady’s abilities, but even he needs a little help. The Patriots were 24th in rushing and gained just 3.4 per run. Against Denver, they picked up only 79 yards on the ground.

2. They stop the run. Instead of getting into why this is important, let’s just list the top five defenses this year against the run:

1. San Diego
2. Denver
3. Pittsburgh
4. Carolina
5. Seattle

Sure, these are yardage-based and, like the above, would favor teams with winning records. But in yards per carry, you’ve got Pittsburgh leading the league in giving up just 3.4 per rush, followed by Carolina in 4th (3.6) and Seattle in 5th (3.6). Denver ranks 15th, by far the worst, giving up 4.0.

Watching from the couch: Indianapolis. The Colts still have no run defense, though Pittsburgh was pretty unsuccessful against them Sunday. Yet the Steelers ran up almost a ten-minute advantage in time of possession, thanks largely to 42 rushing attempts.

3. They understand that pass efficiency is more important than huge passing totals. Jake Plummer, Jake Delhomme, Matt Hasselbeck and Ben Roethlisberger will never be confused with Peyton Manning, a fact all probably take great pride in at this moment. And Champ Bailey might be the only big-name pass defender left in the postseason.

But each of the teams pass well when they have to and shut down the opposition when need be, even though passing is not the focus of any remaining team’s offense. (In total yardage, they rank from Seattle at 13th to Pittsburgh at 24th.)

But in terms of yards-per-attempt, all four teams rank in the top ten both in yards gained and fewest yards allowed, except Seattle, which ranks a decent 17th in the league in giving up 6.76 yards per attempt. Of course, with Seattle’s eleven-game winning streak, the Seahawks probably gave up a bunch of huge gains in garbage time.

Watching from the couch: Tampa Bay. Chris Simms threw for a solid 198 yards against Washington...but it took him 38 throws to rack up that total, for an average of just 5.2 per.

4. Each team has a coach with extensive and successful playoff experience. In fact, each head man has led a team in the Super Bowl, and only Mike Holmgren of Seattle hasn’t done it with his current franchise. My personal power rankings of the remaining coaches looks like:

1. Mike Shanahan, Denver
2. John Fox, Carolina
3. Mike Holmgren, Seattle
4. Bill Cowher, Pittsburgh

And while I’d be the first to mock Cowher if Pittsburgh was in one of its 5-11 down years instead of its AFC title game highs, he has been very successful overall in his career. I’m the first to rip Shanahan’s personnel decisions (and he’s obviously going to get more rips and praise here since this is primarily a Denver sports blog), he remains one of the only coaches in history to win multiple Super Bowls.

This is would be a shaky indicator to use as a predictor of future success, if only because each of these guys had to make it to a Super Bowl for a first time at some point. In fact, the last six Super Bowls have featured at least one coach who was making his first appearance in the championship as a head man.

But in a year with no clearly dominant favorite, I think it makes sense that head-coaching experience could be a bigger factor than usual.

Watching from the couch: Chicago. While the Bears put up a surprising three touchdowns, the Panthers made quick work of their vaunted defense. Perhaps by next year, Coach of the Year Lovie Smith will a) have heard of Steve Smith and b) realize that Rex Grossman can’t throw (27 runs against 41 passes?).