Finding the Winning Factors - 3 & Outs

This week in the Finding the Winning Factors series, let's take a look at a not-so common stat:  3 & Outs.  Technically it should be called "Drives without a First Down", but 3 & Outs is the common vernacular, so we'll go with that.  Here's how I calculated it:

Tough huh?  I looked at dividing it by the number of drives in a game, but it wasn't as good at predicting as just straight 3 & Outs.  In the stats I included the Percentages, just for completeness (and to show the Colts awesomeness on offense and not-awesomeness on defense).

I went back to 2001 to see how teams do.  That means I'll be looking at 4,080 games over the past 8 years.  I did this calculation for every game, then found the overall average for a game.  I then went back and compared every game to this average, and found wins/losses based on being above or below average.

Let's get to the numbers:

• The Overall Average number of 3 & Outs over the past 8 years is 3.92 / Game.  About 1 per quarter, and 34.5% of all drives.  That seems high to me, but the numbers don't lie.  Funny enough there have been exactly 16,000 3 & Outs the past 8 years.
  
• The Colts have by far the least number of 3 & Outs, with 336 (or 2.63 / Game).  The difference between the Colts and #2 (Patriots) is the same difference between #2 and #14 (Giants).  The Colts are also way ahead in Percentage at only 25.6%.  I'm not surprised by this at all.
  
• Defensively, the Ravens are #1 again, causing 633 3 & Outs (or 4.95 / Game).  That 1 more 3 & Out, on average, for every game.  How have the Colts done?  If you guessed dead last, you'd be right.  The Colts have only forced 399 3 & Outs (or 3.12 / Game).  Yikes.  But we already knew the Colts were bad at this.
  
• So how often do teams win when they are Above Average on Offense?  1096-767-0, which is 58.8%.  That's definitely not as good as some of the other stats we've looked at.  Having an Above Average defense produces a record of 1271-942-4, which is 57.4%, which is a little worse than the offense. This doesn't seem like it is going to give us good predictions.
  
• When both the Offense and Defense are Above Average, their record is 577-248, or 69.9%.  This ranks 7th out of 10 stats so far, which won't make the cut. I plan on keeping the top 6.
  
• The best game since 2001?  Week 5 in 2005, where the Redskins had 12 drives without a 3 & Out against. the Broncos.  That's pretty darn good.  Unfortunately for them, they lost to the Broncos 21-19. Best game for the Colts offense?  Week 11 in 2003 against the Jets, where they had 11 drives without a 3 & Out, tied for 2nd best game overall (8 games).  

• The worst game since 2001? Week 15 in 2006, where the Buccaneers had 13 3 & Outs against the Bears.  They did have 19 drives in that game though, and scored 31 points, losing in Overtime.  The Colts worst game not involving Sorgi?  Week 12, 2001, a 39-27 loss to Baltimore, where they had 8 3 & Outs.  The Colts have only had 5 games with more than 5 3 & Outs.

• The Colts have only lost 2 games when they have had less than 4 3 & Outs, and the defense has forced 4 or more 3 & Outs: Week 10 in 2003 against the Jaguars (28-23 loss), and Week 13 in 2003 against the Patriots (stupid Edge not getting in the End Zone at the end).  The Colts have won 21 straight games since then.  Come on defense, get your act together and get off the field!
  

So what did we learn today?  Well, 3 & Outs aren't the best way to predict football games, but it isn't the worst we've looked at so far.  We also learned the Colts are really good on offense, and really bad on defense.

I promised a table of all the stats we've looked at so far, and those we still have to look at.  Here goes:

After the jump you'll see the offensive and defensive numbers for each team, as well as Win/Loss records when going above/below the league average.  Click on the headers to sort.  Here's a link to the last 5 years worth of data.  There's not much of a difference, especially since it only took out 3 years worth of data.

Here are the Offensive and Defensive Numbers...

Here are the Win/Loss records of teams when they go above/below average:

And finally, Win/Loss records when the offense is above average, and the defense holds the other team below average