Quote:
Originally Posted by Joborule
I don't think that if you made the downs less that scores will be that low. Teams would take more of a passing slant as it is done in the CFL.
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If this was so, why wouldn't they just "take more of a passing slant" NOW and have the luxury of an "extra" down as they continually moved the yardsticks effortlessly until they hit end-zone? Nothing is stopping any team from doing it - why don't they? Sheer pig-headedness and lack of imagination?
Just to illustrate, look at a team that DOES emphasize the pass already, last year's #1 offence the New Orleans Saints. They ran 636 pass attempts vs 398 rush attempts, for a 61.5% pass/run play ratio - for comparison sakes the pass-happy CFL Stampeders ran 380 rush and 614 pass attempts, for a 61.7% pass/run play ratio. So you might say the Saints are ALREADY running a CFL-style offence, yet of their 354 first downs, 97 of them came on 3rd down, or 29% of the time, which I think we can safely say isn't a result of them not passing enough.
Now if you take the overall number of first downs they had, 354, and compare it to the total number of times they failed to get a first down, 111, you see they were about 76% successful (Stampeders 78%) getting a first down on each series; drop another 97 first downs and they are now at a 55% ratio, which is worse than the absolute crappiest offence (at converting first downs) in the league last year - the Raiders - who managed 57% and scored 263 measly points (compared to NO's 463 and Calgary's 595).
So the best offence in the NFL would be arguably below the statistics of the worst offence as currently exists. You'd be looking at score reductions in the range of a minimum 40%, in a league where a quarter of the teams
already can't manage 20 points a game. And that's leaving aside the question of whether a bad team like the Raiders (who would have converted a pathetic 37% of their downs if only given 3 to work with) would score at all, as once you fall that low, you are looking at moving the ball for more than 2 consecutive first downs little more than 1 time in 20, so you will be relying on the big play or special teams for practically all your points.
So I don't think miniscule scores are at all unlikely, although maybe if you had a Indianopolis vs New Orleans barnburner, it might end up 21-17. Cincinatti vs Oakland, though, would be decided by who turned over the ball in the other team's field goal range more often than not...