Redskins' Jim Haslett: Yardage rankings are 'for losers' By Marc Sessler Around the League Writer NFL.comPublished: Feb. 15, 2014 at 11:54 a.m. 
Jim Haslett has a name for all the critics who went off on his Washington Redskins defense this past season.Losers.That's right. The team's defensive coordinator says anyone who picks apart Washington's defense -- or any defense -- by pointing to yardage allowed, the NFL's default ranking tool, doesn't understand how the game truly is measured."The year before, we were third in the league in turnovers," Haslett told WTEM-AM on Thursday, per The Washington Post. "And the offense was number one in the league; they only turned it over 14 times. So if that ratio comes up, you're gonna win a lot of games. Yardage? People look at that. That's kind of for losers."Said Haslett: "Teams that are winning and got big leads, you give up yards at the end of the game. Offenses that aren't very good, they get yardage at the end of the game, so they can rank high. That's not the object. The object is to get the ball back for the offense, let them score points."Totally agree. Measuring a defense purely on yardage allowed is dodgy territory. Today's fans possess much better tools to judge a team's performance. Of course, Redskins defensive backs coach Raheem Morris noted last month that "stats are always for losers," an argument that benefits a Washington defense -- and special teams -- that graded out horribly by the people over at Pro Football Focus.In terms of yards allowed, the Redskins landed 18th in the league, giving up 354.1 yards per game. Much more troubling was the second-worst 29.9 points per outing they allowed during Washington's tumble-from-grace three-win campaign.Last season's game tape reveals a team that exhibited poor tackling week after week, especially in the secondary. While we agree with Haslett's yardage argument, his defense was a core reason the Redskins were "losers" 13 times, a figure topped by only the lowly Houston Texans in 2013.
Meh. The problem with turnovers or even points against is that they're affected more by luck (particularly when it comes to recovering fumbles) and what the team's offense and special teams do (in terms of the length of the field they have to defend). Going by yardage is just trying to normalize for those factors. It's obviously not perfect. Like all stats, it just needs to be taken in context and not as the One True Statistic to rule them all.
Meh. The problem with turnovers or even points against is that they're affected more by luck (particularly when it comes to recovering fumbles) and what the team's offense and special teams do (in terms of the length of the field they have to defend). Going by yardage is just trying to normalize for those factors. It's obviously not perfect. Like all stats, it just needs to be taken in context and not as the One True Statistic to rule them all.
The thing is yardage for a defense can be massively altered if the teams offense turns the ball over a bunch.You only have to go back and look at the Raiders when Ryan was their DC, they had 1 decent ranking the whole time he was there and that was yardage, they couldn't stop anyone as their points allowed showed but the other teams didn't have to move the ball that far thanks to lots of short fields.The true ranking of a unit is something that includes all factors.Instead of this BS yardage ranking they need something like the QB Rating that factors in yards, points, average starting field position, number of drives (as seen with our Bucs the D wears out at the end of games and gets blamed for choking if the offense doesn't do anything for most of the game), 3 & outs, turnovers, etc it would would be a much better indicator of a units effectiveness.
Losers.
That would of been a more accurate caption for that pic.
Raheem's philosophy leaking through to Haslett. This is good news for the NFC East.
If only there were things like advanced metrics......
Raheem's defense should be measured by amounts of flying chest bumps.
Total yards or total points are both not perfects stats. Their correlation with other stats that do matter show they are reasonably reliable indicators. Sadly for Haslett, usually better offenses correlate with worse defenses (slightly) because teams get behind and throw and defenses play softer surrendering more yards. The Deadskins offense sucked so that isn't an excuse. Turnovers vary wildly from year to year in most cases. Fumbles are a purely random factor in terms of recovery and INT's are much more driven by who you play than how you play - in other words play enough Gabberts and Geno Smith's and you will pile up turnovers faster than playing a Brady and Manning.
If only there were things like advanced metrics......
LOLI swear they need a circus tent over that team. Even with all the changes, I think we will still see the same old dysfunctional Redskins. As long as Danny boy is calling the shots.
