Quote:
Originally Posted by TEX
U don't see it? Dang - just look at the stats you chose. Even they show the majority of time they slipped year two.  |
total defense ranking by YDS and PTS
Bills '95 finished 13 and 12, then '96 finished 9 and 6.
improved in both in Y2
ATL '02 finished 19 and 8, then '03 finished 32 and 30. Ouch
total decline
SDG '04 finished 18 and 11, then '05 finished 13 and 13
improved by 7 and slipped 2
DAL '07 finished 9 and 13, then '08 finished 8 and 20 - meh, but points killed
improved by 1 and fell in the other
HOU '11 finished 2 and 4, then '12 finished 7 and 9
slipped 5 in both, still remained top 9
DEN '15 finished 1 and 4, then TBD
Again, I just don't see this catastrophic trend... big collapse in ATL overall. If you want to use HOU as a harbinger for bad things to come, I guess that's ok, but I'll take a top 9 finish every year, despite what they were the prior year. And, it's hard to account in the rearview mirror for the injury impact, if there were any.