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From: stevev@tekchips.UUCP (Steve Vegdahl)
Newsgroups: net.sport.football
Subject: Re: Super Bowl
Message-ID: <540@tekchips.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Jan-84 15:39:20 EST
Article-I.D.: tekchips.540
Posted: Mon Jan 30 15:39:20 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Feb-84 11:15:10 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 73

I must take issue with Ken Kaufman's statement that the Super Bowl was
evenly played except for six big plays.  First, the average team
only gets the ball 13 times per game, so hypothetically taking away
the six most productive plays from a team and assuming zero
yards and zero points is unsound.  They well may have scored on some
of those possesions anyway.  In order to make the comparison fair,
one must, at the very least, take away the Redskins' six biggest
plays.  (E.g., the sixty-yard pass to Brown, the two fumble recoveries,
a pass or two to Didier.)  Take away those plays and see if the game
is even.  The Redskins got where they did this season by making the
big play--their turnover difference was ~ +43 (roughly three per game).  If
you take away 43 turnovers from Skins during the regular season, they
would, by Ken's arguments, probably be in under .500 on the season.

Why do people say that the Raiders domimated?  It's because the Redskins had
gotten to the Super Bowl primarily by dominating other teams in these areas:
 1. Forcing turnovers and capitalizing on them, and minimizing their own
	turnovers.
 2. Riggins dominant running behind the Hogs.
 3. Theismann's passing to Brown and Monk.
 4. Stopping the run on defense.

In the Super Bowl, the Raider basically nullified these Redskin strengths:
 1. Forced four Redskin turnovers (if you include the blocked punt as a
	turnover), two resulting directly in TD's, while giving up only two.
 2. Stopped Riggins for under 2.5 yards/per carry.  15 of 26 of his carries
	were for 2 yards or less.  Only 3 were for 5 yards or greater (5, 6,
	and 8).  (Yes, I know that one of his 1-yarders was a TD, but he was
	also stopped on a 4th-and-1 play.)  Clearly the Raider defense
	dominated the Skins' running game.
 3. Skins' wide receivers caught only 5 passes all day (6 if you count
	pass interference as a completion), while Theismann was sacked 6
	times.  Altogether, Theismann was 5 for 17 on passes to wide
	receivers, with one interception.  If you assume that the sacks
	were on pass plays that were meant to go to wide receivers, one
	could argue that the Skins collectively were 6 for 24 on pass
	plays to wide receivers.  (The Raiders were 7 for 11 on pass plays
	to wide receivers, including sacks and pass interference.)  Clearly,
	the Raiders defense dominated the Skins WR passing game.  About the
	only thing the Skins did at all well was on passes to backs and tight
	ends, where they were 10 for 16 with one interception, averaging 6.2
	yards/play.  (The Raider offense was 10 for 16 with no interceptions,
	for an average of 4.9 yards/play.)
4.  The Redskins did not contain Allen's running all that well, period.
	Only 7 of his 20 carries were for two yards or less, while 9 were
	for 5 yards or more.  He averaged a very respectable 4.3 yards per
	carry even when his two long-gainers are not counted.  The Raiders
	remaining running backs averaged 3.5 yards on 12 carries.

The reason that the Washington defense did not give up as many
yards as they might have is that the Raider offense effectively had three
fewer possessions than did the Redskins, due to turnovers:
 1.  Raiders lose one offensive possession because blocked punt is recovered
	for TD.
 2.  Raiders lose another possession due to Watts' "fumble" of a punt.
 3.  Raiders lose another possession because interception of screen pass is
	returned for TD.
Rather than looking at total yardage, a statistic such as "number of times
punted", or "average number of yards per offensive possession" might be more
appropriate.  A similar argument can be made against an insinuation that
the Redskins' offense was as effective the Raiders' because they got more
first downs.  (Its hard to chalk up lots of first downs with 74-yard runs.)

Another indication of the Raiders domination is the average number of yards
gained on first down.  I don't have the figures on me, but they were
impressive.

I agree with Ken that it was the Raider defense (not the offense, or Marcus)
that was the most outstanding aspect of in the game, and that a strong case
can be made for Hayes, Haynes, Long or someone on the defense to have
gotten the MVP.

		Steve Vegdahl