Some key numbers that matters for the Commanders: they're 2-1, but Sam Howell has been sacked 19 times in 180 minutes of play. Some other key numbers that are not good: some advanced analytics have the Commanders as one of the worst teams in the NFC.
JP Finlay has access to some great NFL analytics sites, and also visits Pro Football Reference to check out some of their proprietary stats, and, well, one of those says Washington is a bottom-feeder.
"They have something called the simple rating system, which adjusts margin of victory to strength of schedule, and the Commanders are second to last in the NFC with a minus 12.9 SRS," JP said. "Offensively, they are worse than average by about six points, and they're second to last only ahead of the Bears, and behind the 0-3 Giants."
JP is a 'firm believer' in waiting six-to-eight weeks into a season to really understand what a team is, but we know the Commanders can play good defense. He thinks an explosive offense is in there, too…or maybe he did before Denver got waxed by Miami?
"What is making us believe there's an explosive offense in there is a big scoring second half against Denver…but then Denver goes out and gives up 70," Finlay said.
"Denver gave up 70 to one of the top-rated offenses in the league," BMitch replied. "So, I mean, you can't just knock the fact that they did score, but also, I need to see better than good defense more often."
Brian also has a little issue with some of these advanced analytics.
"One thing these don't get is common opponents; when you see somebody and know them a lot, and then you play them, it's different in those games," BMitch said. "When they play the Giants head-to-head, we don't know what will happen – and even when they went to play the Eagles last year, I guarantee the Eagles' stats were far better, but they end up beating them. We talk about AI and all that, but the human aspect gets left out a lot; it's just throwing stuff into our equation and getting something out of it."
The counter to that, JP says, is they're 2-1, and Dallas, also 2-1, lost to a team the Commanders beat, but as Ron Rivera said recently, records don't matter right now…but Brian says the eye test sure does.
"I look at the 3-0 Eagles or Dolphins, and I can probably tell you things equal to or exactly what the stats can tell you, because you can see how good they are," BMitch said. "But when I saw 2-0 Tampa Bay last night, I could see it was a little smoke and mirrors, they're not as good as we've been seeing."
Take a listen to Brian and JP's entire conversation on the analytics above!
