NFL Power Poll, Conference Championships

Rank	Team	Record	Score	Playoff Score	Super Bowl	Conference	Divisional	Wild Card
1		12-4	87.29	38.86		10.36	28.50
2		12-4	61.67	-7.12			-7.12
3		12-4	47.90	-6.14		-10.36	4.22
4		10-6	35.08	13.43			1.94	11.49
5		11-5	31.59	-5.52				-5.52
6		12-4	31.02	1.30			-4.22	5.52
9		7-8-1	10.42	-1.06			-28.50	27.44
10		10-5-1	9.25	-18.90				-18.90
11		12-4	8.95	38.13		40.07	-1.94
14		11-5	3.37	-11.49				-11.49
20		11-5	-8.74	-14.05		-40.07	7.12	18.90
21		11-5	-9.08	-27.44				-27.44

Conference Championship Matchups: 

	Team	Green Bay			Seattle
		Reg. Season	Rank	WC Game	Reg. Season	Rank	WC Game
Efficiency Statistics	Total	47.90	3	-10.36	87.29	1	10.36
	Rush YPC	4.4	10	4.5	5.3	1	5.5
	Def YPC	4.3	19	5.5	3.4	2	4.5
	Pass YPA	8.3	2	5.0	7.7	6	6.8
	Def YPA	6.4	10	6.8	5.9	2	5.0
	Total	2.0	3	-2.8	3.7	1	2.8
	Takeaways	27	8	5	24	20	2
	Giveaways	13	1	2	14	3	5
	Big Plays For	101	2	3	110	1	13
	Big Plays Vs	78	17	13	44	1	3
	Differential	37	3	-7	76	1	7
	Points Scored	2.88	1	1.69	2.25	8	1.75
	Points Allowed	1.99	19	1.75	1.49	2	1.69
	Differential	0.89	1	-0.06	0.76	3	0.06
3rd Down/ Red Zone	3rd Down For	47.21%	3	21.43%	42.45%	11	50.00%
	3rd Down Against	40.29%	18	50.00%	37.13%	8	21.43%
	Red Zone For	57.81%	10	33.33%	51.67%	20	66.67%
	Red Zone Against	56.25%	20	66.67%	59.46%	26	33.33%
DVOA	Offense	24.60%	1	-4.00%	16.70%	5	-10.00%
	Defense	-1.00%	16	-25.00%	-16.30%	1	-38.00%
	Special Teams	-2.30%	22	23.00%	-1.70%	19	-6.00%
	Total	23.30%	3	44.00%	31.30%	1	22.00%
	Weighted Total	24.00%	3		32.80%	1	38.80%

	Team	Indianapolis			New England
		Reg. Season	Rank	WC Game	Reg. Season	Rank	WC Game
Efficiency Statistics	Total	-8.74	20	-40.07	8.95	11	40.07
	Rush YPC	3.9	22	4.4	3.9	22	4.4
	Def YPC	4.3	19	4.4	4.0	8	4.4
	Pass YPA	7.7	7	3.8	7.1	20	6.3
	Def YPA	6.8	17	6.3	6.7	14	3.8
	Total	0.5	14	-2.5	0.3	17	2.5
	Takeaways	26	10	1	25	14	3
	Giveaways	31	29	3	13	1	1
	Big Plays For	84	10	4	68	20	5
	Big Plays Vs	92	30	5	80	19	4
	Differential	-13	21	-3	0	14	3
	Points Scored	2.23	10	0.64	2.59	3	4.09
	Points Allowed	1.85	11	4.09	1.72	9	0.64
	Differential	0.38	10	-3.45	0.87	2	3.45
3rd Down/ Red Zone	3rd Down For	41.01%	13	27.27%	44.14%	7	66.67%
	3rd Down Against	33.17%	1	66.67%	40.19%	16	27.27%
	Red Zone For	55.00%	12	100.00%	58.21%	9	85.71%
	Red Zone Against	66.00%	32	85.71%	47.83%	7	100.00%
DVOA	Offense	-0.90%	17	-32.00%	13.60%	6	32.00%
	Defense	-2.30%	13	8.00%	-3.40%	11	-45.00%
	Special Teams	3.30%	8	-14.00%	5.50%	5	14.00%
	Total	4.70%	12	-54.00%	22.40%	4	91.00%
	Weighted Total	1.80%	13		31.40%	2	39.80%

Things to Note:

• Seattle had 13 big plays (10+ yard rush/25+ yard pass) in their game. Green Bay had only 3. 
• On the drive that ended with Jon Ryan throwing a touchdown on a fake field goal attempt, Seattle had 4 big plays (3 rush, 1 pass). So the Seahawks had more big plays on that one drive than the Packers did all game. 
• Seattle had 3 extra drives (16 vs 13) than Green Bay did in this game: They had the final drive of both halves, the onside kick took a drive away from Green Bay, and Seattle had the only possession in overtime. 
• Green Bay was only 3/14 in converting 3rd down opportunities (note: it would be 5/16 if we included penalties that resulted in a first down). 
• As I said in my NFCC recap, Seattle rushed for more yards than Green Bay, passed for more yards than the Packers, and had both a higher YPC and YPA than Green Bay did. 
• I mentioned in my picks post that Aaron Rodgers had a career 5.7 ypa against the Seahawks. In this game he managed a 5.0. 
• The Patriots managed a single-game efficiency score of 40.07. For reference, the Rams 52-0 drubbing of the Raiders back in Week 13 earned a score of 51.14. 
• As non-competitive as this game was, the Patriots had just 1 more big play than the Colts (5 vs 4). That fits with the Patriots' play during the season, where they had a big play differential of -12 (68 for, 80 against). 
• The Patriots had 7 trips inside the Indianapolis red zone. 

The Forumla: 

I broke down my formula into three parts: 

Part 1: Yards per play. 

Here I take each teams yards per carry (rushing) and yards per attempt (passing) numbers and subtract from them the YPC and YPA their defense allows.  The theory being that, if Team A's offense is better per play than what their opponent's offense can muster against Team A's defense, Team A should be consistently better than their opponents over a full game's worth of plays (60 to 70 per game approximately). 

Part 2: Toxic Differential
A better yards per play differential is helpful to a team's chances of winning, but just how often is an NFL team able to consistently drive down the field taking 5-8 yards at a time? You're essentially asking an NFL offense to put together 10-12 plays without more than 1-2 negative plays, be they incompletions, sacks, no-gainers, or worse: turnovers. It's doable, but it's really hard to do with any sort of consistency in a single game.

This is why coaches harp on turnovers so much. A turnover a) takes away an opponent's possession which decreases their chances of scoring more points, and b) can give your team a shorter field so you don't have to put together an 80+ yard drive to get points of your own. The problem with turnovers is you can't count on them. So much of what goes into a turnover is dependent on a) the other team and b) luck that relying on turnovers is a dangerous proposition.

So yes, turnovers are important. But there's something else that can make getting points in a drive much easier: big plays. If my offense can get 20 or 30 yards in a single play, that cuts out 4-6 plays of grinding, or 4-6 plays where something could go wrong. Now my offense only has to put 5-6 plays together on a drive where they also get a chunk play.

Brian Billick is credited with coming up with the toxic differential statistic. This adds your takeaways and big plays generated by your offense and subtracts your giveaways and the big plays given up by your defense. Again, the theory goes that teams with a better toxic differential will be better at turning drives into points and games into wins. Pete Carroll also bases his offensive and defensive identity around turnovers and big plays being the most important indicators for both sides of the ball.

Note: For this formula, a big play is considered a rushing play of 10+ yards or a passing play of 25+ yards.

Part 3: Points Per Drive
What's the most important job of an NFL team? Score more points than your opponent. Rather than look simple points per game differential, I wanted to dig a little deeper and normalize the data a little further. Game-to-game the number of possessions can vary based on team tempo, weather coniditons, etc. So instead I looked at points per drive data for each team's offense and defense, and multiplied the difference by 10. Why 10? A typical NFL game has 12 possessions, but 1-2 of those come at a point where a team isn't really interested in scoring (maybe they get the ball with 12 seconds to go before halftime, or they get it with 3 minutes to go in the game up 14+ points already. 10 seemed like a good number of possessions per game where the end goal is to score points.