Okay, so, I wanted to mess around with some NFL data, specifically defensive rankings. It’s something I’ve been curious about for a while, and I finally decided to dive in.
First, I started by just looking around online. I mean, who needs to get fancy right away, right? I was mainly just trying to get a feel for what kind of data is out there and what other people are doing. I saw some interesting stuff from a few weeks back, around late October 2023, that talked about the top defenses at that point in the season. Seemed like a good starting point.
Then I started gathering some data. I used some basic tools to pull down info on team defenses throughout the regular season. I felt like a real data nerd, but it was actually pretty fun. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, but I figured I’d start with the basics, like yards allowed, points allowed, stuff like that.
Once I had a decent amount of data, I started playing around with it. I tried sorting it in different ways, you know, just to see what patterns I could find. Who’s the best at stopping the run? Who’s got the best pass defense? That kind of thing. I was just trying to get a feel for the numbers and see if anything jumped out at me.
I also started thinking about what I’ve seen this season. Like, which teams just seem tough to play against? It was a real mix of stats and, like, my gut feeling. It was around early November, and I remember seeing that there was a new top defensive team after, like, 10 weeks of the same team being on top. That got me thinking about how things change over the course of a season.
After messing around with the data and my own thoughts for a while, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the defensive landscape in the NFL. It wasn’t anything super scientific or anything. It is more like using some common sense to do the sortings.
- Top Dogs: I figured out which teams were consistently at the top of the rankings.
- Rising Stars: I spotted some teams that started slow but really improved their defense as the season went on.
- Overrated/Underrated: I also found some teams that maybe the numbers didn’t fully reflect, you know? Like, some teams might have good stats but didn’t pass the “eye test,” and vice versa.
In the end, I didn’t come up with anything groundbreaking, but I definitely learned a lot. It was a fun little project, and it gave me a new appreciation for how complex and dynamic NFL defenses can be. I’ll probably keep messing around with this stuff, maybe try to refine my methods a bit. Who knows, maybe I’ll even come up with some crazy predictions for next season. It is fun, right?