In the wind, I bend.

The storm rages and mighty Oaks crack.

In the morning, I still stand.     - Unknown

Football is almost as good as Baseball for generating the 'statistics' that we nerds love to chew on.  For those folks in Fantasy Leagues, it's Mother's Milk.  But the one thing that Fantasy Leagues don't capture is a holistic view of the real teams from which we draft our players...and in my opinion, one of the most under-appreciated statistics in Football is the 'Bendability Index.'  

Up until about five years ago, this statistic didn't even really exist.  At the intersection of Football Fandom and Statistical Geekdom, there occasionally comes a simple tool that reveals many truths.  The Bendability Index (BI) is one of them.

The BI was created by a few enterprising folks over at ColdHardFootballFacts.com, who apparently had way too much access to spreadsheets, (and way too little access to girlfriends).  At any rate, the BI shows some important things about a Football team:  It tells us how hard our opponents have to work in order to score points against us.

Now this may sound like a purely 'defensive' statistic, but it isn't.  It encompasses many things like special teams play, offensive field position, turnover ratio and how well a defense can 'flex' without breaking, i.e. giving up points.  It's a simple calculation and it works something like this:  Take the 'Total Number of Yards Allowed' and divide it by the 'Total Number of Points Allowed.' 

It's pretty simple, but there is just a little more to it.  The inventors of this stat decided to normalize this ratio against a 'touchdown.'  What this means is that instead of taking the pure ratio of Yards to Points, we look at how many yards a team has to travel, in order to score 'seven points' against us.  So, the actual BI is calculated this way:  'Total Number of Yards Allowed' divided by 'Total Points Allowed' times 'Seven.'

Now here is the interesting bit:

The 2009 Broncos are currently sitting on a mind numbing BI of 205.8 yards per seven points(TD).  What this means is that our opponents have to travel from goal line to goal line, TWICE, in order to score seven points against us.  This is the probably the highest BI seen in the NFL since this statistic has been tracked.

Doesn't sound that impressive?

The Atlanta Falcons are the  #2 team in the league at this statistic, and their BI sits at 158.1 yards per 'TD.'  The Colts are currently sitting at #3 with a BI of 145.7 yards per 'TD' and it drops sharply from there.

As a point of reference, the 2008 Broncos racked up a BI of 93.8 yards per 'TD.'  Currently, the 2009 San Diego Chargers hold a BI of 100.4 yards per 'TD.' 

And while we're on the subject of the Chargers, there seems to be two schools of thought with respect to predicting the outcome of the game on Monday night:  The Sun Tzu school and the Statistical School.

In the 'Art of War' by Sun Tzu, the great Chinese general proposed that if you wanted to get the best out of your troops, you placed them on Killing Ground; a place from which they could not retreat and had to fight...or die.  This might describe the situation with the Chargers at the moment, on whom great expectations were placed at the beginning of the season.  They are desperate and will surely fight hard on Monday night.

But will that be enough?

Lets look at the Statistical School for a moment.  The Chargers' defense is currently ranked #26 in the NFL for yards allowed per game, and #25 in the NFL for points allowed per game - barely above Oakland and Kansas City.  They truly have one of the worst defenses in the league, regardless of their record.   Is that miserable defense offset by home field advantage...combined with some mystical hold that they have over the Broncos due to last year's performance?

The Bolts fans can look back to last year and cling to a slender thread of hope, but that thread does not exist anymore.  The Broncos are a completely different team this year...and the Chargers are about to find that out.

On Monday night, we'll discover which 'school' was more right.

Cheers!

-OKD

P.S.    For those who like numbers, here's a fun little exercise in which we can use the BI to predict the score of a game  -  Take the Average Offensive Yards per Game of each team, divide it by the other team's BI, and multiply by '7.'

For Monday night's game against the Chargers, here's what I come up with:

Chargers - 349.3 Average Yards/Game divided by 205.8 Yards/TD x 7 equals:  ~12 points

Broncos -  376.8 Average Yards/Game divided by 100.4 Yards/TD x 7 equals:  ~27 points

So there's the score folks:  Broncos 27, Chargers 12.  Looks like the Bolts will be either kicking field goals, or missing extra points.

Adjusting for home field advantage (-3) would make it Broncos 24, Chargers 12.

Fun with numbers, eh?

;-)