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The Seawhawks' defense has had a lot to celebrate this season, including one of Richard Sherman's interceptions against the Giants.
As the passing revolution overtakes the N.F.L., football fans have become immune to the avalanche of falling records. Teams are averaging 239 passing yards per game and completing 61.3 percent of passes, metrics that would be single-season records. Peyton Manning is on a pace to break the single-season record for passing yards and passing touchdowns, and there was discussion last week that he was not even the most valuable player in the league. Josh Gordon set records for receiving yards in a two-, three- and four-game stretch this season, and the Cleveland Browns lost each of those games. You can forgive fans for not being impressed by gaudy passing numbers when Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles starts the season with 19 touchdowns and no interceptions.
The flip side to the eye-popping passing numbers is that pass defense numbers look worse than ever. The rules changes that have made life easier for offenses have made the game more challenging for pass defenses. Consider that in 1973 the Miami Dolphins allowed 92 passing yards per game, a modern-day record that will not be broken in the current passing environment. All statistics must be judged in the context of their era; under that light, the Seahawks' pass defense looks to be one of the best in history.
Seattle ranks No. 1 in passing yards allowed and in interceptions, a feat that has been accomplished only three times in the N.F.L. Two of those teams won championships that season (the 2002 Buccaneers and the 1963 Bears), while the third (the 1982 Dolphins) lost in the Super Bowl. Seattle has allowed only 14 touchdown passes, tied for second with Carolina and only one behind Tennessee for the league lead. Pro Football Focus ranks the Seahawks' pass rush as the best in the N.F.L., and Seattle has one of the most talented and deepest defensive lines in football.
But the strength of the Seahawks is in the secondary. Safeties Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor are Pro Bowl players having great seasons, while cornerback Richard Sherman should be a first-team All-Pro selection for the second year in a row. As a result, opponents are left having to throw short passes in hopes of moving the ball. The Seahawks are allowing 9.9 yards per completion and 4.8 yards per pass attempt: both figures lead all pass defenses.
There is no question that Seattle has the best pass defense in the N.F.L., but how does it compare to other teams in modern history? First, we need to combine the main pass statistics into one category. The preferred approach is the advanced statistic Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, which is similar to team passing yards per attempt (including sack yards lost in the numerator and sacks in the denominator), but adds 20 yards for each passing touchdown and subtracts 45 yards for each interception.
The league average Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt this season is 5.97, which would also be an N.F.L. record. (The previous high was 5.93, set last season.) The Seahawks have allowed just 3.40 ANY/A, easily the best in the league (San Francisco and Carolina are second and third at 4.62 and 4.73). But since the ANY/A league average has been rising for years, we cannot just compare Seattle to teams of yesteryear. We also need to measure how far from the league average each pass defense has performed.
The simplest way to measure deviation from the average is to measure the standard deviation among all pass defenses in the N.F.L. In 2013, the standard deviation of the ANY/A ratings of the 32 teams is 0.93. As a result, Seattle's pass defense is 2.76 standard deviations above the 2013 mean of 5.97. If the Seahawks can maintain that level of dominance, it will rank as the fourth best season since 1970.
By this method, the top pass defense was fielded by Tampa Bay in 2002, the year the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl. In 2002, Tampa Bay allowed 2.34 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt; that season, the league average was 5.35 and the standard deviation was again 0.93. As a result, the Tampa Bay pass defense was 3.22 standard deviations better than average. In the postseason, the Buccaneers allowed just three touchdowns while scoring four touchdowns on interception returns.
The second best defense was posted by the 1988 Vikings, who produced an ANY/A rating that was 3.21 standard deviations above the mean. Seattle Coach Pete Carroll is likely to remember that team well, as he was Minnesota's defensive backs coach that season. Only one other pass defense, that of the 1970 Vikings, was farther from the mean than the current Seahawks.
In addition to the 2002 Buccaneers, the famous 1985 Bears and 1974 Steelers also rank high on the list of best pass defenses since 1970. While a look at the raw numbers would indicate that the Seahawks' defense cannot compare to the great defenses of yesteryear, that is only because the modern N.F.L. environment is skewed heavily toward the pass. After adjusting for era, the Seahawks' pass defense is only a Super Bowl championship away from being considered one of history's best.
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