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February 1, 2004
Panthers, Patriots are proof that red-zone numbers can deceive
THE BOSTON GLOBE
"You look at the statistics for the red zone, and at the bottom of the list are the Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. And they're here. Maybe everybody ought to start saying, 'Hey, maybe the red zone isn't as important as you think it is.'"
- Dan Henning, offensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers
Maybe Henning has a point.The two teams still standing in the 32-team National Football League rank 27th (New England) and tied for 30th (Carolina) in the supposedly critical statistical category known as red-zone efficiency. Broken down, it's a percentage based on how many touchdowns a team scores once it gets inside the opponents' 20-yard line. The Patriots ranked next-to-last in the AFC, ahead of only Baltimore. The Panthers were tied with Arizona for next-to-last in the NFC, ahead of only the New York Giants.
And they've lived to talk about it.
The Patriots entered the red zone 50 times this season and scored 22 touchdowns for a red-zone efficiency percentage of 44. (The Chiefs lapped everyone with 77.8 percent.) The Panthers were even worse, scoring 18 touchdowns in 43 trips inside the 20 for 41.9 percent. (Green Bay was the NFC's top red-zone team with 65.4-percent efficiency.)
So what does it all mean?
"It means we're willing to kick field goals to win games," said Charlie Weis, the Patriots' offensive coordinator. "There are times where you decide you'll take a 3 and get out of there. If you have a good defense, sometimes getting 3 (points) is not the worst thing in the world. From a fan's perspective, you're supposed to score every time. But if I could tell you now that we'd get seven 3s going into (Sunday's) game, you'd say you have a chance of winning."
Overall, the Patriots came away with something on 42 of their 50 visits to the red zone. The Panthers came away with at least a field goal in 38 of 43 visits. "We didn't fail too many times to get points," Henning noted.
The last two times the Patriots ventured into the red zone were in the AFC title game against the Colts. One time, Tom Brady went on a naked bootleg and was saved from a fumble by instant reply. The Patriots kicked a field goal after the reversal. The other time, Brady was intercepted in the end zone. ("Let's just say it was a crummy call, a bad call by the offensive coordinator," Weis said of the interception. "It didn't work, and it's my fault.")
So far in the postseason, the Patriots have had eight drives into the red zone and two touchdowns. The only time they did not get something was on the aforementioned interception. Adam Vinatieri has kicked five field goals to go along with the two touchdowns. That still doesn't cut it for Coach Bill Belichick.
"It's an area we've worked hard to improve on," Belichick said. "It's gotten better, but against Indianapolis, we missed opportunities. It's an area we could do better. It's an area we want to try to do better. We've been good enough in other areas to offset that, but it's an area we want to improve in."
The Panthers have had eight trips into the red zone during the postseason and have scored three touchdowns. (Both of their touchdowns in the first playoff victory over the Dallas Cowboys came on plays longer than 20 yards, and they reached the Dallas 20 on another drive that ended with a field goal.) They had only one trip into the red zone in the NFC championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles but cashed it in for a 1-yard touchdown run by DeShaun Foster. The other score came on a 24-yard pass from Jake Delhomme to Muhsin Muhammad. (And because Carolina actually considers the red zone to extend to the 30-yard line, that counts as a red-zone touchdown in its book.)
"I don't think we have trouble in the red zone," Muhammad said. "We scored both times we were there the last time."
Carolina actually got better as the season went on because of Delhomme's growth and maturation. In the final seven games of the regular season, the Panthers punched in nine touchdowns in 18 red-zone visits.
"Any time you're in the red zone, you want to get 7," Foster said. "You can get 3, but you want to get 7. But you also have to score. You don't want to have any missed opportunities."
In a game that could have a defensive edge, red-zone visits could take on more importance tonight. New England's red-zone defense was the fourth best in the NFL, and Carolina ranked 14th. The Panthers love to run the football ("I've got two studs behind me," Delhomme said, referring to Foster and Stephen Davis) and that could be an advantage because the field gets smaller and the yards get tougher inside the 20.
"When it gets tight like that, it's hard to throw, and you've got to run the ball," guard Kevin Donnalley of the Panthers said.
The Patriots once nonexistent running game emerged with 100-plus-yard games in the AFC championship game and the last two games of the regular season against the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. They view the whole red-zone issue as one simple word - execution. If they do what they're supposed to do, the touchdowns will come.
"In this game, when we get down to the red zone, we need to come away with 7 points," running back Antowain Smith of New England said. "We can't be settling for 3 points. Don't get me wrong, 3 points are good. Any points are good. But you want to have 7. We just have to do a better job of executing and pay more attention to detail, because things do get congested in the red zone. You got a shorter field, the defense plays a little tighter. So we just have to execute."