How Much Difference Does A Favre Make?

What Difference Does a Favre Make? I guess this is the question that is burning in the minds of NFL fans and teams everywhere. But according to PossessionPoints the answer is: Not as much as we might have thought. Sorry, Favre devotees, but this is what we have learned while working on our Preseason Preview issue these past few weeks.

We had thought we had accounted for all the major shifts of players. We had adjusted the Green Bay PossessionPoints Offense and Defense numbers down to account for the retirement of Brett Favre. Then, with Brett un-retiring, we thought that perhaps we had to just undo those adjustments. However, when we saw that the Green Bay staff was not welcoming Favre back with open arms, we realized that they must really see something they like in Aaron Rodgers since they stuck to their guns and finally traded Favre to the New York Jets after a three-week drama-fest that rivaled the story lines on Days of Our Lives. So, we had to reconsider and re-adjust our numbers again to not only suit the new situation in Green Bay but in New York as well.

What does Favre’s addition to the Jets do? Initially, we were expecting the Jets to have a pretty dismal year, so we had made 0 adjustments to their PossessionPoints numbers over last season. With the arrival of Favre, we went back to our program and adjusted the Jets’ PossessionPoints Offense numbers up 25% and the Defense up 5%. What was the impact of that adjustment? Not as much as one would think. The new numbers brought the Jets up to just a 5-11 record. For curiosity sake, we wanted to see how much of an effect Favre needed to have on the Jets for them to get into the playoffs. We pushed up the PossessionPoints Offensive improvement to 50% (a generous number), and the Jets’ projected record went to 9-7 which still misses the playoffs. So, we bumped up their PossessionPoints improvement to 55% and that still put them at 9-7. Okay, we had some fun and cranked their improvement numbers to 60%. Finally, that gave us a significant jump in the Jets’ projections. With that extreme adjustment of numbers upwards, the Jets finally become an 11-5 playoff team.

Now, we don't know about you, and perhaps we were being a little unfair by not improving the Jets before they acquired Favre, but even with the addition of Favre, we don't really expect the Jets to improve their Offensive PossessionPoints performance by 60%. As we were playing with adjustments, we thought it was interesting that the biggest impact of Favre moving to NY seemed to be on the NFC West, Yes, that's right, just how good the Jets and Bills are this season may well determine whether or not the Seahawks or Cardinals rise to the top of the NFC West. We had a tie-breaker situation with the Seahawks and Cardinals with both their records at 9-7. As we adjusted the Jets’ performance upwards, they first beat the Cardinals giving the division to the Seahawks. Then, as we adjusted their PossessionPoints numbers up further, the Jets beat the Seahawks which puts Cardinals and Seahawks back into a tie-breaking situation.

Hopefully, these are the last preseason Favre adjustments anyone has to make. Maybe, now we can all just get back to football – the sport – not the drama behind it.