*Defense Wins Championships, but does it win Ultimi? - Printable Version +- International Simulation Football League (https://forums.sim-football.com) +-- Forum: Community (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5) +--- Forum: Media (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=37) +---- Forum: Graded Articles (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=38) +---- Thread: *Defense Wins Championships, but does it win Ultimi? (/showthread.php?tid=31213)

*Defense Wins Championships, but does it win Ultimi? - Suggs - 03-31-2021 It is tough to pinpoint exactly when the phrase was first said. It is said that the first person to popularize “Defense Wins Championships” was former Alabama Head Coach Paul Bryant, who won 6 national championships with the Crimson Tide, and had the best defense in 5 of those 6 championship runs (the only exception was the 1965 season, when they had the 2nd best defense). This has become controversial however, as offensive teams have grown so much in popularity in the last few years and most of the NFL’s top offenses have gone to the Super Bowl, and many have ended up winning it, such as the 2019 Chiefs and 2020 Buccaneers, who were among the top 5 defenses in the league during their runs. The most important of all, however, is obviously the ISFL. When taking a look at the results and boxscores of Week 1 of Season 28, one thing jumped my eye: all teams who won their games had more sacks last season than their opposition. While that doesn't mean anything concrete, it made me wonder the importance of defense in the simulation, especially with the new engine that the league has been using since S27. So begs the question: Does Defense Win Championships in the ISFL? I decided to answer this through a very simple analysis. I took the Ultimus champion of all 27 seasons of the ISFL, ranked their offense and defense based on points scored and points allowed in the regular season respectively and compared them. I also understand that over 27 seasons the league has changed considerably. I would argue that the league could be divided into 3 segments: Seasons 1-15, when there were 8 teams - except S1, which had 6 - and a 4 team playoffs; Seasons 16-21, when there were 10 teams and an 8 team playoffs; and Seasons 22-27, with the current format of 14 teams and an 8 team playoffs. I would also make a case that a further division could be made after Season 26 with the sim change, but only 1 season has been played so far, so I included S27 with the last group. I made these groups to also observe in what percentile each champion ended in their own season, as a team that ranks 4th in any category in S15 would be average in that category, whilst among the top 28% in S22. The stats would say Paul Bryant was more right about the ISFL than wrong. It might seem that huge outliners such as the Outlaws winning the Ultimus with the 8th best offense and the SaberCats winning in consecutive years with the 6th and 7th best offense would mess with averages, but even removing them from the equation puts an advantage on defense, even if slight. The average offensive rating of teams who won it all over all ISFL seasons was 2.56, whilst average defensive rating was 2.30, meaning they had better defenses than offenses on average. And other stats agree with it. As shown in the table below, on all 3 periods of the ISFL, teams were better or equal percentile wise on defense than on offense, (as in which percentile the average team from those periods ends up in), and Ultimus winning rosters were more likely to be within the top 20th percentile best defenses in during the regular season than in the same percentile for offenses (Top 2 in S2-21, Top 3 in S22-27). It could be said, therefore that defense does indeed win Ultimi. It is also important to say, however, two points. Firstly, I did not include stats for the postseason, as I believe that the smaller amount of games played makes analytical analysis less accurate, due to a lack of proper sample space. And secondly, this analysis obviously doesn’t tell the whole story of the importance of all three sides of the ball during not only a regular season, but also the playoffs. Each season has several unique games that do not reflect on the abilities and effort of the organizations involved in it. So do not treat this as gospel and a definitive statement that defense is superior to offense, for that is certainly not the case – just as the opposite is also not true. The difference, as to be expected, is way too small to find a definitive answer to the question of whether defense wins championships or not. But a case can certainly be made, and I hope to have positively added to the discussion of the sport we like so much in the best league in the world. RE: Defense Wins Championships, but does it win Ultimi? - Pat - 03-31-2021 Another banger of an article from Suggs. I love this kind of analysis! RE: Defense Wins Championships, but does it win Ultimi? - Bigred1580 - 03-31-2021 My championships I have been on the 2nd and 3rd worse offense on one team, and the worse defense on another