Tapp-ing into the Numbers: 40 Packers Stats Until Opening Kickoff August 14, 2017 (#27)
BY JERRY TAPP
One of the stats that seem to get a lot of play during the NFL season is third down efficiency. The key for an offensive unit is to convert those third downs and stay on the field to score points, while the marching orders for a defensive unit is to stop the opponent on third down and force them to punt.
Last season the Packers had the second best offensive third down efficiency in the league. The Pack offense converted on 46.7 percent of third downs in 2016, second only to the New Orleans Saints who converted 48.6% of all their third downs.
The Packers defense, on the other hand, allowed the opposition to convert on 41.2 percent of their third downs… that ranked 24th in the league.
Last season only six NFL teams had an offensive third down efficiency above 40% and a defensive third down efficiency below 40%. Those six teams: Arizona (40.7/38.8), Dallas (42.3/39.1), Tampa Bay (43.9/34.4), New England (45.8/36.9), San Diego (42.5/39.9) and Tennessee (46.1/36.7).
Jerry Tapp
Jerry Tapp is a freelance writer from Racine, WI with a major concentration on sports statistics and numbers that define sports teams and players. He began his foray into sports stats-focused writing as a regular contributor to the “Numbers” column in Inside Sports magazine in the mid-1980’s and then began writing a weekly “Stats on Tapp” column for the Racine Journal Times. That column was eventually nationally syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. He later wrote sports stats items for the Washington Post under the “Stat of the Day” heading. After launching his blog, www.statsontapp.com in 2011, Jerry turned his sports stats attention to sports websites. He wrote regularly for Bleacher Report, BallHyped, football.com and Heavy.com. Today he keeps busy writing weekly columns of stats-centric articles for three sports websites, Today’s Pigskin (NFL), Today’s Knuckleball (MLB) and Today’s Fastbreak (NBA), and as a monthly contributor to the Milwaukee Brewers “GameDay” publication that is distributed to fans attending games at Miller Park.