1979 Team DVOA: Back to the Steel Curtain

Today, DVOA finally reaches all the way back to the 1970s. All this week, I’ll be introducing DVOA ratings from 1979 and 1980. That means we’re back to the Steel Curtain Pittsburgh Steelers, and it will not shock you that the champions of Super Bowl XIV were also the No. 1 team in the NFL by DVOA in 1979.

What’s remarkable about the 1979 Steelers is that they were the best team in the NFL despite leading the league with 52 turnovers. Turnovers were much more prevalent 45 years ago, but that’s still a lot of turnovers, as the NFL average in 1979 was 38.3. The Steelers overcame all those turnovers with yardage. They ranked sixth in DVOA and led the NFL with 5.81 net yards per play. They also overcame all those turnovers with defense. As you might expect from the Steel Curtain, the Steelers led the NFL in DVOA for both run and pass defense in 1979. The Steelers threw 26 interceptions… but opponents threw 27 interceptions back to the Steelers.

The Steelers also went 12-4 despite playing the fourth-hardest schedule in the NFL that season. In fact, the four hardest schedules that year belonged to the four AFC Central teams, with Cincinnati first (part of the reason the Bengals were 21st in DVOA but finished 4-12). Some of that comes from the AFC Central teams being good, and some of it comes from playing against the NFC East where Philadelphia, Washington, and Dallas all finished in the DVOA top six. The Steelers skipped the worst of the NFC East teams, the Giants (who were 27th).

Pittsburgh finished No. 1 in DVOA despite a huge 35-7 loss in Week 12 to the team that finished second in DVOA, the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers finished second in offense, trailing Dallas by just 0.012% DVOA. However, they also had a strong defense which was third in the league behind the Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams.

Speaking of the Rams, they were a great example of the fact that teams often have their best regular seasons and make the Super Bowl in completely different years. The Rams won the NFC West for the seventh straight season in 1979, but they were only 9-7 after six straight seasons of 10 wins. They would go 11-5 the following year. Yet it was 1979 where the Rams went on a run to the Super Bowl before falling to the Steel Curtain. They upset the Cowboys in Dallas, 21-19, when Vince Ferragamo hit Billy Waddy on a 50-yard touchdown splitting defenders with just 2:16 left. Then, Frank Corral had three field goals as the Rams upset the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9-0. (You’ll see below that by DVOA, this wasn’t much of an upset.)

The Rams were only 16th in DVOA in 1979, making them the second-worst team by DVOA to ever make the Super Bowl behind only the 2008 Arizona Cardinals.

The Detroit Lions went 2-14 and finished dead last in DVOA but their rating of -25.7% was the second-highest rating ever for a last-place team, trailing only the 2001 Carolina Panthers at -24.4%.

Before we move on to the big table and breaking down more 1979 numbers, here’s the schedule for introducing 1979 and 1980 DVOA this week:

• Monday: 1979 team ratings
• Tuesday: 1979 player ratings
• Wednesday: 1980 team ratings
• Thursday: 1980 player ratings
• Friday: All 1979 and 1980 ratings will be added to downloads on the DVOA Historical Archives page.

We were not able to find the entire 1979 season of play-by-play, so all of the 1979 numbers are missing the fourth quarter of the Week 1 Broncos-Bengals game and the final 4:47 of the Week 2 Cardinals-Giants game.

As I noted above, the Rams over the Buccaneers in the NFC Championship Game wasn’t that much of an upset because both teams were not that good during the regular season. The Buccaneers played one of the easiest schedules in DVOA history, with their NFC Central rivals ranking 23rd (Minnesota), 26th (Green Bay), and dead last (Detroit). In addition, the Buccaneers played the No. 27 Giants twice because of the way that the schedule worked in the era of 28 NFL teams; for the four divisions with five teams, the teams that finished in fifth place for each conference would play each other twice the following season. Add in San Francisco and Atlanta and the Buccaneers played 10 of 16 games against the bottom six teams in the NFL!

One thing that stands out in 1979 is the tight offensive table where no team was particularly dominant. The Cowboys were No. 1 at 14.4% DVOA, which is the lowest figure ever for the No. 1 offense. The second-lowest, as you will find out in a couple days, belongs to the 1980 San Diego Chargers at 16.9%, with the 1994 Dolphins third at 18.2%. Seventeen of the 28 teams were above average on offense, with the Giants and Lions trailing behind by a bit at the bottom.

Dallas and San Diego, the top two offenses, were also the top two pass offenses. Washington was third in pass offense but only ninth in total offense because they were 21st running the ball — and yet they had one of the lowest pass/run ratios even though they were so much better passing than running. Old school football with offensive coordinator Joe Walton! The Houston Oilers had the top run DVOA with Earl Campbell, followed closely by the New Orleans Saints with more of a committee approach led by Chuck Muncie and Tony Galbreath. The Saints were third on offense because they could also pass the ball with some guy named Archie Manning. The Oilers’ passing game was poor so the overall offense ranked just 16th.

The Steelers had the league’s best defense but they are nowhere near the top defenses in DVOA history. That makes sense, as the Steel Curtain was better in previous years. As noted above, the Rams were second in defense and the Chargers were third. Chicago and Miami rounded out the top five.

The worst defenses of 1979 were probably more interesting than the best defenses of 1979. San Francisco had the league’s worst defense by a healthy amount over Cincinnati and Atlanta. The 49ers were particularly awful against the pass, with the third-worst pass defense DVOA ever measured. The Falcons also made the list of the worst pass defenses.

The 49ers were only 25th in net yards allowed per pass (6.77) while the Falcons were 27th (6.97) but both teams had only 15 interceptions, tied for lowest in the league. The 49ers were particularly bad on passes on third and fourth downs, allowing 70.4% pass defense DVOA.

The Saints ranked 23rd in defensive DVOA but were above average against the pass (12th). The problem was that the Saints couldn’t stop the run at all, allowing a league-worst 4.74 yards per carry. Therefore, the Saints rank among the worst run defenses in DVOA history.

The Saints had a Week 9 game against Washington where they sacked Joe Theismann seven times and allowed just 47 net pass yards … but also they allowed 36 carries for 178 rushing yards.

By the way, the Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1979 was someone who became a lot better known as a coach than they were as a player: Buffalo linebacker Jim Haslett!

We’ve got some interesting special teams numbers in 1979. Philadelphia had the top special teams of 1979 and one of the top units in DVOA history. Washington was close behind. The special teams units in 1979 were very top heavy, the opposite of offenses, as only 12 of the 28 teams were above average.

The kickers were particularly top heavy when it came to field goal performance. The list of the top dozen FG/XP seasons has three seasons from 1979 and two from 1980. That’s because the NFL average on field goals was only 63% in 1979. If you could kick better than that, you would come out pretty well in our values. This doesn’t work the other way around, though. There are no 1979 or 1980 years among our worst years for field goals and extra points. Remember that all these field goal values are adjusted for weather, altitude, and indoors/outdoors.

Fritsch ranks lower despite having a better field goal percentage because of adjustments for Houston playing indoors.