Hi All,
I've stated before that my Score% metric goes back to 1941 because before that point there were no totals for punts that the defense was on the field for, as well as field goals missed on both sides for a few years.
Well I decided that I wanted to try to calculate the metric going back to 1936 (the first season where schedules were intended to be uniform league-wide and thus all teams were initially scheduled to play the same number of games)
In order to do so, the following adjustments needed to be made to attempt to do some kind of estimation for values that were never recorded based on the most recent recorded values:
For teams from 1936-1938, I tried to estimate punts by taking a ratio of punts to the sum of turnovers, rushing touchdowns, passing touchdowns, and field goals made (that ended up being 1.65 based on offenses for 1939 and 1940).
I then multiplied the defensive punt and turnover totals by a percentage that ensured that the league wide turnover and punt totals on offense and defense would be the same (I noticed that in the years of 1936-1940, significantly more turnovers were listed for defenses than offenses league-wide; anyone know why that could be the case?)
And lastly, for field goals, I took the average percentage league-wide for 1938-1940 and placed that on every team on both sides in 1936 and 1937, and I applied the league-wide average rates on offense for 1938-1940 to the defenses for their corresponding years across the board.
Here are the resulting Score% totals for the 1936-1940 seasons:
1936 Green Bay Packers 0.138705997
1936 Chicago Bears 0.113616289
1936 Detroit Lions 0.102211846
1936 Boston Redskins 0.00520077
1936 New York Giants -0.023013337
1936 Chicago Cardinals -0.039331808
1936 Brooklyn Dodgers -0.088430588
1936 Pittsburgh Pirates -0.149910927
1936 Philadelphia Eagles -0.216688678
1937 Chicago Bears 0.113210278
1937 New York Giants 0.081396394
1937 Detroit Lions 0.054618494
1937 Green Bay Packers 0.03701241
1937 Washington Redskins 0.016872289
1937 Chicago Cardinals 0.003333755
1937 Pittsburgh Pirates -0.045239845
1937 Cleveland Rams -0.083064306
1937 Philadelphia Eagles -0.121717648
1937 Brooklyn Dodgers -0.123985415
1938 New York Giants 0.156101668
1938 Green Bay Packers 0.105010991
1938 Brooklyn Dodgers 0.079326557
1938 Chicago Bears 0.070805322
1938 Detroit Lions 0.028383973
1938 Philadelphia Eagles 0.00446265
1938 Washington Redskins -0.011955073
1938 Chicago Cardinals -0.057305024
1938 Cleveland Rams -0.08904784
1938 Pittsburgh Pirates -0.139947386
1939 Chicago Bears 0.20229299
1939 New York Giants 0.136921353
1939 Washington Redskins 0.127081177
1939 Green Bay Packers 0.069230409
1939 Cleveland Rams 0.028737338
1939 Detroit Lions 0.01832038
1939 Philadelphia Eagles -0.071355925
1939 Brooklyn Dodgers -0.107997385
1939 Pittsburgh Pirates -0.142091616
1939 Chicago Cardinals -0.179766375
1940 Chicago Bears 0.148753382
1940 Green Bay Packers 0.130661072
1940 Washington Redskins 0.061788894
1940 Cleveland Rams 0.026117853
1940 Brooklyn Dodgers 0.01493043
1940 New York Giants -0.003025175
1940 Detroit Lions -0.007365565
1940 Chicago Cardinals -0.038869753
1940 Philadelphia Eagles -0.133497442
1940 Pittsburgh Steelers -0.219460806
Thus the pantheon of teams that finished on top by Score% now includes the 1936 Packers, 1937 Bears, 1938 Giants, 1939 Bears, and 1940 Bears; and with this, the Bears are listed on top six times in seven years from 1937-1943; with only Steve Owen's 1938 Giants preventing them from a sevenpeat.
And the pantheon of teams that finished dead last by Score% now includes the 1936 Eagles, 1937 Dodgers, 1938 Pirates, 1939 Cardinals, and 1940 Steelers.
I may attempt to do a ranking of the 90 teams that have appear on top by Score% at some point later on, but for now, those are the first five based on the best estimates I can do. I hope you at least find this interesting.
The biggest question I have about the NFL of the late 1930's after doing these calculations now is does anyone know what kind of plays back then would result in a turnover being listed on defense, but not offense?
The biggest discrepancy of the five seasons here was in the 1936 season where about 2.06 times as many turnovers were listed league-wide on defense as on offense.