Miserable Offenses

I've heard the term "Misery Index" floated around a few times in NFL circles. Most recent, I believe, was Jim Caple's article on ESPN.com a while back about the most miserable franchises in the NFL.

I prefer to use the term to describe bad offenses, primarily the types you want to oppose with your fantasy football defense. We always drool over juicy matchups for our offensive players against bad defenses, but it doesn't seem like the same attention is given to defensive matchups against bad offenses. Since most leagues give bonus points to defenses for sacks and turnovers created, my Misery Index is simple: It's simply the sum of sacks and turnovers by an offense. Using that data, you can construct a kind of "strength-of-schedule" for your fantasy defense that should maximize its point totals.

Here are the Misery Indeces for 2007's offensive squads:

Team	Int.	Sacks	Misery
Detroit Lions	36	54	90
San Francisco 49ers	34	55	89
Kansas City Chiefs	33	55	88
St. Louis Rams	37	48	85
Baltimore Ravens	40	39	79
New York Jets	25	53	78
Oakland Raiders	37	41	78
Chicago Bears	34	43	77
Philadelphia Eagles	27	49	76
Atlanta Falcons	24	47	71
Miami Dolphins	29	42	71
Pittsburgh Steelers	22	47	69
Minnesota Vikings	30	38	68
Tennessee Titans	34	30	64
Carolina Panthers	29	33	62
New York Giants	34	28	62
Denver Broncos	29	32	61
Arizona Cardinals	36	24	60
Houston Texans	38	22	60
Seattle Seahawks	24	36	60
Washington Redskins	29	29	58
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	20	36	56
Jacksonville Jaguars	21	31	52
Dallas Cowboys	24	25	49
Cleveland Browns	29	19	48
San Diego Chargers	24	24	48
Buffalo Bills	21	26	47
Cincinnati Bengals	30	17	47
New Orleans Saints	30	16	46
Green Bay Packers	24	19	43
Indianapolis Colts	19	23	42
New England Patriots	15	21	36

No huge surprise there to see truly awful offensive teams San Francisco, Kansas City, and Baltimore near the top of the list. Detroit's Jon Kitna led the league in times sacked in 2007 and tied for the league lead in interceptions, while the Rams had to make do with Gus Frerotte longer than any NFL franchise should ever have to at this stage of his career. (Please stay healthy, Tarvaris Jackson.)

The other end of the spectrum includes what many could say were the five best quarterbacks in the NFL in 2007, save Tony Romo and Ben Roethlisberger. I don't have the numbers, but since QBs are responsible for nearly all interceptions, many of a team's fumbles, and play some part in taking sacks, then it shouldn't come as a surprise that good QBs minimize those errors and help keep the misery low.

So how does this chart help you pick a fantasy defense? For the first few weeks of the season, it probably doesn't help much at all. Defenses can change dramatically from year to year and, while quarterback play tends to be more steady, especially at the higher levels, a QB change can dramatically impact a team's Misery Index one way or the other. Aaron Rodgers will probably be OK (if he's the starter in Green Bay...), but I'd consider it unlikely that the Packers are #3 in lowest Misery in 2008.

It is, however, very helpful to look at the season's current Misery Index around week 8 or so and perhaps pick up an underperforming defense that has a stretch against two or three miserable offenses for the next few weeks. If you had the Seattle defense from weeks 10-14 last year (a stretch that included San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Arizona), you would have been rewarded with 14 turnovers and 18 sacks over that five-week span. I'll try to post semi-regular Misery Index updates throughout the 2008 season.

And what about the Vikings' outlook for 2008? With what looks to be one of the league's best defenses, they should rack up the sacks and turnovers as well as any team in the league -- but perhaps not that early. Here are the 2007 Misery Indeces of the teams on the Vikings' 2008 schedule, in order:

43, 42, 62, 64, 46, 90, 77, 60, 43, 56, 52, 77, 90, 60, 71, 62

That's an average of 62.2, compared to a league average of 63.1 -- slightly tougher than average. The first two games, against Green Bay and Indianapolis, figure to be tough, but, as mentioned, who knows how Aaron Rodgers might play? And now that Mike Martz is out of Detroit, it might be a little harder to sack Jon Kitna (the Lions accounting for the two 90s on the schedule). On the bright side, the average 2007 Misery Index for the team's final five opponents is 72, meaning that you should get strong performances from the defense late in the season and into your playoffs, which is when you need it the most.