Stats Summary – Week 3: Who Concedes Bonus Points?

I think most of us have a good idea which individual players top the charts in bonus point production. It comes as no surprise to see guys like Valeri, Ciman, and Bradley raking in bonus points left and right. But who concedes bonus points more than the rest?

NYCFC tops the charts, conceding 61 bonus points through the first 3 weeks. LA comes in as the team conceding the fewest bonus points to date. I would like to add a word of caution against assuming SKC will continue to be so stingy, as they’ve played more than a third of their minutes up a man.

Opponents	Total	Defensive	Offensive
NYCFC	61	42	19
NE	58	40	16
CLB	57	43	14
NYRB	57	42	14
SJ	57	29	26
CHI	53	31	22
ORL	52	34	17
PHI	52	31	20
POR	52	40	11
COL	51	37	11
DC	50	36	14
VAN	50	24	23
MTL	48	29	18
SEA	47	31	13
RSL	46	21	23
HOU	43	28	14
DAL	40	27	11
SKC	38	24	11
TFC	38	27	11
LA	35	24	10

Note: foul points are not categorized as either offensive or defensive as fouls happen on both sides of the ball.

We can gain even more insight if we separate the points out into offensive and defensive bonus points. Offensive points are from shots, crosses, key passes, big chances created, and passing completion. San Jose has conceded the most with 26. This is a bit worrying for the team many of us assumed to be the best in the league, as they also lead the league in shots conceded. On the flip side, we have LA, Toronto, Dallas, Kansas City, Colorado, and Portland conceding fewer than 4 attacking bonus points per game.

Defensive bonus points are from clearances, blocks, interceptions, recoveries, and tackles (CBIRT). Columbus leads the way in conceding defensive bonus points, just edging out the New York teams. New England plays both New York teams this double game week, so I suggest grabbing at least one player from the defensive unit. I have both Shuttleworth and Farrell, But Goncalves and Tierney are fine picks too. RSL conceded the fewest with less than half of the points conceded by Columbus.

I’m not sure there’s enough data yet to try to attribute bonus point concession to certain styles of play, so I’ll check in on this idea again in a few weeks to see if we can test a hypothesis or two.

Some random observations:

NYCFC have had the fewest passes attempted (927) against them, almost 100 fewer than next closest, Dallas. Chicago have the most with 1568, 166 more than anyone else.

At this point in the season, there is basically no correlation (-0.06) between a team’s number of shots and goals. However, there is a moderate correlation (0.42) between shots conceded and goals conceded.

There have been 40 shot points awarded. Forwards earning 23 and midfielders earning 17. Giovinco is the only player to earn 3.

League-wide PP90 was 4.95, about 4 percent higher than last week.