New York Life Protection Index

The New York Life Protection Index measures the effectiveness of NFL teams’ offensive lines and their ability to “Protect the Quarterback”. It is a proprietary formula created by STATS LLC which measures pass protection by using metrics such as length of passes, penalties by offensive lineman, sacks allowed and quarterback hurries and knockdowns. It comes up with a rating scale from 1 to 100 to rate how well an offensive line is doing and - by extension - is yet another measure of a team’s success. In certain exceptional cases, teams may score below 1 or above 100 on the Index.
The Index was created by sports information leader STATS LLC to provide a composite gauge for this undervalued component of the game. The New York Life Protection Index is updated weekly throughout the regular season, and the playoffs.
Formula
The New York Life Protection Index is composed of two basic elements—the percentage of times a team successfully protects its quarterback and how often and effectively the team passes the football. After these statistics are inputted into the proprietary algorithm, a numerical index is assigned to each team.
History
The New York Life Protection Index is owned by New York Life Insurance Company, and was developed in 2010 by sports and entertainment agency STRATEGIC, along with STATS, LLC, a global sports statistics and information company.
The New York Life Protection Index scores NFL teams on games played from 1993 to the present. The average protection index of the winning team in a game is 62.3. Losers average 51.0.
2011 Draft
Since 2006, teams with an index above 60 in a game win 60% of the time (673-457), whereas teams with an index lower than 60 win just 37% of the time (347-594). When a team scores above 100 in the index, their winning percentage jumps to 74% (49-17).
2010 - 2011 Season
The Detroit Lions snapped their 26-game road losing streak against on Sunday 12/19/10. Their protection index was 96.3, which led the league in Week 15 and was also their third highest rating since 2007, when their streak began.
The Indianapolis Colts regained control of AFC South by beating the Jaguars, and scored above 90 for the 9th time this season.
While the Chicago Bears’ Week 15 index (59.5) is average by league standards, it was their third best performance as they clinched the division. Their odds for winning a game are now 4-1 when they score above 50 in the protection index.
The Cincinnati Bengals on 12/19/10 posted their highest rating since Week 8, which helped them snap their 10 game losing streak.
Trends
From 2006 through 2009, teams that finished in the top twelve in the New York Life Protection Index have made the playoffs 63 percent of the time (30 / 48). Teams finishing in top twelve have averaged 10.3 wins.
Of the eight teams who have made the Super Bowl the last four years, only one finished outside the top twelve in protection index (2008 Steelers).
The average protection index of the 8 teams who have had the worst record in the conference between 2006-2009 was 49.3.
In the same time span, teams with an above average Protection Index (54 -60, depending on the year) have made the playoffs 55 percent of the time (35/64), whereas teams with a below average Protection Index have made the playoffs just 20 percent of the time (13/64).

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