New Matchup Pages

You've probably noticed the win probability scoreboard at the top of the page. Compared to the old drop-down menu, it should be a much easier way to navigate from game to game to check out the graphs or leave comments. On Sundays it's a great way to stay on top of all the simultaneous games.

Clicking on a live or final game will take you directly to the WP graph for the game, but until now, there was nowhere to go by clicking on an upcoming game. Starting today, there is a matchup page for all forthcoming games, complete with one-stop shopping for a comparison of each team's stats. There's team efficiency stats, advanced team stats, plus conventional and advanced player stats for each team. I plan to add more features in the near future.

The matchup page started as something I thought might help Carson with his Weekly Notes feature or me with my contributions at the Post or Times, but I quickly realized it would be something everyone would like. It's a bit of an eye chart, but there's lots of good stuff in there. The efficiency table, which is the first one, might be the simplest and most useful.

For example, looking at Sunday's game between MIA and OAK, I can quickly see that MIA has the edge in passing, but OAK has the edge in running. On defense however, OAK has a hard time stopping the run. Both team have slightly better than average pass defenses. The difference in this game might come down to penalties, as OAK has one of the worst penalty rates in the league.

I can also see that Brandon Marshall (-0.28 WPA/ -3.5 EPA) might not be the key to the Dolphins offense everyone thinks he is. If Marshall does not play Sunday due to his hamstring injury, MIA may not miss him as much as many think. A quick comparison of OAK's two QBs shows that Campbell has made bigger plays compared to Gradkowski (9.7 to -9.4 EPA), but is not as consistent (38% to 43% SR).

If there's a game a couple weeks away, you can fiddle with the url (web address) by replacing the home and visiting team abbreviations. For example, if you're interested in the week 14 AFC West showdown between the Chiefs and Chargers, you could go to .../matchup.php?vteam=KC&hteam=SD. You could compare any two teams for that matter, even ones who aren't going play each other. (Be sure to use the alternate abbreviations you see on the other pages around here--ARZ, BLT, CLV, SL, JAX, HST.)

My goal is to create tools that others can use, and I hope general readers and all the team-specific blogs out there can make use of the matchup pages.

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1 Responses to “New Matchup Pages”

  1. Ian B says:

    Can you add the win probability expectation to the matchup pages?

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