More EPA Visualization - Team Trends

Here's a new twist on the team Expected Points Added (EPA) visualizations. This time I've added a week-by-week plot of offensive and defensive production. When you hover over a team on the main plot, you'll see their production over time. When you hover over each point on the weekly plot, you'll see the opponent.

I've also flipped the defensive EPA values so that positive numbers are good on the graphs. I think it's a more intuitive way to do it. Most people, including myself, think of "up" as good. So the better teams will be up and to the right.


The week-by-week production lines can misleading, but we can still see some trends. Obviously there is going
to be random variation and opponent factors. But there's also fundamental improvement and decline over a season, as well as injury-related changes in performance.

Right away, one of the more interesting things I've noticed is NE's trend. They're offense is in decline while their defense appears to be steadily improving.

BLT's offense appears to have found some consistency, but their defense has been falling off its early-season highs, even including Thanksgiving night's 9-sack beatdown of the 49ers offense.

GB's offense is so consistent it's scary.  BUF's offense is clearly headed the wrong direction. ATL's offense appears to be improving. Check out NO's peak in week 7 vs IND. HST has been getting better throughout the season on both sides of the ball. We'll see how their trend line looks after Leinart makes a couple starts.

What observations do you guys see? What other suggestions do you have improvements to the graphs or for other applications? Player trends? I'm trying to automate things as much as I can and make these a regular feature.


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6 Responses to “More EPA Visualization - Team Trends”

  1. Keith Goldner says:

    Again, these graphs are phenomenal. Good stuff

  2. Behan01 says:

    The Eagles' defense has steadily improved. Turns out it takes time for a new coordinator and new starters to get on the same page.

    Wonder if they'll be doing it all again next year.

  3. spybloom says:

    Tampa's offense is the definition of up and down; very erratic.. Although Cincinnati is the closest to the center, Cleveland looks like the most average team out there.. Carson Palmer seems to have brought a little life back into Oakland's offense.. Indianapolis is only getting worse, which is scary for a team already 0-10

  4. Chris Stark says:

    I love the graphs. Being able to compare two teams, side-by-side like in the "game match ups" with a visualization like this would be a great help to all of us. Thanks Brian

  5. Steve Freeman says:

    Is there a mistake on StL? Why so low on D?

  6. Brian Burke says:

    No mistake on STL defense. Yes, they're that bad.

    Great idea about a match-up version.

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