Roundup 10/26/13

Which NFL pundit makes the worst predictions? Umm. Wow. If you just pick the home team you're right 58% of the time.

 Cool visualizations of MLB boxscores.

How do Dez Bryant and Calvin Johnson compare? You might be surprised.

Rivers does a great job breaking down goal line success by play type.

ESPN's NFL Live on-air analysts say TAKE THE POINTS and kick the FG. Unfortunately they're LIVING IN THE 70s. Nice take-down by Jason.
Jason also looks at how receiver drops are hurting Brady's numbers this season. How would his season look if he had an average number of drops?

Despite his low Yards Per Carry, I disagree that Trent Richardson 'sucks'. Remember that YPC can be very misleading when a RB is either a) on a team that can't pass the ball and both safeties are in the box, or b) asked to do lots of short-yardage and goal-line duty--which even when successful results in low yardage rates. Still, that was absolute highway robbery what Cleveland did to Jim Irsay.

A decade-by-decade visualization of when each country established an official football association. And when I say 'football' I mean the kind my daughter played when she was 5.

This doping scandal will shock you.

Steve looks whether there is any benefit to offensive performance from an increased pace of play.

Clustering algorithms to evaluate fantasy players by Boris.

An artist is unable to sell his art at ridiculous discounts on the street. What does this tell us? Experts say it has to do with inauthentic authenticity. Alternate theory: Today's 'art' is complete emperor-has-no-clothes crap.

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8 Responses to “Roundup 10/26/13”

  1. Anonymous says:

    The link for the Brady article is not working.

  2. Brian Burke says:

    Fixed. Thx.

  3. EpicWestern says:

    With the pundit thing...

    A pundit making a pick does not imply that the pick will beat moneyline bets, unless the pick is an underdog pick with a positive moneyline. So the conclusion that the pundits aren't adding any value is false.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Those tasteless provincials in New York! They don't know a 'great' deal when they see it! How come 'modern art' is so often indestinguishable from trolling? All it ever seems to illustrate is the temporal, short-term outlook of the 'artist.'

    Cheers,
    J

  5. Anonymous says:

    pundits is missing FOX crew

  6. Anonymous says:

    Pundits is missing the Fox crew because Deadspin is dedicated to bringing the consumer sports infotainment with a shockingly liberal bias...

    As far as the "Pace" article goes, wouldn't a better way to look at the effectiveness of offensive pace be the point differential through the game? Maybe looking for an increasing number of blowouts with faster play? I think a slant over the middle or a FB draw would probably net the same yardarge in the 2-minute offense as it would in the 8-minute offense... The advantage is not so much that it makes the individual plays more effective but rather there will be more plays and more scoring opportunities. However, I think that the fast-paced offense has its uses; it is not going to be beneficial for Jacksonville to run fast-paced because they are terrible. The best teams/coaches know when to use the correct tools - the Patriots have long been one of the fastest teams in football, and their offense has generally been better than their opponents so they basically ran a fast offense all the time. This year, they are not so good. Against the Falcons, who at the time were probably the better team (Week 5 Atl offense ranked 8th NE offense ranked 21st), New England ran the play clock under 5 seconds on virtually every play with the game clock running and in general kept a very slow offensive pace. The Falcons offense played right into this and kept up a short, over the middle passing game (Matt Ryan has been near the bottom of the rankings with Alex Smith as far as deep pass percentage this year) that played right into Belichick's game-plan. End-result, victory for the Pats over a better team. Against weaker opponents the Patriots have kept more to the fast offense.

    A counter-example to this would be Philly. Their atomic-speed offense helped them blow-out weaker teams and helped them keep close or win games against fairly equal opponents. No changes in the game-plan were made for the Denver Broncos. The fast pace of the Eagles offense just gave more opportunities for Manning to throw touchdowns and that is exactly what happened as Denver destroyed Philly. The much better option for Chip Kelly would have been to slow the game down as much as possible and allow a few high-risk plays to determine the outcome. It would seem that with Vick and McCoy and Desean Jackson the Eagles would have more than enough weapons to make a high-variance strategy very worthwhile against dominant opponents like the Broncos.

    My ultimate point being, that perhaps the fast-paced offense does not seem to have any real effect because it is being misapplied by a lot of teams. Any positive effect is being cancelled out by the ill-effects of poor in-game application.

    Cheers,
    J

  7. MP says:

    You're implying that Philly can run low-risk plays most of the game and be effective doing it. Otherwise, how would they keep possession of the ball long enough to have their slowed offensive pace make a real difference? Football is very different than, say, basketball, where you can run essentially the same play and arbitrarily choose whether to run 20 seconds off the clock. Except for turnovers, you are going to get to run roughly the same number of plays as your opponent in basketball. The first down requirement in football means that inferior teams are not going to maintain possession long enough to have a huge impact on the total number of plays run in the game.

  8. Anonymous says:

    MP- I mentioned how teams can (and do, check out the articles on this site about the NYG's Superbowl victories) use up clock and constrict the number of possessions. When the game clock is running allow the play clock to wind-down to under 5 seconds and even on a three-and-out you've used 20-30 seconds more. For an overmatched (on both sides of the ball) team like Philly a 3-and-out that lasts 1:10 is less damaging than a 3-and-out that lasts 30 seconds. Philly has a varied and profligate running-game (and some short-passes as well) that would do well to eat up clock time as well. With a strong-armed mobile Vick behind center and Jackson downfield and McCoy as the dumpoff you have a very good combo for occasional high-variance, risky plays that can be used as necissary.

    Cheers,
    J

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