tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post8232207272512542213..comments2023-11-05T04:16:44.937-05:00Comments on Advanced Football Analytics (formerly Advanced NFL Stats): An Alternative View on the Officiating DebacleUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-85359221305937727882012-10-02T09:49:45.676-04:002012-10-02T09:49:45.676-04:00A few points. You say that "only the most egr...A few points. You say that "only the most egregious fouls in the box are called" as if it's some passive event of nature. How and which fouls are called is up to the league. <br /><br />But I think you inadvertently made the case that very harsh penalties for infractions would likely lead to lots of flopping.<br /><br />Lastly, if all a penalty does is replace the result with what would have happened without the infraction, then it does nothing to deter the violation. If I steal your money and the worst that happens to me is that I have to pay you back, I risk nothing by doing it. And there is a chance I won't be caught at all.<br /><br />Because the detection rate is not 100% for any infraction, the penalty must be stiffer than the counterfactual outcome to be a rational deterrent. Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-55194779403896067322012-10-01T20:14:47.143-04:002012-10-01T20:14:47.143-04:00Re: Harsh penalties.
Perhaps the harshest penalty...Re: Harsh penalties.<br /><br />Perhaps the harshest penalty in sport is in soccer. With penalty kick success between 75% and 80%, and with average scoring being a little under 3 goals per game in most top flight leagues, a penalty is a game changer. The result: only the most egregious fouls in the box are called.<br /><br />Pass interference penalties are already as stiff as they can be. Interference in the goal area is almost like a soccer penalty kick, as the chances of scoring a TD from 1st and goal on the one are quite high.<br /><br />What could be done with penalties is matching the penalty with the result that would have occurred in the absence of the foul. This is already the case for defensive pass interference, grounding, illegal forward pass (passes crossed the LoS). For offensive holding on a QB dropback, perhaps it could be treated it as a sack: -10 yards and loss of down. In the goal area, it's already like this with a safety awarded.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-17680636913541765622012-09-28T21:28:15.494-04:002012-09-28T21:28:15.494-04:00Good point, Steve. But at the rate this league is ...Good point, Steve. But at the rate this league is going, soon they'll make offensive holding legal.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-75887590087142407482012-09-28T10:11:26.941-04:002012-09-28T10:11:26.941-04:00Building on what Phil and Brian said: Football pen...Building on what Phil and Brian said: Football penalties are further different from criminal penalties because criminals don't have coaches telling them how to live their lives. Football players have coaches who instruct them down to the finest detail, based in part on the possible penalties that could be incurred from using a certain technique. Eg, I was taught from the earliest days to grab a rusher's jersey or the bottom of the shoulder pads when blocking - as long as you keep your hands in, no one will call it. If you're looking at 20 yd holding penalties, coaches might not teach that. Steve Mnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-35005789043854943832012-09-28T01:29:07.628-04:002012-09-28T01:29:07.628-04:00Or instead of ratcheting up the yards of a penalty...Or instead of ratcheting up the yards of a penalty, perhaps stiffer penalties for multiple offenders, such as:<br />First holding: 10 yards.<br />Second holding: 10 yards + offending player sits for remainder of possession.<br />Third holding: 10 yards + offending player sits for remainder of game.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-13780535130180959422012-09-27T20:43:41.110-04:002012-09-27T20:43:41.110-04:00Brian,
Thank you for all of the informative inform...Brian,<br />Thank you for all of the informative information. I do not feel that the number of penalties this year is substantially different that any other year in the past decade as the mean number of penalties per game in the first three weeks is well within one standard deviation.<br /><br />Year Mean penalties per game<br />2002 13.2609<br />2003 15.4783<br />2004 14.2609<br />2005 15.5870<br />2006 12.3261<br />2007 11.4583<br />2008 12.3617<br />2009 12.3333<br />2010 13.1489<br />2011 13.0417<br />2012 13.6250<br /><br />The question now that the regular referees are back is who is everyone going to blame after the next controversial call?Greg Szalkowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00452319871186722387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-53202294674358952282012-09-27T16:36:49.931-04:002012-09-27T16:36:49.931-04:00I think stronger penalties would work more than hi...I think stronger penalties would work more than higher rates of flagging penalties. People tend to respond to what is salient and if it were widely published and discussed on TV that the yardage went up then people might respond. If the prob. went up it probably would have an impact, but only after time for players to "learn"/believe that the probability did go up. This is all relative to what one would expect with the baseline assumption of "rationality" where all that matters is (prob x pain) of penalty.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10230344931186858123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-44811055190694958402012-09-27T16:29:34.845-04:002012-09-27T16:29:34.845-04:00Phil-Interesting point. I wonder if harsher sports...Phil-Interesting point. I wonder if harsher sports fouls would be more effective than criminal punishment because there is such immediacy to them. There is also a strong social peer effect, where individual violations create pain for the entire team.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-12554096748405466372012-09-27T14:53:42.633-04:002012-09-27T14:53:42.633-04:00I'm still waiting for instant replay to incorp...I'm still waiting for instant replay to incorporate multiple screens simultaneously, a la the TV show "24."Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09616193659390720174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-72387822381896598752012-09-27T14:21:14.896-04:002012-09-27T14:21:14.896-04:00@ Phil
I have read the same research and didn...@ Phil <br /><br />I have read the same research and didn't even think of it until you brought it up in the comments. I think that's a great example of how the league would react. <br /><br />I think your proposed implementation maybe needs work though. Finding a way to increase the probability of being caught should be done in another way, rather than after the fact. While I don't have the perfect solution, one obvious solution would be expanding instant replay capabilities to penalties and increasing the ref staff manning the camera's. Perhaps further down the line image recognition software could be used to focus on each player and be programmed to flag player to player interactions that are fouls.<br /><br />However, when increasing the probability of being caught, you then have to evaluate the effects on the game. If holding could be called on every play, perhaps the fact that it's such a large pentalty in the first place needs to be evaluated if it's such an integral part of the game. As it stand right now, referee's most often only call holding that is directly involved with the play and ignore most backside shenanigans. <br /><br />This type of judgement would need to be applied to all the rules because nobody wants the side effect of increasing the probability of being caught in an effort to decrease the incentive to committ penalties be to actually increase the number of penalties called that would never have been called in the original system. <br />Whamphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16006695529627865508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-58456446528349808922012-09-27T11:51:23.355-04:002012-09-27T11:51:23.355-04:00I read research a few years ago that showed that i...I read research a few years ago that showed that increasing penalties (for crime, not football) doesn't have much effect. What DOES have effect is increasing the probability of getting caught.<br /><br />If the problem then, is that enforcement is arbitrary, increasing the penalties might not help much. Rather, it might just frustrate both teams more, as the inconsistency will have a bigger effect on game outcomes.<br /><br />For flagrant, deliberate violations that aren't caught, how about enforcing them later after video review? I know those aren't the big problem, like they are in hockey (where a violent slash is missed by the refs) ... but if a player knows he'll be cited eventually, even not on that play, that would be a strong disincentive.<br /><br />You could count them all up at the half, and apply the net result to the kickoff, or something. <br /><br />Just the flagrant ones that were missed, I'm talking about here. <br /><br />For the less-flagrant ones, you could probably do it after the game, and keep a running count, and fine the teams at the end of the season. That way, a player who gets away with a lot will at least cost his team *something* for those missed calls.<br /><br />Of course, the team might be happy that the player got away with so much ... but they're happy now, and this way at least they'd have to pay for it, which would make that player less valuable to them.<br /><br />I guess, in summary, my view is: why should a violation go completely unpunished if the refs don't happen to notice it immediately? Doesn't work that way for murder or robbery.<br /><br />Phil Birnbaumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03800617749001032996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-65241988962183505832012-09-27T01:39:50.286-04:002012-09-27T01:39:50.286-04:00The main problem with this IMO is simply the facts...The main problem with this IMO is simply the facts that D's will be terrified of these penalties and become even softer, and the game truly will become Madden.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-15016576544624120452012-09-26T22:46:41.698-04:002012-09-26T22:46:41.698-04:00Alright, someone follow up on Brian's research...Alright, someone follow up on Brian's research agenda. We'll model linemen as holding when the benefit of holding B > pP where p is the prob. of flag and P is the cost of the penalty. WP seems like the most reasonable way to measure P but maybe EP would be better. Since the penalties are issued in yards the actual cost of the penalty varies a lot with field position (and time of game for WP) so that might help estimate how rates of holding would change if we changed the penalty to be stiffer. Unfortunately the benefits from holding with increase and decrease with field position, probably largely in tandem with the costs so we don't have a good identified model to study--variation could be driven by increasing costs or decreasing perceived benefits.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10230344931186858123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-52671163291451580482012-09-26T22:26:17.191-04:002012-09-26T22:26:17.191-04:00I think that you identified the main problem with ...I think that you identified the main problem with this approach: many penalties are subjective. For instance, it's often said that holding could be called on every play. I don't want to see harsh penalties imposed on subjective judgments; that would give the refs too much influence and would do little to reduce penalties.JDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-31070022295829206292012-09-26T22:16:59.606-04:002012-09-26T22:16:59.606-04:00On the other hand, if you make the penalty too sev...On the other hand, if you make the penalty too severe, the refs won't want to call it.<br /><br />How many total yards worth of penalty would you like?Tangotigerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11864323151591103655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-88341488365786272102012-09-26T22:05:17.158-04:002012-09-26T22:05:17.158-04:00I'd settle for laying off of all the illegal c...I'd settle for laying off of all the illegal contact penalties myself. If you can't light up a receiver in the middle of the field, then at least let the cornerbacks grapple with them. Nobody is getting a concussion from a jersey tug. I personally dislike the fact that the QB has such a massive impact on the game, especially in a team sport that involves twenty-one other starters (plus special teams). Having a complete team no longer means as much--it's all about who has the elite passing game. It's just weird to see teams with poor defenses go grab the 1 seed in the playoffs.<br /><br />I've always wondered why a false start is only five yards. Defensive offside is excusable, but false start on the offense means somebody made a very avoidable and fundamental error, someone who presumably should know exactly what the snap count is going to be.Jonathannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-62774774793733207692012-09-26T21:59:24.716-04:002012-09-26T21:59:24.716-04:00If there is a yard inflation problem, maybe we sho...If there is a yard inflation problem, maybe we should increase what you need to get a first down to 15 instead of 10 yards? How about making the field longer? <br /><br />I mean, if you are going to make changes to penalties to cope with yard-inflation, you might as well look at other aspects as well. Measurehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08616625192944740996noreply@blogger.com