Brian Burke makes his first regular season appearance on the podcast to recap week two and discuss his latest research. Brian explains his break-even models for two point conversions and challenges and describes how the WOPR allows him to create test data for all sorts of interesting hypothetical game strategies. He also discusses an upcoming post that examines when teams should start running their "four minute offense". Dave and Brian close out the episode with an update on the 4th down bot and the new home and format for Brian's weekly game predictions.
This episode is sponsored by DraftKings, the leading provider of daily fantasy sports. If you use this link or promo code "AFA" to create a new account and make a deposit you'll gain a free $2 entry into this weekend's $100,000 Play Action Tournament.
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Podcast Episode 29 - Brian Burke
Podcast Episode 28 - Chase Stuart
Chase Stuart rejoins the show to break down the surprising week one winners and losers. Chase shares his observations from the Jets home opener and explains some of the weekend's more intriguing game scripts. He also examines the data on exactly how important week one results are in predicting the season while looking ahead to the most intriguing week two match-ups.
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Podcast Episode 27 - Mike Sando
It's an episode full of pivot tables and preseason predictions as Mike Sando, ESPN Insider, joins the show to discuss coaching tiers, predict breakout candidates and preview the upcoming NFL season. Mike shares his process for ranking and evaluating players and coaches, makes some predictions for the upcoming season and reveals his secret analytical weapon - a massive excel spreadsheet he uses to track every conceivable type of player data.
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Podcast Episode 26 - Keith Goldner
Keith Goldner, AFA contributor and Chief Analyst at Numberfire, returns to provide some fantasy football wisdom. He dissects the different strategies for snake, auction and keeper league drafts, and explains how to incorporate risk management strategies when creating your roster. Keith and Dave also touch on daily fantasy games, and look at how to craft the optimal lineups for various league types. They close out the episode by highlighting the players to watch during the 2014 fantasy season.
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Podcast Episode 25 - Aaron Schatz
Aaron Schatz, founder of Football Outsiders, joins the podcast to discuss the newly released 2014 Football Outsiders Almanac. Aaron explains how he and his team developed a system to combine game film analysis with box score data to create their own advanced metrics. He breaks down the difference between rate statistics and totals, and explains how the concept of “replacement level” is important in football. Aaron also provides team-by-team breakdowns and predictions, and finishes up the episode by conquering Dave’s “lightning round” of questions.
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Podcast Episode 24 - Brian Burke
Brian Burke returns to recap his busy summer offseason. After a brief lesson on the rules of Gaelic Football, Dave and Brian discuss what we can learn about NFL win shares from Jimmy Graham’s contract, some new updates to the site (WOPR, and Win Probability Model) and the 2014 season predictions Brian made for ESPN the magazine. Dave also issues a call for podcast contributors, looking for anyone interested in contributing their technical expertise to the show.
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Podcast Episode 23 - John Urschel
John Urschel, professional football player and mathematician, joins the show. John was recently selected in the 5th round by the Baltimore Ravens in this year's NFL draft. Last season, John was a Penn State football co-captain and as a student-athlete he achieved a 4.0 GPA while majoring in math. For his efforts, he won the Campbell Trophy, awarded to the top scholar athlete in Division one football. He recently proved the Urschel-Zikatanov Generalized Bisection Theorem and published his findings in the Journal of Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy.
On the show, John explains how he came to love the world of mathematics, and how his passion for football aligns with his commitment to academics. He also shares some of the lessons he's learned from veterans in OTAs and describes how he's preparing for the upcoming NFL season.
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Podcast Episode 22 - Brian Burke
Brian Burke returns to the show to recap the 2014 NFL draft. He describes the Bayesian Draft Analysis tool he created and discusses the value of trades made by teams during the draft. Brian and Dave then discuss their favorite new addition to the league, John Urschel, and make a pitch to get him to contribute to the site. Brian also previews his new project, WOPR, and explains how it'll help generate data for some previously unanswerable questions.
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Podcast Episode 21 - Cade Massey
Cade Massey, Professor of the Practice at the Wharton School of Business, joins the show to discuss his research on the NFL draft. Professor Massey is the co-author of "The Loser's Curse: Decision Making & Market Efficiency in the National Football League Draft", a paper analyzing the market for draft pick trades. He and his co-author, Richard Thaler, discovered that teams picking at the top of the draft actually sacrifice a great deal of what he calls "surplus value" by not trading down for additional selections.
Dave and Cade look at the reasons why teams employ less than optimal strategies, including risk aversion, adherence to norms established by "The Chart" and other psychological factors. Professor Massey defends his paper against critiques, and discusses why he believes the draft is such a compelling spectator event.
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Podcast Episode 20 - Jeff Ohlmann
Jeffrey Ohlmann, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business, joins Dave this week to talk about the NFL draft, the sports analytics class he teaches, and his upcoming panel discussion at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference. Professor Ohlmann discusses his research on optimal strategies for the NFL draft and explains how teams must strategize with imperfect player data and knowledge of the draft strategies of other teams. He also discusses how NFL franchises implement different strategies in the draft, and how combinations of NFL combine measurements may be more useful than any one metric.
Professor Ohlmann also describes how he created a sports analytics class for undergraduates, and provides some examples of the coursework. He and Dave end the episode with a look towards the upcoming MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference, how Professor Ohlmann prepared for his panel, and what he's most looking forward to in Boston.
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Podcast Episode 19 - Best of 2013
The “Best of 2013” episode contains highlights from this season’s most compelling Advanced NFL Stats Podcast interviews. On the show, Virgil Carter tells some terrific stories about playing quarterback for Bill Walsh, David Romer describes the feedback Bill Belichick gave him on his paper and Jeff Sagarin and Wayne Winston debate the best ways to analyze play by play data. Brian Burke concludes the show with thoughts on his four part series on momentum.
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Podcast Episode 18 - Brian Burke
Brian Burke returns to the show for the final podcast of the season. He and Dave kick off the episode with a NFL rules brainstorming session. They discuss some of Brian's (and readers') ideas for creative rule changes the league could implement to make the game more interesting and fun.
Brian then dives into an explanation of his latest article on the value of a time out. He describes his process for analyzing the win probability ramifications of "burning" time outs, and why sometimes it's better for a team to make any choice rather than use a valuable resource debating the optimum choice.
Dave and Brian discuss Brian's win prediction model for the Superbowl, and why it looks to be a very close match-up. To wrap up the episode they use the Franchise Season Visualization tool to take a look back at the 2013 season.
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Podcast Episode 17 - Kevin Quealy
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Podcast Episode 16 - Keith Goldner
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Podcast Episode 15 - Alok Pattani
Alok Pattani of ESPN Stats & Info joins Dave to discuss how ESPN uses analytics across its different platforms. He talks about how ESPN's use of advanced stats has evolved during his time at the company and explains the process of getting statistical concepts from research idea to broadcast.
Dave and Alok then look at some of ESPN Stats and Info's NFL research, including a new stat that quantifies pass protection and how that correlates to defensive and offensive pass efficiency. Alok reviews his research on the discrepancy between EPA and YPG for certain playoff teams, and how the story of a team's success (or failure) can be explained by different combinations of stats.
After a brief chat about the ways to quantify offensive pace, Alok outlines out an interesting parallel between two QB's playing against each other this weekend. To close out the show, Dave and Alok look at three divisional-round rematches, and attempt to tease out what can, and can't, be learned from when the same teams played earlier in the regular season.
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Podcast Episode 14 - Chase Stuart
Chase Stuart returns to the show just in time to discuss his latest Football Perspective research. Dave and Chase begin by breaking down the historical context of Peyton Manning's single season passing touchdown record. They then cover the Carolina Panthers and break down the changes they’ve made over the past year, the storylines surrounding Cam Newton, and how overall team performance can sometimes obfuscate an individual player's development
Next, Chase takes to his soapbox to make the case that the Jets should fire Rex Ryan and explains how retaining him would set a unique historical precedent. Next, they turn their sights to the Giants and discuss what to make of Eli Manning’s interception spike.
The episode concludes with a look ahead to the week 17 Bears/Packers and Cowboys/Eagles matchups. Chase weighs in on what he’s most excited for in this year’s playoffs, and why playing a Superbowl outdoors might actually be more fair than playing in a dome.
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Podcast Episode 13 - Harold Sackrowitz
This week Harold Sackrowitz, professor of Statistics at Rutgers University and author of "Refining the After-Touchdown Decision" joins Dave to discuss two point conversions. Harold first became interested in football analytics in the mid-90's when he and his son penned a paper on ball control, and whether the strategy of paying "keep away" from talented opposing offenses is an effective strategy (spoiler alert: it's not). His research found that an inferior team sacrificing offensive efficiency would require an unrealistically large reduction in the number of possessions to make a "ball-control" offensive strategy effective.
In the second half of the interview, Dave and Professor Sackrowitz talk about his paper on two point conversions. Harold was initially intrigued by repeated mentions of "the 2 point chart" on television broadcasts, and after digging up "the chart" he found it to be lacking in detail and context. To fix it, he devised a dynamic programming model to incorporate score differential, the number of possessions remaining in the game and a particular team's chance of converting a two point play. With this model he created a series of new charts to more accurately fit a variety of two point decision situations. Harold also describes the responses he's received and the subsequent conversations with NFL decision makers about his work.
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Podcast Episode 12 - Brian Burke
Brian Burke is back on the show to break down his latest work. He explains the details of the updated win probability formula and the story behind the brand new New York Times 4th Down Bot. Dave and Brian also discuss his latest post analyzing "streakiness" and how it can measure momentum.
They then dive into the wildly entertaining week 14 slate of games, beginning with a look at Keith Goldner's intentional touchdown post and a review of the best (Matt Prater) and worst (Philadelphia/Detroit) of the week 14 kicking game. Brian lays out the interesting math behind the Alabama/Auburn missed field goal return, and how the analysis behind it presents some tricky challenges. The show ends with a look at late season winter weather, and how it may affect teams as they prepare to battle for the chance to play outdoors in this year's New York Superbowl.
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Podcast Episode 11 - Pete Palmer
Dave interviews Pete Palmer, one of the original great minds in Sabermetrics. Pete co-authored The Hidden Game of Baseball, and later, The Hidden Game of Football. Pete describes how he discovered a scorekeeping error that incorrectly listed Ty Cobb's 1910 batting average as too high, thereby literally rewriting the baseball record books. He then discusses what it was like to edit baseball and football encyclopedias, how he made the move into football analytics and his current role as a member of the New England Patriots statistics team. Pete outlines the major findings he and his co-authors describe in The Hidden Game of Football, including early versions of expected points and win percentages. The show concludes with a discussion of questions he's interested in analyzing in today's NFL.
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Podcast Episode 10 - David Romer
David Romer, professor of economics at UC Berkeley, is on the podcast this week to discuss why coaches should be more aggressive on fourth down. David is the author of "Do Firms Maximize? Evidence From Professional Football" and in this interview, he explains his novel approach to analyzing fourth down decision-making. He outlines reasons why coaches are incentivized to make sub-optimal choices and how they can improve their team’s chances of winning by following his advice.
Professor Romer explains why "critical probabilities" are important, and why the "dead zone" on the field presents unique choices for an offense stalled on fourth down. He also tells the story of how after hearing Bill Belichick's critique that his paper didn’t account for the existence of momentum, he amended the writing to include an examination of why momentum in the NFL does not have a measurable effect on game results. For more on the professor's paper, check out the following links:
- Brian Burke’s review. In his response, Brian explains why the professor’s research may actually underestimate the effects of his proposed offensive strategy. [Edit: Prof. Romer set me straight a few yrs back. I overlooked that the paper makes the same point I made. -Brian]
- New York Times coverage
- ESPN the Magazine essay by Michael Lewis
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