Live WP Graphs + Updates Are Up

Live WP graphs are up and running for today's games.

Almost forgot. Mobile WP graphs are running too.

Advanced stats for individual players and teams are updated following the 1 pm games.

Roundup 10/2/2010

Are Hall of Fame coaches really just products of great quarterbacks?

You've heard of WOWY stats (With Or Without You), like hockey's adjusted plus/minus. Now here's a WOWRM stat: With Or Without Randy Moss. I did something (primitively) similar with Troy Polamalu last season.

Gregg Easterbrook thinks the 3-4 defense is part of a cyclical fad. He also says that good players are far more important than schemes. He's right. The small advantage I found for the 3-4 is just that--small. The rest of the variance in performance among defenses has to be attributed to other things, most notably player ability. On the other hand, every advantage counts, no matter how slight.

The Weekly League: Notes and Ideas for Week Four

This week's edition of The Weekly League features notes on Sunday night's game between Chicago and the New York Football Giants. It also features some idle thoughts on American filmmaker Woody Allen. I apologize for that in advance.

The Four Factors you see below represent each team's raw performance thus far in four important categories (pass and rush efficiency, pass and rush efficiency against) relative to league average (where 100 is league average and anything above is good). They're only for this season's first three weeks of games, however, so some regression is likely.

Along with the Four Factors, you'll see two other numbers: Generic Win Probability (GWP) and Game Probability (PROB). The GWP is the probability a team would beat the league average team at a neutral site. It can be found for all teams here. The PROB is each respective team's chance of winning this particular contest. Your host, Brian Burke, provides PROBs to the New York Times each week, and those numbers (along with methodology) can be found here.

Finally, a glossary of all unfamiliar terms can be found here.

Some Notes on Football and "High Culture"
It's very possible that you, reader, have one or more objections to American filmmaker Woody Allen. It's also very possible that your objections to Mr. Allen and/or his work are entirely reasonable. I don't care to dispute that notion.

What I'd like to submit is that one of Mr. Allen's strengths -- and I think it's indisputable -- is both his ease with high culture and his ability to mock it simultaneously. (Basically his entire filmography is a testament to this notion, although, if you're looking for examples, the Marshall McLuhan scene from Annie Hall is a strong one.) At his best, Allen is teaching us an important lesson -- namely, that we ought to be curious about, and humble before, the Great Works, but also that, insofar as everything is fallible, so are the same Great Works.

Game Probabilities - Week 4

Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down. This week I also lead-in with a discussion of the kinds of things I'm looking at this time of the year.

Week 4 Team Efficiency Rankings

The team rankings below are in terms of generic win probability. The GWP is the probability a team would beat the league average team at a neutral site. Each team's opponent's average GWP is also listed, which can be considered to-date strength of schedule, and all ratings include adjustments for opponent strength.

Offensive rank (ORANK) is offensive generic win probability which is based on each team's offensive efficiency stats only. In other words, it's the team's GWP assuming it had a league-average defense. DRANK is is a team's generic win probability rank assuming it had a league-average offense.

Should GB Have Let CHI Score the TD?

Mike McCarthy missed an opportunity Monday night. With the score tied at 17 and 1:44 on the clock, the Bears managed to earn a 1st and goal from the 9. The Packers had only one timeout, so CHI could run nearly out the clock and kick a field goal if they chose. FGs from that range are successful about 94% of the time, and with the good conditions, it's probably even higher.

Had CHI scored a TD on 1st down, that puts GB down by 7 with 1:40 to go, which gives the average team about a 10% chance of winning. A FG attempt after 3 clock-burning runs, gives GB almost no chance to win. GB's only hope would be to prevent a TD on 3 straight downs and hope a FG misses.

Should the Jets Have Gone For 2?

I got a few requests to analyze Rex Ryan’s decision following the Jets' touchdown to go up 7 points with 2 minutes left to play Sunday night. Would it be smart to try for the 2-point conversion? If the Jets convert, they go up by 9, and the game is effectively over. If they fail to convert, they’re still up by 7. On the other hand, kicking the XP puts the Jets up by 8, requiring the Dolphins to go for 2 points themselves if they manage to score.

Looking at things from the Dolphins’ perspective, they would have about a 0.11 Win Probability (WP) being down by 7 with just less than 2 minutes left. (I’ve done some extra analysis by including all similar situations where teams need a TD to win or tie with 2 min left. This expands the sample greatly if we assume it’s the final drive of the game, and each team has a 50/50 WP in overtime. Teams get a needed TD 22% of the time, putting the WP at 0.11, which is the same as what my general WP model estimates.)

New Feature: Advanced Stat Team Pages

I’ve added a new page to complement the individual player advanced stats. Until now, there were stats for all defenders, offensive skill players, and player stats by team on both sides of the ball. I’ve recently added a team-level page, which is a summary of each offense and defense in terms of advanced stats. You can always get to them via the 'Stats' menu item in the site header. There’s Win Probability Added (WPA), Expected Points Added (EPA), and Success Rate (SR) for every offense and defense since 2000. Stats for the run and the pass are broken out.

For example, so far in 2010 New England’s offense is back firing on all cylinders, leading the league with 43 EPA. This basically means that the NE offense has generated about a net point advantage of 43 points over three games. That’s about 14 net points per game. Everyone knows about their passing success, but they’re running the ball very well too. They’re 3rd in the league with about a 50% SR in the running game.