On Saturday, I watched as my Northwestern Wildcats punted on 4th-and-1 from midfield, up three with 1:30 remaining. A conversion would have guaranteed a win, allowing the Cats to kneel down. By punting to Michigan State, I was certain NU would lose in dramatic fashion once again. Luckily, the Cats defense came up big, making what seemed like their first fourth-quarter stand of the year. Ron Rivera had an eerily similar decision against the Bucs this week.
With just over a minute left, the Panthers had the ball at the Tampa Bay 49, up 21-13. The Bucs had used all three of their timeouts, so a conversion wins the game. Not only do the Panthers have one of the best goal line backs in the league in Cam Newton, but they also have the human bowling ball, Mike Tolbert, who was born and bred for those situations.
Panthers Punt Away The Win
Sunday's Numbers Have Been Crunched
Holiday Gift Guide for Statheads
For those of you a little less dedicated to the cause, I thought I'd put together a list of my recommendations for gifts suitable for the stathead in your life, which just might include yourself. In no particular order, here are some gift ideas with an advanced statistical bent.
First off, treat yourself to some of these very stylish duds. Then, consider some of these great gift options:
Playoff Forecast - Week 11
As always, these numbers come courtesy of Chris Cox at NFL-forecast.com and are generated with the help of his NFL-Forecast software app, which uses the win probabilities generated by the team efficiency model to create a Monte Carlo season simulation. And if you don't buy the game probabilities from Advanced NFL Stats, you can tweak them as much as you like to generate your own playoff projections. I encourage everyone to download the app and test out your own scenarios.
IND really improved their wildcard chances this week. It's the Colts and everybody else gunning for a wildcard berth. The other battle in the AFC is going to be for the 2nd seed between BAL, DEN, PIT, and NE.
In the NFC the wildcard chase is SEA and everybody else. If DAL gets in, it looks like they'll have to win the division. I still think NO is undervalued by my model.
These numbers do not count BUF's win over MIA last night. Sorry about that. For up to date numbers, you can always go straight to nfl-forecast.com.
Weekly Game Probabilities
Game probabilities for week 11 are up at the New York Times' Fifth Down.
This week I take a look at alternate estimates for the BAL-PIT game due to Roethlisberger's injury.
Josh Freeman Discovers The Deep Ball
Tampa Bay Buccaneers opponents are getting used to an unfortunate sight: the Josh Freeman deep ball. Freeman hit on two more 30-plus yard passes against the Chargers in Sunday's victory, this 54-yard dart to Mike Williams and this 31-yard strike to Vincent Jackson.
Freeman has now completed 32 deep passes (at least 15 yards downfield) for 1,064 yards, five touchdowns and just one inteception, accounting for nearly 70 expected points added. All this has come in just 68 attempts -- Freeman is averaging 15.6 yards per deep attempt and over an expected point per throw.
We shouldn't be surprised. Freeman made his way into the first round of the 2009 draft despite mediocre college numbers, mostly thanks to his size and the arm strength that comes with it. He was compared to players like Daunte Culpepper and Ben Roethlisberger -- huge quarterbacks who (at least at one point in their careers) made a living off the deep ball.
For some reason, Freeman and the Bucs never really embraced the deep ball before this season. Freeman went deep on just 14 percent of passes last season, dead last among 39 qualified quarterbacks. He threw deep less often then players like Tyler Palko, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kyle Orton and Matt Hasselbeck -- inexplicable, given the respective skill sets. Chad Pennington threw 18.7 percent deep passes in 2008, his last full season.
This seems to be the major revelation of the Greg Schiano-Mike Sullivan establishment in Tampa Bay: Josh Freeman has the fabled "big arm," so why not use it? This season, Freeman has gone deep on over a quarter of his pass attempts; his 25.3 percent ranks third in the league behind Joe Flacco and Andrew Luck. The concept isn't particularly difficult -- let Freeman drop back, and if the pocket holds, he has the arm to get it to the receiver down field.
Washington Post: What Analytics Can and Can't Do in Football
This week's article at the Post takes advantage of the Redskins bye week to take a step back and discuss what analytics can and can't do in football.
...We can look at which teams succeed more often in various situations and rank them. Unfortunately, that’s almost all we can do with this type of approach. It’s great fodder for Internet message board arguments, but it doesn’t help teams gain an edge.
To really help coaches, a deep understanding of how teams come to win games is required. Advanced models such as Win Probability and Expected Points are very powerful tools, because of what an economist would call “linear utility functions.” The term linear refers to the quality of proportional desirability. For example, it’s exactly twice as good to have a 40% chance of winning a game as a 20% chance of winning a game. You can’t say that about total yards or simple points...
Team Efficiency Rankings - Week 11
The equation here is pretty simple. Take a solid defense. Add Peyton Manning. You get a team that's very hard to beat.