The Onion on Fourth Down Strategy

The Onion chimes in on sound football strategy. Funny article, but at the risk of sounding like I have no sense of humor, readers here know better than to punt on 4th and 3 on the defense's 45. It's a slam-dunk easy call: You go for it. Onside kicks are a pretty good idea too, but random challenges and haphazard laterals are probably not.

Game Probabilities - Week 8

Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down. This week I also lead-in with a re-post of an article from earlier in the year on firing coaches and regression to the mean.

Efficiency Rankings - Week 8

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.

GWP is based on a logistic regression model applied to current team stats. The model includes offensive and defensive passing and running efficiency, offensive turnover rates, defensive interception rates, and team penalty rates. If you're scratching your head wondering why a team is ranked where it is, just scroll down to the second table to see the stats of all 32 teams.

Click on the table headers to sort:

Onside Kicks 2 -- Win Probability Analysis

Recently, I looked at onside kicks using an expected point analysis. We saw that "surprise" onside kicks could give a kicking team a big advantage. The break-even recovery rate would need to be 42% to make one worthwhile, and unexpected onside kicks are currently recovered 60% of the time.

But the expected point analysis only applies to "normal" football game situations. It does not account for the particular situations shaped by score and time remaining. For that we need to turn to win probability (WP).

Does FG Accuracy Decline In Clutch Situations?

Like most other Baltimore fans, I was disappointed at the end of the most recent Ravens game when kicker Steve Hauschka missed a 44-yard field goal that would have capped a dramatic comeback. What made it worse was that I had to suffer through the usual nonsense from the local sportswriters about how Matt Stover, the popular long-time Ravens kicker until released this year, would have undoubtedly made that kick.

The jury is certainly still out on whether Hauschka is any good, but let's keep one thing in mind. NFL kickers as a whole only make kicks from that distance 70% of the time(including blocks). We simply don't remember all the missed field goals in the first quarter, or when our favorite team is already 17 points ahead or behind. The ever-clutch Stover? His career accuracy from that range was...70%.

But then I wondered whether FG kickers are affected by the game situation. Do their nerves get rattled? Are kickers less accurate in clutch situations when the game is on the line?

Roundup 10/24

Two great articles from Chris Brown. Here’s an explanation of the Wildcat he did for Fifth Down prior to the Jets-Dolphins game a couple weeks ago. And at his own site, he explains zone run plays.

Ex-players and coaches are usually horrible analysts. Nowhere is this more evident than in baseball where analysts are forced to fill the endless dead time between each pitch with mind-numbing drivel, superstition, and flat out erroneous statements. Tom Tango points out some of the silliness from the MLB playoffs. It makes you wonder how these players and coaches became successful in the first place.

Kevin Kelley of Pulaski Academy

A reader posted this link in a recent comment. It's an interview with Kevin Kelley, head coach of the Pulaski Academy high school football team in Little Rock, Arkansas. He always goes for it on 4th down and 75% of his kick offs are onside kicks. The team has enjoyed unprecedented success, including winning the state championship last year. I've mentioned him before, but he spells out his thinking very clearly here. Gregg Easterbrook has been writing about Coach Kelley and Pulaski Academy since 2007. He was also featured in a Sports Illustrated article earlier this season.

The video is embedded below, but you may need to give the video a few seconds to load. Here is the direct link.

Game Probabilities - Week 7

Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down.This week I also lead-in with my take on a pet peeve with many ranking systems.