tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post8814757833310608442..comments2023-11-05T04:16:44.937-05:00Comments on Advanced Football Analytics (formerly Advanced NFL Stats): ESPN's New QB StatUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-18756438834651561632012-12-25T13:07:15.709-05:002012-12-25T13:07:15.709-05:00Brian, Thank you for all your insights so far and ...Brian, Thank you for all your insights so far and all those to come!<br /><br />I've been playing around with QB WPA/G, EPA/P, AYPA, and also ESPN's QBR in relation to the 2012 season. Here's a summary of findings from QBs who played in at least 14 games (with one week remaining in the 2012 regular season):<br /><br />1) The four indices all have relatively normal distributions, no significant skewness or kurtosis.<br /><br />2) The four indices are highly correlated with each other (.81-.92). <br /><br />3) All four indices have modest/large correlations with winning: .48 for AYPA, .55 EPA/P, .63 WPA/G, and .64 QBR. (Of course the latter two indices explicitly incorporate winning probability and thus have artificially inflated correlations with winning, also QBR includes aspects of WPA, EPA, and AYPA and thus is disposed to do about as well as the three of them combined -- if I'm understanding things correctly). <br /><br />4) Perhaps most interestingly, the four indices display quadratic relationships to winning such that teams with below average QBs win about as many games as teams with average QBs, whereas teams with excellent QBs win many more games than teams with average QBs. <br /><br />5) QBR might provide unique information over and above the combination of WPA/G, EPA/P, and AYPA. In a linear regression predicting wins, R-Square increases from .40 to .50 when adding QBR to the other three (p=.07). Not sure if this is an artifact of QBR heavily incorporating information about winning probability, a result to dismiss due to small sample size, or a credit to QBR for doing something right.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07880455074429334921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-43929194557502791732011-08-29T16:03:54.774-04:002011-08-29T16:03:54.774-04:00Funny how some one can be so critical but leave th...Funny how some one can be so critical but leave themselves "Anonymous." What cowardice!<br /><br />I've been reading Brian's work for 2 years. He's done particularly good work of citing sources and creating historical perspective concerning WP and EPA. I don't feel like he ever made the claim that he invented these metrics. He's consistently shown how much he owes to his predecessors.Mishanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-29916032171763525922011-08-29T00:39:55.784-04:002011-08-29T00:39:55.784-04:00Brian, Unfortunately ESPN just didn't hire you...Brian, Unfortunately ESPN just didn't hire you to improve their product. I applaud them for trying to improve the rating system, but I don't trust ESPN to go about it in a moral and ethical manner.<br /><br />Drive on Brian we appreciate all your hard, groundbreaking work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-7549696652818071962011-08-24T12:45:58.262-04:002011-08-24T12:45:58.262-04:00hey - good to have you backhey - good to have you backAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-72763673080467297862011-08-22T20:53:41.185-04:002011-08-22T20:53:41.185-04:00Brian: Can you please address the kickoff rule cha...Brian: Can you please address the kickoff rule change (30 to 35) and its impact on expected points and 4th down decisions?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-37783702358769254142011-08-19T17:31:41.607-04:002011-08-19T17:31:41.607-04:00Brian, just to ease the conversation back to Lever...Brian, just to ease the conversation back to Leverage Index. I've just been having a look at some (admittedly simple) examples to see if there's any ideas I can suggest to help you with LI.<br /><br />I've taken some simple games with easily defined rules to see if there's any LI trends that can be gleamed that could be applied to NFL (for instance, one such game is two people toss a coin, HT scores a point for the head, HH or TT no points, most points after 20 flips wins). What I've come to is that LI seems to be a function of current win probability and time remaining in the game, with the highest LI when the game is close to 50:50 and there's very little time left (obviously). I don't know how you've been looking at LI, but I thought this might help you with improving your existing LI.Ian Simcoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01518825067469269377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-31590938733419327222011-08-19T09:49:27.754-04:002011-08-19T09:49:27.754-04:00Sorry about the matchup page. There's no stats...Sorry about the matchup page. There's no stats yet for the season, and the WP stuff is only being run for testing in the pre-season. So there wouldn't be much to see anyway. But thanks for the reminder.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-42724226957143434202011-08-19T09:16:21.399-04:002011-08-19T09:16:21.399-04:00Brian
You're right. You're doing a terrib...Brian<br /><br />You're right. You're doing a terrible job of promoting the 'matchup page'. <br /><br />I have to search for matchup and then click through. <br /><br />Please please add a link.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-32896298882383804172011-08-19T07:57:57.125-04:002011-08-19T07:57:57.125-04:00"Some of us...."and he remains anonymous..."Some of us...."and he remains anonymous....what bull crap....troll<br /><br />If he actually had done anything perhaps he would have given his name and a link. He also obviously never reads the site, b/c I intuitively knew that Brian constantly is pointing out the history of WP, etc., without Brian showing the Google results.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-81933133095296367092011-08-19T01:45:38.030-04:002011-08-19T01:45:38.030-04:00Brian, so Krasker's is the only WP model from ...Brian, so Krasker's is the only WP model from the last 20 years you can cite? If you're writing about the history of football modeling and can't name at least 5 recent EP and WP NFL models each, you really haven't done much research.<br /><br />Tango/MGL developed the WP concept? Now that's funny. You should pick up Alan Schwarz's book The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifeline Fascination with Statistics. If you do half the historical research Schwarz did, your book might be worth reading.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-15008025022395200302011-08-19T01:09:16.389-04:002011-08-19T01:09:16.389-04:00Cold Hard Football Facts is a joke. They're li...Cold Hard Football Facts is a joke. They're like every other crap football site. Just look at this garbage.<br /><br />"CHFF Insider, meanwhile, will instantly re-invent the way you analyze football games and pick winners and losers – with information you can not find anywhere else."<br /><br />"Re-invent the way I analyze football"...don't think so. <br /><br />"Information I can't find anywhere else"...hardly. In fact I can probably find it for free rather than shilling out $79 bucks.<br /><br />I get it. They are out to make a buck if they can off the fans who don't know any better. Hell they even use a cheesy name like " cold hard football facts" They love to use psuedo math and pretend its rigorous and pretend they've come up with stats that no one has ever thought of.<br /><br />I like going there for a laugh...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-77893920863703430502011-08-18T23:53:12.391-04:002011-08-18T23:53:12.391-04:00Anonymous: That's patently absurd. I go out of...Anonymous: That's patently absurd. I go out of my way to give credit where credit is due. But don't take my word for it...<br /><br />First, google "Hidden Game site:advancednflstats.com" and look how many times I have *explicitly* credited that book. That's right, 29. (There are only about a total of 500 posts here, half of which are weekly rankings or link roundups. That means about 1 out of every 10 substantive posts reference Hidden Game!)<br /><br />Then google "Virgil Carter site:advancednflstats.com". Another 9 references.<br /><br />Next, check out the permanent link to Football Commentary on the right.<br /><br />How about the baseball pioneers who developed the WP concept? There's permanent link to Tango/MGL. There are many others, I'm sure, but none of my work is based on, inspired by, or derivative of any other model.<br /><br />Lastly, I recently completed writing an entire chapter of a book (to be published next year) about the history of football modeling.<br /><br />So, nice try.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-25573607475117091852011-08-18T22:44:49.495-04:002011-08-18T22:44:49.495-04:00On the other hand, some of us who've been doin...On the other hand, some of us who've been doing football stats for much longer than a few years feel that Brian has never given full credit to the numerous other EP and WP football models that were published before his.<br /><br />Certainly Brian has been able to present and popularize his models like no one else has, but it sometimes seems like <i>he</i> pretends to have invented the WP concept. So I guess what goes around comes around.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-22861269376905059742011-08-18T00:37:26.771-04:002011-08-18T00:37:26.771-04:00Brian,
i don´t know US-Law, but here in Germany y...Brian,<br /><br />i don´t know US-Law, but here in Germany you´d have great chances to sue AND WIN against the guys from CHFF...<br /><br />They are so arrogant (which would be ok if they were right all the time), it would be great if someonwe brings them down to earth...<br /><br />Karl, GermanyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-34815840030762507562011-08-17T22:08:04.665-04:002011-08-17T22:08:04.665-04:00100% agree with you Brian. We know you're the...100% agree with you Brian. We know you're the real deal.<br /><br /><br />Pat, I believe ESPN briefly credited Brian in their QBR article, although not nearly enough in my opinion.Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-70411746189075133422011-08-17T21:21:13.508-04:002011-08-17T21:21:13.508-04:00I agree, I actually did a little Google work and f...I agree, I actually did a little Google work and found the article you probably meant, then I got where you were going w/ that.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-54201954698411501302011-08-17T20:57:06.135-04:002011-08-17T20:57:06.135-04:00Chris-Sorry. That was the EP article. The WP artic...Chris-Sorry. That was the EP article. The WP article <a href="http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Articles/11_3872_MMW%3A_Introducing_The_Win_Probability_Metric.html" rel="nofollow">is here</a>.<br /><br />My reference above was not meant to be a direct quote. It's intended to be a mocking reference to lines like:<br /><br />"<i>But, lately, we’ve been asking ourselves if there is a way to differentially score an offense’s production based on the game situation – and, as such, the goals of an offense in each unique situation.</i>"<br /><br />Lately you've been asking yourself *if* there is a way? Really? If?<br /><br />"<i>Until we think of something better, we’ll call this the Win Probability Metric (WPM).</i>"<br /><br />Clever.<br /><br />"<i>We can’t make any promises, but a future metric teasing out and quantifying clutch play may be on the radar</i>."<br /><br />Gosh. I wonder if that's <a href="http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/12/whos-clutch-in-2010.html" rel="nofollow">even possible</a>? Whatever should they call it?<br /><br />The bottom line is this: If you write that one day you wondered if something is possible when you full well know that it's been done before, and the way to do it has been freely and publicly laid out for you, that's dishonest.<br /><br />And by claiming that you accomplished what you didn't even know was possible, you are clearly implying you invented the concept. You are deliberately deceiving the reader in order to elevate yourself in his eyes. Not cool.Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-30441441878432975912011-08-17T20:52:49.086-04:002011-08-17T20:52:49.086-04:00ESPN is clearly guilty of plagiarism here. After h...ESPN is clearly guilty of plagiarism here. After having multiple conversations for a year and not specifically mentioning you nor giving you credit, they should be ashamed of themselves! Dean Oliver should stick with basketball stats until he's been there long enough. Don't be oblivious to the fact that he has put his name on this metric and takes full credit for calling it his creation. Furthermore, no one over there is gonna tell us what is actually behind the number, not because of its secret formulas, but rather their fear of exposure of its fundamental flaws to regular sports fans.<br /><br />That said, the biggest issue that I see, in addition to those already mentioned, is that QBR is purely a SUBJECTIVE stat. Unlike the current passer rating, no one reading this can exactly recreate it. This stat is not computed from other official stats normally tallied. You cannot use NFL gamebooks and compute it. You cannot even calculate it mid-game -- you have to wait over an hour after the game to get the final result from an unverifiable and untrusted source.<br /><br />So why isn't it instantaneous? Because, a fall intern has to watch the whole game (probably in slo-mo) and make SUBJECTIVE determinations for each play involving a QB. Two seperate reviewers could have different takes on a controversial play. Worse, if there happens to be a full slate of games on a Sunday, they'll probably need 15 or 16 interns to watch each game live and the video replays that will certainly be a part of it. That means up to 16 different SUBJECTIVE opinions which would have some perceptible impact to this SUBJECTIVE stat.<br /><br />No overall consistency makes this a BS stat.Pat Laffayehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00737248446223495489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-52823071613835632652011-08-17T19:56:09.221-04:002011-08-17T19:56:09.221-04:00Has the article been updated since your post, Bria...Has the article been updated since your post, Brian? I don't see the line you reference?Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-70515160948638812832011-08-17T18:20:21.859-04:002011-08-17T18:20:21.859-04:00Well, to be clear, ESPN is not robbing any intelle...Well, to be clear, ESPN is not robbing any intellectual property. No one owns the concepts of WP or EP. <br /><br />What I do "own" is my implementation of these concepts. The processes, assumptions, techniques, and algorithms, etc. are my intellectual property. Someone else can reinvent their own wheel in their own way, and that's absolutely fine.<br /><br />HOWEVER, I take extreme exception to the CHFF <a href="http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Articles/11_3772_Monday_Morning_Waterboy%3A_quantifying_INTs.html" rel="nofollow">'win probability metric' article</a> I just read. It pretends to have invented the WP concept, going as far as pondering 'what should we call this new marvelous invention?' And it was written by Luis Deloureiro, a longtime reader and fan of this site who has emailed me many times. That's just way, way out of bounds. I am very disappointed, in you, Luis, because I know you know better.<br /><br />Make your own WP model. Awesome--I applaud you. You don't even need to cite me or Hidden Game. <b>*But don't pretend you just invented the whole idea.*</b> That's disingenuous and misleading, to put it very charitably. <br /><br />What do you guys think?Brian Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371470711365236987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-58236786461393365592011-08-17T17:43:40.679-04:002011-08-17T17:43:40.679-04:00Brian, thanks for the explanation on WPA/LI.
Spea...Brian, thanks for the explanation on WPA/LI.<br /><br />Speaking of robbing your intellectual property, how do you feel about Cold Hard Football Facts coming out with Expected Points and Win Probability in recent months?probablepicks.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08285913697327878399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-28269064887231385022011-08-17T12:15:12.796-04:002011-08-17T12:15:12.796-04:00Brian, I basically consider this partially a resul...Brian, I basically consider this partially a result of your influence, so I'd just like to say thanks, well done, and congratulations.Jacob Stevenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16635038007666752332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-63295105462410852112011-08-16T15:00:45.318-04:002011-08-16T15:00:45.318-04:00@ Brian. So, what I said then :-)@ Brian. So, what I said then :-)Ian Simcoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01518825067469269377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-79252674490930113772011-08-16T07:08:17.644-04:002011-08-16T07:08:17.644-04:00This ESPN stat is clearly using your intellectual ...This ESPN stat is clearly using your intellectual property. You are being modest. They should clearly credit you and others who did the pioneerig work. <br /><br />Of course, I'm sure their Disney Corp lawyers tell them: Don't, b/c it undermines our claim of "proprietary."Mike G.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38600807.post-7867015567020667162011-08-15T19:17:41.810-04:002011-08-15T19:17:41.810-04:00Didn't ESPN's new QB rating have Detroit&#...Didn't ESPN's new QB rating have Detroit's QB who went 0-10 in 2008 rated better than Big Ben who went 12-4 and produced a game winning drive in the SB ??<br /><br />Are you saying the Detroit QB could have done the same in Pittsburg ??mr mnoreply@blogger.com