Here's a cool team ranking site. It's based on only score and home field advantage, but I like the algorithm, and the presentation is cool. It reminds of Beat Graphs, which has a new look.
I really enjoy watching the NFL Films series America's Game. Now you can watch them on Hulu. Here's the Ravens 2000 season. Man, am I glad Ray Lewis is on my team.
Florida Danny at Niners Nation does some extra homework on how bad NFL pre-season predictions really are.
A couple interesting posts at Fifth Down. Week 1 winning teams make the playoffs 52% of the time, while week 1 losing teams make the playoffs only 23% of the time. (In case you think that this implies 75% of teams make the playoffs, like I did, that's not the case. 16 teams are 1-0, half of them--8 teams--make the playoffs. 16 teams are 0-1, and a quarter of them--4 teams--make the playoffs. That's a total of 12.) There's two things at work. First, 1-0 teams now have a numerical head start toward earning enough wins to qualify, and second, it's an indication of a good team.
Roundup 9/18/10
ANNOUNCEMENT: Community Re-Launched
About a year and a half ago, I launched Advanced NFL Stats Community, a site where anyone could contribute a post. It received a few dozen submissions, some more interesting than others, and it was a great start. Unfortunately, the time I devoted to reformatting the articles and their tables of data took away time I wanted to spend on other projects. I decided to gradually let the site fade into the background.
But one of my goals continues to be helping building a collaborative community of football stat heads without “premium” content or “proprietary” black-box stats, and I’d like to offer readers a platform for sharing ideas and analysis. In the recent off-season, I completed a long-standing goal of building an open NFL play-by-play database suitable for research and making available to everyone. Immediately, readers started parsing the data, adding fields for various things, and sharing their insights in the comments section of the post.
The Weekly League: Notes and Ideas for Week Two
This week's edition of The Weekly League features some brief notes about the Miami-Minnesota game and then some less-than-brief notes about the New York Jets-New England match-up.
The following games have been chosen as they'll be available to the greatest portion of the network-watching audience on Sunday, per the NFL maps at the506.com.
The Four Factors you see for each game represent each team's ability 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 also for Week One games only. In other words, they're to be taken with the giantest grain of salt ever.
Miami at Minnesota | Sunday, September 19 | 1:00pm ET
Four Factors
The Miami Defense
I suspect that last week's Buffalo-Miami game was painful to watch in its entirety. We in the Upper Midwest joined the game with a couple minutes left, and even that was probably too much. With the exception of a fourth quarter drive on which he went 7-for-7 with 82 yards (including lost yards from a sack), quarterback Trent Edwards looked absolutely lost, checking down almost instantly despite his team being down by five and deep in their own territory.
Taking a Closer Look at Forte’s Week 1
CHI RB Matt Forte was named the NFC offensive player of the week for his amazing 7-catch, 151-receiving yard, 2-receving TD game against the Lions. When I looked up the advanced stats for RBs, I expected to see him near the top of the list for WPA. I was surprised to find him more than halfway down, posting a net negative WPA. I thought there must be some bug in the system. There’s no way a guy with 151 receiving yards and 2 TDs could have a negative effect on his team’s chances of winning, especially in a victory.
I’m not suggesting that WPA should be the ultimate stat for handing out awards, but taking a closer look at Forte’s plays can reveal a lot about WPA and what kind of events truly affect a team’s chances of winning.
2010 Individual Player Stats Now Available
Advanced statistics for individual players are now available for week 1 of the 2010 season. Win Probability Added, Expected Points Added, Success Rate, Tackle Factor, and a myriad of other numbers will be tracked throughout the season. (Check out the glossary for definitions of each statistic.)
Who was the hero of week 1? Eli Manning with +0.58 WPA in the Giants' victory over the Panthers.
Miles Austin tops the wide receivers with an incredible +0.68 WPA in the Cowboys' loss to the Redskins. But that was mostly due to a +0.60 WPA play at the end of the game. Austin's 30-yard catch over the middle set Dallas up for what was almost a miraculous victory, if not for Alex Barrons' clothesline hold on Brian Orakpo.
Taking Points Off The Board
Reader 'slushhead' asks:
What do you think about "taking points off the board?" Specifically, should Washington have declined the penalty on the third quarter field goal?
Leading 10-0, WAS kicked a successful FG with 10:29 to go in the 3rd quarter. An offside penalty on DAL gave WAS the choice between keeping the 3 points or accepting the penalty, which would give them a 1st and 10 on the DAL 12.
Lovie's Blunder
I'm hoping not to turn this site into 4thDownAnalysis.com, but I did get several requests to look at another controversial 4th down decision. (And I'll always be happy to take requests.) Down 14-13 to DET, CHI faced a 4th and goal from the 1 with about 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter. A FG is nearly automatic, giveing CHI a 2-point lead and a 0.59 WP.
Conversion attempts from the 1 are successful about 68% of the time. A successful TD gives CHI a 6-point lead and a 0.79 WP. A failed attempt leaves DET at its own 1, but with a 1-point lead, worth 0.44 WP for CHI. On net, the conversion attempt is worth 0.68*0.79 + (1-0.68)*0.44 = 0.68 WP. Going for it was the right call by a large margin--0.68 to 0.59.
CHI went for it, but Matt Forte was stopped for no gain. But that's only half the story.
Should MIN Have Gone For It?
I received a few requests to analyze MIN’s final drive from last night. With a little over 5 min left, down by 5 points, they faced a 4th and 11 from the NO 44. MIN punted, and NO was able to convert 3 first downs and seal the game. Should MIN have gone for it?