Opponent-Adjusted Team Success Rate

Offensive and defensive Success Rate (SR) have been available on the advanced team stat pages all year. And recently I've been calculating opponent-adjusted team SR. Now I've been able to fully automate it, so it's always available following each wave of weekend games.

I like to look at SR for a couple reasons. First, it correlates well with winning. And second, it correlates well with itself, meaning it is relatively stable throughout the season. These are the two attributes we want in a stat for it to be predictive of future outcomes. For a couple weeks I've promised some hard numbers, but I haven't had time to wrap everything in a bow.

SR does not, however, tell the whole story. Teams that rely on high risk/reward plays, such as the Steelers this season, tend to be undervalued. SR is really a measure of consistency.

Weekly Game Probabilities - Week 9

Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down. This week I also highlight the KC-OAK game and take a look at how coming off a bye week may give the edge to a couple teams this week.

Washington Post: McNabb and Grossman in the Clutch

This week's post at the Washington Post's Redskins Insider examined the epically bad decision to pull Donovan McNabb in favor of Rex Grossman in the final 2 minutes of last Sunday's game against the Lions. Was it a vindictive over-reaction by an arrogant head coach, or was it just a spiteful hasty judgment of an egotistical head coach?

Efficiency Rankings - Week 9

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.

Saints Fake FG?

Chris asked the following:

The Saints had 4th and 3 on the Steelers 13 with no timeouts and 12 or 13 seconds left in the first half. The Saints lined up for a field goal and then changed it up to show that they were going to run a play. The Steelers called a timeout, and after the timeout, the Saints kicked the field goal.

In the post-game press conference, Sean Payton confirmed that the Saints were actually prepared to run a play and weren't just trying to get the Steelers to take a timeout.

I guess my question is this: would this fake field goal be a) a boneheaded call, or b) the most boneheaded call ever? I guess that Payton might have had some kind of spectacular play called, but it would have to be pretty spectacular to overcome the horrible odds that were against it. Only a touchdown (from the 13 yard line) would have given them a much better expectation than they had before the play, and most other results would have given them a far worse expectation.

At the end of the half, it's a slightly easier analysis because you don't have to kick off and a FG is worth a full 3 points and a TD is worth a full 7. Also, you don't need to worry about the EP value for missing the FG or failing to convert. It's just zero.

FGs are good from the 13 91% of the time, so a FG attempt is worth 2.7 EP.

Therefore, to go for the TD, you'd need the EP for going for it, regardless of whether it's a fake FG or normal scrimmage play, to be at least as high as the EP for the FG attempt. So:

Valuing Offensive Line Performance

Valuing the play of an offensive line is naturally difficult. Unlike other positions, an offensive lineman's performance on any given play is marked by the absence of things, such as sacks and stuffs. It's possible to cobble together a kluge, combining a variety of things like sacks or runs that make it past a couple yards. While this would probably give us some idea of which lines have played better than others, it's the kind of inelegant stat I like to avoid whenever possible. I like simpler, more graceful stats with meaningful units I can wrap my head around. WPA is a stat like that, its unit simply being wins. So when I was thinking about offensive line performance, I started by thinking about wins and win probability.

The irony of an offensive line is that its function is completely defensive. When you think about it, the offensive line's job is to protect the ball carrier or passer from attacking tacklers. Whether it's a run or pass play, the defense is really the side on the attack, and it's the offensive line's job to defend against their onslaught. Blocking, by its nature, is defensive.

At the core, the offensive line's job is to prevent the defensive line, and in most cases the linebackers, from doing their jobs. The lower the success of the defensive front seven, the higher the success of the offensive line. In fact, there's not much more to it than that. It doesn't matter whether a block is a quick chip or a Michael-Oher-from-Blindside-drive-block through the back of the end zone, as long as it prevents the defender from making the play. Realistically, an offensive lineman can do no better than prevent his counterpart from making a play.

To measure offensive line performance, we start by measuring defensive play-making, which is precisely the purpose of +WPA. +WPA (and +EPA) measures defender play-making by summing the WPA of all the plays in which a defender is credited for a defensive victory. In other words, only plays that are setbacks for the offense are counted toward a defender's +WPA. The half of all plays that are offensive victories should not be charged against the defender who made the tackle. Consider the backside DE who tracks down a RB from behind 10 yards down-field. The WPA was positive for the offense, but at the same time the DE should not be penalized for his effort. (This concept is explained in depth here.)

Who's Throwing Deep?

There are a couple updates to the individual stat pages.

First, there's a new column for deep percentage for quarterbacks. 'Deep%' tells us the percentage of pass attempts that are deeper than 15 yds throw the air. Ben Roethlisburger and Charlie Batch are at the top of the list. Vince Young, Joe Flacco, Derek Anderson, and Bruce Gradkowski round out the list of most vertical passers. Deep% has always been on the WR page, but now it's there for QBs too. Depth data is only available for seasons since 2006.

Great Article on Haley's Aggressive Playcalling

I love it when reporters "get it." This article is one great example. I spoke with Kent Babb of the Kansas City Star about Todd Haley's unorthodox fourth down doctrine earlier this week. Haley, who already earned one Advanced NFL Stats Coach of the Week Award (and a cool sweatshirt) for his aggressiveness, went for it two more times this past Sunday. He was one for two on those, but the way most people would look at it, he "passed up points" by not attempting field goals in a game that ultimately went into overtime.

Kent wrote me Sunday to ask if going for it on 4th and 2 from the 19 was a good idea today. One of my points in response was that sometimes kickers miss 36-yard field goals. As I typed that, Ryan Succop missed a potentially game-winning 36-yard field goal into swirling Arrowhead winds.