Slate: Onside Kicks in the New Overtime Format

I've got an article in Slate today that takes a look at how the new overtime rules might affect the likelihood of onside kicks. My thanks to Josh Levin who had the idea for the article and who jazzed up the prose quite a bit.

Even More Good Stuff at the Community Site

Longtime reader Adam Tarr (perhaps longest?) examines which QBs are picking up the most yardage from their receivers. Don't miss the comment thread.

Which teams carry their QBs, and which QBs carry their teams? Jim Glass tells us.

I the holiday spirit, Community site editor Ed Anthony takes a look at whether it's better to give or receive. The results are surprising. Really. That's not a tease.

Denis O'Regan adjusts QB interception rates for depth of throws.

Steven Buzzard, who might rank near Mr. Tarr in terms of seniority around Advanced NFL Stats, takes a look at which playoff teams were 'clutch' and which were 'chokers'.

Bruce D continues his series on which teams have been the luckiest. Don't overlook this. This isn't some regression model or econometric mumbo-jumbo (like Carson or I do). Bruce simply counts up plays we all know are generally unrepeatable, low frequency events, such as punt blocks, fumbles lost, and kick off returns. He then assigns points for each team based on how many or how few of these events they've had. (Incidentally, Ed A. is getting really good at making html tables.)

2010 Regular Season Play-By-Play Data

Fly. Be free.

Play-by-play data for the 2010 regular season is now available to download. Previous seasons going back to 2002 are also available.

I had intended to update the data more frequently this season, but it can be fairly time consuming. Many thanks to John Candido who posted several updates on his own at the Community site.

Weekly Game Probabilities - Wildcard

Weekly game probabilities are available now at the nytimes.com Fifth Down. This week I focus on the one game where the model differs from the consensus favorite.

Feature Update: Match-Up Pages

The match-up pages have been updated to include drop down menus to create a match-up page for any two teams. The division games, championship games, and the Super Bowl still await their opponents, so you can choose any two teams to see how they stack up against each other in terms of efficiency stats and advanced metrics like WPA, EPA or SR. You can also peek at who the top players are each position for each hypothetical opponent.

Just click on one of the upcoming games in the scoreboard bar or go directly the match-up page.

Kicker Billy Cundiff Had 20 Sacks This Year

Last Sunday Baltimore's kicker Billy Cundiff tied the NFL regular season record for the most touchbacks with 40. That's over a 50% touchback rate. How big of an advantage did this give the Ravens? Well, the title says it all. I could also say he would be as valuable as the 7th best running back in the league.

The occasion seemed like a good excuse to repost part of an article from last year that measured the value of a touchback:

2010 Team Efficiency Rankings - Final

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.

Best of Advanced NFL Stats 2010

This past year was a big one for this site. For the first time Advanced NFL Stats became a full-featured destination for advanced football analysis. There was always the blog, then came the win probability graphs, and this year marked a major leap forward with advanced statistics for players and teams, plus new features like the match-up pages and live comments during games.

I get the feeling some readers think I run this site full time, but it's really just a small hobby. (Ok, really big hobby.) I truly do it for fun and for the satisfaction I get from learning new things. In addition to running the site, 2010 was a busy year for me. I got married, bought a new house, moved (twice), and worked full time which included travel out of the country for almost a quarter of the football season. (Bet you couldn't even tell I was gone). I also trained for and completed my second triathlon.

Last year I did a fun post that highlighted all the best articles and features of 2009, and this post will do the same thing for 2010. There are lots of new readers, and I realize it's difficult to comb through the archives looking for interesting nuggets, so this will hopefully collect them all in one place. I'll start with last January and go in chronological order. Keep in mind this is only a fraction of the 243 posts of 2010.