I Love It...

...when the the narrative-chasing intuition monkeys get involved.

Team Stat Visualization Update

The new team visualizations have received some significant upgrades, incorporating some suggestions from readers. First off, you may have noticed they get their own link under the 'Stats' item in the site main menu, and they now have a permanent home here at Advanced NFL Stats.

Next, I've added several tabs to the top of the graphs. Each tab corresponds to a type of stat--Team EPA, Team WPA, Team SR, and Offense Run/Pass EPA per play. Each graph works the same way. Up and to the right are always good, and the best, most balanced teams will be along a diagonal from the center to the upper-right corner. Hovering your cursor over a team will highlight its division for convenient comparison, plus its game-by-game performance is charted in the timelines below the main graph. I've added a label for each opponent, so you can immediately get a feel for how the season has unfolded for each team.

The Offense Run/Pass is slightly different than the other graphs because it's looking at offensive running and passing performance, and the numbers are on a per-play basis. The other graphs are offense vs. defense and are cumulative for the season.

Lastly, I've added a slider bar to the top so that you can filter the season by weeks. For example, you can narrow the range to only look at the most recent several games, and see how the teams compare. You can compare how teams are trending, or even narrow the range to a single week.

The graphs have been updated through the Sunday night game. Suggestions are always welcome.

Unicorns, The Tooth Fairy, the Cowboys, and Field Goal Range

If there is one example that demonstrates the fallacy of field goal range, Sunday's Cowboys-Cardinals game has to be it. With the score tied at 13 and under a minute to play, DAL converted a 3rd and 11 to move the ball to the ARI 31.

There it is. Game over. Field goal range, right? Who needs more time when you're inside the 35?

At the end of the play there were 26 seconds on the game clock, and DAL had 2 timeouts. DAL milked 18 seconds off the clock, then spiked the ball to stop the clock with 8 seconds to go. Then, head coach Jason Garrett called a timeout as if he was icing his own kicker. (The icing effect is greatly overstated, and in many cases, it simply gives the kicker a practice kick.) The kick was missed, and the game entered the dice roll of sudden death overtime.

With 26 seconds left, DAL could have used one of their 2 timeouts immediately. They could have run two plays, even including one run, and still saved a timeout for a final field goal. With the ball at the 31, a field goal attempt is a 49-yarder, which, on average, is a 65% proposition. Moving the ball just 6 yards increases the chances to 75%.

San Francisco's Staunch Defense

Three of the members of the Trent Dilfer Club won again this week including Alex Smith, the best parallel to 2000 Trent Dilfer.  The 49ers trounced the Rams 26-0, clinching their first NFC West title since 2002.  San Francisco won the way they have been winning all year: Defense.  The 49ers amassed a -0.37 defensive WPA (negative is good) and did not allow the Rams to pass the SF 38 yardline.  In fact, when the Rams finally got to the 38, A.J. Feeley threw up a pick to Dashon Goldson.  Here's a look at the drive summaries for the Rams:

Sunday's Numbers Have Been Cruched

Sunday's numbers are now available, including advanced stat box scores, top players of the week, team stats, and season leader boards.

• Advanced stat box scores
• Top QBs of the week
• Top RBs of the week
• Top WRs of the week
• Top TEs of the week
• Top Defenders of the week
• Advanced team stats
• Offensive player season leaders
• Defender season leaders

It's All about the Gear

The passing explosion we saw at the onset of the season has mostly imploded in recent weeks, but the fact remains that passing has been exploding in slow motion over the years. There are probably several causes, including rule changes, early player development, and tactical innovations. But one theory I haven't heard is that equipment is helping receivers, specifically their gloves.

Have you seen these things? I was in a sporting goods store yesterday, and there was a prominent display featuring special gear Nike created for the Army Navy game next Saturday. For some reason the main focus was on $75 'Vapor Jet' receiver gloves. Being a Navy guy I couldn't resist the display, so I grabbed a pair of the gloves. My God, there is no way a receiver should ever drop any pass wearing these gloves. Whatever the material is on the palms and fingers, it was probably developed by NASA so astronauts could snag meteors while out on spacewalks.

Now all those miraculous, acrobatic one-handed catches suddenly make more sense to me. I'm not sure when gloves like that got so good, or exactly what the effect has been, but it's hard to imagine they haven't made a substantial difference.

I'm sure other developments in gear have influenced the sport. The trend is toward smaller and lighter pads, and today's helmets are lighter too. Modern cleats in conjunction with the trend toward field turf may also have an effect.

Meet an Offensive Line: Green Bay Packers

I'm saying nothing that will suprise the reader very much when I state that, in football, there's a great deal of interaction between the game's constituent elements. In these pages, for example, we've considered concepts like run-pass balance, fourth-down strategy, and one- versus two-point conversions. In each case, an emphasis on one element will change the effectiveness of the other.

If a coach, for example, announced before a game that his team would be running on every down, the opposing team would have an advantage in knowing that. If that same coach called a single pass play at some point, it would likely take the defense by surprise and would also therefore have a better chance of being successful.

There's also a great deal of interaction between players. If Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers completes a 15-yard pass up the middle to wide receiver Jordy Nelson, we know that both Rodgers and Nelson probably did something right on the play. Statistically, we credit both players with a certain quantity of Expected Points Added (EPA) for their respective roles in the play.

Of course, a bunch of other stuff probably had to happen for the play to work. Like, Greg Jennings had to cross the path of Jordy Nelson's defender to give Nelson a step's worth of space. And left tackle Marshall Newhouse had to hold off the blind-side defensive end for a long enough period to give Rodgers time to throw. And, before any of that -- like, months or years before -- offensive coordinator Joe Philbin had to conceive of and implement the play.

Roundup 12/3/11

It's hard to be rational.


Is it the end of the Rex era?

Rookie of the Year watch.

Get your nose out of the spreadsheet and watch the game.

Using PFR's AV to value draft picks. Great work, Kevin Meers. Good comments there too. Would be interesting to redo Massey-Thaler paper based AV but using the new CBA rookie wage scale. Minor caveat--the draft only gives a team rights to a player in his initial contract, not his entire career.

Also from Kevin, the biggest over- and under-achievers according to their draft position.

"He is an irony-free individual who seems uninterested in developing an athletic persona based upon rehearsed machismo or wink-wink self awareness."