Special Playoff Viz

I added a team EPA visualization that's limited to the current playoff teams that might shed some light on where teams stand on offense and defense. What I find particularly useful is the week filter slider, which shows how teams have performed over recent games. You can find it on the tab titled '2011 P.O.'

A few things that struck me:

Postseason Projections: Wild Card Round

And then there were twelve. After 17 weeks and 256 games, the field has been winnowed and the playoff bracket is set. For the postseason, we can skip the simulations and calculate each team's chances directly from the win probability model.

Most Likely Super Bowl: Patriots vs. Packers
This shouldn't be much of a surprise. The trifecta of a highly-ranked team, a bye week, and home-field advantage is not easy to overcome, and the model projects the two #1 seeds as the most likely teams to emerge from their respective conferences. That said, there is an 87% probability that at least one of these two will not make it to Super Bowl XLVI.

Longest of Long Shots: Denver Broncos
It seems even three consecutive losses is not enough to put a damper on Tebow-mania. Denver's odds of winning the Super Bowl are variously listed as anywhere from 50/1 to 120/1, but, regardless, the Broncos are still over-valued, with the model estimating their true probability of a Super Bowl win to be less than one in eight hundred.

End of Season Team Rankings

Google search: "Andy Reid sad"

With the final games in the books, we can finally get around to seeing where teams ended up in the rankings when all was said and done.

Best Team to Miss the Playoffs: Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles were pretty close to being a dream team, at least according to these rankings, but they were unable to work their way into the postseason. At least the Eagles made it to .500, and coach Andy Reid will get another year at the helm to prove this was all a bad dream.

Welcome Back, Drone.

Hi there, fellow office drone. I know from the web traffic numbers that about 95% of you read ANS at work. So with most of us taking time off the past several days, you may have missed the year-end posts. If you can pull yourself away from the new QB career visualizations for a few minutes, check out:

• Best of ANS 2011
• AFC Offense All-WPA Team
• AFC Defense All-WPA Team
• NFC Offense All-WPA Team
• NFC Defense All-WPA Team
• Importance of Playoff Seeding
• Comparing Brees and Marino

QB Career Comparison Visualizations

I'm excited to introduce two new features of the stat visualizations, and I think you'll find them very clever, fun, and useful. They are by far my favorites.

The first new graph, titled "Nth Best", plots each selected QB's career in order of his best through worst seasons. As opposed to a straight chronological plot by year, this presentation provides a very continuous and smooth curve, and it allows an easy comparison of the total career performance of each QB. A chronological plot produces a much more erratic and confusing display of peaks and valleys, making comparisons difficult.

The horizontal axis represents the Nth best season of each selected QB. The vertical axis represents the total EPA for each season. As you view from left to right, the graph will always appear to decline, but don't interpret this to mean the QB's performance is trending downward. It's just that the seasons are sorted from best to worst. Also keep in mind that graph plots total season EPA and not EPA per game or per play, so some of the worst seasons of a QB will be those marred by injury or prior to when he became a starter.

Sunday's Numbers Have Been Crunched

Want to arm yourself with the best numbers for the MVP debate at the water cooler? Sunday's numbers are now available, 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

Jets Lose on Dolphins' Epic Drive

The Dolphins, with nothing to play for but respect, eliminated their division rival Jets from playoff contention on Sunday.  Miami was down 10-6 with 7:56 left in the 3rd when they went on an epic 94-yard, 21-play, 12+ minute go-ahead drive.  Yes, a 21-play drive, tiring out Rex Ryan's prized defense.  Highlighted by six 3rd down conversions, there was a 73% chance of the drive ending in a punt and only 6% chance of a TD on 3rd-and-9 from their own 7-yardline (Play 3).  Using our Markov model, we can see the progression of the drive - and the progression of the Jets' demise.

Best of Advanced NFL Stats 2011

This is my favorite post of the year. I get to look back at the work I've done and say, 'Wow. I can't believe how much time I wasted doing that.' This year is different, though--it's 'how much time we wasted doing that,' thanks to all the great work done by the new writers: Keith, Carson, Jack, Zach, Josh, and Marc, and sometimes John. A big thank you goes to all the contributors this season.

Also, a big thank you goes to the readers and commenters, who make this a fun and lively site. A special thank you also goes to Ed Anthony, who edits the Community Site. We had some very good contributions this season. Keep 'em coming.

It was another big year for ANS. It has become even more of a full-featured site. It started with the blog, and then came the win probability graphs. Last year, we added advanced stat pages for teams and players. Now this year, we've added two major features: the advanced stat box scores and some really interesting visualizations.

Like I did for 2009 and 2010, I'll highlight some of the best posts and features of the year. Keep in mind this list is only a small fraction of the 276 posts of 2011. We'll start last January and go in chronological order.

Billy Cundiff was a kickoff machine last season, and all those touchbacks had the equivalent effect of 20 sacks.

I contributed an article to Slate about how the new OT format changed the equation when it comes to onside kicks.

Foreshadowing the visualization feature, I plotted team Success Rates and used it to develop a strategy for defeating mighty NE. Here's more on plotting SR. Note that running and passing correlate positively on either side of the ball, but team offense and team defense correlate negatively.

Carson somehow managed to merge literary criticism with football analysis. And it worked.

ESPN The Magazine featured ANS prominently in a great article on win probability--the 'killer stat'.