Washington Post: Griffin Is Transcending His O-Line

This week's article at the Post looks at which of the league's QBs are outperforming their offensive lines the most. Surprise! RGIII tops the list.

Despite his line’s performance, Griffin has been able to produce consistently, ranking third overall with 120 EPA this season. That’s 10 net points per game. Only Tom Brady and Matt Ryan currently have more total production. The distinction of ‘net’ points versus absolute points is important. It means that however many points a typical opponent is able to generate in a game, Griffin is responsible for 10 more points than that.

The difference between Griffin’s personal rank (3) and the Redskins offensive line’s rank (28) is 25 spots. No other quarterback has a bigger rank difference between his own and his line’s performance. Matt Ryan is a distant second at 21 spots of rank difference.

Weekly Game Probabilities

Game probabilities for week 14 are up at the New York Times' Fifth Down.

This week I revisit Sanchez's performance and his contract extension from the off-season.

Schiano's New Kickoff Concept

Recently, Profootballtalk published an article discussing potential plans to eliminate an opening kickoff entirely (H/T to Abe Schwadron of TDDaily.com).

"Sean Gregory of TIME writes that one of the options being considered for replacing kickoffs entails giving the ball to the team that would have been kicking off at its own 30, automatically facing a fourth down and 15 yards to go. The team can then choose to punt or go for it, via fake punt or otherwise.

In other words, the kickoff would be replaced with the punt, and the onside kick would be replaced with a fourth-down conversion roughly half the distance of Ray Rice’s recent catch-and-run."

Obviously this concept piqued my curiosity, so I decided to run the numbers. Check out my two posts:

1) Goodell To Change Kickoff Rule? This gives an overview of the different probabilities and frequencies that would change.

2) Schiano's Suggested Kickoff Rule: When To Go For It? This looks at when it makes sense to attempt the 4th-and-15 and/or fake a punt.

Keith Goldner is the creator of Drive-By Football, and Chief Analyst at numberFire.com - The leading fantasy sports analytics platform.  Follow him on twitter @drivebyfootball or check out numberFire on Facebook. 

One Point Favoring Andrew Luck over Robert Griffin III

Arguments on the Rookie of the Year seem to be favoring Robert Griffin III over Andrew Luck at this point in the season. Griffin's performance has been spectacular, certainly -- he's thrown for 2,660 yards and 17 touchdowns against just four interceptions. His 714 rushing yards on 105 carries translates to a league-leading 6.8 yards per carry, and his 6.5 AYPA is tied with Peyton Manning for third in the league.

Luck runs well, but nowhere near Griffin's standard -- he owns 216 yards on 44 rushes. Luck has thrown for over 900 more yards than Griffin and matched Grffin's 17 touchdowns. But his AYPA is a middling 5.1, 21st in the league and tied with Andy Dalton. Griffin has a 23-point EPA advantage and a 0.09 point per play advantage.

But for those who prefer to use more context-neutral stats -- as opposed to WPA, which has Luck second in the league at 4.32, over 1.5 wins better than Griffin -- there is one point in Luck's favor: the sheer volume of his output.

Washinton's' offense is obviously focused on Griffin, but the team uses the run liberally, rushing over 22 times per game (not counting Griffin's rushes). Alfred Morris carries the bulk of the load, with 1,106 yards (4.8 per carry) on the season. The Colts have rushed just 22 times per game themselves, but they've also run 117 more plays (just under 10 per game) more than Washington, and those extra plays are all directed through Luck and the passing game. All told, Luck has thrown 14 more passes per game than Griffin.

Basketball analysts have picked up on an essential point of the game: as usage rate -- the burden of the offense -- increases, efficiency tends to decrease. Steve Kerr was a more efficient scorer for the 1995 Chicago Bulls -- he shot 52.4 percent from three -- but there was no way he could take 22 shots per game with any efficiency. Jordan continued to excel even when confronted with the most difficult shots -- under duress, at the end of the shot clock, or both.

There's a similar relationship with quarterbacks. The idea that certain quarterbacks can only handle 20-to-25 throws per game with efficiency holds up in the data. Observe, the average yards per attempt given a certain attempt total (data includes all games since 2009):

Powered by Tableau

Team Efficiency Rankings - Week 14

Very little movement this week.

Markov Model of Overtime

Last week, Brian offered analysis on the new overtime format, particularly on fourth down decisions. The new OT format is inherently state based, as he mentions, and therefore can be modeled adequately by a Markov chain (thanks to some of the commenters for the idea). The Markov property, which essentially states that we only need the most recent event to predict future events, holds true. If we are in a sudden death state, we don't need to know whether both teams kicked field goals or who even received the opening kick in order to make a prediction about who will win the game.

The Set Up
In Brian's post, he discusses three distinct states: Opening of Overtime, The "Matching Field Goal" Drive (where teams get a chance to match or beat after a field goal),  and Sudden Death. These will be referred to as Opening, Mid OT, and Sudden Death (SD) respectively from here on. In this Markov model, there will be 10 total states:

Sunday's Numbers Have Been Crunched

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
• Team Viz
• QB Viz
• RB Viz

Attention All Offensive Coordinators

Fourth down and short in the middle of the field does not mean you need to run a goal line play with the jumbo package. The average play in the NFL gets 5 yards. What's the completion percentage for short passes in this league, like 75%?

Line up and just run a standard play. Use play action. Throw an intermediate or deep pattern once or twice a season to keep defenses honest. How about a bubble screen if the corners don't press. And if they do, let them get burned.

Do not telegraph your intent to plunge for the line of gain. That only makes the defense's job easy. Spread out and force the defense to defend the entire field and your success rates will improve. Punish the defense for crowding the line of scrimmage. Think of fourth and short as an opportunity to know exactly what the defense is going to do and take advantage of it.

On the goal line, it's different. There is very little of the field to defend, and yards gained beyond the goal line are irrelevant. Jumbo packages and plunges make a lot more sense.