Announcement: 2013 MIT-Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

I've resisted attending conferences and other events like the league's rookie combine, but I've had a change of heart. I will be attending the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference this March. And I'm proud to announce I've been invited to be a member of the football analytics panel, which I think will be a lot of fun.

The conference will be March 1-2 at the Boston Convention Center. I'm looking forward to meeting many of you there.

Coaches Bring Passiveness To Wild Card Weekend

I'm never quite sure what decision-making trends to expect out of the NFL playoffs. It seems any decision can be justified by the playoffs. "It's the playoffs," one of the exalted keepers of the true knowledge can say. "You have to leave it all on the line," he says as the coach keeps the offense on the field for a fourth and goal.

But, he could just as easily say, "You don't have a choice here. You have to live to fight another day." The field goal team trots out for a 20-yard chip shot instead.

The field goal teams were out in force for Wild Card Weekend. Presented with 27 fourth downs inside the opponent's 40 yard line, teams kicked 17 field goals, punted twice, and went for it just eight times. Of the 17 field goal attempts, only eight were the optimal win expectancy choice according to the 4th down calculator. All told, coaches left 0.24 of win expectancy and 6.3 expected points on the table with these decisions.

Overall, teams saw 66 fourth down plays and made the optimal decision 49 times. Only one of the 11 decisions to go for it was suboptimal (by Washington when they were already down by 10 late in the game) and seven of the 33 punts were as well. The biggest whiffs were typically in field goal situations, but to the coaches' credit, the kickers were sharp: they combined to convert 16 of the 17 field goals on the week.

Still, there were a few calls worth questioning even given the true kicks. After making a borderline call to go for it on fourth-and-5 from the 34 -- probably the right call given the unreliability of Mason Crosby this season -- and succeeding, the Packers kicked on a fourth-and-goal from the one yard line with 3:25 to go in the 2nd quarter. The Seahawks, up by seven against the Redskins, chose to kick on fourth-and-goal from the 4 with 5:32 to go in the game.

Peter King Podcast

I was a guest on Peter King's podcast at SI today. We talked about the role of analytics, RB impacts, and some overlooked performances of the season.

Wildcard Game Probabilities

Game probabilities for the wildcard games are up at the New York Times' Fifth Down.

This week I examine the whether the Colts' are as good as their record suggests.

Franchise Visualization Updated with 2012 Data

Curious about just how bad the Chicago offenses have been under Lovie Smith? Or how the Cardinals' production fell after Kurt Warner's retirement? What's the real reason for the Cowboys' recent disappointing seasons? Is it the Romo-led offense or the defense? Which rookie QB is responsible for the biggest improvement in their team's offense in 2012?

The answers can all be found in one place--the franchise visualization. The brainchild of Chase Stuart of Football Perspective, the franchise viz plots the offensive and defensive production, in terms of EPA, on an x-y plot for every team since the 2000 season.

With week 17 now in the database, the 2012 season has been added to mix. Happy visualizing!

2012 Team Efficiency Rankings - Final *Corrected*

Correction--There was a bug in the ointment the first time around posting the rankings this week. These numbers have been updated with the correct

There are a few sore thumbs every year in the rankings. A few weeks ago I wrote about how the then 2-8 Panthers were much better than their record indicated. Since then, they went 5-1 to finish 7-9. Do I think CAR is really the 4th best team in the league? No. But they were the 4th most efficient on offense and defense in 2012.

The following week I wrote about how the Ravens were a mystery. They were ranked 19th in the rankings but held a 9-2 record. I was grasping to explain their good fortune. Maybe no explanation was needed, as BAL went 1-4 since then. (1-3 if we throw out week 17's loss in fairness.)

It might seem like I'm cherry picking the model's 'hits' and ignoring its 'misses.' I'm obviously not pointing out how the model ranked PHI 2nd in its first iteration after week 3. Oops, I guess I just did. But it's not week 3 anymore, and we have a lot more information now.

There is one more sore thumb to be addressed. That's the 11-5 Colts, who are ranked 24th in efficiency. Their Generic Winning Probability (GWP) is 0.44, which if correct would make an 11-win record highly unlikely. It's very possibly they're better than 24th, but notice that their opponent average GWP is 0.46, so despite a low efficiency ranking, we should not be too surprised to see IND end up its winning record.

[Edit: 0.46 Opp GWP might not seem like much, but that's not far from the equivalent of having an additional home field advantage effect for every game, ...if that makes any sense.]

Play-by-Play Data for 2012 Regular Season Now Available

The link is here. Happy crunching.

Best of 2012

As has become tradition here at ANS, I'll look back at the year and round up all the best articles. (Here are the best of 2009, 2010, and 2011.) This annual post is as much for me as it is for readers for a couple reasons. First, I get to gaze upon the results of all the hard work myself, Keith, Jack, and other contributors have done. And second, it's a handy way to collect all the quality posts from the year in one place.

Each year I think it's finally the year that the site has peaked and all the low hanging statistical fruit has been plucked. But somehow things keep going strong. Jack and Keith provided lots of great game and player analysis plus some original research of their own. There were also some cool new features added to the site. Keep in mind, these are just a fraction of the 200 posts from 2012.

Starting with last January, Keith applied his Markov model to look at the drive that broke the Jets' 2011 backs.

I introduced two new features of the player stat visualizations--the QB career totals for EPA and WPA. The visualizations are a clever way to compare careers. The "Nth Best EPA" graph plots each QB's career in order of his best through worst seasons. The "Career WPA" graph plots each QB's cumulative WPA through each year of his career. These are a couple of my favorite new features at the site.

My contributions with Slate and Deadspin continued through the 2012 season. Here is a post that looked at some critical 4th down decisions in last year's playoffs and put the 4th down itself in perspective.

Jack is the king of the Tableau visualizations. Here is his analysis of how HOU beat CIN in last year's wildcard round.

This article was the culmination of a lot of research and analysis. Using EPA and WPA, I estimated the price of a win in terms of salary cap hit. This became a framework for evaluating contract values, and the article uses Drew Brees' recent contract as a case study.

The 'Dome at Cold' effect is well known to ANS readers. Here's a slightly more in-depth look at the climate phenomenon and how various types of road teams fare by temperature. Here are several more articles on how weather, including temperature and wind, affects passing, running, and field goals.