2012 December

Season in review: AFC and NFC East

by Chase Stuart on December 31, 2012

This season, I published power rankings after each week where I stated my updated projected number of wins for each team. The point of those posts was to put in writing my thoughts at that time, so that once the season was over, I could look back and see how I did. Over the next two weeks, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

The picture below graphs my projections for each team for each week of the season. I’ve also added the Vegas futures win totals for each team from the pre-season as the first data point in each graph and the final number of regular season wins for each team as the final data point. My projected win totals for each week N come following the conclusion of week N (i.e., my week 1 power rankings were released after week 1).

New England Patriots

Pre-season Projection: 12 wins
Maximum wins: 13 (after weeks 1 and 14)
Minimum wins: 10 (after weeks 6 and 7)
Week 1 comment: Incredible offensive weapons, an improved defense and a cupcake schedule. Only injuries on the offensive line or to Tom Brady could derail them.

The Patriots started hot with a big win over the Titans, but managed to lose nail-biters to the Cardinals and Ravens the next two weeks. A loss in Seattle — which was an upset, at the time — dropped them to 3-3 and my projected total to just 10 wins. An overtime win over the Jets the following week was unimpressive and didn’t cause me to bump them, but I kept steadily increasing their win total after that.

In the end, it was another monster statistical season for Brady and the Patriots. New England broke a record for offensive first downs and finished with the third most points scored in a season. I was a little bumpy in my New England projections, but they ended up landing right on the Vegas number.

New York Jets
Pre-season Projection: 8.5 wins
Maximum wins: 9 (after weeks 1 and 2)
Minimum wins: 6 (first after week 8)
Week 1 comment: The additions of Quinton Coples and LaRon Landry were easy to mock, but these two could make the Jets defense a top-three unit. So far, so good. Right tackle Austin Howard exceeded expectations by infinity against Mario Williams, and his play this year will be tied to the Jets success on offense.

The Jets best game of the season came in week 1, which inspired a glimmer of early-season hope. In the end, Coples and Landry had strong seasons, but the loss of Darrelle Revis and the disappointing years by Calvin Pace, Bryan Thomas, and Aaron Maybin prevented the Jets from having a complete defense. Mark Sanchez regressed, and injuries to Santonio Holmes, Dustin Keller, and Stephen Hill didn’t help the offense. Rex Ryan lost control of the team, again, and the Jets struggled against good teams early before disappointing against bad teams late. For the second straight year, the Jets lost their final three games of the season, and it appears like they will fire the offensive coordinator again, too.
[continue reading…]

Tagged as: AFC East, Bills, Cowboys, Dolphins, Eagles, Giants, Jets, NFC East, Patriots, Redskins

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Checkdowns: Broncos complete 4th largest improvement ever

by Chase Stuart on December 30, 2012

in History, Review, Statistics

In 2011, the Broncos scored 309 points and allowed 390 points. Despite being outscored by 81 points, the Tim Tebow express still made it into the post-season. In June, I speculated that the 2012 Broncos might set the record for the largest increase in pass completions in one year, and they did just that on Sunday. They also moved into fourth place on another list.

With 481 points and 289 points allowed, Denver outscored its opponents by 192 points in 2012. Peyton Manning and Von Miller have turned the Broncos into one of the best teams in the league a year after they were one of the worst (at least, as measured by points differential). Denver improving their points differential by a whopping 273 points this year relative to 2011, the fourth largest increase in football history.

Rank	Year	Team	PF	PA	Diff	N-1 PF	N-1 PA	N-1 Diff	Impr
1	1999	St. Louis Rams	526	242	284	285	378	-93	377
2	1929	New York Giants	312	86	226	79	136	-57	283
3	2001	Chicago Bears	338	203	135	216	355	-139	274
4	2012	Denver Broncos	481	289	192	309	390	-81	273
5	1998	Minnesota Vikings	556	296	260	354	359	-5	265
6	1975	Baltimore Colts	395	269	126	190	329	-139	265
7	2004	San Diego Chargers	446	313	133	313	441	-128	261
8	2006	New Orleans Saints	413	322	91	235	398	-163	254
9	1965	Chicago Bears	409	275	134	260	379	-119	253
10	2008	Baltimore Ravens	385	244	141	275	384	-109	250
11	1955	Washington Redskins	246	222	24	207	432	-225	249
12	1976	New England Patriots	376	236	140	258	358	-100	240
13	1963	Oakland Raiders	363	282	81	213	370	-157	238
14	1997	New York Jets	348	287	61	279	454	-175	236
15	1923	Columbus Tigers	119	35	84	24	174	-150	234
16	1987	Indianapolis Colts	300	238	62	229	400	-171	233
17	1991	Cleveland Browns	293	298	-5	228	462	-234	229
18	1967	New York Giants	369	379	-10	263	501	-238	228
19	1969	Atlanta Falcons	276	268	8	170	389	-219	227
20	2010	Detroit Lions	362	369	-7	262	494	-232	225
21	1976	Chicago Bears	253	216	37	191	379	-188	225
22	2001	Cleveland Browns	285	319	-34	161	419	-258	224
23	1999	Indianapolis Colts	423	333	90	310	444	-134	224
24	2000	New Orleans Saints	354	305	49	260	434	-174	223
25	2010	St. Louis Rams	289	328	-39	175	436	-261	222

Tagged as: Broncos, Peyton Manning, Tim Tebow

{ 1 comment }

Checkdowns: Career rushing stats in wins and losses

by Chase Stuart on December 30, 2012

in History, Rushing, Statistics

Trent Richardson thinks this guy was an average running back in losses.

Yesterday, I noted that Adrian Peterson is averaging nearly two more yards per rush in losses than wins. He’s also averaging a nearly identical number of rushing yards per game in wins and losses.

As you’re about to see, that’s pretty rare. We all know that wins are correlated with rushing yards, so it should come as no surprise that running backs generally gain more rushing yards in wins than in losses.

I looked at all games, including playoffs, from 1960 to 2011, for all players with at least 3,000 rushing yards over that time period. The table below lists the following information for each player:

— His first year (or 1960, if he played before 1960) and his last year (or 2011, if still active)
— All the franchises he played for (which you can search for in the search box)
— His number of career wins, and his career rush attempts, rushing yards, rushing yards per carry, and rushing yards per game in wins
— His number of career losses, and his career rush attempts, rushing yards, rushing yards per carry, and rushing yards per game in losses

The table is sorted by rushing yards per game in wins. Again, for players like Jim Brown or Peterson, they are included but only their stats from 1960 to 2011 are shown. The table only shows the top 50 players, but the search feature works for the entire table, which includes 281 players. In addition, you can click on the drop arrow and change the number of rows shown.

As always, the table is fully sortable. If you click twice on the far right column, you see the career leaders in rushing yards per game in losses. You probably aren’t surprised to see Barry Sanders at the top, but the presence of the running back formerly known as Dom Davis up there is a bit surprising. Steven Jackson is one of the few players who have averaged over 70 rushing yards per game in losses, which jives with the sixth post in Football Perspective history. In addition, Jackson (at least through 2011) and LaDainian Tomlinson form an interesting example of Simpson’s Paradox: Jackson has a higher career rushing yards per game average in both wins (93.9 to 89.9) and losses (71.1 to 63.2), while Tomlinson has the higher career average overall (78.6 to 78.3).

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Search:

Rk	Player	Years	Teams	Pos	W	Rsh_W	Yd_W	YPC_W	Yd/G_W	L	Rsh_L	Yd_L	YPC_L	Yd/G_L
1	Jim Brown	1960--1965	cle	FB	55	1176	6590	5.6	119.8	25	384	1706	4.44	68.2
2	Terrell Davis	1995--2001	den	RB	58	1415	6867	4.85	118.4	28	444	1880	4.23	67.1
3	Barry Sanders	1989--1998	det	RB	75	1670	8526	5.11	113.7	84	1483	7129	4.81	84.9
4	Eric Dickerson	1983--1993	ram-clt-rai-atl	RB	74	1776	8411	4.74	113.7	78	1368	5572	4.07	71.4
5	O.J. Simpson	1969--1979	buf-sfo	RB	43	950	4818	5.07	112	92	1442	6351	4.4	69
6	Earl Campbell	1978--1985	oti-nor	RB	50	1209	5409	4.47	108.2	70	1113	4418	3.97	63.1
7	Adrian Peterson	2007--2011	min	RB	38	792	4002	5.05	105.3	38	685	3018	4.41	79.4
8	Chris Johnson	2008--2011	oti	RB	36	772	3776	4.89	104.9	28	426	1941	4.56	69.3
9	Clinton Portis	2002--2010	den-was	RB	58	1281	6051	4.72	104.3	59	1019	4086	4.01	69.3
10	Arian Foster	2009--2011	htx	RB	20	428	2077	4.85	103.9	16	282	1305	4.63	81.6
11	Emmitt Smith	1990--2004	dal-crd	RB	135	3036	13198	4.35	97.8	108	1722	6743	3.92	62.4
12	Jamal Lewis	2000--2009	rav-cle	RB	74	1653	7193	4.35	97.2	63	1019	3840	3.77	61
13	Walter Payton	1975--1987	chi	RB	113	2460	10975	4.46	97.1	86	1558	6383	4.1	74.2
14	Larry Johnson	2003--2011	kan-cin-was-mia	RB	40	813	3842	4.73	96.1	43	627	2413	3.85	56.1
15	Edgerrin James	1999--2009	clt-crd-sea	RB	99	2251	9469	4.21	95.6	62	995	3629	3.65	58.5
16	Billy Sims	1980--1984	det	RB	30	603	2861	4.74	95.4	32	554	2378	4.29	74.3
17	Curtis Martin	1995--2005	nwe-nyj	RB	96	2235	9134	4.09	95.1	82	1465	5762	3.93	70.3
18	Frank Gore	2005--2011	sfo	RB	47	939	4422	4.71	94.1	55	743	3366	4.53	61.2
19	Jamaal Charles	2008--2011	kan	RB	16	218	1504	6.9	94	34	290	1605	5.53	47.2
20	Steven Jackson	2004--2011	ram	RB	37	769	3473	4.52	93.9	80	1388	5688	4.1	71.1
21	Shaun Alexander	2000--2008	sea-was	RB	73	1506	6607	4.39	90.5	59	850	3410	4.01	57.8
22	LaDainian Tomlinson	2001--2011	sdg-nyj	RB	104	2048	9346	4.56	89.9	76	1257	4806	3.82	63.2
23	Corey Dillon	1997--2006	cin-nwe	RB	72	1391	6460	4.64	89.7	86	1347	5289	3.93	61.5
24	Rudi Johnson	2001--2008	cin-det	RB	41	901	3672	4.08	89.6	52	629	2363	3.76	45.4
25	Eddie George	1996--2004	oti-dal	RB	90	2094	7863	3.76	87.4	60	977	3354	3.43	55.9
26	Wilbert Montgomery	1977--1985	phi-det	RB	55	1016	4766	4.69	86.7	54	652	2513	3.85	46.5
27	Fred Taylor	1998--2010	jax-nwe	RB	89	1588	7674	4.83	86.2	72	1075	4634	4.31	64.4
28	Jamal Anderson	1994--2001	atl	RB	37	767	3189	4.16	86.2	47	632	2423	3.83	51.6
29	Gale Sayers	1965--1971	chi	RB	29	426	2492	5.85	85.9	36	510	2122	4.16	58.9
30	Barry Foster	1990--1994	pit	RB	35	704	2997	4.26	85.6	23	275	1230	4.47	53.5
31	Curt Warner	1983--1990	sea-ram	RB	55	1133	4704	4.15	85.5	48	636	2389	3.76	49.8
32	Matt Forte	2008--2011	chi	RB	35	661	2985	4.52	85.3	27	395	1398	3.54	51.8
33	Cookie Gilchrist	1962--1967	buf-den-mia	FB	34	625	2871	4.59	84.4	31	372	1381	3.71	44.5
34	William Andrews	1979--1986	atl	RB	43	749	3609	4.82	83.9	42	586	2439	4.16	58.1
35	Marshall Faulk	1994--2005	clt-ram	RB	99	1774	8307	4.68	83.9	89	1227	4574	3.73	51.4
36	John Henry Johnson	1960--1966	pit-oti	FB-HB	32	589	2682	4.55	83.8	38	435	1718	3.95	45.2
37	Tony Dorsett	1977--1988	dal-den	RB	121	2237	10137	4.53	83.8	68	1001	3985	3.98	58.6
38	Jerome Bettis	1993--2005	ram-pit	RB	111	2333	9274	3.98	83.5	93	1345	5062	3.76	54.4
39	Priest Holmes	1997--2007	rav-kan	RB	61	1093	5077	4.65	83.2	49	729	3316	4.55	67.7
40	Ricky Watters	1992--2001	sfo-phi-sea	RB	91	1823	7552	4.14	83	63	963	3720	3.86	59
41	Jim Nance	1965--1973	nwe-nyj	RB	30	571	2455	4.3	81.8	62	680	2585	3.8	41.7
42	Robert Smith	1993--2000	min	RB	63	1039	5146	4.95	81.7	41	517	2262	4.38	55.2
43	George Rogers	1981--1987	nor-was	RB	53	1009	4326	4.29	81.6	45	772	3128	4.05	69.5
44	Jim Taylor	1960--1967	gnb-nor	FB	81	1468	6576	4.48	81.2	31	401	1582	3.95	51
45	Travis Henry	2001--2007	buf-oti-den	RB	36	672	2906	4.32	80.7	52	816	3180	3.9	61.2
46	Willie Parker	2004--2009	pit	RB	55	977	4436	4.54	80.7	27	403	1413	3.51	52.3
47	Ray Rice	2008--2011	rav	RB	45	792	3627	4.58	80.6	22	274	1194	4.36	54.3
48	Maurice Jones-Drew	2006--2011	jax	RB	45	776	3616	4.66	80.4	50	722	3286	4.55	65.7
49	Deuce McAllister	2001--2008	nor	RB	50	913	4017	4.4	80.3	47	543	2240	4.13	47.7
50	Thurman Thomas	1988--2000	buf-mia	RB	130	2373	10378	4.37	79.8	71	843	3138	3.72	44.2

[continue reading…]

Tagged as: Adrian Peterson, Jim Brown, Simpson’s Paradox, Steven Jackson, Terrell Davis

{ 4 comments }

Adrian Peterson’s amazing, except when the Vikings win

by Chase Stuart on December 29, 2012

in Rushing

Adrian Peterson is having an incredible season. He’s likely to hit the 2,000-yard mark on Sunday, and he’s also chasing Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record. But his splits this year are…interesting.

The table below shows Adrian Peterson’s game logs. These display his traditional statistics, along with his Win Probability added, Expected Points Added, and Success Rate, all courtesy of Advanced NFL Stats; finally I have added the Vikings SRS score for that particularly game (on the season, Minnesota has an SRS of +3.0).

G#	Opp	W/L	Score	Rsh	Yds	YPC	TD	RecYds	WPA	EPA	SR(%)	SRS
1	JAX	W	26-23	17	84	4.9	2	3	0.17	2.5	50	-12.2
2	IND	L	20-23	16	60	3.8	0	20	-0.02	-2.2	40	-5.7
3	SFO	W	24-13	25	86	3.4	0	21	-0.1	-2.4	33.3	18.3
4	DET	W	20-13	21	102	4.9	0	20	0.05	1.8	40	7.5
5	TEN	W	30-7	17	88	5.2	0	15	-0.12	-1.5	33.3	9.3
6	WAS	L	26-38	17	79	4.6	0	50	-0.06	1.6	42.3	-5.9
7	ARI	W	21-14	23	153	6.7	1	6	0.12	0.4	33.3	0.8
8	TAM	L	17-36	15	123	8.2	1	4	-0.07	0.7	43.8	-22.9
9	SEA	L	20-30	17	182	10.7	2	11	0.37	9.5	52.4	5.7
10	DET	W	34-24	27	171	6.3	1	5	0.04	-0.7	25	4.5
11	CHI	L	10-28	18	108	6	0	30	-0.03	0.8	60	-7.8
12	GNB	L	14-23	21	210	10	1	10	0.42	10.4	43.5	1.5
13	CHI	W	21-14	31	154	5	2	16	0.24	2.3	45.5	11.2
14	STL	W	36-22	24	212	8.8	1	0	0.21	6.9	45.8	16.8
15	HOU	W	23-6	25	86	3.4	0	4	-0.1	-5	25.9	24.5
Total				314	1898	6	11	215	1.12	25.1	40.2	3

A robot and a vegan walk into a bar...

Peterson has only had two games this season where he averaged fewer than 3.5 yards per carry. Those two games were, without question, the two most impressive wins of the year for the Vikings. Peterson had identical stat lines of 25 carries/86 yards/0 touchdowns in shocking upsets over the 49ers and Texans.
[continue reading…]

Tagged as: Adrian Peterson, Vikings

{ 2 comments }

Week 16 Power Rankings

by Chase Stuart on December 28, 2012

in Power Rankings

What’s the point of power rankings now that there is just one week left in the regular season? If you’ve asked that question, you are implicitly saying that power rankings serve a purpose earlier in the year! If you want to see the playoff picture, I laid that out earlier this week, so I’ll assume you’ll be staying on this post for the snark.

I was on the Seahawks’ bandwagon a couple of weeks earlier than most, but they’re now #1 in Football Outsiders’ DVOA ratings and third in Advanced NFL Stats’ Efficiency Rankings. Seattle is also first in Pro-Football-Reference.com’s SRS Ratings; the Seahawks are second in the NFL in points differential, behind the Patriots, but a much tougher schedule was enough to close the gap there. Now that Richard Sherman is cleared to play in the postseason, Seattle is a legitimate Super Bowl contender. They may not have home field advantage in the playoffs, but they do have my Coach of the Year.

Here’s the week 17 schedule along with my projected winner:

Road Team		Home Team	Time	Proj Winner
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	@	Atlanta Falcons	1:00 PM	Atlanta Falcons
New York Jets	@	Buffalo Bills	1:00 PM	Buffalo Bills
Baltimore Ravens	@	Cincinnati Bengals	1:00 PM	Cincinnati Bengals
Houston Texans	@	Indianapolis Colts	1:00 PM	Houston Texans
Chicago Bears	@	Detroit Lions	1:00 PM	Chicago Bears
Green Bay Packers	@	Minnesota Vikings	1:00 PM	Green Bay Packers
Carolina Panthers	@	New Orleans Saints	1:00 PM	Carolina Panthers
Philadelphia Eagles	@	New York Giants	1:00 PM	New York Giants
Jacksonville Jaguars	@	Tennessee Titans	1:00 PM	Tennessee Titans
Cleveland Browns	@	Pittsburgh Steelers	1:00 PM	Pittsburgh Steelers
Miami Dolphins	@	New England Patriots	4:25 PM	New England Patriots
Kansas City Chiefs	@	Denver Broncos	4:25 PM	Denver Broncos
Oakland Raiders	@	San Diego Chargers	4:25 PM	San Diego Chargers
St. Louis Rams	@	Seattle Seahawks	4:25 PM	Seattle Seahawks
Arizona Cardinals	@	San Francisco 49ers	4:25 PM	San Francisco 49ers
Dallas Cowboys	@	Washington Redskins	8:20 PM	Washington Redskins

That leaves us with the final week 17 standings:

Team	Rec	Wins	PrvWin	Diff	RemSOS	RemHG	Comment
Atlanta Falcons	13-2	14	13	0	0.500	1	Mike Smith says the Falcons will play to win this game. I believe him.
Houston Texans	12-3	13	14	1	0.625	0	The best season in Texans history will be secure with a win in Indianapolis in week 17.
Denver Broncos	12-3	13	13	0	0.125	1	The best team in the AFC? With a win at home against Kansas City, the Broncos will finish the year on an 11-game win streak.
New England Patriots	11-4	12	12	-1	0.438	1	A home win against the Dolphins will mark just the second time Bill Belichick's Patriots have gone undefeated in the division.
Green Bay Packers	11-4	12	12	1	0.500	0	Winning in Minnesota is going to be difficult, but the Packers need a win to secure a much-needed bye.
San Francisco 49ers	10-4-1	11.5	11.5	1	0.313	1	The 49ers can salvage a strong season by winning at home against Arizona; a loss and the team is in a full-fledged free fall.
Seattle Seahawks	10-5	11	11	0	0.406	1	A Super Bowl championship? The coach of the year? The rookie of the year? Seattle might end up with all three in a couple of months.
Chicago Bears	9-6	10	10	0	0.250	0	The Bears rooting for the Packers is one of the weirder twists of week 17.
Indianapolis Colts	10-5	10	10	0	0.875	1	A magnificent season in Indianapolis is capped by the return of Chuck Pagano this weekend.
Baltimore Ravens	10-5	10	9	-1	0.563	0	The Ravens plugged the leak against the Giants, but week 17 against the Bengals will be more like a pre-season game.
Washington Redskins	9-6	10	9	0	0.625	1	The Redskins entered the year with the least hype in the NFC East; they may end the year with the division crown.
Cincinnati Bengals	9-6	10	9	1	0.563	1	In a meaningless game, I'll take the home team. A.J. Green and Geno Atkins will give the Patriots trouble in round 1.
New York Giants	8-7	9	10	0	0.250	1	The only team the last three years to start 6-2 and miss the playoffs? The 2010 Giants. The 2012 Giants may soon join them.
Minnesota Vikings	9-6	9	8	1	0.750	1	I doubt they can do it, but if they beat the Packers and Texans in back-to-back weeks, they will have earned their playoff berth.
Dallas Cowboys	8-7	8	10	1	0.563	0	Tony Romo is closing in on 5,000 yards, Jason Witten set the single-season record for catches by a tight end, DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer have double digit sacks, and the Cowboys still need to win in Washington to make the playoffs.
Pittsburgh Steelers	7-8	8	9	0	0.313	1	It's 2006 and 2009 all over again for the Steelers. Another playoff absence that leaves more questions than answers for Pittsburgh.
St. Louis Rams	7-7-1	7.5	6.5	-1	0.688	0	Sam Bradford and the passing game haven't improved significantly, but the defense is above-average. Add some weapons and this team can compete in 2013.
Miami Dolphins	7-8	7	7	0	0.750	0	Cameron Wake is having the best season by a player you don't hear about.
Carolina Panthers	6-9	7	7	1	0.375	0	Cam Newton ranks 1st in yards per completion, 2nd in Y/A, 6th in NY/A, and 10th in NY/A this year. He's also added over 700 rushing yards.
San Diego Chargers	6-9	7	6	-1	0.250	1	In sixteen seasons as head coach, Norv Turner has made the playoffs just four times.
New Orleans Saints	7-8	7	6	0	0.438	1	The Saints have allowed the most yards of any team through 15 games in NFL history; they're only 282 yards allowed from the record.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	6-9	6	8	1	0.813	0	Can the Bucs end the season first in rushing yards allowed and last in passing yards allowed?
New York Jets	6-9	6	7	-1	0.375	0	Just. End. The. Season.
Buffalo Bills	5-10	6	6	0	0.438	1	C.J. Spiller is closing in on the highest YPC average of any player with 1200 yards in league history.
Tennessee Titans	5-10	6	6	1	0.125	1	Chris Johnson joined Eddie George and Earl Campbell as just the 7th running back with 6800 rushing yards in his first five seasons.
Cleveland Browns	5-10	5	5	-1	0.563	0	It's been a typical rookie season for Brandon Weeden, which just looks bad in 2012. A difficult decision faces Cleveland management in the offseason.
Arizona Cardinals	5-10	5	5	1	0.719	0	From Kevin Kolb to John Skelton to Ryan Lindley to Brian Hoyer. In case you didn't figure it out, it's been a rough year in the desert.
Detroit Lions	4-11	4	4	-1	0.625	1	Calvin Johnson goes for 2,000 yards and Matt Stafford goes for 700 pass attempts as the Lions try to knock the Bears out of the playoffs.
Philadelphia Eagles	4-11	4	4	-1	0.625	0	The Andy Reid era is going to go out with a whimper, with the Eagles losing 11 of their final 12 games.
Oakland Raiders	4-11	4	4	0	0.375	0	Terrelle Pryor or Matt Leinart? This is what the Raiders-Chargers rivalry has come to.
Jacksonville Jaguars	2-13	2	2	-1	0.375	0	It's been a rough season in Jacksonville, but the Jaguars did put a scare into the Patriots on Sunday.
Kansas City Chiefs	2-13	2	2	-1	0.813	0	The Chiefs are one loss away from securing the #1 pick. I think Peyton Manning will make sure of that.

Tagged as: 2012 Power Rankings, Seahawks

{ 2 comments }

Seattle’s HFA

by Chase Stuart on December 27, 2012

in Statistics, Theory

As usual, Aaron Schatz provided some interesting information in his weekly DVOA recap. He was looking into Seattle’s home/road splits, and found that the data support what you already know:

[W]hen you look closer at home-field advantage over a period of several years, almost every team generally has the same home-field advantage, which in DVOA works out to about 8.5% on offense and 8.5% on defense. Teams will see their home-field advantage bounce up and down if you only look at things in eight-game periods that coincide with specific seasons, but if you put together six or seven years of data you are going to end up close to 8.5% difference most of the time. The biggest exception seems to be the four NFC West teams, which over the last decade have enjoyed the four largest home-field advantages in the league. And of those four teams, the biggest exception by far is Seattle.

I don’t doubt that Seattle is a much better team at home than on the road. But here’s the question on my mind today: is Seattle much better at home because, well, they’re much better at home…. or because they simply get more favorable home games than the average team? That might sound like the same thing, but Jason Lisk has done a bunch of research on home field advantage as it relates to climate and distance between the teams.

The table below shows the distance each team has traveled this season. The “road” column represents how many miles the team has traveled when they were the road team while the “home” column shows how many miles their opponents had to travel. Note that I excluded the Patriots/Rams game in London, but instead pro-rated their half-seasons to eight games.

Team	road	home
San Francisco 49ers	22024	23317
Oakland Raiders	23177	22505
Seattle Seahawks	23059	21130
San Diego Chargers	20755	20135
Arizona Cardinals	19058	19569
Miami Dolphins	17981	18038
New England Patriots	12311	17764
New York Jets	10846	17280
Carolina Panthers	9067	14109
Denver Broncos	14933	13480
St. Louis Rams	12980	13248
Dallas Cowboys	14826	13057
Houston Texans	13168	12705
New Orleans Saints	11539	12592
average	12558	12562
Atlanta Falcons	8763	12016
Minnesota Vikings	8865	11633
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	13766	11493
Buffalo Bills	12845	11336
Kansas City Chiefs	11987	10982
Green Bay Packers	8013	10776
Baltimore Ravens	8916	10642
Cincinnati Bengals	7801	10270
Jacksonville Jaguars	12607	9948
Detroit Lions	10615	8659
New York Giants	9898	8416
Chicago Bears	9906	7167
Tennessee Titans	9481	7141
Indianapolis Colts	6608	7090
Pittsburgh Steelers	9642	6792
Cleveland Browns	9198	6784
Washington Redskins	7230	6022
Philadelphia Eagles	9992	5878

Seattle is the most isolated team in the NFL. Now if an expansion team was place in Vancouver or Portland, my guess is that such a team would fare no worse against Seattle than the Giants do against the Eagles or the Jets against the Patriots. But right now, no one is all that close to the Seahawks:

There are also climate issues at play here. Think of the coldest NFL cities — Green Bay, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, New England, Denver, Kansas City. They all play in divisions with other cold-weather teams. Meanwhile, the Seahawks are playing teams from California, Arizona, or Missouri in their division. The climates are significantly different. Climate effects are very real but also very complicated, so that’s best left for another day.
[continue reading…]

Tagged as: HFA, Seahawks

{ 13 comments }

Who should win Coach of the Year in the NFL?

by Chase Stuart on December 26, 2012

in Coaches

Let’s get this out of the way. Bruce Arians, or an Arians/Pagano ballot, is going to win Coach of the Year. Period. But who should win it?

Coach of the Year is one of the most difficult awards to predict each year. The award often goes to the coach who most outperforms expectations rather than the coach who does the best coaching job, which is how you end up in situations where Dick Jauron and Jim Haslett were named the best coaches in 2001 and 2000, respectively.

There are no standards or guidelines to help voters determine the Coach of the Year, so every voter is left to his own devices. Today, I’m going to run down my rankings of the top 8 coaches of 2012.

8. John Fox, Denver Broncos

Having Peyton Manning makes coaching easy, but Fox still deserves credit for guiding the Broncos to an excellent season. Denver is going to finish the year on an 11-game winning streak and the Broncos are in the top five in points allowed, yards allowed, net yards per attempt allowed, rushing yards allowed, rushing touchdowns allowed, and rushing yards per carry allowed. Fox has helped turn Von Miller into one of the best two defensive players in the NFL and his hiring of Jack Del Rio to coach the defense has worked beautifully. And while Manning is having a phenomenal year, let’s not forget that it was only three months ago that people were questioning his arm strength and the Broncos were 2-3. Many coaches are doing wonderfully with less, but Fox deserves credit for helping lead Denver to the 2 seed in the AFC.

7. Gary Kubiak, Houston Texans

Gary Kubiak wishes COTY voting took place after the end of November.

It was only three weeks ago that the Texans were 11-1 and the class of the NFL. I wrote earlier this season that Kubiak’s done an excellent job resurrecting his coaching career, and much of that remains true. He’s built this team for half a decade, and he oversaw the additions of J.J. Watt and Wade Phillips to the defense to complement Kubiak’s formidable offense. The Texans are likely going to earn the top seed in the A.F.C., an impressive accomplishment considering Matt Schaub isn’t on the same tier of a Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. Even with a little luster off the team right now, Texans fans could hardly ask for more than home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

So why isn’t Kubiak ranked higher? I’m not sure the Texans are as good as their record and they’ve had a relatively easy schedule. Kubiak’s done an excellent job, but he also hasn’t had to face as much adversity as some other coaches this year. Houston is now one of the most talent-laden rosters in the league, and that makes Kubiak’s success just slightly less impressive.

6. Mike McCarthy, Green Bay Packers

The Packers are 11-4 — they’d have the same record as the Texans if not for the Golden Taint play — despite facing a more difficult schedule than Houston. As is seemingly an annual tradition, the Packers have placed a large number of starters on injured reserve, including right tackle Bryan Bulaga, linebackers Nick Perry, D.J. Smith, and Desmond Bishop, and Cedric Benson (along with two other running backs). Charles Woodson has only played in 7 games, James Starks and Alex Green have been banged up most of the year, and injuries have limited Greg Jennings to just 246 receiving yards this year.

Alex Green is the leading rusher with 464 yards, and he’s plodded to the tune of 3.4 yards per carry, narrowly trailing what Benson (3.5) and Starks (3.6) have produced. An anemic running game, a banged up offensive line, and injuries at receiver and tight end have resulted in Aaron Rodgers having a down season and having taken 46 sacks. Clay Matthews has missed four games and he still has 8.5 more sacks than anyone else on defense.

Yet after all that, the Packers are in line for the #2 seed in the NFC. McCarthy’s team is ranked 7th in both points and points allowed, and Green Bay has responded well in the face of adversity this season. After the painful loss to the Seahawks, would other coaches have been able to keep this team focused? After an emotional loss to the Chuckstrong Colts, you didn’t hear about grumbling in the locker room: instead, Green Bay won five straight games. Since a 38-10 shellacking against the Giants, where they looked lost, the Packers have won four in a row. If McCarthy isn’t a household name, that’s just because he’s the most underrated coach in the NFL. Despite facing numerous setbacks this season, he’s got the Packers right where everyone expected they would be.

[continue reading…]

Tagged as: Bill Belichick, Bruce Arians, Gary Kubiak, Jeff Fisher, John Fox, Mike McCarthy, Mike Smith, Pete Carroll

{ 24 comments }

NYT Fifth Down: Post-week 16

by Chase Stuart on December 25, 2012

in NYT

This week at the New York Times I looked at some record-breaking performances from week 16.

Sunday was a record-setting day in the N.F.L. In case you missed it …

The rookie Minnesota Vikings kicker Blair Walsh connected on a 56-yard field goal in the second quarter against the Texans, making him the first kicker with nine field goals of 50 yards or longer in a season. Even more impressive: Walsh is 9 of 9 from 50-plus yards this year.

Kansas City rushed for 352 yards against the Colts, easily breaking the record for rushing yards gained in a losing effort and also for rushing yards differential in a loss. How do you lose when you rush for so many yards? Brady Quinn threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown and threw another pick in the Colts’ end zone. Another Chiefs drive ended on a fumble inside the Colts’ 20-yard-line. But the turning point of the game may have been when Quinn was stuffed on a fourth-and-1, one of the few times in the game that the Colts’ run defense won the battle at the line of scrimmage.

In the same game, Jamaal Charles recorded the 750th carry of his career, giving him enough rushing attempts to be eligible for the career yards-per-carry title. Jim Brown averaged 5.22 yards per carry during his Browns career. That’s now second highest among running backs in N.F.L. history. Charles has a mind-boggling 5.82 average gain over his five-year career.

Brown might take a back seat to another running back this season. Buffalo’s C.J. Spiller has averaged 6.48 yards per carry this year on 183 carries, the highest single-season average of any player with that many carries. The previous record holder was Brown, who averaged 6.40 yards per rush in 1963.

It’s been another remarkable season for Atlanta’s Tony Gonzalez, but he actually was nudged out of the record books this weekend. In 2004, Gonzalez set the single-season record for receptions by a tight end with 102, but Dallas’s Jason Witten caught his 103rd pass of the season in overtime against the Saints on Sunday.

The Seattle Seahawks have outscored their last three opponents, 150-30. That 120-point margin of victory is the largest differential in a three-game span in 70 years. In 1942, the Chicago Bears won three straight games and did it with a combined 127-7 score; the year before, Chicago outscored its opponents, 136-14, over a three-game stretch.

Mega Record for Megatron

Of course, the most noteworthy individual record to fall this past weekend was Jerry Rice’s single-season receiving record of 1,848 yards. Calvin Johnson needed only 15 games to break the record Saturday night, and with 1,892 yards, he has a good chance of becoming the first N.F.L. receiver to hit the 2,000-yard mark.

With 225 yards against the Falcons, he also became the first player to gain 100 receiving yards in eight straight games and to collect 10 receptions in four straight games. For Johnson, it was his fifth career game (including the postseason) with at least 200 receiving yards, tying him with Lance Alworth and Rice for the most 200-yard games since 1960.

Detroit has averaged 47 pass attempts per game, and will set the single-season record for attempts on its 12th pass attempt Sunday. Most of those passes have come from the right arm of Matthew Stafford, who threw 663 passes in 2011, (now) the fourth-highest number ever. On his seventh pass in Week 17 against the Bears, he’ll set the record, and he needs just 15 passes to become the first quarterback with 700 pass attempts in a season.

You can check out the full post here.

Tagged as: C.J. Spiller, Calvin Johnson, Jamaal Charles, Matt Stafford

{ 1 comment }

Merry Christmas

by Chase Stuart on December 25, 2012

in Trivia

The North Pole is that way, dude.

Merry Christmas from Football Perspective! Most people know that Jay Cutler is from Santa Claus, Indiana, but did you know that that Arizona offensive lineman Daryn Colledge is from the North Pole? Well, at least from the one in Alaska.

Former Oregon State lineman Johan Asiata had a cup of coffee with the Bears two years ago, and he’s one of two players in NFL history from Christchurch, New Zealand (Riki Ellison is the other). Wes Ours was from Christian, Kentucky and Wayne McClure was from Merryvile, Tennesssee, while Kyle Rudolph is one of seven players with that last name in league history.

On a more relevant note, today is the 41st anniversary of one of the best games in NFL history. On December 25th, 1971, the Miami Dolphins defeated the defending Kansas City Chiefs in double overtime. The win prevented Len Dawson from going for his 2nd Super Bowl title in three years and helped Don Shula reach the first of three consecutive Super Bowls.

Hopefully you are celebrating the day with your loved ones today. Thanks for being a part of Football Perspective. I’ll close with this list, courtesy of PFR: There are also 63 players in NFL history born our Christmas day, including a Hall of Famer and one of the best quarterbacks not currently in Canton.

Happy Holidays!

											Passing								Rushing				Receiving
Rk		Pos	Born	From	To	AP1	PB	St	AV	G	Cmp	Att	Yds	TD	Lng	Int	Sk	Yds	Att	Yds	TD	Lng	Rec	Yds	TD	Lng
1	Ken Stabler	QB	1945	1970	1984	1	4	11	94	184	2270	3793	27938	194	88	222	281	2514	118	93	4	18
2	Larry Csonka	RB	1946	1968	1979	2	5	11	73	146									1891	8081	64	54	106	820	4	65
3	William Andrews	RB	1955	1979	1986	0	4	5	68	87	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	2	1315	5986	30	33	277	2647	11	86
4	Hanford Dixon	DB	1958	1981	1989	2	3	9	68	131
5	Roland Lakes	DT-DE-T-DT	1939	1961	1971	0	0	10	58	154
6	Dave Parks	SE-TE-WR	1941	1964	1973	1	3	9	51	118	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	-10	0	10	360	5619	44	83
7	Norm Bulaich	RB	1946	1970	1979	0	1	5	50	120									814	3362	30	67	224	1766	11	80
8	Marcus Trufant	DB	1980	2003	2012	0	1	8	50	135
9	Chris Naeole	G	1974	1997	2007	0	0	9	48	154
10	Dick Barwegan	G	1921	1947	1954	4	4	7	37	92
11	Howard Twilley	WR-FL	1943	1966	1976	0	0	5	36	120													212	3064	23	44
12	Corey Widmer	LB-DT	1968	1992	1999	0	0	4	33	114
13	Shawn Andrews	G-T	1982	2004	2010	1	2	3	28	63
14	Harry Jagielski	DT-T	1931	1956	1961	0	0	2	27	36
15	Chris Fletcher	DB	1948	1970	1976	0	0	4	26	76
16	Pete Jaquess	DB	1940	1964	1970	0	1	3	26	85
17	Roy Hord	G	1934	1960	1963	0	0	3	24	53
18	Jeff Rohrer	LB	1958	1982	1987	0	0	3	22	83
19	Bob Scholtz	C-G-T	1937	1960	1966	0	0	3	21	81
20	Rod Sherman	WR-FL	1944	1967	1973	0	0	4	18	83									4	20	1	13	105	1576	5	55
21	Torrin Tucker	T-G	1979	2003	2005	0	0	2	11	36
22	Tom Drougas	T-G	1949	1972	1976	0	0	1	10	65
23	Craig Veasey	DT	1966	1990	1995	0	0	0	8	69
24	Demaryius Thomas	WR	1987	2010	2012	0	0	1	6	35	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	6	0	5	132	2044	14	71
25	Marlon Forbes	DB	1971	1996	1999	0	0	0	5	63
26	Reggie Rembert	WR	1966	1991	1993	0	0	0	5	28													36	437	1	27
27	Gordon Bell	RB	1953	1976	1978	0	0	0	4	30									90	319	2	26	32	259	0	20
28	Kerlin Blaise	G	1974	1999	2003	0	0	0	4	38
29	Robbie Jones	LB	1959	1984	1987	0	0	0	4	60
30	Hank Rivera	DB	1938	1962	1963	0	0	0	3	12
31	Stuart Anderson	LB	1959	1982	1985	0	0	0	2	40
32	Bill Briggs	DE	1943	1966	1967	0	0	0	2	23
33	Trevor Insley	WR	1977	2001	2001	0	0	0	2	11													14	165	1	26
34	Greg L. Robinson	T	1962	1986	1987	0	0	0	2	6
35	Josh Baker	TE	1986	2011	2011	0	0	0	1	11													3	27	1	17
36	Patrick Brown	T	1986	2011	2012	0	0	0	1	16
37	Scott Curry	T	1975	1999	1999	0	0	0	1	5
38	Buck McPhail	FB-K	1929	1953	1953	0	0	0	1	12									53	138	0	30	10	38	0	45
39	Limas Sweed	WR	1984	2008	2009	0	0	0	1	20													7	69	0	17
40	Thomas Williams	LB	1984	2008	2011	0	0	0	1	15
41	Nate Abrams	E	1897	1921	1921	0	0	2	0	1
42	Ermal Allen	QB-DB	1918	1947	1947	0	0	0	0	12	4	13	88	0	0	0			7	11	0	0
43	Napoleon Barrel	C	1885	1923	1923	0	0	2	0	7
44	Norm Barry	BB-HB	1897	1921	1922	0	0	3	0	12
45	John Barsha	FB	1898	1920	1920	0	0	0	0	3
46	Milt Crain	FB	1921	1944	1944	0	0	0	0	10									26	78	0	8	1	16	0	16
47	Lon Evans	G-T	1911	1933	1937	2	0	4	0	57
48	Harry Flaherty	LB	1961	1987	1987	0	0	0	0	2
49	Dick Hanson	T	1949	1971	1971	0	0	0	0	3
50	Mike Hudson	DB	1963	1987	1987	0	0	0	0	3
51	Julie Koshlap	B	1917	1945	1945	0	0	0	0	1
52	Mel Maceau	C	1921	1946	1948	0	0	0	0	37
53	Joe Majors	DB	1936	1960	1960	0	0	0	0	1
54	Joe Mickles	RB	1965	1989	1990	0	0	0	0	10
55	Gery Palmer	T	1950	1975	1975	0	0	0	0	2
56	Leon Pennington	LB	1963	1987	1987	0	0	0	0	3
57	Hosea Rodgers	FB	1921	1949	1949	0	0	1	0	12	0	1	0	0	0	0			131	494	5	0	7	97	0	0
58	Jim Sanford	T	1898	1924	1924	0	0	0	0	1
59	Don Silvestri	K	1968	1995	1996	0	0	0	0	28
60	Marty Slovak	TB-DB	1916	1939	1941	0	0	0	0	27	57	109	638	4	48	18			141	396	1	14
61	John Starnes	P	1962	1987	1987	0	0	0	0	1
62	Frank Walton	G	1911	1934	1945	0	0	1	0	25
63	Bill Wexler	C	1904	1930	1930	0	0	0	0	1

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com

Tagged as: Christmas

{ 1 comment }

Playoff Picture: Who needs what in week 17

by Chase Stuart on December 24, 2012

in Current Events

With week 16 in the books, it’s time to take a look at the playoff picture. In the AFC, it’s simple: we know the six teams that will be in the post-season. In the NFC, there are two spots still remaining and five teams trying to claim them. In both conferences, there will be battles for byes in week 17.

AFC

The 12-3 Houston Texans are suddenly in a freefall, and could drop from the presumptive number one seed to having to win in the first round of the playoffs. If Houston loses in Indianapolis, the Texans are vulnerable to being caught by either Denver (home against Kansas City) or New England (home against Miami), or both. There’s likely no middle ground, since the Broncos and Patriots are big favorites, meaning it’s the #1 seed or no bye for Houston. Still, Houston is likely to get the top seed in the AFC. After all, the Colts did just struggle mightily to handle the worst team in the NFL.

Denver can secure a bye by beating Kansas City or having the Dolphins beat the Patriots, and would earn home field advantage throughout the playoffs with a win and a Colts victory. The likely result for Denver is the #2 seed

The Patriots are third in the pecking order with four losses. They could drop to the #4 seed with a loss and a Ravens victory over Cincinnati, but that doesn’t mean much: a home game against Indianapolis won’t scare New England and might even be an easier matchup than facing A.J. Green and Geno Atkins. The real drama is whether Denver or Houston falls, giving New England a chance for a bye or even home field. While the Patriots could end up being slotted from 1 to 4 in the AFC, expect each of the top three seeds to take care of business, and New England to finish as the #3 seed.

Pagano will likely see his old friends in two weeks

Pagano as defensive coordinator of the Ravens.

Because the Browns defeated the Bengals, the Ravens hold the tiebreaker over Cincinnati. Both teams split with Pittsburgh, and would split with each other if Cincinnati defeats Baltimore on Sunday, but Baltimore’s sweep of Cleveland would give them the division even if they lose to Cincinnati in week 17. Baltimore has little to play for in Cincinnati; the irony is that if Baltimore defeats the Bengals and the Patriots lose, the two teams would face off again in the first round of the playoffs in Baltimore. Still, the likely scenario is Baltimore staying at the 4 seed and hosting the Colts in the first round of the playoffs.

The Colts are the feel good story of the year, and Chuck Pagano comes back to coach the team this weekend. It’s actually a meaningless game for Andrew Luck and the Colts on Sunday, as they can’t improve their playoff positioning. In fact, they can only hurt it: a victory over Houston in week 17 means, assuming the Patriots defeat the Bengals in the first round of the playoffs, that the Colts would face the Broncos instead of the Texans in the second round. In any event, we know that the Colts are the 5 seed and unless the Patriots lose and the Ravens win, will travel to their old stomping grounds in Baltimore in the first round of the playoffs. Expect that to be a very emotional game and for the Ravens crowd to give a warm #Chuckstrong welcome to their former defensive coordinator.

NFC

Matt Ryan and the Falcons have clinched the #1 seed in the NFC. For all the bashing Atlanta seems to take, they might end up winning three more games than any other team in the conference. However, the most likely opponent in the first round of the playoffs is Seattle, which would be a fascinating contrast in styles. The Falcons will face the winner of the 4/5 game or the 6 seed, but since the 6 seed will likely play in San Francisco, and the Seahawks look much better than either the Redskins or the Cowboys, my money is on Seattle-Atlanta in round two.

Brett Favre is honestly surprised the Packers haven't secured a bye yet.

Green Bay is the frontrunner to win the #2 seed and secure the other bye in the conference. The NFC East winner is out, so the #2 seed comes down to either the Packers or the NFC West winner. Green Bay gets the #2 spot with a win, or with losses by both the Seahawks and 49ers. I wouldn’t count on that. Winning in Minnesota is not going to be easy — Adrian Peterson will be chasing Eric Dickerson’s rushing record and the Vikings are in a “win and you’re in” scenario themselves — but I’d still make Aaron Rodgers and the Packers the favorites. If the Packers lose in Minnesota, their punishment is a first round visit from the Vikings.

San Francisco can still finish as the #2, #3, or #5 seeds. The 49ers get a bye if the Packers lose and the 49ers win, but more likely, San Francisco defeats Arizona and ends up as the #3 seed in the NFC. The 49ers could also get the #3 seed with a loss if the Seahawks lose at home against the Rams, but good luck with that. If San Francisco loses at home to Arizona, the 49ers will likely get what they deserve — the fifth seed and a trip to either Washington or Dallas in the first round of the playoffs.

The NFC East will be decided in Washington on Sunday. If the Redskins win, which would be my prediction, Washington will win the division at 10-6. The ‘Skins have another out, as they could get the 6 seed even if they lose to the Cowboys. At 9-7, Washington would have the tiebreaker over Minnesota based on head-to-head record, so if the Vikings and Bears lose to Green Bay and Detroit, Washington is in the playoffs. Assuming the Redskins make the post-season, Luck would be joined by fellow rookies Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson in the playoffs, an NFL first.

TO taught Sherman what to do when you arrive at the Cowboys 50-yard line.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys face your basic ‘win and you’re in’ scenario. At 8-8 they can’t make the playoffs, so it’s just a question of whether they can defeat the Redskins and claim the NFC East. The other interesting thing to keep an eye on: Tony Romo is only 315 yards away from hitting the 5,000-yard mark, although he trails both Drew Brees and Matthew Stafford in the race for the passing crown.

By defeating San Francisco on Sunday night, the Seahawks clinched the #5 seed in the NFC. While the Bears and Vikings could get to 10 wins, Seattle defeated both teams, so Seattle’s fate is secure as no worse than the 5th seed and is rewarded with a trip to either Washington or Dallas in the first round of the playoffs.

That leaves just the sixth seed up for grabs. If the Vikings defeat the Packers, they’d get the #6 seed and likely travel to Lambeau Field in the first round of the playoffs. No word on whether Brett Favre would be in attendance. Minnesota has the tiebreaker over the Bears because Green Bay swept Chicago, while in this scenario, the Vikes would end up 4-2 in the division. Chicago therefore needs Minnesota to lose and to win in Detroit to get the #6 seed. If both teams lose, the Redskins then would slot into the 6 seed even if they lose.

You might notice we’re missing a certain team from New York. Well, the Jets have struggled this season, and the Mark Sanchez/Tim Tebow/Greg McElroy circus has only gotten more depressing. Oh wait, there’s another team in New York, right? Well, the Giants can’t win the division, but could get a wildcard berth. They would need the other teams they’d be battling for the final spot — Chicago, Minnesota, and Dallas — to lose to Detroit, Green Bay, and Washington, in addition to taking care of business against the Eagles. The longshot there would be the Lions defeating Chicago, but otherwise, it’s not a completely far-fetched scenario.

Tagged as: Playoff Scenarios, Playoffs

{ 10 comments }

Rankings the kickers, from Tucker to Crosby

by Chase Stuart on December 23, 2012

in Statistics

Mack Brown knows kickers.

In the summer of 2009, I wrote a three-part series analyzing every kicker of the last half-century (here are the links to Part I, Part II, Part III). What I did there was analyzed field goal attempts by distance, and then credited a kicker for how many field goals he made over the expected number of successful field goals from each distance.

For example, field goal kickers this year have made 15 of 23 attempts from exactly 50 yards. ^[1]There is some bias in the data in that only the best distance kickers attempts long field goals, but dealing with that is best left for another day. If we assume that 50-yard kicks are successful 65% of the time, then a made 50-yarder will be worth +0.35 field goals and a missed 50-yarder will be worth -0.65 field goals.

To smooth the data, I used kicks from 2005 to 2011, and I also grouped field goals into four-yard increments. In the off-season, I plan to incorporate stadium, temperature, and other weather effects, but for now, I’ve ignored the (often large) role such elements can play.

The table below shows how many field goals over expectation each kicker made through week 15. I also included a column for extra points, and the final column shows how many points over average each kicker provided, giving them 3 points for each field goal and one point for each extra point over average:

Search:

Rk	Name	Tm	FG M	FG A	FG %	EXP FG Made	FG Ov AVG	XP M	XP A	XP Ov Avg	Points Ov Avg
1	Justin Tucker	BAL	25	27	92.6%	20.7	4.3	37	37	0.2	13.1
2	Sebastian Janikowski	OAK	29	32	90.6%	24.7	4.3	22	22	0.1	12.9
3	Blair Walsh	MIN	29	32	90.6%	25.1	3.9	30	30	0.2	11.8
4	Shaun Suisham	PIT	26	27	96.3%	22.4	3.6	30	30	0.2	10.8
5	Phil Dawson	CLE	26	27	96.3%	22.5	3.5	28	28	0.2	10.6
6	Kai Forbath	WAS	15	15	100%	11.5	3.5	26	27	-0.8	9.6
7	Dan Bailey	DAL	27	29	93.1%	24	3	32	32	0.2	9.3
8	Jason Hanson	DET	28	32	87.5%	25.1	2.9	34	34	0.2	8.8
9	Connor Barth	TAM	23	28	82.1%	20.5	2.5	37	37	0.2	7.7
10	Greg Zuerlein	STL	21	29	72.4%	18.7	2.3	21	21	0.1	7.1
11	Jay Feely	ARI	21	24	87.5%	18.8	2.2	23	23	0.1	6.8
12	Josh Scobee	JAX	22	24	91.7%	19.6	2.4	15	16	-0.9	6.2
13	Matt Bryant	ATL	31	36	86.1%	29.3	1.7	38	38	0.2	5.4
14	Rian Lindell	BUF	20	21	95.2%	18.3	1.7	34	34	0.2	5.2
15	Nick Novak	SDG	15	17	88.2%	13.6	1.4	27	27	0.2	4.2
16	Alex Henery	PHI	25	28	89.3%	23.5	1.5	22	23	-0.9	3.7
17	Dan Carpenter	MIA	22	27	81.5%	21.2	0.8	26	26	0.1	2.6
18	Ryan Succop	KAN	25	29	86.2%	24.2	0.8	16	16	0.1	2.4
19	Nate Kaeding	SDG	7	7	100%	6.2	0.8	6	6	0	2.4
20	Josh Brown	CIN	6	6	100%	5.3	0.7	5	5	0	2.2
21	Robbie Gould	CHI	21	25	84%	20.5	0.5	33	33	0.2	1.8
22	Steven Hauschka	SEA	22	25	88%	20.9	1.1	38	40	-1.8	1.4
23	Mike Nugent	CIN	19	23	82.6%	18.6	0.4	35	35	0.2	1.3
24	Olindo Mare	CHI	2	2	100%	1.8	0.2	1	1	0	0.5
25	Graham Gano	CAR	5	5	100%	4.6	0.4	13	14	-0.9	0.3
26	Garrett Hartley	NOR	15	18	83.3%	15.1	-0.1	48	48	0.3	0.1
27	Lawrence Tynes	NYG	33	39	84.6%	33.1	-0.1	38	38	0.2	-0.2
28	Stephen Gostkowski	NWE	26	32	81.3%	26.2	-0.2	60	60	0.3	-0.3
29	Shayne Graham	HOU	26	32	81.3%	26.2	-0.2	44	44	0.2	-0.5
30	Adam Vinatieri	IND	24	31	77.4%	24.2	-0.2	31	31	0.2	-0.5
31	Matt Prater	DEN	23	29	79.3%	23.8	-0.8	46	46	0.3	-2.2
32	Nick Folk	NYJ	17	22	77.3%	17.8	-0.8	28	28	0.2	-2.3
33	Rob Bironas	TEN	24	30	80%	24.9	-0.9	29	29	0.2	-2.4
34	Justin Medlock	CAR	7	10	70%	8.3	-1.3	23	23	0.1	-3.9
35	Billy Cundiff	WAS	7	12	58.3%	9.3	-2.3	17	17	0.1	-6.7
36	David Akers	SFO	25	35	71.4%	28.2	-3.2	40	40	0.2	-9.5
37	Mason Crosby	GNB	17	29	58.6%	21.3	-4.3	39	39	0.2	-12.8

So Justin Tucker and Sebastian Janikowski have been the most valuable kickers this year — no surprise there, although Tucker is far from a household name. The worst two kickers won’t shock anyone who has watched much of the Packers or 49ers this year, as David Akers and especially Mason Crosby have been constant sources of frustration for their fans.

I’ll note that I am counting blocked field goals just like a regular miss. When I previewed the list to my brother, he was surprised to see Folk ranking 32nd, since he only missed five field goals. Well, two of them were blocked; if you removed those (and blamed them on the line instead of a low trajectory), he would be 17th (although in this one, I am only removing blocks for Folk). I’d also note that two of his other 3 misses hit the uprights, so I’m not surprised to see my brother (or any Jets fan) surprised to see Folk 32nd.

What if we look at expected field goals over average by distance?

Rk	Name	Tm	19to22	23to26	27to30	31to34	35to38	39to42	43to46	47to50	51to54	55to58	59to62	63to66	FG Ov Avg
1	Justin Tucker	BAL	0	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	0	1.6	0.1	1.4	0.6	0	0	4.3
2	Sebastian Janikowski	OAK	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.4	0.6	0.3	0.7	0.8	1.2	-0.3	-0.2	4.3
3	Blair Walsh	MIN	0	0.1	-0.8	0.1	0.7	0	-0.7	1.1	2.3	1.2	0	0	3.9
4	Shaun Suisham	PIT	0.1	0	0.2	0.4	0.3	0.8	0.8	1.1	-0.1	0	0	0	3.6
6	Kai Forbath	WAS	0	0.1	0	0.2	0	0	1.1	2.2	0	0	0	0	3.5
5	Phil Dawson	CLE	0	0.1	-0.8	0.4	0.4	1	0.3	0.7	1.4	0	0	0	3.5
7	Dan Bailey	DAL	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.5	0.4	0.8	0.5	0.7	-0.2	0	0	0	3
8	Jason Hanson	DET	0	0	0.1	0.5	0.1	0.6	1.4	-0.2	0.4	0	0	0	2.9
9	Connor Barth	TAM	0	0	0.1	0.1	-0.6	0.2	0.5	1.4	0.4	0.3	0	0	2.5
12	Josh Scobee	JAX	0.1	0.1	0	0.3	0.4	0.8	0.1	1.1	0	-0.4	0	0	2.4
10	Greg Zuerlein	STL	0	0	0.1	0.2	-1.7	0.4	0.8	1.4	0.8	-0.1	0.7	-0.3	2.3
11	Jay Feely	ARI	0	0	0.2	0.2	-0.3	-0.8	0.3	1.5	0.5	0	0.7	0	2.2
13	Matt Bryant	ATL	-0.9	0	0.2	0.3	-0.3	1	-0.4	-0.3	0.9	1.2	0	0	1.7
14	Rian Lindell	BUF	0	0	0	0.5	-0.5	1.2	0	0.4	0	0	0	0	1.7
16	Alex Henery	PHI	0.1	0.1	0	-0.7	0.5	1.2	0.1	0.7	0	-0.4	0	0	1.5
15	Nick Novak	SDG	0.1	0.1	0	0.3	0	0.2	0.5	0.7	-0.1	-0.4	0	0	1.4
22	Steven Hauschka	SEA	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.5	0.3	0.4	0.3	-0.3	-0.1	0	-0.3	0	1.1
17	Dan Carpenter	MIA	0	0	0.1	0.4	0.1	1.4	0.8	-1.9	-0.2	0	0	0	0.8
19	Nate Kaeding	SDG	0	0.1	0	0	0	0.4	0.3	0	0	0	0	0	0.8
18	Ryan Succop	KAN	0	0	-0.9	-0.3	0.3	-0.8	0.8	0.7	0.9	0	0	0	0.8
20	Josh Brown	CIN	0	0.1	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	0.5	0	0	0	0.7
21	Robbie Gould	CHI	0.1	0.1	0	-0.7	0.3	-0.2	1.1	-0.9	0.9	0	0	0	0.5
25	Graham Gano	CAR	0	0.1	0	0.2	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.4
23	Mike Nugent	CIN	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	-0.2	-0.5	-0.2	0	0.6	0	0	0.4
24	Olindo Mare	CHI	0	0	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.2
26	Garrett Hartley	NOR	0.1	0.1	0	0.2	-0.7	0.2	0	-0.3	0.4	0	0	0	-0.1
27	Lawrence Tynes	NYG	0	0.2	-0.7	0.3	-0.1	0.4	-0.2	1.1	-1.1	0	0	0	-0.1
28	Stephen Gostkowski	NWE	0	0.1	0.1	0.4	-0.5	-2.2	1.1	-0.2	0.9	0	0	0	-0.2
30	Adam Vinatieri	IND	0.1	0.1	0	0.1	-2.3	0.4	0.8	1.2	-0.2	-0.4	0	0	-0.2
29	Shayne Graham	HOU	0.1	0	0.2	0.4	0.4	1	-0.2	-1.6	-0.6	0	0	0	-0.2
31	Matt Prater	DEN	0.1	0.1	0.1	-0.2	0.1	0	-0.6	-1.3	1.4	-0.4	0	0	-0.8
32	Nick Folk	NYJ	0.1	-0.9	0	0.3	-0.6	0.2	-0.6	0	0.8	0	0	0	-0.8
33	Rob Bironas	TEN	0	0.1	0.1	0.3	0.8	-0.4	-1.5	-0.3	0.5	-0.4	0	0	-0.9
34	Justin Medlock	CAR	0	0	0	0.3	0	-0.8	-0.2	-0.6	0	0	0	0	-1.3
35	Billy Cundiff	WAS	0	0	0	-1.8	0.4	-0.4	0.3	0	0	-0.4	-0.3	0	-2.3
36	David Akers	SFO	0	0	0.3	-0.6	0.7	-1.8	-0.9	-0.3	-1.1	-0.4	0	0.8	-3.2
37	Mason Crosby	GNB	0	0.1	0.1	-0.7	-0.7	-0.2	-1.5	1.2	-1.7	-0.8	0	0	-4.3

Greg Zuerlein — or Greg the Leg, Young GZ, or Legatron, if you prefer — has cooled off since his hot start. He’s hit 3 of the successful field goals from 56+ yards this season, but all three came in September. Mason Crosby comes out as the worst kicker, and some have defended him because he’s mostly missed long field goals. While that’s somewhat true, this metric adjusts for distance, so he’s struggling even when you consider the difficulty of the kick.

Crosby is 1 for 8 when attempting field goals from 50+ yards, but the average kicker would have been successful on 4.2 field goals. He’s also missed from 32, 38, 42, 43, and 44 yards, and comes out as the worst kicker in the 43-to-46 range. David Akers tied an NFL record with a 63-yarder this year, but otherwise, he’s had a rough season. He’s missed six field goals from inside of 43 yards.

References[+]

References
↑1	There is some bias in the data in that only the best distance kickers attempts long field goals, but dealing with that is best left for another day.

Tagged as: Justin Tucker, Kickers, Sebastian Janikowski

{ 2 comments }

Checkdowns: Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt “FIP” for Quarterbacks

by Neil Paine on December 22, 2012

in Checkdowns, Passing, Quarterbacks, Statgeekery, Totally Useless

I’ve been on a major QB kick lately, and there’s no reason to stop now. Today, I want to look at a method that might tease out a quarterback’s “true talent” better than if we simply use his raw stats from the season.

Three years ago, our colleague Jason Lisk had a post on the old PFR Blog about which rate stats stay consistent when a QB changes teams. Basically, he grabbed QBs who were still in their primes and changed teams, looking at how their key rate stats correlated from one year to the next. Here’s what Jason found:

[…]I looked at the correlation coefficient for our group of 48 passers, for the year N advanced passing score compared to the year N+1 advanced passing score in each category. This should tell us whether the passers who were good in a performance area (or bad) tended to be the ones who remained good in that performance area the following season, even with the uncertainty of team changes (some positive, some negative for the quarterback).
Sack Percentage:  0.31
Completion Percentage: 0.25
Yards Per Attempt:  0.20
Touchdown Percentage: 0.12
Interception Percentage: 0.10

What do those correlations mean, exactly? Well, take sack percentage as an example. In general, a correlation of 0.31 means you can expect 31% of a QB’s difference from the mean to be repeated next year when he changes teams. In other words, you have to regress the QB’s sack rate 69% towards the mean to get the true rate that “belongs” to him. If the average sack rate is 6.1%, and a QB has a rate of 4.0% (like, say, Drew Brees this year), his “true” sack rate is probably something like 5.4% — 31% of the distance between .061 and .040.

The same concept applies to the other stats listed above. Tony Romo’s observed 66.7% completion percentage is really more like 62.5% after regressing to the mean, and so forth. Do that for every QB who had a reasonable number of attempts this year, and you get these rate stats:

Search:

Player	Tm	G	GS	Att	A-Sk%	A-Cmp%	A-YPA	A-TD%	A-INT%	R-Sk%	R-Cmp%	R-YPA	R-TD%	R-INT%
Matthew Stafford	DET	14	14	629	4.3	59.5	6.8	2.7	2.4	5.5	60.7	7.0	4.0	2.6
Drew Brees	NOR	14	14	574	4.0	62.0	7.6	6.3	3.1	5.4	61.4	7.2	4.5	2.7
Tony Romo	DAL	14	14	568	5.3	66.7	7.5	3.9	2.8	5.9	62.5	7.2	4.2	2.7
Andrew Luck	IND	14	13	564	6.2	54.6	7.1	3.5	3.2	6.1	59.5	7.1	4.1	2.7
Carson Palmer	OAK	14	14	562	4.4	60.9	7.1	3.9	2.5	5.6	61.1	7.1	4.2	2.6
Tom Brady	NWE	14	14	560	3.9	63.4	7.6	5.4	1.1	5.4	61.7	7.2	4.4	2.5
Matt Ryan	ATL	14	14	539	4.4	68.5	7.8	5.0	2.6	5.6	63.0	7.2	4.3	2.7
Peyton Manning	DEN	14	14	511	3.9	67.9	7.9	6.1	2.0	5.4	62.8	7.2	4.4	2.6
Brandon Weeden	CLE	14	14	498	5.0	57.2	6.6	2.8	3.4	5.7	60.2	7.0	4.0	2.7
Philip Rivers	SDG	14	14	488	8.1	64.3	6.7	4.5	3.1	6.7	62.0	7.0	4.2	2.7
Joe Flacco	BAL	14	14	487	6.5	59.1	7.1	4.1	2.1	6.2	60.7	7.1	4.2	2.6
Eli Manning	NYG	14	14	487	3.0	60.4	7.4	4.1	3.1	5.1	61.0	7.1	4.2	2.7
Sam Bradford	STL	14	14	482	6.8	60.2	6.8	3.7	2.3	6.3	60.9	7.0	4.2	2.6
Matt Schaub	HOU	14	13	476	4.0	64.7	7.5	4.6	2.1	5.5	62.0	7.2	4.3	2.6
Aaron Rodgers	GNB	14	14	474	8.7	66.7	7.6	6.8	1.7	6.9	62.5	7.2	4.5	2.6
Andy Dalton	CIN	14	14	472	7.5	62.5	7.0	5.5	3.0	6.5	61.5	7.1	4.4	2.7
Josh Freeman	TAM	14	14	469	4.3	54.8	7.4	5.3	2.6	5.5	59.6	7.1	4.3	2.7
Ryan Fitzpatrick	BUF	14	13	444	5.9	61.7	6.6	5.0	3.4	6.0	61.3	7.0	4.3	2.7
Christian Ponder	MIN	14	14	425	6.6	63.1	5.9	3.3	2.8	6.2	61.6	6.9	4.1	2.7
Ryan Tannehill	MIA	14	14	424	5.8	58.7	6.9	2.4	2.8	6.0	60.5	7.0	4.0	2.7
Cam Newton	CAR	14	14	423	7.2	58.2	8.2	4.3	2.4	6.4	60.4	7.3	4.2	2.6
Mark Sanchez	NYJ	14	14	418	7.3	54.8	6.4	3.1	4.1	6.5	59.6	6.9	4.1	2.8
Ben Roethlisberger	PIT	11	11	398	5.7	64.1	7.3	5.5	1.5	6.0	61.9	7.1	4.4	2.6
Jay Cutler	CHI	13	13	377	8.5	59.7	7.0	4.5	3.7	6.8	60.8	7.1	4.2	2.8
Russell Wilson	SEA	14	14	353	6.9	62.9	7.6	5.9	2.5	6.3	61.6	7.2	4.4	2.7
Robert Griffin III	WAS	13	13	351	7.4	66.4	8.3	5.1	1.1	6.5	62.5	7.3	4.3	2.5
Michael Vick	PHI	9	9	316	7.9	58.5	6.9	3.5	2.8	6.6	60.5	7.0	4.1	2.7
Blaine Gabbert	JAX	10	10	278	7.3	58.3	6.0	3.2	2.2	6.5	60.4	6.9	4.1	2.6
Matt Cassel	KAN	9	8	277	6.4	58.1	6.5	2.2	4.3	6.2	60.4	7.0	4.0	2.8
Jake Locker	TEN	9	9	269	5.6	57.6	7.0	3.3	3.3	5.9	60.3	7.1	4.1	2.7
Matt Hasselbeck	TEN	8	5	221	6.0	62.4	6.2	3.2	2.3	6.1	61.5	6.9	4.1	2.6
Nick Foles	PHI	6	5	217	6.5	59.4	6.2	2.3	1.8	6.2	60.7	6.9	4.0	2.6
Alex Smith	SFO	9	9	217	10.0	70.0	8.0	6.0	2.3	7.3	63.4	7.3	4.4	2.6
Chad Henne	JAX	8	4	216	8.5	51.9	6.7	3.7	2.3	6.8	58.8	7.0	4.2	2.6
John Skelton	ARI	7	6	201	6.9	54.2	5.6	1.0	4.5	6.4	59.4	6.8	3.8	2.8
Kevin Kolb	ARI	6	5	183	12.9	59.6	6.4	4.4	1.6	8.2	60.8	6.9	4.2	2.6
Brady Quinn	KAN	8	6	159	9.1	59.7	5.8	1.3	3.8	7.0	60.8	6.8	3.9	2.8
Colin Kaepernick	SFO	11	5	154	8.3	65.6	8.4	4.5	1.3	6.8	62.3	7.3	4.3	2.5
Ryan Lindley	ARI	6	3	141	6.6	51.1	4.3	0.0	4.3	6.3	58.6	6.5	3.7	2.8

(“A-” before a stat means the actual observed rate; “R-” means the regressed rate.)

Now we just need to reconstruct the player’s raw passing line as though he posted those rate stats instead of his actual rates. Cmp%, YPA, TD%, and INT% are easy (just multiply by attempts), and Sack% can be derived via simple algebra:

Sacks_new = (-reg_sk% * Attempts) / (reg_sk% – 1)

(Sack yards can be assumed by multiplying raw sack yards per sack by the new sack total.)

Finally, we plug the new totals into the Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt formula, and we have a QB stat that is sort of like baseball’s Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), which also seeks to reduce the noise and teammate interactions in a pitcher’s ERA by reducing his performance to only those elements he has control over — strikeouts, walks, and home runs.

Here are the 2012 leaders in QB-FIP (along with their regressed totals):

Search:

Rk	Player	Age	Tm	G	GS	Cmp	Att	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	SkYds	QB-FIP
1	Peyton Manning	36	DEN	14	14	321	511	3697	23	13	29	191	6.22
2	Tom Brady	35	NWE	14	14	346	560	4027	24	14	32	214	6.20
3	Robert Griffin III	22	WAS	13	13	219	351	2568	15	9	24	166	6.15
4	Colin Kaepernick	25	SFO	11	5	96	154	1130	7	4	11	76	6.11
5	Ben Roethlisberger	30	PIT	11	11	246	398	2836	17	10	25	141	6.11
6	Matt Ryan	27	ATL	14	14	339	539	3893	23	14	32	225	6.11
7	Eli Manning	31	NYG	14	14	297	487	3476	20	13	26	165	6.09
8	Drew Brees	33	NOR	14	14	352	574	4118	26	16	33	237	6.08
9	Josh Freeman	24	TAM	14	14	279	469	3350	20	12	27	181	6.08
10	Aaron Rodgers	29	GNB	14	14	296	474	3402	21	12	35	197	6.06
11	Cam Newton	23	CAR	14	14	256	423	3086	18	11	29	203	6.05
12	Russell Wilson	24	SEA	14	14	217	353	2539	16	9	24	148	6.05
13	Alex Smith	28	SFO	9	9	138	217	1575	10	6	17	97	6.04
14	Matt Schaub	31	HOU	14	13	295	476	3407	20	12	27	228	6.01
15	Tony Romo	32	DAL	14	14	355	568	4071	24	15	35	255	5.97
16	Andy Dalton	25	CIN	14	14	290	472	3336	21	13	33	176	5.94
17	Joe Flacco	27	BAL	14	14	295	487	3453	20	13	32	209	5.93
18	Carson Palmer	33	OAK	14	14	343	562	3980	23	15	33	254	5.92
19	Ryan Fitzpatrick	30	BUF	14	13	272	444	3101	19	12	29	151	5.89
20	Andrew Luck	23	IND	14	13	336	564	3990	23	15	37	230	5.89
21	Matthew Stafford	24	DET	14	14	382	629	4413	25	17	37	256	5.88
22	Jake Locker	24	TEN	9	9	162	269	1900	11	7	17	108	5.88
23	Michael Vick	32	PHI	9	9	191	316	2223	13	8	22	124	5.84
24	Sam Bradford	25	STL	14	14	294	482	3380	20	13	32	216	5.82
25	Brandon Weeden	29	CLE	14	14	300	498	3477	20	14	30	198	5.80
26	Ryan Tannehill	24	MIA	14	14	257	424	2987	17	11	27	205	5.78
27	Chad Henne	27	JAX	8	4	127	216	1511	9	6	16	94	5.78
28	Philip Rivers	31	SDG	14	14	302	488	3422	21	13	35	221	5.77
29	Matt Cassel	30	KAN	9	8	167	277	1928	11	8	18	97	5.75
30	Jay Cutler	29	CHI	13	13	229	377	2661	16	10	28	187	5.74
31	Christian Ponder	24	MIN	14	14	262	425	2912	17	11	28	164	5.70
32	Nick Foles	23	PHI	6	5	132	217	1500	9	6	14	102	5.70
33	Matt Hasselbeck	37	TEN	8	5	136	221	1525	9	6	14	105	5.70
34	Mark Sanchez	26	NYJ	14	14	249	418	2903	17	12	29	178	5.68
35	Blaine Gabbert	23	JAX	10	10	168	278	1907	11	7	19	138	5.61
36	Kevin Kolb	28	ARI	6	5	111	183	1270	8	5	16	96	5.61
37	Brady Quinn	28	KAN	8	6	97	159	1086	6	4	12	70	5.50
38	John Skelton	24	ARI	7	6	119	201	1365	8	6	14	89	5.46
39	Ryan Lindley	23	ARI	6	3	83	141	921	5	4	9	72	5.15
	Lg Average												5.92

{ 3 comments }

Checkdowns: Quarterback Yards Above Bench (QBYAB)

by Neil Paine on December 21, 2012

in Checkdowns, Passing, Quarterbacks, Statgeekery, Totally Useless

These guys are pretty good.

After posting about SRS-style quarterback ratings on Monday, I was thinking about other things we can do with game-by-game data like that. In his QBGOAT series, Chase likes to compare QBs to the league average, which makes a lot of sense for all-time ratings — you want to reward guys who are at least above-average in a ranking like that. However, if we want seasonal value, perhaps average is too high a baseline.

Over at Football Outsiders, Aaron Schatz has always compared to “replacement level”, borrowing a concept from baseball. I like that approach, but replacement level can be hard to empirically determine. So for the purposes of this post, I wanted to come up with a quick-and-dirty baseline to which we can compare QBs.

To that end, I looked at all players who were not their team’s primary passer in each game since 2010. Weighted by recency and the number of dropbacks by each passer, they performed at roughly a 4.4 Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt level. This is not necessarily the replacement level, but it does seem to be the “bench level” — i.e., the ANYPA you could expect from a backup-caliber QB across the league.

Using 4.4 ANYPA as the baseline, we get the following values for 2012:

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Quarterback	QBYAB
Tom Brady	1888.1
Peyton Manning	1708.2
Matt Ryan	1453.4
Drew Brees	1441.8
Aaron Rodgers	1337.4
Robert Griffin III	1226.6
Matt Schaub	1205.1
Josh Freeman	1140.1
Cam Newton	1128.2
Tony Romo	1120.2
Ben Roethlisberger	1082.8
Carson Palmer	1011.9
Eli Manning	1002.9
Joe Flacco	914.8
Russell Wilson	890.5
Matthew Stafford	834.1
Andy Dalton	756.9
Andrew Luck	691.6
Sam Bradford	616.3
Alex Smith	558.5
Colin Kaepernick	506.5
Ryan Fitzpatrick	481.1
Philip Rivers	447.7
Ryan Tannehill	409.6
Brandon Weeden	320.4

If we weigh each game by how recent the results took place, we get this list:

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Search:

Quarterback	Wgtd QBYAB
Tom Brady	1527.6
Drew Brees	1205.4
Peyton Manning	1202.0
Matt Ryan	1129.8
Aaron Rodgers	1109.4
Tony Romo	961.1
Cam Newton	936.6
Matt Schaub	900.3
Robert Griffin III	869.5
Eli Manning	795.5
Ben Roethlisberger	793.9
Josh Freeman	790.3
Carson Palmer	760.4
Russell Wilson	722.9
Matthew Stafford	687.5
Joe Flacco	666.3
Andy Dalton	520.4
Andrew Luck	479.9
Sam Bradford	459.9
Colin Kaepernick	443.0
Alex Smith	399.3
Philip Rivers	384.9
Ryan Fitzpatrick	324.0
Ryan Tannehill	313.1
Brandon Weeden	266.5

Showing 1 to 25 of 64 entries

This kind of thing isn’t exactly the most advanced stat in the world, but it’s pretty good if you want to sort QBs into general groups based on how good they are (the assumption being that a player who never plays is implicitly a bench-level player by definition).

Tagged as: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady

{ 2 comments }

Week 15 Power Rankings

by Chase Stuart on December 20, 2012

in Power Rankings

With only two weeks left in the regular season, it’s time to change the format of my projected standings. At this point, we might as well just predict each of the remaining 32 games. So here goes:

Week	Day	Visitor	Home	Time	Winner
16	Sat	Atlanta Falcons	Detroit Lions	8:30 PM	Atlanta Falcons
16	Sun	Oakland Raiders	Carolina Panthers	1:00 PM	Carolina Panthers
16	Sun	New Orleans Saints	Dallas Cowboys	1:00 PM	Dallas Cowboys
16	Sun	Tennessee Titans	Green Bay Packers	1:00 PM	Green Bay Packers
16	Sun	Minnesota Vikings	Houston Texans	1:00 PM	Houston Texans
16	Sun	New England Patriots	Jacksonville Jaguars	1:00 PM	New England Patriots
16	Sun	Indianapolis Colts	Kansas City Chiefs	1:00 PM	Indianapolis Colts
16	Sun	Buffalo Bills	Miami Dolphins	1:00 PM	Miami Dolphins
16	Sun	Washington Redskins	Philadelphia Eagles	1:00 PM	Washington Redskins
16	Sun	Cincinnati Bengals	Pittsburgh Steelers	1:00 PM	Pittsburgh Steelers
16	Sun	San Diego Chargers	New York Jets	1:00 PM	New York Jets
16	Sun	St. Louis Rams	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	1:00 PM	Tampa Bay Buccaneers
16	Sun	Cleveland Browns	Denver Broncos	4:05 PM	Denver Broncos
16	Sun	New York Giants	Baltimore Ravens	4:25 PM	New York Giants
16	Sun	Chicago Bears	Arizona Cardinals	4:25 PM	Chicago Bears
16	Sun	San Francisco 49ers	Seattle Seahawks	8:20 PM	Seattle Seahawks
17	Sun	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	Atlanta Falcons	1:00 PM	Tampa Bay Buccaneers
17	Sun	New York Jets	Buffalo Bills	1:00 PM	Buffalo Bills
17	Sun	Baltimore Ravens	Cincinnati Bengals	1:00 PM	Cincinnati Bengals
17	Sun	Houston Texans	Indianapolis Colts	1:00 PM	Houston Texans
17	Sun	Chicago Bears	Detroit Lions	1:00 PM	Chicago Bears
17	Sun	Green Bay Packers	Minnesota Vikings	1:00 PM	Green Bay Packers
17	Sun	Carolina Panthers	New Orleans Saints	1:00 PM	Carolina Panthers
17	Sun	Miami Dolphins	New England Patriots	1:00 PM	New England Patriots
17	Sun	Philadelphia Eagles	New York Giants	1:00 PM	New York Giants
17	Sun	Jacksonville Jaguars	Tennessee Titans	1:00 PM	Tennessee Titans
17	Sun	Cleveland Browns	Pittsburgh Steelers	1:00 PM	Pittsburgh Steelers
17	Sun	Dallas Cowboys	Washington Redskins	1:00 PM	Dallas Cowboys
17	Sun	Kansas City Chiefs	Denver Broncos	4:15 PM	Denver Broncos
17	Sun	Oakland Raiders	San Diego Chargers	4:15 PM	San Diego Chargers
17	Sun	St. Louis Rams	Seattle Seahawks	4:15 PM	Seattle Seahawks
17	Sun	Arizona Cardinals	San Francisco 49ers	4:15 PM	San Francisco 49ers

I’m short on time this week, so let’s move on to the weekly Power Rankings.

[As always, the number of wins I’m projecting each team to finish the season with is in column 3. The fourth column – PWIN – shows how many wins I projected last week, and the difference column represents how many wins I added or subtracted this week. The “RSOS” column stands for the remaining SOS for the team, based on the number of projected wins I’m giving to each of their opponents. The “RHG” column stands for remaining home games.]

Team	Rec	Wins	PrvWin	Diff	RemSOS	RemHG	Comment
Houston Texans	12-2	14	13	1	0.563	1	One game away from clinching the #1 seed in the AFC. That's huge -- they won't need to beat both Denver and New England to get to their first Super Bowl.
Atlanta Falcons	12-2	13	13	0	0.375	1	A statement win for the Falcons? Unfortunately for Atlanta, regular season games have little upside for them.
Denver Broncos	11-3	13	13	0	0.219	2	I'm still projecting the Broncos to win 13 games. More interestingly, will Peyton Manning become the first player since Ken Anderson to win MVP and Comeback Player of the Year in the same season?
New England Patriots	10-4	12	13	-1	0.281	1	Tom Brady leads the league in ANY/A; if it holds, he will win the ANY/A crown for the third time in his last five full seasons.
Green Bay Packers	10-4	12	11	1	0.438	1	One of the underreported stories of the year: Aaron Rodgers is having a bad year by his lofty standards; he ranks 15th in NY/A after ranking 1st last year.
San Francisco 49ers	10-3-1	11.5	10.5	1	0.5	1	Most non-topical 49ers comment ever: I am really excited to see what LaMichael James does in the playoffs.
Seattle Seahawks	9-5	11	11	0	0.563	2	The 49ers comeback may end up hurting the Seahawks more than the Patriots. Three road games is a tall order for what may be the best team in the NFC.
Chicago Bears	8-6	10	10	0	0.281	0	Last year the Bears started 7-3, but Jay Cutler got hurt and Chicago finished 8-8. This year Chicago started 7-1 but now needs help to make the playoffs.
Indianapolis Colts	9-5	10	10	0	0.5	1	For the 2011 Colts, week 16 was when the worst team in the league won at home against an AFC South playoff team. Andrew Luck needs to make sure the same result doesn't happen in 2012.
New York Giants	8-6	10	10	0	0.406	1	The Ravens started 9-2, the Giants started 6-2. This game has morphed from a potential SB preview to a 'which team can sink the fastest' battle.
Dallas Cowboys	8-6	10	9	1	0.469	1	Did you know that Tony Romo is on pace to throw for around 4900 yards this year and leads the NFL in 4th quarter comebacks?
Baltimore Ravens	9-5	9	10	-1	0.594	1	That offense without Cam Cameron looked an awful lot like that offense with Joe Flacco from the last five years.
Pittsburgh Steelers	7-7	9	9	0	0.438	2	Ben Roethlisberger started the season white hot -- the Steelers need him to finish that way if 2012 won't be considered a lost year.
Washington Redskins	8-6	9	9	0	0.438	1	Will Robert Griffin III play this weekend? Washington can probably beat the Eagles without him, but I don't love the idea of Kirk Cousins going up against the Cowboys in week 17.
Cincinnati Bengals	8-6	9	8	1	0.563	1	This team has the feel of an 8-8 team, and if they don't want to end up that way, they're going to have to beat one of the big brothers of the AFC North.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	6-8	8	7	1	0.609	1	Tampa Bay is 2-7 in one-score games, arguably the worst such record in the league.
Minnesota Vikings	8-6	8	7	1	0.813	1	Adrian Peterson is more likely to break Eric Dickerson's record than the Vikings are to make the playoffs.
New York Jets	6-8	7	8	-1	0.375	1	The Mark Sanchez era is over, for now. It's only six games too late, and now the Jets won't be able to really find out what they have in either Tim Tebow or Greg McElroy.
Miami Dolphins	6-8	7	7	0	0.563	1	Not a terrible inaugural season for Joe Philbin, especially after how things looked after Hard Knocks.
Carolina Panthers	5-9	7	6	1	0.313	1	Cam Newton and the Panthers just keep winning.
St. Louis Rams	6-7-1	6.5	7.5	-1	0.594	0	Sam Bradford did not have a great season, but he showed enough improvement considering the lack of weapons around him to give Rams fans hope.
San Diego Chargers	5-9	6	7	-1	0.344	1	Norv Turner can't save his job with wins over the Jets and Raiders, right? Right?!
New Orleans Saints	6-8	6	6	0	0.531	1	Drew Brees still leads the league in both passing touchdowns and interceptions. For the second year in a row.
Buffalo Bills	5-9	6	6	0	0.438	1	An embarrassing performance against Seattle; Canadians aren't going to become Bills fans anytime soon.
Tennessee Titans	5-9	6	5	1	0.438	1	Did Titans fans enjoy that win over the Jets? They couldn't have, right?
Cleveland Browns	5-9	5	6	-1	0.688	0	While it seems like the Browns have made some progress this year, will they be rebuilding in 2013?
Arizona Cardinals	5-9	5	4	1	0.672	1	I like what Aaron Schatz said on twitter: They should put Larry Fitzgerald in the Pro Bowl just so he can play with a real quarterback at least once this year
Detroit Lions	4-10	4	5	-1	0.719	2	Calvin Johnson is going to break Jerry Rice's record, but fans should take the achievement with a grain of salt considering the record number of Lions pass attempts.
Philadelphia Eagles	4-10	4	5	-1	0.594	1	Even Andy Reid has to know he only has two more games left with the Eagles, right?
Oakland Raiders	4-10	4	4	0	0.406	0	Will we see more of Terrelle Pryor this week?
Jacksonville Jaguars	2-12	2	3	-1	0.563	1	Jaguars should have the #2 pick locked up, and hope for a "slip" by the Chiefs in the next two weeks.
Kansas City Chiefs	2-12	2	3	-1	0.719	1	A miserable season in Kansas City is about to come to an end.

Tagged as: 2012 Power Rankings

{ 3 comments }

Looking back: The most surprising games of the year

by Chase Stuart on December 19, 2012

in SRS

Five weeks ago, I looked at the most surprising results of the season. It’s time to update that post now that most of the season is in the books.

First, we need to rank the teams. The table below shows each team’s current Simple Rating System rating through week 15. As a reminder, the SRS is simply the sum of a team’s margin of victory and strength of schedule.

Rk	Team	G	MOV	SOS	SRS
1	New England Patriots	14	13.4	-0.2	13.3
2	San Francisco 49ers	14	9.9	1.7	11.7
3	Seattle Seahawks	14	9.8	1.2	10.9
4	Denver Broncos	14	10.1	-0.7	9.4
5	Atlanta Falcons	14	8	-1	7
6	New York Giants	14	4.9	1.7	6.6
7	Chicago Bears	14	5.4	0.8	6.2
8	Houston Texans	14	8.1	-2	6.1
9	Green Bay Packers	14	3.7	1.6	5.3
10	Washington Redskins	14	2.2	1	3.2
11	Baltimore Ravens	14	2.9	-0.8	2.1
12	New Orleans Saints	14	0.7	1.1	1.8
13	Cincinnati Bengals	14	4.4	-2.8	1.7
14	Minnesota Vikings	14	0.8	0.5	1.3
15	Dallas Cowboys	14	-0.8	1.7	0.9
16	Carolina Panthers	14	-1.6	2.1	0.5
17	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	14	0.4	-0.2	0.2
18	Pittsburgh Steelers	14	1.2	-1.9	-0.7
19	St. Louis Rams	14	-4.3	3	-1.3
20	Miami Dolphins	14	-1.1	-1	-2.1
21	San Diego Chargers	14	-0.9	-1.5	-2.4
22	Detroit Lions	14	-3.1	0.6	-2.5
23	Arizona Cardinals	14	-5.6	2.5	-3.1
24	New York Jets	14	-4.6	0.8	-3.8
25	Cleveland Browns	14	-2.6	-2.2	-4.7
26	Indianapolis Colts	14	-3.5	-2.3	-5.8
27	Buffalo Bills	14	-6.9	-0.1	-6.9
28	Philadelphia Eagles	14	-8.7	1	-7.7
29	Tennessee Titans	14	-7.9	-0.7	-8.7
30	Oakland Raiders	14	-10.4	-1.3	-11.7
31	Jacksonville Jaguars	14	-11.7	-1.5	-13.2
32	Kansas City Chiefs	14	-12.3	-1.3	-13.6

Half the time, Eli does not like being surprised.

Now that we have each team’s SRS score, it’s easy to come up with a projected game score. For example, since Miami has an SRS of -2.1 and Tennessee has an SRS of -8.7, this means the Dolphins are 6.5 points (rounding error) better than the Titans. Therefore, if Tennessee played at Miami, we would expect Miami to win by 9.5 points.

Well, Tennessee did travel to Miami, but the Titans won the game 37-3. Ouch. Instead of a 9.5-point win, the Dolphins suffered a 34-point loss. Therefore, this game was shocking to the tune of -43.5 points from the standpoint of the Dolphins. That makes it the most surprising game of the year.

Such a method is obviously going to be slanted towards blowouts. What if we wanted to just know which results were the most shocking? If you sort the table below by EXP_MOV — that’s the expected score — and type in “Loss” in the search box, you can see the biggest upsets.

According to the SRS, there were two huge upsets this year that only look more surprising in retrospect. The Patriots should have beaten the Cardinals by 19.4 points in Foxboro, but somehow lost in the final seconds. Meanwhile, the Saints at home against the Chiefs projected as an 18.4-point New Orleans win; it ended up being a Kansas City overtime victory.
[continue reading…]

{ 4 comments }

NYT Fifth Down: Post-week 15

by Chase Stuart on December 18, 2012

in NYT

A double post at the New York Times this week.

Did you know that Alex Smith is seven attempts away from qualifying for eligibility for certain rate-based statistics? If Jim Harbaugh wants to game the system — and this is Harbaugh — he could ptobably that Smith breaks the completion percentage record, set by Drew Brees in 2011.

I also looked at how the playoff field will be very familiar this year:

With two weeks remaining in the N.F.L. regular season, seven teams have clinched a playoff berth and several more can clinch this weekend. Chances are, two weeks from now, the teams in the playoffs will look pretty familiar to N.F.L. fans.

In the A.F.C. in 2011, the Patriots, the Ravens, the Texans and the Broncos won the East, North, South and West Divisions. New England, Houston and Denver have already clinched their divisions in 2012, and even the free-falling Ravens are still the favorites to win the A.F.C. North. That would give the conference four repeat division winners, a first since the league moved to the four-division format in 2002.

Last year, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals were the two wild-card teams. Well, those two teams are currently battling for a wild-card spot, and it would be a surprise if both teams are left out of the playoffs. That would leave one spot in the A.F.C., which is most likely going to go to the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts did not make the playoffs in 2011 — in fact, the team had the worst record in the league — but they did make the playoffs every year from 2002 to 2010.

From 2009 to 2011, half of the conference — the Ravens (6), Jets (6), Patriots (5), Steelers (4), Colts (4), Broncos (2), Texans (2), and Bengals (2) — played in 31 of the A.F.C.’s 33 playoff games, and barring the miraculous (the 6-8 Dolphins are technically still alive), that won’t change this year. The last time a Tom Brady-led team didn’t make the playoffs was in 2002; the last time Peyton Manning’s team missed out on the postseason was in 2001. In the A.F.C., some things never change.

The N.F.C. features only slightly more turnover. Green Bay is going to the playoffs for the fourth straight season while Atlanta will be there for the fourth time in the five-year Matt Ryan/Mike Smith“>Mike Smith era. San Francisco has a good chance of securing a first-round bye for the second year in a row. That leaves just three remaining spots.

Seattle, winner of a playoff game just two years ago, is likely to be back in the postseason as well. The Giants, winners of two of the last five Super Bowls, will make the playoffs if they win their final two games. Chicago and Dallas are no strangers to the playoffs, and one might make it again this year. The real “surprise” teams in the N.F.C. are Minnesota — which did go to the N.F.C. championship game three years ago — and Washington. Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III were the first two picks in the draft and may power their teams to the playoffs this year. When it comes to the 2012 season, that qualifies as unpredictable.

Your weekly updates on Adrian Peterson and Calvin Johnson

At this point, it’s getting impossible to write a statistical column without talking about Adrian Peterson“>Adrian Peterson. The Vikings gained just 322 yards against the Rams on Sunday, but Adrian Peterson“>Adrian Peterson ran for 212, accounting for 66 percent of the Minnesota offense. It was the fourth time this season — and in the last two months — that Peterson has rushed for at least 8 yards per carry on 15-plus carries; since 1960, only Barry Sanders (5) and Peterson have accomplished such a feat in a season.

In one of the most incredible stats of this or any year, Peterson has rushed for 1,313 yards in his last eight games, the most by a player in an eight-game stretch since at least 1960. From 1960 to 2011, only four men rushed for 1,200 yards in that span. In 1977, Walter Payton rushed for 1,221 yards over an eight-game stretch; three years later, Earl Campbell rushed for 1,245 yards in half a season. In 2005, Kansas City’s Larry Johnson gained 1,244 rushing yards in the last eight games of the year. Before Peterson, Eric Dickerson held the record for rushing yards in an eight-game stretch; Dickerson rushed for 1,292 yards in the last five games of the ’84 season and the first three games of 1985.

For more on Peterson and Calvin Johnson, along with some interesting week 15 stats, check the full article here.

Tagged as: Adrian Peterson, Broncos, C.J. Spiller, Calvin Johnson, Patriots

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Checkdowns: Biggest failed comebacks

by Chase Stuart on December 18, 2012

in Checkdowns, History

Brady joins Marino on the failed comebacks list.

[UPDATE: There was an error earlier in this post. I believe it is fixed now.]

On Sunday Night, the Patriots trailed 31-3 halfway through the third quarter. But that’s when Tom Brady got hot, and New England tied the game with 6:43 left in the 4th quarter. At that moment, many fans probably had visions of the Oilers-Bills playoff game, where Buffalo came back from a 32-point deficit to win.

And while there are a lot of famous comebacks, the failed comeback is much less memorable. But in fact, this was the 4th time a team trailed by 28 points in the game only to tie or take the lead in the 4th quarter… but ultimately lose.

The table below shows all games prior to 2012 where a team trailed by at least 21 points, was trailing entering the 4th quarter, came back to tie or take the lead in the 4th quarter, but then still lost. The table is listed from the perspective of the eventual winner and shows the final points for and points allowed in the game, along with the biggest lead and the largest fourth-quarter deficit the winning team faced despite the large early lead.

Year	Date	Boxscore	Tm	Opp	PF	PA	BgLd	Def
1994	09/25/1994	Boxscore	MIN	MIA	38	35	28	0
1944	09/24/1944	Boxscore	GNB	CHI	42	28	28	0
2007	10/21/2007	Boxscore	TEN	HOU	38	36	25	-1
2004	12/12/2004	Boxscore	SFO	ARI	31	28	25	0
1980	12/07/1980	Boxscore	CIN	BAL	34	33	25	-2
1987	10/25/1987	Boxscore	GNB	DET	34	33	24	-2
1981	01/02/1982	Boxscore	SDG	MIA	41	38	24	-7
1996	09/22/1996	Boxscore	NWE	JAX	28	25	22	0
2010	12/13/2010	Boxscore	BAL	HOU	34	28	21	0
2009	10/11/2009	Boxscore	ARI	HOU	28	21	21	0
2009	01/10/2010	Boxscore	ARI	GNB	51	45	21	0
2009	01/10/2010	Boxscore	ARI	GNB	51	45	21	0
2008	09/14/2008	Boxscore	GNB	DET	48	25	21	-1
2006	12/17/2006	Boxscore	CHI	TAM	34	31	21	0
2004	10/10/2004	Boxscore	MIN	HOU	34	28	21	0
2003	11/30/2003	Boxscore	NWE	IND	38	34	21	0
1999	12/12/1999	Boxscore	KAN	MIN	31	28	21	0
1998	12/06/1998	Boxscore	SFO	CAR	31	28	21	0
1995	11/19/1995	Boxscore	DEN	SDG	30	27	21	0
1993	09/12/1993	Boxscore	NOR	ATL	34	31	21	0
1993	01/03/1994	Boxscore	PHI	SFO	37	34	21	0
1991	11/17/1991	Boxscore	NYJ	NWE	28	21	21	0
1990	10/07/1990	Boxscore	CIN	RAM	34	31	21	0
1990	10/07/1990	Boxscore	CIN	RAM	34	31	21	0
1989	09/10/1989	Boxscore	NWE	NYJ	27	24	21	-3
1986	11/20/1986	Boxscore	RAI	SDG	37	31	21	0
1983	01/08/1984	Boxscore	WAS	SFO	24	21	21	0
1980	11/23/1980	Boxscore	NYJ	HOU	31	28	21	0
1980	11/23/1980	Boxscore	NYJ	HOU	31	28	21	0
1979	09/09/1979	Boxscore	WAS	DET	27	24	21	0
1975	11/30/1975	Boxscore	WAS	MIN	31	30	21	-6
1960	11/06/1960	Boxscore	BAL	GNB	38	24	21	0
1949	10/23/1949	Boxscore	NYG	CHI	35	28	21	0
1945	11/04/1945	Boxscore	WAS	CRD	24	21	21	0

Note that this excludes games this game between Green Bay and Pittsburgh from 1951, where the Packers held a 28-point lead and won, but actually trailed entering the 4th quarter.

Tagged as: 49ers, Comebacks, Patriots, Tom Brady

{ 1 comment }

Checkdowns: SRS-Style Quarterback Ratings

by Neil Paine on December 17, 2012

in Checkdowns, Quarterbacks, SRS, Statgeekery

Here’s a quick set of quarterback ratings I was messing around with, based on Doug’s Simple Rating System. The basic setup: I took every passer-game (Att > 0) since the 2010 season, weighting for recency according to Wayne Winston’s method. I ran the data through the SRS to adjust for the quality of opponent pass defenses, creating a predicted Net YPA rate for each passer in each game via the following formula:

Predicted NYPA = League Constant + Home-Field Advantage + Passer Rating – Opponent Pass D Rating

The league constant in this case was a Net YPA of 6.24; the homefield component (which was positive while at home, negative on the road, and 0 in Super Bowls) was 0.05. Minimize the sum of squared errors between predicted and actual NYPA for each passer-game (weighted by recency and how many dropbacks the passer had in the game), and you’ve got a set of opponent-adjusted, recency-weighted QB ratings.

Throwing out the Brett Favres and Curtis Painters of the world who haven’t been active this year, here are the full ratings:

entries per page

Search:

Player	Wgtd Drpbks	NYPA Rating
Mohamed Sanu	0.6	60.94
Brian Hoyer	0.2	9.80
Shaun Hill	8.8	5.13
Derek Anderson	2.9	3.96
Kirk Cousins	47.2	2.37
Chase Daniel	1.2	2.02
Matt Flynn	13.2	1.74
Tom Brady	467.0	1.23
Kyle Orton	20.7	1.16
Russell Wilson	266.0	0.95
Robert Griffin III	257.7	0.92
Peyton Manning	382.9	0.78
Drew Brees	472.3	0.75
Matt Ryan	440.8	0.73
Colin Kaepernick	147.4	0.72
Eli Manning	399.1	0.64
Cam Newton	359.5	0.64
Tony Romo	468.3	0.54
Aaron Rodgers	394.9	0.50
Kellen Clemens	9.7	0.45
Matt Schaub	376.3	0.39
Alex Smith	176.1	0.39
Charlie Batch	66.1	0.37
Josh Freeman	395.0	0.28
Ben Roethlisberger	324.6	0.23

[continue reading…]

{ 1 comment }

Adjusting team sack rates in the NFL for SOS

by Chase Stuart on December 17, 2012

in Defensive Players

I’ve got sacks on the mind today. A few hours ago, I looked at the single-season sack records by various players in both the 3-4 and 4-3. Today I also want to look at things from the team perspective. In 2012, which team is the best at getting to the quarterback? You might think that’s as simple as looking at a list of defensive statistics and sorting by sacks, but I’d like to take a more nuanced approach.

There are two factors that heavily impact a team’s sack rate: the opponents they face and the number of passing plays they defend. Using sack rate instead of sacks helps to solve the latter issue, but we still need an opponent adjustment even if we use sack rate. It’s a bit tricky doing it correctly, because you need to iterate the results just like you do with the SRS. What I mean by that is the sack rate of the Denver defense will need to be adjusted for the sack rate of the Kansas City, Oakland, and San Diego offenses (among other teams), and those will need to be adjusted for the Denver defense (and all the other defenses those teams faced).

Once you properly iterate the results, what are the results? The table below shows the top defenses this year at getting to the quarterback, although note that these numbers exclude the games from week 15. The table shows how many pass attempts each team has faced, the number of actual sacks they have recorded and their actual sack rate; the next column shows the SOS adjustment to the sack rate, with a positive number indicating a difficult strength of schedule (i.e., they’ve faced teams that are difficult to sack). The last two columns show the SOS-adjusted sack rates and total sacks.

Rk	Team	ATT	ACT SK	SK RT	SOS	ADJ SK RT	ADJ SK
1	DEN	506	39	7.7%	0.9%	8.6%	43.3
2	CIN	542	43	7.9%	0.5%	8.4%	45.7
3	ARI	426	34	8%	-0.5%	7.4%	31.7
4	DAL	429	29	6.8%	0.3%	7.1%	30.4
5	CAR	483	30	6.2%	0.9%	7.1%	34.2
6	KAN	389	24	6.2%	0.9%	7.1%	27.5
7	STL	489	39	8%	-1.2%	6.8%	33.1
8	PHI	467	28	6%	0.8%	6.8%	31.6
9	HOU	533	37	6.9%	-0.2%	6.7%	35.9
10	MIA	532	37	7%	-0.2%	6.7%	35.7
11	GNB	524	35	6.7%	-0.1%	6.6%	34.6
12	BAL	506	30	5.9%	0.6%	6.6%	33.3
13	CLE	531	34	6.4%	0.2%	6.6%	34.8
14	NYG	464	31	6.7%	-0.1%	6.5%	30.4
15	SFO	478	32	6.7%	-0.4%	6.3%	30.3
16	PIT	434	26	6%	0.3%	6.3%	27.4
17	ATL	463	28	6%	0.3%	6.3%	29.2
18	BUF	484	31	6.4%	-0.2%	6.2%	30.2
19	CHI	498	33	6.6%	-0.5%	6.1%	30.6
20	SDG	508	25	4.9%	1%	5.9%	30
21	TEN	481	27	5.6%	0.3%	5.9%	28.3
22	SEA	475	32	6.7%	-1.1%	5.7%	27
23	NWE	511	28	5.5%	-0.1%	5.3%	27.3
24	NOR	496	25	5%	0.2%	5.3%	26.1
25	MIN	515	31	6%	-0.8%	5.2%	27
26	DET	490	30	6.1%	-1.1%	5%	24.4
27	WAS	539	23	4.3%	0.7%	4.9%	26.6
28	TAM	541	24	4.4%	0.5%	4.9%	26.5
29	NYJ	446	22	4.9%	-0.1%	4.8%	21.5
30	IND	470	24	5.1%	-0.4%	4.7%	22.3
31	OAK	465	17	3.7%	0.7%	4.3%	20.1
32	JAX	464	14	3%	0%	3%	14

[continue reading…]

Tagged as: Christian Ponder, Peyton Manning, Sacks, Von Miller

{ 3 comments }

J.J. Watt breaks sack record — for 3-4 defensive linemen

by Chase Stuart on December 16, 2012

in Defensive Players

J.J. Swatt.

Houston’s J.J. Watt sacked Andrew Luck three times on Sunday, bringing his season sack total to 19.5. Entering 2012, Bruce Smith was the single-season record holder for sacks by a defensive lineman in a 3-4 scheme with 19 in 1990. The sack has only been an official statistic since 1982, but since the 3-4 only entered the NFL in the mid-’70s, we can be pretty sure that Watt is now the all-time record holder.

The tables below show the single-season leaders by various defensive players in 3-4 and 4-3 schemes from 1982 to 2011.

Let’s start with a look at the most sacks by a 3-4 defensive end:

Year	Team	Name	Pos	Sacks
1990	BUF	Bruce Smith	3-4 DE	19
1983	SFO	Fred Dean	3-4 DE	17.5
1984	PHI	Greg Brown	3-4 DE	16
1983	MIA	Doug Betters	3-4 DE	16
1983	SEA	Jacob Green	3-4 DE	16
1992	NOR	Wayne Martin	3-4 DE	15.5
1986	RAI	Sean Jones	3-4 DE	15.5
1985	NYG	Leonard Marshall	3-4 DE	15.5
1993	KAN	Neil Smith	3-4 DE	15
1986	SDG	Lee Williams	3-4 DE	15
1986	BUF	Bruce Smith	3-4 DE	15
1984	KAN	Art Still	3-4 DE	14.5
1984	SEA	Jeff Bryant	3-4 DE	14.5
1983	GNB	Ezra Johnson	3-4 DE	14.5
1997	BUF	Bruce Smith	3-4 DE	14
1993	BUF	Bruce Smith	3-4 DE	14
1992	BUF	Bruce Smith	3-4 DE	14
1989	SDG	Lee Williams	3-4 DE	14
1984	MIA	Doug Betters	3-4 DE	14
1984	CLE	Reggie Camp	3-4 DE	14
1983	PIT	Keith Willis	3-4 DE	14

As you can imagine, 3-4 defensive linemen don’t rack up many sacks. Bill Pickel, a nose tackle for the Raiders in the ’80s, recorded 12.5 sacks in both ’84 and ’85, making him the only 3-4 tackle to record more than 12 sacks in a season. Karl Mecklenburg, with 13 sacks for the Broncos in ’85, remains the only inside linebacker in a 3-4 with more than a dozen sacks.

Of course, 3-4 outside linebackers get all the glory in that scheme. San Francisco’s Aldon Smith has 19.5 sacks so far in 2012 with two games remaining, but here were the leaders prior to 2012:

Year	Team	Name	Pos	Sacks
1986	NYG	Lawrence Taylor	3-4 OLB	20.5
2008	DAL	DeMarcus Ware	3-4 OLB	20
1990	KAN	Derrick Thomas	3-4 OLB	20
2011	DAL	DeMarcus Ware	3-4 OLB	19.5
1989	GNB	Tim Harris	3-4 OLB	19.5
1984	NWE	Andre Tippett	3-4 OLB	18.5
2008	MIA	Joey Porter	3-4 OLB	17.5
1995	BUF	Bryce Paup	3-4 OLB	17.5
2009	DEN	Elvis Dumervil	3-4 OLB	17
2006	SDG	Shawne Merriman	3-4 OLB	17
1992	SFO	Tim Harris	3-4 OLB	17
1991	NOR	Pat Swilling	3-4 OLB	17
1989	NOR	Pat Swilling	3-4 OLB	16.5
1989	RAM	Kevin Greene	3-4 OLB	16.5
1988	RAM	Kevin Greene	3-4 OLB	16.5
1985	NWE	Andre Tippett	3-4 OLB	16.5
2008	PIT	James Harrison	3-4 OLB	16
1992	DEN	Simon Fletcher	3-4 OLB	16
1990	SFO	Charles Haley	3-4 OLB	16
2010	DAL	DeMarcus Ware	3-4 OLB	15.5
1988	NYG	Lawrence Taylor	3-4 OLB	15.5
1998	CAR	Kevin Greene	3-4 OLB	15
1989	NYG	Lawrence Taylor	3-4 OLB	15
1984	PIT	Mike Merriweather	3-4 OLB	15

What about 4-3 defensive ends?

Year	Team	Name	Pos	Sacks
2001	NYG	Michael Strahan	4-3 DE	22.5
2011	MIN	Jared Allen	4-3 DE	22
1984	NYJ	Mark Gastineau	4-3 DE	22
1989	MIN	Chris Doleman	4-3 DE	21
1987	PHI	Reggie White	4-3 DE	21
1992	PHI	Clyde Simmons	4-3 DE	19
1983	NYJ	Mark Gastineau	4-3 DE	19
2003	NYG	Michael Strahan	4-3 DE	18.5
2002	MIA	Jason Taylor	4-3 DE	18.5
1986	WAS	Dexter Manley	4-3 DE	18.5
2011	PHI	Jason Babin	4-3 DE	18
1988	PHI	Reggie White	4-3 DE	18
1984	CHI	Richard Dent	4-3 DE	17.5
1999	STL	Kevin Carter	4-3 DE	17
1992	SDG	Leslie O'Neal	4-3 DE	17
1985	CHI	Richard Dent	4-3 DE	17
2011	NYG	Jason Pierre-Paul	4-3 DE	16.5
2008	ATL	John Abraham	4-3 DE	16.5
2000	MIA	Trace Armstrong	4-3 DE	16.5
1999	ARI	Simeon Rice	4-3 DE	16.5
1998	SEA	Michael Sinclair	4-3 DE	16.5
2005	OAK	Derrick Burgess	4-3 DE	16
2004	IND	Dwight Freeney	4-3 DE	16
1998	GNB	Reggie White	4-3 DE	16
1983	STL	Curtis Greer	4-3 DE	16

And 4-3 defensive tackles:

Year	Team	Name	Pos	Sacks
1989	MIN	Keith Millard	4-3 DT	18
1986	PHI	Reggie White	4-3 DT	18
2000	NOR	La'Roi Glover	4-3 DT	17
2000	TAM	Warren Sapp	4-3 DT	16.5
1997	MIN	John Randle	4-3 DT	15.5
1997	SFO	Dana Stubblefield	4-3 DT	15
1992	SEA	Cortez Kennedy	4-3 DT	14

4-3 outside linebackers rarely rack up huge sack numbers. In fact, Denver’s Von Miller, who has 16 sacks this year, is already the record holder in the official sack era. Derrick Thomas (14.5 sacks in 1992, 13 in 1996) in Kansas City, Washington’s Ken Harvey (13.5 in ’94) and Cleveland’s Jamir Miller (13 in ’01) are the only other 4-3 outside linebackers with more than twelve sacks in a season since 1982. (Of course, Thomas also had a 20-sack season a 3-4 outside linebacker.) Charlie Clemons, with 13.5 sacks in 2001, is the record holder among 4-3 middle linebackers.

Tagged as: Aldon Smith, Bruce Smith, J.J. Watt, Sacks, Von Miller

{ 2 comments }

Trivia of the Day – Sunday, December 16th

by Chase Stuart on December 16, 2012

in Trivia

Manning finds the last empty spot on his trophy case.

What do you give to the man who already has everything? How about a Comeback Player of the Year Award?

Right now, the choice for AP Comeback Player of the Year is a two-horse race between Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson. If Manning wins the award, it will put him in pretty rare territory: he’d be just the fourth player to, over the course of a career, be named by the Associated Press as the Most Valuable Player of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year, and Super Bowl MVP. Can you name the first three?

Below is one hint for each of the three players who have won all three awards.

Trivia hint for Player 1	Select Show
He is still an active player.

Click 'Show' for the Answer for Player 1	Select Show
Tom Brady was named the Super Bowl MVP after the 2001 and 2003 seasons, the MVP in ’07 and ’10, and the Comeback Player of the Year in 2009.

Trivia hint for Player 2	Select Show
In between winning a Super Bowl MVP and the MVP award, this player suffered a ruptured disk in his back that was supposed to end his season and perhaps his career; he came back two months later and played well enough to win the AP Comeback Player of the Year award.

Click 'Show' for the Answer for Player 2	Select Show
Joe Montana was a Super Bowl MVP in ’81, ’84, and ’89, and he was named the game’s Most Valuable Player in 1989. But in the middle of his career, he pulled off one of his greatest tricks, winning Comeback Player of the Year award in the same year he was injured.

Trivia hint for Player 3	Select Show
This guy is the king of hardware. He has an MVP, a Super Bowl MVP, a Comeback Player of the Year…. and an AP Offensive Player of the Year award, an AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award, and a Heisman Trophy. That’s one full trophy case.

Click 'Show' for the Answer for Player 3	Select Show
Marcus Allen may not have been the best player of all time but it’s hard to find a more decorated one. He became the first collegiate player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season and won the Heisman Trophy in 1981 at USC. The next year he won the Rookie of the Year award, and two years later he picked up a Super Bowl MVP award. Two years after that he was named the AP’s MVP, and then eight years later — in his first year out of Al Davis’ grasp — he was named the AP Comeback Player of the Year while playing with the Chiefs and leading the NFL in rushing touchdowns.

Click 'Show' for the Answer for Player 3

Show

Tagged as: Awards, Comeback Player of the Year, Peyton Manning, Weekend Trivia

{ 5 comments }

From the Colorado School of Mines to the NFL

by Chase Stuart on December 15, 2012

in Coaches, Strategy

Unless you follow Division II football, you probably aren’t familiar with the name Bob Stitt. He’s the head coach at the Colorado School of Mines, and here is what Bruce Feldman wrote about him in the summer of 2011 in connection with the One-Back Clinic, an annual meeting of a few of the sharpest minds in college football:

Stitt is the 45-year-old head coach at Colorado School of Mines, a Division II school just down the road from the Coors facility in Golden, Co. Stitt is a regular to the one-back clinic and has become pals with [Dana] Holgorsen and the rest of the core crowd. His teams win big despite dealing with high academic requirements… Stitt’s topic is the pistol offense and back-shoulder throws. As you’ll find out, Stitt is a huge believer in the back-shoulder throw. He talks about it the way Jared talks about Subway. “If this stuff works with our guys, it’ll probably work with the guys you have,” he says. “We’re an engineering school, and we only have one major, engineering. Our average ACT score in math is 29.” That line draws the biggest “Oooh!” of the day. . . .

The tricky part of Stitt’s tact — as is the case with many of the things discussed here — is that it’s hard to say just how well these things could be replicated someplace else. “I love coming to this because it reinforces a lot of what we do, ” one coach says. “Sometimes you might get one or two things you can try out from a technique or a practice point.” It’s also pretty good for networking because you never know what position might open a few months from now.

That was only a year and a half ago, but Stitt’s fame has grown considerably since then. He’s become famous in some circles for the Fly Sweep, a play brought to the national state when Holgorsen repeatedly used the Fly Sweep in the Orange Bowl eleven months ago. So what is the Fly Sweep?

On most plays, West Virginia has Geno Smith in shotgun in a fairly standard shotgun spread look. On the Fly Sweep, the Mountaineers would motion a wide receiver/running back, usually Tavon Austin, before the snap, and have him accelerate as he approached the quarterback. When well-executed, the snap would arrive in Smith’s hands for just a fraction of a second before he would pitch the ball forward to Austin, who would be arriving between the center and the quarterback just a second after the ball was snapped. Already in motion and with the ball in his hands, Austin would then be able to use his considerable speed and quickness to get in space and rack up yards against an unprepared defense.

Well, in the Orange Bowl, it was executed perfectly. For four touchdowns. Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gu62DFo9-w

One of the benefits of the play is that it is low risk: if the quarterback/sweep exchange is mishandled, it’s simply an incomplete pass because the quarterback is technically throwing the ball forwards. So why the post today? Well, last week, the Stitt Sweep (my post, I get to pick the name) entered the NFL. I’m not sure if Jay Gruden picked up the play from his time in the Arena Football League or the World Football League — or maybe from just watching last year’s Orange Bowl — but there’s no doubt where the inspiration came from the Bengals first touchdown of the game against the Cowboys. You can see Andy Dalton’s touchdown “pass” to Andrew Hawkins at the 40-second mark of this video.

Tagged as: Bengals, Bob Stitt, Dana Holgorsen, Fly Sweep, Jay Gruden

{ 1 comment }

Checkdowns: Elo-Ratings for NFL teams

by Chase Stuart on December 14, 2012

in Checkdowns, SRS

So we're going to pretend all my losses were by 1 point?

Just a quick Friday night checkdown post. By now, you’re very familiar with the Simple Rating System. I used the SRS to create college football ratings every week this season and used the SRS to grade NFL teams earlier this year. Pro-Football-Reference.com calculates SRS ratings every week and they are always available on their Standings page.

The first S in SRS stands for Simple because the SRS is simply the sum of two variables: a team’s average margin of victory (or points differential) and a team’s strength of schedule.

But what if we only care about wins and losses? Even in that case, we still care about strength of schedule. The BCS mandates that the computer systems used to provide the official BCS ratings ignore margin of victory. Essentially, that’s what I’m doing here. To provide Elo-style ratings for NFL teams, I made each win a one-point win, each loss a one-point loss, and each tie worth 0 points. Therefore, a team’s MOV perfectly matches its record, leaving just the SOS to shuffle the deck.

Is this useful for anything? No. That’s why it’s a Friday night checkdown.

Rk	Team	G	MOV	SOS	SRS	Record
1	Houston Texans	13	0.692	0.011	0.704	11-2-0
2	New England Patriots	13	0.538	0.116	0.654	10-3-0
3	San Francisco 49ers	13	0.462	0.081	0.543	9-3-1
4	Green Bay Packers	13	0.385	0.107	0.492	9-4-0
5	Atlanta Falcons	13	0.692	-0.273	0.42	11-2-0
6	Denver Broncos	13	0.538	-0.166	0.373	10-3-0
7	Chicago Bears	13	0.231	0.121	0.352	8-5-0
8	Seattle Seahawks	13	0.231	0.114	0.345	8-5-0
9	Indianapolis Colts	13	0.385	-0.053	0.332	9-4-0
10	Baltimore Ravens	13	0.385	-0.135	0.249	9-4-0
11	New York Giants	13	0.231	-0.04	0.191	8-5-0
12	St. Louis Rams	13	0	0.175	0.175	6-6-1
13	Minnesota Vikings	13	0.077	0.067	0.144	7-6-0
14	New York Jets	13	-0.077	0.172	0.095	6-7-0
15	Washington Redskins	13	0.077	-0.003	0.074	7-6-0
16	Dallas Cowboys	13	0.077	-0.012	0.065	7-6-0
17	Cincinnati Bengals	14	0.143	-0.203	-0.06	8-6-0
18	Pittsburgh Steelers	13	0.077	-0.138	-0.061	7-6-0
19	Miami Dolphins	13	-0.231	0.126	-0.105	5-8-0
20	Buffalo Bills	13	-0.231	0.067	-0.164	5-8-0
21	Arizona Cardinals	13	-0.385	0.203	-0.181	4-9-0
22	Detroit Lions	13	-0.385	0.188	-0.197	4-9-0
23	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	13	-0.077	-0.162	-0.239	6-7-0
24	Tennessee Titans	13	-0.385	0.134	-0.25	4-9-0
25	New Orleans Saints	13	-0.231	-0.035	-0.266	5-8-0
26	Cleveland Browns	13	-0.231	-0.125	-0.356	5-8-0
27	Carolina Panthers	13	-0.385	0.014	-0.371	4-9-0
28	San Diego Chargers	13	-0.231	-0.165	-0.396	5-8-0
29	Philadelphia Eagles	14	-0.429	-0.048	-0.476	4-10-0
30	Jacksonville Jaguars	13	-0.692	0.141	-0.551	2-11-0
31	Oakland Raiders	13	-0.538	-0.112	-0.651	3-10-0
32	Kansas City Chiefs	13	-0.692	-0.148	-0.84	2-11-0

Tagged as: Elo

{ 2 comments }

What to do on 4th-and-7 in No Man’s Land

by Chase Stuart on December 14, 2012

in Coaches, Strategy

You went to Harvard, help me out on this.

Twice in close games in the last month, an NFL team has arrived at a three-way junction with seemingly no desirable path. In each case, the team faced a 4th and 7 from so-called ‘no man’s land.’

On November 25th, trailing the Atlanta Falcons 24-23, the Buccaneers had the ball on 4th and 7 from the Atlanta 38-yard line with just over three minutes remaining. Greg Schiano had all his timeouts left but faced a very difficult decision.

On Sunday, with 12 minutes remaining and a 12-7 lead, Chan Gailey’s Bills faced a 4th-and-7 from the St. Louis 34-yard-line. It’s worth noting — in part because it was notable to Gailey — that minutes earlier, Buffalo scored a touchdown but Shawn Powell botched the extra point, preventing Buffalo from going up 13-7. I suppose we could dwell on the fact that up 5 with 20 minutes left in the game after scoring a touchdown is an obvious scenario that calls for going for two, but let’s not do that in this post.

In Tampa Bay, Schiano attempted a 56-yard field goal. In Buffalo, with rain but wind at his back, the Bills sent on the field goal unit but then changed their mind and chose to punt, with the botched snap from minutes earlier apparently being a factor in the decision.

Who was right? Who was wrong? If you think this post is just a bunch of words I needed to type to show off a really cool graphic, you’re right. Take a look at this chart Brian Burke made to tell you what to do on 4th down generally:

At the 35-yard-line facing 4th and 7 is not a desirable situation, but Burke does say you should go for it. If you are a few yards closer to the end zone and it’s 4th and 8, then kicking is the advised course of action, while punting is best reserved for more dire circumstances.

What do teams actually do? This year, 15 times a team has faced a 4th-and-7 from between the 34- and the 38-yard lines. Nine times the team chose to kick the field goal, with teams hitting on 5 of those 9; Nick Folk missed from 52 but made from 54, Josh Brown hit from 52, Matt Prater from 53, Robbie Gould from 54, and Sebastian Janikowski from 55, while Dan Bailey and Janikowski missed from 54. The 9th example was in Tampa Bay, where Connor Barth missed from 56 yards out.

As you might expect if you have watched an NFL game before, coaches who chose not to kick the field goal did not entirely embrace the idea of going for it. Twice the Bills sent Shawn Powell out to punt (net of 29 and 24 yards), twice a team punted the ball out of the end zone (Pat McAfee, Dave Zastudil), and Andy Lee pinned the Rams on their four-yard-line with a 33-yard punt.

There was one coach who chose to go for it. It was Marvin Lewis, that beacon of wisdom in a cavernous field of conservative coaches. In the first quarter, trailing 3-0 to the Chiefs, first Lewis called a fake punt and when the drive stalled on the Kansas City 36, he chose to go for it. Andy Dalton scrambled for 11 yards, the Bengals would score a touchdown three plays later, and Cincinnati would go on to win the game, 28-6.

So what is the right call in the NFL’s version of the Bermuda triangle? The first answer is “it depends.” All these league average stats and theories have caveats which are easy to ignore in obvious situations. In close situations, like this one, all those caveats apply. Is it windy or raining? Are you in a dome? How good is your quarterback? What’s the score? How much time is left? And on and on.

Here are my thoughts for the two examples in this post.

Schiano made the wrong call, but probably not for the reason you’re thinking. I’d say Barth had something resembling a 50/50 shot of converting that field goal, but what is the upside if he does? You now have a one-point lead against the Falcons with 3:30 to go and they have the ball. That’s not exactly a desirable scenario. According to Burke, the league average team has a 48% chance of winning if they have 1st and down on their own 22 with 3:30 left and trailing by one point. But this was not a situation involving league average teams. Matt Ryan has led the NFL in 4th quarter comebacks and game-winning drives in two of the last three years. He ranks 10th in ANY/A and 3rd in completion percentage, which might actually matter when your only real goal is gaining 10 yards every four plays. To make matters worse, despite an incredible run defense, Tampa Bay ranks 32nd in both passing yards allowedand net yards per attempt allowed.

If there were six minutes left, maybe this is a different story, but I think there was too little time left to give up the ball like that. You’ve got Josh Freeman — who ranks 4th in ANY/A — going against a mediocre Falcons pass defense. I’d go for it in that situation, because your best path to victory is to gain 7-10 yards and then bleed the clock before kicking the game-winning field goal. I’ll also add this: to the extent that you want to bank on your opponent’s conservatism, punting is not as bad of an option as you might think. If you can down the punt inside the 10, and feel confident that Atlanta would run it three times, then you’re in pretty good. If successful, you would get the ball back with about 3 minutes left (remember, Tampa Bay had all three timeouts) and basically place yourself in that positive situation the Falcons would have been in if the Bucs hit the field goal, except Tampa would have been about 25 yards closer. Of course, I have no idea how much you can count on your opponent being conservative: that would depend on the opponent.

While the clock was the most important variable in the Tampa game, it wasn’t a huge factor in Buffalo. The Bills led by 5 points with 12 minutes to go. In this case, the Bills were at the 34, not the 38, which tilts towards the field goal and away from the punt. On the other hand, there were weather issues at play. In a rare twist, Burke’s calculator essentially has all three options as even, with the Bills having a 77-78% win probability regardless of whether they chose to punt, kick, or go for it. The Bills have a slightly below average passing offense and the Rams a slightly above average passing defense, but neither factor is particular strong. This is one of the closest calls I can think of, as I see good arguments for all three options. The Bills punted and pinned the Rams inside the five, so Chan Gailey won’t face too much criticism.

But while extending a lead from 5 to 8 points doesn’t sound like much, it actually has a significant impact. Down by 8, you need to do a bunch of things well and then convert a two-point conversion and then win in overtime, and those two events only happen 25% of the time. Down by 5 you just need to do a bunch of things well. The weather is an important factor here — Rian Lindell said the wind was at his back, which maybe makes the weather a nonfactor even if it was raining, cold, and windy. In field goals from the 33-, 34-, or 35-yard line since 2009, NFL kickers have been successful 62% of the time. Again, the conditions are a huge variable here, but I think I would have trusted my kicker in this case.

Tagged as: 4th down, Chan Gailey, Greg Schiano

{ 2 comments }

Week 14 Power Rankings

by Chase Stuart on December 13, 2012

in Power Rankings

Richard Sherman exhibits the proper form for 'You Mad Bro?' in sign language.

It’s time to take Seattle seriously. On Sunday, the Seahawks had a “name your score” game, the type of matchup college football powerhouses regularly use to beef up their statistics. The Seahawks defense took over the game, posting the 10th highest fantasy performance ever, but the offense wasn’t too shabby, either. Seattle rushed for 284 yards and 4 touchdowns, and Russell Wilson completed 7 of 13 passes for 148 yards.

Brian Burke now has the Seahawks 4th in his power rankings. Aaron Schatz has Seattle second overall, and even had them first before the Patriots blew out the Texans on Monday Night. Seattle is third according to the SRS, too. Seattle is better on offense than you think: the Seahawks rank 8th in ANY/A and 11th in NY/A and 4th in rushing yards and 5th in rushing first downs. Seattle is 15th in points scored and 14th in PFR’s Expected Points Added, but they’ve done all this despite facing a pretty difficult schedule filled with good defenses.

Defensively, they’re in the top 10 in rushing yards allowed, rushing first downs allowed, rushing touchdowns allowed and EPA. The Seahawks are 4th in NY/A and 2nd in ANY/A allowed, while ranking 7th in turnovers forced, 3rd in yards allowed and 2nd in points allowed.

They’re really good and really balanced. Are they a Super Bowl contender? Absolutely. So what about that ~~8-5~~ 7-6 record according to Packers fans? Well, Seattle lost by 4 in Arizona, by 6 in St. Louis, by 7 in San Francisco, by 4 in Detroit, and by 3 in Miami. They were leading in the 4th quarter in every game except the 49ers loss (trailed by 4 late in the game) and the Rams loss (intercepted in Rams territory in the final minutes). They’ve lost some close games in the 4th quarter and dominated most of their other opponents. They’re one of the best teams in the NFL. Obviously they’re even better at home, but if New England defeats San Francisco this week, the entire landscape of the NFC playoffs will change.

If the 49ers lose in Foxboro, the Seahawks control their own destiny for the division title since they host the 49ers in week 16. And if the Packers lose one of their final three games, the Seahawks would control their own destiny for the 2 seed, which would mean a bye and a home playoff game — or possibly two, if Matt Ryan and the Falcons lose like everyone expects. Essentially, Seattle fans can dream about this scenario:

— New England wins at home against San Francisco (the Patriots are 5-point favorites)
— Green Bay loses in Chicago (or in Minnesota or at home against the Titans)
— Seattle wins in Toronto, which would be their last road game of the year if…
— Seattle beats San Francisco and St. Louis at home and…
— The Falcons lose to the Giants or 49ers or whichever team they face in the second round of the playoffs

There are a lot of “ifs” and “ands” but they’re in as good a position as I can ever remember an 8-5 team being. Of course, even as the 2 seed they would likely have to beat Green Bay and then either New York or San Francisco to get to the Super Bowl, so I wouldn’t book tickets to New Orleans just yet.

[As always, the number of wins I’m projecting each team to finish the season with is in column 3. The fourth column – PWIN – shows how many wins I projected last week, and the difference column represents how many wins I added or subtracted this week. The “RSOS” column stands for the remaining SOS for the team, based on the number of projected wins I’m giving to each of their opponents. The “RHG” column stands for remaining home games.]

Team	Rec	Wins	PrvWin	Diff	RemSOS	RemHG	Comment
Atlanta Falcons	11-2	13	14	-1	0.458	2	According to Advanced NFL Stats, the Panthers had a 62% chance of winning against Atlanta.
Houston Texans	11-2	13	13	0	0.563	2	That's your classic 'burn the tape' game. Houston still controls their own destiny for the #1 seed.
Denver Broncos	10-3	13	13	0	0.396	2	Guess what? I still think the Broncos win 13 games this year.
New England Patriots	10-3	13	12	1	0.427	2	But so will the Patriots. We could have three 13-3 teams in the AFC and no one else with more than ten wins.
Green Bay Packers	9-4	11	11	0	0.458	1	Aaron Rodgers leads the league in sacks for the second time in four years.
Seattle Seahawks	8-5	11	10	1	0.500	2	Russell Wilson will get some Rookie of the Year votes if the Seahawks get 11 wins.
San Francisco 49ers	9-3-1	10.5	11.5	-1	0.583	1	Aldon Smith is a monster. He's got Michael Strahan's "record" in sight. But at New England and at Seattle are brutal tasks.
Baltimore Ravens	9-4	10	11	-1	0.646	2	When the Ravens were 9-2, I wrote "I still don't believe in this team, because they aren't going to have amazing special teams or amazing 4th and 29 conversions every week."
Chicago Bears	8-5	10	11	-1	0.417	1	The Bears took care of business early in the year, giving themselves some margin for error later on. Finishing against Arizona and Detroit gives them a safety net
Indianapolis Colts	9-4	10	10	0	0.604	1	If it didn't look like they were going to play Baltimore, I'd say picking against the Colts will be the easiest call of the playoffs.
New York Giants	8-5	10	9	1	0.583	1	There are no easy games left, but I'm not ready to bet against the Giants.
Pittsburgh Steelers	7-6	9	10	-1	0.479	2	This team suffers so many inexplicable losses, Mike Tomlin has to bear some of the blame.
Dallas Cowboys	7-6	9	8	1	0.500	2	Huge game for the Cowboys to beat the Bengals. Wait, if they won, it couldn't have been a huge game, right?
Washington Redskins	7-6	9	8	1	0.417	1	NFC East race is going to be fascinating. Robert Griffin III and Kirk Cousins combined for the comeback win to keep Washington alive.
Cincinnati Bengals	7-6	8	9	-1	0.500	1	Just when I start to get on their bandwagon, the Bengals did the unthinkable and blew a lead against the Cowboys.
New York Jets	6-7	8	7	1	0.375	1	The Jets proved that they can beat the worst teams in the league. The Titans are right on that border, so Monday Night will be interesting.
St. Louis Rams	6-6-1	7.5	7.5	0	0.521	1	Incredible job by Jeff Fisher this year. Rams can make the playoffs if they run the table.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	6-7	7	8	-1	0.552	1	I did not see that coming; blowing a big lead, at home, against Nick Foles, means this team is farther away than I thought.
Miami Dolphins	5-8	7	7	0	0.458	2	Miami gets to host in-state rival Jacksonville and division rival Buffalo the next two weeks. Unfortunately, it's another meaningless december for the Dolphins.
Minnesota Vikings	7-6	7	6	1	0.656	1	I thought the Vikings were done, but Adrian Peterson took over against the Bears.
San Diego Chargers	5-8	7	6	1	0.375	2	Keep Norv!
New Orleans Saints	5-8	6	7	-1	0.458	2	Drew Brees leads the league in both passing touchdowns and interceptions.
Buffalo Bills	5-8	6	7	-1	0.542	2	One loss away from clinching their 7th consecutive losing season. They get to expand their internationl reach in Toronto this weekend.
Carolina Panthers	4-9	6	5	1	0.354	1	That's the type of team Carolina could be. I don't think Ron Rivera can save his job, but his team was well-prepared against Atlanta.
Cleveland Browns	5-8	6	5	1	0.646	1	Cleveland won by 23 points. That's kind of a big deal, since the new Browns have only won by so many points once before.
Tennessee Titans	4-9	5	6	-1	0.458	2	Titans did a great job against Andrew Luck, but could not come away with the win. Next up? Mark Sanchez.
Detroit Lions	4-9	5	5	0	0.563	2	Only interesting thing over the next three weeks is whether Calvin Johnson can break Jerry Rice's record.
Philadelphia Eagles	4-9	5	4	1	0.563	2	Keep Andy!
Arizona Cardinals	4-9	4	5	-1	0.531	2	From 4-0 to 4-12.
Oakland Raiders	3-10	4	4	0	0.333	1	This was going to be a one step backwards type of season with a new regime; the question is will they ever take two steps forward?
Jacksonville Jaguars	2-11	3	3	0	0.521	1	Fought valiantly for a bad team that's been killed by injuries and lacks talent just about everywhere. Of course, their opponent was the Jets.
Kansas City Chiefs	2-11	3	3	0	0.563	1	Chiefs-Raiders this weekend with the #1 pick on the line.

Tagged as: 2012 Power Rankings, Seahawks

{ 2 comments }

Matt Schaub’s Primtime Problem Is In the Eye of the Beholder

by Chase Stuart on December 12, 2012

in Quarterbacks, Statistics

You’re probably hearing a lot right now about how Matt Schaub is not a primetime player — literally. Schaub and the Texans struggled in embarassing losses on Sunday Night Football to the Packers earlier in the season and on Monday Night Football two days ago to the Patriots. Schaub posted terrible numbers in a defensively-driven 13-6 win over the Jay Cutler/Jason Campbell Bears.

For his career, Schaub is 2-5 (0.286 winning percentage) in night games and 41-31 (0.569) in day games. Among the 24 quarterbacks studied (more on that below), that drop in winning percentage is the largest such decline. You might think this is due to facing better defenses in night games, but that’s not really the case.

Schaub has averaged 7.8 Adjusted Yards per Attempt during day games and 6.0 AY/A during night games; that difference of 1.8 AY/A is the second largest among the twenty-four quarterbacks.

So yes, there is no debate: Schaub has been noticeably worse during night games in his career.

The table below shows all quarterbacks who have started a game this season and that have started at least five night games in their career. The data consist of all games throughout their career in which they were the starter. To make it a little easier to read, I’ve shaded the day and night categories differently:

Search:

QB	D_W/L	D_WIN%	D_Y/A	D_AY/A	N_W/L	N_WIN%	N_Y/A	N_AY/A	Y/A_DIFF	AY/A_DIFF	Win%_Diff
Jason Campbell	28-31	0.475	6.93	6.65	3-9	0.25	5.75	4.77	-1.18	-1.88	-0.225
Matt Schaub	41-31	0.569	7.93	7.79	2-5	0.286	6.94	6	-0.99	-1.79	-0.284
Jay Cutler	37-28	0.569	7.3	6.84	13-14	0.481	7.1	6.08	-0.2	-0.76	-0.088
Joe Flacco	46-21	0.687	7.11	6.9	12-7	0.632	6.64	6.19	-0.47	-0.71	-0.055
Ben Roethlisberger	67-27	0.713	7.94	7.79	29-14	0.674	7.85	7.14	-0.09	-0.65	-0.038
Matt Ryan	47-19	0.712	7.19	7.03	7-5	0.583	6.63	6.4	-0.56	-0.63	-0.129
Carson Palmer	48-58	0.453	7.25	6.74	5-10	0.333	6.55	6.27	-0.7	-0.47	-0.119
Matt Cassel	25-29	0.463	6.59	6.11	4-5	0.444	6.35	5.65	-0.24	-0.46	-0.019
Matt Hasselbeck	75-72	0.51	6.88	6.42	10-6	0.625	6.9	6.22	0.02	-0.2	0.115
Aaron Rodgers	40-20	0.667	8.21	8.68	14-7	0.667	8	8.49	-0.21	-0.19	0
Alex Smith	31-32	0.492	6.61	6.07	8-5	0.615	6.32	5.91	-0.29	-0.16	0.123
Sam Bradford	13-20	0.397	6.21	5.79	1-4	0.2	6.33	5.71	0.12	-0.08	-0.197
Michael Vick	43-38	0.53	6.97	6.55	15-8	0.652	7.06	6.52	0.09	-0.03	0.122
Mark Sanchez	29-20	0.592	6.64	5.82	8-9	0.471	6.42	5.83	-0.22	0.01	-0.121
Tony Romo	35-27	0.565	7.7	7.67	20-12	0.625	8.17	7.74	0.47	0.07	0.06
Eli Manning	61-39	0.61	7.13	6.54	24-19	0.558	6.96	6.68	-0.17	0.14	-0.052
Matthew Stafford	16-21	0.432	6.87	6.51	1-5	0.167	7.47	6.9	0.6	0.39	-0.266
Peyton Manning	120-62	0.659	7.58	7.39	40-18	0.69	7.7	7.79	0.12	0.4	0.03
Tom Brady	112-30	0.789	7.39	7.49	38-14	0.731	7.55	7.9	0.16	0.41	-0.058
Byron Leftwich	21-24	0.467	6.51	6	3-3	0.5	6.65	6.47	0.14	0.47	0.033
Philip Rivers	51-35	0.593	7.8	7.53	20-10	0.667	8.1	8.13	0.3	0.6	0.074
Drew Brees	79-62	0.56	7.39	7.18	23-11	0.676	7.7	7.84	0.31	0.66	0.116
Charlie Batch	16-27	0.372	6.72	5.78	9-3	0.75	7.73	8.22	1.01	2.44	0.378
Chad Henne	12-17	0.414	6.3	5.17	2-3	0.4	8.05	7.81	1.75	2.64	-0.014

[continue reading…]

Tagged as: Matt Schaub, Texans

{ 3 comments }

Checkdowns: Brandon Marshall Underrated, Calvin Johnson Overrated?

by Chase Stuart on December 11, 2012

in Checkdowns, Receiving

I’ve noted a few times this year that Calvin Johnson, in his pursuit of Jerry Rice’s single-season receiving record, has quite an advantage on his side. The Lions have attempted more passes through 13 games of any team ever, and seem likely to break the pass attempts record.

Obviously it’s easier to gain more receiving yards when your team is throwing the ball nearly every play. That’s why when I came up with my Greatest WR Ever series, I looked at receiver performance per pass attempt.

I don’t have time for a nuanced analysis of wide receiver, but let’s just look at a simple statistic: receiving yards per team pass attempt. That’s what the table below shows, along with each player’s rank in receiving yards (the far left column). Brandon Marshall has 1,342 receiving yards while the Bears have only attempted 444 passes this year (including sacks). That means he’s averaging more than three yards per team pass attempt, which is incredible. Of course, it also speaks to the lack of other weapons in Chicago.

Search:

Ryds Rk	Player	Tm	Rec	Ryds	TD	TMATT	Yds/Att	Y/A Rk
2	Brandon Marshall	CHI	101	1342	9	444	3.02	1
7	Vincent Jackson	TAM	56	1145	8	442	2.59	2
4	Andre Johnson	HOU	82	1209	3	471	2.57	3
1	Calvin Johnson	DET	96	1546	5	618	2.5	4
6	A.J. Green	CIN	79	1151	10	478	2.41	5
5	Demaryius Thomas	DEN	74	1197	8	503	2.38	6
12	Steve Smith	CAR	60	999	2	425	2.35	7
9	Wes Welker	NWE	95	1116	4	519	2.15	8
3	Reggie Wayne	IND	94	1220	4	569	2.14	9
8	Roddy White	ATL	77	1140	5	535	2.13	10
11	Victor Cruz	NYG	76	1004	9	479	2.1	11
14	Brian Hartline	MIA	62	925	1	442	2.09	12
28	Michael Crabtree	SFO	66	761	5	383	1.99	13
13	Julio Jones	ATL	63	997	7	535	1.86	14
22	Dwayne Bowe	KAN	59	801	3	436	1.84	15
10	Dez Bryant	DAL	75	1028	9	567	1.81	16
45	Sidney Rice	SEA	45	658	7	365	1.8	17
26	Steve Johnson	BUF	61	776	5	432	1.8	18
24	Davone Bess	MIA	61	778	1	442	1.76	19
19	Anquan Boldin	BAL	58	828	4	482	1.72	20
35	Jeremy Kerley	NYJ	52	728	2	435	1.67	21
31	Mike Williams	TAM	46	736	7	442	1.67	22
20	Cecil Shorts	JAX	43	824	7	500	1.65	23
39	Greg Olsen	CAR	54	691	5	425	1.63	24
25	Randall Cobb	GNB	71	777	7	484	1.61	25
15	Marques Colston	NOR	65	889	8	559	1.59	26
42	Percy Harvin	MIN	62	677	3	429	1.58	27
23	Eric Decker	DEN	64	790	8	503	1.57	28
29	Torrey Smith	BAL	43	753	7	482	1.56	29
18	Tony Gonzalez	ATL	81	831	7	535	1.55	30
16	Jason Witten	DAL	92	880	1	567	1.55	31
27	Malcom Floyd	SDG	54	775	5	503	1.54	32
17	Lance Moore	NOR	53	848	4	559	1.52	33
32	Josh Gordon	CLE	42	732	5	487	1.5	34
21	Miles Austin	DAL	55	819	5	567	1.44	35
30	Rob Gronkowski	NWE	53	748	10	519	1.44	36
34	Mike Wallace	PIT	59	728	8	509	1.43	37
47	Hakeem Nicks	NYG	50	652	3	479	1.36	38
44	Jordy Nelson	GNB	46	658	6	484	1.36	39
59	Brandon LaFell	CAR	34	577	4	425	1.36	40
72	Golden Tate	SEA	37	492	7	365	1.35	41
40	Heath Miller	PIT	61	679	7	509	1.33	42
52	Jermaine Gresham	CIN	55	636	5	478	1.33	43
70	Vernon Davis	SFO	38	506	5	383	1.32	44
53	Owen Daniels	HOU	52	622	6	471	1.32	45
49	Nate Washington	TEN	39	648	4	499	1.3	46
33	Brandon Myers	OAK	70	728	4	561	1.3	47
38	DeSean Jackson	PHI	45	700	2	541	1.29	48
36	Jimmy Graham	NOR	64	710	8	559	1.27	49
58	Chris Givens	STL	36	584	3	464	1.26	50

Tagged as: Brandon Marshall, Calvin Johnson, Reggie Wayne

{ 13 comments }

NYT Fifth Down: Post-week 14

by Chase Stuart on December 11, 2012

in Defensive Players, NYT

This week at the New York Times, I take a look at how three defensive stars from the 2011 Draft have dominated the league and helped make their teams Super Bowl contenders.

The 2011 N.F.L. draft class was initially talked up for its star potential at quarterback: Cam Newton (the first overall pick), Jake Locker (8), Blaine Gabbert (10), Christian Ponder (12), Andy Dalton (35) and Colin Kaepernick (36).

Twenty months later, the most dominant players have been guys named Smith, Miller and Watt. Those three are the front-runners for the defensive player of the year award:

Aldon Smith San Francisco took Smith, a Missouri linebacker, with the seventh pick in the 2011 draft. As a rookie, he was a role player who participated in fewer than half of his team’s snaps but recorded 14 sacks as the team’s designated pass rusher. This year, Smith is a full-time player and continues to be a dominant force. After sacking Miami’s Ryan Tannehill twice on Sunday, he has 19.5 sacks, the most of any player through 13 team games since the sack became an official statistic.

Smith has recorded more sacks in his first two seasons than Reggie White, Derrick Thomas or anyone else who has entered the league since 1982, the year the N.F.L. began officially tracking the statistic. Against the Bears on “Monday Night Football,” Smith recorded five and a half sacks against Jason Campbell, the most by a player in a game since 2007. He is within reach of Michael Strahan’s single-season record of 22.5, set in 2001. But as good as Smith has been, he is arguably just the third-best defensive player from his draft class.

Von Miller The Denver Broncos selected Texas A&M’s Miller with the second overall pick. He had an eye-opening rookie season that was somewhat overshadowed by Tebow Time, but he helped transform the Bronco defense and rightfully earned defensive rookie of the year honors. In 2011, Pro Football Focus rated Miller as the second-best defensive player in the league, and ranked him as the top linebacker against the run and the best pass-rushing 4-3 outside linebacker.

He has only gotten better in 2012. Miller has recorded a sack in each of the team’s last six games, all wins, and now has 16. More impressively, according to Pro Football Focus, Miller’s 16 sacks and 45 quarterback hurries are more than triple the numbers produced by the second-best 4-3 outside linebacker. He ranks as the best pass-rushing linebacker and the best run-stopping linebacker in the N.F.L., and neither race is particularly close. Miller is arguably the best all-around linebacker in the league and perhaps one of the three or four best pass rushers in the N.F.L., too. But Miller still isn’t the most highly regarded member of the 2011 draft.

J.J. Watt The presumptive favorite for the defensive player of the year award remains Houston’s Watt. With an 11-2 record, the Texans are tied for the best record in the N.F.L., and Watt, drafted out of Wisconsin at No. 11, is a huge reason for that. According to Football Outsiders, entering Week 14, Watt led the league with 41 “Defeats” (a turnover, a tackle for loss or a play that prevents a third- or fourth-down conversion); the next-closest player was Miller with 33. According to an e-mail conversation Monday with Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders, who has been tracking the metric since 1996, only linebackers Ray Lewis (45) and Derrick Brooks (42) have recorded more “Defeats” in a full season, both doing so in 1999.

Watt’s production is remarkable for any player, let alone a 3-4 defensive end. Generally, defensive ends in a 3-4 scheme are not expected to fill up a stat sheet; they are supposed to absorb blockers to enable the linebackers behind them to achieve the glory. But Watt has recorded 16.5 sacks this season and became the first player to officially record 15 sacks and 15 passes defended in the same season. Pro Football Focus ranked Watt just ahead of Miller, and says he’s more than twice as valuable as the next best 3-4 defensive end in football, the Jets’ Muhammad Wilkerson.

Looking for a darkhorse? To identify the man who probably should win the underrated player of the year award — watch a Bengals game. Defensive tackle Geno Atkins was taken in the same draft as Ndamukong Suh but has delivered more production with a fraction of the hype. Atkins was at it again on Sunday against the Cowboys, delivering a sack and two other tackles behind the line of scrimmage, to go with two additional hits and six hurries against Tony Romo.

You can read the full article here, which notes that Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson are both chasing the 2,000-yard mark and highlights one really, really sad bit of Lions trivia.

Tagged as: Aldon Smith, Geno Atkins, J.J. Watt, Von Miller

{ 1 comment }

Checkdowns: My very first football article

by Chase Stuart on December 11, 2012

in Checkdowns, Fantasy

Because I am an enormous narcissist, I wondered if I could find the very first article I ever wrote. And I did. While I doubt anyone visiting the site today wants to read an article by a first-time writer from the summer of 2002, if you do, here is my article discussing the fantasy relevance of a defense when ranking running backs. Here is the intro:

Being the most important position in fantasy football, running backs are analyzed and examined from just about every angle. Most fantasy footballers can tell you who slumped in the 2nd half, who had a great ypc, and who had a ton of “fluky” TDs last year that won’t likely happen again. One factor a lot of owners look into is the defense of a RB. Logic dictates that the RBs on good defenses are like gold mines: see Eddie George the past few years, Jamal Lewis and A-Train when their teams Ds had breakout seasons, and the original superstar of modern fantasy football, Emmitt Smith. 4 straight years as the number 1 RB, and his team’s D was in the top 5 all 4 years. Teams with great Ds are notorious for pounding the ball late in game, running a lot early in games(so as to not throw interceptions, and win the battle of field position and win it with your defense), and basically pad your RBs stats. While some put more weight than others on the importance of a strong D(some view it as very important, others as a deciding factor between 2 backs they rate similarly), it appears the correct weight to put on a defense when evaluating a RB is 0. Zilch. Nothing. Meaningless. Let’s take a look at last year:

RB Yards DPA DPYA DRYA TDs Year DTR

Holmes 1555 23 13 27 8 2001 21
Martin 1513 12 5 28 10 2001 15
S. Davis 1432 13 3 20 5 2001 12
Green 1387 5 15 16 9 2001 12
Faulk 1382 7 10 3 12 2001 7
Alexander 1318 18 23 15 14 2001 19
Dillon 1315 14 14 11 10 2001 13
Williams 1245 27 20 14 6 2001 20
Tomlinson 1236 16 19 19 10 2001 18
Hearst 1206 9 18 9 4 2001 12
Avg 1359 14 14 16 9 15

Yards is the rushing yards, DPA is the POINTS ALLOWED RANK by that RBs defense, DPYA and DRYA are the rank that RBs team fared in Passing and Rushing yards allowed respectively, and TDs are rushing TDs for that RB. DTR is the average of the 3 defensive categories. The top 2 RBs last year were on teams with defenses who were in the bottom 5 of the league against the run. Using “common theory’, one would figure that teams that can’t stop the run, can’t control the clock, get behind early, and have to pass more. Those who backed off on Holmes and Martin due to their poor Ds(and Stephen Davis included) missed out. On average, the top 10 rushers in the league had well, average defenses. Middle of the pack in terms of points allowed, rushing yards allowed and passing yards allowed. Is this a one year trend?

RB	Yards	DPA	DPYA	DRYA	TDs	Year	DTR
Holmes	1555	23	13	27	8	2001	21
Martin	1513	12	5	28	10	2001	15
S. Davis	1432	13	3	20	5	2001	12
Green	1387	5	15	16	9	2001	12
Faulk	1382	7	10	3	12	2001	7
Alexander	1318	18	23	15	14	2001	19
Dillon	1315	14	14	11	10	2001	13
Williams	1245	27	20	14	6	2001	20
Tomlinson	1236	16	19	19	10	2001	18
Hearst	1206	9	18	9	4	2001	12
Avg	1359	14	14	16	9		15

I think it was Doug Drinen who once said if you don’t look at something you wrote five years ago and cringe, then you aren’t improving as a writer. For ten years old, this article seems to hold up okay although it could certainly use some editing. Fortunately, the conclusion is cringe-inducing enough for me to be convinced that I have improved from my first piece to my last.

{ 0 comments }

Best Games by Fantasy Defenses

by Chase Stuart on December 11, 2012

in Defense, Fantasy

Richard Sherman exhibits the proper form for 'You Mad Bro?' in sign language.

Bill Barnwell wrote yesterday about the dominant fantasy performance by the Seahawks defense against Arizona on Sunday. The Seahawks scored two touchdowns, forced 8 turnovers, recorded three sacks, and pitched a shutout. That made me wonder: which defense produced the best fantasy in NFL history?

I used Footballguys.com’s scoring system in the Footballguys Players Championship to calculate every performance by a fantasy D/ST since 1940. Here it is:

Team Defense/Special Teams

1 point – Every sack

2 points – Every team takeaway (interception or fumble recovery)

6 points – Every TD (via interception return, fumble return, punt or kickoff return, blocked FG return, missed FG return, blocked punt return)

5 points – Every safety

12 points – Every shutout

8 points – Allowing between 1- 6 points

5 points – Allowing between 7 – 10 points

Because I decided to use the official scoring designation for every play and chose not to rewatch every game in NFL history, there is one error that will come up in every few hundred games. Occasionally, an offense will score a touchdown on its own fumble recovery and that goes down in the gamebooks as a fumble recovery just like a defensive touchdown. So, be warned, these are unofficial fantasy scores.

As it turns out, Seattle’s game against Arizona comes in tied for 10th place. Incredibly, the best performance by a fantasy defense — a whopping 52 points — came in a Steelers-Browns game but wasn’t delivered by Pittsburgh. The came in the 1989 season opener, and after losing 41-10 the following week, Pittsburgh rebounded to finish 9-7 and make the playoffs. In 1950, the New York Giants also scored 52 fantasy points against the Steelers. New York scored 18 points in that game — 2 safeties, two fumble return touchdowns — and forced 9 turnovers and 7 sacks. The table below lists the best performances by a fantasy defense:
[continue reading…]

{ 5 comments }