Kansas City/Indianapolis Preview

New Orleans Saints (11-5) (+2.5) at Philadelphia Eagles (10-6), Saturday 8:10 PM ET

We’re fully immune to the Saints offense at this point. Drew Brees just threw for for 5,162 yards and 39 touchdowns and it didn’t even register on most radars. One reason for that: both of those numbers represent three-year lows for the Saints star. Jimmy Graham shook off early-season leg injuries to lead the league with 16 touchdowns, and rookie Kenny Stills led the NFL in yards per target. Both Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles topped 70 receptions — two of just five running backs this year to do so — and I didn’t even know that until five seconds ago. Pinball numbers are the expectation when dealing with the Saints offense.

But the real change is on defense, as the team just finished one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NFL history. Did you know that the Saints finished fourth in points allowed this year? That’s only the fourth time New Orleans has ranked in the top five in that statistic in franchise history, with the other three occurrences all coming during the Dome Patrol era. What makes New Orleans’ success even more remarkable is that the team ranked last in points allowed in 2012. New Orleans is the first team in NFL history to jump 27 spots in the points allowed rankings. Prior to this year, the 2011 Houston Texans (4th after ranking 29th) and 1993 New York Giants (1st after ranking 26th) had been the most improved defenses with 25-slot jumps. Now the Saints probably aren’t as good as their points allowed rank would imply (Football Outsiders has them 9th, Advanced NFL Stats ranks the unit 10th), but unparalleled feats remain astounding.

The main reason for the team’s improvement is the pass defense. The Saints ranked last in Net Yards per Attempt allowed last year, but 7th this season, another remarkable jump. In fact, only 10 teams have ever made a jump of 25 spots in the NY/A allowed rankings: [continue reading…]

Kansas City Chiefs (11-5) (Pick’em) at Indianapolis Colts (13-3), Saturday 4:35PM ET

Among the four games this weekend, this one figures to be the most competitive: I would be surprised if this isn’t a one possession game in the fourth quarter. The Colts rank 13th in Football Outsiders DVOA, courtesy of the 13th-ranked offense, the 16th-best defense, and the 17th best special teams. Kansas City is 7th overall, thanks to a 15th-place ranking on offense, a 9th-place ranking on defense, and the top special teams in the NFL. And while the Colts beat the Chiefs two weeks ago, I don’t put much stock in that for a couple of reasons.

One, the Chiefs were missing two key players, left tackle Branden Albert and pass rusher Justin Houston. Two, I suspect that Kansas City called a very vanilla game plan in the first meeting. The Chiefs knew that Indianapolis was the likely first round opponent in the playoffs, and a win would have been meaningless for Kansas City unless Denver would lose to either Houston or Oakland. In retrospect, had the Chiefs kept their cards close to the vest (a luxury the Colts couldn’t afford), it would have been wise. [continue reading…]

Every week this season, I’ve written about the Game Scripts from the previous weekend. For new readers, the term Game Script is just shorthand for the average points differential for a team over every second of each game. You can check out the updated Game Scripts page, which shows the results of all 256 games this year. Week 17 saw some big blowouts and some tight finishes: Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, and Drew Brees all led their teams to convincing wins against overmatched opponents, while Green Bay and Philadelphia clinched playoff berths with close wins.

Week 17 was unremarkable from a Game Scripts perspective, although I’ll note that Denver’s win over Oakland produced a Game Script of 21.6, the fifth highest average margin of the year (and the best by the Broncos this year). On the comeback side, only three teams won with negative Game Scripts, and two of those wins (Green Bay, Carolina) were back-and-forth contests. That means we should all take a moment to reflect on the resolve and grit of the San Diego Chargers, who overcame an average deficit of 4.6 points (in regulation) to force overtime and eventually defeat the Chiefs B team.

The full Game Scripts data from week 17: [continue reading…]

In my final article of the year at the New York Times, I look at one key statistic for each team.

Denver Broncos: Quarterback Curse

Can Peyton Manning break the hex? Only four quarterbacks — Tom Brady (2007), Rich Gannon (2002), Kurt Warner (2001) and Dan Marino (1984) — have played in a Super Bowl in the season in which they won the passing yards title, with none of the four winning the game. Since 1950, only Johnny Unitas in 1959 and George Blanda in 1961 (in the American Football League) have led their league in passing yards and won a championship in the same season.

Some quarterback will become the first player to pull off this feat at a Super Bowl, and Manning seems as strong a candidate as any: he broke the single-season record for passing yards, a record which is under league review.

The last player to be named the N.F.L.’s most valuable player and win the Super Bowl in the same season was Warner, in 1999. Manning will almost certainly be named the M.V.P. for the fifth time in his career, which means he can end two streaks with one Super Bowl title.

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Indianapolis Colts: Giant Killers Have Slain San Francisco, Denver and Seattle

Only six teams have ever beaten three teams in the regular season that won 12 or more games. Two of those teams, the 1990 Bills and the 1999 Titans, went on to play in the Super Bowl, while another, the 2003 Patriots, won the Super Bowl. The 2011 Ravens team that lost in the final seconds of the A.F.C. championship game, to New England, is also on the list. The 2002 Saints are the only outlier on the list: New Orleans swept the eventual Super Bowl champion Buccaneers but missed the playoffs.

Indianapolis, of course, is the sixth such team. Few teams run hot and cold like Indianapolis: countering those mammoth victories were embarrassing blowout losses to St. Louis, Arizona and Cincinnati. The Colts would be wise to put the game in Andrew Luck’s hands and waste fewer carries on Trent Richardson, but Indianapolis will not lack confidence entering the playoffs.

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San Francisco 49ers: Best Team Through Three Quarters

The 49ers followed an N.F.C. championship in 2012 with 1-2 and 6-4 starts this season. As a result, San Francisco is one of the more underappreciated 12-4 teams in recent memory. The 49ers have averaged 18.1 points through the first three quarters of every game, while allowing just 9.6; that 8.5-point differential is the best in the N.F.L. San Francisco has a habit of dominating teams early and letting up on them late: the 49ers have been outscored in the fourth quarters of games this season, 119-117. But will the team be more ruthless in the postseason?

Last year, Jim Harbaugh waited until the playoffs to unleash the full potential of the Pistol offense under Colin Kaepernick. Against the Packers, Kaepernick set an N.F.L. record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a game. San Francisco has operated conservatively this year, and easing up in the fourth quarter of games has hidden how dominant the 49ers can be. Does Harbaugh have another trick up his sleeve for January?

You can view the full article, and the statistics for the other nine teams, here.

Thanks to the NFL’s decision to pit division rivals against each other in week 17, we have a full slate of entertaining games today.

Just three games — Detroit at Minnesota, Washington at New York, and Houston at Tennessee — don’t carry playoff implications. And even those three games have something to watch — a Texans loss gives Houston the number one pick, London Fletcher in his final NFL game, and a chance to see if either Jim Schwartz or Leslie Frazier is fired in the parking lot after the game. But now, some random thoughts on the other 13 games.

Carolina (-5.5) at Atlanta: The Panthers secure a bye with a win, and could even get the 1 seed if it comes with a Seahawks loss and a 49ers win. Falcons fans may want Jadeveon Clowney, but Atlanta will need help moving into the top five even with a loss. The Falcons are 3-4 at home, the Panthers 4-3 on the road, so this game should be closer than you think. It’s also the last chance we’ll get to watch Tony Gonzalez. A Carolina loss and a Saints win puts the Panthers on the road next week.

Baltimore at Cincinnati (-6.5)

New York Jets at Miami (-5.5)

Cleveland at Pittsburgh (-7.0)

The 6 seed in the AFC will be affected by these three games.  A win by either Baltimore, Miami, or San Diego knocks out the Steelers, so putting Pittsburgh on at 1:00 makes sense. But unless both the Ravens and Dolphins lose, the Chargers game in the afternoon will be meaningless. Baltimore is a heavy underdog in Cincinnati, as the Bengals are still playing for a bye and/or the right to avoid Kansas City in the first round of the playoffs.

We would get a Baltimore/Cincinnati rematch in Cincinnati next week if (a) Baltimore wins, Miami OR San Diego loses, and the Colts lose, or (b) Cincinnati, New England, the Jets, the Steelers, and the Chiefs all win. So a rematch isn’t too likely, but is possible. Unless the Patriots lose, this game isn’t too important for Cincinnati, but the team would enjoy knocking the Ravens out of the postseason.
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Week 16 saw some very large Game Scripts in some very important games. The Eagles-Bears showdown turned into a laugher, as Philadelphia posted the 3rd best Game Script of the season. The New England/Baltimore rivalry is famous for producing close games, but the Patriots embarrassed the Ravens on their home field. New England scored a couple of late defensive touchdowns to boost the final margin of victory, but the team still held an average lead of 15.2 points. Against Minnesota, Andy Dalton channeled his inner Ken Anderson — which seems to happy every few weeks — and helped the Bengals annihilate the Vikings.

The table below shows the week 16 Game Scripts data. As always, you can view the results from every game this year at this page.

Five teams posted a negative Game Script and called a more run-heavy game plan than their opponent. One of the most surprising instances came in Detroit, where the Lions held an average lead of 1.2 points. Detroit is famous for their pass-happy ways, but while Matthew Stafford threw 42 passes, the Lions passed on only 55% of their plays. The Giants are wont to keep Eli Manning under wraps (for good reason), but actually passed on 68.3% of their plays. There was a reason for New York’s pass-happy approach: with David Wilson and Brandon Jacobs out for the year, once Andre Brown suffered a concussion, even Tom Coughlin was forced to put the game in Manning’s hands. After all, the alternative was handing off to Bear Pascoe.

Less surprising was seeing Peyton Manning and the Broncos pass on three out of every four plays despite holding an average lead of 6.8 points. The Texans won the all unimportant time of possession battle, but Manning threw for 400 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Also not surprising: the run-heavy Jets running on 48% of their plays against the pass-happy Browns. New York just barely lost the Game Script battle, and Cleveland predictably passed on two out of every three plays. The same can be said for run-heavy San Francisco (44.4%) against pass-happy Atlanta (71%), in a game that the Falcons actually led by, on average, 1.1 points.

In Jacksonville, the game was pretty even — Tennessee won the game but posted a Game Script of -1.2. But the Titans running game was rolling — both Chris Johnson and Shonn Greene rushed for 90 yards, leaving Ryan Fitzpatrick to play the role of caretaker. For the Jaguars, the pass-heavy game plan consisted of a lot of short, safe throws. That’s been the norm for Chad Henne, who ranks last on the season in both air yards per pass attempt (6.55) and average air yards on completions (4.76) according to NFLGSIS.

One team not on the list is Dallas, who held an average lead of 1.0 points against Washington…. and actually ran more frequently than one of the most run-heavy teams in the NFL! This was a severe case of overreaction to the pass-happy ways of last week. Dallas has played six games this year where the Game Script was between -1.5 and 1.5 points. In four of those games, Dallas passed on 70% of their plays, including an 86% rate against Minnesota. Having a close to 50/50 split is way out of the norm for Dallas in close games: in addition to the game last week, the only other time where the Cowboys were below 70% came in another run-heavy game plan against Detroit in week 8.

One thing that will be fascinating to watch is how pass-heavy the game plan is with Kyle Orton instead of Tony Romo this week. The Cowboys very pass-heavy on the season, of course, but Dallas also has a tendency for run-heavy games every once in a while (the Lions games, and the Raiders/Bears games right before the Packers meltdown). Without Romo, which way will they go?

Game Scripts Standings

We can also calculate Game Scripts standings for the season. As it turns out, the 49ers have held an average lead of 5.6 points, placing them number one in the Game Script standings. I was pretty shocked to discover that, but San Francisco has outscored opponents by 91 points in the first half of games this year, second to only Kansas City (93). The 49ers also lead the league in scoring margin through three quarters. One reason for that is San Francisco has allowed a league-low 36 points in the third quarter this year, and also leads the NFL in points allowed through three quarters.

The Broncos, on the other hand, have been a bit of a second half team in 2013. It’s not like Denver is bad in the first half, but the Broncos have already set the record (previously held by last year’s team) for points scored in the second halves of games with 315!

After calculating the Game Script scores for each team, I then adjusted the numbers for strength of schedule. The 49ers still come out as number one; here’s how to read the table below. San Francisco has held an average lead of 5.6 points, has faced a schedule that is 0.5 points tougher than average, giving the 49ers a schedule-neutral Game Script of 6.1.

One name that’s surprising at the bottom of that list is Chicago. After all, the Bears have a winning record and can win the NFC North with a win this weekend. But Jay Cutler has led 3 fourth quarter comebacks, and Josh McCown led one more, and those games account for half of the team’s wins. The Eagles game was obviously a disaster, bringing down the team’s rating, but Chicago also posted a -11.2 against St. Louis, a -10 against the Lions, and a -9.2 in a home loss to the Saints. And the Bears have posted a Game Script of +3.0 or better just three times all season.

Through 15 weeks, Brian Burke ranks the Broncos, 49ers, Panthers, and Seahawks as the top four teams in the NFL. According to his numbers, Carolina has the #7 offense and the #7 defense.

Football Outsiders is a little less bullish on Carolina, ranking them 13th. On the other hand, the Panthers have won three of their last four games, and Carolina ranks 11th in weighted DVOA, 10th in offense, and 11th in defense (a 31st-place ranking in special teams is not helping matters).

Still, some question whether the Panthers are really a top team, or even an average team. After all, it was only two weeks ago that I wrote that the “2013 Panthers were largest sleeping giant (whatever that means) of the last 20 years.”

Date of the first three paragraphs of this post: December 22, 2012.

Now let’s talk about the 2013 Carolina Panthers. Advanced NFL Stats has them as the 8th best team in the NFL, courtesy of the 13th best offense and 10th best defense. Football Outsiders has Carolina as the 3rd best team in the league, thanks to the #8 offense, the #3 defense, and the 14th best special teams.

But in 2012, Carolina started 2-8, and was just 5-9 after 15 games. This year, the Panthers are 10-4. So why the heck do these teams look so similar? Let’s investigate. [continue reading…]

Something just didn’t feel right. Here is what I wrote in last week’s column:

Through 12 weeks, the Cowboys had the strongest pass identity in the NFL. Then, against the Raiders in week 13, the Cowboys were pretty run-heavy. And against the Bears in week 14, Dallas produced its best game of the season on the ground. But Tony Romo attempted just 20 passes, and the Cowboys had their second lowest pass ratio of the season (behind a blowout win over the Rams). The weather played a factor against the Bears, and the running game was working, but in general, Dallas is at its best when Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, and Jason Witten are getting lots of touches. Against the Bears, a run-heavy game plan makes some sense; my guess is we’ll see a more pass-happy performance out of the Cowboys against Green Bay this weekend.

Well, at least I nailed one prediction this year. The Cowboys implosion against the Packers provided Nitroglycerin to the fire burning with second-guessers and Romo critics. First, some context: the Packers won with a Game Script of -9.7, the second lowest average by any winning team in 2013. And the Cowboys ran just 18 times, despite DeMarco Murray rushing for 134 yards on those 18 carries.

By my count, the most pass-happy games of the season have been:

• Atlanta calling 45 pass plays and just 16 runs in a win over the Rams where the Falcons held an average lead of 13.4 points.
• The Packers, when Aaron Rodgers was healthy but Eddie Lacy was not, calling 46 passes and 24 runs (including three kneel downs!) despite posting a Game Script of 17.9 against Washington.
• Dallas passing on 85.7% of all plays (54-9 ratio) despite holding an average lead of 1.4 points against the Vikings in week 9.
• Dallas, by recording a Game Script of 9.7 against Green Bay while passing 51 times and rushing just eighteen.

So when Tony Romo threw two late interceptions, the narrative had already been written: in addition to Romo being a choker, the burning question was why didn’t Dallas call more running plays? The Cowboys led 26-3 at halftime, yet called just seven runs in the second half? How is this even possible?

But as Bill Barnwell points out, this isn’t as much of a black and white issue as you might think. Dallas had five second half drives:

• Drive #1: Leading 26-10 (the Packers scored on the opening drive of the half), the Cowboys call five runs and five pass plays on a 10-play, 48-yard drive for a field goal. Dallas faced 1st-and-10 five times on this drive, and ran on four of those plays. A holding penalty on a negated running play ruined the drive, forcing Dallas to settle for a field goal.
• Drive #2: Leading 29-17, the Cowboys go three-and-out. Leading by 12 in the third quarter is hardly clock-killin’ time. A first down incompletion to Murray led to two more pass plays, but only with the benefit of hindsight can you really rip into Garrett for not calling yet another run here on 1st-and-10 (or for not running on 2nd-and-10, or 3rd-and-10). Had Dallas won the game, nobody would remember this series.
• Drive #3: Leading 29-24 with 12 minutes left in the first quarter, the Cowboys ran Murray on 1st-and-10, the 5th out of 7 opportunities to do so in the second half. After that, the Cowboys did in fact become very pass-happy, as Romo threw on eight of the next nine plays. The only problem with criticizing that approach is that it led to an 80-yard touchdown drive.
• Drive #4: Leading 36-31, the Cowboys took possession at their own 20-yard line with 4:17 remaining. The Packers had all their timeouts. At this point, a three-and-out gives Green Bay the ball back with 3:53 remaining. Even if the Cowboys get one first down, and get that on third down on the initial set of downs, the Packers will get the ball back with 1:54 remaining.That’s too much time for an offense that had scored four touchdowns on each of its four second half possessions. So on 1st down, the Cowboys called a pass play which was incomplete. On 2nd down, Romo was sacked. But on 3rd down, Romo hit Dez Bryant for the first down.
  
  You probably didn’t hear too much about that series, since it ended well. On the next 1st down, Dallas ran Murray for four yards. Two more runs wouldn’t have done much unless they gained six yards — the Packers could get the ball back with 1:54 and one timeout. Getting a first down is the priority in this situation, not running the clock.

  Of course, as we all know, Romo threw a pass on a run/pass option, and Sam Shields recorded the interception.

• Drive #5: Trailing 37-36, the Cowboys called two pass plays, and Romo’s pass for Cole Beasley was picked off when the receiver ran the wrong route.

It’s easy, and maybe a little bit fun, to rip Garrett and Romo and Jerry Jones. But I don’t think the pass-happy play-calling was the problem. Allowing 34 second-half points was the problem, and more runs up the middle wouldn’t have solved that problem, either. Unfortunately for the Cowboys, the problems on defense don’t seem to be getting any better.

Below are the Game Scripts data from each game in week 15; you can view the Game Scripts data from each game this season at the always up-to-date Game Scripts page here.
[continue reading…]

Dallas has been out-gained by 1,280 yards this season, the worst margin in the NFL. But with a 7-6 record, the Cowboys are hardly considered a bad team. So how can we reconcile these two facts?

In general, gaining yards and preventing opponents from gaining yards are correlated with success. The other teams in the bottom five in yards margin (the Jaguars, Vikings, Bucs, and Rams) are a combined 16-35-1, while the top three teams in yards margin are 32-8 (the Broncos, Saints, and Seahawks). On the other hand, as a statistic, “yards” is a flawed measure of team success. So let’s begin our investigation with a threshold question:

1) Are the Cowboys a bad team with a good record, or a good team with a bad yardage differential?
[continue reading…]

Last week, six teams won with a negative Game Script. During an unforgettable slate of 1PM games in week 14, four teams during that time slot won with a negative Game Script — and that doesn’t include the insane Ravens/Vikings game.  One of the teams to win with a negative Game Script was Miami, so had the Ben Roethlisberger/Antonio Brown miracle lateral play worked, it would have increased the craziness quotient but left us with just three negative Game Script victors.

The big comeback, of course, was in New England. The Patriots were shut out for the first 43 minutes, scored 14 points in the next 15 minutes, and then 13 points in the final two minutes. New England now has two of the biggest comebacks of the year, and joins Seattle as the only teams to win two games with Game Scripts of -6.0 points.

Big news out of Washington yesterday: Robert Griffin III has been benched for Kirk Cousins, in what is being described as collateral damage in the Dan Snyder/Mike Shanahan power struggle. The most interesting part of that sentence is Snyder’s hyperlinked name means yes, in fact, PFR now does have pages for executives. The quarterback change obscures the fact that the team has the worst special teams through thirteen weeks since at least 1989, and a pretty bad defense, too. More relevant for today’s post is that the beat down provided by Kansas City produced a Game Script of 23.8 points, the largest average lead in any game this year.

Below are the Game Scripts data from each game in week 14; you can view the Game Scripts from each game this season at the always up-to-date Game Scripts page here. [continue reading…]

With nine games kicking off at 1:00, you had a feeling that it might be difficult to keep up. That would be true on a normal Sunday, but week 14 provided some of the craziest games in recent memory. So let’s bring everyone up to speed on what they might have missed:

Miami 34, Pittsburgh 28

• The Steelers nearly pulled off the greatest multi-lateral play in NFL history. The play-by-play description: Ben Roethlisberger passed to Emmanuel Sanders to the right for 22 yard gain. lateral to Jerricho Cotchery. lateral to Le’Veon Bell. lateral to Marcus Gilbert. lateral to Ben Roethlisberger. lateral to Antonio Brown for 55 yards. Brown ran into the end zone, but the edge of his foot just barely touched the sidelines at the 13-yard line.
• The game featured four lead changes in the second half, which would be impressive on a normal day but just blended into the background on this Sunday.  The Steelers shut down Mike Wallace in his return to Pittsburgh, but Charles Clay caught all seven of his targets for 97 yards and two touchdowns.
• Troy Polamalu returned a Ryan Tannehill pass for a touchdown, missed an easy interception earlier in the game, and was part of a nearly spectacular missed field goal return to end the first half.
• At 5-8 and with the Bengals on deck, the Steelers playoff hopes are on life support. If Pittsburgh can win out, though, they still have a chance since the Steelers win tiebreakers against the Jets, Ravens, and Chargers.
• At 7-6, the Dolphins are in great position to take the AFC’s 6 seed. But Miami tends to struggle inside the division (8-13 since 2010), and the final three games are against the AFC East. The Jets would own the tiebreaker if they defeat Miami in week 17.

[continue reading…]

Let’s just assume that Auburn defeats Missouri this afternoon and Ohio State defeats Michigan State tonight. Which team would have pulled off the more impressive feat: Ohio State, going undefeated against a relatively easy schedule, or Auburn going 12-1 against a harder schedule? That’s a tricky question to answer, but here is one way to think about it.

To make the math easier for everyone — and the answer won’t be practically different otherwise — let’s eliminate the eight easiest games on each team’s schedule. For Ohio State, that means elminating wins over Florida A&M, Purdue, San Diego State, California, Buffalo, Illinois, Penn State, and Indiana. For Auburn, we remove wins over Western Carolina, Arkansas State, Florida Atlantic, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Washington State, Tennessee, and Mississippi. A team arguing that it should be the #2 team in the country is going to win those games over 95% of the time. Granted, this slightly disadvantages the Tigers as they had a slightly harder bottom eight, but you can include those games if you want to do more heavy lifting. For now, let’s just focus on each team’s toughest five games.

Ohio State will have gone undefeated against Wisconsin, Michigan State, Michigan, Iowa, and Northwestern. Is that more or less impressive than going 4-1 against Alabama, Missouri, LSU, Texas A&M, and Georgia? One way to can answer this question is by looking at a team’s win probability in each game.

Let’s assume that Ohio State has an SRS rating of 62.1. Why that number? You’ll see why in a minute. When the Buckeyes hosted the Badgers (SRS of 53.8), how likely was Ohio State to win? If we give three points for home field, that would make the Buckeyes 11.3-point favorites. And we can use the following formula to determine how likely an 11.3-point favorite is to win a given game:

(1-NORMDIST(0.5,-(home_fav),13.86,TRUE)) + 0.5*(NORMDIST(0.5,-(home_fav),13.86,TRUE) – NORMDIST(-0.5,-(home_fav),13.86,TRUE))

Based on this formula, an 11.3-point favorite would win 79.2% of the time. Against Michigan State (48.8), Ohio State would be a 13.3 point favorite if the Buckeyes had an SRS rating of 62.1, which translates into an 83.1% win probability. For Michigan, Iowa, and Northwestern, the spreads and win probabilities would be 15.4/86.7%, 20.3/92.8%, and 22.6/94.8%, respectively.

Now, what are the odds that Ohio State would win all five of those games? That is simply the product of 79.2%, 83.1%, 86.7%, 92.8%, and 94.8% — which is 50%. That’s not a coincidence, of course: the reason I picked 62.1 is because that’s what rating Ohio State would need to have in order to have a 50% chance of going undefeated against those five teams. In reality, the Buckeyes have a rating of 56.1, which indicates that — like just about every undefeated team — they were a little bit lucky to go undefeated (assuming, of course, that they beat Michigan State).

Now, let’s use that same 62.1 rating number to go through Auburn’s schedule. At home against Alabama (rating of 56.4), a team with an SRS rating of 62.1 would be a 5.7-point favorite, and have a 65.9% chance of winning. In Atlanta against Missouri (55.7), the team would be a 6.4-point favorite, and have a 67.8% chance of success. The team would be 8 point favorites in Baton Rouge — the game Auburn lost — against LSU (51.1), and have a 71.8% chance of winning. The games at Texas A&M (48.9) and at home against Georgia (48.5) would have 76.9% and 88.4% chances of victory.

Now, the odds of winning all five of those games is just 21.8%, which is a very long-winded, mathematical way of saying what we all know: Auburn faced a harder schedule. But what are the odds of going 5-0 or 4-1 against that schedule? Well, the odds of going 4-1 is just a bit more complicated.

• The probability of beating Missouri, LSU, A&M, and Georgia, but losing to Alabama, is 11.3%;
• The probability of beating Alabama, LSU, A&M, and Georgia, but losing to Missouri, is 10.4%;
• The probability of beating Alabama, Missouri, A&M, and Georgia, but losing to LSU, is 8.6%;
• The probability of beating Alabama, Missouri, LSU, and Georgia, but losing to A&M, is 6.6%; and
• The probability of beating Alabama, Missouri, LSU, and A&M, but losing to Georgia, is 2.9%.

Therefore, the likelihood of going 4-1 is 39.6%; that means the likelihood of a team with an SRS rating of 62.1 going 4-1 or 5-0 against those five teams is 61.4%. While there are many assumptions implicit in this post, the conclusion is that it is harder to do what Ohio State will do if it wins tonight than what Auburn will do.  Adding in the bottom 8 opponents for each team won’t change the numbers much (you can run the numbers using the above formula).

What would change the numbers is changing the ratings of some of the team’s opponents.  If, for example, Alabama had a rating of 69 instead of 56.4, then a team of a a quality equal to 62.1 would win that game only 38.9% of the time, and the odds of going 4-1 or 5-0 against that schedule would be 50/50. But that’s a pretty significant increase to Alabama’s grade, of course.

For a team to have a 50% chance of winning at least four out of five games against Alabama, Missouri, LSU, A&M, and Georgia, they would need a rating of 59.8. But a team with a rating of 59.8 would only have a 40.5% chance of not dropping a game to Wisconsin, Michigan State, Michigan, Iowa, or Northwestern.

Of course, I’ve followed college football long enough to not wait until Sunday to make this post. That’s because there is only a 30% chance of both Ohio State and Auburn winning today. We could perform the same analysis for Missouri, but the results would only look worse for the SEC crowd, as those Tigers have had an easier schedule than Auburn.  Assuming a rating of 62.1, a team would have a 36.8% chance of beating Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina, A&M, and Ole Miss, and a 78.0% chance of winning at least four of those games. In fact, a team would only need a rating of 56.0 to have even odds of going 5-0 against those teams.

The more interesting case, however, is Florida State. Assuming a rating of 62.1, the Seminoles would have a 69.8% chance of winning in Clemson, and then over a 90% chance of winning every other game (Duke will be the second toughest game of the year for FSU). That means a 62.1 SRS team would have a 53.0% chance of going 5-0 against Clemson, Duke, Florida, Pittsburgh, and Boston College; a team that had only a 50% chance would need a rating of 61.4, slightly lower than what Ohio State has produced.

That doesn’t mean Ohio State is more deserving of a spot than Florida State in the BCS National Championship Game, as FSU’s dominance is an element that can’t be overlooked. But I wouldn’t argue with you if you said that it was easier for FSU to go undefeated than it is for Ohio State.

For the second straight week, an NFC West team produced a monster game script. This week, it was Seattle dominating New Orleans and taking control of the NFC. The Seahawks can clinch homefield advantage throughout the playoffs by simply winning the team’s final two home games, and Seattle appears to be (again) getting hot just in time for the postseason. Among passers with at least nine starts, Russell Wilson has the second best ANY/A average behind Peyton Manning, and the team should have a healthy Percy Harvin for the playoffs. In other words, it’s going to take an incredible effort for a team to knock off the Seahawks, who also rank #1 in DVOA.

Six teams in week 13 won with negative Game Scripts, with Matt Ryan leading the biggest comeback of the week. In surprising twists, the Patriots and Cowboys trailed early before toppling the Texans and Raiders, while the Vikings came from behind late to defeat the Bears. The Jaguars won in the final minute in one of the more exciting games of the week, while the Giants won (in somewhat controversial fashion) after falling behind 14-0 early in Washington. Below are the Game Scripts data from each game in week 13: [continue reading…]

Nobody knows what power rankings are supposed to mean. And frankly, nobody cares. They just want to see lists. Are power rankings supposed to simply reflect records, in which case, what is the point of doing them? For example, I have cracked the code to ESPN’s power rankings:

• Step 1 – Rank teams in descending order of wins.
• Step 2 – Move San Francisco ahead of Kansas City (Chiefs are trending down!), San Diego ahead of Miami (even though Miami has won two straight, we had them really low two weeks ago, so we can’t move them that high), and move Tampa Bay ahead of Cleveland (Bucs are trending up, Browns are trending down!).
• Step 3 – For team with same number of wins, rank randomly, or based on the the best way to generate discussion.

I don’t see the point in doing power rankings that read just like the NFL standings page. Are power rankings supposed to reflect which teams we think are the best going forward? Perhaps you would like Advanced NFL Stats’ ratings, but that leads to situations where a team like the Ravens is ranked 25th despite being in line for a playoff perth. Which, of course, is either totally acceptable or makes no sense at all, with no middle ground.

Are power rankings supposed to reflect which teams have the best odds of winning the Super Bowl? You might as well use Football Outsiders’ playoff report and call it a day.

Instead, I’m going to make power rankings based on this method of measuring how each team played in each game relative to the performance by the team’s opponents in the rest of its games. The lower the rating, the better. You can view the historical ratings using this formula here.

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New Orlean’s Drew Brees is officially listed as six feet tall. Seattle’s Russell Wilson is officially listed as 5’11. That means the average height of the starting quarterbacks in tonight’s game is 71.5 inches, tied for the shortest average in any game since 1964. In fact, it’s been twelve years since a game has featured two quarterbacks of such short stature, when in week two of the 2001 season, Doug Flutie (5’10) and the Chargers beat Anthony Wright (6’1) and the Cowboys.

The other two games since 1990 where the average height of the starting quarterbacks was below six feet also involved Flutie facing a 73-inch quarterback: a 24-21 win in 1999 against Pittsburgh and Kordell Stewart and a 17-16 win year earlier against Mark Brunell and the Jags.

Twenty-five years ago, two other Flutie vs. 6’1 Quarterback games make the list: this game against Jim McMahon and this one against Dave Krieg.

You have to go back to 1978 to find a game before tonight where (1) the average height of the starting quarterbacks was under six feet and (2) Doug Flutie was not involved. Fran Tarkenton (6’0) and Pat Haden (5’11) met five times in the mid-to-late ’70s, and Billy Kilmer (6’0) also faced Haden in the final game of the 1977 season.

Kilmer and 5’11 Bob Berry met three times in the early ’70s, and Sonny Jurgensen (5’11) faced Gary Cuozzo (6’0) and Tarkenton twice each. The only other games of the post-merger era were Len Dawson (6’0) vs. Berry in 1972 and Bill Nelsen and Edd Hargett in 1971. [continue reading…]

You probably didn’t know it, but Cam Newton is having a down year, at least statistically.

Carolina’s defense has been outstanding, of course, so an 8-3 record and a seven-game winning streak have overshadowed any flaws in Newton’s game. The Panthers have held an average lead of 5.05 points per second this year, the third best rate in the league. As a result of that high Game Script, Newton is asked to do less on offense, but that doesn’t explain the declining efficiency numbers. Newton’s taking slightly more sacks and his rushing numbers are down across the board, but the biggest decline comes with respect to yards per completion.
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What are the biggest problems facing the Jets? What should GM John Idzik do in the offseason? Should Rex Ryan be fired? Jets fan and friend of the program Jason McIntyre reached out to me, Jason of NYJetsCap.com and OvertheCap.com, and Brian Bassett of The Jets Blog for our thoughts.

One of the questions was whether Geno Smith was the quarterback of the future for the Jets. Here was my answer:

No question is harder than determining when to give up on a quarterback. There’s no right answer: give up too soon, and you miss out on Drew Brees; wait too long, and you have four years of Mark Sanchez. It’s not really “fair” to give up on a quarterback after one season, particularly one saddled with such a weak supporting cast. On the other hand, that’s exactly what the Jets did with Kellen Clemens. Drew Stanton was the 43rd pick in the draft and he’s started 4 games – is that “fair”?

My favorite part of Smith’s game is that (at least, when he’s not being neutered by the coaching staff) he’s a gunslinger at heart. Did you know that Smith’s average pass travels 9.7 yards in the air, the third highest number in the league? The average Smith completion travels 7.87 yards in the air and has 4.85 yards of YAC (which ranks only 24th); as a result, his 12.7 yards per completion ranks seventh in the league. I at least think there’s a chance that when his line is better and he has legitimate downfield weapons, he could be a very good quarterback. The issue, of course, is how long do you wait to find that out?

You can read the full article here.

Last year, I wrote about the best Thanksgiving Day Performances. Today, we get three games with serious playoff implications.

Green Bay (5-5-1) at Detroit (6-5)

Come to see what Ndamukong Suh does this Thanksgiving, stay for a pivotal NFC North matchup. Matt Flynn gets the start in a must-win game for the Packers. Even if Aaron Rodgers returns next week and the Packers run the table, the Packers may still be left out in the cold with a loss today to the Lions. Beating the Packers would get the Lions to 7 wins, and Detroit will be favored in home games against the Ravens and Giants and in Minnesota in week 17. The good news for Green Bay? The last time Flynn started a game for Green Bay, it was against the Lions, and it went very well.

The game is nearly as important for the Lions. With a loss, Detroit would no longer control its own destiny for the NFC North title. Assuming the Bears beat the Vikings this weekend, the Lions would essentially be one-half game back of both Green Bay and Chicago (the Bears would be 7-5 but Detroit has the tiebreaker).  It’s not that hard to make up a half game in four weeks, but the Bears and Packers play in week 17. That means the winner of that game must lose one other game and Detroit would need to run the table in order to win the NFC North. Of course, the Lions could also get in as a 9-7 NFC North champ; the most likely path there is the Packers losing to the Bears and Cowboys, while Chicago loses in Philadelphia and to either the Cowboys at home or the Browns on the road. A loss today would be deadly for Green Bay, while a Detroit loss would put the Lions as the third-most likely team to win the division.

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The game of the week 12 was obviously Brady/Manning XIV, and the Patriots comeback victory resulted in the second lowest Game Script by a winning team this year. Due to the big lead, Denver rushed 55% of the time, and Knowshon Moreno set NFL season-highs with 37 carries for 224 rushing yards. In regulation, the Broncos held an average lead of 10.5 points, although that still trails the Andrew Luck-fueled comeback by Indianapolis against Houston in week nine. The other big comeback in week 12 was by Cam Newton and the Panthers.  Carolina trailed 16-3 with one minute left in the second quarter in the 2nd quarter, but scored the final seventeen points of the game to steal the win from Miami.

The biggest blowout of the week was by the Cardinals, who clobbered the Colts, 40-11.  Arizona led 34-3 entering the fourth quarter, and this was the second time this season Indianapolis has held an average deficit of 18+ points. That, in my expert opinion, is not good. Things are even worse for the team that selected after the Colts in the 2012 draft: for the second week in a row, Washington posted a Game Script of less than -9.0. I don’t have any desire to talk about the RG3 drama, but I will point you in the direction of this interesting article written by my former co-blogger.

Below are the Game Scripts data from week 12. I’ve highlighted the Vikings/Packers row in blue, since I know of no other way to shame both teams (you can move your cursor over that row to see it more clearly, not that I know why you would want to). [continue reading…]

In week 11, the Bears led the Ravens by three with two minutes remaining. After the two-minute warning, Joe Flacco completed an 11-yard pass that brought Baltimore to the Bears’ 16-yard line. The Ravens next snap took place with 1:21 remaining, and Ray Rice picked up 11 yards to put the Ravens at the Chicago 5-yard line with 75 seconds left.

Baltimore then let the clock run, snapping the 1st-and-goal play with 36 seconds left (Ray Rice ran for three yards). After waiting a few seconds, the Ravens called timeout with 23 seconds remaining. On second down, the Ravens ran Rice again, but he lost a yard, and Baltimore used its final timeout with 11 seconds left. Flacco’s third down pass went incomplete, and Baltimore kicked a field goal to force overtime, giving Chicago the ball back with just three seconds.

This was the rare case where both teams managed to lower their odds of winning with poor clock management. Baltimore had two timeouts and 36 seconds to run three plays. The worst option would be to call timeout after the 1st down and 2nd down plays: the goal should be to keep a timeout for after the third down play. By saving that timeout, the team retains the option of running on 3rd down, and also has a safety net in the event of a sack. There’s no reason why a team needs to call one timeout after 1st-and-goal and another after 2nd-and-goal. For a man who sleeps at the office to get every edge he can, John Harbaugh lowered his team’s odds of winning by not knowing when to use his timeouts. This is not just an academic point, either: Flacco nearly lost the third down snap, which could have ended in an embarrassing loss for the Ravens. ^[1]Also, the predictable run-run-pass playcalling won’t win Harbaugh any awards, either. A second down pass to the end zone solves all of these problems, too.

But Harbaugh’s poor use of timeouts — while inexcusable — didn’t lower his team’s odds of winning significantly. That task was handled by Marc Trestman. After Rice ran down to the 5-yard line, Trestman should have called timeout with 75 seconds remaining — instead, he allowed Baltimore to run the clock all way to 36 seconds left (Baltimore snapped it with 3 seconds left on the play clock). On that play, Rice nearly ran for a touchdown, which shows how foolish this decision was by Trestman. The mere fact that Baltimore bled the clock for 39 seconds is prima facie evidence that the Bears erred by not calling timeout. Football is a zero-sum game, so if it was good for Baltimore to let the clock run down, it must have been bad for Chicago to allow the Ravens to do that. Think of it this way: would Ravens fans have been happy or sad to see Trestman call timeout in that situation?

The interesting part of this situation is we actually got to find out what Trestman was thinking. Adam Hoge transcribed the head coach’s Monday press conference, where he said:
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Last week brought us the most lopsided game of the year. The games were more competitive this week, with the largest Game Script belonging to Tampa Bay (yes, Tampa Bay) at 14.0. The Philadelphia-Washington game provides a good example of the information conveyed — and not conveyed — by Game Scripts. Philadelphia won by 8 points, but that would be misleading if you thought it was a close game throughout: the Eagles held an average lead of 12.8 points. On the other hand, Game Scripts don’t necessarily tell you how lopsided the game was: Washington had the ball with a chance to tie, at the Eagles’ 27-yard line, with 54 seconds remaining. The Eagles came away with a very low Moral Margin of Victory (5.8) but a high Game Script, with neither bit of information being right or wrong. On one hand, Philadelphia’s Win Probability was over 85% for the final 2.5 quarters, but it was also a game where Washington was not really out of it until the final seconds. I prefer a toolbox with lots of different tools over trying to find one do-it-all device.

Here are the week 11 Game Scripts data:

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In May, I discussed how and why the fullback was being slowly phased out of the game. Some of the main reasons are:

• The increase in the size of defensive linemen has made running up the middle less attractive.
• The blocking fullback has been replaced by the slot receiver: A great blocking fullback will take a linebacker out of the play, but an average slot receiver will take a linebacker off the field.
• Tight ends are now among the most athletic players in the game, and the fullback is essentially a shorter, slower, tight end. Teams aren’t looking to leave a multi-dimensional tight end or a slot receiver off the field for a six-foot lead blocker.
• The pass-catching fullback is the option of last resort for an offense, not an element of design. No offensive coordinator is spending his time thinking about how he can get the ball into the hands of his fullback more often.
• Fullbacks are being diverted into other career paths: a fast high school fullback becomes a running back, a tall fullback becomes a tight end, and a strong fullback puts on weight to become a linebacker.

But enough about theory: let’s analyze how teams are using fullbacks in today’s NFL, courtesy of Pro Football Focus. Let’s break the teams down into tiers:

Fullbacks need not apply: Arizona, Philadelphia, Denver, Dallas, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Miami

The Cardinals and Eagles have not had a fullback on the field this season. Philadelphia runs a lot of three-wide receivers sets with DeSean Jackson, Riley Cooper, and Jason Avant, and LeSean McCoy and/or Bryce Brown are always on the field. Add tight ends Brent Celek and Zach Ertz see significant playing time, too. You could classify James Casey as a fullback (PFF labels him a tight end), but he has just 60 snaps this year. For Arizona, tight ends Jim Dray, Rob Housler, Kory Sperry, Jake Ballard, and even D.C. Jefferson get on the field in lieu of any fullbacks. Head coach Bruce Arians does not see much of a need for a fullback, as Robert Hughes had just 28 snaps in Indianapolis last year.

Dallas, Denver, and Detroit all use 3-WR/1-TE as their base personnel, and little changes even when those teams are leading. Dallas will put TEs James Hanna and Gavin Escobar on the field with Jason Witten in run-heavy sets, and backup linebacker Kyle Bosworth is responsible for all 9 snaps taking by a Cowboys fullback this year. Wes Welker and Julius Thomas are textbook examples of why the fullback is becoming extinct. Welker’s prowess as a slot receiver far exceeds the value any fullback could add, while Thomas is the type of athletic superfreak teams are finding to play at tight end. Virgil Green, Joel Dreessen, and Jacob Tamme see time when the Broncos want to run, and defensive tackle Mitch Unrein (8 snaps) is the only fullback Denver has used. For the Lions, Joseph Fauria (and, prior to his release, Tony Scheffler) is used when the Lions want more blockers on the field, and the team will occasionally put Reggie Bush and Joique Bell on the field together, too, leaving just two snaps this season for fullback Montell Owens.

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The Jets lost by 40 points to the Bengals in Cincinnati; adjust for home field, and that is still a 37-point adjusted margin of victory, the best single game for the Bengals this year.

New York lost by 23 in Buffalo this weekend; that 20-point adjusted MOV was the best single game for the Bills this year.

Back in week four, the Jets lost by 25 in Tennessee, and as you can probably guess, that is the best single game for the Titans this year.

And in week six, at home against the Steelers, New York lost by 13, and that 16-point adjusted MOV was the top performance for Pittsburgh this year.

That’s pretty bad, of course. Four different teams had their best games of the season against the Jets. The only team that’s been worse is the Jaguars, who have seen five different opponents (San Francisco, San Diego, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Arizona) post their best games against Jacksonville. But the Jets were close to matching the Jaguars: Tampa Bay’s best game of the year came on Sunday against Atlanta, making the Bucs’ second best performance in 2013 the game against the Jets in week 1. ^[1]How can the 2-8 Bucs have had only one game better than their loss to the Jets? Because Tampa Bay lost in New York by 1, which is an adjusted MOV of +2, while their home win against Miami of 3 points … Continue reading
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The expectation entering this year was that the NFC was the deeper and stronger conference than the AFC. That was certainly my expectation as well. Last year in the AFC, every team that had a winning record made the postseason. The NFC went 39-25 against the AFC teams, and the middle class of the AFC had plenty of questions.

That was the introductory paragraph to this article by Jason Lisk after week three of the season. Lisk was not alone in favoring the NFC — most observers felt the same way, and I said as much in my thoughts from the gut on NFC and AFC teams back in April. But when Lisk wrote that article, the AFC had gone an incredible 11-3 against the NFC. Here is how they did it:

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Kansas City is 9-0. Denver is 8-1. As far as resumes go, it’s hard to beat this matchup. But is it the best ever?

You can’t just average Kansas City’s 100% winning percentage with Denver’s 88.8% rate, since a matchup of teams with 3-0 records (like New Orleans-Miami earlier this year) would produce a better average winning percentage. One simple method would be to use Neil’s method of deriving a team’s “true winning percentage”, which adds 5.5 wins and 5.5 losses to each team’s record. At 3-0, a team has a true winning percentage of only 0.607, so this method rewards teams that have had longer stretches of success. Do the math, and Kansas City has a 0.725 true winning percentage, while Denver is at 0.675. That gives this game an even 0.700 average true winning percentage. So where does that rank?

Pretty darn high. Last year, the highest average true winning percentage in a game was at 0.674, occurring when the 11-2 Texans faced the 10-3 Patriots in that letter jacket game. Denver-Kansas City will be just the fifteenth game since World War II where the two teams have an average true winning percentage of at least 0.700. ^[1]Five pre-WW II games show up: In 1926, the 11-0-2 Bears lost 7-6 to the 12-1-1 Frankford Yellow Jackets. In the last game of that season, a 14-1-1 Frankford tied a 10-2-1 Pottsville Maroons. Three … Continue reading Let’s look at the first 14, ranked in order of average true winning percentage:
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We have a new leader in the clubhouse for most lopsided game of the season. The St. Louis Rams pulled off one of the biggest blowouts by a heavy underdog in league history in week ten, defeating the Colts in Indianapolis, 38-8. In the process, the Rams also held an average lead of 23.2 points, the largest Game Script score of the season.

Indianapolis kept it close early, and the only first quarter score came via the St. Louis defense. On that play, Robert Quinn — who with 12 sacks through 10 games, is a legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate — stripsacked Andrew Luck, and Chris Long picked up the fumble and raced 45 yards for the touchdown. Incredibly, the Colts are lucky this game wasn’t even more one-sided. Late in the first quarter, Kellen Clemens and Zac Stacy botched the exchange on a handoff on the goal line with the Rams looking to go up 14-0, and Indianapolis recovered to end the scoring threat. That didn’t set back the Rams for long, however, as St. Louis scored 21 points in the third quarter to take a 28-0 lead into the locker room. Tavon Austin — who had a day for the ages — scored in the third quarter to give St. Louis a 35-0 lead early in the third quarter, effectively ending any hopes for another Luck comeback.

Three teams lost with positive Game Scripts in week 10, but unlike in week nine, there were no big comebacks, as all three games were back-and-forth affairs.  The Panthers won with the worst Game Script of the week, holding an average deficit of 2.6 points against the 49ers. San Francisco jumped out to a 9-0 early, but Carolina eventually won 10-9 on a late field goal. Since I wrote about how the 3-9 Panthers were about to turn things around, Carolina has gone 9-3. In an unrelated note, I recently injured my hand on my back.

The table below shows the Game Scripts data from week 10:
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Let’s pretend that each team in the NFC East is equal in strength. That’s probably not true, of course, but I wan to stipulate that Eli Manning = Robert Griffin III = Tony Romo = Nick Foles, and that goes for the other 52 players on each of their teams, too. If that’s the case, the schedules will play a big role in determining the eventual champion.

The Cowboys and Eagles are tied atop the division at 5-5, with Dallas having the easiest remaining schedule (opponents have a 0.435 winning percentage) and Philadelphia having the second easiest (0.472). Washington (0.508) and New York (0.533) are both 3-6, with even more challenging schedules the rest of the way than the two division leaders.  But I think it’s instructive to look at the schedules in a different way.

As you know, each team plays six games against the other three teams in the division. Of the remaining ten games, eight are the same — and this year, they come against the AFC West and NFC North. The final two games of the season are what I’ll call “Strength of Schedule” games, as they are determined by each team’s rank in the division in 2012. That means Washington, the #1 team in the division in 2012, is scheduled to play last year’s division winners from the NFC South and NFC West, the #2 team gets the runners up from those divisions, and so on. Let’s start there, because these “SOS” games already put one team behind the eight ball.

In the tables below, I’ll put a 1 in the cell if the team won the game, a 0 to represent a loss, and a 0.5 to indicate that the game has not yet been played.
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Week eight brough us the two biggest blowouts of the season; in week nine, we saw the third most dominant win of the year and the biggest comeback of the season.

The first game involved Chip Kelly’s blitzkrieg offense. Nick Foles threw for seven touchdowns against the Raiders in one of the most lopsided (and surprising) games of the season. The Eagles held a 28-13 lead at halftime and 49-13 at the end of the third quarter; over the course of the game, Philadelphia held an average lead of 21.3 points.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have yet another Andrew Luck comeback victory. The Texans led 14-0 after the first quarter and 21-3 at halftime; on average, Houston held an 11-point lead throughout the game, but a 15-0 edge in the fourth quarter gave Indianapolis the win. That’s the highest Game Script of any team to lose a game in 2012, replacing…. Houston’s victory over the Chargers on opening week, when the Texans had a Game Script of -7.7 points.

In addition to the Colts-Texans game, the crazy comeback in Seattle now gives each of the Seahawks and the Bucs two of the five biggest comebacks/giveaways of the year. In week four, Seattle won in overtime against Houston despite trailing by, on average, 7.7 points in regulation. That was probably an even more crazy game than the win against Tampa Bay, where Seattle came back from a 21-0 deficit but only outscored the Bucs by 10 points in the fourth quarter. As for Tampa Bay, this was the fourth game of the season where the team lost despite having a 95% win probability at some point in the game. This was also the second time the Bucs lost a game with a Game Script of over 6.0 points, joining the come-from-ahead loss to Arizona.

Without further ado, the table below shows the week 9 Game Scripts data:
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Let’s start with the SRS ratings through nine weeks, excluding the Green Bay/Chicago Monday Night Football game:

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