How many interceptions will a team throw in a game?  That’s dependent on a number of things, of course, but I want to focus on three things: how interception prone the team is, how interception prone the opposing defense is, and the Game Script.

Suppose you knew what the Game Script of a game would wind up being; given that you have a general sense of the offense’s and defense’s interception rates, what weight would you put on each variable to predict a team’s interception rate?

The same is true for other statistics.  For example, what about rushing yards?  How many yards would you project Team A to run for against Team B, if you knew the rushing stats for  Team A’s offense, Team B’s defense, and the Game Script?

Or passing yards.  Or completion percentage.  The interplay between offense and defense is always interesting — some research suggests about 60% of the result is due to the offense, with 40% based on the defense — but throwing in Game Scripts adds an interesting element.

Oh, and one final thought: how would you go about trying to answer these questions.  What studies would you run?  What would you like me to do?