Today at the New York Times, a look at the impressive rookie seasons from the top quarterbacks in the 2015 Draft.

In the 2015 N.F.L. Draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tennessee Titans owned the top two picks. The teams selected Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, making them just the sixth pair of quarterbacks to be selected one-two since 1970. Each player is having an excellent season by rookie quarterback standards, and both showed their long-term potential in exciting wins on Sunday.

Mariota has thrown for 19 touchdowns in 10 games and has a 95.1 passer rating this year; both marks are among the best in N.F.L. history for a rookie. Against the Jaguars, he threw for 268 yards and three touchdowns on just 29 passes, his fourth game with at least three touchdown passes. He also ran for an 81-yard touchdown, the third longest touchdown run by any quarterback in N.F.L. history. In addition, Mariota joined Randall Cunningham and Michael Vick as the only players since 1960 with three passing touchdowns and 100 rushing yards in the same game.

You can read the full article here.

Derrick Henry capped off a regular season with his second monster game in a row. After rushing 46 times for 291 yards against Auburn last week, Henry had 44 carries for 189 yards against Florida in the SEC Championship Game. Henry finished the year (at least, prior to the playoff) with 1,986 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns. [Update: Henry added 56 carries and 233 yards with five touchdowns in two playoff games (and one reception for -6 yards.]

Alabama running backs have been dominant since Nick Saban arrived. Take a look at the table below, showing all rushing stats for players with at least 600 rushing yards in a season since 2009.

                                                                    
                                   Rush             Rece            
Rk             Player Year  School  Att  Yds Avg TD  Rec Yds  Avg TD
1       Derrick  Henry 2015 Alabama  339 1986 5.9 23   10  97  9.7  0
2    Trent  Richardson 2011 Alabama  283 1679 5.9 21   29 338 11.7  3
3         Mark  Ingram 2009 Alabama  271 1658 6.1 17   32 334 10.4  3
4          Eddie  Lacy 2012 Alabama  204 1322 6.5 17   22 189  8.6  2
5         T.J.  Yeldon 2013 Alabama  207 1235 6.0 14   20 183  9.2  0
6         T.J.  Yeldon 2012 Alabama  175 1108 6.3 12   11 131 11.9  1
7       Derrick  Henry 2014 Alabama  172  990 5.8 11    5 133 26.6  2
8         T.J.  Yeldon 2014 Alabama  194  979 5.0 11   15 180 12.0  1
9         Mark  Ingram 2010 Alabama  158  875 5.5 13   21 282 13.4  1
10   Trent  Richardson 2009 Alabama  145  751 5.2  8   16 126  7.9  0
11   Trent  Richardson 2010 Alabama  112  700 6.3  6   23 266 11.6  4
12       Kenyan  Drake 2013 Alabama   92  694 7.5  8   12 135 11.3  1
13         Eddie  Lacy 2011 Alabama   95  674 7.1  7   11 131 11.9  0

Henry also stands out for being one of just seven running backs since 2009 with 1800+ rushing yards, 20+ rushing TDs, and less than 200 receiving yards.

                                             Rush             Rece
Rk               Player Year          School  Att  Yds Avg TD  Rec Yds  Avg TD
1         Derrick  Henry 2015         Alabama  339 1986 5.9 23   10  97  9.7  0
2       Donnel  Pumphrey 2014 San Diego State  276 1867 6.8 20   23 160  7.0  0
3         Melvin  Gordon 2014       Wisconsin  343 2587 7.5 29   19 153  8.1  3
4             Tre  Mason 2013          Auburn  317 1816 5.7 23   12 163 13.6  1
5           Montee  Ball 2012       Wisconsin  356 1830 5.1 22   10  72  7.2  0
6    Stefphon  Jefferson 2012          Nevada  375 1883 5.0 24   22 170  7.7  1
7          Toby  Gerhart 2009        Stanford  343 1871 5.5 28   11 157 14.3  0

Henry will be one of the more fascinating players to project as an NFL back. On one hand, he’s just the next line in the Alabama running back factory, which has yet to take the NFL by storm. On the other, he’s also been the most successful, and he’s one of the more uniquely one-dimensional in recent history. At 6’3, 245 pounds — if we could trust those measurements — he’d also be one of the most uniquely built running backs in NFL history.

What do you think of Henry?

In week 1, the Titans blew out the Bucs, in Tampa Bay, by the score of 42-14. Right now, the Bucs have an SRS rating of -5.9, but the Titans are even worse, at -7.7. Given the location of the game, we would “expect” Tampa Bay to have defeated Tennessee by about five points. So with the Titans winning by 28 points, that means Tennessee exceeded expectations by about 33 points. That’s the largest outlier of any game this year. Note that the Titans exceeded expectations by 36.5 points in week 1 of 2014, making it the second least-conforming game of last season.

Let’s start with the SRS ratings, presented below. These are through week 12, but also include the Packers/Lions game from Thursday night. [continue reading…]

Last night, Aaron Rodgers threw a walk-off, game-winning Hail Mary to Richard Rodgers to beat the Lions. According to Elias, it’s the longest game-winning Hail Mary in NFL history. And yet, perhaps most incredible part of the play was not how long it was, but high high it was:

And here’s how I picture Lions fans during the middle of that pass.

But while this may have been the longest Hail Mary pass in history, it certainly wasn’t the longest walk-off passing touchdown in history.

Also of note: this was the 9th touchdown pass, including playoffs, from Rodgers to Rodgers, which ties the same name passing touchdown NFL record.

In advance of tonight’s game, some thoughts on the Lions and Packers have been trending in very different directions.

At the end of October, the Packers were 6-0 and Super Bowl front-runners. Little has gone right for the team since: Green Bay has won only one of their last five games, with the passing game being the biggest reason for the team’s struggles. The Packers have been defined by Aaron Rodgers, but the efficiency of the passing attack has declined significantly since the start of the season. Rodgers’s adjusted net yards per attempt has been trending in the wrong direction.

When the Lions met the Packers in Week 10, they were 1-7 and had not won on the road against the Packers since 1991. The Packers were 10.5-point favorites, but Detroit was victorious that day, marking the largest upset of the season to date. The Lions followed that win up with two more.

You can read the full article here.

One of my favorite articles of the year is now live at the Washington Post.

Many games are decided in the final minutes. For proof, look no further than the Baltimore Ravens. While the team is just 4-7, Baltimore has played a truly remarkable set of games. Every Ravens game this year has been either tied in the final two minutes, or seen the trailing team possess the ball in a one-possession game. The Ravens won their last two games on the final play; another two Ravens games went to overtime. A fifth game, against Jacksonville, saw Baltimore lose on the final play of the game, and losses to Arizona and San Francisco were decided in the final 15 seconds.

It has been a remarkable roller coaster ride for Ravens fans. It also means the team’s record can be a bit deceiving.

Games decided in the final few minutes can be a bit of a crap shoot: the difference between winning and losing can down down to one play, and often, one play that’s the result of an unsustainable set of factors. Conversely, if a team can knock out its opponent early, that’s a pretty good indicator of team strength. So what’s the best way to measure how early (or late) in games the winning team puts the game away?

You can read the full article here.

As I wrote on Sunday, the college football playoff looks pretty clear, absent any big upsets on Saturday.

One spot will go to Oklahoma, the 11-1 champions of the Big 12.  The Sooners have been an early favorite of the SRS: OU ranked 2nd in the first edition, produced after five weeks, and regained that #2 spot three weeks later, despite the loss to Texas in the interim.  The Sooners finished the regular season as the #1 team in the SRS.

Alabama, at 11-1, is the 2nd-ranked team in the SRS.  The Crimson Tide represent the establishment in college football, and that title is well-earned.  Alabama is great every year, and this season is no different.   A win against Florida in the SEC Championship Game seems predestined: the SRS makes ‘Bama a 13-point favorite, while the Vegas line is up to 17.5 points (likely because Florida is playing worse now than it was in the beginning of the year, with an eligible Will Grier). [continue reading…]

Week 12 went down as the most pass-happy week of the season. Most weeks this year have fluctuated with a pass ratio in the neighborhood of 59%, but teams attempted passes on over 62% of all plays in week 12. As a result, a number of teams — New England, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Cleveland, New Orleans, Miami, the Giants, and Detroit — all graded as very pass-happy. On the flip side, just two teams (the Eagles and Vikings) were run-heavy.

Brock Osweiler, shockingly, helped the Broncos pull off one of the biggest comebacks of the year. Denver trailed New England 21-7 in the 4th quarter, and you simply don’t expect the Patriots to give up a lead of that size. But the Broncos, powered by both Osweiler and the running game, pulled off the win despite having a -7.1 Game Script, making it the third largest comeback (as measured by Game Script) of 2015.

The other thing that stood out this week: there were a lot of blowouts! Five teams won handily, with 18 point margins of victory and double-digit game scripts. In addition, Washington won with a 9.4 Game Script, although the Giants made a game of it at the end. Below are the week 12 Game Scripts data! [continue reading…]

This week at the New York Times: a look at the big days by some older players.

Indianapolis quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who turned 40 in September, is the oldest quarterback in the N.F.L. San Diego tight end Antonio Gates, 35, is the active leader in career touchdowns. Adrian Peterson, 30, ranks second among all active players in both career rushing yards (behind Frank Gore) and career touchdowns (behind Gates). On Sunday, all three players showed they still have something left in the tank.

You can read the full article here.

After twelve weeks, there were still about a dozen teams jockeying for the final four spots. And with Notre Dame’s loss in Palo Alto, we no longer have to ask that pesky Oklahoma/Notre Dame question.

This year seems likely to be the perfect one for a four-team playoff, as the gap between the 4th and 5th most deserving teams — assuming results go as planned next weekend — matches the natural divide from the on-field results.

• The SEC has one dominant team this year, Alabama. Assuming the Crimson Tide defeat Florida in the SEC Championship Game, Alabama will make the playoff. But the SEC did get a little lucky: if not for Arkansas gaining a first down on an absurd lateral, Ole Miss would have won the SEC West this year. What would the committee do with an 11-2 Mississippi team that beat Bama but lost 38-10 to Florida and by 13 points to Memphis, but won the SEC and beat the Gators in the rematch? Tough to say, but I think we’re all better off that we don’t have to ask that question this year. Assuming Alabama wins, the Tide will finish at 12-1 and very deserving of a playoff spot, while every other SEC team will have at least three losses.

• The Big 10 had four good teams this year, but it happened to have one of them in the Big 10 West, which may as well have been in Mountain West. With 14 teams and just 8 conference games (the same as the SEC), each team plays one game against the other six teams in its division, and only two games against the teams from the other division. This is how a team like Kentucky can finish with a weak schedule despite “playing in the SEC” — the Wildcats faced Auburn and Mississippi State from the West, the weak SEC East, and a soft nonconference schedule. Iowa had a similar setup, getting Maryland and Indiana from the Big 10 East, the underwhelming Big 10 West, and a pretty easy nonconference schedule (other than Pitt). The difference: Kentucky went 5-7, while Iowa rode this schedule to 12-0. Over in the Big 10 East, Michigan, Ohio State, and Michigan State were the class of the division. They went undefeated against the rest of the East, but Michigan State swept Michigan and Ohio State, albeit in skin-of-teeth fashion: the Spartans never led in either game until the clock hit triple zeroes. Regardless, we now have a great B10 Championship Game, and the winner of Iowa/Michigan State will obviously be a very deserving playoff team. Iowa would be 13-0, and Michigan State would be 12-1 with wins over Ohio State, Michigan, Iowa, and Oregon, with the one loss coming in controversial fashion on a bad call against Nebraska.

• The Big 12, like the Big 10, had four good teams this year. Unlike the Big 10, all four teams played each other in the conference’s round robin schedule. Oklahoma went 3-0 against Oklahoma State, Baylor, and TCU, which was enough to make up for the Sooners slip against Texas earlier in the year. The Cowboys, Bears, and Horned Frogs all finished 10-2 (assuming TCU beats Texas next weekend), making an 11-1 OU team the clear deserving choice. It doesn’t hurt that Oklahoma also had the most impressive nonconference win of the group, a 31-24 double overtime victory in Tennessee.

[continue reading…]

The Carolina Panthers defense is really, really good. Let’s begin with the pass defense. Carolina has faced 444 pass attempts, and allowed 2,462 yards, 13 TDs, and 18 INTs. Carolina has also sacked opponents 33 times for 199 yards. That translates to an impressive 4.0 ANY/A allowed average, the best in the league. But let’s try to get a more precise measure of the passing game. First, we can add passing first downs: Carolina has allowed 134 of those (including the 13 TDs), so let’s add 9 yards for each non-TD first down allowed. Then, we should remove the 4 spikes the defense has faced. ^[1]Thanks to the great Bryan Frye, of The GridFe, for the spikes and kneels data. Now, Carolina has allowed 6.34 Adjusted ANY/A. That may not mean much in the abstract, so here’s some context: Denver has allowed 6.31 Adjusted ANY/A, and the Cardinals are 3rd at 7.27 ANY/A. The Chiefs, Jets, and Rams are the only other teams that have allowed less than 8 Adjusted ANY/A. So the Carolina pass defense has been pretty fantastic.

What about the run defense? Carolina has faced 255 rush attempts, and allowed 976 yards, 7 TDs, and 49 first downs. The Panthers are also the only team in the league that has not faced a kneel, but for every other defense, we need to back out those data as well. Therefore, using 20 yards per touchdown and 9 per (non-TD) first down, Carolina has allowed 5.86 Adjusted YPC this season. That’s the second best mark in the league, behind only Baltimore.

In the graph below, I’ve plotted each team’s defense.  The X-Axis represents Adjusted ANY/A allowed, while the Y-Axis shows Adjusted YPC allowed.  Given that I like to see the best units in the upper right corner, I have plotted all values in reverse order. [continue reading…]

In week 11, there were four large blowouts from a Game Scripts perspective: Carolina over Washington, Seattle over San Francisco, Tampa Bay over Philadelphia, and Kansas City over San Diego. There were also two large comebacks: Baltimore won with a -4.6 Game Script: the Ravens trailed 13-3 entering the 4th quarter, and took the team’s only lead after the clock hit triple zeroes. The Colts trailed 14-0 and 21-7 against the Falcons, and ultimately won with a -5.9 Game Script.

Below are the Game Scripts data from week 11. There were no extreme results this week: every team passed on between 41% and 76% of all plays. So let’s take a different approach this week. After ten weeks, I calculated the pass identities of each of the 32 teams. Well, week 11 brought a fascinating matchup from a Game Script perspective in New England/Buffalo. Let’s take a look: [continue reading…]

On paper, a matchup between a 10-0 team and a 3-7 team might seem like a good reason to spend more time with your family. Think again. The 10-0 Carolina Panthers travel to Dallas to take on a 3-7 Cowboys team that is anything but typical.

For starters, the 3-7 Cowboys are actually favored by 1.5 points to beat the Panthers on Thanksgiving. This marks the first time since 1978 that a a team with 7 more wins than its opponent was an underdog, excluding end-of-season games where playoff bound teams have rested starters. The reason that Dallas is favored, of course, is because Tony Romo is now back. Romo led the N.F.L. in a variety of metrics last season, including completion percentage, touchdown rate, and passer rating, but the star quarterback’s value has never been so clear than it has over the last three months. The Cowboys went 0-7 with Romo injured and out of the lineup; meanwhile, Dallas has gone 7-0 in its last seven regular season games started Romo.

You can read the full article here.

The math has been clear for so long, and been presented by so many writers, that this topic is essentially beating a dead horse. Late in games, it has always made sense for a team, after scoring a touchdown to cut a lead from 14 to 8 points, should go for two. The trailing team gets two bites at the apple: if it converts, a touchdown now wins the game. If the team fails, they get a second chance to erase that mistake. Only if the odds of missing *both* attempts were higher than the odds of making the first attempt would this strategy fail to make sense.

Yet it never happens. In fact, Brian Billick with the 2001 Ravens was the last coach to go for 2 late in a game after scoring a touchdown to cut the lead to 8 points.

More astonishingly, just once since the 2-point conversion rule was introduced in 1994, has a team ever been trailing by 14 points, scored a touchdown, and then converted a 2-point attempt. Once! And it came by none other than Bill Belichick as coach of the 1994 Cleveland Browns.

Trailing 20-6 in the 4th quarter against the Denver Broncos, the Browns were in a tough spot. Starting quarterback Vinny Testaverde was out with a concussion, leaving Mark Rypien as the team’s hope for a comeback. After a Cleveland touchdown early in the fourth, Rypien hit Derrick Alexander to cut the lead to 20-14. [continue reading…]

If there’s one good rule of sportswriting, it’s that premature writing is sure to backfire. With Oklahoma (and Gameday) traveling to Stillwater, and Notre Dame on the road in Stanford, there’s a better than even chance that either Oklahoma or Notre Dame finishes with one loss. According to ESPN’s FPI, the Sooners have a 67% chance of beating ^[1]Of note: This ignores the fact that Sooners star quarterback Baker Mayfield left the game last week with a head injury, and is not certain to play this weekend. rival Oklahoma State, while Notre Dame is an underdog this weekend, expected to beat the Cardinal just 38% of the time.  By the power of multiplication, this implies only a 26% chance of both Notre Dame and Oklahoma finishing the regular season with an 11-1 record.

The SRS says that Oklahoma is the better team, but the only means the Sooners would be favored on a neutral field. But when it comes to making the playoff, we are more interested in rewarding performance than putting the best four teams in.  Two years ago, I wondered whether Ohio State going 13-0 in a watered-down Big 10 was more impressive than Auburn going 12-1 in the SEC.  Now, I ask:

Which is harder: Going 11-1 against Oklahoma’s schedule or 11-1 against Notre Dame’s schedule?

[continue reading…]

This week at the New York Times: the Kansas City Chiefs are making history, and invoking memories of a distant relative:

The 1970 Cincinnati Bengals have been widely credited with bringing the West Coast Offense to the N.F.L. The team’s head coach, Paul Brown, and offensive coordinator (and future San Francisco 49ers head coach) Bill Walsh were faced with a challenge, as quarterback Virgil Carter was a smart player with a weak arm. Under Walsh’s tutelage, the Bengals operated a short-passing game that was effective in those run-heavy days of the N.F.L. A year later, Carter led the N.F.L. in completion percentage.

But that 1970 Cincinnati team is famous for another reason: Of the 158 teams from 1970 to 2014 that started an N.F.L. season with a 1-5 record, it is the only one to make the playoffs. It actually began the season 1-6, before winning its final seven games to finish 8-6.

Now, 35 years later, the Kansas City Chiefs are poised to join them.

You can read the full article here.

The chaos continues in college football. In week 12, two more undefeated teams lost, with Ohio State losing at the last second to Michigan State, and Oklahoma State losing, 45-35, against Baylor. That leaves just two undefeated teams remaining in the Football Bowl Subdivision: Clemson and Iowa. The Tigers are now #3 in the SRS, mostly because both Oklahoma and Alabama have slightly higher margins of victory and strengths of schedule than Clemson.

Iowa is down at #15 in the SRS, mostly because of strength of schedule. the Hawkeyes played a terrible North Texas team and an FCS Illinois State out of conference, while Indiana, Minnesota, and Maryland aren’t doing much for Iowa’s schedule. On the top end, only three opponents — Wisconsin (#26), Pittsburgh (#28), and Northwestern (#47)– rank in the top sixty. Against that backdrop, Iowa’s margin of victory simply isn’t good enough to vault them into the top ten of the simple rating system. (For comparison’s sake, Baylor, North Carolina, and Navy have all faced weaker schedules, but have strong enough MOVs to rank ahead of Iowa.)

But this is mostly an academic discussion. For purposes of the 2015 season, Iowa remains in great position to make the playoff. The Hawkeyes have a sneaky tough matchup in the season finale, as Iowa travels to Lincoln, Nebraska to face a 5-6 Cornhuskers team that will be fighting for its own postseason berth. Yeah, Nebraska has six losses, but those games have come by a combined 23 points, and Nebraska has lost several of those games in the final seconds.

Three teams remain in complete control of their playoff destiny: Clemson, Alabama, and Iowa. If all the favorites win, that will leave the committee with a very interesting decision for the final spot, having to choose between Oklahoma and Notre Dame. And if Iowa loses, but Michigan State finishes 12-1, the Spartans may simply take Iowa’s spot, so that won’t help solve any Sooner/Irish debate. It’s still too early to panic for any of the contenders — I think we are only in the middle of the chaos — but the end of the regular season is shaping up to be very, very interesting.

Last week, I noted that the Big 12 would be fine, unless the winner of Bedlam lost on Saturday. And while Oklahoma did beat TCU, Oklahoma State suffered its first loss of the season, setting up a nightmare scenario for the Big 12. If the Cowboys beat the Sooners, the Big 12 may have Baylor as its only hope of making the playoffs.

And, for what it’s worth, Baylor is now up to #4 in the SRS. Below are the ratings through week 12:
[continue reading…]

I’ve published the Game Scripts data from every game this year at the 2015 Game Scripts page, available here. What would it look like if we plotted Game Script score (on the X-Axis) against Pass Ratio (on the Y-Axis) for every game this year? Something like this:

(Note that this looks pretty similar to how it was through seven weeks last year, although the constant (i.e., league-average pass ratio) has increased by nearly a full percentage point.)
[continue reading…]

Reminder: the 2015 Game Scripts page is now updated.

Drew Brees threw just 28 passes last week, and was sacked two more times. For some teams, that’s not unusual, but the Saints have always been very pass-happy under Brees. In fact, since Brees came over in 2006, there have been only 48 games where New Orleans had less than 35 pass attempts (excluding sacks). In only four of those games were the Saints losing after three quarters, and in only one of those games were the Saints trailing by more than 7 points through three quarters.

Until Sunday. New Orleans trailed by 23 points entering the 4th quarter, which would be prime territory for a pass-happy game for most teams. In fact, since 2006, there had been 31 games where New Orleans trailed by double digits entering the 4th quarter; on average, the Saints threw 45 passes (excluding sacks) in those games, with only one game (a 29-attempt game in week 17 against Carolina in 2009 which Brees did not play in) coming in with fewer than 36 attempts!

That makes the Saints game in week 10 all the more remarkable. A 28-pass attempt game by Brees when the Saints get blown out? That’s unheard of. The Saints ran Tim Hightower on the game’s final seven plays. Running out the clock while getting blown out is one strategy, I suppose. Obviously New Orleans wasn’t going to win once they were down by 33 points, but it is pretty rare to see a team just sit on the ball like that. Frankly, they would have been better off from a health perspective having Brees take a knee on each play.

Below are the Game Scripts data from week 10.

In addition to New Orleans, Chicago was a team that checked out as very run-heavy. The Bears ran 37 times and on 69% of all plays; both numbers were the highest of any team in week ten.

On the other side, the Steelers and Browns were both very pass-happy. Cleveland passed nearly 80% of the time, which is very high even given the -11.3 Game Script. Meanwhile, the Steelers still passed on 64% of all plays. Then again, neither team could get the running game going: the Browns rushed 14 times for 15 yards, while Pittsburgh produced an only-good-by-comparison 21 for 60 stat line.

Green Bay threw on 78% of all plays in a game that was close throughout with the Lions. And Jacksonville and Baltimore both threw on just over two-thirds of their plays in a game that was close throughout. This isn’t too surprising, though, as all three of these teams have exhibited pass-happy tendencies in the past.

This week at the Washington Post, comparing how teams are faring this year in DVOA, the SRS, and ESPN’s new FPI:

The Patriots and Panthers are the two remaining undefeated teams in the NFL, but many stats-based rating systems do not have them as them as the top two teams in football.

Bill Parcells famously said: “You are what your record says you are.” That tautology makes for a good sound clip, but for a very boring set of rankings.  For determining which teams should make the postseason, it makes sense to focus on records.  But for predicting how teams will play in the future, there’s no need to be bound by the binary result from each game.  Today, let’s compare how teams fare in terms of record and three rating systems: the Simple Rating System ratings from Pro-Football-Reference.com, the DVOA ratings from Football Outsiders, and ESPN’s Football Power Index ratings.

You can read the full article here.

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?

Also at the New York Times today: newly-fired Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is not very good.

This is Ryan’s 12th season in the N.F.L., and he has consistently fielded below-average defenses. Among the 18 coaches who have been defensive coordinators for at least ten seasons since 1990, Ryan’s defenses have allowed more points per game and more yards per game to opponents than any other:

You can view the full table here.

This week at the New York Times, a look at a record-breaking number of “long” touchdown passes on Sunday:

The modern N.F.L. is defined by the short-passing game. And on Sunday, the short-passing game helped set a record for long plays. It might seem counterintuitive, but some of the longest pass plays of the season came from some of the shortest passes of the day:

On a 2nd-and-11 play in the first quarter from the Chicago 13-yard line, the backup Bears tight end Zach Miller ran a curl to the left flat. Quarterback Jay Cutler dumped the ball off to Miller, who caught the ball at the 15 yard line, before rumbling 85 yards through poor Rams tackling for a touchdown.

You can read the full article here.

The graph below shows the probability that a player who averages half a touchdown per game will score 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 touchdowns in any given game:

How did I generate that? Using something called the Poisson Distribution, which Doug Drinen wrote about nine years ago. Let’s reproduce the relevant text here: [continue reading…]

The Panthers were 3-8-1 entering December 2014. Carolina has not lost a game since. There have been 108 different “teams” to win 12 straight regular season games, with teams being broadly defined (if a team wins 13 straight games, that counts as two separate 12-game streaks; if it wins 14, that’s three separate streaks, and so on). Previously, just one team in history had ever posted a losing record in one 12-game period before winning 12 straight games. That was the 2003-2004 Pittsburgh Steelers; Pittsburgh struggled in 2003, and then began the ’04 season with a 1-1 record during Ben Roethlisberger’s rookie year. But beginning in week three — Roethlisberger’s first career start — Pittsburgh won 16 consecutive regular season games.

But Pittsburgh went “only” 5-7 in their previous 12 games before the long winning streak began. As a result, Carolina’s 3-8-1 record in their previous 12 games is worst record by 1.5 games of any team to win 12 straight games. The table below shows all 108 teams, the year and game number when the streak began, and the team’s record and winning percentage in their previous 12 games. [continue reading…]

Last week, I looked at how the Big 12 schedule was backloaded. There are four top teams in the conference, and the six-game round robin among those teams was placed at the back third of each team’s schedule. So far, just two of those six games have been played: Oklahoma State beat TCU last weekend, and Oklahoma beat Baylor last night. That means the winner in Bedlam in two weeks — which takes place in Stillwater — has a leg up on the rest of the conference. The winner in Bedlam will be the Big 12 champion assuming they win next weekend. Of course, that’s no sure thing, given that next week Oklahoma hosts TCU and Oklahoma State hosts Baylor. And yes, for those keeping score at home, that does mean the Cowboys got home draws against TCU, Baylor, and OU this year.

If the Bedlam winner wins next week, too, they are almost certainly going to make the college football playoff. The only way they don’t is if literally everything here happens:

• Ohio Sate beats Michigan State, Michigan, and wins in the B10 Championship Game

• Notre Dame wins in Boston against Boston College and in Palo Alto against Stanford

• Clemson beats Wake Forest and South Carolina and then wins in the ACC Championship Game

• The winner of the SEC Championship Game wins their in-state rivalry game (UF-FSU and Bama-Auburn)

• The committee decides that Notre Dame is more deserving than the B12 champ.

The odds of that happening would be, by my back-of-the-envelope calculations, under five percent. So while the Big 12 won’t occupy a top four spot in this week’s playoff standings, and may even fail to place a team in the top five, there’s little reason to think the B12 won’t send a team to the playoffs for the second year in a row. That is, unless the Bedlam winner loses at home next week.

Below are the SRS ratings through eleven weeks. As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs. [continue reading…]

Reminder: The 2015 Game Scripts page is now updated for week 9 results.

Last week, I wrote about the Rams heavy commitment to the running game. Well, in week 9, the Buffalo Bills had just 15 pass plays — 12 pass attempts and 3 sacks — while passing on just 29.4% of all plays. Both of those numbers set new team lows for the 2015 season.

Below are the Game Scripts data for each team in week 9. [continue reading…]

Today’s guest post/trivia question comes from Adam Harstad, a co-writer of mine at Footballguys.com. You can follow Adam on twitter at @AdamHarstad.

While researching my article on DeAndre Hopkins’ receiving first downs, I came across a striking statistic. Since 1994 (as far back as Pro Football Reference has queryable play-by-play data), there have been three seasons where a receiver gained at least 800 receiving yards and had at least 49.5% of that receiving yardage come while his team was trailing by at least 14 points.

Amazingly, all three seasons belonged to a different Arizona Cardinals receiver. In 1995, Rob Moore gained 907 receiving yards, and 475 (52.4%), came while his team was down by at least two touchdowns. In 2000, David Boston gained 1156 receiving yards, and 591 (51.1%), came while his team was trailing by 14 or more. In 2003, Anquan Boldin gained 1377 receiving yards, and 682 (49.5%) came while trailing by at least 14.

Three different seasons. Three different receivers catching passes from three different quarterbacks, (Dave Krieg, Jake Plummer, and Jeff Blake, respectively). The only common thread uniting them was the franchise they played for. [continue reading…]

This week at the Washington Post, a look at the most indispensable non-quarterbacks in the NFL.

Todd Gurley, St. Louis Rams

Since entering the starting lineup in week four, the Rams rookie has averaged 22 carries a game for 131 yards, producing an exceptional 5.85 yards per carry average. No team has thrown fewer passes in the league this year or gained fewer passing yards than St. Louis. Incredibly, Nick Foles has failed to hit the 200-passing yards mark in any of his last seven games, despite throwing at least 20 passes in each contest; that makes him the first quarterback to meet those marks since Matt Hasselbeck in 2008. Gurley is the Rams offense, making him the most indispensable running back in football.

You can read the full article here.