Super Bowl odds

Of all the teams in the NFC playoffs, the San Francisco 49ers had the best strength of schedule, as measured by the simple ranking system. Of all the teams in the AFC playoffs, the Baltimore Ravens had the best strength of schedule, as measured by the simple ranking system. But San Francisco’s SOS is markedly higher than Baltimore’s, to the point our system favors San Francisco by around 7.5 points.

 

2013 Super Bowl
NFC Team	AFC Team	NFC Win Pct	Est. Point Spread
SF	BAL	0.735	7.5

 

I suspect if Atlanta had won, we would be asking ourselves the question of whether SOS can be fooled. Advanced NFL Stats said, among other things, that Carolina was seriously underrated. If that were true of the whole NFC South, the Atlanta was actually playing better teams than their rankings suggested, and thus should have been more highly rated. But in the end, with 1:18 left to play, 3rd and 4 on the San Francisco 10 yard line, Atlanta was unable to get a first down, and San Francisco won a tough fought victory by 4 points. Two pivotal plays will markedly affect the narrative of this game.

Now to note, last year the New York Giants had the best strength of schedule of all the playoff teams, and they also won the Super Bowl. So I have to ask myself, at what point does this “coincidence” actually make it into the narrative of the average sports writer, or do they still keep talking about “teams of destiny” or other such vague language? Well, this kind of “sports journalist talk” hasn’t gone away in sports where analytics is an ever bigger factor in the game, sports like baseball or basketball. I suspect it doesn’t disappear here.

 

Thoughts on NFL week 11

Over some five years, the whole of the Matt Ryan – Mike Smith era, Atlanta has had a habit of outperforming its Pythagoreans:

Atlanta outperforming its Pythagoreans
Year	WL%	Pythag	Delta
2008	69	62	7
2009	56	56	0
2010	81	72	9
2011	63	59	4
2012 (to date)	90	71	19

 

But they’ve never outperformed their Pythagoreans as substantially as they have this year. It can’t be blamed on early season New Orleans collapse, as their only loss was inflicted by New Orleans. New Orleans has only hindered this process. Is it turnover that are causing all this? While the 2010 team had a +14 turnover ratio and the 2011 team had a +8 turnover ratio, the 2012 team has only a +5 turnover ratio at this point and the 2008 team had a -3 turnover ratio. No, it’s something else. For now, perhaps noting that this team tends to outperform its Pythagoreans is enough.

Week 11 scoring stats:

Chicago’s biggest weakness was on display this Monday night, as Aldon Smith had a career day. Aaron Schatz (@FO_Schatz) has sent digging into his archives for the biggest DVOA blowouts of all time. The 32-7 demolition of the Bears by the 49ers wasn’t the worst, but it clearly evoked the worst.

The game plan was heavy on traps and wham blocks, and would have warmed the hearts of anyone who ever played NFL Strategy against a blitz heavy opponent.

It does lead to the question of whether Chicago is in the same downward spiral they experienced last year. At this point, however, you would expect Jay Cutler to return and thus slow down the bleeding.

 

Week Ten thoughts

I believed, in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 season, that with Jason Peters at left tackle, the least of Philadelphia’s worries would have been the tackle position. Instead, he was injured in the off season. In September, Philadelphia center Jason Celce went down with a season ending injury. In the New Orleans game, Todd Herremans suffered a season ending injury, and going into the Dallas game, starting guard Danny Watkins had been out with a sprained ankle.

Losing Todd Herremans: deal breaker for the Eagles? (Image from Wikimedia).

So, in week 10, the Eagles had one healthy starting caliber player, and 4 backups playing on the offensive line. This loss of talent was profound, even in comparison with Dallas, which had 1 backup on the line – though Dallas RG Mackenzie Bernadeau has been pretty marginal as a starter. Simplified, losing tackles is much worse than losing a guard and a center. Result? A markedly ineffective Vick, a thoroughbred offense reduced to dog-sled pace.

No wonder announcers were hyping this as the “end of a season” for one of these teams. Most any cold blooded announcer could have figured out what was about to happen. The only question was how best to pitch it so people would actually watch.

Atlanta: I’ve been comparing the 2012 Atlanta Falcons to the 1976 Oakland Raiders, to make the case that Atlanta has a chance. But the 1976 Raiders had made it to three previous Conference Championship games, while the Mike Smith squads have never gone that far. They lack the deep playoff experience of those 1970s Raiders squads.

The fact is, all scoring stats suggest Atlanta has benefited from plenty of luck. I think, because of a better Julio Jones, that this is a better Falcons team than the 2011 team, but the coaching changes in New Orleans markedly benefited this squad. Yes, Atlanta can be beaten.

Week 9 scoring stats:

Week 10 scoring stats:

If we use the median point spread as a measure of how good Atlanta is, and select the teams within 2 points of their value, you end up with a group that includes San Francisco, New England, Minnesota, and the New York Giants. That’s a talented group of teams, but perhaps not as terrifying as Green Bay, Houston, Denver, and Chicago. Pythagoreans point out three elite teams in Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco, while simple rankings prefer the quartet of Houston, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.

At this point, perhaps the more appropriate past comparison for the Falcons would be the 1973 Oakland Raiders. Atlanta needs to make some noise in the playoffs first.

Should anyone be worried about the Giants mid season slide? No. They always do this. The question is, will they fully recover in time to make a playoff run. That’s not something that will be entirely answered until week 17.

 

NFL Season 2012: Week 8

Week 8, NFL scoring stats:

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.

NFC East teams with aspirations of playoff contention, Dallas and Philadelphia, appear to be having them derailed by a single common cause. Neither has an offensive line healthy enough or good enough to let their quarterbacks shine. Further, being 1.5 games behind their wild card competition in the NFC North leaves them with precious few chances. Perhaps they’ll improve, perhaps Philadelphia will find a miracle LT and Dallas will scrape together a center and a right guard, but don’t hold your breath waiting. Washington is dynamic, but needs a few pieces here and there. Early season defensive line injuries did that team little good.

For now, what interests me are things like: who in the AFC can compete with Houston? Baltimore looks as if it’s winning on tradition more than dominance. New England looks great, except when it doesn’t. Denver is a powerful work in progress. In the NFC, it’s entirely possible that the NFC North will field 3 playoff teams. Chicago, Green Bay and Minnesota look good. Atlanta continues to roll up wins, the last perhaps its most impressive so far. The Giants continue to show strength. The San Francisco 49ers may be the best team in football right now, leading in HS, #2 in Simple Ranking, and no more than 0.3% off the top of the Pythagoreans.

Totally off the subject: this is the political season, and some of my favorite bloggers are tweeting some politics these days. One of the most interesting of the lot is @skepticalsports. I don’t share the political sentiments of Benjamin Morris, but polite and political – which he manages to do – is a rare combination, and it actually takes some work to be offended by his tweets.

 

NFL Season 2012: Week 7

Week 7, NFL scoring stats:

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.

One of the things dogging Atlanta sports talk radio is “just how good are the Atlanta Falcons”? Statistically, they’re in the top 5-10 but not the very top in the various scoring stats. A lot of their success is based on turnover differential, not a good predictor of success over the long term. The Houston Texans, by contrast, shook off their one game blues are are back in the top 2 or 3 once again.

Chicago for now is at the head of the scoring stats, and those of us familiar with Jay Cutler’s ability to have really bad games will be watching to see if he can keep it up. Coming hard are both the Giants and the Packers. Denver is the best looking of the 3-3 teams.

 

NFL Season 2012: Week 6

Week 6, NFL scoring stats:

Atlanta leads in no statistical category except their won-loss record.

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.

Houston lost to Green Bay, and so for now, they’re no longer the statistical darling of the NFL. Chicago is now the top dog. The Bears are a team that can play great offensive games or horrible ones, and it’s anyone’s guess how long their offensive explosion will last. Minnesota appears to be competitive, and Green Bay and Detroit are coming out of their funks, so I expect a tough divisional battle.

That said, the surprise of the NFC is the tough division race in the NFC West. 3 of the 4 teams have real chances this year, and maybe even Saint Louis will be in the race in a year or two. The conference overall seems to be improved, with tough defenses becoming the norm this season.

The New York Giants won a game that impressed the critics, and if both Dallas and Philadelphia remain snake bitten teams that shoot themselves in their own feet, that could manifest in a great set of statistics over the year. More likely though, the Giants will play everyone tough, perhaps even play a great 8 game stretch, and then have 2-3 mystifying losses to teams they are better than. The lack of a running game makes it hard for the Giants to close out games. What they do will be on the backs of a calm collected QB, their pass rush, and large, gifted wide receivers.

 

NFL Season 2012: Week 5

Week 5, NFL scoring stats:

Stats are still extremely fluid.

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.

Houston is still the darling of all the scoring stats. New Orleans has now won a game. The record of the Saints is now more reflective of the ball they are playing. Atlanta fans may be wondering what happened to a 5-0 team, and the answer is nothing. They’re playing more or less as they were, but Chicago and San Francisco had big wins. With stats easily changed by one or two blowout wins, you have to expect some of the unexpected.

The toughest schedules so far? Green Bay, Jacksonville, Dallas, Saint Louis, and Indianapolis.

 

NFL Season 2012: Week 4

Week 4 of my NFL stats:

The Houston Texans dominate most scoring stats by week 4.

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.

Houston, by far, is the best team by these statistical measures. The second best team is a pick ‘em between Atlanta, Arizona, Chicago, and San Francisco. The Tennessee Titans might look awful in some statistical measures, but they appear to have played the toughest opposition so far. Philadelphia is the tail ender of the 3-1 teams, and Dallas and/or the Jets are tail ending the 2-2 teams. Don’t read too much into early blowouts at this stage, for any team. Those things tend to even out over time.

 

NFL Season 2012: Week 3

I was planning on starting this in week 4, but wanting to know what the Pythagorean expectation was of various teams made me interested in crunching some numbers. I’m not pleased with the solution to the homemade Sagarin. More games would lead to a better result. And I see no real value in adding 2011 data to 2012; see how much good that approach will get you, in figuring out how well the Saints have played.

By many measures (median, pythagorean, SRS) Houston is the best team in football.

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.

Dallas, interestingly, is not the worst of the 2-1 teams by Pythagorean, Philadelphia is. And Tennessee at 1-2 isn’t quite as lively in many metrics as New Orleans. Even at 0-3, the New Orleans Pythagorean is approaching 40%. Tennessee has an anemic 22% by contrast.

 

NFL Season 2011, Weeks 16 and 17

I was on vacation  the week of the 16th, and my job has me weighted down with electronics (being a leveraged asset comes with some debits). Thus, I didn’t take anything with me to calculate the week 16 stats. They are included below.

And of course, week 17 stats, so we can so some serious playoff discussions, largely following my logistic regressions of playoff metrics from the previous year.

To explain the columns above, Median is a median point spread, and can be used to get a feel for how good a team is without overly weighting a blowout win or blowout loss. HS is Brian Burke’s Homemade Sagarin, as implemented in Maggie Xiong’s PDL::Stats. Pred is the predicted Pythagorean expectation. The exponent for this measure is fitted to the data set itself. SOS, SRS, and MOV are the simple ranking components, analyzed via this Perl implementation. MOV is margin of victory, or point spread divided by games played. SOS is strength of schedule. SRS is the simple ranking.