Sports
Fun with numbers through week two
The Pointer
Ggott172@uwsp.edu
The biggest reason I went down the Bachelor of Arts route was to ensure that I took the bare minimum of math classes needed to graduate, while remaining under the guise that I can successfully perform a long division problem (very questionable). Despite my deficiencies, I took an interest in advanced sports statistics, mainly in relation to the NBA and MLB. While there is no substitute for actually watching a game to understand the ebbs and flows of a player or team, advanced statistics can provide insight as to why certain things are happening in the sports world. I had never looked for these types of statistics in relation to the NFL, but starting this season I have decided to confuse myself even more by attempting to decipher the work of the Web site www.footballoutsiders.com, which features some in-depth stats based on the early results of the NFL season.
All of the information I’m talking about regarding these statistics comes from the Football Outsiders Web site. I’m going to try to stick with a basic overview of the main parts of their work, because an in-depth tutorial would probably make my head explode.
The two main features of Football Outsiders (FO) are the DYAR and DVOA rankings. DYAR stands for Defense-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement, which for regular people means a player’s value, in yards, compared to a replacement or back-up player at the same position, in the same situations. Typically this stat is used to determine value throughout an entire season’s body of work.
On the other hand, DVOA, which stands for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, deals with players’ performances on every play in every situation, when compared to the league average, with positions compared against one another. As FO puts it, “Football has one objective, to get to the end zone and two ways to achieve that, by gaining yards and getting first downs. These two goals need to be balanced to determine a player’s value or a team’s performance. All the yards in the world aren’t useful if they all come in eight-yard chunks on 3rd-and-ten.” Basically, they weigh a player’s true value to his team based on how he performs at gaining yards in meaningful situations.
Alright. I only have a minor migraine at the moment. Here are some statistics that stuck out to me:
I will begin with Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme. He followed up his catastrophic postseason game last year by turning the ball over five times in week one against the Eagles. In week two, he threw only one interception, but it came late in the fourth quarter with the Panthers driving. I wanted to see if the stats at FO backed up what everyone else saw: A really bad quarterback.
Not-so-surprisingly, they did. Through week two, he is ranked 34 out of 35 quarterbacks who have attempted a minimum of 15 passes. Delhomme’s DVOA was 42 percent worse than the league average. So on a given play, the average quarterback is 42 percent more likely to hang onto the ball, complete a first down pass or be generally productive. To put this in some perspective, Kyle Orton, who doesn’t necessarily strike fear into his opponents, performs 24.7 percent better on a given play than the average quarterback so far this season.
Delhomme’s DYAR, or value in yards for the season, is negative 121 when compared to a replacement quarterback. Yes, negative. Granted, this is a stat measuring a season’s worth of work, and it is undoubtedly skewed with the horrendous week one performance, but for now, Jake Delhomme’s value to the Panthers rests at negative 121 yards. If the “replacement quarterback” FO talks about existed, he would be 121 yards more valuable than Delhomme. Orton’s DYAR by the way, is 153 yards better than a replacement. Is it easier to simply say Jake Delhomme is not a very good quarterback right now? Probably. But with these stats, one can truly see the magnitude of his current play. Impressive!
Next, I looked at Ryan Grant, expecting to find stats not worth writing about. I guess they weren’t that bad, but I was basically accurate in my assumption. Sporting a DVOA of 2.4 percent makes him slightly better than the average running back on any play. A DYAR of 13 yards goes further in showing the lack of separation from Grant and a backup running back.
The underwhelming running game cannot solely be blamed on Ryan Grant; however, we have to mention the worst unit for the Packers these first two weeks: the offensive line. Yes, FO also features advanced offensive line statistics. The most striking numbers came in FO’s power success and 10+ yards stats. Power success is the percentage of short yardage runs on third or fourth down that end in a first down or touchdown. The Packers power success is 50 percent, good for 23rd in the league. The 10+ yards stat shows the percentage of running plays that go ten yards or over. Green Bay’s chances of breaking a big run: 10 percent, this is 21st in the league. Throw this in with the 11.1 percent chance of a sack on every play, according to FO’s Adjusted Sack Rate, and you start to see why the weapons on the Packer offense cannot seem to get going this season.
It is important to mention again that this is two weeks worth of data. Bad performances loom large with such few numbers to crunch, but these stats still provide a gauge for which to measure what you watch on Sundays. These statistics are not the be-all and end-all when it comes to a player’s performance, although they can be very telling. As far as math goes though, it is pretty interesting material. Can I get college credits for this?
