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I'm sad that you're not including fullbacks. Also I'm wondering if the data considers laterals/backward passes as handoffs (e.g., they're runs) or not.
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Feb 5, 2016 01:54
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I want you to somehow index by referee teams, which we can rate by how many defensive and offensive holding calls they miss per season. I also want to see how weather, turf, and open/closedness of the stadium affects the running game. And for that matter, crowd loudness. Ooh, and throwback uniforms! Do the stats include postseason games? Because if so that's another factor that will tend to inflate averages (if we assume teams with better running games tend to do better in the playoffs).
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Feb 5, 2016 03:43
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Something's been bothering me in the back of my head about all these run distributions and the discussion of long runs, and it finally occurred to me. A long run is impossible when you're a yard from the end zone. The closer you are to the opponent's goal line, the shorter the possible runs: and at the same time, defenses tend to "stack the box" more in those goal-line stand situations. There must be backs in the league who are specialists in red zone carries; any of them that gets more than 50 carries should show up in the data. They'll tend to represent teams that have offenses capable of frequently getting into the red zone, and the percentage of their runs that extend into long yards should be disproportionately short. I suppose the best way to find them would be to compare sheer number of TDs to run distributions and find backs that have lots of TDs despite very few if any long runs.
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Feb 17, 2016 07:10
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rotoworld posted:NFL.com's Rand Getlin reports free agent RB Daniel Thomas is "eager and ready to go." Hmm. Just how bad is Fumblin' Dan Thomas? 3.6ypc doesn't seem that "abysmal" to me? Below average, sure, but it's higher than Melvin Gordon. And actually that raises another question. Are you going to discuss fumbles? Ball control is obviously a key attribute of any running back, and many an otherwise good back has been benched after a bad fumble. On the other hand, after watching a hell of a lot of football the last three years, I have a strong suspicion that coaches focus way too much on those fumbles... most of which are stripped balls where the runner had the ball reasonably tucked and probably couldn't have done much more without severely compromising his running mechanics (such as by wrapping both arms around the ball in the center of the chest). I would really like to see a statistical analysis of fumbles that took the type of fumble into account, and also recognized whether/when a player gets benched after a fumble vs. not. E.g., if a player fumbles twice in two games and isn't benched, do they continue to fumble at a higher rate than average? If they don't, that implies you shouldn't bench a player who fumbled solely because of the fumble.
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Mar 15, 2016 20:00
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Forever_Peace posted:It's a case where we just have to be resolved with not knowing. In science, it's cases like these that drive innovation more than anything else. We have a question, we have two plausible hypotheses, and we lack the capability to distinguish between them with the technology currently available to us. The next steps all of a sudden resolve into focus: invent the thing that would allow you to find the answer. I think the thing has been invented. You'd just have to watch the games. You can look at each attempt at rushing past the first down marker, and see if the player was stopped by defensive action, vs. a play that came within less than a yard of the first down, and was thus marked short the yard in the statistics. Of course, watching thousands of first down runs would be a lot easier if video of every game was available, with indexes that let you jump directly to specific plays. We the public don't have that... but I suspect NFL teams do, since they so extensively analyze tape. But basically, if you suspect a statistical anomaly is caused by the method used to record the data, you can investigate by collecting your own data using a method that avoids the problematic technique.
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Mar 16, 2016 07:25
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Forever_Peace posted:One way to address this issue would be to put a tracker in the ball, so that you can know the spot exactly (say, to the inch would be fine) after each gain. Now, your yardages don't involve rounding at all. It removes the scorekeeper effect, but whatever defense effect is present still remains. I'm basically suggesting doing this, but without the sensor: just eyeballing where the ball was marked down. A lot of times if it's close to the first down, they'll even bring out the chains, and if that's on the tape at all, you've got a pretty accurate measurement. Take a statistically-valid sample of near-first-down runs and watch the tape, do your best to find the actual yardage, push that into your full set of data. If you still see a divot, then you know it's not all due to the statisticians rounding down last-yards. I will say though that defensive effort isn't the only other possible factor. Another one would be: what if refs are much more careful and conservative about placing the ball, when it's near the first down marker? Certainly they're only ever gonna bring the chains out when there's some question of whether the down was gained. I bet they're not as careful when there's still five yards to go... and if being less careful tends to favor the runner while being careful at the line tends to favor the defense, that'd also be a possible source of the anomaly.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:13
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I'm pretty happy about having Miller on my dynasty team now. After the draft last year it seemed like I had badly overpaid, and it was agony watching Miami chronically underutilize him (and chronically lose games doing so). The Texans aren't exactly a premiere football team but given their QB situation I like the prospects for a better Miller year, and for him to work up to a bell cow utilization. Plus he's still quite young.
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Apr 9, 2016 07:40
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MacheteZombie posted:Holy crap I guess I didn't realize he finished 4th in RBs in .5 ppr last season. Wow. Yeah. The problem was that he was used pretty inconsistently and you never knew any given week whether he was going to get you decent points or not. Also Miami generally sucked anyway. But I started him pretty much straight through the season and mostly didn't regret it. He's young, talented, and hopefully now on a team where he'll not just be the bellcow, but be the bellcow on a team that understands that running the ball is an OK way to play football sometimes.
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Apr 22, 2016 23:09
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The best way would be to identify RBs who got traded mid-season. Unfortunately I suspect there aren't enough to build a statistically useful and valid data set. e. and that also ignores that a freshly-traded RB is coming into a new playbook and will probably not be used the same way as a team veteran runner. So instead I think we're stuck with trying to quantify aspects of the surrounding team - the OL's ability to open holes, the team's emphasis on passing vs. running (which affects defenses tendency to position for run stuffing vs. pass coverage), the qualities of the QB (has the same effect), types and frequencies of different run plays (QB option plays vs. designed runs, for example), game situations (behind vs. ahead in the 4th quarter for example), and maybe even field conditions (outdoor winter live grass vs. indoor may affect run success?) etc. A daunting job. There are so many variables it'll probably never be something where you can boil everything down to a "how hard is it for any random runner to average 4.5 yards with this team" number that you could be very confident in. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:00 on May 4, 2016 |
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May 4, 2016 18:57
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Without knocking Rawls at all: I don't think you can just ignore game situation. At that point in the season, the Seahawks were at 4 and 5, tied with St. Louis and behind a dominating 7-2 Arizona. The 49ers, on the other hand, were at 3-6. Despite being only two wins out of second place in their division, the 49ers had all but given up on the entire season. Worse, the niners had just lost against the Seahawks at home three weeks prior, and were now playing at Seattle, where the Hawks have a distinctive advantage. True, they'd eked out a slim win against the Falcons, who were otherwise having a pretty good season, but all of their division games had been blowouts and the team was struggling mightily to keep their offense on the field at all. The niners' defense had been absolutely gutted in the 2015 offseason. Kaepernick was benched; this game was Blaine Gabbert's second start of the season. And Russel Wilson completed 24 passes of 29 attempts, preventing the niners from focusing on a run defense. Basically, the Hawks were in a position to compete for the wildcard spot, knew they could beat the niners, and firing on all cylinders. The niners were demoralized, shattered defensively, badly coached, and despite not being out of the running for the playoffs, appeared to have basically given up. Blaine Gabbert actually handed in a pretty decent performance, but the rest of the team did not. It was a perfect situation for a Seattle RB to tear rear end, and Rawls showed up. He deserves full credit for his performance, but situation made it possible. I think you can look at the other top games and see some differences along those lines, too. Miami's defense in london was probably easier to run against than the league norm, for example.
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May 15, 2016 19:34
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Yeah that's all totally fair, of course. I think the statistical analysis is useful regardless. I just thought it would be interesting to look into the situation, since I remembered that game. As an aside, in obscure RB news: australian Rugby star Jarryd Hayne is retiring from american Football (so he can go play rugby in the olympics). I'm disappointed because I really wanted him to earn a playing spot and put together enough data to be usefully analyzed. After playing a handful of games at the beginning of the season last year, Hayne had some fumbles and landed on SF's practice squad. I felt like the data set was too small to say for sure that he was going to have an ongoing fumble problem, and meanwhile, he showed a ton of promise with his unique skillset. SF didn't need him, though. I think if he'd landed on a more RB-needy team with better coaching, he might have had a real opportunity.
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May 15, 2016 22:16
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Yeah because he fumbled two or three times, at least one of which was just a strip that could have hit anyone, but one of which was a really big and public muffed punt/kick reception that was pretty embarrassing. Which is bad, but I don't think he had a decent chance to get comfortable and show his stuff. And the niners were (and perhaps still are) very very badly coached last year, and Trent Ballke who needs to die in a fire. None of which means Hayne should have been rostered and played more, of course. I'm just sad because I was rooting for him and he flashed some really interesting poo poo on the field in his very limited opportunities.
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May 16, 2016 19:57
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I like to read pretty much anything you post, to be honest, it's always interesting. That said, I have a particular request: having watched a lot of the Raiders this year, I have a suspicion that Jalen Richard is a much better RB than Latavius Murray, and I'd like to see the stats on it. Probably his sample size will be too low to say for sure, but still. I also think Bilal Powell likely outperformed his previous season. And, I want to see how Ty Montgomery stacks up.
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Jan 2, 2017 21:57
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His patience and vision extends to passing plays, too. Like this play: have to watch it on youtube After the catch he runs into traffic at the 40 yard line and like 99% of RB/WR/TEs would be done right there. Also watch him float here can't embed NFL poo poo Actually just watch the whole video Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 02:39
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pmchem posted:compare to fantasy rankings pre-season 2016 Fantasy rankings are heavily skewed (or should be) by both receptions and scoring, whereas this surprise rating is entirely focused on yardage (which also means it's still underrating goal-line backs and under-valuing x-and-goal carries). So I don't think the numbers are particularly comparable. You'll find some high-ranked fantasy guys who are also very surprising, but also a lot that aren't, because they're receiving backs or specialize at the goal line.
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Apr 30, 2017 19:35
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http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19411342/nfl-dwindling-yards-per-carry-stats-show-there-21st-century-running-back-dilemmaquote:While yards per carry have been down, average yards after contact has remained steady -- an identical 1.74 in both 2009 and 2016. What the data shows is a progressive drop in blocking help for running backs over the past decade. The key numbers:
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May 24, 2017 19:53
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You got data going back to (at least) 1999!? e. Wait no, James had 3,028 rushing attempts in his career, so I guess your data maybe just goes back to... 2002? e2. lol wikipedia tells me Edgerrin James quote:has six children: Edquisha, Emani, Eyahna, Edgerrin Jr., Euro, and Eden. Euro James has the Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 01:41
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Forever_Peace posted:Law Firm had a lot of successful plays in part because the coach and team situation put him in a position to succeed. His value came from his near-unparalleled ability to not gently caress it up, including a ridiculous 4-season streak without a single fumble. Guys like this are really undervalued by a lot of fans, and I'm glad stats like this can shine a light on this sort of thing. I have a suspicion that fumbles are much less likely for plays where the back is asked to plow into a stacked box to gain two yards, compared to the average running play in which a back might hope or expect to gain more yardage. In the former case, the back knows he's going to crash into defenders trying to strip the ball immediately, and also is going more for power than speed, which may mean better ball protecting technique on average. I'm sure you're busy but I'd be curious to see if I'm right.
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Aug 28, 2017 01:48
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Ignores red zone differences. How many rushes did each man have that were measured to fractions of a yard, and/or crossed the goal line? e. actually "how many" isn't important. Just, the analysis should exclude yards that were measured precisely and only apply a curve to yards that were rounded. It might be quite a chore, but presumably the "precise" yards can be counted by looking at all rushes beginning or ending within the 1 yard line, right? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:14 on May 4, 2018 |
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May 4, 2018 23:11
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