How Teams Try To Win

by Denis O'Regan

One of the more obvious ultimate aims of a NFL team is to score enough points to try to guarantee victory over it's opponents.However,it is equally apparent that at certain times during a game teams have other objectives that take preference over maximizing the score.Running the ball to run out the clock when they already have a large lead,for example.

What follows tries to identify the different stages in a game and tries to pinpoint the tactics used by teams when they are actively trying to score points.

There's a multitude of factors that determine a team's approach during a game,but I'll concentrate on ones I consider most influential.

Firstly,down and distance.These two factors can be reasonably broken down into predominately passing or running plays.To try to eliminate any in built play calling bias as a result of down and distance I decided to look exclusively at 1st and 10 plays.It's not an obvious running or passing down/distance and it also provides a hefty sample size for each team.Everyone gets a first and 10 sooner or later.

Next the current score.It's well documented that teams favour the run when well ahead and the pass when well behind.So I further broke the first and 10 plays down by the current score.I looked at the ratio of runs to passes when teams trailed by 2 or more scores,trailed by 1 score,where tied,led by one score and finally when they led by 2 or more scores.

And lastly I decided to include a teams offensive strength.Even poor offensive teams are likely to be better at running the ball compared to passing it or vice versa.I was simply interested in which offensive skill a team did better at and by how much compared to their weaker discipline.

I firstly compiled a run attempt/pass attempt ratio for all 32 teams from the 2007 season,to confirm that teams favour the run when well ahead and the pass when well behind.

And they do.

On average teams throw around two passes for every one run when they trail by 2 or more scores on 1st and 10.

When down by 1 score the ratio has moved closer to parity,but on average 1.2 throws are still made for every one run.

Running is favoured when teams are tied.1.2 runs for every one pass.

That increases to 1.5 runs to 1 pass if teams lead by a score.

Lead by 2 or more scores and runs start to outweigh passes by almost 3:1.

This progression from throwing when behind to running when in front is mirrored by all 32 teams.

However,this carn't be the whole story.There must be periods of the game where teams are trying to maximize the points they score and they must be trying to do this by a combination of maximizing their yards per play and increasing their chances of continuing drives.It further seems reasonable that they attempt to do this by playing to their offensive strengths.Playcalling when trailing or winning big,seems to be dictate more by the state of the game than a team's offensive strength.So the next step was to see if a team's offensive strength dictated how a team played when the game was close,say within a score either way.

Initially,I chose two teams with widely differing offensive styles.Minnesota ran the ball extremely well and passed it relatively poorly,while the reverse was true for Indianapolis.

If offensive strength did play a part in playcalling as well as the state of the scoreboard,then it seemed likely that as these two teams went from trailing to winning,you would see Minnesota committed earlier to the run (their relative offensive strength) ,while Indy would stay with the pass (their strength) for longer.

And that's what happens.

Minnesota are already running more than they pass when they still trail by 1 score (the league as a whole are still passing more than they run) and Indy are still passing almost as often as the run even when they lead by 1 score (the league as a whole become more frequent runners around when the scores are tied).

Having seen that two teams with polar opposite approaches to offense tend to go to their strengths in close games the last step is to see if there's a general league wide tendency for teams to rely on what they do best.To do this I calculated the strength of the correlation between what a team does best on offense and how often they attempt to do it split by current score.

When the 32 teams trail by 2 or more scores there is no correlation between the two conditions. There appears to be no evidence that teams that run better than they pass run more often in these situations(correlation of 0.01).The same applies to better passing than running teams (correlation of -0.04).It appears that the situation of being 2 scores or more adrift,strongly dictates play calling,everyone has to pass whether it's their most potent attacking force or not and it appears to be a haphazard process.

However,when down by just 1 score teams are able to start to go to their strengths.Teams that pass much better than they run,tend to pass more often than other teams in this situation.When teams trail by a score the correlation between passing well and passing often is 0.35.

The correlation is similar when scores are tied and peaks at 0.47 when teams lead by a score.(Presumably they recognise that one score isn't a decisive lead and they need to press home their advantage and the best way to achieve this is to do what they do best and do it more often than league average).

Once teams lead by 2 or more scores the correlation becomes entirely random again and playcalling mirrors what happens when teams are trailing by 2 scores.Running becomes predominant and teams effectively forget where their strengths lie.Their gameplan is no longer focussed on increasing their score,it's more about shortening the game by keeping the clock running.

The situation for running the ball is identical.The better a team is at running the ball compared to passing it,the more they pound the ball when the scoreboard is within a score either way.Once the lead or deficit becomes larger,they randomly apply the doctrine of pass if you're behind and run if you're ahead and the reasonably strong correlation disappears.