Adjusting Strength of Schedule

by Michael Beuoy

One of the more interesting components (to me) of Brian Burke's efficiency model is the strength of schedule adjustment. I found it interesting the way you could bootstrap yourself into a self-consistent opponent adjustment. Here is the description (link):

"To adjust for opponent strength, I could adjust each team efficiency stat according to the average opponents’ corresponding stat. In other words, I could adjust the Cardinals’ passing efficiency according to their opponents’ average defensive efficiency. I’d have to do that for all the stats in the model, which would be insanely complex. But I have a simpler method that produces the same results.

Peyton Manning - Colts Defensive MVP??

by Steven Buzzard

A growing sentiment that has started to crop up with a lot of the talking heads in the league is that the Colts would be pretty terrible if Peyton Manning was playing because the defense has been so atrocious. These same people love to state the obvious and point out that Peyton Manning doesn’t make tackles. However, a lot of stats analysts have known over the years that the Colts offense has actually helped the Colts defense in 3 key ways.

1) They stay on the field a long time and limit the total number of drives per game
2) By staying on the field they give the defense great field position despite terrible special teams
3) By getting leads the defense can force more turnovers