Nearly Impossible to Pick the RAVENS PLAYER OF THE GAME

by Borat
Before yesterday, JOE FLACCO was 2-6 against the Steelers — 0-6 when Ben Roethlisberger has played and 0-2 in the playoffs — with a 53 percent completion rate, seven touchdowns and eight interceptions. Against all other teams, his W/L record is 34-13 — 4-1 in the playoffs — with a 65 percent completion rate, and he has twice as many touchdowns as interceptions, 54-27. Also he had lost five fumbles against the Steelers in 8 games, and only five total against everyone else in 47 games. Yesterday Flacco passed for 224 yards including 3 TDs was sacked only once and did not fumble. His Passer rating was 117.6.

Dispatches From the Anti-League: #1

by James Sinclair

My fantasy football league consists entirely of guys in their mid-to-late 20s who have excess quantities of both free time and snarkiness, so it was only a matter of time before six of us started a separate "Anti-League", in which the goal is to compile the worst team possible.

Assuming we weren't exactly breaking new ground, I looked around online for write-ups of similar leagues and, sure enough, found a handful of efforts, but none that go into any real depth about rules, settings, tactics, and in general how to create a league that actually works. So I'm going to (try to) do just that. I'll check back in after tonight's draft, and probably a few more times during the season with updates, observations, and tales of strategy decisions gone hilariously awry. For now, here's an overview of how the Anti-League is set up:

Rosters
Nobody in this league is the sort of NFL fan who can name, say, the Bengals' No. 3 receiver. But, without taking a formal poll, I'd bet at least half of us can name the Bengals' quarterback. (Incidentally, I wonder if Andy Dalton can name the Bengals' No.3 receiver?) Point is, unlike running backs and receivers, quarterbacks often become household names merely by virtue of being less skilled than their peers, even if they aren't egregiously overpaid or facing criminal charges (though it doesn't hurt). So, we're going with two starting QBs, but only one RB and one WR.

Completing Short Passes in Playoffs

by Denis O'Regan

A picture's worth a thousand words,so here's a few pictures and not too much waffle.

I've looked at every individual passing attempt by every quarterback in the playoffs since 2006 and I've noted both the distance traveled by the ball through the air and if the pass was completed or not. I've then produced a regression equation for air yards thrown and completion rate and plotted this curve for every post season quarterback. Below is a plot for five of the most prominent passers over the period. To illustrate how to use the graph when passing to targets five yards behind the line of scrimmage, Brady, Manning(P), Roethlisberger and Rodgers are all completing at around 85%, while Rivers is down around 70%.

Fixing the ELO ratings system

by Tom Baldwin

Back in 2008 Brian covered a well known ratings system first conceived by the man whose name it now bears, that article offers a great insight into both the good and bad points of Elo ratings, and is certainly worth a read in preparation for this article.

Recently I got thinking about Elo ratings again, and realized their limitations, that they do not consider the score of games, can be overcome. When a game's outcome is considered by the original ELO ratings system it is done so on the basis that the game ends with a binary result, a win or a loss, but that is not all of the information available. As we have seen, a team like last year's Falcons can appear far stronger than they truly are when only their win-loss record is considered, and that is because they were on the right end of luck. Close wins are much more about luck than they are skill, winning by ten points is a lot more of an indication of one team's supremacy than winning by one, but how can we quantify this? Well, we need to know the answer to quite a simple question: when two completely equal teams play each other, what is the chance that, by luck alone, team A beats team B by X or more points? In this instance it will always be by luck alone, since both teams are technically equal, their levels of 'skill' completely cancel each other out.

Balanced teams have higher EPA and win more games

by Jim Glass

Should NFL teams invest the most in offense or defense?

Previously, discussing diminishing returns to passing, I noted that marginal return analysis says investment resources - including NFL salary cap money - should be allocated among different investments to produce the largest return at the margin.


In plain English about football, this means that if your team has two all-pro wide receivers and zero competent linebackers, and you have a choice between adding a third all-pro receiver or an all-pro linebacker, you'd better go for the linebacker. Adding your first good linebacker will give more net points to your team than adding a third top receiver.

This is true even if you believe offense is more important to winning games than defense. Whatever their relative importance in the big scheme of things, you are best off making salary cap investments that produce equal returns at the margin, so that your next million cap dollars invested in offense produces the same net return as the next invested in defense. With diminishing returns to additional investments, if you overinvest in offense you will receive fewer net points than from making that last investment in defense – that third good receiver gives you fewer net points than a first good linebacker. Overinvesting in defense is the same mistake in reverse.

Defense wins Championships ...

... that might be true in Soccer, Hockey, Baseball, Basketball, Handball, Deep Sea Fishing or whatever, but not in Pro Football (nor Cycling).

by Karl Berthold

Pundits like Easterbrook, Prisco, TV Commentators and - Coaches tell us year in and year out that "Offense sells tickets but Defense wins Championships". But is that true, or is it a myth?

Many studies about Superbowl Champions were done by Brian Burke and others based solely on Regular Season Statistics which showed us, the smart readers of "Advanced NFL-Stats", that "Offensive-Teams" (read "Passing-Teams") have the edge to win the final Game of the Season.

But nobody has yet done a study of Playoff - Statistics of Superbowl Winners based on the (up to four) Playoff Games they had to win before winning the Lombardi Trophy. That means the above mentioned "Experts" could still say Playoff-Football is different and in cold January you need a good running game and great Defense to prevail in the end.

Well... no longer can that be said.

Packers and Steelers fans, enjoy this Sunday

-- because "We'll be back next year" isn't so likely any more.
by Jim Glass

Once upon a time, way back before 1998, a team playing in the Super Bowl could reasonably expect to be in the thick of the competition for the Lombardi Trophy again the following year.

From 1970 through 1997 the Super Bowl team conference champions won an average 79% of their regular season games, and during the following year won 69%. In the follow-up seasons they compiled 47 winning records against only six losing and three .500 records. As 69% is 11 wins in a 16-game season, the teams could feel confident that they'd be in the playoffs again.

Then in 1999 the defending Super Bowl champion Broncos and runner-up Falcons, after going a combined 28-4 during 1998, fell to 6-10 and 5-11 respectively.

From then on, defending conference champions not named "Patriots" have had only 10 winning records in 20 seasons, against nine losing and one .500 record. All 24 Super Bowl participants including the Patriots have compiled a following-year average 56% winning record, a tad below 9-7.