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Post by dubber on Oct 6, 2008 20:31:00 GMT -6
In "How to Develop an Offensive Gameplan", Brian Billick talks about the 4 statistics common to winning in the NFL (or any football game for that matter):
1. Turnovers
2. Explosive Plays (+12 runs, +18 Passes)
3. Red Zone efficency
4. Yards gained on 1st down
I am currently keeping the stats on the New Orleans vs. Minnesota game.
Unless the turnover bug continues in the second half, I predict a New Orleans victory based on first half stats.
Being +3 in the turnover department and ONLY having a ten point edge will come back to bite you over the course of a game.
I'll post my findings at the end of the game.
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Post by deaux68 on Oct 6, 2008 21:20:39 GMT -6
Scoring on special teams sure helps too....haha.
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Post by superpower on Oct 6, 2008 21:40:31 GMT -6
How do the Vikings keep punting to Reggie Bush? Certainly a professional punter can kick it out of bounds. WTF are they thinking?
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Post by coachorr on Oct 6, 2008 21:46:54 GMT -6
"I don't think the heavy stuff is gongin to come down for quite some time, I'd keep playing if I were you.'
BTW, I would like to lead with my head right into the chest of Mike Tiricco. Someone needs to explain to this puss that to some degree it is a hitting sport. What a panzy.
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Post by coachorr on Oct 6, 2008 21:48:17 GMT -6
Why don't people like talk radio? Case in point Tony, it takes more than just three people to win a game. It just floors me how these people just miss the point.
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Post by dubber on Oct 6, 2008 22:23:41 GMT -6
Well, I got it wrong....Vikes by 3.
1. Turnovers:
New Orleans---4
Minnesota------0
*This one speaks for itself, right?
2. Explosive plays
New Orleans---8
Minnesota------3
*Explosives don't count Special Team plays......
Really, this game boiled down to the Vikes taking more risk at the end of the game. They had 1 explosive play in the first 3 quarters, and they got their other 2 on the TD drive in the 4th. That was really the only drive they actually earned as an offense.
Redzone---with all the big plays, each team was only in it twice. The big difference: New Orleans' turnover and Minnesota's 3 point edge in the area.
1st Down:
New Orleans-----3.92 average yards gained on 1st down
Minnesota--------5.04 average yards gained on 1st down
The statistic is misleading in this game, IMO. Minnesota fit the mold, as they were dismal on 3rd and +7 (the whole point of the success on first down statistic is setting up a realistic 3rd down conversion).
New Orleans, due to incompletions, had a lower average, but they converted a ton of third and long situations. The aggressive style gives them the latitude to eschew the importance of this stat.
In retrospect, the Saints needed to take care of the football. PERIOD. They don't fumble, they win the game.
The Vikes cannot count on getting special teams scores and scoring opportunities gifted to them by their defense. They need to utilize more PAPing to garner more explosive plays. If the Saints do not turn the ball over, it is a blowout.
They also need to throw a little more on first down. With dominant RB's, LESS IS MORE! The whole thing we work better when they can get teams back to playing them 2-high.
Anyway, I know that sounds like a TV guy's generic talk about the game, but the stats seem to support the preceeding statements.
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Post by spreadattack on Oct 7, 2008 7:49:20 GMT -6
Hey dubber,
No I think this is good. But I'm not sure if this is how Billick's stats were intended. I don't have the book in front of me, but I thought the gist was that each of those stats was statistically significant in terms of predicting who wins a given game (with turnovers being more significant than explosive plays, for example). But that said, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can come up with a hard and fast prediction of who should win or who ought to win when they cut in separate directions (I don't think Billick told us what the coefficients were for turnovers vs. 3rd down %, etc).
But overall I think you're right that this just falls into the category of a game where turnovers again was the most significant aspect in deciding the game.
The interesting thing though, from other studies I've seen, is that turnovers is a far less significant stat over the course of a season or taking many games into account. The reason I think is that, though some teams are obviously better protecting/taking away than others, the turnover stats really tend to even out over time. So in a given game it's a huge deal, but you can't bank on having winning seasons simply because you out turnover your opponents. Some do a decent job of this, but it's not easy to sustain. (As good ol' Lou Holtz recently said, fumbles just simply happen, and to some extent so do interceptions. Brees's INT last night where the ball popped up was a good example. I think his other INT was the last play of the game.)
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Post by jgordon1 on Oct 7, 2008 8:26:03 GMT -6
Stats are always a funny thing. Other night the other team passed for over 200 yds against us. most of these yards occured in the second 1/2 when we were up over 24 points. Most were stops and slants that were caught in bounds and chewed up the clock who cares. a couple of weeks ago, we had a pick the last play of the first half. i'm glad we picked it, even if the kid caught it, it was unlikely he would have scored. again insignificant
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Post by dubber on Oct 7, 2008 8:40:41 GMT -6
Spread,
I agree, though I have a lay knowledge of stats.
I would love to see a formula combining explosive plays and turnovers as they relate to victory. Where is the point of diminishing return, in terms of Turnover to Explosive plays.
For example, high risk offenses (which I think it would be fair to say the Saints are) tend to have more turnovers. They also tend to have more explosive plays than the average team.
We all know having 0 turnovers and 10+ more explosive plays than our opponent is ideal, but what is acceptable? In an offense's quest for the big play, how many turnovers is too many before the strategy becomes cost prohibitive?
The Saints nearly overcame a -4 turnover margin to win last night (and had the Vikes not taken chances----including big PAPing on first down-----on that last TD drive, they woul have lost the game).
I am definitely not smart enough, however, to figure that out. We have two variables and 2 outcomes (win/lose), and I imagine a ton of outliers.
Basically, what is the risk/reward level you can (statistically speaking) push an offense to?
[Disclaimer: I know, personnel, strategy, clock, philosophy, etc. are all factors too.......that's the nature of statistics, however, taking micro-happenings and finding patterns.....]
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Post by spreadattack on Oct 7, 2008 9:01:50 GMT -6
I agree. The hard part is you need to go out and pull out the relevant data. (I.e. ignore the plays like jgordon is talking about, and then pull them together.)
The big thing that statistics--and specifically regression analysis--does is it helps you identify the "significant" variables, like turnovers, explosive plays, and the like, as compared with stuff that isn't so significant. But the other thing it does is it tells you that there's a lot of "noise" in a given game. In other words, football has a lot of little things--bounces, etc--and between fairly evenly matched teams games are not always decided on who did everything right.
The upshot is that, let's say you are nearly flawless with all of the Billick stats. That might only mean that you can be expected to win between 70-80% of your games. Pretty good, but not dominant. As coaches you try to prepare for everything, but sometimes things are flukey.
It's one of the reasons that football is fun and frustrating. Not only is the game so complex, but you can still lose even if you did everything right. Luck is a huge factor in football games. (If you want an example, look at any single elimination playoff system. Does anyone think the very best team wins the state title every single year? Certainly you wouldn't say that about the Super Bowl? Much gets said about teams that "get hot," but why don't they just admit that, more likely, they just "got lucky"? If I flip a coin 50 times and get heads 40, does that mean I'm a genius coin flipper? That I "got hot"?
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Post by dubber on Oct 7, 2008 9:36:59 GMT -6
Luck is a variable. As you suggest, perhaps the most important one.
I do believe, however, that Billick found teams that won the turnover battle AND had 2+ more explosive plays won between 90-95% of the time. I think this is right.
Like I said, it has been over a year since I read his book.
However, when you look at a teams like Texas Tech and Missouri, who are big play machines AND limit their turnovers.......things seem to work out.
BTW, am I the only one pulling for Red Raiders/Tigers Big 12 championship game match-up? That would freakin rock. Over/under will be at least 80. Game will last 5 hours.
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Post by spreadattack on Oct 7, 2008 11:07:47 GMT -6
Your point about Tech and Mizzou is right. That was really Bill Walsh's innovation (and Paul Brown's, and others) was they reduced the risk of passing the ball and therefore were able to be more aggressive and get more explosive plays, etc, without turning the ball over. And by risk I mean both sacks and interceptions.
To me, that's the biggest change in football over the last 50 years: the reduction in the risk from passing the ball on a given play. In the 40s (or later, at some levels) passing might have been described as the "three things can happen, and two are bad," but Walsh, Brown, Gillman, etc reduced that risk through their schemes, gameplanning, and practices.
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Post by tiger8387 on Oct 8, 2008 17:56:57 GMT -6
It would be nice if Billick would make public the EXACT methodology used to come up with his four key stats as well as provide the data. At least make the study public somehow. Re-watching some of the C.O.O.L. clinic videos this summer I saw one of the line coaches put up a stat regarding turnovers and winning in the NFL.  Hard to see but at the top teams that got to +4, +5, and +6 in turnover performance were undefeated in the NFL over the sample. Of course I wonder if they got the turnovers because they had big leads - i.e. which is cause and which is effect? The teams -4, -5, & -6 in the TO department won 0%. It was a sliding scale after that. 87% won at +3 TO, 82% at +2, 72% at +1 TO etc. It was pretty clear at least from his explanation and data sample that wins did correlate with better turnover performance for their level. I suspect that is probably true especially at the NFL level where talent is relatively even. The father down you go though I think the turnover stat does not hold up as well with wins. Just taking the 2008 NCAA Division 1 data as an example there is a wide variation in performance with respect to the correlation between wins and turnover margin. In this sample the correlation is only 0.25 or pretty weak (0 = no correlation 1 = perfect correlation). Over 20 years since I took stats and regression analysis.  A combination of stats like Billick mentions would probably do better but I wish he'd make public the methodology for evaluation at different levels. I plan on checking it for our team towards the end of the year or in the off season. |
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