Football Stats are Still in the Dark Ages

The NFL playoffs are here. In fact, they're halfway done. It's been a pretty good year for them so far, with many close games and well matched teams. The problem is that we know how Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning episode gajillion, and we will inevitably get into the argument over who was the better quarterback.

You'll see stats thrown around like crazy, you'll see the trolls on ESPN come out and yell and shout about "Brady can suck Peytons dick" or "Count dem rings, bitch", and I will go cry about how backwards football, its stats, their fans, and their "experts" are. Full disclosure, if it wasn't obvious before: I'm a baseball guy. I'm a hardcore baseball stats guy. I don't like it when people use stats that don't matter (except in fantasy. Fantasy I can survive). ESPN has even started reporting on WAR and FIP and other baseball stats that are genuinely smart instead of letting Joe Morgan give all his analysis on RBIs.

But football is baseball in the '90s. It is baseball with Joe Morgan announcing. It is the overvaluation of the trivial, luck-based occurrences and then giving credit to players for them.

The biggest thing in the Manning/Brady debate is postseason wins. Baseball abandoned wins long ago. They're a useless stat that tell you nothing about the player. They tell you about the team and your luck. Brady played with elite defenses. Manning played with bad defenses. Unless Manning is much better than Brady (in which case we wouldn't be having this argument), wins only tell you about the teams that Brady has played on.

I still think interceptions are a stupid stat. I think completion percentage is a stupid stat. If you make the perfect throw and it goes through your receivers hands and right into the chest of a defender, why do you get penalized on the stat sheet. Drops should not factor into the completion percentage. Hell, even deliberately throwing the ball away shouldn't have any effect. Completion percentage should be reserved for balls thrown with the intention of being catchable. Baseball figured out long ago that once the pitcher lets go of the ball, they lose control of it. Earned runs and unearned runs are separated. Football has not. Football believes that the quarterback is entirely at fault for whatever may happen to the ball after release.

There are many, many other "definitive" stats that frustrate me because they rely too much on luck: passing yards, yards after the catch, and tackles being just a few. Football will never have the statistical knowledge of baseball from the nature of the sport. The fact that the game isn't clearly divided into separate occurrences is the primary culprit. But it can do better than what it is. Much better.

College Football at its Finest

Tonight is a big night in college football. Maybe even bigger than Saturday. And this is with only 2 games. For a college student like myself, this is the type of day when I get zero work done. Zilch. Nada. I'm all in on sports today (actually typing this in class). As my friend and I say, you're either all in or all out.

Baylor v. Oklahoma is a bigger game than most people believe. Baylor is ranked No. 6 in the BCS standings with an offense that could take out a city. Oklahoma is a top-10 team (by virtue of being exactly No. 10). A win for Baylor here would be huge, as it not only keeps their hopes alive for a possible shot at the championship but sets them up well for for a tough finishing stretch. A loss would drop them down in the rankings quite a bit, and would not be a good way to enter the homestretch (with the potential to leapfrog Ohio State later in the year for No. 4). Oklahoma, on the other hand, is just good. They're not elite this year, but they are very good. I've only watched them play once, but I think they have enough to give Baylor a fight.

The only "real" teams Baylor has faced have been Kansas State and West Virginia. Both teams exposed some problems with the Baylor team: West Virginia, as a team with a half-decent offense of its own, dropped 42 on the Bears. And Kansas State, known for being fundamentally sound on defense, held the Bears to a season-low 35 points. I would gamble that Oklahoma has an offense that can put up 40+ on Baylor, and a defense that can hold Baylor to less than 50 points. Basically, this has the potential to be a very exciting, high-scoring game.

I don't know if I can say more about Oregon v. Stanford than has already been said. The Ducks can score with the best of them. Stanford has a very sound team all around. Both are top-5 teams, which means this has very direct consequences for the National Championship. If Stanford wins out, they still have a shot at the Natty (though very, very slim). A loss to Oregon would not be the end of the world for the Cardinal, but it would destroy Oregon's hopes for the season. The Ducks came in hoping for a chance at the Natty, and if they win out they get to go. But winning out is the essential part, and Stanford on the road is easily the most difficult game left on their schedule.

So what will happen? As someone who comes from the West Coast and is a Duck fan, I think the Ducks will put up around 40 points. I don't think Stanford will score 30. Stanford just doesn't have the offense to stand up to a very underrated Oregon defense. Stanford thrives on running the ball and play action passes off of an established run game, but Oregon's D-Line matches up with with the Stanford O-Line. On the other side of the ball, with a week to rest and a finally healthy group of offensive terrors (Mariota, DAT, Marshall, Tyner, Addison, Huff, etc.), I don't think Stanford will make it through the second half. Like most Stanford-Oregon match ups, I predict a close game at the half but a quick Oregon run halfway through the third quarter to put the game out of reach.

I'm excited!

Deciphering the Football Blowout

Ful disclosure: I am only a casual football fan. But I am an avid sports fan, and so I think I have the ability to write down my thoughts. This has been a question that has bothered me for quite some time: what does it mean for a football game to be a blowout, and how can we compare different blowouts.

For example, Oregon beats Tennessee at home in week 3 by a score of 59-14.
Alabama beat Tennessee at home in week 9 by a score of 45-10.

It seems pretty clear that both Oregon and Alabama are significantly better than Tennessee this year. But can we use these games against common opponents to determine which team is better?

At first glance, it would seem that the Oregon defense is about 30% worse than Alabama while the offense is about 25% better. So the offense/defense comparison doesn't seem to work, since 5% is really a very small amount. But we know that neither team actually tried after the second quarter, at which point Alabama led 35-0 and Oregon led 38-7. You can jump to all sorts of conclusions based on this, too: Oregon was able to score more points but couldn't keep Tennessee from scoring, so they must be worse.

But that's all missing the bigger picture: both Oregon and Alabama had their respective games in the bag at the start of halftime. In reality, it was clear about halfway through the 1st quarter that the game would be a blowout. Strange things happen in blowouts. Offenses start slowing down and stop playing at their normal intensity. Defenses start playing prevent, knowing they don't have to give it 100% on each play. And, at a certain point, the second string teams come in to play, leading to even fewer points scored and more points allowed.

In the world of college football, the timing of games is incredibly important. These two games were separated by 6 weeks, which is enough time for an entire Georgia team to get injured and fall out of the national title talk. Lots can happen. The team that played at Alabama was not the team that played at Oregon. At Oregon they were excited and overly energized for a new season against a strong opponent, and it led to several mistakes but some excitement early on. The team in Alabama was worn down from a tough string of games and looked defeated after the first Bama touchdown.

Basically, you can't compare two football games. I would even argue that you can't compare games in back-to-back weeks. Teams have good days and bad days, and sometimes it can be as little as the food the quarterback ate last night that determines the outcome of a jump ball.

A blowout is a blowout, and I don't see any reasonable way to compare these two games other than knowing that both Alabama and Oregon are both significantly better than Tennessee.

Left is the New Right

I've been thinking about this for a long time, but now that I have to take the subway to and from work every day it's become just too much. New Yorkers are weird, and apparently left is the new right.

Scenario: I'm walking down the street and spot a Duane Reade (basically Walgreens for New Yorkers). It has two door next to each other. I reach for the one on the right. After all, people in America tend to drive on the right, are right handed, and think that the political left is bad. But as I walk through the door I collide with someone exiting. After an apology and some sidestepping, I turn around and see that the left door is actually the one marked Enter and the one I just walked through Exit. Maybe it has to do with the proximity to the checkout area, you say? Well, you'd be wrong - the checkout is right next to the Enter door. That's weird.

But it's everywhere in New York. Every Duane Reade with two doors is set up like this. Sometimes it makes sense because of the position of the checkout area, sometimes it doesn't. I walked into a Staples (I'll do some advertising here while I'm writing) and it was the same thing. It's confusing, and I keep bumping into people because of it.

The worst part is that it is starting to come into play in other parts of New York. Thankfully, drivers still drive on the right. And large swarms of people stay to the right. But the flow of things is consistently opposite what it should be. Case in point: every day I want through the underground tunnel connecting the 42nd Street subway station with the Times Square subway station. It's narrow and it's hot, but it gets the job done. The stream of foot traffic sticks works just like a road in that the flow stays to the right. But the faster lane isn't in the middle (the left), it's all the way against the wall to the right. It bothers me. It shouldn't, but it does. Every day for 10 minutes I have to go through this primitive traffic design, and with all the body odor floating around and no airflow it just drives me nuts.

So if you live in New York and do things on the right side, from eating to driving, be cool and be the first to start doing it on the left side. It's the hip thing to do. Bikes are already going against traffic everywhere in Manhattan. See what you can come up with!

The Smartphone has Taken Over

You already knew that, but now the rest of the world knows, too!

While scrolling through Google News today I came across an interesting article. I thought it couldn't be true. Surely dumbphones weren't more popular than smart phones just a year ago! But that's the case. I guess it comes with living as an upper-middle class white kid that has always been around academic institutions and all those young trendsetters, but I really thought that smartphones had been beating out dumbphones for some time now. Well, now it's official. No longer is a phone about just talking and texting, it's about playing games and surfing the web and taking notes. The smartphone is one of the greatest inventions ever, and it looks like it's here to stay.

Competitive Baseball Nerd

I've spent enough time thinking and reading about baseball in my life to write a book. Several books. Or an almanac. When people say things like "student of the game," it usually only means the athlete is capable of having conversations about their sport. It's not a particular honor to be called a student of the game, but I'm going to call myself that. I'm a student of the game in a much more literal sense.

I study baseball. I study the crap out of it. And I'm very competitive, like I'm fighting for medical school. If someone knows something I don't, I have to know it. I have to know how they know about it. And then the next time that thing, whatever it may be, comes up, I'll know about it. And I'll know it better than the person that showed me.

But like any other competitive person, it's not just other people that drive me. It's myself. I need to have the advantage before someone comes up to talk to me. I need to know exactly what the linear weights behind wRC+ mean. I need to know why they're linear and not some other, non-linear model. I need to know why I would choose to use FIP, xFIP, or SIERA over other forms of pitching evaluation. I compete with myself - I need to know more than I do. I suppose that's what could constitute an addiction or obsession, but I'm pretty happy with what I've learned so far. And happiness is good, so I'll stick with it.

In the Land of the Blue Dress Shirt

This is the first time I've had to wear a dress shirt every day. In fact, it might be the first time I've ever worn a dress shirt all day. It's an interesting experience. I don't like the top button, but thankfully there are no ties in the Office of the Commissioner. No jackets, either, which I have mixed feelings about. I love the look, and I like the feel of the look, but I don't like the feel. Suit jackets are just that little bit awkward. That little bit stiff right in the wrong places (like trying to reach for something and noticing the should doesn't even go to 90 degrees). That little bit too flexible in the wrong places (like trying to reach for something and watch the lapel ride up). And, since this is the summer in New York, that little bit too warm. I actually love how warm suit jackets are, but only in the winter. In a muggy city like this: no thanks.

I thought I'd see more white shirts here. Instead it's almost entirely blue. Like amazingly blue. Incredibly blue. Noticing the non-blue shirts is sort of obsession of mine now, so I started counting today. Women don't count because they almost always wear black or white shirts. Come to think of it, I've never seen a woman wearing a blue shirt. Maybe the blue shirt is a sign of manliness? I never thought of faded/light blue that way.

My blue shirt watching from walking to and from work today:
        Estimated people seen total: ~1000
        Non-blue shirts: ~300 (it's hard to count that high)

Tune in next time for another exciting adventure