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New Overtime 4th Down Decisions When Down 3 Points
Your opponent kicked a FG on the first possession of overtime, and now your team needs a TD to win or a FG to continue the game. Your offense has driven down to the opponent's 10-yard line, but the drive has stalled. It's 4th down and 3. Should you go for the risky conversion and ultimately a TD for the win, or should you attempt a FG knowing you'd be at a disadvantage giving the ball to the opponent in sudden death?
The new NFL OT rules are unique in a lot of ways, and by unique I mean convoluted and contrived. There are basically three possible game states:
1. The first drive in which no score leads to Sudden Death, a TD wins, or a FG spawns the second state...
2. A possible second possession in which the offense is down by 3 points. It must score a TD to win or a FG to continue into SD.
3. Lastly, traditional SD itself.
The three game states successively easier to model. The first possession must consider all the possibilities of the following two states. The second state must only consider itself and the possibility of SD. The second possession is also slightly easier to model because there is no punt option. An offense trailing by 3 points simply must score or lose.
Sunday's Numbers Have Been Crunched
Cam Newton: The Best First Two Seasons Ever
This Sunday, Cam Newton will finish his second NFL season. As the final whistle blows in the Panthers' final 2012 contest against New Orleans, Newton will have finished the greatest first two seasons we've ever seen out of an NFL quarterback. And at least in the realm of the regular season, it isn't particularly close.
Newton enters Sunday with the following career statistics: 574-for-969 passing (59.2 percent), 7,672 yards, 40 touchdowns, 28 interceptions; 246 rushes for 1413 yards (5.7 per carry) and 22 more touchdowns. Newton's 8,584 net yards -- including 70 sacks taken for 501 lost yards -- the Panthers star has an exactly 800 yard lead on Peyton Manning's old 7,784 net yardage mark, the previous best for any quarterback in his first two seasons. Newton still has one game left.
Newton's 7.9 yards per attempt ranks fourth (Ben Roethlisberger, Dan Marino, Mark Rypien). His 62 total touchdowns ranks second (Marino). Newton's only major category away from the top: a 2.8 percent intereception rate, still 16th of the 78 quarterbacks since 1933 to start at least 20 games in their first two seasons. Only Andy Dalton attempted more passes than Newton of those above him on the list.
My Gift to Football Columnists: The Sports Column Generator
Life is especially tough for columnists because so much of what happens on a football field can't be pinned down to any particular cause. A plausible narrative has to be invented and defended. After all, an essay like this doesn't fill up many column-inches:
Localtown, ST -- Sometimes our hometown team has two turnovers, sometimes it has one, and sometimes it has none. Sunday, it had two, one fumble and one tipped pass for an interception, and that's probably why they lost. The end.
Season after season of regurgitating the same narratives must get old, and I'm sure sometimes columnists feel like they could be replaced by a robot. Well, now they have.
Team Efficiency Stats - Week 17
Here are the team efficiency rankings heading into week 17. See the second table below for the raw inputs. Click the table headers to sort.
Sunday's Numbers Have Been Crunched
Calvin Johnson's Receiving Record and "Stats"
But the truth is that the record for most receiving yards (or rushing yards or whatever yards) is not "a statistic." It's trivia. It's the answer to a question on the ESPN sports-trivia-a-day calendar you just bought for your nephew for Christmas. It's the kind of thing that gives stats a bad name, or at least a misleading one.
Don't get me wrong. I think Calvin Johnson is awesome, and all the numbers agree. Fans and media are right to make a big deal out of such an accomplishment. It's just that records like this are what most people think of when they hear the word statistics. It's understandable then, that when coaches or players think of stats, they dismiss them as pointless or "for losers." After all, how could knowing who holds the record for most receiving yards in a season, or memorizing how many yards that is, possibly help a team win?
How Much Is Joe Flacco Worth?
Statistically, he's just as hard to figure out. Among all QBs since 2008, when Flacco entered the league and began his uninterrupted starting streak, his WPA has exceeded his EPA. Of the 30 QBs with the most attempts since 2008, Flacco has the 3rd highest ratio of WPA to EPA. Most observers would call him "clutch."
Based on the recent historical relationship between QB performance and salary, we can estimate Flacco's market value. But depending on how we value his production, we get very different salary values.
Flacco is remarkably consistent. Receivers come and go, and lineman come and go, but since his rookie year Flacco is a rock solid 70 EPA per year guy. Adjusting for team cap inflation, that makes Flacco worth approximately: