Something that should concern every Jets Fan

[viguy007]

It seems like every year after the offseason, we question he ability of the New England Patriots to repeat as the dominant team in the AFC. Yet they have excelled at drafting no names who produce, and signing unconventional players such as Julian Edelman, Danny Woodhead, and Wes Welker. The success of this team has been driven by their coaching staff’s ability to effectively evaluate talent and make critical strategy decisions using  football analytics.

 

Crunching numbers and poring over statistics has always been a big part of professional sports for fans, coaches and team managers alike. But advanced analytics -- with its many confusing acronyms and complicated formulas -- has so far been the domain of only the most hardcore fantasy sports enthusiasts. That is until recently, since  more and more NFL teams are beginning to buy into the worth of the advanced metrics which make up Analytics.

 

As ESPN pointed out "Patriots owner Robert Kraft worked with a former colleague in the 1990s to create statistical models for player valuation. And for the past 15 years, Belichick has relied heavily on his football research director to collaborates with him to develop a variety of cutting-edge approaches to team building and game play. There is little doubt that the Patriots invest time and energy looking for every edge, and their commitment to ruthlessly outsmarting the competition is a Belichick trademark."

 

ESPN also pointed out "the Jets were built around the old-school sensibilities of Rex Ryan, with line coach Dave DeGuglielmo summing up the traditional mindset with a 2012 rant against analytics:  'All of a sudden we're 'Moneyballing' offensive lineman,' he said. '[The] world I live in isn't a fantasy world.' Ryan's departure does not herald a new approach to analytics. Team owner Woody Johnson has given no indication analytics will be incorporated into the Jets' football operations. New GM Mike Maccagnan, and new coach Todd Bowles have done little with analytics, have  old-school credentials (the good ol' eye test), and were not hired to spearhead a analytics awakening for Gang Green."

 

In my fanpost "Is Chris Owusu A Diamond In The Rough" I used a rudimentary form of analytics to show Osusu is better then perhaps we give him credit for being. Of course, this is based on a limited snap count of 87 and only six targets, so any analysis is flawed to this extent, and we can only have a low level of confidence in the results. But leaving the debate about Owusu aside, what Jet Fans should be concerned about is the fact that the Jets are one of the most resistance teams to incorporating analytics in player evaluation in the NFL.

 

So what are analytics? 

 

Analytics (in a broad sense) have been around since sports began, only we used to call them stats. Baseball is famous for its wealth of statistics, from batting average, earned run average, on base percentage, and so on. But which statistics are most important? For decades, baseball talent evaluators used basic statistics like batting average as their primary evaluation tools. This began to change in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a few pioneers began looking at what are now called “advanced analytics” to get beyond the surface and find the measurements that actually equate to wins.

 

Football has arguably a more difficult evaluation problem than baseball. Baseball tends to be heavily based on individual matchups. A hitter, for example, is primarily facing only the pitcher on any given pitch, not the entire opposing team. In football, 11 players must coordinate their actions efficiently to have success on any given play, and those actions must take into account the actions of the opposing team’s 11 players and how they will react to their own actions. That’s a far more complex problem.

 

The one of the biggest challenge for NFL teams is trying to determine which players’ college success will translate best to the pros. That’s not real easy. The transition from college to the pros is an extraordinarily difficult one, especially at positions like quarterback and defensive back. These are two of the most difficult positions to play in all of sports, both mentally and physically. To avoid drafting someone who will be a “draft bust” teams are increasingly taking a quantitative approach to help with their evaluations. Now, most teams on the cutting edge of evaluating the draft, are providing their football decision-makers with analytics to help supplement their decision-making when it comes to the NFL draft.

 

 In player evaluations the use of more quantitative statistical analysis is increasing as teams try to gain an edge. Organizations like ADVANCED FOOTBALL ANALYTICS, FOOTBALL OUTSIDER, and PRO FOOTBALL FOCUS are showing that data analytics can provide value in an area where evaluators have traditionally relied as much on intuition and “gut” as on quantitative metrics.

 

Sports analytics brings a more refined and business like approach to player evaluation by seeking efficiencies and maximizing performance. The idea is to identify player metrics that are shown—statistically—to correlate highest to wins, then value players according to those metrics. In this way,  sports analytics extends and enhances the more traditional statistics like 40-yard dash time. Analytics helps a team win by helping it make better decisions, from the personnel office to  the huddle. Adding an analytic approach to a team's decision process clarifies goals, options, and risks. It makes hidden and implicit assumptions explicit. It gives decision makers the best, most relevant information available.

 

 Analytics began to emerge in football in the past ten years as teams have gone from just analyzing game footage to putting a quantitative value on a player’s performance. One of the more widely known metrics is the quarterback rating. It is a complex rating that’s computed based on complete passes, pass attempts, passing yards, touchdown passes, and interceptions. Teams continue to analyze video to track, tabulate, and calculate how many times the opposing team, for example, blitzes when its defense is in a nickel formation, but they are also starting to use video to track the number of times that a cornerback misreads a slant route or runs into another defender when covering a pick play. “It’s not just about doing advanced scouting on teams’ formations, but targeting players so teams say, ‘We can run this play at this lineman,’ or ‘This cornerback can’t cover this particular route,’” 

 

Technology has been a big driver of the increased uptake of advanced analytics in the NFL. Highly specialized computer software that pores through statistical data is a popular method, but New York  Giants Assistant General Manager Kevin Abrams points to a much more individualized way of gathering novel information about athletes' behavior.

 

"Some of the newer technologies that we've found really effective are the wearable devices. Some of which are simple marketplace devices that anyone can purchase, but there are some more sophisticated devices we've been able to use that monitor a lot of different biometrics for players, and you combine all of those."

 

Abrams says his organization now uses advanced analytics to evaluate coaching strategy, scout opponents, help train their players and prevent them from getting injured. However, he also believes the key to success is blending the new tools of analytics and the old ways together.

 

"I think what's changed is that our competency level with analytics has grown. [but] analytics isn't going to be a one-stop, fix all, immediate solution," says Abrams. "What we do personnel-wise is still an 'eyeball' business, but I also think we can support our player personnel evaluations with better use of analytics."

 

Essentially, Analytics created a new type of scouting that strictly looks at performance, not necessarily the process that gets there. This can be referred to as supplying the “what” as traditional scouts and coaches supply the “why.” Analytics can tell a team that an offensive tackle gives up an inordinate amount of bullrush pressure and traditional scouts and coaches can determine if it’s a lack of technique, functional strength, or perhaps a combination of the two. Traditional scouting may describe a player’s explosiveness off the edge, but Analytics can tell you how often a rusher actually got pressure to the outside shoulder of the offensive tackle. Other scouting reports will often describe a cornerback’s hip swivel, but Analytics look at how well he actually plays in coverage. A player’s athleticism is irrelevant in Analytics, unless it leads to productive on-field performance, a performance which may not be immediately apparent to  traditional scouts and coaches.

 

As Neil Hornsby, the founder of Pro Football Focus explained it: 

 

Statistics, of course, don’t provide all the answers, nor do they always give new answers, but they can offer a different perspective to help break down the game.

 

“Whether a team should go for it on fourth-and-1, there’s been some analysis of that,” Hornsby says. “But the truth of it is, - 1) what is the sample size of data for that game being played in Buffalo, at a particular temperature in December, with  2)a right guard who has a dodgy hamstring and 3) the halfback just broke up with his girlfriend the previous day? -  No amount of statistics can give you that answer. Only the coach can make that decision.

 

“But what we can do, we can say to a coach, ‘If you see Calvin Johnson lining up as the inside slot receiver on a play in Week 14, and in every other circumstance where he has lined up in that position he has run this route—would that be useful to you?’ ”

 

Yes, Analytics are not the be all and end all of football decision making, but it can make a substantial positive contribution to that decision making. And that is a reason for all Jets fans to be concerned. The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, is the Super Bowl of Analytics. A lot of smart people in various sports gathered this year to discuss the future direction and impact of analytics. Eighteen NFL teams were represented, including the Patriots (owner Robert Kraft was on a discussion panel) Dolphins, and Bills; but the Jets were nowhere to be seen.

 

Some experts credit part of the success of the New England Patriots, who have been in more Super Bowls then any other team in the last 15 years, to this trend in analytics. “It is generally accepted that the Patriots are one of the most analytically advanced franchises in the NFL,” says Aaron Schatz, the creator of FootballOutsiders.com, a site that uses statistics to analyze the game.  Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is known to be among the more disciplined analytical players. One account called him a “student of error” for his detailed review of incomplete and intercepted passes in game videos. In a 2014 press conference, he described what he thinks leads to success in professional football:

 

You have to be a technician, you have to understand, you have to be a student of

the game, you have to work, you have to understand what the coaches are

asking, understand what the team is looking for and just keep working harder

and harder and harder and then when you get your opportunity you have to

make it pay off.

 

Of course, full advantage from player and team performance analytics would seem to come

when all the coaches and players on a team embrace analytics and use them to enhance their

performance. Until the Jets FO makes this a part of their approach, the Jets will always be also-ran never a champion.

[Green DNA]

Two words to explain the success of Bob Kraft's analytics: Tom Brady

[Larz]

they cheat

 

it's not rocket science

[drdetroit]

So sick of this nonsense

Tom Brady is the reason the patriots win

Hudson, Mulder and Zito all in their primes is why billy beane won not f-cking math equations

[CaliforniaJet]

Pats cheat, end of story.  

[UnitedWhofans]

Winning in the NFL is essentially a combination of good drafting and luck.

[T0mShane]

In my fanpost.

[prime21]

Tom Brady could get Kerley a very big FA pay day after a few seasons.

[faba]

Two words to explain the success of Bob Kraft's analytics: Tom Brady

Ding Ding there is your winner

[BigRy56]

The only thing that concerns Jet fans right now is how much NEW YORK JETS - 2016 Superbowl Champions gear are we going we going to buy next February.

[JustInFudge]

Bill Belichick's record before Tom Brady - 41-55

Bill Belichick's record with Tom Brady - 171-69

[Beerfish]

The biggest reason the Pats have owned the AFC East over the last 9 years.

 

Turnover differential:

 

Pats: +122

Bills: -9

Phins: -19

Jets: -37

 

Brady is a factor in this stat for sure but Brady has little to do with generating turnovers.  Over the last 9 years the Pats have been plus in TO ratio every year.

Phins plus 3 out of 9 years

Bills plus 5 out of 9 years

Jets plus 2 out of 9 years.

[faba]

Maybe they analyze the weight of the football but that is about it.

[JustInFudge]

The biggest reason the Pats have owned the AFC East over the last 9 years.

 

Turnover differential:

 

Pats: +122

Bills: -9

Phins: -19

Jets: -37

 

Brady is a factor in this stat for sure but Brady has little to do with generating turnovers.  Over the last 9 years the Pats have been plus in TO ratio every year.

Phins plus 3 out of 9 years

Bills plus 5 out of 9 years

Jets plus 2 out of 9 years.

 

puke

[neckdemon]

The biggest reason the Pats have owned the AFC East over the last 9 years.

Turnover differential:

Pats: +122

Bills: -9

Phins: -19

Jets: -37

Brady is a factor in this stat for sure but Brady has little to do with generating turnovers. Over the last 9 years the Pats have been plus in TO ratio every year.

Phins plus 3 out of 9 years

Bills plus 5 out of 9 years

Jets plus 2 out of 9 years.

That's incredible. Something fishy there

[viguy007]

So many non-believers here, yet more and more NFL team are adopting analytics. In the future this will be the NFL: What if a coach had access to real-time data that showed how the defense was responding (or not) to a ferocious ofensive drive that got them deep into enemy territory? What if he could seize upon that data to identify a weakness in the secondary within the 40-second play clock and and hurry-up offense (which makes it almost impossible for the defense to substitute) to call a play designed to exploit that weakness, one that he could feel much more confident about employing than the standard generic run up the middle on a goal-line situation?

 

The NFL has partnered with Microsoft to make this a reality

[Beerfish]

puke

GENO SANCHEZ!

[CTM]

The biggest reason the Pats have owned the AFC East over the last 9 years.

 

Turnover differential:

 

Pats: +122

Bills: -9

Phins: -19

Jets: -37

 

Brady is a factor in this stat for sure but Brady has little to do with generating turnovers.  Over the last 9 years the Pats have been plus in TO ratio every year.

Phins plus 3 out of 9 years

Bills plus 5 out of 9 years

Jets plus 2 out of 9 years.

 

 

In the last 3 years alone Jets QB's have thrown +28 more interceptions then Brady. much of that gap will be a QB not turning the ball over

[Jetsfan80]

Bill Belichick's record before Tom Brady - 41-55

Bill Belichick's record with Tom Brady - 171-69

 

#Analytics

[viguy007]

That's incredible. Something fishy there

Go to http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2015/the-new-england-patriots-mysteriously-became-fumble-proof-in-2007

 

For an analytics answer to your implied question

[#27TheDominator]

Didn't they kick this around a few weeks ago and it turned out that the Jets had some analytics guys on staff?  I think they also found some other very successful teams less reliant on analytics.  One thing I will say is this: Maybe this explains why the Pats suck at drafting, but do okay with FA signings?  It much be much harder to translate analytics from college to pro.

[Jetster]

Two words to explain the success of Bob Kraft's analytics: Tom Brady

Damn straight!

It wasn't analytics that methodically moved the ball up & down the field vs the legion of boom by finding the open WR underneath & ALWAYS finding the bad matchup like the Seahawks LB on Gronk,lol.

No Brady, no championships.

They have 4 but the 1st should have never been attainable as everyone knows the non fumble vs the Raiders was flat out highway robbery. The tuck rule was ridiculous & I can't believe the ref had the audacity to call it.

If that game was in Oakland there is no way in hell they recite the f*cking TUCK RULE.

Carrolls brain fart gave them another.

[derp]

The sample size issues that they reference are a big deal in football and why analytics will take a long time to gain any traction IMO. 

 

Analytics are all about gaining a little edge so that you can win in the long-run. The issue is that coaches and GM's don't have a long-run. So if you're a coach and the right decision 51% of the time is to go for it in a scenario where you'll likely get killed if you lose going for it but people will understand punting...you punt because that slight edge isn't worth risking your job by making an unconventional decision.

 

Football is also ridiculously difficult to quantify. How does decision making change when the defense is winded? When your slot corner's been getting whipped all game? When your center gets hurt and has to miss a couple of downs? Maybe we'll get there someday, but you need some complicated models to make that kind of stuff work and even then you get back to the sample size issues - it's a high variance game and I bet if you look at confidence intervals for a lot of this stuff it won't look that pretty.

[jetscrazey]

let's be honest, Belichick can use all the analytics he wants, but at the end of the day Tom Brady determines the future of that team.

[JohnnyLV]

Patriots win because they have the best coach in the NFL, a Top 3 QB in the NFL, and frankly a division with 3 fairly poorly run franchises, none of whom have anything resembling a franchise QB

[KRL]

Stop with all this analytic crap!!!  NE has Brady period.  In addition did analytics help them beat

SEA or did the fact Carroll & Bevell drank "stupid juice" and threw the ball from the 1 yard line???

[dbatesman]

Stop with all this analytic crap!!! NE has Brady period. In addition did analytics help them beat

SEA or did the fact Carroll & Bevell drank "stupid juice" and threw the ball from the 1 yard line???

This post is everything

[Jolot]

I couldn't follow any of that ,...This is something that concerns me.

[CanadaSteve]

Didn't they kick this around a few weeks ago and it turned out that the Jets had some analytics guys on staff?  I think they also found some other very successful teams less reliant on analytics.  One thing I will say is this: Maybe this explains why the Pats suck at drafting, but do okay with FA signings?  It much be much harder to translate analytics from college to pro.

 

Didn't they kick this around a few weeks ago and it turned out that the Jets had some analytics guys on staff?  I think they also found some other very successful teams less reliant on analytics.  One thing I will say is this: Maybe this explains why the Pats suck at drafting, but do okay with FA signings?  It much be much harder to translate analytics from college to pro.

 

Didn't they kick this around a few weeks ago and it turned out that the Jets had some analytics guys on staff?  I think they also found some other very successful teams less reliant on analytics.  One thing I will say is this: Maybe this explains why the Pats suck at drafting, but do okay with FA signings?  It much be much harder to translate analytics from college to pro.

Really?

 

Dominique Easley, Jimmy Garapolo, Jamie Collins, Chandler Jones, Dont'a Hightower, Tavon Wilson, Nate Solder, Ben Vereen, Steven Ridley, Ryan Mallet, Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Brandon Spikes, Zoltan Mesko, Bryan Stork, Logan Ryan. 

 

That's not a bad five years of drafting.  They do not seem to draft well from the 4 round back, but they sure seem to get the first three rounds right.

[#27TheDominator]

Really?

 

Dominique Easley, Jimmy Garapolo, Jamie Collins, Chandler Jones, Dont'a Hightower, Tavon Wilson, Nate Solder, Ben Vereen, Steven Ridley, Ryan Mallet, Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Brandon Spikes, Zoltan Mesko, Bryan Stork, Logan Ryan. 

 

That's not a bad five years of drafting.  They do not seem to draft well from the 4 round back, but they sure seem to get the first three rounds right.

 

 

You include a punter that didn't make his 2nd contract and is out of the league?

 

Really?

[#27TheDominator]

Really?

 

Dominique Easley, Jimmy Garapolo, Jamie Collins, Chandler Jones, Dont'a Hightower, Tavon Wilson, Nate Solder, Ben Vereen, Steven Ridley, Ryan Mallet, Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Brandon Spikes, Zoltan Mesko, Bryan Stork, Logan Ryan. 

 

That's not a bad five years of drafting.  They do not seem to draft well from the 4 round back, but they sure seem to get the first three rounds right.

 

 

Come Mr. Tally man, tally me banana

[Tinstar]

they cheat

 

it's not rocket science

End thread.

[LouisvilleSlugger25]

Bill Belichick's record before Tom Brady - 41-55

Bill Belichick's record with Tom Brady - 171-69

 

Exactly. Analytics may help, but Brady is the only reason this team is good every year. Outside of one fluke year with Matt Cassell, Bellicheat has had no success in the NFL as a head coach without Brady. 

[RutgersJetFan]

I don't agree with math because I don't wanna catch the gayness.

[faba]

This is why we need more math and science majors