As the NFL season begins its annual draft cycle, I’ll start a series on analytics and football. Predicting player success before the draft is big discussion and big business. The game of football is flooded with emotion. Fans, players, coaches, executives and owners each have high stakes in a sport where extreme athleticism, speed and power create action seen nowhere … Read More
Alejandro Villanueva, My View – Part Five: National Anthem
In Part One, Two, Three and Four – I share my unique view of Alejandro Villanueva’s journey to the NFL. Almost a year later I augment with Part Five – National Anthem. So much dialogue and diatribe has accomplanied Colin Kapernick’s recent self-expression during the National Anthem. America is a land of the free and home of the brave. I … Read More
Critical Situations by Analytics
“In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein The conversation often focuses on adversity, not success. You’ve heard that “Adversity doesn’t build character…It reveals it!” In this piece, I will present the response of teams in two very particular situations and relate it to season win totals. Let’s start general and quickly focus in How do units … Read More
Power Rankings for NFL Analytics
Analytics, Moneyball, Metrics….. The bottom line in professional sport is and always will be the scoreboard. Two numbers compared to each other when the contest has concluded. Pretty simple. Not too confusing. Attention: NFL Analytics Power Rankings Below What is analytics? A few definitions: 1) The method of logical analysis or the field of data analysis. 2) The discovery, interpretation, … Read More
Winning When NOT Playing Well
Winner or Loser. Every football game – except for the extremely rare tie – ends with a team happy and a team less happy. Tracking every game through the lense of drive performance metrics – performance can be compared to the point differential at the end of the game. Here are all 1280 regular season games from 2011-2015. Let’s … Read More