QuikSand
02-10-2008, 06:41 PM
I have been fiddling a little, and have been looking for a simple way to measure how good a team is at stopping the run. What I find challenging about doing this is that "playing the run" is something that a team tends to do less and less of once its record gets good -- when you're winning games, you tend to get leads, tend to face teams who need to pass, and sit back and expect the pass. The result can be a deceptive stat -- you might be giving up a fair number of 5 yard gains on 3rd and 9... which would drive up a stat like yards per carry allowed... but that's still a good result for your team. Anyway -- I have often noticed that it's tough for a winning team to maintain very good numbers in the ypc-allowed stat, and I assume it's sizable for this reason, they are just expecting the pass more often.
Then, I was flipping through the team stats section, and it hit me. There's a backwards way of getting at something very much like what I really want here. Recall an earlier discussion that revealed the nature of the "key run block" stat -- it's essentially a measure of whether a designed run play earned a mark of "success" by some metric (my impression is that it's at lest 5 yards on first down and any distance, on second down it's some share of the remaining yardage toward a first down, and on third or fourth down only a first down or TD qualifies as a success). So, since in FOF team stats are all inverted for a team and its opponents, then looking under "Opposing Linemen" should let you know how your team did on defense.
How to look up this stat:
-Go to the Almanac window
-Choose Team Statistics
-Select Opposing Linemen
-Click the top of the column labeled BPct
Now, you have a sorted list of how often each team's defense gave up a successful running play, which isn't an altogether bad way to try to set aside some of these situational differences, and put rushing defense into context.
It's not perfect -- I don't know if "success" is perfectly defined, and certain types of plays likely have a better average success rate that do others. It also diminishes the effect of single big plays... giving up one 70 yard TD run can really change a game, but in this stat it won't hurt you more than giving up one 4-yard first down plunge on 2nd and 4. But this isn't a bad stat, I don't think... it might be the single best consolidated stat in-game to measure a team's overall rushing defensive effectiveness.
Tuck it away.
Then, I was flipping through the team stats section, and it hit me. There's a backwards way of getting at something very much like what I really want here. Recall an earlier discussion that revealed the nature of the "key run block" stat -- it's essentially a measure of whether a designed run play earned a mark of "success" by some metric (my impression is that it's at lest 5 yards on first down and any distance, on second down it's some share of the remaining yardage toward a first down, and on third or fourth down only a first down or TD qualifies as a success). So, since in FOF team stats are all inverted for a team and its opponents, then looking under "Opposing Linemen" should let you know how your team did on defense.
How to look up this stat:
-Go to the Almanac window
-Choose Team Statistics
-Select Opposing Linemen
-Click the top of the column labeled BPct
Now, you have a sorted list of how often each team's defense gave up a successful running play, which isn't an altogether bad way to try to set aside some of these situational differences, and put rushing defense into context.
It's not perfect -- I don't know if "success" is perfectly defined, and certain types of plays likely have a better average success rate that do others. It also diminishes the effect of single big plays... giving up one 70 yard TD run can really change a game, but in this stat it won't hurt you more than giving up one 4-yard first down plunge on 2nd and 4. But this isn't a bad stat, I don't think... it might be the single best consolidated stat in-game to measure a team's overall rushing defensive effectiveness.
Tuck it away.