Tag: Analytics

Global Rating: Who are the best players by position?

The modern NBA may be positionless, but fortunately the players are not all cast by the same mold. As a still very useful way to distinguish them by role, we’re ranking the 30 best players for each position, according to their 2022-23 Global Rating.

The modern NBA may be positionless, but fortunately the players are not all cast by the same mold. As a still very useful way to distinguish them by role, we’re ranking the 30 best players for each position, according to their 2022-23 Global Rating.

Data Dump: Browns rise up rankings after dominating the Cardinals

Where do the Cleveland Browns rank across various metrics after their week 9 performance against the Arizona Cardinals.

In this week’s Data Dump, the Cleveland Browns are quickly rising through the ranks of the NFL after delivering a 27-0 win against the Arizona Cardinals. While the Browns are 5-3 at the halfway point of their season, the statistical analysis didn’t agree that the Browns were worthy of their record.

The return of Deshaun Watson propelled the Browns’ offense from being one of the worst in the league to a subpar offense after one game. It sounds small, but the improvement was a step in the right direction for models that assume offenses are far more important than defenses. The Browns are now on the doorstep of the upper echelon of the league according to most metrics. A few more games like Sunday from Watson and the Browns will quickly advance to the top of the NFL with the Chiefs, Eagles, and Ravens.

Sunday’s matchup between the Browns and the Ravens will pit the two top defenses in the NFL against each other. The Browns will be looking for revenge after losing their first game after rookie quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson was named the starter the morning of the game due to the aforementioned Watson injury.  The teams will be extremely motivated to prove which team is not only the best in the AFC North but among the entire league.

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Vikings’ offensive line continues to shine

The offensive line for the Minnesota Vikings has vastly improved from last season and the numbers reflect that

Ben Baldwin of The Athletic is one of the key voices of the analytics movement in the NFL. In one of his exercises, he compiled the best offensive lines when it comes to true pass sets

The Minnesota Vikings ranked sixth in the NFL in aggregate offensive line rankings while also boasting one of the higher grades coming from tackles.

True pass sets are categorized as plays with more than four rushers and cannot be play-action, screens, short dropbacks or throws under two seconds.

Going into the season, one of the main gripes with the Vikings and their offense was their pass protection. Kirk Cousins was hit the most of any quarterback last season. It was to the point that Cousins’ resilience through the constant battering was a key point in the Netflix series that he was featured in.

If the Vikings are looking to make a playoff push, whether it is with the rookie Jaren Hall or now-Minnesota legend Josh Dobbs, they will have to keep them upright in straight dropback situations.

So far, Minnesota has been doing that better than the vast majority of the league.

It is another feather in the cap of a team that is doing everything in its power to compete sooner rather than later.

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Data Dump: How are the Browns doing after the Seahawks loss?

Where the Cleveland Browns are ranked amongst the NFL after 8 weeks.

The midway point between games is a great time to take a step back from the disappointing loss against the Seattle Seahawks by the Cleveland Browns and examine the rest of the league. Football is a week-to-week sport and in that flow, we can forget that the sport lasts for nearly half a year. It’s important to take a 30,000-foot view of the league to better assess the landscape.

In Data Dump we aim to give you the weekly breakdown of where the Browns stand across the entire NFL among multiple categories. The Browns are standing pat at four wins after losing to the Seahawks 20-24. The loss showed that the Browns offense has steadily improved since losing star running back Nick Chubb and quarterback Deshaun Watson. The Browns are slowly regaining their offensive identity without their franchise players. The offense is still turning the ball over at an alarming rate. Under Watson’s leadership, the Browns should eliminate most of the turnovers.

The defense is the biggest victim of the turnovers. They’re constantly forced to defend shorter fields than other teams. While the Browns’ defense has done a good job limiting offenses, they are not invincible. They cannot continue defending 50 yards at a time. The season-long stats show how field positioning is dragging a historically great Browns’ defense into a top-three defense.

New Commanders’ head of analytics played a role in Tuesday’s trades

Eugene Shen making an impact before he officially begins his new job.

Josh Harris made his first significant hire last week, tapping Eugene Shen as the Washington Commanders’ Senior Vice President of Football Strategy.

Shen’s new position with the Commanders wasn’t scheduled to begin until Nov. 6, which is next week. However, Shen is already at work, according to head coach Ron Rivera.

With the Commanders trading defensive ends Montez Sweat and Chase Young before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline, they wanted to receive the best possible value for the talented pass rushers. Enter Shen.

Rivera was asked if Tuesday was the best day to trade Young and Sweat because, as the saying goes, “deadlines spur action.”

“I think when you look at what the options were and what the opportunities were in terms of the value, and that’s where Eugene Shen comes in, is being able to talk about what the potential value is,” Rivera said. “Those things all came into play.”

To be clear, Rivera didn’t say Shen was in the building. But Harris, who relies heavily on analytics with his other franchises, wanted Shen’s expert input.

The Commanders received a second-round pick from Chicago for Sweat and a third-round pick from San Francisco for Young.

Now, the Commanders have nine picks in the 2024 NFL draft, including three expected to be inside the top 50.

 

Commanders hire Eugene Shen to head analytics department

The Commanders make a significant hire on Thursday.

The Washington Commanders made the first significant outside hire of the Josh Harris era Friday, naming Eugene Shen as the team’s senior vice president of football strategy. In Shen’s new role, he will oversee all analytics and software development for the football operations.

Shen is a graduate of Harvard and has an MBA from MIT. Shen has plenty of NFL experience, working with the Baltimore Ravens from 2014-19 as the director of coaching analytics. Late in 2019, Shen moved to the Miami Dolphins, where he was the director of personnel analytics. From 2021-22, Shen was vice president of football analytics for the Jacksonville Jaguars, overseeing all data and analytics for the entire football operation.

Washington head coach Ron Rivera had the following statement on Shen’s hiring:

“Bringing Eugene’s level of expertise to lead our analytics and software development enables us to build on our data capabilities to help inform decision-making,” Rivera said. “Eugene brings a great deal of practical NFL experience, and we look forward to bringing him into our conversations about the vision of our team going forward. The willingness of our ownership group to follow through on their pledge to allocate resources to data and analytics is exciting for the future of the franchise.”

Harris, who assumed ownership on July 20, is ahead of the game when it comes to analytics. Harris has often spoken about the importance of analytics, and his hires with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils support his commitment.

Shen begins his new role on Nov. 6.

Under former owner Daniel Snyder, the Commanders were named as one the least analytically based teams in the NFL. However, Washington has made strides over the past year. The Commanders hired football data scientist Preston Biro in June, who joined Doug Drewry, Washington’s football analytics coordinator, who has been with the franchise for four years.

“It’s an exciting time to be joining this legendary franchise, and I look forward to working with Coach Rivera and the front office to help shape the vision of the franchise going forward,” Shen said in a statement from the team.

“I have immense respect for the hard work that coaches and talent evaluators put into roster construction, team building and game strategy, and I believe that an increase in resources will provide further tools to inform the decisions we make as a franchise going forward as part of the ongoing work to become the best in the NFL.”

This is a significant hire by Harris as he will continue reshaping the Commanders over the next several months.

Why are Commanders wide receivers not creating separation?

New analytics reveal concerning numbers for Commanders wide receivers.

The Washington Commanders are a mess on offense. While young quarterback Sam Howell has shown flashes of brilliance through seven games, he’s also been frustratingly inconsistent. Most concerning is Howell has been sacked 40 times.

Howell is currently on pace to shatter Derek Carr’s single-season NFL record of being sacked 76 times in a season. There is plenty of blame to go around for Howell’s sack issues. He holds the ball too long, the offensive line hasn’t been good enough and the coaching staff has also been a problem.

What about the wide receivers? Wait, what? Remember the hype Washington receivers had before the season? The Commanders have yet to have a 100-yard receiver this season, and second-year wideout Jahan Dotson is struggling.

Terry McLaurin is outstanding, as usual, but even his numbers are off.

Earlier this season, when discussing some offensive struggles, McLaurin mentioned he and his fellow receivers could also help Howell by creating more space. That’s McLaurin’s way of saying the receivers weren’t creating enough separation.

Watching the TV copy of a game doesn’t do it justice. If you have access to the All-22, you’ll see Washington’s wide receivers running routes in the same area, and all are covered. It’s one of many problems for this offense. The concern is that the Commanders receivers have never had this issue before.

Is it the offensive scheme?

A new tracking metric from ESPN ranks all NFL wide receivers. It does an overall ranking and also breaks it down into three categories, one of which is an “open” ranking. Here are Washington’s receivers, including tight end Logan Thomas:

  • No. 64: TE Logan Thomas
  • No. 80: WR Terry McLaurin
  • No. 81: WR Jahan Dotson
  • No. 87: WR Curtis Samuel

Remember, these rankings are out of 109 players ranked. Everyone knows McLaurin is a top-10 NFL wide receiver — or close. But if you watch the film, the receivers are often covered, leading to more problems for Howell.

Dotson has taken a major step back this season after many projected a breakout campaign for him.

Things do not get any easier for the Commanders who host the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in a rematch from Week 4.

PFF grades reveal Vikings should be more successful than record

Unlike last season, the underlying metrics and PFF grades show that the Vikings are better than their record

The Minnesota Vikings and their fans have had a tough start to the 2023 season. The Vikings are 2-4, and there are rumors of prominent players possibly being dealt away to jumpstart a rebuild.

However, their performance this season has been good enough to win all six games. At least, according to Pro Football Focus.

Robby Greer, a data analytics expert, stated that the Minnesota Vikings are “one of just three teams that have recorded a PFF team grade you’d normally expect to result in a win in all 6 of their games.”

The narratives surrounding this organization are well-known.

The football gods shone their light on the Minnesota Vikings for all of 2022, and the results were a magical season. It was a season that defied numbers, logic and reason. It was a season that I can only hope Vikings fans cherished because, as the old saying goes, what goes up must come down.

And it has gone down fast.

Minnesota can’t stop turning the ball over. If the passing game is effective, they can’t run the ball. If the offense moves down the field, the defense can’t get a stop, or vice versa.

This team needs to have a complete game. Badly.

There couldn’t be a better time to have it all come together than when the Super Bowl favorite San Francisco 49ers come to town.

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Data Dump: Trend forecasting after a month of Browns football

NFL Analytical review a month after the season starts. What does the 1st quarter of the season tell us about the future

The first month of football is a wrap for the Cleveland Browns. It’s hard to believe that nearly a quarter of the season has passed. Personally, it has felt like half a season since the Steelers game. The game-time decision by Deshaun Watson to sit on Sunday has only added to the feeling of the interminable dredge of the offense. A month is long enough for season-long trends to become more evident when examining data.

Football is a difficult sport for data analytics as the sport has the least amount of games compared to other sports. Trends become extremely explicit over 38, 82, and 162 games in one season. Four games over a seventeen-game season does a good job of outlining the picture, even if it doesn’t paint it in detail.

It’s important to remember that the Browns have suffered a lot of blows on offense over the first four weeks. Deshaun Watson looked good in his only game without inclement weather or the morale hit of witnessing a devastating injury to a team leader. I don’t want to make excuses for the Browns’ lackluster start on offense. I want to properly contextualize the offense.

Without further ado, here is the monthly data drop.

7 Kirk Cousins stats that epitomize his season

Kirk Cousins has been playing well, but how well exactly? @TheRealForno breaks him down with analytics and film

When it comes to Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, it’s all about stats. For some, it’s about how he’s leading the NFL in passing yards, attempts, completions and touchdowns. For others, it’s about the advanced metrics and how they equate to his performance.

In reality, they all matter to a degree, but some don’t matter nearly as much as others.

If you lead the league in attempts and completions, you should probably also lead the league in yards. Touchdowns are inherently random overall, but leading the league is a good thing.

In order to truly quantify what Cousins is, looking at the advanced metrics and the all-22 are the ways to have a real understanding of where things are at with him. These stats are the most important to describing the play of Cousins so far this season and epitomize where he is at.