Last week the Sports Info Solutions Data Challenge came to its conclusion, as the judging portion of the competition took place on Wednesday night. The challenge tasked teams with taking a dataset of play-by-play data provided by SIS and answering two questions. First, what was the most popular route combination in the NFL last season? Second, what was the most successful route combination in the NFL last season against each type of coverage?
I was lucky enough to pair up with a brilliant team. Before going any further, I strongly recommend that you follow all three: Dr. Bud Davis, Keegan Abdoo and Joey Ferraiola. They’re brilliant, and approximately 98% of what follows is due to their work.
For those interested, you can view the judging portion of the finals here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efSjcSl4_lA
But I thought it might be interesting to look at the findings with respect to the second prompt: Which route combinations work best against each coverage. What follows is a discussion of the methodology our group used to answer this question, our findings for each coverage and film examples to illustrate the concepts.