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Aug 28Liked by Neil Paine

The King is alive and well - long live the King! An important and terrific discussion to start the season. There's a lot here that I could be misinterpreting, so apologies in advance if I am misunderstanding some elements. With that in mind, let me offer the following reactions.

How you "run" the football matters immensely to the numbers. To that end, I am concerned that the definitions here are possibly too broad and bit confusing on the issue. What constitutes a "run" and what a "pass?" For decades that was easy to discern. Outside of direct snaps, running was when the quarterback turned around and immediately gave the ball five yards behind the line of scrimmage to a smallish running back in full view of the defense who ran into a wall of bodies in front of him hoping to gain yardage. It was the least deceptive and efficient strategy in sports - and arguably the dumbest. Not surprisingly, its YPA was very low and very poor. This is what people think of when they hear "running the football."

Today, it isn't so easy. Runs by quarterbacks and not traditional RBs - either as RPOs, read options, designed runs or scrambles - constitute a significant and increasing portions of offenses that count as runs too. Yet those feel different to fans, and for good reason. They are very different and far more deceptive and efficient than the ineffective traditional runs that immediately come to mind. Put another way, Lamar Jackson is way more efficient running the ball than John Riggins ever was.

Same with passing. Passes behind the line of scrimmage count as "passes" - but really aren't, and their extremely low YPA misleadingly gets labeled as "passing." Because these plays are initiated so quickly, without any reads or consideration of other plays, they are extended handoffs designed to avoid the hazards of passing you reference - sacks and interceptions. While the ball is technically in the air, it's not really a "forward" pass as the definitions used might suggest.

Incredibly, offensive coordinators continue to call these awful plays week after week despite never working or gaining yards. A testament to the level of delusion and analytical ignorance still roaming the sidelines in the NFL. One way we can all advance is to demand that the NFL stop calling these dreadful plays that are unfairly maligning the reputation of the forward pass.

So, our definitions and how we bucket the data could very likely be misleading people into thinking that somehow - miraculously - the data proves that Jonathan Taylor is every bit as valuable as Joe Burrow. He's not. More data segmentation would likely present a more accurate picture. Take out the ever-increasing quarterback runs from the "rushing" category (I suspect the likely cause of the recent shrinkage in the delta between the strategies), take out passes behind the line from the "passing" category and add shovel passes to the running category and reshuffle. I bet the charts look a lot different.

The King is still the King.

Second, the focus on turnover risk has always falsely slandered the forward pass for decades. You would routinely hear people say "when you pass, three things can happen and two of them are bad." Yet, definitions are a huge part of the problem here too. By any reasonable interpretation, a punt is a turnover. A team surrenders possession to the other team on its own downs - i.e. a turnover.

We hear that an interception far downfield is "as good as a punt" and a failed 4th down is a "turnover on downs" - yet, we seem inexplicably unable to equate punts landing into the arms of the opponent as turnovers as well. In fact, for decades the punt was somehow heralded as a "smart" strategy because it exchanged yardage and points for turnover ratio and field possession...but I digress.

Guess what strategy I suspect yield more punts - more total turnovers - overall? The traditional running of the football. When you ignore punts, running falsely looks less risky than passing. It isn't. Giving away possessions to your opponents hurts you, regardless of how its done.

Finally, one way I look at the power of an offense is by examining the percentage of first downs an offense achieves without using 3rd or 4th downs or penalties. In other words, which offenses get more first downs utilizing only two plays? While an examination of the total number of first downs generated is certainly valuable as a broad offensive measurement, for me incremental insight can be gained by examining the first down percentage gained on the first two downs. Stripping out first downs achieved on 3rd and 4th downs as well as those gained by a penalty will tell you how powerful an offense truly is at quickly moving the sticks and gaining first downs more efficiently. Invariably, passing teams are more powerful.

Teams that consistently need to string together plays by going deeper into their allotted downs to achieve incremental first downs are likely running teams - and accordingly, less powerful, less likely to score and more likely to punt than those that can get to the sticks more efficiently. This has been particularly true when teams face stiffer defenses such as in the Playoffs.

May you and King Forward Pass have long and fruitful reigns!

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Thanks Grant -- this is all good material for a future post!

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My pleasure. I'll add one more for context. My power rating described above for the top teams has seemingly been in decline for the past few years when I check. Why has this been the case?

Some of are well known and discussed today. Defensive coordinators have moved to reduce explosive plays by playing more zone (which reduces explosive plays over the top and keeps eyes in the backfield for QB runs), moving an additional safety deep again to reduce deep passing and splitting the single safety through multiple vertical receivers and emptying the box to incentivize less efficient runs.

At a philosophical level, defense have moved to try and make the explosive passing game suffer the same maladies as the traditional running game of the past...lower YPA, less explosive plays, requiring the stringing together and use of 3rd and 4th downs to get to the sticks and ultimately, getting more turnovers via punts. This has forced offenses into higher completions for less yardage. That has worked for now.

Less obvious, however, is that it seems the League has also quietly allowed more physical play by defenses to stop passes and create more competitive balance. It's become more like the rough and tumble 70s. Grabbing of jerseys, placing hands on receivers running downfield, running through the receivers to knock away passes...are now flagged at a much lower rate than in the recent past. As you have previously noted, the rules ARE the game, and changes in enforcement can have a huge effect on outcomes.

Last, a quick comment on the idea of "balancing" running and passing. In the past, this was a valid perspective. Runs and passes were distinct strategies that could be tabulated separately and viewed as percentages for the strategy. No longer. When quarterbacks today run the ball, they are not just running the ball, they are significantly impacting how the defense must defend a future pass.

With a running QB, the defensive numbers change significantly - more players must stay closer to the line ("spies"), less tighter man coverage can be run in favorable down and distance situations, and less players can blitz which can lead to a huge scramble downfield. The result is that these QBs tend to face less pressure and wider passing windows. Today, running via the QB and passing are inexorably linked and part of single overarching strategy toward efficiency and scoring.

What I am amazed by is why not a single team has elected to use AI to achieve optimization in play calls in lieu of some artificial and arbitrary "balance." For example, provide the algorithm with the opponent's defensive tendencies for certain key game attributes (field position, down and distance, score differential, time remaining etc.) and then have the algorithm suggest to you the most efficient play in your playbook (e.g. EPA) based on those tendencies and attributes.

The data exists - you've already seen Amazon data predict defensive formations, coverages and blitzes. Yet, I still see some befuddled head coach or coordinator scanning some enormous laminated play menu looking for a play while screaming into a headset as the clock ticks down and then having to call a time out because they can't get the play in on time. Invariably, the result of all that needless energy and artificial complexity is a fullback plunge for no gain followed by a punt.

It is beyond mesmerizing to me why in the 21st century no team has sought to leverage widely available technology that television viewers routinely receive. It's faux complexity masquerading as expertise....and dumb beyond any explanation. Thanks again.

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Just eyeballing the matrix, it looks like good teams have better WPA/Pass and bad teams have better WPA/Run.

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