Worst. Playoffs. Ever.
After the first 6 NFL playoff games this year, I asked “Where are all the close NFL playoff games?” We were promptly treated to a to two games that were both decided by three or fewer points. The playoffs were exciting again….momentarily. Then the conference championship games treated us to 19 and 23 point blowouts in the AFC and NFC, respectively. So are these the worst playoffs ever? Probably not, but they are definitely the worst in quite some time. See this graph:
Each boxplot summarizes the distribution of scores for margin of victory in each season’s playoff games. It’s immediately evident that the past 5 or 6 seasons have had much closer games than this season.
I’ve also compared the CDF of the margins of victory for the playoffs since 2000:
On this plot, a lot of close games will pull a seasons curve up towards the upper left corner, whereas lots of games that are not close will pull the curve towards the lower right corner.
Time for some fun fact! The average margin of victory for a playoff game in the 2016-17 season was 15.7, which is the highest since 2002-03 when the average margin of victory was 17.09 (driven in large part by the 41-0 beatdown the Jets put on the Colts). Further, the median margin of victory this year so far is 18. That’s the largest median margin of victory in the playoffs since 2000-01 when the median was also 18.
So far of the 10 games played so far, only 2 of them were decided by 10 points or less. This is the smallest number of games decided by ten or less points during 2000-2016. In 2000-01 and 2002-03, there were 3 games in each of those playoffs decided by 10 or less points. The last time there was as few as 4 games decided by ten or less was 2009-10. In 2003-04 and 2010-11, 8 of the 11 playoff games were decided by ten points or less, the most of these types of games in a single season of playoff games since 2000.
Go Falcons!
After much thought and reflection, I’ve decided to part ways with the @Patriots as a fan. It’s been a hell of a 35 years. 1/2
— SITW (@StatsInTheWild) January 26, 2017
Cheers.
NFL Picks – Superbowl LI
New England vs Atlanta
Prediction: Patriots 28-26 (56.3%)
Pick: Falcons +3
Total: Under 58
NFL Picks – Conference Championship
Green Bay at Atlanta
Prediction: Falcons 29-28 (55.7%)
Pick: Packers +6
Total: Under 59.5
Pittsburgh at New England
Prediction: Patriots 25-21 (61.3%)
Pick: Pittsburgh +6
Total: Under 50
What’s it like to work in sports analytics?
Note: This piece was written with Noah Davis, and stemmed from a survey we put together roughly a year ago.
In the past decade, sports analytics moved from the fringes of popular consciousness to the mainstream. The typical media narrative tells us that data ischangingthegame. To some extent, that’s true. The majority of professional teams in the five major sports leagues have at least one person on staff or on retainer tasked with delving into details and applying numbers to performance, and nearly all NBA, NHL and MLB franchises have sent at least one representative to the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Noah and I wanted to find out more details about the job, the lifestyle and how analytics are being used, so we developed an informal survey and asked people who work or had worked on the sports analytics staffs of professional teams to participate.
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Where are all the close NFL Playoff games?
As I finished watching the Patriots beat the Texans last night and go to their sixth (!!!) straight AFC conference championship game, I thought to myself “All these games have been terrible so far!” Through 6 NFL playoff games we’ve had margins of victory of 13, 16, 18, 18, 20, and 25 for a median margin of victory of 18. So I got to wondering if that was different than usual and I went back and looked at the playoff games in each year going back to 2000.
2000-01 actually had a median margin of victory of 18 points after all 11 games were played (remember when the Giants beat the Vikings 41-0?). The year with the next highest median margin of victory was 2002-03 with a median of 17 points (remember when the Jets beat the Colts 41-0?). Three other years featured median margins of victory of 14: 2004-05, 2005-06, and 2009-10. The lowest median margin of victory occurred in 2006-07 with a median of 4. In fact, of the 11 playoff games played that season, 7 of them were decided by single digits and a fill 5 of them were decided by a field goal or less. This season, we still have yet to see a game decided by less than one score.
Below you will find boxplots for the distribution of margins of victory for the years 2000-2016 with a blue to red scale corresponding to low to high median margins of victory. For the last 6 years, we’ve had reasonably low median margins of victory, but this year has been nothing but blowouts.
Here’s hoping for some close games today.
Update: 1/16/2017 10:36 am central time
Immediately after writing this past yesterday, we promptly had two very close playoff games with the Packers beating the Cowboys by a field goal and the Steelers beating the Chiefs by two without scoring a touchdown on the strength of SIX field goals.
Cheers.
NFL Picks – Divisional Round
Seattle at Atlanta
Prediction: Falcons 25-24 (53.0%)
Pick: Seahawks +5
Total: Under 51.5
Houston at New England
Prediction: Patriots 23-16 (69.0%)
Pick:Texans +16
Total: Under 45
Green Bay at Dallas
Prediction: Cowboys 26-24 (53.5%)
Pick: Packers +4.5
Total: Under 53
Pittsburgh at Kansas City
Prediction: Chiefs 23-22 (52.5%)
Pick: Chiefs -1
Total: Over 44.5
On the ideas that people refuse to test
In the middle of Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller’s book “The only rule is it has to work,” which highlights the analytically-minded pair’s foray into baseball management with the independent-league Sonoma Stompers, there’s a four-paged glossy insert with pictures from the Stompers’ 2015 season.
The photos begin after page 177. While perfect for putting names to faces, the insert’s location also means that if you read too fast, you’ve missed my favorite part of the book.
In the pages before and after the pictures, Lindbergh and Miller link their situation in running the Stompers’ season to quotes made by Huston Street, the Angels closer who was asked about pitching in non-save situations.
“I’ll retire if [pitching in non-save situations] ever happens,” Street is quoted as saying. “It’s a ridiculous idea, it really is.”
The quote hits home for Lindbergh and Miller, who, until that point in the season, had been similarly using their closer Sean Conroy…
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NFL Picks – Wildcard Weekend
Detroit at Seattle
Prediction: Seahawks 24-18 (68.2%)
Pick: Lions +8
Total: Under 44
Oakland at Houston
Prediction: Texans 20-19 (53.0%)
Pick: Raiders +3.5
Total: Over 36.5
NY Giants at Green Bay
Prediction: Packers 25-19 (65.0%)
Pick: Packers -4.5
Total: Under 44.5
Miami at Pittsburgh
Prediction: Steelers 26-20 (66.8%)
Pick: Dolphins +10
Total: Under 46
One graph, two Americas: Liberals hate babies; Conservatives love murder. #sarcasm
Two America’s in one graph (Source). Clearly what this graph is showing is that liberals love abortion and conservatives love killing people #sarcasm. On a serious note, it’s really disheartening how far apart these two sides are. It’s as if there isn’t any common ground anymore.
Cheers.
Stats in the Wild 