Can Alex Smith Save the 49ers?

I recently broke the news to my son that Alex Smith appears to be slotted in as the starting QB for his beloved 49ers. I took the dejected look on his face as a challenge to provide him some hope. Going to the data on QB's is always a iffy proposition as QB stats are the product of the efforts of an entire team, not just one player and given the woeful play of the 49ers over the last few years, I was expecting that this would be a rather fruitless effort in restoring hope.

I pulled up Smith's page on Pro-Football Reference and checked on his performance. I then took his age, years in the league, Yds/Att and interception rate for last season and plugged them into PFR's useful Player Season Finder. I frankly did not believe what I found. Besides Smith, the Player Season Finder found three other players who had a similar performance in Yds/Att and interception rate during their 5th season, at age 26: Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and Ben Roethlisberger. Looking at a broader range of stats, Smith actually fits in with this group fairly well.

On Yds/Att, QB rating, TD% (indexed by PFR), Int% (indexed by PFR), and Completion Percentage, Smith fits right in. He is better than Big Ben in TD%, QB rating, and Compl%, better than Brees in Int%, and just behind the three on Yds/Att. The other three of course all of Super Bowl rings and multiple All-Star game appearances on their resumes. So what is going on? How can the much maligned Alex Smith, playing for multiple head coaches and offensive coordinators, have delivered a similar performance as these shining examples of QB play?

To try and answer that question, I expanded my search. I removed all the filters on performance, and just looked for QB's in their 5th season while they were 26 years old. Since 1980, there are 33 QB's not named Alex Smith who played their 5th season when they were 26. After eliminating all the QB's with fewer than 8 games played, I loaded their advanced passing stats into two different clustering analyses to find groupings of players that had similar performances across all of the stats. The results of the two analysis were the essentially the same and put Smith in with the following group:

1. Tommy Kramer
2. Steve McNair 
3. Rich Gannon       
4. Bernie Kosar       
5. Neil Lomax         
6. Gary Hogeboom      
7. Trent Dilfer       
8. David Whitehurst   
9. Randall Cunningham 
10. Paul McDonald      
11. Kyle Boller        
12. Tim Couch          
13. Ben Roethlisberger

So this list seems rather more satisfying. Some players who have had success (Gannon, McNair, Boller, Roethlisberger) and some that haven't (Hogeboom, Couch). For the most part this list should provide 49er fans with some hope. There are no spectacular QB's here, but plenty that have played good efficient football and several that achieved more later in their careers (Gannon, Cunningham, McNair).

For some context, the rest of the QB's fall into the following groups:

Stars Flashes No Impact Dan Marino Vince Evans         Dave M. Brown       Peyton Manning      Mike McMahon        Mike Moroski        Chris Miller        Drew Brees          Dave Krieg          Brett Favre         Daunte Culpepper    Aaron Rodgers       Ok, maybe Chris Miller is not really a star, but for the most part, these groupings seem fairly reasonable, so 49er fans, have some hope, Alex Smith may just be Trent Dilfer.

Accepting an 18 Game Schedule

The NFL owners have made it clear that they want an 18 game regular season and will push the players hard to get that concession. The primary objection to the 18 game schedule from the players point of view is of course the increased risk of debilitating injury which will likely shorten careers and lower the total earning potential of the individual players. While the incidence of injury within a season will most certainly rise with more games, the focus of much of the discussion undoubtedly also turns on the issue of concussions which is not well understood. After much public pressure and increasing evidence on the effect of repeated brain injury on football players, the NFL is taking steps to at least better handle concussions on the field. The question still remains though about how damaging concussions and other more minor repeated brain injuries really are which allows the NFL to be less than fully aggressive in minimizing not only the impact of specific injuries, but on monitoring and understanding the long term effects of these injuries.

If the players are serious about understanding the impact of repeated brain injury, as I suspect as least some of them are, then they should take a lesson from State Attorney General's from across the country when they sued the tobacco companies and insist on disclosure. Disclosure has been a part of many settlements with the tobacco industry in which the tobacco companies have agreed to make their internal documents available to anyone, including researchers in a broad array of fields such as chemistry, biology, marketing, economics, and political science. These documents have allowed these scientists to learn not only about the behavior of the companies, but gain a greater understanding  of the broader health and policy issues related to tobacco.

The deal for the players should actually require a lot less from the NFL than these settlements required of the tobacco companies. Instead of forcing the disclosure of previously secret memos and financial information, the players should request the collection and disclosure of new information. In exchange for the 18 game regular season, players should request the following three items:

1. Brain scans at the begining and end of the season for every NFL player.
2. Insertion of a chip into every player's helmet that tracks the impact that the player's brain is exposed to both on a play by play basis and on a cumulative basis.
3. Disclosure at the end of the season of all the data (anonymized) to any and all interested parties.

This data would very quickly help researchers understand the full impact that repeated brain injury has on the brain throughout the course of an NFL season, as well as allow all interested parties to see the impact of various policies and equipment on reducing this impact. This data would go a long way from moving the debate from its current stage of arguing about how serious an issue it is, to figuring out the best way to protect players from these types of injuries.

Rethinking the NFL

The current labor dispute in the NFL will be negotiated and litigated over the coming months. At its core though it is not just players against owners, but rather a three way negotiation featuring the players, against the small market owners, against the large market owners, against the players.

This of course is not an original insight, but a point that is important to keep in mind as we think about what the NFL could look like. If the litigation all actually goes to judges and juries for final decisions and the appeals are all exhausted, one possible, out come, is that the NFL is declared, by law, to be acting as an illegal monopoly in violation of anti-trust law. If this occurs, then what have become standard labor practices, such as the draft and the salary cap, will essentially be banished forever. It is worth considering what the NFL becomes in that situation, if for no other purpose, than for all parties to understand what is at stake so they can get back to the bargaining table and put a new CBA together.

Once all 32 NFL teams are prohibited from working together to set the labor market for professional football players, there will be teams who go high (imagine Jerry Jones with no salary cap) and some will go low (imagine Mike Brown with no salary floor). Economic theory and common sense both actually agree on the outcome here - a league with a few very good teams that dominate competition and  a few awful teams that do not even have a reasonable chance to win 4 or 5 games a season.

One this situation is reality, then the league will either become unwatchable (how many times do you really need to see the Globetrotters beat the Generals) or they can move to a radically different league structure. There is of course a workable league structure for a league with this type of financial structure that is in practice in many parts of the world: hello relegation!

In an NFL with relegation, we could have three divisions, with the top 12 teams in the first division, the next 12 in the the second division, and whoever is left, or wants to start a team in the third division.

In a relegation/promotion league, teams can play anyone and earn points based on the quality of teams they beat (a win against a first division opponent is worth more than a win against a third division opponent). Teams that earn the most points either stay in the first division or get promoted up to the first division and teams that do not maintain a high enough point total over a season get relegated down to lower divisions. Each division can have its own playoff system so even the Bengals can have a shot at a playoff game every once in a while.

Then there is what I'll refer to here as the Ellison Effect. Imagine if anyone could just start a professional football team and start competing in the Third division. WOuld Larry Ellison (or any of the other billionaires laying about) be interested in perhaps starting a team or two or three in Las Angeles? Perhaps an extra team in Chicago? Sure they would take some losses as they started up and tried to move up the division ladder, but the financial promise of the First division would be more than enough to tempt a few wealthy business folks to give it a try.

I could not begin to put a probability on this scenario, but it is one that is intriguing to me, because I think the drama of teams starting up and recruiting players as well as seeing teams compete to keep their place in the higher divisions would be exhilarating.

From the perspective of most of the owners though this is probably a less than enticing scenario. They have grown to enjoy their multi billion dollar TV contracts and packed stadiums. The prospect of  having to hope to fill a 20,000 seat stadium in the third division (I'm looking at you Buffalo) is probably not something that too many owners really want. Players too, at least as a collective, probably don't love the idea that half of the high paying (and high minimum contract) jobs could be gone. So with that incentive, I invite the various groups of owners and players to continue their negotiations, and not make the judges decide the future of the NFL.

A funny thing happened on the way back to the Super Bowl...

I have been fine tuning my projections for actual win totals for the upcoming NFL season (ONLY 7 DAYS TO GO!!). To produce the win projections, I input the entire season into a simulator, and project the score of every game along with the probability that the winner is picked accurately. These projections are based on the model I used with the Wall Street Journal during the playoffs last year and explained roughly in previous posts. Using those projections I simulate the entire season and take average win totals.

The results are always interesting and occasionally produce a result that draws my attention. I like to compare the projected win totals with last season's win totals for each team to see who the system says the big risers and fallers will be. After running the simulation, I found that the team with the largest drop in wins from last season to this season is the Indianapolis Colts. That's right, Peyton and Co. are projected to go from 14 wins last season to only 9 this season (I say only 9...I think Rams/Browns/Raiders' fans would just about kill for 9 wins).

The Colts being the owner of the largest projected drop in wins is cause for further investigation. What causes the Colts to go from 14 wins and clinching home field advantage throughout the playoffs to 9 wins and maybe not making the playoffs at all?

Part of the answer of course is Peyton himself. Peyton will continue to be one of the best QBs in the league, but he will be 34 during the 2010-11 season and is projected to have his first sub 4000 yard season since he was 29.  A 700 yard drop in total passing yards is fairly significant, particularly since his interception total has been trending up since he was 30, but perhaps not enough to explain a 5 win drop.

The second part of the explanation has to do with schedule. Last season, the Colts' opponents had an average win total of 7.5. The Colts' are faced with a much tougher schedule in the upcoming season as their opponents' have an average win total of 8.5. One extra game in average win total may not seem like a big deal, but consider that last season, only 37.5% of the Colts' opponents had more than 8 wins while 68.75% of their opponents in the upcoming season have projected win totals of more than 8 games.

Peyton's decline along with a significantly tougher schedule make the Colts a prime candidate for a post-Super Bowl slump to only 9 wins (again, sorry Rams/Browns/Raiders' fans for the "only"). A repeat Super Bowl appearance seems fairly unlikely as they are not lock to even make the playoffs.

Preseason Team Rankings

I have now published my preseason projections for this year's NFL offenses and defenses so it is time to go through the mathematical gymnastics to create overall rankings and predict win totals for each team. The ranking of teams is done in the straightforward manner of subtracting the points allowed against an average team (defense) from points scored against an average team (offense) to get the Net Difference. I then map the net difference into win totals. This process puts the Packers on top with an estimated 13 wins and the Rams to repeat at the bottom with (a sadly still better) 3 wins.

After I put my rankings together I wanted to do a check and see what the true expert in my household thought. My 9-year old son looked through my list and decided that he better do his own list, because mine had too many obvious errors in it. He rationalized each of his own win predictions (though he seemed to be smiling a bit too much when he gave HIS Chargers 13 wins) and did not hesitate to proclaim mine wrong where we disagreed. In fairness to him, I now present his predictions next to mine, and at the end of the season we will see who has been more accurate.

Team	Offense	Defense	Net Difference	Wins	Son
Green Bay	26.4	18.2	8.2	13	8
Dallas	26.8	18.9	7.9	12	10
San Diego	28.3	20.3	8	11	13
Indianapolis	25.6	19.1	6.5	11	13
Minnesota	26.2	19.6	6.6	10	12
Pittsburgh	24.8	19	5.8	10	10
New Orleans	27.4	21.2	6.2	10	13
Houston	25.9	20.2	5.7	10	7
New England	25.9	20.2	5.7	10	9
Philadelphia	23.8	18.8	5	10	10
NY Jets	20.9	16.8	4.1	10	8
NY Giants	25.7	21.2	4.5	9	8
Baltimore	23.6	20.1	3.5	9	10
Arizona	23.1	19.7	3.4	9	9
Denver	21.8	18.8	3	9	9
Cincinnati	20.6	18.6	2	8	9
Tennessee	22.9	21	1.9	8	8
Washington	21.6	21.1	0.5	7	5
Carolina	20.8	20.4	0.4	7	5
Chicago	20.9	20.9	0	7	4
Atlanta	22	22.3	-0.3	7	7
San Francisco	19.7	20.1	-0.4	7	8
Buffalo	19.3	20	-0.7	7	5
Miami	21.2	22.4	-1.2	6	4
Jacksonville	22.3	24.2	-1.9	6	6
Seattle	19.5	21.3	-1.8	6	3
Tampa Bay	19.7	22.5	-2.8	6	4
Detroit	19.4	23.4	-4	5	4
Oakland	19.2	23.8	-4.6	5	3
Kansas City	18.4	24.2	-5.8	4	2
Cleveland	16.8	23.2	-6.4	4	5
St. Louis	17.7	24.5	-6.8	3	2

We both agree that the Falcons are due to come down this season, dropping to 7 wins and see the Broncos headed for an additional win this year and a likely playoff birth. We have some serious disagreements though with my data projecting the Saints to come down to 10 wins while he has them repeating their 13 win performance and I have Houston winning 10 while he has them at 7.

The question now is what should the stakes be for the bet? Leave a comment or get me on Twitter @BenAlamar with ideas.

Jets to Repeat

Rex Ryan talks a good game and there is little doubt that he coaches a pretty good defensive game as well. Using the same methods I used previously to project offenses for the upcoming NFL season, I rank the defenses below. The ranking takes into account last year performance as well as off season changes and regression to the mean (assuming great teams don't fully sustain their greatness and sucky teams to fully sustain their suckiness).

Even with the built in regression to the mean, the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets still hold on to the top position. The projections estimate that the Jets would hold a perfectly average team to 16.4 points (yes I understand that it is not possible to score fractional points in the NFL, view this as the average points scored against the Jets if they played this average team 100 times). The 16.4 points allowed is 8.3% better than the second best team (Bengals) and more than a TD ahead of the last place Rams.

The Jets were a great defense last year and will likely continue to be one because they do not let teams get started. They are projected to allow an average of 3.5 yards per rush and 5.4 yards per pass on first down. To put that into context league averages on first down 4.1 yards per rush and 6.6 yards per pass. Keeping teams down on first down, makes it easier to force them into the dreaded 3rd and long where Ryan can unleash his pass rushers and cause all kinds of havoc.


Okay, so the Jets are still #1, what about the rest of the league?

Visitor Score Rank	Team	Visitor Score	2009-10 Rank
1	NY Jets	16.8	1
2	Green Bay	18.2	2
3	Cincinnati	18.6	4
4	Denver	18.8	7
5	Philadelphia	18.8	12
6	Dallas	18.9	9
7	Pittsburgh	19.0	5
8	Indianapolis	19.1	18
9	Minnesota	19.6	6
10	Arizona	19.7	20
11	Buffalo	20.0	19
12	Baltimore	20.1	3
13	San Francisco	20.1	15
14	Houston	20.2	13
15	New England	20.2	11
16	San Diego	20.3	16
17	Carolina	20.4	8
18	Chicago	20.9	17
19	Tennessee	21.0	28
20	Washington	21.1	10
21	New Orleans	21.2	25
22	NY Giants	21.2	13
23	Seattle	21.3	24
24	Atlanta	22.3	21
25	Miami	22.4	22
26	Tampa Bay	22.5	27
27	Cleveland	23.2	31
28	Detroit	23.4	32
29	Oakland	23.8	26
30	Jacksonville	24.2	23
31	Kansas City	24.2	30
32	St. Louis	24.5	29

Unlike in the offensive projections, there are some major movers in the defensive rankings. The Colts and Cardinals all jump into the top 10 by jumping ten spots in the rankings while the Ravens, Redskins and Panthers all fall down the rankings.

So what is the difference between the Ravens (3rd last year and 12th this year) and the Jets who were able to hold onto their 1st place ranking? The major difference is in the passing game. While the Jets were very good at shutting down opposing passing attacks the Ravens were not. The Ravens allowed almost league average yards per pass attempt on first down and well above average yards per pass attempt on 2nd down (6.1 vs. 5.9 league average). They just were no dominant enough in any one area that the model considers to hold onto a top ten position.

2010-11 Preseason Offense Rankings

Today I unveil my preseason rankings for NFL offenses. These rankings are calculated with the model I used to pick 9 of 11 of the 2009-10 playoffs. For each team, I used the data from the end of last season and then factored in the percentage of each roster that turned over as well as regression to the mean. That modified data is then fed into the model to estimate the point total each team would score against a perfectly average team. This procedure does not factor in schedule, so it purely is trying to determine the "best" offense in the league, not which offense will actually put up the best numbers.

The model uses situational variables such as yards per pass attempt on first down, percentage of first downs that a team passes on and yards per rush allowed on third down. The situational data allows us to examine specific match-ups and understand why one team has a higher probability of winning than another. In order to compare teams fairly however, we have to compare their performances against a "standard" team. While no team is perfectly average in every category, I constructed the average team to have a constant barometer to compare teams. With that very brief introduction, the rankings for the upcoming season are below. I included a ranking for each team, their estimated points against an average team, and their rank from the end of last year according to the NFL (who use yards per game to rank offenses).

Rank	Team	Offense	2009-10 Rank
1	San Diego	28.3	10
2	New Orleans	27.4	1
3	Dallas	26.8	2
4	Green Bay	26.4	6
5	Minnesota	26.2	5
6	Houston	25.9	4
7	New England	25.9	3
8	NY Giants	25.7	8
9	Indianapolis	25.6	9
10	Pittsburgh	24.8	7
11	Philadelphia	23.8	11
12	Baltimore	23.6	13
13	Arizona	23.1	14
14	Tennessee	22.9	12
15	Jacksonville	22.3	18
16	Atlanta	22.0	16
17	Denver	21.8	15
18	Washington	21.6	22
19	Miami	21.2	17
20	NY Jets	20.9	20
21	Chicago	20.9	23
22	Carolina	20.8	19
23	Cincinnati	20.6	24
24	Tampa Bay	19.7	28
25	San Francisco	19.7	27
26	Seattle	19.5	21
27	Detroit	19.4	26
28	Buffalo	19.3	30
29	Oakland	19.2	31
30	Kansas City	18.4	25
31	St. Louis	17.7	29
32	Cleveland	16.8	32

The biggest change from the end of last season to the beginning of this season is for the team at the very top of the rankings: San Diego. They jump from the 10th best offense last season to the best offense this season. There is a caveat to this jump in offensive ability however, and it comes from Norv learning from his past mistakes. If they just pass a little more frequently on first down, using one of their best assets, they will be able to tear up most defenses.

Condolences to fans in Cleveland however, as, even with some assumed regression to the mean, the Browns are not likely to get out of the cellar. They are projected to repeat as the worst offense in the league. This low ranking is driven by the incredibly inept passing game that was more than 1 yard below league average per attempt on first and second downs. With 80% of their roster returning, it does not look like there will be much room for improvement.