October 11, 2010
If the Browns Can't Pass, Their Chances of Winning Go Down

This is the Browns, who haven’t had a stable quarterback since they came back into the league after Art Modell performed his own version of Kanye West’s “Runaway,” so of course the conversation today, like it has been on many, many other days in recent history, is about the quarterback. It’s about the passing game. It’s about the running game. It’s about the offense. 

I won’t defend the defense as much as Tim did in yesterday’s post. Statistically, the defense is performing worse than the offense. Through 4 games, Advanced NFL Stats had the Browns’ offensive efficiency at #11 while the defensive efficiency was at #28. Yesterday, I thought the secondary looked porous again. And, simply put, they are not creating enough turnovers. The team was lucky to recover a fumble from Matt Ryan; what they would could use are interceptions returned for touchdowns. 

Aside from all of that, the one thing I am getting increasingly worn out by are articles on how the Browns need to run the ball to win games.  

By throwing the ball, the argument goes, the Browns are losing their identity. This is an old school team. Good hard smash mouth football. Peyton Hillis is a throwback. Ram it down their throats, celebrate in the end zone, point to God who is surely responsible for, and deeply concerned with, the score of a football game.

Now it sounds like I have a vendetta against Hillis. I promise that I don’t. It’s fun, I suppose, to watch him bash himself into other people and knock them down. 

Well, he is also already injured. And if reports are to be believed, Colt “Shit for Brains” McCoy could be the starting quarterback on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

All of which brings me to the link that is attached to this post (that can also be found here). Advanced NFL Stat’s article on “What Makes Teams Win.” 

The key passage is the article for the topic of our discussion is this: 

“Passing efficiency [defined as passing yards per attempt] turns out to be strongly correlated with winning.” 

What this means is that the better a team is at passing, the better it is at winning. 

This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. The quarterback is often deemed the most important position in the league. And then there’s this article from Skeptical Sports on whether Hall of Fame coaches are really just a product of Hall of Fame quarterbacks.

The argument then is that if the Browns want to increase their chances of winning games, they need to pass the ball efficiently. I thought this was what we were seeing in Sunday’s game against Atlanta. Seneca Wallace was playing very well (9.2 yards per attempt). Then he got hurt. Then Jake Delhomme started throwing the ball at 4.2 yards per attempt. That wasn’t very good. Peyton Hillis only averaged 2.8 yards per carry. Ultimately, the Browns lost.

This is the frustrating thing about the team and what is making them increasingly difficult for me to watch. The defense hasn’t been great, but if the offense could be just a little bit better, the Browns could possibly be 3-2 or 4-1 right now. They were on the right track, at least for one game, before Wallace was injured. Now, who knows…

Before Sunday, in fact, I suppose you could make the argument that the Browns’ passing game wasn’t good enough. That it was a hopeless effort to try to keep throwing the ball when the team couldn’t be efficient in that department. That at least running the ball would keep the game close and maybe, just maybe the defense could do the unheard of and create points on their own. But against the Falcons, the Browns’ did have an efficient passing attack. Based on the research I’ve put forth in this post, it’s no surprise why Eric Mangini and Brian Daboll have remained committed to throwing the ball.

And, if the Browns want to win more than a couple games now and in the future, they’re going to have to remain committed to doing so. 

11:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/1297587194/if-the-browns-cant-pass-their-chances-of-winning-go
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FILED UNDER: Browns NFL passing stats 
October 10, 2010
Browns-Falcons Bazooka Point: In Defense of the Defense

So close, and yet so far.

The Browns were toppled at home by the Atlanta Falcons earlier today, 20-10. While the game provided many topics worth discussing, I’m going to focus on only one:  the Browns’ defense.

As of the moment I’m writing this post, the Browns are ranked 24th in the league in passing yards allowed (235/game) and 17th in rush yards allowed (108.8/game). However, I regard both yardage and time of possession as dubious means of evaluating performance. The game, after all, is won or lost based on only one factor: points.

In that regard, the teams’ performance has been surprisingly—maybe even shockingly—competent. Through 5 games, the Browns have given up a total of 97 points. That’s an average of 19.4 points per game.

However, the trick here is that the DEFENSE has not actually given up 97 points. Today, Delhomme threw an INT returned for a touchdown. Against the Chiefs, Seneca Wallace threw an INT returned for a touchdown. In week one, Delhomme threw an INT that was returned to the Browns’ 3 yard line by Tampa Bay. Technically the last of these should count against the defense, but it’s really hard for me to blame Golden Axe’s crew or schemes for surrendering 7 points at the end of a half from the 3 when the Browns’ offense—who should’ve never left the field with time left on the clock—was responsible for putting them in that situation.

If we discount the two pick-6s, the defense has given up only 83 points through 5 games, or 16.6 points per. If you give them a break for the Tampa INT/TD like I’m suggesting, that drops the points surrendered to 76 on the season, or 15.2 per. (Yes, I’m packaging the extra points in with the TDs.)

By comparison, the Ravens’ defense has allowed 72 points per game to date. The Steelers have allowed 50 points per game, but through only 4 games since this week is their bye. That means the Ravens’ D is allowing an average of 14.4 points per game, and the Steelers’ D is allowing 12.5 points per game.

Obviously, both of those numbers are better than even the friendly projections I’m using for the Browns’ defense. And I also haven’t seen every snap of both of those teams’ seasons, so I haven’t revoked points allowed for them in situations similar to what I’m doing for Cleveland. This means the gap between their two defenses and the Browns’ may in fact be wider than I’m suggesting. But even if that’s the case, it’s still really difficult for me to bag on a defense allowing less than 17 points per game—and that’s if I still penalize the Browns for giving up that 3-yard TD to Tampa.

Unfortunately, the down side here is that the Browns’ defense isn’t yet good enough to win games for the team. Despite the relatively scant number of points they’ve allowed, the limiting factor is that the defense creates relatively few turnovers and even fewer points. Through five games, they’ve forced 9 turnovers, or less than 2 per game. But the bigger issue is that they have scored 0 points off of those turnovers.

By comparison, the Steelers have forced 16 turnovers through only 4 games, or 4 per game. True, they’ve only scored one TD off of those TOs, but forcing that quantity of turnovers still puts the opposing offense into a huge trench by limiting their opportunities to score.

On the bright side, though, the Browns have actually created more total TOs than Baltimore, whose much swooned-over defense has manufactured only 6 turnovers through 5 games and scored 0 TD off those opportunities.

There’s no changing the fact that the Browns are now 1-4, or that their offense has been at best mediocre and at worst (with Delhomme at the helm) toxic. But I think it’s only fair to give credit where credit is due, and to recognize that so far there is in fact noticeable improvement in at least one phase of the game.

That said, over the next month the defense will have an opportunity to show how much of their play to date is inherent to their ability and how much has to do with the offensive prowess (or lack thereof) of the teams they’ve played so far. Their next 4 games are against the Steelers (with Roethlisberger back in the fold), Saints, Patriots, and Jets. But at least for the time being, I feel comfortable stating that if they continue to play this well, the defense should at least give the team a puncher’s chance in most or all of those contests. That’s a hell of a lot more than I anticipated I would be able to say at this stage of the season when it began.

-T

2:43pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/1286331966/browns-falcons-bazooka-point-in-defense-of-the-defense
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FILED UNDER: Browns Falcons Rob Ryan Baltimore Ravens Pittsburgh Steelers Stats 
September 14, 2010
Mesa on Hoynes's Pitching Stats Rant

The above link will take you to Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s rant about pitching statistics. In short, Hoynes believes that the only statistic that matters when it comes to analyzing pitchers is wins. 

Mesa, of course, disrespectfully disagrees. 

On some level, I do understand the essence of Hoynes’s point. There are certainly times in games when a pitcher with a big lead may not pitch as fine as he would if he didn’t have a lead. This could lead to diminished statistics. He might pitch to contact more, acquire less strikeouts, give up more home runs, particularly solo shots. I get that sometimes it’s not fair to just look at the numbers all the time. 

But on the other hand, solely looking at wins in order to judge a pitcher’s value is pretty indefensible. I could argue this point by citing studies that show batted balls turning into outs is largely random, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll simply state that it’s not at all accurate to judge how well a pitcher has pitched by how many runs his offense produced. 

After all, whether or not a pitcher wins a game is very much dependent on how well his team hits, i.e. how many runs they score. In the American League, a pitcher has absolutely no control over this. In the National League, he has very little. Moreover, whether or not a pitcher “earns” a win is tied not just to how many runs his offense scores but also to when his offense scores. If a pitcher goes six innings, doesn’t give up any runs, and then is pulled in the 7th - and his team scores 9 runs in the 8th - he doesn’t win that game. Does that mean he didn’t pitch well enough? Does it mean we should place more value on a pitcher who gives up 7 runs in 6 innings but his team scores 8 runs over that same period of time, and he ends up with the win? 

No, that would just be silly. And it’s very difficult for me to see how to make a convincing counter argument. That Hoynes would try to make such a statement while covering a team that is currently 12th in the American League in runs scored is a little bit befuddling. 

In fact, in the case of a terrible offensive team like the Indians, which are 27 games under .500, it’s critical that the front office look for a way to evaluate its pitching staff without using wins and losses. It’s a lousy way of telling how well a guy pitched.

To take this even one step further, if it were up to me, I would abolish the wins and losses statistic for pitchers altogether. Like many other mainstream stats that are used by talking heads, old school writers, and typically lazy or merrily ignorant individuals it doesn’t paint a precise, accurate portrait of a pitcher’s impact on the game. 

1:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/1119958595/hoynesrant
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FILED UNDER: Paul Hoynes Cleveland Plain Dealer Pitching Stats 
September 9, 2010
Grab Bag (And BTW Shaq Took More Shots Than Mo)

I don’t like to do this, but I have nothing substantial on my mind - at least not sports-related - to write about tonight, so I’m going to go with the potluck / grab bag approach on a couple of small items. 

First off is the “stunning” Antawn Jamison interview in which he declares that, in retrospect, the Cavs’ team chemistry wasn’t as good as they thought it was.

This is not at all surprising to me. 

No, my opinion has nothing to do with the Cavs’ team chemistry itself - but it does have everything to do with the Cavs’ perception of their own team chemistry after they lost a series in the playoffs. 

Chemistry is a dubious thing to measure, and I’m not entirely convinced that it has any effect on the outcome of a game. Smart basketball decisions and successful plays win games; getting along with your teammates at dinner does not. It shouldn’t be shocking that good teams always claim to have great chemistry and bad teams do not. In the Boston series, the Cavs were a bad team. It’s no wonder Jamison would now think that the chemistry was flawed. 

Second on my list of topics is the flood of predictions I’ve been reading about the NFL. Here’s the thing … unless you’re in the coaches’ room and know exactly how a team is going to utilize its players in a variety of schemes against a variety of opponents, you have no idea what is going to happen. Even the coaches themselves don’t have a complete concept of what will happen because their opponents are spending every waking minute hiding their real strategies. Throw the importance of and unpredictability of the injury problem in to the mix, as Tim so astutely pointed out yesterday, and nobody can really predict much of anything. 

I understand why websites and talk shows feel the need to make predictions - what else can they do when they have to talk endlessly about everything to fill up airtime and create blog traffic? - but the amount of time and energy that is spent on arguments that, by nature, can’t be resolved at the point they are occurring (how do you win an argument about the future?) is probably beginning to have a negative effect on the U.S. economy. 

Third, I had a quick thought after listening to Tony Grossi’s podcast on Cleveland.com earlier today. Dan Labbe, the host of the podcast, made reference to the Browns winning games by controlling the ball…

Now, if you remember any of my posts from last year’s NFL season, I absolutely despise terminology like controlling the ball and managing the game. Statistics like time of possession are completely worthless. Who cares how long an offense holds the ball? All that really matters is whether they score points or not. The only way controlling the ball could lead directly to a victory is if, let’s just say, the game is tied at the half. The Browns get the ball to start the third quarter and then institute a 29 minute drive. They score a touchdown, go up 7 points, and then the opponent doesn’t have enough time to go the length of the field in an attempt to tie the game.  

When was the last time you saw a 29 minute drive?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. 

Fourth and finally, I wanted to comment on Shaq’s recent complaint about Mo Williams taking too many shots last season. Shaq made a point of saying how happy he was to be on a team - the Celtics - where guys didn’t worry about shots … before proceeding to bitch about how many field goal attempts he got with the Cavs. 

Aside from pointing out the hypocrisy that was inherent in Shaq’s comments, I thought we should take a look at the actual numbers. 

Per 40 minutes last year, Shaq took 14.9 shots.

Per 40 minutes last year, Williams took 14.5 shots. 

That’s right, Mo actually took less shots than Shaq on a per minute basis. 

Shaq’s complaining then stems from his inability to understand rudimentary statistics. If another player averages 34.2 minutes per game (Mo) and you average only 23.4 minutes (Shaq), you’re probably going to have less shots per game than the other guy. That doesn’t mean you’re actually taking less shots in the time that you’re on the floor. 

Shaq’s comments then are really just another example of why a class like “how to understand and interpret statistics” should be taught in high schools all over the country.  

Having said that, Mo’s eFG% (2’s + 3’s) was 53.5% and Shaq’s was 56.6% so maybe Shaq could have gotten a couple more looks. 

And thus ends tonight’s grab bag of thoughts. Come back next time to grab again. 

5:31am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/1091425773/grabbag
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FILED UNDER: Shaq Mo Williams Cleveland.com Tony Grossi Browns Cavs Antawn Jamison NFL stats 
August 15, 2010
Win Probability Added In the NFL

I was in Ohio this weekend, so I can safely say that Cleveland is in full-on Browns mode right now. The Browns won their preseason game against Green Bay. Do I know what the score was? No. Do I think the first preseason contest of the year indicates much of anything? No. Do I care if Colt McCoy had a shitty first game? Not really. 

I’ve written endlessly, or as endlessly as one can in the year and change that this blog has existed, about how difficult it is to measure the value of individual players in the game of football. Almost every outcome within the game is dependent on multiple interactions between multiple individuals. When Jake Delhomme is credited with driving the offense down the field and scoring a touchdown, that’s not very accurate - the linemen, the backs, the receivers … everyone contributed in minor and major ways. If one block is blown, one route ran differently, or one defensive lineman gets a hand up at the line of scrimmage quicker, the entire thing falls apart. 

Having said all of that then, it makes sense that I would gravitate towards a statistical analysis of football games that de-emphasizes individual players and concentrates on what the team accomplishes as a whole. 

Win Probability Added (WPA) is that metric. 

Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats writes about it here. The stat provides a surprisingly simple way of judging the effectiveness of each play during a game. It gauges how much said play increases or decreases a team’s chance of winning, according to score, time, down, distance, and field position. Burke’s article also talks a little bit about how Win Probability can be applied to a coach’s decision making, which is noteworthy. The piece is well worth the read.

If you’ve ever used GameCast on ESPN.com to follow baseball games, you’ve seen WPA in action. GameCast tracks win probability on a batter to batter basis. It lists it as a percentage. 

So the next time you see the Browns run the ball on 1st and 10 from their own 19 yard line, in the 2nd Quarter with 13:35 seconds left, for a gain of one, remember that someone somewhere is estimating how much that play impacted the Browns’ chance to win the game. 

9:01pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/960771903/winprobadded
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FILED UNDER: NFL Stats Browns