Cowboys Stupid Mistake Rating, Week 9

[fanfromvirginia]

At the beginning of the season, I came up with an idea for a new stat, which I'm calling the Stupid Mistake rating. The formula is giveaways x 6 + # of penalties.

I've finally computed the ratings for every team for 2009. Bottom line: we're doing quite a bit better than last year but still have a ways to go due to penalties. Last year we were dead last in penalties. This year we're second to last with 61. Green Bay has 62. Last year we were 2nd to last with 2.1 giveaways per game. This year we're solidly above average with 1.38 per game. Overall, we were dead last in the league in 2008 using this rating.

This week the Cowboys had 1 giveaway and 11 penalties for a rating of 17. This is a below average score that slightly bumps up our rating to 15.875, which is a bit better than the league average thus far.

League best (Minnesota): 11.125
League worst (Carolina): 23.875
League average: 16.348
Cowboys 2009: 15.875


You can see the link below for this rating but, in short, it's not designed to explain why we're losing; its only purpose is to be an easy way to keep track of and compare our stupid mistakes over time and against other teams. It is NOT ideal -- it is designed to be easy to compute and compare so it leaves out all sorts of helpful detail that would be very hard to keep track of league-wide (e.g., calling a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty or, say, calling two fade routes in a row on 2nd and goal from the one yard line on a night you're averaging 8 yards per rush ).



(For details see http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161334)

 

[Smith22]

Interesting. I believe I heard that the Ravens lead the league in penalty yards.

 

[NextGenBoys]

Great start and I love the idea, but you should think of adding a few more stats into the formula. Giveaways(x6) and penalties are great, but try to add a little more depth.

Turnovers in the red zone, distance of penalties, and interceptions/fumbles for TD's could to be included as well and have more/less bearing on the overall outcome as seen fit.

Just a few idea's to give it a few tweaks.

 

[MONT17]

so a pick on a end of hal hail mary is the same as a pick 6... its a nice formula! Penalties also have hidden yards for exp: Boys punted the iggs inside of the 3 then had to re-punt after a penalty, where the Iggs started the drive on like the 15. Just something to keep in mind... I understand maybe you are not looking at the severity as much as the actual mistake!


nice thread

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Great start and I love the idea, but you should think of adding a few more stats into the formula. Giveaways(x6) and penalties are great, but try to add a little more depth.

Turnovers in the red zone, distance of penalties, and interceptions/fumbles for TD's could to be included as well and have more/less bearing on the overall outcome as seen fit.

Just a few idea's to give it a few tweaks.

These are all good ideas if:

1. You've got the desire and time to research and compile these stats for every team (which I don't) and
2. You're trying to show the overall effect on performance (which I'm not.)

I just want to keep track of how many stupid mistakes we're making. Giveaways for TDs are somewhat more stupid in general than otherwise but I think they're more about effect. Penalty yardage and number of penalties seem to track pretty well together and I'm not sure that a 10-yard holding penalty, say, is dumber than a five-yard false start.

What I would be willing to add (because I agree that it's a VERY thin formula) would be anything from a boxscore (or a readily retrievable NFL stats website) that would add more depth/capture some of the complexity. If there were some way to keep track of personal foul penalties that extend drives or wasted timeouts, for examples.

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Great start and I love the idea, but you should think of adding a few more stats into the formula. Giveaways(x6) and penalties are great, but try to add a little more depth.

Turnovers in the red zone, distance of penalties, and interceptions/fumbles for TD's could to be included as well and have more/less bearing on the overall outcome as seen fit.

Just a few idea's to give it a few tweaks.

I appreciate the input. See above response. I like the idea of making this thicker but so far I haven't seen any ideas that stand out as easily capturable and about stupidity (rather than effect.)

 

[fanfromvirginia]

so a pick on a end of hal hail mary is the same as a pick 6... its a nice formula! Penalties also have hidden yards for exp: Boys punted the iggs inside of the 3 then had to re-punt after a penalty, where the Iggs started the drive on like the 15. Just something to keep in mind... I understand maybe you are not looking at the severity as much as the actual mistake!


nice thread

The hidden lost yardage might be something to add if it were already being tracked somewhere.

 

[goshan]

Great job on this.
Every post each week, at least 3 people will chime in and say how you should add a bunch more stuff to it that would take hours of research and watching game film.

Simplicity is elegant. Things are only useful that can actually be maintained.

 

[TD-33]

I've been following this idea and it's an interesting stat, I would love to see how this team stacks up against say... the 1993 team.

 

[AdamJT13]

I've been following this idea and it's an interesting stat, I would love to see how this team stacks up against say... the 1993 team.

Here's our score each season since 1988, using this formula --

1988 - 23.81
1989 - 22.00
1990 - 18.50
1991 - 13.625
1992 - 14.69
1993 - 14.125
1994 - 15.25
1995 - 14.25
1996 - 17.31
1997 - 15.875
1998 - 13.625
1999 - 17.125
2000 - 21.375
2001 - 18.44
2002 - 19.31
2003 - 17.00
2004 - 20.44
2005 - 17.81
2006 - 17.50
2007 - 15.50
2008 - 19.81
2009 - 15.875

 

[fanfromvirginia]

Here's our score each season since 1988, using this formula --

1988 - 23.81
1989 - 22.00
1990 - 18.50
1991 - 13.625
1992 - 14.69
1993 - 14.125
1994 - 15.25
1995 - 14.25
1996 - 17.31
1997 - 15.875
1998 - 13.625
1999 - 17.125
2000 - 21.375
2001 - 18.44
2002 - 19.31
2003 - 17.00
2004 - 20.44
2005 - 17.81
2006 - 17.50
2007 - 15.50
2008 - 19.81
2009 - 15.875

Wow! Thanks, Adam. Right off the bat you can see that we did pretty well from '91-'98 and were below average to bad before and after that (assuming the past averages are compatible with this year, which is admittedly a pretty big assumption).

 

[TD-33]

Here's our score each season since 1988, using this formula --

1988 - 23.81
1989 - 22.00
1990 - 18.50
1991 - 13.625
1992 - 14.69
1993 - 14.125
1994 - 15.25
1995 - 14.25
1996 - 17.31
1997 - 15.875
1998 - 13.625
1999 - 17.125
2000 - 21.375
2001 - 18.44
2002 - 19.31
2003 - 17.00
2004 - 20.44
2005 - 17.81
2006 - 17.50
2007 - 15.50
2008 - 19.81
2009 - 15.875

The Human Calculator!
Seriously though, those results are very...interesting indeed. Looks like getting below 15 or better yet, 14 is a recipe for success. If the Boys get rid of some of those ridiculous penalties that could do it.

 

[baj1dallas]

Great job on this.
Every post each week, at least 3 people will chime in and say how you should add a bunch more stuff to it that would take hours of research and watching game film.

Simplicity is elegant. Things are only useful that can actually be maintained.

this is a good idea, but I wish the Cowboys number would be lower next week

 

[Hoofbite]

Carolina dead last? Shocking.

 

[guag]

Being a stat geek myself, I think this stat is really cool. Thanks for taking the time to do this (and you too Adam!).

 

[Doomsay]

Here's our score each season since 1988, using this formula --

1988 - 23.81
1989 - 22.00
1990 - 18.50
1991 - 13.625
1992 - 14.69
1993 - 14.125
1994 - 15.25
1995 - 14.25
1996 - 17.31
1997 - 15.875
1998 - 13.625
1999 - 17.125
2000 - 21.375
2001 - 18.44
2002 - 19.31
2003 - 17.00
2004 - 20.44
2005 - 17.81
2006 - 17.50
2007 - 15.50
2008 - 19.81
2009 - 15.875

Thanks very cool, almost an 85% correlation with loss levels over those years.

 

[ODawg]

very impressive einstein

 

[jazzcat22]

At the beginning of the season, I came up with an idea for a new stat, which I'm calling the Stupid Mistake rating. The formula is giveaways x 6 + # of penalties.

I've finally computed the ratings for every team for 2009. Bottom line: we're doing quite a bit better than last year but still have a ways to go due to penalties. Last year we were dead last in penalties. This year we're second to last with 61. Green Bay has 62. Last year we were 2nd to last with 2.1 giveaways per game. This year we're solidly above average with 1.38 per game. Overall, we were dead last in the league in 2008 using this rating.

This week the Cowboys had 1 giveaway and 11 penalties for a rating of 17. This is a below average score that slightly bumps up our rating to 15.875, which is a bit better than the league average thus far.

League best (Minnesota): 11.125
League worst (Carolina): 23.875
League average: 16.348
Cowboys 2009: 15.875


You can see the link below for this rating but, in short, it's not designed to explain why we're losing; its only purpose is to be an easy way to keep track of and compare our stupid mistakes over time and against other teams. It is NOT ideal -- it is designed to be easy to compute and compare so it leaves out all sorts of helpful detail that would be very hard to keep track of league-wide (e.g., calling a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty or, say, calling two fade routes in a row on 2nd and goal from the one yard line on a night you're averaging 8 yards per rush ).



(For details see http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161334)

Maybe a new category....stupid coaching decision rating and stupid play calling rating.....But as you said, that would be hard to keep up with.
Another is stupid coaches challenges.

 

[Oh_Canada]

I think this is a useful stat, but what about giving extra weight to mental penalties such as offsides, personal fouls, unsportsmanlike and turnovers in the redzone?

 

[jswalker1981]

For me, a stupid mistake we made last week was towards the end of the first half. After the long catch and run by Crayton, we didn't call a timeout. We wasted a lot of time off the clock, and then had to rush a play. That could have been the difference between 3 and 7 points.