Mike McCarthy's Analytics Fraud

Vtwin

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I am also an engineer that evolved to process engineer and project manager before just manager.
Analytics nerds for the NFL need to take many deep breaths and go back to work.

They have not yet managed to provide much more than raw data and some assumptions.

The top 6 teams in the NFL in time of possession were in the playoffs. Top rushing teams in the playoffs. Top passing teams, largely at home.
Reality is goofballs need to stop.
If you can make it to the AFC CG with Ryan Tannehill then passing isn't so important as we have been chirped to by the Analytics community.

In the NFL there has always been a cause and effect of what the offense does versus what the defense does.
There is also a very real time component.
EPA (analytics main football brainchild) at this point has missed the boat largely (as the master metric) because it does not sufficiently address time.

We should have analytics nerds challenging each other harshly instead of this weird nerd herd mentality vociferously defending what is largely nonsense.

PER TEAM analytics are VERY useless and helpful.
Knowing a defense likes to play a set defense in a set situation is huge.
Same in reverse.
But saying well there's a 65% chance of success with the pass here is dumb. The Defense has that same number and knows to play pass defense.

Throwing it on 1st down all game because EPA says so is just stupid and you should be beaten and dumped into a toilet like the nerds of yore.

Every project I have hated was led by some goofball thinking they understand data. Then they made changes that were worse than the original while wasting time and money. That money usually equates to jobs and people lost. That usually equates to the people still around working twice as hard with more duties.

Did Derrick Henry complete the TD pass because the play action was effective? Yes. Did they fully expect DH to run? Yes.
Would play action work if you didn't run it AT ALL? NO, lol.
Would it work if you didn't run it great? Yes. Because you are still going to have been taught certain techniques and have muscle memory.
But you are much more likely to have an extra defender in the box if you are running well the defense has to adjust before you hit them with play action.
:clap::clap::clap::hammer:
 

LatinMind

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I dont think any coach understand analytics. As harbaugh said he dont understand it he has people telling him and they go with it. And its been working.

Play action works because its happening under 20 percent of plays. Meaning its catching teams by suprise. You dont have to be all scientific to understand this.

You look at whats working in the nfl right now, its hard nose fundamental football. The teams who are playing power football and not making mistakes and turning the football over. The NFL is trying to taylor make this league for fantasy football, but the teams who are keeping it simple are the ones who are playing for the superbowl.

This is the one thing that im not liking about mccarthy is he might be trying to dip into this whole new era type of football. But then i think and look at the coaches he has brought and theyre more oldschool types who preach simplicity and smart play. So we'll see.
 

waldoputty

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I'm sure that will be case as it presumably is for every team, but in a study of whether run frequency/success affects play action success then obviously you have to look at the whole league, and preferably over several seasons -- which was exactly what Baldwin did in those three studies posted above.

i looked at the pff one. there was nothing but the most elementary level of analysis possible. this is really stats 101.

there is absolutely no attempt to remove any bias. people need to remember the #1 rule in stats - that is 'garbage in garbage out'. and trying to draw conclusions on pass efficiency vs. # of runs based on this flawed data/model? you have got to be kidding me.

i certainly hope the cowboys can do better than stats 101 if they are paying for 14 people.
 

jterrell

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There's no reason to assume that this would only affect passes with play action, but not affect passes without. If the QB expects a run blitz, for example, he might eschew the play fake and target the vacated area of the defense, thus improving the success rate on non-play-action passes.
Baldwin is a very sharp guy who's worst issue is people who follow him taking what he says to mean more than it actually does.
That is a tough situation for any data scientist but more so for Baldwin who is paid for bringing in views/eyeballs.

Scientists seldom agree on things so they test and test and test.
In the NFL that is going to take time.
 

Brooksey

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Good thread, and the above post is the best post of the thread. No other analyst is Baldwin's league right now.

Rushing success and rushing frequency have no effect on play-action results. As old beliefs slowly die, the amount of play action will increase because we're going to see more and more shotgun on 1st and 10, which means more shotgun runs and more shotgun play action.

Just because the stats can’t show it doesn’t make it so.. you should know that by now. There’s play action on almost every play now for some teams anyway.. so the argument is pretty dumb. Amateur stuff from stat rats. The real thing you’re hiding along with the OP is your position that all you have to do is pass and stop the pass to be successful in the NFL, that the running game is irrelevant etc. Then SF ran it 47 times yesterday and D Henry ran over Balt.. there’s more to it and u know it. Stop cherry picking stats
 

Brooksey

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texbumthelife

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Thank you sir.
Forgot to mention I was once a Math Olympiad winner in a few different categories that at one point wanted to be a nuclear physicist.

I hardly hate math but it's misuse is actually worse than ignoring it.

I dont understand why the man can say he wants to apply analytics as a tool and suddenly he's the devil for wanting to completely rely on analytics, when he's never said once that was the case. Sounds to me like he intends to use it to help make informed, educated game plans, taking advantage of it as ANOTHER source of information, not as the ONLY source. There seems to be a contingent of fans here who, per usual, go all the way to one extreme or the other generally in defense of their own negativity.

The man hasn't even coached a practice yet and people are jumping on podiums about how he's gonna call games. Good lord, no one but MM, and maybe not even he knows exactly how he's going to apply analytics.
 

percyhoward

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I'm not sure what that old post says but I remember our arguments in 2013, you and Idgit saying there was no need for the run. Then Demarco ran for 2k in 2014 as we ran it 50% of plays, we went 13-3 and you disappeared. Then we did it again 50% run in 2016 and went 12-4.

2019 back to 35%run, 65% pass #1 in NFL and back to 8-8.

What does your old page/post say in one sentence?
It's from 2014, and it's about how defenses suddenly had to pick their poison because of the new threat of Dallas' running game. You think I "disappeared" in 2014, but there I was basically making your point. In a post that was evidently too long for you to read. Jeez louise.

And what does this have to do with the effect of run success/frequency on play action?
 

kumizi

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This thread reminds me of baseball threads from ten years ago.

“You just don’t understand the game” if you don’t think batting average, stealing bases, bunting, etc are critical to winning. Just a short decade later, it’s widely accepted as fact all these things that were done for 100+ years aren’t really that important. Getting on base and blasting home runs corralates to winning.

For football, it’s “you gotta run the ball to set up the pass” or “you gotta run the ball to win time of possession.” Eventually, people will realize none of that crappy matters all that much. Passing efficiency and turnovers will be accepted as the important stats.
 

Brooksey

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It's from 2014, and it's about how defenses suddenly had to pick their poison because of the new threat of Dallas' running game. You think I "disappeared" in 2014, but there I was basically making your point. In a post that was evidently too long for you to read. Jeez louise.

And what does this have to do with the effect of run success/frequency on play action?

I tried to read it and I fell apart a paragraph in lol. I'll take your word you were making my case. Ty, the OP disagrees says the run game is irrelevant and Zeke is a waste of a player etc

I feel the same about PA... If you're running more or the run game is working PA should work better than if the run game stinks or is non existent. If the run game is no good or is non existent, the defense should have an extra guy or two against the pass.
 
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