Mike McCarthy's Analytics Fraud

[percyhoward]

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.

It turns out that play action works no matter how often you run or how well -- probably because the play fake deceives the defense. This is actually an acknowledgment that running is important. If the run didn't matter, play action would have no effect at all.

 

[Birch_Wood]

Whaddya mean "he"?

Oh yea, I should have said our next genderqueer QB is not even into football yet.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

15% dont get the benefit? As far as seeing bias, see what you want, there is no bias. Just because the data shows you are wrong, and many others, doesnt mean its bias. Its just data showing running well, or a lot, as no affect on play action. There is plenty of data showing this, the only thing showing the run helps playaction is people saying it. Lol

If you are going to come into a thread with hundreds of posts and come with the condescending thing it helps to actually know what has been discussed and what has not.

Beelow is a chart over the past 5 years of QB PA and non-PA performance:

Rodgers, Carr, Roethlisberger, and Flacco did not benefit from PA.

That is not bias That is objective fact.

I am not arguing that PA should not be increased. What I am trying to understand is why those 4 QBs did not benefit. One commonality amongst them is their teams were bottom 10 in rushing attempts over that span.

It's why I am discussing the mechanics of why PA does work. Do you have anything that actually has to do with what I am discussing?

 

[Whyjerry]

Look. I'm an engineer by training and now work at a big bank in investments. So yeah I like math and "analytics." I think they are instructive especially when careful study shows where what you believe to be true is in fact false. People who understand these counter-intuitive truisms claim a consistent edge.

There was much talk about how much Mike has learned in his year hiatus and how analytics was a big part of the thing he leaned on and has incorporated. And good lord he is not off to a great start. In fact it seems he is a fraud.

See below:



This is an awful quote. What he says here is the exact opposite finding from the analytics community.

In fact this is something I looked into when studying Zeke's pedestrian efficiency numbers last year (As a reminder we greatly overpaid Zeke after greatly over drafting him). But I digress....I posted this in August of last year...



What this shows is that play action passing is the most effective passes a QB can throw. And it hardly matters if you run the ball a lot. Or if you run the ball a little bit. And it does not matter if you run the ball well. Or if you run the ball poorly.

The point? If McCarthy is getting this basic thing wrong what confidence do we have that he actually learned anything in the last year, analytics or otherwise? And just like the Garrett era we can expect to give away the small edges that smart coaches understand and benefit from.

And that's a shame.

“Analytics” as a religion in sports is destined to fail. How many WS have the Oakland A’s won? Does anyone in NE tout the benefits of big data? Not that I can remember. I do remember Old Bill tossing a tablet that wasn’t working. Certainly some integration makes sense but making decisions solely on analytics is asinine. I don’t see anything wrong with McCarthy’s comments so you can step back off the ledge and give it some time.

 

[BlueStar22]

Well, anyone with half a brain knows that MM fudged a lot of stuff to get the job...

Hell let me tell it, i'm a Microsoft Excel wizard...

 

[Toruk_Makto]

MM is absolutely correct. You do need an effective running game for the play action fakes to work. There is nothing controversial about that fact.

\\

Except...as I have shown and argued...the only one mind you to present statistical analysis....this isn't true.

It seems it must be true. But it's not. That's kind of the point.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

Beast dont care.

Garrett is out there icing his own kicker, blowing challenges, misusing timeouts, botching the clock, ect……..should I keep going, because I can.

It's funny you mention icing a kicker.

Studies show kickers get more accurate after being iced.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

This is what it said about the Steelers:

"On the other end of the spectrum we have four quarterbacks who actually posted a higher passer rating on non-play-action passes. This seemed weird to me, but perhaps the connection is all four passers’ teams also ranked bottom-10 in team rushing attempts over our sample."

If rushing attempts don't matter then why do they offer this as an explanation for the low PA passer rating? Do these writers understand their own analytics? By your standards, the writers of this article are frauds.

Also, you failed to respond to any of my other points. They claim a .14 correlation between PA attempts and passer rating, but their whole point is that PA is great for passer ratings. Maybe it is a typo in the article, but in this case then how can we rely on it at all?? You seem to give this article all the benefit of the doubt but you are quick to call MM a fraud based on a casual comment he made?

The 0.14 correlation is why I said rushing attempts hardly matters while efficiency does not.

 

[RoboQB]

“Analytics” as a religion in sports is destined to fail. How many WS have the Oakland A’s won? Does anyone in NE tout the benefits of big data? Not that I can remember. I do remember Old Bill tossing a tablet that wasn’t working. Certainly some integration makes sense but making decisions solely on analytics is asinine. I don’t see anything wrong with McCarthy’s comments so you can step back off the ledge and give it some time.

Great remark about Bill and the tablet.
That was a fun post to read.
2020 is going to be interesting.

 

[percyhoward]

Rodgers, Carr, Roethlisberger, and Flacco did not benefit from PA.

Then you've got guys (Rivers, Winston, Stafford, Ryan) who clearly benefited from play action while their teams didn't run much at all.

Wilson only ranks 30th in pass attempts from 2015-19. In theory, his play-action passer rating should be through the roof. Instead, his play-action rating is right there next to Brees, who ranks 4th in pass attempts over the same span. In theory, those guys wouldn't be anywhere near each other if it mattered how often you run.

There may be some actual proof somewhere that the more you run, the more successful your play-action passes. That list sure isn't it.

 

[noshame]

So this is really just a defend Garrett thread? Swoosh, that's your ship sailing.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Then you've got guys (Rivers, Winston, Stafford, Ryan) who clearly benefited from play action while their teams didn't run much at all.

Wilson only ranks 30th in pass attempts from 2015-19. In theory, his play-action passer rating should be through the roof. Instead, his play-action rating is right there next to Brees, who ranks 4th in pass attempts over the same span. In theory, those guys wouldn't be anywhere near each other if it mattered how often you run.

There may be some actual proof somewhere that the more you run, the more successful your play-action passes. That list sure isn't it.

So again, why did they not benefit? Could it be that you need multiple issues beyond not running it to get defenses to not key?

 

[CPanther95]

Maybe he meant to say he read Dianetics in his off year .

 

[Runwildboys]

Maybe he meant to say he read Dianetics in his off year .

We'll know, if he starts jumping up and down on the bench like Tom Cruise on Oprah's couch.

 

[Beast_from_East]

It's funny you mention icing a kicker.

Studies show kickers get more accurate after being iced.

Ours sure didnt, he missed the kick and we lost the game.

So we go home with an L, but at least you can tell us on the plane ride home how your studies show it was the right call

 

[Naruto]

OP cracked the code

Get this guys how about we run play action in empty 5 wide sets

...championship!

 

[Mk2_Cowboys]

He hasn't coached a single game with Dallas and people already don't like him. Goodness.

We are talking about a fan base that wanted to run Romo out of town when he was the 4th ranked QB in nfl history ...tough crowd .

 

[Soth]

The 0.14 correlation is why I said rushing attempts hardly matters while efficiency does not.

What does that have to do with my comment? The 0.14 correlation I mentioned was for PA attempts/passer rating not rushing attempts.

 

[dallasdave]

do u think i am @Ranching or @dallasdave ?

Ranching

 

[percyhoward]

So again, why did they not benefit? Could it be that you need multiple issues beyond not running it to get defenses to not key?

Good question, as it concerns those particular QB. I looked into their teams' run frequency, and just found more randomness

Roethlisberger's passer rating with PA has been lower or about the same with PA, with the exception of 2017, when his passer rating was 23 points higher with play action. His team's run frequency did go up that year over the previous two seasons, but only slightly (from 39% to 40%).

Rodgers had one really bad play-action year (2015) when his rating was 25 points lower with PA. The Packers ran 41% of the time that year. In 2017 his rating was 23 points higher with PA. That year, the Packers only ran 39% of the time. The other years, there's been no significant difference between his rating with PA and without.

Carr's rating was lower with PA from 2015-17, with the Raiders running it 39% of the time. It's been slightly higher with PA the last two years with the team running it 41% of the time.

Flacco is the only one who has been consistently worse with PA, year after year. From 2015-16, his team only ran 34% of the time, and his rating was 7 points lower with PA. The next season, the Ravens changed philosophies and ran 44% of the time, and Flacco's rating was 23 points lower with PA.