Time of Possession vs. Number of Possessions

[T-RO]

...one problem with using stats with the available data set is that the cowboys team is unusually constructed.
the other is that the data set is pretty small while there are many many variables.
after all, what we care about is the cowboys, and all other teams are not really important.

It's really simple....I don't know why people need to confuse it...except that traditions die hard and some people refuse to think things through logically.

It's very simple math and very simple game strategy.

Let's suppose you and I are thrown into a video game where we have to get from one mountain to the other using this little jumping device. There are two ways you can jump: blorp and blig.

Blorping gives you--an average of 42 yards every time you do it. Bligging gives you 65 yards--on average--every time you did it. What are you going to do more of? What is more important for the game? If you can try to defend other players...are you going to try to stop their blorping or their bligging?

In a nutshell it's not much harder to grasp than that.

Who gets drafted at the top of the first round every year? Who gets the big bucks? Quarterbacks...and guys to stop opposing quarterbacks? Or is it nose tackles and running backs to control the running game?

 

[jobberone]

i agree that an effective running game is needed to pass well, and an effective passing game is needed to run well.
also agree an effective passing game is essentially offensive efficiency.
these are common sense and to argue these points is plain silly, with possible exceptions being an amazing OL or someone like brady for a qb.

however, every time this type of topic is argued on this board, it becomes a statistical argument over common sense.
i started out this thread talking about # of possessions in a game, and it degenerated into an argument into running the ball, again.

if you try hard enough, you can manipulate statistical tests to prove most opinions.
for my final project in an econometrics class, i had to create a test/argument that world war 2 did not affect durable consumption.
is that silly enough for you?
i actually got an A for the project.
only took a few days on either TSP or SPSS.

one problem with using stats with the available data set is that the cowboys team is unusually constructed.
the other is that the data set is pretty small while there are many many variables.
after all, what we care about is the cowboys, and all other teams are not really important.
with the investment the team has made in the OL and offense in general, we are an outlier statistically.
to use a limited data set in an outlier situation is not robust.

you can draw some conclusions with some statistical tests.
i suspect they work pretty well for predicting the future success of college players.
but for what we are talking about here, it is a far more complicated situation.
you would have to take into account the particulars of the team e.g. romo's 'health', the existing investments already made.
i would be surprised if these are actually accounted for in existing models.
your data set is not big enough - this is not baseball.
if you include too many years, your data set is flawed because of the changes in the game including the rules of the game.
if you include all the teams, it washes out the individual differences in the teams - particularly the makeup of the cowboys with the investments in OL etc.

you can try to incorporate the strengths and weakness of the team in your model as additional models.
i suspect you would not get much more predictive benefits other than saying 'draft well and pick FAs wisely'.

Ok if you say so.

 

[waldoputty]

No.

For the past few decades being able to pass with efficiency and being able to stop the other team's quarterback with pass rush and coverage...that's how you win. The Patriots are the era's most successful team and that is their template. They sometimes throw 80% of the time and they make pass defense their focus.

I could give you all kinds of examples and data to back it up but I find that a lot of fans hold onto their notions with an almost religious conviction...so...no point.

ah, Patriots have Tom Brady.
i would throw it all the time too if i have Tom Brady.
though i would put together some strategy to protect him so he would last for 20 years, including protection schemes as well as a running game.

 

[waldoputty]

It's really simple....I don't know why people need to confuse it...except that traditions die hard and some people refuse to think things through logically.

It's very simple math and very simple game strategy.

Let's suppose you and I are thrown into a video game where we have to get from one mountain to the other using this little jumping device. There are two ways you can jump: blorp and blig.

Blorping gives you--an average of 42 yards every time you do it. Bligging gives you 65 yards--on average--every time you did it. What are you going to do more of? What is more important for the game? If you can try to defend other players...are you going to try to stop their blorping or their bligging?

In a nutshell it's not much harder to grasp than that.

Who gets drafted at the top of the first round every year? Who gets the big bucks? Quarterbacks...and guys to stop opposing quarterbacks? Or is it nose tackles and running backs to control the running game?

if i take your 42 yards per blorp and your 65 yards per blig, of course that would be a no brainer.
what i am questioning is the validity of your blorp and blig that generalizes across the league etc.
each team has certain strengths and weakness' that i doubt are captured in the regression analysis.

if one takes your proposal to the limit, one would only blig, which would probably end up with a bad result. so this type of simplification does not work.

actually what i was originally after was some stats based on # of possessions.
trying to talk about run vs pass never gets anywhere in this board.

 

[T-RO]

if i take your 42 yards per blorp and your 65 yards per blig, of course that would be a no brainer.
what i am questioning is the validity of your blorp and blig that generalizes across the league etc.
each team has certain strengths and weakness' that i doubt are captured in the regression analysis.

if one takes your proposal to the limit, one would only blig, which would probably end up with a bad result. so this type of simplification does not work.

actually what i was originally after was some stats based on # of possessions.
trying to talk about run vs pass never gets anywhere in this board.

If you blig (pass) all the time it reduces its effectiveness...so of course no one does that. Some degree of balance is necessary. Also, it can be important to be able to run some in the red zone.

But it's a passing league now.

 

[waldoputty]

If you blig (pass) all the time it reduces its effectiveness...so of course no one does that. Some degree of balance is necessary. Also, it can be important to be able to run some in the red zone.

But it's a passing league now.

It has been a pass first league, I agree.

However, look at the Chip Kelly spread offense that rushes almost 2x more than pass.
As most of us know, it works because it 1) forces the defenders to use more DBs instead of LBs, 2) spreads out the DBs with typically a centerfield S, 3) a QB that is a threat to run to even out the number of defense and offense personnel in the box and 4) fast pace to prevent the defense from sending in fresh troops.

I know, Kelly's offense has not been successful in the NFL.
But he was ungodly successful in the college.
Does it just not work in the NFL or does he simply lack the personnel.

I happen to believe that Kelly is lacking the appropriate personnel.
BTW, I think we have the perfect personnel to play that offense.
That is 1) QB that is also a threat to run, 2) 4 good pass catching options, 3) dominant OL for both pass and run, and 4) a dominant RB that can also catch and block along with great RB depth.
With our personnel investment on the OL and RB, our average yardage per blig may be substantially higher than the average yardage per blig that is regressed across all the teams across different formation across over a long time period.

so this is actually a situation that is much simpler that could be statistically analyzed after a few more games.
how is the Cowboys' running efficiency from the 3WR or 4WR formation compared to the 12 formation?
Dez being available or not may affect the stats, but we only have what we have.
from what I have seen on TV, i think there is a difference.

it also seems to me that Cowboys are going into the 3WR/4WR sets a lot more than in the beginning of the year.
may be they are seeing results?

will our blorp match our blig, probably not.
however blorp does not have incompletions.
even if the expected gain from blig is higher, you run the risk of 2-3 incompletions happening in a single set of downs - forced to punt.

 

[AdamJT13]

When you say TOP does not favor a team that runs a lot and runs well, that does not make sense analytically.

It "does not make sense" to you because you believe the popular misconceptions instead of looking at the facts.

There are plenty of examples of teams that ran the ball a lot and ran it well but had a low average TOP because of their pace of play, third-down conversion percentage and/or completion percentage (the 2013 Eagles are one extreme example -- No. 4 in rushes, No. 1 in YPC and dead last in average TOP). And there are plenty of examples of teams that didn't run the ball a lot or run it well, but had a high average TOP because of their pace of play, third-down conversion percentage and/or completion percentage (such as the Saints and Chargers in each of the past three years). Of course, there are plenty of teams in between and all over in the rankings, which is why it helps to look at the overall correlation over time. And the facts are that running the ball and running it well both have a low correlation to average TOP, while pace of play, third-down conversion rate and completion percentage each have a high correlation.

 

[waldoputty]

It "does not make sense" to you because you believe the popular misconceptions instead of looking at the facts.

There are plenty of examples of teams that ran the ball a lot and ran it well but had a low average TOP because of their pace of play, third-down conversion percentage and/or completion percentage (the 2013 Eagles are one extreme example -- No. 4 in rushes, No. 1 in YPC and dead last in average TOP). And there are plenty of examples of teams that didn't run the ball a lot or run it well, but had a high average TOP because of their pace of play, third-down conversion percentage and/or completion percentage (such as the Saints and Chargers in each of the past three years). Of course, there are plenty of teams in between and all over in the rankings, which is why it helps to look at the overall correlation over time. And the facts are that running the ball and running it well both have a low correlation to average TOP, while pace of play, third-down conversion rate and completion percentage each have a high correlation.

I see your point.
My point was that when I said "ran the ball well", I was not referring to a specific stat.
Yes, ypc is a stat that measures the team's run efficiency.
That was simply not what I had in mind.
I would not say a team is running well if it is not converting 3rd downs.

I was originally interested in stats on # of possessions.

Now lets talk about your statistic model.
Your regression model says there is little or no correlation between YPC and TOP.
So some team that gets 2YPC and some team that gets 7YPC would have the same TOP.
Does that make any sense to you?
A team that gets 7YPC only needs to run it most of the time, and most drives will be long and probably result in a score.

I presume you will say my example is not realistic because I am picking extreme cases for your model/data set.
My point is that the makeup of the Cowboys team is an extreme case.