Yakuza Rich
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Despite the Complaints, NFL Preseason is a Good Thing
by Yakuza Rich
http://yakuzarich.blogspot.com/
It’s about that time of year when something goes drastically wrong and some star player gets injured in preseason, only to hear the writers and fans cry “preseason is too long!” Then the diatribes continue that preseason means absolutely nothing and is pretty much worthless. I remember in 2003 when Michael Vick got injured and was out for most of the season in a preseason game against the Ravens. There was a call to arms of “preseason is out of control!” and “preseason must be stopped!” (coincidentally by CNNSI.com’s Peter King who has now written scathing remarks about Vick and the dog fighting indictment). The media brotherhood in arms claimed that preseason was just for those greedy NFL owners to line the pockets some more and it was killing the game. Get ready for it this week. Some star will go down (hopefully not a Cowboys player) and the diatribes will begin. Unfortunately preseason is very important and crucial to the NFL and if these writers would dig a bit further, they would understand it.
CAMP CUPCAKE, THE WAY IT IS
Probably the biggest fallacy going around is how “easy” the Dallas Cowboys training camp has been under Wade Phillips. The Engel’s, Mac and the Hack, coined it “Camp Cupcake” and the rest of the media ran with the story like they found the goose that could lay the golden egg. However, lately the joke has been on them. It’s a bit understandable to see Phillips’ camp as being “easy” compared to the way Parcells ran it. But it’s not understandable for a writer to not dig a bit further and see what other teams are doing at their camps. And as Jean Jacques-Taylor best put it, what made Parcells’ camp so great? It wasn’t like the Cowboys went deep into the playoffs every year with Parcells.
But just one look around the league shows you that Camp Cupcake is quite ordinary. As King reported, he saw teams like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Green Bay go without tackling in practice during training camp. And that’s a big part as to why preseason is so important. Too many teams don’t like tackling in training camp, so preseason gives them a chance to work on their tackling. And only giving them two preseason games probably is not enough.
PUTTING YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
If you’re a coach in the NFL you’re likely to come across some difficult roster dilemmas and usually it stems from choosing between the aging, but experienced veteran and the inexperienced young player with great potential. By going to only 2 preseason games, you’re likely to see coaches have to make hastier choices without getting the best information. The experienced veteran may win out because he’s got experience despite being the lesser player. And the inexperienced young player may win out on potential. But as Parcells once said “performance is everything, potential is nothing.” My guess is that a coach is more likely to make the correct choice on players in a 4 game preseason than a 2 game preseason. And isn’t picking the best players to play the best way to put the best product out on the field for the fans?
THE CORRELATION OF PRESEASON TO REGULAR SEASON
The Dallas Cowboys under Tom Landry were perhaps the team that started the myth that the preseason was completely unimportant. Back then the Cowboys were known to be terrible in the preseason only to continually be one of the best teams in the NFL. Landry understood early on that you need to get your backups some valuable reps, keep your starters healthy, and keep your playbooks close to your vest. So when other teams were playing starters and trying out their playbooks, the Cowboys were sending in their backups and working on football fundamentals. At first it was deemed by other teams that the Cowboys could get away with it because Landry was such a great coach and they had such an eye for talent. But eventually they understood Landry’s way of thinking and that he also wanted to gear his team up for winning the first game of the year.
Landry often stated that he felt the first regular season game to be the most important game of the season because it got the team off to the right start and lifted both the morale of the team and the fans. And it was also no surprised that Landry holds the record for most consecutive season opening victories.
But as time went along, teams across the league adopted Landry’s philosophy. It’s gotten to the point now where almost every team tries to play their starters for only a couple of series and usually just plays the backups and works on fundamental plays. And since just about every team does this, the playing field is much more level. You may be seeing a backup versus a backup, but if one team’s group of backups is clearly better than the other, there’s a decent chance that team is just plain better than the other.
Eventually the adage became that “preseason only matters if you go undefeated or winless.” Winless teams haven’t faired well when it comes to making the playoffs and undefeated teams have usually made the postseason. However, I wanted to take a deeper look into this.
The big part of the problem with analyzing preseason is that too many people just want to look at wins and losses. So if were to run a correlation analysis, the numbers would be skewed since we would be comparing such a minute number of 4 preseason games to 16 regular season games. There needs to be some type of statistic that relates to team success that will generate a bigger range of number than 0 to 4. Eventually I found a number that can do that in point differential.
But the other problem I found is that you’re bound to have at least two teams that are anomalies that hurt the correlation analysis. You’re likely to have one team that is one of the best teams in the league that is filled with veterans and has a coach that barely plays them in preseason or much less than other teams play their starters. Thus they have a horrible preseason, but do quite well in the regular season. This can happen with a few teams in the NFL, but usually there’s one that really stands out on a year to year basis. And that team is usually the Colts. The Colts are such a completely different team with Peyton Manning to the point that even if they had a solid QB in place of Manning, like a Matt Hasselbeck, I doubt they would make the playoffs. But with Manning at the helm everything changes and they immediately become a Super Bowl contender.
The opposite is true as well. There’s usually at least one team that tears up the preseason and does the exact opposite in the regular season. Usually this stems from either a good team who saw their starting QB go down for the season with an injury. The other is a team that’s usually led by either a former college coach with little or no pro experience (i.e Steve Spurrier) or a coach that’s been away from the game for quite some time (i.e. Art Shell). Last year the Raiders RAIDERS PRESEASON
When analyzing how a two things correlate to each other, statisticians like to find the Correlation Coefficient. This is a number that ranges from -1 to +1. The closer the number gets to +1, the stronger of a direct relationship there is. The closer the number gets to -1, the stronger of an indirect relationship there is. And the closer the number is to zero, that means there is no or almost no relationship.
For example, lets say I wanted to see what type of correlation the following had to do with a pitcher’s ability to record strikeouts:
MPH on Fastball 0.643
Inches of Break on Curveball 0.243
Times Resin Bag was used 0.007
Pitcher’s Age -0.471
In this situation, these numbers are telling me that the faster a pitcher’s fastball is, the more likely they are to record strikeouts. Break on a curveball has the same type of relationship, but not nearly as strong as fastball velocity. Resin bag has almost no relationship, so a pitcher could use the resin bag as much as they want and it won’t help them more or less strikeouts. And in this case, the older a pitcher gets the less strikeouts they are likely to record.
Over the past 4 years, the correlation coefficient of preseason point margin to regular season wins has been around +0.250. But if you are to take out those 2 aberration teams, the correlation coefficient starts to jump up to +0.300 and higher. Last year’s correlation coefficient when the Raiders and Colts were taken out of the equation was +0.27
I wouldn’t say that a correlation coefficient ranging from .250 to .300 is a strong guarantee that how well a team does in preseason point differential will then carry onto the regular season. But unless your team has Peyton Manning as your QB or a naïve head coach, point differential in the preseason is something to take note of.
While it makes for a nice headline, preseason is hardly another way for those greedy NFL owners to gouge us rubes out of more money. Many teams do horrible preseason attendance and only get two home games anyway. And does anybody really think that somebody like Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder really needs the income from fans coming in to see two measly preseason games? Not to mention that a lot of this talk that originally came from Vick getting hurt a few years ago negates the fact that it actually happened in the 2nd preseason game to begin with.
The reality is that preseason is designed to help bring the best product forth. And while it’s agonizing to see a star player go down, if it turns out to be a complete detriment to the team’s season, chances are the team and the coaching staff made their fair share of mistakes that had a bigger impact on the team’s lack of success.
by Yakuza Rich
http://yakuzarich.blogspot.com/
It’s about that time of year when something goes drastically wrong and some star player gets injured in preseason, only to hear the writers and fans cry “preseason is too long!” Then the diatribes continue that preseason means absolutely nothing and is pretty much worthless. I remember in 2003 when Michael Vick got injured and was out for most of the season in a preseason game against the Ravens. There was a call to arms of “preseason is out of control!” and “preseason must be stopped!” (coincidentally by CNNSI.com’s Peter King who has now written scathing remarks about Vick and the dog fighting indictment). The media brotherhood in arms claimed that preseason was just for those greedy NFL owners to line the pockets some more and it was killing the game. Get ready for it this week. Some star will go down (hopefully not a Cowboys player) and the diatribes will begin. Unfortunately preseason is very important and crucial to the NFL and if these writers would dig a bit further, they would understand it.
CAMP CUPCAKE, THE WAY IT IS
Probably the biggest fallacy going around is how “easy” the Dallas Cowboys training camp has been under Wade Phillips. The Engel’s, Mac and the Hack, coined it “Camp Cupcake” and the rest of the media ran with the story like they found the goose that could lay the golden egg. However, lately the joke has been on them. It’s a bit understandable to see Phillips’ camp as being “easy” compared to the way Parcells ran it. But it’s not understandable for a writer to not dig a bit further and see what other teams are doing at their camps. And as Jean Jacques-Taylor best put it, what made Parcells’ camp so great? It wasn’t like the Cowboys went deep into the playoffs every year with Parcells.
But just one look around the league shows you that Camp Cupcake is quite ordinary. As King reported, he saw teams like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Green Bay go without tackling in practice during training camp. And that’s a big part as to why preseason is so important. Too many teams don’t like tackling in training camp, so preseason gives them a chance to work on their tackling. And only giving them two preseason games probably is not enough.
PUTTING YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD
If you’re a coach in the NFL you’re likely to come across some difficult roster dilemmas and usually it stems from choosing between the aging, but experienced veteran and the inexperienced young player with great potential. By going to only 2 preseason games, you’re likely to see coaches have to make hastier choices without getting the best information. The experienced veteran may win out because he’s got experience despite being the lesser player. And the inexperienced young player may win out on potential. But as Parcells once said “performance is everything, potential is nothing.” My guess is that a coach is more likely to make the correct choice on players in a 4 game preseason than a 2 game preseason. And isn’t picking the best players to play the best way to put the best product out on the field for the fans?
THE CORRELATION OF PRESEASON TO REGULAR SEASON
The Dallas Cowboys under Tom Landry were perhaps the team that started the myth that the preseason was completely unimportant. Back then the Cowboys were known to be terrible in the preseason only to continually be one of the best teams in the NFL. Landry understood early on that you need to get your backups some valuable reps, keep your starters healthy, and keep your playbooks close to your vest. So when other teams were playing starters and trying out their playbooks, the Cowboys were sending in their backups and working on football fundamentals. At first it was deemed by other teams that the Cowboys could get away with it because Landry was such a great coach and they had such an eye for talent. But eventually they understood Landry’s way of thinking and that he also wanted to gear his team up for winning the first game of the year.
Landry often stated that he felt the first regular season game to be the most important game of the season because it got the team off to the right start and lifted both the morale of the team and the fans. And it was also no surprised that Landry holds the record for most consecutive season opening victories.
But as time went along, teams across the league adopted Landry’s philosophy. It’s gotten to the point now where almost every team tries to play their starters for only a couple of series and usually just plays the backups and works on fundamental plays. And since just about every team does this, the playing field is much more level. You may be seeing a backup versus a backup, but if one team’s group of backups is clearly better than the other, there’s a decent chance that team is just plain better than the other.
Eventually the adage became that “preseason only matters if you go undefeated or winless.” Winless teams haven’t faired well when it comes to making the playoffs and undefeated teams have usually made the postseason. However, I wanted to take a deeper look into this.
The big part of the problem with analyzing preseason is that too many people just want to look at wins and losses. So if were to run a correlation analysis, the numbers would be skewed since we would be comparing such a minute number of 4 preseason games to 16 regular season games. There needs to be some type of statistic that relates to team success that will generate a bigger range of number than 0 to 4. Eventually I found a number that can do that in point differential.
But the other problem I found is that you’re bound to have at least two teams that are anomalies that hurt the correlation analysis. You’re likely to have one team that is one of the best teams in the league that is filled with veterans and has a coach that barely plays them in preseason or much less than other teams play their starters. Thus they have a horrible preseason, but do quite well in the regular season. This can happen with a few teams in the NFL, but usually there’s one that really stands out on a year to year basis. And that team is usually the Colts. The Colts are such a completely different team with Peyton Manning to the point that even if they had a solid QB in place of Manning, like a Matt Hasselbeck, I doubt they would make the playoffs. But with Manning at the helm everything changes and they immediately become a Super Bowl contender.
The opposite is true as well. There’s usually at least one team that tears up the preseason and does the exact opposite in the regular season. Usually this stems from either a good team who saw their starting QB go down for the season with an injury. The other is a team that’s usually led by either a former college coach with little or no pro experience (i.e Steve Spurrier) or a coach that’s been away from the game for quite some time (i.e. Art Shell). Last year the Raiders RAIDERS PRESEASON
When analyzing how a two things correlate to each other, statisticians like to find the Correlation Coefficient. This is a number that ranges from -1 to +1. The closer the number gets to +1, the stronger of a direct relationship there is. The closer the number gets to -1, the stronger of an indirect relationship there is. And the closer the number is to zero, that means there is no or almost no relationship.
For example, lets say I wanted to see what type of correlation the following had to do with a pitcher’s ability to record strikeouts:
MPH on Fastball 0.643
Inches of Break on Curveball 0.243
Times Resin Bag was used 0.007
Pitcher’s Age -0.471
In this situation, these numbers are telling me that the faster a pitcher’s fastball is, the more likely they are to record strikeouts. Break on a curveball has the same type of relationship, but not nearly as strong as fastball velocity. Resin bag has almost no relationship, so a pitcher could use the resin bag as much as they want and it won’t help them more or less strikeouts. And in this case, the older a pitcher gets the less strikeouts they are likely to record.
Over the past 4 years, the correlation coefficient of preseason point margin to regular season wins has been around +0.250. But if you are to take out those 2 aberration teams, the correlation coefficient starts to jump up to +0.300 and higher. Last year’s correlation coefficient when the Raiders and Colts were taken out of the equation was +0.27
I wouldn’t say that a correlation coefficient ranging from .250 to .300 is a strong guarantee that how well a team does in preseason point differential will then carry onto the regular season. But unless your team has Peyton Manning as your QB or a naïve head coach, point differential in the preseason is something to take note of.
While it makes for a nice headline, preseason is hardly another way for those greedy NFL owners to gouge us rubes out of more money. Many teams do horrible preseason attendance and only get two home games anyway. And does anybody really think that somebody like Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder really needs the income from fans coming in to see two measly preseason games? Not to mention that a lot of this talk that originally came from Vick getting hurt a few years ago negates the fact that it actually happened in the 2nd preseason game to begin with.
The reality is that preseason is designed to help bring the best product forth. And while it’s agonizing to see a star player go down, if it turns out to be a complete detriment to the team’s season, chances are the team and the coaching staff made their fair share of mistakes that had a bigger impact on the team’s lack of success.
