The Wall Street Journal‘s latest “The Numbers Guy” column, Football Fans Likely Don’t Know League’s Most-Coveted Stats explores some of the newer stats being used in the NFL:
Did you know that rookie running back Mewelde Moore of the Minnesota Vikings, who gained just 379 yards this year (top backs gain at least 1,000 yards, at least by traditional accounting), led the league in percentage of plays in which he broke free from a would-be tackler, with 23%? That means he was remarkably elusive at dodging tackles. (The league’s two leading backs by yardage, Curtis Martin and Shaun Alexander, broke tackles on just 4% and 5.6% of plays, respectively.) Or did you know that among wide receivers with at least 50 catches, Minnesota’s Nate Burleson gained the most yards per catch after receiving the ball (6.71 yards per catch)?These stats, from News Corp.’s Stats Inc., start with game logs kept by “reporters” — football fans paid $45 a game to analyze tapes of games. Three reporters log every play for each game, recording advanced stats like how many yards a receiver gains after making the catch, and how many balls are underthrown and overthrown to intended receivers. Those logs are reconciled in the company’s Morton Grove, Ill., offices and then converted into what the company calls X-Info — measurements that go beyond the box score. About half of all clubs buy the data.
I’ve thought about this before:
In 2003, University of California, Berkeley, professor of political economy David Romer studied whether NFL teams should punt on fourth down or go for the first down. His conclusion, which flies in the face of conventional wisdom: Teams should almost always go for it.