Novel Approach to predicting the NFL Season 2016
The NFL is a conglomerate of super-athletes. The best and worst players at any position, when you consider everything, aren’t that far apart. For example, Matt Jones for the Washington Redskins was a rookie in 2015. While Jones is arguably the 32nd best starter in the league (last place), in week 2 in 2015 he chalked up 123 yards and 2 touchdowns. Compare week 2 for Jones with week 4 for Le’veon Bell (regarded as top 3 running backs), when Bell tallied 129 yards and 1 touchdown. Both players are capable of having off days and on days of running guided by the essence of Barry Sanders.
More clearly put, when looking into specifics, the athletic ability of each isn’t going to be a clear determinant of a winner. Both players are capable of having those 100+ yard/multi-touchdown games.
Using Madden’s ratings, we hope we have increased the clarity of which team is most prepared for the awful, but often inevitable, injuries.
What we decided to do was start the analysis by overlooking the superstars, the starters, and QBs. We exclusively looked into the strength of the second string of players to answer the test of durability and adaptability. We chose to look into the following:
We chose to look into
2nd RB| 3rd Guard| 2nd TE |3rd WR
AND [Depending on defensive schema]
3rd CB| 5th DL | 4th LB | Defense Flex
Depth wins championships
Injuries, as much as they suck, are part of the game. So we dove deep into the second string. My team and I put together a document that can be viewed here where we used week 1 rosters and made determinations based of scouting reports, historical data, and reading countless press releases.
Who has the best GM?
What we discovered was:
All teams were aggregated based on a 792 scale with 99 being the highest possible score. Giovanni Bernard and Zach Ertz are tied for the second highest score of 86 and Orlando Scandrick holds the highest score in our analysis with an 87. The vast majority of the players fall in the 70s, with Neal Sterling, the second string TE for Jacksonville, having the lowest score of 57.
Overall by region:
Analytically speaking, the differences between 1st and 7th are too close to draw any significant conclusions, especially with a tie at 6th place.
Defense:
For teams that run a 3–4 base defense, we looked into 4th-ranked lineman instead of their 5th. Likewise, we ranked the 5th linebacker instead of the 4th. Recognizing the importance of hybrid schemes as well as the athletic and technical challenges of today’s NFL, the defense flex column was used depending upon each team’s base scheme, where we decided to evaluate the sixth DL in 4–3 base teams and the 6th LB in 3–4 and multiple-front base teams. We felt this was most representative of rotational likelihood given injury patterns and tradition substitution patterns. An obvious limitation to this is the increased time defenses have played in the nickel package. This variable could be addressed by adding an additional DB column, but we ultimately are seeking simplicity in this analysis.
If you’re of the defense wins championships crowd, this will be the most useful to you. The AFC South has the toughest division with only 18 points separating the best from the worst team. The NFC East shows us the largest spread of 32 points separating Philadelphia (279) from the Cowboys (311).
Dallas is showing us a shortcoming with the novel approach we used in that their D is outstanding (that’s what she said), but in reality they may not have a genuine starting QB. This goes back to the initial idea for this project. Every projection made isn’t a crystal ball. The efforts of this project are to answer the question, “If during this season a ton of second-string players start, how will the teams look?”
Offense:
Offensively speaking, the Philadelphia Eagles have the highest score of 318, which is also the highest global score! Some teams like Seattle have 3 players in the 80s and one in the 60s driving down the overall score to 309. It’s a tightly knit race.
Is this a way to bet the mortgage? We wish. Most models of this type serve as guidelines and offer some validity. The analytical part of us is tempted to say this proves that XXX TEAM has the second string with the highest ratings, but we also understand these novel approaches to a very complicated model still offer some insights.
Overall:
As if to feign surprise, New England is our standout to win the Super Bowl, as it is the only standout when considering both offense and defense. Again, it’s worth noting that the Tom Brady debacle isn’t considered in these calculations nor is the potential for yet another shady incident from the New England team. What it boils down to is New England has the best second-string options in all of the league, which boosts their chances of winning it all.
Particular:
In the case of a player having no madden score, the next best was chosen for that position.
Hope you enjoyed!
This article could not have been completed without the great insight and contribution from Mark Lucey.
