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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
anoptimist
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10:52p
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Football Nerdery
Reading one of my favorite blogs today, a commenter remarked how odd it is that we have two 11-0 teams at this point in the season (indeed, this is the first time that has ever happened). Going further, the commenter brought up the Patriots' 16-0 2007 season, and speculated that parity in the league, along with the increased restrictions on defensive backs enacted for the 2005 season, made it easier for teams with a dominant passing attack to cut through the rest of the league.
I thought this was a very interesting idea, and it really got me thinking... It was one half of his statement that did it for me. Not so much the remark on the new pass interference rules... though a significant change and a big boon to the passing game, it's hard to really quantify something like that w/o diving into some serious stats (hey, maybe another time).
What really got me going was his remark on "parity." A common refrain among many NFL fans, and especially commentators, is that the advent of modern free agency and the salary cap in 1993 has promoted parity in the league - Putting more teams in contention and making it easier and quicker to rise to contention, but making it much harder to put together an "all time great" team and making it especially harder to hold it together for any length of time. When parity is brought up by an NFL commentator, it's usually brought up in a negative light.
As a general fan of free agency and especially of the salary cap (I am the fan of a small market team, after all) I've always disagreed with remarks along these lines. "Parity" is usually a byline for "mediocrity" and I've always wondered... Is it really harder to put together a great team these days? Harder to keep it together? And even if that were the case, would that really make the league more "mediocre?"
In any case, rather than just go along with barroom/chat room banter on this, I decided to see if I could make some sense of the numbers...
And so! With that preamble, I have constructed what is perhaps my greatest act of spontaneous nerdery to date, "An Analysis of Regular Season Records and Super Bowl Outcomes in the Pre and Post Free Agency Eras." Here is some of my thinking behind it:
1) I wanted to compare both eras and see if there were any trends favoring a higher number of great or awful teams, or a higher number of middle-of-the-pack teams.
2) I also wanted to compare Super Bowl results, to see roughly how closely they mirrored regular season accomplishments in the two eras.
Obviously I had to leave some things (a great many things!) out. As stated earlier, I didn't feel comfortable speculating on the effect of the new pass interference rules without really diving into the data. I'm going to limit this to the issue of free agency only. Also, I wasn't able to really come up with a measure for "longevity of great team" or anything like that. Again, maybe another time.
So here's what I did:
I took all of the final standings from the years 1978 through 2008 and divided them into two eras (1978 was chosen because it was the first year of the 16 game schedule). The first era is 1978-1992, before the advent of modern free agency and the salary cap in the NFL. The second is 1993-2008, with both of those things in place.
Each team's record was assigned to 1 of 4 categories, "Elite", "Solid Playoff", "Mediocre", and "Awful." Elite is a season of 13 to 16 wins. I chose 13 as the cutoff point because it seems as though most seasons have a couple of memorable teams that really dominate headlines all year, and 13 wins seemed like a good cutoff point to establish what the "great" teams were for each year without including too many. The data seemed to bear this out, as the vast majority of seasons had from 1 to 3 teams fall in the "elite" category.
"Solid Playoff" represents a season of 10 to 12 wins. I chose this because 10 wins is generally a good benchmark for a team to make the playoffs without the need for a lot of "help" in the form of tie-breakers and all that. There have certainly been 10-win teams (and last year, and 11-win team) that have missed the playoffs, and 9 and even 8-win teams that have made it, but 10 seemed like a good general cutoff.
"Mediocre" represents a season of 4 to 9 wins and the vast swath of teams that have a mixture of things going for and against them.
"Awful" is a truly wretched season of 0 to 3 wins. I wanted this to have the same number of possible outcomes (4) as the "Elite" category, to sort of serve as a mirror.
For my "outcomes" analysis I added 4 additional columns. The first two mention the team (or teams if several are tied) with the best regular season record, and the team that won the Super Bowl that year. The third mentions whether the best (or one of the tied-for best) teams won the Super Bowl that year, and the fourth mentions whether a team with an "elite" record won the Super Bowl that year.
Here are the results (and I totally have a spreadsheet on this if you're curious).
From 1978-1992
Elite (1.31 elite teams per year, representing 4.67% of the total number of teams in the league)
Solid Playoff (8.15 per year, 29.12% of the total)
Mediocre (16.46 per year, 58.79%)
Awful (2.08 per year, 7.42%)
From 1993-2008
Elite (1.88, 6.49%)
Solid Playoff (7.19, 24.89%)
Mediocre (18.06, 62.55%)
Awful (1.75, 6.06%)
So we do see a little bit of divergence here. In the post free agency period you see a greater percentage of both Elite and Mediocre teams, at the expense of Solid Playoff and Awful teams. Does this mean it is easier for a team with a few good working components to "cut a swath" through a sea of mediocre opponents? Maybe. Though this measure doesn't appear to show much straight "parity." The number of "elite" teams has actually gone up, and the number of "awful" teams is pretty similar.
What about on the Super Bowl measure? Ah, here is where things get interesting...
1978-1992
60.00% of Super Bowls are won by the team with (or one of the teams tied for) the best regular season record in the league.
69.23% of Super Bowls are won by a team falling in the "elite" category of regular season wins.
1992-2008
31.25% of Super Bowls are won by the team with (or one of the teams tied for) the best regular season record in the league.
37.50% of Super Bowls are won by a team falling in the "elite" category of regular season wins.
This is a huge shift! From 1978-1992 the team with the best regular season record was nearly twice as likely to win the Super Bowl as the team with the best regular season record from 1993-2008. It would seem that regular season record was a much better predictor of Super Bowl outcome pre free agency than post. Does this point to an increase in "parity" then? If teams with even apparently solid records are more frequently able to be knocked off by apparently inferior teams? That certainly seems like a possibility.
So, for those of you who have slogged through this, what are your thoughts? Do you think the NFL has a great degree of parity now than in the past? If so, does this perversely make it easier for teams with a few reliable strengths to rack up impressive records? Is this a bad thing?
current mood: thoughtful, footbally
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anoptimist
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11:52a
My Top Ten Albums of the 2000's - Number 9
Holy shit, well, I told you this list was going to be irregularly updated. It has been a busy couple of months. Hopefully I'll get the rest of this put out before the end of the year. Anyways
9. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf (2002)
Like I mentioned in my last entry on this, to me building a best-of-the-decade is easier than a best-of-the-year list, because it's easier to weed out what you really like from what's just been on your playlist lately. An album that you really like is an album that you reach for multiple times. And that's definitely the case for Songs for the Deaf.
The first time I reached for this album, it was a much-needed antidote. It's easy to forget now, but in 2001-2002 mainstream hard rock was still in the dying throes of the musical abomination frequently known as nu metal. If you liked hard rock and your main gateway to it was the radio (both of these were still the case for me at the time, only one is now) you'd better get ready to hear lots of the same crunchy Andy Wallace-style production and women/daddy issues.
Songs for the Deaf plays by a different, older set of rules but adds enough tweaks to keep things interesting. For one thing it has confidence. "This is the end/ No more pictures/ We ain't friends" isn't exaclty poetry, but sung with Josh Homme's offhand, slightly arrogant delivery and with the rest of the band buzzing-yet-slinking around in the background it comes off much cooler and much more menacing than the "WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!?" screams of many a Pro Tools modern rock band.
It also has balance. As a counter to Homme's updated cock rock vocal stylings, Mark Lanegan adds a huskier, more mysterious tone to songs where he sings lead, particularly "A Song for the Dead" and "Hangin' Tree."
Balance in the music too. Straight up ass-kickers like "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire" and "Go With the Flow" are complemented nicely by the slower, moodier "Gonna Leave You" and "Another Love Song."
It's a great car album, consisting of a blend of velocity and reverb that I tend to find really appealing and that I will return to a few more times on this list.
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(comment on this) Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
anoptimist
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1:42p
The State of the Steelers
Is not awful, but it's not great either. It's certainly not as great as it was 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago the Steelers were 6-2, coming off 5 straight wins, and commonly regarded as one of the best teams in the league. They had just knocked off two of the league's hotter teams, Denver and the then-undefeated Minnesota Vikings.
Now the Steelers stand at 6-4. In the past two weeks they have lost to the hated Bengals, shockingly giving the Bengals season sweeps of both Baltimore and Pittsburgh and putting them very firmly in the driver's seat to win the division, and even more shockingly losing to the Chiefs, a team that had entered the game with a record of 2-7. Both losses featured a kickoff returned for a touchdown, and the Kansas City loss was notable for the Steelers putting up nearly 2-1 advantages in yards and first downs yet still managing to lose the game.
Also, Big Ben suffered a concussion in the OT period, and Charlie Batch managed to knock himself out for the season again after only playing for 3 plays. It now appears as though Ben may be able to play in the Baltimore game anyway, but count me among those who think this would be a terrible decision, especially considering 1) All the new information coming out about the long-term damaging effects of concussions, particularly as a result of too-short recovery times and 2) Ben's history, which includes the collision of his head with a motherfucking car in 2006.
So that's the bad news. Now here's the good news in quasi-reverse order.
#1 The QB situation. It would appear as though the Steelers are limited to a punch-drunk Ben Roethlisberger and a very green Dennis Dixon (their 3rd stringer) but there are other options here. The best, as mentioned by ESPN's James Walker, would be to give a call to one of the veteran QB's still floating around in the unsigned ether. He specifically mentioned Jeff Garcia, which I think would be an excellent idea. While he hasn't played in the Steelers offense before, Garcia has definitely shown himself to be a smart QB and by now he must definitely be used to this whole changing teams thing. Should be old hat for him. Also, I hasten to add that Dennis Dixon has never played in the Steelers offense before, and Big Ben may not remember having played in the Steelers offense before.
#2 The Steelers defense is still 1st in the league, allowing only 278 yards per game of total offense. And this is without the services of Aaron Smith or Troy Polamalu for most of the year. So they're, um, used to dealing with that. Which is good because that's going to be the case for a good while longer (in Smith's case, for the rest of the year). Also, the offense is a respectable 6th (significantly higher than last season's unit).
#3 The team is still 6-4, by no means awful. Per the playoff picture graphic I saw during the Titans/Texans game last night, the Steelers would be a wild card team if the playoffs began today. In spots cliche parlance they still "control their own destiny."
#4 Cincy also lost in an equally mysterious fashion to Oakland yesterday, and Baltimore is actually a game behind Pittsburgh. While not likely, winning the division is still not out of the question. We just have to finish a game ahead of Cincy, as they have the tie-breaker on us.
#5 Speaking of tie-breakers, we have them against both San Diego and Denver, if it comes down to that and if whichever of those teams that doesn't win the AFC West (presumably Denver, a team that is fading) is still in the W.C. (water closet?) hunt at the end of the season.
#6 Dude, we've won the Super Bowl as a Wild Card before. In 2005 the Steelers were the #6 seed (and also had some shaky losses in November) and manged to win it all.
#7 The remaing schedule is not that hard. Now, I will be the first to tell you that after losing to the Chiefs, the Steelers can't afford to take any games for granted. But the remaing six games are very winnable. Two of those games are against Oakland and Cleveland. Pittsburgh absolutely must win those games. The remaining four games are against Green Bay, Miami, and 2 games against Baltimore. All solid but flawed teams in the .500 range. If the Steelers can sweep their two awful games and split their four decent ones (a very reasonable goal), they go 4-2 and end up with a 10-6 record on the season, most likely good enough for the playoffs with the tie-breakers they already have in their favor against the AFC West. Under this scenario even a loss against Baltimore this week doesn't end their season. This week's game is the road half of the series, if they can hold serve on their home half they can still stay ahead of Baltimore. Obviously another 5-game win tear (like after our last back-to-back losses) would be even better.
We'll see. I still hold out a great deal of hope for the 2009 Steelers - one of the more frustrating vintages I have seen, with their alternating moments of brilliance and disappointment.
You Gotta Believe.
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