As noted in earlier posts here and here, Aaron Schatz is the lead author of Pro Football Prospectus 2006, which is an innovative effort to develop the same type of objective statistical framework for evaluating professional football players that Bill James and other sabermetricians have developed and refined for evaluation of Major League Baseball players.
In this provocative NY Sunday Times op-ed, Schatz suggests that NFL teams are using the wrong criteria when they pay a large amount to acquire or retain a field goal kicker who has made almost of all of his field goal attempts in the previous season. Schatz’s argument is that a field goal kicker may have a “hot” season from time-to-time, but will almost always regress in the following season to his career success rate for field goals. On the other hand, Schatz notes that another key kicking statistic — average kickoff distance — shows far more consistency from season-to-season than field goal percentage. Kickoff distance is important because longer kickoffs generally give the team kicking off a better chance of pinning their opposition deep in their own territory, which reduces the risk of giving up touchdowns and field goals. A case in point is the Cardinals’ Neil Rackers:
No kicker reflects the difference between field goals and kickoffs better than Neil Rackers of the Arizona Cardinals. Last season, Rackers set an N.F.L. record with 40 field goals, and led the league by converting 95 percent of his attempts. But in 2004, he connected on 76 percent of his attempts. This year, Rackers is even worse, making just 67 percent of his tries. His high-profile misses include a 40-yard attempt that probably would have completed an upset and handed the Chicago Bears their first loss of the season.
Nonetheless, while his field-goal percentages have swung up and down over the past three seasons, Rackers has consistently ranked as one of the leagueís premier kickoff men. He led the N.F.L. in average kickoff distance in 2004 and 2005, and is fifth in the league this year.
This disparity in consistency between field goals and kickoffs means that N.F.L. teams are generally signing and drafting kickers based on the wrong skills.
Interesting.
Does the book also look at offensive efficiency and defensive success in innovative ways?
I have felt that the usual football box score stats don’t tell the story. For instance Indiana and Northwestern stats do not entirely reflect being dominated by tOSU and Michigan yesterday.
Indiana did not rush the ball well, and had fewer first downs than Michigan.
NU generally matched tOSU in state, however had 5 turnovers.
Are there better stats to look at in these games?
Yes, Gary, the FP folks are evaluating every play of every team each season and generating a host of new statistics that evaluate the true effectiveness of a player. DVOA is probably the most insightful statistic, which essentially evaluates how well a player performs within the context of his particular team. I highly recommend the book. It’s an intriguing read.