PassingRunning

• "In 1980, passes were picked off more than 6 percent of the time. By 1995, the rate of interceptions had been halved, which meant that passing the ball wasn't any statistically riskier than rushing." http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/09/football.php

 

• The Passing Premium Puzzle

 

• "The interception rate has decreased from 6.2% in 1960 to 3.1% in 2005 (Figure 2), a 50% decrease." The Passing Premium Puzzle

 

• "With these adjustments, the yards per pass attempt has increased from 4.66 in 1960 to 5.8 in 2005, a 24% increase (Figure 3). During the same time frame, yards per rush attempt were essentially flat." The Passing Premium Puzzle

 

• "In 1960, 52% of all plays were pass attempts (Figure 4) and in 2005 54% of all plays were pass attempts. So while passing frequency dropped in the 1970s below 50%, since 1960, when yards per pass attempt was 4.66, the frequency of passing has increased by 3.7% to 2005 when yards per pass attempt was 5.8, or 24% higher. The increase in the payoff of the passing game seems to have outpaced the growth in the use of the passing game." The Passing Premium Puzzle

 

• http://www.advancednflstats.com/2008/02/passing-paradox-part-3.html

 

• The Passing Premium Puzzle Revisited

 

• "The results: two teams ran more often than they "should have" – the Patriots and Saints – and the rest of the teams (not including the Chargers, who were modelled to be perfect) ran less often than they "should have." Rockerbie shows that, generally, the farther a team was from its optimal run/pass proportion, the worse its record. That fact, he argues, supports the model. But I don't think it does. Actually, it's Brian Burke who doesn't think it does; I'm just agreeing with him. Brian notes (in parts 2 and 3 of a recent three-part posting) that it's not running that leads to wins, but the other way around. Teams with a fourth-quarter lead will call a lot of running plays, to reduce the risk of a turnover and run out the clock. And that explains the correlation more convincingly than risk aversion." http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com/2008/05/nfl-passing-premium-revisited.html

 

• "We'll examine the relative worth of interceptions and fumbles based on play-by-play data from every game in the 2004 NFL season (over 40,000 plays, which include 527 interceptions and 358 lost fumbles)." http://www.sportsquant.com/turnovers.htm

 

• "I've discovered a major flaw in the author's analysis, however. He does not appear to account for sacks." http://www.advancednflstats.com/2008/01/passing-premium.html

 

• "The average cost of an interception is slightly more than a lost fumble, and the plots indicate that there is a much higher chance of something very bad happening when you throw an interception. So by any measure, interceptions are worse than fumbles. It's very tempting to come to this conclusion, but it's also wrong! ... After adjusting net yardage resulting from lost fumbles, the average cost of a fumble is at least 0.3 points more than for an interception (4.65 vs. 4.35)." http://www.sportsquant.com/turnovers.htm