PFR Blog
For five years, Doug Drinen, Jason Lisk, Neil Paine and I wrote hundreds of articles on the Pro-Football-Reference blog. You can read them here.
FootballPerspective.com- Yards per Attempt: Where Does it Go Wrong? June 18, 2013Yards per Attempt is the basic statistic around which the passing game should be measured. It forms the base of my favorite predictive statistic (Net Yards per Attempt) and my favorite explanatory statistic (Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt). But it’s not perfect. In theory, Yards per Attempt is a system-neutral metric. If you play in […]
- Are Air Yards Consistent From Year to Year? June 17, 2013Consider the following example. The Colts gain possession at the 20-yard line. Andrew Luck is in shotgun and throws a strike to Reggie Wayne, who catches it at the 30, runs 15 yards, and gets tackled at the 45-yard line. Luck gets credited with 25 passing yards and Wayne records 25 receiving yards. Wayne is […]
- Fantasy Football: How to Project Receiving Yards (FBG) June 16, 2013Over at Footballguys.com, I look at a different method to project receiving yards. The number of receiving yards a player produces is the result of a large number of variables. Some of them, like the receiver’s ability, are pretty consistent from year to year. But other factors are less reliable, or less “sticky” from year […]
- Football Perspective Says Thank You On Its First Birthday June 15, 2013On June 15, 2012, I launched Football Perspective. Since that day, Football Perspective has posted a new article every single day. This the site’s 445th post, so I won’t blame you if you’ve missed an article here or there. At the top of every page is a link to the Historical Archive, a page that […]
- Football Perspective Contest June 14, 2013Football Perspective turns one tomorrow. To celebrate, Doug Drinen has come up with a contest centered around the following picture. Question 1: Explain what this is a picture of. Question 2: Make a case to your real or hypothetical significant other that this is worthy of being printed, framed, and hung on your wall. GRAND […]
- Top Ten Players Named Mike Williams in NFL History June 13, 2013#10: Tie: Mike Williams – linebacker, 1986 (Pittsburgh); Michael Williams – tight end, 2013-current (Detroit) Nine Mike Williamses have played in the NFL. A Tulsa linebacker of the same name was drafted by the Steelers in the 12th round of the 1986 Draft but never appeared in a game. In April, the Lions selected Alabama […]
- The Dungy Index: Version 2.0 June 12, 2013Back in 2006, Doug Drinen came up with the Dungy Index, a way to measure a coach’s performance in the regular season relative to expectations. Because Doug understands regression to the mean, he was impressed by Tony Dungy’s ability to continue to string together 12-win seasons year after year.1 But Doug didn’t want to just […]
- Were The 49ers Using West Coast Offense Principles in the 1950s? June 11, 2013Entire books have been written about the West Coast Offense. Friend of the program Chris Brown has an excellent primer on some of the principles of the system. Due to time constraints, this post is not going to dissect a voluminous playbook, translate Spider 3 Y Banana into English, or discuss the role of motions […]
- Implied SRS Ratings of Most College Football Teams June 10, 2013The Simple Rating System is a set of computer rankings focused on only two variables: strength of schedule and margin of victory. I published weekly college football SRS ratings each week last season, and you can read more about the SRS there. Last month, Jason Lisk of the Big Lead took the Las Vegas point […]
- What can we learn from Game Scripts splits? June 9, 2013When I ask a question in the title of a post, I usually have an answer. But not this time. From 2000 to 2012, 163 different quarterbacks started 16 games. I thought it might be interesting to check out their splits based on the Game Script of each game. I grouped each quarterback’s statistics in […]
- Yards per Attempt: Where Does it Go Wrong? June 18, 2013
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Last night the Chargers-Broncos game made me think. Other than very low scoring games, has there ever been a game in which one team scored all their points in the first half (while shutting out their opponent), and the other team scored all their points in the second half (while shutting out their opponent)? Chargers were 24-0 in first half, 0-35 in second half, this seems like a very rare scoring pattern.
Do you have a database that could be searched to see how many times this has happened in past games? I’d be inclined to bet that this has never happened before with anywhere near this large a point spread.
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/tgl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=game&year_min=1940&year_max=2012&game_type=R&game_num_min=0&game_num_max=99&week_num_min=0&week_num_max=99&game_day_of_week=&game_location=&game_result=&overtime=&league_id=&team_id=&opp_id=&conference_game=&division_game=&tm_is_playoff=&opp_is_playoff=&tm_is_winning=&opp_is_winning=&tm_scored_first=&tm_led=&tm_trailed=&c1stat=half_1_score_tgl&c1comp=eq&c1val=0&c2stat=half_2_score_opp&c2comp=eq&c2val=0&c3stat=&c3comp=gt&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points
and
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/tgl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=game&year_min=1940&year_max=2012&game_type=R&game_num_min=0&game_num_max=99&week_num_min=0&week_num_max=99&game_day_of_week=&game_location=&game_result=&overtime=&league_id=&team_id=&opp_id=&conference_game=&division_game=&tm_is_playoff=&opp_is_playoff=&tm_is_winning=&opp_is_winning=&tm_scored_first=&tm_led=&tm_trailed=&c1stat=half_1_score_tgl&c1comp=eq&c1val=0&c2stat=half_2_score_opp&c2comp=eq&c2val=0&c3stat=&c3comp=gt&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=points_opp
should do the trick.
Unfortunately, your bet did not pay off.
Hey thanks, that’s a great search tool. What I also meant to include in the search was if the team that only scored in the second half won the game, as happened Monday. But even with that included in the search there were a couple dozen previous games that fit the pattern. Quite a few of them were high scoring games as well, so I truly lost my virtual bet on that one.
I fine-tuned the search a bit, to only include games where a team had a 14+ point lead at halftime, and then the trailing team won the game by shutting the other team out in the second half. http://pfref.com/tiny/IXwxL
Only 26 games fit this criteria.
The last one was 2006. The Giants had a 21-0 lead over Tennessee at halftime. The third quarter was scoreless, and then Tennessee scored 24 in the fourth! http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200611260oti.htm
Oh, and it looks like the Den-SD game tied the record for deficit based on this scoring pattern. In 1946 the Eagles overcame a 24-0 deficit against Washington, to win the game 28-24. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/194610270was.htm Nobody overcame more than 24.
In fact, I can only find one regular season game where a team overcame a halftime deficit larger than 24 points. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/198012070sfo.htm 1980 SF vs NO. And then there was the Buf-Hou playoff game where Buffalo faced a 25-point halftime deficit. (Love ya blue!)