The Most Pass-Happy Coaches in NFL History

May 21, 2013 Coaches

Yesterday, I looked at the most pass-happy active head coaches and offensive coordinators in the NFL. If you’ve been a loyal reader of my previous posts on Game Scripts, you understand the methodology I’ve used today to grade each coaches. The quick summary is I’ve come up with the term “Game Scripts” to determine the [...]

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Which coaches are the most pass happy?

May 20, 2013 Coaches

One reason I came up with the concept of Game Scripts was to identify the most pass-happy coaches. Remember, a team’s Game Script score is simply their average scoring differential over each second of every game. Last year, the Falcons were the most pass-happy team in the NFL after adjusting for Game Scripts; Atlanta had [...]

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Tempo in the NFL

May 13, 2013 Statistics

It’s no secret that Bill Belichick’s Patriots ran an up-tempo offense last year: Tom Brady and crew ran 1,191 offensive plays in 2012, just eight shy of tying the record set by the Drew Bledsoe Patriots in 1994. With versatile players like Aaron Hernandez, Rob Gronkowski, and Danny Woodhead, New England was capable of running [...]

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Time spent leading, tied, or trailing

May 12, 2013 Statistics

Earlier this week, I posted the Game Scripts for each team this season and in each game. After spending the time to calculate the Game Scripts — i.e., the average margin of lead or deficit over the course of every game — it involved minimal extra effort to measure the percentage of time each team [...]

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Game Scipts: Average margin in every game last season

May 7, 2013 Statgeekery

Yesterday, I presented the average lead or deficit for each team in the NFL last year, a number I’ve called the “Game Script.” Teams that find themselves with big leads or in deep holes early in games tend to deviate from their game scripts. That’s why it’s important to put metrics like pass/run ratio in [...]

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Game Scripts – The Best Teams of 2012

May 6, 2013 Statistics

Last year, I introduced the concepts of Game Scripts. There are 3600 seconds in every game: the Game Script is the average score over each of those 3600 seconds. For reference, you can check out this list of the top single-seasons of all-time. Did you know that the Patriots ranked 20th in pass/run ratio last [...]

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Game Scripts, Part III – 2012 results

December 5, 2012 Statgeekery

Last week, I introduced the concept of Game Scripts in Part I and Part II of this series. The short explanation is that a team’s Game Script score is simply the average score during each second of every game. Today, we’re going to look at some data from the 2012 season, although I have not [...]

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Game Scripts, Part II: Analyzing team seasons

November 27, 2012 Statistics

Yesterday, I rolled out Game Scripts, a way to measure the flow of every game since 1940. The sum of each team’s Game Script in each game can be used to give us an average Game Script score on the season. You might think that this number would be a good proxy for how dominant [...]

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Introducing Game Scripts – Part I

November 26, 2012 Statistics

From 1991 to 1995, Emmitt Smith and the Cowboys were one of the dominant teams in the NFL. As you probably heard, the Cowboys were pretty successful whenever Smith had a lot of carries. Over that five-year span, the Cowboys went 49-7 whenever Smith had 20+ carries in a regular season game, and an additional [...]

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