WP: ESPN the Magazine ranks the Redskins 120th of 122 teams in use of analytics

[SkinsHokieFan]

Last in the NFL.

 

Hopefully GMSM improves this

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2015/02/18/espn-the-magazine-ranks-the-redskins-120th-of-122-teams-in-use-of-analytics/?hpid=z3

 

The Redskins have, understandably, become a national punching bag in recent years. Just witness what NFL.com’s Chris Wesseling wrote this week, in his “What They Need” review of the franchise:

An intervention? An exorcism? An excavator? Considering the bloated salaries attached to the veterans, this might just be the least attractive roster in the league….. As painful as it might seem to fans, this roster needs to be stripped, with most of the improvements coming via the draft.

So it’s open season on the burgundy and gold. Which is why I was not at all surprised to flip through ESPN the Magazine’s “Great Analytics Rankings” this week — which attempt to assess how every MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL franchise deals with advanced metrics — and find the Redskins near the very, very bottom.

The magazine has the Philadelphia Phillies ranked 122nd out of 122 teams, the New York Knicks ranked 121st, and your Redskins ranked 120th, meaning last in the NFL.

 

 

Link for rest

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Dan Snyder's last great innovation was sticking billboards above pissers. And I think he stole that idea.

 

The front office here has been too small and far too incestuous over the years. Hopefully that is changing but who knows? Cultures become ingrained,

[Bonez3]

'Bloated salaries to veterans'... Do tell?

[Rufus T Firefly]

Yeah, well, off the field we're one of the best.

[Conn]

'Bloated salaries to veterans'... Do tell?

We'll cut a lot of them, but Bowen, Lavauo, Chester, Hatcher, Cofield, Roberts, all on a terrible rebuilding team? We need to accept what we are and not pay top dollar for vets that live right around or above replacement-level.

Garçon is another one you could talk about. We have so much invested at WR for a bad, non-competing team.

[Rufus T Firefly]

We'll cut a lot of them, but Bowen, Lavauo, Chester, Hatcher, Cofield, Roberts, all on a terrible rebuilding team? We need to accept what we are and not pay top dollar for vets that live right around or above replacement-level.

Garçon is another one you could talk about. We have so much invested at WR for a bad, non-competing team.

I'm tempted to hug you.

 

I would throw Hall and Porter onto that list.

[Dan T.]

Dan Snyder's last great innovation was sticking billboards above pissers. And I think he stole that idea.

 

 

 

Don't forget the 20 dollar Redskins/Virginia lottery scratch-off ticket.  20 dollars for a scratch-off. Dan's a man of the people.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

At 70,000,000 to 1 odds, that scratch off represents the best chance of something Redskins related bringing me long term pleasure.

[Bonez3]

We'll cut a lot of them, but Bowen, Lavauo, Chester, Hatcher, Cofield, Roberts, all on a terrible rebuilding team? We need to accept what we are and not pay top dollar for vets that live right around or above replacement-level.

Garçon is another one you could talk about. We have so much invested at WR for a bad, non-competing team.

Yea- we'll cut alot of them, so actually advantageous. Hardly married to likes of a bad WR like Amendola. Wow, what a difference winning makes.

Further, I'm of the camp Hatcher is a solid player and worth his contract. Roberts also explainable given the unforeseen DJax signing.

Frankly, if anything, Skins have a ton of potential because of the fact they don't have alot of 'bloated contracts'.

You can throw Hall and Porter in to. Porter, he gone. And Hall took a deal that he earned with this team, hardly bloated at that given caliber of player.but anyway, both could be gone without batting an eyelash.

[mike42]

We aren't dead last? Surprising. ESPN is too kind.

[Dark Acre]

Contrast the Washington Football Redskins' way of doing things with the San Francisco Baseball Giants' way.  The Giants sucked at the end of Bonds' tenure and the farm system was horrible.  After finding a lot of homegrown talent (Posey, Sandoval, Lincecum (he was great), Cain, Bumgarner, among others) and making some smart mid-season trades and pickups, the result is 3 World Series in 5 years.  Same ownership and general management for years.  Steady manager in Bochy.  The Skins, complete opposite.  I feel manic-depressive being a fan of both teams.

[balki1867]

Whenever I think of analytics in the NFL, I think of Ahmad Bradshaw's super awkward touchdown at the end of the Super Bowl against the Pats a few years ago.

 

Basically, old school football logic says you pound it in and kick it off to the Pats and give Tom Brady ~45 seconds to try to respond.  But the new school analytics showed it was actually better to run down the clock and take your chances with the field goal.  That was incredibly obvious when it looked like Bradshaw was trying to fall down at the 1 yard line and it looked like the Patriots were trying to let him score.  So he kind of fell into the end zone rather than pound his way in like you'd expect an RB to do. So it looked like both Bellichick and Coughlin had analytics guys working for them.

 

clip of the Ahmad Bradshaw TD: 

 

As an aside, when I was a sophomore in college, my alma mater, the University of Illinois, was playing Michigan (coincidentally also led by Tom Brady at QB), and had a 1-point lead near the end of the game.  Suddenly our RB, Rocky Harvey, busted off a ~55 yard run to put the Illini up by 8 with ~1:30 left.  Michigan attempted to drive down the field but a holding call followed by a sack led to a 3rd and 35 that was essentially hopeless for the Wolverines.  YEARS later I saw clips of that game and it was very obvious Michigan let Harvey score to get the ball back (and hopefully score the 8-point TD).  This was 1999 so football analytics weren't a big thing then, but Lloyd Carr clearly knew what he was doing.

 

The Illini took a safety at the very end of the game to get better punting position, so they ultimately won by 6.

 

Clip of the Rockey Harvey TD at 2:45: 

[Peregrine]

How does one measure that?  I would be pretty surprised if they somehow had access to the Redskins accountant, and somehow knows how much they spend on analytics, and how many people they employ doing it.  I call a bit of BS with something like that.

[balki1867]

please delete.

[Jericho]

Contrast the Washington Football Redskins' way of doing things with the San Francisco Baseball Giants' way.  The Giants sucked at the end of Bonds' tenure and the farm system was horrible.  After finding a lot of homegrown talent (Posey, Sandoval, Lincecum (he was great), Cain, Bumgarner, among others) and making some smart mid-season trades and pickups, the result is 3 World Series in 5 years.  Same ownership and general management for years.  Steady manager in Bochy.  The Skins, complete opposite.  I feel manic-depressive being a fan of both teams.

 

Kind of odd to talk about the Giants and analytics, when they've been one of the least analytical teams in baseball. But still very successful. If there is a silver lining, analytics and football is still pretty raw and I'd argue clearly the least important of the big four sports. I think the Redskins get dinged for trading away so many picks for mediocre players. Just stopping that would go a long way to improving the analytic side. Hopefully yhe team embraces it more in the future...

[Rufus T Firefly]

Kind of odd to talk about the Giants and analytics, when they've been one of the least analytical teams in baseball. But still very successful. If there is a silver lining, analytics and football is still pretty raw and I'd argue clearly the least important of the big four sports. I think the Redskins get dinged for trading away so many picks for mediocre players. Just stopping that would go a long way to improving the analytic side. Hopefully yhe team embraces it more in the future...

Yeah, the real lesson from the Giants is how a few players can mean so much in baseball, especially in the postseason.

[RedBeast]

No surprise here...

[gtn130]

NFL teams in general are pretty far behind. I really doubt more than 2-3 NFL teams are seriously relying on analytics in their decision making. Having a few consultants on your payroll isn't exactly a big investment in analytics -- it needs to be a culture change.  

[Braxford]

But what about our use of analytics to win off the field? I gotta believe that a great use of analytics are crucial for the wonderful harvest festivals and pancake breakfasts. I don't think analytics are the only way to measure or build a team. There still is a solid place for analytics in measuring and building a team. Being ranked 120th out of 122 is disturbing.

[elkabong82]

Not surprising WP found something Skins were ranked low in and are running with it to show us another reason they think the Skins are bad, because on-field analysis is just not their forte.

 

gtn beat me to it. NFL in general doesn't use analytics like NBA and MLB do. NBA and MLB obviously have much, much smaller starting rosters and that likely plays into it. Football is much more diverse with starting rosters and thus more stats go into it, there are more moving parts, and analytics, while useful, don't help near to the extent they do in MLB and NBA. For it to work with an NFL team you're talking about an entire department dedicated to it due to the number of players and diverse strategy, and then coordinating that with scouting and player personnel.

 

gtn is absolutely right that it would take an entire culture change to do it properly at the NFL level, and it would be an experiment seeing if it's worth the investment. That would be a very expensive experiment and tie up a lot of resources and there's a good chance there's too much going on for it to be successful the way it is in MLB and NBA. 

 

What WP, not surprisingly, fails to mention is that the 76ers are one of the top teams in analytics usage, and they are one of the worst teams in the NBA right now. 

 

There are tangible reasons as to why the team performed poorly this past season and tangible things that need to be fixed, have been addressed, or still need to be addressed. An ESPN the Magazine lolranking isn't one of those concerns..

[Tsailand]

Not surprising WP found something Skins were ranked low in and are running with it to show us another reason they think the Skins are bad

 

There are actually tons of football-related things the Redskins are ranked highly in, but the Post doesn't cover those, just to spite Dan.

[Rufus T Firefly]

As long as it took baseball to come around, the use of advanced stats is pure logic there. Everything down there is really a one on one match-up and done so often that flukes get evened out. Apply some brilliant minds, from Bill James to Baseball Prospectus and beyond, and you're going to find ways to reduce everything to simple numbers.

 

Some of that applies to basketball, but not anywhere near as easily. It's still controversial but I think there are ways analytics can be really useful.

 

The NFL is a whole 'mother matter. As someone  who came to saber metrics pretty early and vocally, I have to say I have no such hopes for football to be measured as well by statistics. Small sample sizes and everything being dependent on teammates renders problems that just can't be reasoned out, imo. There are ways analytics can be used, but it is fairly minimal and have to be taken with large grains of salt.

 

All of which is not to say there is an excuse for billion dollar businesses not to be using every means available to them. If I were up for something like a GM job, I would insist on an investment to try to be at the vanguard of statistical analysis.

[MartinC]

I found this an interesting quote in the article you linked on a number of levels ...

"(Of course, you can’t apply analytics to intangibles, which is why this whole enterprise is not at all fair.)"

The article pretty much admits the 'research' that was done to draw the conclusion was nebulous and the conclusions subjective. But hey it's something knocking the Redskins so pretty much tailor made for a Washington Post piece.

[balki1867]

I'd actually argue that analytics can identify a lot of intangibles that you and I would just never see (or that would never be measured by old school stats).

 

Let's say you have a stud DE that consistently draws a double-team, with the TE or RB helping the OL block him.  You'll never see that DE go into coverage and he might never get a sack, but because he occupies that extra receiver he greatly increases the chances of the QB having to throw the ball away or getting coverage-sacked by another player.  There is no old school football stat that measures this, but there are plenty of analytics that would/should capture the fact that opposing offenses simply perform worse when our DE is on the field.

[MartinC]

I'd actually argue that analytics can identify a lot of intangibles that you and I would just never see (or that would never be measured by old school stats).

 

Let's say you have a stud DE that consistently draws a double-team, with the TE or RB helping the OL block him.  You'll never see that DE go into coverage and he might never get a sack, but because he occupies that extra receiver he greatly increases the chances of the QB having to throw the ball away or getting coverage-sacked by another player.  There is no old school football stat that measures this, but there are plenty of analytics that would/should capture the fact that opposing offenses simply perform worse when our DE is on the field.

There is an old school thing called 'breaking down film" which identifes that kind of thing really well.

Look I'm not actually arguing that use and anaylsis of data is a bad thing. I'm all for using whatever information you can. My point was that this article is actually not based on anything more than some nebulous "research" and a subjective judgement. The Post article admits that.