If Greg Olsen is Joining Team Analytics, I Am Offering My Services To Be His Grunt Guy
Greg Olsen seems to have entered the analytics battle as Team Analytics with this tweet today and as fan of his I would like to personally offer my services of being his grunt guy in the statistics department. We need more good analysts in the TV booth during games and Greg is already top in class. But we all could use a behind the scenes grunt guy to help us out. Anytime you wanna run something like this by me Greg, I'm here!
What's the issue?
Well Mr. Third Leg, we can't say a 48-yard field goal only has a 45% chance by including all kicks of longer distances. Sure, Badgley is 9/20 but he's kicked from 53 four times, 54 twice, 55, 58 and even 59 yards in his career. Much harder kicks.
Instead, let's start by using data from all kickers. We could use the 36 48-yard field goals this season (61% converted) or better yet let's just go all the way back to 2000 and use the 864 48-yard field goals with a 65.7% hit rate. Much better sample size a more realistic starting point that does nothing to lose the point of your tweet. That being everyone who favors field goals doesn't really consider the odds of missing. The "take the points" crowd who think field goals come free.
From there you can add on the fact that Badgley just isn't that good of a kicker. I mean, remember a few years ago when pretty much no teams were using "analytics"? The spreadsheet haters would say this is because we should defer to the people who played football to consider all the idiosyncratic factors at play. That the coaches know best.
Well why aren't we doing that now, haters? Cambell had a bad kicker and a bad defense. How is that not a plausible rationale for being "aggressive"? Who are you (a not NFL football player) to say Cambell (an NFL football player) was wrong?
I think that's the play here Greg. Let's start with a more realistic figure then pivot to using their old argument against them.
I'll let this blog stand as my resume for the job as your analytics grunt. I'm about as qualified as Mike Badgley hitting a 48-yarder but you could do worse.
And don't worry, I won't charge. You've done enough for me already.