2010 NFL Draft

No, it’s not too early to start talking about it.

By this time in the season we already have a wealth of information on who is succeeding in the NFL and who is not.  With a fair degree of certainty we know who is going to make the playoffs and who is going to advance to the divisional and championship games.  Sure, there may be an outlier here and there, a team with a .500 record who’ll barely make the playoffs and survive for a week or two there (or like the Giants two years ago win the whole thing), but what strikes me about this year in particular is the “distance” between the top tier teams and the bottom.  Since the introduction of the salary cap the NFL has become more and more competitive every year – this year is the anomaly.  There were games that were played in the last two weeks where we could all but certainly predict the winner.  All that was left for chance was the point spread.

My point here is that except for the top tier teams that KNOW they are going to the playoffs (Saints, Patriots, Broncos, Colts, etc) everyone else should be starting to look at building their team for the next year.  How is that done?

Much like any multi-step self-help process, the first step is the admission you have a problem.  Is your problem on offense, defense, special teams or all of the above?  Then, break that problem down into positions – quarterback, offense line, defensive line, backfields, gunners, kickers, etc.  Ask yourself this:

 What is it specifically about these units that are not functioning as expected? 

More importantly, define and standardize the performance metrics that are most important to your team being successful. 

What elements (grading) are showing where individuals or groups of individuals are not performing for your team?

Once these “holes” are identified how do you plug them?  Off-season trades are a good way.  As teams drop out of the post season picture, in-season trades may even work well (it’s also a great way to improve your draft position).  But, the one instance that occurs EVERY year for EVERY team is the combine and draft.  Since this is the most important event, shouldn’t we start talking about it now?  Where do most of these players come from?  You bet, they’re in action every week just like the NFL squads with one exception – they play on Saturday.

Over the next couple of months I will be building my special “draft edition” of Real Sports Analytics.  I’m going to take the top 100 draft possibilities and score all of their 2009 collegiate games.  I’ll use the base metrics (already qualified vs. on-field results) and make small modifications along the way to adjust the weights to get a finely tuned model.

This information can be critical to teams already looking ahead for next year and I’m looking forward to seeing the results myself!

Numbers don’t lie

The saying “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” is normally credited to either Mark Twain or 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.  It is a saying that I have often used especially when watching politics since it seems there is a statistic for every argument.  (I will NOT get into that discussion here though!)

Nevertheless, I have learned from experience that this saying is NOT valid in the world of business.  No matter how many excuses you make or how many people you point your finger at – NUMBERS DO NOT LIE!  I once worked with a VP of sales who told me “SELL and all of your problems go away” and he was right.

In the world of sports you can “feel good” about a player, you can like his values and beliefs, you can even like him as a person or as a family man, but in the world of professional sports performance matters more than anything else.

Remember the scenario I outlined in my previous post?  An NFL team in the southeast was having difficulties in the preseason picking a starting quarterback.  The initial 1st string guy was a long-time NFL veteran with a very, very mediocre career given his physical talents.  The 2nd string guy will probably be a perpetual backup in the NFL and has never started AND WON an NFL game in his career.  Then, there’s  the rookie…

Well who knows how the season will play out and I certainly do not have any “insider” knowledge with this particular organization, but I can tell you this.  The 3rd string rookie consistently graded out better in preseason play than the other two.  You’ve also got to remember the challenges faced by a rookie trying to make a squad: limited snaps with the 1st string offensive live, little access to the 1st string skill players and all sorts of practice limitations and lack of game day experience, etc, etc….

So guess what happened this weekend?  The kid finally got a chance to play!

Now, this particular team is still facing some very, very large challenges in turning their season around, but given the hostile environment faced this weekend, the kid didn’t do half bad.  The question I always have for NFL coaches is “Would you rather have a veteran player in there making rookie mistakes over and over again or would you rather have the rookie in there making mistakes, learning and getting better.”  As I mentioned before, I just don’t think (if history is any lesson) that the first two quarterbacks are going to get any better.  But, this rookie gets better every time he touches the ball.  His Real Sports Analytics scoring tells me that he gets one or two more starts and he’s going to have his first 300 yard day and the team will get one in the “W” column.

I guess only time will tell.  Ironically, I do know that this organization has some sort of “computer” system to help in evaluating their player performance.  Apparently it is NOT working too well for them this season.

Time for some home cookin’…

I was watching some pre-season games this weekend and became interested by an all too typical story line.  It’s the preseason in the NFL for those of you who don’t watch football and many teams this week have to make drastic cuts to trim their roster to 75 players and then to the league maximum of 53 by next Saturday.  Some guys will make the roster, others won’t and will either go back to their “day” jobs or end up on a scout team making far below the league minimum. 

By the way (side note here), the league minimum for a rookie is currently (2009) set at $310,000.  The salary range, again minimum wage goes up to $535,000 for a guy with 3 years experience in the league and a measly $845,000 for a veteran with over 10 years experience…

Unlike some fans, I actually like this time of year, most people think “oh, it’s only pre-season, it doesn’t matter”, but for these young men playing their guts out trying to make a squad it makes an incredible amount of difference.  Unlike college teams where there may be some favoritism involved in many “cut” or “travel” decisions the NFL is all about business.  What 53 players will give me the best chance of getting to the playoffs and making a run for the Super Bowl?  Sometimes questionable decisions are made – players are released and go on to have extremely productive careers in other organizations.  How does this happen?  Does one player “fit” poorly with one team and exponentially better with another?  How are these decisions made?  Do the coaches and front office people have the correct information all the time to make these business decisions?

Those are the same types of questions that I’ve encountered the last 15 years in banking, finance, retail, supply chain, transportation, etc.  What skill sets need to be fostered in your organization so that these decisions can be made?  What differentiates organizations that make “good” decisions versus “bad” ones?  What tools do I need to ensure my personnel have all of the information necessary to make these decisions?

This is what REAL SPORTS ANALYTICS can do for your organization!  Take the guess work out of the statistical analysis of your grading system and allow your coaches to focus on the intangibles that are so important.  Give your personnel the tools they need to make better decisions.  And most importantly use 21st century technology to give your organization the competitive advantage to get on that road to the playoffs.

Now, for the “home cooking” part….

There is a QB battle going on right now with an NFL team in the southeast (I won’t name the team).  There is a veteran who has had a mediocre career at best.  There are two younger guys who have some NFL experience, but are still very unproven.  Then there’s the rookie.  Who will win?  That’s where this gets interesting.

I am going to use the Real Sports Analytics application that I have created, powered by Essbase and Dodeca to grade out these four quarterbacks.  I can already tell you that the current 1st string veteran did NOT grade out well the other night.  He consistently missed open receivers (mostly high), his decision making ability was not sound and in a  couple of instances did not make a clean handoff or pitch to the running back.  Basically, this “veteran” is a train wreck waiting to happen…  But, the coaching staff is new, they are still trying to use an antiquated system for player grading and these miscues may be overlooked in the long run, we’ll see.  I also have some concerns about the rookie’s arm strength, just not convinced yet he can hit those 15 yard “out routes” from a cross-field position.

I’m going to watch the game again to score the 2nd, 3rd and 4th string guys – I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Why Real Sports Analytics is BETTER than your current system.

I was watching a pre-season game a few nights ago and saw what was probably the best example of why Real Sports Analytics is better.

Here’s what happened – Team B kicked off to Team A.  The kickoff was a touchback so Team A took over at the 20-yard line.  After a commercial break, Team A’s quarterback called the play in the huddle and the team lined up.  Team B’s defense was obviously coming up for a blitz.  The safety was near the line of scrimmage, the outside linebackers were on the line and watching the football closely, everyone was obviously trying to time the snap.  The quarterback stopped his snap count and called an audible.  He turned to the running back to make sure he could hear, you saw several offensive lineman look toward him to catch the new play as well, the receivers acknowledged the change also.   The quarterback took the snap, took a quick three stop drop and delivered the ball perfectly to the receiver on the right side who had cut off his route to run a quick slant.  At this point the quarterback has done everything perfectly, he’s read the defense, adjusted his blocking, adjusted the WR routes, took the correct drop and delivered a perfect throw.

But, you know what they say about “best laid plans”…

Here’s what happened next.  The receiver bobbled the ball over his left shoulder, the cornerback (Team B) grabbed the football and took off for an easy score.

“Traditional” scoring systems (i.e. passer rating) would ding the QB for the interception as well as the pick six even though he did nothing wrong.  The receiver on the other hand might be charged with a “dropped ball” which is pretty misleading as well since it usually doesn’t take into account the game situation, accuracy of the pass or the result of the play.

Now, let’s look at this scenario from the Real Sports Analytics perspective.

The QB gets a good score for reading the defense, calling the correct audible, adjusting his blocking, taking the correct drop (3 instead of 5 steps) and delivering a perfectly thrown pass.

The RECEIVER gets a good score for communication with the QB and running a correct route.  He get a BAD score for not catching the ball and allowing the interception.  Depending on if he was in a position to make a play on the return, he might get a good or bad score on his tackling ability.

The CORNERBACK for Team B gets a good score for coverage, identifying and jumping the route and for catching the interception and turning it into 6 points.

What?  What was that last statement?  Why am I grading the OPPOSITION?

Well, there are really two points to be made in this post:

1)  Score how players actually perform doing the specific tasks that are necessary on the field to win.  This includes decision making ability, mechanics, vision and of course athletic ability.  Offensive coordinators and most coaches know what play is being called in the huddle.  Because they are on the field they can most likely hear an audible that’s called by the QB at the line of scrimmage.  These are known items, grades, metrics… whatever you want to call them, they are collectable and measurable and over time can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses of every player on your team.

2) Speaking of strengths and weaknesses – wouldn’t it be nice to look at past performance of your opponents to see how they are grading out?  You may discover that a certain defensive left tackle is having an incredible year, but only in the first 3 quarters – could it be a conditioning issue that the opposing coaches haven’t quiet figured out yet?  Well, if your team knows this they’ll know to run to the opposite side of the field for the first 3 quarters.  But the 4th quarter, when it comes down to crunch time, that’s when games are won or lost.  And that’s when you most need the competitive advantage and Real Sports Analytics brings to the table.

Is your team using an outdated grading system?

If you’re already using technology to score items like this are you limited to how many metrics you can track, how many players you can view, how quickly and easily you can get this data when you need it?

Have you ever even though about tracking your opponents to discover strengths and weaknesses beyond the “traditional” performance scoring systems?

The “technical” stuff

We might as well get this out of the way…

In the next few posts (and the couple that I’ve already posted) I’ll be talking a lot about what Real Sports Analytics can do for the world of professional sports.  Let me take just a few moments to talk about the technology behind my product.

All non-technical folks are excused from this discussion, although I certainly welcome comments if you have any questions on exactly how this works.

First of all, you’ve got to understand the fundamentals of multi-dimensional databases.  MDDBs have been around since the early 1990s, I actually started my work with them in 1994 when I performed a functional analysis between Keenan’s Acumate product and (then) Arbor Software’s Essbase.  My point here is this is not a “flash in the pan” technology, they’ve been around a while.

Check out this excerpt from Information Age magazine from a few year’s ago.  The base technology behind Real Sports Analytics is Essbase – it’s in very good company here….

 

Yep, you read that correctly – Essbase is right up there in influential innovations with the Blackberry, Google, and high speed internet.

So Essbase is the data storage mechanism for Real Sports Analytics.  It is powerful, flexible and can pull in data from just about anywhere.  Essbase was originally developed by Arbor Software (I was one of the first 100 there).  Arbor “merged” with Hyperion in 1998 who was then purchased by Oracle.  So technically, the product name for Essbase is “Oracle Essbase” now.  (Which to this day I still have problems saying.)

Essbase is much more capable than other database for the “analytics” part of Real Sports Analytics.  I can pull in player performance data on an instance-by-instance and then enable players, coaches, agents, anyone for that matter, to view real time performance data by player, by position, by groups of players (offense, defense, special teams), by season, by individual games, by quarters, by plays, ….    Well, you get the picture.

If your player grading system is scored 1-5, 1-10, 1-100 or –100 to +100, it doesn’t matter.  Essbase can handle it, can store it, can calculate complex statistical models from it and delivery it to you quickly and easily.

I’ve built Essbase cubes that have contained hundreds of billions (and beyond) intersections of data.  Simply put, Essbase can use as input any and all data you’ve ever gathered on your players or any player in your particular sport.  If the data is in a spreadsheet, great Essbase can read it.  If data is in an existing relational database (Oracle, SQL Server, DB/2, etc), no problem Essbase can grab it.  Bar napkin, fax, crazy drawing on a whiteboard, a little more complicated, but yes, Real Sports Analytics can use it.

So Essbase is different, it is the industry leading most powerful MDDB on the market right now (sorry, Microsoft MSAS was always a bridesmaid in this race).

From a user perspective, how do you get this data?  I’ve chose AppliedOLAP’s Dodeca product for Real Sports Analytics.  Why?  Simply put it is the best, most flexible, most scalable front end for the Essbase platform on the market.  There is just nothing like it and I feel it will provide everything that I want to offer to my clients.

Want to learn more about Real Sports Analytics or multi-dimensional analytics?  E-mail me!

What can Real Sports Analytics do for you?

Would you like to analyze not only the performance of your current players, but also the opposition?

What if you could track the weaknesses of your opponents and use this knowledge in your game plan?

Would you like to know which players (still available) in the draft best fit your needs based on the metrics you define?

These guys have the right idea, no access to my technology...

Can you get real time performance statistics so that you can see your team’s performance at halftime?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then REAL SPORTS ANALYTICS is for you.  In simple terms, we offer the most realistic and usable competitive advantage in the market place.

More to come…

Welcome

I'll be adding information here in the next few weeks. The Real Sports Analytics application set powered by Dodeca and Oracle is about to take the sports world by storm. I really think that I've done things in the proper order - I spent many hours over the summer modifying both the Essbase model and the front end tools. Many times I think developers do this "after" selling the product. Well, I'm doing things the other way around. The product is stable, everything is ready to go, NOW it's time to do some marketing and start showing what this baby can do!