Advanced Football Analytics

  Brian Burke is back for the final AFA podcast of the 2014-15 NFL season. Brian and Dave discuss the Patriots deflated ball controversy with a quick recap of high school physics before analyzing the key analytical storylines of Super Bowl XLIX.  They look at the role of analytics in the TV broadcast, break down the key matchups on both sides of the ball and finish up the show by predicting which team will be crowned the 2015 Super Bowl champion.

  John Urschel, offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens and published mathematician, rejoins the show to recap his rookie year in the NFL. John covers a wide variety of topics, from describing his toughest blocking assignments, to how he makes his pre-snap reads, to breaking down how he handles crowd noise. The show concludes with a recap of some of John’s off-the-field activities, including his current mathematical research and volunteer work teaching math to Baltimore high school students.

  Neil Paine (FiveThirtyEight) returns to discuss the college football and NFL conference championship games. He explains how sports betting markets evaluate the impact of replacement players and provides his thoughts on the CFB playoffs, Monday's championship game, and what future college football postseasons might look like. In the second half, Neil and Dave discuss the implications of expanding the NFL playoffs to 14 teams before previewing this weekend’s conference championship matchups.

  Brian Burke is back to recap the 2014 regular season. Brian and Dave begin the show by discussing the significance of the non-pass interference penalty in last week’s Dallas-Detroit game. Next, Brian reviews his recent posts on the idea of analyzing individual player contributions as “compliments and substitutes”, the college football rankings process and his own NFL ranking systems on AdvancedFootballAnalytics.com. They close out the episode with a look back on the “best of” 2014, preview this weekend’s divisional round games and make a friendly wager on Saturday’s Ravens-Patriots game.

  Jimmy “J.I.” Halsell, former Redskins salary cap analyst and director of analytics and contract advisor at Priority Sports and Entertainment, is on to discuss coaching changes and salary cap strategy. J.I. describes his work in the Redskins front office, and shares some of the data and resources teams use to make major front office decisions. He explains how during his time at Priority Sports, he used different methods to build relationships and find added leverage for his NFL clients. At the end of the show, he and Dave take a look at the newly vacated head coaching positions and brainstorm some likely (and unlikely) matches for the jobs.

  Mike Sando (ESPN) returns to the podcast to recap his list of the best and worst offseason player acquisitions. Mike and Dave discuss the challenges of building a roster through veteran acquisitions, and review Mike’s picks for 2015 NFL MVP. They look at which coaches are on the hot seat, and debate which potential coaching vacancies present the best opportunities for success. The episode ends with a deep dive into Mike’s daily work covering the NFL. He provides Dave some detailed pointers on how he watches live and televised games in order to learn the most about team personnel and individual matchups.

  Chase Stuart (Football Perspective) returns to discuss the college football playoffs, analyze long term trends in NFL passing offense and preview week 15 matchups. Chase and Dave look at the teams with fluid QB situations going into next season and predict which teams are the best destinations for the top college QB prospects. The episode wraps up with a look at the Baltimore Ravens and this Sunday’s Dallas/Philadelphia and Houston/Indianapolis games.

  Kevin Quinn, Economics Professor at St. Norbert College (WI) and author of “The Business of the NFL” and “Sports and Their Fans”, is on to discuss his research on the economics of the NFL. Professor Quinn outlines his model for optimizing owner behavior and explains the value of regional monopoly power in sports. He and Dave discuss the state of NFL ownership and how the current media contract helped shape the modern NFL. They conclude with a look how different economic tools can be used to model NFL team success on the field and weigh the advantages of each.

Kevin Kelley, Head Coach of Pulaski Academy (Little Rock, AR), is on the show this week to discuss his unique strategic philosophy. Known as the “coach who never punts”, Coach Kelley has leveraged his offensive acumen, love of advanced stats and commitment to onside kicking to lead his team to three state championships since 2003. He and Dave break down the data underlying his strategies, dive into the details of how he executes his special teams plays and discuss the differing ways the football world has responded to his success.

  Brian Burke is back on the podcast to answer reader and listener questions. Digging into the email and twitter archives, Brian and Dave dig up some of their favorite and most difficult to answer questions from the past few years. From the implications of intentional penalties to predicting kicker success, this episode covers a little bit of everything in the world of Advanced Football Analytics.

  Neil Paine (Senior Sportswriter, FiveThirtyEight) discusses with Dave how he and the team at FiveThirtyEight use Elo scores to rank NFL teams and explains how his research on backup quarterbacks led to surprising conclusions on the importance of backup QB skill level. Dave then digs up some of Neil’s older research examining how much individual wide receivers are responsible for their quarterback’s success. They close out the show with a look at the structure of the NFL playoffs and weigh the pros and cons of Neil’s proposal to make the NFL postseason more “fair”.

  Keith Goldner, Chief Analyst at Numberfire.com and regular AFA contributor, rejoins the show to break down the best and worst individual player performances this season. Keith and Dave discuss the optimal strategy for goal to go offensive play-calling, and examine the underlying reasons behind the net expected point (NEP) production of the NFL's top QBs, RBs, and WR/TEs.

  Alok Pattani (ESPN Stats and Info) rejoins the podcast to break down the new college football playoffs process. Alok explains the statistics he and his colleagues at ESPN developed to frame the on-air debate over which teams are the “best” vs. which teams “deserve” to be selected by the playoff committee. Dave and Alok analyze the first set of rankings released this week while Alok shares takeaways from his conversations with committee representatives and makes his probabilistic predictions for which teams will make the “Football Final Four”.

  Brian Burke is on the podcast for an (almost) mid-season recap of the NFL season. Dave and Brian go team by team and dive into some of the more interesting 2014 team successes and failures. They also highlight visualizations and tools buried deep in the new AFA site, and make some predictions for what to expect in the second half of the season.

The AFA podcast is back with a brand new episode featuring sports economist Dave Berri, author of “The Wages of Wins” and “Stumbling on Wins”. Dave and Dave begin with a discussion of the Detroit Lions recent success, and look at some of Professor Berri’s research on the predictive power of quarterback stats. Professor Berri then explains his views on the business of college football through the lens of labor economics and describes what it was like to testify during the Northwestern unionization hearings.

Brian Burke makes his first regular season appearance on the podcast to recap week two and discuss some of his latest analysis. Brian explains his break-even models for two point conversions and challenges and describes how the WOPR allows him to create test data for all sorts of interesting hypothetical game strategies. He also discusses an upcoming post that examines when teams should start running their "four minute offense". Dave and Brian close out the episode with an update on the 4th down bot and the new home and format for Brian's weekly game predictions.   This episode is sponsored by DraftKings, the leading provider of daily fantasy sports. If you use this this link or promo code "AFA" to create a new account and make a deposit you'll gain a free $2 entry into this weekend's $100,000 Play Action Tournament.

Chase Stuart rejoins the show to break down the surprising week one winners and losers. Chase shares his observations from the Jets home opener and explains some of the weekend's more intriguing game scripts. He also examines the data on exactly how important week one results are in predicting the season while looking ahead to the most intriguing week two match-ups.

  It's an episode full of pivot tables and preseason predictions as Mike Sando, ESPN insider, joins the show to discuss coaching tiers, predict breakout candidates and preview the upcoming NFL season. Mike shares his process for ranking and evaluating players and coaches, makes some predictions for the upcoming season and reveals his secret analytical weapon - a massive excel spreadsheet he uses to track every conceivable type of player data.

  Keith Goldner, Chief Analyst at Numberfire, returns to provide some fantasy football wisdom. He dissects the different strategies for snake, auction and keeper league drafts, and explains how to incorporate risk management strategies when creating your roster. Keith and Dave also touch on daily fantasy games, and look at how to craft the optimal lineups for various league types. They close out the episode by highlighting the players to watch during the 2014 fantasy season.

Aaron Schatz, founder of Football Outsiders, joins the podcast to discuss the newly released 2014 Football Outsiders Almanac. Aaron explains how he and his team developed a system to combine game film analysis with box score data to create their own advanced metrics.  He breaks down the difference between rate statistics and totals, and explains how the concept of “replacement level” is important in football. Aaron also provides team-by-team breakdowns and predictions, and finishes up the episode by conquering Dave’s “lightning round” of questions.