Cogblog

It’s been a while since we had an irrelevant post, but here we go:

In today’s modern NFL offenses, for a team to really tear it up, you need two #1 receivers.

It used to be that you had a #1 and you had a #2. But then, you rarely had more than two receivers on the field at any one time. Now, with potentially 5 receivers lining up, you need more receiver talent to make a team super awesome. If you look at the trend in the NFL, it is very much towards acquiring a critical mass of receiving talent. Cases in point:

• Jets have Braylon Edwards and go get Santonio Holmes
• Patriots had Wes Welker and Randy Moss
• Eagles have DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin
• Falcons have Roddy White and draft Julio Jones
• Ravens have Anquan Boldin and go get Lee Evans (then Buffalo’s #1)
• Cowboys have Miles Austin and Roy Williams and go draft Dez Bryant
• Steelers have Hines Ward and Mike Wallace

I have blogged a little in the past about football. Here is some more.

I think about football a lot:

1. Great business idea: A DVD sold on late night infomercials that teach random men to read defenses. I think people want to geek out more when they watch football. The prevalence of “man-caves” speaks to how men want to focus and concentrate when they watch football. Reading defenses and offenses better plays right into this interest. If you know a famous ex-football player (preferably a Hall of Fame Quarterback), please contact me.
2. I have proposed a Baltimore Ignite presentation several times on reading defenses in Madden and running the spread offense.

Let me pay tribute to Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Many of my theories regarding football are formed as I learn from the pied piper of actually thinking about what is happening, Gregg Easterbrook. Best football weekly update you will read.

Anyway, a couple of formative concepts that I want to pass along:

1. Great assistant coaches are worth their weight in gold. Kansas City was terrible last year. The only significant thing they changed this year was that the head coach (on the chopping block last year, coach of the year candidate this year) fired his offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator and brought in Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel. Who are those guys? The guys that were the offensive and defensive coordinators for the Patriots during their first few Super Bowl runs with Tom Brady. Instantly, the offense and defense are more disciplined and better prepared and winning games left and right.
2. Josh McDaniels just got canned for being a terrible head coach. The guy that hires him as an offensive coordinator will do well. Prior to being head coach for the Bronco’s, he was the Offensive Coordinator for the Patriots during their 16-0 regular season and I loved his play-calling and schemes. He will bring success to a lucky team that snags him quickly.
3. The most important thing you can do as a head coach is get your Coordinator’s right and solve your QB problem. More coaches get fired for not being able to solve the QB problem than any other reason.
4. People do not go for it on 4th down nearly enough. This is something that Easterbrook goes after all the time. Let me quote:

Carolina, at 2-12 the league’s worst team, reached the Steelers’ 32 on its first possession — and punted. Who cares if it was fourth-and-5? Who cares if it was fourth-and-32? A 2-12 team punts from the opposition’s 32? The Panthers might as well have run up the white flag right there and left to get blueberry-almond martinis. The punt boomed into the end zone for a net of 12 yards in field position, and I don’t even need to tell you who won the game.

Basically, if it is 4th and less than 3 and you are past your 40 yard line, I think if you can’t kick a field goal you have to go for it. Show faith in your offense. Show faith in your defense. If you don’t think you can get 2 yards when you need it, do you think you can beat this team?

Also, if you know on 3rd down that you are going for it on 4th, that opens up your playbook. You are in four down territory all the time.

5. More hurry up football. Defenses hate this. They love rotating people. Spread the field and snap the ball quickly.
6. You need to run two trick plays per game. Ken Whisenhunt was great at this when he coached the Steelers. You need to try two trick plays every game. Even if the other team knows you are going to run two trick plays in the game, it is incredibly mentally taxing on the defense when you do it. Flea flickers, reverses, reverse passes, fake field goals, designed roll-outs and bootlegs, option plays, weird direct snaps, all that stuff. I like reverse passes a lot, because I think if you are going to run a trick play, it has to be a shot. Flea flickers rarely seem to work, but the reverse pass seems to be consistently effective – I think that is because the defense on that side feels the need to come up to stop the run, allowing people to get behind them. Flea flickers pull up the safety, but cornerbacks on the edge of the play will typically simply stay with the receivers, making it a hard play to work.
7. You need to throw deep and throw on first downs. Unimaginative offenses run the ball on first down consistently. This is incredibly predictable. You need to get the defense out of situations they are used to and into situations that you are used to. Similarly, you need to push the safeties back and that means show them that you are unafraid to throw over the top.

A quick post for all the dad’s and/or husbands in need of help out there.

My kids wanted to better understand division rivalries in the NFL, but they can’t read (3/4 years old). So I built a handy, dandy graphical chart that you can share with your children.

A Handy Dandy NFL Division Rivalries Chart

It is hosted on github, so feel free to fork it and make this chart more useful. My kids have studied this chart every day for weeks. Within days your kids can also know their divisional rivals.

Enjoy.

This post is going to be crazy because I am going to deep dive on fantasy football draft strategy and, in tribute to my loyal fan base, which is no doubt sick of this new football thread, include a reference or two to online marketing. It is going to be sick!

Let’s get started.  Most people doing fantasy drafts simply make a list of who they think the best players in the league are and bang, bang, bang, draft.

Let’s call that “Old school media planning strategy”.  Or let’s call it “People who evaluate campaigns based on CTR“. Or “people who don’t love math”.  Or “people who suck!”  Or “me”, most years.

Anyway, here is what I think you are supposed to do.  First, recognize that there is data and there are algorithms.  Algorithms take data and tell you what you should do, hopefully.  If you feel as though what the algorithm is telling you to do is wrong, the problem could be that the algorithm is bad or the problem could be that the data is bad.  Figuring this out is absolutely critical.

There are three algorithms in fantasy football draft strategy, one of which is simple and perfect, one being the most interesting algorithmic challenge, and one being shear poker madness.  Here is the model I use when I think about optimizing the fantasy football draft process:

The algorithm that works right every time is the middle algorithm: Given an accurate prediction of future player performance and an understanding of the scoring rules for your fantasy league, you can predict with absolute accuracy the scoring of other players.  Simple.  The problem is everywhere else.  Let us walk through the process sequentially.

The first thing we want to do is generate a prediction of how each player will perform in an upcoming year.  The best indicator we have of this is past performance, however much like your favorite mutual funds, past performance is no guarantee of future success.  Everyone who is remotely familiar or unfamiliar with sports recognizes this, so there is a degree of guesswork and other “psuedo-algorithms” injected into this process.  One could take average performance over the last several years, the age of the player, and an algorithm that compares past performance over time to performance of other players at the position at a similar age to model performance in the upcoming year, plus you are really high on this rookie running back.  But the point is that you want to model what you think they will do on the field next year.  Not “where I think they should be in my fantasy rankings”.  If you think Player X should be above Player Y in your rankings, you clearly think that Player X will have better statistical production than Player Y.  If not, you are doing yourself a grave disservice.  My point is that you don’t simply bump someone up in your fantasy rankings.  What you do is model how their actual production will actually be different then run it through the algorithm to generate your fantasy rankings.  Change their predicted production, not their ranking.  Post algorithm “manipulation” indicates a flaw in an early step in the process that should be addressed at its root.  So we take a bunch of data and generate a prediction of how each player will perform in the upcoming year.  Then we apply league scoring rules to determine how many points each player will score that year.

A lot of fantasy football players would stop there.  If you had a list that showed with absolute certainty how many points each player would score, you might think you would be in pretty good shape for your fantasy draft, but you can go further. A really excellent model then arbitrages the players, positions and league. What you would like to do is generate a model that arbitrages the value of players against each other. Let me give you a simple but preposterous example: You are in a 5 team league.  You know with absolute certainty the point production of a variety of players and you are in a league that only allows you to start 2 players each week: A QB and a RB.  You have the first pick in the draft and the highest scoring player in the league this year will be a QB. Simple, you pick the QB, right?  Wrong.  By analyzing the relative strength of each position, you realize that the top 10 QBs all score with 10 points of each other, yet the #1 RB scores 50 points more than the #2 RB.  Knowing this, you realize that the relative value of the #1 RB is much higher than the relative value of any other RB in the draft (or league).  Selecting this RB will ensure your fantasy victory this year because having the #9 QB (The last pick of the second round, worst case scenario) is not significantly different than the #1 QB.  The arbitrage opportunity is typically more subtle (After the top 3 QBs, the next 6 QBs are basically the same), but identifying the relative value of players is critical to successful drafts.  Recognizing where the “cliffs” are is key.

You may need to amp this model up by modeling production in the last weeks of the season (when fantasy playoffs are likely) and considering the impact (resting players, WRs vs. Darrell Revis, etc.) and factor in the draft tendencies of other players (True story: I drafted Tony Romo in the third round last year just to trade him to a guy that loved Tony Romo – the result: I got a Top 20 player for a Top 30 player.).  This is the poker part of the equation.  Knowing your cards and the cards on the table are one thing, reading other players counts for a lot – The #1 defense is worth a lot more than the #2 defense, but how long can you afford to wait to grab that defense?

This same logic is critical in online advertising.  Recognizing the effective cost of media is huge, but identifying the best opportunities to exploit media value is how you take it to the next level.

Every couple of months I veer wildly off-topic to indulge my personal interests (nee the “Basketball category” on this blog.

I want to break down a few of my personal theories on football and how they relate to some more commonly held football beliefs.

Let’s start with this tenet: The goal of the defense is to put mental pressure on the offense.  If the defense puts the offense, and particularly the quarterback, out of sorts, they probably win.  The quarterback that is hating life the most is probably going to lose.

For the purpose of this discussion, I want to focus on the passing game.  If the defense is too weak to stop the run, the quarterback never throws, is never out of sorts, and they win.  Stopping the run is assumed.  People that can’t stop the run lose every time.

So anyway, mental pressure usually comes from pressure rushing the quarterback.  Pressure arrives in one of two ways:

• A great defensive line
• Blitzing

A great example of “great defensive line” was the NY Giants the year they defeated the previously unbeaten Patriots in the Superbowl.  Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, and Michael Strahan were all absolute superstars that could not be blocked one-on-one, they would rush 4 guys, and to double team all three of those guys and block effectively would have taken 7 blockers ((3*2)+1), more than the Patriots kept in with their spread offense, and the result was that Tom Brady was discombobulated the entire game as he constantly felt the heat.

This is why Right End is the highest paid player on most defensive teams.  If the defensive line can generate this kind of pressure without a blitz, it makes everyone’s life easier.  That guy, creating that pressure, is worth his weight in gold.  Conversely, this is why everyone talks about the Left Tackle and how much Left Tackle’s make.  If a Left Tackle keeps a QB from being scared that someone he can’t see is about to hit him, then a QB doesn’t feel pressure.  A great LT is the single biggest thing a team can do to help a QB feel secure.

Finally, relative to other things that I will discuss in a moment, great defensive linemen help stop the run.  Which, as we discussed, is a preliminary criteria to play the game.

Most people don’t have enough talent on the defensive line to be able to harass the quarterback with just a few men rushing.  The result is that many people blitz to create pressure.  Defenses that blitz to create pressure rely on another key player (and this is my area of unique contribution to football schools of thought finally make their appearance): The Cornerback.

Cornerbacks are the defensive backs whose primary area of responsibility is covering wide receivers.  In a defense predicated on the blitz, the ability to single cover wide receivers, even the best wide receivers, gives a defense unparalleled flexibility in where they bring the heat and how much heat they bring.  If you look at the most successful blitzing defenses, you will find teams that value good cover corners:  The Philadelphia hey-day under Jimmy Johnson features a slew of Pro Bowl corners: Troy Vincent, Bobby Taylor, Lito Sheppard, Sheldon Brown, Asante Samuel.  They were never without two superstar corners.  With those corners, they could blitz from all over the field, including bringing Brian Dawkins, the free safety, down into the box for blitzing and run support.

The Jets defense last year keyed off of Revis Island.  Rex Ryan simply never had to game plan for changing coverage to account for great receivers.  He put them on the island and then felt free to go back to blitzing the QB with all the other players.

Without great cornerbacks, a defense needs to drop safeties back to protect over the top.  Once you drop safeties back, you are more vulnerable to the run.  Furthermore, now the flats and middle of the field are less defended, so you need your linebackers to keep an eye out for the tight end and running backs.  You have fewer players to man up with the safeties supporting the corners.  Now you can only blitz one or two guys or risk leaving people wide open in the middle of the field.

Pressure comes from great corners!  Take that to the bank.

One theory I share with people frequently is my universal theory of wide receivers are jerks.  Let me talk football for just a second and share this with you.

Maybe you have noticed, but #1 wide receivers in the NFL are basically a bunch of jerks:

• Randy Moss
• Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson
• Terrell Owens
• Brandon Marshall
• Plaxico Burress
• Braylon Edwards
• Steve Smith

The list goes on.  Why are they such a bunch of jerks?  I will tell you know, there is basically no way to avoid it.  My theory works something like this:

• Pro-Bowl caliber #1 Wide Receivers are frequently the best athlete on the team.  They are in amazing shape.  Strong to fight off cornerbacks, blazing fast, usually tall, great leaping ability, amazing hand-eye coordination.
• The typical NFL team hands the ball to a running back 20+ times per game.
• The typical NFL team throws the ball around 35 times a game.
• During those 35 throws, the opposing team frequently focuses on defending the Pro-Bowl caliber #1 Wide Receiver, resulting in a relatively even distribution of throws: So maybe 10 throws per game go to the Wide Receiver in question.
• Of those throws, maybe 7 or 8 are catch-able, resulting in 6 or 7 receptions.  The same typically holds true for the #2 Wide Receiver and TE, who each have 4 to 7 catches in the game.

The result is that a #1 Wide Receiver looks around after the game and says, “Wait a sec, I am better than that Running Back and he got the ball 25 times tonight.  I got it 6 times!  I am way better than that other receiver and I only got the ball one more time than he did.  That is crazy.  I need to get the ball more.  A lot more!

Bottom-line, he will never get the ball as much as he deserves.  It simply isn’t possible to get it in a receivers hands 18+ times per game, even if he deserves it.  The result is that the team and the receiver are actually, at some level, legitimately being short-changed.  Unfortunately, there is little that can be done about it in a modern NFL offense.

Typically, a pro-bowl all-world wide receiver like the people mentioned above have felt like this for years: 4 years of college, several years of the pro’s before becoming all-world when they still felt better than their team peer group.  So they have been getting fewer touches than they deserve for YEARS.  So they eventually act out.

Inevitably, your awesome #1 Wide Receiver will probably become a jerk.

Once again, my wife has gotten me going on a topic that I must blog about, despite the fact that it is completely unrelated to everything else. Hopefully it will be half as popular as my basketball post, which was the last random rant I did and was linked to by ESPN. Yay.

Anyway, the topic is Sweet Tea! Huge props to Slate for doing a great article covering the phenomenon of sweet tea. No props for not having trackbacks. Lame.

Here are the facts of the matter as I see them:

1. No restaurant in the northeast makes a good cup of iced tea. Too bitter or too sweet. They do not know how to make it happen.
2. I remember my first day “up North”. I arrived at college, having never visited before applying/accepting/going, and I go out to eat. Appalled by a variety of terrible events: First, it’s not very good, which I kind of expected. Second, no free refills. No free refills defies the whole southern hospitality of sweet tea. I was glad to see that it got called out at the end.
3. There is something I think was missed in the article and also missed in the 150+ comments on the article: True homemade tea needs to be SUN TEA. That is how I was raised. It heats and brews naturally for several hours in the hot sun and you are rewarded with the king of refreshment.
4. I don’t feel the need to heat it hot enough to absorb all the sugar, because it must be sun tea! I am a believer in preparing simple syrup to accompany and sweeten.

Here is my recipe: Add one bag of “Lipton Cold Brew”, the large bags, and three bags of your favorite flavored tea, I like a nice peach ginger tea, to a one quart glass pitcher of water. Cover with Saran Wrap and put it out in the sun for a few hours. Remove tea bags, add some syrup (1 part water, 1 part sugar, boil and cool) and enjoy!

Good sun tea is one of the few undeniable pleasures in life.

“Who’s Now“, ESPN’s event to figure out who is the most “now”, has been pretty thoroughly ripped in the media.  Do I think it is dumb?  Yeah, probably.  Figuring out what “now” means is pretty dumb, and I assume it means something like “Who is the most popular person at this instant”, which is definitely not a contest I think about a lot.

Having said all of that, I want to break down the contest for you and predict my winner based on rigorous anti-science:

1. First, let me start by saying that the beginning was also the end.  LeBron and Tiger had the highest votes of anyone in the first round, crushing their competitors, and now they are in the finals.  In fact, Tom Brady was the only person who #1 seed to not make it to the semi-finals and was also the only person who had the most votes in his bracket to make it through.  You expect #1 to cream #8, but the degree of creaming told the tale of the tape.  Peyton, LeBron and Tiger slaughter their #8 and cruise to the finals.  Tom barely beats David Ortiz and gets tripped up by Shaq in the semi-finals.
2. Only two upsets would really have mattered.  If you look at places where people came close to winning without winning, only two of them makes a big impact.  Tony Parker upset Federer, but if Federer had won, Shaq would have gotten him next round.  Jeter beat Reggie Bush, but if Bush had pulled it out, LeBron would have crushed him.  Here are some ideas though: If TO had beaten A-Rod, then he would have faced off with Kobe.  Bad boys that bring it on game day.  The closest defeat was LT over Beckham in the first round.  If Beckham wins, he faces Nash and the winner then faces Tiger.  If LT had lost, its a different contest but Tiger still wins out.  The next closest defeat was Shaq over Phelps.  If Phelps wins, then it is Phelps vs Parker to see which underdog gets his clock cleaned by Brady.  Shaq actually defeated Brady, so that is a big swing.
3. Parker’s upset and Shaq defeating Tom Brady are the only events in the contest where a lower seed advanced.  Federer being seeded #2 was clearly a bad decision by the committee that failed to recognize how “now” Shaq is (#3 seed).

I am sure that is more than you ever wanted to know about “Who’s Now”.

I spent the entire day raving about the Cleveland Cavaliers game, so my wife thought I should blog about it here.  Normally she tells me to stay focused on business-related topics, so if she thought it was blog-worthy then I must have a really unique message for everyone.  Go find a friend that TIVO’d Game 5 and watch it.  One for the history books.

I have been telling all of my friends the same story since this series started and I wanted to share it.  Watching these games reminds me of my middle school rec league (My rec league was probably representative of a typical little kid basketball league experience).  There were a bunch of teams (my team was one) that had a bunch of OK players.  We fielded five or six guys that did not suck.  We won some games – a few more than we lost – but were never amazingly good.  There were three kinds of teams we played:

1. Many of the teams we played were similar to our team.  They had some players better and some worse, but never that different.  We all matched up well and had a good game.
2. There were a few teams we beat that had nobody.  Our players were better across the board.  Every matchup was in our favor.  These were easy wins and there were always a couple.
3. Finally, there was always some team that had a lot of bad players – every matchup was in our favor – EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE GUY.  He had hit puberty faster or the genetic lottery or something and was bigger, stronger, faster, and better in every way then every single one of our players.  By a lot.

Rec league approaches in this situation are funny.  We played a lot of Box-and-1 defenses, Triangle-and-2 defenses, things like that.  Usually it didn’t matter much what we did.

Anyway, I had flashbacks to middle school watching Game 1 and I think the entire world felt that way watching Game 5.  I think the Cleveland players felt that way during Game 5. At every matchup position, they lose: Wallace, Prince, Hamilton and Billups are all better than any player on the Cleveland team – EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE GUY.  And this one guy is so much better than any Detroit player that suddenly Detroit as a team looks overmatched.