Feild position advantage

[dressedcheeseside]

Field position is something that rarely gets talked about here and when it does, it's usually me who starts it.

I've always felt that our starting field position has always been a weakness and it's more a reflection of poor defense and special teams than it is offensive production. The longer the field is, the harder it is to score, obviously. A lot of guys ignore this fact when critiquing our offense.

Until now, I haven't been able to find an stats on this to really know how good or bad our average starting field position was last year. As it turns out, Football Outsiders has a very comprehensive analysis of field position and more precisely, the advantage gained by it. They break down the stats into many different sub-categories but the main one that establishes rank is called Field Position Advantage (FPA) which is defined as:

"the share of the value of total starting field position earned by each team against its opponents."

GT ranked a pitiful #85 in this key stat. Think about that in your analysis of our offense from now on.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fpa2013

 

[ilovetheoption]

Football outsiders is one of my favorite internet sites.

Also, I have to think that having Butker with his increased leg strength, will help in that regard (it's nice to ALWAYS make the other team drive the whole field)

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Football outsiders is one of my favorite internet sites.

Also, I have to think that having Butker with his increased leg strength, will help in that regard (it's nice to ALWAYS make the other team drive the whole field)

Most definitely. Coaches tend to limit their play selection backed up in their own territory and that helps the D. It also provides more time for costly mistakes, that's why it's imperative we get a few more short fields ourselves.

 

[vamosjackets]

Football outsiders is one of my favorite internet sites.

Also, I have to think that having Butker with his increased leg strength, will help in that regard (it's nice to ALWAYS make the other team drive the whole field)

Punting will be a big factor in this as well, so we'll see how that goes this season with Rodwell. Hope he shines under pressure.

Also, going for it on 4th down and subsequent success rate (and/or making/missing field goals) will also affect it.

And, of course turnovers ... That was the biggest factor last game.

 

[Yaller Jacket]

cheese, I think part of the reason is the human tendency to dwell on the bad and take the good for granted. Butker kickoffs have been a huge help so far this year. In addition to not kicking them all that deep before , who can forget all those seasons when we couldn't tackle a darned returner for anything? How many of the other team's drives started past their forty? PJ said the other night that nothing infuriates him more than to score and take the lead only to immediately give up a score? And a big part of that is giving the other team a short field after a kickoff.

 

[Enuratique]

Football outsiders is one of my favorite internet sites.

Also, I have to think that having Butker with his increased leg strength, will help in that regard (it's nice to ALWAYS make the other team drive the whole field)

Yeah, but I think the rule change for touchbacks to move to the 25 on kickoffs is such ***** bull****. I'd rather Butker work on kicking the ball about 3 yards deep in the end zone - tempting the player to come out and hopefully get stopped before the 25 (unless they have a burner back there, then just kick it out)

 

[ilovetheoption]

Yeah, but I think the rule change for touchbacks to move to the 25 on kickoffs is such ***** bull****. I'd rather Butker work on kicking the ball about 3 yards deep in the end zone - tempting the player to come out and hopefully get stopped before the 25 (unless they have a burner back there, then just kick it out)

Man, that's where you and I don't see eye to eye.

I'd MUCH prefer the certainty of knowing they were going to have to go 75 yards than sweat trying to make them go 85.

 

[alaguy]

Yeah, but I think the rule change for touchbacks to move to the 25 on kickoffs is such ***** bull****. I'd rather Butker work on kicking the ball about 3 yards deep in the end zone - tempting the player to come out and hopefully get stopped before the 25 (unless they have a burner back there, then just kick it out)

I thought of this the other day---but this is GT,we have had a weak KO cover team forever it seems( even the first one of yr vs Woff was pitiful cover)--so if we were good,yes,let them run out and maybe even get a penalty on them--but now,kick it out of EZ

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Yeah, but I think the rule change for touchbacks to move to the 25 on kickoffs is such ***** bull****. I'd rather Butker work on kicking the ball about 3 yards deep in the end zone - tempting the player to come out and hopefully get stopped before the 25 (unless they have a burner back there, then just kick it out)

75 yard drives are very difficult. I'll take my chances forcing the opposition into them every possession if you please.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Only have a few minutes and have to run but ......

It ain't on the ST. Football Outsiders ranked us #22 (best) last year. I'd take the overall ranking from Football Outsiders with a grain of sand. I couldn't get us to be anywhere near as good as #22 overall for STs.

By the same token, looking at the 7 individual rankings they give, we are only lower than 85 in one (Opp LOF). So how it's averaged out is a good question. We aren't top 10, but we aren't that bad. Just looking at what one would think were the most important stats, SFP (starting field position) we avearged 70.3 yards. TO be top 10, we'd have to only improve that by 2.7 yards - or half of an offensive play average yardage. Likewise Opp SFP averaged 69.7 yards to go; to be top 10 we'd have to do 2.5 yards better.

These are good stats and interesting, and I think that turnovers, ST, defense, offense and field position are interrelated. Field position is kind of the number needed to balance everything out ........

Since I wrote it down, here's the rankings for each category
SFP 60
Opp SFP 73
SFP Del 71
ShF 69
Opp ShF 92
LOF 59
Opp LOF 44

 

[AE 87]

@GTNavyNuke I'm not sure whether you took it into account or not when trying to duplicate the rankings from football outsiders, but they have their own ways of accounting for opposition. If you're calculating the strength of schedule impact differently, you may not get the same ranking of 22.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

AE, this could have been it because I don't know how they do their algorithm for overall ranking. Since we had a middle of the road SOS, I don't think that was it but I'd like to know the details.

I really like Football Outsiders adjusting the data for trash time and SOS because it reflects the reality when teams stop trying to score and go into clock kill mode.

 

[jchens_GT]

@GTNavyNuke, have you read this book by Bill Connelly? If not, I think you would enjoy it.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

@GTNavyNuke, have you read this book by Bill Connelly? If not, I think you would enjoy it.

Thanks, just ordered it from Amazon. Unfortunately they didn't have it for Kindle..... it won't change my opinion that we should usually go for 2 pt conversions or play more players though out the game ....... But like "The Book" for baseball, there is a lot out there which makes the strategies and games more interesting.

 

[GT_B]

I know one thing...our kick off return has been garbage for several years. Particularly the blocking on the wedge, I've seen so many times our guys in the wedge run right by someone to block no one. I know golden had a couple of returns 2 years ago but even on those it was mostly him making a really good cut and the coverage taking bad angles/lAnes, not the blocking. We seem to never be good At kick returns.

 

[vamosjackets]

I know one thing...our kick off return has been garbage for several years. Particularly the blocking on the wedge, I've seen so many times our guys in the wedge run right by someone to block no one. I know golden had a couple of returns 2 years ago but even on those it was mostly him making a really good cut and the coverage taking bad angles/lAnes, not the blocking. We seem to never be good At kick returns.

I thought we were good with Orwin back there and good with Golden. Bad with most of the other guys we've had back there over the last decade.

 

[nodawgs]

Good grief... First it's Vad Lee's fault and now it field position. Come on Cheese. Field position is important, but that's just a flat out excuse.

 

[InsideLB]

Offense also affects field position dramatically

Yeah it's hard to go on 75 yd drive and score. But if you can pick up 3 first downs and punt/pin 'em in their own end you flip the field and your offense has made it much easier for the defense to get a stop; The playbook gets a lot thinner when you're bottled up in your own end.

So all three phases are large determinants of field position. That said our defensive and ST woes of years past are well documented so the OP's thesis is not without some merit.

 

[Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau]

Field position is something that rarely gets talked about here and when it does, it's usually me who starts it.

I've always felt that our starting field position has always been a weakness and it's more a reflection of poor defense and special teams than it is offensive production. The longer the field is, the harder it is to score, obviously. A lot of guys ignore this fact when critiquing our offense.

Until now, I haven't been able to find an stats on this to really know how good or bad our average starting field position was last year. As it turns out, Football Outsiders has a very comprehensive analysis of field position and more precisely, the advantage gained by it. They break down the stats into many different sub-categories but the main one that establishes rank is called Field Position Advantage (FPA) which is defined as:

"the share of the value of total starting field position earned by each team against its opponents."

GT ranked a pitiful #85 in this key stat. Think about that in your analysis of our offense from now on.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fpa2013

and feild position almost never gets talked about.

 

[GTJake]

Is field positon most critical for kick-offs or punting ?

IMO, a stud punter is a huge advantage to both get your offense out of trouble and get their offense into trouble.